Chicago, circa 1920 — the height of Prohibition and political graft. The Windy City is known far and wide as the heart of organized crime, the Mafia, Al Capone, and a mayor famous for being on the take. All this, however, was neither here nor there for the Jewish community in the Midwest. Comprised mainly of immigrants in those days, the people were busy just trying to make a buck to survive.

A glazier by trade, Yisrael Samuel could walk 10 miles for work to support his family. He was constantly on the lookout — the more work, the better. That’s what made the fire so interesting. It had happened a few nights previously. The entire neighborhood had been awakened by the approach of what sounded like the entire Chicago fire department as the red trucks came streaming from all over the city toward the big corner building a few blocks away from Yisrael’s home. Sheets of flame were rising to the sky, illuminating the moonless night as the crowds emerged from the tenement buildings to see the firemen fighting the vicious flames. Hoses lay on the pavement crisscrossed over one another like strands of spaghetti in a hopeless jumble. Firemen bravely persevered as they attempted to locate the source of the fire so they could put it out, but with little success.

Yisrael watched alongside half the city as the men ran into the building, only to come flying out, chased by the roaring fire. Yisrael watched, utterly fascinated. Rumor had it that this building was owned by the Mafia, and with some 2,000 firemen there, it seemed accurate. Apparently, the city was giving top priority to this fire. Woe to the little guy who had an electrical fire on the evening of the biggest Mafia fire in Chicago’s history. Slowly, the firemen got the fire under control. They dragged their hoses into the building, emerging from time to time with soot-covered faces to rest their tired shoulders before plunging back in. Realizing that the entertainment was mainly over for the evening, most people went back home to grab a few hours of sleep. Yisrael, however, stood and stared at the building; it was going to need a glazier first thing, and that meant that he had better be there the following day to offer his services.

Morning found a very determined-looking Yisrael waiting outside the deserted building alongside a crowd of onlookers. The building wore a forlorn look, with tiny wisps of smoke still emerging from the windows, but the fire department had given the okay to enter the premises, and even as he stood there some of the building’s inhabitants began arriving to assess their losses. Yisrael approached one of the men in charge, a heavyset man who looked like he spent considerable time in the neighborhood’s Italian restaurants. His paunch, silver hair and the cigar dangling from his fleshy lips clearly marked him as a “heavy” in the family. Sizing up the situation, Yisrael approached.

“Excuse me,” he said to the man, who was a head taller than he was and who glared at him as if he were an annoyance that needed to be gotten rid of.
“Yeah,” the man growled in return, “Waddya want?” Not the most amazing introduction for prospective hiring potential.
“I was wondering,” Yisrael continued, undaunted, “if you’re the boss around here.” The man sized him up from head to toe.
“Let’s say I am,” he said, his gaze returning to the steady line of craftsmen making their entrance into the building, equipped with every kind of building material.
“Then you could use my services,” Yisrael said.
“What do you do?”
“I’m a glazier,” Yisrael said, “and I’ve done work on buildings all around the city.” The man was quiet for a moment.
“Interesting ...” he mused. “Antonio wasn’t able to make it this morning and we do need a glazier right away. But you realize,” he said, staring Yisrael in the eye, “that if you’re no good, just don’t bother even beginning. We have no room for error. Comprende?”

Assuring him that he comprehended, Yisrael followed the man into the building, where they donned hard hats to protect themselves from falling beams and such. The inside of the building was dimly lit; workers struggled with the electricity and mountains of cables scattered haphazardly on the floor. The workers were all shouting at each other, some singing, some yelling, some drinking coffee and eating sandwiches as they fixed the water and the lighting, laid the flooring and began repainting wherever they could, working at top speed to get the building back into shape. Yisrael considered himself extremely lucky to have found this source of steady labor for the foreseeable future, knowing that firemen loved breaking glass, which meant that most of the building’s glass was history. He was kept busy for hours with his tape measure, taking measurements with a professionalism that impressed his hosts and the multitude of workers who kept on coming by.

The morning passed in a whirlwind of work and nonstop activity. They gave him a small break for lunch, which he used for a bite and for davening Mincha. It was afterward that the action really began. He needed to use the bathroom. Without making a big deal about it, he got up, left the group of workers and went looking for a bathroom. Everything was fine. Unbelievably, it was still in perfect working order, despite the fire. It was only when he stopped at the nearest sink to wash his hands that the trouble began.

He opened the faucet and a steady stream of brown liquid came pouring out. He closed it and tried again. Same thing. Yisrael figured that there was a lot of rust in the water and that if he let it run for a few minutes, it would clear up. It didn’t. In fact, the longer he let the faucet run, the more foamy and golden the liquid appeared, until he bent down to smell it and realized without a shadow of a doubt that what he had thought was water was actually beer. In a second, the whole thing became clear to him.

It was the era of Prohibition and beer was ostensibly illegal. That being the case, the big boys in the Mafia had put their best minds to work, coming up with creative and original places to hide the alcohol that they were producing for the masses of American citizens who still wanted a drink. Obviously, someone had come up with the brilliant idea of designating this sink as a faucet for beer. No one would have guessed that it was not a normal faucet and, in fact, being off limits to the average guy on the street, it was the perfect hiding place. Connect the faucet to some huge tank of beer in the basement, write something innocent-sounding on the outside of the tank, and voila! Nobody would ever have suspected that this sink was strictly for beer guzzlers. Obviously, they hadn’t counted on something like the fire.

Yisrael looked around, hoping that nobody had been paying attention to him, but realized with a sinking heart that he’d been under strict surveillance and that “they” knew exactly what he’d seen. In fact, a heated argument was taking place between five men 20 feet away. As he stood there shaking in fear, he was able to overhear snippets of their conversation, which didn’t bode well for the little Jew from Chicago. Not at all.

....................................

Growing up in cosmopolitan Hungary, Yisrael had acquired a rudimentary mastery of quite a number of languages, Italian included, and now he strained to overhear what the men were saying, every inch of his memory occupied with the monumental task of translating words he barely understood. He wasn’t “comprending” everything, but the gist of it was they knew that he had seen their sink and their booze, and that he was in a position to jeopardize their whole operation. It seems that one of the workers had alerted the higher-ups and now the “management” was debating what to do with this dumb Jew who had stumbled into the worst place for a non-member of the “family.”

The argument was heating up and two men in particular were getting more vocal. One of them, a brash, oily-haired thug of about 30 with a nasty-looking scar above his right eyebrow, kept on pointing at Yisrael, making slashing motions with his hands and intoning, “Kapute!” The other, a large man of about 40, more even-tempered than his younger friend, kept making calming motions with his hands in an attempt to put the fire out. The rest of the men were watching the ping-pong match with amused expressions on their faces. Obviously, murder talk was par for the course, a useful when necessary option in certain scenarios.

Yisrael felt his blood turn to ice-cold beer; he shut his eyes and davened with all his heart to the One Above to save him from these vicious murderers, who had no compunction about eliminating him and burying the evidence under the beer still in the basement! In silent horror, he grabbed onto the corner of the sink and began to pray. While he prayed, a corner of his mind was still registering the argument, which had reached a crescendo.

Scarface was screaming “Kill the Jew” in Italian, while the big guy was screaming right back at him. Then Big Guy yelled at the top of his voice that if they were going to kill the Jew, they’d have to kill him first. That almost knocked Yisrael’s socks off! The entire time, he was still holding on to the faucet for dear life. And then he felt the tap on his arm. Yisrael turned around, hoping that everything was under control. The middle-aged Italian was standing beside him, a slight smile on his face.

“Come,” he said, placing his hand on Yisrael’s arm and lightly guiding him over to the side of the room. Somehow, a cup materialized, filled with beer.

“Here, have a drink,” he said quietly. The group of workers watched the proceedings with as much astonishment as Yisrael himself. Apparently they couldn’t get a handle on the big guy’s behavior. The man spoke in a low-pitched, authoritative voice that carried even through the crazy noise of the rebuilding.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said.
“Whatever you want to know,” Yisrael replied, his stomach still heaving violently from his close encounter with death.
“Okay,” the man went on. “Where were you on January 17, 1920?”
“That’s a tough question,” Yisrael replied. “I mean, I can tell you approximately, but that’s about it.”
“Okay,” the Italian said, “so tell me.”
“Well,” Yisrael began, “during the winter of 1920 I was a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, stationed by the Alpine border shared by France, Italy and Austria. It was a terrible time for everyone concerned and I will never forget the atrocities I witnessed during the war. But as to the precise date that you mentioned, I can’t tell you where I was exactly.”

“Never mind,” the Italian said, that strange smile still hovering about his lips. “You don’t have to tell me; I can tell you exactly where you were on that day. There was a great battle on the 16th of January,” the man began. “It was the Italian army versus the Austro-Hungarian army in strenuous and exhausting combat that lasted for many hours. The Italian army had begun the war on the German side, but they had switched over mid-war to the Allies.

“The Italian soldiers fought bravely,” the man went on, “but they were outnumbered and underarmed and the tide of the battle eventually went to the Austrians. The Italians became POWs. Their weapons were confiscated and the Austrians decided to march them to the closest Austrian army base, involving a 10-hour trek on foot through some of the harshest terrain imaginable, somewhere in the middle of the mountains. The Italians were starving and becoming frostbitten and numb; then it began to rain, turning to sleet and hail, until finally it began snowing. Not a nice little snow where the kids go out for a snowball fight and build a snowman with a carrot nose. Far from it!

This was a blizzard, which made it almost impossible to continue walking. The Austrians were well equipped for the weather, but the Italians’ boots were falling apart, and the prisoners struggled along in the snow, which was becoming deeper by the minute. The Austrian soldiers cursed at them, yelling at them to go faster, which made no difference since the Italians were going as fast as they could.”

The Mafia men listened quietly to the big man’s words, absorbing the vivid picture he was painting.
“Well,” he continued, “it was becoming impossible for the Austrians to guard the Italian soldiers — and they knew it. By now, that snow was so thick you couldn’t see the soldier beside you, never mind trying to keep a close watch on a platoon of enemy soldiers that would escape given half a chance! Then one of the Austrian officers had a brilliant idea. Why not kill all the Italian POWs, eliminating the problem just like that, no escort through blinding slow — no more problems. The Austrian soldiers liked the idea, all except for one Jewish soldier.” Here the Italian stopped speaking and looked Yisrael in the eye.

"This one soldier didn’t like the idea and he wasn’t afraid to stand up and protest it in the strongest terms. Would they have to kill the Jew to shut him up? The Austrians didn’t want to do that. But they very much wanted to kill their POWs, and so they began arguing with him.” There were tears in the Italian’s eyes as he looked at Yisrael.

“I stood there, frozen in my soaking wet uniform, watching as you, a lone little Jewish soldier, fought for my life there on the top of the mighty Alps. Like a mountain lion you fought! You yelled and threatened, and when none of that worked, you stood in front of my group of POWs, spread your arms wide and declared: ‘We don’t kill innocent men. If you want to kill these soldiers, you’ll have to kill me first!’ Yes, that’s exactly what you said. And I was looking at you the entire time, through the snow and the hail, and I will never forget your face as you stood there defending me, an unknown Italian soldier, from certain death. And now — now it’s my turn to defend you and save your life the way that you saved mine.”

*As heard from Reb Ari Gottesman