Becoming American Becoming Ethnic

Turetzky Family Assimilation: From Grandparents to Father to Me

Marc Turetzky (UC San Diego 1984) Turetzky Family Assimilation: From Grandparents to Father to Me Assimilation is defined as a process by which people take up and are absorbed into a culture. This essay discusses the migration of my paternal grandparents from Russia to the United States and their rejection of assimilation. It tells how they managed to cling steadfastly to their old-world ideals ofreligion and family, and how their son (my father) and our family have assimilated in this country. I know little about the experience ofmy Grandfather Turetzky in traveling to this country; I focus instead on my Grandmother Tillie and her family's struggle. Grandmother Tillie lived in a Russian shtetl called Brodi with her mother, a brother and a sister, and her father. Tillie's family was forced to leave Brodi in 1918 because ofreligious persecution and the violent assaults on their town by Russian Cossacks. She recalls hiding in an oven built into the wall and seeing the Russian cavalry (Cossacks) ride into the shtetl and kill babies by throwing them in the air and catching them on their swords like a shish kebab. In 1918 Tillie and her family walked from Brodi to Warsaw, starting a journey that would take them to the United States by 1921. On their way, though, they stopped at a shtetl ofa relative in order for Tillie's mother to give birth to a child. The poverty was so great that the shtetl had no doctor , and my great-grandmother's baby was born under the kitchen table. This scene is reminiscent of what happened in Marie Hall Ets's book to the immigrant Rosa when she gave birth to her child.! After a month-long stay at the shtetl in Warsaw, the family pressed on to their destination, 63 Turetzky Family Assimilation Brussels, in Belgium. In all, Tillie's family had walked hundreds of miles to finally reach Brussels. Great-grandmother Goldie's feet were never the same after the walk, but her strength, courage, and religious faith helped her family on the journey. Brussels proved to be a temporary residence, and in 1921 they took a boat to the United States. Not one person in the family spoke a word of English, but the oldest daughter was already living in New York and was ready to help. On the boat, the family was booked into steerage, which was below the deck, crowded and unsanitary. In order to eat, Tillie would catch fish offthe boat and trade them for eggs with the richer passengers to achieve more ofa balanced diet. Finally, they docked in America, at Ellis Island. Immediately, they moved to the Lower East Side on Hester Street. Great-grandmother, Grandmother Tillie, the two sisters, and the brother went to work in the garment district in sweatshops. Tillie sewed dresses by machine, working twelve to fourteen hours per day, six days a week. After three and a half years of hard labor and living in tenement apartments, the family spent a summer on a farm in Preston, a town near Norwich, Connecticut. Preston was the town in which Tillie met Isador Turetzky, my grandfather . Isador was the oldest son of a father who had taken his family to America about the same time as Grandmother Tillie. His father was very religious and was the equivalent ofa deacon in the Norwich synagogue. He owned and operated a general store in which Isador worked. Isador was brought up by his father in a very orthodox, religious way, studying the Torah extensively. Isador also had enough time to master six languages and was influenced greatly by his uncle, Abraham Negevitsky, an old rabbi who used to visit his home. Isador studied Hebrew with this great rabbi and was inspired at a young age to study the Torah for life. In 1926 Isador Turetzky was married to Tillie, and in 1932 my father, Bertram Jay Turetzky, was born. There was another boy, Seymor Benjamin Turetzky, and thus the Turetzky family became complete. The household was the typical old-world, orthodox Jewish household, following all dietary laws to the letter, meaning that family members ate only kosher foods. The Turetzkys celebrated all Jewish holidays and lived in a very patriarchal setting. Consequently, the family was built around the father, Isador. The setting was Old World, in that even the great-grandmother lived with the family. Although Isador was very religious and studied the Torah every chance he had, he did assimilate...