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Travel Piece  by Ida Nasatir

Letter from Paris,  by Ida Nasatir, October 6, 1950

October 6, 1950—Ida Nasatir, "A Letter from Paris," Southwestern Jewish Press, page 5:   August 25, 1950— Dear Julia and Mac: As you sit over a drink at any one of the many outdoor street cafes on the Grand Boulevards and watch the crowds go by, you know at once that this is NOT an Anglo-Saxon civilization that is surging past. A bearded monk in sandals and rope girdle goes by, journeying from heaven knows where, in the hope of finding heaven. He would seem more at home in the little side street with the seventeenth century houses than here on the boulevard. But no one pays any attention to him; the crowd rushes by with scarce a curious glance.  They do likewise to the tall, attractive dark-eyed woman from India or Algeria, whose dress and shawl is of multi-colored silk, and which is so long and full, it sweeps after her, gathering the dust of the sidewalk.  Nobody bothers with the five noisy American college students who are trying to learn how to use their five new canes, or with the bedraggled old crone in felt slippers, who shuffles along carrying her 10 purple, blue and red balloons that bop up and down in an animated attempt to escape...Of course, nobody notices!  Why shouldn't medieval monks wander about Paris if they wish? Parisians seem to find their own lives so interesting that they do not pry curiously into their neighbor's way of life. Rope girdles ARE strange things to wear, but if one wishes, why not? You may lead your own life as you will and nobody will care. As attractive as this sense of freedom is, it brings also a feeling of loneliness, a feeling that your own personal existence means nothing at all to anybody else in the huge crowd that is pushing, squeezing, bumping on all sides. Sitting and watching thus, you recall with a sense of gratitude that there are SOME who do care for OTHERS. Those 93 orphaned Jewish children that you saw that very morning in their home ten miles outside of Paris, children from Tunisia and Algeria, hellholes of misery and sub-human levels, children who are supported by the UNITED JEWISH APPEAL, by people who care lest they get lost in the endless shuffle of passing, thoughtless humanity, 400 other children in the past year, were made strong enough to be sent to Israel, there to take place as future citizens and leaders. Six of the newest arrivals at the home were upstairs in bed, they were still too tired and thin and underfed to participate in the communal life of their friends. But I knew they would soon. Surely they would, because somewhere—in San Diego, in San Francisco, in Butte, in Long Island, and elsewhere, there are Jews who care enough to see to it that these wonderful children, and thousands like them, will not be lost, or hurt or mowed down in the hurried passing crowds. —Fondly, Ida Nasatir.