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The Spirit of the Ghetto
The Spirit of the Ghetto
THE SPIRIT of THE GHETTO STUDIES OF THE JEWISH QUARTER IN NEW YORK By HUTCHINS HAPGOOD With Drawings from Life by JACOB EPSTEIN NEW YORK AND LONDON FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWO Copyright, 1902 by Funk & Wagnalls Company Printed in the United States of America Published November, 1902...
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NOTE
NOTE
A number of these chapters have appeared as separate articles in "The Atlantic Monthly," "The Critic," "The Bookman," "The World's Work," "The Boston Transcript," and "The Evening Post" and "The Commercial Advertiser" of New York. To the editors of these publications thanks for permission to republish are gratefully tendered by The Author ....
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PREFACE
PREFACE
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 aspec
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THE OLD MAN
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 t
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THE BOY
THE BOY
The shrewd-faced boy with the melancholy eyes that one sees everywhere in the streets of New York's Ghetto, occupies a peculiar position in our society. If we could penetrate into his soul, we should see a mixture of almost unprecedented hope and excitement on the one hand, and of doubt, confusion, and self-distrust on the other hand. Led in many contrary directions, the fact that he does not grow to be an intellectual anarchist is due to his serious racial characteristics. Three groups of influ
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THE "INTELLECTUALS"
THE "INTELLECTUALS"
Between the old people, with their religion, their traditions, the life pointing to the past, and the boy with his young life eagerly absorbent of the new tendencies, is a third class which may be called the "Intellectuals" of the Ghetto. This is the most picturesque and interesting, altho not the most permanently significant, of all. The members of this class are interesting for what they are rather than for what they have been or for what they may become. They are the anarchists, the socialist
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SUBMERGED SCHOLARS
SUBMERGED SCHOLARS
A ragged man, who looks like a peddler or a beggar, picking his way through the crowded misery of Hester Street, or ascending the stairs of one of the dingy tenement-houses full of sweat-shops that line that busy mart of the poor Ghetto Jew, may be a great Hebrew scholar. He may be able to speak and write the ancient tongue with the facility of a modern language—as fluently as the ordinary Jew makes use of the "jargon," the Yiddish of the people; he may be a manifold author with a deep and pious
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THE POOR RABBIS
THE POOR RABBIS
The rabbis, as well as the scholars, of the east side of New York have their grievances. They, too, are "submerged," like so much in humanity that is at once intelligent, poor, and out-of-date. As a lot, they are old, reverend men, with long gray beards, long black coats and little black caps on their heads. They are mainly very poor, live in the barest of the tenement houses and pursue a calling which no longer involves much honor or standing. In the old country, in Russia—for most of the poor
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THE ORTHODOX JEWESS
THE ORTHODOX JEWESS
The first of the two well-marked classes of women in the Ghetto is that of the ignorant orthodox Russian Jewess. She has no language but Yiddish, no learning but the Talmudic law, no practical authority but that of her husband and her rabbi. She is even more of a Hausfrau than the German wife. She can own no property, and the precepts of the Talmud as applied to her conduct are largely limited to the relations with her husband. Her life is absorbed in observing the religious law and in taking ca
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THE MODERN TYPE
THE MODERN TYPE
The other, the educated class of Ghetto women, is, of course, in a great minority; and this division includes the women even the most slightly affected by modern ideas as well as those who from an intellectual point of view are highly cultivated. Among the least educated are a large number of women who would be entirely ignorant were it not for the ideas which they have received through the Socialistic propaganda of the quarter. Like the men who are otherwise ignorant, they are trained to a cert
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PLACE OF WOMAN IN GHETTO LITERATURE
PLACE OF WOMAN IN GHETTO LITERATURE
Ibsen's "Doll's House" has been translated and produced at a Yiddish theatre; and an original play called "Minna" registers a protest by the Jewish woman against that law of marriage which binds her to an inferior man. Married to an ignorant laborer, Minna falls in love (for his advanced ideas) with the boarder—every poor family, to pay the rent, must saddle themselves with a boarder, often at the expense of domestic happiness—and finally kills herself, when the laws of society press her too har
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A WEDDING BARD
A WEDDING BARD
The oldest of the four poets is Eliakim Zunser. It is he that is known to millions of people in Russia and to the whole New York Ghetto. He is the poet of the common people, the beloved of all, the poet of the housewife, of the Jew who is so ignorant that he does not even know his own family name. To still more ignorant people, if such are possible, he is known by what, after all, is his distinctive title, Eliakim the Badchen , or the Wedding Bard. He writes in Yiddish, the universal language of
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A CHAMPION OF RACE
A CHAMPION OF RACE
A striking contrast to the popular wedding bard is Menahem Dolitzki, called the Hebrew poet because he has the distinction of writing in the old Hebrew language. His learning is limited to the old literature of his race. He is not a generally well educated man, not knowing or caring anything about modern life or ideas. The poet of the holy tongue, he is what the Jews call maskil , fellow of wisdom. The aloof dignity of his position fills him with a mild contempt for the "jargon," the Yiddish of
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A SINGER OF LABOR
A SINGER OF LABOR
Morris Rosenfeld, poet and former tailor, strikes in his personality and writings the weary minor. Full of tears are the man and his song. Zunser, Dolitzki, and Wald, altho in their verse runs the eternal melancholy of poetry and of the Jews, have yet physical buoyancy and a robust spirit. But Rosenfeld, small, dark, and fragile in body, with fine eyes and drooping eyelashes, and a plaintive, childlike voice, is weary and sick—a simple poet, a sensitive child, a bearer of burdens, an east side t
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A DREAMER OF BROTHERHOOD
A DREAMER OF BROTHERHOOD
Abraham Wald, whose nom de plume is Lessin, is only twenty-eight years old, the youngest and least known of the four poets, yet in some respects the most interesting. He is the only one who is on a level with the intellectual alertness of the day. His education is broad and in some directions thorough. He is the only one of the four poets whom we are discussing who knows Russian, which language he often writes. He is an imaginative critic, a violent socialist, and an excitable lover of nature. O
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THEATRES, ACTORS AND AUDIENCE
THEATRES, ACTORS AND AUDIENCE
In the three Yiddish theatres on the Bowery is expressed the world of the Ghetto—that New York City of Russian Jews, large, complex, with a full life and civilization. In the midst of the frivolous Bowery, devoted to tinsel variety shows, "dive" music-halls, fake museums, trivial amusement booths of all sorts, cheap lodging-houses, ten-cent shops and Irish-American tough saloons, the theatres of the chosen people alone present the serious as well as the trivial interests of an entire community.
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REALISM, THE SPIRIT OF THE GHETTO THEATRE
REALISM, THE SPIRIT OF THE GHETTO THEATRE
The distinctive thing about the intellectual and artistic life of the Russian Jews of the New York Ghetto, the spirit of realism, is noticeable even on the popular stage. The most interesting plays are those in which the realistic spirit predominates, and the best among the actors and playwrights are the realists. The realistic element, too, is the latest one in the history of the Yiddish stage. The Jewish theatres in other parts of the world, which, compared with the three in New York, are unor
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THE HISTORY OF THE YIDDISH STAGE
THE HISTORY OF THE YIDDISH STAGE
The Yiddish stage, founded in Roumania in 1876 by Abraham Goldfaden, has reached its highest development in the city of New York, where there are seventy or eighty professional actors; not far from a dozen playwrights, of whom three have written collectively more than three hundred plays; dramas on almost every subject, produced on the inspiration of various schools of dramatic art; and an enormous Russian Jewish colony, which fills the theatres and creates so strong a demand that the stage resp
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THE CONSERVATIVE JOURNALS
THE CONSERVATIVE JOURNALS
Yiddish journalism in New York began about thirty years ago, and continued in unimportant and unrepresentative newspapers until about twelve years ago, when the Tageblatt , the first daily newspaper, and the Arbeiterzeitung , an important Socialistic weekly, now defunct, but from which developed the present Socialist dailies, came into existence. The Tageblatt , which has maintained its general character from the beginning, is the most conservative, as well as the oldest, of the daily newspapers
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THE SOCIALIST PAPERS
THE SOCIALIST PAPERS
The Socialist weekly, the Arbeiterzeitung , marked the beginning of the most vital journalism of the east side, and stood in striking contrast to the Tageblatt . In the circumstances attending its development into the two existing rival Socialistic papers, the Vorwärts and the Abendblatt , [2] a picture of the progressive and passionate character of the Russian-Jewish Socialists of the Ghetto is presented, and some of the most important and picturesque personages. The most educated and intellige
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THE ANARCHIST PAPERS
THE ANARCHIST PAPERS
There are several Yiddish weekly and monthly journals published in New York. The Tageblatt , Abend-Post and Herald have weekly editions, but by far the most interesting of the papers which are not dailies are the two Anarchistic sheets, the Freie Arbeiter-stimme , a weekly, and the Freie Gesellschaft , a monthly. A "GHETTO" NEWSPAPER OFFICE Contrary to the general impression of the character of these people, in which bombs play a large part, the Anarchists of the Ghetto are a gentle and idealist
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SOME PICTURESQUE CONTRIBUTORS
SOME PICTURESQUE CONTRIBUTORS
There are many other picturesque and interesting men connected with these Yiddish journals, either as editors or contributors. Morris Rosenfeld, the sweat-shop poet, writes articles and occasionally poems for the Socialistic papers; Abraham Wald, the vigorous and stormy young poet, contributes literary and Socialistic articles three times a week to Vorwärts ; the editor of one of the conservative papers, distinguished for his logic and his clever business management, is interesting because of th
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SOME REALISTS
SOME REALISTS
S. LIBIN S. Libin holds the place among prose writers that Morris Rosenfeld does among poets. Like Rosenfeld, he has been a sweat-shop worker, and, like him, writes about the sordid conditions of the life. The shop, the push-cart pedler and the tenement-house mark the range of his subjects; but into these unsightly things he puts constant feeling and an unfailing pathos and humor. As in the case of Rosenfeld, there are tears in everything he writes; but, unlike Rosenfeld, he also smiles. He is a
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A CULTIVATED LITERARY MAN
A CULTIVATED LITERARY MAN
Contrasting definitely with the sketches of Libin and Levin are those of Jacob Gordin, who, altho he is best known in the Ghetto as a playwright, has yet written voluminously for the newspapers. Unlike the other two, Gordin is a well-educated man, knowing thoroughly several languages and literatures, including Greek, Russian and German. His greater resources of culture and his sharper natural wit have made of him by far the most practised writer of the lot. With many literary examples before him
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AMERICAN LIFE THROUGH RUSSIAN EYES
AMERICAN LIFE THROUGH RUSSIAN EYES
In connection with Gordin, two other writers of talent who work on the Yiddish newspapers may be briefly mentioned, altho one of them has written as yet nothing and the other comparatively little that is based on the life of New York. They are, as is Gordin in his best sketches, Russian not only in form, but also in material. David Pinsky, who did general translating and critical work on the Abendblatt until a few months ago, when that newspaper died, has been in New York only a little more than
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A SATIRIST OF TENEMENT SOCIETY
A SATIRIST OF TENEMENT SOCIETY
Leon Kobrin stands midway between Libin and Levin, on the one hand, and Gordin on the other. He carries his Russian traditions more intimately with him than do Libin and Levin, but more nearly approaches to a saturated exposition in fiction form of the life of Yiddish New York than does Gordin. Unlike the latter, he has the pretence rather than the reality of learning, and the reality rather than the pretence of realistic art. Yet he never quite attains to the untutored fidelity of Libin. Many o
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Chapter Eight A Novelist
Chapter Eight A Novelist
Altho Abraham Cahan began his literary career as a Yiddish writer for the Ghetto newspapers his important work has been written and published in English. His work as a Yiddish writer was of an almost exclusively educational character. This at once establishes an important distinction between him and the Yiddish sketch-writers considered in the foregoing chapter. A still more vital distinction is that arising from the relative quality of his work, which as opposed to that of the Yiddish writers,
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Chapter Nine The Young Art and its Exponents
Chapter Nine The Young Art and its Exponents
On Hester Street, east of the Bowery, the poor Jew is revealed in many a characteristic way. It is the home of the sweat-shop, of the crowded tenement-house. Old pedlers, as ragged as the poorest beggars, stand on street corners. In long uninterrupted lines are the carts—containing fruit, cake, dry goods, fish, everything that the proletarian Jew requires. Behind these tower the crowded tenement-houses, with fire-escapes for balconies. Through the middle of the street constantly moves a mass of
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AN OUT-OF-DATE STORY-WRITER
AN OUT-OF-DATE STORY-WRITER
Shaikevitch is the author of interminable, unsigned novels, which are published in daily installments in the east side newspapers. He is so prolific that he makes a good living. There was a time, however, when he gladly signed his name to what he wrote. That time is over, and the reason for it is best brought out by a sketch of his history. He was born in Minsk, Russia, of orthodox Jewish parents. He began to write when he was twenty years old, at first in pure Hebrew, scientific and historical
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A CYNICAL INVENTOR
A CYNICAL INVENTOR
The "intellectuals" who gather in the Russian cafés delight in expressing the ideas for which they were persecuted abroad. Enthusiasm for progress and love of ideas is the characteristic tone of these gatherings and an entire lack of practical sense. Very striking, therefore, was the attitude of a Russian-Jewish inventor, who took his lunch the other day at one of the most literary of these cafés. Near him were a trio of enthusiasts, gesticulating over their tea, but he sat aloof, alone. He list
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AN IMPASSIONED CRITIC
AN IMPASSIONED CRITIC
He loves literature with an absorbing love, and is pained constantly by what he deems the chaos of art in the United States. The Americans seem to him to be trivial and immature in their art, lacking in serious purpose. "It is a vast and fruitful land," he will say, "but there is no order and little sincerity as far as art is concerned. Your writers try to amuse the readers, to entertain them merely, rather than to give them serious and vital truth. Why is it that a race which is clever and prog
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THE POET OF ZIONISM
THE POET OF ZIONISM
Naptali Herz Imber is known to all Jews of any education as the man who has written in the old Hebrew language the poems that best express the hope of Zion and that best serve as an inspiring battle cry in the struggle for a new Jerusalem. Zangwill has translated into English the Hebrew "Wacht Am Rhein," the most popular of Imber's poems, which is called The Watch on the Jordan . It is in four stanzas, the first of which is: Like the crash of the thunder Which splitteth asunder The flame of the
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AN INTELLECTUAL DEBAUCHEE
AN INTELLECTUAL DEBAUCHEE
Four men sat excitedly talking in the little café on Grand Street where the Socialists and Anarchists of the Russian quarter were wont to meet late at night and stay until the small hours. An American, who might by chance have happened there, would have wondered what important event had occurred to rasp these men's voices, to cause them to gesticulate so wildly, to give their dark, intelligent faces so fateful, so ominous an expression. In reality, however, nothing out of the ordinary had happen
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