Blog 2

Journal Entry 127                                                    July 3 1840

   Dear Journal, well here I am with my family still on voyage to America. I have heard that it truly is a wonderful place, I will miss mother Russia, she was bad, but it was tolerable. Papa said it was going to get worse, so we might as well get the jump on the rush of people that will want to go as well. Ah the trip is taking longer than I thought, and mama is having an ordeal with watching over little Raz, ah my sister she is a feisty one, no! Since I am the oldest and Granpapa is so very old I am left to protect Yakon, but he is a sickly child and he worries me sometimes. This ride to see my father’s brother, uncle Jebediah before we leave to our new home has been a grueling one. We wanted to see him at Germany and then continue west to leave by boat from France.

   I am still unsure of the name of our new home; I might have overheard mama say something about “New York”? What an odd name, and I wonder where Old York is? Well that probably is not important now. I also stay up at night wondering how things will turn out; will there be many like us? I am going to be 12 soon, and I would like to have many friends to celebrate my birthday!

   The path we have taken is the longer one of two, I argued with papa about why he chose this one but he said we would have fewer problems since less people would take it. He said some people would not like us, what did he mean by that? What would they not like, that we are immigrating, or that we are Jewish? We have been going and papa was right we have seen so few people on this track but I feel so tired. I do not understand why we have to go by foot.

   I have heard that in America a very important holiday is coming up, something about independence? I know we will not get there in time but we should get use to their customs, no? I was fighting with Yakon and then I heard mama yell “Zachariah Shelomo Auspitz Arensburg!” and she only does this when she is truly mad, so then papa told her to calm down so we would not attract too much attention. Well that is all that happened today, I guess I will write more tomorrow.