It is supremely fitting that “God Bless America”—that stirring hymn to patriotism—has become our unofficial anthem in the afterm
ath of September 11, since the life of the legendary New York songsmith who penned it, Irving Berlin, born one Israel Baline in 1888 in distant Siberia, epitomizes everything about America’s indomitable civilization that our terrorist enemies despise: its openness to striving and talent, its freedom, its inexhaustible optimism and creativity.Baline’s amazing American success storybegan when he stepped onto Ellis Island in 1893, on his way to Gotham’s teeming Lower East Side, “the eyesore of New York and perhaps the filthiest place on the continent,” according to the New York Times of the era. However dirty and poor, this Jewish ghetto was incubating an American renaissance that would produce legislators, merchants, professionals of all stripes—and Irving Berlin. Berlin’s family was too poor to provide piano lessons, let alone a piano; Berlin would remain musically illiterate. His father, Moses, a cantor[1], gave him a love of melody and a quick wit, but that was about all he could afford. To supplement the family’s meager income, Israel, more fluent in English than his parents and five older siblings, haggled with a nearby junk shop. “I used to go there selling bits and pieces of an old samovar[2] that my mother had brought from Russia and kept under the bed,” he once recalled. “I’d get five and ten cents for the pieces and kept selling them until the entire samovar disappeared.”Berlin understood the value of hard-earned money from early on. Hawking papers on a downtown pier in 1901, a 13-year-old Israel had just sold his fifth copy of the New York Evening Journal when a loading crane swung into his path, knocking him into the East River. Fished out just in time, he was given artificial respiration and packed off to Gouverneur Hospital for further ministrations. An hour later, as the young newsie slept, a nurse pried open his clenched hand. In it: five copper coins. He remained tight-fisted for the rest of his 101 years.Shortly after Israel was bar mitzvahed[3], Moses died, and the following year young Izzy left home and school to try his luck at street singing. Sans[4] education, but brimming with aspiration and besotted with the street sounds and street language of the town he would never leave for long, the teenage Berlin plied his trade along the Bowery and the Lower East Side. He soon got a regular gig at the roughhouse Pelham Café, doing ribald[5] parodies of popular hits. The salary was meager, sure, but the café provided a piano and a place to hang out. He taught himself to play a bit by ear, amused the rowdy crowds, and picked up small change. A colleague, Jubal Sweet, remembered the young Berlin “moving around easy, singing all the time, every time a nickel would drop, he’d put his toe on it and kick it or nurse it to a certain spot. When he was done, he’d have all the jack in a pile, see?”As the pile grew, Izzy kept his eye open for the main chance. It came in 1907, when a song in an Italian dialect, “My Mariucci Take a Steam Boat,” swept through the saloons. Collaborating with a melodist, Izzy wrote the lyrics for “Marie from Sunny Italy,” to be performed with the same Neapolitan intonation:Please come out tonight my queenCan’t you hear my mandolin?
2The riffraff made “Marie” a hit. Spurred by its success, Izzy Baline changed his name to Irving Berlin and began to write more songs—lots more. After all, if one ditty could earn a few coins, perhaps a hundred would make him rich. Berlin set to work, 18 hours a day, seven days a week.[1] a person who sings the prayers in a Jewish religious service[2] an urn used to boil water for tea, commonly found in Russia[3] a coming-of-age ceremony in which a 13-year-old Jewish boy takeson adult religious duties and responsibilities[4] Latin for "without"[5] crude or offensive, but funny1.What is the central idea of this excerpt from “The Americanization of Irving Berlin”?
A Berlin’s humble beginnings and his unstoppable work ethic embody the American dream.
B Berlin showed a talent for music and an appreciation for the value of a dollar from an early age.
C Berlin wrote a famous song, and it afforded him many opportunities throughout his life.
D The neighborhood Berlin grew up in did not provide children with opportunities, but many went on to great things despite this
