EXCERPTED from a TALK by DR. HARRY SANDS of New York City
on the 100^th ANNIVERSARY of THE KOPATKEVITCHER AID SOCIETY

Meine tierer landsleit! We are here today to celebrate the Kopatkevitcher Aid Society's 100th anniversary. What a joy this is.

Every other Saturday night, throughout my childhood, my father went off to meetings of the Kopatkevitcher Aid Society. This Society was founded in 1905 to help immigrants get settled in America. There were many such societies, but this one was for those who came from the little Russian shtetl of Kopatkevitch. There was hardly anything that could stop my father from going to his Saturday night meetings with his landsleit to schmooze and exchange news. He proudly wore the Kopatkevitcher pin on each of his jacket lapels. The enameled logo had the words, "Kopatkevitcher Aid Society," arranged in a horseshoe around the oval border and pictured two unfurled flags with crossing staves, one the American flag and the other, a Kopatkevitch flag.

For a while, my father chaired the Hospitaler Committee. They visited sick Society members who were at home or in the hospital
and gave them the Society's six-dollar weekly benefit, paid to them for as long as they were unable to work. My dad also served
on the Chevra Kadisha, as the chairman of the Burial Committee. When a member died, the committee members went to the home of the
deceased, washed the body, put ice around it and watched over it until the undertaker came to placed the body in a casket to take
it to the cemetery. Every member whose dues were paid up was provided a burial plot, reserved for them and their family in a special section of Montefiore Cemetery on Long Island.

As a result of my father's position in the Society, I learned that it is forbidden in the Jewish religion to leave a corpse
unattended. A Society member stayed with the body at the dead person's home until burial time. Jews are buried the day after
they die and cannot be buried on the Sabbath, but if they die between Friday night at sunset and Saturday night at sunset,
then they had to be buried on Sunday, and the body had to be watched the entire time. As a member of the Chevra Kadisha, this
job often fell on my father.

One of the stories he told my brothers and me was about watching one particular body on a Friday night. There he was at member's
home sitting in an armchair in the living room looking at the newspaper. The body was laying three feet away on a table covered
by a white sheet, which hung over the edge. The only light that was on in the room was the one my father used for reading. It was
about two o'clock in the morning when he heard a noise coming from the deceased, and at that very moment the white sheet that
covered the body moved. Dad stood straight up from his chair trembling with fear. He was alone. He broke out in a cold sweat and
his face turned as white as the sheet in front of him. Without making a sound, he tiptoed over to the body and ever-so-slightly
lifted the edge of the sheet. He jumped back as the family's cat ran out from under it! My father said that he
nearly fainted. When he finished telling us this story we were scared out of our wits and felt confident we didn't ever want to
serve on that committee. I was surprised when I heard my father tell this story, because I had always believed my dad was fearless.

I learned many things from my father's position in the Society. Since my parents, Lena and Morris Sandrowitz, were immigrants
from Kopatkevitch, the Society was the basis of their social life. It was an integral part of their lives and mine, so I have
written about these experiences in my memoir. I am happy to be here celebrating the Society's 100th Anniversary.