Why Louis Armstrong admired Jews all his life

One of the most famous musicians of the twentieth century, Louis Armstrong was the grandson of slaves brought to America, he was born and spent his childhood in poverty.

Photo: Shutterstock

About how his young years brightened and changed a rather poor Jewish family, he wrote in his memoirs, issued Oxford University Press.

Armstrong spent his childhood in Stourville, New Orleans, Louisiana. The boy's father disappeared almost immediately after his birth, and the mother, who gave birth to him in 16 years, tried to feed herself and her two children with floor cleaning. Sometimes she and her son went on a “hunt”: she picked up the thrown out spoiled products on the market, cut off the rot and sold them to local eateries. But feeding such jobs for two children was an impossible task, which is why Mary worked in the Storillville red light district.

When Louis turned six, he met a neighbor, a ragman, who offered him a few cents for helping with the dismantling of linen.

The Jewish Karnovsky family fled to America from Russia. Having received payment for the first working day, the boy increasingly helped the junk dealer. In the end, he became in the Karnovsky family something of a third son, only black.

He traveled with Alex, the eldest son of Karnovsky, through the streets, buying rags, empty bottles and other trash. And with another son of the family, Maurice, he sold coal in the evening to prostitutes. Louis dined with this family and sang along with the junk wife when she put the children to bed, and then the Karnovskys were amazed at the boy's talent.

Armstrong admitted that the Jews impressed him with how they lived together, he liked the feeling of family, kindness, affection and care that prevailed in their home.

He was amazed at how quickly the Jews were able to turn the wreck they had got into a small but neat house, how delicious the food that the junk wife's wife was cooking, how clean they lived.

And the main thing that they gave him and what also surprised the boy at first was their hard work, their ability to work from morning until late evening.

“I admire the Jewish people. Their courage, especially against the background of what they had to endure. I was only seven years old, but I perfectly saw how the whites treated godlessly this family. Even blacks were treated better. On the whole, Black had more opportunities. But we are lazy – and still are,” Armstrong wrote, already a star.

His passion for music also began thanks to the junk dealer, once he gave him a tin tune. The boy liked her so much, and he so diligently played it at any free minute that it was decided to buy him a trumpet. A used pipe cost five dollars. A part of Louis saved himself, a part was given by a rake.

Later, when he became a professional musician and composer, he used Jewish melodies, for example, in compositions such as St. James Infirmary and Go Down Moses. The Negro boy grew up and wrote a book about a Jewish family that adopted him in 1907. In memory of them, he wore the Star of David to the end of his life and told him that it was from this family that he learned “how to live a real life”. And he never took a Magendavid from his neck.

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The history of the origin of the Star of David

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