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STATE
Forms tia be Filjtdrout forisen Interview
Low Tisk
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
NAKE OF WORKER Arsead ikesitt
ADDRESS lhallows tome,
DATE Set* 11416 ISM
SUBJECT eftWilifif "WI•.900P
1. Date and time c° Interview
Ot. 111. attraimma
2. Place of interview MO WOO= Aw0140 arms.
3. Name and address of informant
Guido elms
NU Orestes Me.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
4. Name and address of person, if any,-wno put you in
toucn with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. SOO POOOSOOO Salierriow
Tail WOO intaillillat
(Use as many additiosal sheets as necessaryl'for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
STATE
NAME OF 111014.?*
ADD1TSS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORV
Personal History of Informant
Arnold Mm off
27 nimilton Torraoe
Ost. 26, 106
OREENSORN STORIES*, OEMS SIMON
1. Ancestry
FOLKLORE
NEY. YORK
Sas provious intorriom for all information on this form..
2. Place and date of birth
3. Family
4. Places lived in, with dates
5. Education, with dates
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates
7. Special skills and interests
8. Comunity and religious activities
9. Description of informant
10. Other Points gained in interview
FORV1 r
Text of intervi:-w (Unedited)
STATE New York
.1CNE OF WOAKEP Arnold Manoff
ADDRESS 27 Hamilton Terraoe
DATE Oct. 26, 1938
STAAFCT GREENHORN STORIES OUSSIE SIMON
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(A man had taken over his if. and his children to Amerioa and ho
had taken an aprtment in Harlem.) And he showed his wife all the American
Ways, that she has to use gas, how to handle the gas range and all the new
things. And he called in a neighbor even to show her where the butoher is and
where the fishman, to show her how to buy and how to arrange those things and then
when she was alone and she looked around she cooked her supper. She tried
to make everything nice her first Friday in America, she had plenty of everything.
It was in the wintertime and they didn't use the icebox. So she made gefilte
fish and she made pudding and cold chicken and soup. She felt very proud of the
kitchen. She cams fram a small city where they didn't have these things.
So
after everything was all done she looked for a place where to put everything
for tonorrow, because you know they don't cook on Saturday. So the was looking
around the kitchen *here to put her thinoi and she discovered a little door there.
So she opens the door and she seer there is a kind of a pretty big closet there
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with one shelf. The only thing is that it is dirty there. So she is not lasy
and she thinks to herself she will wash it out. So she takes a pail of warm
water and she scrubs out this closet and she makes it clean like gold. And then
she takes the fish and the ohicken and the soup and she puts it in there.
Mhen her husband oame home she begins to rave about the wonderful Schabbus
(Sabbath) she made him her first week in America. So she sets the table and
she puts the Cholleh on and then she goes to take out the fish and the other
things from the closet. So all excited she gives an open-up...the-door to take
out the ..tuff. There is no olosett Nothing& Only a hole there. There is no
Sabbath. So she got soared and she tells her husband that she put away all
the things in the closet and now it is all gone, even thedoset, and she can't
make it out. So he noticed already that it was in the dumbwaiter she vent to
get out the food. So he tells her she can kiss the Sohabbus (Sabbath) good -by*
beoause her closet had been pulled down by the janitor.
There is an artist, a great Russian artist, Monyevitch. So he is
not very material, you know what I moan. His wife and his children take oars
of all his things. They buy all his clothes. So
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(When it was in Russia the pogroms did he catch himself out just with his life.)
So he sneaked out of Russia. He had to steal the border. So he didn't take
any baggaze, just a little money in his pocket.
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(When he went over the borders) He had only a jacket. It was cool and he felt
he ought to be more presentable and he ought to have a coat. So they telegraphed his
friends in Antwerp to meet him. So he thought he was not presentable to meet his
friends and there he had to meet writers and artists. So when he stopped in Germany
and he volis passin by a store and in the window he saw a beautiful silk coat and
it appealed to his artistic sense and he bought it. Hewent in and bought it.
He thought it would be very nice and warm and he thought it would be very nice
to meet his friends. It looked like a nioe coat; it had lapels and all, and a
belt. He goes into the store and he buys it and he puts it right on and goes
with it to Belgium with the train. And when he came there and he got off the
train and his friends saw him so they didn't say anything. They were a little
surprised when they saw haw he was dressed but they didn't want to say anything
to hurt his fallings. but later one of his friends got him alone and asked him
*Was it so bad there in Russia that you had to run out without a coat, that the
only thing you oould wear was your bathrobe?" So he says, "You mean this? I
bought this coat in Germany." So they all bust out laughing and they told him
that he had bought a bathrobe instead of a coat. You see he was a poor man
in Russia although he was a 7amous artist. He didn't know about these things.
There is another story about him. He wanted a leather lumber -jacket
when he cams to America. And he couldn't speak a word of English. So he went
to Mao's and he wanted to describe them what he wants. So he looked for it but
he couldn't see it. So the salespeople came over to ask him what he wants. So
he started to describe to them. So he knew it was leather. So he made like this
with his hands on his body and said in Yiddish Ledderl Ledderl (Leather; Leather;)
So they went away and came back with field glasses that they hang from the shoulder
with a strap. So He said no. So they went away and Ok1310 back with a travelling
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thing something that hanoi from the shoulders with straps. So he said no. So
they went away and brought him all kinds of leather things, portfolies mad he
said no. So then he saw that a boy had run in who was wearing a leather
lumberjacket. So he chased the boy all over the store and he got a hold of him
and dragged him by the arm to the salespeople and he said, "Thisl Thiel"
There was a man who came over to America and he was here a little
-*tile and he got sick. So he went to a doctor and the doctor looked him over and
gave him a medicine and told him, "Stay in bed for three days." So the man went
home and he took the medicine and and he made his bed and he got up on the bed
and stood there like that standing up. When his wife came home she sees her
husband is standing up in bed, so she says
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(What kind of craziness is this? What do you stand like this in bed? Have
you altogether crazy become?) So he tells her that the doctor told him to
shtay in bet which in Yiddish means stand in bed. So the wife let him alone
and he stood like that on the bed until he fainted, because he thought that was
the doctor's orders.
There's another one about a man who came to America mad wherever he went
he saw a candy store with the sign Ice Cream so he read the sign to mean Itche Cream.
Itohe is a Jewish name. So one day he writes his wife in Europe a letter.
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(Dear Sarah, America Im 41. waucteriU1 Jana. Tou have it never dreamed
what is here in America. The buildings are crazy big. In the city, New York,
one can see the most beautiful and the best what there is in the world to see.
And what do you mean? The whole land belongs to a jew what his name is Itch*
Cream. Wherever you go you see his label, Itche Cream.)
There is a story everybody knows about the man that moved up with
his family from the East Side to the Concourse. They moved in a new building
that had the name the Theodore Roosevelt apartments. So in the middle of the
house there was a big courtyard and in the middle of the courtyard was a big
statue maybe fifteen feet big. The statue was of Theodore Roosevelt because
it happened when he was ,Jery popular still. So everybody when they came into
the countryard right away they were hit in the face by this statue. So when
this man moved in right away, of course he invited his relatives they should
come and visit him so he could show off his new apartment. So the relatives
came and of course he showed them all around and he explained to them all the
modern improvements and then later they went down for a walk. So when they
are waling out of the house in the courtyard, one of the relatives when he sites
the statue he points to it and he says. "Who is that such an important man that
they make such a big statue of him?" So the man that just moved in looks at
his relati7e and he says to him, not jokinr
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(Really, Chyam, are you a fool? If you were possessed of such a house, such a
palace, whose statue would nabuildin the ()enter of the palace.)
(And points like that proud to the statue.)
111 411:i, 1;1 141 041
(That is of course the landlord')