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An Unusual Shabbos Goy Alan Grant 10/27/2011
Not uncommon are various stories about young gentile boys in orthodox Jewish communities being welcomed - and paid to do certain chores on the sabbath - not permitted by their religious neighbors. In Brooklyn New York, Mario Cuomo and Colin Powell were some of those boys. Here is an unusual twist to that avocation. In 1940, I was ten years old when we moved from Islip New York. It was a very small secular community. My parents were non-observant and unaffiliated. We settled in to 813 Quackenbos Street in Washington D.C. After school, I often walked two blocks up to a candy store on Georgia Avenue. For a penny, sweet treats were mine. One afternoon after school, as I was passing a house in the next block, the door opened and a wizened old man beckoned me in with a crooked hand motion - that also showed a shiny dime held between his thumb and forefinger. Temptation won out and I followed him inside. Without a word he led me to a raised central area that had seats all around on three sides. Still clutching the dime, then he pointed to a light switch near the floor on the side of the platform. As they say, in for a penny - in for a dime, I figured he wanted me to flip the switch. Why not? All the lights came on in the house. He smiled and I got the dime - My first paying job. To make that much money with so little work was awesome. He mumbled that I should come back the next morning. This of course I did - and turned that same light switch off. Curiously, the new dime was lying nearby, untouched, on the floor.
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This routine continued every Friday and Saturday for the next six months. I was never out of candy, and my parents never knew that I was in business for myself. Alas, such good things don't last forever. Anyway, the following Fall, my mother decided it was time for me to go to Hebrew School. By asking around she found out that only one block away, in a small house at 909 Quackenbos Street, there was an orthodox synagogue. She marched me up there one afternoon and knocked on the front door. It was opened by my same employer for the past year. At first, he questioned why we were there, and was stunned by my mother's explanation. I was there to be enrolled. Recovering his surprise and looking down at me in sheer disapproval, we were escorted to the Rabbi's office. Only later did I come to know that work after sunset on Shabbos was a no-no. And my employer was the Shammus. He was remiss in permitting even a child, to violate those rules. So ended my first job, and all the candy I could enjoy on two dimes every week. However, in looking back, I was in good company with such lights as Mario Cuomo and Colin Powell. They didn't turn out so bad - either.