James McBride

“Don’t expect someone else to do the hard work for you!”

There was an old Jew who lived at the site of the old synagogue up on Chicken Hill in the town of Pottstown, Pa., and when Pennsylvania State Troopers found the skeleton at the bottom of an old well off Hayes Street, the old Jew’s house was the first place they went to. This was in June 1972, the day after a developer tore up the Hayes Street lot to make way for a new townhouse development.
We found a belt buckle and a pendant in the well, the cops said, and some old threads—from a red costume or jacket, that’s what the lab shows.
They produced a piece of jewelry, handed it to him, and asked what it was.
A mezuzah, the old man said.
It matches the one on the door, the cops said. Don’t these things belong on doors?
The old man shrugged. Jewish life is portable, he said.

“Don’t expect someone else to do the hard work for you!”