Dr. Joseph Rubenstein Memoir, Part 1

Preface - In March 2024 our JHSNJ “Monthly Memoir” featured a look back at the Eastside H.S. Paterson Class of 1940, a revered group belonging to “The Greatest Generation.” Recently, we were absolutely delighted to hear back directly from one of the surviving centenarians from that Eastside class!  Dr. Joseph Rubenstein, a longtime practicing orthodontist once located on Morlot Avenue in Fair Lawn, is now living in Arizona. Joe happened to read our March 2024 Memoir about his Paterson January 1940 Class and then “raised his hand” to say that he was an alumni of that very class, and that he was still alive and well at 101 years old.  What follows is Part I of his responses and his additional comments to that March memoir. 

Introduction Joseph Leonard Rubenstein was born on February 18, 1923 in Paterson New Jersey. Eight days later, he had a traditional brit by the local mohel (who also happened to be a shochet).  A few days later, Joseph developed a local infection that became a general septicemia as a result of the brit.

Joseph’s parents contacted the family doctor, Dr. Levine, who came to examine and treat Joseph.  At that time, there were no antibiotics in existence.  The doctor informed his father that the baby would not survive and suggested putting the baby near an open window as the cold winter air would hasten his demise.  
 
Shortly after the doctor’s departure, Joseph’s mother, in tears, went downstairs to the grocery store which was located on the first floor of their building. The proprietor of the store, Mrs. Altshuler, asked what was wrong.  His mother replied that the doctor just let them know that their new baby would die because he had an incurable infection.  Mrs. Altshuler, who had two healthy boys of her own, suggested that perhaps if she’d agree to “sell” her baby to her, Mrs. Altshuler’s good luck would rub off on the new baby.  With that, Mrs. Altshuler reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out all the money she had…3 pennies.  She gave the 3 pennies to Mrs. Rubenstein to consummate the purchase, thereby bringing the baby a blessing of health to save his life.  

Miraculously, within several days, Joseph started to recover and eventually the infection healed.  He grew and thrived to become a strong, healthy baby. Now, almost 102 years later, Joseph Rubenstein’s story follows, as told to Dorothy Douma Greene,* in a series of interviews that took place in August 2024.
 
“My mother, Celia, and David, my father, were newcomers to this country.  My mother arrived first from Motal**, a shtetl situated where borders of countries changed frequently. Motal was in the Pale of Settlement (see the images below) and it could theoretically have been the shtetl depicted in “Fiddler on the Roof.” *** My grandfather, Jacov Mordecai, had a progressive brother who came to the United States in the late 1800’s.  He had a hotdog and lemonade stand in the Bronx Botanical Gardens.  Around 1900 he said to my grandfather, his brother, to “come here, bring the family and start a new life.”  He had my mother come over with him.  She was one of 7 other children.  He didn’t like it here, saying that there was “nothing here for me,” so he went back but my mother liked it here so she said, “I’m staying.” So she did.  Grandfather went back and died 2 years later leaving a widow with the 7 other children. They all remained in Motal.
 
My 17 year old mother settled in the Lower East Side all alone but she was among many other single guys and gals.   
 
My father came from Bialystok in 1908, which was northwest of Motal on the Belarus border.  It was also in the Pale.  Dad came as an individual and also settled in the Lower East Side.  My mother and father met a couple of years down the line and married.  My father had no special job.  One day a friend named Dave told him that Paterson was hiring weavers in the silk mills.  My father had a little experience with looms because his brother owned a few in Bialystok.  So, my folks moved to Paterson to ‘follow the bread.’  Mom worked in the shirtwaist industry where white blouses were all the rage.  They were ready to take on the world.
 
Mom gave birth to my brother Julius in 1917.  He graduated Eastside High School in 1935 with Mayer Mechanic, the late dentist, who was Lou Mechanic’s**** father.  He also knew Fred Mechanic who was Mayer’s brother.  Julius was a C.P.A. in Fair Lawn on Midland Avenue by the old Hyway Theatre but he had a fatal heart attack in his early 70’s.

J. Mortimer Rubenstein, better known as “Mutchie,” was born about 1920 and graduated Eastside High School in 1938.  Dr. Levine gave him a version of the name of our grandfather, my mother’s dad, J. Mordecai which morphed into Mutchie. Mutchie, or professionally known as J. Mortimer Rubenstein, was a divorce lawyer in downtown Paterson, once on Market Street, but always in downtown one place or another.  He lived on E. 35th Street, between Manor Rd and 11th Avenue. He also passed away in his early to mid- 70’s.
 
After that I came along, the last of the 3 children, all boys, born to my folks. My first address was at 22 Carroll Street at the corner of Fulton.  Mrs. Altshuler, who bought me for 3 pennies, had her grocery store on the first floor.  At that time the area around Bridge Street and Washington was considered a ‘food emporium.’  This was where everyone in the area purchased their chickens (you picked out a live one for dinner!), meats and fruits and vegetables.  We were all a close knit bunch of friends.
 
I went to Nathan Barnert’s funeral a few months before my 5th birthday. I was pre-school.  My father lifted me up to see his coffin exit Barnert Temple.  I think it was in December.  He said to me “I want you to remember that man forever………who he was and what he has done for the Jewish people.  He was a very important charitable man who was the Mayor of Paterson.” My father was a survivor of the very bad Spanish flu in 1920 and he was hospitalized at Barnert. He was so impressed by it all.  He was not the type of person to say things like that, it was rare.

 By now my mother was a ‘genius’ of a housekeeper.  She baked, cooked, sewed, and cleaned with never a whimper or complaint.  We kids would go home for lunch from Public School which was on Carroll Street.  There were none like her. 
 
My father was a painter/decorator and paper hanger.  His business was called “Rubenstein and Finnegan.”  Tommy Finnegan was his partner.  His truck was painted a dark off-shade with white lettering used to paint the names in up and down waves. 
 
After graduating Public School 6 on Carroll Street I attended Eastside high school which was so much of my life.  I have a full memory of it but nothing to pinpoint right now.  I never worked during high school. I was a very serious student at Eastside and did well so that was why I rarely socialized.  Dr. David Roth is on the same page as me in the January 1940 yearbook and we were friends, but only in high school.  His father was the director of the whole Barnert Hospital.

Post our high school graduation in January most of us had to wait until the fall of 1940 to enroll in college.  I opted to attend Paterson State Teacher’s College located on Market Street and E. 23rd Street in Paterson for my first year of pre-med classes. The school had regular college studies on the first floor and science studies on the second floor. My second year of university studies, pre-dental, commencing in September 1941, was spent at the main campus at the University of Illinois. Pearl Harbor was suddenly bombed that December. To be continued in next month’s Monthly Memoir . . .


 *Dorothy Douma Greene is a former president of the JHSNJ. Her late husband, Murray Greenberg, was also an alumnus of the EHS January, 1940 graduating class.
**After the Partitions of Poland, Motal became part of the Russian Empire. Today Motal is situated in the Ivanovsk district, Brest region of Belarus.
***Fiddler on the Roof is the famous musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein.
****Lou is a volunteer at the JHSNJ. His mom, Bernadine Jasper is also an alumna of the Eastside High School Class of  January 1940. Bernadine and Joseph also attended Public School 6 together.

Joseph Rubenstein as told to Dorothy Douma Greene, former JHSNJ President