Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People

The weeks went on and Passover drew nigh. The recurrence of the feast brought no thrill to Esther now. It was no longer a charmed time, with strange things to eat and drink, and...

Within half an hour Esther was smiling pallidly and drinking tea out of Debby's own cup, to Debby's unlimited satisfaction. Debby had no spare cup, but she had a spare chair wit...

When the gentlemen joined the ladies, Raphael instinctively returned to his companion of the dinner-table. She had been singularly silent during the meal, but her manner had att...

The catastrophe was not complete. There were some long thin fibres of pale boiled meat, whose juices had gone to enrich the soup, lying about the floor or adhering to the fragme...

"Prosaic miles of street stretch all around, Astir with restless, hurried life, and spanned By arches that with thund'rous trains resound, And throbbing wires that galvanize the...

It was not a large party. Mrs. Henry Goldsmith professed to collect guests on artistic principles--as she did bric-à-brac--and with an eye to general conversation. The elements...

On the Friday that Percy Saville returned to town, Raphael, in a state of mental prostration modified by tobacco, was sitting in the editorial chair. He was engaged in his pleas...

The Sunday Fair, so long associated with Petticoat Lane, is dying hard, and is still vigorous; its glories were in full swing on the dull, gray morning when Moses Ansell took hi...

The call to edit the new Jewish paper seemed to Raphael the voice of Providence. It came just when he was hesitating about his future, divided between the attractions of the min...

Malka did not have long to wait for her liege lord. He was a fresh-colored young man of thirty, rather good-looking, with side whiskers, keen, eager glance, and an air of perpet...

Meckisch was a _Chasid_, which in the vernacular is a saint, but in the actual a member of the sect of the _Chasidim_ whose centre is Galicia. In the eighteenth century Israel B...

"I have presented my book to every one of them, but they have paid me scarce enough to purchase poison for them all," said the little poet scowling. The cheekbones stood out sha...

"Ignorant donkey-heads!" cried Pinchas next Friday morning. "Him they make a Rabbi and give him the right of answering questions, and he know no more of Judaism," the patriotic...

He came through the open street door, knocked perfunctorily at the door of the room, opened it and then kissed the _Mezuzah_ outside the door. Then he advanced, snatched the Reb...

Esther Ansell did not welcome Levi Jacobs warmly. She had just cleared away the breakfast things and was looking forward to a glorious day's reading, and the advent of a visitor...

Sam Levine duly returned for the Purim ball. Malka was away and so it was safe to arrive on the Sabbath. Sam and Leah called for Hannah in a cab, for the pavements were unfavora...

The "Sons of the Covenant" sent no representatives to the club balls, wotting neither of waltzes nor of dress-coats, and preferring death to the embrace of a strange dancing wom...

The new organ did not create a profound impression. By the rival party it was mildly derided, though many fair-minded persons were impressed by the rather unusual combination of...

It was a cold, bleak Sunday afternoon, and the Ansells were spending it as usual. Little Sarah was with Mrs. Simons, Rachel had gone to Victoria Park with a party of school-mate...

Moses Ansell married mainly because all men are mortal. He knew he would die and he wanted an heir. Not to inherit anything, but to say _Kaddish_ for him. _Kaddish_ is the most...

Raphael walked out of the office, a free man. Mountains of responsibility seemed to roll off his shoulders. His Messianic emotions were conscious of no laceration at the failure...

Esther wore a neat black mantle, and looked taller and more womanly than usual in a pretty bonnet and a spotted veil. There was a flush of color in her cheeks, her eyes sparkled...

"Ah, the Men-of-the-Earth!" said Pinchas to Reb Shemuel, "ignorant fanatics, how shall a movement prosper in their hands? They have not the poetic vision, their ideas are as the...

"Mother, I wish you wouldn't scrape your feet along the floor so. It gets on my nerves and I _am_ so worn out. Would he not have told you what? And who's he?"

No need to delay longer; every need for instant flight. Esther had found courage to confess her crime against the community to Raphael; there was no seething of the blood to ner...

The day of Ebenezer Sugarman's _Bar-mitzvah_ duly arrived. All his sins would henceforth be on his own head and everybody rejoiced. By the Friday evening so many presents had ar...

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...

The strike came to an end soon after. To the delight of Melchitsedek Pinchas, Gideon, M.P., intervened at the eleventh hour, unceremoniously elbowing Simon Wolf out of his centr...

The _Flag of Judah_, price one penny, largest circulation of any Jewish organ, continued to flutter, defying the battle, the breeze and its communal contemporaries. At Passover...

The sloppy Sunday afternoon, which was the first opportunity Raphael had of profiting by Mr. Henry Goldsmith's general invitation to call and see Esther, happened to be that sel...

The next morning Esther sat in Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's boudoir, filling up some invitation forms for her patroness, who often took advantage of her literary talent in this fashio...

An old _Maaseh_ the grandmother had told her came back to her fevered brain. In a town in Russia lived an old Jew who earned scarce enough to eat, and half of what he did earn w...

The morning of the Great White Fast broke bleak and gray. Esther, alone in the house save for the servant, wandered from room to room in dull misery. The day before had been alm...

"The Torah is greater than the priesthood and than royalty, seeing that royalty demands thirty qualifications, the priesthood twenty-four, while the Torah is acquired by forty-e...

The learned say that Passover was a Spring festival even before it was associated with the Redemption from Egypt, but there is not much Nature to worship in the Ghetto and the h...

A dead and gone wag called the street "Fashion Street," and most of the people who live in it do not even see the joke. If it could exchange names with "Rotten Row," both places...

A year before we got to know Esther Ansell she got to know Dutch Debby and it changed her life. Dutch Debby was a tall sallow ungainly girl who lived in the wee back room on the...

Mrs. Henry Goldsmith's newest seaside resort had the artistic charm which characterized everything she selected. It was a straggling, hilly, leafy village, full of archaic relic...

Esther woke early, little refreshed. The mattress was hard, and in her restricted allowance of space she had to deny herself the luxury of tossing and turning lest she should ar...

The little servant girl who opened the door for him looked relieved by the sight of him, for it might have been the Rebbitzin returning from the Lane with heaps of supplies and...

The New Year dawned upon the Ghetto, heralded by a month of special matins and the long-sustained note of the ram's horn. It was in the midst of the Ten Days of Repentance which...

"No, don't stop me, Pinchas," said Gabriel Hamburg. "I'm packing up, and I shall spend my Passover in Stockholm. The Chief Rabbi there has discovered a manuscript which I am anx...

Sugarman the _Shadchan_ arrived one evening a few days before Purim at the tiny two-storied house in which Esther's teacher lived, with little Nehemiah tucked under his arm. Neh...

husband; for he is holy unto his God. Thou shalt sanctify him, therefore; for he offereth the bread of thy God; he shall be holy unto thee, for I the Lord which sanctify you am...

The same evening Leonard James sat in the stalls of the Colosseum Music Hall, sipping champagne and smoking a cheroot. He had not been to his chambers (which were only round the...

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. E...