THE JEWS.
Of the many definitions of London, perhaps the truest is that which
describes it as several cities rolled into one. The rich inhabit
Belgravia, the poor Bethnal Green. In Mark Lane on a Monday morning you
might fancy, if you were to shut your eyes and listen to the conversation
around, that you were in primitive East Anglia; on the contrary, in
Chancery Lane, and all the places of resort contiguous, the talk is of
writs, of issuing executions, of levying a distress, and of all those
horrible processes by which law seeks to secure property from its natural
enemies, poverty or rascality. Irish abound in Drury Lane, and in
unsavoury Houndsditch the seed of Abraham congregate.
The traveller from the palatial West will perhaps shrink from leaving on
his right hand Aldgate Pump, and plunging in the dark alleys and crowded
lanes in which the Jews reside. Nor, if he be of a fastidious stomach,
would I much blame him. In Meeting House Yard, for instance, I saw a
pool of dark fluid, around which little pale children were playing,
suggesting something very rotten in the state of Denmark. It is in this
neighbourhood that the far-famed Rag Fair is held on the Sunday, and all
the week there is more or less dealing in such articles as come under the
denomination of "old clo'," respecting which it may as a general rule be
safely affirmed that, whilst we may dispute the title of clo', as regards
much there vended, there can be no dispute as to the appropriateness of
the descriptive adjective. In the lanes and courts around us are names
familiar to us from infancy. Lazarus keeps a second-hand book-shop, and
Moses sells fried fish. You see a printing-office, with posters up; on
those posters are Hebrew characters. In Duke Street there are a couple
of book-shops, but the books are all or chiefly Hebrew. In this
neighbourhood you can easily forget that you are in London at all. It is
not the English tongue you hear; or, if it be, it comes to you disguised
in such a foreign accent as to be scarcely intelligible. Through the
mist and fog dark eyes, all redolent of the far-off East, flash on you;
and now and then a tall figure in flowing robes, sad and solitary, stalks
by; and you rub your eyes to be sure that you are not in a dream. This
temporary delusion will be stronger if you visit this neighbourhood on a
Friday evening just after sunset. In Whitechapel and Aldgate the gas is
flaring, and a busy trade is carried on; in Leadenhall Street, in the
offices of the great Navigation Companies or of the leading shipbrokers,
clerks are busy writing, and weather-beaten skippers from Australia or
the Cape or New Zealand are tearing about, if we may use a colloquial
expression much in vogue, like mad. It is a contrast to pass from this
busy scene into the Jewish quarter, where the shops are all shut up and
where all is still. How is this? The answer is, it is the eve of the
Sabbath, and the Jews are at their synagogues. There are three in this
neighbourhood. The first and oldest is that of the Portuguese Jews in
King Street, Duke's Place, erected in 1656. The first German synagogue,
also in Duke's Place, was built in the year 1691, and occupied until
1790, when the present edifice was erected. This is called the Great
Synagogue. The New Synagogue, as it is denominated, in Great St. Helens,
is a very elegant and ornamental structure. The interior is very
beautiful. In so dark and dolorous a neighbourhood you are not prepared
for anything so fine. Very liberally must these ancient people have
subscribed for the fitting worship of their God. From the ground spring
up pillars highly decorated, and in the side are windows of a rich
arabesque pattern in stained glass. The ceiling is semi-dome with
octagonal coffers containing gilded flowers upon an azure ground; and the
pavement, which is of polished marble, forms a perfect circle. The
ministers of the Great Synagogue were considered the leading ones. It is
not so now. Dr. Adler is the head rabbi. He has been long in office,
and is universally esteemed by Christians as well as Jews. He is an old
man, and as his English is that of a foreigner it is clear that in his
public addresses you get an inadequate idea of his talents or
attainments. This remark applied to most of the Jewish ministers in
London. They were foreigners, and in speaking English did not succeed
much better than we do when we attempt to speak German or French. Now
two-thirds of the Jewish ministers are English.
Very far back in English history we find the people whose descendants
have taken possession of Houndsditch and all around, and turned it into a
Jewish colony. More or less they have always been with us. In
Anglo-Saxon times we seem to have had a fair sprinkling of them. After
the Conquest they arrived here in great numbers. By William Rufus they
were especially favoured, and Henry I. conferred on them a charter of
privileges. They were enabled to claim in courts of law the repayment of
any money lent by them as easily as Christians, and while the latter were
forbidden to charge any interest on their loans, there was no restriction
in this respect put upon the Jews. At this time, doubtless, they laid
the foundation of their subsequent wealth. The sovereign rather
encouraged them, as the richer they were the more gold could be forced
from them--and with our earlier as well as with many of our later kings,
gold was a commodity always in request. During the former part of the
reign of King John (A.D. 1199-1216) they seemed to have gained the favour
of that monarch, or at any rate obtained permission to exist, and trade
and worship in this country on sufferance. Subsequently, however, they
appear to have suffered much persecution, and were eventually banished
from the country in 1291 (19 Edward I.), continuing in exile for 367
years. Menasseh Ben Israel, a Jewish rabbi of great learning in
Amsterdam, petitioned the Protector Cromwell, in the year 1649, on behalf
of his brethren, for a liberty which the Latin Secretary of the Lord
Protector it is to be hoped would be foremost to advocate. During the
interval the Jews lived secretly in England, but did not possess any
"Jewries," or publicly organized congregations. Ultimately they obtained
permission to return, though the Commonwealth refused to give any formal
sanction to their re-appearance, merely tacitly consenting to it. The
people of England, says Rebecca in "Ivanhoe," "are a fierce people,
quarrelling ever with their neighbours or among themselves, and ready to
plunge the sword into the bowels of each other. Such is no safe abode
for the children of my people. Ephraim is an heartless dove. Issachar
an overburdened drudge, which stoops between two burdens. Not in a land
of war and blood, surrounded by hostile neighbours and distracted by
internal factions, can Israel hope to rest during his wanderings." There
is, however, reason to suppose that nowhere, except for a short interval
in Spain and always in Holland, have the Jews fared better than in this
country. In our time they have been allowed to take their seats as
M.P's. We have seen a Prime Minister of England of Jewish origin. Need
we say more? Jews are in all respects on an equality with Christians; in
art, and literature, and science, and the acquirement of wealth, they
have displayed a genius equal to our own. In practical piety--in the
benevolence which teaches the rich to give of their goods to the poor,
they are infinitely our superiors.
Truly, if we may judge by the aspect of the Hebrew race in Houndsditch
and its neighbourhood, there is much room for charity. Just as the Irish
Corporations were accustomed a few years ago to land a cargo of "the
finest pisantry under the sun" on the Welsh coast to beg or steal, work
or die, according to circumstances, so the chiefs of the Jews on the
Continent ship the poor and helpless of their people here, and a heavy
tax is thus enforced on the wealthier portions of the community. Then,
again, the Jews have a great dislike to military service; and the
conscription which is imposed in Prussia, Austria, Poland, and France,
drives large numbers away from the land of their birth. Thus their
number in London is greater than people imagine. Dr. Stallard places it
as 55,000, but many Jews inform me that 100,000 is nearer the mark. One
thing is certain: as soon as a synagogue is opened anywhere it is
immediately crowded; and on special occasions, such as the days of
penitence, fifteen regular and eighteen or twenty temporary synagogues
are opened in different parts of London. Most of the foreign Jews when
they arrive here are wretchedly poor and ignorant, but under any
circumstances the Jew has to fight the battle of life under circumstances
of peculiar difficulty, in consequence of the Mosaic law, which he is
bound to obey, and which he does at a very heavy pecuniary sacrifice. It
is almost impossible for a Jew to work with a Christian. He may not
partake of his food. He may not work on Friday evening or on any part of
Saturday, nor on the days set apart for the observance of the Jewish
fasts and festivals. He is thus shut out from all employment in our
factories, shipyards, engine works, or shops. If he seeks work at the
docks he is driven away by the roughs. The "old clo'" business is being
gradually taken away from him by the Irish, so his chief industrial
occupations are tailoring, cigar-making, fish and fruit selling. The
women are employed in tailoring and shirts making, in the manufacture of
umbrellas and parasols, caps and slippers; latterly the supply of cheap
picture frames has got into the hands of the Jews. I fancy none of these
trades are very lucrative, yet the Jew is rarely a thief, never a
drunkard, always attached to his family, and remarkable for his
longevity. Suicide is rare, and murder never met with among the Jews.
There are not twenty-five male Jewish convicts in all England, and for
many years there has not been a Jewess in any convict establishment.
Such is the charity of the wealthy that the poorest, who have resided
here six months, are looked after. No Jew ever is permitted to die in a
workhouse. In many of our hospitals there are wards for the Jews,
supported by them. The Jewish Board of Guardians inquire into every case
of distress, and relieve it. Yet so economically do they go to work that
their expenditure in 1869 was, including loans, not quite 5000_l._, yet
in that year the applications were 12,510.
But, in addition to their charities, the Jews are alive to the importance
of promoting religion and education. The Jewish Association for the
Diffusion of Religious Knowledge has now been in existence eleven years.
Amongst its supporters are the Rothschilds, the Goldsmids, and the other
wealthy Israelites whose charities are known all over England; but it
needs, and let us add deserves, more efficient support. It has
established a Sabbath school, where the present number of pupils is over
500, where instruction is given in reading, translation, and explanation
of the Bible, translation of the prayers, religious and moral lessons,
and Hebrew hymn-singing. It has established a synagogue in Union Hall,
Artillery Lane, where lectures on the Sabbath are given. It has provided
Scripture classes, and has published a series of Bible stories and
Sabbath readings, of which half a million of copies have been delivered.
The committee, when issuing the first number of their publications,
stated that those papers would "have for their object to impress upon the
Jewish mind proper notions of the principles and observances, spirit and
mission, of Judaism, and by appeals to the reason rather than to
sentiment, to develope and foster the most fervent conviction of the
truths of our sacred religion." In the way of Bible distribution the
Society has especially been active; until recently it was comparatively a
rare occurrence to find a Bible in the houses of the Jewish poor. Where
it was found it was of course the authorized Anglican version, which,
says the report, "however great its literary merit, must be admitted to
be faulty, and to contain numerous mistranslations adverse to the spirit
of our religion." The version they circulated was Dr. Leeser's, and they
anticipate the day when no poor Jewish home wherein parent or child can
read shall be without a Jewish version of the Holy Scriptures. Under the
auspices of the committee, a reply to Bishop Colenso was published.
The children are educated in a way of which Christians have no idea. The
Jewish free school in Brick Lane, with its three thousand children, is a
sight to see. There is, besides, an infant school equally flourishing,
and no poor Jew is relieved unless he sends his children to school. In
the visiting of the sick, in the care of the poor, all take their share.
I believe a synagogue is a little commonwealth in which the rich help the
poor, most frequently by way of small loans, and in which the strong take
care of the weak. In these works of beneficence all take their share,
the humblest as well as those of more exalted rank. The Jewish M.P.
takes his place at the Board of Guardians. The Jewish Countess will not
only give of her wealth, but will leave her stately home and seek out the
abode of sorrow and distress. Charity is inculcated in the Talmud as the
first of duties; and, if heaven is won by good works, the Jews are safe
and sure.
As a theology, to an outsider, Judaism seems ritualism _in excelsis_.
The Jewish faith is contained in the Creed and the Shemang. Of the two,
the latter is the more important. It is a declaration of the unity of
God, the first utterance of the child, the last of the devout Jew as the
watchers stand by his bedside, at the head of which is the Shechinah, or
Divine presence, and at the foot of which, with outstretched wing,
waiting for the last breath, hovers the angel of death. The Creed, which
every Jew ought to believe and rehearse daily, but which they treat as
Churchmen do their Thirty-nine Articles, is as follows:--
1. I believe, with a perfect faith, that God (blessed be His name!) is
the Creator and Governor of all created beings, and that He alone has
made, does make, and ever will make, every production.
2. I believe, with a perfect faith, that God (blessed be His name!) is
one God, and that there is no unity whatever like unto Him, and that He
alone is our God, who was, is, and will be eternally.
3. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His
name!) is not corporeal, nor is He subject to any of those changes that
are incidental to matter, and that He has no similitude whatever.
4. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His
name!) is both the first and last of all things.
5. I believe, with a perfect faith, that to the Creator (blessed be His
name!) yea, to Him only, it is proper to address our prayers, and that it
is not proper to pray to any other being.
6. I believe, with a perfect faith, that all the words of the prophets
are true.
7. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the prophecy of Moses our
instructor (may his soul rest in peace!) was true, and that he excelled
all the sages that preceded him or they who may succeed him.
8. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the law which we have now in
our possession is the same law which was given to Moses by our
instructor.
9. I believe, with a perfect faith, that this law will never be changed,
that the Creator (blessed be His name!) will never give us any other law.
10. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His
name!) knoweth all the actions and thoughts of mankind, as it is said,
"He fashioneth their hearts, and knoweth all their works."
11. I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His
name!) rewards those who observe His commandments, and punishes those who
transgress them. (12.) The Jew believes in the coming of the Messiah;
and (13), in the resurrection of the dead.
The Jews in London are divided into three communities--the Reformed, the
_Ashkenasim_, or Polish and German Jews, and the _Sephardim_, or
Portuguese and Spanish. These latter pride themselves on their ancient
descent, and especially on their nationality. Their Church, as we have
said, is the oldest in London; their rabbi is Dr. Artom, and their
service differs from that of the _Ashhenasim_ in matters of detail not of
faith. Of course both take their stand upon the Pentateuch, which they
term the Torah or law, a portion of which is read every Sabbath; but,
according to the rabbinists, Moses received two laws on Mount Sinai, one
written, the other unwritten. This latter was transmitted down from
generation to generation by word of mouth until after the destruction of
Jerusalem, when it was committed to writing. This work is called
_Mishna_, or repetition. In process of time it became a text-book in the
schools of Palestine and Babylon, and lectures were delivered on it and
comments made by rabbis more or less learned and devout. In course of
time these comments and lectures were collected together into one work
under the title of _Gemara_, completion. The _Talmud_, which means
doctrine, contains the two. There are two Talmuds in existence. One
contains the decisions of the Palestine rabbis, collected and published
somewhere in the fourth century; the other contains similar decisions on
the part of the learned divines of Babylon. The difference between the
two is exclusively in the _Gemara_. The Babylonian Talmud is the one in
common use. It is for this Talmud, long too much neglected by
Christians, that the Jews have contended for ages, and it is for this
Talmud an able writer, in an article in the "Quarterly," which produced
an immense sensation at the time, eloquently pleaded, much to the
astonishment, most undoubtedly, of those bigoted ecclesiastics who,
deeming the traditions of the Romanist Fathers equal in authority with
the Bible, look down upon the older and truer traditions of the Talmud
with the contempt which ignorance always cherishes for what it cannot or
does not understand. Sentiments, as the learned Professor Hurwitz wrote,
worthy of Plato have been described as rabbinical reveries, and their
authors arraigned of impiety on no better grounds than what the
detractors supplied by wantonly imposing their own literal sense on
expressions evidently and unmistakeably figurative.
In the synagogue is the worship daily or weekly of the devout Jew
performed, for the aim of that worship is to connect itself with the
daily life. Dr. Arnold's idea of the Church and State being
synonymous--an idea as old as the judicious Hooker's Ecclesiastical
Polity--is undoubtedly in its origin Jewish. The officers of the
synagogue are a complete political as well as religious administration.
A synagogue forms a little world of its own. A volume would be requisite
to tell of the officers of the synagogue and of their various duties.
There is among them no separation into lay and secular. The community
consists of three kinds of members--the Cohen or priest, the Levite, and
the Israelite. A minister must often support himself, but his ministry
never ceases. To the last hour of his life he maintains his ministerial
character. "The rabbis are men of great learning; and now in the Jews'
College the students," writes a report just received, "have the advantage
of a careful and systematic clerical education, and an equally valuable
advantage, an example of piety and earnestness in their teachers."
The oldest synagogue in London is, as we have said, that of the
Sephardim, in Bevis Marks. Let us go there first. All Jewish synagogues
are alike; all the men keep their hats on, and wear a scarf round their
shoulders, hanging down to their knees. At one time, in another respect,
they were much alike--that was in the use of a service not understood by
the people generally. All this is altered now. Within the last thirty
years there has been a great change for the better. There are but few
even of the poorest Jews who do not understand Hebrew.
The governing officers of the synagogue are the Wardens, the Treasurer,
the Overseer, and the Elders. The clerical officers are the Chazan, or
reader, and the Shama, or second reader, and clerk. The ark is always
situated in the south-east end of the synagogue, to direct the worshipper
towards Jerusalem. The ark contains the law, written on vellum, fastened
to rollers, on the tops of which are little crowns of silver surrounded
by bells. The rolling and unrolling of the Law is a ceremony carefully
observed every Sabbath. In form the Bevis Marks synagogue much resembles
one of our old Nonconformist places of worship before they were improved
according to the requirements of modern taste. You pass into it from
behind some raised benches, on which several stout old gentlemen are
gesticulating with all their might. A little further on is the reading
desk, where the reader, with his hat on, his scarf round his shoulders,
is performing his appointed task--at one time singly, at another time
with the energetic assistance of the whole house. The readers wear black
gowns. The faces of the reader and the rabbi are alike turned to the
ark, before which a lamp perpetually burns. Of course there never are
pews, but benches, under which are lockers, in each of which the
worshipper deposits his scarf and prayer-book. In the synagogues of the
_Ashkenasim_ the benches nearest the ark, where the chief rabbi stands,
are considered the most honourable; but the Spanish and Portuguese Jews
make no difference in this respect. In the evening the synagogue is
lighted up by means of large tapers and old-fashioned gas-chandeliers.
In the service all join with more or less fervour. It consists entirely
of reading and singing prayers and certain portions of Scripture. No
sermon or lecture, except on Sabbaths and festivals, is necessary or
usual. The melodies used are ancient, and the reading is of a very
peculiar character, and not to be confounded with chanting or intoning as
known to Christians. Most of the congregation in Bevis Marks seem to
keep time with their bodies, as the sound rises and dies away. Also
every other sentence begins with a woah-wooah sound of a monotonous cast;
but all seem to enjoy it, especially the little Hebrew lads, who make
more noise than anybody else. Sometimes the people stand up, at other
times they sit down--they never kneel; but the stranger realizes little
solemnity while the service is performing, and many of the Jews are quite
ready to enter into a little secular conversation, or, if need be--as we
can testify from personal observation--to quarrel. The prayers are
chiefly of a laudatory, a confiding, a grateful, reverent character, and
in a style, as regards composition, indicative of a foreign origin.
Indeed, all the time the service is performing--the principal one is on
the Saturday morning, and very long--you feel as if you were a stranger,
as if you had no business there; that to the hook-nosed, black-haired,
dark-eyed men around, you are a poor pale-faced, flat-nosed Saxon, to be
preyed on and victimized to any extent. Here and there you see a
foreigner in the picturesque garb of the East, looking sad and solitary
as if he really remembered Zion, as if he had walked along the shores of
Galilee, rested beneath the shade of the cedars of Lebanon, or had drank
of
"Siloa's brook,
That flowed fast by the oracle of God."
Occasionally a Jew will rush in, seize a prayer-book, and, shutting his
eyes, gabble on at a prodigious rate as if he had started late and had to
make up for lost time, and his repeated bowing to all points of the
compass is, to the spectator, of a very perplexing character. In this
quarter the Jews, as regards appearance, are not very wealthy, nor have
many of them very clean hands, nor, except on certain occasions, are the
synagogues very well filled. Here you fail to recognise the swell Jews
of Margate and Ramsgate, of Brighton and the Boulevards, the fact being
that the rich Jews, like the rich Christians, have gone further west; yet
the Montefiores belong to Bevis Marks, and the Rothschilds to the great
congregation in Duke's Place. Such are the London synagogues, including,
in addition to those we have already referred to, those in Fenchurch
Street, St. Alban's Place, Maiden Lane, Cutler Street, Islington,
Portland Street, Bayswater, and others. But the reader will ask, What of
the ladies?--most of our churches and chapels would look intolerably
destitute without them. The answer is, all the duties of their worship
depend entirely on the males. The Jewesses are allowed to sit in a
gallery. At Bevis Marks you see they are there, that is all. Whether
they are white or black, whether they listen or not, it is impossible to
tell, as they are concealed behind a lattice-work almost as impervious to
male eyes as those behind which, on the night of a debate, our House of
Commons hides our British fair. In other synagogues their gallery is
open, and they can see and be seen.
Even these ancient people are moving with the times. The _Jewish Record_
says, "That the Synod of Jewish Rabbis, which has just been held, has
recognised three new principles. 1. Individual authority in religious
matters. 2. The primary importance of free scientific investigation. 3.
The rejection of the belief in Jewish restoration. The Synod also
recommends choral services and the use of the organ in the synagogue, and
musical performances on Sabbaths and festivals." This paragraph is not
exactly correct. The Synod was one of little importance, and the
principles enunciated were not affirmed, only discussed; but I quote it
as an indication of the spirit existing in our day in all the religious
circles of our land.