Bernard Drachman

“ At first I was charmed with the Hebrew tongue as a vehicle of thought and expression, with its pronunciation, at once sonorous and melodious, with its symmetrical and harmonious grammatical construction, with its brief and yet richly expressive phrases and sentences; then the sublimity and grandeur of the Biblical teachings stirred and moved me. I wondered at the divine wisdom of the creation; I admired the grand and heroic leaders, God-inspired prophets and teachers who spread the knowledge of the universal Master among men; I began to understand why Israel existed on earth ”

“ Even before I went to America, when poverty and wretchedness were my lot in this town, I gave Shprinze every kopeck that I earned. From America, where God blessed me and made me prosperous, I sent her regularly all that she could properly require. But in return for this I asked wifely love. I knew that a husband must honor, cherish, and maintain his wife; and that a wife must, in true marriage, return love for love, affection for affection. Shprinze never showed the least trace of love for me. My soul hungered and thirsted for love. ”

“ Always be good and honorable in all your doings, and above all, my son, never forget, wherever you may be or whatever you may become, that you are a Jew, as your father was, and never permit anything to swerve you from your faithfulness to the holy traditions of our religion and people.’ Then he kissed me on my brow, and, child though I was, I knew that something dreadful was going to happen, and burst forth into an agony of bitter weeping that shook my little frame convulsively. ”

“ Don’t tell me that an experienced, faithful official like you, if he were a Christian, would be trembling with fear of losing his place because he had been thinking of something for a moment or two. No such trivial thing would have been of any consequence in his case. It is only we Jews who must be continually alarmed, continually alert lest we commit the slightest error; because, in our case, any fault, sometimes even only imaginary, means ruin. Yes, Heine was right when he said: ‘Judaism is not a religion; it is a misfortune.’ It certainly is your misfortune, and therefore mine. ”

“ Military, too, is the almost painful neatness which characterizes his attire, from his well-brushed hat and coat down to his brightly polished shoes, a far-off reminder, as it were, of the days when a dull button or a frayed coat sleeve meant disgrace and the guard-house; but most military of all is his right sleeve, for it hangs empty, with only a short stump filling the upper part near the shoulder, a mute reminder of bloody Sebastopol, where a British sabre cleft the arm to which it belonged in twain, and its owner hovered for many a day ’twixt life and death. ”

“ I want to know how a gambler feels when he risks the possessions he has gained so easily. If you do not mind, therefore, I should like to play one more game, staking the amount I have just won.”
“I shall have to beg to be excused this time, worthy rabbi,” said Herr Pringsheim, with an amused chuckle. “You are too good a player for me. Let some one else take my place. Herr Commerzienrath Hamburger, perhaps you will oblige our honored Rav and play a game with him on the same terms as the first one.” ”

“ Baptism will not hurt you. It is only the key which will unlock before you the gates of prosperity and happiness in life. Besides, if you look honestly into your heart you are no Jew. A Jew must have a faith, must believe in Judaism, and practise a lot of senseless ceremonies. You do not care a straw for the whole Jewish religion, nor bother your head about the Sabbath or the dietary laws, or any of the other absurdities which they call religious practices in Judaism. I don’t believe you have been inside of a synagogue in ten years. ”

“ I do not complain because God is calling me away, but I am glad your young life is spared to be a joy to yourself and your dear parents for many years to come.” And his young friend, with strangely grave and solemn face, went to her dying protector and clasped his hand and kissed his blood-stained and distorted features, and called him her own dear Isaac, and begged him not to die, while the strong men who stood around bowed their heads in reverent sorrow and silently wept. ”

“ At last the great day, the Bar-Mitzvah Sabbath, arrived. The synagogue was densely packed, for the interest in the event which concerned so closely the most prominent family in the congregation and its well-beloved son was universal. On the main floor the noblest and best men of the community were assembled, and from the galleries the matrons and maidens of Israel, arrayed in splendid robes, beamed radiantly down. When the time for the reading of the Torah arrived Raphael ascended the Tebah, or altar, and at once began to chant from the sacred scroll. ”

“ Reb Shemayah at once felt that this visit betokened something unusual. He had often met and conversed with the priest and the burgomaster, singly and together; the one and the other had also been casually within his four walls, but neither had ever visited him formally, and this special visit by the two leading men of the village together he knew must have some particular and unusual reason. He at once determined to reflect ripely on whatever proposition they should make him, and to act upon it in accordance with his best judgment and wisdom. ”

“ This is the cry, uttered in a clear and cheerful voice, which is frequently heard in the alleys and back yards as well as the streets and avenues of that vast and densely populated section of the American metropolis known as the great East Side. The man who utters it is an unusually agreeable, as well as active and energetic, representative of the classic trade of scissors-grinding. He is a pleasant-faced, good-humored young fellow, with light-brown hair and rounded, open countenance, from which a pair of bright blue eyes gaze at you with a frank and sympathetic expression. ”

“ There, too, his wife, Perla by name, who had for some time been expecting the advent of a little stranger, gave birth to a beautiful black-eyed boy, the first male child. It was a heartrending conjuncture. His home a mass of smoking ruins in the intense cold of a Bavarian mountain winter, nothing saved but a few quilts and articles of clothing, his family huddled together for refuge in a barn, through the chinks of whose wooden walls the chill blasts blew keenly; and most heartrending of all—to see his dear wife forced to undergo, under such circumstances, the pains and dangers of childbirth. ”

“ The vast congregation crowded around the Allatini family, Raphael and me, congratulating us most warmly on the remarkable and auspicious event which had just taken place. I had almost as great a share of popular approval as Raphael, and my fidelity and loyalty both to the family I served and the religion I had embraced, my devotion to my young master, and my attainments in Hebrew lore were greatly admired and commended. Oh, that was a glorious day in my life; and, however long the Most High may permit me to remain on earth, I shall never forget it. ”

“ Why do you come to me from America looking like a beggar and a ragged saint fresh from the benches of the Beth-Hammidrash instead of a prosperous New York merchant, as you had made us all believe you had become? ”

“ In the greatest part of the civilized world the Jews are not confined, whether by compulsion or choice, to particular sections of the cities, but dwell freely among their Gentile fellow-citizens everywhere; nor is the law of Moses forced to flee for refuge to darksome purlieus, where the humblest and lowliest of Judah’s strain drag out a wretched existence as unwilling neighbors of the vicious and the criminal, but finds multitudes of sincere upholders and adherents in the high places of the lands among the happy possessors of what mankind esteems highest, culture and wealth. ”

“ The most celebrated hostess of this kind was a widow named Hannah. This warm-hearted daughter of Israel strove to fulfil literally the precept of the sages, “Let the poor be the children of thy house.” The days were few when her house did not contain some “guest”; and she would give him of her best, and wait upon him as though his presence was the most distinguished honor. When asked once how it was that she, although not a woman of means, was always ready to receive needy strangers, far more so, indeed, than persons of far greater wealth, Hannah answered: “Why, that is a very simple matter. ”

“ Whatever, therefore, helps to show Jewish life in its true aspect, to reveal the poetry and the romance, the sorrow and the wretchedness, but also the joy and the beauty, the glory and the heroism of Jewish existence even in the unheroic present, performs a most useful, truly religious work. Nothing can do this more effectively than fiction, which appeals to multitudes to whom works of formal learning, of profound and scholarly research, could never find access. ”

“ Over the gateway was a huge sign, which bore, in letters composed of shining gas flames, the legend, “Galoschiner Casino und Vereinshaus.” Rabbi Akiba glanced at this sign a moment and then boldly entered. His entrance was the signal for great excitement among the persons standing in the hall and among the visitors who were entering at the same time, and who had come to attend the annual ball and reunion of the Galoschiner Gesellige Verein, the fashionable club par excellence of the town, to which belonged all those who could lay claim to wealth and social station. ”

“ And the most remarkable thing of all is the entire lack of self-consciousness on the part of the little horseradish woman. She is entirely unaware that there is anything out of the ordinary in her life, her characteristics, or her circumstances. She never comments upon the different conditions that prevail to-day, never boasts nor condemns, is simple, natural, and unaffected; a typical, humble, pious Jewish woman. ”

“ Herr von Meinken’s eyebrows rose slightly and his lips tightened just a little when he heard these words. He did not answer, but continued to eye Franz with the somewhat cold and dubious gaze of one who expects to be importuned for a favor and does not feel inclined to grant it. “What I desire and would respectfully request,” continued Franz, “is that your Excellency might kindly consent to act as godfather at my baptism, and that the highly honored baroness might graciously deign to act in the same capacity for my wife. ”

“ It is a truly pleasing picture which the little horseradish woman presents when she stands at her post ready for business. Her regular and refined features, of the familiar Jewish type, are, it is true, worn and wrinkled, and the hair which peeps out from under the cloth band and the old-fashioned bonnet which surmount her head is whitened by the seventy or more winters which have passed over her; but the light of intelligence, of benevolence, and of pure and refined sentiments shines in her countenance 87and makes it singularly attractive. ”

“ It is not always advisable under such circumstances to be over-inquisitive concerning the past history of one’s neighbors and friends, and therefore the dwellers on the East Side are discreetly devoid of curiosity, and are quite content if the people with whom they associate are, in their present stage of life, decent and well behaved. That is why no one knows (or knew until recently) anything about the scissors-grinder—his history, his family, or even his name. ”

“ I thought of myself as a soldier, and a soldier only. To other matters I hardly devoted a thought, so absorbed was I in my preparations for my prospective vocation—least of all to religious loyalty or Hebraic traditions. During all the seven years of my attendance at the military academy I never entered a synagogue—in fact, I would not have known what to do had I gone there, for I was utterly ignorant of Hebrew and knew nothing of the mode or manner of worship among the Jews ”

“ After silently watching the proceedings for a few moments the rabbi said to Herr Pringsheim: “Do you know, friend Pringsheim, I do not seem to gain any insight into a gambler’s feelings from merely looking on. To me the whole thing seems a merely mechanical proceeding. One makes one move and the other another move. I cannot make out what it is all about, and I believe that I shall never have any conception of what card-playing is, or wherein the fascination lies unless I play a game or two myself. ”

“ The telling of tales is neither independent of nor contradictory to the Torah; that is to say, it may be a most excellent method of inculcating pure and noble lessons, and has always been used for such purpose by the great teachers in Israel.
Indeed, the putting before the world of truthful pictures of Jewish life is in itself a good and useful work. It is extraordinary, considering that the Jews have lived in the midst of all civilized peoples for almost twenty centuries, what ignorance concerning the teachings of their religion and their characteristics as a people still prevails. ”

“ I still have the means to support my wife, and therefore I again ask you to come with me to my home, as beseems a good and true wife in Israel.”
“I will believe you are not mechulleh,” said Shprinze, in a tone of calculating shrewdness, 232“if you will give me a thousand roubles now. If you do that I will go with you.”
“That I shall not do,” said Yerachmiel, a manly anger getting the better of his usual extreme mildness. “I do not need to buy my wife. Have you no love for me at all? I ask you to go with me because I can support you; and as a wife you can ask no more.” ”

“ The dance over, Herr Pringsheim asked the rabbi if he had now satisfied his curiosity. “Oh, no,” answered Rabbi Akiba, “unless this is all that takes place here. But there must surely be more going on in a casino than merely dancing, or you could not use so many rooms.”
“But there is really nothing else,” answered Pringsheim, “except the card-playing. Those gentlemen who do not dance play various games of cards until supper-time, which comes at midnight. But I hardly suppose, worthy rabbi, that you take any interest in games of chance?” ”

“ He had no respect for the conscientious scruples which kept the Jews faithful to their ancestral religion; he could not appreciate the heroism with which they endured every conceivable suffering and martyrdom rather than grow recreant to the allegiance plighted to their God. In his eyes they were only a mass of obdurate, stubborn, and pestiferous heretics, who refused to see the beauties and accept the salvation of Christianity. ”