Children of the Ghetto | Page 2

long cruel night in Jewry which
coincides with the Christian Era. If they are not the Children, they are
at least the Grandchildren of the Ghetto.
The particular Ghetto that is the dark background upon which our
pictures will be cast, is of voluntary formation.
People who have been living in a Ghetto for a couple of centuries, are
not able to step outside merely because the gates are thrown down, nor
to efface the brands on their souls by putting off the yellow badges. The
isolation imposed from without will have come to seem the law of their
being. But a minority will pass, by units, into the larger, freer, stranger
life amid the execrations of an ever-dwindling majority. For better or
for worse, or for both, the Ghetto will be gradually abandoned, till at
last it becomes only a swarming place for the poor and the ignorant,
huddling together for social warmth. Such people are their own Ghetto
gates; when they migrate they carry them across the sea to lands where
they are not. Into the heart of East London there poured from Russia,
from Poland, from Germany, from Holland, streams of Jewish exiles,
refugees, settlers, few as well-to-do as the Jew of the proverb, but all
rich in their cheerfulness, their industry, and their cleverness. The
majority bore with them nothing but their phylacteries and praying
shawls, and a good-natured contempt for Christians and Christianity.
For the Jew has rarely been embittered by persecution. He knows that
he is in Goluth, in exile, and that the days of the Messiah are not yet,
and he looks upon the persecutor merely as the stupid instrument of an
all-wise Providence. So that these poor Jews were rich in all the virtues,
devout yet tolerant, and strong in their reliance on Faith, Hope, and

more especially Charity.
In the early days of the nineteenth century, all Israel were brethren.
Even the pioneer colony of wealthy Sephardim--descendants of the
Spanish crypto-Jews who had reached England via Holland--had
modified its boycott of the poor Ashkenazic immigrants, now they
were become an overwhelming majority. There was a superior stratum
of Anglo-German Jews who had had time to get on, but all the
Ashkenazic tribes lived very much like a happy family, the poor not
stand-offish towards the rich, but anxious to afford them opportunities
for well-doing. The Schnorrer felt no false shame in his begging. He
knew it was the rich man's duty to give him unleavened bread at
Passover, and coals in the winter, and odd half-crowns at all seasons;
and he regarded himself as the Jacob's ladder by which the rich man
mounted to Paradise. But, like all genuine philanthropists, he did not
look for gratitude. He felt that virtue was its own reward, especially
when he sat in Sabbath vesture at the head of his table on Friday nights,
and thanked God in an operatic aria for the white cotton table-cloth and
the fried sprats. He sought personal interviews with the most majestic
magnates, and had humorous repartees for their lumbering censure.
As for the rich, they gave charity unscrupulously--in the same Oriental,
unscientific, informal spirit in which the Dayanim, those cadis of the
East End, administered justice. The Takif, or man of substance, was as
accustomed to the palm of the mendicant outside the Great Synagogue
as to the rattling pyx within. They lived in Bury Street, and Prescott
Street, and Finsbury--these aristocrats of the Ghetto--in mansions that
are now but congeries of "apartments." Few relations had they with
Belgravia, but many with Petticoat Lane and the Great Shool, the
stately old synagogue which has always been illuminated by candles
and still refuses all modern light. The Spanish Jews had a more ancient
snoga, but it was within a stone's throw of the "Duke's Place" edifice.
Decorum was not a feature of synagogue worship in those days, nor
was the Almighty yet conceived as the holder of formal receptions once
a week. Worshippers did not pray with bated breath, as if afraid that the
deity would overhear them. They were at ease in Zion. They passed the
snuff-boxes and remarks about the weather. The opportunities of

skipping afforded by a too exuberant liturgy promoted conversation,
and even stocks were discussed in the terrible longueurs induced by the
meaningless ministerial repetition of prayers already said by the
congregation, or by the official recitations of catalogues of purchased
benedictions. Sometimes, of course, this announcement of the offertory
was interesting, especially when there was sensational competition. The
great people bade in guineas for the privilege of rolling up the Scroll of
the Law or drawing the Curtain of the Ark, or saying a particular
Kaddish if they were mourners, and then thrills of reverence went
round the congregation. The social hierarchy was to some