Rabbi and Priest: A Story

by Milton Goldsmith

At the time of which we speak, however, there was nought but rejoicing in Russia. Freedom had unfurled her banner, and the sanguine prophets foresaw in the near future a complete cessation of despotism and a constitutional government such as the people had demanded since the beginning of Nicholas' reign in 1825. Amidst the general joy, the Governor of Kief found an opportunity for materially improving the condition of the Jews of his province.

Mendel would have been less than human had he not endeavored to turn this condition of affairs and Pomeroff's friendship to practical account. For himself he desired nothing. When the Governor, in order to have him constantly at his side, tendered him an honorable office in the palace, Mendel gently but firmly declined the proffered honor. All his energies were directed towards ameliorating the lot of his co-religionists.

He one day induced the Governor to stroll with him through the Jewish quarter, and with tact and eloquence called his attention to the crowded condition of the houses and streets, explaining how difficult it was to preserve health where the hygienic laws were of necessity utterly disregarded. He showed how the streets, at first ample for all requirements, had in the course of years become overcrowded; how hut had been built against hut and story erected upon story, until the lack of room deprived many a dwelling of light and air. He led the surprised Governor through the squalid lanes near the river and demonstrated how difficult it would be to master an epidemic when once it had taken root there, and how the welfare of the entire town of Kief depended upon the sanitary condition of each of its parts.

With the financial acumen of his race, he appealed to the economic aspect of the case, demonstrated how many houses, large and small, were standing idle in the city proper, bringing neither rent to their owners nor taxes to the province, and depicted the benefits that would be gained by granting the Jews the privilege of occupying such dwellings.

The Governor, who had never before visited the haunts of poverty, felt a positive repugnance to the system, or rather lack of system, that could countenance such a condition of affairs. He hurried away from the uninviting neighborhood, and, having again reached a spot where the air was fit to breathe, he promised to exert his influence with the Czar to have the boundaries of the Jewish quarter extended.

Nobly did he keep his word. He journeyed to St. Petersburg and sought an audience with Alexander. What happened at the interview the Jews of Kief never discovered, but the result was extremely gratifying. At the end of a fortnight there came a ukase extending indefinitely the limits of the Jewish quarters of all large cities, granting permission to all Jewish merchants who had been established in some branch of trade for twenty-five years or over, and to all rabbis and teachers, to reside in the city proper, in such streets as they might select, and permitting merchants of ten years' standing to dwell on certain streets carefully specified in the proclamation. It also made it lawful for Jews and Christians to live in the same building, a privilege hitherto withheld.

Many were the Jews who availed themselves of their new privileges. Bensef was among the first. His house, since the arrival of Mendel's parents, had been too small for comfort and the wealthy man desired a dwelling befitting his means. Haim Goldheim, the banker, found that there was not enough room in his house for the works of art it contained. He took a house in the fashionable Vladimir quarter, where, to the intense disgust of the aristocrats, he established himself in princely magnificence. A hundred families, at least, followed the example thus set, leaving the crowded streets, in order to breathe the purer air of the more select quarters of Kief. To their credit be it said, however, few went far from their old homes; the synagogue still formed the rallying centre of their community. About it revolved their daily thoughts and actions and the greatest recommendation a new home could have was that it was near the schul.

Upon Mendel, who had brought about this change, the greatest honors were showered. His congregation almost worshipped him. There were envious detractors, however, who contended that it did not behoove a Jew to become so intimate with a goy, and a Governor at that. They claimed that the Rabbi labored only to promote his own private ends; but, as these malcontents were among the first to seize the opportunity of bettering their condition, Mendel could afford to shrug his shoulders and smile at their insinuations.

The principal class to benefit by the new order of things were the poor, who now found abundant room and greedily availed themselves of it. To them Mendel was a saviour in the practical sense of the word, and many a grateful woman whose hovel had been exchanged for a more commodious dwelling would kiss the Rabbi's hand as he passed through the quarter on his errands of mercy.

But the young Rabbi's zeal did not end here. He convinced the Governor that the taxes exacted from the Jews were not only excessive, but disproportionate, and, as a result, they were lowered to a level with those paid by the gentiles.