Abe Rabinowitz

Abe Rabinowitz is the local pawnbroker at the center of the repeated transactions over Sara Goldfarb’s Television set. He lends money to Harry Goldfarb against it, records Sara’s payments, and sees how often the set moves between the pawnshop and her home. His fussiness and comic complaints give the episode an everyday texture, but his suggestion that Sara involve the police brings the family’s private distress into sharp focus.

Identity and Place in the Neighborhood

Abe runs a neighborhood pawnshop and has known Sara and Harry long enough to recognize their routine. When Harry brings the Television set in, Abe watches him and his companion push it into the shop, then handles the transaction with deliberate care. He inspects pencils before choosing one, counts the money repeatedly, and makes Harry sign the book. Harry teases him for counting the cash over and over; Abe’s slowness stands in comic contrast to the young men’s impatience and their insistence that they are in a hurry.

Abe’s manner combines familiarity with irritation. He jokes about Harry being a son who thinks of his mother, while also treating the Television set as an object that must be moved and accounted for. His speech and gestures make him a distinctive presence behind the counter, but the business is not abstract to him: he knows the people involved and recognizes the pattern as soon as it returns.

Harry’s Pawning and the Ledger

The shop’s records show that Harry has pawned the set repeatedly and that Sara has made payments to recover it. When Sara returns with two neighborhood boys to help move it, Abe opens the small book devoted to her Television set. Its many dated entries cover years of money advanced to Harry and payments made by his mother. Abe recalls that Harry has taken the set three times in a single month, and warns that it may be taken again before Sara has paid it off.

The careful ledger turns a domestic object into a record of recurrence. Harry receives money, the set leaves the home, and Sara pays what she can to bring it back. After giving Abe three dollars, Sara has the boys push the set home; she later chains it to the radiator again. The television’s return restores her access to the programs she watches, but the payment does not end the cycle that sent the set to the shop in the first place.

Sara’s Loyalty and Abe’s Advice

Abe asks Sara why she does not tell the police about Harry taking the Television set. He proposes that they might speak to Harry or send him away for a time, hoping that he might return a better son and stop taking the set. His suggestion is practical and direct, grounded in the repeated transactions he has witnessed rather than in any confidence that the arrangement will resolve itself.

Sara refuses. Harry is her only child and her only living relative, she explains, and she will not make him a criminal or expose him to people she believes could teach him worse things. She insists that he is young and good, and imagines him eventually settling down with a nice young woman. Her defense of him makes clear why Abe’s proposal cannot alter the pattern: she would rather endure the losses than take action she sees as a betrayal of her son.

Character and Narrative Function

Abe is more than a functionary in Harry and Sara’s exchanges. During their conversation, he tells Sara that he is alone in the shop while his wife is out with their daughter, and complains about the prospect of cold food for supper. When Sara leaves, he watches the boys push the set away and laments his own discomfort, wishing for hot food and warm feet. These small, self-directed complaints give his concern a human, comic scale rather than making him a detached moral authority.

His role is to see the pattern plainly and name its likely continuation, while remaining unable to make Sara act on what he sees. The ledger preserves the history of the pawning; his warning anticipates another return; Sara’s refusal protects Harry from police involvement but leaves the household bound to the same exchange. Through Abe’s counter, the Television set becomes both collateral and a fragile connection to the life Sara builds around watching it.