ented him and handed him the pay, but Moishe found that she had taken off a dollar from the price they had agreed upon. When he asked her for the additional dollar, she began to shout, called him names and threatened him if he didn't leave her house she would have him arrested. Whereupon he took his pail of paint and splashed it over the new painted walls. He was smart to leave town at once. Rochel screamed and cried. Here it was three days before Pesach, and there were no painters to do the job over. I recall during the entire Pesach Holiday, the town had nothing else to talk about except the Rochel Erden-Moishe Yaaker incident. When I met him several years later in New York and reminded him of the incident, Yaaker told me that if she only insulted him by calling him names, he probably would have left the house with a course on his lips. But when she also cursed his relatives where he grew up, that was more than he could bear.
In the years from 1890 to the outbreak of world War I in 1914, the immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe was at its peak. Every day ships loaded with new Immigrants arrived at the port of New York. No wonder that countless Benevolent societies were emerging from the newly arrived element. The immigrants were eager to organize societies in the name of the townships from where they stemmed. Most of them made sure that before the name of the township the words The first, appeared. But when the younger set of Boiberker gathered to organize, they preferred under the guidance of Rubin Graebel, to put in front of the name of the town, the word Progressive and thats how the name was given on the 17th of May 1908, when a group of Boiberker boys organized the Progressive Boiberker Young Mens Benevolent Society.
They approached me to be one of the founders but when I learned the purpose, I was reluctant because at that time a cousin and business partner of mine, Louis Kratter, and I were members of the then outstanding Zionist society in greater New-York, The Austro-Hungarian Zionists of greater New York. We believed that since the main purpose of these new societies was to acquire cemetary and this subject have taken the major time at their meetings, we Zionists believed that it was more important to work for the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in ancient Palestine. And for this it was necessary to devote our time and effort to collect funds for the Jewish National Fund, which acquired land in Eretz-Israel, which has led to the proclamation of the State of Israel in our days.
In later years, we began to realize that even young folks have to prepare burial ground for young and old.
The group who gathered on May 17th to organize the society consisted of: Max Glantzer, Hertz Fischer, Rubin Graebel, (my school mate in Boiberke), Julius Engelberg, David Gewanter, and several others. They elected Max Glantzer as president, Julius Engelberg as Financial secretary and Hertz Fischer, as the protocol secretary. Two years later, Simche or Sam Herbst, joined the society and for several decades he and Rubin Grabel were the guiding spirit of the society.
The present officers are; Max or Meyer Gimpel, ex-president, Sidney Helfer, president, Herman Ehrenzweig, vice president, Irving Herbst, financial secretary and treasurer, and Samuel Bergwerk, corresponding secretary.
Although my cousin and I did not join the organization, we took an active part whenever we were called on. We shared their joys as well as their sorrows. The society, in a small measure, from time to time is active in behalf of the State of Israel.
It is of interest to note that Boiberker townspeople were always eager to organize groups or societies. The very Nissan Katz, who earned a living as a house painter and was one of the organizers in 1901 of the Boiberker Sick & Benevolent society, decided to organize former Jewish soldiers who had served in the Austrian army into a group in New York. In this effort he was assisted by another fellow Boiberker Naftali Haber, who had also served in the Austrian army and who was by trade a carpenter. In no ti