It was an unwritten law in Nordheim that the Saturday night was not to be given over to labor or business, except in cases of emergency. The women were particularly zealous in following this rule. Instead sociability reigned supreme. The men indulged in friendly card-play, the married women sat together in groups and gossiped, the youths and maidens played musical instruments, sang, and danced. These pleasant occupations were continued several hours, so that on Saturday nights the worthy Jewish burghers retired much later than usual.

The sincerity and thoroughgoing consistency which marked the observance of the Sabbath were characteristic of the religious life of the Nordheim community throughout the year. It would be inconsistent with the scope of this sketch to go into all the details of religious life and practice; but suffice it to say that Jewish piety, as illustrated in Nordheim, was eminently earnest, emphatic, and genuine. The very children possessed the spirit of martyrs. They would have endured tortures rather than eat forbidden food or violate the Sabbath or any other of the holy days. Some of the manifestations of this piety were quaintly humorous or pathetic, according to the viewpoint from which they are regarded. The children of Nordheim, like children the world over, were very fond of fruit and berries. Had they been permitted to go into the orchards and gardens and gather their sweet products unrestrained, there can be no doubt that as much would have disappeared down their throats as they brought home. But the Nordheim mothers struck upon a shrewd scheme for circumventing the appetites of their sweet-toothed offspring, which did equal credit to their ingenuity and their psychological knowledge. They would send the children to gather fruits or pick berries upon a fast day. The plan was as effective as it was beautifully simple. The children brought home all that they gathered, for no Jewish child in Nordheim would have even thought of committing such a heinous sin as tasting food on a Taanis. Think of applying such a rule to American children! It would be about as effective as trying to restrain a bull with a piece of cotton thread.

It is recorded of a worthy Nordheim Baal Habbayis that he once saw some flies rise from his boots and settle upon some hay, which was later on eaten by his cows. Now that in itself is a trifling and insignificant incident; but it so happened that the boots, in accordance with German village custom, had been smeared with tallow, which, from the viewpoint of the Jewish religious law is Trefah—that is, ritually unclean, and forbidden to be eaten. Our worthy Nordheimer at once felt himself burdened in his conscience and despatched a special messenger post-haste to the rabbi at Gersfeld with an inquiry as to whether the milk of those cows might lawfully be drunk. This pious scrupulosity did not, however, as might be thought, involve any gloomy or dreary harshness of sentiment. What we are accustomed to call the Puritanical frame of mind was utterly unknown in Nordheim. On the contrary, a cheerful and pleasant disposition, which made the tone of social intercourse extremely agreeable, was the all prevalent mood. In individual instances this mental tendency was emphasized into pronounced joviality, and the happy possessors thereof became the “Spass macher,” the jesters and fun-makers of the community. Woe betide the unfortunate individual who acquired a reputation for sourness and unsociability. He was considered a legitimate victim for the gibes and jests of the official jokers, and small indeed was the meed of sympathy which he received.

Another instance of the prevailing jocoseness was the custom of attaching nicknames to persons, which were then used instead of their proper appellations. It was rarely that any one was referred to in Nordheim by his given name, the nickname being so universally used as almost to displace the real and legal cognomen. These nicknames were derived from some personal characteristic or some peculiarity arising from vocation or experience in life, which had struck the village wags as humorous. It was “the black Elias,” or “the long Moses,” or “the bold Isaac,” or “the gentle Sarah,” the last two appellations being, of course, mildly ironical. One individual, who had an undue amount of audacity in his psychological make-up, was known as “der Baishan,” that is, “the bashful or timid one,” while another who had failed in nearly everything he had undertaken was universally dubbed “der Mazzeldige Shmuel,” that is, “lucky Sam.” A family, some remote ancestor of which had once been imprisoned in a tower and escaped therefrom by leaping from the window of his cell, was generally known as “die Thurm hüpfer,” “the tower-hoppers,” while six brothers, all of whom were over six feet tall and stout in proportion, bore the strikingly apposite designation of “die Kinderlich,” that is, “the babies.” The swineherd, who called his charges together by means of a long tin trumpet, from which he emitted shrill and piercing, though hardly melodious notes, was styled by the Jews “der Baal Tokea,” that is, the blower of the Shofar or ram’s horn trumpet used in the services of the New Year; while the village constable, who was an extremely pious Catholic and always walked around through the village streets on Sundays with a prayer book in his hand, from which he read with strait-laced mien and ostentatious devotion, was dubbed “der Baal Tephillah,” that is, the cantor or reader of the synagogue services.

Schnorrers.

The two banes of village life and at the same time the most diverting figures therein were the Schnorrers and the gendarmes or rural policemen. The first-named gentry, wandering Jewish mendicants, who believed in the socialistic doctrine that the world, or at least that part of it which professed Judaism, owed them a living, were a most interesting set and worthy of a special study in themselves. They honored the community frequently with their visits. Some were usually visible in the streets at all seasons of the year, and the services in the synagogue were generally graced by the presence of two or three. In most instances they professed intense piety and then their Tephillin were larger, their Talethim longer, and their prayers louder and more ecstatic than those of the rest of the congregation. They came from anywhere and everywhere. Most of them were of Russian or Polish origin, but there was a goodly sprinkling of individuals of German birth and occasionally a Sephardi from Jerusalem or some other Eastern region, clad in Oriental robes and with a majestic turban upon his head, relieved the monotony of Schnorrerdom and added interest and diversity thereto by his strikingly alien and picturesque appearance. They came in the most diverse guises. Some appeared in the rôle of venerable rabbis with flowing beards, and anxious to display their learning in the law to whomsoever they could induce to listen; others professed to be merchants who had lost their all in ill-starred commercial ventures; while others were wandering apprentices—Handwerksburschen—temporarily out of work. Sometimes they were accompanied by their wives, who were always more voluble and eloquent than their husbands. Sometimes an entire family, grandparents, married sons and daughters and children of all ages, including infants in arms, made their appearance and then the resources of Nordheim charity were severely strained adequately to provide for them.

THEY HONORED THE COMMUNITY FREQUENTLY WITH THEIR VISITS
Page [28]

These Schnorrers were not beggars in the ordinary sense. They certainly had no humble or suppliant air. They came into the house with the air of calling upon old personal friends, and seemed to think it an entirely self-understood and axiomatic matter that their co-religionists should take upon themselves the duty of caring for their needs. Among them many, no doubt, were genuinely unfortunate and deserving individuals, but there was more than a suspicion that a large proportion had taken up the pursuit of Schnorring as a peculiarly pleasant and profitable vocation. Their reliance upon the charitable disposition of their brethren in faith was well grounded. The Nordheim Jews were guided by the eminently humane and noble principle that it is better that ninety-nine undeserving persons should be aided than that one deserving person should be refused the assistance he required; and, consequently, every applicant for charity, unless it was positively known that he was unworthy, received the help he craved. This help usually took the form of food, lodging, and some money or clothing. A sort of system prevailed. The Schnorrer would first call upon the Parnass, or president of the congregation, who would then give him a ticket, called Plett, a corruption of Billet, upon some member of the congregation, entitling the stranger to food and lodging. These tickets were issued in rotation, and were usually cheerfully honored. Some of the members even had a predilection for entertaining these destitute brethren, and would rival each other in the numbers they accommodate. It was amusing to hear one boast that he had harbored, let us say twenty-seven, Schnorrers during the year, only to be told by another, with triumphant mien, that the number of his non-paying guests had been thirty-five. The most celebrated hostess of this kind was a widow named Hannah. This warm-hearted daughter of Israel strove to fulfil literally the precept of the sages, “Let the poor be the children of thy house.” The days were few when her house did not contain some “guest”; and she would give him of her best, and wait upon him as though his presence was the most distinguished honor. When asked once how it was that she, although not a woman of means, was always ready to receive needy strangers, far more so, indeed, than persons of far greater wealth, Hannah answered: “Why, that is a very simple matter. All that one needs is a Lef and a Loeffel.”

Altogether, the mental attitude of the Nordheim Jews toward their needy and mendicant co-religionists was very different from that which prevails to-day; at any rate, in America. At present the unfortunates who depend upon the aid of their supposedly sympathetic brethren are considered a nuisance; an unsightly excrescence upon the body social to be abolished by all means, if possible. The wretched applicant for relief is rigidly scrutinized and interrogated by lynx-eyed committees until he is made to feel as though he were a criminal on trial for his life. A domiciliary visit is paid to his home by some surly “investigator,” whose efficiency is measured by the number of unfavorable reports he makes. And woe betide the miserable one whose habitation shows some traces of neatness and gentility, and where some humble ornaments, relics, perhaps, of happier days, have been suffered to remain, and have not found their way into the pawnshop. Such a one is at once declared an “undeserving case”; for does not his dwelling show that he is still possessed of means, and his application is at once summarily and without mercy rejected. But Nordheim knew nothing of such uncharitable charity, such inhuman humanity. The disposition there was truly charitable in the kindlier, and hence nobler, sense of the word. Poverty was looked upon as a necessary and inevitable feature of human existence, as, indeed, a part of the Divine order of the world; for had not He said in His law, “The poor shall not cease from the midst of the land”?