Raisins & Almonds … and Texas Oil! Jewish Life in the Great East Texas Oil Field

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Raisins & Almonds is the story of the Jewish contribution to the Great East Texas Oil Boom, told in the words of those who lived it. Twenty-four people describe the same events from vastly different points of view in the same way the different threads are gathered to weave the fabric of a community. Martin Marwil’s eyewitness description of bring in Dad Joiner’s first discovery well site. Norman Balter’s stories of shoveling coal as fireman on a cross-country freight train give us a feeling for Depression days, when people were down-and-out and desperate to survive. Milton Galoob tells how he couldn’t afford tires for his truck. I came to from Oklahoma to East Texas on two tires and two rims. Irving Falk shares the emotions of a seventeen-year-old who found himself alone and obliged to make his way in the oilfields. I was completely in awe. I didn’t know whether to look up, down, or look out for traffic. Sam Krasner swears he didn’t ride into town on a turnip truck, he rode in on a truckload of seven-inch pipe! They all gathered from many exotic corners of the world to find themselves in the most exotic place of all-East Texas during the Oil Boom. Their recollections make the times come alive again in this historical work that reads like a novel.