“It’s a great opportunity, Abe. We’ll build something really important together. Think about it and get back to me”

March 1964

IT was a short walk from the Stilwell Avenue train station to the Freed Hotel. The Atlantic Ocean nearby flung its sharp ocean breeze onto the two women walking together, and Marjorie shivered a little in her bright-pink coat.

Perele Schwartz was never a chatterer, but today even Marjorie was silent as they approached the boarding house. She had a lot to think about. Crumbs in pockets, Passover menus, Annie’s tears, and those unexpected words: “A mother needs her children, even more than they need her.”

The street was fairly quiet, though they could hear the plaintive sound of squawking seagulls swooping down over the water combined with the occasional truck rumbling by.

And then, with frightening suddenness, there was chaos. Rough voices shouting curses. The squeal of a bike’s tires going way too fast. The horrible sound of metal hitting flesh. The thud of a human body making harsh contact with concrete.

And Perele Schwartz’s agonized scream making awful harmony to Marjorie’s shouts, as a merciless hand jerked her pocketbook off her shoulder.

W

hen young families moved into Boro Park — which they were doing in increasing numbers, displacing the non-Jewish residents and expanding the borders of the Jewish area — one of the first issues parents dealt with was finding a pediatrician for their children. Very often, they were sent to Dr. Abraham Levine’s practice because, as mothers said again and again, “He gives every child so much personal attention.”

Which was not surprising: Abe had long before developed the very useful technique of compartmentalizing, focusing intently on whatever he happened to be doing, and putting all other issues and thoughts aside. So when staring intently into little Shmuel Katz’s left ear and writing the prescription for antibiotics to cure the otitis media he found there, he gave no thought at all to the intriguing meeting he’d had the day before.

It was only when the Schwartzberg baby’s routine checkup was cancelled that he had the leisure to think carefully about Dr. Harvey Sloan and the shocking offer he’d made yesterday.