Instead, one day he called his now adolescent boy to his sickbed and pledged him to care for his soon-to-be widowed mother. Struggling to support his family of five, Rabbi Weiss then relocated them all to New York in search of better opportunities, but found none. His father took a job in Appleton as rabbi to a small congregation, but his limited English and old-fashioned, old-world style cost him that position. In fact, he came to America 1878 when he was only four-years-old. It would not be until decades after his untimely death that his biographers discovered the true nature of his roots.

He created the fiction that he was actually born in Appleton, Wisconsin, and that he was just another American kid from the great Midwest.

Ehrich Weiss (Harry Houdini) was born in Budapest, Hungary, the fourth son of a Jewish rabbi, and faced that challenge by simply re-inventing his own life story. Immigrants to the United States have always faced the challenge of being accepted by their fellow Americans.

Famous magician houdini