There was a perfect din in the Shools, in the streets, in the houses. Hypocrites and crooked men, who had never before been seen or heard of, led the dance.
"To make Gentiles out of the children, forsooth! To turn the Talmud Torah into a school! That we won't allow! No matter if we have to turn the world upside down, no matter what happens!"
Reb Shloimeh heard the cries, and made as though he heard nothing. He thought it would end there, that no one would venture to oppose him further.
"What do you say to that?" he asked the teachers. "Fanaticism has broken out already!"
"It will give trouble," replied the teachers.
"Eh, nonsense!" said Reb Shloimeh, with conviction. But on Sabbath, at the Reading of the Law, he saw that he had been mistaken. The opposition had collected, and they got onto the platform, and all began speaking at once. It was impossible to make out what they were saying, beyond a word here and there, or the fragment of a sentence: "—none of it!" "we won't allow—!" "—made into Gentiles!"
Reb Shloimeh sat in his place by the east wall, his hands on the desk where lay his Pentateuch. He had taken off his spectacles, and glanced at the platform, put them on again, and was once more reading the Pentateuch. They saw this from the platform, and began to shout louder than ever. Reb Shloimeh stood up, took off his prayer-scarf, and was moving toward the door, when he heard some one call out, with a bang of his fist on the platform:
"With the consent of the Rabbis and the heads of the community, and in the name of the Holy Torah, it is resolved to take the children away from the Talmud Torah, seeing that in place of the Torah there is uncleanness——"
Reb Shloimeh grew pale, and felt a rent in his heart. He stared at the platform with round eyes and open mouth.
"The children are to be made into Gentiles," shouted the person on the platform meantime, "and we have plenty of Gentiles, thank God, already! Thus may they perish, with their name and their remembrance! We are not short of Gentiles—there are more every day! And hatred increases, and God knows what the Jews are coming to! Whoso has God in his heart, and is jealous for the honor of the Law, let him see to it that the children cease going to the place of peril!"