Lest I Forget

Virginia Raphaelson Felson

This is the story of the most unforgettable man I have ever known, my father, Jacob Raphaelson.

To begin, in his older age, Jake looked like Albert Einstein: flowing white hair, shaggy eyebrows, cool but soft eyes, deep, deep jowls, and lots and lots of wrinkles.

One day we were sitting in an ice cream parlor in North Carolina. A crowd of people gather outside and were pointing at him. As we were leaving, one young girl ventured up to him and asked, “Are you Mr. Einstein?” “yes,” he answered in a soft friendly voice. The girl beamed. “May we take your picture?” “Of course.”

“Dad,” we later asked him, “Why did you tell that girl you were Mr. Einstein?”

“Why not?” he answered. “It didn’t hurt me, and see how happy it made them.”

“Unforgettable,” you ask. “Why unforgettable?” As his third daughter, I must tell you that I am not the only one who used this or an equivalent adjective to describe him. It’s an adjective anyone who had ever known or talked with him might use. Unforgettable for the 96 years of his life, for his humor, philosophy, resourcefulness, patience, curiosity, friendliness, scholarship, honesty, and generosity, and above all, for his 60 years of dedication and research to his mission in life: the prevention of school myopia. His conviction and conclusion were that poor vision and health were aggravated by eye doctors who conventionally fit children with minor or concave lenses rather than plus or convex lenses. He believed that eyes were made worse instead of better by minus correction and that many health problems resulted. I will elaborate on this subject later.

Jacob Raphaelson wrote his autobiography; it was in 9 “cycles”, many of which were incomplete. I will quote excerpts from it to illustrate the flavor of the man, his humor, his personality, his profundity.

Jake was born in Yaneva, province of Kovna, in Lithuania, in a small house on an unpaved street in the month of January or December about the 20th day of Tavath, around 1876. No one knew the exact date or year of his birth. One incident of his early youth he remembers well, but with shame.

It happened on the holy day of Rosh Hashanah, in the middle of a long silent prayer, called Smeno esray. This is a combination of 18 prayers in one, with a special beginning and ending. You chant it silently, standing up, with your heels together, your toes apart. During the entire prayer you are not allowed to speak or answer when spoken to. You move your body only in the special ritual movements. You are not allowed to move your feet until the last verse, then you move them backwards three paces while chanting the last verse, ‘Maker of peace in His heaven. So He shall make peace to us and to all of Israel, and we say Amen.’ This prayer is repeated three times daily. It takes a pious Jew about 10 minutes to chant it. On Saturday and Sunday there are additions. But on Rosh Hashonah it is lengthened tenfold and lasts an hour.

It was in the middle of this long prayer that I felt I had to let my water go. There I was, a lonely little boy about seven years old, standing in the aisle of the synagogue with my prayer book in my hands, surrounded by devout worshipers. I was in a dilemma it was a conflict between the ritual and the physical. I continued the prayer, hoping would be able to hold out to the end. But soon I felt my leg getting wet, then I notice a pool of water beside me. I dropped my prayer book and ran out of the synagogue. It was well my father was absent. It was good that my mother sat upstairs and could not see my predicament. But it was a lesson to me: shame could emanate from over-piety and devotion.

Later Jake writes,

I had a father, and I didn’t have a father. Practically speaking I had none. He lived 1000 miles away. He wrote no letters, he sent no support money. It was mother who supported and took care of her 5 children. Actually, she took care of 4 since one of my sisters lived with grandma. Actually it was not father who ran away, it was mother! Not because he didn’t support her or was cruel, but because she was more devoted to her God than to her husband.

She refused to live with him in an irreligious town, inhabited by too few Jews, in a place where her children might forget their pious upbringing. She moved away to a larger city. She taught girls Hebrew and sold yeast. This enabled her to make a meager living and support her family.

In Yaneva there were four or five sectional synagogues in different parts of town. There was a small sect, called Chassidim, which believed that God liked singing, religious merrymaking and dancing more than studying and arguing about his Torah and Talmud. This sect had a cloiz or Synagogue which I visited several times. I liked their singing and dancing better than I liked our whining and arguing. But I was what I was. I was a smart little boy who had to become a Talmud boy, a Rabbi. I was about 10 years old.

There were a few activities for a boy in a small town. Kids made marbles out of clay and played with them. Sometimes we crossed the River Viliya on the ferry, or swam in it. We tried to ride the rafts that went down the river to be sold to the Germans. On Purim, a holiday celebrating the time of Queen Esther, who outsmarted Hamen and freed her people, we received little presents and were able to earn a few kopeks by making deliveries. I remember that free schnapps were given in the homes of the prosperous after prayer in the synagogue. Once I followed some men into a home and received a few free drinks. I became so ill, I resolved then and there to never have more than one drink, and to practice moderation for the rest of my life.

And so he did.

A few skills were also learned by this little boy. He learned to carve wooden tops or draidles, which were used on Purim. They would mold zinc and lead to the tips of the top. He learned to carve chess sets and boxes to keep the chess men in. He tried to tinker with clocks, but did poorly and quit.

Nearly all Jewish parents spent part of their meager income on educating at least one boy in the family, usually the eldest. Sometimes girls received a little education; usually only a religious education was provided, occasionally a secular one.

Jacob’s older brother, Mendel, was the favored one. He went to school. Jake stayed at home and was taught Hebrew by his mother but taught himself other subjects. His sister belonged to a rental book club, and he borrowed and read her books. He taught himself to solve puzzles, to tie and untie knots, to darn, knit, and sew, to ice skate, to climb, and to swim. He hated Cheder or religious school, but was forced to go. However, by passing a test at age 11, he was able to skip over the middle grades and go directly to the Yeshiva. Here he studied the Talmud, a combination of 66 religious books that one had to know in order to become an ordained Orthodox rabbi. It was studied day and night. It consisted mostly of Jewish law, a little ancient science, a smattering of history, and many ancient tales.

My father had come back after a 7 year separation. He tried to again become head of our family, to teach me and control his children. He often beat me for the slightest infraction and once beat me publicly at my school for skipping classes. My grudge was growing and he soon realized and resigned himself to his loss of authority. When I was about 11, he took me to my new school on the train. We were on our way to Slabodka where I was to be a Talmud student. My father heard a whistle, tried to get tried to get past the guard and rush to the train. The guard stopped him. He tried to get under the guard’s arms. Again he was stopped. It dawned on me then and there that my father was not a man to depend upon. The whistle had sounded, but it was not for the train to Slabodka. My father left me at the train and I was on my own again.

Slabodka was a new and larger city. I was going there to study because free food was furnished to all poor Talmud students. Pious women went from door to door, collecting bread. They also kept a huge copper pot full of soup for the students 5 days a week. My father had relatives in this city but they gave me a cold shoulder. My mother’s family promised me the Sabbath meal on Friday night. Because of their unfriendliness I decided at age 11 to live and study as a stranger. Thus I survived.

Since study came to me easily, I became very independent and adventuresome. I roamed and explored the city. I visited all the markets, towers and churches. Once I removed my hat in church, a very irreligious act for a pious 12 year old. I slept on a bench in the Synagogue and used my coat for a cover, my sleeves for my pillow. Here I contracted a disease often found on poor Talmud boys. Blisters, boils or cysts grew between my fingers. But when I swam in the river they disappeared. Whether this was athlete’s feet on my hands I never found out.

When I was 13 I became Bar Mitzvah. This means a religious change from a young boy to a young man, a change of responsibility for god’s commandments from the parents to the boy himself. I promised to keep all 613 commandments. The Tasyag commands are only part of the bond; there were as many thou shalts as there were thou shalt nots. Only the pious and the rabbis are supposed to know them all. In America, when a boy is Bar Mitzvah he reads a portion of the Torah, then gives a memorized speech. This is followed by a party in his honor with wine and refreshments and lots of present. Everyone is happy. I suppose it includes God himself. When I was a Bar Mitzvah there were no witnesses, no wine, no presents.

At age 14, Jake rebelled. He pretended to be studying only religious subjects, but in reality he was reading and studying Russian, German, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, geography, social sciences and labor problems. He taught himself and borrowed books from friends preparing to enter college.

He joined a study group of socialist revolutionary students and learned their songs and slogans. At age 16 he saw his first protest against the government and saw the dire consequences.

It all happened on the outskirts of the town and the main road to Yaneva. It was because of an increase in the price of bread. There had been a wheat crop failure in Germany, so Germans were willing to pay higher prices for Russian wheat. Wilkomer, my town, was surrounded by wheat country. Wheat was hauled in many small wagons the short distance to Germany. Since so much wheat was sent there, the price of bread went up in Wilkomer. Small gangs of Russian boys began to protest. They intercepted the wagons at night. Sacks of grain were cut and the grain scattered. The government then decided to give the grain owners a safe convoy and ship all the grain at one time. I did not understand until later that the peasants and farmers did not receive a penny of the higher prices. The increase all went to the owners of the land; meanwhile the price of bread went up in Wilkomer and the peasants had to pay more for their own bread. This conflict between owner and peasant made a deep impression on me and taught me that things are not always what they seem on the surface.

Jacob earned his first salary at the age of 14 or 15, in Wildomer. Here he taught Hebrew to a family’s children and received, in addition to three meals a week, ten kopeks. By eating herring and bread the other four days, he was able to save enough kopeks to by his first book. A book of his very own!

One day his father came to Wilkomer looking for him. Jacob thought his father wanted to punish him or take him away. He hid. Actually, he later learned, his father only wanted to tell him that some of the family were moving to America, and a ticket would be sent to the children left behind as soon as it was possible.

Two years later a ticket was sent to sister Anna, a ticket to take her from Hamburg, Germany to New York, plus 8 rubles, worth about eight dollars. This was insufficient to get Anna to Hamburg, so Jacob asked his sister to let him have the ticket and in some way he would work his way to Hamburg, perhaps by getting a job on one of the rafts being sent to Germany. She did. Jacob thereafter always felt warm and loyal to her. He used to tell me that she enabled him to escape from Russia to come to America.

For one rubel he obtained a passport under his grandfather’s name, Yonkel Melamed of Slabodka, instead of his father’s name Raphaelovitch. In spite of his slight build and soft hands, he got a job on a raft going down the river to Germany. The first stop was Tilsit. He gave the head raftsman one rubel and was a freeman!

Jacob writes,

I had 13 rubels and a ship ticket from Hamburg to New York. I paid 1 rubel for a train to Konigberg, a rubel for a boat ride to Linbeckthen, and finally arrived in Hamburg by train with a couple of rubels left.

He quickly changed these for forty marks.

Several unfortunate events occurred on his journey. He hid his ticket and a few rubels on the raft, but later in the day he was unable to find his raft. He was very nearsighted and all the rafts looked alike. He looked for five or six hours and finally found it. In Hamburg he had to wait because his boat had left the day before. He was sent to a detention camp. It seems that a cholera plague had broken our somewhere in the East and the authorities feared the immigrants would bring the plague into Germany. Jacob slept on a table in the camp for a week, hiding his ticket and rubels carefully so as not to be robbed. He foolishly offered a young man, somewhat older than he was and who had no place to sleep, half of his table. On the day of his departure, all of his marks were gone. Only a few pfenigs remained. This taught him that doing a good deed did not always have good results. Down to his last pfennig, he held on to it. “I did not want to arrive in America, my new home, without a penny in my pocket.”

Actually Jacob did not embark for America from Hamburg, after all. Once again the boat had sailed a day earlier and his ticket had to be exchanged for one from Rotterdam, Holland. Consequently he had to spend another week sleeping n the detention camp.

After a tiresome journey, steerage class, in a crowded boat, Jake arrived in New York. The Statue of Liberty was there but Ellis Island, or so he recollected, was not yet used. Somehow he found his Uncle Malloch, who took him home to his apartment in NY. Here he slept on the rood with other children. In three days his uncle secured for him from the Jewish agency a ticket on a boat to Fall River, Mass. Here he was reunited with his family. He was almost 17 and about to begin a new life!

His brother, Harry (formerly Mendel) had a good job as a weaver. He earned fourteen dollars for a fifty hour week. Jacob tried to work as a weaver but because of his poor eyesight had to take a job in a cotton mill at $5.39 per week. Most of the money went to his mother. Some went into savings to help send for his sister. Two years later his sister arrived. She had been working as a seamstress.

After two years there was a depression and Jake’s salary was cut to $496 a week. He realized then that he must get some other job. In the meantime he went to night school. He could read German, Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew, but could only speak Yiddish. He had to learn to speak English in order to become a salesman. This way he could be his own boss.

He purchased some notions, writing paper, and stockings and walked over much of West Virginia with a pack on his back. He bought into the butcher business with a relative, but because of his eyesight couldn’t cut the meat very well and lost most of his savings. So it was back to peddling. After several years of walking in rain, he developed rheumatic pains in his knees and decided again he must do something different.

Somehow, somewhere, he received his first pair of glasses. This was a pair of minus 3.50 diopters for distance, but it opened up a whole new world. New he decided he would be an eye doctor. So at 21 years of age he enrolled in his first public school, took and exam and was put in the 8th grade. He took medical books from the library, but found that when he read for a long time with his distance glasses his eyes burned and he had lots of pain. So he reluctantly gave up the idea of becoming a doctor.

Eyeglasses, however, had caught his imagination. He ordered some glasses, rented an eye chart, bought some spoons and a bicycle, and went around the countryside selling glasses and spoons. The glasses became much a successful item that he soon gave up selling spoons.

A book by William Bohn titled “A Handbook for Opticians” printed in 1895 explained the basic theories know at that time about the eyes. He easily mastered this book by himself. After all, he had been a Talmud student all of his life!

Many grateful customers became his friends and recommended him to others. In this way he built up his clientele and reputation. For two years he sold glasses, riding his bicycle from town to town. In 1900 he decided he must go to optical school and selected one in Chicago. In several months he had mastered all the books recommended, took the examination, and received his diploma “Doctor of Optometry.”

He next bought a horse and buggy and soon after opened his first office in Prophetstown, Iowa.

Dr. Raphaelson was short, of slight build, poor and bashful, but he knew he wanted to marry and have a family. He tried to court several girls. He was finally introduced to a tall, stately, pretty girl of good family from Newport, Ky. “I went to visit the family in Newport. The father was a learned man. I fell in love with the youngest daughter, Beckie, but had to marry Ida, the eldest.”

Later in life, he confessed to me that he was fooled. He thought Ida played the piano, but subsequently learned she only knew two pieces. Also she had a beautiful handwriting, and he thought she might be very intellectual. Again she fooled him, she was a homebody, a frugal girl, but not intellectually inclined! They settled in Iowa.

Jake, always curious about new ideas and places, wanted to move with his best friend to Oklahoma City, but Ida wanted to move back to Kentucky near her family. “To think,” Jake writes, “my best friend went to Oklahoma City, discovered oil and became a millionaire. I was to be his partner. Even so, I never blamed Ida.”

In Newport, KY he opened an optometry shop, fitted glasses and ground lenses. He remained in Kentucky until he was about 55 years of age, when he moved his family across the river to Cincinnati. Three girls were born to Ida and Jacob. Nettie, who died at age thirty, Selma who became one of the first women lawyers graduated from University of Cincinnati Law School, and myself.

Interestingly, Selma at age 5 could not talk. Only her sister Nettie could understand her. For example, when her sister recited my “dollie is a Japanese”, Selma would mimic her only using vowels. She could not pronounce consonants. There were no doctors or speech therapists to help or understand. For two years, Dr R. taught Selma to talk. An article in the Ky Post, 1912, explained his method. If anyone cares to read it. “Teaching Selma to Talk” by Dr. J. Raphaelson.

Pouring over his memoirs of 90 years, I found many things I knew nothing about. I found Letters to the Editor protesting a variety of injustices; letters to congressmen protesting company strike breakers. I found patents for bifocals and trifocals he had made, maps of Cincinnati and plans for city expansion which he studied in order to purchase lots to make some money. He bought land that would some day become valuable. For example, he owned a lot on Central Parkway before the Parkway was built. I found articles and journals on eyes and prevention of myopia from all over the world. He was always studying and always looking for ways to prevent loss of vision and to protect the eyes. At this time he seriously began study and research on the effects of minus or concave lenses and plus or convex lenses on one’s eyes and health. He visited many grade school classrooms. I also found out that he ran for State School Board of Ky and was Secretary of the Socialist Part of the State of Ky.

At age 22 Jacob had been fitted with his first pair of glasses, 3.50 minus. At first they were a pleasure to use since they opened up a world that had previously been blurred. But he soon found out that when they were used for reading and study, his eyes became sore and inflamed. A physician advised stronger minus glasses. Instead Dr. R. used positive ones. His vision improved so much he began to prescribe plus lenses for children. Often he found their eyes improved. However, their parents would respond, “I guess my child never needed glasses at all.” He wrote, “A child could see the blackboard better with minus lenses, but his eyes got worse and he needed stronger and stronger minus lenses.” For sixty years he followed and studied eyes of patients and friends, and concluded that nervousness and many diseases were aggravated by minus glasses.

In 1937 he published his first book, School Myopia. In 1956 he formed a non profit organization which he called Research Foundation for the Prevention of Myopia.. His other books were: Your glasses and your eyes, 1956; A prevention and remedy for school myopia, 1958; Spectacle hobby, 1961.

He became a member of the Ky Optical Assn and the American Optometric Assn. Jake tried for many years to interest others in supporting further research of his methods of treating myopia but with little success. I found among his papers many “thank you” letters from patients suffering from eye trouble and headaches whom he had helped. I also found responses from eye doctors and optometrists to whom he had sent his books. Some wrote angry letters, called him a quack, some praised his findings but said he would never convince the medical profession of his ideas.

In his memoirs I found writings and articles of medical men who had written on the same subject and had drawn the same conclusions. One was Agraf Wiser, M.D., a German ophthalmologist who lived from 1881-1938. He was a lawyer who became a doctor and ran an eye clinic in Bonn. His revolutionary ideas brought him criticism and ridicule in Germany. He moved to Weisbaden, then to Manaco. He had patients from all over the world came to him. He finally moved to Badeilson where he ran a large eye clinic. His book Prevention and cure of diseases of the eye is still available in English from Bruno Wilken Publishing Co. in Hanover, Germany. Unfortunately, Dr. Wiser’s work and writings never brought about acceptance of his ideas by the medical profession.

In Australia, a Dr. Brumer (see reference below) in 1977 attempted to deliver a paper on his clinical experiences with positive lenses for myopia. His paper was refused at a scientific meeting in Melbourne. He was told his theories were too radical and undocumented. He wrote, “I feel the professional establishment doesn’t want the boat rocked.” Br. Brumer staged a silent protest during the opening speech at the convention by holding up a placard with the word SHAME written on it!

Dr. Brumer during a radio broadcast said: “The situation is similar to the reaction of the tobacco companies when someone first mentioned that smoking was a health hazard. There is just an enormous coverup going on.” Of personal interest, my eldest son, Steve, who lives in Israel was playing tennis with a young doctor who turned out to be Dr. Brumer’s son. My sister later contacted the elder Dr. Brumer, sent him Father’s books and he sent her all of his articles. He recently died a very frustrated man in Australia.

In 1974 a new organization was formed called The International Myopic

Prevention Association (IMPA). It publishes a newsletter. The Editor is Donald Rehm, RD 5 Box 171, Legionier, Penn 15658. All of Dr. Raphaelson’s books were sent to the Editor along with a large monetary contribution by my sister. I know of no other organization publishing theories similar to my father’s.

IMPA maintains a list of those practitioners who have expressed concern and commitment to myopic prevention by plus glasses, and states that we should have prevention clinics all over the US in optometric and other health centers.

Dr. R. once wrote, “Parents are as must to blame as doctors. Parents do not want their children to wear preventive glasses until their distant vision has already failed. They then want glasses to see farther, to see the blackboard. Preventive plus glasses blur a little at first, until the eye relaxes and distance vision is restored. I quote, “The universally accepted idea that vision is performed without use of energy is false. Our eyes do not just see, they work to see. Very close or prolonged close vision will tire the eyes, as well as our entire body. Minus glasses act as a stimulant and seem to give temporary relief, but in the long run they hurt our general health. They cramp our eyes, are habit forming, waste energy, and are a contributory cause of nervousness, headaches and other ailments. The more you wear them, the less you see with your naked eye.” since no one was able to carry on Dr. R.’s work, the foundation died with him.

The last 13 years of his life, Jake believed he was a lamed vovnick. Now a

lamed vovnick is an unknown sage, one of thirty-six sages that are born in each generation. During these years his behavior appeared to some to be somewhat unusual. Perhaps I should say peculiar.

He once sent a telegram to the President advising him to build a wall to divide Viet Nam. When such a wall was later built, he said, “You see, he took my advice!” Before the PWA projects were started during the Great Depression Jake telegraphed FDR advising him to start a public works program to end the depression. When the program was instigated, he told me, “You see, the President listened to me. He took my advice!”

The last major idea he had that I remember was to build a Peace University, invite students from all countries to study ways of attaining peace in the world. He wanted it to be built on the disputed land between the Arab countries and Israel. It seems to me I was approached for a donation last year for a similar project.

Dr. R. always went out of his way to help people. He visited friends and relatives and was often a mediator in family quarrels and disputes. He often lent money to friends and relatives. Especially nieces or nephews. He would lend them money for a down payment on their home, at no interest, never large sums, but always in moderation. He and Ida lived modestly during the last 30 years of his life. He was a true philosopher. He had given up his optical store, preferred to give away glasses, travel, and dabble in real estate. He sent his books free to libraries all over the world, and preached his ideas whenever he could. He purchased 200 acres of land in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and summered with his children and grandchildren in the large cabin he had built there. He gave free glasses to the mountain fold, examining them each year to note changes in their vision. He was often pleased with the results, and so were the mountaineers. Usually very unreceptive to strangers, there were able to talk to him as a friend. Whenever I mention his name in North Carolina I get a friendly response.

When he was ninety-two, Jake became a little paranoid and ran away from home. He took a plane to Florida. But that is another story.

I will close my paper with one last incident. Jake and Ida did a lot of traveling in the United States. After his retirement I would occasionally get a phone call from Kentucky. One day a lady called me and said, “Is this Dr. Raphaelson?” I told her he wasn’t available. She then stated, “I got a pair of glasses from Dr. R. about 25 years ago and I think I need a change.” I answered, “He’s out of town for 2 months.” She replied, “I waited twenty-five years, I guess I can wait a little longer!”

Brumer, V. (Victor). Eye-Strain: Its Cause, Consequences and Treatment. St. Helens, England: Victor Optical Company, 1953.