and the first of his generation to work in the deli, would arrive on a Saturday night and work as cashier (“I could only make change in English,” he recalls). Here he saw the array of patrons who would come by: both the poor who had only 25 cents for a bag of deli shavings, as well as judges, policemen, politicians, and community leaders. Even then-Maryland State Comptroller Louis Goldstein would frequent Attman’s on Saturday nights. “I learned more about people those Saturday nights than I ever expected,” Ron says.
Another aspect of Harry and Ida Attman that left a life-long imprint on their children was their charitableness, with both food and money. During the Depression or when it was hard times, Harry would provide 6 ounce bags of food to any homeless individual who came to the store. Collectors for Jewish charities would also visit the store for donations, and Harry never turned them away without some contribution. Harry would also often offer collectors a chance to sit down and have a roll and coffee, and then converse with them about politics, religion or Torah. According to Leonard, if there were a sickness in the family or any other problem, his father would mention the problem to these collectors, many of whom were rabbis, and they would declare they would go back and say an extra special prayer. True to their word, a letter would come back to Harry attesting that the prayers had been made. Later, these contacts proved helpful when Seymour needed an operation in Milwaukee and a rabbi from Milwaukee who had periodically visited the store for years put the family up for the week that they were in the city while Seymour underwent his operation.
Ida, too, was charitable. She was an active sponsor of the ladies auxiliaries in behalf of religious schools and donated to charities by means of pushkes (charity boxes) that she kept in the house. The sons remember her standard practice every Friday afternoon or on the eve of a Jewish holiday. Before she lit candles, she would open a closet door and put pennies, nickels, dimes or quarters—in multiples of 18 or 36 (representing in numbers the Hebrew word for “life”)—into the 15 charity boxes that she had nailed to the back of the door. These charity boxes were from different schools, yeshivas or organizations located in Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, and other cities, as well as in Israel (then Palestine). Periodically, a collector would come by to collect the money and leave a receipt for the donations. Among those boxes was one from the synagogue in Milwaukee.
The Jewish religion and Jewish traditions were a central part of the Attman home and imbued Edward, Seymour and Leonard with meaningful and lasting impressions.
The Attmans kept a kosher home and observed all the Jewish holidays. On Friday night and Saturday after services, the family ate together, with Ida providing meals and desserts of her own recipes. Harry put on tefillin every weekday, and Ida prayed each morning from a prayer book especially geared for women. Called a Techina, the prayers were printed in Yiddish.
To Harry and Ida, the Jewish education of their children was, as Leonard says, “of prime importance.”
For their Jewish education, Ed, Seymour and Leonard were enrolled in the Hebrew Parochial School (later to be named the Talmudical Academy of Baltimore; founded in 1917, it was the first Hebrew day school in America outside New York City). In its beginning years, the school held Hebrew classes in the morning and secular classes in the afternoon for boys until the 6th grade, with Hebrew classes offered from 3:30 to 5:30 pm for children who went to public school. Ed and Seymour went until the 6th grade, and then went to public school while continuing their Hebrew education in the school’s afternoon classes. Being the youngest of the brothers, Leonard remained at the Talmudical Academy as the school eventually expanded its Hebrew and secular classes, adding a junior high and then a high school. At first, classes were taught in Yiddish since many of the teachers, themselves immigrants knowing little English, translated from the Hebrew into Yiddish. Later, instruction was in English and instructors of secular classes were both Jewish and non-Jewish, with many teachers experienced public school instructors. While Edward and Seymour went on to graduate from public high schools, Leonard graduated in one of Talmudical Academy’s earliest 12th grades.
Says Leonard about his Jewish education, “That gave me the values that I live with today and probably have been the most help to me in my business, my social life and attaining what success I have been able to achieve.”
The family belonged to Shomrei Mishmeres, an Orthodox synagogue now referred to as the Lloyd Street Shul, which was down the street from where the Jewish Museum of Maryland now stands. The building featured a balcony for the women worshippers and a downstairs mikvah, frequented at separate times by women and men. Before Passover, matzoh was baked on the basement level. All three Attman boys had their Bar Mitzvahs in this shul. Ida cooked and baked the food for the Bar Mitzvah kiddush held after Sabbath services in the synagogue’s reception hall, making her own honey cake, mandel bread and chickpeas mixture (called nahit). As with most Bar Mitzvahs of the day, no additional parties or festivities were held, but Ida arranged for that Sunday for the Jewish Education Alliance’s orchestra, in which Ed was a member, to entertain at the Levindale nursing home, along with serving ice cream and cake, all as a way to tie in a Bar Mitzvah celebration with an act of visiting the sick and elderly. Leonard’s was the last Bar Mitzvah to be celebrated in the Lloyd Street synagogue before it closed.
The memory that lingers for the Attman boys is how their parents took interest and pride in them. Every Friday night, at the Sabbath table, after Harry made Kiddush, he had each of the boys make Kiddush. During the meal, Harry would ask them what they had learned that week in Hebrew school and, recalls Leonard, “how we are supposed to act in a traditional way.” Following the benching (Grace After Meals), Harry and the children would sing zemiros, the songs associated with the Sabbath. Leonard still remembers fondly that on the walks to and from synagogue on Saturday morning, holding his father’s hand, his father would question him about that week’s Torah portion.
Ida was always the mother, advising them on ways to dress and act in public, helping them plan for their future, caring about their needs. One example stands out. After Ed was drafted into the army in 1941, the family worried about his safety. This concern increased when they did not receive any mail or hear from him for a month. One day, an individual came into the store and told Harry that he thought he saw Eddie on a newsreel being shown at a movie house on Lexington Street. It was a brief segment, he said, but it looked like Eddie was among a group of soldiers exercising on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean heading for North Africa. When she heard this, Ida immediately took a streetcar to see the newsreel.
“I went with her and recall it vividly,” Leonard recounted in a taped interview for the Jewish Americans series. “Whatever the movie was wasn’t important. We waited for the newsreel. And sure enough, when the newsreel came on, there were a group of guys standing on a ship, exercising in their shorts and shirts, and we saw my brother.”
Ida was enthralled, alternately cheerful and tearful. She stayed and waited through the repeat of the movie until the newsreel came on again. And she then stayed to see the newsreel a third time.
“My mother stayed and saw the newsreel until midnight, until after the movies closed,” said Leonard.
In coming days, Ida went back “day after day” until the newsreel showing Eddie was deleted from that part of the news.
By the end of World War II, Attman’s Delicatessen was a well-known fixture on Lombard Street. As the oldest of the Attman boys, Ed, on his return from military service, was looking to start a career and a family. Harry and Ida could now turn their attention to helping Ed—and later, Seymour and Leonard—launch the next phase of their lives. The Attman brothers would have a special foundation on which to start. Their parents had already set a memorable example, showing each of them how to build a successful business while raising a family with lasting, meaningful values.
Chapter Four
“MUCH MORE THAN PAPER”: EDWARD CREATES A
MULTI-STATE ENTERPRISE
