Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
On page 70, "enlightment" should possibly be "enlightenment".
_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
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.
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 aspect is not the subject of the following
sketches. I was led to spend much time in certain poor resorts of
Yiddish New York not through motives either philanthropic or
sociological, but simply by virtue of the charm I felt in men and
things there. East Canal Street and the Bowery have interested me more
than Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Why, the reader may learn from the
present volume--which is an attempt made by a "Gentile" to report
sympathetically on the character, lives and pursuits of certain
east-side Jews with whom he has been in relations of considerable
intimacy.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS
Chapter I Page
The Old and the New 9
The Old Man
The Boy
The "Intellectuals"