two of the number, a husband and wife, are regular boarders. I doubt
whether anywhere else, under similar circumstances, we would have
received so genuinely hearty a welcome, in spite of the fact that we
were practically strangers to them, and that I had no claim whatever
upon their hospitality.
One of the children has already been dispatched to the nearest store to
buy additional dainties, and room is made at the already crowded table
for two very hungry adults.
My Russian friend, amazed as he was at the turmoil of the streets and
the height of the buildings, is still more awed by the sight of such
abundant and wholesome food, to which he may help himself without stint.
There are large sweet potatoes which taste better than cake, and are
permeated by the delicate flavour of nuts; they are a greater contrast
to the small, gnarly, scant portion of potatoes which it has been his
lot to eat, than any forty story sky scraper can be to the tumble-down
shanty in which his father kept store. Meat,--a huge piece of meat, on
his plate,--and in the memory of his palate, only the soft end of a soup
bone, as a special delicacy. What a contrast!
“Last, but not least,” the pie, that apple pie, of which he had a whole
one for himself and knew not how to attack it; until finally, following
good precedent, he took it into his trembling hands and let his joyous
face disappear in its juicy depths. After the dinner, he was catechized,
all the inhabitants of the far away town were inquired after, and the
record of the living and the dead told to the news hungry hearers.
What a marvellous group this is! and typical of thousands. The father is
a cloak presser. He is a small, cadaverous looking man of very gentle
mien, who knows not much beyond the fact that to-morrow the whistle will
blow, and that he will be on the fifteenth floor of a great cloak
factory, “doing his allotted task,” (God willing). The enemies that
await him are many; the red-headed Irish “Forelady,” who looks hard
after the creases in the cloaks, and who in turn, is suspected by him of
all the evils in the catalogue of sin; the cloak designer, a Viennese
Jew, who hates all Jews, especially Russian Jews, and more especially
this particular one with whom, after the fashion of the Viennese, he
quarrels for pastime. His fellow cloak presser, whose name was Elijah
and who now calls himself Jack, is an ardent Socialist, who “pesters” my
host by his economic theories which are obnoxious to him in the extreme.
“I yoost haf to led him dalk,” is the refrain of my host’s complaint.
Our hostess is corpulent and somewhat untidy; her horizon is even more
limited than that of her husband. She, too, works; she is a skillful
operator, and from 8 A. M. until 6 P. M. she hears nothing but the whirr
of the machine. She does not even have an enemy to vary the monotony by
her Socialistic doctrines. The oldest daughter is called Blanche,
although she was named Rebecca; she too works, and has worked for
several years, albeit she is not past sixteen. She embroiders in a
fashionable dressmaking establishment on Broadway, and likes her place;
she sees fine ladies and handles fine stuffs, and, “above all,” she says
to me in good English, “I don’t have to associate with Russian Jews.”
She reads good books,--fiction, biography, history--everything. The two
on her shelf that evening, were “Ivanhoe,” and “The Life of Florence
Nightingale.” Other children are growing up and going to work soon; so
the family is on the up grade, in spite of the fact that work is not
always steady, that the wife’s parents who live with them are old and
feeble, that the youngest child is threatened by blindness, and that
they have paid much money to quack doctors who advertise and to those
who do not. It was pathetic in the extreme to see this family crowd
together to make room for us for the night. My friend slept on a sofa,
the ribs of which protruded like those of Pharaoh’s lean kine, and I
slept soundly on the smoother surface of the floor.
The next day brought to us the momentous task of going out to find work,
and before the whistle blew for the night’s rest, my friend was part of
a sewing machine, while I being stronger, was assigned to pressing
cloaks. My fellow cloak presser told a piteous story of his wife and
four children on the other side, who had been almost heart-broken
because he had been here two years and been kept by “hard luck” from
sending for them. I worked by his side for a day, receiving my first
lessons in cloak-pressing from him, and the last letter from his wife
was so pathetic, that it drew tears from my eyes and money from my
pocketbook towards those tickets. When the day’s work was over, and the
possibility of soon seeing his family was almost realized, he said as we
parted, “I shall sleep happily to-night;” and so did I, in spite of heat
and sore muscles.
Rarely do these clothes pressers rise to a higher place in their trade,
although occasionally by strict economy and much hard labour, one may
own a shop and “sweat” the “greener” as he has “been sweated.”
In my wanderings through the Ghetto I dropped into a pawnshop on Avenue
C one day, and after I made some purchases the proprietor grew friendly
and introduced me to his family. He is the happy father of seven sons,
all of them “smart as a whip,” and all of them doing well. The youngest
one, Charles T., the smartest, is still in school and, like all the
Yiddish boys, at the head of his class. Charles T. knows everything,
from Marquis of Queensberry rules to the schedule of lectures at the
Educational Alliance building. “What are you going to be, Charles?” I
asked. “A business man like my father;” and the keen look in his big
eyes, the determination of his whole frame and face, showed that he
would succeed even better than his father, who is beginning to think of
“being at ease in Zion,” and retiring from business. Charles T.’s father
began life by buying rags on Houston Street; his sons will sell bonds on
Wall Street.
The Ghetto is not all barter and manual labour, for there are many
synagogues in which prayers are said every day; although only a few of
these synagogues are anything more than halls or large rooms in tenement
houses, sometimes above or below a drinking-place and in many instances
in ball rooms, which on Saturdays and holy days put off their unholy
garb.
If all the population of the Ghetto attended to its religious duties,
these one hundred synagogues would have to be increased to a thousand;
but on Saturdays many have to work, and increasingly many wish to work,
so that not twenty per cent. of the Ghetto population attend religious
services. However, on the great feast days, New Year’s day and the day
of Atonement, everybody goes; or as Charles T.’s father would say: “I go
to the synagogue twice a year and pay my dues, and then I’ll not have a
---- thing to do with them for another year.” Charles T.’s father is a
politician.
Most of the Ghetto rabbis are, like Mr. Levinson, “Performers of
Matrimony” and not much else; they are professionally pious and not
deeply religious; they have no vision and measure a man’s religion by
his observances of fasts and feasts; they are ignorant of all literature
except the Talmud, that treasure house of Jewish thought and
prison-house of Jewish souls. They are as superstitious as their
constituency, and often less honest, but in not a few cases truly devout
and charitable. There is no ecclesiastical control over these rabbis,
and they are in some cases self-made men in the worst sense of the word,
while their influence upon the ethical life of the Ghetto is almost
“nil.” They are the Jews’ law court and judges in matters which pertain
to ritualistic questions, but they are almost nothing to them in life.
There is very little preaching, less pastoral visitation, and much
useless bending of the back over musty books full of “dry bones” of
rabbinical lore.
The one great Jewish intellectual and ethical centre of the Ghetto is
the Educational Alliance building, with its various scattered branches;
it is everything which a Young Men’s Christian Association is to a
Gentile community, only more, inasmuch as it ministers to all, from
childhood to old age. Israel’s intellectual hunger is as great as its
proverbial greed for wealth, and this gigantic building, covering a
block and containing forty-three classrooms, is entirely inadequate to
meet the demand. The main entrance is always in a state of siege, and
two policemen are stationed there to maintain order and keep the
crowding people in line. I visited it on a hot Sunday afternoon in July,
and I found the large, well-stocked reading-room uncomfortably filled by
young men. The roof-garden is a breathing-place for thousands, and is
always crowded by children, who are supervised in their play and who
enjoy it eagerly.
The annual report reads like a fairy tale. Many of the lectures and
entertainments have to be given a number of times to give all an
opportunity to hear and to see, and some of the most difficult subjects
discussed find the most numerous and enthusiastic hearers. Baths, sewing
and cooking schools, are maintained, and to give even a list of all the
agencies employed to lift this population would exhaust my space. There
has been marked improvement among its constituency mentally and
ethically, and the redemption of New York from Tammany was in no small
measure due to the faithful work done by this and other similar centres,
not the least among them being the University Settlement.
There are several Christian churches in this district, but what their
influence upon the newcomer is I could not determine. In the main it may
be said that the churches do not concern themselves greatly regarding
this problem around them, although there are a few notable exceptions.
The following letter does not give one a hopeful view of the situation.
The gentleman to whom this letter was written, Mr. User Marcus, was
actively engaged in the kind of politics in which the churches ought to
have an interest. He organized a club, and through one of its members
secured a room in the Woods Memorial Church on Avenue A. After the first
meeting Mr. Marcus received the following letter:
NEW YORK, NOV. 1, 1901.
_Mr. User Marcus, 157 Second Ave., City._
DEAR SIR--Word has just come to me that your club will mainly
consist of Jews, also that you are acting independently of the club
already formed. Now you must know that the young men who have the
club are the men of our church, and therefore it would not be right
to oust them for strangers, and especially Jews. The men are quite
worked up about it, and came to see me about it the other night,
and this is my decision: that you get another place of meeting
other than ours. I have issued orders that you cannot meet again.
And another thing: I told you strictly that you must be out by 10
P. M., which you were not, as you kept the room open until eleven
o’clock. All these things have determined me on my course, and I
hope that you will not take it in a wrong spirit, as I am acting
simply for the best interests of my church, and feel that this is
the best way for all concerned.
It seems to me that, being Jews, you would scorn to accept any
favours from Christians. I should certainly be pretty far gone
before I should ask or even accept a favour at the hand of a Jew,
knowing as I do the feeling which exists between them and the
people of our religion.
Yours respectfully,
The Jew suspects every convert and suspects and hates the missionary.
His own religious faith may have little hold upon him, but he is hostile
to the attempt to proselyte him and his brethren. He knows Christianity
from its worst side, and he does not always see it in these missions
from its best side, for all religious work which bends its effort
towards making a big annual report must be superficial if not dishonest,
and the temptation to make converts is very great, even if the methods
employed are above suspicion.
The work of the Jewish Mission in the Ghetto ought to be the
interpretation of the spirit of Christianity, so that it might remove
suspicion and prejudice, and not increase them. Making converts in that
mechanical way used in the revival service of the past is as obnoxious
to the sensible Christian as it is to the sensitive Jew; while the
coddling of the convert and his exhibition as an example do more harm
than good. A true interpretation of Jesus by Christian people in the
churches and out of them, a touch of kindness here and there without a
thought of definite results, the treating of the Jew as a man and not
as a special species, would do more to reach the Jewish soul than any
organized missionary effort with which I am acquainted.
The two great social factors of the Ghetto are the Yiddish newspapers
and the theatre, each of them in some degree entering into the life of
every dweller in the Ghetto, as indeed each of them is a mixture of good
and ill; a battle-field of past ideals and modern aspirations. The paper
most in evidence on the street is the _Jewish Vorwaerts_, the Social
Democratic organ; if all its readers were adherents of this political
faith, its strength would be enormous. A careful examination of this
subject shows that there are about three thousand Social Democrats in
the Ghetto, and that three hundred of that number are of the extreme
type. The politics of the Ghetto used to be very uniform; they were
Democratic; years ago a Jewish Republican was a curiosity, to-day he is
a very important minority. Tammany had a very strong hold upon this
district, and even to-day the Tammany district leader is its political
saint.
To “fix and be fixed” used to be considered no crime, and is still
winked at with both eyes, although every time that Tammany is defeated,
the Ghetto has a few less crooked windings. To evade the law is a vice
brought from the lawlessness of Russia, and the political tutelage of
the East side of New York has not improved the situation. The Hearst
influence is felt here in a remarkable degree, and the New York _Evening
Journal_ is a great power for both good and ill.
The Jewish immigrant receives his first training for citizenship in one
of the lodges or societies of which there are legions. Here he becomes
conscious of himself; and above all, he can talk, and unlock the
flood-gates of unexpressed emotion.
I attended a “meetunk” as it is called, of a “Sick and Benefit Society,”
and I think it is typical of all of them. The “meetunk” was held on
Lewis Street, in a hall on the top story of a rather old and rickety
building. Underneath the lodge room is a dance hall, beneath that a
synagogue, and a saloon occupies the basement. The occasion was a public
installation of officers, and the ladies were invited. To one who has
seen these people in their old environment, the change seems miraculous.
The men wore the very best and cleanest clothing, and the women were
obtrusively stylish.
All the red tape of the American lodge was observed in this society, in
which most of the members knew nothing of parliamentary law and had
never taken part in debate. Unfortunately for the decorum of the ladies,
there was a wedding ball in the room below, and the Polish mazurka kept
their feet in motion and did not seal their lips. The President used
the gavel freely, and, in spite of stamping feet and wild-measured
music, the installation services were carried out. The personnel of this
society is of some interest; its eighty members are drawn almost
entirely from one district in the old country; with the exception of
three or four men, they are all engaged in manual labour. The retiring
President is a graduate of a gymnasium, speaks four languages poorly and
English very well, is a Republican, is thoroughly Americanized, and,
although not active in politics, is an influence for good in their
affairs. He neither smokes nor drinks, and manages to save money from
his meagre wages. The newly installed President is a wood-turner by
trade, earns eighteen dollars a week, is also a Republican, not active
in politics, but a conscientious citizen. The newly elected
Vice-President is a cloak-presser, a strong Social Democrat, and would
die for his political faith. He belongs to the Social Labour wing, and
he hates the Social Democratic wing with a desperate hatred; he is a
good speaker, honest though fanatical, and one who might be made to see
the weakness of his political creed. The Secretary is a Polish Jew, a
dealer in plumbers’ supplies, a Democrat not of the Tammany order, a
stereotyped Anti-Imperialist and Free-trader, speaks English fluently
although only ten years in this country, and is on the road to
Harlem--that is, to wealth. The Treasurer is a Russian Jew, an
“aprator,” earns eight dollars a week, speaks English very well, has
been six years in the country but is not yet a citizen; he will be a
Social Democrat first, and a Republican when he has a bank account. Of
the eighty men present, fifteen were Republicans, twenty were Democrats,
two were Socialists, and the rest were not yet citizens.
Most of them spoke English fairly well, and some could understand a few
words although only four months in this country. Of the married women
the fewest could speak English, but the young girls knew it well
enough--slang, vaudeville songs, and all.
After the installation services there was much useless discussion (under
the “good of the order”) upon minor points, so typical of such meetings
outside the Ghetto. Characteristic of the “meetunk” was the fact that
the leaders were all members of other lodges. Of the women who spoke for
“the good of the order,” a “Daughter of Rebekah,” the wife of the
President, made a capital speech. The “meetunk” adjourned for a banquet
served in the basement, where a Hungarian stew and beer cheered and
filled but did not inebriate or cause indigestion. National songs were
rendered by the young people as the spirit moved them, and after the
banquet the whole “meetunk” invited itself to the wedding ball
up-stairs, where in the polka and mazurka they drove time away wildly,
and prepared themselves badly for the next day’s hard labour.
In the Ghetto, Friday, the day before the Sabbath, is a day of
agitation, of scrubbing, cooking, baking, and merchandizing; Saturday is
the day of meditation, when the faces are solemn and the step is slow,
and although many must work, there is a perceptible stillness
everywhere. With shuffling step and pious mien the rabbis and members go
to the synagogue, and with much wailing and lamentation praise and bless
Jehovah.
The second generation of the immigrant Jew has lost its adherence to the
solemn observance of the day of rest; eats and drinks whenever and
wherever opportunity offers, and smokes cigars on the Sabbath (a most
heinous sin). Americanization means to the Jew in most cases dejudaizing
himself without becoming a Christian. There is a painful eagerness on
the part of some of the younger generation especially to cast aside
everything which marks it as Jewish, and I have heard some of the
severest criticisms of the Jews from the lips of such people. The
American Jew becomes over-conscious of the faults of his race, and not
seldom hates the word Jew and feels himself insulted if it is applied to
him. “I hate them all,” I heard a number of the younger Jews say, and
there was no vice in the calendar of Hades which they did not ascribe to
their own race.
If, as some people claim, the Jews are discriminated against in New York
by the Gentile business firms, I have proof that there are a number of
Jewish firms that do not employ any Jews and very many that prefer
Gentile help. The Jews who come from various European countries hate one
another on general principles, and a Hungarian or a German Jew looks
down in the greatest derision on the Pole and the Russian. These latter
two nationalities are mentally and physically stronger, their needs are
smaller, their wits are sharper, and as getting ahead always starts
calumny, the Russian Jew gets a good share of it. His is not a
prepossessing nature; his form and face are often repulsive and his
habits are none the less so, but he has an abundance of ambition and a
superabundance of sharpness, which, when they are led into right
channels, become an ennobling talent. East Broadway, the wholesale
district of the Ghetto, suffers from overmuch such talent, and its
capacity for shrewd trading and quick thinking cannot be excelled
anywhere in New York outside of Wall Street.
The Polish and Russian Jews are under strong suspicion of making money
out of fires and bankruptcies, and the suspicion must be well founded,
for the insurance companies discriminate against them and many of them
refuse to take the risks. Great crimes are seldom laid to the charge of
the Russian Jew, although too often he lends himself to rather shady
business transactions, and the percentage of certain crimes is rapidly
increasing. Taking him as a whole, however, he is honest, industrious,
and frugal, and has, above all, the making of a man in him. It is true
that he works for small wages, but he soon wants more; he lives on
little money, but he soon spends more. He does not have as many faults
as his enemies assert, and he has as many virtues as one might
reasonably expect. He is to be feared, not for his weakness, but for his
strength; not for his faults, but for his virtues: he is here to stay,
he does not care to return to Russia, and he cannot if he wishes to. The
Russian Government sees to that. If he wishes to return home for a
visit, he changes his name, puts a big cross around the necks of his
children, and says he is a Protestant; but he has a hard time to
convince the officials, and often is forced to return without seeing his
native village. The Ghetto is not an ideal dwelling-place; its nearness
to the Bowery, the crowded condition of its tenement-houses, and its
inherited weaknesses and sins are against it; yet I have never seen a
drunken man on any of its streets and I have witnessed only one quarrel,
but that was worth a great many of its kind in other places.
The Ghetto is a peaceful community if not a united one. For instance,
the young man with whom I drifted into New York remained closely
attached to the Jews from his own district in Russia, and consequently
retained all the prejudices against the Jews who came from more or less
favoured portions of the Czar’s domain. He was from Lithuania, and
regarded himself and his kind as intellectually keener and more learned
in the law than they; facts which were acknowledged by his neighbours,
but who added to them less complimentary characteristics, such as
exceptional unreliability and trickery in trade.