Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

122 Air. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

Not that they were what you'd call sworn enemies, not on your life. My two aunties went around with each other all right, but if I tell you that they couldn't get along together, then I mean that Aunt Pessie was jealous of Aunt Breinie and that Aunt Breinie simply couldn't sleep from envy of Aunt Pessie.

What's the one thing women always do to pick each other's eyes out? They use their husbands, of course! But Aunt Pessie and Aunt Breinie were both married to real wide-awake sleepyheads so they were equal as far as that was concerned. So, what else can women use to try to outplay each other? Well? Money, naturally. But both of my aunts were what you could call well-off financially, and about equally so. So what was there left for them to pester the life out of one another with? Well? Just plain bragging and out-trumping each other with their talk about their riches and trying to out-buy each other, that's what.

I'm sure you wonder how anyone in our family happened to come by so much money.You want I should tcach you something? Mazuma is only a matter of brains, because whoever is born for a penny never comes in for a dollar. Let me tell you a story to make my point. When we Jews danced around the Golden Calf in ancient times, Rabbi Moses got so mad that he broke the tablets of the Ten Commandments into little pieces. Anybody can now read about that in the Holy Torah. But what isn't written there is that the Jews, for punishment, had to keep all these pieces of the shattered stone tablets. That's what we've been carrying around all over the world for centuries.

When the pieces first got doled out among the Jews, the rich Jews got the pieces on which was written "Thou