This article appeared in the May 20, 2005 Jewish Advocate.

Arbeiter’s odyssey, and a home in Newton

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

Israel Arbeiter arrived in America with his wife Anna in 1949, following World War II. They lived on Blue Hill Avenue near Franklin Park, moved to Tennis Road in Mattapan in the 1950s and remained there until 1970, when they moved to Newton. Arbeiter ran a tailor shop called “The Arbeiter Brothers” with his brother Mack, also a Holocaust survivor, on Talbot Avenue in Dorchester.

The survivor community formed a local Hakoah soccer club. Boston City Councilor Julius Ansel, a World War II vet who had saved his life by impersonating a Nazi officer, secured permission for the team to use Franklin Field. Arbeiter, who has enjoyed a long association with non-Jews through his life, played against an Irish team in South Boston, a Polish team in Chicopee, a Scandinavian team in Worcester and an Italian team in the North End. When the wives wanted to join the fun, the group formed an organization called “The New Americans.” They met in a hall on Otis Hill Street in Roxbury, then the Young Israel on Blue Hill Ave., and in members’ homes. Their first Yom HaShoah observance in 1949 was held at the Mishkan Tefilah on Seaver Street. In 1952, the group became the American Association for Jewish Holocaust Survivors.

But the Mattapan area had changed, and the situation was worsening. Newton, where some friends had moved to, seemed like a good fit for the business and the family. “Newton had a good name, and it was now a developing Jewish community,” Arbeiter said. In 1969 he moved the business to Auburn Street in Auburndale, as “Auburn Cleaners.” They closed the Mattapan store in 1970; Mack now operated their tailor shop on Lexington Street in Auburndale. The brothers did alterations and made custom-made suits.

In 1970, the Arbeiters purchased a house in Auburndale on the Charles River. Brandeis had been founded in 1948, but was still one building. Although they could not see the University from their house then, they now can.

Back in Europe in October 1942, Arbeiter’s parents and youngest brother were sent to Treblinka from the crowded Starachowitze Ghetto quarters in Eastern Poland where they lived. He never heard from them again. Imprisoned in its labor camp, he contracted typhus and while in a quarantine barrack, was the only one out of 87 to miraculously escape. As the 86 others were shot one night, a deathly-ill Arbeiter managed to open a boarded-up window and jump out, and then evade the shots of two guards. He was hidden under straw by friends, who helped nurse him back to health while performing his required work at an ammunition factory. He was liberated on his 20th birthday, April 25, 1945, on a death march from Dautmergen, through the Black Forest.

In light of this, Newton was the most welcoming of communities. “When we moved to our street, there were only three other Jewish families living there. Two are still here, but the percentage of Jews has never increased.” But Arbeiter has never, to this day, had any unpleasantness with any of his non-Jewish neighbors.

Business increased several fold from the start. Although they got a lot of work from Brandeis (a few professors even lived on his street), not many customers were Jews. “Very few lived in Auburndale, and there still aren’t that many,” he says. More Jews were in Newton Centre and the southern part of Newton.

The AAJHS met at the Workman’s Circle in Brookline, and held events at Mishkan Tefilah, Temple Reyim and Temple Emeth. AAJHS began meeting at the JCC about five years ago; Arbeiter remains its President. He is also a member of the founding Committee of the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, and is on its Executive Committee.

The family would go to Mishkan Tefilah for the high holidays. Newton Mayor Teddy Mann was not only Jewish, but a great friend to the survivors (Mann’s son, Rick Mann, is the President of the Friends of the New England Holocaust Memorial).

Arbeiter’s two daughters were out of high school when they moved to Newton in 1970, but his son, who was 15, attended Newton North. At that time, there were not that many Jews there (“To this day,” Arbeiter comments, “Newton South has more Jewish students.”) However, he never came home with any tales of mistreatment. Despite their broad interfaith associations, all Arbeiter’s children married Jews. His daughters had met their husbands in Mattapan. The Arbeiters have three grandsons who also stay close to their Jewish heritage. The youngest was just bar mitzvahed at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley.

Shops in Newton Centre in the 1970s and 1980s were largely run by Jews; Chestnut Hill also had many Jewish businesses and restaurants. But Arbeiter remembers the rich social diversity. “Norumbega Park had a dancing hall called the Totem Pole, and hosted outdoor concerts where well-known swing musicians played.” This all changed when the Marriott Hotel came in the early 1970s. “I didn’t mind, however,” says Arbeiter, “because the hotel would refer travelers to our businesses.”

The Arbeiters sold the cleaning store in 1985, and the tailor shop in 1995, when he retired. “We got along very well with the community,” he says. “Even today, when our old customers see us, they are very warm and respectful. They still say they miss us, it was a wonderful business, it was a nice place to come into.”