What’s that? Not every landlord is the same? I agree! There are bad landlords, worse landlords, and downright disgusting landlords. But one thing you have to hand to them is that they are predictable: they look after their priorities and their first priority is . . . demanding the rent! It seems that landlords, like bosses, are a diverse group—dogs with big ears and dogs with small ears.

Now let me tell you about my landlords in the places I’ve lived.

I’ll start with my first landlord in Brownsville. Folks called him the “Semi-Jew” because he had half a beard.

Several legends surrounded his beard. Someone said that, back in the old country, a pogromist burned half of it off. Another said he was cursed by his grandfather because his father went around with shikses. A third suggested it was because he sat around all day scratching his chin, plotting how to buy up the whole block. These were all legends that were told.

But there’s one story about that beard that’s no legend. I heard he went to collect the rent from a neighbor one day and didn’t give a receipt, then came back two days later demanding the rent again. The neighbor fainted from anger. Reaching for something so he wouldn’t fall, he grabbed the landlord’s beard, and that’s how half the beard ended up in the tenant’s hand, while the other half stayed on the landlord’s face!          

However the story went, before he was a landlord, he worked as a matchmaker, a bread baker, and a law-breaker. He pulled together enough money to throw up a few walls, built a house, and started knocking on doors asking for rent.

My second landlord was what you’d call “a gentleman.” First, he came for the rent on the second, and second, he was simply a man who loved his tenants. There was not a month that he didn’t come around with two black eyes from the neighborhood women on account of his great affection for them. I mean that when he came for the rent, he tried to kiss them. They didn’t like this very much—such ungrateful tenants he had . . . I must say, sometimes a landlord isn’t just a pig—he’s an ass.

Now, my third landlord was a cultured man. When he came for the rent, he always carried off a couple of books. It seemed he was also somewhat musical because I once pulled three records out from under his coat—two Carusos and one Mischa Elman.

The fourth landlord was an outright crook—he could steal a man’s socks right out of his shoes. The tenants had a good reason to keep silent when he came into the house—he could easily steal a gold tooth from the inside of your mouth.

My fifth landlord was, as we say, a family man. He’d come by when we were eating, and didn’t wait to be invited in. If we said “come eat!” he’d sit down at the table—if we didn’t say anything, he’d pull up a chair anyway. He was always trying to connect with his tenants. For example, he connected a pipe to one of his tenants’ gas meter—so the tenant paid his bill. He did the same thing with the electric to a second neighbor. In this way, he became one with his tenants.

My sixth landlord, in the last place I lived, was an old bachelor—or as he was known around the neighborhood, “the old goat”. The old goat was very stingy. When he came for the rent, he’d climb three or four steps at a time, to save his shoes and keep the stairs intact. Not to mention he didn’t even trust himself, he’d count the bricks several times a day just to make sure, God forbid, nobody had pulled one out of the wall.

This landlord was also my tenant, he rented one of the four rooms that I rented from him . . .

He’d come for his money the first of the month, but if I asked for his rent on the third or fourth, he’d scream that I was pressuring him.

Every month we had the same struggle. He’d insist that when I gave him the rent, he’d pay me my rent. I’d yell back that when he paid my rent, I’d give him his!

And so one fine day, this landlord ordered me to move out of all the rooms, and the next day, an officer came with a couple of guys and tried to throw me out. In the end, an officer threw all of my things into the street and I, with the others, threw out the landlord’s stuff. In the evening, when the landlord came home, he was in for a surprise. The tenant committee was moving my stuff back into the rooms, and we threw him—the landlord—out in the street!

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‘Landlords’ is taken from Sam Liptzin’s She Sold Her Husband and Other Satirical Sketches, published by Farlag Press. The volume contains 21 sketches, selected and translated by Zeke Levine, originally published in the American Yiddish press.

Sam Liptzin (1893–1980) was a self-proclaimed “radical humorist.” Born in Lipsk, Belarus, Liptzin moved to the United States in 1909 and became active in leftist politics as an organiser, speaker, and writer. For much of his career, he wrote a regular column in the Morgen Freiheit, the Yiddish Communist journal. With a career continuing until the 1970s, Liptzin published twenty-eight volumes of short stories, poems, songs and aphorisms.

Zeke Levine is a New York City based musician, musicologist, and translator. His work focuses on American culture of the twentieth century, with particular attention to the development of Yiddish-American music.

Farlag Press is a non-profit small press based in France specialising in translations from Yiddish. Twitter: @FarlagPress