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FOLKLORE
FORM C
k
NEW YORK
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE Now York
NAYE OF WORKER Emanuel Verschleiser
ADDRESS 1419 Jessup Ave., Bronx, N. Y. C.
DATE August 23, 1938
SUBJECT JEWISH FOLK TALES
Galician Jews (Jews who came to this country from Galicia,
once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) relate many stories about
the emperor Francis Joseph, who was a great friend of the Jews. An
old JEWISH woman in BROWFSVILLE (Borough of Brooklyn) told the inter-
viewer the following story:
Kaiser Francis Joseph was a miser. Once he walked with
his retinue around his palace, he walked around with them, all great
people, generals, ministers and such, when he saw a halben groshen
(half ilwriny) on the ground. The Kaiser immediately bent down, picked
up the hall= groshen and put it in his pocket.
His generals and ministers, the great people, looked at
each other, smiled, thinking the Kaiser didn't see. The Kaiser
saw it all but didn't say a word.
In a few days the Kaiser made a big feast and invited them
all. It was a very great feast, full tables of wonderful and rare
foods. The great men sat down to eat. They tasted one dish after
another. Something was missing. But go say something? They didn't
dare say a word, forced themselves to eat. Then the old Kaiser said:
"You see• 'ha lben groschon salt...what a difference it would have
made .r
Not long ago an old butcher engaged the interviewer in
a conversation on the Coney Island boardwalk. He could also have
a little vacation --he said --"because most of my customers from
around the Grand Concourse are on vacttion He boasted that
although over seventy he still could do a good days work "plucking
a hundred chickens". When the conversation turned to his native
homeland, Galicia, he enthuistacally began describing what a good
life the Jews had under the old emperor, Francis Joseph. Ho
himself knew a Jewish woman in his native village in Galicia who,
dissatisfied with the decision of the courts, made her way to
Emperor Francis Joseph in Vienna who let her come before him
and decided in her favor.
"You should have seen her," the old butcher said."
A dirty little woman...with unkempt hair...and she came before
the Kaiser...If she would be a gentile he wouldn't let her come
before him...Such a friend of the Jews he wassoot/