Yossi's Goal by Ellen Schwartz Page B

said.
    â€œI’m sure your mama can mend it for you—”
    â€œI won’t take it.” Daniel folded his arms.
    â€œNow, Daniel—” Sadie began.
    â€œNo!” Daniel snapped. “No, Mama,” he went on in a lower voice, “you can call it charity or
tzedakeh
or whatever you like, but I’m not taking it. You know where these things come from? From our bosses, the factory owners, and their wives and children. Let them pay us a decent wage instead, and I’ll buy my own sweater. Until then, I’m not wearing their castoffs!”
    Sadie looked mortified. “Please, Daniel, don’t make a fuss.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Mama, and no offense to you, Mrs. Belnick. But I won’t take the sweater. I’d rather freeze!”
    Suddenly Yossi felt uneasy. Now thatDaniel put it that way, he didn’t like taking handouts either. Should he give back the coat?
    The trouble was, he needed it. They all needed the hand-me-downs.
    None of them had expected to find things so hard in Canada. All the way across Europe, as Yossi and his family and fellow villagers ran from town to town, hiding in forests and barns and cellars, fleeing the soldiers and angry mobs, they had held the image of Canada in front of them. All during the months-long sea voyage, they’d dreamed about the better lives they’d have. Canada—a beautiful place of forests and rivers. Canada—the land of opportunity, where a family could work hard and prosper. Canada—a free country, where you didn’t have to be afraid because of your religion or your beliefs.
    Some land of opportunity!
    Free, yes. There were no soldiers dragging Jews out of their beds and beating them or worse. You could worship asyou pleased, say what you thought, even print your opinion in the newspaper.
    But what good was freedom, Yossi wondered, if you were only free to be poorer than before? From the time that he and the others were disgorged from their steamship on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, they’d found themselves huddled in a squalid neighborhood at the foot of The Main, the busy boulevard that ran north from the river’s docks. There, thousands of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe lived in broken-down tenements. Rents were so high that people were forced to live two, sometimes three, families to a household. That was why there were two families squeezed into Yossi’s third-floor flat. The four Mendelsohns slept in one bedroom. The Bernsteins—mother and son—occupied another. All of them shared the tiny room that served as kitchen, dining room and parlor. Along with dozens of neighbors, they used an outdoor privy and pumped cold water from a hand pump on the street.
    Papa and Daniel worked in a garment factory—sweatshops, they were called— alongside hundreds of other men, hunched over electric sewing machines for twelve hours a day. Miriam and Mama and Sadie did the same thing at home, taking turns at a rented machine and doing handwork on the side. Yossi and his friends helped their families out by lugging bundles of cut-out garment pieces to homes to be sewn and then lugging the finished garments back again. All for a couple of dollars a week for a family. Barely enough to live on, never enough to save, to move to a bigger flat, to buy warm clothes.
    Which was why they had to take handouts.
Tzedakeh
, Mrs. Bernstein called it. Castoffs, Daniel said.
    I’d rather freeze
. Yossi tried out the phrase in his mind. He pictured himself thrusting the coat back at Mrs. Belnick and declaring in noble tones, “No charity for me. I’d rather freeze!”
    But then he hugged the coat to himself.He’d never owned such a thing. He pictured the old tattered coat he’d brought with him from Braslav, with its too-short sleeves and thin lining and frayed cuffs. He imagined how warm and cozy he’d be in his new coat this winter, how dazzled his friends would be by