Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

50 Adr. Monday and Other Tales of Jewish Amsterdam

Jonas Slap, the barber, lived on the ground floor of our building. He clipped only male customers. In the shop window stood two waxen heads of females coloured with house paint. Jonas was an optimistic man, but he had his worries because a competitor endangered the barber's livelihood. It was the special pin which made the sharpest straight-edge razor as innocent as a shoestring. The invention had recently come from England. Lowee's customers talked wildly about its usefulness but none of them had spent their money on it, up to that point.

"With such a safety pin and your own lather soap and brush, you save all the money you'd normally spend at the barber. Well, of course once every three months you still have to get your hair cut, but you can calculate yourself how much you might save in a year," they told one another.

When Jonas the barber heard that sort of neighbourhood talk, he became very angry.

"Nonsense, those economy gadgets don't exist," he argued.

"Then go to Kern in Utrecht Street to look at a thing that does not exist," they said.

Jonas' aversion to the new invention was generally known and for that reason Father kept silent about his purchase from Lowee.Then came a day when he said he was going to shave his own face for the first time in his life. The whole family sat in the living room around the table, but we took positions so that we could all look into the kitchen. Father covered his face full of white, foamy lather. Then he put the safety razor against his face.