The Jew Who Saved Christmas
By
Jason
His given name was Nisal, but he went by the Americanized version Natan. Natan was the stereotypical, of what we call in the South, a New York Jew. A rather large man, with a big face, huge nose, penetrating animated eyes, a full mouth with large rubbery lips, a rather large belly and ham like hands which flew about like a symphony conductor when engaged in conversation. Although at times ornery and growling, there was nothing Natan loved more than humor, and his laugh was loud, sincere, and contagious, however, he could often times yell vehemently when confronted with the highest level of annoyance - which he often experience. During these times he would often pound a table, and blast out right and left with Yiddish phrases which those present probably would not wish to know the meaning.
Natan’s father came over as a young man in the late 1800's from Western Poland; by trade a tailor. The old man opened shop in the Garmet District of New York City and found his way into alterations for high fashion designers He did quite well. Being sincerely Orthodox he sent Natan to a private Yeshiva Ketana School, and later demanded his son go into textiles enrolling him to North Carolina State - one of the top textile schools of the time. There Natan met Elsie Greenburg, the daughter of a southern Jewish family, they married - something Natan’s parents did not really agree with because her family belonged to a Reform Temple, typical of the south, but they did not stand in the way, and after college Natan moved to northwest, Georgia. He went to work at a little chenille and bath mat mill owned by his father in law.
By the time my father moved from New England to Dalton Natan’s mill had grown exponentially and Natan became a customer of my father, a yarn salesman. By the time I came around they were close friends. My father started his textile career in the Garmet District of New York City as did his father, a Dye and Calendering manager, and his grandfather an artist and textile designer. Both my father and grandfather had a respectful vocabulary of Yiddish terms, and I often heard words like khutspe, mentsh, shlimazel, schmuck, and shtick. But what made me laugh over the years is both my father and grandfather developed a sort of very Jewish type of hand gesture. When approached with a silly idea, or behavior instead of saying no they both would hold up their hand, spiraling it about both right and left in an expression of complete dismissal. His was often accompanied with various facial expressions of disgust, and eyes looking upward pleading for God to help them.
I knew Natan as a boy. He was by our house at parties, and his birthday was on the 4th of July and our family spent several “fourths” at his birthday party. There was no more patriotic American than Natan.
As a boy I cut Natan’s lawn. It was a large, expansive thing, and I charged five dollars soon realizing after several times of spending three hours cutting I had under charged. When collecting my money one day I bolstered up all my eleven year old bravado and told Natan that I wanted eight dollars the next time. He gave me the “gesture of dismissal” and told me that was to high and he would find someone else. A few years later my father had a knee operation,
and a clot formed moving into his lungs. While Dad was teetering near death in the hospital Natan came up several times once giving my mother an envelop with ten hundred dollar bills in it informing her it was a gift. Mom thanked him and said we did not need it now, Dad’s company was giving us his salary as sick pay, but if we need extra money she knew whom to come.
As an young adult, when Dad old me this story after Natan passed away. I asked Dad why he refused to pay me three extra dollars on yard cutting, but would give Dad a thousand. Dad laughed, gave the “gesture of dismissal” and said “that is the way of the Jew - the yard was business and Dad related how Natan would fight with him on the cost of yarn to the quarter penny, but the hospital thing was friendship. Dad continued to say, in all affection, that a Jew would argue forever on business, but if you were a true friend the Jew would give you the shirt off his back and not think twice.
One of the mills Dad represented was in a Mayberry sized town in east central Alabama not far from the Georgia line. In this rural area for about ten miles out just about every family had at least one member working for the mill. Dad always laughed when he told the story of taking Natan to the mill - as they crossed into Alabama Natan looked around and said to Dad, “You know I don’t think neither the government or God knows you are here.” And it was true, the land was poor, used out, and the poverty there equaled anything found in any part of Appalachia. These little town mills were the economic life blood of the area.
His little mill made mostly two things, a certain type of popular cotton yarn and duck cloth, or what we know as a heavy canvass used for backing chenille mats. My father had a lot of competition with the largest being Hugh Textile out of Macon, Ga. Natan bought most of the Alabama mill’s production from Dad, but needed, in small amounts, another certain type of yarn that only Hugh Textile produced. At ordering time Hugh was feeling its oats, and told Natan that if he did not buy all his yarn and cloth needs from them, they would not sell him this particular little produced type of yarn.
When a mill owner like Natan ordered yarn, to receive the best price, they would buy in the millions of pounds keeping Dad’s little Alabama mill in production for months. So in September when Dad went to Natan to negociate this next purchase Natan told Dad the sad tale - that to get this unusual yard from Bibb he could not order the more popular yearn from Dad’s company no matter the price. They had him between a rock and hard place.
Dad called the mill boss and told him of the situation. The manger told Dad that without that order he would have to shut the mill down in early December, so Dad said he would try and get his other customers to take up the slack. But sadly Dad’s other customers had ordered heavily from other mills Dad represented and did not need any more yarn.
Dad called on Natan again to get him to reconsider informing Natan that without his order the mill would have to shut down right before Christmas - Natan told Dad he would see what he could do. Yeah, Dad used the secret weapon of salesmanship, to tug at the heart strings, and Dad knew Natan had many strings to pluck, but he also knew something else about Natan. Natan had a temper and one thing he hated more than anything was to be made to do something he did not want to, and the top of that was he hated most of all to be leveraged. Hugh Textile was sticking a ten foot two by four into his side and wrenching it up with all their might.
However, it worked and a few days later Natan called my father and placed his order adding he hated those people could not have a good Christmas and relating that he told the shlimazles, and schmucks at Hugh they could take a flying leap. Dad said while Natan was talking he could hear his fist banging the table. As a result more than sixty families of Christians had presents under the tree, a turkey in the oven, and a nice Christmas because of a Jew.
So every year around Christmastime I go to the little creek behind my house and choose a nice rounded rock, and then the week of Christmas I go to the little gated Jewish Cemetery on West Sullivan Street and place the rock on Natan’s tombstone, sadly realizing that I was most likely the only person alive that knew in 1964 about the ornery, boisterous and precious Jew who saved Christmas for about sixty Christian families in East Central Alabama.
By
Jason
His given name was Nisal, but he went by the Americanized version Natan. Natan was the stereotypical, of what we call in the South, a New York Jew. A rather large man, with a big face, huge nose, penetrating animated eyes, a full mouth with large rubbery lips, a rather large belly and ham like hands which flew about like a symphony conductor when engaged in conversation. Although at times ornery and growling, there was nothing Natan loved more than humor, and his laugh was loud, sincere, and contagious, however, he could often times yell vehemently when confronted with the highest level of annoyance - which he often experience. During these times he would often pound a table, and blast out right and left with Yiddish phrases which those present probably would not wish to know the meaning.
Natan’s father came over as a young man in the late 1800's from Western Poland; by trade a tailor. The old man opened shop in the Garmet District of New York City and found his way into alterations for high fashion designers He did quite well. Being sincerely Orthodox he sent Natan to a private Yeshiva Ketana School, and later demanded his son go into textiles enrolling him to North Carolina State - one of the top textile schools of the time. There Natan met Elsie Greenburg, the daughter of a southern Jewish family, they married - something Natan’s parents did not really agree with because her family belonged to a Reform Temple, typical of the south, but they did not stand in the way, and after college Natan moved to northwest, Georgia. He went to work at a little chenille and bath mat mill owned by his father in law.
By the time my father moved from New England to Dalton Natan’s mill had grown exponentially and Natan became a customer of my father, a yarn salesman. By the time I came around they were close friends. My father started his textile career in the Garmet District of New York City as did his father, a Dye and Calendering manager, and his grandfather an artist and textile designer. Both my father and grandfather had a respectful vocabulary of Yiddish terms, and I often heard words like khutspe, mentsh, shlimazel, schmuck, and shtick. But what made me laugh over the years is both my father and grandfather developed a sort of very Jewish type of hand gesture. When approached with a silly idea, or behavior instead of saying no they both would hold up their hand, spiraling it about both right and left in an expression of complete dismissal. His was often accompanied with various facial expressions of disgust, and eyes looking upward pleading for God to help them.
I knew Natan as a boy. He was by our house at parties, and his birthday was on the 4th of July and our family spent several “fourths” at his birthday party. There was no more patriotic American than Natan.
As a boy I cut Natan’s lawn. It was a large, expansive thing, and I charged five dollars soon realizing after several times of spending three hours cutting I had under charged. When collecting my money one day I bolstered up all my eleven year old bravado and told Natan that I wanted eight dollars the next time. He gave me the “gesture of dismissal” and told me that was to high and he would find someone else. A few years later my father had a knee operation,
and a clot formed moving into his lungs. While Dad was teetering near death in the hospital Natan came up several times once giving my mother an envelop with ten hundred dollar bills in it informing her it was a gift. Mom thanked him and said we did not need it now, Dad’s company was giving us his salary as sick pay, but if we need extra money she knew whom to come.
As an young adult, when Dad old me this story after Natan passed away. I asked Dad why he refused to pay me three extra dollars on yard cutting, but would give Dad a thousand. Dad laughed, gave the “gesture of dismissal” and said “that is the way of the Jew - the yard was business and Dad related how Natan would fight with him on the cost of yarn to the quarter penny, but the hospital thing was friendship. Dad continued to say, in all affection, that a Jew would argue forever on business, but if you were a true friend the Jew would give you the shirt off his back and not think twice.
One of the mills Dad represented was in a Mayberry sized town in east central Alabama not far from the Georgia line. In this rural area for about ten miles out just about every family had at least one member working for the mill. Dad always laughed when he told the story of taking Natan to the mill - as they crossed into Alabama Natan looked around and said to Dad, “You know I don’t think neither the government or God knows you are here.” And it was true, the land was poor, used out, and the poverty there equaled anything found in any part of Appalachia. These little town mills were the economic life blood of the area.
His little mill made mostly two things, a certain type of popular cotton yarn and duck cloth, or what we know as a heavy canvass used for backing chenille mats. My father had a lot of competition with the largest being Hugh Textile out of Macon, Ga. Natan bought most of the Alabama mill’s production from Dad, but needed, in small amounts, another certain type of yarn that only Hugh Textile produced. At ordering time Hugh was feeling its oats, and told Natan that if he did not buy all his yarn and cloth needs from them, they would not sell him this particular little produced type of yarn.
When a mill owner like Natan ordered yarn, to receive the best price, they would buy in the millions of pounds keeping Dad’s little Alabama mill in production for months. So in September when Dad went to Natan to negociate this next purchase Natan told Dad the sad tale - that to get this unusual yard from Bibb he could not order the more popular yearn from Dad’s company no matter the price. They had him between a rock and hard place.
Dad called the mill boss and told him of the situation. The manger told Dad that without that order he would have to shut the mill down in early December, so Dad said he would try and get his other customers to take up the slack. But sadly Dad’s other customers had ordered heavily from other mills Dad represented and did not need any more yarn.
Dad called on Natan again to get him to reconsider informing Natan that without his order the mill would have to shut down right before Christmas - Natan told Dad he would see what he could do. Yeah, Dad used the secret weapon of salesmanship, to tug at the heart strings, and Dad knew Natan had many strings to pluck, but he also knew something else about Natan. Natan had a temper and one thing he hated more than anything was to be made to do something he did not want to, and the top of that was he hated most of all to be leveraged. Hugh Textile was sticking a ten foot two by four into his side and wrenching it up with all their might.
However, it worked and a few days later Natan called my father and placed his order adding he hated those people could not have a good Christmas and relating that he told the shlimazles, and schmucks at Hugh they could take a flying leap. Dad said while Natan was talking he could hear his fist banging the table. As a result more than sixty families of Christians had presents under the tree, a turkey in the oven, and a nice Christmas because of a Jew.
So every year around Christmastime I go to the little creek behind my house and choose a nice rounded rock, and then the week of Christmas I go to the little gated Jewish Cemetery on West Sullivan Street and place the rock on Natan’s tombstone, sadly realizing that I was most likely the only person alive that knew in 1964 about the ornery, boisterous and precious Jew who saved Christmas for about sixty Christian families in East Central Alabama.
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