Chapter Twelve

357In the years 1887-1888 I was occupied two hours every day at a peculiar sort of school. The school was connected with the yeshiva "Etz Chaim," which at that time was located on East Broadway, between Market Street and Pike.

Orthodox Jews of the old-fashioned, homespun type wanted their children to be brought up in America just as they and their fathers had been brought up in the old country. Instead of going to public school, where one sits without a hat, learns non-Jewish subjects, and does not speak Yiddish, their boys were to spend their days over the Gemara, like the yeshiva students back home. For this purpose the yeshiva "Etz Chaim" was founded. Still, one has to know a little of the secular subjects as well, whether the pious father wants it or not; America is, after all, not Poland or Lithuania of seventy years ago. So the gabbaim (trustees) of the yeshiva, unwillingly, hired a couple of teachers to teach the boys a little of the "Gentile" subjects.

358For two hours every day — except Saturday — from two until four, the two yeshiva rooms used to be transformed into classrooms. For the lower class they had at the time a youngster of about fourteen, who had just finished public school, and I got the job as teacher of the higher class. I was to teach the boys grammar, the second part of arithmetic, reading, and spelling. The gabbaim had no clear notion of what one ought to teach the children, for they themselves had never tasted such intellectual fare.

The whole "school" was more for form's sake than out of a genuine intention to give the children a modern education. The members of the society that maintained the yeshiva were mostly installment-peddlers, or ordinary peddlers, and most of them were poor people. The roshei-yeshiva (heads of the yeshiva), or melamdim (religious teachers), were dependent on the gabbaim, who themselves earned very little. The wages of a rosh-yeshiva were from eight to twelve dollars a week; and a couple of those who paid them this money themselves earned less. The melamdim used to complain to me that the gabbaim begrudged them their few dollars and often delayed their salary by several days; or they would give them the sum in dribs and drabs. With me they did not permit themselves to do such things.

It is possible, however, that they would have paid the melamdim more punctually too, had there been the means. The institution was in a very poor condition. Later it grew larger and richer, and then everything proceeded on a firmer and broader footing. But in my day the yeshiva barely held on.

A couple of the gabbaim were well-to-do; but they were busy with their own businesses, and the 359main say they left to a couple of poor people, who had neither the energy nor the understanding for how to organize everything.

I found a stunning state of affairs. It was simply unbelievable. Children of twelve or even fourteen years could not read English as it should be; in arithmetic they were very weak, and in grammar weaker still. I took pity on them and used to spend more time with them than they were entitled to under the agreement. The children appreciated this. They related to me with a warm love, which increased even more my devotion to them. The majority of them consisted of capable boys, and they seized upon my lessons like one who is thirsty seizing upon a spring of fresh water.

The Orthodox gabbaim used to argue with me about why I "spent my strength" on the lessons.

"They already know enough English as it is," — one of them used to say to me.

But he was such a naive and honest man that one could not be angry with him.

Schoolbooks were very few: two or even three boys would have to read from one "reader." And other books were entirely lacking. I demanded of the gabbaim that they spend some fifty dollars on schoolbooks. They used to answer me with a smile, and there it would remain.

"What's the rush?" — I used to hear sometimes from one of them.

And one of the melamdim used to back him up — simply because he was afraid that perhaps his own wages would be spent on little books.

Most of the boys were children of poor par- 360ents. There were, however, a couple of exceptions. The richest pupil was a handsome youngster with reddish hair, the son of a Brooklyn pawn-shop keeper — a Polish Jew, very pious and very quiet. This boy was born in America and spoke English quite well. But he had not gone to public school. When I arrived there, he was already bar mitzvah. Yet it is a fact that the first real school lessons he ever received, he received from me.

One of the richer gabbaim, a Jew with very black hair and very black eyes, took an interest in my work. We became so far friends that I used to talk with him about socialism, and he gave me his solemn handshake that he would vote for our candidates. Socialism did not really suit him — it was not in his nature at all. He gave me that promise simply out of friendship for me.

One of the melamdim was a quiet, decent man, of the kind about whom one says that they would not harm a fly on the wall. The boys loved him. A second one, the eldest rosh-yeshiva, was a Jew, a stammerer, who was always boasting and putting on airs. He comes in, for instance, while I am giving the pupils an arithmetic problem ("zadatshe"). They listen and set to work. The rosh-yeshiva watches and makes a gesture with his hand, as if it were a trifle for him. He reminded me of the stable-keeper who gave me a bill for the broken spring and who used to interfere boastfully in my lessons. I knew that this Jew had never learned any arithmetic, and the children knew it too. A couple of times in such a case I said to him:

361"By all means, sit down and try to do the problem yourself."

He used to answer in his stammering manner that the Gemara is full of reasonings far cleverer than these, and he used to walk out with a sham pride. The boys used to burst out laughing. A couple of days later he would come in again and again pretend that calculations were a trifle for him. In Gemara he was a scholar and had a good head. The children, however, did not love him.

The two hours were in the middle of the day, when it was hard for me to get other lessons. And the job provided me not only with a regular few dollars a week, but with pleasure as well. The boys learned my lessons with eagerness. So I became attached to them and taught them as if they were my own children.

I "nagged" the gabbaim for so long to buy the necessary textbooks, that I finally prevailed, at least in part.

They elected a new president, a manufacturer of caps named Joshua Rothstein, and I set about showing him how necessary it was to buy all the English books one needed — readers, arithmetics, histories. He was no fool, and was on the whole a more worldly man than the other gabbaim.

— You are right, Mr. Cahan, — he said to me, — we ought all to thank you for your faithfulness and kindness to our boys.

He promised to give me as much money as would be needed to buy the books. I drew up a list of everything one needs to have and went 362over to a firm of schoolbooks, on the above-mentioned Bond Street, which printed McGuffey's readers, and obtained from them an estimate of what it would cost. With this I went off to the new president at his office. He received me very nicely, but already too nicely. I felt that something was not quite right. Bit by bit he explained the following to me:

In the Orthodox weekly "Di Gazeten" an attack on me had been printed. There I had been presented as a man who spreads heretical ideas and socialism, and who through his writing would squander money that is collected from God-fearing Jews. I had not seen the article before. Now Mr. Rothstein showed it to me.

Everything became clear to me. At "Di Gazeten" there was at that time a strike of the typesetters, and at one of the strikers' meetings I had delivered a speech. So the owner of the newspaper, Kasriel Sarasohn, had taken his revenge on me.

— Good-bye! — I said to Rothstein, springing up from my chair — I want to have nothing more to do with your people. For "Di Gazeten" it is better that the children should not be taught any English and that its typesetters should starve to death.

I made a dash for the stairs. Mr. Rothstein ran after me, calling me to talk it over with him. But I did not turn back.

Every time I recall the school of Yeshivat Etz Chaim, I also recall the famous blizzard, 363which raged from the 11th to the 14th of March, 1888. A terrible snowstorm, a wild gale loaded with snow and hail and accompanied by a hard frost, attacked New York and the surrounding regions. Going out was impossible. People were half frozen stiff from the cold, and the icy storm lashed at them as if with thousands of rods of fire. Some fell, and then were buried in snow and frozen to death.

Such a snowstorm the oldest inhabitant of New York could not remember, and nothing like it has happened since. A vicious force of nature had let itself loose. It brought an indescribable devastation and cast a terror upon every living creature. Horses were helpless. Many of them fell. The streetcars could not run.

Senator Conkling, one of the most powerful leaders of the Republican Party of the United States, was forced to walk home from his office on foot, and in the middle of the way he fell, frozen stiff. So he lay until he was dragged out half-dead from the snow, and a couple of days later he died. Of such victims there was a considerable number.

The telegraph wires were torn through in many places. Fortunately, the cables in the sea were not damaged. So they hit upon this expedient: when one wanted to telegraph from New York to Boston, one did it by way of London, England.

In my memories the blizzard is bound up with the yeshiva, because I felt its terrible force on a certain afternoon, while I was going home from the yeshiva. It broke loose when I had gone a couple of blocks. My dwelling was at that time on Eldridge Street, between Broome and Delancey. I reached Grand Street.

364When I wanted to cross the street, I felt as if a dozen whips were lashing me with a wild force across the face and over my whole body. A weakness came over me, a feeling of helplessness and despair. I thought that at any moment I would sink down to the ground; and that would have meant death. To call for help would have been useless, for everyone was occupied with his own rescue. Through a foggy, swirling confusion I saw, as if through a canvas, figures wrestling with the frosty storm, how they turn and huddle in a desperate struggle with the cruel power.

That sort of image I used to picture to myself at the thought of the last minutes of the unfortunate Pompeii, when the streams began to pour down upon the inhabitants in their distress and they ran like madmen, without hope of escaping a swiftly approaching end.

The most dangerous moment had passed. I drew my breath and somehow made it to my dwelling.

The cold was terrible and coal was hard to get, because there was no possibility of carrying it from the great yards to the smaller ones, and from the smaller ones to the coal-cellars.

Even when the over-wild nature calmed down a little, it was still hard to obtain coal. One could now somehow get out onto the street. But one had to wait a long time before getting a pailful of coal. The lucky one who got it ran home with it as if with a treasure.

I and a couple of my neighbors set out on such a "ride." To go to the coal-cellars would have been useless labor. They had long been empty. So 365we went to the wholesale places — to one yard, to a second, to a third. Everywhere we found crowds standing with pails, old and young, men, women, and children. At last I got a pail of the precious article, and carried it off to our frozen home.

If the yeshiva-school reminds me of the historic blizzard, then my Eldridge Street quarters remind me of two Italians who used to visit me there.

That winter, in the evening school where I held my position, a certain number of Italians enrolled, and — I don't remember how it came about — they were all sent into my class. I know no Italian. But one of my pupils was a Russian, a singer, who had studied several years in Italy, so he served as interpreter between me and them.

Among these Italian pupils there was an educated man, with whom I became more closely acquainted, and he used to visit me. A second Italian from the evening school used to visit me because he also took private lessons from me. The first was a blond with mild blue eyes; the second — a dark one, with glossy black hair and black eyes. The first knew a little German, and so, speaking a little German and a little broken English, he used to tell me about Italy and about her writers. He had such a melodious voice that even when he spoke his labored English it also sounded like music. He used to recite for me pieces of Italian 366poetry, and I used to listen to it as to a beautiful melody.

I tried to convert him to socialism, but he was not interested in it. "It is not poetical" — he once answered me. Socialism demands equality, and equality is prosaic, humdrum. So he used to argue.

I tried to show him that he was mistaken; but my effort was a sin — a waste. By nature he was probably more poet than thinker. Social questions did not interest him.

The Italian with the black eyes was a businessman, a wine-merchant, and he used to bring me Italian wines. I told him that I do not drink, but that did not help. He could not imagine how one could live without wine. The two of them, and also the other Italian pupils of my class in the evening school, made such a pleasant impression on me that the whole Italian nation presented itself to me as a nation of good-hearted people.

Together with the Italians there were also a few Jewish pupils in my class. Of these there have remained in my memory the figures of two, both educated: a German Jew, who had just come from Europe, and a Moscow student. The first made the impression of a man who had formerly belonged to a richer class. His clothes were old, but very neat and elegant. He had learned English on his own as well, and he had made such progress that in my class he soon had nothing to do. Yet he still came for a long time, came punctually every evening. I suspected that he simply had nowhere to spend his evenings.

367I remember this German-Jewish immigrant especially because, a couple of years later, I had a surprising encounter with him on Broadway, near Wall Street, in the district of the stock exchange and the great banking houses. By then his clothes were already new, and on the whole his appearance bore witness that he found himself in a good material condition. He greeted me and we spent a few minutes in conversation. English he now spoke fluently and well. He explained nothing to me clearly. But from a few of his hints I gathered that he was connected with a great financial firm of German Jews, relatives of his, and that he traded on Wall Street. Why he had not reported to his relatives as soon as he came to America, I did not know.

The Moscow student was from a Lithuanian town. The name of his birthplace I leave out here, because he was a peculiar man. When he had read an English sentence well and understood it correctly, he used to laugh quietly to himself, covering his mouth with his hand, as if it were a secret. Sometimes, out of the blue, he would let out a stifled whistle, with a strange smile besides. I thought that he was not in his right mind. But a countryman of his, a good acquaintance of mine, told me that he was only "a bit cracked, but in full possession of his senses."

He reminded me of Wolf, the idiotic street-fellow, who used to come often into my father's tavern.

Yet another of the Jewish pupils who studied in my class together with the Italians was 368a peculiar "customer," but in a different way.

Some months earlier, on a certain afternoon, a Jew with a beard and sidelocks stopped me on the street.

— You are a teacher, — he said, — I want to learn English. Can one sit in school in a hat?

I explained to him that this would not be pleasant and that, on the whole, it would not be convenient for a Jew with a beard and sidelocks to go to school. A beard does not really matter. But the sidelocks would draw too much attention. The other pupils would laugh and unpleasant scenes would result. He grew angry and began to argue that America is a free country, and so on.

Three months later, a young man is brought into my class, clean-shaven and with a broad smile on his face.

— Do you recognize me? — he asked.

When I looked closely, I saw that this was that same Jew, only without the beard and without the sidelocks.

— Already turned yourself over? — I asked.

— Yes, what is one to do? The sidelocks kept me from making a living. But one can be an honest Jew without sidelocks too.

He began to attend class, and from the very first evening I had great trouble from him. At every explanation I used to give, he would assail me with questions, bring parables, bits of Gemara. The other pupils did not want to put up with his disrupting the lesson; so he would quarrel with them and curse them.

He was a Litvak, and could not pronounce a "sh." When I used to tell him that one should not say "si," but "shi," he used to laugh venomously, 369shrug their shoulders, as if for no reason at all someone had picked a quarrel with him.

With the Italians I had a different kind of trouble. It is hard for them to pronounce a word that has no vowel at the end; they add a patah (a short "a" sound). Instead of "tish" (table) they would say "tisha." Instead of "bank" — "banka," and so on. With a few of the Italians I did not have much trouble in this respect, but with the rest it was very hard for me. It was even impossible for me to make them understand what the matter was. I say "right," they say "righta," and they see no difference.

One of the pupils was an older man with an interesting face and a fine, musical voice. It would have been very pleasant to hear him read, had he not added a patah to every word that ends in a consonant. He used to say "tuka" instead of "took," "teibla" instead of "teibl" (little dove), "venta" instead of "vent" (wall), and so on.

Earlier, the teachers at the evening school had been Christians and a few American-born Jews. I, Aleinikov, and Dr. Braude were exceptions. In 1887 and 1888 still more Russian immigrants appeared as teachers. The present-day Dr. Iron was one of them.

Apart from Carl, among the Christian teachers I became closely acquainted with one Fleming. We often used to walk home from school together. My lodging was quite near, while he lived on Madison Street, near Rutgers. But most of the time we used to go for a stroll first; afterward he would sometimes accompany me as far as my lodging, and sometimes I would walk him to his lodging. On the way we used to chat, deba- 370te. My socialist ideas used to interest him only as a curious side matter. He used to put questions to me about the institutions and arrangements in a socialist society, and he used to listen to my answers with attention. But to prevail upon him to come to one of our meetings at the socialist library never once succeeded for me. Once, when he heard that Lillian Russell's mother comes to every meeting of ours and is often the chairwoman, he said that he would come. But he never did show up.

The principal of my school was then one Peter Marrou, a very tall, lean American, with big, white teeth, a quiet and a polite man. Of the twelve years that I spent at the Christie Street evening school, he was my principal for ten years. And yet, when I now want to recall what kind of person he was, I feel that I have nothing to recall. I never had any conception of him. "Good morning, good year!" — as the saying goes.

In the morning, in the same building, there was a grammar school for children, and Marrou was one of the teachers there. The children were mostly Christian and the teachers were all Christians. The children were of Irish, German, or American parents; and the teachers were of the same descent; but the percentage of Yankees among them was much greater than among the pupils. Marrou was a genuine American.

371The evening-school superintendent was one Dr. Hoffman, a Polish man in his early middle years. From time to time he used to show up, sit a while and listen to how I did my work, examine a few of the pupils, take a look into my roll-book^*, make a couple of notes in his little book, and leave. Marrou always used to accompany him. But when Hoffman did not come, he hardly ever visited the classrooms.

Once I had trouble with Hoffman and a very unpleasant scene. When he came to me, I did not have my roll-book with me. I had taken it home to bring it into "order," and had left it at home. Dr. Hoffman was more of a bureaucrat than an educator, and the roll-book was for him the most important thing. The question of whether the teacher taught the pupils anything meaningful — that interested him only for form's sake. The roll-book, however, was for him a sacred object.

I, on the other hand, hated the roll-book. I generally have no patience for such things, which demand dry calculations and dry exactness.

But here there was a special reason why I had no patience for the roll-book. It was altogether an empty ceremony — so I, at least, believed at the time. In the schools for children it is important, because the pupils must come every day; the whole year long, so. That is their only occupation. So it is important to record every day who among them is missing. In case the boy or the girl deceives the parents and spends the day elsewhere, this should be known. It is quite different with the evening schools for adults, independent people, 372who are occupied a whole day with work or peddling. Often the pupil is too tired in the evening to go to school, or he has a private matter to attend to. The truth is that the majority of our pupils were very unpunctual. Only a small number of them used to come every evening. Many used to stay away entirely after only a short time. Every winter a couple of hundred pupils used to pass through each class, and only a couple of dozen of them used to remain. The rest were generally not accustomed to a book. Or, after a day of hard work, they simply needed rest. Some used to stop coming the very next day, others used to remain a few days. So it was in every class.

For statistical purposes it is, naturally, correct to record all this. But it concerned me little. I loved teaching the pupils, but keeping the "roll-book" was too much of a burden to me. I used to neglect it, and then "fix" the figures for several evenings at once. This time so many skipped dates had accumulated that I took the book home with me, with the aim of performing the operation there. But I kept putting it off from day to day. And the roll-book remained at my home.

When Hoffman came in, everything went dark before my eyes.

He asked for the roll-book, as usual.

— I am very sorry. I took it home to write in the records, which I had noted down on scraps of paper, and I forgot to bring it, — I answered.

He naturally understood that the story about the scraps of paper was a lie. His dark-red face clouded over.

373— Send a pupil to your home, let him bring the book.

— All right! Here is the key to my door, — I said in desperation.

— Is no one there now?

— My wife has gone visiting.

— I do not want a stranger to enter your lodging when no one is there, — Hoffman said with an angry politeness.

It was a very unpleasant moment for me. Hoffman and I stood there and kept silent. The whole class looked at us both — some, presumably, with sympathy for me; others perhaps with the pleasure that a theatergoer takes in a dramatic moment. Finally the superintendent took his leave of me — quietly and coldly — and went away.

I thought I would lose my job. Hoffman could easily have brought that about. But he did not do it.

At the beginning of the next winter I was given the highest class in the school.

Dr. Iron tells me the following incident, which belongs to this place:

Once Marrou, the principal, came into his classroom and said to him:

— What is Cahan shouting about so loudly over there? In what kind of language is he speaking there to the pupils — Russian? Is he giving a speech to them?

Since Iron was my next-door neighbor, and since I had been speaking with enthusiasm and very loudly, he had heard every word. I had been giving a socialist speech to the pupils.

— He is explaining to the pupils how important it is for 374immigrants to know the English language well, and he is giving them a lesson in "civics," — Iron answered.

— Oh, how fine that is! — Marrou said — ah, how lovely! — and he went away highly pleased.

I used to be a frequent visitor at a small store of holy books, at 35 Ludlow Street. It belonged to two young men from Vilna, Feigenson and Katzenelenbogen. I had known them both from back home.

Katzenelenbogen I had seen a couple of times in Vilna. When I became bar mitzvah, I bought a little "Derekh Hayim" prayer book in his mother's holy-books shop, and he stood there beside her and begged a kopeck from his mother. It turned out that some leaves were missing from the little prayer book, and I carried it back, and his mother gave me another one. On that occasion he was again in the shop, and he was again begging something from his mother right then. I formed the notion that he was one of those children who give one no peace. About fourteen years later, when I became acquainted with him in New York, I immediately ascertained that this notion was entirely false. I never met a quieter, gentler, or more agreeable man.

Feigenson's father was a well-known personality in Vilna, and his name made itself heard in other Jewish cities as well. He attracted attention through a new edition of the Talmud with many commentaries, which the world-famous firm, the Romm Brothers, published under his editorship, and also through a small Russian-Yiddish dictionary that he 375had compiled. Back home the young Feigenson attended the realnoye uchilishche (the realschule, a technical secondary school), and I became acquainted with him through Goldblatt the artist. Goldblatt and I visited him a few times.

To America Feigenson came a couple of months after me. Later he opened, with the help of the Romm Brothers, the holy-books business on Ludlow Street. But since he knew quite little about holy books, he took on Katzenelenbogen as a partner, who had been born and raised in the holy-books trade.

It was through Feigenson that I came to be a teacher at the Etz Hayim yeshiva. He had taught arithmetic and English there for a certain time with the children of the higher class. When the holy-books store had developed a little, and he no longer needed the teaching job, he recommended me for his place.

The real manager of the store was Katzenelenbogen. But Feigenson, too, used to be there always. Various types used to come in. It was a kind of open club, and I used to love to spend time there.

With Feigenson I used mostly to speak Russian or English. And that reminds me of a peculiar clash that I once had there.

We were standing and chatting in Russian, while Katzenelenbogen was busy with a customer — a tall Jew with a trimmed little beard and a white bow-tie — a reverend, evidently. Suddenly the cleric (kli koydeshnik, a "vessel of holiness," i.e., a clergyman) turned to us with a flare in his eyes.

— You can find no other place to speak Russian than in a holy-books store? — he burst out.

— I want to ask you something, — I said, — if in a holy-books store one is not allowed to speak any "gentile" 376tongue, then what is an American Jew to do who cannot speak Yiddish or the holy tongue (loshn koydesh, Hebrew)? If he wants to buy a prayer book or a Pentateuch, must he do it in sign language?

— I am not speaking about English, English is all right, — he answered, — but you are speaking Russian.

He began to revile the Russian language, and I caught fire. I started to demonstrate to him that the Russian writers are the finest and best people; that they condemn the pogroms; that in Russian write and speak those who fight for freedom and for equal rights for everyone, for Jews too. But I spoke in an angry tone. The "reverend" had irritated me, chiefly his white bow-tie. He, too, spoke with anger, and the upshot was that he started to threaten:

— I will give notice that the holy books are being profaned here; that Russian is spoken here and that this is a nest of nihilists and missionaries. A Jew must not come in here.

When Feigenson heard this, he grabbed him by the collar and threw him out.

One day Feigenson says to me:

— There is a tailor who writes poetry. They call him Rosenfeld. He would like to show you what he writes.

We arranged that I should meet him in the store. On the appointed day and hour, on a blazing-hot afternoon, in July or August, Feigenson introduced to me a young man, not a tall one, with black, curly hair. He was literally ragged and threadbare. He wore no outer shirt and no collar. He did not look like a tailor, but rather like one of those young fellows who work on the bank of the river Viliya, in Vilna, by the rafts — such was the impression he made on me.

377When he read one of his poems aloud to me, I was astonished. I did not believe that the poem showed a developed talent. Yet it was nonetheless very good — beautiful and strong. How does this come to such a person?

— It is excellent! — I said, — you must write! Out of you will grow a fine poet.

Around the same time I, too, wrote a poem in Yiddish. But I had in mind not poetry, but socialist propaganda. Feigenson and Katzenelenbogen printed it (on red paper) and sold it for two cents a copy, it seems. They issued it as one of a series of theater songs. For my poem was meant to be sung. Its name was "Der Operator" (The Operator). It was written to the same meter as Eliakum Zunser's "Di Sokhe" (The Plow), and at the top there was a line saying that one should sing it to the same melody.

"Der Operator" used to be sung in the shops.

That this was a much weaker thing than the poem that Rosenfeld had shown me — that was no secret to me. But that it was beneath all criticism — that I understood only later. In any case, this was my first and last attempt as a verse-weaver in Yiddish.

Feigenson also made me into a frequent visitor of the Yiddish theater. Earlier this had been a foreign world to me.

378The above-mentioned company of Silberman, Karp, Heimovitch and the others, who came to America in 1884, had performed Goldfaden's works and also some new hodgepodge, which had all the faults of Goldfaden's plays without their virtues. I could not be enchanted either by the plays or by the acting.

I have already told, at the end of the first volume, that while in Gewel, on Sukkot 1881, I became interested in the Yiddish theater songs that Spokoini sang for me. But, in the first place, I was younger then and less developed, and in the second place — and this is, after all, the most important thing — separate songs from the Yiddish theater are one thing, and a whole production a quite different thing. Goldfaden's melodies were always tasteful, and — as something new — very interesting and piquant.

For a certain time — in 1885 it presumably was — I became so enchanted by Goldfaden's song "A Foystukhel" (A Little Kerchief) that I used to sing it — out loud, under my breath — wandering about the house or strolling along the street. The magic lay only in the melody. The words sounded clumsy to me.

When the Silberman-Heimovitch company settled here, I had already lived through, read, and seen a good deal. Here my life was altogether many times richer than in Russia. Every year that I spent here gave me streams of new experiences. I had become a good deal more developed, and the Yiddish theater, which was then so crude, simply repelled me.

From Turn Hall the Yiddish theater moved over to the Bowery, where it gave itself the name "Oriental Theater." Later, from Romania, Rosa Goldstein came here, who married the actor 379Karp here. She was a beautiful woman and a beautiful singer. Between her and Madam Heimovitch (the later Madam Adler) a rivalry was going on. As a singer Madam Goldstein had more success. I went to hear her a couple of times, but the plays and the acting were repugnant to me. I was very far from the whole Yiddish theater world. In this world there took place clashes between two "patriotic" camps, of which I had no conception.

The Yiddish theater did no brilliant business in those years. They used to perform according to a cooperative plan. The various actors used to receive various percentages or "marks," as they call it, each according to his talent or popularity; and they barely had enough to eat. The Jewish population was not large then, and the dollar came to the immigrant much harder than today.

In September 1886 there arrived in New York a new Yiddish troupe, a larger one than the first. It came from Iasi, Romania. The actors, however, were mostly from Russia. In Russia the Yiddish theater had been banned; so the companies that used to perform in Odessa and in other Russian cities scattered. A couple of companies, with Jacob P. Adler and Madam Liptzin among them, settled in London. To travel to America required too great expense. The Iasi company, however, came to an agreement with two American managers, Drazdovitch and Rosengarten, and they brought them down to New York.

The four most important actors in this company were Sigmund Mogulesko, Feigman, David Kessler and Finkel. A significant force was also Weigblat. To their com- 380pany there also belonged "Professor" Hurwitz, chiefly as a playwright, but also as an actor. So it then was customary among the Yiddish actors. Lateiner, the playwright of the Oriental company, also acted.

The more important among the actresses were Finkel's first wife, as prima donna, Mrs. Edelstein, as a dramatic actress, and only a few others. Leon Blank, too, was in the organization, but not yet as an actor, only as one of the chorus.

In New York Drazdovitch and Rosengarten could find no theater. So they decided to take the company to Chicago. But Mogulesko refused to travel there. He wanted to perform nowhere but in New York. A lawsuit began, and before all was said and done, the company was not allowed to perform at all. Three months dragged on this way. These three months the company afterward remembered as the most terrible time of hunger that they had ever had. The members went for several days in a row literally without having eaten.

The company won the case. Then one of its lawyers, with a partner, set about looking for a theater for it. Finally they rented a tiny little theater on the Bowery, not far from Grand Street. It was called the "National Theater." But they gave it a name, "Roumania Opera House" — in memory of the country from which the actors had come to America.

Mogulesko was the comedian and the music master of the company, while Kessler and Feigman were its two dramatic stars.

Mogulesko's talent and his personal charm brought a new life into the Yiddish theater world. He literally took the public by storm.

381Like most Jewish actors of that period, he had earlier been a meshoyrer (a choir-singer who assists a cantor). He had sung as an "alto" with the famous cantor Nisse Belzer at the same time that Moyshe Zilberman sang as a tenor with that same cantor. When Mogulesko began to perform — in Goldfaden's troupe — his name immediately began to ring out; and by the time he came to New York, his talent was already developed.

Because of him, the interest of the Jewish population in the Yiddish theater in general suddenly grew. And because of him — through Feygenzon — I too began to come more often to Yiddish performances.

Mogulesko's company opened its season with operettas, which in those days were performed in every language: "Périchole" and "Bluebeard." But they also performed a few works by Jewish authors, and of these the greatest success was Shaykevitsh's "Coquettish Ladies." It was a quite cheap piece of trash in the old-fashioned style: a tale about the wife of a fine householder who carries on a love affair with a young charlatan. The married coquette is not only loose, but also a wicked stepmother. She drives from the house her husband's daughter from a first wife. The charlatan is given over to be a soldier and disappears. Many years later he reappears — as an old, discharged soldier, a drunkard. His former sweetheart has a grown daughter, and the mother together with the daughter play the coquette (just like the mother and the daughter in Gogol's "Inspector General"). The drunkard demands money, and when the lady refuses to give it to him, he produces a note proving that her daughter is his child. The fine householder drives out both his wife and her daughter.

In the play there is a "Shprintse the Matchmaker."

382Shprintse comes to a doctor, and in the process she sings couplets. The matchmaker is needed in the play because the driven-out orphan girl must become a servant girl, and Shprintse provides servant girls with positions.

The role of Shprintse was played by Mogulesko, and as long as Shprintse was on the stage, the theater never stopped storming and thundering. The role of the young charlatan in the first act, and the role of the old drunkard in the last act, were also played by Mogulesko. In the Jewish quarter people never stopped talking about the wonders he displayed, playing three roles in one play.

He was a born, highly gifted artist, but his personal charm had just as much to do with his success as did his power as an artist. He bewitched the theatergoers — with his singing as much as with his acting. His voice itself used to electrify his listeners, both when he sang and when he spoke. Charm also lay in his expressions and movements. His every turn was beloved by the audience.

The first play in which I saw him was "The Coquettish Ladies." His talent and his charm illuminated the foolish tale with rays of a divine fire. From that evening on, until Mogulesko's death, I was one of his admirers.

A second play by this company that had a great success was "Tisza-Eszlár," by "Professor" 383Horowitz. Some years earlier, in the Hungarian town of Tisza-Eszlár, a blood-libel affair had taken place that shook the entire Jewish world. A Jew, a shamash (synagogue beadle), had been arrested on the accusation that he had slaughtered a Christian child and used the blood for Passover. The sensation was especially great because his own son, Moritz, a boy of thirteen, was the chief witness against him. They took Moritz into prison, and there he "confessed." He recounted in detail how his father had slaughtered the Christian boy, and how he, Moritz, had seen it himself through the little hole of a door. It was clear that Moritz had been "set up." The innocent shamash was finally freed.

The play was too long for one evening; so it was divided into two parts and was performed over two evenings.

The role of the shamash was played by Feinman, and the role of the boy — by Mogulesko. "Professor" Horowitz played the defense attorney. One could see at once that he was not speaking according to a written role, but that he was simply delivering a speech. He went on for three quarters of an hour. And what did he not throw in there! And all in "Daytshmerish" (Germanized Yiddish), naturally. The next time he would deliver an entirely different speech.

Feinman was a young man with a heavy-ringing baritone voice. He used to declaim his words in the old melodramatic manner, which the audience then loved — in any case more than today.

The company also performed "The Two Kuni-Lemels" and "Shmendrik," and in both Mogulesko used to call forth storms of applause and laughter.

384David Kessler was also very successful. But he was a quite different Kessler from the one who became famous later, when he was already in his middle years. He used to play "hero" roles, speak with a "hero" voice, and dance with "hero" feet. Of the talent that developed in him later, there was then no trace. In those years I simply had no patience for him. But the theater audience did not agree with me. They were delighted by him — not only women, but men too.

In the summer of 1888 I once saw him walking along East Broadway — tall, slender, with a tall hat, in a long coat and with a dandy's little cane in his hand. I stopped to look, not so much at him as at the crowd that ran after him — some with shining faces, with smiles in which enchantment sparkled; others — with an expression of reverence on their faces.

Two pupils named Mine, an Odessa twin, resembling each other like two drops of water, and both handsome young men, once pressed me to go with them to see how Kessler plays the hero role in a certain "historical opera."

These "historical operas" were an "invention" of "Professor" Horowitz, and they reached the lowest depths of nonsense and tastelessness to which the Yiddish theater had ever sunk. Since Mogulesko had only a small role in that play, I gave an excuse in response to their invitation. But it did no good. They begged me so much that I had to go.

Kessler came out onto the stage as a "prince." He wore a "Spanish" hat with a green feather, and 385a costume of some sort from the Middle Ages. He strutted about with "princely" steps, declaimed "Professor" Horowitz's "flowery rhetoric" with a "princely" melody, and the audience melted with delight.

One of the twins, during the performance, looked into my eyes several times, and asked sweetly how I liked it.

I did not want to spoil his pleasure, so I answered that I would tell him tomorrow, at the lesson. The next day, when I came to them, we did not touch the textbook. We spent the whole hour talking about Kessler. I explained and explained; but it was wasted effort! They kept shouting: "But he's so handsome, so handsome! And the green feather, how well it suits him!"

When I used to criticize the Jewish actors, in private conversations, I used to express it by saying that they declaim with their mouth and with their feet. About Mogulesko I never said that. He rarely declaimed. He used to live himself into his role and mostly speak in a natural tone.

What I have said about the "historical operas" can also apply to the Yiddish theater in general. That was the lowest condition in which it ever found itself. Whatever one may say about Goldfaden's work and Goldfaden's influence — talent he certainly had, and his theater in any case never sank to such balagan-madness (chaotic buffoonery). Mogulesko's talent 386and stage-charm used to shine out from this "balagan-business" like a diamond from a swamp.

Joseph Lateiner competed with Horowitz, and there were times when a play of Lateiner's ran for many weeks and brought the Oriental Company large sums, while Horowitz's plays flopped. And yet Horowitz was the leading figure in the Yiddish theater world, and Horowitzism was the leading spirit within it. To gain a concept of this chapter of Yiddish theater history, one must first have a concept of the person who played this dominating role within it.

Horowitz's parents were from Galicia. But the family had emigrated to Romania, where his father was a melamed (an elementary teacher of Jewish children). There the younger Horowitz began his theater career. His earlier life is not precisely known. It was generally assumed that he had converted out of Judaism; people said he had been a missionary, and a few of the actors (Weingblat, for example) used to call him to his face "Professor Apostate." He used to call him that, of course, in a joking tone, but both Weingblat and the other actors were certain that the title "apostate" rested on truth.

He knew Hebrew and German, and his Yiddish was strongly Germanized. That he had abilities, no one could doubt, and that he had energy — certainly. A whirlwind of energy and entrepreneurial spirit, that's what he was! And as an adventurer he had no equal.

Leon Blank once saw him in the eighties in a Romanian town — ragged, unkempt, with an unshaven beard, with a large 387hole in his sleeve, and with twisted, torn shoes. Within a few days he was already all dressed up, decked out and dandified like a rich nobleman.

In those few days he had cobbled together a smashing play, gotten hold of a Jew with money, and the walls of the town were plastered with posters bearing his name in large letters.

"Professor M. Ish Horowitz ha-Levi" — that was the only way he would call himself. Who had given him the title "Professor," no one asked. That was already a trifle.

He had a passion for carriages with expensive horses, in the European aristocratic style. It used to happen that yesterday he had nothing to eat, and today one already saw him in a carriage with four horses and a lackey in livery, with gilded trimmings. He once borrowed five hundred dollars from a servant of his and bought a horse and carriage.

There were times when his theater lost money, and the actors went hungry, and he used to sit behind a coachman with gleaming buttons and gold bands around the collar and the sleeves, and ride through the streets of New York like a Romanian count.

The content of his plays he usually took from German theater pieces or novels, from trashy works of various periods and forms. Or, failing that, he used to take a chapter of Hebrew history and cobble it together with a trashy tale and add his own charlatan touches. About taste, about logic, about proportion he never worried.

His chief competitor, Joseph Lateiner, also used to take his plots from finished works, but he at least took the trouble to rework them according to his own understanding.

388Horowitz would not even take the time for that. Almost overnight he used to "bake up" a play. It sometimes happened that on the evening when the drama was supposed to be performed, it was still not finished. An act, or an act and a half, was still missing. But that did not trouble him. "Never mind!" — he used to say to the actors — "Put it on! We'll see." And instead of a fourth act, he used to go up onto the stage, dressed up like a Turkish sultan, for example, and used to talk and argue about whatever came to mind.

The reader will ask: but where did the other actors get words to speak? Horowitz used to manage thus: a minute before the curtain rose, he would say to Weingblat: "Whatever I don't say, you nod your head along to."

He, Horowitz, is the Turkish sultan, and Weingblat is the second-to-the-king. The Turkish sultan speaks, and the second-to-the-king nods his head, and the audience enjoys it.

Horowitz was the first to introduce Yiddish matinee performances. The theater audience was then so ignorant and so little accustomed to such things that women for a long time did not know what "matinee" meant. The following incident is not invented, but a fact: a Jewish woman came in to buy tickets for the Sabbath and asked:

"Why are you playing the same play for the third week?"

It turned out that she thought "matinee" was the name of the play.

Horowitz's chief competitor was, then, Joseph Lateiner. An impression is widespread that Lateiner 389began writing plays in America. That is a mistake. It is true that he came to America from London, and that in London he worked as a barber. But he had written plays before he came to London, when he still lived in Romania, where he was a teacher. It is a fact that he composed a play with the plot of "Shulamith" before Goldfaden wrote his "Shulamith." His was called "The Love of Jerusalem." This does not mean, however, that it was an original work. Mapu's work "Ahavas Tsion" ("The Love of Zion") served him as its source. Afterwards Goldfaden wrote his "Shulamith," which is a far more talented work.

The competition between the two theaters and the competition between the two writers with their hosts of partisans flared up. It took on such wild forms as did the Yiddish dramatic literature of that time. The mutual attacks were sometimes carried out on the stage itself. Between the acts a manager or an actor used to come out and start bombarding the rival theater; often this was done in another place: special passages were inserted into the couplets that were sung between the acts — couplets with insults against the competitors. Sometimes a few such words were even inserted into the play itself.

A certain portion of the audience used to follow these word-wars between the two stages with great interest.

Abraham Goldfaden also came over, but he had little joy here. To attach himself to a theater was hard for him, and when he tried here to write new plays, his talent could not serve him. The 390American theater market demanded an entirely different sort of goods.

I became acquainted with him in the office of the "Folks-Advokat," a Yiddish weekly that had been founded a short time before, with Getsel Zelikovitsh as editor and with the above-mentioned Shur and a certain Mikhail Mintz (a brother of Mozem Mintz) as publishers. I used to come in there, and a couple of times I wrote for the paper. Goldfaden used to complain to me about the New York Yiddish theaters, that they paid him no "royalties" for his plays. He sharply criticized Horowitz and Lateiner and the actors. The actors he used to call by their first names ("Dovidl," "Moyshele"), as he had been used to calling them in Russia, when they came to him to learn the "trade." He often used a word that cannot be printed. He spoke with humor, mostly with a smile. In Romania and in Russia he used to look on them as a master looks on his servants. He had "made human beings" of them all, as he used to express it. Most of them had come to him from the deepest poverty and ignorance. Earlier they had been meshoyrerlekh (little choir-singers), singers with cantors or in the Odessa wine cellars. In his troupe several of them acquired names, and he used to complain to me that they were ungrateful, that they did not remember "who had made human beings of them."

When I recall now what an impression he made on me, I recall how strongly the Jewish actor of those times was felt in him. He himself rarely performed. But the actor's influence was reflected in his speech and in his manners. There 391was also, however, his talent to be felt. In conversation he was witty and interesting.

At 33 Canal Street, between Essex and Ludlow, a Jew by the name of Schreiber kept a saloon, and there was the central point of the theater world of those days.

If the reader remembers the scene in the railway car, when I departed from Kiev, he also remembers the handsome young man with the blond beard, whom friends accompanied with song and with wine. At the time I had no concept of him and did not know his name. I judged him by the impression he made on me without my knowing him.

On that historic Saturday night, under the effect of the unforgettable scene, and especially under the effect of the singing and the toasts, of which he was the central figure, he presented himself to me in poetic colors. I was certain that he was a learned man, an enlightened one, and an idealist.

He too traveled to New York. In New York I later learned that he kept a saloon.

He was no learned man, no enlightened one, and no idealist.

This was Mr. Schreiber, with whom Jewish actors and their followers used to gather (the word "patriots" had not yet been "discovered" at that time).

392Those who knew him told me that he had never stood within the "four cubits" of a learned or enlightened man; that he was a Jew, an am-ha-arets (an ignoramus) — a plain fellow.

I was bitterly disappointed. I was angry at myself for having gotten such a false impression of him. And at him I was full of murderous rage, as though he had deceived me that Saturday night. Every time I used to encounter him on the street, or see him at the door of his saloon, I used to have this feeling. Some learned man! Some enlightened idealist!

Later I learned about him that he was good-hearted and clever. In Kiev, where he had dealt in lemons (limenes, tsitronen — lemons, citrons), everyone had known him as an honest man. And since he was clever and good, he had many friends there. Here in New York too he acquired a mass of good brothers. Through this, and through his practical sense, he became in a short time an important figure in the Jewish lodge world. He was president of a couple dozen lodges, and became the "ministerial head" of Jewish theater politics. From the actors themselves his saloon got nothing. On the contrary, they always cost him a lot. For on his "free lunch" fed every one of them who had nothing to eat, and from his cash drawer he used to supply them on top of that with small change.

His good-heartedness, homespun honesty, and good sense had presumably been reflected, that unforgettable Saturday night, on his handsome face. That is why he had appeared to me so interesting and likable.

Under American circumstances much in him took on a new character.

He and "Professor" Horowitz became close here.

393friends. They belonged to the same lodges, and in the "political" news of the Jewish theaters their names were often heard together.

The most sensational stage of Horowitz's career was reached when he founded "Harp of David," a society in which the business of a lodge order was to be combined with theater business. It was a strange "patent": the member paid in two dollars, and in return he received, first, his two dollars back, and as a bonus—three kinds of "benefits": seven dollars a week if he fell ill, 500 dollars as a dowry for his daughter when she married, and 500 dollars for his wife when he died.

The two dollars the member received not in cash, but in theater tickets to the Horowitz theater.

A person who does not believe in miracles would ask: where will the money come from to pay out all these benefits? Instead of an answer to such a question, Horowitz set up a committee. This committee, with Professor M. Ish Horowitz Halevi as leader, accompanied by a theater chorus, would go from lodge to lodge. Everywhere the Professor delivered a German speech about David with his godly harp, which for two dollars a week would give every member two dollars' worth of tickets plus three kinds of benefits as a bonus. After the speech the chorus would sing a psalm about David and his harp.

Everywhere the crowd became so enthusiastic that no one asked any questions, and the two-dollar bills fell like snow.

Thousands upon thousands of members signed up. A treasure-trove of gold came into the cash box.

394Shreiber was Horowitz's viceroy and chief minister in the "scheme."

As a special publicity device Horowitz thought up a "Harp of David Parade"—a great procession with horses, music, ribbons, and banners in honor of the new order. The coming parade was advertised everywhere as if it were a great popular holiday. Horowitz gave speeches, the chorus sang, and dozens of Horowitz "patriots" advertised the blessings that he guaranteed every member of the new order. Wherever one stood and wherever one went, one heard about the coming parade.

When I told an American journalist I knew about it, he asked me to take him to Canal Street when the parade passed through there.

At the announced hour we arrived on Canal Street, right opposite Shreiber's saloon, for there was to be the parade's most important point. Both sidewalks were already packed with people. We barely shoved our way to a spot from which one could see the procession.

Soon the sounds of trumpets were heard, and the voices of a chorus. I remember the march, with the din, with the excitement. In the first row, greeted with thundering hurrahs and applause, the "Professor" himself was led along by the arms—a stoutish man, with black hair, with a black "Spanish goatee," in a tall top hat, with a great brown ribbon across his chest; and next to him, also in a top hat, and also with a great ribbon, was led his chief minister, Shreiber, the saloon-keeper.

I say that they were led along, and perhaps they were riding. From the din and the madness the scene 395is perhaps a bit muddled in my memory. That there were riders in the procession—that I remember clearly. Some of the others who saw the march tell me that Horowitz and Shreiber were sitting on horses. Others also recall that they were led along by the arms. I am certain that, past the saloon at least, they strode along, with men leading them on both sides, like proud Asiatic princes.

That the scene made a disgusting impression on me and that I came away from it dejected—that too I remember.

"This is what the masses want!—I reflected. The most vulgar form of American liberty—this is what takes them! What do they need socialist orators for? Tammany politicians and Horowitzes—those are the orators they need!"

"Harp of David" existed for several months. Horowitz took a theater for himself, bought himself a house, a pair of horses for fifteen hundred dollars, and—the whole affair burst. Those who had paid in the two dollars shouted and threatened. But they were powerless.

I again stopped going to the Jewish theater. I used to hear what sorts of plays were being put on. And from what I heard, my appetite for the Jewish theater did not return. Even Mogulesko ceased to interest me.

I had left off following Boris Thomashefsky in the period when he used to play girl-roles and was the most important "star" and "prima donna." That is the "prehistoric" period of the Jewish theater in America—the time when I was a boarder at Thomashefsky's mother's. For a few years he disappeared from New York.

396He had been playing in Chicago. But with such details of the Jewish theater news I was then not familiar. Suddenly I began to see his name and his portrait on big playbills. He was then about 22 years old, picture-handsome, a blooming young man, with a Nero-like figure, tall and strong.

In those years of "historical operas" and "biblical princes" he was exactly the man for the part. One could not imagine a handsomer prince than he. A biblical prince "must" wear short trunks (so that the women who come to the theater can see his bare legs above the knee); and Thomashefsky had the handsomest pair of legs on the Jewish stage. And so he became the favorite of the public, chiefly of the women. Girls used to save on the most necessary things and buy a ticket to a play in which they would see Thomashefsky. They used to tip one another off that in such and such a role he is especially bare and especially handsome. They used to study every corner where he stands, and how he stands, and which seat is the best for that particular play. American ladies have their "matinee idols"—dandy actors with handsome manly figures, elegant clothes, and aristocratic manners that they display on the stage. The American ladies swoon gazing at them. For the East Side ladies and girls, Boris Thomashefsky was the "matinee idol."

In that part of his career I never saw him on the stage. The East Side, however, was full of reports about him and his success, and the reports used to reach me. Who among the older New York Jews does not remember the stir there was over Boris Thomashefsky in the role of "Alexander, the Prince of Jerusalem"?

397He became a dangerous rival to Kessler.

In later years the Jewish stage made progress thanks to the works of Jacob Gordin, and Kessler, and Thomashefsky too, developed artistic talents within themselves. It became apparent that when Thomashefsky has a genuine role, he is a fine artist. He showed talent and artistic restraint. One simply could not believe that this was the "prince" of years gone by. He displayed more artistic intelligence than Kessler. Only his diction always disturbed things a little—the "princely-German" diction that had stuck to him in the Horowitz years.

From Europe came over Sheyngold. While it was still permitted in Russia to perform in Yiddish, he had been the most important "star" there in serious dramatic roles. David Kessler once (years later) told me how handsome and impressive this Sheyngold was, and how, when he, Kessler, saw him in Kishinev, how striking he looked—in a cape with a tall top hat—and how the Russian-Jewish theater public loved him. Kessler was then enchanted by Sheyngold's acting and by his cape; and this was the reason why he, Kessler, got it into his head that he must become an actor.

I remember a playbill with ludicrously exaggerated hymns of praise about Sheyngold as Uriel Acosta. But I did not go to see him in the theater.

Jacob P. Adler and Madam Lipzin came to America from London. Their first American experiences as performers, however, were not in New York, 398but in Chicago. In New York they could not find a manager or a theater. Later they came from Chicago to New York and began to perform. About them I only heard, and their figures I saw only on the playbills.

A young performer appeared by the name of Rudolf Marks, a comedian, couplet-singer, and dancer. People said that he was beginning to compete with Mogulesko. But him too I did not see in the first few years of his career.

A pupil of mine, a Hebrew, who kept a small furniture store on Norfolk (or perhaps Suffolk) Street, told me that Marks's real name was actually Rotkinson and that his father was a famous Hebrew writer. This interested me a little. That a son of such a father should find himself on the Jewish stage—that was an unusual thing. The furniture dealer invited me to come see how Marks performs. I promised to go. But I kept putting it off, and I never saw Marks on the stage in that period.

I had been invited as a tutor in the family of Pinye Minkowski, a famous cantor whom the Jews of the East Side had brought over from Odessa. His arrival was a sensation. That New York Jews should import a famous cantor from the old home, and from where— 399from Odessa!—such a thing had now happened for the first time.

A few years earlier the New York kehillot (congregations) had been small, and their synagogues small. The members were mostly immigrants from poor towns in the Suwałki, Kalisz, Vilna, Kovno, or Warsaw provinces, and they were for the most part organized into landsmanshaft groups, each group with its little synagogue. And even the synagogues of landsleit from a city like Warsaw were also small and poor. There were as yet hardly any very rich Russian or Polish immigrants at all then.

The whole Jewish population was small, and the Orthodox Jews felt themselves in their Jewish quarter as in a small little town.

But ever since the pogroms made the beginning of a great Jewish immigration, our Jews in New York began to feel differently. The Jewish part of New York quickly became very large. The kehillot grew. Larger and handsomer synagogues began to appear. People began to bring over the best that the old home possessed. Well, actors came over on their own, for in Russia they were oppressed. But famous cantors and rabbis the New York Jews sought to bring over.

When I came to New York, the most important and largest immigrant synagogue—the Beth Hamidrash Hagodol—was a small, poor prayer house on Ludlow Street, between Grand and Broome (on the west side of the street). Three years later the Beth Hamidrash Hagodol moved into a much larger and more striking building on Norfolk Street.

Earlier there had been a Christian church there. This was the beginning of converting churches into synagogues.

400As a result of our Jewish immigration wave the Christian population gradually moved out of the East Side; and so the churches were left without congregants. The Jews, in turn, began to need larger synagogues. And since to make a church into a beth hamidrash (house of study) is permitted by the Jewish religion (the reverse—it is not), people gradually began to buy up churches on the East Side.

At the same time, here and there, handsome new synagogues were also built, and one of them was the Eldridge Street synagogue, between Canal and Division Street. From the standpoint of that time the building was splendid and large. Now, for such a synagogue a great cantor is required, so people thought of the famous cantors of the old home. One of the most famous then was Pinye Minkowski of Odessa. So people began to plan to bring him over. A few years earlier no one would have dared even to dream of such a thing. Now they dared. A correspondence began between New York and Odessa. Minkowski was offered a far larger salary than he received in Odessa—a larger salary than ten cantors together used to receive in New York—and he came. This was in February, 1888.

He had a wonderful tenor voice and he sang with relish. To his services came the music critics of the American newspapers, and they wrote articles about him full of hymns of praise.

All this was something new in the life of New York—a new chapter in the history of the local Jews.

Minkowski was an interesting brunet, tall, strong, and still quite young. He knew Russian, German, and Hebrew. He invited me 401to his home only a year or somewhat more after he came to New York; that is, then, when he had already brought over his family. He and his wife and his whole household made a good impression on me. We became friends. I gave English lessons not only to him, but also to his wife—also tall and handsome—and his son, a boy of about 14. In Odessa the boy had gone through the first three classes of gymnasium, and here I prepared him for college. The Minkowskis also had another child, a little girl of about six years.

The household was conducted in a fine, well-to-do Russian-Jewish style.

Around the same time the Calvary synagogue brought over from Vilna the cantor Cooper, who had earlier won a great name in Romania.

The Orthodox Russian Jews of New York decided to bring over a famous rabbi. The rabbis of New York at that time were not important ones. Perhaps among them there was some great scholar. If so, he too did not have a great name, because he had come on his own. He had not been brought over. And so his coming made no noise. Therefore they decided to import a rabbi. One of the leaders of the movement was the cap manufacturer mentioned above, Joshua Rothstein, the president of "Yeshivat Etz Chaim." He and the other leaders had in mind to bring nothing less than a rabbi from a great Russian city. They wanted to have a rabbi to whom one could show respect—both in the Jewish world and in 402the Christian one. For this purpose, however, it was necessary that several important kehillot unite. One alone would be too weak for it.

Such a union came about. Eighteen synagogues joined together and organized themselves into an association. It was decided that the new rabbi should be called "Rav Hakolel"—the rabbi over all rabbis.

After many meetings and a lively correspondence with Russia, it was announced that they were bringing over the Vilna town-maggid (preacher), R' Jacob Joseph^*.

In the old country a rabbi is not always a maggid; here, however, it was necessary that the Rav Hakolel be a good preacher (darshn) too. In this was felt the influence of the American world, where the chief role of a clergyman is to lead the "divine service" and to deliver sermons. Therefore, as the great rabbi they chose a famous maggid. The sermons (droshes) of the Rav Hakolel were to serve as an external connecting link among the eighteen synagogues that had united to bring him and maintain him.

From my uncle Michl Beirak, of Vilna, I received a letter about the Rav Hakolel, in which he wrote me roughly as follows:

"He is very dear to us. He is a great sharp mind and a rare God-fearing man. Our hearts ache that we had to part with him. One does not want to lose such a dear treasure. See to it, old fellow, that in New York the Jews should know what a diamond they have taken from us. See that they appraise him well. You do not go to synagogue. But you do have a Jewish heart. So tell everyone that Vilna held itself proud with him and 403that New York must understand how to wear such a dear crown upon itself."

The letter has long since been lost, and naturally I do not reproduce it here word for word. But I remember it well, for the words of my uncle Michl always made a deep impression on me. If I do not remember his lines exactly, I do remember their spirit correctly.

In Orthodox circles there was a stir; the guest was awaited with a parade, and when he arrived, in July, 1888, things were in a ferment. The English newspapers printed large reports with descriptions of how the "Chief Rabbi" looks (portraits were not yet being printed in the newspapers) and what he says. The sensation was much greater than with the Odessa cantor. First, the importance of a rabbi is greater, and second, the new rabbi was over almost all the significant kehillot, whereas Minkowski was connected only with the Eldridge Street congregation.

I naturally had no connection to the Orthodox world. In the role of the Rav Hakolel, however, I took an interest as an observer of our Jewish life. I was curious to hear one of his sermons. To write about it in the English newspapers I had no intention. To write against him I would not have wanted; and favorably about him, if such should be my impression—that too I would not have done. For a socialist to write in a friendly tone about a religious matter was, according to our notions of that time, impossible.

Among progressive people of our class there was an opinion that in America a rabbi must play a hypocritical role; that here such a role is simply unavoidable. From the plat- 404form and in private conversations I used to express the following thought: in the old home there are many truly honest rabbis, truly sympathetic people. Here, however, life is not suited to the Orthodox spirit of the small homey little towns. For a rabbi to remain in his homey purity and sincerity is, under the local circumstances, not easy. In the old home a synagogue warden is mostly a Jew who can study more or less and is ashamed "before God and before people." Here, however, we see examples of how a coarse fellow becomes president of a synagogue and pronounces an opinion only because he has "worked his way up." On such people the rabbi is dependent; to them he must fawn. Now how can the tone of the homey Orthodox life be maintained here?

My Russian acquaintances did not take an interest in such things, and my American friends still less, naturally. I used to chat about these matters only with my Yiddish-speaking acquaintances. Through them I heard what was going on in the Orthodox world, and through them I followed the news about the Rav Hakolel.

On a certain Sabbath I went "to listen in" and heard one of his sermons in the Beth Hamidrash Hagodol, on Norfolk Street, near Broome.

He made the impression of a scholar, a capable "Gemara head," not an overly clever man, but an honest one—an ish tomim (a man of integrity).

One could see that he does not feel as he did at home. That the honor shown him, the fuss made over him, and the large salary he receives, give him little satisfaction.

This was his second or third sermon since he came to New York, and he took pains to 405used our American Yiddish. For example: in telling a parable about a peasant back home, he used the words "European peasant." Once he also used the word "clean" instead of "pure." And I could tell that he had deliberately learned this, so as not to make the impression of a "greenhorn." He also tried to conduct himself in a somewhat civilized manner; but he did not know how. For back home this had not been required of him. Once he took out of his pocket a large blue handkerchief and at once, like a frightened man, put it back. As he did so his hand got tangled in the handkerchief. Then he held the handkerchief on the table, and both his hands fidgeted nervously around it. The American words sounded unnatural coming from him. I felt pity for him.

I looked at the people around me. Almost all were dressed in the American manner: in fine, pressed suits, with white, starched collars, with neckties and cuffs. Most of them were clean-shaven and dressed up. The general impression was nothing like that of a crowd at the Vilna shul.

The immigrant in America has far more experience than in a Vilna; he develops more quickly. The seasoned Orthodox Jews therefore looked upon their imported rabbi as upon a greenhorn, and he felt it.

For America one needs an altogether different type of rabbi. Rabbi Jacob Joseph could not adapt himself to the local conditions. He was like a plant that is torn out of its natural soil and set into an unnatural one. His life in America was a tra- 406gedy. The result was that his health weakened, and afterward he became paralyzed.

Among the men with great names who came to America in those days was Eliakum Zunser, the famous badkhn (wedding-bard) and folk-poet of Lithuania, who was mentioned in the first volume. (A great cantor or rabbi brings down a shul. A great badkhn is, in this respect, in an even worse position than an actor, for an actor can be brought down from a theater, but a badkhn has absolutely no one to bring him down. So Zunser came on his own.)

In America, when a "song" catches on with the crowd, it is sung all over the country. But this lasts only for a certain time, and then the "song" dies away entirely; it is forgotten just like a lady's hat of last year's fashion. Eliakum Zunser's songs were not like that. They were never played out. People always kept singing them. When he composed a new melody, that one was sung more, but the earlier ones were not forgotten either. On the contrary: because of the new one, the old ones too were sung anew.

Something similar can be said of Goldfaden's melodies. The new ones did not displace the old. But Goldfaden did not compose his music himself, while Eliakum Zunser's melodies were his own creations.

And yet Zunser too was like a transplanted flower. He too could not adapt himself to American conditions. His homeland songs, which had been so popular in all the Jewish cities and towns of Europe, were not sung at all in America. And the songs he wrote here were sung little.

I saw Zunser several times in those years. Once I reminded him of the conversation we 407had had at a wedding in Vilna, and I tried to explain to him the special magnetism of his compositions. But instead of giving him pleasure, I only made the tragedy of his life in America more vivid to him.

He gave a few public concerts here, wrote a little, and finally founded a print shop (on East Broadway), from which he drew a meager livelihood.

The number of Jews in New York and in other large cities was constantly growing. The immigrants who had "gotten established" and made a living brought over parents, brides, wives, friends. The Jewish quarter spread out.

Brownsville, as a Jewish town, did not yet exist then. Not even as a distinct little town. I had a couple of occasions to visit the place. I saw how Jewish immigrants were gradually beginning to settle there. But the place consisted mostly of empty fields or of "laid-out" streets, without houses. Here and there one saw a new little house or an old shack of a poor American who in earlier years had had a bit of a farm there. Here and there one saw that a street was beginning to grow.

Williamsburg was a district mainly of Christian Germans and Americans. Jews, our immigrants, were already to be seen there too, but few. A bit of a Jewish market had already begun to develop on Siegel Street, but slowly.

408That Harlem would one day become densely settled with Jews — that we did not foresee. Harlem was in general empty. Here and there stood small wooden houses; here and there a single new brick building, and all around stretched great expanses of wild fields and rocks. On these fields one often saw a hastily knocked-together hut or shack, and this was usually the dwelling of a "squatter" — a poor man who makes himself a temporary lodging on a spot where there is no one to say "no" or to demand rent.

As for the Bronx, the Jews then had not even heard the name. People used to go riding out there for an outing, but only as far as 140th Street, and the place was known to us under the name Morrisania.

The tenement houses were of the wretched old style. Many of the rooms were dark and airless. Such a luxury as "running water, hot and cold" the wife of a Jewish worker could not then have imagined. Today, who even speaks of electric lighting and electric doorbells? The lighting was gas. Carpets people used to have in the parlor, even a worker's family had that. People used to take them from a peddler on installment, anything rather than be without a carpet in the parlor. Bare floors were not to be seen even at the poorest worker's. People had oilcloth. But the oilcloth was not as good as today's. There was no "linoleum" yet.

To send the family to a summer place for the summer was a luxury that very few of the Jewish immigrants could afford. It was simply not in fashion, even among our rich immigrants.

409Only rich Christians or German Jews knew of it.

In the Jewish quarter, on the hot summer evenings, it was stuffy and hot, but not as unbearable as today. New York still had few "skyscrapers," and the tallest of them were a good deal lower than the giant towers of today; so there was more free air in the city.

On the hot Sundays we used to cross over on the Grand Street ferry to Williamsburg and take a horsecar to Prospect Park. The car used to go through half-empty streets with pretty cottages, with meadows and with flowers. One used to ride a good while before reaching the park, and, provided with a packet of lunch, one used to spend the Sunday there.

Instead of that we often used to go to Fort George on the Third Avenue car as far as One Hundred Eightieth Street and Washington Heights. That district has long since been built up and inhabited. But then it consisted of meadows and empty lots.

Another pleasure of ours used to be, on Sunday, to ride back and forth on the Staten Island ferry. We used to do this in the evening. By the Second Avenue elevated we used to ride down to South Ferry, take the ferry there, and try to get seats on the upper "deck." This did not always come easily, for the crowds on Sunday were enormously large. But we had already become used to it.

The ride across the water used to last about twenty minutes. We used not to get off, but to ride straight back. And mostly we used to make the journey twice 410over. There were many couples like us, for whom this was the best Sunday "outing." Together with the "stops," a couple of hours used to pass this way. Going back, it would already work out that we rode at midnight.

Of riding out to Coney Island our immigrants then still knew quite little. Every step one took in American life went slowly, for one had to break a path oneself. And what a present-day immigrant develops in himself within a month used in those days to take years. The first getting established went quickly; but afterward one used to look around and find that one was still quite little acquainted with American life.

My first visits to Coney Island were in the times of which we are speaking here. Once I was there together with the above-mentioned Russian revolutionary Leo Hartmann, and a second time with an American socialist who had come to New York from Chicago. I remember how I went strolling through a very dense, merry crowd, and the crowd made the impression of being entirely Christian (there were naturally a few Jews, but probably Americanized ones, and in any case the number was very small).

No clear picture of that Coney Island do I have in my memory. But I remember the seashore with men and women as they bathed — also entirely Christians; and I remember the various Coney Island stands with the shouts of their peddlers, the little carts, the little sleds, the "loop-the-loop," the "ferris wheel," the "merry-go-rounds."

The difference between that Coney Island and today's is enormous.

411To ride often to Coney Island on Sunday — that developed among us later. We used to ride on the Smith Street car. The journey itself, there and back, was the most important part of our pleasure. But in the time of which we are speaking here, our most important Sunday outing consisted of the above-mentioned "trip" to Prospect Park or to Staten Island.

The ride back home on Sunday evening used to create in me a depressed mood, like Saturday night in Strashun's kloyz before the lights are lit. When I recall those minutes, there come to me the hardest times we lived through in the first years in America. I remember chiefly the feeling on returning from Prospect Park.

The way from the park to the East Side, New York, then took three times as long as today, and few people lived along that road then.

The horses run with the packed car through a dark infinity. Here and there little fires shine from the sides, but their gleam only streaks beneath the darkness. They only deepen the gloom.

Then one crosses over onto the ferry. The whistle of the ferry, its first movements; the swirl of the water; the whistle of a passing ferry.

My wife and I stand outside; it is more airy. It is also darker and more forlorn. But you seek out the forlornness yourself, out of spite.

It seems to you that the ferry hovers through an abyss. The water is black, and its blackness shimmers with a pale gleam. Its splash echoes eerily. From the city flicker countless flames, as if from four thousand miles away...

412American boys and girls, riding with you on the ferry, sing a song. With pensive, sorrowful tones they sing. A painful longing fills me. All the cheerless experiences of the week gather together in the heart.

Oh, those Sunday evenings, when we used to ride back home!

Gradually our wealthier immigrants began to send their wives to Asbury Park or perhaps even to the Catskills — to Tannersville.

Rich Jews — I mean those who might possess a hundred thousand dollars — were on the whole few among our immigrants. The truly rich Jews — manufacturers, bankers, big storekeepers — were all German Jews. Our immigrants were peddlers, workers, or sweating contractors. With such exceptions as owners of stores for custom-peddlers, or of small banks for immigrants.

When a Russian Jew became a manufacturer of cloaks, he drew much attention. That one of ours should become rich overnight — of such miracles people then had hardly heard.

The whole of life flowed much more slowly than today; and not only among Jews, but among American-born Christians too. Of the distant regions, of the West or Middle West, I am not speaking here. I have in mind only New York.

413home. One of the results of this was that our Jews gradually took to settling the First Street, the Second, the Third.

The farthest street where our immigrants then lived was the Eighth. On Second Avenue, between First and Fourteenth Street, lived Hungarian Jews, German Jews, Bohemian Jews, Jews from Vienna; and with them ours began to mingle. But this too went slowly. From East Broadway and the surrounding streets the American-born German-Jewish families disappeared. They had all moved over into other districts.

The whole population of New York was naturally much smaller than today, but the proportion of Jews to Christians was not appreciably smaller than today. Today more than a million Americans live in other towns and villages and come every day to New York, where they have their offices or stores. Then the number of such "commuters" was very small. Whoever had an office in New York lived in New York.

Therefore the relative number of Americans who lived in New York was much greater than today.

On the streetcars and in the elevateds that run over First, Second, and Third Avenue, considerable numbers of Jews were to be seen, but even there they were a small minority. On the cars and elevateds of the West Side one saw very few Jews.

The life of the Jewish worker in the sweatshops was hard. And yet the average Jewish immigrant felt that compared with his old home it was a paradise here for him. The worker ate much better here and dressed much better than back home. And 414if one only had a steady job, one even saved up a few dollars. Back home a tailor earned three or four rubles a week. In America even then a boy in a factory was paid more than three or four dollars a week. And a tailor from back home, a quite ordinary craftsman, received twenty, thirty, and forty dollars a week.

The cloak trade was even then a seasonal trade, and for many weeks most of the workers in it went about idle; but in return, in season people earned such wages as sounded unbelievable in the old home. I knew ladies' tailors from Lithuanian towns who back home had worked for four rubles a week, and who used here to take in as much as seventy and eighty dollars a week. And the cloak-operators, who had learned the trade in America, used in quite a short time to earn even more than the average tailor. In season people used to work almost day and night. But the wages were so large that it was more than enough for a whole year.

The prices of food, clothing, rent were relatively low. Therefore one made a fine living and saved money.

This made itself felt on the immigrant in various ways — on himself and on his children. The children mostly grew up taller, stronger, and better built than their parents. To see a 16-year-old boy who was taller than his father became, in our quarter, an ordinary thing.

And political freedom too could not be brushed aside with the hand. One felt that one was more of a human being here. My friend Alter, who had always toiled and barely made a living, and who held himself 415to be a "lo-yutslakh" (a ne'er-do-well), once said to me with his good-natured smile: "Here's how it is — back home I used to hold my head down and my neck bent, and here I hold my head up and my neck straight."

And it was with this spirit of self-worth that the children grew up.

Of any persecutions of Jews people absolutely knew nothing. The Jew felt himself equal to the Christian. One feels this now too, despite the antisemitism that is now widespread in various forms. In those years, when antisemitism existed in America only in the millionaires' social circles, and even among them only as a matter of fashion, in those years the Jewish immigrant scarcely knew that there even existed such a thing as antisemitism.