There are family stories that become part of one's identity and part of the identity of a nation, long before one fully understands their significance.
In Robbie Goldstein's family, one of those stories began in a neighborhood hardware store, "West End Hardware," her family's business, which stood at the corner of 63rd and West Avenue, in West Philadelphia. What began as a family business became, for a time, part of a much larger story of Jewish determination, Zionism, and the desperate struggle to build a Jewish state which, ultimately, became intertwined with the struggle for the establishment of the State of Yisrael.
The old wooden cabinets and century-old oak floors of "West End Hardware" held tools, plumbing supplies, electrical equipment. Unbeknown to many, they were also stockpiled with, firearms and ammunition. During the years leading up to Yisrael's War of Independence in 1948, Robbie's family became involved in an effort to obtain and transport weapons for the Jewish forces fighting for Yisrael's survival, during its Independence War.
One of Robbie's sweet memories of the place was its atmosphere. The solid oak floors which were about a hundred years old, carried the unmistakable smell of decades of wood-floor cleaning oil. Along the walls were wooden cabinets built by her great-grandfather and grandfather. They contained an extraordinary assortment of things: tools, hardware, electrical supplies—and, among the items associated with the firearms we sold, bullets, gun-cleaning solvents, holsters and other supplies.
To many, it may seem unusual to imagine a hardware store selling firearms. But at that time, it was not an uncommon practice. There were relatively few sporting-goods stores and specialized gun shops or gunsmiths. Hardware stores often served a much broader purpose. Alongside supplies for builders, contractors, carpenters, cabinetmakers, roofers, electricians and plumbers, some also sold and serviced firearms.
"My father was an avid firearms collector and an NRA-certified pistol and rifle instructor" Robbie shared with me during our telephone conversation. "He and my uncle eventually became deeply involved in the firearms side of the business."
The story of "West End Hardware" began with her grandparents and great-grandparents long before that.
Robbie's great-grandfather was a Jewish Egyptian coppersmith. Her grandfather, Dovid, was an electrician. The family had come to the United States when Egypt following the riots of 1882 when life there had become increasingly unsafe for Jews. Fearing for their lives, they left Egypt behind and came to America seeking a safe harbour.
They eventually built a quiet and successful life in Philadelphia.
While her great-grandfather worked on the copper vats at "Abbott's Dairy," Robbie's grandfather became an electrician and worked on some of Philadelphia's great suspension bridges, including the Betsy Ross and Walt Whitman bridges. In fact, he held the third card in the electricians' union.
His work was not without danger. His work required pulling electrical cables through pipes which laid beneath the Delaware River. The technique was as ingenious as it was hazardous. A wire was tied to a ferret's tail, and a rat was placed into the tunnel. The ferret was then released and, chasing the rat, would pull the cable through the pipe to the New Jersey side of the river. Both the rats and the ferrets could bite. These tasks left his hands deeply scarred.
Part of his work also demanded climbing the enormous heights of the suspension bridges.
Naturally, Robbie's grandmother, Jenny, was terrified by the challenged dangers her husband that Dovid's work presented. She worried about him working high above the river and handling dangerous electrical jobs. Eventually, she decided that enough was enough.
She persuaded him to buy a hardware store. That is how the "West End Hardware" was born.
A Hardware Store With a Machine Shop
"West End Hardware" sold almost everything a working tradesman might need: tools and materials for builders and contractors, supplies for carpenters, locksmiths, electricians, plumbers and roofers—and firearms.
Robbie's father, eventually inherited his father's shop. His mechanical skills drove him to take the business to another level. He was a mechanical genius who invented mechanisms for doors hardware and locks. He could repair complicated instruments, manufacture replacement parts in our machine shop and even restore tools dating back to the 1700s.
He also understood firearms.
He knew how to disassemble different types of guns, modify and fit them for particular purposes, and put them back together again. His knowledge, combined with the capabilities of the machine shop, made the store adaptable to engaging in chores that went far beyond the ordinary work of a neighbourhood hardware business.
Then history intervened.
Grandmother Jenny and the Struggle for Yisrael
While her grandfather and father were building the business, Jenny was deeply involved in another cause: Jewish survival and the establishment of a Jewish state.
Jenny was a strong, active woman and a committed Zionist. She gathered members of the family, enlisted their help and organized efforts to sell Yisraeli bonds.
When grandma Jenny realized that selling bonds was not enough, she decided to join the Bergson Group, headed by Hillel Kook, who operated under the name Peter Bergson. The group brought together Jewish American activists and members of the Irgun. Among those associated with it were Aryeh Ben-Eliezer, Yitzhak Ben-Ami, Alexander Rafaeli, Shmuel Merlin and Eri Jabotinsky.
The Bergson Group fought relentlessly to draw attention to the plight of European Jewry and to pressure the American government to take action against the Jewish genocide by the Nazis, what later became known as The Shoah. Jenny realized that saving Jewish lives required actions and not merely words. Her commitment was what eventually brought Robbie's family direct involvement in the struggle for Yisrael's independence.
From Surplus Equipment to Something Much Bigger
World War II had left the United States with enormous quantities of military surplus equipment. Machinery and other military goods were advertised for sale, often at a fraction of their original cost.
Robbie's father and grandfather expressed an interest in acquiring some of that equipment for the family machine shop.
Among the items they purchased were two enormous naval-surplus table lathes. Each was approximately twelve feet long and had come from the machine shop of a submarine. The chucks, alone, weighed about twenty-five pounds. These machines had originally been bolted securely to the submarine's floor. A submarine's machinery had to remain firmly anchored because of the movement of the vessel, the force of ocean currents and the violent maneuvers required to evade torpedoes.
These massive pieces eventually found their way into her family business.
At the time, none of them knew how significant that equipment would become.
The War of 1948
As the struggle for Jewish statehood intensified, Robbie's family became involved in helping obtain weapons for the Jewish forces in Eretz Yisrael.
Everyone understood that any shipments of weapons destined for the nascent state had to be concealed and delivered clandestinely.
The operation was run through her family's hardware store. The same store where customers came to buy tools, plumbing supplies, electrical equipment and hardware became, behind the scenes, part of an effort connected to the coming war in British controlled Eretz Yisrael (AKA Palestine, at that time).
For Robbie's family, this was not simply politics. It was personal.
They had left Egypt for fear for their lives and had moved to America where they built a safer and better life. Now, another Jewish community, far away, was fighting for the right to have a homeland of its own.
"West End Hardware" provided the physical setting where these different strands of the family history came together.
What happened there took the family's business far beyond the ordinary life of a Philadelphia hardware store. It became a bustling place of covert activities where weapons had to be hidden, prepared and moved surreptitiously as part of a clandestine effort to arm Jewish forces in their fight to establish the one and only Jewish state.
