Personal Stories

Bella Nussbaum

by

Daniel Nussbaum II

My mother, aleha hashalom, Bella Yapha Teplitzky Nussbaum, was born in the Ukraine in the early part of the twentieth century. After living through the Russian Revolution, considered the worst thing to ever happen to the Jewish people prior to the Holocaust, my mother escaped with her parents and sisters by walking across the frozen Dniester River.

After many adventures, which included spending a night in a Bucharest, Rumanian jail, my mother arrived in Brooklyn where she worked in a sweat shop. Later, she decided to go to nursing school and applied to Mount Sinai Hospital. However, that hospital did not take immigrant girls, especially from Eastern Europe; the staff recommended that she apply to Beth Israel. This she did and was accepted as a student; in due course my mother became a Registered Nurse.

For a long time it looked like Mom was fated to be a spinster, until she was introduced to my father, a Yekkey. At that time Yekkeys were known as "refugees". Within a month of being introduced, they were married and remained together until she died.

Because my father had been a cattle merchant, a common occupation among the Jews of southern Germany, my mother's brother-in-law, manager of a New Jersey dairy farm, offered my father a job. Dad took it and he and his bride moved to New Jersey where they remained for the rest of their lives.

Though my mother did not cook much, among her best recipes was "zhakoya", which others have told me is a Ukrainian pot roast.

My son, who is a Hollywood director, has videotaped my father, allow hashalom, telling his story. A copy of it is now in the Jewish museum in Berlin. Unfortunately, my mother died before my son was born and, consequently, there is no record of my mother's experiences in Russia. I think her story would be as interesting as that of my father.