Children of the Ghetto

by Израэль Зангвилл

  And all the household, and the hungry Pole, answered "Amen," each sipping of the cup in due gradation, then eating a special morsel of bread cut by the father and dipped in salt; after which the good wife served the fish, and cups and saucers clattered and knives and forks rattled. And after a few mouthfuls, the Pole knew himself a Prince in Israel and felt he must forthwith make choice of a maiden to grace his royal Sabbath board. Soup followed the fish; it was not served direct from the saucepan but transferred by way of a large tureen; since any creeping thing that might have got into the soup would have rendered the plateful in which it appeared not legally potable, whereas if it were detected in the large tureen, its polluting powers would be dissipated by being diffused over such a large mass of fluid. For like religious reasons, another feature of the etiquette of the modern fashionable table had been anticipated by many centuries-the eaters washed their hands in a little bowl of water after their meal. The Pollack was thus kept by main religious force in touch with a liquid with which he had no external sympathy.

  When supper was over, grace was chanted and then the Zemiroth was sung-songs summing up in light and jingling metre the very essence of holy joyousness-neither riotous nor ascetic-the note of spiritualized common sense which has been the key-note of historical Judaism. For to feel "the delight of Sabbath" is a duty and to take three meals thereon a religions obligation-the sanctification of the sensuous by a creed to which everything is holy. The Sabbath is the hub of the Jew's universe; to protract it is a virtue, to love it a liberal education. It cancels all mourning-even for Jerusalem. The candles may gutter out at their own greasy will-unsnuffed, untended-is not Sabbath its own self-sufficient light?

  This is the sanctified rest-day;

  Happy the man who observes it,

  Thinks of it over the wine-cup,

  Feeling no pang at his heart-strings

  For that his purse-strings are empty,

  Joyous, and if he must borrow

  God will repay the good lender,

  Meat, wine and fish in profusion-

  See no delight is deficient.

  Let but the table be spread well,

  Angels of God answer "Amen!"

  So when a soul is in dolor,

  Cometh the sweet restful Sabbath,

  Singing and joy in its footsteps,

  Rapidly floweth Sambatyon,

  Till that, of God's love the symbol,

  Sabbath, the holy, the peaceful,

  Husheth its turbulent waters.

  * * * * *

  Bless Him, O constant companions,

  Rock from whose stores we have eaten,

  Eaten have we and have left, too,

  Just as the Lord hath commanded

  Father and Shepherd and Feeder.

  His is the bread we have eaten,

  His is the wine we have drunken,

  Wherefore with lips let us praise Him,

  Lord of the land of our fathers,

  Gratefully, ceaselessly chaunting

  "None like Jehovah is holy."

  * * * * *

  Light and rejoicing to Israel,

  Sabbath, the soother of sorrows,

  Comfort of down-trodden Israel,

  Healing the hearts that were broken!

  Banish despair! Here is Hope come,

  What! A soul crushed! Lo a stranger

  Bringeth the balsamous Sabbath.

  Build, O rebuild thou, Thy Temple,

  Fill again Zion, Thy city,

  Clad with delight will we go there,

  Other and new songs to sing there,

  Merciful One and All-Holy,

  Praised for ever and ever.

  During the meal the Pollack began to speak with his host about the persecution in the land whence he had come, the bright spot in his picture being the fidelity of his brethren under trial, only a minority deserting and those already tainted with Epicureanism-students wishful of University distinction and such like. Orthodox Jews are rather surprised when men of (secular) education remain in the fold.

  Hannah took advantage of a pause in their conversation to say in German:

  "I am so glad, father, thou didst not bring that man home."

  "What man?" said Reb Shemuel.

  "The dirty monkey-faced little man who talks so much."

  The Reb considered.

  "I know none such."

  "Pinchas she means," said her mother. "The poet!"

  Reb Shemuel looked at her gravely. This did not sound promising.

  "Why dost thou speak so harshly of thy fellow-creatures?" he said. "The man is a scholar and a poet, such as we have too few in Israel."

  "We have too many Schnorrers in Israel already," retorted Hannah.

  "Sh!" whispered Reb Shemuel reddening and indicating his guest with a slight movement of the eye.

  Hannah bit her lip in self-humiliation and hastened to load the lucky Pole's plate with an extra piece of fish.

  "He has written me a letter," she went on.

  "He has told me so," he answered. "He loves thee with a great love."

  "What nonsense, Shemuel!" broke in Simcha, setting down her coffee-cup with work-a-day violence. "The idea of a man who has not a penny to bless himself with marrying our Hannah! They would be on the Board of Guardians in a month."

  "Money is not everything. Wisdom and learning outweigh much. And as the Midrash says: 'As a scarlet ribbon becometh a black horse, so poverty becometh the daughter of Jacob.' The world stands on the Torah, not on gold; as it is written: 'Better is the Law of Thy mouth to me than thousands of gold or silver.' He is greater than I, for he studies the law for nothing like the fathers of the Mishna while I am paid a salary."

  "Methinks thou art little inferior," said Simcha, "for thou retainest little enough thereof. Let Pinchas get nothing for himself, 'tis his affair, but, if he wants my Hannah, he must get something for her. Were the fathers of the Mishna also fathers of families?"

  "Certainly; is it not a command-'Be fruitful and multiply'?"

  "And how did their families live?"

  "Many of our sages were artisans."

  "Aha!" snorted Simcha triumphantly.

  "And says not the Talmud," put in the Pole as if he were on the family council, "'Flay a carcass in the streets rather than be under an obligation'?" This with supreme unconsciousness of any personal application. "Yea, and said not Rabban Gamliel, the son of Rabbi Judah the Prince, 'it is commendable to join the study of the Law with worldly employment'? Did not Moses our teacher keep sheep?

  "Truth," replied the host. "I agree with Maimonides that man should first secure a living, then prepare a residence and after that seek a wife; and that they are fools who invert the order. But Pinchas works also with his pen. He writes articles in the papers. But the great thing, Hannah, is that he loves the Law."

  "H'm!" said Hannah. "Let him marry the Law, then."

  "He is in a hurry," said Reb Shemuel with a flash of irreverent facetiousness. "And he cannot become the Bridegroom of the Law till Simchath Torah."

  All laughed. The Bridegroom of the Law is the temporary title of the Jew who enjoys the distinction of being "called up" to the public reading of the last fragment of the Pentateuch, which is got through once a year.

  Under the encouragement of the laughter, the Rabbi added:

  "But he will know much more of his Bride than the majority of the Law's Bridegrooms."

  Hannah took advantage of her father's pleasure in the effect of his jokes to show him Pinchas's epistle, which he deciphered laboriously. It commenced:

  Hebrew Hebe

  All-fair Maid,

  Next to Heaven

  Nightly laid

  Ah, I love you

  Half afraid.

  The Pole, looking a different being from the wretch who had come empty, departed invoking Peace on the household; Simcha went into the kitchen to superintend the removal of the crockery thither; Levi slipped out to pay his respects to Esther Ansell, for the evening was yet
young, and father and daughter were left alone.

  Reb Shemuel was already poring over a Pentateuch in his Friday night duty of reading the Portion twice in Hebrew and once in Chaldaic.

  Hannah sat opposite him, studying the kindly furrowed face, the massive head set on rounded shoulders, the shaggy eyebrows, the long whitening beard moving with the mumble of the pious lips, the brown peering eyes held close to the sacred tome, the high forehead crowned with the black skullcap.

  She felt a moisture gathering under her eyelids as she looked at him.

  "Father," she said at last, in a gentle voice.

  "Did you call me, Hannah?" he asked, looking up.

  "Yes, dear. About this man, Pinchas."

  "Yes, Hannah."

  "I am sorry I spoke harshly of him,''

  "Ah, that is right, my daughter. If he is poor and ill-clad we must only honor him the more. Wisdom and learning must be respected if they appear in rags. Abraham entertained God's messengers though they came as weary travellers."

  "I know, father, it is not because of his appearance that I do not like him. If he is really a scholar and a poet, I will try to admire him as you do."

  "Now you speak like a true daughter of Israel."

  "But about my marrying him-you are not really in earnest?"

  "He is." said Reb Shemuel, evasively.

  "Ah, I knew you were not," she said, catching the lurking twinkle in his eye. "You know I could never marry a man like that."

  "Your mother could," said the Reb.

  "Dear old goose," she said, leaning across to pull his beard. "You are not a bit like that-you know a thousand times more, you know you do."

  The old Rabbi held up his hands in comic deprecation.

  "Yes, you do," she persisted. "Only you let him talk so much; you let everybody talk and bamboozle you."

  Reb Shemuel drew the hand that fondled his beard in his own, feeling the fresh warm skin with a puzzled look.

  "The hands are the hands of Hannah," he said, "but the voice is the voice of Simcha."

  Hannah laughed merrily.

  "All right, dear, I won't scold you any more. I'm so glad it didn't really enter your great stupid, clever old head that I was likely to care for Pinchas."

  "My dear daughter, Pinchas wished to take you to wife, and I felt pleased. It is a union with a son of the Torah, who has also the pen of a ready writer. He asked me to tell you and I did."

  "But you would not like me to marry any one I did not like."

  "God forbid! My little Hannah shall marry whomever she pleases."

  A wave of emotion passed over the girl's face.

  "You don't mean that, father," she said, shaking her head.

  "True as the Torah! Why should I not?"

  "Suppose," she said slowly, "I wanted to marry a Christian?"

  Her heart beat painfully as she put the question.

  Reb Shemuel laughed heartily.

  "My Hannah would have made a good Talmudist. Of course, I don't mean it in that sense."

  "Yes, but if I was to marry a very link Jew, you'd think it almost as bad."

  "No, no!" said the Reb, shaking his head. "That's a different thing altogether; a Jew is a Jew, and a Christian a Christian."

  "But you can't always distinguish between them," argued Hannah. "There are Jews who behave as if they were Christians, except, of course, they don't believe in the Crucified One."

  Still the old Reb shook his head.

  "The worst of Jews cannot put off his Judaism. His unborn soul undertook the yoke of the Torah at Sinai."

  "Then you really wouldn't mind if I married a link Jew!"

  He looked at her, startled, a suspicion dawning in his eyes.

  "I should mind," he said slowly. "But if you loved him he would become a good Jew."

  The simple conviction of his words moved her to tears, but she kept them back.

  "But if he wouldn't?"

  "I should pray. While there is life there is hope for the sinner in Israel."

  She fell back on her old question.

  "And you would really not mind whom I married?"

  "Follow your heart, my little one," said Reb Shemuel. "It is a good heart and it will not lead you wrong."

  Hannah turned away to hide the tears that could no longer be stayed. Her father resumed his reading of the Law.

  But he had got through very few verses ere he felt a soft warm arm round his neck and a wet cheek laid close to his.

  "Father, forgive me," whispered the lips. "I am so sorry. I thought, that-that I-that you-oh father, father! I feel as if I had never known you before to-night."

  "What is it, my daughter?" said Reb Shemuel, stumbling into Yiddish in his anxiety. "What hast thou done?"

  "I have betrothed myself," she answered, unwittingly adopting his dialect. "I have betrothed myself without telling thee or mother."

  "To whom?" he asked anxiously.

  "To a Jew," she hastened to assure him, "But he is neither a Talmud-sage nor pious. He is newly returned from the Cape."

  "Ah, they are a link lot," muttered the Reb anxiously. "Where didst thou first meet him?"

  "At the Club," she answered. "At the Purim Ball-the night before Sam Levine came round here to be divorced from me."

  He wrinkled his great brow. "Thy mother would have thee go," he said. "Thou didst not deserve I should get thee the divorce. What is his name?"

  "David Brandon. He is not like other Jewish young men; I thought he was and did him wrong and mocked at him when first he spoke to me, so that afterwards I felt tender towards him. His conversation is agreeable, for he thinks for himself, and deeming thou wouldst not hear of such a match and that there was no danger, I met him at the Club several times in the evening, and-and-thou knowest the rest."

  She turned away her face, blushing, contrite, happy, anxious.

  Her love-story was as simple as her telling of it. David Brandon was not the shadowy Prince of her maiden dreams, nor was the passion exactly as she had imagined it; it was both stronger and stranger, and the sense of secrecy and impending opposition instilled into her love a poignant sweetness.

  The Reb stroked her hair silently.

  "I would not have said 'Yea' so quick, father," she went on, "but David had to go to Germany to take a message to the aged parents of his Cape chum, who died in the gold-fields. David had promised the dying man to go personally as soon as he returned to England-I think it was a request for forgiveness and blessing-but after meeting me he delayed going, and when I learned of it I reproached him, but he said he could not tear himself away, and he would not go till I had confessed I loved him. At last I said if he would go home the moment I said it and not bother about getting me a ring or anything, but go off to Germany the first thing the next morning, I would admit I loved him a little bit. Thus did it occur. He went off last Wednesday. Oh, isn't it cruel to think, father, that he should be going with love and joy in his heart to the parents of his dead friend!"

  Her father's head was bent. She lifted it up by the chin and looked pleadingly into the big brown eyes.

  "Thou art not angry with me, father?"

  "No, Hannah. But thou shouldst have told me from the first."

  "I always meant to, father. But I feared to grieve thee."

  "Wherefore? The man is a Jew. And thou lovest him, dost thou not?"

  "As my life, father."

  He kissed her lips.

  "It is enough, my Hannah. With thee to love him, he will become pious. When a man has a good Jewish wife like my beloved daughter, who will keep a good Jewish house, he cannot be long among the sinners. The light of a true Jewish home will lead his footsteps back to God."

  Hannah pressed her face to his in silence. She could not speak. She had not strength to undeceive him further, to tell him she had no care for trivial forms. Besides, in the flush of gratitude and surprise at her father's tolerance, she felt stirrings of responsive tolerance to his religion. It was not the moment to analyze her feelings
or to enunciate her state of mind regarding religion. She simply let herself sink in the sweet sense of restored confidence and love, her head resting against his.

  Presently Reb Shemuel put his hands on her head and murmured again: "May God make thee as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah."

  Then he added: "Go now, my daughter, and make glad the heart of thy mother."

  Hannah suspected a shade of satire in the words, but was not sure.

  * * * * *

  The roaring Sambatyon of life was at rest in the Ghetto; on thousands of squalid homes the light of Sinai shone. The Sabbath Angels whispered words of hope and comfort to the foot-sore hawker and the aching machinist, and refreshed their parched souls with celestial anodyne and made them kings of the hour, with leisure to dream of the golden chairs that awaited them in Paradise.

  The Ghetto welcomed the Bride with proud song and humble feast, and sped her parting with optimistic symbolisms of fire and wine, of spice and light and shadow. All around their neighbors sought distraction in the blazing public-houses, and their tipsy bellowings resounded through the streets and mingled with the Hebrew hymns. Here and there the voice of a beaten woman rose on the air. But no Son of the Covenant was among the revellers or the wife-beaters; the Jews remained a chosen race, a peculiar people, faulty enough, but redeemed at least from the grosser vices, a little human islet won from the waters of animalism by the genius of ancient engineers. For while the genius of the Greek or the Roman, the Egyptian or the Phoenician, survives but in word and stone, the Hebrew word alone was made flesh.

  CHAPTER XIX. WITH THE STRIKERS.

  "Ignorant donkey-heads!" cried Pinchas next Friday morning. "Him they make a Rabbi and give him the right of answering questions, and he know no more of Judaism," the patriotic poet paused to take a bite out of his ham-sandwich, "than a cow of Sunday. I lof his daughter and I tell him so and he tells me she lof another. But I haf held him up on the point of my pen to the contempt of posterity. I haf written an acrostic on him; it is terrible. Her vill I shoot."

  "Ah, they are a bad lot, these Rabbis," said Simon Wolf, sipping his sherry. The conversation took place in English and the two men were seated in a small private room in a public-house, awaiting the advent of the Strike Committee.