Susan Blumberg-Kason – ‘Golda in Milwaukee’

This chapter is an excerpt from an unpublished biography of Golda Meir’s childhood and teenage years in Milwaukee and Denver.

 

Golda did not recognize the man standing in front of her. He wore modern, fitted clothes, not the dark robes of the old country, and his face was clean-shaven apart from a thin moustache, unlike the bearded Jews of the Russian Empire. He did not look poor.

With her mother Bluma and sisters Sheyna and Zipke, Golda had just disembarked their train in Milwaukee when this man with light eyes called out their names. Golda took a second look and realized this strange looking man was her father.

If she felt surprised by her father Moshe’s appearance, the feeling was mutual. She, her sisters, and mother were dressed in the same long frocks they’d worn when they left Russia a few weeks earlier. Three years had passed since Moshe had seen his family, but it may as well have been a century.  “He was horrified by our appearance,” Golda recalled. “We looked so dowdy and ‘Old Word’, particularly Sheyna in her matronly black dress.”

Moshe rented a car and driver for this reunion with his family. As her father helped her into the car, Golda looked on as vehicles rambled along the streets, making her feel as if she had stepped into another world. “The automobile in which my father had fetched us from the train was the first I had ever ridden in, and I was fascinated by what seemed like the endless procession of cars, trolleys, and shiny bicycles on the street.”

In 1906 Milwaukee was the 12^th largest city in the United States with a population of 300,000, more than ten times the size of Pinsk. But unlike Pinsk with its predominantly Jewish population, Milwaukee’s Jews numbered 9000 when Golda and her family settled there. Milwaukee was known then for two things: German immigrants and beer. It also enjoyed a vibrant transportation infrastructure and with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), Moshe found carpentry work on the Milwaukee railroads, inspecting the wooden train cars and making repairs as needed.

Since moving to Milwaukee from New York several months earlier, Moshe had been renting a room in the apartment of a Polish Jewish family who had arrived in the Midwest around the time Moshe reached New York three years earlier. Golda and her family were greeted warmly by their new landlady. She offered them tea and pointed where they could wash up after their two-week journey. For dinner that evening, their landlady invited them to a homecooked meal, the first Golda had enjoyed in weeks. The familiar fragrance of freshly baked bread and homemade gefilte fish wafted through their home, reminding Golda of her maternal grandparents’ tavern back in Pinsk.

It was unclear why Moshe hadn’t found larger accommodations before his family arrived from Pinsk. He may not have had time to look for an apartment or perhaps he’d wanted to wait until they arrived so they could all look together. As Golda and her family of five squeezed into the tiny room Moshe had been renting, she wondered if she would ever feel as adjusted to the United States as her father apparently had become.

“Milwaukee—even the small part of it that I saw during those first few days—overwhelmed me: new food, the baffling sounds of an entirely unfamiliar language, the confusion of getting used to a parent I had almost forgotten. It all gave me a feeling of unreality so strong that I can still remember standing in the street and wondering who and where I was.” Lake Michigan appeared as wide and endless as the ocean she had just crossed to reach North America. More than a few of the majestic buildings in downtown Milwaukee reached a dozen stories in a variety of European architectural designs.

 Early the next morning, Golda understood that her father’s priority for their family was not to find a new home where they could spread out into more than one room. Moshe was instead determined to transform them into bona fide Americans. And turning them into Americans meant dressing them like Americans.

Seventeen year-old Sheyna had no interest in changing her wardrobe and found shopping a waste of her time. She felt great remorse leaving her boyfriend Shamai behind in Pinsk and cared only for her cause: building a socialist Jewish homeland. Dressing in new clothes seemed frivolous to Sheyna and a distraction from her calling. Even Golda, Bluma, and Zipke felt reluctant to go clothes shopping that second day in Milwaukee. Surely there were more pressing needs to take care of first, like reacquainting themselves with Moshe and finding more spacious living quarters.

But Moshe wouldn’t take no from his family. He knew Milwaukee—and America—much better than they did, and marched them to a branch of Schuster’s Department Store. As Golda entered the building, she stood speechless along with Zipke and Bluma. Even Sheyna stared in awe at this palace filled with clothes, shoes, perfume, linens, and homeware. “We had never seen anything like this in Pinsk or even in Kiev,” Sheyna wrote years later.  At five stories tall, Schuster’s appeared as a skyscraper to young Golda.

A saleswoman approached the Mabovitch family and since Moshe looked as if he was the only one of them that could speak English, she asked him how she could be of help. Moshe explained that he wanted to buy new wardrobes for his wife and daughters. He thought the girls would look nice in floral patterns. As for Bluma, Moshe felt she would look good in a dresses of solid colors, but more fashionable than what she wore from Pinsk.

Golda looked on as the saleswoman picked up a hat decorated with a colorful mixture of silk daisies, poppies, and cornflowers. Moshe nodded in approval and also to a pretty lace blouse he thought would suit Sheyna.

“Now you look like a human being,” Moshe told his oldest daughter as he handed her the hat and blouse. “This is how we dress in America.”

Sheyna screamed back, “Maybe that’s how you dress in America, but I am certainly not going to dress like that!”

Golda understood that Sheyna was still in mourning for Theodore Herzl and hadn’t worn anything but black since his death two years earlier. Sheyna felt humiliated and refused to wear her new clothes. “Why had I left Pinsk?” she wondered. “Why had I come to a country where everyone is dressed like Purim actors?” Sheyna not only refused to wear these American clothes, but her disagreement with Moshe would spark years of conflict between father and daughter. Sheyna and Bluma were already on the outs because of Sheyna’s socialist Zionist activism back in Pinsk, but Moshe had already left for New York during the height of Sheyna’s organizing. Golda would wonder years later if Moshe blamed Sheyna for the family leaving Pinsk for good. “Not only were their personalities very different, but for three long years Father had been receiving complaining letters from Mother about Sheyna and her selfish behavior, and in his heart of hearts he must have blamed Sheyna for his not having been able to go back to Russia again and the family’s having to come to the States.”

This was a simplified conclusion. Regardless of Sheyna’s activism, if the Mabovitch family had stayed in Pinsk and if Moshe had earned enough money in New York to return to Russia and comfortably support his family there, they would probably have lost their chance to leave when the Soviet Union was established the following decade and continued the Russian tradition of antisemitism. Hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews suffered after the Russian Revolution and again during World War II and still later under the post-war restrictions. The Mabovitch family would have most likely not fared well had they stayed in Pinsk.

Yet Golda could see that Moshe enjoyed his new life in Milwaukee. He certainly dressed the part of a genteel American. He became a member of a synagogue and had met a nice group of friends by the time his family arrived from Pinsk. Moshe even joined a trade union for his carpentry work on the Milwaukee railroads. “In his own eyes,” Golda recalled, “he was on the way to becoming a full-fledged American Jew, and he liked it.” When Sheyna refused to change out of her old world clothes, Moshe couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t adapt to American fashion.

Golda, on the other hand, delighted in trying on so many new clothes. Like most American eight year-olds, she loved the beautiful colors and textures of the stylish dresses Moshe bought her that day. Also on her second day in Milwaukee, Golda ate ice cream and tried soda pop for the first time, both of which she enjoyed immensely.

Golda loved strolling in her new city and felt dazzled by the sheer amount of lavishness in the shops and on the streets. She peered into drugstores with their colorful advertisements and barbershops with their “weird chairs”. Golda noticed that other girls her age seemed to naturally exist in Milwaukee without the fears she had experienced back in Kiev and Pinsk. She looked on with amazement as a small girl pushed a tiny carriage with a baby doll resting gently on a plush pillow. The doll was dressed in clothes more precious than anything Golda had known back in the old country or even after her recent clothes shopping expedition in Milwaukee. “It was all completely strange and unlike anything I had seen or known before, and I spent the first days in Milwaukee in a kind of trance.” It was a trance full of marvel and delight.

The following morning, Moshe and Bluma left their rented room early to look for an apartment that would give their family a bit more space. It didn’t take long for them to find something suitable, an apartment on Walnut Street in the center of Milwaukee’s poor Jewish community in the sixth ward. Even without electricity or indoor plumbing, this new home seemed like paradise to Golda with its two rooms and a small kitchen. She loved the front porches of the homes on her new street. Also included in this apartment was a long hallway that connected to an empty storefront space.

Bluma took one look at this vacant shop and decided then and there that she would open a small grocery. She had no experience running a shop and was not even sure which products would sell well. On top of that, Bluma could not speak English. Moshe felt anxious about the store and thought it reflected poorly on his role as head of the family. “If you want to open a store, go ahead,” he told Bluma. “I won’t have anything to do with it.”[i]

The family had little time to prepare for Bluma’s new venture. They had only lived in Milwaukee, apart from Moshe, for a week or two before Bluma rolled up her sleeves and got to work. The Mabovitches had little money after Moshe had sent his meager savings for his family’s passage to Milwaukee, so Bluma purchased dairy products on credit for her shop. Their new neighbors taught Bluma rudimentary English, enough that she could communicate with customers and wholesalers. These neighborhood women also taught Bluma how to work a cash register and how to use a scale to weigh items like butter. And just as Bluma would purchase items for her store on credit, her new neighbors told her that there was a custom in the US for shops like hers to offer credit to loyal customers.

Once her shop opened, Bluma left the house every morning at the crack of dawn to head off to the wholesale markets to purchase fruit and vegetables. While she was away, someone had to mind the shop if she could not return by the time it opened. Sheyna, like Moshe, refused to get involved. “I did not come to America to turn into a shopkeeper, into a social parasite,” Sheyna said. Although she was at the age where most teenage girls would marry or find a menial job, Sheyna was holding out for a reunion with Shamai as soon as he could get to the United States. To put an end to any discussion of working for her mother, Sheyna quickly found a job in a tailor shop, making buttonholes. This work must have been more acceptable to her socialist leanings than minding a dairy.

“It was difficult work,” Golda recalled, “which she did badly and she hated, even though she was now entitled to consider herself a real member of the proletariat.” When Moshe visited Sheyna at her workplace and learned she was only bringing in ten cents a day, he convinced her to quit and work for Bluma. But Sheyna continued to refuse to work for her mother. She soon found a job in Chicago at a textile factory.

Someone needed to attend to the grocery while Bluma was still at the wholesalers. If the store wasn’t open early in the morning when customers arrived, Bluma would lose business to another shop that opened on time. So this job of opening Bluma’s store fell to Golda. “It became the bane of my life,” she said.

If Golda thought Schuster’s Department Store or her new home were palatial, she was in for a great surprise when she first saw the Fourth Street School.

Perched across the street from the Schlitz brewery—its copper green dome standing tall—Golda’s new school was a stone fortress built by German-American architect Henry C. Koch in the Romanesque Revival style. His other designs included Milwaukee’s city hall and the stately Pfister Hotel. The Fourth Street School, punctuated by round arched windows, stood four stories and was up a small hill from the brewery. Golda could not have missed the pungent tang from the brewery as she walked to school each day.

Inside the school, towering ceilings and hardwood floors gave the school a homey feel and one that would provide Golda with a nurturing environment to formally learn for the first time. An auditorium was on the top floor and Golda would return half a century later as Prime Minister of Israel to speak to students and teachers about her formative years in Milwaukee.

Like Golda, the other students were also mostly Jewish immigrants, but the language of instruction was all in English. Golda’s family spoke Yiddish at home—as did most of their neighbors—but she managed to pick up enough English that allowed her to understand her teachers when she started school. She would soon become fluent with a Midwestern accent that would remain for the rest of her life. “I have no recollection of the language ever being a real problem for me,” she said.

Each morning Golda looked forward to walking into her classroom and eagerly waited for Bluma to return from the market so she could head off to school. Bluma had other ideas about her middle daughter attending school and although she didn’t prevent Golda from going, she did not rush back to the shop so Golda could get to school on time.

It was almost as if Bluma wanted Golda to be late each morning. Golda frequently reminded her mother it was important to get to school before the first bell rang, yet Bluma continued to take her time and would not hurry back. Golda’s anxiety simmered every morning as she waited for her mother to return.

And every day Bluma continued to take her time and when she finally walked through the front door of the grocery, Golda broke out in tears as she left for school. She didn’t want to miss out and also felt terribly embarrassed she was the only student tardy each day. Her classmates could manage to make it on time, so she knew she should be able to do so, too. Bluma refused to change her ways even after Golda implored her over and over. Bluma would simply say, “Vestu vern a rebbetzin mit a tog shpeter”, or “So it’ll take you one more day to become a learned dame.”

“I hated Mother’s shop like poison,” Golda recalled.

She was besides herself and no matter how much she begged her mother and burst into tears over her tardies, Bluma just wouldn’t change her routine. One day a truant officer in the Milwaukee police department knocked on the Mabovitch front door. Bluma was home and could not escape the officer. She may not have been aware of the law, but all children under the age of fourteen were required to be in school. The officer informed her of this law—or reminded her if she already knew about it—and for a while Bluma made an attempt to wake up earlier so she could return from the wholesale market before it was time for Golda to leave for school.

Despite Golda’s struggles with tardiness, she worked hard in class and quickly vaulted to the top of her class. The teachers adored her and found her to be one of the most intelligent students at the school. Moshe took note and started to help out at Bluma’s grocery in the mornings so Golda could get to school before the bell rang each morning.

If Golda thought her clashes with her mother were over, she was in for a rude awakening.

____________

 

Susan Blumberg-Kason is a Chicago-based author of two biographies and a memoir. She co-edited an anthology of dark stories set in Hong Kong and is a regular contributor to the Asian Review of Books, Cha: An Asian Literary Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and World Literature Today.