Henry Menahem, Jewelry Store Clerk, Slain in Robbery
DATE: Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010, 12:20 p.m
LOCATION: 962 Madison Ave., Upper East Side, Manhattan.
The police say the robber who killed 71-year-old jewelry store clerk Henry Menahem Wednesday dumped a Fabrege-style egg in the trash as he fled with $1 million in gems and expensive necklace.."
Did you see this or a similar one in the New York Daily News?
"The New York Post reported that the suspect entered R.S. Durant Jewelers at lunchtime, brandished a 9 mm pistol and threw two bags at Menahem and a second clerk. They refused to fill the bags."
On the upper East Side, Madison Avenue jewelry stores do not have clerks.
They have employees. Clerks are people who do the paper work, menial tasks that usually deal with paper. But Henry.... was a 71 years old man who worked as a salesperson, an employee at a fancy Jewelry store on the upper east side of Manhattans and to refer to him as a clerk is an insult.
71 years old man. What is this all about? Why is he not retired?
If there was any bad feeling, any kind of degrading experience going on in this jewelry store this 71 year old man could have stayed away, not been at the R.S. Durant jewelery store on the day of the robbery.
But there he was, already in possession of his medical insurance from the federal government and social security and maybe, if his employees had been generous, a pension check awaited his retirement
We will never know the mind set of this financial arrangement because the newspapers which provided the readers with the "information" did not interview the establishment owners to learn and convey to us why this 71 year old man was still working at their store and what the arrangement would have been upon his retirement.
Evidently, Henry, known affectionately by those close to him as Hank, was asked to put the store's merchandise the bags that the assailant held out to him. Hank refused.
This is the point where my eyes stopped reading;
A clerk refused to turn over the merchandise. Who is this man? Who is the employer?
In a jewelry store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan located in a part of town where even the clothing stores which house merchandise far less valuable than the multimillion dollar jewelry store, R.S. Durant, station a guard at the door to protect....... You know him. He is the man who contracts out his life to protect the store and its contents with his Life if need be in exchange for a given amount of money.
That in itself is strange. I can't imagine any money that can compensate for the loss of human life, no matter how common a practice this might be.
We don't know why, but we know that the man appointed to save Henry's life did not do so and as there was no mention of his absence in the article it is safe to conclude, he was not supposed to be there, not paid to guard the R. S. Durant jewelry store. I wonder if the assailant knew that as well.
Why did Henry refuse to comply with the request?
That mystery defies all possibility that Henry thought of himself as a "clerk". If i am a clerk there is sufficient separation between me and my work that upon request made for compliance at gun point I would have handed over whatever the assailant wanted. I would not have thought twice about releasing a set of papers or anything the content of which would have been deemed well beyond my level of comprehension or possible personal possession.
Upon denying the request /demand Henry was shot in the chest, bled profusely and died. The assailant left the store dropping a Fabrege-style jeweled egg into the common trash bin on the street, The egg's worth, well over one million dollars.
So....... in addition to the highly prejudicial articles that appeared in the newspapers void of the human interviews with employer, wife, children grandchildren or friends and neighbors etc. (for which, given the mind set of the reporters is probably a good thing) we know.............
There was no guard stationed in the store at the time of the robbery
Henry did not think of himself as a clerk but as an employee.
His opinion of himself at work seems to be shared by his employer because they kept him on the job 6 years after the customary or legal retirement age
Chancres are Henry was not at the store because of the financial remuneration. Why he was there is not know and without asking those who do know, we can not know the answer.
But
we do know from our personal experience that
if the employer, the owner of the store had been shot dead while trying to defend his precious commodity, his multi million dollars worth of Jewelry this story would go on and on with the fullness of detail, interviews, tears, that would make everyone in the fullness of time tired of reading about it.
Fortunately
Henry's closest friends and family were spared that obsession with the 'truth'
The contrast between Henry giving his life to save his employer's jewelry and the failure of the employer to value Henry's life enough to place a guard in the store at all times to protect him forces the question, who is the stores' owner who values his wealth over people's lives. And who was Henry Menahem?
That he was loved, dearly, is a give. Any man who displays such loyalty has earned deep everlasting love.
Henry appears to have been a devoted man, devoted to his menial job and most likely to his family. He lived by the creed of "thou shall not steal".
One can assume, he had self respect, the very sense of self respect that the Post and the New York Daily News undermined in their tabloid articles when they referred to Henry as a clerk. He was not a clerk. Henry was a loyal employee, a salesman in a high class, high powered Madison Ave upper east side of Manhattan establishment who gave his life for the possessions of another man. if Henry had complied and said, "here, take it", and filled the opened bags as requested, would he have gained financial reward or remuneration? We don't know, and unfortunately, we never will.
Henry Menahem is a hero, consistent with the Green tragedy. A man who is loyal to a fault, a man who lives by values we should all embrace, a man who seemed to go to work for more reasons than to make whatever little bit of money employees in our society earn.
Henry Menahem, a tragic/hero doomed by your own intractable virtues which we all strive for but seldom achieve.
May you rest in peace.
Linda Zises
WBAI Women's Collective
