Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago | Page 4

the father, "I have many of them."
"Oh, do read some of them to us!" they pleaded. "All right, I will; and I
will first try to find the one about the tsitsith."
The father went up to his bedroom, and soon came down with a bundle
of letters wrapped in a newspaper. He started looking through them
while all the family stood around him, watching as eagerly as if he
were searching for an heirloom.
"I will choose a very short one," said the father, "for it is on the subject
I have spoken to Benjamin about; but if you like I will make it a rule
every Friday evening, after our Sabbath meal, to read some of the
letters to you."
THE HOLY CITY

When all were quietly and comfortably seated, their father started
reading:
"My dear Cousin,--After a great many adventures and suffering (which
I will write to you about another time) we arrived safely in Jerusalem.
To me, it seemed rather dull after London, but both father and mother
shed tears of joy when they at last arrived in the Holy City. Some
people met us a little way out, for father had written telling them we
were coming. We were almost royally received and heartily welcomed,
for very few Jews come here with their young families.
"We must have looked a sight--you in London could not imagine
anything like our cavalcade! First went Father riding on a mule, with
Mother following on another mule. Mother's saddle was made with
pillows, for it is impossible for a woman to ride for sixteen or eighteen
hours without a soft, comfortable seat.
"You go up high hills, and then down again, imagining every time you
go down that you will topple over and fall over the precipice and be
killed. In fact, your heart is in your mouth every five minutes, so that
by the time you arrive in Jerusalem (which is surrounded by hills) you
are almost too weak to rejoice at the beauty that greets your sight, for
nowhere in the world can, I think, anything be seen more beautiful than
a sunrise over the mountains around Jerusalem.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you that we youngsters were put into baskets on a
camel's back, and how we were shaken! I felt as if I were praying and
shaking all the time, for it seemed as if we could never get to Jerusalem
alive in this way."
THE PROUD BOYS OF JERUSALEM
"At last we entered the Holy City, and arrived at Father's friend's house,
where we were made very welcome and treated most kindly. I soon
made friends with the boys, for, you know, I can speak yiddish quite
well.
"They are funny little chaps. They look like old men, with long kaftans
(coats) and side ear-locks of hair, carrying their prayer book or Bible to
Shule. The first thing I noticed was the tsitsith. They wear really long
ones, with long fringes hanging down about a quarter of a yard or more.
They wear them as we do a waistcoat, so that they can be seen by
everyone, not as we wear them in England, tucked away out of sight.
Here young and old, even little boys who can only just walk and lisp

their prayers, wear them, and, what is more, take a real pleasure in
wearing them. I asked some of them why they wore them so openly,
and they answered: 'Because when we look at them we always
remember that our chief duty in life is to try to obey God's commands,
and if we had them tucked away out of sight we should forget to be
obedient.' 'Besides,' they said, 'we are commanded in the Torah to do so
openly.' Then I told them if we wore them so openly in Europe we
should perhaps be laughed at by some people and made fun of. They
said: 'Why should doing so make us be laughed at by other nations? Do
we laugh at the symbols and charms that many of them wear? Every
nation,' they said, 'has its tokens and symbols, and we Jews have ours,
and we should rejoice in wearing ours when they are to help us to feel
that God is near us when we think and act rightly.' All this made me
think very seriously, and in a way I had never thought before. I began
to realize that they were more in the right than we Jews are in England.
"So now I have decided to wear my tsitsith, too, on the outside, as the
Jerusalem boys do. The boys never play except on the quiet, just now
and then, for their parents think that their only duty in life is to study
and do as many