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 I | ||
| Page | ||
| The Old and the New | [9] | |
| The Old Man | ||
| The Boy | ||
| The "Intellectuals" | ||
| Chapter II | ||
| Prophets without Honor | [44] | |
| Submerged Scholars: A Man of God—A BitterProphet—A Calm Student | ||
| The Poor Rabbis: Their Grievances—The "Genuine"Article—A Down-Town Specimen—The NeglectedType | ||
| Chapter III | ||
| The Old and New Woman | [71] | |
| The Orthodox Jewess: Devotion and Customs | ||
| The Modern Type: Passionate Socialists—ConfirmedBlue-Stockings | ||
| Place of Woman in Ghetto Literature | ||
| Chapter IV | ||
| Four Poets | [90] | |
| A Wedding Bard | ||
| A Champion of Race | ||
| A Singer of Labor | ||
| A Dreamer of Brotherhood | ||
| Chapter V | ||
| The Stage | [113] | |
| Theatres, Actors, and Audience | ||
| Realism, the Spirit of the Ghetto Theatre | ||
| The History of the Yiddish Stage | ||
| Chapter VI | ||
| The Newspapers | [177] | |
| The Conservative Journals | ||
| The Socialist Papers | ||
| The Anarchist Papers | ||
| Some Picturesque Contributors | ||
| Chapter VII | ||
| The Sketch-Writers | [199] | |
| Some Realists | ||
| A Cultivated Literary Man | ||
| American Life Through Russian Eyes | ||
| A Satirist of Tenement Society | ||
| Chapter VIII | ||
| A Novelist | [230] | |
| Chapter IX | ||
| The Young Art and its Exponents | [254] | |
| Chapter X | ||
| Odd Characters | [272] | |
| An Out-of-date Story-Writer | ||
| A Cynical Inventor | ||
| An Impassioned Critic | ||
| The Poet of Zionism | ||
| An Intellectual Debauchee | ||
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.