Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago Part 1

Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago.

by Hannah Trager.

FOREWORD

My dear Mrs. Trager,

It gives me great pleasure to write a preface to your new book. I consider it a real privilege, since it represents the fulfilment of a hope expressed some five years ago. When you sent me the first article for "The Sinaist" I told you that your pen would win the love and the esteem not only of the child, but essentially also of the adult readers.

The simple joyousness of your style, the beauty and freshness of the atmosphere, which you very well succeed in bringing to the pages of your books, the strength of your faith, and the vividness of your description, the love of Jew above the love of Palestine, all these combine to render your volumes valuable additions to the small stock of good Jewish literature in English. It is not only that you teach, while talking so pleasantly; that you instruct while you interest and amuse; that you have your own personality in the stories; that you convey the charm of Eretz Israel, and the beauty of holiday spirit; but because your stories help us to feel the depth of faith and the height of ideal as the self-evident, normal factors of Jewish life.

For the children of our age, both young and old, should know that that G.o.d-consciousness of the Jew, that wondrous sense of eternity in his mission, is not a laboriously acquired conviction, not the result of some spasmodic effort of grasping the innermost meaning of our history, but the natural pervading spirit of Jewish life, the air which the Jew breathes, when he lives with Torah as his guide and Mitzvah as his ladder towards heaven.

They who read your stories conceive a deep love of Judaism, they find a desire growing in them to live the life which produces such happiness and goodness, they will want to study the Law and lore, of which that life is an outward expression. I have given your tales to children in various countries and all of them were enchanted with them, regretting that "there were only two books by Mrs. Trager." I am glad indeed to find that another one is coming out. And it is in the interest of our youth that I hope you will give us every year some of these nouris.h.i.+ng and very palatable fruits of your pen.

You will thereby be doing an additional bit for our G.o.d and our people whom you are serving so loyally. You reinterpret to the Jewish youth of to-day the treasures they are so carelessly abandoning, you will shed light and reawaken love and hope in the heart of many a Jew, who seemed to feel that our glorious faith had no message for the child of to-day, unless it were shorn by our 'religious' barbers, robbed of its native beauty and reduced to some platform-commonplace. As a lamented London Maggid told me, "There still live some real soldiers of G.o.d." Such are those who use persuasion from the pulpit, such as s.h.i.+ne through the example of their own humane Jewishness and such as capture our hearts by artless beautiful tales of Jewish life and lore.

I wish you every success in the world,

Yours very sincerely,

LEO JUNG

THE ARRIVAL IN JERUSALEM

On a Friday afternoon everyone was very busy in Benjamin's home was.h.i.+ng and dressing to go to Shule. The mother was getting the living-room clean and tidy for the Sabbath.

THE OFFENCE

The family lived in a few rooms off Commercial Road, in one of the many back streets. The underground kitchen had to be used as the dining-and sitting-room, for they had not been many years in England and it was a hard struggle for Benjamin's parents to make ends meet and provide for a large family.

The father and the elder boys were dressing as best they could in this room. Just then the mother came in, very excited, and said to her husband: "What will you say to this? I gave Benjamin his Sabbath clothes and a clean tsitsith, and what do you think he did?"

"What?" asked the father, and stopped brus.h.i.+ng his clothes.

"Why, he took the tsitsith and threw it on the floor, and said he would never wear it again. I punished him, and told him to put it on again. So you had better go to him and give him what he deserves."

"You are rather hasty, my dear wife," said the father; "for, before punis.h.i.+ng him, you should have asked him why he did such a thing."

"What!" exclaimed the mother, "do you think I have nothing else to do but to stand and argue with him just before Sabbath, when I have so much work? You are far too easy-going, Jacob--you should really be firmer with the children."

"No, no!" said Jacob, who was a kindly man and understood human nature better than his hasty, but well-meaning and loving, wife. The struggle and constant hard work in keeping the home of a large family was telling upon her, and any disobedience in the children irritated her very much.

"We must not be hasty with the children," continued Jacob, "especially now-a-days, for they live under different circ.u.mstances from those we knew when we were young. Instead of hastily scolding and punis.h.i.+ng them, let us rather quietly reason with them, when possible, and show them where they are wrong."

"Perhaps you may be right," said Benjamin's mother; "so let us leave the matter till you return from Shule and have had our Sabbath meal--then you can quietly ask Benjamin why he acted as he did."

THE BOY BENJAMIN

An elder brother was sent to call Benjamin to go to Shule with his father and brothers. Benjamin expected a scolding from his father similar to that which he had had from his mother, so he came into the room looking very sulky. As nothing was said to him on the subject when he came into the room, he took his prayer-book, and followed his father to Shule.

Benjamin was like many other boys of 13, not very clever, but blessed with a good deal of common sense. His great ambition was to become a teacher, and so he worked steadily at his lessons. His reason for wis.h.i.+ng to be a teacher was that he wanted to rule and to punish boys as his master did. Whenever he had a caning from his headmaster he always consoled himself with the thought that _his_ turn would come some day--when he was a teacher--to do the same to other boys.

When they returned from Shule and nothing was said, even at the evening meal, about the way Benjamin had annoyed his mother, he was rather surprised. His mother, during the time they were at Shule, had made the living-room, which was really the kitchen, look so clean and bright with the five lighted candles placed on the snow-white table-cloth, and the old stove so well polished, that it almost looked as bright as a looking gla.s.s. What interested the young ones most was the saucepan which stood on one side of the stove waiting for its contents to be put on the table, and, oh, how they enjoyed the sweet savour which came from it!

FRIDAY EVE

They all gathered round the table to welcome the Princess Sabbath. The father made kiddush, and the wine cup was handed round to all. Then they washed their hands and said a prayer before sitting down to the evening meal, which pa.s.sed off very pleasantly, and zmires (or songs or psalms of praise) were sung at intervals during the meal.

When the meal was ended, and the grace said by the father, they all separated: one or two went out for a walk, while the other members of the family took a newspaper or a book and quietly read.

When the table was cleared, the mother sat down to rest. Grateful, indeed, was she for this Sabbath rest after her week's hard work. She often said that, for such as herself, no blessing was as great as the command: "Thou shalt not do any work on the Sabbath."

WORD OF LOVE

When all were quietly settled down, Benjamin's father took him between his knees, and said: "My son, I wish to ask you something, and I want you to answer my question frankly and truly. What made you throw the tsitsith down on the floor this afternoon and say to your mother that you would not wear it?"

The boy Benjamin dropped his head and was silent for a minute or two, for to hear his father speak in a kindly way made Benjamin far more ashamed of himself and his deed than if his father had scolded him and given him a whipping--in fact, he felt so wretched that he longed to run out of the room and hide himself from everybody. His father's knowledge of human nature made him understand what was pa.s.sing through Benjamin's mind, and he said: "Do not fear to tell me, my son, why you acted in such an unusual way, for there must be some reason for a Jewish boy to act so."

With his head still down, Benjamin said: "When I go swimming in the baths, my school-fellows see my tsitsith when I undress, and they make fun of it and pull it about, and say all sorts of nasty things to me for wearing it, and it makes me feel I cannot stand it any longer. I will gladly put on my tsitsith at home in the morning when I say my prayers, but, Father, do let me go to school without wearing it?"

"I expected something like this," said his father, looking at his wife.

"Listen to me, my child--instead of being ashamed, you should feel it a privilege to wear tsitsith."

"But I can't see why," said Benjamin.

"Well," said his father, "I will tell you the idea of the tsitsith. When you say the Shema twice a day, as every good Jew is expected to do, you read in it that G.o.d commanded us, through Moses, to wear a fringe on our garment--the tsitsith, a visible sign to remind us of His Commandments, just in the same way as a table, spread ready for a meal, reminds us of our meals. Our religion is not a thing to be kept only for the Sabbath and the Holy Days, and left out of our minds on all other days. Our religion must be a living influence, always with us, so the tsitsith is a very simple kind of symbol to be ever worn to remind a Jew of his G.o.d, his duty to Him and to his neighbour. It is not only we Jews who have religious symbols; every other religion has them. Now imagine if you were to go up to a Christian boy and mock him and say nasty words to him for wearing a cross, or crucifix, he would turn round and fight you, and he would be right in doing so, for no one has a right to insult another for wearing or doing what he believes to be holy. Instead of being ashamed when you were mocked and laughed at by Christian boys for wearing your tsitsith, you should have asked them to hear you explain the reason for wearing it. I am sure they would not have laughed at you any more. They would respect you for trying to be true and to live up to your convictions.

"We Jews have, in the past, made a great mistake in not letting the outside world know more of the deeper spiritual meaning of each of our symbols. Had we not done this, we should have been better understood by non-Jews, and our children would not have suffered as you and many others also have done, through the ignorant mocking of your Christian schoolmates.

"I know that in Palestine the Jews, whether old or young, greatly love to wear their tsitsith, and take a pride in letting them be seen, so that the Arabs and the Turks look upon the tsitsith as a sacred garment."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FATHER TEACHING THE CHILD THE MEANING OF THE TSITSITH (SACRED GARMENT)]

UNCLE'S LETTER

"How do you know this, Father?" said Benjamin.

By this time all in the room had dropped their papers and books, and were listening to their father.