Did You Know...?

 A Jewish family, the Karnofskys, who immigrated from Lithuania to the United States, took pity on a 7-year-old boy and brought him to their home.

There he stayed and spent the night in this Jewish family home, where for the first time in his life he was treated with kindness and tenderness.

When he went to bed, Mrs Karnofsky sang him Russian lullabies, which he sang with her.

Later he learned to sing and play several Russian and Jewish songs.

Over time, this boy became the adopted son of this family.

Mr. Karnofsky gave him money to buy his first musical instrument, as was the custom in Jewish families.

Later, when he became a professional musician and composer, he used these Jewish melodies in compositions such as "St. James's Hospital" and "Go Down Moses."

The little boy grew up and wrote a book about this Jewish family, who adopted him in 1907. And proudly spoke Yiddish fluently.

In memory of this family and until the end of his life, he wore the Star of David and said that in this family he learned "to live a real life and determination."

This little boy's name was Louis Armstrong.This little boy was called Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. Louis Armstrong proudly spoke fluent Yiddish. “Satchmo” is Yiddish for “big cheeks," a nickname some say was given to him by Mrs. Karnofsky!

But wait! There's much more to this story, thanks to Wikipedia:

Armstrong was born in New Orleans on August 4, 1901. His parents were Mary Albert and William Armstrong. Mary Albert was from Boutte, Louisiana, and gave birth at home when she was about sixteen. William Armstrong abandoned the family shortly after...

Louis Armstrong was raised by his grandmother until the age of five when he was returned to his mother. He spent his youth in poverty in a rough neighborhood known as The Battlefield. At six he attended the Fisk School for Boys, a school that accepted black children in the racially segregated system of New Orleans.

At the age of 6, Armstrong lived with his mother and sister and worked for the Karnoffskys,  a family of Lithuanian Jews, at their home. He would help their two sons, Morris and Alex, collect "rags and bones" and deliver coal. In 1969, while recovering from heart and kidney problems at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City, Armstrong wrote "Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, LA., the year of 1907" a memoir describing his time working for the Karnofsky family. Armstrong writes about singing "Russian Lullaby" with the Karnofsky family when their baby son David was put to bed and credits the family with teaching him to sing "from the heart."^[  Curiously, Armstrong quotes lyrics for it that appear to be the same as the "Russian Lullaby," copyrighted by Irving Berlin in 1927, about twenty years after Armstrong remembered singing it as a child. Gary Zucker, Armstrong's doctor at Beth Israel hospital in 1969, shared Berlin's song lyrics with him, and Armstrong quoted them in the memoir.  This inaccuracy may simply be because he wrote the memoir over 60 years after the events described. 

       [Editor's Note: Or because Berlin 'stole' the song, just as Elvis helped himself to the melody of the traditional  "Aura Lee" when he wrote "Love Me Tender."]

Regardless, the Karnoffskys treated Armstrong extremely well. Knowing he lived without a father, they fed and nurtured him. In his memoir Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907, he described his discovery that this family was also  subject to discrimination by "other white folks" who felt that they were better than Jews: "I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for."^[ He wrote about what he learned from them: "how to live—real life and determination." 

     His first musical performance may have been at the side of the Karnoffskys' junk wagon. To distinguish them from other hawkers, he tried playing a tin horn to attract customers. Morris Karnoffsky gave Armstrong an advance toward the purchase of a cornet from a pawn shop.  Armstrong wore a Star of David until the end of his life in memory of this family who had raised him. 

(Thanks for getting me started on this, Rebecca of Quora. I never knew...)