All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [158]
My trip to America had certainly begun auspiciously. Back at the hotel I called Schneiderman and told him about my lack of success. He was sorry. “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “It could be worse. I’ll find something.” But I was curious to know how much I would have made had the secretary seen me as a young Yiddish Demosthenes. Schneiderman thought for a moment and replied, “Fifty dollars a speech, maybe a little more.” It was my first setback in the States. Fifty dollars was more than a week’s pay and there was no point in asking Dov for a raise. Finances were handled by the Old Man, who would tell me the paper wasn’t rich, not yet, and that I should be patient.
I hope readers will forgive me for talking so much about material concerns, but it’s hard not to think about such things when you’re broke.
Here I can’t resist another leap ahead in time. In 1972, just after the murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics, the top leaders of the United Jewish Appeal asked to discuss an urgent matter with me. Having had virtually no contact with their organization, I wondered what they wanted. They came to see me in my office. Their spokesman, Irving Bernstein, was impressive, and came straight to the point: “There’s something we’ve been concerned about for quite some time. You’ve never come to speak for us. Our local groups ask for you and you seem to reject their invitations automatically. What do you have against us? Aren’t you close to the state of Israel, which needs our support? Don’t you want to help the American Jewish community, whose hospitals, nursing homes, and schools could not exist without our financial aid?” I tried to evade the question. I said I was too busy, too tired, had too many other commitments. The truth was that I had decided as a matter of principle to avoid any kind of fund-raising. I didn’t like the hard-nosed, show-biz approach to it in America.
Irving did not give up. “We are organizing our national conference,” he said, “and the Munich tragedy will occupy a central place within it. Please be our guest on Shabbat afternoon. We’ll pay double, five times, your usual honorarium. In fact, name a sum, any sum. Five thousand? Ten thousand?” As he pleaded with me, I suddenly saw myself sitting opposite the UJA secretary who specialized in rejections. I smiled. “Okay,” I told Irving. “I’ll come on Shabbat afternoon.” The UJA leaders looked at me in surprise, no doubt wondering why I had changed my mind and what fee I was going to demand. “Consider it a gift,” I said. Of course, they couldn’t appreciate the irony of the situation. That was their loss, and my reward.
After two nights at the Alamac Hotel (which almost bankrupted me), I decided to rent a studio. Some I looked at were too expensive, others too dirty or too far from midtown. Luckily, a relative agreed to put me up while I looked for something more permanent.
Samuel Wiesel and his wife lived in uptown Manhattan. People of modest means, they both worked for a necktie company and swore by their trade union, which to them represented a kind of secular religion. Though strictly observant, they also believed in the benefits of emancipation. One Friday evening after Kiddush, Sam told me how he had come to the United States. “It’s thanks to your father that I’m here,” he explained, his voice curiously tense. “He had obtained an American visa—yes, a visa for all of you—but didn’t want to use it right away. He preferred to wait, hoping not to arrive empty-handed. But you