Ehrenkranz also has some songs in which are described the sorrows of various occupations,—a kind of poetry more specially cultivated by Berel Broder. Of the latter little is known except that he composed his songs probably at a time anterior to those just mentioned, that he had lived at Brody, hence his name, and that he had never published them. They were collected by some one after his death and published several times; however, it is likely that several of them are of other authorship, as is certainly the case with 'The Wanderer,' which belongs to Ehrenkranz. As has been said above, he prefers to dwell on the many troubles that beset the various occupations of his countrymen, of the shepherd, the gravedigger, the wagon-driver, the school teacher, the go-between, the usurer, the precentor, the smuggler. They are all arranged according to the same scheme, and begin with such lines as: 'I, poor shepherd,' 'I, lame beadle,' 'I, miserable driver,' 'I, wretched school teacher,' and so forth. The best of these, and one of the most popular of the kind, is probably the 'Song of the Gravedigger.' Of the two songs of dispute, 'Day and Night' and 'Shoemaker and Tailor,' the first is remarkable in that each praises the other, instead of the more common discussions in which the contending parties try to outrival one another in the display of their virtues.
The style of these two Galicians and their very subject-matter were soon appropriated by a very large class of folksingers in Russia who amuse guests at wedding feasts. Before passing over to the writers in Russia we shall mention the two other Galicians who, writing at a later time, have remained unknown beyond their own country, but one of whom at least deserves to be known to a larger circle of readers. The one, David Apotheker, in his collection 'Die Leier,' pursues just such aims as his Polish or Russian fellow-bards and is entirely without any local coloring. The poems are written in a pure dialect, without any admixture of German words, but their poetic value is small, as they are much too didactic. Of far higher importance and literary worth are the productions of his contemporary, Bajrach Benedikt Schafir. Being well versed in German and Polish literature, he generally imitates the form of the best poems in those languages and often paraphrases them for his humble audiences. His language is now almost the literary German, now his native dialect, according as he sings of high matters or in the lighter vein. In the introduction to one of his earlier pamphlets written in a pure German, he says that in Germanizing his native dialect it has been his purpose so to purify the Jargon that it should become intelligible even to German Jews. The most of his songs were collected in 'Melodies from the Country near the River San.' These he divided into four parts: Jewish national songs, songs of commemoration, songs of feeling, and comical songs,—the first three, with an elegy on the death of Moses Montefiore, forming the first part, the comical songs the second part, of the collection.
The most of the comical songs are in the form of dialogues in which a German, i.e. a Jew of the reformed church, discusses with a Khassid the advantage of education; in others he describes the ignorance of the latter. Many of them do not rise above the character of theatre couplets, but in the lyrical part the tone is better, and in some of his songs he rivals the best folksingers of Russia. His 'Midnight Prayer' and 'Greeting to Zion' are touching expressions of longing for the ancient home, just as 'Przemysl, You my Dear Cradle,' and 'Homesickness,' are full of yearning for his native country. Of the four songs of commemoration, two deal on the famous accusation, in 1883, of the use of Gentile blood by the Jews in the Passover ceremony, one describes the fire in the Vienna Ring theatre, while another narrates a similar catastrophe in the town of Sheniava.
As early as 1863[51] there was printed in Kiev a volume of songs under the name of 'The Evil-tongued Wedding-jester,' by Izchak Joel Linetzki. Before me lies a somewhat later edition of the book: it is published in a form of rare attractiveness for those days and bears on the title-page a picture of two men, one in European dress, the other in the garments of a Khassid, in the attitude of discussion. This illustration has appeared on all the subsequent editions of the same work; it expresses the author's purpose, which becomes even more patent in his prose works, to instruct the Khassidim in the advantages of culture, however, the few poems in the book devoted to this differ from the usual unconditional praise of reform, in that they point out that the servile imitator of the Gentiles is no better than the stubborn advocate of the old regime. Two of the poems are versified versions of the Psalms, and there are also the usual songs of reflection, and a song of dispute between the mirror and the clock. Two of the poems sing of the joys of May, presenting the rare example of pure lyrics at that early time. These alone will hold a comparison with the best of Ehrenkranz's songs; the others are somewhat weak in diction and loose in execution.
Few poets have been so popular in Russia as Michel Gordon and S. Berenstein were in the past generation, the first singing in the Lithuanian variety of the language, the second in a southern dialect. Both published their collections in Zhitomir in 1869, and Gordon wrote an introductory poem for the book of his friend Berenstein. In this he indicates the marked contrast that exists in the productions of the two. While the first writes to chide superstition and ignorance, the other sings out of pity for his suffering race; while the one sounds the battle-cry of progress, the other consoles his brothers in their misery; the one, fearing prosecution from the fanatic Khassidim whom he attacks, sent his poems out into the world anonymously, the other signed his name to them. And yet, however unlike in form and content, they were both pervaded by a warm love for their people whom they were trying to succor, each one in his own way.
Gordon's[52] poems are of a militant order:[53] he is not satisfied with indicating the right road to culture, he also sounds the battle-cry of advance. The keynote is struck in his famous 'Arise, my People!' 'Arise, my people, you have slept long enough! Arise, and open your eyes! Why has such a misfortune befallen you alone, that you are asleep until the midday hour? The sun has now long been out upon the world; he has put all men upon their feet, but you alone lie crouching and bent and keep your eyes tightly closed.' In this poem he preaches to his race that they should assimilate themselves in manners and culture to the ruling people, that they should abandon their old-fashioned garments and distinguishing characteristics of long beard and forelock, and that they should exchange even the language in which he sings to them for the literary language of the country.
Assimilation was the cry of all the earnest men among the Russian Jews before the eighties, when the course of events put a damper on the sanguine expectations from such a procedure. Many of his other poems are of a humorous nature and have been enormously popular. In 'The Beard,' a woman laments the loss of that hirsute appendage of her husband, who, by shaving it off, had come to look like a despised 'German.' 'The Turnip Soup' and 'I Cannot Understand' are excellent pictures of the ignorance and superstitious awe of the Khassidim before their equally ignorant and hypocritical Rabbis; other poems deal with the stupidity of the teachers of children, and the undue use of spirituous drinks on all occasions of life.
Two of his earliest poems are devoted to decrying the evil custom of early marriages, in which the tastes of the contracting parties are not at all considered. In the one entitled 'From the Marriage Baldachin,' he paints in vivid colors the course of the married life of a Jew from the wedding feast through the worries of an ever-increasing family, and the helplessness of the father to provide for his children, with the consequent breaking up of the family ties. The catching tune to which the poem is sung, and all folksongs are naturally set to music, generally by the authors themselves, and the lifelike picture which it portrays, have done a great deal to diminish the practice; while the other, 'My Advice,' addressed to a girl, advising her to exercise her own free will and reasonable choice of her life's companion, has helped to eliminate misery and to introduce the element of love in the marital stage.
In his advocacy of reform, Gordon had in mind the clearing of the Jewish religion from the accumulated superstitions of the ages which had almost stifled its virgin simplicity, not an abandonment of any of its fundamental principles in the ardent desire for assimilation. True culture is, according to him, compatible with true piety, and a surface culture, with its accompanying slackness of religious life, is reprehensible. When he saw that so many had misunderstood the precepts of those who taught a closer union with the Gentiles in that they adopted the mere appearances of the foreign civilization and overthrew the essential virtues of their own faith, he expressed his indignation in 'The True Education and the False Education,' of which the final stanza is:
True culture makes good and mild,
False culture makes bad and wild.
The truly-cultured is a fine man,
The falsely-cultured is a charlatan.