Helen Demby of Bayonne, NJ 1945. Posing with Martin Litinger her grandson and my cousin. From the Goldfinger family album.

By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.

Helen Demby (my grandmother)  came to the United States after being persecuted as a Jew in Poland.  She came around 1915 with my grandfather, a few kids and then more children born here (total 9 including my mother.)  She had 3 daughters and 6 sons.  I have her citizenship papers.

My grandfather Chaim was a tailor (he sewed uniforms for the Czar). They lived in a row house on the Boulevard in Bayonne NJ with one bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and a few bedrooms.  4 sons served in WWII, and this photo was obtained by the family photographer Jean Litinger (my aunt.)  Marty was being welcomed home after serving with the Coast Guard on  a ship in convoys traveling  the North Atlantic with supplies for England and Russia. He told me that he stood on deck during horrid storms when the bow would rise up high into the air along with the waves.

The East European Jews  (Ashkenazi) spoke a language specific to their group called Yiddish. It was a blend of Hebrew, English, German and a few other languages. Yiddish matured into a vehicle for music, literature and everyday conversation.  The family spoke Yiddish in the house, but everywhere else  they all spoke perfect English unless they met a “landsman” on the street.

Grandma Helen was a sweet, kind woman. My mother was the songstress in the family, so we had lots of  Yiddish and American music.

Yiddish music can be very sentimental.  This song “Mamaleh” is a tribute to mothers.  It is sung by Yaacov Shapiro and is very beautiful: