Old Jewish Tailor Woman

The first job I ever had was in high school working in the afternoon for an elderly Jewish woman who was a tailor. Her work consisted mainly of repairing the tattered garments of the residents of the slums where her shop was located, but she also took in washing which was sent out to be done and came back the next day. My job was to mark in all the clothes when they came in, and check them off when they went out again. This old tailor woman whose name was Mrs. Potash, I soon discovered was an extremely remarkable and eccentric woman. She was very devout, but her God was not some unfathomable power off in the cosmos somewhere, for her God was an entity involved in the most mundane aspects of every day life. She consulted God about what to have for lunch. For Mrs. Potash tailoring was a kind of religious mission, she felt that her store, her sewing machine, even her life were given to her by God for the sake of taking care of poor peoples clothes.

I left the shop for home each day at five, but Mrs. Potash would not go home until midnight. She returned to the shop by six in the morning to start her day. She lived on the other end of town so every day involved walking through the slums of our city late at night. At one point I started to be concerned about her. I couldn’t decide if she was fearless or simpleminded. I said to my mother “You know Mom, Mrs. Potash walks home at one in the morning from down on Liberty Street. “ My mother said, sensing my concern, “Don’t worry about her, the police know she is there.”

But gradually I came to realize that she was not only fearless, but that she knew instinctively that no one would ever even think of harming her.

One time an old notorious gangster came into the shop. He was probably as old as Mrs. Potash, and known to be a dangerous and difficult character. He didn’t come into the shop for any criminal purposes however, he came in because a button had popped off of his fly.

He asked her to repair his trousers but she was a woman of very few words and in response to his request she simply drew a circle in the air with her needle indicating that he should undo his jacket. Understanding that she meant to fix his fly button on sight, as it were, and without him going to the changing room he stammered in embarrassment, ”Don’t you want me to go to the changing booth?”

“And why is there a need to take off your clothes?” she said, again telling him what to do with a gesture of her needle.
That remark “Why is there a need”? was characteristic of her. If I did something wrong in the shop she would say, “Why is there a need to make a mistake?”

The Don undid his coat revealing that he had a revolver stuck in his belt band. Mrs. Potash, when she saw the gun, pulled it out of his pants and holding it in her hand gave him a good talking to. “Don’t you see that the gun is running your trousers, I can fix these buttons for you, but before you know, the waste band will be completely ruined. A holster you need.” Finished with her lecture she handed him the gun to hold and proceeded to sew a button onto his pants.

He was so terribly uncomfortable, he held the gun in his hand on the side of his body away from the window lest anyone should see, and was in an agony of suspense the whole time worrying that someone might come into the shop.

This event was made the more strange by the fact that it was August, there was a hot steam trouser press in the shop, the room was scorching, and over the years the old woman had take to wearing very little clothing to work in the summer. Her usual outfit was a shift, or sort of sun dress very low cut in both the front and the back.

I will not offer any sort of explanation or analysis of this event. In certain respects I have to admit that I still don’t understand some powerful symbolism in it. But I saw it with my own eyes, and I wanted you to see it also. Events like this should not be forgotten.