Children of the Ghetto

Children of the Ghetto

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Title: Children of the Ghetto
Author: I. Zangwill
Release Date: June 22, 2004 [eBook #12680]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO
A Study of a Peculiar People
BY

I. ZANGWILL
Author of "The Master," "The King of Schnorrers" "Dreamers of the
Ghetto," "Without Prejudice," etc.
1914

Preface to the Third Edition.
The issue of a one-volume edition gives me the opportunity of thanking
the public and the critics for their kindly reception of this chart of a
terra incognita, and of restoring the original sub-title, which is a reply
to some criticisms upon its artistic form. The book is intended as a
study, through typical figures, of a race whose persistence is the most
remarkable fact in the history of the world, the faith and morals of
which it has so largely moulded. At the request of numerous readers I
have reluctantly added a glossary of 'Yiddish' words and phrases, based
on one supplied to the American edition by another hand. I have
omitted only those words which occur but once and are then explained
in the text; and to each word I have added an indication of the language
from which it was drawn. This may please those who share Mr.
Andrew Lang's and Miss Rosa Dartle's desire for information. It will be
seen that most of these despised words are pure Hebrew; a language
which never died off the lips of men, and which is the medium in
which books are written all the world over even unto this day.
I.Z.
London, March, 1893.

CONTENTS.
BOOK I. THE CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO.
Proem I. The Bread of Affliction II. The Sweater III. Malka IV. The

Redemption of the Son and the Daughter V. The Pauper Alien VI.
"Reb" Shemuel VII. The Neo-Hebrew Poet VIII. Esther and her
Children IX. Dutch Debby X. A Silent Family XI. The Purim Ball XII.
The Sons of the Covenant XIII. Sugarman's Barmitzvah Party XIV.
The Hope of the Family XV. The Holy Land League XVI. The
Courtship of Shosshi Shmendrik XVII. The Hyams's Honeymoon
XVIII. The Hebrew's Friday Night XIX. With the Strikers XX. The
Hope Extinct XXI. The Jargon Players XXII. "For Auld Lang Syne,
My Dear" XXIII. The Dead Monkey XXIV. The Shadow of Religion
XXV. Seder Night
BOOK II. THE GRANDCHILDREN OF THE GHETTO.
I. The Christmas Dinner II. Raphael Leon III. "The Flag of Judah" IV.
The Troubles of an Editor V. A Woman's Growth VI. Comedy or
Tragedy? VII. What the Years brought VIII. The Ends of a Generation
IX. The "Flag" flutters X. Esther defies the Universe XI. Going Home
XII. A Sheaf of Sequels XIII. The Dead Monkey again XIV. Sidney
settles down XV. From Soul to Soul XVI. Love's Temptation XVII.
The Prodigal Son XVIII. Hopes and Dreams

PROEM.
Not here in our London Ghetto the gates and gaberdines of the olden
Ghetto of the Eternal City; yet no lack of signs external by which one
may know it, and those who dwell therein. Its narrow streets have no
specialty of architecture; its dirt is not picturesque. It is no longer the
stage for the high-buskined tragedy of massacre and martyrdom; only
for the obscurer, deeper tragedy that evolves from the pressure of its
own inward forces, and the long-drawn-out tragi-comedy of sordid and
shifty poverty. Natheless, this London Ghetto of ours is a region where,
amid uncleanness and squalor, the rose of romance blows yet a little
longer in the raw air of English reality; a world which hides beneath its
stony and unlovely surface an inner world of dreams, fantastic and
poetic as the mirage of the Orient where they were woven, of
superstitions grotesque as the cathedral gargoyles of the Dark Ages in

which they had birth. And over all lie tenderly some streaks of celestial
light shining from the face of the great Lawgiver.
The folk who compose our pictures are children of the Ghetto; their
faults are bred of its hovering miasma of persecution, their virtues
straitened and intensified by the narrowness of its horizon. And they
who have won their way beyond its boundaries must still play their
parts in tragedies and comedies--tragedies of spiritual struggle,
comedies of material ambition--which are the aftermath of its centuries
of dominance, the sequel of that