• Virtues: smart, strong, eager to learn, idealistic, questioner, stoic, wry sense of humor
• Vices: stubborn, reluctant to ask for help, quiet/shy, difficulty seeing shades of grey (at least until later in life)
• The speed date – 8 questions you could ask someone you’d just met
  1. Where are you from?
  2. What do you do?
  3. Do you have kids? Do you want to?
  4. Why did you come here today?
  5. What are some good books or movies you’ve read/watched lately?
  6. What do you do for fun?
  7. Do you like to cook?
  8. What do you want to do when you retire?
• Current (character is 13, fending for himself in Minsk)

1. Igumen, then Minsk, Belarus/Russia

2. Tinsmith (he’s 13 now)

3. Not yet. I am a kid!

4. (At 1st socialist meeting: ) I see so much injustice around me; want to make the world a better place (also, kind of lonely)

5. Detective stories

6. Who has time for fun? Do sneak into the opera house when I can

7. Food is about survival, not about pleasure

8. What is retire?  I’ll work till I die.

 

• he’s 23; has moved to Montreal; had to say goodbye to family, loved ones, everything familiar (but also, had an adventure)
  1. Russia, but now Montreal
  2. Store clerk
  3. Not yet, but do want to; part of being a man
  4. (at a socialist meeting in Montreal) ; the world is going crazy; the time may be ripe for socialism; want to make the world a better place. (And maybe meet people/make friends? Wouldn’t admit that to himself though)
  5. Communist Manifesto, and newspapers
  6. Read, go to socialist meetings, occasionally sit at bars with friends after meeting discussing the world future? Study Esperanto
  7. Food is for survival and health
  8. Retire? Vas iz das?  [He’d lied on immigration papers to make himself a few years younger; concept of retirement still odd (Quebec and Canada pension plans weren’t started till 1966; in the 20s, the old relied on savings, property and family]
• He's 8. Father has been dead since he was 4. Lives with mom (Mame, in Yiddish) and 2 younger brothers. Struggling to scrape by.
  1. Igumen
  2. I go to school, and study weekly with the Rabbi; I’ve also just started learning Russian from Mame’s boarder
  3. I like to play with my little brothers
  4. (at the Rabbi’s house) because it makes Mame proud; and I’m a bit intimidated by the Rabbi; can’t say no to him or to Mame!
  5. The Torah is the only book around 
  6. I study Russian; sometimes I play ball with the other kids, but I’m not very good and I don’t like the way they put each other down; I play with my little brothers. Sometimes Max and I go play in the fields?
  7. Sometimes I help Mame mix dough
  8. Retire? When I grow up I want to be a great scholar!

 

Boruch walked into the dark crowded room at the back of the factory. It was hot and smelled of oil, sweat and cigarettes. Everybody seemed to be talking at once. What was he doing here? There were no other people even close to his age in sight. But he was a working man now, and as a working man, he had as much right to be here as everyone else. Even so, his heart pounded when a burly man with dirty overalls and a missing tooth approached him. “Hey, kid, what are you doing here?”

---

Mendel looked towards the door and saw a skinny boy enter the room. He took another drag on his cigarette. What the heck was a kid doing here? Was he even old enough to be a Bar Mitzvah? He was wearing a clean shirt, but the shoes looked a size too big and had clearly been worn by others. The kid stuck to the edge of the room. Didn’t look like he knew anyone else here. Mendel’s curiosity got to him. He wandered over to the boy, who jumped when Mendel spoke. “Hey, kid, what are you doing here?”