Transcriber's Note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the original document have been preserved.

The
Spirit
of the
Ghetto

THE SPIRIT of
THE GHETTO

STUDIES OF THE JEWISH
QUARTER IN NEW YORK

By
HUTCHINS HAPGOOD

With Drawings from Life by
JACOB EPSTEIN

NEW YORK AND LONDON
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWO

Copyright, 1902
by
Funk & Wagnalls
Company

Printed in the
United States of America

Published
November, 1902

NOTE

A number of these chapters have appeared as separate articles in "The Atlantic Monthly," "The Critic," "The Bookman," "The World's Work," "The Boston Transcript," and "The Evening Post" and "The Commercial Advertiser" of New York. To the editors of these publications thanks for permission to republish are gratefully tendered by
The Author.

PREFACE

The Jewish quarter of New York is generally supposed to be a place of poverty, dirt, ignorance and immorality—the seat of the sweat-shop, the tenement house, where "red-lights" sparkle at night, where the people are queer and repulsive. Well-to-do persons visit the "Ghetto" merely from motives of curiosity or philanthropy; writers treat of it "sociologically," as of a place in crying need of improvement.

That the Ghetto has an unpleasant aspect is as true as it is trite. But the unpleasant aspect is not the subject of the following sketches. I was led to spend much time in certain poor resorts of Yiddish New York not through motives either philanthropic or sociological, but simply by virtue of the charm I felt in men and things there. East Canal Street and the Bowery have interested me more than Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Why, the reader may learn from the present volume—which is an attempt made by a "Gentile" to report sympathetically on the character, lives and pursuits of certain east-side Jews with whom he has been in relations of considerable intimacy.
The Author.

CONTENTS

Chapter One
The Old and the New

THE OLD MAN

No part of New York has a more intense and varied life than the colony of Russian and Galician Jews who live on the east side and who form the largest Jewish city in the world. The old and the new come here into close contact and throw each other into high relief. The traditions and customs of the orthodox Jew are maintained almost in their purity, and opposed to these are forms and ideas of modern life of the most extreme kind. The Jews are at once tenacious of their character and susceptible to their Gentile environment, when that environment is of a high order of civilization. Accordingly, in enlightened America they undergo rapid transformation tho retaining much that is distinctive; while in Russia, surrounded by an ignorant peasantry, they remain by themselves, do not so commonly learn the Gentile language, and prefer their own forms of culture. There their life centres about religion. Prayer and the study of "the Law" constitute practically the whole life of the religious Jew.

When the Jew comes to America he remains, if he is old, essentially the same as he was in Russia. His deeply rooted habits and the "worry of daily bread" make him but little sensitive to the conditions of his new home. His imagination lives in the old country and he gets his consolation in the old religion. He picks up only about a hundred English words and phrases, which he pronounces in his own way. Some of his most common acquisitions are "vinda" (window), "zieling" (ceiling), "never mind," "alle right," "that'll do," "politzman" (policeman); "ein schön kind, ein reg'lar pitze!" (a pretty child, a regular picture). Of this modest vocabulary he is very proud, for it takes him out of the category of the "greenhorn," a term of contempt to which the satirical Jew is very sensitive. The man who has been only three weeks in this country hates few things so much as to be called a "greenhorn." Under this fear he learns the small vocabulary to which in many years he adds very little. His dress receives rather greater modification than his language. In the old country he never appeared in a short coat; that would be enough to stamp him as a "freethinker." But when he comes to New York and his coat is worn out he is unable to find any garment long enough. The best he can do is to buy a "cut-away" or a "Prince Albert," which he often calls a "Prince Isaac." As soon as he imbibes the fear of being called a "greenhorn" he assumes the "Prince Isaac" with less regret. Many of the old women, without diminution of piety, discard their wigs, which are strictly required by the orthodox in Russia, and go even to the synagogue with nothing on their heads but their natural locks.

The old Jew on arriving in New York usually becomes a sweat-shop tailor or push-cart peddler. There are few more pathetic sights than an old man with a long beard, a little black cap on his head and a venerable face—a man who had been perhaps a Hebraic or Talmudic scholar in the old country, carrying or pressing piles of coats in the melancholy sweat-shop; or standing for sixteen hours a day by his push-cart in one of the dozen crowded streets of the Ghetto, where the great markets are, selling among many other things apples, garden stuff, fish and second-hand shirts.

This man also becomes a member of one of the many hundred lodges which exist on the east side. These societies curiously express at once the old Jewish customs and the conditions of the new world. They are mutual insurance companies formed to support sick members. When a brother is ill the President appoints a committee to visit him. Mutual insurance societies and committees are American enough, and visiting the sick is prescribed by the Talmud. This is a striking instance of the adaptation of the "old" to the "new." The committee not only condoles with the decrepit member, but gives him a sum of money.

Another way in which the life of the old Jew is affected by his New York environment, perhaps the most important way as far as intellectual and educative influences are concerned, is through the Yiddish newspapers, which exist nowhere except in this country. They keep him in touch with the world's happenings in a way quite impossible in Europe. At the Yiddish theatres, too, he sees American customs portrayed, although grotesquely, and the old orthodox things often satirized to a degree; the "greenhorn" laughed to scorn and the rabbi held up to derision.

Nevertheless these influences leave the man pretty much as he was when he landed here. He remains the patriarchal Jew devoted to the law and to prayer. He never does anything that is not prescribed, and worships most of the time that he is not at work. He has only one point of view, that of the Talmud; and his aesthetic as well as his religious criteria are determined by it. "This is a beautiful letter you have written me"; wrote an old man to his son, "it smells of Isaiah." He makes of his house a synagogue, and prays three times a day; when he prays his head is covered, he wears the black and white praying-shawl, and the cubes of the phylactery are attached to his forehead and left arm. To the cubes are fastened two straps of goat-skin, black and white; those on the forehead hang down, and those attached to the other cube are wound seven times about the left arm. Inside each cube is a white parchment on which is written the Hebrew word for God, which must never be spoken by a Jew. The strength of this prohibition is so great that even the Jews who have lost their faith are unwilling to pronounce the word.

At the Synagogue

Besides the home prayers there are daily visits to the synagogue, fasts and holidays to observe. When there is a death in the family he does not go to the synagogue, but prays at home. The ten men necessary for the funeral ceremony, who are partly supplied by the Bereavement Committee of the Lodge, sit seven days in their stocking-feet on foot-stools and read Job all the time. On the Day of Atonement the old Jew stands much of the day in the synagogue, wrapped in a white gown, and seems to be one of a meeting of the dead. The Day of Rejoicing of the Law and the Day of Purim are the only two days in the year when an orthodox Jew may be intoxicated. It is virtuous on these days to drink too much, but the sobriety of the Jew is so great that he sometimes cheats his friends and himself by shamming drunkenness. On the first and second evenings of the Passover the father dresses in a big white robe, the family gather about him, and the youngest male child asks the father the reason why the day is celebrated; whereupon the old man relates the whole history, and they all talk it over and eat, and drink wine, but in no vessel which has been used before during the year, for everything must be fresh and clean on this day. The night before the Passover the remaining leavened bread is gathered together, just enough for breakfast, for only unleavened bread can be eaten during the next eight days. The head of the family goes around with a candle, gathers up the crumbs with a quill or a spoon and burns them. A custom which has almost died out in New York is for the congregation to go out of the synagogue on the night of the full moon, and chant a prayer in the moonlight.

In addition to daily religious observances in his home and in the synagogues, to fasts and holidays, the orthodox Jew must give much thought to his diet. One great law is the line drawn between milk things and meat things. The Bible forbids boiling a kid in the milk of its mother. Consequently the hair-splitting Talmud prescribes the most far-fetched discrimination. For instance, a plate in which meat is cooked is called a meat vessel, the knife with which it is cut is called a meat knife, the spoon with which one eats the soup that was cooked in a meat pot, though there is no meat in the soup, is a meat spoon, and to use that spoon for a milk thing is prohibited. All these regulations, of course, seem privileges to the orthodox Jew. The sweat-shops are full of religious fanatics, who, in addition to their ceremonies at home, form Talmudic clubs and gather in tenement-house rooms, which they convert into synagogues.

In several of the cafés of the quarter these old fellows gather. With their long beards, long black coats, and serious demeanor, they sit about little tables and drink honey-cider, eat lima beans and jealously exclude from their society the socialists and freethinkers of the colony who, not unwillingly, have cafés of their own. They all look poor, and many of them are, in fact, peddlers, shop-keepers or tailors; but some, not distinguishable in appearance from the proletarians, have "made their pile." Some are Hebrew scholars, some of the older class of Yiddish journalists. There are no young people there, for the young bring irreverence and the American spirit, and these cafés are strictly orthodox.

In spite, therefore, of his American environment, the old Jew of the Ghetto remains patriarchal, highly trained and educated in a narrow sectarian direction, but entirely ignorant of modern culture; medieval, in effect, submerged in old tradition and outworn forms.

THE BOY

The shrewd-faced boy with the melancholy eyes that one sees everywhere in the streets of New York's Ghetto, occupies a peculiar position in our society. If we could penetrate into his soul, we should see a mixture of almost unprecedented hope and excitement on the one hand, and of doubt, confusion, and self-distrust on the other hand. Led in many contrary directions, the fact that he does not grow to be an intellectual anarchist is due to his serious racial characteristics.

Three groups of influences are at work on him—the orthodox Jewish, the American, and the Socialist; and he experiences them in this order. He has either been born in America of Russian, Austrian, or Roumanian Jewish parents, or has immigrated with them when a very young child. The first of the three forces at work on his character is religious and moral; the second is practical, diversified, non-religious; and the third is reactionary from the other two and hostile to them.

THE MORNING PRAYER

Whether born in this country or in Russia, the son of orthodox parents passes his earliest years in a family atmosphere where the whole duty of man is to observe the religious law. He learns to say his prayers every morning and evening, either at home or at the synagogue. At the age of five, he is taken to the Hebrew private school, the "chaider," where, in Russia, he spends most of his time from early morning till late at night. The ceremony accompanying his first appearance in "chaider" is significant of his whole orthodox life. Wrapped in a "talith," or praying shawl, he is carried by his father to the school and received there by the "melamed," or teacher, who holds out before him the Hebrew alphabet on a large chart. Before beginning to learn the first letter of the alphabet, he is given a taste of honey, and when he declares it to be sweet, he is told that the study of the Holy Law, upon which he is about to enter, is sweeter than honey. Shortly afterwards a coin falls from the ceiling, and the boy is told that an angel dropped it from heaven as a reward for learning the first lesson.

In the Russian "chaider" the boy proceeds with a further study of the alphabet, then of the prayer-book, the Pentateuch, other portions of the Bible, and finally begins with the complicated Talmud. Confirmed at thirteen years of age, he enters the Hebrew academy and continues the study of the Talmud, to which, if he is successful, he will devote himself all his life. For his parents desire him to be a rabbi, or Talmudical scholar, and to give himself entirely to a learned interpretation of the sweet law.

GOING TO THE SYNAGOGUE

The boy's life at home, in Russia, conforms with the religious education received at the "chaider." On Friday afternoon, when the Sabbath begins, and on Saturday morning, when it continues, he is free from school, and on Friday does errands for his mother or helps in the preparation for the Sabbath. In the afternoon he commonly bathes, dresses freshly in Sabbath raiment, and goes to "chaider" in the evening. Returning from school, he finds his mother and sisters dressed in their best, ready to "greet the Sabbath." The lights are glowing in the candlesticks, the father enters with "Good Shabbas" on his lips, and is received by the grandparents, who occupy the seats of honor. They bless him and the children in turn. The father then chants the hymn of praise and salutation; a cup of wine or cider is passed from one to the other; every one washes his hands; all arrange themselves at table in the order of age, the youngest sitting at the father's right hand. After the meal they sing a song dedicated to the Sabbath, and say grace. The same ceremony is repeated on Saturday morning, and afterwards the children are examined in what they have learned of the Holy Law during the week. The numerous religious holidays are observed in the same way, with special ceremonies of their own in addition. The important thing to notice is, that the boy's whole training and education bear directly on ethics and religion, in the study of which he is encouraged to spend his whole life.

In a simple Jewish community in Russia, where the "chaider" is the only school, where the government is hostile, and the Jews are therefore thrown back upon their own customs, the boy loves his religion, he loves and honors his parents, his highest ambition is to be a great scholar—to know the Bible in all its glorious meaning, to know the Talmudical comments upon it, and to serve God. Above every one else he respects the aged, the Hebrew scholar, the rabbi, the teacher. Piety and wisdom count more than riches, talent and power. The "law" outweighs all else in value. Abraham and Moses, David and Solomon, the prophet Elijah, are the kind of great men to whom his imagination soars.

But in America, even before he begins to go to our public schools, the little Jewish boy finds himself in contact with a new world which stands in violent contrast with the orthodox environment of his first few years. Insensibly—at the beginning—from his playmates in the streets, from his older brother or sister, he picks up a little English, a little American slang, hears older boys boast of prize-fighter Bernstein, and learns vaguely to feel that there is a strange and fascinating life on the street. At this tender age he may even begin to black boots, gamble in pennies, and be filled with a "wild surmise" about American dollars.

With his entrance into the public school the little fellow runs plump against a system of education and a set of influences which are at total variance with those traditional to his race and with his home life. The religious element is entirely lacking. The educational system of the public schools is heterogeneous and worldly. The boy becomes acquainted in the school reader with fragments of writings on all subjects, with a little mathematics, a little history. His instruction, in the interests of a liberal non-sectarianism, is entirely secular. English becomes his most familiar language. He achieves a growing comprehension and sympathy with the independent, free, rather sceptical spirit of the American boy; he rapidly imbibes ideas about social equality and contempt for authority, and tends to prefer Sherlock Holmes to Abraham as a hero.

The orthodox Jewish influences, still at work upon him, are rapidly weakened. He grows to look upon the ceremonial life at home as rather ridiculous. His old parents, who speak no English, he regards as "greenhorns." English becomes his habitual tongue, even at home, and Yiddish he begins to forget. He still goes to "chaider," but under conditions exceedingly different from those obtaining in Russia, where there are no public schools, and where the boy is consequently shut up within the confines of Hebraic education. In America, the "chaider" assumes a position entirely subordinate. Compelled by law to go to the American public school, the boy can attend "chaider" only before the public school opens in the morning or after it closes in the afternoon. At such times the Hebrew teacher, who dresses in a long black coat, outlandish tall hat, and commonly speaks no English, visits the boy at home, or the boy goes to a neighboring "chaider."

Contempt for the "chaider's" teaching comes the more easily because the boy rarely understands his Hebrew lessons to the full. His real language is English, the teacher's is commonly the Yiddish jargon, and the language to be learned is Hebrew. The problem before him is consequently the strangely difficult one of learning Hebrew, a tongue unknown to him, through a translation into Yiddish, a language of growing unfamiliarity, which, on account of its poor dialectic character, is an inadequate vehicle of thought.

The orthodox parents begin to see that the boy, in order to "get along" in the New World, must receive a Gentile training. Instead of hoping to make a rabbi of him, they reluctantly consent to his becoming an American business man, or, still better, an American doctor or lawyer. The Hebrew teacher, less convinced of the usefulness and importance of his work, is in this country more simply commercial and less disinterested than abroad; a man generally, too, of less scholarship as well as of less devotion.

THE "CHAIDER"

The growing sense of superiority on the part of the boy to the Hebraic part of his environment extends itself soon to the home. He learns to feel that his parents, too, are "greenhorns." In the struggle between the two sets of influences that of the home becomes less and less effective. He runs away from the supper table to join his gang on the Bowery, where he is quick to pick up the very latest slang; where his talent for caricature is developed often at the expense of his parents, his race, and all "foreigners"; for he is an American, he is "the people," and like his glorious countrymen in general, he is quick to ridicule the stranger. He laughs at the foreign Jew with as much heartiness as at the "dago"; for he feels that he himself is almost as remote from the one as from the other.

"Why don't you say your evening prayer, my son?" asks his mother in Yiddish.

"Ah, what yer givin' us!" replies, in English, the little American-Israelite as he makes a bee-line for the street.

The boys not only talk together of picnics, of the crimes of which they read in the English newspapers, of prize-fights, of budding business propositions, but they gradually quit going to synagogue, give up "chaider" promptly when they are thirteen years old, avoid the Yiddish theatres, seek the up-town places of amusement, dress in the latest American fashion, and have a keen eye for the right thing in neckties. They even refuse sometimes to be present at supper on Friday evenings. Then, indeed, the sway of the old people is broken.

"Amerikane Kinder, Amerikane Kinder!" wails the old father, shaking his head. The trend of things is indeed too strong for the old man of the eternal Talmud and ceremony.

An important circumstance in helping to determine the boy's attitude toward his father is the tendency to reverse the ordinary and normal educational and economical relations existing between father and son. In Russia the father gives the son an education and supports him until his marriage, and often afterward, until the young man is able to take care of his wife and children. The father is, therefore, the head of the house in reality. But in the New World the boy contributes very early to the family's support. The father is in this country less able to make an economic place for himself than is the son. The little fellow sells papers, blacks boots, and becomes a street merchant on a small scale. As he speaks English, and his parents do not, he is commonly the interpreter in business transactions, and tends generally to take things into his own hands. There is a tendency, therefore, for the father to respect the son.

There is many a huge building on Broadway which is the external sign (with the Hebrew name of the tenant emblazoned on some extended surface) of the energy and independence of some ignorant little Russian Jew, the son of a push-cart peddler or sweat-shop worker, who began his business career on the sidewalks, selling newspapers, blacking boots, dealing in candles, shoe-strings, fruit, etc., and continued it by peddling in New Jersey or on Long Island until he could open a small basement store on Hester Street, then a more extensive establishment on Canal Street—ending perhaps as a rich merchant on Broadway. The little fellow who starts out on this laborious climb is a model of industry and temperance. His only recreation, outside of business, which for him is a pleasure in itself, is to indulge in some simple pastime which generally is calculated to teach him something. On Friday or Saturday afternoon he is likely, for instance, to take a long walk to the park, where he is seen keenly inspecting the animals and perhaps boasting of his knowledge about them. He is an acquisitive little fellow, and seldom enjoys himself unless he feels that he is adding to his figurative or literal stock.

The cloak and umbrella business in New York is rapidly becoming monopolized by the Jews who began in the Ghetto; and they are also very large clothing merchants. Higher, however, than a considerable merchant in the world of business, the little Ghetto boy, born in a patriarchal Jewish home, has not yet attained. The Jews who as bankers, brokers, and speculators on Wall Street control millions never have been Ghetto Jews. They came from Germany, where conditions are very different from those in Russia, Galicia, and Roumania, and where, through the comparatively liberal education of a secular character which they were able to obtain, they were already beginning to have a national life outside of the Jewish traditions. Then, too, these Jews who are now prominent in Wall Street have been in this country much longer than their Russian brethren. They are frequently the sons of Germans who in the last generation attained commercial rank. If they were born abroad, they came many years before the Russian immigration began and before the American Ghetto existed, and have consequently become thoroughly identified with American life. Some of them began, indeed, as peddlers on a very small scale; travelled, as was more the habit with them then than now, all over the country; and rose by small degrees to the position of great financial operators. But they became so only by growing to feel very intimately the spirit of American enterprise which enables a man to carry on the boldest operation in a calm spirit.

To this boldness the son of the orthodox parents of our Ghetto has not yet attained. Coming from the cramped "quarter," with still a tinge of the patriarchal Jew in his blood, not yet thoroughly at home in the atmosphere of the American "plunger," he is a little hesitant, though very keen, in business affairs. The conservatism instilled in him by the pious old "greenhorn," his father, is a limitation to his American "nerve." He likes to deal in ponderable goods, to be able to touch and handle his wares, to have them before his eyes. In the next generation, when in business matters also he will be an instinctive American, he will become as big a financial speculator as any of them, but at present he is pretty well content with his growing business on Broadway and his fine residence up-town.

FRIDAY NIGHT PRAYER

Altho as compared with the American or German-Jew financier who does not turn a hair at the gain or loss of a million, and who in personal manner maintains a phlegmatic, Napoleonic calm which is almost the most impressive thing in the world to an ordinary man, the young fellow of the Ghetto seems a hesitant little "dickerer," yet, of course, he is a rising business man, and, as compared to the world from which he has emerged, a very tremendous entity indeed. It is not strange, therefore, that this progressive merchant, while yet a child, acquires a self-sufficiency, an independence, and sometimes an arrogance which not unnaturally, at least in form, is extended even toward his parents.

If this boy were able entirely to forget his origin, to cast off the ethical and religious influences which are his birthright, there would be no serious struggle in his soul, and he would not represent a peculiar element in our society. He would be like any other practical, ambitious, rather worldly American boy. The struggle is strong because the boy's nature, at once religious and susceptible, is strongly appealed to by both the old and new. At the same time that he is keenly sensitive to the charm of his American environment, with its practical and national opportunities, he has still a deep love for his race and the old things. He is aware, and rather ashamed, of the limitations of his parents. He feels that the trend and weight of things are against them, that they are in a minority; but yet in a real way the old people remain his conscience, the visible representatives of a moral and religious tradition by which the boy may regulate his inner life.

The attitude of such a boy toward his father and mother is sympathetically described by Dr. Blaustein, principal of the Educational Alliance:

"Not knowing that I speak Yiddish, the boy often acts as interpreter between me and his exclusively Yiddish-speaking father and mother. He always shows a great fear that I should be ashamed of his parents and tries to show them in the best light. When he translates, he expresses, in his manner, great affection and tenderness toward these people whom he feels he is protecting; he not merely turns their Yiddish into good English, but modifies the substance of what they say in order to make them appear presentable, less outlandish and queer. He also manifests cleverness in translating for his parents what I say in English. When he finds that I can speak Yiddish and therefore can converse heart to heart with the old people, he is delighted. His face beams, and he expresses in every way that deep pleasure which a person takes in the satisfaction of honored protégés."

The third considerable influence in the life of the Ghetto boy is that of the socialists. I am inclined to think that this is the least important and the least desirable of the three in its effect on his character.

Socialism as it is agitated in the Jewish quarter consists in a wholesale rejection, often founded on a misunderstanding, of both American and Hebraic ideals. The socialists harp monotonously on the relations between capital and labor, the injustice of classes, and assume literature to comprise one school alone, the Russian, at the bottom of which there is a strongly anarchistic and reactionary impulse. The son of a socialist laborer lives in a home where the main doctrines are two: that the old religion is rubbish and that American institutions were invented to exploit the workingman. The natural effects on such a boy are two: a tendency to look with distrust at the genuinely American life about him, and to reject the old implicit piety.

The ideal situation for this young Jew would be that where he could become an integral part of American life without losing the seriousness of nature developed by Hebraic tradition and education. At present he feels a conflict between these two influences: his youthful ardor and ambition lead him to prefer the progressive, if chaotic and uncentred, American life; but his conscience does not allow him entire peace in a situation which involves a chasm between him and his parents and their ideals. If he could find along the line of his more exciting interests—the American—something that would fill the deeper need of his nature, his problem would receive a happy solution.

At present, however, the powers that make for the desired synthesis of the old and the new are fragmentary and unimportant. They consist largely in more or less charitable institutions such as the University Settlement, the Educational Alliance, and those free Hebrew schools which are carried on with definite reference to the boy as an American citizen. The latter differ from the "chaiders" in several respects. The important difference is that these schools are better organized, have better teachers, and have as a conscious end the supplementing of the boy's common school education. The attempt is to add to the boy's secular training an ethical and religious training through the intelligent study of the Bible. It is thought that an acquaintance with the old literature of the Jews is calculated to deepen and spiritualize the boy's nature.

The Educational Alliance is a still better organized and more intelligent institution, having much more the same purpose in view as the best Hebrew schools. Its avowed purpose is to combine the American and Hebrew elements, reconcile fathers and sons by making the former more American and the latter more Hebraic, and in that way improve the home life of the quarter. With the character of the University Settlement nearly everybody is familiar. It falls in line with Anglo-Saxon charitable institutions, forms classes, improves the condition of the poor, and acts as an ethical agent. But, tho such institutions as the above may do a great deal of good, they are yet too fragmentary and external, are too little a vital growth from the conditions, to supply the demand for a serious life which at the same time shall be American.

But the Ghetto boy is making use of his heterogeneous opportunities with the greatest energy and ambition. The public schools are filled with little Jews; the night schools of the east side are practically used by no other race. City College, New York University, and Columbia University are graduating Russian Jews in numbers rapidly increasing. Many lawyers, indeed, children of patriarchal Jews, have very large practices already, and some of them belong to solid firms on Wall Street; although as to business and financial matters they have not yet attained to the most spectacular height. Then there are innumerable boys' debating clubs, ethical clubs, and literary clubs in the east side; altogether there is an excitement in ideas and an enthusiastic energy for acquiring knowledge which has interesting analogy to the hopefulness and acquisitive desire of the early Renaissance. It is a mistake to think that the young Hebrew turns naturally to trade. He turns his energy to whatever offers the best opportunities for broader life and success. Other things besides business are open to him in this country, and he is improving his chance for the higher education as devotedly as he has improved his opportunities for success in business.

It is easy to see that the Ghetto boy's growing Americanism will be easily triumphant at once over the old traditions and the new socialism. Whether or not he will be able to retain his moral earnestness and native idealism will depend not so much upon him as upon the development of American life as a whole. What we need at the present time more than anything else is a spiritual unity such as, perhaps, will only be the distant result of our present special activities. We need something similar to the spirit underlying the national and religious unity of the orthodox Jewish culture.

Altho the young men of the Ghetto who represent at once the most intelligent and the most progressively American are, for the most part, floundering about without being able to find the social growths upon which they can rest as true Americans while retaining their spiritual and religious earnestness, there are yet a small number of them who have already attained a synthesis not lacking in the ideal. I know a young artist, a boy born in the Ghetto, who began his conscious American life with contempt for the old things, but who with growing culture has learned to perceive the beauty of the traditions and faith of his race. He puts into his paintings of the types of Hester Street an imaginative, almost religious, idealism, and his artistic sympathy seems to extend particularly to the old people. He, for one, has become reconciled to the spirit of his father without ceasing to be an American. And he is not alone. There are other young Jews, of American university education, of strong ethical and spiritual character, who are devoting themselves to the work of forming, among the boys of the Ghetto, an ideal at once American and consistent with the spirit at the heart of the Hebraic tradition.

THE "INTELLECTUALS"

Between the old people, with their religion, their traditions, the life pointing to the past, and the boy with his young life eagerly absorbent of the new tendencies, is a third class which may be called the "Intellectuals" of the Ghetto. This is the most picturesque and interesting, altho not the most permanently significant, of all. The members of this class are interesting for what they are rather than for what they have been or for what they may become. They are the anarchists, the socialists, the editors, the writers; some of the scholars, poets, playwrights and actors of the quarter. They are the "enlightened" ones who are at once neither orthodox Jews nor Americans. Coming from Russia, they are reactionary in their political opinions, and in matters of taste and literary ideals are Europeans rather than Americans. When they die they will leave nothing behind them; but while they live they include the most educated, forcible, and talented personalities of the quarter. Most of them are socialists, and, as I pointed out in the last section, socialism is not a permanently nutritive element in the life of the Ghetto, for as yet the Ghetto has not learned to know the conditions necessary to American life, and can not, therefore, effectively react against them.

It is this class which contains, however, the many men of "ideas" who bring about in certain circles a veritable intellectual fermentation; and are therefore most interesting from what might be called a literary point of view, as well as of great importance in the education of the people. Gifted Russian Jews hold forth passionately to crowds of working men; devoted writers exploit in the Yiddish newspapers the principles of their creed and take violent part in the labor agitation of the east side; or produce realistic sketches of the life in the quarter, underlying which can be felt the same kind of revolt which is apparent in the analogous literature of Russia. The intellectual excitement in the air causes many "splits" among the socialists. They gather in hostile camps, run rival organs, each prominent man has his "patriots," or faithful adherents who support him right or wrong. Intense personal abuse and the most violent denunciation of opposing principles are the rule. Mellowness, complacency, geniality, and calmness are qualities practically unknown to the intellectual Russian Jews, who, driven from the old country, now possess the first opportunity to express themselves. On the other hand they are free of the stupid Philistinism of content and are not primarily interested in the dollar. Their poets sing pathetically of the sweat-shops, of universal brotherhood, of the abstract rights of man. Their enthusiastic young men gather every evening in cafés of the quarter and become habitually intoxicated with the excitement of ideas. In their restless and feverish eyes shines the intense idealism of the combined Jew and Russian—the moral earnestness of the Hebrew united with the passionate, rebellious mental activity of the modern Muscovite. In these cafés they meet after the theatre or an evening lecture and talk into the morning hours. The ideal, indeed, is alive within them. The defect of their intellectual ideas is that they are not founded on historical knowledge, or on knowledge of the conditions with which they have to cope. In their excitement and extremeness they resemble the spirit of the French "intellectuals" of 1789 rather than that more conservative feeling which has always directed the development of Anglo-Saxon communities.

IN THESE CAFÉS THEY MEET AFTER THE THEATRE OR AN EVENING LECTURE

Among the "intellectuals" may be classed a certain number of poets, dramatists, musicians, and writers, who are neither socialists nor anarchists, constituting what might roughly be called the literary "Bohemia" of the quarter; men who pursue their art for the love of it simply, or who are thereto impelled by the necessity of making a precarious living; men really without ideas in the definite, belligerent sense, often uneducated, but often of considerable native talent. There are also many men of brains who form a large professional class—doctors, lawyers, and dentists—and who yet are too old when they come to America to be thoroughly identified with the life. They are, however, a useful part of the Jewish community, and, like others of the "intellectual" class, are often men of great devotion, who have left comparative honor and comfort in the old country in order to live and work with the persecuted or otherwise less fortunate brethren.

The greater number of the following chapters deal with the men of this "intellectual" class, their personalities, their literary work and the light it throws upon the life of the people in the New York Ghetto.

Chapter Two
Prophets without Honor

SUBMERGED SCHOLARS

A ragged man, who looks like a peddler or a beggar, picking his way through the crowded misery of Hester Street, or ascending the stairs of one of the dingy tenement-houses full of sweat-shops that line that busy mart of the poor Ghetto Jew, may be a great Hebrew scholar. He may be able to speak and write the ancient tongue with the facility of a modern language—as fluently as the ordinary Jew makes use of the "jargon," the Yiddish of the people; he may be a manifold author with a deep and pious love for the beautiful poetry in his literature; and in character an enthusiast, a dreamer, or a good and reverend old man. But no matter what his attainments and his quality he is unknown and unhonored, for he has pinned his faith to a declining cause, writes his passionate accents in a tongue more and more unknown even to the cultivated Jew; and consequently amid the crowding and material interests of the new world he is submerged—poor in physical estate and his moral capital unrecognized by the people among whom he lives.

HE IS UNKNOWN AND UNHONORED

Not only unrecognized by the ignorant and the busy and their teachers the rabbis, who in New York are frequently nearly as ignorant as the people, he is also (as his learning is limited largely to the literature of his race) looked down upon by the influential and intellectual element of the Ghetto—an element socialistic, in literary sympathy Russian rather than Hebraic, intolerant of everything not violently modern, wedded to "movements" and scornful of the past. The "maskil," therefore, or "man of wisdom"—the Hebrew scholar—is called "old fogy," or "dilettante," by the up-to-date socialists.

Of such men there are several in the humble corners of the New York Ghetto. One peddles for a living, another has a small printing-office in a basement on Canal Street, a third occasionally tutors in some one of many languages and sells a patent medicine, and a fourth is the principal of the Talmud-Thora, a Hebrew school in the Harlem Ghetto, where he teaches the children to read, write, and pray in the Hebrew language.

Moses Reicherson is the name of the principal. "Man of wisdom" of the purest kind, probably the finest Hebrew grammarian in New York, and one of the finest in the world, his income from his position at the head of the school is $5 a week. He is seventy-three years old, wears a thick gray beard, a little cap on his head, and a long black coat. His wife is old and bent. They are alone in their miserable little apartment on East One Hundred and Sixth Street. Their son died a year or two ago, and to cover the funeral expenses Mr. Reicherson tried in vain to sell his "Encyclopædia Britannica." But, nevertheless, the old scholar, who had been bending over his closely written manuscript, received the visitor with almost cheerful politeness, and told the story of his work and of his ambitions. Of his difficulties and privations he said little, but they shone through his words and in the character of the room in which he lived.

Born in Vilna, sometimes called the Jerusalem of Lithuania or the Athens of modern Judæa because of the number of enlightened Jews who have been born there, many of whom now live in the Russian Jewish quarter of New York, he has retained the faith of his orthodox parents, a faith, however, springing from the pure origin of Judaism rather than holding to the hair-splitting distinctions later embodied in the Talmud. He was a teacher of Hebrew in his native town for many years, where he stayed until he came to New York some years ago to be near his son. His two great intellectual interests, subordinated indeed to the love of the old literature and religion, have been Hebrew grammar and the moral fables of several languages. On the former he has written an important work, and of the latter has translated much of Lessing's and Gellert's work into pure Hebrew. He has also translated into his favorite tongue the Russian fable-writer Krilow; has written fables of his own, and a Hebrew commentary on the Bible in twenty-four volumes. He loves the fables "because they teach the people and are real criticism; they are profound and combine fancy and thought." Many of these are still in manuscript, which is characteristic of much of the work of these scholars, for they have no money, and publishers do not run after Hebrew books. Also unpublished, written in lovingly minute characters, he has a Hebrew prayer-book in many volumes. He has written hundreds of articles for the Hebrew weeklies and monthlies, which are fairly numerous in this country, but which seldom can afford to pay their contributors. At present he writes exclusively for a Hebrew weekly published in Chicago, Regeneration, the object of which is to promote "the knowledge of the ancient Hebrew language and literature, and to regenerate the spirit of the nation." For this he receives no pay, the editor being almost as poor as himself. But he writes willingly for the love of the cause, "for universal good"; for Reicherson, in common with the other neglected scholars, is deeply interested in revivifying what is now among American Jews a dead language. He believes that in this way only can the Jewish people be taught the good and the true.

MOSES REICHERSON

"When the national language and literature live," he said, "the nation lives; when dead, so is the nation. The holy tongue in which the Bible was written must not die. If it should, much of the truth of the Bible, many of its spiritual secrets, much of its beautiful poetry, would be lost. I have gone deep into the Bible, that greatest book, all my life, and I know many of its secrets." He beamed with pride as he said these words, and his sense of the beauty of the Hebrew spirit and the Hebrew literature led him to speak wonderingly of Anti-Semitism. This cause seemed to him to be founded on ignorance of the Bible. "If the Anti-Semites would only study the Bible, would go deep into the knowledge of Hebrew and the teaching of Christ, then everything would be sweet and well. If they would spend a little of that money in supporting the Hebrew language and literature and explaining the sacred books which they now use against our race, they would see that they are Anti-Christians rather than Anti-Semites."

The scholar here bethought himself of an old fable he had translated into Hebrew. Cold and Warmth make a wager that the traveller will unwrap his cloak sooner to one than to the other. The fierce wind tries its best, but at every cold blast the traveller only wraps his cloak the closer. But when the sun throws its rays the wayfarer gratefully opens his breast to the warming beams. "Love solves all things," said the old man, "and hate closes up the channels to knowledge and virtue." Believing the Pope to be a good man with a knowledge of the Bible, he wanted to write him about the Anti-Semites, but desisted on the reflection that the Pope was very old and overburdened, and that the letter would probably fall into the hands of the cardinals.

All this was sweetly said, for about him there was nothing of the attitude of complaint. His wife once or twice during the interview touched upon their personal condition, but her husband severely kept his mind on the universal truths, and only when questioned admitted that he would like a little more money, in order to publish his books and to enable him to think with more concentration about the Hebrew language and literature. There was no bitterness in his reference to the neglect of Hebrew scholarship in the Ghetto. His interest was impersonal and detached, and his regret at the decadence of the language seemed noble and disinterested; and, unlike some of the other scholars, the touch of warm humanity was in everything he said. Indeed, he is rather the learned teacher of the people with deep religious and ethical sense than the scholar who cares only for learning. "In the name of God, adieu!" he said, with quiet intensity when the visitor withdrew.

Contrasting sharply in many respects with this beautiful old teacher is the man who peddles from tenement-house to tenement-house in the down-town Ghetto, to support himself and his three young children. S. B. Schwartzberg, unlike most of the "submerged" scholars, is still a young man, only thirty-seven years old, but he is already discouraged, bitter, and discontented. He feels himself the apostle of a lost cause—the regeneration in New York of the old Hebrew language and literature. His great enterprise in life has failed. He has now given it up, and the natural vividness and intensity of his nature get satisfaction in the strenuous abuse of the Jews of the Ghetto.

He was born in Warsaw, Poland, the son of a distinguished rabbi. In common with many Russian and Polish Jews, he early obtained a living knowledge of the Hebrew language, and a great love of the literature, which he knows thoroughly, altho, unlike Reicherson and a scholar who is to be mentioned, Rosenberg, he has not contributed to the literature in a scientific sense. He is slightly bald, with burning black eyes, an enthusiastic and excited manner, and talks with almost painful earnestness.

Three years ago Schwartzberg came to this country with a great idea in his head. "In this free country," he thought to himself, "where there are so many Russian and Polish Jews, it is a pity that our tongue is dying, is falling into decay, and that the literature and traditions that hold our race together are being undermined by materialism and ethical skepticism." He had a little money, and he decided he would establish a journal in the interests of the Hebrew language and literature. No laws would prevent him here from speaking his mind in his beloved tongue. He would bring into vivid being again the national spirit of his people, make them love with the old fervor their ancient traditions and language. It was the race's spirit of humanity and feeling for the ethical beauty, not the special creed of Judaism, for which he and the other scholars care little, that filled him with the enthusiasm of an apostle. In his monthly magazine, the Western Light, he put his best efforts, his best thoughts about ethical truths and literature. The poet Dolitzki contributed in purest Hebrew verse, as did many other Ghetto lights. But it received no support, few bought it, and it lasted only a year. Then he gave it up, bankrupt in money and hope. That was several years ago, and since then he has peddled for a living.

The failure has left in Schwartzberg's soul a passionate hatred of what he calls the materialism of the Jews in America. Only in Europe, he thinks, does the love of the spiritual remain with them. Of the rabbis of the Ghetto he spoke with bitterness. "They," he said, "are the natural teachers of the people. They could do much for the Hebrew literature and language. Why don't they? Because they know no Hebrew and have no culture. In Russia the Jews demand that their rabbis should be learned and spiritual, but here they are ignorant and materialistic." So Mr. Schwartzberg wrote a pamphlet which is now famous in the Ghetto. "I wrote it with my heart's blood," he said, his eyes snapping. "In it I painted the spiritual condition of the Jews in New York in the gloomiest of colors."

"It is terrible," he proceeded vehemently. "Not one Hebrew magazine can exist in this country. They all fail, and yet there are many beautiful Hebrew writers to-day. When Dolitzki was twenty years old in Russia he was looked up to as a great poet. But what do the Jews care about him here? For he writes in Hebrew! Why, Hebrew scholars are regarded by the Jews as tramps, as useless beings. Driven from Russia because we are Jews, we are despised in New York because we are Hebrew scholars! The rabbis, too, despise the learned Hebrew, and they have a fearful influence on the ignorant people. If they can dress well and speak English it is all they want. It is a shame how low-minded these teachers of the people are. I was born of a rabbi, and brought up by him, but in Russia they are for literature and the spirit, while in America it is just the other way."

The discouraged apostle of Hebrew literature now sees no immediate hope for the cause. What seems to him the most beautiful lyric poetry in the world he thinks doomed to the imperfect understanding of generations for whom the language does not live. The only ultimate hope is in the New Jerusalem. Consequently the fiery scholar, altho not a Zionist, thinks well of the movement as tending to bring the Jews again into a nation which shall revive the old tongue and traditions. Mr. Schwartzberg referred to some of the other submerged scholars of the Ghetto. His eyes burned with indignation when he spoke of Moses Reicherson. He could hardly control himself at the thought that the greatest Hebrew grammarian living, "an old man, too, a reverend old man," should be brought to such a pass. In the same strain of outrage he referred to another old man, a scholar who would be as poor as Reicherson and himself were it not for his wife, who is a dressmaker. It is she who keeps him out of the category of "submerged" scholars.

REV. H. ROSENBERG

But the Rev. H. Rosenberg, of whose condition Schwartzberg also bitterly complained, is indeed submerged. He runs a printing-office in a Canal Street basement, where he sits in the damp all day long waiting for an opportunity to publish his magnum opus, a cyclopedia of Biblical literature, containing an historical and geographical description of the persons, places, and objects mentioned in the Bible. All the Ghetto scholars speak of this work with bated breath, as a tremendously learned affair. Only two volumes of it have been published. To give the remainder to the world, Mr. Rosenberg is waiting for his children, who are nearly self-supporting, to contribute their mite. He is a man of sixty-two, with the high, bald forehead of a scholar. For twenty years he was a rabbi in Russia, and has preached in thirteen synagogues. He has been nine years in New York, and, in addition to the great cyclopedia, has written, but not published, a cyclopedia of Talmudical literature. A "History of the Jews," in the Russian language, and a Russian novel, "The Jew of Trient," are among his published works. He is one of the most learned of all of these men who have a living, as well as an exact, knowledge of what is generally regarded as a dead language and literature.

Altho he is waiting to publish the great cyclopedia, he is patient and cold. He has not the sweet enthusiasm of Reicherson, and not the vehement and partisan passion of Schwartzberg. He has the coldness of old age, without its spiritual glow, and scholarship is the only idea that moves him. Against the rabbis he has no complaint to make; with them, he said, he had nothing to do. He thinks that Schwartzberg is extreme and unfair, and that there are good and bad rabbis in New York. He is reserved and undemonstrative, and speaks only in reply. When the rather puzzled visitor asked him if there was anything in which he was interested, he replied, "Yes, in my cyclopedia." The only point at which he betrayed feeling was when he quoted proudly the words of a reviewer of the cyclopedia, who had wondered where Dr. Rosenberg had obtained all his learning. He stated indifferently that the Hebrew language and literature is dead and cannot be revived. "I know," he said, "that Hebrew literature does not pay, but I cannot stop." With no indignation, he remarked that the Jews in New York have no ideals. It was a fact objectively to be deplored, but for which he personally had no emotion, all of that being reserved for his cyclopedia.

"SUBMERGED SCHOLARS"

These three men are perfect types of the "submerged Hebrew scholar" of the New York Ghetto. Reicherson is the typical religious teacher; Schwartzberg, the enthusiast, who loves the language like a mistress, and Rosenberg, the cool "man of wisdom," who only cares for the perfection of knowledge. Altho there are several others on the east side who approach the type, they fall more or less short of it. Either they are not really scholars in the old tongue, altho reading and even writing it, or through business or otherwise they have raised themselves above the pathetic point. Thus Dr. Benedict Ben-Zion, one of the poorest of all, being reduced to occasional tutoring, and the sale of a patent medicine for a living, is not specifically a scholar. He writes and reads Hebrew, to be sure, but is also a playwright in the "jargon;" has been a Christian missionary to his own people in Egypt, Constantinople, and Rumania, a doctor for many years, a teacher in several languages, one who has turned his hand to everything, and whose heart and mind are not so purely Hebraic as those of the men I have mentioned. He even is seen, more or less, with Ghetto literati who are essentially hostile to what the true Hebrew scholar holds by—a body of Russian Jewish socialists of education, who in their Grand and Canal Street cafés express every night in impassioned language their contempt for whatever is old and historical.

Then, there are J. D. Eisenstein, the youngest and one of the most learned, but perhaps the least "submerged" of them all; Gerson Rosenschweig, a wit, who has collected the epigrams of the Hebrew literature, added many of his own, and written in Hebrew a humorous treatise on America—a very up-to-date Jew, who, like Schwartzberg, tried to run a Hebrew weekly, but when he failed, was not discouraged, and turned to business and politics instead; and Joseph Low Sossnitz, a very learned scholar, of dry and sarcastic tendency, who only recently has risen above the submerged point. Among the latter's most notable published books are a philosophical attack on materialism, a treatise on the sun, and a work on the philosophy of religion.

It is the wrench between the past and the present which has placed these few scholars in their present pathetic condition. Most of them are old, and when they die the "maskil" as a type will have vanished from New York. In the meantime, tho they starve, they must devote themselves to the old language, the old ideas and traditions of culture. Their poet, the austere Dolitzki, famous in Russia at the time of the revival of Hebrew twenty years ago, is the only man in New York who symbolizes in living verse the spirit in which these old men live, the spirit of love for the race as most purely expressed in the Hebrew literature. This disinterested love for the remote, this pathetic passion to keep the dead alive, is what lends to the lives of these "submerged" scholars a nobler quality than what is generally associated with the east side.

THE POOR RABBIS

The rabbis, as well as the scholars, of the east side of New York have their grievances. They, too, are "submerged," like so much in humanity that is at once intelligent, poor, and out-of-date. As a lot, they are old, reverend men, with long gray beards, long black coats and little black caps on their heads. They are mainly very poor, live in the barest of the tenement houses and pursue a calling which no longer involves much honor or standing. In the old country, in Russia—for most of the poor ones are Russian—the rabbi is a great person. He is made rabbi by the state and is rabbi all his life, and the only rabbi in the town, for all the Jews in every city form one congregation, of which there is but one rabbi and one cantor. He is a man always full of learning and piety, and is respected and supported comfortably by the congregation, a tax being laid on meat, salt, and other foodstuffs for his special benefit.

But in New York it is very different. Here there are hundreds of congregations, one in almost every street, for the Jews come from many different cities and towns in the old country, and the New York representatives of every little place in Russia must have their congregation here. Consequently, the congregations are for the most part small, poor and unimportant. Few can pay the rabbi more than $3 or $4 a week, and often, instead of having a regular salary, he is reduced to occasional fees for his services at weddings, births and holy festivals generally. Some very poor congregations get along without a rabbi at all, hiring one for special occasions, but these are congregations which are falling off somewhat from their orthodox strictness.

The result of this state of affairs is a pretty general falling off in the character of the rabbis. In Russia they are learned men—know the Talmud and all the commentaries upon it by heart—and have degrees from the rabbinical colleges, but here they are often without degrees, frequently know comparatively little about the Talmud, and are sometimes actuated by worldly motives. A few Jews coming to New York from some small Russian town, will often select for a rabbi the man among them who knows a little more of the Talmud than the others, whether he has ever studied for the calling or not. Then, again, some mere adventurers get into the position—men good for nothing, looking for a position. They clap a high hat on their heads, impose on a poor congregation with their up-to-dateness and become rabbis without learning or piety. These "fake" rabbis—"rabbis for business only"—are often satirized in the Yiddish plays given at the Bowery theatres. On the stage they are ridiculous figures, ape American manners in bad accents, and have a keen eye for gain.

The genuine, pious rabbis in the New York Ghetto feel, consequently, that they have their grievances. They, the accomplished interpreters of the Jewish law, are well-nigh submerged by the frauds that flood the city. But this is not the only sorrow of the "real" rabbi of the Ghetto. The rabbis uptown, the rich rabbis, pay little attention to the sufferings, moral and physical, of their downtown brethren. For the most part the uptown rabbi is of the German, the downtown rabbi of the Russian branch of the Jewish race, and these two divisions of the Hebrews hate one another like poison. Last winter when Zangwill's dramatized Children of the Ghetto was produced in New York the organs of the swell uptown German-Jew protested that it was a pity to represent faithfully in art the sordidness as well as the beauty of the poor Russian Ghetto Jew. It seemed particularly baneful that the religious customs of the Jews should be thus detailed upon the stage. The uptown Jew felt a little ashamed that the proletarians of his people should be made the subject of literature. The downtown Jews, the Russian Jews, however, received play and stories with delight, as expressing truthfully their life and character, of which they are not ashamed.

Another cause of irritation between the downtown and uptown rabbis is a difference of religion. The uptown rabbi, representing congregations larger in this country and more American in comfort and tendency, generally is of the "reformed" complexion, a hateful thought to the orthodox downtown rabbi, who is loath to admit that the term rabbi fits these swell German preachers. He maintains that, since the uptown rabbi is, as a rule, not only "reformed" in faith, but in preaching as well, he is in reality no rabbi, for, properly speaking, a rabbi is simply an interpreter of the law, one with whom the Talmudical wisdom rests, and who alone can give it out; not one who exhorts, but who, on application, can untie knotty points of the law. The uptown rabbis they call "preachers," with some disdain.

So that the poor, downtrodden rabbis—those among them who look upon themselves as the only genuine—have many annoyances to bear. Despised and neglected by their rich brethren, without honor or support in their own poor communities, and surrounded by a rabble of unworthy rivals, the "real" interpreter of the "law" in New York is something of an object of pity.

Just who the most genuine downtown rabbis are is, no doubt, a matter of dispute. I will not attempt to determine, but will quote in substance a statement of Rabbi Weiss as to genuine rabbis, which will include a curious section of the history of the Ghetto. He is a jolly old man, and smokes his pipe in a tenement-house room containing 200 books of the Talmud and allied writings.

"A genuine rabbi," he said, "knows the law, and sits most of the time in his room, ready to impart it. If an old woman comes in with a goose that has been killed, the rabbi can tell her, after she has explained how the animal met its death, whether or not it is koshur, whether it may be eaten or not. And on any other point of diet or general moral or physical hygiene the rabbi is ready to explain the law of the Hebrews from the time of Adam until to-day. It is he who settles many of the quarrels of the neighborhood. The poor sweat-shop Jew comes to complain of his "boss," the old woman to tell him her dreams and get his interpretation of them, the young girl to weigh with him questions of amorous etiquette. Our children do not need to go to the Yiddish theatres to learn about "greenhorn" types. They see all sorts of Ghetto Jews in the house of the rabbi, their father.

"I myself was the first genuine rabbi on the east side of New York. I am now sixty-two years old, and came here sixteen years ago—came for pleasure, but my wife followed me, and so I had to stay."

Here the old rabbi smiled cheerfully. "When I came to New York," he proceeded, "I found the Jews here in a very bad way—eating meat that was "thrapho," not allowed, because killed improperly; literally, killed by a brute. The slaughter-houses at that time had no rabbi to see that the meat was properly killed, was koshur—all right.

"You can imagine my horror. The slaughter-houses had been employing an orthodox Jew, who, however, was not a rabbi, to see that the meat was properly killed, and he had been doing things all wrong, and the chosen people had been living abominably. I immediately explained the proper way of killing meat, and since then I have regulated several slaughter-houses and make my living in that way. I am also rabbi of a congregation, but it is so small that it doesn't pay. The slaughter-houses are more profitable."

THE RABBI CAN TELL WHETHER OR NOT IT IS KOSHUR

These "submerged" rabbis are not always quite fair to one another. Some east side authorities maintain that the "orthodox Jew" of whom Rabbi Weiss spoke thus contemptuously, was one of the finest rabbis who ever came to New York, one of the most erudite of Talmudic scholars. Many congregations united to call him to America in 1887, so great was his renown in Russia. But when he reached New York the general fate of the intelligent adult immigrant overtook him. Even the "orthodox" in New York looked upon him as a "greenhorn" and deemed his sermons out-of-date. He was inclined, too, to insist upon a stricter observance of the law than suited their lax American ideas. So he, too, famous in Russia, rapidly became one of the "submerged."

One of the most learned, dignified and impressive rabbis of the east side is Rabbi Vidrovitch. He was a rabbi for forty years in Russia, and for nine years in New York. Like all true rabbis he does not preach, but merely sits in his home and expounds the "law." He employs the Socratic method of instruction, and is very keen in his indirect mode of argument. Keenness, indeed, seems to be the general result of the hair-splitting Rabbinical education. The uptown rabbis, "preachers," as the down-town rabbi contemptuously calls them, send many letters to Rabbi Vidrovitch seeking his help in the untying of knotty points of the "law." It was from him that Israel Zangwill, when the Children of the Ghetto was produced on the New York stage, obtained a minute description of the orthodox marriage ceremonies. Zangwill caused to be taken several flash-light photographs of the old rabbi, surrounded by his books and dressed in his official garments.

There are many congregations in the New York Ghetto which have no rabbis and many rabbis who have no congregations. Two rabbis who have no congregations are Rabbi Beinush and Rabbi, or rather, Cantor, Weiss. Rabbi Weiss would say of Beinush that he is a man who knows the Talmud, but has no diploma. Rabbi Beinush is an extremely poor rabbi with neither congregation nor slaughter-houses, who sits in his poor room and occasionally sells his wisdom to a fishwife who wants to know if some piece of meat is koshur or not. He is down on the rich up-town rabbis, who care nothing for the law, as he puts it, and who leave the poor down-town rabbi to starve.

Cantor Weiss is also without a job. The duty of the cantor is to sing the prayer in the congregation, but Cantor Weiss sings only on holidays, for he is not paid enough, he says, to work regularly, the cantor sharing in this country a fate similar to that of the rabbi. The famous comedian of the Ghetto, Mogolesco, was, as a boy, one of the most noted cantors in Russia. As an actor in the New York Ghetto he makes twenty times as much money as the most accomplished cantor here. Cantor Weiss is very bitter against the up-town cantors: "They shorten the prayer," he said. "They are not orthodox. It is too hot in the synagogue for the comfortable up-town cantors to pray."

Comfortable Philistinism, progress and enlightment up town; and poverty, orthodoxy and patriotic and religious sentiment, with a touch of the material also, down town. Such seems to be the difference between the German and the Russian Jew in this country, and in particular between the German and Russian Jewish rabbi.

Chapter Three
The Old and the New Woman

The women present in many respects a marked contrast to their American sisters. Substance as opposed to form, simplicity of mood as opposed to capriciousness, seem to be in broad lines their relative qualities. They have comparatively few états d'ame; but those few are revealed with directness and passion. They lack the subtle charm of the American woman, who is full of feminine devices, complicated flirtatiousness; who in her dress and personal appearance seeks the plastic epigram, and in her talk and relation to the world an indirect suggestive delicacy. They are poor in physical estate; many work or have worked; even the comparatively educated among them, in the sweat-shops, are undernourished and lack the physical well-being and consequent temperamental buoyancy which are comforting qualities of the well-bred American woman. Unhappy in circumstances, they are predominatingly serious in nature, and, if they lack alertness to the social nuance, have yet a compelling appeal which consists in headlong devotion to a duty, a principle or a person. As their men do not treat them with the scrupulous deference given their American sisters, they do not so delightfully abound in their own sense, do not so complexedly work out their own natures, and lack variety and grace. On the other hand, they are more apt to abound in the sense of something outside of themselves, and carry to their love affairs the same devoted warmth that they put into principle.

THE ORTHODOX JEWESS

The first of the two well-marked classes of women in the Ghetto is that of the ignorant orthodox Russian Jewess. She has no language but Yiddish, no learning but the Talmudic law, no practical authority but that of her husband and her rabbi. She is even more of a Hausfrau than the German wife. She can own no property, and the precepts of the Talmud as applied to her conduct are largely limited to the relations with her husband. Her life is absorbed in observing the religious law and in taking care of her numerous children. She is drab and plain in appearance, with a thick waist, a wig, and as far as is possible for a woman a contempt for ornament. She is, however, with the noticeable assimilative sensitiveness of the Jew, beginning to pick up some of the ways of the American woman. If she is young when she comes to America, she soon lays aside her wig, and sometimes assumes the rakish American hat, prides herself on her bad English, and grows slack in the observance of Jewish holidays and the dietary regulations of the Talmud. Altho it is against the law of this religion to go to the theatre, large audiences, mainly drawn from the ignorant workers of the sweat-shops and the fishwives and pedlers of the push-cart markets, flock to the Bowery houses. It is this class which forms the large background of the community, the masses from which more cultivated types are developing.

HER LIFE IS ABSORBED IN OBSERVING THE RELIGIOUS LAW

Many a literary sketch in the newspapers of the quarter portrays these ignorant, simple, devout, housewifely creatures in comic or pathetic, more often, after the satiric manner of the Jewish writers, in serio-comic vein. The authors, altho they are much more educated, yet write of these women, even when they write in comic fashion, with fundamental sympathy. They picture them working devotedly in the shop or at home for their husbands and families, they represent the sorrow and simple jealousy of the wife whose husband's imagination, perhaps, is carried away by the piquant manner and dress of a Jewess who is beginning to ape American ways; they tell of the comic adventures in America of the newly-arrived Jewess: how she goes to the theatre, perhaps, and enacts the part of Partridge at the play. More fundamentally, they relate how the poor woman is deeply shocked, at her arrival, by the change which a few years have made in the character of her husband, who had come to America before her in order to make a fortune. She finds his beard shaved off, and his manners in regard to religious holidays very slack. She is sometimes so deeply affected that she does not recover. More often she grows to feel the reason and eloquence of the change and becomes partly accustomed to the situation; but all through her life she continues to be dismayed by the precocity, irreligion and Americanism of her children. Many sketches and many scenes in the Ghetto plays present her as a pathetic "greenhorn" who, while she is loved by her children, is yet rather patronized and pitied by them.

In "Gott, Mensch und Teufel," a Yiddish adaptation of the Faust idea, one of these simple religious souls is dramatically portrayed. The restless Jewish Faust, his soul corrupted by the love of money, puts aside his faithful wife in order to marry another woman who has pleased his eye. He uses as an excuse the fact that his marriage is childless, and as such rendered void in accordance with the precepts of the religious law. His poor old wife submits almost with reverence to the double authority of husband and Talmud, and with humble demeanor and tears streaming from her eyes begs the privilege of taking care of the children of her successor.

In "The Slaughter" there is a scene which picturesquely portrays the love of the poor Jew and the poor Jewess for their children. The wife is married to a brute, whom she hates, and between the members of the two families there is no relation but that of ugly sordidness. But when it is known that a child is to be born they are all filled with the greatest joy. The husband is ecstatic and they have a great feast, drink, sing and dance, and the young wife is lyrically happy for the first time since her marriage.

Many little newspaper sketches portray the simple sweat-shop Jewess of the ordinary affectionate type, who is exclusively minded so far as her husband's growing interest in the showy American Jewess is concerned. Cahan's novel, "Yekel," is the Ghetto masterpiece in the portrayal of these two types of women—the wronged "greenhorn" who has just come from Russia, and she who, with a rakish hat and bad English, is becoming an American girl with strange power to alienate the husband's affections.

THE MODERN TYPE

The other, the educated class of Ghetto women, is, of course, in a great minority; and this division includes the women even the most slightly affected by modern ideas as well as those who from an intellectual point of view are highly cultivated. Among the least educated are a large number of women who would be entirely ignorant were it not for the ideas which they have received through the Socialistic propaganda of the quarter. Like the men who are otherwise ignorant, they are trained to a certain familiarity with economic ideas, read and think a good deal about labor and capital, and take an active part in speaking, in "house to house" distribution of socialistic literature and in strike agitation. Many of these women, so long as they are unmarried, lead lives thoroughly devoted to "the cause," and afterwards become good wives and fruitful mothers, and urge on their husbands and sons to active work in the "movement." They have in personal character many virtues called masculine, are simple and straightforward and intensely serious, and do not "bank" in any way on the fact that they are women! Such a woman would feel insulted if her escort were to pick up her handkerchief or in any way suggest a politeness growing out of the difference in sex. It is from this class of women, from those who are merely tinged, so to speak, with ideas, and who consequently are apt to throw the whole strength of their primitive natures into the narrow intellectual channels that are open to them, that a number of Ghetto heroines come who are willing to lay down their lives for an idea, or to live for one. It was only recently that the thinking Socialists were stirred by the suicide of a young girl for which several causes were given. Some say it was for love, but what seems a partial cause at least for the tragedy was the girl's devotion to anarchistic ideas. She had worked for some time in the quarter and was filled with enthusiastic Tolstoian convictions about freedom and non-resistance to evil, and all the other idealistic doctrines for which these Anarchists are remarkable. Some of the people of the quarter believe that it was temporary despair of any satisfactory outcome to her work that brought about her death. But since the splits in the Socialistic party and the rise among them of many insincere agitators, the enthusiasm for the cause has diminished, and particularly among the women, who demand perfect integrity or nothing; tho there is still a large class of poor sweat-shop women who carry on active propaganda work, make speeches, distribute literature, and go from house to house in a social effort to make converts.

INTENSELY SERIOUS

As we ascend in the scale of education in the Ghetto we find women who derive their culture and ideas from a double source—from Socialism and from advanced Russian ideals of literature and life. They have lost faith completely in the orthodox religion, have substituted no other, know Russian better than Yiddish, read Tolstoi, Turgenef and Chekhov, and often put into practice the most radical theories of the "new woman," particularly those which say that woman should be economically independent of man. There are successful female dentists, physicians, writers, and even lawyers by the score in East Broadway who have attained financial independence through industry and intelligence. They are ambitious to a degree and often direct the careers of their husbands or force their lovers to become doctors or lawyers—the great social desiderata in the match-making of the Ghetto. There is more than one case on record where a girl has compelled her recalcitrant lover to learn law, medicine or dentistry, or submit to being jilted by her. An actor devoted to the stage is now on the point of leaving it to become a dentist at the command of his ambitious wife. "I always do what she tells me," he said pathetically.

The career of a certain woman now practising dentistry in the Ghetto is one of the most interesting cases, and is also quite typical. She was born of poor Jewish parents in a town near St. Petersburg, and began early to read the socialist propaganda and the Russian literature which contains so much implicit revolutionary doctrine. When she was seventeen years old she wrote a novel in Yiddish, called "Mrs. Goldna, the Usurer," in which she covertly advocated the anarchistic teachings. The title and the sub-theme of the book was directed against the usurer class among the Jews, and were mainly intended to hide from the Government her real purpose. The book was afterwards published in New York, and had a fairly wide circulation. A year or two later her imagination was irresistibly enthralled by the remarkable wave of "new woman" enthusiasm which swept over Russia in the early eighties, and resulted in so many suicides of young girls whom poverty or injustice to the Jew thwarted in their scientific and intellectual ambition. She went alone to St. Petersburg with sixty five cents in her pocket, in order to obtain a professional education, which, after years of practical starvation, she succeeded in securing. With several degrees she came to America twelve years ago and fought out an independent professional position for herself. She believes that all women should have the means by which they may support themselves, and that marriage under these conditions would be happier than at present. Her husband is a doctor, and her idea is that they are happier than if she were a woman of the old type, "merely a wife and mother," as she put it. She maintains that no emotional interest is lost under the new régime, while many practical advantages are gained. Since she has been in America she has furthered the Socialist cause by literary sketches published in the Yiddish newspapers, altho she has been too busy to take any direct part in the movement.

A RUSSIAN GIRL-STUDENT

The description of this type of woman seems rather cold and forbidding in the telling; but such an impression is misleading. There is no commoner reproach made by the women of the Ghetto against their American sister than that she is unemotional and "practical." They come to America, like the men, because they cannot stand the political conditions in Russia, which they describe as "fierce," but they never cease loving the land of their birth; and the reason they give is that the ideal still lives in Muscovite civilization, while in America it is trampled out by the cult of the dollar. They think Americans are dry and cold, unpoetic, uninterested in great principles, and essentially frivolous, incapable of devotion to persons or to "movements," reading books only for amusement, and caring nothing for real literature. One day an American dined with four Russian Jews of distinction. Two were Nihilists who had been in the "big movement" in Russia and were merely visiting New York. The other two were a married couple of uncommon education. The Nihilists were gentle, cultivated men, with feeling for literature, and deeply admired, because of their connection with the great movement, by the two New Yorkers. The talk turned on Byron, for whom the Russians had a warm enthusiasm. The Americans made rather light of Byron and incurred thereby the great scorn of the Russians, who felt deeply the "tendency" character of the poet without being able to understand his æsthetic and imaginative limitations. After the Nihilists had left, the misguided American used the words "interesting" and "amusing" in connection with them; whereupon the Russian lady was almost indignant, and dilated on the frivolity of a race that could not take serious people seriously, but wanted always to be entertained; that cared only for what was "pretty" and "charming" and "sensible" and "practical," and cared nothing for poetry and beauty and essential humanity.

The woman referred to, as well as many others of the most educated class in the quarter, some of them the wives of socialists, doctors, lawyers or literary men, are strongly interesting because of their warm temperaments, and genuine, if limited, ideas about art, but most of them are lacking in grace, and sense of humor, and of proportion. They are stiff and unyielding, have little free play of imagination, little alertness of ideas, and their sense of literature is limited largely to realism. Japanese art, for instance, as any art which depends on the exquisiteness of its form, is lost on these stern realists. They no more understand the latest subtle literary consciousness than they do the interest and eloquence of a creature who makes of herself a perfect social product such as the clever French woman of history.

WORKING GIRLS RETURNING HOME

But the charm of sincere feeling they have; and, in an intellectual race, that feeling shapes itself into definite criticism of society. Emotionally strong and attached by Russian tradition to a rebellious doctrine, they are deeply unconventional in theory and sometimes in practice; altho the national morality of the Jewish race very definitely limits the extent to which they realize some of their ideas. The passionate feeling at the bottom of most of their "tendency" beliefs is that woman should stand on the same social basis as man, and should be weighed in the same scales. This ruling creed is held by all classes of the educated women of the Ghetto, from the poor sweat shop worker, who has recently felt the influence of Socialism, to the thoroughly trained "new woman" with her developed literary taste; and all its variations find expression in the literature of the quarter.

PLACE OF WOMAN IN GHETTO LITERATURE

Ibsen's "Doll's House" has been translated and produced at a Yiddish theatre; and an original play called "Minna" registers a protest by the Jewish woman against that law of marriage which binds her to an inferior man. Married to an ignorant laborer, Minna falls in love (for his advanced ideas) with the boarder—every poor family, to pay the rent, must saddle themselves with a boarder, often at the expense of domestic happiness—and finally kills herself, when the laws of society press her too hard. Another drama called "East Broadway" presents the case of a Russian Jewess devoted to Russia, to idealism and Nihilism, and to a man who shared her faith until they came to New York, when he became a business man pure and simple, and lost his ideals and his love for her. In a popular play called "The Beggar of Odessa," lines openly advocating the freest love between the sexes accompany other extreme anarchistic views put into the loosest and most popular form. "Broken Chains" is a drama which criticises the relative freedom of action given to the man in matters of love. The heroine reads Ibsen at night while her husband amuses himself in the quarter. A young bookkeeper is there who serves to make concrete her growing theories. But her sense of duty to her child restrains her from the final step, and she dies in despair. Suicides in sketches and plays abound, and as often as not result simply from intellectual despondency. "Vain Sacrifice" is the fierce outcry of a woman against the poverty which makes her marry a man she loathes for the sake of her father. In the newspaper sketches there are many pictures of sordid homes and conditions from the midst of which fierce protests by wives and mothers are implicitly given.

A RUSSIAN TYPE

An appealing characteristic of the "new woman" of the Ghetto is the consideration which she manifests towards the orthodox "greenhorn" who may be her aunt, her mother, her mother-in-law or her grandmother. The sense of infinite form prescribed by the Talmud is dead to her, but extraordinary love for the family bond is not, and, moved by that, she observes the complicated formulæ on all the holidays in order to please the dear old "greenhorn" who lives with her; eats unleavened bread, weeps on Atonement Day in the synagogue, and goes through the whole long list. Her conduct in this respect is in striking contrast to the off-hand treatment of parents by their American daughters, and to that of the Orthodox Jewish woman in relation to the theatre. The law forbids the theatre, but even the slightly disillusioned ladies of the quarter will go on the Sabbath; and it is said that they sometimes hypocritically relieve their consciences by hissing the actor who, even in his rôle, dares to smoke on that day. This is on a par with the hypocrisy which leads many Orthodox Jewish families to have a Gentile as their servant, so that they can drink the tea, and warm themselves by the fire, made by him, without technically violating "the law."

Love in the Ghetto is, no doubt, very much the same as it is elsewhere; and this in spite of the fact that among the Orthodox marriage is arranged by the parents, a custom which is condemned in "The Slaughter," for instance, where the terrible results of a loveless union are portrayed. The system of matrimonial agents in the quarter does not seem to have any important bearing on the question of love. In this respect the free thinking of the people grows apace, and love-marriages in the quarter are on the increase. In matters of taste and inclination between the sexes, however, there are some qualities quite startling to the American. The most popular actor with the girls of the Ghetto is a very fat, heavy, pompous hero who would provoke only a smile from the trim American girl; and the more popular actresses are also very stout ladies. From an American point of view the prettiest actresses of the Ghetto are admired by the minority of Jews who have been taken by the rakish hat, the slim form, and the indefinite charm to which the Ghetto is being educated. It is alleged that at an up-town theatre, where a large proportion of the audience is Jewish, the leading lady must always be of very generous build; and this in spite of the fact that the well-to-do Jews up-town have been in America a long time, and have had ample opportunity to become smitten with the charms of the slender American girl.

Chapter Four
Four Poets

In East Canal Street, in the heart of the east side, are many of the little Russian Jewish cafés, already mentioned, where excellent coffee and tea are sold, where everything is clean and good, and where the conversation is often of the best. The talk is good, for there assemble, in the late afternoon and evening, the chosen crowd of "intellectuals." The best that is Russian to-day is intensely serious. What is distinctively Jewish has always been serious. The man hunted from his country is apt to have a serious tone in thought and feeling.

It is this combination—Russian, Jewish, and exile—that is represented at these little Canal Street cafés. The sombre and earnest qualities of the race, emphasized by the special conditions, receive here expression in the mouths of actors, socialists, musicians, journalists, and poets. Here they get together and talk by the hour, over their coffee and cake, about politics and society, poetry and ethics, literature and life. The café-keepers themselves are thoughtful and often join in the discussion,—a discussion never light but sometimes lighted up by bitter wit and gloomy irony.

There are many poets among them, four of whom stand out as men of great talent. One of the four, Morris Rosenfeld, is already well known to the English-speaking world through a translation of some of his poems. Two of the other three are equally well known, but only to the Jewish people. One is famous throughout Jewish Russia.

A WEDDING BARD

The oldest of the four poets is Eliakim Zunser. It is he that is known to millions of people in Russia and to the whole New York Ghetto. He is the poet of the common people, the beloved of all, the poet of the housewife, of the Jew who is so ignorant that he does not even know his own family name. To still more ignorant people, if such are possible, he is known by what, after all, is his distinctive title, Eliakim the Badchen, or the Wedding Bard. He writes in Yiddish, the universal language of the Jew, dubbed "jargon" by the Hebrew aristocrat.

Zunser is now a printer in Rutger's Square, and has largely given up his duties as Badchen, but at one time he was so famous in that capacity that he went to a wedding once or twice every day, and made in that way a large income. His part at the ceremony was to address the bride and bridegroom in verse so solemn that it would bring tears to their eyes, and then entertain the guests with burlesque lines. He composed the music as well as the verses, and did both extempore. When he left his home to attend the wedding there was no idea in his head as to what he would say. He left that to the result of a hurried talk before the ceremony with the wedding guests and the relatives of the couple.

Zunser's wedding verses died as soon as they were born, but there are sixty-five collections of his poems, hundreds of which are sung every day to young and old throughout Russia. Many others have never been published, for Zunser is a poet who composes as he breathes, whose every feeling and idea quivers into poetic expression, and who preserves only an accidental part of what he does.

ELIAKIM ZUNSER

He is a man of about seventy years of age, with kind little eyes, a gray beard, and spare, short figure. As he sits in his printing office in the far east side he wears a small black cap on his head. Adjoining the office is another room, in which he lives with his wife and several children. The stove, the dining-table, the beds, are all in the same room, which is bare and chill. But the poet is hospitable, and to the guests he offered cake and a bottle of sarsaparilla. Far more delightful, however, the old man read some of his poems aloud. As he read in a chanting tone he swayed gently backwards and forwards, unconscious of his visitors, absorbed in the rhythm and feeling of the song. There was great sweetness and tenderness in his eyes, facility and spontaneity in the metre, and simple pathos and philosophy in the meaning of what he said. He was apparently not conscious of the possession of unusual power. Famous as he is, there was no sense of it in his bearing. He is absolutely of the people, childlike and simple. So far removed is he from the pride of his distinction that he has largely given up poetry now.

"I don't write much any more," he said in his careless Yiddish; "I have not much time."

His poetry seemed to him only a detail of his life. Along with the simplicity of old age he has the maturity and aloofness of it. The feeling for his position as an individual, if he ever had it, has gone, and left the mind and heart interested only in God, race, and impersonal beauty.

So as he chanted his poems he seemed to gather up into himself the dignity and pathos of his serious and suffering race, but as one who had gone beyond the suffering and lived only with the eternities. His wife and children bent over him as he recited, and their bodies kept time with his rhythm. One of the two visitors was a Jew, whose childhood had been spent in Russia, and when Zunser read a dirge which he had composed in Russia twenty-five years ago at the death by cholera of his first wife and children—a dirge which is now chanted daily in thousands of Jewish homes in Russia—the visitor joined in, altho he had not heard it for many years. Tears came to his eyes as memories of his childhood were brought up by Zunser's famous lines; his body swayed to and fro in sympathy with that of Zunser and those of the poet's second wife and her children; and to the Anglo-Saxon present this little group of Jewish exiles moved by rhythm, pathos, and the memory of a far-away land conveyed a strange emotion.

Zunser's dirge is in a vein of reflective melancholy. "The Mail Wagon" is its title. The mail wagon brings joy and sorrow, hope and despair, and it was this awful mechanism that brought Zunser's grief home to him. "But earth, too, is a machine, a machine that crushes the bones of the philosopher into dust, digests them, that crushes and digests all things. From it all comes. Into it all goes. Why may I not therefore be chewing at this moment the marrow of my children?"

Another song the old man read aloud was composed in his early childhood, and is representative in subject and mood of much of his later work. "The Song of the Bird" it is called, and it typifies the Jewish race. The bird's wing is broken, and the bird reflects in tender melancholy over his misfortunes. "Take me away from Roumania" has the same melancholy, but also a humorous pathos in the title, for the poet meant he would like to be taken away from Russia, but was afraid to say so for political reasons. But the sadness of Zunser's poetry is lightened by its spontaneity and by the felicity of verse and music, and the naïve idea in each poem is never too solemnly insisted upon for popular poetry.

The dirge, which touched upon an episode of his life, led the poet to tell in his simple way the other events of a life history at once typical and peculiar.

He was born in Vilna, the capital of ancient Lithuania, and became apprentice to a weaver of gold lace at the age of six. His general education was consequently slight, tho he picked up a little of the Talmud and sang Isaiah and Jeremiah while at work. At the end of six years, when he was supposed to know his trade, his master was to give him twenty roubles as total wage. But the master refused to pay, and young Zunser took to the road with no money. He went to Bysk in the Ostsee province, and there worked at his trade during the day and at night studied the Talmud under the local rabbi. He also began to read books in pure Hebrew for the love of the noble poetry in that tongue. Before long he received word from home that his little brother had died. He went back and helped his mother cry, as he expressed it. Away he went again from home to a place called Bobroysk, where he obtained a position to teach Hebrew in the family of an innkeeper, who promised to pay him twenty-five roubles at the end of six months. When the time came his employer said he would pay at the end of the year. Ingenuous Zunser agreed, but the innkeeper, just before the end of the year, went to a government official and reported that there was a boy at his house who was fit to be a soldier. Young Zunser was pressed into the service. He was then thirteen. It was in the barracks that he composed his first three songs. In these songs he poured out his heart, told all his woe, but did not print them, "for," he said, "it was my own case."

On being released from the service, Zunser went to Vilna and continued his trade as a gold-lace maker. He also wrote many poems and songs. They were not printed at first, but circulated in written copies. Zunser is said to be the first man to write songs in Yiddish, and soon he became famous. "It was 'the lacemaker boy' everywhere," as the poet expressed it. Now that he could make money by his songs he gave up his trade and devoted himself to art. In 1861 he returned to his native town a great man. There he first saw his work in print. Then came a period when he wrote a great deal and performed every day his function as wedding bard. For ten years things prospered with him, but in 1871 his wife and four children died of cholera. Zunser composed the famous dirge, left Vilna, which appeared to him unlucky, and went to Minsk. Here he continued to get a living with his pen, and married again. Ten years ago he came to New York with his family and kept up his occupation as wedding bard for some time.

The character of Zunser's poetry is what might be expected from his popularity, slight education, and humble position in the Jewish world. His melancholy is common to all Jewish poets. There is a constant reference to his race, too, a love for it, and a sort of humble pride. More than any of the four poets whom we are to mention, with the possible exception of Morris Rosenfeld, Zunser has a fresh lyric quality which has gone far to endear him to the people. Yet in spite of his sweet bird-like speed of expression, Zunser's is a poetry of ideas, altho the ideas are simple, fragmentary, and fanciful, and are seldom sustained beyond what is admissible to the lyric touch. The pale cast of thought, less marked in Zunser's work than in that of the other three poets, is also a common characteristic of Jewish poetry. Melancholy, patriotic, and thoughtful, what is lacking in Zunser is what all modern Jewish poetry lacks and what forms a sweet part of Anglo-Saxon literature—the distinctively sensuous element. A Keats is a Hebrew impossibility. The poetry of simple presentation, of the qualities of mere physical nature, is strikingly absent in the imaginative work of this serious and moral people. The intellectual element is always noticeable, even in simple Zunser, the poet of the people.

A CHAMPION OF RACE

A striking contrast to the popular wedding bard is Menahem Dolitzki, called the Hebrew poet because he has the distinction of writing in the old Hebrew language.

His learning is limited to the old literature of his race. He is not a generally well educated man, not knowing or caring anything about modern life or ideas. The poet of the holy tongue, he is what the Jews call maskil, fellow of wisdom. The aloof dignity of his position fills him with a mild contempt for the "jargon," the Yiddish of Rosenfeld and Zunser, and makes him distrustful of what the fourth poet, Wald, represents—the modern socialistic spirit.

Singularly enough, he is called by the socialists of the Ghetto the poet of the dilettanti. An Anglo-Saxon American employs the term to mean those persons superficially interested in much, deeply interested in nothing; but these socialistic spirits stigmatize as dilettante whatever is not immersed in the spirit of the modern world. The man of form, the lover of the old, the cool man with scholastic tinge has no place in the sympathetic imagination of the Ghetto intellectuals. They leave him to the learned among old fogies. And it is true that Dolitzki's appeal is a limited one, both as a man and as a poet. He is a handsome man of about forty-five years, with a fine profile, an unenthusiastic manner, a native reserve very evident in his way of reading his poetry. He has nothing of the buoyant spontaneity, the impersonal feeling of Zunser. The poet of the people was a part of his verse as he read. He threw himself into it, identified himself with his musical and fanciful creation. But Dolitzki, who has been recently a travelling agent for a Yiddish newspaper on the east side, and has a little home suggesting greater cleanliness and comfort than that of Zunser, held his manuscript at arm's length and read his verses with no apparent sign of emotion. About his poetry and life he talked with comparative reserve, in the former evidently caring most for the form and the language, and in the latter for the ideas which determined his intellectual life rather than for picturesque details and events.

MENAHEM DOLITZKI

Dolitzki's life and work are identified with the revival of Hebrew literature of fifty years ago, and, more narrowly, of twenty years ago. He is one of the great poets of that revival, and wherever it is felt in the Jewish world, there Dolitzki is known and admired. He was born in Byelostock, but spent his early manhood in Moscow, whence he was expelled. That event partly determined the character of his first writings—patriotic poems of culture, reasoned outcries against the religious prejudice of the orthodox Jews, the Jews who take their stand on the Talmud, led by the hair-splitting rabbi, upholders of the narrow Jewish theology. Just as the revival of learning in Europe brought doubt of orthodoxy along with it, so the revival of the pure Hebrew literature brought doubt of the religion of the established rabbi, founded on a minute interpretation of the Talmud. The Hebrew scholars who went back to the sources of Jewish literature for their inspiration were worse than infidels to the orthodox. And Dolitzki was the poet of these "infidels."

When, however, the Jews were expelled from Moscow, Dolitzki's interest broadened to love of his race. It is not so much interest in human nature that these noble and austere poems manifest, as an epic love for the race as a whole, a lofty and abstract emotion. The intellectual and moral element characteristic of Jewish poetry is particularly marked in Dolitzki's work. His first poems, those of culture inspired by hatred of Talmudic prejudice, and his later ones, filled with the abstract love of his race, are poems of idealism expressed largely in complicated symbolical language, lacking, as compared with Zunser's poetry, spontaneity, wholly wanting in sensuous imagery, but written in musical and finished verse.

A poem illustrating Dolitzki's first period tells how a cherub bore the poet, symbolizing the Jewish people, aloft where he could see pure and beautiful things, but soon the earth appeared, in the shape of a round loaf of bread symbolizing need and poverty and prejudice; and to this the aspiring Jew must return and from this he could not escape. One of the poems in which Dolitzki's love of his race is expressed describes a man and a maiden (the Jewish race) who, driven by love of one another and fear of oppression, are sitting upon a lofty rock. Below them on the plain they see their family murdered by the invaders. Then they voluntarily die, declaring that they will yet live forever in the race.

Dolitzki's remote idealism represents a nobler kind of thing than what is generally associated with the east side. A dignified and epic poet, he is filled with moral rather than enthusiastic love of the old language and the old race.

A SINGER OF LABOR

Morris Rosenfeld, poet and former tailor, strikes in his personality and writings the weary minor. Full of tears are the man and his song. Zunser, Dolitzki, and Wald, altho in their verse runs the eternal melancholy of poetry and of the Jews, have yet physical buoyancy and a robust spirit. But Rosenfeld, small, dark, and fragile in body, with fine eyes and drooping eyelashes, and a plaintive, childlike voice, is weary and sick—a simple poet, a sensitive child, a bearer of burdens, an east side tailor. Zunser and Dolitzki have shown themselves able to cope with their hard conditions, but the sad little Rosenfeld, unpractical and incapable in all but his songs, has had the hardest time of all. His life has been typical of that of many a delicate poet—a life of privation, of struggle borne by weak shoulders, and a spirit and temperament not fitted to meet the world.

MORRIS ROSENFELD

Much younger than Zunser or Dolitzki, Morris Rosenfeld was born thirty-eight years ago in a small village in the province of Subalk, in Russian Poland, at the end of the last Polish revolution. The very night he was born the world began to oppress him, for insurgents threw rocks through the window. His grandfather was rich, but his father lost the money in business, and Morris received very little education—only the Talmud and a little German, which he got at a school in Warsaw. He married when he was sixteen, "because my father told me to," as the poet expressed it. He ran away from Poland to avoid being pressed into the army. "I would like to serve my country," he said, "if there had been any freedom for the Jew." Then he went to Holland and learned the trade of diamond-cutting; then to London, where he took up tailoring.

Hearing that the tailors had won a strike in America, he came to New York, thinking he would need to work here only ten hours a day. "But what I heard," he said, "was a lie. I found the sweat-shops in New York just as bad as they were in London."

In those places he worked for many years, worked away his health and strength, but at the same time composed many a sweetly sad song. "I worked in the sweat-shop in the daytime," he said to me, "and at night I worked at my poems. I could not help writing them. My heart was full of bitterness. If my poems are sad and plaintive, it is because I expressed my own feelings, and because my surroundings were sad."

Next to Zunser, Rosenfeld is the most popular of the four Jewish poets. Zunser is most popular in Russia, Rosenfeld in this country. Both write in the universal Yiddish or "jargon," both are simple and spontaneous, musical and untutored. But, unlike Zunser, Rosenfeld is a thorough representative, one might say victim, of the modern spirit. Zunser sings to an older and more buoyant Jewish world, to the Russian Hebrew village and the country at large. Rosenfeld in weary accents sings to the maimed spirit of the Jewish slums. It is a fresh, naïve note, the pathetic cry of the bright spirit crushed in the poisonous air of the Ghetto. The first song that Rosenfeld printed in English is this:

"I lift mine eyes against the sky,

The clouds are weeping, so am I;

I lift mine eyes again on high,

The sun is smiling, so am I.

Why do I smile? Why do I weep?

I do not know; it lies too deep.

"I hear the winds of autumn sigh,

They break my heart, they make me cry;

I hear the birds of lovely spring,

My hopes revive, I help them sing.

Why do I sing? Why do I cry?

It lies so deep, I know not why."

A DREAMER OF BROTHERHOOD

Abraham Wald, whose nom de plume is Lessin, is only twenty-eight years old, the youngest and least known of the four poets, yet in some respects the most interesting. He is the only one who is on a level with the intellectual alertness of the day. His education is broad and in some directions thorough. He is the only one of the four poets whom we are discussing who knows Russian, which language he often writes. He is an imaginative critic, a violent socialist, and an excitable lover of nature.

One of his friends called the poet on one occasion an intellectual débauché. It was in a Canal Street café, where Wald was talking in an excited tone to several other intellectuals. He is a short, stocky man, with a suggestion of physical power. His eyes are brilliant, and there seems to be going on in him a sort of intellectual consumption. He is restlessly intense in manner, speaks in images, and is always passionately convinced of the truth of what he sees so clearly but seldom expresses in cold logic. His fevered idealism meets you in his frank, quick gaze and impulsive and rapid speech.

ABRAHAM WALD

Lacking in repose, balance, and sobriety of thought, Wald is well described by his friend's phrase. Equally well he may be called the Jewish bohemian. He is not dissipated in the ordinary sense. Coffee and tea are the drinks he finds in his little cafés. But in these places he practically lives, disputing, arguing, expounding, with whomsoever he may find. He has no fixed home, but sleeps wherever inevitable weariness finds him. He prefers to sleep not at all. Like all his talented tribe he is poor, and makes an occasional dollar by writing a poem or an article for an east side newspaper. When he has collected three or four dollars he quits the newspaper office and seeks again his beloved café, violently to impart his quick-coming thoughts and impulses. Only after his money is gone—and it lasts him many days—does he return to his work on the paper, the editor of which must be an uncommonly good-natured fellow.

Impelled by political reasons, Wald left Russia three years ago, but before that time, which was in his twenty-fifth year, he had passed through eight mental and moral crises. Perhaps the number was a poetical exaggeration, for when I asked the poet to enumerate he gave only five. As a boy he revolted from the hair-splitting Talmudic orthodoxy, and was cursed in consequence; then he lost his Jewish faith altogether; then his whole Cultur-Anschauung changed, on account of the influence of Russian literature. He became an atheist and then a socialist and perhaps a pantheist: at least he has written poems in which breathes the personified spirit of nature. Without the peace of nature, however, is the man and his work. He dislikes America because it lacks the ebullient activity of moral, imaginative life. Wald likes Russia better than America because Russia, to use the poet's words, is idealism, hope, and America is realization.

"Before I came to America," he said, "I thought it would not be as interesting as Russia, and when I got here I saw that I was right. America seemed all worked out to me, as if mighty things had already been done, but it seemed lifeless at the core. Russia, on the other hand, with no external form of national prosperity, is all activity at heart, restless longing. Russia is nothing to see, but alive and bubbling at the core. The American wants a legal wife, something there and sure, but the Russian wants a wife behind a mountain, through which he cannot penetrate, but can only dream and strive for her."

These four poets have what is distinctive of Jewish poetry—the pulse of desire and hope, in which there is strain and reproach, constant effort. The Russian Jew's lack of appreciation of completed beauty or of merely sensuous nature is strikingly illustrated by the fact that there has never been a great expression of plastic art in his history. Painting, sculpture, and architecture are nothing to the Jew in comparison with the literature and music of ideas. In nearly all the Jews of talent I have met there is the same intellectual consumption, the excitement of beauty, but no enjoyment of pure beauty of form. The race is still too unhappy, too unsatisfied, has too much to gain, to express a complacent sense of the beauty of what is.

Wald's is the poetry of socialism and of nature, and one form is as turbulent as the other. He writes, for instance, of the prisoner in Siberia, his verses filled with passionate rebellion. Then he tells how he dreamed beside the gleaming river, and of the fancies that passed through his brain—not merely pretty fancies, but passionately moral images in which rebellion, longing, wonder, are by turns expressed; never peaceful enjoyment of nature, never simply the humble eye that sees and questions not, but always the moral storm and stress.

Wald and Rosenfeld represent at once things similar and unlike. Both are associated with the modern spirit of socialism, both are identified with the heart of big cities, both are very civilized, yet in temperament and quality no two poets could be more widely separated. Rosenfeld is the finer spirit, the more narrow, too. He is eminently the Ghetto Jew. But Wald, as one sees him talking in the café, his whole body alive with emotion, with his youthful, open face, his constant energy, and the modernity and freshness of his ideas, seems the Russian rather than the Jew, and suggests the vivid spirit of Tolstoi.

In comparison with Wald and Rosenfeld the older men, Dolitzki and Zunser, seem remote. Dolitzki has the remoteness of culture and Zunser that of old age and relative peace of spirit. But compared among themselves the poets of the four are Zunser and Rosenfeld, the spontaneous lyric singers. Wald, however, is making his way rapidly into the sympathetic intelligence of the socialists—a growing class—but has not as yet the same wide appeal as the two poets who sing only in the tongue of the people.

Chapter Five
The Stage

THEATRES, ACTORS AND AUDIENCE

In the three Yiddish theatres on the Bowery is expressed the world of the Ghetto—that New York City of Russian Jews, large, complex, with a full life and civilization. In the midst of the frivolous Bowery, devoted to tinsel variety shows, "dive" music-halls, fake museums, trivial amusement booths of all sorts, cheap lodging-houses, ten-cent shops and Irish-American tough saloons, the theatres of the chosen people alone present the serious as well as the trivial interests of an entire community. Into these three buildings crowd the Jews of all the Ghetto classes—the sweat-shop woman with her baby, the day-laborer, the small Hester Street shopkeeper, the Russian-Jewish anarchist and socialist, the Ghetto rabbi and scholar, the poet, the journalist. The poor and ignorant are in the great majority, but the learned, the intellectual and the progressive are also represented, and here, as elsewhere, exert a more than numerically proportionate influence on the character of the theatrical productions, which, nevertheless, remain essentially popular. The socialists and the literati create the demand that forces into the mass of vaudeville, light opera, historical and melodramatic plays a more serious art element, a simple transcript from life or the theatric presentation of a Ghetto problem. But this more serious element is so saturated with the simple manners, humor and pathos of the life of the poor Jew, that it is seldom above the heartfelt understanding of the crowd.

The audiences vary in character from night to night rather more than in an up-town theatre. On the evenings of the first four week-days the theatre is let to a guild or club, many hundred of which exist among the working people of the east side. Many are labor organizations representing the different trades, many are purely social, and others are in the nature of secret societies. Some of these clubs are formed on the basis of a common home in Russia. The people, for instance, who came from Vilna, a city in the old country, have organized a Vilna Club in the Ghetto. Then, too, the anarchists have a society; there are many socialistic orders; the newspapers of the Ghetto have their constituency, which sometimes hires the theatre. Two or three hundred dollars is paid to the theatre by the guild, which then sells the tickets among the faithful for a good price. Every member of the society is forced to buy, whether he wants to see the play or not, and the money made over and above the expenses of hiring the theatre is for the benefit of the guild. These performances are therefore called "benefits." The widespread existence of such a custom is a striking indication of the growing sense of corporate interests among the laboring classes of the Jewish east side. It is an expression of the socialistic spirit which is marked everywhere in the Ghetto.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights the theatre is not let, for these are the Jewish holidays, and the house is always completely sold out, altho prices range from twenty-five cents to a dollar. Friday night is, properly speaking, the gala occasion of the week. That is the legitimate Jewish holiday, the night before the Sabbath. Orthodox Jews, as well as others, may then amuse themselves. Saturday, altho the day of worship, is also of holiday character in the Ghetto. This is due to the Christian influences, to which the Jews are more and more sensitive. Through economic necessity Jewish workingmen are compelled to work on Saturday, and, like other workingmen, look upon Saturday night as a holiday, in spite of the frown of the orthodox. Into Sunday, too, they extend their freedom, and so in the Ghetto there are now three popularly recognized nights on which to go with all the world to the theatre.

On those nights the theatre presents a peculiarly picturesque sight. Poor workingmen and women with their babies of all ages fill the theatre. Great enthusiasm is manifested, sincere laughter and tears accompany the sincere acting on the stage. Pedlers of soda-water, candy, of fantastic gewgaws of many kinds, mix freely with the audience between the acts. Conversation during the play is received with strenuous hisses, but the falling of the curtain is the signal for groups of friends to get together and gossip about the play or the affairs of the week. Introductions are not necessary, and the Yiddish community can then be seen and approached with great freedom. On the stage curtain are advertisements of the wares of Hester Street or portraits of the "star" actors. On the programmes and circulars distributed in the audience are sometimes amusing announcements of coming attractions or lyric praise of the "stars." Poetry is not infrequent, an example of which, literally translated, is:

Labor, ye stars, as ye will,

Ye cannot equal the artist;

In the garden of art ye shall not flourish;

Ye can never achieve his fame.

Can you play Hamlet like him?

The Wild King, or the Huguenots?

Are you gifted with feeling

So much as to imitate him like a shadow?

Your fame rests on the pen;

On the show-cards your flight is high;

But on the stage every one can see

How your greatness turns to ashes,

Tomashevsky! Artist great!

No praise is good enough for you;

Every one remains your ardent friend.

Of all the stars you remain the king.

You seek no tricks, no false quibbles;

One sees Truth itself playing.

Your appearance is godly to us;

Every movement is full of grace;

Pleasing is your every gesture;

Sugar-sweet your every turn;

You remain the King of the Stage;

Everything falls to your feet.

On the playboards outside the theatre, containing usually the portrait of a star, are also lyric and enthusiastic announcements. Thus, on the return of the great Adler, who had been ill, it was announced on the boards that "the splendid eagle has spread his wings again."

The Yiddish actors, as may be inferred from the verses quoted, take themselves with peculiar seriousness, justified by the enthusiasm, almost worship, with which they are regarded by the people. Many a poor Jew, man or girl, who makes no more than $10 a week in the sweat-shop, will spend $5 of it on the theatre, which is practically the only amusement of the Ghetto Jew. He has not the loafing and sporting instincts of the poor Christian, and spends his money for the theatre rather than for drink. It is not only to see the play that the poor Jew goes to the theatre. It is to see his friends and the actors. With these latter he, and more frequently she, try in every way to make acquaintance, but commonly are compelled to adore at a distance. They love the songs that are heard on the stage, and for these the demand is so great that a certain bookshop on the east side makes a specialty of publishing them.

The actor responds to this popular enthusiasm with sovereign contempt. He struts about in the cafés on Canal and Grand Streets, conscious of his greatness. He refers to the crowd as "Moses" with superior condescension or humorous vituperation. Like thieves, the actors have a jargon of their own, which is esoteric and jealously guarded. Their pride gave rise a year or two ago to an amusing strike at the People's Theatre. The actors of the three Yiddish companies in New York are normally paid on the share rather than the salary system. In the case of the company now at the People's Theatre, this system proved very profitable. The star actors, Jacob Adler and Boris Thomashevsky, and their wives, who are actresses—Mrs. Adler being the heavy realistic tragedienne and Mrs. Thomashevsky the star soubrette—have probably received on an average during that time as much as $125 a week for each couple. But they, with Mr. Edelstein, the business man, are lessees of the theatre, run the risk and pay the expenses, which are not small. The rent of the theatre is $20,000 a year, and the weekly expenses, besides, amount to about $1,100. The subordinate actors, who risk nothing, since they do not share the expenses, have made amounts during this favorable period ranging from $14 a week on the average for the poorest actors to $75 for those just beneath the "stars." But, in spite of what is exceedingly good pay in the Bowery, the actors of this theatre formed a union, and struck for wages instead of shares. This however, was only an incidental feature. The real cause was that the management of the theatre, with the energetic Thomashevsky at the head, insisted that the actors should be prompt at rehearsals, and if they were not, indulged in unseemly epithets. The actors' pride was aroused, and the union was formed to insure their ease and dignity and to protect them from harsh words. The management imported actors from Chicago. Several of the actors here stood by their employers, notably Miss Weinblatt, a popular young ingénue, who, on account of her great memory is called the "Yiddish Encyclopedia," and Miss Gudinski, an actress of commanding presence. Miss Weinblatt forced her father, once an actor, now a farmer, into the service of the management. But the actors easily triumphed. Misses Gudinski and Weinblatt were forced to join the union, Mr. Weinblatt returned to his farm, the "scabs" were packed off to Philadelphia, and the wages system introduced. A delegation was sent to Philadelphia to throw cabbages at the new actors, who appeared in the Yiddish performances in that city. The triumphant actors now receive on the average probably $10 to $15 a week less than under the old system. Mr. Conrad, who began the disaffection, receives a salary of $29 a week, fully $10 less than he received for months before the strike. But the dignity of the Yiddish actor is now placed beyond assault. As one of them recently said: "We shall no longer be spat upon nor called 'dog.'"

The Yiddish actor is so supreme that until recently a regular system of hazing playwrights was in vogue. Joseph Latteiner and Professor M. Horowitz were long recognized as the only legitimate Ghetto playwrights. When a new writer came to the theatre with a manuscript, various were the pranks the actors would play. They would induce him to try, one after another, all the costumes in the house, in order to help him conceive the characters; or they would make him spout the play from the middle of the stage, they themselves retiring to the gallery to "see how it sounded." In the midst of his exertions they would slip away, and he would find himself shouting to the empty boards. Or, in the midst of a mock rehearsal, some actor would shout, "He is coming, the great Professor Horowitz, and he will eat you"; and they would rush from the theatre with the panic-stricken playwright following close at their heels.

The supremacy of the Yiddish actor has, however, its humorous limitations. The orthodox Jews who go to the theatre on Friday night, the beginning of Sabbath, are commonly somewhat ashamed of themselves and try to quiet their consciences by a vociferous condemnation of the actions on the stage. The actor, who through the exigencies of his rôle, is compelled to appear on Friday night with a cigar in his mouth, is frequently greeted with hisses and strenuous cries of "Shame, shame, smoke on the Sabbath!" from the proletarian hypocrites in the gallery.

MR. MOSHKOVITZ

The plays at these theatres vary in a general way with the varying audiences of which I have spoken above. The thinking socialists naturally select a less violent play than the comparatively illogical anarchists. Societies of relatively conservative Jews desire a historical play in which the religious Hebrew in relation to the persecuting Christian is put in pathetic and melodramatic situations. There are a very large number of "culture" pieces produced, which, roughly speaking, are plays in which the difference between the Jew of one generation and the next is dramatically portrayed. The pathos or tragedy involved in differences of faith and "point of view" between the old rabbi and his more enlightened children is expressed in many historical plays of the general character of Uriel Acosta, tho in less lasting form. Such plays, however, are called "historical plunder" by that very up-to-date element of the intellectual Ghetto which is dominated by the Russian spirit of realism. It is the demand of these fierce realists that of late years has produced a supply of theatrical productions attempting to present a faithful picture of the actual conditions of life. Permeating all these kinds of plays is the amusement instinct pure and simple. For the benefit of the crowd of ignorant people grotesque humor, popular songs, vaudeville tricks, are inserted everywhere.

Of these plays the realistic are of the most value,[1] for they often give the actual Ghetto life with surprising strength and fidelity. The past three years have been their great seasons, and have developed a large crop of new playwrights, mainly journalists who write miscellaneous articles for the east side newspapers. Jacob Gordin, of whom we shall have frequent occasion to speak, has been writing plays for several years, and was the first realistic playwright; he remains the strongest and most prominent in this kind of play. Professor Horowitz, who is now the lessee of the Windsor Theatre, situated on the Bowery, between Grand and Canal Streets, represents, along with Joseph Latteiner, the conservative and traditional aspects of the stage. He is an interesting man, fifty-six years of age, and has been connected with the Yiddish stage practically since its origin. His father was a teacher in a Hebrew school, and he himself is a man of uncommon learning. He has made a great study of the stage, has written one hundred and sixty-seven plays, and claims to be an authority on dramaturgie. Latteiner is equally productive, but few of their plays are anything more than Yiddish adaptations of old operas and melodramas in other languages. Long runs are impossible on the Yiddish stage and consequently the playwrights produce many plays and are not very scrupulous in their methods. The absence of dramatic criticism and the ignorance of the audience enable them to "crib" with impunity. As one of the actors said, Latteiner and Horowitz and their class took their first plays from some foreign source and since then have been repeating themselves. The actor said that when he is cast in a Latteiner play he does not need to learn his part. He needs only to understand the general situation; the character and the words he already knows from having appeared in many other Latteiner plays.

YIDDISH PLAYWRIGHTS DISCUSSING THE DRAMA

The professor, nevertheless, naturally regards himself and Latteiner as the "real" Yiddish playwrights. For many years after the first bands of actors reached the New York Ghetto these two men held undisputed sway. Latteiner leaned to "romantic," Horowitz to "culture," plays, and both used material which was mainly historical. The professor regards that as the bright period of the Ghetto stage. Since then there has been, in his opinion, a decadence which began with the translation of the classics into Yiddish. Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and plays of Schiller, were put upon the stage and are still being performed. Sometimes they are almost literally translated, sometimes adapted until they are realistic representations of Jewish life. Gordin's Yiddish King Lear, for instance, represents Shakespeare's idea only in the most general way, and weaves about it a sordid story of Jewish character and life. Of Hamlet there are two versions, one adapted, in which Shakespeare's idea is reduced to a ludicrous shadow, the interest lying entirely in the presentation of Jewish customs.

The first act of the Yiddish version represents the wedding feast of Hamlet's mother and uncle. In the Yiddish play the uncle is a rabbi in a small village in Russia. He did not poison Hamlet's father but broke the latter's heart by wooing and winning his queen. Hamlet is off somewhere getting educated as a rabbi. While he is gone his father dies. Six weeks afterwards the son returns in the midst of the wedding feast, and turns the feast into a funeral. Scenes of rant follow between mother and son, Ophelia and Hamlet, interspersed with jokes and sneers at the sect of rabbis who think they communicate with the angels. The wicked rabbi conspires against Hamlet, trying to make him out a nihilist. The plot is discovered and the wicked rabbi is sent to Siberia. The last act is the graveyard scene. It is snowing violently. The grave is near a huge windmill. Ophelia is brought in on the bier. Hamlet mourns by her side and is married, according to the Jewish custom, to the dead woman. Then he dies of a broken heart. The other version is almost a literal translation. To these translations of the classics, Professor Horowitz objects on the ground that the ignorant Yiddish public cannot understand them, because what learning they have is limited to distinctively Yiddish subjects and traditions.

Another important step in what the professor calls the degeneration of the stage was the introduction a few years ago of the American "pistol" play—meaning the fierce melodrama which has been for so long a characteristic of the English plays produced on the Bowery.

But what has contributed more than anything else to what the good man calls the present deplorable condition of the theatre was the advent of realism. "It was then," said the professor one day with calm indignation, "that the genuine Yiddish play was persecuted. Young writers came from Russia and swamped the Ghetto with scurrilous attacks on me and Latteiner. No number of the newspaper appeared that did not contain a scathing criticism. They did not object to the actors, who in reality were very bad, but it was the play they aimed at. These writers knew nothing about dramaturgie, but their heads were filled with senseless realism. Anything historical and distinctively Yiddish they thought bad. For a long time Latteiner and I were able to keep their realistic plays off the boards, but for the last few years there has been an open field for everybody. The result is that horrors under the mask of realism have been put upon the stage. This year is the worst of all—characters butchered on the stage, the coarsest language, the most revolting situations, without ideas, with no real material. It cannot last, however. Latteiner and I continue with our real Yiddish plays, and we shall yet regain entire possession of the field."

At least this much may fairly be conceded to Professor Horowitz—that the realistic writers in what is in reality an excellent attempt often go to excess, and are often unskilful as far as stage construction is concerned. In the reaction from plays with "pleasant" endings, they tend to prefer equally unreal "unpleasant" endings, "onion" plays, as the opponents of the realists call them. They, however, have written a number of plays which are distinctively of the New York Ghetto, and which attempt an unsentimental presentation of truth. A rather extended description of these plays is given in the next section. Professor Horowitz's plays, on the contrary, are largely based upon the sentimental representation of inexact Jewish history. They herald the glory and wrongs of the Hebrew people, and are badly constructed melodramas of conventional character. Another class of plays written by Professor Horowitz, and which have occasionally great but temporary prosperity, are what he calls Zeitstucke. Some American newspaper sensation is rapidly dramatized and put hot on the boards, such as Marie Barberi, Dr. Buchanan and Dr. Harris.

The three theatres—the People's, the Windsor and the Thalia, which is on the Bowery opposite the Windsor—are in a general way very similar in the character of the plays produced, in the standard of acting and in the character of the audience. There are, however, some minor differences. The People's is the "swellest" and probably the least characteristic of the three. It panders to the "uptown" element of the Ghetto, to the downtown tradesman who is beginning to climb a little. The baleful influence in art of the nouveaux riches has at this house its Ghetto expression. There is a tendency there to imitate the showy qualities of the Broadway theatres—melodrama, farce, scenery, etc. No babies are admitted, and the house is exceedingly clean in comparison with the theatres farther down the Bowery. Three years ago this company were at the Windsor Theatre, and made so much money that they hired the People's, that old home of Irish-American melodrama, and this atmosphere seems slightly to have affected the Yiddish productions. Magnificent performances quite out of the line of the best Ghetto drama have been attempted, notably Yiddish dramatizations of successful up-town productions. Hauptman's Versunkene Glocke, Sapho, Quo Vadis, and other popular Broadway plays in flimsy adaptations were tried with little success, as the Yiddish audiences hardly felt themselves at home in these unfamiliar scenes and settings.

The best trained of the three companies is at present that of the Thalia Theatre. Here many excellent realistic plays are given. Of late years, the great playwright of the colony, Jacob Gordin, has written mainly for this theatre. There, too, is the best of the younger actresses, Mrs. Bertha Kalisch. She is the prettiest woman on the Ghetto stage and was at one time the leading lady of the Imperial Theatre at Bucharest. She takes the leading woman parts in plays like Fedora, Magda and The Jewish Zaza. The principal actor at this theatre is David Kessler, who is one of the best of the Ghetto actors in realistic parts, and one of the worst when cast, as he often is, as the romantic lover. The actor of most prominence among the younger men is Mr. Moshkovitch, who hopes to be a "star" and one of the management. When the union was formed he was in a quandary. Should he join or should he not? He feared it might be a bad precedent, which the actors would use against him when he became a star. And yet he did not want to get them down on him. So before he joined he entered solemn protests at all the cafés on Canal Street. The strike, he maintained, was unnecessary. The actors were well paid and well treated. Discipline should be maintained. But he would join because of his universal sympathy with actors and with the poor—as a matter of sentiment merely, against his better judgment.

DAVID KESSLER

The company at the Windsor is the weakest, so far as acting is concerned, of the three. Very few "realistic" plays are given there, for Professor Horowitz is the lessee, and he prefers the historical Jewish opera and "culture" plays. Besides, the company is not strong enough to undertake successfully many new productions, altho it includes some good actors. Here Mrs. Prager vies as a prima-donna with Mrs. Karb of the People's and Mrs. Kalisch of the Thalia. Professor Horowitz thinks she is far better than the other two. As he puts it, there are two and a half prima-donnas in the Ghetto—at the Windsor Theatre there is a complete one, leaving one and a half between the People's and the Thalia. Jacob Adler of the People's, the professor thinks, is no actor, only a remarkable caricaturist. As Adler is the most noteworthy representative of the realistic actors of the Ghetto, the professor's opinion shows what the traditional Yiddish playwright thinks of realism. The strong realistic playwright, Jacob Gordin, the professor admits, has a "biting" dialogue, and "unconsciously writes good cultural plays which he calls realistic, but his realistic plays, properly speaking, are bad caricatures of life."

The managers and actors of the three theatres criticise one another indeed with charming directness, and they all have their followers in the Ghetto and their special cafés on Grand or Canal Streets, where their particular prejudices are sympathetically expressed. The actors and lessees of the People's are proud of their fine theatre, proud that no babies are brought there. There is a great dispute between the supporters of this theatre and those of the Thalia as to which is the stronger company and which produces the most realistic plays. The manager of the Thalia maintains that the People's is sensational, and that his theatre alone represents true realism; while the supporter of the People's points scornfully to the large number of operas produced at the Thalia. They both unite in condemning the Windsor, Professor Horowitz's theatre, as producing no new plays and as hopelessly behind the times, "full of historical plunder." An episode in The Ragpicker of Paris, played at the Windsor when the present People's company were there, amusingly illustrates the jealousy which exists between the companies. An old beggar is picking over a heap of moth-eaten, coverless books, some of which he keeps and some rejects. He comes across two versions of a play, The Two Vagrants, one of which was used at the Thalia and the other at the Windsor. The version used at the Windsor receives the beggar's commendation, and the other is thrown in a contemptuous manner into a dust-heap.

REALISM, THE SPIRIT OF THE GHETTO THEATRE

The distinctive thing about the intellectual and artistic life of the Russian Jews of the New York Ghetto, the spirit of realism, is noticeable even on the popular stage. The most interesting plays are those in which the realistic spirit predominates, and the best among the actors and playwrights are the realists. The realistic element, too, is the latest one in the history of the Yiddish stage. The Jewish theatres in other parts of the world, which, compared with the three in New York, are unorganized, present only anachronistic and fantastic historical and Biblical plays, or comic opera with vaudeville specialties attached. These things, as we have said in the last section, are, to be sure, given in the Yiddish theatres on the Bowery too, but there are also plays which in part at least portray the customs and problems of the Ghetto community, and are of comparatively recent origin.

JACOB ADLER

There are two men connected with the Ghetto stage who particularly express the distinctive realism of the intellectual east side—Jacob Adler, one of the two best actors, and Jacob Gordin, the playwright. Adler, a man of great energy, tried for many years to make a theatre succeed on the Bowery which should give only what he called good plays. Gordin's dramas, with a few exceptions, were the only plays on contemporary life which Adler thought worthy of presentation. The attempt to give exclusively realistic art, which is the only art on the Bowery, failed. There, in spite of the widespread feeling for realism, the mass of the people desire to be amused and are bored by anything with the form of art. So now Adler is connected with the People's Theatre, which gives all sorts of shows, from Gordin's plays to ludicrous history, frivolous comic opera, and conventional melodrama. But Adler acts for the most part only in the better sort. He is an actor of unusual power and vividness. Indeed, in his case, as in that of some other Bowery actors, it is only the Yiddish dialect which stands between him and the distinction of a wide reputation.

In almost every play given on the Bowery all the elements are represented. Vaudeville, history, realism, comic opera, are generally mixed together. Even in the plays of Gordin there are clownish and operatic intrusions, inserted as a conscious condition of success. On the other hand, even in the distinctively formless plays, in comic opera and melodrama, there are striking illustrations of the popular feeling for realism,—bits of dialogue, happy strokes of characterization of well-known Ghetto types, sordid scenes faithful to the life of the people.

It is the acting which gives even to the plays having no intrinsic relation to reality a frequent quality of naturalness. The Yiddish players, even the poorer among them, act with remarkable sincerity. Entirely lacking in self-consciousness, they attain almost from the outset to a direct and forcible expressiveness. They, like the audience, rejoice in what they deem the truth. In the general lack of really good plays they yet succeed in introducing the note of realism. To be true to nature is their strongest passion, and even in a conventional melodrama their sincerity, or their characterization in the comic episodes, often redeems the play from utter barrenness.

And the little touches of truth to the life of the people are thoroughly appreciated by the audience, much more generally so than in the case of the better plays to be described later, where there is more or less strictness of form and intellectual intention, difficult for the untutored crowd to understand. In the "easy" plays, it is the realistic touches which tell most. The spectators laugh at the exact reproduction by the actor of a tattered type which they know well. A scene of perfect sordidness will arouse the sympathetic laughter or tears of the people. "It is so natural," they say to one another, "so true." The word "natural" indeed is the favorite term of praise in the Ghetto. What hits home to them, to their sense of humor or of sad fact, is sure to move, altho sometimes in a manner surprising to a visitor. To what seems to him very sordid and sad they will frequently respond with laughter.

One of the most beloved actors in the Ghetto is Zelig Mogalesco, now at the People's Theatre, a comedian of natural talent and of the most felicitous instinct for characterization. Unlike the strenuous Adler, he has no ideas about realism or anything else. He acts in any kind of play, and could not tell the difference between truth and burlesque caricature. And yet he is remarkable for his naturalness, and popular because of it. Adler with his ideas is sometimes too serious for the people, but Mogalesco's naïve fidelity to reality always meets with the sympathy of a simple audience loving the homely and unpretentious truth. About Adler, strong actor that he is, and also about the talented Gordin, there is something of the doctrinaire.

But, altho the best actors of the three Yiddish theatres in the Ghetto are realists by instinct and training, the thoroughly frivolous element in the plays has its prominent interpreters. Joseph Latteiner is the most popular playwright in the Bowery, and Boris Thomashevsky perhaps the most popular actor. Latteiner has written over a hundred plays, no one of which has form or ideas. He calls them Volksstücke (plays of the people), and naïvely admits that he writes directly to the demand. They are mainly mixed melodrama, broad burlesque, and comic opera. His heroes are all intended for Boris Thomashevsky, a young man, fat, with curling black hair, languorous eyes, and a rather effeminate voice, who is thought very beautiful by the girls of the Ghetto. Thomashevsky has a face with no mimic capacity, and a temperament absolutely impervious to mood or feeling. But he picturesquely stands in the middle of the stage and declaims phlegmatically the rôle of the hero, and satisfies the "romantic" demand of the audience. Nothing could show more clearly how much more genuine the feeling of the Ghetto is for fidelity to life than for romantic fancy. How small a part of the grace and charm of life the Yiddish audiences enjoy may be judged by the fact that the romantic appeal of a Thomashevsky is eminently satisfying to them. Girls and men from the sweat-shops, a large part of such an audience, are moved by a very crude attempt at beauty. On the other hand they are so familiar with sordid fact, that the theatrical representation of it must be relatively excellent. Therefore the art of the Ghetto, theatrical and other, is deeply and painfully realistic.

JACOB GORDIN

When we turn to Jacob Gordin's plays, to other plays of similar character and to the audiences to which they specifically appeal, we have realism worked out consciously in art, the desire to express life as it is, and at the same time the frequent expression of revolt against the reality of things, and particularly against the actual system of society. Consequently the "problem" play has its representation in the Ghetto. It presents the hideous conditions of life in the Ghetto—the poverty, the sordid constant reference to money, the immediate sensuality, the jocular callousness—and underlying the mere statement of the facts an intellectual and passionate revolt.

The thinking element of the Ghetto is largely Socialistic, and the Socialists flock to the theatre the nights when the Gordin type of play is produced. They discuss the meaning and justice of the play between the acts, and after the performance repair to the Canal Street cafés to continue their serious discourse. The unthinking Nihilists are also represented, but not so frequently at the best plays as at productions in which are found crude and screaming condemnation of existing conditions. The Anarchistic propaganda hired the Windsor Theatre for the establishment of a fund to start the Freie Arbeiter Stimme, an anarchistic newspaper. The Beggar of Odessa was the play selected,—an adaptation of the Ragpicker of Paris, a play by Felix Piot, the Anarchistic agitator of the French Commune in 1871. The features of the play particularly interesting to the audience were those emphasizing the clashing of social classes. The old ragpicker, a model man, clever, brilliant, and good, is a philosopher too, and says many things warmly welcomed by the audience. As he picks up his rags he sings about how even the clothing of the great comes but to dust. His adopted daughter is poor, and consequently noble and sweet. The villains are all rich; all the very poor characters are good. Another play, Vogele, is partly a satire of the rich Jew by the poor Jew. "The rich Jews," sang the comedian, "toil not, neither do they spin. They work not, they suffer not, why then do they live on this earth?" This unthinking revolt is the opposite pole to the unthinking vaudeville and melodrama. In many of the plays referred to roughly as of the Gordin-Adler type—altho they were not all written by Gordin nor played by Adler—we find a realism more true in feeling and cast in stronger dramatic form. In some of these plays there is no problem element; in few is that element so prominent as essentially to interfere with the character of the play as a presentation of life.

One of the plays most characteristic, as at once presenting the life of the Ghetto and suggesting its problems, is Minna, or the Yiddish Nora. Altho the general idea of Ibsen's Doll's House is taken, the atmosphere and life are original. The first scene represents the house of a poor Jewish laborer on the east side. His wife and daughter are dressing to go to see A Doll's House with the boarder,—a young man whom they have been forced to take into the house because of their poverty. He is full of ideas and philosophy, and the two women fall in love with him, and give him all the good things to eat. When the laborer returns from his hard day's work, he finds that there is nothing to eat, and that his wife and daughter are going to the play with the boarder. The women despise the poor man, who is fit only to work, eat, and sleep. The wife philosophizes on the atrocity of marrying a man without intellectual interests, and finally drinks carbolic acid. This Ibsen idea is set in a picture rich with realistic detail: the dialect, the poverty, the types of character, the humor of Yiddish New York. Jacob Adler plays the husband, and displays a vivid imagination for details calculated to bring out the man's beseeching bestiality: his filthy manners, his physical ailments, his greed, the quickness of his anger and of resulting pacification. Like most of the realistic plays of the Ghetto, Minna is a genuine play of manners. It has a general idea, and presents also the setting and characters of reality.

The Slaughter, written by Gordin, and with the main masculine character taken by David Kessler, an actor of occasionally great realistic strength, is the story of the symbolic murder of a fragile young girl by her parents, who force her to marry a rich man who has all the vices and whom she hates. The picture of the poor house, of the old mother and father and half-witted stepson with whom the girl is unconsciously in love, in its faithfulness to life is typical of scenes in many of these plays. It is rich in character and milieu drawing. There is another scene of miserable life in the second act. The girl is married and living with the rich brute. In the same house is his mistress, curt and cold, and two children by a former wife. The old parents come to see the wife; she meets them with the joy of starved affection. But the husband enters and changes the scene to one of hate and violence. The old mother tells him, however, of the heir that is to come. Then there is a superb scene of naïve joy in the midst of all the sordid gloom. There is rapturous delight of the old people, turbulent triumph of the husband, and satisfaction of the young wife. They make a holiday of it. Wine is brought. They all love one another for the time. The scene is representative of the way the poor Jews welcome their offspring. But indescribable violence and abuse follow, and the wife finally kills her husband, in a scene where realism riots into burlesque, as it frequently does on the Yiddish stage.

But for absolute, intense realism Gordin's Wild Man, unrelieved by a problem idea, is unrivaled. An idiot boy falls in love with his stepmother without knowing what love is. He is abused by his father and brother, beaten on account of his ineptitudes. His sister and another brother take his side, and the two camps revile each other in unmistakable language. The father marries again; his new wife is a heartless, faithless woman, and she and the daughter quarrel. After repeated scenes of brutality to the idiot, the daughter is driven out to make her own living. Adler's portraiture of the idiot is a great bit of technical acting. The poor fellow is filled with the mysterious wonderings of an incapable mind. His shadow terrifies and interests him. He philosophizes about life and death. He is puzzled and worried by everything; the slightest sound preys on him. Physically alert, his senses serve only to trouble and terrify the mind which cannot interpret what they present. The burlesque which Mr. Adler puts into the part was inserted to please the crowd, but increases the horror of it, as when Lear went mad; for the Elizabethan audiences laughed, and had their souls wrung at the same time. The idiot ludicrously describes his growing love. In pantomime he tells a long story. It is evident, even without words, that he is constructing a complicated symbolism to express what he does not know. He falls into epilepsy and joins stiffly in the riotous dance. The play ends so fearfully that it shades into mere burlesque.