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LIBRA HY
OF THL '
U N IVER.5 IJV

or i LLi N o'nTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
SOCIOLOGICAL SERIES

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GHETTO

By

LOUIS WIRTH

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM WOODCUTS
BY TODROS GELLER

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO ' ILLINOISCOPYRIGHT I928 BV THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
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COMPOSED AND PRINTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
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694165FOREWORD

The ghetto seems to have been originally a place in
Venice, a quarter of the city in which the first Jewish settle-
ment was located. It became, in the course of time, an in-
stitution recognized in custom and defined in law. It be-
came, in short, not merely the place in which Jews lived,
but the place in which they were compelled to live. The
walls of that ghetto have long since crumbled, but the ghost
of the ancient institution lingers. It is still a place of refuge
for the masses of the Jewish people and still imposes upon
them, for good and for ill, something of the ancient isolation.

Meanwhile other alien peoples have come among us who
have sought, or had imposed upon them, the same sort of
isolation. Our great cities turn out, upon examination, to
be a mosaic of segregated peoples—differing in race, in cul-
ture, or merely in cult—each seeking to preserve its peculiar
cultural forms and to maintain its individual and unique
conceptions of life. Every one of these segregated groups
inevitably seeks, in order to maintain the integrity of its
own group life, to impose upon its member some kind of
moral isolation^ So far as segregation becomes for them
means to that end, every people and every cultural group
may be said to create and maintain its own ghetto v In this
way the ghetto becomes the physical symbol for that sort
of moral isolation which the "assimilationists," so called,
are seeking to break down.

It is in this sense that the word is used in this volume.
"Ghetto/' as it is here conceived, is no longer a term that
is limited in its application to the Jewish people. It has come

ixX

FOREWORD

into use in recent times as a common noun—a term which
applies to any segregated racial or cultural group., The
ghetto, as it is here conceived, owes its existence, not to
legal enactment, but to the fact that it meets a need and
performs a social function. The ghetto is, in short, one of
the so-called "natural areas" of the city.

The casual observer, looking over this vast complex,
the modern metropolitan city, is likely to see it as a mere
congeries of physical structures, institutions, and peoples
contiguous in space, bound together in some sort of mechani-
cal fashion, but in no sense a whole consisting of organically
related parts. This impression finds an indirect expression
in the familiar statement "God made the country, but man
made the town." Nowhere else, in fact, is the order which
exists so manifestly the order imposed by man's intelligence
and design; nowhere else has man shown himself more com-
pletely the master of the world in which he lives.

On the other hand, nothing is more certain, as recent
studies of .the urban community have shown, than the fact
that the city as it exists is very largely the product of tenden-
cies of which we have as yet little knowledge and less con-
trol. Under the influence of these forces, and within the
limitation which .geography and historical accident impose,
the city is steadily assuming a form that is not conventional
merely, but typical. In short, the city is not merely an
artefact, but an organism. Its growth is, fundamentally and*
as a whole, natural, i.e., uncontrolled and undesigned. The
forms it tends to assume are those which represent and cor-
respond to the functions that it is called upon to perform..

What have been called the "natural areas of the dty"
are simply those regions whose ideations, character, and
functions have been determined by the same forces whichFOREWORD

n

have determined the character and functions of the city as
a whole. The ghetto is one of those natural areas. The his-
torical ghetto, with which this study is mainly concerned,
is merely the one most striking example of a type. It is in
the history of the Jews, in the Diaspora, that we have ac-
cess to a body of facts which exhibit in convincing detail
the moral and cultural consequences of that isolation which
the ghetto enforced; consequences that touch both those
who live within and those who live without the pale. The
history of the ghetto is, in. large measure, the history; since
the dispersion, of the Jewish people.

The ghetto has been the center of all that may be de-
scribed as sectarian and provincial of Jewish life. It has put
its imprint, not only upon the manners of the Jew, but upon
his character. It is the interaction of this culture of the
ghetto and that of the larger gentile community outside*
involving the more or less complete participation of Jews
in both worlds, that is the ^ource of most that is problematic
<and enigmatic in the situation of the Jew of today, as of
yesterday. And so it has turned out that this attempt to
investigate, in its more fundamental and permanent aspects,
one of the typical local areas of the Chicago urban com-
munity has led to the exploration of one of the most funda-
mental problems in sociology, and in doing this it has thrown
a new light upon one of the puzzling and tragic situations
in history.

Robert E. Pabk

University of ChicagoPREFACE

This study was made possible through a research fellow-
ship granted by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial
Fund and administered by the Local Community Research
Committee of the University of Chicago. It originated in
an investigation of the ghetto district of Chicago. The at-
tempt to understand the life in that area, however, soon led
to a redefinition of the subject into the form in which it is
now presented. Having started with the study of a geo-
graphical area, I found myself, quite unwittingly, examin-
ing the natural history of an institution and the psychology
of a people.

Much of what I have written is probably traceable to
sources which I have forgotten, or is the echo of what I have
read and read into the writings of others. There are nu-
merous obligations, however, of which I am keenly con-
scious. My debt to such writers as David Philipson, Israel
Abrahams, and Israel Cohen is greater than the numerous
citations from their writings indicate. To Professor Ernest
W. Burgess, at whose suggestion the study was begun, to
Professor Ellsworth Faris, and to Professor Robert E. Park,
my teachers and former colleagues in the Department of
Sociology of the University of Chicago, I wish to express
my gratitude for their aid, encouragement, and guidance.
Without the constant interest and inspiration of Professor
Park this work would not have been the pleasant adventure
which it was.

Louis Wirth

New Orleans, Louisiana
October 30, 1928

xiiiCONTENTS

Chapter	Page

I. Introduction........................i

The Concept "Ghetto"..................i

The Natural History of the Ghetto............5

Human Nature and the Ghetto..............8

II. The Origin of the Ghetto........n

Seeking New Homes..........n

The Jew as a Stranger.........15

The Voluntary Ghetto.........18

III.	The Ghetto Becomes an Institution.....29

The Compulsory Ghetto . .......29

Ghetto Atmosphere..........34

IV.	Frankfort: A Typical Ghetto.......41

Historical Aspects...........41

General Characteristics .........48

The Synagogue............52

Extraterritoriality...........56

Community Institutions.........60

^ V. The Jewish Type...........63

The Jews as a Race..........63

The Social Type.........' .	7*

VI. The Jewish Mind...........75

Mentality and the Division of Labor.....75

Intellectual Life...........82

Life in the Pale...........88

VII. The Ghetto in Dissolution........97

Social Movements...........97

Emancipation............110

Modern Ghettos...........117

xvxvi

CONTENTS

Chapter

VTII. The Jews m America.........

First Settlers: The Sephardim......

The German Wave.........

The Russian Invasion.........

IX. Origins of the Jewish Community in Chicago

The Pioneers...........

Old and New Settlers.........

Community Problems.........

X. The Jewish Community and the Ghetto . . .
The Growth of the Community ......

The Tide from the East........

Expansion and Diversification . ......

^ XI. The Chicago Ghetto..........195

The Near West Side..........195

The Ghetto as a Cultural Community.....201

The Jews and Their Neighbors.......226

Maxwell Street............231

XII. The Vanishing Ghetto.........241

The Flight from the Ghetto........241

Deutschland............246

XIII. The Return to the Ghetto \.......263

Conflict and Self-consciousness...... .	263

The Home-coming............269

^ XIV. The Sociological Significance of the Ghetto . .	282

Non-Jewish Ghettos . .........282

The Ghetto and the Segregated Area.....284

The Ghetto as a Social Phenomenon .... .	287

Bibliography..............292

Index of Authors.............301

Subject Index..............303

Page

131
131
£37

426

. 153
. 153
. 160

186{	CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This study is an attempt to understand some of the de-
tails of the cultural life of a group that has a long history.
The history of the Jews for the past one thousand years
furnishes an opportunity to study the ways in which the cul-
ture of a group reacts upon the character of a people, and
conversely, the mutations that take place in a culture as a
result of the changing experiences of a people. The story df
the Jews for this period is the story of the ghetto.

THE CONCEPT "GHETTO"

The word "ghetto" applies to the Jewish quarter of a
city. The origin of the word is not clear, although it has been
in common usage for at least five hundred years. It is fairly
certain, however, that ghettos existed long before they were
designated by a specific name. What is known about the
origin of the word may nevertheless be of some value in
determining the original character if not the approximate
beginning of the historical phenomenon to which it refers.

It seems to have been first in use in Italy, and its form
points to Italian origin. The Italian Jews, however, derived
the word which they spelled gueto from the Hebrew word get,
meaning bill of divorce, "finding the idea of divorce ex-
pressed by the one term, and that of exclusion in the other,
sufficiently analogous to point to a common origin."1 The
word "ghetto," according to another explanation, has been
connected with the German word gitter. While this is sug-
gestive, since, as we shall show later, the ghetto did bear

1 David Philipson, Old European Jewries (Philadelphia, 1894), p. 24.

x2

THE GHETTO

some resemblance to the bars of a cage, it seems to be, on
the whole, a rather far-fetched and ill-founded explanation,
The word might also be derived from the Italian borghettd
or "little quarter." The evidence for this is scant, however.
It is more probable that the word is derived from the Italian
gietto, the cannon foundry at Venice near which the first
Jewish settlement was located.1 The Jewish historians H.
Graetz and A. Berliner3 lean toward the derivation from the
Venetian gheta, or cannon foundry. It is not unusual that a
local place name should come into general use to designate
similar phenomena. Berliner mentions the illustration of the
word "catacombs," derived from the first subterranean
burial vaults at Rome, which were situated ad Catacombas,3

Historically, then, the modern ghetto traces its ancestry

1 The Jewish Encyclopedia, one of the most authoritative works on such
matters, says: " ' Ghetto' is probably of Italian origin, although no Italian
dictionary gives any clue to its etymology. In documents dating back to 1090
the streets in Venice and Salerno assigned to the Jews are called Judaea or
Judacaria. At Capua there was a place called "San Nicolo ad Judaicam,"
according to documents of the year 1375; and as late as the eighteenth cen-
tury another place was called "San Martino ad Judaicam." Hence it is
assumed that Judaicam became the Italian Giudeica, and was then corrupted
into "Ghetto." Other scholars derive the word from giettoy the cannon found-
ry at Venice, near which the first Jews' quarter was situated. Both of these
opinions are open to the objection that the word is pronounced "ghetto,"
and not "getto" (djetto); and it seems probable that, even if either of the
two words suggested had become corrupted in the vernacular, at least its
first letter, the sound of which is the dominating one in the word, would have
retained its original pronunciation. A few scholars, therefore, derive the
word "ghetto" from the Talmudic get, which is similar in sound, and suppose
the term to have been used first by the Jews, and then generally. It seems
improbable, however, that a word originating with a small despised minority
of the people should have been generally adopted and even introduced into
literature" {Jewish Encyclopedia, V [1903 ed.], 652).

3 H. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, V, 37; A. Berliner, Aus den lettten
Tagen des romischen Ghetto, Berlin, 1886.

3 Berliner, op. cit.t p. 2.I	INTRODUCTION

V

'jack to a medieval European urban institution by means
6f which the Jews were segregated from the rest of the popu-
lation. Other names were originally, and to some extent
still are, in use today to refer to the street or quarter of a
city occupied by Jews. These are vicus Judaeorum, later
known as Judenstrasse, Judengasse (or just Gasse) or Juden-
viertel in Germany; Judiaria in Portugal; Juiverie in France;
and Carrier a in Provence and Comtat Venaissin.1

The varied local names applied to the ghetto from
country to country indicate that by the close of the four-
teenth century there already existed in many of the Euro-
pean cities clearly defined areas, predominantly if not ex-
clusively inhabited by Jews. Just as the term ghetto in the
course of time was generally adopted, so the form which the
institution took soon became conventionalized and stand-
ardized throughout Europe.

» In Russia, until recently, the ghetto took the form of
the "Pale." This pale of settlement virtually represents a
ghetto within a ghetto. It was established in 1771, to pre-
vent the Jews of White Russia, who came under Russian
dominion at the first partition of Poland, from spreading
throughout the country. While its boundaries have varied,
in 1905 it contained the following fifteen districts: Bess-
arabia, Vilna, Vitebsk, Volhynia, Grodno, Yokaterinoslav,
Kovno, Minsk, Moghilef, Podolia, Poltava, Taurida, Kher-
son, Chernigov, and Kiev. Within these districts, moreover,
the Jewish settlements were restricted to the cities and
towns. The regulations pertaining to the settlement of Jews
prohibited them from living at all in the rest of Russia,
though at some time certain population groups were ex-
cepted, among them graduates from universities, merchants

1 Philipson, op. cit.f pp. 20, 30./	THE GHETTO

of the first guild, and prostitutes. The Jews were permitted tvj>
live in Poland, but were entirely excluded, for instance, front
Finland, and, except in the case of convicts, from Siberia/
In modern times the word "ghetto" applies not specif-
ically to the place of officially regulated settlement of th
Jews, but rather to those local cultural areas which have
arisen in the course of time or are voluntarily selected or
built up by them. It applies particularly to those areas
where the poorest and most backward group of the Jewish
population of the towns and cities resides. Jn our American
cities the ghetto refers particularly to the area of first settle-
ment, i.e., those sections of the cities where the immigrant
finds his home shortly after his arrival in Americaj; Some-
times the area in which the Jews once lived but which is
subsequently inhabited by other population groups, partic-
ularly immigrants, still retains the designation of ghetto.
Moreover, there seems to be a tendency to refer to immi-
grant quarters in general as ghettos.

^ From the standpoint of the sociologist the ghetto as an
institution is of interest first of all because it represents a
prolonged case of social isolation. It is the result of the ef-
fort of a people to adjust itself, outwardly at least, to
strangers among whom they have settled. The ghetto, there-
fore, may be regarded as a form of accommodation between
divergent population groups, through which one group has
effectually subordinated itself to another. It represents at
least one historical form of dealing with a dissenting minor-
ity within a larger population. At the same time it is a form
of toleration through which a modus vivendi is established
between groups that are in conflict with each other on funda-

1 Philipson, op. cit., chap. vii. See also Encyclopedia Americana, iQCI
(1919 ed.), 138.INTRODUCTION

5

mental issues. Finally, from the administrative standpoint,
the ghetto served as an instrument of control.

Some of these functions, as we shall see, are still being
served by the modern ghetto, which, in other respects, has a
character quite distinct from the medieval institution out of
fWh it has developed, nfhe ghetto of Western Europe and,
of America, however, is cnprimary interest because it shows
concretely the actual processes of distribution and grouping
of our population in urban communities^ It illustrates
picturesquely the ways in which a cultural group gives ex-
pression to its ancient heritage when transplanted to a for-
eign setting, the constant sifting and resifting of its mem-
bers, and the forces through which the community main-
tains its integrity and continuity. Finally, the ghetto dem-
onstrates the subtle ways in which this cultural community
is transformed by degrees until it blends with the larger
community about it, meanwhile reappearing in various
altered guises of its old and unmistakable atmosphere.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE GHETTO

The ghetto has a written history extending over a period
of at least one thousand years. Even before the ghetto be-
came the characteristic form of Jewish community life we
find a richly documented history of Jewish settlements that
takes us back to the days before the opening of the Christian
era. The adventures of the Jewish people since the end of
their national sovereignty, which a recent writer has retold
under the fitting title, Stranger than Fiction,z find their set-
ting in every country of Europe, and in almost every corner
of the globe. The history of the ghetto offers a rare oppor-
tunity, therefore, of converting history into natural history.

1 Lewis Browne, Stranger than Fiction. New York, 192s.6

THE GHETTO

The numerous narratives of ghetto life, the vivid auto-
biographies, the drama, the fiction, and the poetry of the
ghetto; the reports of travelers, the reflections of philoso-
phers, and the argumentation and pronouncements of rabbis
and Talmudists—all these go to make up not merely a his-
tory of the ghetto; they also furnish the raw material foi
searching comparative study of an institution—a cultural
community. As we link up an isolated fact and a strikingly
unique detail of ghetto life of one period with that of another,
and of one locality Kith that of another, we see emerging
similarities in lines ^Hferelopment that furnish the basis for
generalizations, for <mM concepts, and for sociological laws.
It is with this object in view that we undertake to retell the
story of the ghetto, not confining ourselves merely to a single
community or epoch, but searching for those more universal
truths that hold good irrespective of time and place.

The study of the ghetto, viewed from such an~angle, is
likely to throw light on a number of related phenomena* suth
as the origin of segregated areas and the development of
cultural communities in general; for, while the ghetto is,
strictly speaking, a Jewish institution, there are forms of
ghettos that concern not merely Jews. There are Little
Sicilies, Little Polands, Chinatowns, and Black belts in our
large cities, and there are segregated areas, such as vice
areas, that bear a close resemblance to the Jewish ghetto.
These forms of community life are likely to become more
intelligible to us if we have before us the natural history of
the Jewish ghetto. The ghetto may therefore be regarded as
typical of a number of other forms of community life that
sociologists are attempting to explore.

In our study of the ghetto we obviously need not allow
ourselves to be swamped by the mass of details that theINTRODUCTION

7

material affords, nor need we become involved in the niceties
of higher historical criticism. Our task is to reduce the ma-
terial to a form in which it is stripped of its unique character
and becomes typical, or of general significance. At first
glance the world of individual experience consists of an end-
less multiplicity of isolated happenings. Every experience
is, in a sense, unique. Only by linking unique phenomena to
previous points of reference in the experience of the indi-
vidual or the culture of the group is some sort of order
achieved. By means of an ordered system of reference we
are able to reduce the baffling co^^Bfedty and variety of
unique phenomena to a plane whSKhey can be encom-
passed by the mind. In this process the unique or individual
experience is transformed into a representative or typical
one.

The enviable rate of progress in the physical and natural
sciences is due mainly to the economy of thought and effort
resulting from the concentration on crucial experiments and
observations. Random observation and experimentation
have been recognized as expensive and wasteful. By limiting
the locus of observation and choosing the data of experi-
mentation results may be obtained which have significance
for a whole class, and not merely for the individual case. On
the basis of similarity the results obtained from one experi-
ment may be supposed to hold for a host of related phenom-
ena, provided the nonessential differences between them
can be ruled out for the moment.

.This, then, will be our procedure in tracing the devel-
opment of the ghetto from its earliest beginning to the pres-
ent day in the various localities where Jews gained a suffi-
cient foothold to form typical communities, each having, of
course, its own peculiar atmosphere, but all having enough8

THE GHETTO

in common to be readily recognizable as forms of the general
type of cultural expression characteristic of the group as a
whole.

HUMAN NATURE AND TJ£E GHETTO

As the sympathetic historians tell the story of the ghetto
it is an amazing record of the tragedies and the adventures
of a people. The history of the ghetto is full of human in-
terest, with its peaks of heroism, its miraculous tales of
escape, and its frequent and depressing depths of pathos
and despair. To tell^he full story of the ghetto in all its
uniqueness is the legitimate function of the artist and the
historian. But the sociologist sees in the ghetto more than
the experiences of a given people in a specific historical
setting. To him the ghetto is more than a chapter in the
cultural history of man. The ghetto represents a study in
human nature. {Tt reveals the varied and subtle motives that
lead men to act as they do. The sociologist is less interested
in the decrees issued by sovereigns and legislatures than he
is in the fundamental motives which prompt them and the
human relations of which they are a formal expression^
ry*' The ghetto is not only a physical fact; it is also a state
[of mind. The laws that regulated the conduct of Jews and
Christians are merely the external forms to which, on the
subjective side, there correspond the attitudes of social dis-
tance and of self- and group-consciousness. The hostilities
and outbreaks of violence with which ghetto history is
replete represent the friction and the conflicts to which the
living together of diverse cultural groups gives rise. The
numerous taboos and restrictions that encumbered the be-
havior of Jew and Christian toward each other are to be
regarded, not merely as the fortuitous and arbitrary deci-INTRODUCTION

9

sions of members of either group, but rather as physical
expressions of the social distance that was emerging out of a
conflict relationship. The conduct of the two groups toward
each other did not only involve withdrawal and repulsion,
but these were modified by the tendency to become friendly
and be attracted. While on the one hand the Jew was com-
ing to be more and more a member of a class—an abstraction
—on the other hand there persisted the tendency to react to
him as a human being—as a person{^The play of these con-
flicting forces in the interaction of Jew and Gentile consti-
tute the central thread in the story of the ghetto)
)C ^The history of the ghetto from our point of view is the
history of an institution. The various stages in the process
by which an institution is formed; the fundamental human
motives that express themselves in it; the forces that modify
it and perpetuate it and finally contribute to its dissolution
—these are some of the problems on which we hope to throw
light through a study of the ghetto) The history of the
. ghetto may show the various processes that enter into the
origin and the growth of community life in general and the
ways in which the community fashions the personality types
and the cultural institutions that it harbors. In every com-
munity there goes on a process of specialization and integra-
tion resulting in the division of labor and co-operation
which tie the life within an area into a unit and give it its
organized character. The ghetto presents the development
of such a community in minute detail, offering an oppor-
tunity for observation and generalization.

|What we seek to find in the ghetto, finally, is the extent *
to which isolation has shaped the character of the Jew and
the nature of his social life^What are the forces that main-
tain this isolation, and inmat ways has it become modifiedIO

THE GHETTO

by contact? How has the isolation of the Jews produced
Results that hold good, not only for the Jew, but for the
Negro, the Chinaman, the immigrant, and a number of
other isolated groups in our modern world? While we are
concerned mainly with the Jew and the Jewish ghetto in the
following pages, and have drawn our material from the his-
tory of this one institution, the processes that go on, the
motives that are at work, and the consequences that follow
are intended to throw light on a much broader subject—on
human nature and on culture.CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO

seeking new homes
(with the year 70 a.d., when the Romans accomplished
the conquest of Palestine and the destruction of Jerusalem,
begins the period of diaspora, or dispersion. With this event
there opens up in Jewish history a long chapter of migration
and the search for new homes'rjNot that the Jews were
confined to Palestine up to this time, for tradition has it that
the Jews were in Italy, Spain, and Germany long before; and
it is definitely established that the Jews lived in Alexandria,
Antioch, Rome, and the cities of Asia Minor and Egypt
before the opening of the Christian era.1 The Jews were
probably not settled anywhere in Europe in any consider-
able numbers, however, before that time, except in Rome,
where they are heard of as early as 76 b.c. The Jewish col-
ony there was considerably increased when the Roman
general Pompey entered Jerusalem and carried numbers of
Jews back to Rome. Titus deported thousands of Jews to
the western Roman provinces. Many of them were put to
work in the Sardinian mines, and from Rome they drifted
to other Italian cities. "As for Spain," says Philipson, "the
earliest authentic notice is by the apostle Paul, who, in his
Epistle to the Romans, says: 'Whensoever I take my jour-
ney into Spain, I will come to you; for I trust to see you in
my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by
you'; and 'I will come by you into Spain.' Paul, we know,

"Frederic Huidekoper: Judaism at Rome, B.C. 76 to A.D. 140 (New
York, 1883), p. 6; David Philipson, op. cit.t p. 5.

1112	THE GHETTO

journeyed only to places in which Jews dwelt, or in which
Jewish teachings had been established, for only those ac-
quainted with Jewish doctrines could understand him."1

The best evidence for the early presence of the Jews in
the western Christian lands is to be found in the numerous
decrees passed by church councils affecting them. The pres-
ence of Jews in considerable numbers in Spain by the be-
ginning of the fourth century is attested to by the fact that
a church council held in the year 305 a.d. passed several
decrees forbidding Christians to live on terms of intimacy
with Jews. A section of one of these decrees reads: "If
heretics are unwilling to join the Catholic Church, Catholic
girls must not be given to them in marriage; but neither to
Jews nor to heretics should they be given, because there can
be no association for the faithful with the unbeliever. If
parents act contrary to this prohibition, they shall be cut
off from communion for five years."2 Another says: "If, then,
any ecclesiastic or any of the faithful partakes of food with
Jews, he shall be deprived of communion so that this may be
corrected."3 And again: "Owners [of land] are warned not
to permit their products which they receive from God to be
blessed by Jews, lest they make our blessing useless and
weak. If any one shall presume to do this after this prohibi-
tion, he shall be excluded from the church."4

Joseph Jacobs5 finds evidence of the presence of Jews in
England before the Norman conquest in the canon laws of

1 Philipson, op. citpp. 6-7. See also Rom. 15:24, 28.

aLabbe et Cosartii, Concilia Sacrosancta, I, 1273-76; also Conciliarum
omnium generalium et provincialiutn collectio regia, I, 645. Quoted from
Philipson, op. cit., p. 7.

s Ibidp. 8.	« Ibid,

5 The Jews of Angevin England (London, 1893), pp. ix and 2-3.THE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO	13

the archbishops of Canterbury and of York from 669 on:
"A document issued by King Witglaff of Mercia, in 833, con-
firms the right of the monks of the cloister of Croyland to
all the possessions given them by earlier Kings of Mercia,
nobles, and other faithful Christians, and also to those re-
ceived from Jews as gift, pledge or otherwise."1

The settlement of the Jews in France is placed as early
as the second century.2 In the various trading centers of
Western and Southern Germany, such as Cologne, Magde-
burg, Ratisbon, Mayence, Speyer, Worms, Treves, Nurem-
berg, the Jews are found some time around the eleventh
century in considerable numbers,3 although their presence
may here and there be established at a much earlier date.4

In all these countries thejews, during this early period,
led a precarious existence^The uncertainty of life during
the Dark Ages, particularly for strangers, made the Jew a
nomad, and has earned for him the epithet "Wandering
JewJ' Mobility and adaptability to strange and constantly
shifting conditions were the chief qualities required for sur-
vival.! The Jewish traditions of this period are full of tales
of suffering and adventure, of heroic exploits, and of shrewd
dealing with none too friendly neighbors and rulers. The
measures adopted by the Jews in self-defense closely parallel
some of the rationalizations and myths invented to meet
such present-day crises as the Nordic propaganda. Philipson
tells of two of these:

According to tradition, Jews settled in Germany in hoary antiq-
uity. When, in the time of the crusades, the Jews of Western Europe

1 Philipson, op. citpp. 10-11.	2 Graetz, op. ciU, V, 55-56.

3 Otto Stobbe, Die Juden in Deutschland wdhrend des MiUekUters. Braun-
schweig, 1866.

«G. B. Depping, Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age (Paris, 1834), p. 4.14

THE GHETTO

were held responsible for the death of Jesus, and thousands upon
thousands of them were slaughtered by the wild mobs on that account,
some tale had to be invented to disprov the charge, and the Jews
put forth the claim that they had had a congregation in Worms
long before the time of Jesus; in fact, as early as the days of Ezra,
and that, therefore, they were not concerned with nor responsible for
the crucifixion.1

According to another tradition, the Jews of Southern Germany
were descendants of the soldiers who had sacked Jerusalem. These
soldiers, the Vangiones—so ran the story—had selected beautiful
Jewish women as their portion of the spoil, carried them to their quar-
ters on the Rhine and the Main, and there consorted with them. Their
children were reared as Jews by their mothers, and were the founders
of the Jewish communities between Worms and Mayence. This, how-
ever, is all legendary.2

Leading a life full of uncertainty, the Jews were scarcely
more than transients in Western Europe during the darker
centuries of the Middle Ages, regarding their settlements,
such as they were, as mere stopping-places on a road that
led they knew not where. In his role of stranger the Jew left,
however, more than a passing impression upon his hosts.
'"That the Jews were the great scientific, commercial, and
^philosophical intermediaries of the Middle Ages is not
denied," says the distinguished English Jewish scholar,
Israel Abrahams, "but what is not usually admitted is, how
much of progress consists simply in the transmission of ideas
and the exchange of articles of commerce?'.)... To assert
for the Jews this claim—that they were intermediaries of
ideas as well as commercial products—is, I submit, to claim
for them a great and not ignoble role."3

1	Philipson, op. citp. 9.

2	Ibid., pp. 9-10.

3	Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (New York, 1897),
pp. xx-xxi.THE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO

THE JEW AS A STRANGER

fCompared with what was to follow, the lot of the Jews
in Europe during the first one thousand years of the Chris-
tian era was bearable if not ideay With the beginning of the
Crusades, however, there set in a sharp reaction of the gen-
eral population. Not that there were no persecutions before
iogft^but they were sporadic and mild compared to the per-
sistent and organized mob violence that began with the First
Crusade. Up to that time the Jews were free individuals, on
the whole, and lived generally on friendly, and sometimes
even on intimate, terms with their neighbors of other faiths.
The decrees of many church councils forbidding this in-
timacy corroborate this. The spectacular mass movements
accompanying the Crusades upset the settled life of medieval
Europe. Suddenly the population became aware of the
strangers in their midst. It needed but little stimulation to
transform these strangers into enemies, especially at a time
when a scapegoat was needed to give concrete and imme-
diate expression to the remote and idealistic goals of pilgrim-
ages to and conquest of the Holy Land, in which, after all,
only a minority could participate. In this predicament the
Jews turned to those who were not their neighbors and who
were far enough removed in space and station to see them
objectively—as a utility; they turned to the emperors and
popes for protection. They became the servants of the
chamber {send earnerae)1 and acquired formal and imper-
sonal rights, which assured them of some sort of status in a
society in which every member of the population had a fixed
place. The medieval serf was tied to his lord, the tenant to
the land which he tilled, the craftsman to his guild. Only
the Jew's place in this world was not definitely fixed) He

1 Philipson, op, tit., pp. 12-13.i6

THE GHETTO

was a stranger, but he lived on terms of intimacy with his
neighbors. Personal relationships are not based upon rights;
it is only when relationships become formal and distant that
rights and laws are invoked to regulate the conduct of in-
dividuals. As a person the Jew needed no rights to protect
him; but as a utility he needed them and acquired them.
Empty as this protection often was, and in spite of the
instability of the sovereigns who sold it at a high price, the
Jews nevertheless regarded it as a privilege. According to
Graetz, this protection began in Germany, with Frederick
Barbarossa, and was continued under Henry IV, in 1103.
During the reign of Conrad III, at the time of the Second
Crusade, the Jews applied to him for protection in Nurem-
berg.1 The institution of servi camerae came into general use,
however, in the thirteenth century.2 There still remains in
the Jewish prayer books a special prayer for the sovereign
which is based upon this medieval institution.

As Europe emerges from the medieval period, the Jews pass more
and more emphatically into a special relation toward the government.
Instead of becoming a part of the general population, as the Jews
had often been in the earlier centuries of the Christian era, they are
thrust out of the general life into a distinct category. One has but to
compare the Prayer for the Queen as it still appears in the Anglo-
Jewish ritual with its form in the Book of Common Prayer. "May
the supreme King of kings," says the Jewish version, "in his mercy
put compassion into her heart and into the hearts of her counsellors
and nobles, that they may deal kindly with us and with all Israel."
The modern Jew resents this language, but it cannot be denied that
its medieval tone remains the keynote of millions of Jewish lives.3

/The Jews, on their part, were seeking status and secu-
rity while the rulers looked upon them as mere sources of

x,Graetzt op. cU.t VI, 269.	2 Stobbe, op. cit.9 p. 12.

* Abrahams, op. cit.f pp. xvii-xviii.THE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO

revenue! One of them, Emperor Rupert, in 1407 "com-
mandea that the Jews be not too heavily burdened, lest they
be forced to emigrate, and the cities so suffer a diminution of
income. In 1480 Frederick III commanded that the Jews of
Ratisbon be treated in such a manner that they might re-
store their fortunes in five years to an extent sufficient to
enable them to pay the emperor 10,000 gulden."1 The Jews,
as a result, virtually became the tax collectors for the rulers,
since, of course, the necessity of having to pay this tribute
affected their charges for goods or services which they were
rendering to the population at large. The Jews, through
this relationship to the government, proved themselves so
desirable that the emperor often found it expedient, when in
financial distress, to sell the privilege of protecting the Jews,
which meant to tax them, to some prince or churchman.
Thus, in 1263, the Jews of Worms were turned over to the
Bishop of Speyer, and in 1279 the Jews of Strassburg and
Basle were transferred to the Bishop of Basle. This right
was sometimes sold to private individuals and to cities, and
became one of the important fiscal assets of medieval sover-
eigns.2 Generally the Jews also had to buy the right to live
in a community in which they had not as yet lived. This
was known as the right of Judaeos tenere or Judaeos habere..

/ This right of keeping or holding Jews that the emperor was
free to sell to local authorities or individuals, much as a city
nowadays sells a street-car franchise, implied, of course, that
the status of the Jews was a precarious oneJ They were not
citizens—not even men—in the eyes of file law, but rather
were taxable property. Even this right, as we shall see, was
greatly limited and subject to the arbitrary change of will
or fortune of the grantor. "The chattel of the ruler, the Jew
1 Philipson, op. cit.t p. 15.	a Stobbe, op. cU.t p. 19.i8

THE GHETTO

had no room for hope but in the ruler's personal clemency
and humanity."1 This status did not change in fundamen-
tal respects until about the era of the French Revolution. ^

The earliest history of the Jews in Europe shows a
gradual transition from the personal, spontaneous relation-
ship that naturally had grown up between Jew and Christian
to a formal, legalistic, abstract form of intercourse. This
transition began as soon as the ordinary, primary contacts,
through which neighborhood and community life ordinarily
are maintained, broke down, and crises arose which called
for the intervention of the imperial or papal authority* In
the course of this change the Jew acquired a special status,
which not only heightened his own self-consciousness, but
marked him as a tertium quid in the eyes of his neighbors.

THE VOLUNTARY GHETTO

The segregation of the Jews into separate local areas in
the medievaT^jties- did not originate with my formal edict
chnrrhor state. The ghettowas not, as sometimes mi£
takenly is believed, the arbitrary creation of the authorities,
designed to deal with an alien people. {The ghetto was not
the product of design, but rather the unwitting crystalliza-
tion of needs and practices rooted in the customs and herit-
ages, religious and secular, of the Jews themselves. Long
before it was made compulsory the Jews lived in separate
parts of the cities in the Western lands, of their own accorcD
Though the era of the ghetto proper begins with the sixteenth
century, numerous records are extant of the seclusion of Jews in special
quarters several centuries earlier. The voluntary congregation of Jews
in certain parts of the towns, due to the needs of the communal or-
ganization, was very common by the thirteenth century. In Cologne
there was a Jews' quarter at that period, though in that city, as well as

1 Abrahams, op. cU.f p. xviii.THE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO

19

in most places where voluntary Jewish quarters existed, Jews also
resided outside the Jewish district. But the distinction that one
achieves is not as the distinction which is thrust on one. Nowhere is
this more strikingly seen than in the case of Prague. There the Jews
who lived outside the Judenstadt determined in 1473 to voluntarily

throw in their lot with their brethren in the Jewish town.....In

i555> when Paul IV established the ill-omened ghetto in Rome, there
were very few Jewish families resident anywhere else than in the ser-
raglio delli hebrei, or septus hebraicus, as the Jewish quarter at the left
bank of the Tiber was called. But though few Jews dwelt elsewhere,
many of the noblest Christians resided in the very heart of the Jewish
quarter. Stately palaces and churches stood in the near neighbor-
hood of the synagogue, and the Roman Christians held free and
friendly intercourse with their Jewish fellow-inhabitants. . . . £&t first
the ghetto was rather a privilege than a disability, and sometimes was
claimed as a right when its demolition was threatened^"

The Jews drifted into separate cultural areas not by-
external pressure nor by deliberate design.(The factors that
operated toward the founding of locally separated com-
munities by the Jews are to be sought in the character of
Jewish traditions, in the habits and customs not only of the
Jews themselves, but those of the medieval town-dweller in
general. *fl?o the Jews the geographically separated and so-
cially isolated community seemed to offer the best opportu-
nity for following their religious precepts, of preparing their
food according to the established religious ritual, of following
their dietary laws, of attending the synagogue for prayer
three times a day, and of participating in the numerous func-
tions of communal life which religious duty imposed upon
every member of the community^tn some instances it was
the fear of the remainder of the population, perhaps, which
induced them to seek each other's company for the sake of
security. Sometimes the prince or ruler under whose pro-

1 Abrahams, op. cit., pp. 62-65.20

THE GHETTO

tection they stood found it desirable to grant them a sepa-
rate quarter for this purpose, as a privilege. The general
tenor of medieval social life must also be reckoned with in
this connection. It was customary for members of the same
occupational group to live in the same street or locality, and
the Jews, forming, as a whole, a separate vocational class and
having a distinct economic status from the rest of the popu-
lation, were merely falling in line, therefore, with timirarnp-
work of ^medieval society.1 In addition, there were the
"rfttmeroTlsties of kinshiplind acquaintanceship which formed
the basis of that esprit de corps which is a significant factor
in developing community life.^There was the element of a
common language, of community of ideas and interests, and
the bare congeniality that arises even between strangers
who, coming from the same locality, meet in a strange
environment^

The voluntary segregation of the Jews in ghettos had
much in common with the segregation of Negroes and im-
migrants in modern cities, and was identical in many re-
spects with the development of Bohemian and Hobohemian
quarters in the urban community of today. The tolerance
that strange ways of living need and find in immigrant
colonies, in Latin quarters, in vice districts, and in other
localities is a powerful factor in the sifting of the population
and its allocation in separate cultural areas where one ob-
tains freedom from hostile criticism and the backing of a
group of kindred spirits.

^Finally, the voluntary ghetto was an administrative
device, at least in part. It facilitated social control on the

1 See, for instance, Stobbe, op, cit.t p. 176; and Honiger, "Zur Geschichte
der Juden im friiheren Mittelalter," Zeitschrijt fiir die Geschichte derJuden in
Deulschland, I, 90.THE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO

21

part of the community over its members; it made tax collec-
tion much easier; and it made the supervision that medieval
authorities exercised over all strangers and non-citizens pos-

e gradual transition from direct, spontaneous, per-
sonal, to indirect, formal, and legalistic relationships be-
tween the Jew and his Christian neighbors is indicated in the
earliest document available granting to a local group of Jews
a separate quarter. This first written charter emphasized
the fact that a ghetto was being assigned to the Jews as a
right. The security that comes with such written instru-
ments can hardly be overestimated when it is remembered
that the powers of the medieval authorities were almost
unlimited and the person of the sovereign was likely to
change frequently. It must be recalled, furthermore, that*
during the Middle Ages strangers were generally not allowed
to remain in a community for any length of time, and were
subjected to heavy taxation. In purchasing this right, how-
ever, the Jews both gained and lost something. They ob-
tained the formal protection of a sovereign power, but they
lost that personal relationship and self-evident statue in the
community which every member of a primary group enjoys
without being conscious of any formal and legal right(jThe
rights of residence and of trade which the Jews acquired
marked a break with their former spontaneous symbiosis
with their Christian neighbors and a transition to a second-
ary relationship in which they constituted a distinct das£0
The document reads as follows:

In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, when I, Riidiger,
also called Huozmann, Bishop of Speyer, changed the town of Speyer
into a city, I thought that I would add to the honor of our place by
bringing in Jews. Accordingly, I located them outside of the com-
munity and habitation of the other citizens, and that they might not22

THE GHETTO

readily be disturbed by the insolence of the populace, I surrounded
them with a wall. Their place of habitation I had acquired in a just
manner; the hill partly with money, partly by exchange; the valley I
had received from [some] heirs as a gift. That place, I say, I gave
over to them on the condition that they would pay three pounds and
a half of the money of Speyer annually for the use of the [monastery]
brothers. Within their dwelling place and outside thereof, up to the
harbor of the ships, and in the harbor itself, I granted them full per-
mission to change gold and silver; to buy and sell anything they
pleased, and that same permission I gave them throughout the state.
In addition, I gave them out of the property of the church a burial
place with hereditary rights. I also granted the following rights: If
any stranger Jew lodge with them [temporarily], he shall be free from
tax. Further, just as the city governor adjudicates between citizens,
so the head synagogue officer is to decide every case that may arise
between Jews or against them. But if, by chance, he cannot decide,
the case shall be brought before the bishop and his chamberlains.
Night watches, guards, fortifications, they shall provide only for their
own district, the guards, indeed, in common with the servants. Nurses
and servants they shall be permitted to have from among us. Slaugh-
tered meat which, according to their law, they are not permitted to
eat, they can sell to Christians, and Christians may buy it. Finally,
as the crowning mark of kindness, I have given them laws better than
the Jewish people has in any city of the German empire.

Lest any of my successors diminish this favor and privilege, or
force them to pay greater tribute, on the plea that they acquired their
favorable status unjustly, and did not receive it from a bishop, I
left this document as a testimony of the above-mentioned favors. And
that the remembrance of this matter may last through the centuries,
I have corroborated it under my hand and seal, as may be seen below.

Given on the fifteenth of September, in the year of the Incarna-
tion 1084, in the twelfth year since the above-mentioned bishop com-
menced to rule in this state.1

The concessions granted to the Jews of Speyer in this
document were notable, and, as the bishop states, more
favorable than elsewhere. It gave them local autonomy,

1 Orient (1842), p. 391. Quoted from Philipson, op. cit., pp. 36-38.THE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO

with juridical powers vested in the hands of the Jewish com-
munal authorities themselves, which the Jews generally did
not acquire until considerably later. The document further-
more defines their economic relations to the general popula-
tion, which, for instance, permitted the Jews to have serv-
ants from the Christian population for their necessary serv-
ices in the synagogue and the homes during the Sabbath,
and at other required times, and to sell to the Christians
that part of the meat (generally the hind part of the carcass)
which the Jews were not permitted to eat. Without the
privilege of disposing of this, meat consumption among the
Jews would have been a very expensive indulgence. All
these circumstances fostered the development of autono-
mous Jewish institutions, and gave the organized com-
munity such control over its members as to assure its con-
tinuity and reduce the individual to a state of dependence
upon community life which made for effective subordination
and strict discipline. The physical barrier which the docu-
ment calls for, in the form of a wall, was characteristic and
was indicative of the insecurity of town life in the Middle
Ages. That the Jews did actually look upon this protection
as a privilege is indicated by the fact that the Jews, in in-
stances when the demolition of the ghetto was threatened,
resisted these attempts, and sometimes repurchased their
right to a separate residence at considerable cost to the com-
munity.1

[ The document just cited indicates that the Jews, from
the standpoint of the ruler, were a mere utility. Just as
contract labor may be imported to a community, so the
Jews were brought in because, as the Bishop says, they
"would add to the honor of our place," and served a number
1 See Abrahams, op. cit.y p. 65.24

THE GHETTO

of functions which the inhabitants of the town were inca-
pable of exercising. The Jews were allowed to trade and en-
gage in exchange—occupations which the church did not
permit Christians to engage mr* Besides, the Jews were
valuable taxable property and'could be relied upon to fur-
nish much needed revenue. On the other hand, the Jews,
too, regarded the Christian population as a means to an
k end—as a utility The Christians could perform functions
such as eating the hind quarters of beef, and could purchase
the commodities that the Jews had for sale; they could
borrow money from Jews, and pay interest. The Christians
could perform services for the Jew, such as lighting his fires
on the Sabbath and holidays, which the Jew himself was not
allowed to undertake by his strict religious ritual. In the
religious and the social life of both groups, then, we find
those factors which are responsible for the genesis of a rela-
tionship of utility between the two groups. This was quite
in accord with the whole tenor of medieval life when the
place of every individual in a community was rigidly de-
fined, and the functions of each class were definitely circum-
scribed by custom and by law.

\_As the life of the Jews changed, it became more and more,
what life always is, an adaptation to the physical and social
Surroundings of a localityIn the locality in which the Jews
now found themselves, everyone was tied to something—the
soil, the feudal lord, the house in which he and his ancestors
lived, or the guild of which he was a member. In this rigid
structure the Jews found a strategic place(>The attitude of
the medieval church had coupled trade and finance with sin.
The Jews were at least free from these taboos, which made
the occupation of merchant and banker seem undesirable toTHE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO

25

the Christian populatiorfi The Christian churchmen were
not troubled about the '^perils of the Jewish soul," for, as far
as they knew, the Jew had no soul to be saved, since he was
damned anyway.

What made the trade relationships possible, however,
was not merely the fact that they were mutually advan-
tageous, since they offered a living to the Jew, and pros-
perity and revenue to the community at large, but the fact
that trade relationships are possible when no other form of
contact between two peoples can take place. Trade is an
abstract relationship, a form of symbiosis, physical rather
than social in its nature. It is rational, and the emotions
drop into the background. One can trade with one's enemies
because trade involves none of the elements of personal
prejudice. The less personal, the less emotional, and the
more impersonal and the more abstract the attitude of the
trader, the more efficiently and successfully can he exercise
his function. One cannot very easily trade with relatives
and friends, because personal considerations interfere with
the abstractions on which trade rests.

jThe Jew being a stranger, and belonging, as he did, to
a separate and distinct class, was admirably fitted to become
the merchant and bankerl He drifted to the towns and cities
where trade was possible and profitable. Here he could
utilize all the distant contacts that he had developed in the
course of his wanderings. His attachment to the community
at large was slight. As a result he was free from sentiment,
and when necessity demanded it he could migrate to a local-
ity where opportunities were greater. He had no real prop-
erty to which he was tied, nor was he the serf of a feudal
lord. His mobility in turn developed versatility. He had a26

THE GHETTO

sense of perspective, and his ignorance of local traditions and
taboos enabled him to discover opportunities in places where
no native could see them.

While Ms contacts with the outside world were categoric
and abstract, within his own community he was at home.
Here he could relax from the etiquette and the formalism by
which his conduct in the gentile world was regulated^fhe
ghetto offered liberation. The world at large was cold and
strange, his contact with it being confined to abstract and
rational intercourse. But within the ghetto he felt free. His
contacts with his fellow-Jews were warm, spontaneous, and
intimate. This was especially true of his family life^Within
the inner circle of his own tribal group he received that ap-
preciation, sympathy, and understanding which the larger
world could not offer. In his own community, which was
based upon the solidarity of the families that composed it,
he was a person with status, as over against his formal posi-
tion in the world outside. His fellow-Jews and the members
of his family, to whom he was tied by tradition and common
beliefs, strengthened him in his respect for and appreciation
of the values of his own group, which were strangely different
from the alien society in which for the time being he lived.

^Whenever he returned from a journey to a distant mar-
ket, or from his daily work which had to be carried on largely
in a gentile world, he came back to the family fold, there to
be re-created and reaffirmed as a man and as a Je^f Even
when he was far removed from his kin, he lived his real inner
life in his dreams and hopes with them. With his own kind
he could converse in that homely and familiar tongue which
the rest of the world could not understand. He was bound
by common troubles, by numerous ceremonies and senti-
ments to his small group that lived its own life obliviousTHE ORIGIN OF THE GHETTO	27

of the world beyond the confines of the ghetto. Without the
backing of his group, without the security that he enjoyed in
his inner circle of friends and countrymen, life would have
been intolerable.

^Through the instrumentality of the ghetto—the volun-
tary ghetto—there gradually developed that social distance
which effectually isolated the Jew from the remainder of the
population. These barriers did not completely inhibit con-
tact, but they reduced it to the type of relationships which
were of a secondary character—trade and other formal inter-
course^ As these barriers crystallized and his life was lived
more and more removed from the rest of the world, the soli-
darity of his own little community was enhanced until it be-
came strictly divorced from the larger world without/ The*
voluntary ghetto marked, however, merely the beginning of
a long process of isolation which did not reach its fullest de-
velopment until the voluntary ghetto had been superseded
by the compulsory ghetto.^Tctlmndic StudentCHAPTER III
THE GHETTO BECOMES AN INSTITUTION

THE COMPULSORY GHETTO
The forms of community life that had arisen naturally
and spontaneously in the course of the attempt of the Jews
to adapt themselves to their surroundings gradually became
formalized in custom and precedent, and finally crystallized
into legal enactments AVhat the Jews had sought as ajDrbi*
lege, and what was hitiierto merely sanctioned by personal
courtesies and custom, was soon to become a measure forced
upon themj. There had been a great deal of intimacy and
friendly intercourse between the Jews and their neighbors.
Jews played the roles of merchants, bankers, physicians, and
soldiers, among others, and not a few became distinguished
advisers of the rulers, and teachers in the seats of learning
of the day. Except for their dress and customs, they could
scarcely be distinguished from the rest of the population.
Their religious ideas and practices, however, or rather the
notion that the churchmen and the populace had of their
religion, brought them at times into sharp conflict with the
established order. When, with the beginning of the Crusades,
the church became militant, there set in a period of active
oppression of which the ghetto regulations were the culmina-
tion, but which, in some instances, notably in Spain and
Poland, took the form of wholesale slaughter and expulsion.

rfiy the fifteenth century the ghetto had become the legal
dwelling place of the Jews. The motives which actuated the
church and the state in taking these repressive measures are
sufficiently obvious in the numerous decrees that were pro-

2930

THE GHETTO

mulgated by rulers or passed by various church councilgJ
The following is part of the proceedings of the ecclesiastical
synod held at Breslau in 1266:

Since the land of Poland is a new acquisition in the body of Chris-
tianity, lest perchance the Christian people be, on this account, the
more easily infected with the superstition and depraved morals of the
Jews dwelling among them .... we command that the Jews dwelling
in this province of Gnesen shall not live among the Christians, but
shall have their houses near or next to one another in some sequestered
part of the state or town, so that their dwelling place shall be sepa-
rated from the common dwelling place of the Christians by a hedge,
a wall, or a ditch.1

The fears of the church were not altogether without foun-
dation, as is evidenced by the "Judaizing heresy" of Poland
in the fifteenth century,2 although they were based generally
upon unconfirmed rumors of hyper-zealous churchmen, or
were deliberate inventions of interested sections of the popu-
lation. At various periods during the Middle Ages conver-
sions to Judaism occurred, but on the whole the Jews were
not seeking converts, and had a feeling of the superiority of
their own group.3

\The mere fact of the presence of a foreign, dissenting
population, however, was sufficient to arouse fears as to the
possible effect with reference to heresy on the natives.
Heretical movements within the established church wefe
not infrequently blamed on the Jews.

The intellectual movement in the majority of the nations of
Europe was everywhere preceded by a revolt against the Church. In
France the revolt occurred in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and

1	Philipson, op. cU.f pp. 39-40.

2	S. M. Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Philadelphia,
1916), I, 36.

a Abrahams, op. cti., p. 411.THE GHETTO AN INSTITUTION

is associated with the Albigensian heresy. In England the fourteenth
century saw the rise of Lollardism; in Bohemia the real foundation of
the great Prague University was connected, in the fifteenth century,
with the reform of the Hussites. Now the second of these movements
was, from the theological point of view, undoubtedly a Judaic reaction.
As to the first and third, it is sufficient to say that the ruling powers
regarded the Jews as the fomenters of the movements, and paid them
in bloody coin for their assumed participation.1

How the church met the danger of the Jews is illustrated
by the following instance:

The third provincial council of Ravenna, held in 1311, desiring to
put an end to the free commingling of Christians and Jews, apparently
in vogue in that province, decreed, among other restrictive measures,
one in regard to the habitation of the Jews: "Jews shall not dwell
longer than a month anywhere, except in those places in which they
have synagogues."

It appears, however, that the commands of this council were not
very much respected, for another held in the same place in 1317 deals
more stringently with the same subject. The fourteenth rubric of this
council begins, "Although the Jews are tolerated by the church, yet
they ought not to be tolerated to the detriment or severe injury of the
faithful; because it frequently happens that they return to Christians
contumely for favors, contempt for familiarity. Therefore, the pro-
vincial council held at Ravenna some time since, thinking that many
scandals have arisen from their too free commingling with Christians,
decreed that they should wear a wheel of yellow cloth on their outer
garments, and their women a like wheel on their heads, so that they
may be distinguished from Christians," and then it continues, in
reference to our subject: "And Jews shall not dwell longer than a
month anywhere except in those places in which they have synagogues.
But because some, not being able to abstain from forbidden things,
disregard the sound decree of the aforementioned council, and pretend
ignorance, a penalty shall teach them to know how grave an offence it
is to disregard ecclesiastical decrees; and with the approbation of the
sacred council, desiring to prevent this offence hereafter, we warn all

1 Abrahams, op. citp. xxi.32

THE GHETTO

clerics as well as laymen of our province, and we decree no one shall
erect houses for Jews, nor rent or sell them any already built, nor under
any pretense grant them [any of their houses], or permit them to occu-
py them. If any one acts contrary to this, he shall by that very deed
incur excommunication, from which he cannot be absolved until he
shall satisfy the above-mentioned requirements."1

Decrees of this general tenor were enacted in every country
of Europe, in Turkey, and in Morocco. Some of the decrees
read:

.... The faithful incur serious danger of body and mind.2

That too great converse with them [Jews] may be avoided, they
shall be compelled to live in certain places in the cities and towns,
separated from the dwelling place of the Christians, and as far from
the churches as possible.3

We strenuously demand of the rulers that they shall designate in
the different cities a certain place in which Jews shall live apart from
Christians. And if Jews have houses of their own in [other portions of]
the city, they [the rulers] shall command them to be sold to Chris-
tians within six months, in actuality and not by any pretended con-
tract.4

Qwith the example of the Roman ghetto, instituted by
Pope Paul IV, in 1556, before them, ghettos became general
throughout Christendom, in every city where there was a
Jewish community. These ghettos were generally walled in
and had one or more gates, which were locked at night. At
sunset the Jews had to be inside the gates, or suffer severe
punishment. They were generally not permitted to appear
on the streets outside the ghetto walls on Sundays and im-
portant Christian holidays. The fact that some authorities
refused to grant the Jews more space than had originally
been designated for the ghetto generally led to overcrowding
when the population grew^

1	Philipson, op, cit., pp. 40-42.	3 Ibid., p. 44.

2	Ibid., p. 42.	4 Ibid.THE GHETTO AN INSTITUTION 33

Besides the isolation which the ghettos more or less effected—I
say more or less, for it is quite certain that many Jews contrived to
secure the privilege of living outside the ghetto gates—the most
serious effect of the new persecution was the terrible overcrowding
that necessarily followed from herding thousands of Jews in confined
spaces. The Jewish population grew, but the ghettos remained prac-
tically unchanged. Enlargements were occasionally permitted, but
on the whole the original limits of the ghettos were not expanded.
Hence even when the localities in which the ghettos were constructed
were not slums, they rapidly became so. Sometimes the Jewish quar-
ter, as in Cologne in the thirteenth century, was the narrowest part of
the town, and was even called the "Narrow Street."1

^Not infrequently the Jews were expelled from their
ghettos, the most notable of these occasions being the expul-
sions of Vienna, in 1670, and Prague, 1744-45?) The latter
was during the wars of the Austrian succession, when Maria
Theresa, on the ground that "they were fallen into disgrace,"
ordered the Jews to leave Bohemia. The decree was revoked
under pressure of the powers, but the Jews, being ignorant
of the revocation, petitioned for readmission on payment of
a yearly tax, which they paid until 1846.3

; The motives actuating the authorities to confine the
Jews in ghettos have already been in part indicatecj. The
occasions of open conflict with the established church were
rare, but there was great fear that the presence of the Jews
would weaken the faith of Christians. The argument was
often made that the Jews were out to make_converts. One
decree already cited indicates that there was fear that they
might interfere with Christian worship, and for that reason
they were to live as far as possible from Christian churches.
The greatest factor of all, among overt reasons, was the fear
of heresy, which more often was the fear of enlightenment

x Abrahams, op. ciLt p. 67.

* Encyclopedia BriUanica, XI (nth ed.), 920.34

THE GHETTO

that might come from the people who had a more cosmopoli-
tan outlook on life and were more widely traveled and read
than their neighbors. A somewhat contradictory admixture
of reasons is indicated by the following instance:

When a ghetto was about to be established in Vienna in 1570
the citizens objected to having a place outside the city assigned to
the Jews for the following three curious reasons: (1) They feared that
if the Jews lived alone outside the city they could more easily engage
in their "nefarious practices." (2) The Jews would be liable to be
surprised by enemies. (3) The Jews might escape!

The citizens therefore proposed that all the Jews should live in
one house having only one exit, that windows and doors should be
well fastened, so that no one might go out at night; and that the possi-
bility of entrance or exit by secret passages should also be guarded
against. As the Jews objected to this scheme, the project was soon
dropped.1

GHETTO ATMOSPHERE

It will probably be worth while in this connection to
reconstruct, as well as possible, the atmosphere of ghetto
existence. The effect of this involuntary isolation from the
world is dramatically stated by Philipson:

The solution had at last been found; the Jew was effectually ex-
cluded. The Christian no longer would be corrupted and contaminated
by the close proximity of the followers of the superstitio et perfidia
Judaicay "the Jewish superstition and perfidy." For four centuries
this lasted. As we today remove the victims of a pestilence far away
from the inhabited portions of our cities, so the Jews were cut off by
the walls of the ghetto as though stricken with some loathsome dis-
ease that might carry misery and death unto others if they lived in
close contact with them. The ghetto has' been well stigmatized as a
"pest-like isolation." Speaking of the sixteenth century, one writer
says: "Stone walls arose in all places wherein Jews dwelt, shutting off
their quarters like pest-houses; the ghetto had become epidemic.2

1 Jewish Encyclopedia, V, 652.	3 Philipson, op. cit., pp. 21-22.THE GHETTO AN INSTITUTION 35

What a picture the ghetto recalls! The narrow, gloomy streets,
with the houses towering high on either side; the sunlight rarely
streaming in; situated in the worst slums of the city; shut off by gates
barred and bolted every night with chains and locks, none permitted
to enter or depart from sundown to sunrise!1

\ In some cities the houses of prostitution were transferred
to the ghetto, because the ghetto was a fitting place for an
institution of ill repute?) Several families often lived in a
single building, and the location of the quaxter was usually
in the least desirable region of the city. One writer speaks
of the ghetto of his native town as an "outcast quarter,
which stretches along the unhealthy morasses of the river of
our town. Pestilential vapors poison the atmosphere, which
remains gloomy in spite of the clearest sunshine."3 The
protests which emanated from the Jews with the establish-
ment of the compulsory ghetto were numerous but unavail-
ing. Even when calamities such as fires and epidemics
visited the ghetto and often destroyed it or great portions
of its inhabitants, the conditions of their settlement were not
improvedlpAnd yet, in spite of all misery and oppression,
the life in the ghetto had a sunny side. It is necessary to
view a typical ghetto concretely to appreciate the fact that
when active persecution ceased for the time being, the life
within the ghetto walls was as rich and as human as in the
world outside. In fact, ghetto existence sometimes stood out
amidst the darkness of the world surrounding^it^i

The historians of the ghetto are usually inclined to over-
1 Ibid., p. 2i.

3 Stobfre, op. cit., p. 276. In the town of Schweidnitz the Jews com-
plained, and the council promised that no women of ill repute should there-
after be transferred to the Jews' street.

* Karl Emil Franzos, quoted by Philipson, op. cti., p. 30.36

THE GHETTO

emphasize the confining effect of the barriers that were set
up around the Jew, and the provincial and stagnant charac-
ter of ghetto life. They forget frequently that there was
nevertheless life within the walls of the ghetto; "life with
ideals and aspirations; with passions, and even human na-
ture."1 It has taken the artists and poets to rediscover this
life of the ghetto^ The life in the ghetto was probably al-
ways more active and teeming than was life outside. The
ghetto made the Jews self-conscious. They lived on the
fringe of two worlds: the ghetto world and the strange world
beyond the ghetto gates. Life in the ghetto was possible only
because there was a larger world outside, of which many
Jews often got more than a mere glimpsep

The Jews of the Middle Ages certainly had more con-
tacts and more varied and extensive contacts than their
Christian neighbors. They traveled from one town to an-
other, and even when they themselves were unable to see
much of the world, their ghetto was visited by Jews from all
the corners of the eartff. Particularly in the synagogue we
find the center of though^ the meeting place where strangers
often dropped in to tell of what went on in distant lands.
The Jewish communities thus came to share the life of their
distant co-religionists, and probably knew more of what was
goiffg on in the world than even the most educated Chris-
tians!) In fact, for a long time the Jews were the intellectual
intermediaries between Orient and Occident. They were the
physicians and emissaries of the secular princes.

There was always some movement to get out of the
ghetto on the part of individuals who were attracted by the
wide world that lay beyond the horizon of the ghetto walls.

1 Abrahams, op. cit.y p. xxii.THE GHETTO AN INSTITUTION 37

Sometimes a Jew would leave the ghetto and, enticed by the
opportunities that were supposed to await him outside,
become a convert to Christianity; and sometimes these con-
verts, broken and humiliated, would return to the ghetto
to taste again of the warm, intimate, tribal life that was to
be found nowhere but among their own people. On such
occasions the romance of the renegade would be told in the
ghetto streets, and the whole community would thereby be
welded into a solid ma§^ clinging more tenaciously than ever
to its old traditions! The occasional estrangements from
family and communityties of rebellious spirits served only
to strengthen the bonds of family and community solidarity
when the stray members would return to the fold and be-
come reincorporated, amidst solemn ceremonies, into the
communal organization^

l^The real inner solidarity of the ghetto community always
lay in the strong family ties. In this inner circle deep bonds
of sympathy had been woven between the members through
a colorful ritual. Here each individual, who was just a mere
Jew to the world outside, had a place of dignity, and was
bound to the rest by profound sentiment^ The adventures
of each were shared by all, and enriched tlie store of familial
lore.(Through the organization in the synagogue, in turn,
the family unit was given a definite status, based not so
much on wealth as on learning, piety, the purity of family
life, and services rendered to the community?! The com-
munity, in turn, acquired a reputation—sometimes of world-
significance—through its outstanding personalities, partic-
ularly through its philanthropists and scholars.

Ghetto life was hardly ever at a standstill. There were
always new problems to be faced, which called for the col-3«

THE GHETTO

lective action of its members. There were countless sub-
jects of great importance to its inhabitants to be discussed
and acted upon. Sometimes it was not possible to offer a
united front to the hostile world outside without long de-
bates and serious rifts within the community. Confined as
the province of the ghetto was, there was ample opportunity
for the display of capacity for leadership. There were prob-
ably more distinct types of personality and well-marked
characters withiruthe narrow ghetto streets than in the larger

(world outsidejr The ghetto community was minutely spe-
cialized and highly integrate#* J At the same time it afforded
a rich, intense, and variegated life to its members.

^The outward manifestations of separateness, the ghetto
wall, the gates, the Jewish badge, all tended to enhance the
group- and self-consciousness of the Jews. They became the
physical symbols of the social isolation which manifested
itself in the social distance that was preserved between Jews
and Christians^ In the course of time the Jews adjusted
themselves t6 these restrictions and managed to build up a
society of their own, in which life was bearable and at times
even exciting. From this little world of kinsmen they gained
courage to live and venture into the larger cosmos that
loomed enticingly beyond the high walls, tjhe ghetto offered
security and status in a narrow but intimate community,
sheltered from the storms that raged without; but these
storms were frequently too alluring to keep the Jew effec-
tively in his place^It took a larger world to satisfy the crav-
ing for new experience, for excitement and adventure on the
part of the restless spirits among the ghetto inhabitants.
The formal restrictions that bound them served merely as
an additional stimulus which made entrance into the for-
bidden world all the more enticing.THE GHETTO AN INSTITUTION

In order tq show in concrete terms something of the
structure of the society that grew up in the ghetto, and the
life that went on in it, we shall turn to a ghetto which was
typical of the institution as it developed in most of the coun-
tries of Europe.sT'-



KabbalistCHAPTER IV
FRANKFORT: A TYPICAL GHETTO

HISTORICAL ASPECTS

The most famous ghetto in history is that of Frankfort
on the Main, in Germany. What transpired there may be
taken as typical of the history of ghettos everywhere in
Western Europe.1 The Jewish congregation of Frankfort
came into being in the latter part of the twelfth century.
Until 1349, whpn the city bought the right over them, the
Jews stood under the direct protection of the emperor. In
that year, remembered by the Jews of Europe as one of the
darkest in their history, the Black Death was ravaging the
continent. The Jews, it was said, suffered fewer casualties
than did the rest of the population. They were accused of
having poisoned the wells, and reports spread by the Flag-
gelants, who were sweeping from town to town, led the mobs
to unspeakable excesses against the Jews. Fire was set to the
Jewishghetto, and apparently the whole community per-
ished. (For a consideration the Jews were again granted the
right, in 1360, to settle in Frankfort, by the city council. At
this time they could own real estate and fix their residence
at will, but as a matter of fact most of the Jews did live in
the Jewish quarter, where, however, many Christians, in-
cluding the mayor, resided.!

Every three months, Irom the fifteenth century on, the
Jews had to renew their lease permitting them to live in the

IThe literature on the ghetto of Frankfort is extensive. See Isidor
Krakauer, Gesckichte der Juden in Frankfurt. The details of this account
are taken mainly from Philipson, op. cit., chap. iv.

4142

THE GHETTO

city. The city council, on these occasions, had to pass an
act known as Judenordnung, which the Jews, by means of
money, were always successful in having passed.fin one of
these acts, that of 1460, the Jews were compellea to leave
their homes and move to a segregated area, thus establishing
the Judengasse, or ghetto. This decree gives as the reason
for instituting the ghetto the fact that many Jews lived in
the immediate neighborhood of the chief church and were
thereby exercising a profaning and contaminating influence. J
Besides, the decree states, it was nothing short of an affront
to the Christian religion for Jews to worship so near the
church, since their noises while chanting their prayers dis-
turbed the Christian worshipers. Furthermore, the Jews
could see the holy host and hear the church songs, which was
nothing less than shameful. These reasons, or rationaliza-
tions, rather, are probably not worth serious consideration
^ in themselves, but they indicate that in the course of social
7 contact between Jews and Gentiles there had developed cer-
tain areas of friction which found formal expression in the
segregation of the Jews.

The Judengasse established by this decree, which had
been urged by the Emperor himself, was situated in a sparse-
ly inhabited portion of the city, far removed from the rest of
the inhabitants, on the border between the old and the new
city, on a part of the dried-up moat which ran along the wall
of the old city. This area, from all accounts, might be de-
scribed as an interstitial area. This, together with the cir-
cumstance that the ghetto was located near the market
place, was characteristic of all the ghettos of Europe.

Besides the wall, a typical medieval symbol of town life,
the ghetto had three gates, one each at the beginning, at theFRANKFORT

43

end, and in the middle of the wall. They were locked at
night, and superintended by watchmen.

The Jews did not submit passively to this stringent
order. They pleaded and protested, urging upon the council
that the decree be revoked. In their petition they set forth
the strongest reasons they could find. The street, they said,
would be so far removed from the rest of the city that if they
ever needed the help of the townsmen they would not be
able to assist. The Jews complained that of late they had
been stoned and mocked in the streets which led to the
ghetto, and that this practice would be all the more trouble-
some if they had to continue to walk through those very
same streets. They pointed out that during the fairs they
might be attacked by visitors. They offered to sell their
houses near the church, and to build a higher wall around
their dwellings and content themselves' with one gate, to be
locked at night. The order went into effect, however, and
the Jews were locked up in what was at once termed "New
Egypt," recalling the slavery of the Jews in biblical times.
JTo the Jews the most oppressive features of the order were,
not the discomfort and the loss of freedom of movement
which was involved in the ghetto edict, but rather something
which they did not mention in their petition, namely, the
surrender of status and self-respect which the ghetto im-
plied^

The density of settlement is pictured by Philipson in the
following terms:

It was a most gloomy street, twelve feet broad, in its widest por-
tion fifteen or sixteen feet. A wagon could not turn in it, and that the
great confusion incident to the many stoppages thus caused might be
avoided, the city council had the middle entrance widened. The Gasse
contained 190 houses, built very close together, some of them very44

THE GHETTO

high and containing many souls, the 190 houses harboring 445 families.
In each house there were two or three families, and as the community
consisted of between twenty-five hundred and four thousand persons,
each house contained, on an average, between thirteen and twenty
persons. On account of the extreme narrowness of the street and the
height of the buildings on either side, the tops of the buildings seemed
almost to touch each other.1

To this must be added the fact that the Jews could not leave
their street at will, not even for recreation. They were ex-
cluded from the rest of the city, and were locked in behind
the ghetto walls nightly. If Jews dared make their appear-
ance at places in the city, such as on the promenades, or the
public squares, their hats were snatched from their heads by
passers-by. The story is told that in certain German cities, in
Hanover until a few years ago, a sign was displayed promi-
nently at the entrance to the public park, bearing the legend:
Ein Jude und ein Schwein dilrfen hier nicht herein. (A Jew
and a pig are not permitted to enter here.) There was one
occasion, however, when the Jews were permitted to enter
the city hall through the front entrance, and that was on
New Year's Day, when they were expected to bring their
annual gifts of spices to the city fathers and to express their
allegiance and gratitude for the privileges which they en-
joyed. At all other times they had to use the rear entrance.
When Jews made their appearance even at specified places
where their presence was not prohibited, they were usually
subjected to insults and abuse. The cry "Hep! hep!" which
has been revived lately in antisemitic parts of Germany,
usually followed them as they were chased through the
streets. A law passed by the city council prohibiting anyone
from striking or insulting a Jew on the streets proved of
little avail.

1 Philipson, op. cit., p. 56.FRANKFORT

45

There are three dramatic events in the history of the
Frankfort ghetto which, while they give to the ghetto of
Frankfort a great deal of its historical fame, might stand as
typical of what crises ghetto life brought almost anywhere
in EuropeTjThe first of these concerns a converted Jew.
John Pfefferkorn, who, in order to give overt evidence of his
loyalty toTnsnewly adopted faith, wrote several diatribes
against the Jews, accusing them of anti-Christian expres-
sions in the Talmud and their prayer books. He gained
favor with the Dominican order, and got the backing of the
Emperor. On a feast day he appeared in the synagogue of
Frankfort, accompanied by priests and councilmen, and con-
fiscated what books he could find. The Jews were able to
obtain the intervention of the Archbishop, whom Pfeffer-
korn had affronted, in their behalf. Pfefferkorn was able to
get the Emperor to appoint a committee of inquiry.

Among its members were Hoogstraten, the grand inquisitor of the
Dominican order; John Reuchlin,1 and Victor von Carben, "formerly a
rabbi and now a priest." To the great surprise of the conspirators,
Reuchlin declined to serve, and wrote a defense of all Jewish books
except such as contained direct aspersions on Christianity. In it he
told, in rather plain words, his opinion of Pfefferkorn. The Jews were
saved, as the fight was now on between Reuchlin and the Pfefferkorn
party, that is, the Dominicans.3

[The second and more tragic incident arose out of the
hostility of _lhe guilds toward the Jews^tlaving failed in
thefratfemptto have the Jews expelled from the city, they
organized an attack on the Jewish quarter under the leader-
ship of a baker, Vincent Fettmilch. The Jews were prepared
for the attack. They removed their families to the ceme-
tery, and met the mob with arms, after having prayed and

1 The famous humanist and scholar.

a Philipson, op. cii., pp. 65-66.46

THE GHETTO

fasted. The mob broke through the gates, and in spite of
determined resistance the Jews were overcome. With the
aid of armed citizens and on the advice of the council, they
left the city for over a year, and took up their abodes in the
neighboring towns.

In the meantime, order had been restored, and steps were taken
looking to the return of the Jews. The leaders of the mob, Fettmilch
and six others, were beheaded. On the very day that this took place,
February 28, 1616, the Jews returned. Their return was celebrated
with music. When they arrived in front of the Gasse, they were
formed into a circle, and the new Judenordnung, drawn up by the im-
perial commissioners, was read to them. The town council having
shown itself so powerless to guard them, the protection of the Jews re-
verted to the emperor; they once again became his private property.
After their return into their "street," a large shield was placed upon
each of the three gates, upon which was painted the imperial eagle,
with the inscription, "Under the protection of the Roman Imperial
Majesty and of the Holy Empire." Strange to say, the Christian popu-
lation was compelled by imperial mandate to pay the Jews 175,919
florins indemnity for the loss they had sustained. In memory of these
events, the Jewish congregation of Frankfort annually celebrated two
events, the nineteenth of Adar, as a fast day commemorative of their
departure from the city, and the twentieth as a holiday, called Purim
Fettmilch, in memory of their return.1

It was events such as these that stood out in the traditions
of the ghetto and that still linger in the memory and lore of
the people, although the ghetto walls have long ago ceased
to exist.

(There was a third great crisis that the Jews of the Frank-
fort ghetto still recall, which is even more typical of ghetto

1 Philipson, op. cit.f pp. 68-69. Purim refers to the Jewish holiday in
commemoration of the deliverance from Hainan through Mordecai and
Esther. There is also a Purim Prague, commemorative of a similar event in
another celebrated European ghetto. See A. Kisch, "Die Prager Judenstadt
wahrend der Schlacht am Weissen Berge," AUgemeine Zeitung des Juden-
thums, LVI, 400-FRANKFORT

47

experiences generally than the other two events cited, name-
ly, the great fire of 1711, which completely destroyed the
Gasslry

The population had greatly increased, but the space for habitation
was not enlarged. The number of houses did not increase, and the 190
houses that, in a former day, had sheltered but two thousand persons,
were now the homes of some eight thousand, according to the smallest
calculation the Jewish population at this time. Each house, therefore,
on an average, harbored forty-one persons. The Gasse is an example
of the worst evils of the tenement system. On January 14, 1711, the
fire broke out in the house of the chief rabbi, which stood in the middle
of the "street." The cause of the fire was never discovered. It wiped
out the Jewish quarter completely, and was called the great Jewish
conflagration, in contradistinction to the great Christian conflagration
eight years later. The Christian population, as soon as the fact of
the raging of the fire became known, hurried to the Gasse to give as-
sistance. But the Jews, in an agony of terror, and remembering former
days, had locked the gates for fear of plunder, and kept them closed
for an hour. When at last they opened them, the flames had gained
great headway. The fire spread throughout the quarter, and with the
exception of three houses standing at the extreme end of the street,
everything was destroyed. The Jews, now homeless, had to look about
for shelter. Some were harbored in Christian houses. After the
"street" was rebuilt, they lingered in these houses with the hope that
they might be permitted to remain outside the Gasse, and have free-
dom of residence, but they were all ordered back in 1716.1

Other fires, less disastrous, followed, but the ghetto was
rebuilt on the same site each time. Gradually the streets
were widened and modernized, so that today, when most of
the houses have disappeared, the Borne Strasse bears little
resemblance to the old Gasse. In other ways as well the Jews
began to fare better.! In 1811 they gained political emancipa-
tion, being accordecrThe right of citizenship, which they lost

1 Philipson, op. tit., pp. 69-71. The street is named in honor of Lob
Baruch, known in German literary history as Ludwig Borne.48

THE GHETTO

again after the fall of Napoleon, to regain it in 1848, to loge
it again in 1850, and finally to receive it a third time in 1864J
While still known among the population as the Juden-
gasse, few Jews have lived there since the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Two great reminders still stand: the
ancestral home of the Rothschild family, which has been
turned into a museum, and the Jewish cemetery. Even the
cemetery shows some signs of the tenement conditions of the
old ghetto, for the graves are close together, and two or three
on top of one another.1 The Frankfort Jewish community of
° today is scattered all over the city. The ghetto seems to
have vanished more completely than in most large American
cities, where the compulsory ghetto has never been known.

The ghetto of Frankfort occupies a conspicuous place in
the history of the Jews in Europe, for several reasons. In
the first place, Frankfort was one of the largest Jewish com-
munities during the Middle Ages. But it was not size alone
that placed the Frankfort ghetto in the front rank. Other
and smaller communities, such as Rothenburg ob Tauber,
one of the most interesting medieval towns of Germany, had
an inconspicuously small Jewish population, but was known
throughout the world wherever Jews lived. It gained its
fame because of the great renown of its learned Rabbi Meyer
of Rothenburg, whose Responsa2 were accepted as au-
thoritative by medieval Jewry. An outstanding personality
was able to give his community world-wide prestige.

rankfort had other claims to fame. It was the home of

1 H. Baerwald: Der aUe Friedhof der israelitischen Gemeinde zu Frankfurt

am Main, Frankfort, 1883.

3 'Responsa is the technical name applied to the discourses of rabbis in
response to questions propounded to them (see chap, vi, p. 85).

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICSFRANKFORT

49

the noted Rothschild family, whose wealth and social position
gave to the ghetto of their native town a glamor which has
not yet vanished. Frankfort became one of the most signifi-
cant commercial and banking centers of Europe^YThe Jews,
with their partial monopoly of trade and finance, were the
very core of the commercial and industrial life of that city.
The Rothschilds became the counselors and bankers of kings,
who sent their emissaries to the Jewish financial magnates
to negotiate loans and advise them about their fiscal pol-
icies. The Jews have left their impress on the life of
Frankfort as they have on no other city in Europe. In
time of need, it was Frankfort that came to the rescue of
Jews everywhere.

Shere was a third reason for the pre-eminence of the
o of Frankfort. As has already been indicated, Frank-
fort gave birth to Ludwig Borne, whose personality pro-
foundly .mfluenced the romantic movement in European
literaturejHe was representative of the intellectual life that
animated the Jews of Frankfort. In spite of their narrow
ghetto street, they led a cosmopolitan existence. Frank-
fort, during the eighteenth century, became the literary
center of Germany, and the liaison station between the
thinkers and poets of France and the rest of Europe. In this
intellectual current the Jews had a conspicuous rdle. The
Jews of Frankfort had a Weltanschauung which far trans-
cended the confines of their ghetto. It was Heine who, in
his essay on Ludwig Borne,said: "'Juden' und 'Christen'
sind fur mich ganz sinnverwandte Worte im Gegensatz zu
'Hellenen'! mit welchem Namen ich ebenfalls kein bestimm-
tes Volk, sondern eine sowohl angeborene als angebildete
Geistesrichtung und Anschauungsweise bezeichne." The
Jews of Frankfort had tasted sufficiently of the life of theTHE GHETTO

country in which they lived to feel themselves a part of its
fabric. The ideas that were current in the world were their
own. It is no accident, therefore, that the Jews of Frankfort
should form the cultural nucleus of the Jews of Central
Europe. In spite of all conversions and intermarriages that
have taken place in that city, the Jewish community there
still remains one of the most influential in the whole of
Europe. Its older families are probably more decidedly
orthodox than those of any other German city. They have
a noticeable pride of ancestry and a strong feeling of group
solidarity.

Besides the ghetto of Frankfort there were a great many
other ghettos in Europe whose history would be worth re-
telling. There were the ghettos of Worms and Speyer, of
Regensburg and Nuremberg, and smaller ghettos all along
the important trade routes of Western and Southern Ger-
many. Perhaps the most famous ghettos outside of Germany
were the ghettos of Prague, of Vienna, of Rome, and of
Venice. Some of them achieved fame through the important
schools of rabbinical thought which were centered there,
others through the spectacular r61e they played in the polit-
ical, military, and economic history of Europe. Still others
are remembered in Jewish folklore for the massacres and the
heroisms of their inhabitants. But as the ghetto of Frank-
fort, so, in general, were the ghettos everywhere throughout
Europe.

\*fhe ghetto arose, in the first instance, out of a body of
practices and needs of the Jewish population. Gradually
it became an established institution without the Jews them-
selves being aware of the invisible walls that they were build-
ing around their community. Only when it became formally
recognized and sanctioned by law, or, rather, decreed byFRANKFORT

5i

law, however, did it become an object of resentment because
is was a symbol of subjugationTY

The typical ghetto of the sixteenth century is a densely
populated, walled-in area usually found near the arteries of
commerce or in the vicinity of a market. But before the
segregation became expressed in physical barriers the Jews
already had in all cities where they lived in considerable
numbers what was in every respect a cultural community
definitely set apart from the Christian or Moslem culture
about them.tjrhe forcible confinement within ghetto walls
merely served to give the community a more definite geo-
graphical expression on the one hand, and to intensify the
self-consciousness of the members of the community on the
other?)

The ghetto was the product of a sifting process that
went on for several centuries, in the course of which the
Jews, a mobile, transient, homeless people, became set apart
from the natives, whose cultural life was of a different
character from their own. Even when conditions were fairly
settled and the community had made a fairly stable and
satisfactory adjustment to the circumstances imposed by
the times, the ghetto was hardly ever more than a mere
stopping-place. Centuries of shifting fortune and ceaseless
wandering ever since jthe beginning of the diaspora had left
on the Jew something of the character that we associate with
the gypsy. The Jew was a person of many contacts, and
often of many "homes." In the course of his migrations he
established himself in the remotest parts of the globe^He
was not a lone "hobo," however, for, as a rule, Jews settled
in groups.	g

The reason for this must be sought in the religious tra-
ditions of that peopleTj52

THE GHETTO

^ The ^simplest and commonest form of Jewish solidarity is the or-
ganized community, which will be found in any town containing even
a handful of Jews!} The motor force in its organization is the desire for
public worship, which cannot be properly conducted according to re-
ligious law without a minimum of ten adult males. The primary force
is thus religious, and its external expression gradually materializes
into a synagogue. This institution forms the pivot and centre of com-
munal life throughout Jewry, and its establishment is followed by the
growth of a cluster of other institutions, each answering some definite
social need or aspiration.....1

This institution was of such significance as an organizing
factor in Jewish communal life as to merit more detailed
description.

^	THE SYNAGOGUE

jThe Jewish quarter, even before the days of the com-
pulsory ghetto, "seems to have grown up round the syna-
gogue, which was thus the center of Jewish life, locally as
well as religiously^"*}

This concentration round the synagogue may be noted in the
social as well as in the material life of the Middle Ages. The synagogue
tended, with ever increasing rapidity, to absorb and to develop the
social life of the community, both when Jews enjoyed free intercourse
with their neighbors of other faiths, and when this intercourse was re-
stricted to the narrowest possible bounds. It was the political emanci-
pation, which the close of the eighteenth century witnessed, that first
loosened the hold of the synagogue on Jewish life.....But through-
out the Middle Ages proper the synagogue held undisputed sway in
all the concerns of Jews.3

f The dominant position held by the synagogue in Jewish life
Is to be accounted for on the basis of the function of religion
in that life and the synagogue as an expression of that func-

1	Israel Cohen, Jewish Life in Modern Times (London and New York,
1914), p. 23-

2	Abrahams, op. citp. 1.	»Ibid., pp. 1-2.FRANKFORT

S3

tion^Whatever else they may have been, the Jews were
certainly and primarily a group of people held together by
common religious traditions and practices. This bond, which
found expression through the synagogue, as the center of re-
ligious life, colored the whole of their existence.

It is not enough to say that the Jew's religion absorbed his life,
for in quite as real a sense his life absorbed his religion. Hence the
synagogue was not a mere place in which he prayed; it was a place in
which he lived; and just as life has its earnest and its frivolous mo-
ments, so the Jew in the synagogue was at times rigorously reverent,
and at others quite at his ease.1

In the synagogue the members of the community assembled
for prayer three times a day, and in the synagogue they re-
mained almost throughout the day on special occasions,
such as the Day of Atonement. Prayer was not merely a
ritual performed by the rabbi, but it was a communal activ-
ity, in which all the adult males participated actively, at
least ten being required for this purpose.

In other ways than this was the synagogue the center of
Jewish life in the Middle Ages. Their "religion was truly
their life/'2 and every act of daily conduct was in need of
religious sanctioni^fhe synagogue had three traditional
functions. It was, of course, first of all, a Beth HattejUah,
a^Eouse"ot prayer," in the widest sense of that term. Here
not only was the scene of the routine services and ritual, but
here too gathered the Jews for those more spontaneous
prayers in time of crises, when death threatened a member of
the community, or when enemies assailed the gates of the
ghetto, or when disease or pestilence swept the country, or
when their political fate was in the balance.

The synagogue was also a Beth Hamtnidrash, a "house of

1 Ibid., p. 15.

2 Philipson, op. ciip. 31.54

THE GHETTO

study." The association between school and synagogue in
the Jewish community has always been close. Before and
after the services the Jews studied in the synagogue, read,
and argued about the "Law" and the commentaries of the
rabbis. The rabbis were generally not only the religious but
also the intellectual leaders of the community, and learning
has always been a primary duty and a mark of distinction
for every Jew. Here, at the synagogue, moreover, was the
meeting place for strangers, who brought news from the
world without, and here one gathered such knowledge of
conditions of affairs in foreign lands from wandering stu-
dents, scholars, and merchants as the medieval world af-
forded. In the synagogue centered those currents of thought
that gave the Jewish medieval life some of its distinctiveness,
in strange contrast to the intellectual stagnation in the world
joutside.

The synagogue was, finally, a Beth Hakkeneseth, a
"house of assembly." In the synagogue centered all those
activities that were vital in the life of the community and
held it together. The synagogue was the administrative cen-
ter of the ghetto and at the same time the community cen-
ter. Most of the public announcements that concerned the
entire community were made there, and through the syna-
gogue the secular authorities were able to reach the Jews.
Here taxes were assessed and such functions as were left to
the Jewish community itself by their civil or ecclesiastical
overlords, such as local regulations, passed and proclaimed.
The synagogue officers had important judicial functions
which they sometimes exercised with the assistance of the
secular government. In the synagogue centered the educa-
tional, the philanthropic, and much of the recreational life
of the community. The synagogue organization remained forFRANKFORT

55

several centuries a highly integrated and undifferentiated
unit, and thus strengthened its hold on the community/

As the ghetto became more and more an autonomous
community, there arose, as differentiations from the syna-
gogue, several well-defined functionaries.

The democratic constitution of Jewish society in the Middle
Ages shows itself in the method of electing the governing body ....
the voting being always secret. The officials elected were essentially
the same in all Jewish congregations; they differed little from those
enumerated in the Talmud, or from those familiar to students of the
New Testament records. There was the President or par excellence
Parnass, the Treasurer or Gabay; there were sometimes special officers
to whom the care of the poor and the care of the sick were entrusted,
and—except that differentiation of functions is now more complete—
the modern organization of the synagogue existed in the Middle Ages
with very slight variation. The other unpaid officials were the Coun-
cil, mostly of seven, and, until the thirteenth century, the Rabbi and
two Dayanim (or members of the court). These became later salaried
officers, and the class of paid officials included the Schochet (or officer
to superintend the slaughtering of cattle for Jewish use), the Chazan
or precentor, and the teacher. But the most powerful officer of all was
the Shamash or beadle. This functionary rapidly became ruler of the
synagogue. His functions were so varied, his duties placed him in pos-
session of such detailed information of members' private affairs, his
presence so permeated the synagogue and the home on public and pri-
vate occasions, that the Shamash, instead of serving the congregation,
became its master. Unlike the parish beadle, the characteristic of the
Shamash was not pompousness so much as overfamiliarity. He did
not exaggerate his own importance, but minimized the importance of
everyone else. He was at once the overseer of the synagogue and the
executor of the sentences of the Jewish tribunal or Beth Din.1

The Jewish tribunal, before mentioned, was far from
being the external, powerless institution that it might ap-
pear to be, judging from the extent that Jewish communal

x Abrahams, op. tit., pp. 54-56.THE GHETTO

life was regulated from without. The communal life of the
Jews was strictly regulated by ordinances or Tekanoth which
covered every phase of life^Tf a distinction between the reli-
gious and secular applies to most modern ghettos and other
communities, no such distinction existed in the medieval
ghetto^The punishment for violations ranged all the way
from fine, imprisonment, corporal punishment, to excom-
munication and even the death penalty. These ordinances
were usually passed by the community council, with the
consent of the rabbi. In some instances the individual
ghettos were bound into a sort of federation, such as the
"Union of the Four Districts," which practically ruled Pol-
ish Jewry for a long time. Generally, however, the local
communities were jealous of their autonomy. The rabbi
exercised power over his congregation fairly unmolested by
civil authorities, although in some instances his election had
to be confirmed by them.	y

\ 'the rabbis of the Middle Ages exercised an influence
oveFtlie whole of Jewry, however, through their reputation
rather than their official position. The legal decisions and
opinions rendered by these rabbis were of world-wide signifi-
cance to the Jews, and were regarded as a sort of supreme
court. 7

EXTRATERRITORIALITY

MThere was one fact which contributed probably as much
as any other toward the communal solidarity of the ghetto,
and that was the fact that the civil authorities treated the
ghetto as a community. The Jewish community as a whole
was held responsible in very essential matters for the con-
duct of its members^ This was true first of all in matters of
taxation.

>FRANKFORT

57

Though .... the Jews were jealous of the right to manage their
own communal affairs, their internal organization was largely affected
by their relations to the external civil powers. Their organization,
indeed, revolved on the pivot of the taxes. Wherever and whenever
one casts his eye on the Jewish communities of the Middle Ages, the
observer always finds the Jew in the clutches of extortionate tax-col-
lectors.....In most cases, if not in all, tlvj various medieval govern-
ments exacted the taxes en masse from the Jewish community, and left
^the collection of this lump sum to the officials of the synagogue.1

^Through the circumstance that the wealthy members of the
community paid more than their share of the taxes, and vir-
tually paid the taxes of the poorer Jews, there arose gradual-
ly in the ghetto an aristocracy of wealth which displaced in
prestige that of Wrnj|)g n a. former day. This is very
marked by the close of the seventeenth century?jThis ar-
rangement gave the community organization tremendous
strength, for it tightened the hold of the community on the
individual members. Furthermore, it gave to the officials
of the community an intimate knowledge of the private
affairs of each member, vastly increasing the force of com-
munal control. These taxes ranged all the way from the
"protection" tax, permitting the Jews to live in the ghetto,
to a tax to pay for the king's dinner, or to contribute to the
popular sports, such as the Roman circuses.3 Some special
forms of this communal responsibility will bear mention.4

One of these has to do with the jus gazzaga, or tenant
rights, which were governed by equity rather than statute.

1 Abrahams, op. tit., pp. 40-41.

3 H. Graetz, History of the Jews, Vol. V, chap. vi.

3 A. Berliner, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, IE, 61; see also Abrahams,
op. cit., p. 47-

« A scholarly account of the nature and development of the self-govern-
ment in the ghetto is to be found in Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Govern-
ment in the Middle Ages, New York, 1924.

158

THE GHETTO

The Jewish community discouraged and even punished
members who would avail themselves of the power of the
civil courts or civil law against fellow-members of the ghetto.
Informers, those who betrayed the Jewish community to
outsiders, were severely punished. In this respect the atti-
tude of the Jewish a ^nmunity was much the same as that
of the Sicilians toward their North Italian conquerors.

The jus gazzaga made it unlawful for a Jew to oust an-
other Jew from property which he rented or had leased, even
though that property was owned by a Christian. This ar-
rangement arose to prevent the charging of exorbitant rents
by owners of houses in the ghetto. The Roman ghetto shows
an interesting result of the exercise of this right.

In reference to this jtcs gazzaga, or possession of leaseholds of the
houses in the ghetto, Alexander VII (1655-67) issued a decree favor-
able to converted Jews. The popes made continual efforts to convert
the Jews by every method in their power.....At times they suc-
ceeded, and naturally these converted Jews were not regarded with
the most affectionate feelings by their former brethren in faith. Now,
it happened at times that a converted Jew was in possession of a jus
gazzaga. He, of course, could move out of the ghetto, and live wherever
he desired; that was one of the inducements held out for conversion.
Thereby his house in the ghetto, of which he held the perpetual lease,
became vacant, and he was anxious to rent it, since he had to pay rent
to the Roman owner. The Jews, however, banded themselves together,
and agreed not to rent such houses, in order to injure the faithless and
keep others from accepting Christianity. Alexander, therefore, issued
- a brief in 1657 to the effect that the Jews of the ghetto, as a commu-
nity, had to make good the rent of such houses as long as they stood
empty.1

Pope Paul II, in 1468, compelled a certain number of Jews to
participate in the races for the amusement of the Roman
populace. This custom was discontinued two centuries later,

1 Philipson, op. cit., p. 134.FRANKFORT

59

when the Jews promised to pay 300 scudi yearly to the papal
treasury.1

jOne final, striking arrangement of theJRoman ghetto
wiTT be introduced here to illustrate the measures by which
the authorities were unwittingly welding the bonds of com-
munity life of the JewsT^

One of the great objects of the popes was to convert the Jews to
Christianity by any means whatsoever, since they firmly believed that
by this they were accomplishing an important and holy work. From
their standpoint they looked upon the Jews as lost. They attributed
the refusal to accept Christianity to obstinacy and blindness. Various
methods were employed by them, but the strangest of all was that
introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, at the instigation of a converted
Jew, Joseph Tzarfati. In his bull, Sancta mater ecclesiay of September 1,
1584, he commanded that in all places where there was a sufficient
number of Jews, a sermon be poached to them on the truths of Chris-
tianity every Saturday. . . . rAll Jews above the age of twelve, unless
prevented by sickness or some other adequate excuse, to be given to
the bishop, were to attend, so that always at least one-third of the
Jewish population was to be present?)This was carried out in Rome,
especially in the eighteenth century. On Saturday afternoon the
strange sight of the police driving men, women, and children over
twelve to church with whips could be witnessed in the Roman ghetto.
Saturday afternoon was chosen because it was thought that the words
preached to them in the church, setting forth the doctrines and truths
of Christianity, compared with the teachings of Judaism listened to in
the morning in the synagogue, would appear so far superior and so
much more worthy of acceptance that they would be converted easily.
At first one hundred fifty had to appear, but the number was later
made three hundred. At the entrance to the church stood a watch-
man, who counted those that entered, to make sure that the number
was full. In the church, the police made the people pay attention;
if anyone appeared inattentive, or under the soporific influence of the
sermon fell asleep, he was roused by blows of the whip.... uNeedless
to say, the effort proved entirely fruitlessjyrom a weekly it dropped

1 Ibid., pp. 141-42.6o

THE GHETTO

into an occasional service held five times a year. It was gradually
dying out when Leo XII revived it in 1824, and it was finally abol-
ished in 1847, the first year of Pius IX.1

By these forces from within and without the synagogue was
perpetuated as the center of ghetto life, and the ghetto main-
tained as a cultural community.

COMMUNITY INSTITUTIONS

Besides the synagogue there were a number of other
institutions that made up the framework of the ghetto com-
munity.^^ common feature of all ghettos was the cemetery.
Around the cemetery centered the most sacred traditions of
the grcmp^ Here, as in the instance already cited from
Frankfort^ the Jews often made their last stand against in-
vading enemies. The cemetery wfe variously referred to
the "house of life" and the "good place." Thecareof the
cemetery was one of the chief collective responsibilities of
the community. The dead were treated with kindly rever-
ence, and the cemetery was left undisturbed even tnough
the growing population within the ghetto walls made every
fookof land precious.

LMost large communities had a house for the poor and
the sick, a public bath, and a ritual bath-house {mikvah),
since in most instances the Jews were prohibited from bath-
ing in rivers, and they were unable to find refuge in those
institutions for the care of the sick which were located out-
side the ghetto, in the few places where they existed, even if
it had not beenjor their religious scruples about following
the dietary laws. J A communal bake-house and slaughtering
place could generally be found in the ghetto. The larger
communities had a guest-house, where strangers could find

1 Philipson, op. citpp. I43~45-FRANKFORT

61

shelter and refuge. The. larger Jewish ghettos also had a
dance-house, where the Jewish girls could appear without
the identifying two blue stripes on their veils, and the men
without the distinguishing mark on their clothes, or the
peaked hats on their heads.1 Here, too, the celebrations
and often the weddings, pageants, and dramas were
staged. It was the bright spot of the humdrum ghetto
existence.

jJTn connection with the synagogue, as has been indicated
already, there were the house of justice and the school. The
fact that the term Shut (German Schule) is still often used
among orthodox Jews to refer to the synagogue attests to
the traditional close relationship between house of worship
and house of study! The school was a fairly distinct institu-
tion, however, though oftpn housed in the synagogue build-
ing. There were two kinds of schools: the elementary school,
or Cheder, and the advanced institution of higher learning,
the Yeshiba. This distinction still survives in the modern
community.

There were also a number of less concretely crystallized
institutions in the ghetto, such as a board of guardians to
care for the poor and to carry on the philanthropic enter-
prises of the community, and usually a committee to deal
with the civil authorities, "holy leagues" or burial societies,
and various other cultural and economic organizations. In
the close life within ghetto walls, almost nothing was left
to the devices of the individualsC^ife was well organized,
and custom and ritual played an organizing and institu-
tior alizing r61e, which still accounts for the high degree of
organization of Jewish communities, often verging on over-

' A. Berliner, Aus dent inneren Leben der deutschen Juden im Mittelalter,
p. and Philipson, op. citpp. 33-34*62

THE GHETTO

organization, and the persistence of old, outworn institutions
long after their raison d'etre has ceased to operate?^

These institutions did not arise ready made. Every one
of them, and particularly those that had to deal with the
conflict and disorder within the group, was the characteristic
form of accommodation to the situation created by the
ghetto and the isolation which it symbolized and enforced.
This is true, not only of the typical institutions of the ghetto,
but it may even be said that the race itself, as we know it, is
a product of the ghetto.CHAPTER V

THE JEWISH TYPE

THE JEWS AS A RACE
Who are the Jews The traditional view is that they
are a Semitic people, and thatthroughout many centuries of
dispersion their purity of Blood has been preserved. Recent
accumulations of material, however, indicate that the Jews^
are bj^o-ineaiisjiniform in their physical characteristics,
and that the majority ot them are of a type different from
that found among other Semitic-speaking peoples, for the
Semites are primarily a linguistic rrnup.1

Anthropologists and sociologists are becoming more
cautious in generalizing about biological and temperamental
differences between races, nationalities, and cultural groups.
There is probably no people that has furnished the basis for
more contradictory conclusions than the Jews. The traits
with which they have been credited by their friends, their
enemies, and themselves fairly exhaust the vocabulary.
/Still, the elementary question as to whether the Jews are a
ra^e7^Tn^^nality? or k religions or cultural group remains
„ unseUle^Mhereare those who, with Chamberlain, believe
that the Jew constitutes a clear racial type whose character-
istics are unmistakable. His amazing words are worth quot-
ing:

Very small children, especially girls, frequently have quite a
marked instinct for race. It frequently happens that children who have
no conception of what "Jew" means, or that there is any such thing in

1 Roland B. Dixon, The Racial History of Man (New York, 1923),
chap. vL

6364

THE GHETTO

the world, begin to cry as soon as a genuine Jew or Jewess comes near
them. The learned can frequently not tell a Jew from a non-Jew;
the child that scarcely knows how to speak notices the difference. Is
not that something? To me it seems worth as much as a whole anthro-
pological congress.....Where the learned fails with his artificial

constructions, one single unbiased glance can illumine the truth like a
sunbeam.1

/ Hilaire Belloc prefers to think of the Jews, not as a race, but
primarily as a nationality. InTteHThe points out that the
Jews themselves have adjusted their notions of themselves
to suit the varying circumstances with which they were con-
/ fronted. They were a race when it suited them, a nationality
when necessity demanded it, a religious group, and, finally,
a cultural unit when their situation made such a status de-
sirable.2

7 The distinctive physical character of the Jew is impor-
tant in this study because the presence or absence of such
characteristics would be a significant consideration in de-
termining the basis of group-consciousness, race-prejudice,
and the r61e played by social and non-biological factors in
the historical isolation and cultural development of that
people. A physical mark may facilitate the singling out of a
member of a group and therefore serve as a sort of racial
uniform, as is the case with the Negro because of his color,
for instance, in a white community. In the absence of any
distinctive physical traits, however, artificial and external
marks may come into use which will serve as efficient sub-
stitutes for the branding of a people. This is, in fact, what
happened in the case of the Jews.

1 Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century,
II, S37*

8 Hilaire Belloc, The Jews, Boston and New York, 1923.THE JEWISH TYPE

65

That the Jewish face is characteristic, and that a Jew can be
singled out from among a thousand Christians, is a recent opinion.
In medieval ages the tormenters of the Jews did not place much confi-
dence in the so-called "Jewish" type as a safe, distinguishing mark.
It seems they knew that appearances are often deceptive, that one
who has a hook nose, black eyes and hair, thick lips, etc., may be a
Christian, a Mohammedan, or a heathen, as well as a Jew, and that
one devoid of these traits is not necessarily a Gentile. They were,
however, determined to know a Jew when they met one, and to avoid
mistakes, many enactments were promulgated compelling Jews to
wear badges in order that they might be easily distinguished from
non-Jews.1

t|n the isolating effect that it produced, and in the degrada-
tion which it heaped upon the Jews, the device of the badge
is second only to the institution of the ghetto itsep. In fact,
the ghetto and the badge became twin institutions. Pope
Innocent III, who proposed the Jewish badge, advanced the
argument that "the measure was imperative if intermarriage
or concubinage was to be prevented between Christians and
non-believers."2 It was decreed by th^Jfourth Lateran
Council, ip and thereafter by most church councils of
that century—from that of Oxford in England in 1222 to
that of Buda in Hungary in 1279—that every Jew was to
wear on his clothes a mark, usually a piece of yellow cloth,
by which he might at once be known as a Jew. "From that
time on the Jew was a marked creature. The command was
received by the unfortunates with a wail of despair resound-
ing throughout Europe. Effort upon effort was made to have
it revoked or to evade it, but all in vain."3

Among modern anthropologists the notion of "pure"

1 Maurice Fishberg, The Jews: A Study in Race and Environment (New
York, 1911), p. 92.

•Abrahams, op. cit.t p. 296.

* Philipson, op. cit.t p. iq.66

THE GHETTO

races is no longer seriously entertained. The Jews are ap-
parently a hybrid people, like all the rest. It has been held,
however, that their peculiar historical experiences have con-
tributed to maintaining a fairly close adherence to the char-
acteristics which they displayed when they first appeared
on the European scene, nearly two thousand years ago. In
speaking of their dark skin, Ripley says:

Perhaps the most conspicuous example of the racial fixity of this
trait of pigmentation is offered by the Jews. They have preserved
their Semitic brunetness through all adversities. Socially ostracized
and isolated, they have kept this coloration despite all migrations and
changes of climate. In Germany today 42 per cent of them are pure
brunets in a population containing only 14 per cent of the dark type
on the average. They are thus darker by 30 per cent than their gentile
neighbors. As one goes south this difference tends to disappear. In
Austria they are less than 10 per cent darker than the general popula-
tion; and finally, in the extreme south, they are even lighter than the
populations about them. This is especially true of the red-haired type
common in the East.1

Ripley attributes this darker complexion to the sedentary,
indoor life which the Jews have led for centuries. Ever
since the days of Darwin, isolation has been recognized as
one of the basic factors in the development of biological
variants. The Jews therefore furnish a crucial experiment.

Behind the walls of the ghetto the Jewish type was carefully pro-
tected from the influence of its alien environment, and there it also
received a special impress, the product of exile and oppression. The
chronic outbreaks of massacre and banishment, the unceasing reign
of petty despotism, economic misery, and nervous alarm, have wrought
traces upon the organism of the Jew; they have bent and stunted his
body, whilst they have sharpened his mind and brightened his eye;
they have given him a narrow chest, feeble muscles, and a pale com-
plexion; they have stamped his visage with a look of pensive sadness,

1W. Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe (New York, 1899), p. 73.THE JEWISH TYPE

67

as though ever brooding upon the wrongs of ages. But the frame that
has endured and survived so much suffering is also endowed with a
high degree of resistance.1

Not only this rather strict isolation, but the consequent
inbreeding which had its foundation in the religious scruples
of the Jews, has tended to develop a physical type. There is
a great deal of evidence to support the contention that the
Jews, even in the dark ghetto days, frequently intermarried
with non-Jews; but the consequence of such intermarriage
was that usually the member of the group who did this was
thereafter no longer considered a part of the Jewish com-
munity, but rather was merged with the Christian popula-
tion. The Negro in the United States gets credit for all
mulattos, while the offspring of mixed marriages between
Jews and Christians are usually accredited to the latter.

Since the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, that is, from about 400 B.C.,
marriage between Jew and non-Jew has been strictly prohibited. The
Kohanim (priests) were not allowed even to marry with those who
had been converted to Judaism. The common people, however, were
permitted to do this, and during the Hellenic period, and in the dias-
pora, it was very common; of this the Judaised Chazars are a good ex-
amftjg. On the other hand, during the diaspora such marriages were de-
nounced by the Christians as well as by Jews, and were forbidden*

under pain of heavy penalties.....But intermarriage, toward the

end of the Middle Ages, as the social position of the Jews deteriorated,
became very rare, and has been since the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries till recently a negligible quantity. The social and religious
gulf between Christian and Jew had become so wide that that alone
precluded the possibility of intermarriage and rendered the legal pro-
hibition quite unnecessary. Nevertheless this prohibition stands to,
this day, and still holds good in Spain, Portugal, Russia, and all
countries belonging to the Greek Church.2

1	Cohen, op. cUp. 116.

2	Arthur Ruppin, The Jews of Today (New York, 1913), pp. 157-58*68

THE GHETTO

While the Jews on their part had thus only limited oppor-
tunities for intermarriage with Gentiles, the latter were
scarcely ever attracted to Judaism, which, in view of the
disabilities that the group was under, together with its own
strict ritual, especially dietary laws, was not inviting to
„ proselytes.^The ghetto from the standpoint of population
was a relatively closely inbreeding, self-perpetuating group,
to such an extent that it may properly be called a closed
community^

The combination of various features of ghetto existence
tended toward the development and perpetuation of a
definite type, which to a marked extent persists to the pres-
ent day, especially in countries where the circumstances
of Jewish communal life have remained relatively un-
changed, as, for example, in Eastern Europe and the Orient.
One of these features was the strenuous effort that was made
to embark every member of the group on a matrimonial
career. No strict restrictions against intermarriage between
close relatives existed; in fact, such marriages were fre-
quently encouraged.

This fact, it has been pointed out by many students of
the subject, tended to increase the proportion of defectives
in the population.1 The insanity rate, it has also been ob-
served, is inordinately large among the Jews. The same is
said to hold true for similar inbreeding groups, such as the
population of the Orkneys and the Society of Friends.

The explanation of the frequency of insanity among Jews is to be

found in social considerations.....The outstanding fact in regard to

social environment of the Jews is that they are today mainly an urban ^

population, and in the past have been a ghetto population.....An

ordinary population is spared the degenerating effects of many genera-
tions of town life, because any incipient decadence is neutralized and

1 J. Snowman, "Jewish Eugenics," Jewish Review, IV, 173.THE JEWISH TYPE

69

compensated for by the infusion of fresh country blood, as the stream
of life is constantly flowing toward the large cities. A Jewish popula- "
tion, on the other hand, has not this reserve of vitality, and thus the
evils generated by city life are so liable to remain impressed upon
future generations.1

Not only is the circumstance of urban life to be noted as a
powerful influence in shaping the physical characteristics
of the Jews, but the special conditions under which they, as
a persecuted and segregated population, lived must be
added.

The ghetto life was not only unwhoV,snrrT/> P^ysic^y, but un-
wholesoiHS" mentally,. emotionallvf and spiritually. Living in constant
dread of massacre, exposed to ridicule, degradation, and more sinister
disaster, the race developed an apprehensiveness and acquired a lower
threshold for fear stimuli. This kept up by the drawing in toward an
overintimate family life.2

If, as is generally conceded, psychic conflict is the most important
cause of neuroses, the Jews have had ample opportunity to cultivate
the most fruitful soil for their development. For centuries they lived
in an acutely hostile environment which always threatened their de-
struction and regularly put the threat into partial execution. Segrega-
tion became the usual mode of existence.®

The Jews have frequently been pointed out as the classic
illustration of the great force of religious and racial preju-
dices in giving rise to a distinct physical type. Little did
the medieval enemies of the Jews dream that by their very
measures against them they were unconsciously helping to
develop and preserve a distinct population in their midst.
Ripley says of them, "Social ostracism, based upon differ-
ences of belief in great measure, has sufficed to keep them

1 Ibid., p. 168.

3 Abraham Myerson, "The 'Nervousness' of the Jew," Mental Hygiene,
Iv, 69.

31. S. Wechsler, "Nervousness and the Jew," Menorak Journal, X, 121.7°

THE GHETTO

truer to a single racial standard, perhaps, than any other
people of Europe."1 It wouM be-difficult^to cover briefly all
the material that has accumulated in recent years on the
description, not to speak of explanation, of the physical
type, or types, of the Jews in the world today.2 Instead, it
will suffice to introduce the conclusions of Fishberg, whose
views seem to conform most nearly to the facts, which, in
this case, have been perverted and confused on many an
occasion by partisan bias.

What is that "Jewish type," that Jewish physiognomy, which
characterizes the Jew?

It is the opinion of the present author that it is less than skin deep.
Primarily it depended upon the dress and the deportment of the Jews
in countries where they live in strict isolation from their Christian or
Moslem neighbors. A striking example is furnished by the side-locks of
hair which most oriental or semi-oriental Jews allow to grow on their
temples. In Austrian Galicia one of the Jewish faith may be of any
ethnic type; he may be a Slavonian pure and simple, as many of them
are; still, as long as he wears side-locks anyone can distinguish him as
a follower of Judaism, because nobody of any other creed wears side-

Ipcks.....A man in Galicia dressed in a long caftan or frock-coat,

an under-cap (skull cap), a hat pushed to the back of the head, and
two spiral locks hanging down in front of his ears, can only be a Jew,
no matter what his face looks like. If the same individual should one
day shave off his beard, cut his ear-locks, and don the dress of his
Christian neighbors, the change might be magical. All the so-called
"Jewishness" might disappear, and a Slavonian pure and simple
might be evident to anyone who knows the physical type of the East-
ern European races. This can best be seen among the Jewish immi-
grants to the United States.

1 Ripley, op. tit., pp. 32-33.

a Professor Roland B. Dixon in his Racial History of Man, pp. 162-75,
furnishes an excellent brief summary of the physical anthropology of the
Jews, emphasizing not merely the fact that they are a hybrid people, but
indicating that the physical differences between the Jews of the different
countries today are very marked.THE JEWISH TYPE

7i

Next to dress and deportment, the Jew in Eastern Europe has
often a peculiar attitude of the body which is distinctly characteristic.
The inferior hygienic, economic, and social conditions under which he
was compelled to live in the ghettos have left their mark on his body;
he i§ old prematurely, stunted, decrepit; he withers at an early age.
He is emaciated, his muscles are flabby, and he is unable to hold his
spinal column erect [the "ghetto bend"].....As an acquired char-
acter it is not transmitted by heredity.

.... It is not the body which marks the Jew; it is his soul. In
other words, the type is social or psychic.....Centuries of confine-
ment in the ghetto, social ostracism, ceaseless suffering under the ban
of abuse and persecution have been instrumental in producing a char-
acteristic psychic type which manifests itself in his cast of countenance
which is considered as peculiarly "Jewish." The ghetto face is purely
psychic, just like the actor's, the soldier's, the minister's face.1

THE SOCIAL TYPE

Whatever may be said concerning the effect of ghetto
life on the physical characteristics of the Jews applies with
even greater force to the social characteristics.

If their sojourn in the ghetto for many generations was potent in
producing the ethnic type of the Jew, it has been more effective in pro-
ducing and maintaining the social conditions which may be called
characteristic of the children of Israel. Isolation, which has been
called by Darwin the cornerstone of breeders, is more effective in en-
gendering social types than ethnic types; in man isolation is seen to
be mostly of two kinds, geographical and social, and it was mostly
social isolation which was operative in moulding the Jew as we meet
him today. In fact, geography played only a minor role, in his case.
Notwithstanding that the seed of Israel were scattered in various
parts of the habitable globe, in spite of the fact that the different Jew-
ish communities have been separated geographically from each other
in a manner unknown among any other social group, they still lived
everywhere in the same milieu. It was only after their emancipation
in Western Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century that

1 Fishberg, op. cit.t pp. 162-66.

72

THE GHETTO

there were to be noted differences in the environments of the Jews in
different countries.1

limitations which the world imposed upon the Jews
did not merely affect the range and the kind of their contacts
with other people, but also determined to a great extent) the
life they had to live in their own provincial ghettosJTurther-
more, they were Excluded from the many important spheres
of public life, such as politics and civic and social functions,
that were open to the members of the community about
them. They were, in most instances, prohibited- from own-
Jng land, or living outside the cities (except in the East);
they were excluded from the guilds, and the number of oc-
cupations open to them was narrowly prescribed. In addi-
tion, their own religious ritual and community life closely
defined the conduct of the individuals and restricted their
contact with the outside world. "Who can say what would
have been the effect of such a treatment prolonged through-
out several hundreds of years?" asks Leroy-Beaulieu. "If
the Mohammedans could have tried the expenment on the
Christians, they probably would have obtained as clearly
marked a type in ten generations."2

The Jew is a much more clearly defined social type than
physical typeij^hat is typical of the Jews as a group is
their characteristic "run of attention," or the direction of
their habits and interests which have become fixed through
centuries of communal life in segregated areas: "Judaism
has been preserved throughout the long years of Israel's
dispersion by two factors: its separative ritualism, which
oprevented close and intimpe contact with*liolEfows, and

* Ibid., p. 533.

'Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, L'antisemitisme, Paris, 1897; quoted from
Fishberg, op. cU.t p. 534.THE JEWISH TYPE

73

the iron laws of the Christian theocracies of Europe^ which
^ en cou7a^^°^^eS^cerisoi^on^J

There is probably no people tliat has been subjected to the
persistent influence of so rigid a social pattern as have the
Jews. This pattern was furnished by their religious ritual,
and this ritual pervaded every sphere of their existence.
Though widely scattered, they were subject to a fairly uni-
form set of customs throughout the worldiThe folkways
and the mores of the Jews stood in strange contrast to those
of their neighbors. Besides, the Jews were segregated from
the rest of the population by rigid customs and explicit lawsT^
Living, as they were, in segregated areas, they were enabled
to develop and perpetuate a cultural life barely touched by
the happenings in the outside world. When suddenly the
Jews awoke in the midst of the modern world they found,
themselves outstripped in every important sphere of activ-
ity with the exception of commerce. Their culture seemed
archaic in comparison.

All the devices that operated to keep the Jew apart, at
the same time made him crave the contacts that were taboo.
^He lived on the periphery of two worlds, and not fully in
either. As a result, he developed that keen sense of self-
consciousness which is often expressed in his awkwardness
and lack of poise when in the company of stranger^ He is
either shy and self-effacing, or he overcompensates in the
direction of aggressiveness. In either case he is seldom him-
self. |He finds himself haunted by loneliness in the outer
world, and when he returns to his familial hearth he is rest-
less and anxious to escape?)

T^fhe Jew was tied to this ritual not merely through the
relative isolation of his social life, but through the ties of
1 Fishberg, op. ciip. 555.74

THE GHETTO

sentiment on which this ritual rested. Iffis life was full
and real only where the values to whicKne was accustomed
were dominant. The Jew is not merely a product of his past
social life, but his character is constantly being re-created
along the old pattern because his past experience has so
indelibly impressed upon him the value of this heritage that
he inevitably sets to work to shape his environment to con-
form to his accustomed pattern. But ultimately, as is in-
dicated in a subsequent chapter (chapter vii), the so-called
Jewish racial type disappears with the disappearance of the
ghetto.CHAPTER VI

THE JEWISH MIND

MENTALITY AND THE DIVISION OF LABOR

To the modern psychologist mind is not so much the
cause as it is the result of activity. If we would know the
mentality of a people, we must get acquainted with their
activities and experiences.} Isolation has exercised the most
significant influence upon the Jew as a physical and social
type. In the following pages we shall undertake to show the
effect which the social life of the ghetto produced upon the
mind of the Jew!) The most striking index of the mentality of
a community Is perhaps to be found in the degree to which
the division of labor has been carried, and the number of
distinct occupational groupings that the community sup-
ports.

If there is a "Jewish mentality" it ought, therefore, to
become apparent through an examination of the occupation-
al aspects of Jewish life, and the place of the Jews in the
division of labor of medieval society.

All that we know of Jewish life in the diaspora points to the con-
clusion that only an insignificant number of Jews devoted themselves
to agriculture even in those lands where no difficulties were placed in
their path. Perhaps Poland in the sixteenth century is the best in-
stance. There they appear to have taken up farming. But even in
Poland they showed a preference for city life. For every 500 Chris-
tian merchants in the Polish towns of the period, there were to be
found 3,200 Jewish merchants.

lies, they became town-dwellers—whether voluntarily or by stress
of circumstance is of no consequence—and town-dwellers they have
remained^!. • .

7576

THE GHETTO

Now the modern city is nothing else but a great desert, as far re-
moved from the warm earth as the desert is, and like it forcing its
inhabitants to become nomads. The old nomadic instincts have thus
through the centuries been called forth in the Jew by the process of
adapting himself to his environment, while the principle of selection
has only tended to strengthen those instincts. It is clear that in the
constant changes to which the Jews have been subjected, not those
among them that had an inclination to the comfortable, settled life of
the farmer were the ones likely to survive, but rather those in whom
the nomadic instincts were strong.1

Whether one agrees with Sombart's explanation or not is
unimportant; the fact to which he refers, that the Jews be-
came a dominantly city people, is indisputable. Sombart
goes on to show how the Jew, by nature and by experience,
was eminently fitted to find a place in, and to give great'
impetus to, the whole capitalistic movement that has trans-
formed the world in the past few centuries into a highly
complex interdependent unit. He says:

Unlike most other writers on the subject, I will begin by noting
a Jewish quality which, though mentioned often enough, never re-
ceived the recognition which its importance meritedj/l refer to the
extreme intellectuality of the Jew. Intellectual interests and intel-
lectual skill are more strongly developed in him than physical [manual]

powers.....No other people has valued the learned man, the scholar,

so highly as the JewsS^'The wise man takes precedence of the king,
and a bastard who is aTscholar, of a high-priest who is an ignoramus."
So the Talmud has it. Anyone who is acquainted with Jewish students
knows well enough that this overrating of mere knowledge is not yet
a thing of the past. And if you could not become "wise," at least it was
your duty to be educated. At all times induction was compulsory in
Israel. In truth, to learn was a religious duty; and in Eastern Europe
the synagogue is still called the Shool. Study and worship went hand
in hand; nay, study was worship, and ignorance was a deadly sin. A

1 Werner Sombart, The Jews and Modem Capitalism (New York, 1913),
p. 334.THE JEWISH MIND

77

man who could not read was a boor in_t?"g wnrM	in the

next In the popular saying of the ghetto, nothing had somuclTscorn
poured upon it as foolishness. "Better injustice than folly," and
"Ein Narr ist ein Gezar" (a fool is a misfortune) are both well known.

The most valuable individual is the intellectual individual; hu-
manity at its best is intellectuality at its highest.....One conse-
quence of this high evaluation of intellectuality was the esteem in
which callings were held according as they demanded more "head-
work" or more "handwork." The former were almost in all ages

placed higher than the latter.....As Rabbi said, "The world needs

both the seller of spices and the tanner, but happy he who is a seller
of spices." ....

The Jews were quite alive to their predominant quality and al-
ways recognized that there was a great gulf between their intellectual-
ity and the brute force of their neighbors. One or two sayings popular
among Polish Jews express the contrast with no little humour. "God
help a man against Gentile hands and Jewish heads." "Heaven pro-
tect us against Jewish moach (brains) and Gentile koach (physical
force)." Moach vs. Koach—that is the Jewish problem in a nutshell.

.... He will look at the world from the point of view of end, or
goal, or purpose. His outlook will be teleological, or that of practical
rationalism. No peculiarity is so fully developed in the Jew as this,
and there is complete unanimity of opinion on the subject.1 Most
other observers start out with the teleology of the Jew; I, for my part,
regard it as the result of his extreme intellectuality, in which I believe
all the other Jewish peculiarities are rooted. .... No term is more
familiar to the ear of the Jew than Tachlis, which means purpose, aim,
end or goal. If you are to do anything it must have tachlis; life itself,
whether as a whole or in its single activities, must have some tachlis,
and so must the universe.2

1	The writings of Somba^t have aroused considerable controversy. The
criticisms directed against him have been, mainly, that his facts do not justify
his conclusions, and that they have been gathered from a biased point of
view. For a more recent account, see H. Waetjen, Das Judentum und die
Anfitnge der modernen Kolonisation, Berlin, 1914. See also Joseph Jacobs,
Jewish Contributions to Civilization (Philadelphia, 1919), pp. 265 ff.

2	Sombart, op. cit.t pp. 258-^66.78

THE GHETTO

Sombart points out a number of other characteristics besides
these which tended to fit the Jew for his role as capitalist.
Among these was his mobility, his adaptability, his flexibil-
ity, which fitted him to be a successful undertaker, organizer,
trader, and negotiator. As to the Jews' experience, he adds
that the Jew, by the nature of his contacts—largely of a
categoric and secondary sort—was especially fitted to be-
come the commercial individual and less fitted to become
the artisan, who requires close and intimate personal con-
tacts with his clientele. ][The Jew had wide and scattered
contacts; he knew languages; he had connections; and he
had some wealth—these were the foundations that served
him for a commercial career. Moreover, the Jew was not
prevented by his religion, as were others, from dealing in
money. He therefore became the money lender and the
bankerT)By the time that the medieval church relaxed its
stand xm the question of usury the Jews had already a fair
start.

In other ways than these the Jews found for themselves
an important place in medieval society. They were frequent-
ly the physicians and emissaries of rulers and princes. What
there was of Oriental medicine they had brought to the
West, and their wide contact and correspondence placed
them in a favorable position for extending their knowledge.
They were, as Simmel has pointed out, the typical stranger,
and in that rdle they acquired the objectivity and built up
the relationship of the confidant, which served them well as
counselors and diagnosticians.

j The Jews did not, however, avoid the crafts and arts,
as one might be led to believe by the generalizations of Som-
bart. They plied numerous trades, they peddled many arti-
cles, but in many cases they were also the manufacturers ofTHE JEWISH MIND

79

their wares. There were numerous Jewish dyers, silk weav-
ers, gold- and silversmiths, tailors, and printers,1 besides a
great variety of other occupations The restrictions placed
upon them by the government, the church, and the guilds,
besides their own religious ritual, account for their predomi-
nance in some, and their scarcity in other, occupations. In
Poland, where they were less of an urban people and lived in
self-sufficing areas of settlement, their occupations tended to
approximate those of the Christians.

\lt must not be supposed that the Jew was always or even
typically successful and ricEj He was often nothing more
than the indirect tax-collector for the ruler, and periodically
his fortune was taken from him by force.^The number of
poor Jews in the medieval ghettos was large, and the pro-
vision made for them by their more prosperous fellow-Jews
was generous^ "Although the Jew has acquired the reputa-
tion of being the personification of the commercial spirit, he
is sometimes quite shiftless and helpless, failing miserably in
everything he undertakes, as though pursued by some mock-
ing sprite, and good-humouredly nicknamed by his brethren
a Schletniel."2

(^Not only do we find in the ghetto distinct vocational
types, but the religious and community'life tended to de-
velop other numerous specializations of activity and status
which gave rise to distinct personality^types. borne'of these,
such as the Rabbi, the Shamus or sexton, the Parnass, or
councilman, have already been mentioned. There are others,
such as the Shochet, or slaughterer, the Mohel, or circumciser,

1	See Abrahams, op. cU.t chaps, xi and xii, and Appendixes A to H. Also
Joseph Jacobs, Jewish Statistics (London, 1891), chaps, iv-vi, and Ruppin,
op. cit., chap. iii.

2	Cohen, op. cit.t p. 186.8o

THE GHETTO

and the Shadchan, or marriage broker/ The last of these is a
picturesque character that finds frequent expression in fic-
tion, and that still serves an important function in the
Eastern European communities:

In Eastern countries, such as Morocco, Persia, and India, the
marriage is arranged by the parents of the young couple, who sub-
missively acquiesce in their fate. In Eastern Europe the parental ne- /
gotiations are preceded by the activity of a matrimonial agent, who )
is rendered necessary by the segregation of the sexes still observed in j
most of the communities of Eastern Europe. The Shadchan, as he is )
called, is a prized visitor in the home of every marriageable girl, whose
chances depend, apart from natural charms, upon the size of her dowry
and the family reputation for piety, learning, and philanthropy.1

His services were in constant demand, and his area of opera-
tions was not even confined to any particular country, but
extended throughout the Russian Pale and into Galicia,
Roumania, and more distant regions. Frequently the mar-
kets and the fairs were places at which marriages could be
arranged, for here Jews of various localities had opportunity
to meet and to discuss such problems.

£Spmething has already been said of the emphasis on
learning and scholarship. This scholarship was usually of a /
religious nature. The talmudicai student, known as Yeshiba
Bachur, enjoyed a favored position in the community^ /

The highest virtue of the bridegroom is excellence in talmudic
study, which surpasses in value a splendid pedigree or a dazzling in-
come bedimmed with ignorance. In most of the teeming communities
of Russian and Galician Jewry the father still regards sacred learning
as the noblest possession in a son-in-law, and if he can ally his daughter
to a budding rabbi he believes the union will find especial grace in
Heaven. The lack of worldly means on the part of the bridegroom
forms no deterrent, for it is customary for the father of the bride to

1 Ibid.j p. 41.THE JEWISH MIND

81

keep his son-in-law in his own house for the first two years after mar-
riage, and then to set him up in a home and business of his own.1

Here is an instance in which the values that the group at-
taches to a certain type of behavior become an important
selective agency in the perpetuation of a social type. In
modern times secular knowledge has in great measure been
able to take the place of religious learning.

A number of other types center around the religious life
of the ghetto. Among them are the Zaddik, or righteous
individual, the leader of the community; the BaUanim, or
the men of leisure or hangers-on in the synagogue, who, like
a modern coroner's jury, are always at hand when a minyan,
or assembly of ten men, is required for prayer. The old
ghetto also had its professional jester, known as Marshallik,
and Badchan, who entertained at weddings, on holidays, and
particularly at the feast of Purim. Finally, there was the
Meshumed, or apostate, whose lot was an unhappy one in the
ghetto. He was shunned by the community, and was often
ostracized. These are some of the types that life in the
ghetto brought forth, and that have acquired a distinctive
place in the memories and attitudes of the group. There
were others, some of them specializations of types already
mentioned; there were even some types that the Jews recog-
nized among the Goyim, or Gentiles, with whom they had
occasional contact(jOne more type is worthy of special
mention, namely, the beggar, or Schnorrer. The relation be-
tween the giver and the receiver of charity was a peculiar one
in ghetto society. Charity was more or less synonymous
with justice, and to give to the poor, the orphans, and the
helpless, was a religious duty.7
*lbid.82

THE GHETTO

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that this relation between
giver and taker was in itself a strong preventive to pauperism in the
modern sense. But it is undeniable that it led to that insolence in the
Jewish beggar which, growing out of the theory that the recipient of
the gift was enabling the donor to perform a religious duty, and was,
in a sense, the benefactor of the donor, made the schnorrer, or beggar,
come to be a most persistent and troublesome figure in modern Jewish
society.1

INTELLECTUAL LIFE

The enforced confinement of the Jews in ghettos through-
out the major part of the Middle Ages, especially during that
brighter period of the Renaissance almost up to the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century, left profound effects upon
not only their bodies, but upon their minds. When the rest
of the world about them had already outgrown feudalism,
the Jews were still living in a social milieu whose patterns
had been cut by the feudal order. While the Jews were on
the one hand spared the effect of the ecclesiastical morass of
the Christian church in the Middle Ages, they built up an
intolerant medieval theology of their own which governed
conduct and restricted thought:

Shut off from all contact with the world at large, the Jew within
the walls of the ghetto naturally did not respond to the culture of the
world. Learning, certainly, there always was, and learning was held in
the highest respect; but it was the learning of the ancients, the Talmud
and rabbinical dialectics. These studies sharpened the mind, it is true,
and later, when emancipation came, the Jewish intellect, exercised for
centuries in this dialectical training school, readily mastered the diffi-
culties of the various branches of learning in the universities. JBut in
the ghetto, notably in Germany and the countries of Eastern Europe,
this terrible, systematic exclusion of the Jews from all contact with
the outer world contracted the mind and prevented all cultivation of
learning outside of Jewish studiesTJ

1 Abrahams, op. cit., pp. 310-11.	3 Philipson, op. cit., pp. 195-96.THE JEWISH MIND

83

There were some mitigating circumstances in this domi-
nation of the synagogue over Jewish life, however:

The synagogue was the centre of life, but it was not the custodian
of thought. If Judaism ever came to exercise a tyranny over the
Jewish mind, it did so, not in the Middle Ages at all, but in the middle
of the sixteenth century. A revolt against medievalism such as oc-
curred in Europe during and at the close of the Renaissance may be
said to have marked Jewish life towards the close of the eighteenth
century.1

1 From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century the Jews were
about as closely bound by rabbinical authority and ritualis-
tic customs as the Roman church ever had bound the Chris-
tian peoples of medieval Europe^ During the Middle Ages
proper, however, the Jews playecl an important role in the
intellectual life of Europe, jThe medieval universities were
not altogether closed to the Jews, and where their personal
influence was lacking, there was the indirect influence which
they exerted in mediating between the culture of the Orient
and the barbarism, or rather the incipient civilization of the
West.2 It was not so much external pressure as internal con-
trol in response to that pressure that left a marked effect
upon the mental life of the ghetto.

The Jews suffered more from the dispiriting calms of life within
the ghetto than from the passionate storms of death that raged with-
out itlThe anti-social crusade of the medieval church against the
Jews did more than slay its thousands; it deprived the Jews
of the very conditions necessary for the full development of their
genius. The Jewish nature does not produce its rarest fruits in a Jew-
ish environment? I am far from asserting that Judaism is a force so

1	Abrahams, op. cit., p. xvii.

2	See Andrew White, Warfare of Science with Theology, II, 33; also
Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages; also H. O. Taylor, The
Medieval Mind; and especially Joseph Jacobs, Jewish Contributions to Civili-
zation (Philadelphia, 1919), chaps, iv and v.84

THE GHETTO

feeble that its children sink into decay so soon as they are robbed of the
influence of forces foreign to itself. But it was ancient Alexandria that
produced Philo; medieval Spain, Maimonides; modern Amsterdam,
Spinoza. The ghetto had its freaks, but the men just named were
not born in ghettos. And how should it be otherwise? The Jew who
should influence the world could not arise in the absence of a world to
influence.1

Quite early in the medieval history of the Jews there
grew up partisan camps in the larger Jewish community.
On the one hand were the Spanish, or Sephardic Jews, who
prided themselves on the purity of their stock and the superi-
ority of their status; on the other were the German Jews,
or Ashkenazim, whose ghetto history considerably lowered
their status.

But it is a striking fact that the "German" Jews, more character-
istically Jewish than their Spanish brethren, ended by gaining control
of the whole of European Judaism. The Jewish schools in the Rhine-
land flourished, not, as in Moorish Spain, in imitation of neighbouring
illumination, but in contrast to surrounding obscurantism. There was
no Christian university till the middle of the fourteenth century, but
the Rhinelands had what were practically Jewish universities in the
era of the first Crusade.2

/Jewish life in the Middle Ages was by no means identical
in the various countries, nor unified, much as the ghetto ex-
ercised a uniformizing influence. In each country and locality
the Jews worked out their problems created by local circum-
stances as the situation permitted^ There were gradually
arising certain integrating currents which began to weld the
scattered communities of Jews into something resembling a
unit, which, however, did not take the form of a nationalistic
movement. Perhaps the most potent influence in this direc-

1 Abrahams, op. cU.t pp. xxi-xxii.

3 Ibid., pp. xxii-xxiii.THE JEWISH MIND

85

tion was the prestige attaching to the opinions of certain
rabbis whose reputation for piety and learning gave them a
unique position in the intellectual life of the Jews.

The Geonim of Persia, who swayed Judaism during the seventh
to the eleventh century, and their spiritual successors, the rabbis of
North Africa and Spain, carried on a world-wide correspondence. The
answers which they made to questions addressed to them constitute
one of the most fertile sources of information for Jewish life in the

Middle Ages.....Meir of Rothenburg was probably a greater man

with a greater mind than some of his Spanish contemporaries, but the
latter corresponded with a far wider circle of Jews. True, the codifica-
tion of Jewish law was inaugurated by Spanish Jews in the "golden
age," but the code which finally became the accepted guide of Judaism
was the work of the sixteenth century. Codification implies the sup-
pression of local variation, but in the Responsa1 of the later French and
German rabbis there is already far less heterogeneity of habits than in
the Responsa of the Spanish Jews, and certainly of the Geonim. And
this is quite natural. If your horizon is narrow, you regard your own
conduct as the only normal or praiseworthy scheme of life. Hence,
without any conscious resolve to suppress varying customs, these
were as a matter of fact much contracted by the local tendencies of the
great French rabbis who became the authority for all Judaism from
the fourteenth century onwards. After the end of the twelfth century
even the Spanish Jews relied on their German brethren for guidance in
the Talmud.2

is important to point out that the isolation of the
ghetto was, after all, only relative. Before confinement in
the ghetto became effective the Jews had set in motion a
number of currents of thought and activity which brought
them into contact with the outside world, and which the
ghetto wall was not able to shut out completely^

1 The answers to the questions propounded to the rabbis are known as
Responsa. The Responsa literature is quite extensive.

1 Abrahams, op. citpp. xxv-xxvi.86

THE GHETTO

The seventeenth was the gloomiest century in the pre-emancipa-
tion history of the Jews, but until the beginning of the sixteenth
century they were never for long cut off from the common life around
them. Nay, their interests were wider than those of their environ-
ment, for they had the exceptional interest of a common religion desti-
tute of a political centre. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of
this factor in molding Jewish life. Thus was begotten that cosmo-
politanism which broke through the walls of the ghettos and prevented
the life passed within them from ever becoming quite narrow and
sordid.1

^Through the synagogue, which, as has already been indicated,
oecame the center not only of religious but of intellectual
life, the isolated communities were kept in intermittent con-
tact with each other, and a social movement that had its
origin in one was likely to be propagated by travelers,
students, and rabbis, who, first of all, of course, sought the
synagogue whenever they arrived in a new community.
"Thus Jewish life was not narrow, though its locale was
limited.^?

The Jews continued to share to some extent the larger
life about them, often in a measure exceeding that of their
Christian neighbors/so that "in the Middle Ages proper,
Jewish life, with all tKeTinnate 'provincialism' from which it
has never, in all its long and chequered history, contrived to
free itself, was freshened and affected by every influence of
the time?j5 Abrahams has an eloquent passage in which the
contrast between medieval life at large and the Jewish as-
pect of that life is contrasted:

When one thinks what human life was for the majority of men in
the Middle Ages, "how little of a feast for their senses it could possibly

1 Ibid., p. 4.	a Ibid., p. 5.

3 Ibid., p. 6. See also I. Husik, Medieval Jewish Philosophy, New York,
1916.THE JEWISH MIND

87

be, one understands the charm for them of a refuge offered in the heart
and the imagination." More than to any others, this remark applies to
the Jews. As the Middle Ages closed for the rest of Europe the material
horizon of the Jew narrowed. Prejudice and proscription robbed them
of the attractions of public life and threw them within themselves, to
find their happiness in their own idealized hopes. But the fancies on
which they fed were not of the kind that expand the imagination.

Jews were not inaccessible to ideas, for they never confused the
land of Philistia with the land of the children of light. But the ideas
which came to them in the really dark ages of Jewish life were not the
ideas which freshened Europe and roused it from its mystic medieval
dreams.1 Indeed, Judaism became more mystical as Europe became
more ratibnal; it clasped its cloak tighter as the sun burned warmer.
The Renaissance, which drew half its inspiration from Hebraism, left
the Jews untouched on the artistic side. The Protestant Reformation,
which took its life-blood from a rational Hebraism, left the Jews un-
affected on the moral side. It was, in a sense, a misfortune for the
Synagogue that it had not sunk into the decadence from which the
Reformation roused the churAs it was not corrupt it needed no
rousing moral regeneration, and so it escaped, through its own in-
herent virtues, that general stirring-up of life which results from great
efforts for the redress of great vices.1

During the period of the Renaissance the Jewish com-
munities, still suffering from the effects of the persecutions
begun during the Crusades and continuing during the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries, and culminating in the
Spanish Inquisition, were split up into numberless local and
factional cliques. Under this continuous oppression "the
Jew found relief in an unreal world conjured forth by an
unbridled imagination. The great wave of mysticism in the
thirteenth century, and the great wave of Chassidism of the
eighteenth century, are the historic evidences of the psy-
chological reaction."2

1 Abrahams, op. cit., p. 160.

a E. M. Friedman, Survival or Extinction (New York, 1924), p. 131.88

THE GHETTO

j By the middle of the sixteenth century we find evidences
oFccmsolidation of the scattered local settlements and the
isolated and provincial thought of the ghettos. The codified
Jewish law, known as Shulchan Aruch (table prepared),
compiled by Joseph Caro, stimulated the accommodation
of practices and beliefs of the various Jewish communities
to each otherjThe uniformity produced in religious and
social life of the Jews everywhere as a result of the wide
circulation and acceptance of this code was due in large
measure to the fact that "it had the good fortune of being
compiled in an age of printing/' and the fact that during the
age of the ghettos it was primarily through the religious
channel that life could be influenced at all.1

/Until the dawn of the social and political emancipation of the
Jews at the end of the eighteenth century their intellectual life, on
the whole, was of a uniform and specifically Jewish character, for
they were sundered by ghetto walls from external influences^ They
were trained in traditional Hebrew lore in the schools of the Synagogue,
and nurtured on Jewish ideals; with the exception of a Spinoza or a
Stisskind of Trimberg, they devoted themselves mainly to the study
and enrichment of their own national literature; and even when they
occupied themselves with alien subjects they still laboured in a Jewish
milieu and retained a Jewish outlook. But with the advent of emanci-
pation a radical change sets in.2 „

LIFE IN THE PALE

The general outline of the description of the Western
ghetto, given in the preceding pages, applies also to the
Eastern pale. There remain a few facts of special signifi-
cance, however, with reference to Jewish settlements in
Eastern Europe, on which it is proposed to dwell briefly
here.

1	Abrahams, op. cit.9 p. xxvi.

2	Cohen, Jewish Life in Modem Times, p. 224.THE JEWISH MIND

89

Contemporaneous with the migrations of the Jews along
the Mediterranean to Italy, Spain, and Western Europe,
there went forth another wave of immigrants through Asia
Minor, the Caucasus, up to the shores of the Caspian and
the Black seas. It is even possible that this movement ante-
dated that toward the West.1 From the East had also come a
pagan people, the Khazars, who around the year 740 a.d.
became converted to Judaism. By the year 1100 the Jews
had a considerable community at Kiev. With the conver-
sion of Russia to the Greek Orthodox faith their fate gradu-
ally changed. By the beginning of the twelfth century they
had already experienced their first massacre or pogrom.
Occasional merchants and scholars visited these Eastern
settlements from the West; and from the East, by the time
of the Crusades, studious young men came to study with the
German rabbisQDuring the Crusades, beginning with the
first in 1096, a steady stream of Jews who found themselves
persecuted in the provinces of the Danube and the Rhine
began to find their way to Poland, which by this time had
already come under the influence of the Roman church, but
took a less active part in the persecution of the Jews incident
to the Crusades/)

V^From their (German brethren the Jews of Poland received
their communal organization, their religious culture, and
their language, which was a German dialect interspersed
with Hebrew and Polish expressions and forms which gradu-
ally developed into what is known at the present time as
Yiddish?) The special relationship to the ruler, the hostility
of the church, and the partial local autonomy of the Jewish

1 Most of the details of this section are taken from S. M. Dubnow, His-
tory of the Jews in Russia and Poland from the Earliest Times until the Present
Day (3 vol., Philadelphia, 1916, 1918, 1920).9°

THE GHETTO

communities were transferred from the West to the East
almost in their entirety. In Lithuania, however, the Jews
enjoyed a great deal more autonomy and tolerance than in
Poland. This accounts for the superior status which the
Lithuanian Jews have maintained to the present day as over
against the rest of Eastern European Jewry. On the whole,
the Jews were not so closely confined to the cities in the East
as they were in the West, and they had more lenient regula-
tions as to land tenancy than they enjoyed in the West. But
in general they drifted into the same economic functions
that they had practiced in Germany: "By the beginning of
the fourteenth century Polish Jewry had become a big eco-
nomic and social factor with which the state was bound to
reckon. It was now destined to become also an independent
spiritual entity, having stood for four hundred years under
the tutelage of the Jewish center in Germany.'^JIn Poland,
unlike Germany, the Jews frequently settled in villages and
engaged in farming, while in the towns they were not chiefly
absorbed in petty trades and money-lending, but had open
to them a varied field of economic activities. They engaged
in the trades, handicrafts, and many other economic func-
tions, including the leasing of crown and Shlakhta estates,2
with the right of propination (distilling and selling spirituous
liquors), which they continued to exercise on behalf of nobles
even after the partition of Poland^ The Jews were also the
leading tax-farmers of the country.* They found themselves
favored by royalty and partly by the big Shlakhta, or estate
owners, and opposed by the clergy and the burghers. The
changes of the position of the Jews in Poland depended upon
the shifting dominance of these classes in the Polish state.

1 Dubnow, op. citI, 65.

a Shlakhta refers to landed nobility.THE JEWISH MIND

9i

The Jews found themselves the intermediaries between the
nobles and the peasantry on the one hand, and the keen
competitors of the burghers on the other.

q.hnl*^-rtr 1. .^;rmnitieRT the Jews of Poland
enjoyed even greater autonomy than the German Jews did in
their ghettos. These Kgjwls were, moreover, more closely
knit together into larger units than they were in the West.
These conferences, or councils, as they were called, the most
noted of which was the "Council of the Four Lands," were
not only the guardians of the Jewish civil interests in rela-
tion to the government, but they appointed rabbis, passed
laws for the Jews, decided upon religious ritual, education,
taxes, and sat as a sort of supreme court in matters Jewish.
The Kahals had compulsory education, which centered
around the Bible and the Talmud, for all children between
the sixth and thirteenth year. The elementary schools, or
cheders, were either public or private, while the higher
education, carried on in the yeshibas, was entirely under
community control. [Poland, during the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, rapidly became the center of Jewish reli-
gious study, and was less influenced by secular interests than
hadj>een the case in France and Germany?]

\ By the middle of the seventeenth century the Jews of
Eastern Europe began to suffer from periodical massacres at
the hands of military peasant bands or Cossacks, and later
the invading Muscovites. The clergy fomented many ritual
murder accusations1 against the Jews, and the pans, or rural
estate owners, together with the guilds in the cities, con-
trived to make the next century and a half a period of almost
uninterrupted massacres of JewsTj

1 The charge that the Jews slaughtered Christian children and used
human blood in their religious ritual has often been made the basis of massa-
cres and lately of judicial persecution. The Beilis case is a recent example.92

THE GHETTO

The social and economic decline of the Polish Jews, which set
in after 1648, was not conducive to widening the Jewish mental hori-
zon, which had been sharply defined during the preceding epoch. Even
at the time when Polish-Jewish culture was passing through its zenith,
Rabbinism reigned supreme in school and literature. Needless to
say, there was no chance for any broader intellectual currents to con-
test this supremacy during the ensuing period of decline. The only
rival of Rabbinism, whose attitude was now peaceful and now war-
like, was Mysticism, which was nurtured by the mournful disposition
of a life-worn people, and grew into maturity in the unwholesome
atmosphere of Polish decadence.1

During this period of decadence the masses became increas-
ingly ignorant and superstitious, while the talmudic culture,
narrow and circumscribed as it was, became the exclusive
possession of a small circle of scholars. The magic and
superstition of Cabalism gained not only a strong hold upon
the masses but on tfie spiritual leaders of the various com-
munities as well.

During this period the Sabbatian movement, started by
the self-appointed messianic liberator, Sabbatai Zevi, swept
like wildfire through the superstitious masses of Jews. This
was followed later by another messianic movement known
as Chassidism, which, however, was outlawed by the or-
thodox rabbis. They were followed by another sect, known
as the Frankists. These movements were in part a revolt
against the dry-as-dust Rabbinism of the day, but could not
have flourished had it not been for the degraded social and
intellectual position of the Jews, and the restlessness inci-
dent to the political disturbances of the period of persecu-
tion.

Up to the partitions of Poland the Jews had been fairly
consistently excluded from Russia proper. With Poland

1 Dubnow, op. cit., 1,198-99.THE JEWISH MIND

93

partly incorporated in the Russian Empire, the rulers of that
empire had also inherited the problem of the Jews in their
new domain. Their fate from now on was decided on a larger
scale and from a more distant center than ever before.
Furthermore, with the ascendancy of the Greek Orthodox
church the history of the Eastern Jews takes on a more local
and special aspect. The Jews of the East share less and less
the fate of their Western brethren.new device develops,
commensurate with the new problems presented by the vast
territory of Russia, namely, the pale of settlement. By these
measures, which were enacted, revoked, and re-enacted
several times in the course of the latter part of the eight-
eenth, the whole of the nineteenth, and part of the twenti-
eth, century, the Jews are restricted to certain provinces of
the empire. Furthermore, within these provinces the Jews
are restricted to certain localities, particularly the towns and
cities^JOccasional expulsions from the rural districts, in
whi6h they had at various times been permitted to settle,
resulted in the overcrowding of the Jewish quarters of the
cities and in the duplication in aggravated form of the slum
conditions of the Western ghettos. Meanwhile the Jewish
population was often decimated by pogroms. With all this
came the exclusion from public life, from many occupations,
and from popular education and the universitie£TNot only
was the ghetto life of the East, during this specific period at
least, in many instances more confining and isolating than
that of the West, but it persisted long after the walls of the
Western ghetto had vanished, and the Jews of the West had
come toshare the cultural life of the Western European
peoples, i

The Jews of the pale, the Russian, Polish, and in part
the Roumanian Jews, came, as a result, to be differentiated94

THE GHETTO

from those of Western Europe, the German, French, Dutch,
and English Jews, in several fundamental respects. For a
long period the Jews of the East were merely a cultural
dependency, an outpost of Western Jewry. When an inde-
pendent cultural life did develop in Russia, Poland, and
Lithuania, it was self-sufficient and self-contained, apart
from the larger world beyond the pale. Not so with the
Jews of Western Europe. They were never quite imper-
vious to the currents of thought and the social changes
that characterized the life of Europe since the Renaissance.
While the Jews of the East lived in large part in rural com-
munities—in a village world—those of the West were pre-
dominantly a city people, in touch with the centers of
trade and finance near and far, and in touch also with
the pulsating intellectual life of the world. While the Jews
of the Rhine cities were associating with kings and princes,
with men of thought and of practical affairs, their brethren
in Russia were dealing with peasants and an uncultured
class of decadent, feudal landlords. When the Jewries of
the West were already seething with modernist religious,
political, and social movements, those of the East were still
steeped in mysticism and medieval ritual. While the German
Jews were moving along with the tide of progress in science
and modern industry, those of Russia and Galicia were still
sharing the backwardness and isolation of the gentile world
of villagers and peasants!. Although, until the middle of the
last century, the Jews ofthe East were, as a rule, never
quite so confined in their physical movements as were
the ghetto Jews of the West, they lived in a smaller world—a
world characterized by rigidity and stability—and when
they were herded into cities in which they constituted the
preponderant bulk of the total population they merelyTHE JEWISH MIND

95

turned these cities into large villages that had little in com-
mon with the urban centers of the Westj^When we charac- m
terize the Jews as an urban people, therefore, we do so with f
the important qualification that the Jews of Eastern Europgjl
occupied until recently the status of a village people. This
distinction between the two large camps of modern Jewry
goes far to explain the features of Jewish communal life in
the New World to be dealt with in subsequent chapteredHoly EmissaryCHAPTER Vn
THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Scarcely had the medieVal Jewish communities attained
the position of fairly autonomous settlements with a culture
more or less distinct from that of their neighbors when pro-
found currents from without and within the ghetto began to
stir the imagination and the activity of their inhabitants.
Some of these, such as Cabalism and Chassidism, have al-
ready been alluded to in the previous chapter. These, how-
ever, were just the beginning of a whole series of social move-
ments which agitated the life of the people. While some were
intended to preserve what there was of separatism and
sectarianism, others tended to break down the ghetto walls
both in the literal and the figurative sense.

^Toward the end of the sixteenth century the Cabalistic
movement was making headway, especially in Eastern
Europe, rapidly'enveloping Jewish life in a deep veil of
mysticism and superstition. Intellectual activities were at
their low ebb. The air of the ghetto and the pale was stag-
nant with ignorance, religious bigotry, and fanaticism which
fed on th^ exclusion from the world without and the violent
persecution^

The intellectual life of the Jews was then limited to the study of
the Bible and Talmud. These studies, principally encouraged in the
Talmudic schools in Poland, were not primarily directed to finding out
the spirit of these books. They made of the text of the Bible a palaestre
for interpretations which, though clever, were hair-splitting and fantas-
tic; nor did the Talmud, upon which they piled commentary upon

9198

THE GHETTO

commentary, and supercommentary upon supercommentary, fare
much better. By the side of these flourished the Kabbala, which in
its most important book, the Zohar, professed to have revealed the key
to all wisdom, and to be able thereby to dispense with all other knowl-
edge. The innumerable ritual ceremonies were slavishly followed and
made the pivot of daily life. Nothing gives us clearer insight into the
mental attitude of the Jews of that period than that event which
moved the whole of the seventeenth century Jewry to its very depths—
the appearance of the Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, and the subsequent cult
of Sabbataism in the eighteenth century, led by Nehemiah Chija
Chajon and other less scrupulous adventurers. On the same level was
the quarrel between Emden and Eybenschiitz in Hamburg (1750-56),
a quarrel which raised the passions of Jews all over Europe to the
boiling point, raising the question whether or not the life-saving
amulets sold to midwives by Rabbi Eybenschiitz contained the name
of Sabbatai Zevi in their formula. Such was the intellectual standard
of Jewry in the eighteenth century.1

-vl

The Chassidic movement was an outgrowth of the Caba-
listic lore. It was essentially rustic in origin, and at first was
taken up only by the most provincial and ignorant masses
of Jews residing in isolated towns and villagesIsrael Baal
Shem Tob (known by the abbreviated form of his name,
"Besht," the "master of the good name"), born around 1700
on the border line of Podolia and Wallachia, became the
founder and leader of the sect. He had great advantages for
his calling: he was poor, he was ignorant, he was enthusias-
tic, and he was obscure. More important, however, was the
fact that he began his practice as wonder-worker at a time
when the whole mass of Jewry was looking for a messiah,
and when the orthodox rabbis had become detached from the
people. I

Be§ht became the favorite of the masses. Warm-hearted and simple
in disposition, he managed to get close to the people and to find out

1 Ruppin, op. tit., pp. 4-5.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION

their spiritual wants. Originally a healer of the body, he imperceptibly
grew to be a teacher of religion. He taught that true salvation lies, not
in Talmudic learning, but in whole-hearted devotion to God, in un-
sophisticated faith and fervent prayer.....Besht preached that the

plain man, imbued with naive faith, and able to pray fervently and
whole-heartedly, was dearer and nearer to God than the learned for-
malist spending his whole life in the study of the Talmud. Not to
speculate in religious matters, but to believe blindly and devotedly,
such was the motto of Besht. This simplified formula of Judaism ap-
pealed to the Jewish masses and to those democratically inclined
scholars who were satisfied neither with rabbinic scholasticism nor
with the ascetic Cabala of the school of Ari.1

The opponents of 'Chassidism called themselves Mithnagdim,
"Protestants," and persecuted and excommunicated the
Chassidists wherever they could lay their hands on the mem-
bers of the sect which had grown powerful and had become
harder to manage because it had transformed itself into a
secret society. Meanwhile, in Lithuania Jewish scholarship
had taken an intellectualistic turn, but remained definitely
within the restricted horizon of talmudical learning.

During the second half of the eighteenth century a new
light began to shine for the Jews of Western Europe which
sent some of its rays to the East and left profound impres-
sions upon the whole complexion of Jewry. This was the
wave of the so-called ^Enlightenment," the inception of
which is usually associated with the name of Moses Mendels-
sohn. Partly influenced by the enlightenment of the whole
of Western Europe during the latter half of the eighteenth
century, and particularly by the French philosophers of that
period, and partly by the development of commerce and
industry, which took off some of the stigma of the usurer
from the Jew and facilitated numerous contacts, a new social

1 Dubnow, op, cit.f I, 224-25.IOO

THE GHETTO

and economic outlook began to characterize the Jews of the
West. The old separatism began to break down, and left its
marks upon Jewish religious and communal iif£

< • While in the West the increased personal intercourse be-
tween Jews and Christians also stimulated the Jews to par-
ticipate in the wider world of thought, to read French and
German books, to abandon their ghetto jargon (Jiidisch-
Deutsch) in favor of the language of the country in which
they lived, in the East matters stood differently.

/The breezes of Western culture had hardly a chance to penetrate
to this realm, protected as it was by the double wall of Rabbinism and
Hasidism. And yet here and there one may discern on the surface of
social life the foam of the wave from the far-off West. From Germany
the free-minded "Berliner," the nickname applied to these "new men,"
was moving toward the borders of Russia. He arrayed himself in a
short German coat, cut off his earlocks, shaved his beard, neglected
the religious observances, spoke German or "the language of the land,"
and swore by the name of Moses Mendelssohn. The culture of which
he was the banner-bearer was a rather shallow enlightenment, which
affected exterior and form rather than mind and heart. It was "Ber-
linerdom," the harbinger of the more complicated Haskala of the fol-
lowing period, which was imported into Warsaw during the decade of
Prussian dominion (1796-1806).

The contact between the capitals of Poland and Prussia yielded
its fruits. The Jewish "dandy" of Berlin appeared on the streets of
Warsaw, and not infrequently the long robe of the Polish Hasid made
way timidly for the German coat, the symbol of "enlightenment/^/

The Eastern interpretation of "enlightenment" was con-
siderably influenced by the Russian government's zeal to
have the Jews "enlightened" by compulsory methods,
among which was forcible recruiting of Jewish boys into the
army, there to be made into good Christians and Russians.
Another feature of the government's program was the partial

1 Ibid., pp. 284-85.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION

IOI

abolition of the communal autonomy of the Jews and com-
pulsory instruction in secular subjects, without, however,
permitting the Jews to participate in civil functions or to
attend the secular educational institutions. Finally, the
Russian government sought by decree to force the Jews to
abandon their characteristic Jewish dress and appearance.
All these efforts, while they made for great numbers of con-
versions—feigned as well as genuine—to Christianity, on
the whole merely tightened the hold of ritualism and provin-
cialism upon the Jews of Russia.

QTwo other social movements of profound significance
swept Judaism before the era of emancipation opened:
r nationalism and socialismj Since Zionism has grown into a
formidable movement, attempts haveT5£en made at various
times to show that the Jews had never lost the desire of at
some time returning to Palestine and there re-establishing
their national sovereignty.rThe Zionists point to the fre-
quent references by medievalthinkers and poets to the Holy
Land as indicative of the fact that Jewish nationalism had
never ceased to play a role even at a time when the morale
of the Jews in the diaspora was at its lowest eb This is to
be attributed to the necessity of such a moventent as Zion-
ism to find a raison d'etre, to justify itself and seek support
for its aims in the historic experiences of the people. But a
more objective study reveals the contrary:

[■Judaism became nationalized by the fall of feudalism and the rise
df the ghettosj The superficial appearance of a national entity has, I
fear, originated the movement now popular with some modern Jews
in favor of creating a Jewish state, politically independent and per-
haps religiously homogeneous. I speak regretfully, because one does
not like to see enthusiasm wasted over a conception which has no roots
in the past and no fruits to offer for the future. The idealized love of
Zion which grew up in the Middle Ages had no connexion whatever102

THE GHETTO

with this process of nationalization through which Judaism passed.
Still less was it connected with an aspiration for religious homogeneity
which did not exist in the Middle Ages, and is not likely to survive in
Judaism now that it has once more become denationalized. National
aspirations are nursed by persecution, but the medieval longing for
the Holy Land grew up, not in persecution, but in the sunshine of
literature. The Spanish-Jewish poet, to use Heine's famous figure,
came to love Jerusalem as the medieval troubadour loved his lady, and
the love grew with the lays. Jehuda Halevi used the very language of
medieval love in this passionate address to his "woe-begone darling":

0! who will lead me on
To seek the spots where, in far distant years,

The angels in their glory dawned upon
Thy messengers and seers?

0! who will give me wings
That I may fly away,

And there, at rest from all my wanderings,

The ruins of my heart among thy ruins lay?

The same Jehuda Halevi who sings thus declared that Israel was to
the nations as the heart to the body—not a nation of the nations, but a
vitalizing element of them all.1

Whatever parallels may be found by the historian between
Zionism and the European nationalism of the nineteenth
century, the former had the added stimulus of the messianic
hopes which repeatedly stirred the Jewish world during the
Middle Ages, and which had found vivid expression in Jew-
ish literature.

In the ghettos the Jews spoke a jargon of Judeo-German,
Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Polish, or whatever the admixture
might be in accordance with local circumstances. These
Yiddish dialects had already developed something of a
literature. The movement of enlightenment, however, which

1 Abrahams, op. cit., pp. xxiv-xxv.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION 103

was given great impetus by Moses Mendelssohn's translation
of the Pentateuch into pure German, put a stigma upon the
use of Yiddish, which thereafter was not considered a polite
language/ The talmudic scholars, even, who used the jargon
in their study and conversation began to look with horror
upon the occasional translation of the Scriptures into Yid-
dish.(By the opening of the nineteenth century the enlight-
enment movement, especially in the East, had taken the
form of a neo-Hebraic Renaissance, known as the Haskalah
movement. Plays, poems, scientific, political, and religious
treatises began to appear in Hebrew, and many translations
of literary works from other languages into neo-Hebrew were
perfected 5 This literary revival lent itself readily to the
propagation of nationalism^

From quite another source the Jewish nationalistic
movement gained strong support. During several attempts
to "solve the Jewish problem" in Russia on the part of the
government, efforts had been made to settle the Jews on the
land in some uncolonized areas. These Jewish settlements
received only half-hearted encouragement from the govern-
ment, but in spite of that some had a fair measure of success.
Large parts of the Jewish population began to feel that a
territorial basis for the Jewish communities on a sufficiently
large scale to assure economic self-sufficiency, accompanied
by religious and political autonomy, was the only way to
save the Jews from persecution on the one hand, and from
conversion and disintegration on the other.

The social and political disabilities that hampered even
those Jews who had achieved something in the secular world,
especially the Jewish students, added strength to the Zionist
movement. These "intellectuals" found themselves rebuffedio4

THE GHETTO

as undesirables and inferiors in European society, and many
of them returned to their people enthusiastic about the
movement to establish a Jewish nation.

. \*£ionism did much to reunite Eastern and Western Jews
whom the different historical experiences and the unequal
rate of social and econoniic progress of the East and the
West had widely separatedJToward the middle of the nine-
teenth century numbers of Jews, particularly aged Jews,
journeyed to Palestine, there to pass their last days. Some
of them, and more often their children, became apostles of
Zionism.

The advocacy of the colonization of Palestine as the only solu-
tion of the Jewish question was made as early as 1818 by Mordecai
Manuel Noah, in America, and was repeated in different countries at
intervals throughout the century. In France it was urged in 1830
by the historian Joseph Salvador; in Germany, in 1862, independently
by Moses Hess, in his Rome and Jerusalem; and by Hirsch Kalischer,
in his Quest of Zion} the one a socialist, the other an orthodox rabbi; in
England, in 1876, by George Eliot in her famous novel, Daniel Deron-
da; and in Russia, in 1880, by the Hebrew writers Moses Lilienblum
and Perez Smolenskin, and soon after by Leon Pinsker, too, who, in his
historic pamphlet, Auto-Emancipation, eloquently argued that the
settlement of the Jews in a land of their own was the only salvation
from their sufferings, though he did not specifically propose Palestine
for the purpose.1

In 1870 the Alliance Israelite, which had been estab-
lished in Paris in i860 to assist the Jews of Eastern Europe,
established an agricultural school in Palestine. In 1884
the "Society of Lovers of Zion" was founded in Kattowitz,
at a representative Jewish conference to promote extensive
settlements in Palestine.

The work of colonization, however, lagged at the beginning, partly
owing to the early settlers being endowed only with zeal, but with

1 Cohen, op, cit,, p. 328.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION 105

little practical knowledge, and partly owing to the obstacles inevitably
associated with pioneer settlement; and it was not until Baron Edmond
de Rothschild came to its aid with his munificent generosity that it
made any appreciable progress. The Lovers of Zion were animated, it
is true, by the national sentiment, but the general character of their
activity was a blend of philanthropy and religious piety, whilst the aid
contributed by Western Jews was also prompted mainly by charitable
motives tinged with the racial consciousnesf Not until the advent
of the feuilletonist and playwright, Theodor Herzl, in 1896, was the
Jewish national sentiment propounded as an idea whose expression
should not limit itself to the creation of scattered colonies in the Holy
Land, but which should expand into an organized endeavour of the
Jewish people to work for its national regeneration^]

With this, Zionism became a political movement. HerzFs
pamphlet, The Jewish State, in spite of strong opposition
from rabbis and laymen, had the effect of bringing together
the first International Congress at Basle, in 1897, to consider
the program outlined by him. Since then Zionist congresses
have been meeting regularly.

^Sonism^jt must be remembered, wasnot a ghetto move-
mej$T It began with those who had already partially
emerged from the ghetto. It did not start with the Jews of the
pale, for they had too little contact with the world of practical
politics to inaugurate a nationalistic movement of this sort._
The Jew, as long as he finds himself inclosed by ghetto walls,
is not only helpless, but is extremely naive about the world^
outside. The Zionist movement was, at least in part, the cul-
mination of the attempt on the part of the Western Jews,
who had already acquired some experience with politics and
civic life, to assist their Eastern brethren, who were still
held strictly under the thumb of Tsaristic autocracyTj As the
Zionist movement gained momentum, howeverfrTwas the

1 Ibid., pp. 328-29.io6

THE GHETTO

Jews of Eastern Europe who became its most ardent cham-
pions. Pogroms and exclusion from the common life of the
country were the levers that compelled their adherence,
while the Western Jews, who began to feel fairly comfortable
under the changed conditions of the last half of the nine-
teenth century, maintained a philanthropic interest in the
movement and often were compelled by idealistic motives
of cultural solidarity or personal motives of leadership to
maintain their affiliation and contribute their "shekel," as
the annual dues were called; but on the whole the political
life of their own locality was much more immediate and ab-
sorbing. Not until the recrudescence of anti-Semitism in
recent times has their attitude toward Zionism changed.
But already it is becoming evident to many who otherwise
are favorably inclined to Zionism that the establishment
of an independent Jewish state, far from solving the "Jew-
ish problem," would merely result in making the ghetto
international.1

Side by side with Zionism a great number of Jews
thought that they had found another road leading to free-
dom, the road of political and social revolution, which found
expression in the Socialist movement. In France, Germany,
and Russia numbers of Jewish workers and intellectuals
looked to the general revolt of the masses as the surest means
that would bring political and social equality to them. Even
while they were still excluded from the sphere of political
activities of the various countries, they could participate in
the agitation and discussion that first centered around the
question of constitutional monarchies and later took the
form of Utopian socialism, finally culminating in the move-
ments generally identified by the names of two Jews, Karl

1 See Karl Kautsky, Are the Jews a Race? London, 1926.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION 107

Marx and Ferdinand Lasalle. The Jews, being predominant-
ly members of the middle class, and particularly the petit
bourgeoisie, stood as a whole on a liberal democratic plat-
form. They were represented in the Socialist movement less
by numbers than by enthusiasm and outstanding personal-
ities.

Russia, socialism among the Jews took partly the
form Zionism, and became incorporated in the Poale Zion
party^-The federation of Jewish socialist organizations,
known as "Bund," exercised an important r61e in the forma-
tion of the Russian Social Democratic party. It was com-
posed largely of Jewish workingmen, but received its leader-
ship and enthusiasm from numerous students and intellectu-
als who joined its ranks. It was a secret movement, of course,
ancLJiad about it much of the romantic atmosphere.

t Finally there came a movement within Judaism which
confined itself largely to reforming the ritual, known as the
Reform movement. This movement not only brought Jew-
ish religious services in accord with the procedure in Chris-
tian churches, such as introducing organs, mixed choirs, and
the substitution of the vernacular for Hebrew, but it also
permitted greater latitude in the personal conduct of the
individual. In the Reform temples praying shawls and phil-
acteries ar<yaot worn, and the congregation does not wear
hats7"as is required in the orthodox synagogue. In most
instances services are held on Sundays instead of Saturdays,
and the prayers thrice daily, which characterize the syna-
gogue, are omitted. The Reform movement widened the gulf
between the religious and the secular. The emphasis on
Kosher food disappears, and even intermarriage of Jews
with Gentiles is not frowned upon so severely as was the
case in the Middle AgesT)108	THE GHETTO

^This movement, which started in Germany, looked upon
Judaism more as a religious and less as a cultural and na-
tional body. In fact, it emphasized the civic and local in-
terests ofme Jewish population as over against the "na-
tional" and '^cultural" aims and the separatist attitude of
orthodoxy^Et favored cultural assimilation with the gen-
eral population^) But Reform Judaism, too, differs from
country to country. It never gained much of a foothold in
Russia, is hard to distinguish from orthodoxy in England,
and has taken its most radical turn in Germany and the
United States. It did away with the Cheder and the Yeshiba,
and relegated the rabbinical literature to the scrap heap.

^THe leaders of Reformism have insisted that only through
some such modernizing influence as this can Judaism be
saved from complete disintegration; while the defenders of
orthodoxy have replied that Reformism is only a step to
complete assimilation and apostasy, and is to be regarded
therefore as the surest and most direct route toward con-
version and desertion?)

{These movements within the Jewish communities of
Europe and America marked the beginning of a new epoch
in the diaspora. They are indicative of the inner forces that
were gradually breaking down the ghetto walls, and were
one phase of the process of dissolution of the ghetto, which
was paralleled by the political emancipation and the ac-
quisition of social status from the outside?^

In view of the religious movements that stirred the
European ghettos internally, and the social and political
currents that swept upon them from without, historians
have been busy attempting to discover the forces that held
the Jews together and prevented them from disintegrating
into a number of isolated sects. It has been pointed out byTHE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION

109

some that the conservatism of the group was due to its wide
dispersion, while others have held that pressure from with-
out was strong enough to solidify the group and immunize
it against disintegrating influences. As one views the experi-
ences of the Jews in retrospect, one cannot help noting that
the influences of these sectarian movements are still oper-
ative, and that at least one factor in the persistent integra-
tion of the life of the group is the constant struggle that is
being carried on against them, in the course of which the
members have become mobilized in a common combative
effort.

It has been suggested, however, that the larger, inte-
grated Jewish community of the Middle Ages no longer
exists, and that what we see today is virtually a series of
disparate sects/Tt should be noted, though, that the reli-
gious motives, which underlie a great deal of Jewish com-
munal life even to the present day, are essentially rooted in
the desire for security, and this need for security has not
been effectually satisfied by any of the sectarian movements
within Judaism itself^Only to the extent that the solidarity
of the family has been affected by modern life has the com-
munity been weakened and the allegiance to the old heritage
been periled. |To the great masses of Jews neither the exotic,
orgiastic sects of Cabalism and Chassidism nor the rational-
ism of enlightenment and reformism, nor, finally, the radi-
cal transition to some Christian denomination, could offer
an adequatesubstitute for the warmth, the comfort, and the
security that was to be found in the orthodox religious beliefs
andpractices)

JTo the Jew, each new movement, whether from without
or from within his own group, presented a new avenue of
escape from his troubles, and to a fuller and freer lif^Like ano

THE GHETTO

drowning man, he reached for every object that was thrown
out to him, hoping to save himself. Zionism, Socialism, and
every other movement that came along has found numbers
of Jewish adherents. (Trhe Jew lived on the fringe of two
worlds. From behind the ghetto wall he was able to steal a
glimpse of life in the larger world outside. He never lived
fully in either world, and was torn between the impulse to
remain in the intimate circle of his own kind, where he found
security, and where he had some sort of status, and the con-
flicting impulse to escape into the life outside, which from a
distance looked so free, so varied, and so colorful—where he
could find a larger audience to appreciate his talents; where
he could meet, not only with ghetto Jews, but with men of
the world. As a result he took seriously every movement
that went on, looking upon its slogans as the call to freedoi

One other phase of this behavior of the Jew is worl
noting. The Jew was more or less at the mercy of his own
intellectual qualities. He had become accustomed to look
upon every plan with the view of its rational meaning and
teleological significance. The Jew had no difficulty in ra-
tionalizing, not only Reformism and Socialism, but Zionism
and Chassidism as well. He looked upon the programs of
these movements as rational solutions of his problem^. He
failed to see that life was not a series of hurdles whiclfmust
be overcome by dialectics, but an ongoing process, in the
course of which every day brings new situations which can-
not be met by nostrums and magic formulas, but which must
be lived, and which reappear again and again and never are
finally solved.

le change from medievalism to modernism, which we
ai customed to associate with the Renaissance, the rise of

EMANCIPATIONTHE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION hi

cities, the growth of nationalism, and the decay of absolute
monarchism, left the Jews of Europe largely unaffectedly
They were a special class of the population, to be dealt with
separately, and to whom the ordinary rights of citizens did
not apply. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century,
however, there appeared occasional symptoms of a changing
attitude toward the Jews on the part of the governments and
the general population of central and western Europe. The
increasing contact which came with the growth of modern
capitalism and the breakdown of the feudal and guild
system, and the growing tolerance which was an aftermath
of popular enlightenment, had already stirred the Jews more
or less profoundly, as evidenced by the social movements
within Judaism itself that have just been described.

The Jews were still aliens, however, in the countries in
which they had lived for centuries. They were barred from
landownership, from many occupations, from the universi-
ties and schools, from participation in civil and political
affairs, and from the ordinary rights of citizenship. Further-
more, they were restricted in choosing their domicile, and
were subjected to special taxation. In some countries their
private lives were circumscribed even as regards dress,
speech, and worship. They were subject to arbitrary expul-
sion, and exposed to insult and violence on the part of the
populace, without rights of redress. "In short, they had no
right except the right to exist, and this was exposed to so
many wrongs that it was felt as a burden itself."1 They did
not submit to these measures passively, but so long as they
remained in the ghettos they were impotent. Their hands
were tied, and they were often censured for not improving
their lot.

1 Cohen, op. citp. 135.112

THE GHETTO

Even in England, where the Jews had enjoyed freedom
of domicile, and from the poll tax since they had resettled in
that country in 1655, after an expulsion, an act for the
naturalization of the Jews passed in 1753 was repealed in
the same year as a result of popular indignation. In France
the spirit of toleration preached by the "philosphers of rea-
son" began to have its effects in the gradual removal of the
disabilities of the Jews. But the full "rights of man" were
not extended to the Jews of France until 1791. Napoleon
later confirmed these rights granted by the revolutionary
National Assembly. Meanwhile an interesting episode oc-
curred which was of more significance to the Jews of the rest
of the continent than to those of France:

The Jewish question in France was reopened by the guild mer-
chants and religious reactionaries of Alsace, who exploited the in-
ability of the peasants of this province to repay their debts to the Jews
by petitioning Napoleon to abrogate the civil rights of the Jews. The
conqueror resolved to submit the question to the consideration of the
Jews themselves. He convened an Assembly of Jewish Notables of
France, Germany, and Italy, in order to ascertain whether the prin-
ciples of Judaism were compatible with the requirements of citizen-
ship, as he wished to fuse the Jewish element with the dominant popu-
lation. The Assembly, consisting of in deputies, met in the Town
Hall of Paris on July 25, 1806, and was required to frame replies to
twelve questions relating mainly to the possibility of Jewish patriotism,
the permissibility of intermarriage between Jew and non-Jew, and the
legality of usury. So pleased was Napoleon with the pronouncements
of the Assembly that he summoned a Sanhedrin after the model of the
ancient council of Jerusalem, to convert them into the decrees of a
legislative body. The Sanhedrin, comprising 71 deputies from France,
Germany, Holland, and Italy, met under the presidency of Rabbi
Sinzheim, of Strassburg, on February 9, 1807, and adopted a sort of
charter which exhorted the Jews to look upon France as their father-
land, to regard its citizens as their brethren, and to speak its language;
and which also expressed toleration of marriages between Jews andTHE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION 113

Christians, while declaring that they could not be sanctioned by the
synagogue.1

The Jews, as this decision shows, were willing to compromise
with some of their age-old traditions, such as their attitude
toward intermarriage, to purchase their rights of citizenship.

For a time the Jews of Italy, of Westphalia, and of the
Hansa towns profited by Napoleon's action and gained civil
emancipation, but with the fall of Napoleon there came a
reaction. In Rome, during the revolution of i&jiLthe ghetto
was once again abolished, only tobe re-established when the
revolution was past. In 1870 the Jews of Rome sent a nota-
ble petition to the Pope setting forth their grievances and
pleading for the abolition of the ghetto. The opening sen-
tences of this petition are indicative of the tenor of the docu-
ment; it read:

Most Holy Father! The elders and the delegates of the Jewish
community of Rome, faithful subjects of your Holiness, prostrate
themselves before your exalted throne, and offer the assurance of the
continued loyalty of their co-religionists. This feeling of loyalty is the
result of the many conspicuous deeds of kindness which we, O Holy
Father, have experienced at your hands, and we are now animated by
the pleasant sensation of hope, since your exalted will has consented
to receive new petitions in its name. In fulfilment of the duty imposed
on them, the petitioners presume humbly and reverently to lay before
your holy wisdom and mildness the present exceedingly wretched con-
dition of their co-religionists. May you deign to cast a gracious glance
from your exalted throne upon those who, though Israelites, are a por-
tion of your people.

And this medieval document, written in 1870, ended as fol-
lows:

Accustomed as the undersigned are to bless your name, they hope
not to have spoken in vain to your fatherly heart of the sad lot still
theirs; the insalubrity of the old Jewish dwellings; the direct and in-

1 Cohen, op. cit., pp. 137-38.U4

THE GHETTO

direct obstacles to the free pursuit of the trades, the fine arts and the
larger number of industries; the limited right to possess real estate; the
denial on the part of some notaries of their right to act as witnesses;
the alarming increase of poverty; the impotence of the Israelitish
benevolent institutions to prevent or lessen misery; the impropriety of
the yearly appropriations paid by order of the finance commission
to two Catholic institutions; the alarm of the rich, who, in consequence
of the mentioned burdens, are subjected to many pecuniary sacrifices
required by their own religious foundations, and others which the in-
debtedness of their benevolent institutions demands of them; the in-
ability to take energetic measures for the better education of the great-
ly increasing poorer class—all this [misery], O Holy Father, must ap-
peal to you, in such a degree, that your own heart will find it advisable
not to delay the carrying out of the good deed, for pauperes facti sumus
nimis, we have become too impoverished, and the prayer which the
undersigned whisper in the hearing of your Holiness is the prayer of
forty-eight hundred of your subjects.

Hear us, O Holy Father, so that the children of Israel may once
again benefit by that noble generosity inseparably connected with your
immortal name!1

Before the Pope had had an opportunity to act upon this
servile diplomatic gesture, the Italian king made his entry
into the Holy City, and the jewsot JKoiM Weie aflmTfledto

ready_^^^3Cltefflr^j55^wh^ the papal states came
under the rule of Victor Emanuel.(The Roman ghetto stood,
however^ until 1885, when it was theT&st of tEe^Westem
European ghettos tcTEe destroyedj

Tn'Udrittany S^AustnatEe Jews had won minor rights
here and there during the eighteenth century, but with
Napoleon's fall they were withdrawn. 1% 1819 the feeling
against the Jews ran so high that wholesale massacres and
expulsions took place throughout Central and Northern

1 Philipson, op. tit., pp. 164-74.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION 115

Europe. The revolutions of 1848, in which the Jews were
actively interested, brought relief. In Prussia the fight for
emancipation was led by a Jewish lawyer from Hamburg,
Gabriel Riesser.[The national parliament at Frankfort-
passed the decree emancipating the JewsTJThis was followed
by emancipation in Hanover and Nassau in the same year,
in Wiirttemberg in 1861, Baden in 1862, and Saxony in 1868.
The North German Confederation, formed in 1869, abol-
ished religious disabilities, and with the formation of the
German Empire in 1870, full civil equality became an accom-
plished fact. In Austria-Hungary emancipation came in
1869. In England the first Jew to sit in Parliament was
Baron Lionel de Rothschild, in 1858, and the English univer-
sities admitted them to full privileges only in 1870. Not
until 1890, however, did all positions in the British Empire,
except that of monarch, become open to Jews. In Canada
the Jews have enjoyed full civil rights since 1832, in South
Africa since 1820, and in Australia ever since their settle-
ment.

%hi Belgium the Jews were emancipated in 1815, in Den-
mark in 1849, in Norway in 1851,in Sweden they gained most
of the rights of citizenship in 1865, and in the same year in
Switzerland. Spain gave overt expression of its friendly
interest in the Jews, whom it had expelled 350 years earlier,
in 1858; Portugal, in 1825. In Bulgaria and Serbia the Jews
gained civil rights in 1878, and in Turkey not until 1908. In
Russia the Jews did not gain their rights of citizenship until
the revolution of 1917, and in Roumania they were subject
to all sorts of disabilities until after the World War. Their
status even at present is uncertain In Russia and Roumania
active persecution coexisted with political subjection, and
in the latter country there is reason to believe on the basisn6

THE GHETTO

of recent happenings that pogroms are not yet a thing of the
past. A similar situation has arisen in post-war Hungary.

An interesting sidelight on the attitude of the orthodox
communities toward emancipation is furnished by what
happened in Amsterdam:

Upon the establishment of the Batavian Republic in 1795, the
more energetic members of the Jewish community pressed for a re-
moval of the many disabilities under which they laboured.....

Some of these disabilities were removed in response to vigorous agita-
tion, but the demand for the full rights of citizenship made by the
progressive Jews was at first, strangely enough, opposed by the lead-
ers of the Amsterdam community, who feared that civil equality
would militate against the conservation of Judaism, and declared that
their co-religionists renounced their rights of citizenship in obedience
to the dictates of their faith.1

The "progressive" Jews won out, and the Jews of Holland
gained civil eqlialtty^lTir"T70l; ^"f

The political freedom which the Jews thus gained
throughout Western Europe toward the middle of the last
century came to them bit by bit, and not without persistant
struggle. The changed social life of Western Europe since
the French Revolution, and the mass movements that ac-
companied it, had loosened the hold of the traditional ties of
the provincial Jewish communities and had given some of its
members an opportunityjiere and there to taste the life that
lay outside the ghetto. ^The Jews were not slow to avail
themselves of the opportunities that emancipation offered.
They entered whole-heartedly into the political life of the
countries in which they lived, and as the barriers to residence
and occupation were removed, they expanded the horizon
of their social lifOrhey flocked to the universities in large

1 Cohen, op, p. 139.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION 117

numbers, and many of them distinguished themselves in the
new fields of activity which now were open to them.

This political and social emancipation led to more inti-
mate contacts between Jews and non-Jews, and still more
dissolved the hold that tradition and religious ritual had ex-
ercised in the pasC Those members of the Jewish com-
munities, like the orthodox group in Amsterdam, who saw
in the new freedom the decline of the influence of the Jewish
religion as a unifying and conservative force and the ulti-
mate dissolution of Jewish communal life had some things
left to console them£Tirst, the formal equality decreed by
the law did not at the same time bring about social equality.
Second, although the official barriers were removed, there
remained numerous barriers created by custom which hin-
dered the Jews from entrance into the society of their Chris-
tian fellow-citizens; and third, as Ruppin points out, al-
though Western Jewry seemed to be crumbling, there were
approximately six million Jews left on the other side of the
Vistula who were still clinging to the old bonds that exclu-
sion and oppression had fashionedTjiut since that time even
Russia has been revolutionized, and the "last bulwark" of
Judaism threatens to disappear.

MODERN GHETTOS

Just as the ghetto arose before formal decrees forced
the Jews into segregated areas, so the ghetto persists even
after these decrees have been annulled. But just as the
voluntary ghetto differed in important respects from the
compulsory institution, so the ghetto that lingers after its
formal basis has been undermined is a different sort of struc-
ture from its predecessor. Mr. Zangwill has said: "People
who have been living in a ghetto for a couple of centuriesn8

THE GHETTO

are not able to step outside merely because the gates are
thrown down, nor to efface the brands on their souls by put-
ting off the yellow badgesf The isolation from without will
have come to seem the law oTTHeir being."1 The formal abo-
lition of the ghetto and the granting of the rights of citizen-
ship did for the Jews about what the emancipation
proclamation did for the American Negro. The abolition
of Negro slavery did not make the Negro free and equal. In
fact, race prejudice against the Negro seemed to arise only
as the Negro became emancipated. Slavery was more than
a mere legal relationship between master and slave. The
ghetto was more than just a legal measurg. It had become an
institution, and, as such, had come to exist not only in stat-
utes and decrees but in the habits and attitudes of individ-
uals and in the culture of groups. Though the physical
walls of the ghetto have been torn down, an invisible wall of
isolation still maintains the distance between the Jew and
his neighbors^

When, in the Middle Ages, proselytes entered the Jewish
community they left their world behind them, outside the
ghetto gates. Jews who left their community for the world
outside were absorbed into the general population and dis-
appeared within a few generations, without leaving a trace.
This exodus of individuals from the ghetto was at times
quite large, and the path was made smooth by the church,
which meant the state as well. With the formal ghetto
abolished, however, even this avenue of escape is made more
difficult. An English Jew, Joseph Jacobs, has expressed the
typical reaction in the following terms:

.... I was just at that stage which comes in the intellectual de-
velopment of every Jew, I suppose, when he emerges from the ghetto,

1 Israel Zangwill, Children of the Ghetto (Philadelphia, 1907), I, 6.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION

both social and intellectual, in which he was brought up. He finds the
world outside pursuing a course quite oblivious of the claims of his
race and his religion. This oblivion is in itself a tacit condemnation of
the claims which justified his former isolation. He is forced to recon-
sider them, and the result is that he either re-enters the ghetto never
to emerge, or comes outside never to re-enter.1

Zangwill has given this invisible wall literary expression in
his poem, "The Goyim" (The Gentiles):

Beware of the Goyim, his elders told Jacob,

In the holy peace of the Sabbath candles.

They drink Jewish blood:

They are fiercer than flame,

Or than cobras acoil for the spring.

They make mock of our God and our Torah,

They rob us and spit on us,

They slaughter us more cruelly than the Shochet our cattle.

Go not outside the Ghetto.

Should your footsteps be forced to their haunts,

Walk warily, never forgetting

They are Goyim,

Foes of the faith,

Beings of darkness,

Drunkards and bullies,

Swift with the fist or the bludgeon,

Many in species, but all

Engendered of God for our sins,

And many and strange their idolatries,

But the worst of the Goyim are the creatures called Christians.

In the comforting gleam

Of the two Sabbath candles

The little boy thrilled with an exquisite shudder

At the words of his elders.

For the slums that enswathed with their vileness his nest,
Pullulated with Christians;

1 Joseph Jacohs, Jewish Ideals and Other Essays, p. xiii.120

THE GHETTO

Easy to recognize

By the stones and the scoffs of their young at his passing,

And the oaths of their reeling adults,

And the black eyes they gave to their females

On Saturday nights,

Preparing for Sunday.

Foul-tongued and ferocious these creatures, the worst of the Goyim.

But Jacob grew bigger,

Outgrowing the Ghetto.

He laughed at his elders

With their cowering fears and exclusive old customs

And mechanical rites.

He worshipped the Gentiles,

No savage inferiors to Israel,

But Plato and Virgil, but Shakespeare and Shelley,

But Bach and Beethoven,

But Michael Angelo,

Dreamers and seers and diviners,

Shapers of Man, not a tribe;

Builders of beauty.

O the soul-shaking roll of the organ
In their dim cathedrals
And the sacred trance of the spirit
In their grass-grown colleges.

Poor Ghetto's fusty lore
And the drone it imagined music
And the blind-alley it called the cosmos.

Hats off to the Goyim, he cried, hats off e'en in Synagogue.

Great are our brethren the Goyim, and the greatest of all are the
Christians.

But behold him today,

Little Jacob once more,

Bowed small by the years and calamities,

With his tragical eyes,

The Jew's haunted eyes,THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION

That have seen for themselves,

Seen history made
On the old Gentile formula,

Seen the slums written large
In the red fields of Europe,

And the Goyim blood-drunken,

Reeling and cursing
As on Saturday night.

Back, back, he cries, brethren.

Back to the Ghetto,

To our God of compassion,

To our dream of Messiah,

And our old Sabbath candles!

For the others are Goyim,

Who despite all their Platos,

Their Shakespeares and Shelleys,

Their Bachs and Beethovens,

Drink human blood.

Not only ours but their kinsmen's.

Pitiless fratricides,

Beings of darkness,

Foes of the faith,

Fiercer than cobras acoil for the spring:

Many in species, but all
Engendered of God for our sins,

And many and strange their idolatries,

But the worst of the Goyim are the creatures called Christians.1

v The ghetto still remains a fairly universal institution where-
ever Jews live in considerable numbers. Even in the United
States, where medieval legislation is not a part of the tradi-
tion of the general population, and in the countries of
Europe where the legal status of the Jew is that of citizen,
a nucleus of the ghetto persists.""^

1 Israel Zangwill, The Voice of Jerusalem (New York, 1921), pp. 324-36.122

THE GHETTO

Even in this free country of ours, where a ghetto has never been
established by religious canon or civil law, the effects of ghetto life in
Europe crop out very perceptibly. In our large cities Jewish quarters
are being formed which, though not defined by law, nor enclosed by
walls, nor barred by gates, to all intents and purposes are no less
ghettos than those of mediaeval days. The poorer Jews who come to
this country naturally flock together and inhabit whole districts, which
come to assume the appearance of ghettos. So it is also in London,
Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, and other large cities of Europe. The
ghetto in law has ceased to be; the ghetto in fact still exists.

Now, this esprit de corps, this exclusiveness, this seeking of
brethren, is a direct result of the treatment; to which Jews have been
subjected during the Christian centuries./And not alone the masses of
poor, wretched creatures that live in thelowly quarters of the great
cities of the world, but even those Jews who have reaped all the bene-
fits of emancipation, and move in the higher circles of life and thought,
are often met with the reproach that they are clannish and exclusive,
that they shut themselves up within their own social precincts, and
are attracted to one another by a magnetism of fellowship. Very true,
and very natural; so long were the Jews excluded by legal measure
and enactment and religious prejudice and teaching from all intimate
contact with non-Jews, so long were they thrown upon one another,
that, as a logical result, they became exclusive^ People maltreated and
oppressed for the same reason cling to one another. Suffering in a like
cause attaches them very close to each other, for there is no bond that
unites so firmly as suffering.[The Jew was excluded, therefore he be-
came exclusive; he was avoided, therefore he became clannish; the
hand of the world was against him, therefore he sought protection
amongst his ow^Even though official exclusion be a thing of the past,
the prejudices of men and churches cannot be abolished by law and
decree, and largely these still exist against the Jew.1

The ghetto gains its recruits, not only from the orthodox
countries of the East, but its own children who have at one
time or another left the fold frequently return from the cold,
artificial life without to the warmth and familiarity of the

1 Philipson, op. cit., pp. 199-201.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION 123

ghetto. They were lost in the outside world, and return to
the inner circle where life has meaning and where personality
is anchored in a set of^values and sentiments on which the
group is unanimous^Getting out into the world has made
the Jew self-conscious. As long as he remained in the ghetto
he had his problems, but they were small in comparison with
the friction and the prejudice and the rebuffs with whichjta,
now that he is no longer a utility, but a human being, meets}
The name Judenschmerz has been applied to that atti-
tude on the part of the Jew whose talents would entitle him
to participate in the work of the ^vorld, but who feels him-
self hampered, excluded, or merely tolerated by the world at
large. The more sensitive individuals in the group who find
no adequate expression for their impulses, finding them-
selves avoided by the outside world and not being inclined
to revert to their own group and share in the activities that
it provides on a smaller scale, settle down to a life of brood-
ing^ of apathy, and melancholia.1

\TThere is scarcely a city of any considerable size in Europe
or America that does not have its ghetto ^Even in towns
containing only a score of Jews, there is to be found in all
parts of the world some more or less definitely organized
Jewish community. The center of this community is usually
the synagogue, which for orthodox Jews is a prerequisite
for public worship^ Around the synagogue, as has already
been indicated, there cluster a number of other institutions
answering to the manifold needs of the traditional habits of
life of the Jews^

Some communities contain such an abundance and elaboration of
institutions, answering not only to a variety of tendencies and rites

1 This subject has recently been treated by Ludwig Lewisohn in his
The Island Within, New York, 1928.124

THE GHETTO

in the religious domain, and to every conceivable social, philanthropic,
and intellectual purpose, but also to separate industrial and profes-
sional interests, and to rival political aspirations, that they form com-
plete social organisms in themselves.

Cognate in origin, allied by the same traditions and customs, these
communities give to modern Jewry the semblance of a vast network
of autonomous settlements. The enlightened Jew, in whatever part
of the globe he may live, is conscious of this world-wide dispersion.
He has acquired this consciousness from his earliest youth, with his
initiation into the history of his people; nay, from his early childhood,
when he first heard stories of their persecution in barbarous lands told
in hushed breath at the family hearth. The knowledge is fostered by
his press, which takes as its sphere of interest the conditions of Jewry
throughout the world; it is stimulated by contact with fellow-Jews
arriving from other lands; it is sustained by the frequent dispersion
of the members of a single family, particularly from Russia, to all
corners of the globe.1

There are several factors that may account for the per-
sistence of the modern ghetto besides the continuity of tra-
ditions from within and prejudice from without. Frequently
colonization efforts are undertaken by a number of national
and international organizations within Jewry, such as the
Alliance Israelite, the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, or,
in the United States, the Jewish Colonization Society, the
Industrial Removal Office, the Hebrew Sheltering and Im-
migrant Aid Society, the Baron de Hirsch Fund, and kindred
organizations, which sometimes transplant entire communi-
ties from one country to another and facilitate the re-creation
of the old communal organization in the new environment.
This is particularly true of many immigrants from Eastern
Europe who have been established in new homes in North
and South America.

But even where no such organized effort exists it is re-

1 Cohen, op. tit., pp. 24-25.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION 125

markable to what an extent the Jewish community, partic-
ularly if it is an orthodox community, tends to perpetuate
its old surroundings. From one point of view, what we see
here is merely one aspect of the transplantation of all Old
World immigrant groups to the New World; but in the Jew-
ish community the forces that make for cohesion are implicit
in the organization of the group itself.

S "f0 a large extent the modern ghetto is necessitated by the pre-
cepts and practices of orthodox Judaism, by the need of dwelling
within easy reach of the synagogue, the schoolroom, and the ritual
bath, the kosher butcher-shop, and the kosher dairy. But even for
those who are indifferent to religious observances and ritual practices,
residence in the ghetto is necessitated by social and economic cir-
cumstances. Ignorance of the language of the new country, of its
labour conditions, and of its general habits and ways of thought, as
well as the natural timidity of a fugitive from a land of persecution,
compels the immigrant Jew to settle in the colony of his co-religionists.
Among them he is perfectly at home; he finds the path of employ-
ment comparatively smooth, and if his efforts to attain it be delayed,
he is helped in the interval by charity from a dozen hands

mversely, in countries where the contact between Jew and

n-Jew has been continued for a few generations, and
where no new immigration from other countries in which the
Jews retained their old status haken place, the ghetto
has, to a large extent, disintegrat 

Under these circumstances not only does the ghetto tend
to disappear, but the race tends to disappear with it. Con-'
tact with the world through education, through commerce
and industry, through literature and the arts tends to bring
about a substitution of the cultural values of the world at
large for those of the ghetto. This contact, moreover, fre-
quently brings about intermarriage. The figures that are

1 Ibid., pp. 37-38.126

THE GHETTO

available on the extent of intermarriage indicate that it is
most frequent in those countries and localities where inter-
course between Jew and Gentile is least restricted, and tends
to become more general as marriage becomes a civil instead
of a religious matter. Ruppin, who has collected the most
adequate statistics on this question, says:

.... We find that we can divide countries into four distinct
classes, according to the amount of intermarriage which goes on with-
in them.

In the first class we include those countries where mixed mar-
riages are less than 2 per cent: Galicia, Bukovina, Roumania, and the
Jewish immigrant areas of England, France, and the United States.

In the second class (intermarriages from 2 to 10 per cent) we place
Catholic Germany, Hungary (excluding Budapest), and Bohemia.

To the third class belong Protestant Germany, Holland, Austria
(Vienna and Budapest). Here intermarriage goes on to the extent of
from 10 to 30 per cent of Jewish marriages, and shows signs of rapid
increase. It does not as yet threaten to disrupt the Jewish population,
though it seriously reduces its numbers.

Finally, in the fourth class, come Denmark, Australia, and Italy.
Here one-third of the Jewish marriages are mixed marriages, and con-
stitute a serious menace to the continued existence of the already
scanty Jewish population in those countries, as the children of the
mixed marriages are practically all brought up in the Christian faith.
The same thing applies to the Jewish communities which have been
long established in England, France, and the United States of America.
A few large German towns (Berlin, Hamburg) should be included also
in this fourth class.1

^The falling away of the children of mixed marriages and the
increased rate of intermarriage among the children and
grandchildren of Jewish immigrants are factors of especial
significance in the changing character of the Jewish group^

1 Arthur Ruppin, op. cit., pp. 169-70. For a detailed discussion, par-
ticularly in reference to intermarriage in the United States, see Julius Drachs-
ler, Intermarriage in New York City, New York, 1921.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION

127

It is safe to say that the present fifteen million Jews in the
world constitute only a small proportion of the total living
descendants of the original settlers in the Western World
at the beginning of the Christian era. They constitute mere-
ly the residue of a much larger group whose Jewish identity
has been lost in the general stream of the population.

What has happened in the case of the Jews is essentially
what has taken place in all minority groups in recent times.
As the barriers of isolation have receded, assimilation and
interbreeding have decimated the size of the group and
leveled its distinguishing characteristics in accordance with "
the milieu? Joseph Jacobs has given voice to the feeling of
a great section of Jewry with reference to this tendency:

The great danger of modern times is the tendency toward what
may be termed Chinesism, a fatal and monotonous similarity and
mediocrity invading all sections of national life. One of the outward
signs of this is the deadly monotony of dress and furniture, which is
becoming more and more international. The growth of intercommuni-
cation is giving a common set of ideas and ideals to the whole world,
and making it more and more difficult for any special culture like the
Irish, or the Japanese, or the Jewish, to hold its own. Every such
specific culture that disappears would meke the final form of humanity,
which seems so rapidly approaching, less rich kad. manifold. There
would be nothing gained for the world, and much would be lost for it
if all Jews were tomorrow to become indistinguishable from their
neighbours.1

But he, like many others who are conscious of this trend,
consoles himself with the thought that, after all, modern
culture has much in common with Jewish culture, and the
Jews who have taken an active part in the world in which
they lived have been, for the most part, able to do so without

1 Joseph Jacobs, in his introduction to the English edition of Ruppin's
The Jews of Today, pp. xvii-xviii.128'

THE GHETTO

sacrificing their identity completely. They have, in conse-
quence, acquired a "duplex culture/' and their nature "has
become richer and more irridescent."1

A Jewish community may in some respects be said to ex-
ist after the obstacles to ready intercourse with the larger
community have been removed, but at best it is a nonde-
script community. Where, however, as is the case in most
large cities of Western Europe and the United States, a
steady influx of new immigrants has replenished the disinte-
grating Jewish community, there a ghetto, with all the
characteristic local color, has grown up and maintains it-
self.

The most important feature that distinguishes the communities

of the West from those of the East is their voluntary character.....

Western communities differ markedly from Eastern in another re-
spect, as they generally comprise two main sections—the native and
the foreign, the latter consisting mostly of immigrants from Russia,
Rumania, and Galicia, whilst including representatives from many
other countries in the East. The native section lived in some sort of
concentration in the early history of their community, within a con-
venient distance of the synagogue and the kosher butcher-shop; but a
rise in material prosperity would be followed by removal to a better
district, where a new Jewish area might be created, though one less
distinguished from its environment by external tokenafThe foreign
section, however, live in a state of dense concentration. Their poverty
makes them settle in a poor quarter of the town, where they reproduce
the social conditions in which they have been born and bred, so far
as the new environment will allow. They have been accustomed to live
as one large family, speaking the same tongue and breathing the same
air, and all revolving around the synagogue, which is for them not
merely a house of worship and religious instruction, but a center of
charity and of social intercourse; and although they are now free to

1 Horace Kallen has recently presented his notion of cultural pluralism
in answer to this argument. See his Zionism and World Politics, New York,
1921, and Culture and Democracy in the United States, New York, 1924.THE GHETTO IN DISSOLUTION

settle wherever they please, they cannot easily break away from the
engrained habits of generations. The ghetto in the East may be a
symbol of political bondage; but in the West the onlyibondage that it
typifies is that exercised by sentiment and traditional

£ In the modern ghetto as we see it in the United States, where
in some cases the Jews were even among the pioneers that
had a hand in founding the town or city, the contrast be-
tween the two sections of the Jewish community is even
greater. The ghetto is scarcely ever more than a transitional
stage between the Old and the New worlds?/

The influences from without penetrate slowly and subtly, luring
the Jew into the outer world. By dint of industry, sobriety, and thrift
he improves his worldly position and moves to a more spacious quar-
ter. By that time he will have mastered the vernacular and become
pretty familiar with the principal conditions of the adopted fatherland.
He possesses a hereditary gift for adaptability, which is stimulated by
his native co-religionists, who make "Anglicization" or "Americani-
zation," or whatever else the local term may be, a cardinal principle
in their communal policy. The actual immigrant from the East who
settles in a Western ghetto may, by reason of age, poverty, or preju-
dice, remain there and die there. But his children seldom, perhaps
never, do so; their modern education weakens the sentimental attach-
ment to the ghetto, and they prefer to live farther afield and enjoy a
sense of actual equality with their non-Jewish neighbours. This steady
migration of the children of the ghetto into the outer circle of the
communal area exercises a conservative influence upon religious con-
formity and Jewish life in general, which are everywhere exposed to the
corroding effects of a Western environment. But simultaneously with
the outflow from the ghetto there is a regular influx from Eastern
Europe, which is impelled by the forces of oppression and will con-
tinue as long as those forces prevail.8

1	Cohen, op. citpp. 36-37.

2	Ibid., p. 39. As has already been pointed out, however, the changed
situations in Poland, Russia, and the Baltic countries have already affected
the ghetto, and in America a new departure in the national immigration
legislation is bringing about noticeable changes.130	THE GHETTO

It is these ghettos that exercise a profound influence upon
the whole Jewish community in the larger cities. It is this
ghetto that keeps the Jew, who does not himself live in it
and perhaps never has lived in it, from completely merging
and being accepted in the non-Jewish community. As one
writer has put it: "These voluntary ghettos are a constant
menace, for they arouse the worst passions of non-Jewish
demagogues, and the Jews are referred to as a class, and dis-
criminated against as a separate body.....These last visible

vestiges of ghetto existence must be wiped out. They are
fraught with menace."1

It is with the study of one of these voluntary modern
ghettos, that has emerged within a larger Jewish community
in the midst of a great American city, that we shall deal in
the pages that follow.

1 Philipson, op. tit., p. 218.CHAPTER Vm

THE JEWS IN AMERICA
first settlers: the sephardim

The year of the discovery of America marks also an im-
portant date in Jewish history: the expulsion of the Jews
from Spain. Up to the period of the Inquisition the status
of the Jews in Spain and Portugal had been a favored one,
compared with that of the Jews in the rest of Europe. They
were landowners; they were not confined to ghettos, and
numbers of them had won positions of influence in the
nobility and in the commercial and political life of Spain and
Portugal. A good portion of them had assimilated with the
rest of the population.

With the beginning of persecution, however, an abrupt
change took place. Thousands of Jews under pressure ac-
cepted the dominant religion. These Marranos, as the con-
verted Jews who secretly kept up their old Jewish ritual and
communal life were called, occasionally relapsed into open con-
fession of Judaism and became one of the most fertile sources
of inquisitorial persecutions of the Jews as a whole. With
their exile from Spain the Sephardic Jews (so called because
of their separate religious forms which distinguished them
from the German and Eastern Jews, or Ashkenazim) were
scattered throughout Italy, France, Holland, England, and
the Near East. The Jews of Amsterdam, from the beginning
of the sixteenth century, and great portions of the English
Jews, were of this stock. They maintained their distinct
religious life in their new homes, and adhered to some of
their proud traditions, the products of relatively free sur-

13132

THE GHETTO

roundings, which made them regard the Ashkenazim as a
much inferior group.

Although it has been ascertained that there were several
converted Jews in Columbus' first expedition to land in the
West Indies, and although the Jews were closely connected
Y/ith the early American exploration projects, it was unlikely
that any of them, having just been expelled from the mother-
country, would settle in its colonies in the New Worlc/TDur-
ing the sixteenth century, after the violence of the Inquisi-
tion had somewhat abated, Jews and Marranos gained a
foothold in the West Indies, in Brazil, Peru, and in Mexico.
The Jews who settled there had generally been in Holland
and countries other than Spain and Portugal before they
finally drifted to the New WorkT] While Brazil was under
the domination of the Dutch a considerable wave of Jewish
immigration swept that country. They established numer-
ous congregations on the Old World model. As political
fortunes changed, however, and the Dutch were replaced by
the Portuguese, the same experiences that the Jews of
Europe underwent at that time were duplicated in America.
They were expelled, and great numbers of them were massa-
cred. It was under circumstances such as these that the first
settlers came to the American colonies.

The exact date of the first arrivals in North America is
unknown, but there is reason to believe that some soldiers
and sailors came to New Amsterdam, as New York was then
called, as early as 1652, having been given certain grants
and privileges by the Dutch West Indi^Jfompany, in which
the Jews of Holland Were interested.1 The first evidence of

1 Madison C. Peters, The Jews in America (Philadelphia and Chicago,
1905), p. 27.THE JEWS IN AMERICA

Jewish immigration to New York, however, does not ante-
date 1654. In that year two Jewish immigrants from Europe
are known to have arrived on a boat named "Pear Tree,"
and later a party of emigrees from Brazil, consisting of
twenty-three members, arrived in the "St. Catarina," which
has come down in tradition as the Jewish "Mayflower."

These early settlers were received in none too cordial
a fashion on the new continent. Most of them being refugees,
and having been expropriated in their old homes, were poor.
Not being able to pay for their passage, their goods were
sold at auction. They were dealt with, not as individuals,
but en masse, and two members of the group were placed
under arrest until the bill was paid. Peter Stuyvesant, the
governor of the colony, wrote to the directors of the Dutch
West India Company in Amsterdam, requesting them to
confirm him in his opinion that "none of the Jewish nation
be permitted to infest New Netherland." He apparently did
not reckon with the fact that the Jews of Amsterdam were
financially interested in the company that employed him
and were represented in the board of directors. He was
ordered by the directors to admit the Jews, "provided that
the poor among them shall not become a burden to the
company or to the community, but be supported by their
own nation." The conditions of the admission of the Jews
were such as to indicate that their status in the New World
would be patterned after the Old. Fortunately, it was Hol-
land, and particularly Amsterdam, that was chosen as the
model for the American ghetto, for in that city the Jews
enjoyed great privileges, compared with the rest of Europe.
When the Jews complained to the company that Stuyvesant
was disobeying instructions, he was reprimanded, in the
following letter, dated Amsterdam, June 15, 1655:134

THE GHETTO

We have seen and heard, with displeasure, that against our
orders of the 15th of February, 1655, issued at the request of the Jewish
or Portuguese nation, you have forbidden them to trade at Fort
Orange [Albany] and the South River [Delaware], also the purchase
of real estate, which is granted to them without difficulty here in this
country, and we wish it had not been done, and you have obeyed your
orders which you must always execute punctually and with more re-
spect. Jews or Portuguese people, however, shall not be employed in
any public service [to which they are neither admitted in this city] nor
allowed to have open retail shops; but they may quietly and peace-
fully carry on their business as beforesaid and exercise in all quietness
their religion within their houses, for which end they must without
doubt endeavor to build their houses close together in a convenient
place on one or the other side of New Amsterdam—at their choice—as
they do here.1

The status of the Jews in New York changed little when that
city was taken over by the British in 1664. Under King
James II they were permitted to establish a synagogue. This
synagogue, established in 1695, and probably preceded by a
temporary semipublic place of worship by three or four
years, was the first on the North American continent. It
was called Shearith Israel (Remnant of Israel). The first
structure was located on Beaver Street, between Broadway
and Broad Street, and when it became too small for the com-
munity, a new edifice was erected on Mill Street (corre-
sponding to South William Street), which existed from 1728
(the year of its erection) on for about a century. A cemetery
had been established as early as 1656, on Oliver Street and
New Bowery, then outside the city. The Jews engaged
primarily in trade, and made use of their European con-
nections for exchange of articles of commerce. They ex-
ported some wheat to Europe, and had commercial con-
nections with the West Indies.

1 Peter Wiernik, History of the Jews in America (New York, 1912), p. 65.THE JEWS IN AMERICA	135

(^Most of the Jews of this period were of Sephardic stock,
having come primarily from Spain and Portugal, but there
are indications that a small number from other countries
had already arrived during the first decade of the eighteenth
century. The older immigrants maintained an attitude of
exclusiveness and hauteur toward their co-religionists from
other countries of the Ashkenazim branch^ They were pros-
perous, and they had a European tradition of superiority
which the newcomers from Germany, England, and espe-
cially from the east of Europe, lacked.

There was a time when a Spanish Jew or Jewess who married a
German or Russian co-religionist would be promptly disowned; the
hostility to such alliances was much stronger than it has ever been
between Protestant and Catholic. The Sephardim have always had
their own graveyards in which German and Russian Jews have not
found rest.

Part of this feeling has been due to ancestral pride; part had a
more rational basis, for it is incontestable that, from most points of
view, the Spanish Jews are superior to other representatives of Israel.
There are only a few of them; they are nearly all rich, or at least
prosperous; they are merchants, bankers, and landowners; they are
not pawnbrokers or peddlers or rag-pickers; and they have a distinct
talent for public life.1

The writer of the foregoing is somewhat misinformed as to
the early history of these Sephardic Jews, for there were
peddlers and pawnbrokers among them, and they did not
form a homogeneous and aristocratic body. They frequently
led a transient, unstable existence in other countries before
they came to America. They became group conscious only
upon the arrival of the next tide of immigration, occupying,
because of its poverty and its lack of experience in the new
country, an inferior status. It is true, however, that the

1 Burton J. Hendrick, The Jews in America, p. 17.136

THE GHETTO

conception which the Sephardim built up of their own worth
has made them a distinct aristocracy in the communities in
which they were the original Jewish settlers.1

The earliest mention of a Jew in New England is in con-
nection with an order directing him to leave the colony of
Massachusetts, in 1649. During the seventeenth century
there is repeated mention of the presence of Jews in Connec-
ticut. The most important center of Jewish settlement was
in Newport, where fifteen Jewish families arrived from
Holland in 1658. Newport had by this time come to be the
most important commercial center of the colonies, excelling
even Boston and New York.(In Rhode Island the Jews
seem to have found a greater measure of tolerance than
anywhere else on the new continent^ Occasionally during
this period Jews are mentioned in legal documents as violat-
ing some of the Sunday closing laws and incurring the dis-
pleasure of the Puritans. In Maryland the Jews found no
favorable habitat, although an occasional individual was
able to settle there. The religious libertyfpr which the col-
ony was known did not apply to Jews. (Toward the middle
of the eighteenth century Jews began to drift to the colony
of Georgia, where they were favorably received by Governor
Oglethorpe. A prominent Jewish congregation was organ-
ized in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1750, and a benevo-
lent association shortly thereafter) In the last quarter of
the eighteenth century a German-Jewish congregation also
established itself there.

Altogether there were only about two thousand Jews in
the Colonies when the Revolutionary War broke out. By
that time some Jews had already become converted under
the pressure of the Puritan churchmen and the restrictions
* See Werner Sombart, The Jews and Modern Capitalism, pp. 347-49.THE JEWS IN AMERICA	137

to which Jews were subjected in most of the colonies.Qn the
revolution itself numbers of Jews took part, predominantly
on the side of the Colonists. They were active particularly
in the provisioning of the armies and in financing the revo-
lution^ When the Constitution was adopted, the clauses
referring to religious liberty, of course, gave the Jews the
equal status before the law which they had not formerly
enjoyed, but in several of the states religious test clauses
still disfranchised them. In North Carolina the Jews were
not fully enfranchised until the Constitutional Convention
of 1868.

THE GERMAN WAVE
{During the latter part of the eighteenth century the
Jewish communities in America began to assume a somewhat
different complexion. German Jews had begun to trickle in,
and at first had been received into the established Sephardic
congregations. They intermarried and adopted a good deal
of the Sephardic ritual. But as, toward the beginning of the
nineteenth century, and especially after the fall of Napoleon
and the beginning of the European reaction, these German
Jews came in larger number and were reinforced by slowly
increasing numbers from other non-Sephardic countries, a
new complication set in!}

The small Sephardic communities, in defence of their own indi-
viduality, could not, and, by reason of their hidalgo pride would not,
continue to absorb the new element. On the other hand, the promi-
nent, useful individuals of the German section felt the propriety of
devoting themselves to the needs of their countrymen.1

One of the earliest symptoms of this rift is to be found in
the secession of the Ashkenazic element from the Jewish

1 Henrietta Szold, "Elements of the Jewish Population in the United
States," in Charles S. Bernheimer, The Russian Jew in the United States
(Philadelphia, 1915), p. 11.138

THE GHETTO

community in Philadelphia in 1802, when the Hebrew-
German Society Rodef Shalom, one of the earliest German-
Jewish congregations in America, was formed. The organi-
zation of a separate congregation was soon followed by the
establishment of benevolent and educational activities
around the synagogue, which served as somewhat of a model
for subsequent efforts of other cities.

£jThe population composing this second wave of Jewish
immigration to the United Statesdiffered from the original
settlers in several important respects. The German Jews
were poor, but meanwhile conditions in the country had
changed^Through the Louisiana Purchase an immense new
territory had been opened up, and while the early Spanish
and Portuguese Jews brought much-needed wealth with
them, and, what was equally important, had business con-
nections with the Old World, the newcomers came when
men were needed even more than wealth. Some of them
settled in the old centers of population where Jewish com-
munities already existed, but an ever increasing number
went West and South and founded new Jewish congrega-
tions. They were dependent, however, upon the older estab-
lished communities in the East. This is shown by the fol-
lowing letter which the Cincinnati Jews sent to those of
Charleston, asking for aid in the building of a synagogue,
which they received. The letter indicates also the close bond
between the members of the various Jewish communities
throughout the country. ^They were beginning to feel a
common consciousness, which expressed itself not only in the
organization of mutual aid societies, but in frequent inter-
change of visits and in the participation of certain common
social and intellectual interests of American Jewry and of
Jewish communities throughout the worldjTHE JEWS IN AMERICA

To the Elders of the Jewish Congregation at Charleston

Gentlemen: Being deputed by our Congregation in this place,
as their committee to address you in behalf of our holy Religion, sepa-
rated as we are and scattered through the wilds of America as children
of the same family and faith, we consider it as our duty to apply to
you for assistance in the erection of a House to worship the God of
our forefathers, agreeably to the Jewish faith; we have always per-
formed all in our power to promote Judaism and for the last four or
five years we have congregated where a few years before nothing was
heard but the howling of wild beasts and the more hideous cry of
savage man. We are well assured that many Jews are lost in this coun-
try from not being in the neighborhood of a congregation, they often
marry with Christians, and their posterity lose the true worship of
God forever; We have at this time a room fitted up for a synagogue,
two manuscripts of the law, and a burying ground, in which we have
already interred four persons, who, but for us, would have lain among
the Christians; one of our members also acts as Shochet. It will there-
fore be seen that nothing has been left undone, which could be per-
formed by eighteen assessed and six unassessed members. Two of the
deceased persons were poor strangers, one of whom was brought to be
interred from Louisville, a distance of near 200 miles.

To you, Gentlemen, we are mostly strangers and have no further
claim on you than that of children of the same faith and family, re-
questing your pious and laudable assistance to promote the decrees
of our holy Religion. Several of our members are, however, well
known both in Philadelphia and New York—namely Mr. Samuel
Joseph, formerly of Philadelphia; Messrs. Moses Jonas and Mr.
Joseph Jonas; the two Mr. Jonas's have both married daughters of the
late Rev. Gerson Mendes Seixas of New York. Therefore with confi-
dence, we solicit your aid to this truly pious undertaking; we are un-
able to defray the whole expense, and have made application to you
as well as the other principal congregations in America and England,
and have no doubt of ultimate success.

It is also worthy of remark that there is not a congregation within
500 miles of this city, and we presume it is well known how easy of
access we are to New Orleans, and we are well informed that had
we a synagogue here, hundreds from that city who now know and140

THE GHETTO

see nothing of their religion would frequently attend here during
holidays.

We are, Gentlemen, your obedient servants,

* .	S. Joseph Chan

Joseph Jonas
D. I. Johnson
Phineas Moses

I certify that the above is agreeable to a Resolution of the He-
brew Congregation of Cincinnati.

July 3, 1825	Joseph Jonas, Parnas1

The credentials which the Jews of Cincinnati presented
in this letter are characteristic and noteworthy. They were
relying first of all upon their "connections" in other cities.

^Even in a new country under pioneer conditions, family and
community ties were not forgotten. Wanderers that they
were, the Jews were never quite in the same class with the
gypsies, adventurers, or hobos, for the Jew, when he traveled
and settled abroad, took not only his family with him, but
he remained a member of that family wherever he went.
Moreover, the Jew always had a destination; he was not
without aim!)

It seems that the cause for which the Cincinnati Jews
were pleading needed no lengthy argument to justify itself in
the eyes of their fellow-Jews. Its merit was self-evident.

(^Without a synagogue there would be no community. To be
sure, a synagogue was needed to keep members of the com-
munity from straying, to prevent intermarriage, and to
make possible communal worship] But the main strength of
the appeal is to be found in the sentimental sphere. A syna-
gogue is needed "to worship the God of our forefathers";
"many Jews are lost in this country from not being in the
neighborhood of a congregation"; and "we have no further

1 Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, X, 98-99.THE JEWS IN AMERICA

claim on you than that of children of the same faith and
family, requesting your pious and laudable assistance to
promote the decrees of our holy Religionhe synagogue
was a tribal institution, a family affair; it was a device for
preserving a connection in which the Jew had a status which
was something more than sufferance. It was a religious duty,
a mitzvah, an honor, to contribute to its founding. And
finally, there was the cemeter^JThey had a burying ground,
in which they had "already interred four persons." The
body of one "poor stranger was brought to be interred from
Louisville, a distance of near 200 miles."

It may be pertinent to remark here on this unusual inter-
est in the dead and in burial. No material reason could
possibly account for this extraordinary attention to the
death rites. Students of Jewish life generally stop in their
analysis of this custom when they have attributed it to the
religious motive. This religious motive, when analyzed
further, turns out to be the motive of security. Through the
funereal rites the continuity of the group is preserved and the
individual lives on in the memories of the group; gains im-
mortality. The profound interest in burial seems to be ex-
plained finally in terms of those innumerable strong ties of
sentiment that bind the individual to the tribal organization,
and, like a great share of all the strange actions of human
beings, in terms of their imagination, in terms of the fact
that men live in their memories of the past and their dreams
of the future.

Returning to the subject of the German immigration of
the early nineteenth century, it should be noted that the
stream of straggling newcomers was on the whole provincial.
They came mostly from the smaller towns of South Ger-
many—Baden, Wiirttemberg, and Bavaria—or from similar

%i42

THE GHETTO

localities in the Northeast—Pommern, Schlesien, Posen,
and East Prussia. The peculiarities of custom and ritual
which they had developed there absorbed most of their
religious life. They clung to their particularistic point of
view. Besides the religious bond, they were tied by the fel-
lowship of their Landsmannschafteny or Old World local
community organizations. They led an indigenous life, iso-
lated by differences in status from their superior Sephardic
predecessors, by religious and social customs from their
Christian neighbors, and by physical distances from each
other,

[Not until 1848 was this situation materially changed.
In that year, impelled by the revolutionary movements that
were disturbing Europe, Jews from Germany, Austria-
Hungary, and Poland came to the United States in such
numbers that they soon outstripped the older settlements in
influence) These newer immigrants, unlike their immediate
predecessors, were a sophisticated city people. Having par-
ticipated in a political revolutionary movement side by side
with their Christian neighbors, and having fled mainly from
the political reaction which this revolutionary movement
incited, they were less inclined to stress the religious, and
more the social and political, issues of the time.

In contrast to the Jewish immigrants of the earlier
period, this group included a number of personalities who
had played an outstanding role in the economic and political
life of their native country, men who had tasted of the life
outside the ghetto, who had a modern Weltanschauung, and
who were already infused with the spirit of the reform move-
ment that was making headway at that time in Germany.
These Jews found most of their political ambitions realizedTHE JEWS IN AMERICA	143

in this country. But on the religious side they found their
co-religionists still engulfed in the orthodox ritualism of the
Old Worldfprthodox Judaism in America possessed a
strength which it has never possessed in Germany since the
beginning of the nineteenth century. As a result the Jewish
communities of America divided into two opposing camps:
the orthodox, to which belonged the older "American,"
English, and Polish Jews, and the Reformed, which had the
adherence not only of the newly arrived Germans but gradu-
ally gainedjjjipport from the more rebellious sections of the
older groupsJi

The immigrants of this period found the older settlers
intrenched in the most advantageous positions in commerce
and in finance. A large proportion of the newcomers settled
in the important cities of the East: New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and Charleston, and opened small business estab-
lishments. Others went West, as peddlers and small mer-
chants. Not infrequently a recently arrived Jewish immi-
grant, carrying his pack on his back, struck, in his peregrina-
tions, a village or small town that seemed to offer oppor-
tunities, and settled there. Several great fortunes have had
their humble beginnings in this fashion. The Jewish peddler
was generally a welcome visitor at the isolated farmhouses.
The arrival of a Jew in town became a matter of interest
to the whole community. This was the case with Joseph
Jonas, a watchmaker by trade, who was the first Jew to
settle in Cincinnati. This was in the year 1817.

He was a curiosity at first, as many in that part of the country had
never seen a Jew before. Numbers of people came from the country
round about to see him, and he related in his old age of an old Quaker-
ess who said to him: "Art thou a Jew? Thou art one of God's chosen
people. Wilt thou let me examine thee?" She turned him round and144

THE GHETTO

round, and at last exclaimed: "Well, thou art no different to other
people."1

When news of the discovery of gold in California reached
them, in 1849, the Jews were n°t slow to move westward.
On the Day of Atonement of that same year, a tninyan
(assembly of ten men for prayer) was held in a tent in San
Francisco£l)uring this period it was not an uncommon
practice for an Eastern group of Jews to send an agent West
to explore the country and gather information on the pros-
pects of founding a Jewish settlement. This was the proce-
dure followed in the case of the first Jewish settlement of
Chicago7)

f*Phe first occasion that arose indicating a nation-wide
solidarity among the Jews of the United States was during
the agitation and protests against the persecution of the
Jews of Turkey, in the so-called Damascus incident in 1840.®
Another occasion was the proposed treaty of the United
States with Switzerland. This treaty did not guarantee the
Jews equal treatment with other citizens of the United
States. The Jews protested vigorously, and brought pres-
sure to bear upon the United States Senate and the President
to prevent ratification. From 1850 to 1874, when the new
Swiss constitution was adopted, this question continued
to agitate the American Jews. Subsequent emergencies
which have mobilized American Jewry for collective action
have served to make it a memorable periocjj

The Jewish communities in the United States around
the middle of the nineteenth century were fairly autonomous
organizations. The heads of the religious institutions settled

1	Wiernik, op. tit., pp. 137-38.

2	See Cyrus Adler, "Jews in American Diplomatic Correspondence,"
Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. XV.THE JEWS IN AMERICA	145

religious issues according to their own independent judg-
ment, not bowing, as did most European communities, to
the decisions of officially or unofficially recognized rabbinical
authorities of wide jurisdiction. The ritual also was be-
coming "Americanized." As members of the various con-
gregations rose in wealth and social position, intermarriages
with Christians were not infrequent, and some conversions
to Christianity took place.

The newer immigrants from Germany were even more
radical in their religious beliefs than the earlier settlers or
so-called "Americans." Had it not been for the influx of a
new element, the character of the Jewish settlements might
have lost its distinctiveness and a separate Jewish com-
munity in America might have been improbable. Not that
there were no orthodox Jews left in the United States at that
time, for there were numbers of important orthodox congre-
gations, but they were swamped, not only in numbers, but
in wealth and in influence, by the reformed groups.

^Ifor the most part the German Jews took their Reforrn
Judaism seriously and were aggressive fighters in its behalfTJ
They published a number of influential journals to propagate
their notions, which they had discovered applied even more
to the American milieu than to the European situation in
which they had originated£jfhe advocates of reform stressed
the argument that unless the ritual was thoroughly adapted
to American conditions, and unless the realm of the secular
be widened, and that of the strictly religious be narrowed,
there could be no hope for the survival of Judaism at allj
They predicted that the next generation would be lost en-
tirely to the Jewish faith unless the synagogue kept pace
with social change. They insisted that their movement was
in no wise injurious to the solidarity of Judaism, but was the146

THE GHETTO

only means of preventing wholesale conversion, intermar-
riage, and desertion.

Among the leaders of this movement, which was a direct
offshoot of the German school calling itself Wissenschaft des
Judenthums, were Max Lilienthal, Isaac Mayer Wise, David
Einhorn, Samuel Adler (the father of Felix Adler, founder of
the Society for Ethical Culture), and Bernhard Felsenthal
and Samuel Hirsch (father of Emil G. Hirsch, of Chicago).

THE RUSSIAN INVASION

Around 1845, when the Jews of Poland were first con-
scripted into the army, the immigration from Russian
Poland increased considerably. These Hinter-Berliner, as
they were derisively called by the German Jews of America,
were even poorer than those who had preceded them.
Moreover, they brought with them a set of traditions that
were strangely different from the cultural baggage of the
German Jews, and were, as a result, farther removed from
the general current of life and thought of America. They
were a closely knit, self-contained body having little in
common with the rest of the established Jewish communi-
ties. They drifted into the occupations that the German
Jews had outgrown, and, since a good many of them were
craftsmen, they remained in the larger industrial centers
instead of scattering, as the German Jews had done, into
the growing towns in various sections of the country. In
many cases they became the employees of the German and
Spanish-Portuguese Jews who were already established in
manufacturing and commercial enterprises.

<^These newcomers served, however, as a leaven that re-
kindled the dying embers of religious enthusiasm in the com-THE JEWS IN AMERICA	147

munities in the centers of population. They drew their
rabbis and leaders from the orthodox seats of learning in
Eastern Europe^) If these immigrants were not themselves
scholars or versed in rabbinical lore, they were at least able
to appreciate the older type of Jewish learning, and they
proceeded to establish, in connection with their synagogues,
the old-fashioned cheders and Talmud Tor as for the perpetu-
ation of their religious traditions. Their close communal
organization, which had developed through centuries of life
in the pale, which excluded them more effectually from
secular life in the world about them than had been the case
in t&e West, was transferred bodily to the New World.

1 These immigrants spoke a common household language,
YidcKsh, and retained the warmth and intimacy of their
Landsmannschaft (local village organization) and their
Chevra (religious community). They retained their Euro-
pean customs and continued in strict adherence to the rit-
ual. They kept the Sabbath and the holiday/They married
only within the faith, and duplicated in the slums of New
York, Philadelphia, and other large cities the tenements of
the ghetto and the pale. What is more, they brought with
them problems of poverty which aroused the consciousness
of the older settlers. They reminded the Portuguese, the
Spanish, and the German Jews of the fact that they them-
selves were Jews, and they reconciled many wavering spirits
within these groups to the basic tenets of orthodoxy.

But these early Russian immigrants were after all but
the vanguard of the throngs that arrived in the eighties. The
pogroms in Russia at that time aroused the Jewish com-
munities in all of the Western countries to united action.
Not only were numerous protest meetings held, but organi-148

THE GHETTO

zations were formed to assist the survivors and welcome and
care for the refugees rThe older and more prosperous Jewish
settlers foresaw that the tremendous influx of impoverished
immigrants would soon swamp the slums of the large cities,
and the effect would be to produce a reaction on the public
and lower the status of the Jews generally in the United
States. They took steps, therefore, to colonize the new-
comers in the agricultural and less densely settled regions of
the country. These enterprises generally failed, and the
Jews drifted back to the sweatshops of the larger cities, or
beetle independent shopkeepers, peddlers, and trades-
men^

^The Russian immigrants soon formed numerous self-
education societies, lodges, and trade unions, mutual aid
organizations, and synagogues of their own. In New York
alone the number of congregations in 1872 was twenty-nine.
In sixteen years it multiplied tenfold. These immigrants,
haunted by memories of exclusion from the schools of
Russia, and finding the educational institutions here open
to them, were not slow to take advantage of their newly
discovered opportunities. They entered the night schools
and sought places in the professions. Nor did they suddenly
forget their political activities of old. Soon they began to
build up a press of their own, in their own language, Yiddish.
These papers were a powerful factor in the organization of
socialist circles and in giving full expression tq the organizing
tendencies of the masses.	\ ^

^By the end of the nineteenth century the Russian and
Pohsh Jews vastly outnumbered those from Western
Europe. The differences in life habits, in cultural back-
ground, in religious belief and practice, in social and eco-
nomic status between the two groups, divided AmericanTHE JEWS IN AMERICA	149

Jewry into two opposing camps, isolated from each other
not only through physical barriers, since each dwelt in a
separate area of settlement, but isolated even more com-
pletely through profound differences in religious and secular
attitudes and customs, supported as these differences were
by deep-seated prejudices and distinct forms of communal
organization^?

The increase in numbers of American Jews created a
"Jewish problem." Of this problem the earlier Jewish immi-
grants, who stood on the brink of assimilation, were keenly
conscious. The anti-immigration agitation and the Dreyfus
affair in France served to intensify this consciousness. Ef-
forts on a national scale were undertaken by the Jews to
care for their own people. But the old leaders were gradually
pushed into the background. The MaskUim. or Germanized
Hebrew scholars, were supers^ect"'"Fy 'tjp^mor^gfflc^xgL..
Zionists and the orgamzed Jewish masses of workingmen

undersad^tt>aniiers-

At present the Jewish population of the world numbers
around fifteen million.1 Of these, approximately 3,600,800
live in the United States.2 The government of the United
States, in its census reports, takes no account of religious
affiliation. As a result, no official figures are available.
There are a number of national Jewish agencies, however,
who have credible sources for the determination of the ap-
proximate statistics on Jewish population. The great pro-
portion of the Jewish population in this country lives in the
following cities:3

1 American Jewish Yearbook (1927-28), p. 232. The number is given as
14,780,000.

a Bureau of Jewish Social Research, estimate, 1920.

* American Jewish Yearbook (1927-28), pp. 243-46.IS°

THE GHETTO

New York City

Chicago.......

Philadelphia...

Cleveland.....

Boston........

i, 643,012	Baltimore..

285,000	Newark

240,000	St. Louis...

7 8,996	Los Angeles
77,500 Pittsburgh.,

67,500
55,000
55,000
43,000
42,450

The following table indicates the influx of Jewish immi-
grants since the beginning of the large-scale Russian immi-
gration:

\Two-thirds of the Jewish immigration of 1924 was from
Poland, Russia, and Roumania, the strongholds of orthodox
Judaism.^ In view of the new immigration restrictions, esti-
mates of orthodox accretions to American Jewry are likely
to be inaccurate, since many immigrants now have to seek
admission under the quota of countries other than their own.
The influx of Reformed Jews from Germany and other
western countries is, therefore, probably less than one-third
of the total indicated by statistics. In spite of immigration
barriers, therefore,, the tendency for the Jewish immigration
from the East vastly to outnumber that from central and
western Europe persists. The future composition of the Jew-
ish population of the United States promises to change at a
rate and in a direction not far different from that shown
during the last fifty years. Similarly the regions in which
the new arrivals tend to settle remain about the same. The

Years
1881-98...
1899-1907
1908-26...

Number

533.478

829,244
976,219

Net increase since 1881

2.338,941*

*Ibid.t p. 250.THE JEWS IN AMERICA	151

statistics on the destination of the Jewish immigrants show
that they continue to prefer the large urban centers, New
York alone being the destination of 55.6 per cent of all
Jewish new arrivals, during the year ending June 30, 1926,
while it was the destination of only 23.3 per cent of non-
Jewish immigrants.1

1 Ibidp. 255.Street MusiciansCHAPTER IX

ORIGINS OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
IN CHICAGO

THE PIONEERS1

Of the three thousand Jews in the United States about
the year 1818, when Illinois was admitted into the union,
only one apparently had ventured as far west as Illinois.
The principal Jewish settlements of that time were those
along the Atlantic seaboard. The first Jew to arrive in the
swampy region around Lake Michigan known as Chicago
was a peddler, J. Gottlieb, in 1838. Little is known about
him, but it is believed that he found California even more
attractive than the thriving settlement at Chicago, and
went west during the gold rush of 1849. I^4I we
evidence of at least four or five Jewish residents in the city,
which then had a little over five thousand inhabitants.
These early arrivals were mainly Bavarian Jews, who had
come to America just a few years before, and had first settled
in eastern communities.

At this time one feature of governmental restriction in
Europe proved particularly irritating to the members of the
expanding Jewish communities. In the German principali-
ties families were limited in number by law, and before mar-

1 For further details of this account, see H. L. Meites, History of the
Jews of Chicago, Chicago, 1924, one of the most detailed and comprehensive
works of its kind of any Jewish community in the United States. Also
A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago, Chicago, 1877; H. Eliassof, "The History
of the Jews of Illinois," and "The History of the Jews of Chicago," in Re-
form Advocate, May 4, 1901, and January 30, 1909; also article, "Chicago,"
in Jewish Encyclopedia.

153154	THE GHETTO

riage licenses were issued, "vacancies" were supposed to
exist in the community for the establishment of another
family. This right to marry and settle in a community was
called Familiantenrecht, and existed in certain parts of
Europe until quite recently. Many efforts were made to
evade it, and emigration was one of the paths open to a
young couple contemplating marriage.

The settlers of this period were for the most part very
young men engaged in peddling or merchandising. An in-
teresting and representative account of these pioneers is
furnished by one of them:

It was on the first of September, in the year 1840, just at a time
when great excitement prevailed in New York, in fact, all over the
country, on account of the election between Harrison and Van Buren,
that I landed in New York, a stranger in a strange land. There were
no steamers at that time, and people came from Europe in sailing
vessels; all were dumped in New York and kept together as near as
possible.

Now began the problem of how to proceed to make a living, for
the majority of the immigrants were poor, and strangers to the lan-
guage and customs of the country. Upon the advice of those who were
here before them, the greater part of the Jewish young men went
peddling. There were two or three Jewish merchants who supplied
Jewish peddlers with "Yankee notions," which they called Kuttle
Mutile. The principal merchant was dubbed Hershd Ganef (Hirsch,
the thief); he trusted them all, instructed them what to call things,
and how to offer them for sale.

There was a synagogue in New York called the "India Rubber
shid" because it was principally upheld by peddlers whose stock in
trade was mostly suspenders.....All those absent from home hur-
ried to the city on a holiday, in order to be there for the service.....

The families had all brought with them their old-country piety,
and also their Shdbboth lamps with six or seven arms, filled with
stearic oil, made cotton wicks by hand, and on Friday evening before
the beginning of the Sabbath, would light them, then offer a consecra-
tive prayer, and after that would not touch fire and, of course, had toJEWISH COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO 155

have a fire woman, Shabboth goye, whenever a light or fire was needed
on the Sabbath. They had a congregational oven to which all who
belonged brought their pots and kettles on Friday afternoon. The
oven was heated, the pots placed in, and the oven doors sealed with
clay in order to retain their heat, and kept closed until Saturday noon,
when they came to get them. The coffee for the Sabbath morning
was kept hot on ashes on top of this oven. At one time I was honored
with an invitation by an acquaintance of mine to participate in eating
a genuine German Shabboth Kugel (pudding). When seated at the
table the fire woman came in and wanted her money for her services,
when the wife said, "We don't pay money on Shabboth. You come to-
night, and my husband will pay you."1

As a rule, relatives came together to a given community and
» co-operated in establishing themselves and maintaining their
religious and family life, but there were a number of lone
wolves who lived in boarding houses or "temperance hotels"
and attached themselves to the rest of the community.

Among the early settlers were several merchant tailors
and dry goods dealers, a tobacco dealer, a grocer, and several
peddlers who made Chicago their headquarters. Most of the
Jews established themselves on Lake Street, which was then
the principal business section of Chicago. They lived behind
or above their stores. The early newspapers and directories
of the city indicate that they advertised their wares widely
and became active participants in the economic and political
life of the community. The first brick house in Chicago was
built for Benedict Shubert, in the business district, on West
Lake Street. This was an undertaking which in those days
was an unmistakable sign of prosperity. Others fared not so
well. Among them was a peddler, Isaac Ziegler, whose lack
of traditional Jewish business enterprise is attested to by the
fact that "it is said of him that he spent much of his time

1 Mayer Klein, quoted from Meites, op, cit.$ p. 40.THE GHETTO

helping to extricate teams that had sunk into the mud on
Madison and Clark streets, in front of his place of business,
and finally, in an effort to divert traffic, caused signs to be
put up in the middle of the road reading 'Bottomless' and
'Road to China.'"1

Early in the forties the tide of immigration from Ger-
many became so great that the older settlers in the East be-
gan to look for ways and means of establishing the new-
comers in the outlying regions. While this might have been
a self-defense measure, they regarded it as one of their reli-
gious obligations. A Jewish philanthropist, Renau, of New
York, sent an agent to Chicago to investigate the possibili-
ties of founding a Jewish settlement there. A colonization
project was started near Chicago in Schaumburg, Cook
County. The agent reported to the colonization society
under whose auspices he was sent at Mr. Renau's instance,
that "this part of the land, especially the town of Chicago,
opens a vista into a large commercial future." A number
of Jews came, but left after a short stay, either taking up
a plot of land of their own as a farm (land sold then at about
one dollar an acre) or else settling in Chicago to engage in
business. Characteristically enough, Meyer, the agent, him-
self finally left the Schaumburg project to engage in the real
estate business in Chicago. In comparison with the thriving
business life that was developing in the near-by metropolis,
farming in Schaumburg seemed altogether too prosaic for
the enterprising Jewish settlers.

Between 1840 and 1844 the Chicago Jewish community
was increased by about twenty new immigrants. This influx
continued until 1849, when a strong tide of new settlers was
brought in following the completion of the Galena & Chicago

1 Meites, op. tit., p. 38.JEWISH COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO 157

Railway to Elgin, and the great wave of emigration follow-
ing the European reaction after the abortive revolutions of
1848. By this time the Jewish element had come to include,
besides the Bavarians, an increasing number from the
Rhenish Palatinate, and from Posen and East Prussia.
Although the Jewish community had grown, the various
families lived within a few blocks of each other, within the
area that now constitutes the Loop, or central business dis-
trict. Only one family lived on the West Side: Henry Hor-
ner, a grocer, who established himself on Randolph and
Canal streets. These settlers, most of them coming from
localities in Europe very close to each other, maintained
intimate relations with one another. They visited frequently
at one another's homes, and especially on Friday evenings
and on Saturdays, when their places of business were closed,
they took advantage of the opportunity for comradeship
and the mutual interchange of news from the Old World and
their relatives in the East. Newcomers in the community
generally found the older settlers helpful, not only in im-
portant material respects, but in getting accustomed to the
new conditions of life and maintaining their morale.

As in the communities from which they came, so in
Chicago, the Jewish settlers soon felt the need of establishing
those immediately essential institutions of communal life
such as the synagogue and the burial society. The first reli-
gious services were held on the Day of Atonement, 1845, *n a
room above the store of one of the members, on what is now
Wells Street, at the corner of Lake. For the first time in
their history they were able to bring together ten adult males
to constitute a minyun. The next year, it seems, the at-
tendance was no larger. Before a congregation could be
formally organized, the need for a communal cemetery wasTHE GHETTO

felt. An acre of ground was purchased from the city in 1846,
for forty-six dollars, in what is now Lincoln Park, in the
heart of the residential section, but what was then outside
the city limits.

^The organization of a burial society was the first overt
act toward the organization of a Jewish community in
Chicago^ Because of the presence of certain pious members
in the community who attempted to subsist on a limited diet
rather than violate the prescribed ritual, a congregation was
organized in 1847, and a shochet and reader procured from
New York. The burial-ground society turned over its prop-
erty to the newly organized congregation, which assumed
the name Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv (Community of the Men
of the West). The orthodox Ashkenazic ritual was intro-
duced and the members strictly observed the Sabbath.
Signs appeared in the windows of the places of business
owned by Jews, on Sabbath, reading "Closed on account of
Holiday." The first place of worship was in a room above a
store on Wells and Lake streets but as the community grew
and became more prosperous a frame synagogue was con-
structed on the site of the present post-office at Clark and
Quincy streets. The dedication of this synagogue aroused the
interest of the Chicagoans of that day. The Daily Democrat
of June 14, 1851, reported it as follows:

DEDICATION OF THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUE

The ceremonies at the dedication of the first Jewish synagogue in
Illinois, yesterday, were very interesting indeed. An immense number
had to go away, from inability to gain admittance. There were per-
sons of all denominations present. We noticed several clergymen of
different religious denominations.

The Jewish ladies cannot be beaten in decorating a church. The
flowers, leaves, and bushes were woven into the most beautiful draperyJEWISH COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO 159

that Chicago ever saw before. The choir, consisting of a large number
of ladies and gentlemen, did honor to the occasion and the denomina-
tion.....

No person that has made up his mind to be prejudiced against the
Jews ought to hear such a sermon preached. It was very captivating
and contained as much real religion as any sermon we ever heard
preached. We never could have believed that one of those old Jews
we heard denounced so much could have taught so much liberality
towards other denominations and so earnestly recommended a thor-
ough study of the Old Testament (each one for himself) and entire
freedom of opinion and discussion.

We would sooner have taken him for one of the independent order
of free thinkers, than a Jew. Mr. Isaacs is an Englishman and is
settled in New York City. There are Jewish synagogues as far west
as Buffalo and Cleveland.

The Jews in our city are not numerous, but are wealthy, very re-
spectable and public spirited.

The Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday, and a very interesting service
takes place today. The whole Mosaic law written on parchment (they
never have it printed for church services) will be unrolled from a large
scroll and read from. Rev. Mr. Isaacs will again preach. The service
will commence at 8 a.m. and last until 11 a.m. The earlier part of the
service will be most interesting.

Gentlemen are requested to keep their hats on, and to take seats
below. The ladies will take seats upstairs, according to the Jewish
custom of separating the sexes.

During the cholera epidemic of 1849, the Jewish com-
munity ranks were somewhat thinned. But the stream of
incoming settlers, among them some who had intended to
seek their fortune in the gold fields of California, but felt
that Chicago was a promising stopping place, soon replen-
ished the ranks(JThe community was closely knit, and each
shared the fortunes of every other member. Weddings and
funerals were communal affairs, and every Sabbath and holi-
day brought the Jews from the neighboring regions togetheri6o

THE GHETTO

in the temporary synagogue, which, in spite of its liberal
rabbi, retained most of its Old World familial and communal
character. As newcomers arrived they were introduced to
the older settlers in the synagogue, and the homes of the
established families were thrown open to themT)

OLD AND NEW SETTLERS

fThe' first Jewish settlers of Chicago, as has already been
indicated, were Bavarian Jews^The congregation which
they had formed was coming to be known as the Bayerische
Shul, in contradistinction to the Polische Shul, the Kehilath
B'nai Sholom (Congregation of the Men of Peace), which
was organized in 1852 by the growing Landsmannsckaft of
German-Polish Jews who were also known as Herzogtiimer,
because they hailed from the Herzogtum of Prussian Poland.
The Bavarians considered themselves the earliest settlers,
and looked down upon the Poles as an inferior caste. Most
of the German Jews had by this time acquired considerable
means, and could afford to maintain a higher standard of
living. Some of them were men of education. On religious
questions they were influenced by the modernist movement
in vogue among German Jewry. Some of the Bavarians even
thought the Bayerische Shul's ritual too orthodox, and agi-
tated for greater reforms. A small group of the members of
this congregation organized a Hebrew Benevolent Society
in 1851, with the following object: "To provide in time of
health for each other; for times of need and sickness to which
the human frame is liable; and also to pay the last duty and

homage in what must fall to all living; and____while we are

able, to do good and to assist our brethren and fellow-men
while life is granted to us."1 They organized a second ceme-
1 Meites, op. tit., p. 52.JEWISH COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO 161

tery association and bought three acres of ground in Lake
View, near Graceland, as a burial ground. The meetings of
this society, says the historian, "were marked by commend-
able decorum, as the meetings of other Jewish organiza-
tions in the early days unfortunately were not."1

A similar organization was formed by the members of
Congregation B'nai Sholom. Meanwhile this congregation
and the burial organization had each bought an acre from
Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv, so that there were now four Jewish
cemeteries, three of them side by side. But this was merely
an outward manifestation of the division that was beginning
to characterize the Jewish community. Old World class
distinctions and intertribal prejudices were reasserting them-
selves even in the small pioneer community of Chicago. The
pioneer congregation found it necessary to revise and
modernize its ritual to satisfy the growing elements who
were dissatisfied with the rigid, orthodox procedure. In this
group intermarriage with Christians was not unusual, but
conversion to Judaism of the non-Jewish mate was insisted
upon. No one could be a member of even as liberal a group
as the Hebrew Benevolent Society who, if he had married a
Gentile, did not insist that conversion to Judaism take
place, or who failed to observe the Day of Atonement.

During this period the Jews began to play an active
part in the local life. Henry Greenebaum, who, with his
brother Elias, had established a bank in Chicago, was elected
alderman from the sixth ward, and his brother became
school agent. The local Jews began to participate in the
national Jewish movement9p£ local lodge of the Independ-
ent Order of B'nai B'rith was established in 1857. This
organization made active efforts to heal the breach between
1 Ibidp. 53-162

THE GHETTO

the various dissenting elements in the Jewish community.
After two years it was able to unite the Polish and German
elements in the consolidated United Hebrew Relief Associa-
tion^ The Jews of Chicago also took an active part in the
campaign to defeat the treaty with Switzerland, which
discriminated against Jews, referred to in the previous
chapter. They sent a delegate to a national convention of
Jews in Baltimore in 1857 to protest against the treaty and
present a memorial to the President of the United States.
Reverberation of the American Reform movement began to
reach Chicago from its center in Cincinnati, largely through
its organ, the Israelite.

In 1857 about forty members of the oldest congregation
organized themselves as a secessionist party into the Israel-
ite Reform Society. They wrote to the Israelite: "We will
have service in the style of Temple Emanu El in New York.
.... A nice organ and a good organist are already pro-
vided." In true ghetto style, one of the main bones of con-
tention within the congregation was the prayerbook to be
used. The "Polish" congregation had already adopted its
own Polish Siddur (prayerbook). The Reform element in-
sisted that Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv adopt the version used
in the Reform Temple of Hamburg, but the conservative
element insisted that the Roedelheimer Siddur (in use in
Frankfort and printed in Roedelheim, near Frankfort) be
continued. The controversy assumed violent proportions,
all the contentiousness of older established communities
being duplicated in the young settlement of Chicago. Had
the community remained stable, it is probable that great
divisions would not have occurred^But there was a constant
influx of new members and of religious leaders who were
enthusiastic about the new doctrines, in which they saw theJEWISH COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO 163

only successful method of continuing as Jews and yet over-
coming the medievalism and separatism of the orthodox
creed. The Reform movement had assumed all the charac-
teristics of a sect^When an election was held in Kehilath
Anshe Ma'ariv in 1857, a member who signed himself
"Observer" wrote to the Israelite the following report:

The Congregation Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv has just closed its
meeting, having passed through a most spirited and closely contested
election for their officers for the ensuing year. There were two formal
organizations supporting their respective nominees, and upon distinct
platforms.

"Equality, Reform, and Education," was the motto of the suc-
cessful party; equality among members to be inaugurated in lieu of a
self-constituted privileged class (of but few), who have from time im-
memorial contrived to manage the congregational affairs in accordance
with their own out-of-place ideas; reform in the divine service; de-
votion and harmony in prayer; introduction of a choir; the mainte-
nance of decorum by the members, which has been most sadly neg-
lected; education by procuring able and competent men to fill the
places of preacher, teacher, and reader.....

The Congregation numbers 98 members. At the first ballot there
were 83 votes cast, with the following results, viz., for the reform
candidate for President, Elias Greenebaum, 51 votes; opposition,
32 votes.

Oh! what a fall was there, my countrymenI

Upon indication of the state of facts, after the first ballot, the
present chairman, Mr. S. Cole, declared the meeting adjourned, but
had to yield his temper to the calm, stern, and just indignation of the
meeting, and re-opened.....

Such a glorious triumph on the one hand, and complete defeat
on the other was anticipated by none!

Chicago at last has spoken for progress, and you may put her down
as a sound pillar in the beautiful temple of the God of Israel.1

No such violent storms struck the more homogeneous
and conservative Polish group represented by congregation

1 Quoted from Meites, op. cit.164

THE GHETTO

B'nai Sholom. The slow accretions in the membership of
this organization merely served to strengthen the religious
and communal ties.

Meanwhile, even in the local distribution of the Jewish
community of Chicago, there had taken place a definite
crystallization of social and religious strata. By 1858 the
Jewish community, which had grown substantially, was no
longer centered on Lake and Wells streets. Numerous Jew-
ish firms were to be found on Randolph, on Clark, and on
La Salle Street. Some were north of the river. But the older
and more prosperous members of the community were now
to be found predominantly on Edina Place (Plymouth
Court) and Buffalo Street (Federal Street). A few lived
north and northwest of the present Loop; one lived "out in
the country on Wabash Avenue, corner New Street, seven
blocks south of Twelfth, where the houses were not yet
numbered." There was only one Jew living close to the
neighborhood west of the Chicago River that was later to
develop into Chicago's Ghetto, and that was a butcher,
Moses Goodman, who lived on Harrison Street, between
Clinton and Jefferson.

While it is difficult to trace substantial migrations from
one part of the city to another during this period, it is ap-
parent that by i860 there were definite areas of settlement
to which one could point in Chicago: one area containing
the older settlers, who had already adjusted themselves
fairly well to their new surroundings, toward the south of the
Loop, and another on the western fringe of the Loop, made up
largely of later arrivals. The new settlers drifted into the
area abandoned by the older ones, since it was in process of
becoming a business area.JEWISH COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO 165

COMMUNITY PROBLEMS

Before the outbreak of the Civil War the most important
question before the Jews of Chicago was still the question of
reform in the religious ritual. By this time, however, under
the influence of outstanding local leaders and with the moral
support from the older Jewish communities in the Eastern
United States, particularly New York, Baltimore, and Cin-
cinnati, the Reform section in Chicago had crystallized into
a separate congregation which later became one of the out-
standing bodies in American Jewry—Sinai congregation.
The new congregation bought a Christian church at Monroe
and Clark streets and converted it into Chicago's first
"temple."1 In the "Polish" group there also occurred a split,
which, in the spirit of Civil War days, was called a "Secesh"
movement. The basis of this division, however, unlike that
in the German camp, was not programistic, but purely per-
sonal and factional. The synagogue to which it gave rise
was known until recently as the Secesh Shul. Minor organi-
zations such as Jewish young men's, young women's, and
ladies' societies sprang up around the congregations then in
existence and added strength and solidarity to the communal
organization.

During the Civil War the Chicago Jews were numerous
enough to organize a company of their own and finance it
themselves. They had no difficulty, although the Jewish
population did not exceed a thousand, in raising one hundred
men and over $11,000. Meanwhile the factional conflicts
within the community smoldered. The end of the war
brought a renewed interest on the part of the Jews in the

1 The term "synagogue" is applied to orthodox and conservative houses
of worship, while the Reform congregations have "temples."166

THE GHETTO

political life of Chicago. More than ever before, Jews were
elected and appointed to local public office.

$7,000 for the property, attesting to the growing strength
and prosperity of the membership. For the first time in a
Jewish service in Chicago the men removed their hats in
the temple, a radical innovation for the timer^The rabbi of
the congregation, Bernard Felsenthal, whoT5y this time had
achieved a national reputation in Jewish Reform circles, de-
clined re-election when the congregation refused to elect him
for more than one year at a time, and a number of his fol-
lowers organized a new congregation, known as Zion, but
based on practically the same principles as Sinai. The
former held services in a Baptist church on the West Side,
but soon thereafter erected a building on Desplaines Street,
between Madison and Washington—the first Jewish house
of worship on the West Side. The Polish congregation mean-
while had grown and its membership could afford a new
synagogue of its own, which was erected on Harrison Street,
south of the Loop, at a cost of $2o,ooo.\ The most important
undertaking of the Jewish community afc a whole, however,
was the building of the first Jewish hospital, which was
opened in 1868/It was located on the North Side, on La
Salle Street, between Schiller and Goethe, although the cen-
ter of the Jewish community atjthat time was along Van
Buren, Clark, and Wells streets.\JThe Chicago Jews, partic-
ularly the B'nai Brith lodges, of which there were two at
that time, contributed generously to the establishment of
the first Jewish orphan asylum in Cleveland. This was in-
dicative of the beginning of Jewish philanthropic activities
on a national s

/In 1863 the Sinai congregation built a new temple at
Plymouth Court and Van Buren Street. They had paid
 JEWISH COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO 167

The sixties represent a period of expansion, not only for
Chicago, but for its Jewish community. A Jewish settle-
ment on the near North Side had grown to such proportions
that a new synagogue was established on Superior Street,
near Wells. The expansion of the area of the city, magnified
by the poor transportation facilities, seems to have been the
motive for the new organization. In this, as in most of the
other Jewish congregations of that time, German was the
current language.

Dr. Chronic, the enterprising and scholarly rabbi whom
Sinai had imported from Germany, established the first
Jewish publication in Chicago which was printed in German,
called Zeichen der Zeit. The Bavarian congregation was still
the leading Jewish organization in the city, and, in keeping
with the standing of its members, bought a church in the
then fashionable district of Wabash Avenue and Peck Court
for $50,000.

Two new national elements had meanwhile been added
to the Jewish settlement: a small group of Holland Jews who
linked up with the "Polish" congregation of B'nai Sholom,
and a more important group both from the standpoint of
numbers and their subsequent r61e—the Latvian Jews. Un-
like their predecessors, this latter group spoke Yiddish.
They were ultraorthodox, and had behind them a tradition
of rabbinical scholarship. They, like the Germans before
them in the early days, engaged in peddling, taking up the
occupation abandoned by the earlier immigrants. Finding
all the Chicago congregations too radical, they organized a
minyun of their own in 1865. A rival minyun was formed
the next year, when David Zemansky, who had sent most of
the "Litvish" peddlers West with packs which he sold them,
arrived in Chicago from New York. These two groupsi68

THE GHETTO

united in 1867 and formed the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol
(the great synagogue), located on Pacific Avenue, south of
Van Buren Street. This orthodox group proceeded imme-
diately to establish a cheder for the religious instruction of the
young. New immigrants came in such numbers that other
synagogues were established in rapid succession. Among
them was the Ohave Emuno congregation, nicknamed die
halbe Emuno (the half-faith) because it was noticed that
some of its members who peddled were accustomed to
driving up with their horses and wagons on the Sabbath to
attend services, which was contrary to the orthodox prac-
tice. Several members of the old "Polish" congregation
united with this group, thus adding strength to this new
faction whose ritual they found more akin to their own.

The new element, however, was torn by all sorts of
strife. They were considerably more provincial than their
Bavarian and Hinter-Berliner predecessors. They settled
by small town or village groups, and rigidly maintained
their lines of distinction. Thus, the Mariampol group se-
ceded from the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol in 1870, because,
the story goes, one of the attendants at the synagogue was
seen saying Kaddish (memorial prayer for the dead) while
wearing a straw hat, which violated the strict commands of
the faith. Unlike the Germans and the "Poles," this group
did not enter actively into the secular life about them. They
lived in a village world, and within that village they were
concerned mainly with their fellow-Jews who came from
Mariampol, Suwalk, Litvinova, and similar localities. The
affairs of their synagogue were the only public life they
knew, and as a consequence, whenever a quarrel occurred
about a chazan (cantor), a shochet (slaughterer), and a mohel
(circumciser), they were ready to gather up the members ofJEWISH COMMUNITY IN CHICAGO 169

their Landsmannschaft and organize a store-front congrega-
tion of their own.

Just before the great Chicago fire another congregation
was organized in what was then known as the "South West
Side," around Halsted and Fourteenth streets, where a
German and Bohemian settlement had been established in
the midst of a neighborhood of substantial residences where
some of the most important Chicagoans then lived. This was
the B'nai Abraham congregation, organized in 1870, com-
posed mainly of German-speaking Bohemian Jews.

The center of Jewish population about 1870 was in the
area bounded by Van Buren Street on the north, Polk Street
on the south, the river on the west, and Clark Street on the
east, in the immediate vicinity of the city's business area.
The location of' the B'nai Abraham congregation on the
Southwest, Zion on the Northwest, North Chicago Hebrew
congregation on the near North Side, and the Bavarian con-
gregation on the South Side, mark the outposts of the Jew-
ish settlements before the great fire.

One other aspect of Jewish life of this period is worth
mentioning. During the three decades between the time of
the first Jewish arrivals in the city and the great conflagra-
tion, the Jewish settlers, coming as they did from German
communities that had sent great numbers of non-Jewish
pioneers to the West, were on friendly terms with the grow-
ing German population of the city. They spoke the same
language, and many of them shared the same political views,
especially since the revolution of 1848 was the incentive to
emigration for a large number. During the Civil War a
number of Jews who were not in the "Jewish Companies"
had served in the ranks predominantly made up of Ger-
mans. It was therefore not unusual for the German Jews to170

THE GHETTO

be found often in company with their German acquaintances
at Turner Hall or at the Concordia Club. Most of the Jew-
ish meetings and social functions since the beginning of the
Civil War had been held in the Concordia Club^jThe pros-
perous element among the German Jews in 1869 organized
the "Standard Club," which became the center of the social
life of the Jewish aristocracy of Chicago. The club built a
home in the most fashionable district of South Michigan
Avenue. Even more than the separate religious institutions
that characterized the Jewish community and divided off the
various strata from one another, this club was indicative of
the great chasm which separated the Bavarians from the
Hinter-Berliner, and especially the latest arrivals, the Rus-
siansTICHAPTER X

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE
GHETTO

THE GROWTH OF THE COMMUNITY

The great Chicago fire of 1871 marks not only a turn-
ing-point in the history of the city of Chicago, but also in
the development of the Jewish community^ The Jews, being
in most instances dependent upon their businesses for their
livelihood, found themselves especially hard hit by the ca-
tastrophe, for most of the business establishments were
located in the area that was swept by the fire and reduced to
ashes. The core of the Jewish area in and around the Loop
was completely destroyed. Hundreds were homeless and
helpless who had formerly been affluent and active in the
philanthropic enterprises of the community. The Jewish
lodges and relief organizations, with the assistance that came
from many other Jewish communities in various parts of the
country, mobilized for relief and reconstruction. Many
communal institutions were wiped out by the fire, and great
parts of the population were dislodged from their neighbor-
hoods.

Besides bringing important changes in the economic posi-
tion of many members of the community, the fire brought
about a complete realignment of areas of residence. While
the fire was still burning, a group of Jews organized the Ger-
man-speaking congregation Rodfe Sholom, later called Beth
El, on the Northwest Side, in the neighborhood of Mil-
waukee Avenue, on May and Huron streets. Numerous new
lodges and associations were organized immediately after

171172

THE GHETTO

the fire, among them the Chicago Rabbinic^

which did much to foster co-operation between the various
elements and factions of the Jewish population represented
by different congregations.

Scarcely had the community recovered from the first fire
when another broke out in 1874, which swept over the near
South Side, and did its greatest damage among the Russo-
Polish settlers, who had been spared by the first. The
United Hebrew Relief Association responded to their need,
since most of the afflicted section of the population was poor.
It was difficult, however, to raise the necessary funds. This
was due in part to the fact that the community had not yet
fully recovered from the earlier catastrophe, but it was due
also to the criticism by the German Jews that the Russians
had not contributed their share during the former crisis, and
were therefore schnorrers. In order to counteract the narrow
sectional spirit to which the community suddenly had re-
turned, the Relief Association asked Dr. Liebman Adler, the
former rabbi of Bavarian congregation, who was a respected
member of the community at large, to draw up an appeal for
funds. His appeal read as follows:

Scarce two decades have elapsed since all the Israelites of this
city were living as in the bonds of one family and circle. Each knew
the other. All worshipped harmoniously in one temple and shared
others' woes and joys.

How great is the change! Thousands scattered over a space of
nearly thirty miles, in hundreds of streets, divided by pecuniary, in-
tellectual, and social distinctions, provincial jealousies, and even reli-
gious distinctions and differences. Separation, division, dissolution,
estrangement, repeated and continual, are the words which character-
ize the history of our brothers in faith until now. Dissolved in the
mass of our population, we are losing the consciousness of our homo-
geneity and the strength gained for each individual by concerted ac-
tion.JEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 173

Let us also consider the oft-heard complaint that Poles and Rus-
sians absorb a disproportional large share of the means of this Associa-
tion.

Brothers and sisters, are these poor ones less to be pitied, are they
less poor, are they less Israelites because Poland or Russia is the land
in which they first saw the light, or rather the darkness, of this world?
The poor of those countries are doubly poor. These unfortunates come
to us from a country which is the European headquarters for bar-
barism, ignorance, and uncleanliness. In those countries, thousands
of Israelites are densely crowded into small towns and villages, and
they become singular and peculiar in their customs, manners, and
ideas. In conferring charity it is the duty of the Israelite first to look
to the needs and then to the deserts of the recipient.1

jjThis appeal brought the desired help. Coming as it did
from a spokesman of the German Jews, it was the first for-
mal acknowledgment after the fire of the disintegrating forces
within the community^ It showed clearly that the German*"
Jews took their superior status for granted, and looked down
with pity—benevolently, to be sure, but with a certain con-
tempt—upon their Russian and Polish co-religionists. The
physical distance over which Chicago Jewry had spread was,
as Rabbi Adler noted, an indication of the social distance
that separated the two camps in the Jewish community from
each other. ^

The realignment that followed the second fire clearly
showed the lines of division that had by this time become
firmly imbedded in the community structure. The East
European Jews, who had lost their homes and synagogues
east of the river, now crossed to the West Side. The Mari-
ampol congregation was the first to take that step which
marked the beginning of Chicago's real ghetto district. The
full consequences of this movement did not become ap-

1 Meites, op. cit,9 p. 133.I74

THE GHETTO

parent, however, until the great Russian influx of the next
decade.

Meanwhile, efforts to achieve a reintegration of the
divergent elements in the community continued. A com-
mittee from Sinai and Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv congrega-
tions made efforts to reunite their respective groups, espe-
cially since both congregations had lost their synagogues.
By this time the Reform movement had already progressed
to a point where Sinai had substituted Sunday for Saturday
services, in an effort to bring the religious life of the members
more in harmony with that of the community at large, and
also to obtain better attendance, since a large part of the
congregation was employed on Saturdays and the Saturday
attendance was confined mainly to women and the older and
more conservative men of the congregation. Sinai was even
willing to compromise by holding services on Saturdays and
Sundays, but Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv was unalterably op-
posed to Sunday services, and the attempted rapprochement
failed. Sinai thereupon built a synagogue near the fashion-
able Prairie Avenue district on Indiana Avenue and Twenty-
first Street, while Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv bought the build-
ing of Plymouth Church, on Indiana Avenue and Twenty-
sixth Street. These new locations indicate the extent of the
southward movement of the more prosperous German ele-
ment of the Jewish population by 1875. To these structures
there was added, in 1880, the new Michael Reese Hospital,
on Twenty-ninth Street and the Lake, which was the most
ambitious institutional undertaking of the Jewish com-
munity.

\The cultural life in the Jewish community during this
periocl, while it showed many evidences of adaptation to the
temper of the city, was by no means independent of theJEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 175

sources from which it had sprung. The orthodox groups al-
ways imported their rabbis from the East European centers
of rabbinical learning, and even the reformed groups, who
in many respects had gone farther in the introduction of
innovations in ritual and belief than the reformed congre-
gations in Germany, were still a cultural dependency of the
Old World to a much greater degree than the intellectual
life of America at large was compelled to lean on European
scholarship^ This is indicated by the call for a rabbi issued
by Sinai in 1879. It read:

With a view of securing to this congregation a minister whose
name will be an honor to Judaism, and of whom we may have reason to
expect that by word and deed he will teach the tenets of our faith in
full accord with the convictions shared by all members of this con-
gregation; and thereby inspire young and old with that love for our
holy cause which is essential to the preservation of our religion, be it

Resolved, That the Executive Board be herewith requested to in-
vite and receive applications for the position of minister of this con-
gregation from Jewish theologians of modern reform principles and of
good repute who have graduated at a German university, with honor,
are excellent also in all those branches of study which characterize
the learned rabbis of our day, and who are good orators, able to preach
in the German and English vernacular.2

Sinai's rabbi had to be not merely learned in religious lore;
he had to be, above all, ein moderner Mensch who could
speak to the public at large in the name of the Jewish con-
gregation. The man whose response to this call was accepted
was Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, who held the outstanding posi-
tion in the Jewish community of Chicago for over forty
years.

Some years before the reform and semi-reform groups in
the city had become conscious of the fact that there were in

1 Meites, op. cit.t p. 138.176

THE GHETTO

the community no unifying cultural forces, and that its life
was not of such a character as to be self-perpetuating. The
orthodox sections of the Jewish population, and^particularly
the Russian and Polish groups, were in a different position.
They were less absorbed into the larger life of the city; they
continued to speak their familiar Yiddish; they lived close
together; they gathered round their synagogues in daily
prayer; they had their cheders that transmitted the heritage
to the younger generation, and what numbers deserted the
group were more than compensated for by the constant
influx of orthodox and pious immigrants from Europe.

A futile attempt was made by the reformed and semi-
reformed groups to introduce new vitality into the com-
munal life by the organization of the Jewish Educational
Society of Chicago, which followed the parochial pattern set
by other denominations, but which attempted to combine
some of the principles of the orthodox traditions. The fol-
lowing appeal was issued in 1876:

Israelites of Chicago:

What have you done for preserving our faith and transmitting the
noble bequest of ages to posterity? True, you have in the different
parts of this city formed congregations and erected beautiful
houses of worship, redounding to the honor of the God of our
Fathers. You have ministers preaching to you every Sabbath and
Festival Day, well accredited by the surrounding world. You have
Sabbath schools and teachers, besides, to imbue the youth with
all elements of Jewish religion and history. But are you satisfied that
thereby you have done all in your power to maintain the religion of
our Fathers in its pristine glory and purity? True, you have raised
your children as Jews, but do you believe that they, after having at-
tended the Sabbath school up to the time of their confirmation, will
be able to expound and to defend Judaism before the world? Or do
you know of any one of them desirous of pursuing the study of JewishJEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 177

lore and history, in order to know what Judaism is, and what it has
accomplished in its wonderful march? And suppose there are such
people, what opportunities have they of studying Hebrew and ac-
quiring the knowledge indispensable for a thorough understanding of
Judaism? Where are the schools from which you expect your future
rabbis and teachers and the well-read laymen to come? The latter can
certainly not be imported from the old country for the purpose of up-
holding our Jewish institutions.

Indeed, indifference and dissension, ignorance and shallowness
have long enough eaten the very marrow and root of our sacred in-
heritance. Compare the zeal and devotion, the generosity and sym-
pathy manifested in Christian churches by young and old, with the
indolence and lethargy which have estranged the young, particularly,
to our holy cause, so as to make every attempt of enlisting their inter-
est fail at the very outset. Christian mission societies send forth their
soul-hunting agents to ensnare Jewish young men and tear them away
from the breast of their religion, while the Jewish community, for want
of religious education and protection, leaves them to spiritual starva-
tion.

You are no doubt aware of the call issued both in the east and west,
for establishing a Jewish theological seminary, in response to which
several congregations of this city have joined either the one or the
other movement. Yet this undertaking must be regarded premature
as long as in the various centers of American Judaism there are neither
pupils imbued with the spirit of Jewish lore, so as to feel induced to
enter upon a theological career, nor high schools where talented youths
could prepare themselves for such a course. We must have a Jewish
high school in every large community, where especially gifted young
people from their eleventh or twelfth year are to be advantageously
taught in Hebrew literature and Jewish history, in addition to the
various branches of a general high school, the Hebrew forming an
organic part of the entire school system; where, moreover, lessons in
Jewish religion, history, and literature are given twice or thrice during
the week to such young people who are anxious to receive information
about Judaism, while pursuing their mercantile or scientific course
during the day.....1

1 Pamphlet, Jewish Educational Society of Chicago, September 15, 1876.i78

THE GHETTO

What suddenly began to concern the older generation of
Jews, who had been brought up in the spirit here outlined,
was the growing generation of Jewish children in the Chicago
community. They were aware that the European rabbis and
teachers who had been imported into the community hitherto
had not been able to enlist the respect and arouse the
enthusiasm of the rising generation. What was needed, they
thought, was a type of leadership that was adapted to the
new conditions—a native leadership—which the community
thus far had not produced. The solution they sought again
in the traditions of the ghetto of the Old World, but ap-
parently the community itself was neither fully convinced
of the need nor of the suitability of the remedy. In spite of
the vision of "soul-hunting Christian missionaries," present-
ed by this appeal, they were not aroused to action. The
interests and attitudes of the various elements within the
community itself were so divergent as to make collective
action on a program of internal organization of the whole
Jewish community impossible.

^It was, as it has always been, only in defending itself
from without that the Jewish community has been able to
act with any unanimity) The older generation did try, how-
ever, to preserve its cultural traditions in various ways.
Under the auspices of the Zion Literary Society, educational
and musical programs were given from 1877 on, and a weekly
newspaper was issued which appealed to the communal in-
terests of the more liberal section of the German faction.
Other papers were established in English and German, but
on the whole, during the seventies, the field for these journal-
istic enterprises was very limited. The community was still
too small and lacked the cultural unity to make any of these
sectional enterprises a success. It is important to note,JEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 179

however, that as early as 1879 a weekly Yiddish paper ap-
peared in Chicago	Presse, but survived
for only a few months. While local papers encountered dif-
ficulty, the Jews of the various classes did read the papers
published in New York and Cincinnati, which gave space to
local items.

By 1880 the Jews of Chicago, in a total population of
500,000, were estimated to number io,ooo.x The Jewish
population was now increasing and spreading out over wider
areas of the city. Two new synagogues were organized by
the German-speaking group: Anshe Emeth, in 1878, by the
Jews who lived on what was then the far North Side, on
Division Street; and Emanuel congregation, on Blackhawk
and Sedgwick streets, in 1880. The Russian group in 1875
organized another minyun known as the Russische Shul,
familiarly spoken of as "Shileler," since it was organized by
a group coming from the village of Shilel, Russia. With the
growth of the Russian population this became one of the
most substantial groups on the West Side, and built a syna-
gogue on Clinton and Judd streets.

THE TIDE FROM THE EAST

ifjrhe so-called "May Laws" of 1882, which virtually ex-
pelled great masses of Jews from their homes in the villages
and towns of Russia, inaugurated a tide of immigration to
America which was destined to change the whole complexion
of American Jewry within a decade^The years preceding
this final governmental action were marked by intermittent
pogroms and violent persecution which had already brought
Jews in considerable numbers to the United States. But

1 "Union of American Hebrew Congregations," Statistics of Jews of the
United States, 1880.i8o

THE GHETTO

these earlier immigrants settled mainly in New York and the
larger cities of the East. Only a small proportion came as
far west as Chicago. A report of the United Hebrew Relief
Association for 1881, however, already speaks of "Russian
refugees," and a year later we read in the report of that
organization,"____Our office is constantly crowded by refu-
gees." These newcomers had few friends or relatives to
welcome them here. They were pioneers, as were the Ger-
mans before them. Most of them had, however, lived at
least for a short time in the tenements on the East Side of
New York, and were sent West by friends, Landsleute, and
immigrant aid organizations, where they hoped to find com-
petition less keen and opportunities for establishing them-
selves greater.

\fn Chicago these immigrants of course sought the area
where rents were cheapest and where the surroundings made
their own cultural life possibles This they found in the area
west of the river and south of Harrison Street, close to the
business section, or "Loop," in the vicinity of the markets
and the light manufacturing district, where they could save
carfare in going to and from work.

One of these newcomers tells of arriving in Chicago and
asking a stranger where the Jews lived:

He was directed west, where he was told the "greenhorns" were
to be found. He had no idea then that Jews were to be found elsewhere

in Chicago.....He tells us: "Chicago, especially the West Side,

then was a place of filth, infested with the worst element any city
could produce. Crime was rampant. No one was safe. Jews were
treated on the streets in the most abhorrent and shameful manner,
stones being thrown at them and their beards being pulled by street
thugs. Most earned their living peddling from house to house. They
carried packs on their backs consisting of notions and light dry goods,
and it was not an unusual sight to see hundreds of them who lived inJEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 181

the Canal Street district, in the early morning, spreading throughout
the city. There was hardly a streetcar where there were not to be
found some Jewish peddlers with their packs riding to or from their
business. Peddling junk and vegetables, and selling various articles
on the street corners also engaged numbers of our people. Being out
on the streets most of the time in these obnoxious occupations, and
ignorant of the English language, they were subjected to the ridicule,
annoyance and attacks of all kinds.1

The Jews of this period, unlike their predecessors in the city,
spoke Yiddish, and their dress and their demeanor consti-
tuted easily recognizable marks. Most of them wore beards,
and the long coats and boots of the Russian pale. They
never ventured outside of their streets and houses unless
necessity compelled them. They brought with them the
hunted look of the pale, which had become fixed through
constant dread of pogroms and attacks. They lacked self-
confidence and poise, a lack intensified by the inability to
communicate with strangers; and often they were unable to
communicate even with the Jews whom they met, who did
not speak Yiddish^

The area into which they came was occupied mainly by
Germans and Bohemians, although a small German-speak-
ing group of Bohemian Jews had already established itself
there, and another German group bordered their settlement
on the north and the northwest.

Very few among the immigrants of the eighties had any
skilled occupations, as in the villages and towns from which
they came they were mostly petty merchants and trades-
men. Only a few were prevailed upon by the colonization
agencies to go on farms, and still fewer remained on the
farms. They had no capital with which to open business
establishments. Unskilled labor and peddling were the only

1 Account of Bernard Horwich, quoted by Meites, op. cit., pp. 150-51.I&2

THE GHETTO

occupations that seemed at all adapted to them. Often they
took to the former only long enough to enable them to get
into some small business of their own, even if it were only
selling stationery or notions on the street cornersi^TJnlike
the typical Jewish immigrants that preceded them, they had
not come to improve their economic or social position, but
rather they had fled from conditions that threatened life
itself-V

Oi the thousands that came to America in the first years
of the eighties, approximately two thousand came to Chicago
during 1881-82. The entire Jewish community, which num-
bered little more than 10,000, organized to meet this tide of
impoverished and panic-stricken people. A Russian Refugee
Aid Committee was organized. "Families were separated
into groups of ten, each group being installed in a temporary
home, with one family at the head. The privileges of such
a home were ordinarily granted for three weeks. At the end
of that time a family was expected to be in a position to
take quarters on its own responsibility."1

Many of the heads of families found employment in the
establishments of the German and Polish Jews, particularly
those engaged in the manufacture of clothing. The immi-
grants were suffering from additional industrial handicaps
because their orthodoxy prevented them from working on
Saturdays. A free employment bureau was established to
care for their vocational needs/jlie fund-raising appeals of
the Chicago Jewish community for this period emphasize
that it is the duty of the established members of the com-
munity to help their co-religionists in less fortunate circum-
stances to become self-supportin" Allusion is often made to

1 Minnie F. Low, "Jewish Philantl py in Chicago," in Charles S.
Bernheimer: The Russian Jew in the United States, p. 87.JEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 183

the probability that unless these numerous immigrants with
their peculiar appearance and strange customs are adequate-
ly cared for they are likely, not only to become a burden to
the community at large, but also to reflect on the character
of the Jewish community.

Jews on the South and the North Side were becom-
ing conscious of the growth of a ghetto on the West Side,
which, though removed from their own residential districts
by considerable distance, would be regarded by Gentiles as
an integral part of the Jewish community.jfthey considered
themselves even farther removed in social distance than in
^ miles from these poor, benighted peddlers with long beards,
with side-locks, and long black coats. They sensed that all
the progress they had made in breaking down barriers, in
preventing the development of a ghetto, and in gaining
recognition for themselves, as persons rather than as Jews,
with their Christian neighbors might now, with the new
connotation that was attached to the word Jew, come to a
sudden haltj

And yet they did not wish to have these Jews too close
to them. These Russians were all right—of that they were
quite certain—but, like the southern Negro, they had to
keep their place. All sorts of philanthropic enterprises were
undertaken in their behalf, but in the management of these
enterprises the beneficiaries were given no voice. Charity
balls by the debutantes of the German-Jewish 61ite in behalf
of the wretched West Side Jews were held at the splendid
clubs of the German Jews~which by this time had increased
to four, and charitably inclined young Jewish men and
ladies-bountiful spent their leisure hours in alleviating the
hardships of the Jewish slum dwellers.

But the Russians did not take altogether willingly to the184

THE GHETTO

American ways of dispensing zdoko (charity). They were
accustomed to assisting one another in the Old Country in
much more informal style. The Jew* communities they
had known in Russia were self-sufficient large families.
These German Jews of the "societies" asked all sorts of em-
barrassing questions before they dispensed their financial
and other aid. They made investigations and kept records.
Most of all, they did not understand—they did not know—
their own people; in fact, they were only halfway Jews; they
did not even understand mama loshon (the mother-tongue),
or Yiddish.

The Russian Jews were not slow in building up their own
separate community life. Numbers of new small congrega-
tions were formed, some of them with barely a minyutt. But
these shtds, most of which were merely private rooms or
store-front synagogues, were places that glowed with the
familiar, intense religious enthusiasm of old. They were not
pretentious structures in which hundreds were gathered once
a week or on holidays, with organs and choirs, but they were
^ family or village gatherings in the side-streets of the ghetto.
[Each of these congregations constituted a little world by
itself, but a full world, in which were gathereclall the inter-
ests of the people, religious, educational, sociay

In addition to these shuts there were cheders with bearded
teachers, where the young boys learned to daven (pray), to
lay tphillin (philacteries) and read the Torah, In October,
1884, there took place a notable celebration which for the
first time brought the West Side Ghetto dwellers and the
rest of the Jews in the city together on a large scale. The
occasion was the celebration of the one-hundredth anniver-
sary of the birth of the Jewish philanthropist, Sir Moses
Montefiore. The most distinguished citizens of Chicago andJEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 185

the leaders of the Jewish community took part in the gather-
ing, which was held in the finest hall in Chicago, the Central
Music Hall. It gave the new arrivals their first dramatic
view of the New World, the Jewish world beyond the pale.

Among the spectators in the gallery were some of the more recent
Russian arrivals who did not understand a word of the proceedings,
but came away with impressions that they did not soon forget, of how
dignified a Jewish celebration could be made. They carried this im-
pression back with them, and from that time felt prouder than ever
before that they were Jews. It gave them their bearings in Chicago-
and America. The first immediate result was agitation on the West
Side and throughout Chicago for the establishment of a Talmud
Torah to bear the name of Moses Montefiore. In this work all "sides"
of Chicago took a hand.....1

As the number of "refugees" continued to increase,
literary societies and mutual aid organizations came into
existence, in which the members of the Russian group who
had accumulated some wealth took the lead. In 1887 Leon,
Zolotkoff established the first successful Yiddish newspaper
in Chicago. This organ, at first a weekly, but soon a daily,
exercised a tremendous pressure in welding the orthodox,
Yiddish-speaking group together, and in stimulating their
communal life. It gave local Yiddish writers an opportunity
to exercise their talents, and brought to the Yiddish group
the movements that were stirring the ghetto of New York.

In an effort to divert the younger generation of Russian
immigrants into other vocational channels than peddling,
two efforts were made by the Jewish community at large.
One of these was the founding of the Jewish Agriculturists'
Aid Society, with the object of establishing immigrants on
farms, and the other was the Jewish Training School, to en-
courage the learning of the crafts and manual arts among the

1 Meites, op. tit., p. 154.i86

THE GHETTO

younger generation} As was the case in similar efforts here
and in other cities, these devices did not stem the tide of
Jews who flocked to the night schools to study for the pro-
fessions, or those who went to peddling and entered the
sweat-shops of the developing clothing industry.

EXPANSION AND DIVERSIFICATION

L

While the West Side was developing institutions of its
own,, which were organized along orthodox lines, and thus
was giving form to its cultural heritage by building up a
ghetto, the Jews on the South and the North Side were merg-
ing their interests more and more with those of the city at
large^The members of the Standard Club had taken an
active interest in the fund-raising campaign of the newly
organized University of Chicago. Dr. Hirsch, of Sinai, had
by this time become the outstanding spokesman of the
Jewry of the city. By 1887 he was receiving a salary of
$12,000 a year. He was the highest-paid rabbi in the world.
That was one way the community had of measuring its
greatness. It is interesting to note, in this connection, the
tremendous difference in the salaries paid by the orthodox
synagogues and the Reform temples. The first Reform con-
gregation in America, Emanuel of New York, paid its first
rabbi-preacher the then munificent salary of $200 per year,
while the first Russian congregation, Beth Ha-Midrash of
New York, ten years later, i.e., in 1855, paid its rabbi two
dollars a week.1 Apparently the Reform Jews were willing
to pay to be represented by a Weltmensch as rabbi. In 1891
Rabbi Hirsch began to publish his weekly Reform Advocate,
which gave Reform Jewry in Chicago a unifying organ and
an intellectual program.

* Wiernik, op. cit.t pp. 177, 190.JEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 187

the late eighties the Chicago community began to
take on new characteristics. The lines of division between
the various groups became more fixed and clearly defined.
The status of each group was rigidly set, and the objectives
of each were made articulate through separate organizations,
institutions, leadership, and press^ In 1888 the presence of a
new element in the community is witnessed by the organi-
zation of a Hungarian synagogue on the West Side, on Max-
well Street. A more significant symptom of impending
change, however, is indicated by the formation of the first
Russian congregation on the South Side, and the further
southward migration of Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv. Appar-
ently the overflow from the ghetto was drifting in the
beaten path of the older settlers. {The impetus which the
World's Fair gave to the growth of Chicago is indicated by
the growth of the South Side congregations during the
nineties and the establishment of several new institutions,
especially the Orphans' Home and the Home for Aged Jews,
in Woodlawn, a residential section on the far South SicJe^
By 1895 Zion congregation, the first German congregation
on the West Side, found that its members had for the most
part joined their Landsleute on the South Side, and the con-
gregation was reorganized and moved its temple to Forty-
fifth Street and Vineennes Avenue, in the neighborhood of
the growing Jewish settlement on the South Side.

The continuous stream of Russian immigrants resulted
in the expansion of the West Side community. New syna-
gogues were formed on Paulina and Taylor streets, one of
these, Mishna Ugmoro, "barring from membership all who
were not well versed in Jewish lore and scrupulously observ-
ant of every tradition."1 At the other extreme was Sinai,

1 Meites, op. citp. 190.188

THE GHETTO

with its Sunday services, its hatless congregation, whose
leader, Dr. Hirsch, was one of the outstanding figures in the
World's Parliament of Religions during the World's Fair.

The Chicago ghetto, with its centers at Maxwell Street /
and Jefferson Street, had by this time developed its colorful
atmosphere of tenement houses and street markets, its
kosher shops, its basement sweat-shops, and, last but not
least, its Christian missions^ A local missionary society
made active efforts and spent considerable sums to convert
Jews to Christianity, but the converts were few in number.
Hull House had by this time become the center of immigrant j
life on the West Side, and numbers of Jews flocked to its con^
certs, lectures, and library. The need for a Jewish settle-
ment began to be felt by the more intellectual members of
the Jewish community, and in 1893 a small group opened
the Maxwell Street Settlement, at 183 Maxwell Street. The
more independent groups in the ghetto itself rather resented
the philanthropic interest of the South Side Germans, and
organized a people's institute, which they hoped to keep
free from the spirit of "uplift," in the form of the Self-
Education Club.

Before the nineteenth century closed, Chicago Jewry
underwent a number of crises. The World's Fair had focused
attention on organization within the community and had
given great impetus to the formation of religious bodies on a
national scale. A number of Jewish national ^organizations
were called into being at about that period^One incident
which did much to unite the Jewish community in concerted
action was the agitation against the attempted extradition
of political prisoners to Russia in 1893, in which the whole
community took an active part. Within the community it-
self, institutions and organizations had become so numerousJEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 189

that the need for centralization was manifest. In 1900 the
philanthropic agencies were united into a single collecting
and disbursing agency, which in 1901 developed into the
Associated Jewish Charities, with 1,700 subscribers and a
fund of $135,000^

The influence of the Zionist movement was also begin-
ning to make itself felt, and the Dreyfus case rekindled the
self-consciousness of the community, as evidenced by the
numerous protest meetings held. In 1900 a Chicago Jew had
been nominated for governor of Illinois and had polled over
half a million votes, a symptom of the active participation,
at least on the part of the older settlers, in the civic life of the
community(j3y the opening of the new century the Jews of
Chicago numbered approximately 75,000, in a population of
i^oojooo.1 The Russian Jews were by far in the majority,
with 50,000; the Germans came second, with 20,000; the rest
made up the other 5,00a} The community then consisted of
fifty congregations, thirty-nine charitable societies, sixty
Jewish lodges, thirteen loan associations, eleven social clubs,
four Zionist societies, and a number of other organizations/
Although the growth of the professional spirit in social
work and community organization tended, ever since the
beginning of the twentieth century, especially within the
Jewish communal body, to discourage the formation of
small independent organizations, these organizations con-
stantly reappeared. In spite of well-laid plans for a unified
community, the separate parts of that community tended
always to split into sections and get out of hand. A dramatic
instance will indicate the readiness on the part of the Jews
to form an organization to meet a real or supposed need:
1H. Eliassof, "The Jews of Illinois," Reform Advocate, May 4, 1901.
a American Jewish Yearbook, Vol. 5662.THE GHETTO

A Jewish infant had died, and the mother was too poor to pay for
its burial. She did not want it to be buried otherwise than in Jewish
surroundings and with Jewish rites. There was no one to help her,
and in her desperation the poor woman decided upon a bold step.
Taking the dead child in her arms during the night, she carried it to
the Mariampol Shut, then on Canal Street, and left it on the steps.
In the morning the members of the synagogue arrived and found it
there. One may imagine the horror of the sight which met their eyes.
Their pity and sympathy were excited, the mother of the infant was
found, and a decent burial in a Jewish cemetery was arranged.1

This incident, with its attending publicity, led to the forma-
tion, in 1892, of a free burial society on the West Side. In
similar fashion, nurseries, charitable associations, and so-
cieties of various kinds are constantly being created, only
to be merged into others or to pass out of existence. And if
one is not fortunate enough to organize a philanthropic or-
ganization, one must at least support those that are already
in existence^The fashionable ladies of the Gold Coast are
not alone in their enthusiasm for "pet charities"; the hum-
blest ghetto home has at least one or two collection boxes
for some holy cause, and the collectors who make their
rounds in the ghetto streets bent on fund-raising for insti-
tutions and movements far and near are seldom turned away
empty handed. To give is still a mitzvah (a good deed, a
religious duty) in the ghetto.^

From 1900 on it becomes difficult to trace all the varied
developments in the diverse sections of the Chicago Jewish
community. The Kishinev pogroms in 1905 marked another
period of crisis when the community locally, and the Jews
nationally, organized themselves into various bodies to pro-
test against the outrages and to receive the great waves of
"refugees." The scenes of 1881-82 were repeated in Chicago,
1 Meites, op. cit., p. 191.JEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 191

with the important difference that this time the Russian
Jews were able to take the initiative, and that the commu-
nity was much larger and therefore able to absorb the new-
comers with less difficulty.

The expansion of the community due to this large in-
flux, to which was added a substantial Roumanian element, \
showed itself topographically in the migration of the more
prosperous West-Siders to the Northwest Side and to Lawn-
dale. The latter area was derisively called Deutsckland by
the residents of the ghetto, and its new residents, Deitchuks,
because the orthodox Jews saw in this movement from the
ghetto area also a desertion of the old customs and religious
belief, and the aspiration to emulate the German Jews with
their goyishe ways.

" The period of the first decade of the twentieth century
marks also the growth in the prosperity of a substantial
number of members of the Jewish community^ This is
strikingly indicated by the large individual subscriptions to
philanthropic enterprises. The founding of the Chicago
Hebrew Institute, a recreational and educational center on
the West Side, on Taylor and Lytle streets, preceded by a
smaller institution on Blue Island Avenue, again brought
together the diverse sections of the Jewish population in a
large-scale communal undertaking. By this time (1908) the
name of Julius Rosenwald figures as the outstanding con-
tributor to the educational and charitable enterprises of the
Jews of Chicago.

The large increase in orthodox members becomes mani-
fest also through the founding of new synagogues in Lawn-
dale, and especially on the Northwest Side. The smaller
synagogues on the West Side are abandoned largely to the
new arrivals, and the movement west, northwest, and south192

THE GHETTO

on the part of the older settlers assumes vast proportions.
The question as to whether the older institutions are to be
conducted on an orthodox or a reformed basis appears in the
foreground as an important issue. Separate orthodox orphan
homes, homes for the aged, and hospitals organized during
this period indicate the emergence of a definite dual organi-
zation within the community.

The outbreak of the European War, and particularly the
organization of Jewish relief work in Europe after its con-
clusion, and the political activities of the Jews in the organi-
zation of the American Jewish Congress to promote the in-
terests of the Jews in the peace conferences, together with
the new developments in Zionism, lent to the most recent
period of Chicago Jewish history the atmosphere of stirring
activity, of practical politics, and business-like methods of
large-scale fund raising. A number of million-dollar cam-
paigns, of "drives" for various causes, local and national and
international, were carried through. The Zionists in the
community had won over a large part of the Jewish popula-
tion, even of the German and Reform Jews. The issues of
immigration laws and anti-Semitism were met by the or-
ganization of "anti-defamation" societies. Locally this
latest period is marked by the growth of the Jewish com-
munity to approximately 300,000 members. The diminu-
tion of the European influx, however, became noticeable
through the gradual transition of the near West Side into a
predominantly non-Jewish area, and the establishment of
new Jewish frontiers on the South Shore, in Hyde Park,
North Shore, Ravenswood, Albany Park, Humboldt Park,
and Columbus Park, all of them high-grade residential
neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city. By 1926 the
Jewish community of Chicago had come to be the thirdJEWISH COMMUNITY AND THE GHETTO 193

largest in the world, exceeded only by New York and pos-
sibly Warsaw, but with a more diversified set of character-
istics in its various parts than either of the other two ^ From
the standpoint of organization the recent period shows in-
creasing centralization and consolidation of communal effort
on the one hand, and an increasing rate of mobility and
cultural transformation of the various Jewish settlements on
the other3

®he story of the founding and development of the Jewish
community of Chicago is fairly typical of what happened in
the last one hundred years in every urban center in the
United States^jTn its initial stages the Jewish community is
scarcely distinguishable from the rest of the city. As the
numbers increase, however, the typical communal organiza-
tion of the European ghetto gradually emerges. The addi-
tion of diverse elements to the population results in diver-
sification and differentiation, and finally in disintegration]"Maxwell StreetCHAPTER XI
THE CHICAGO GHETTO

THE NEAR WEST SIDE

West of the Chicago River, in the shadow of the Loop*
lies a densely populated rectangle of three- and four-story
buildings, containing the greater part of Chicago's immi-
grant colonies, among them the area called "the ghetto."
This area, two miles wide and three miles long, is hemmed in
on all sides by acres of railroad tracks. A wide fringe of
factories, warehouses, and commercial establishments of all
sorts incloses it. It is the most densely populated district of
Chicago,1 and contains what is probably the most varied
assortment of people to be found in any similar area of the
world.

Along the northern edge of this area we find the city's
"main stem" of the migratory workers, Hobohemia. This is
paralleled on the south by the Italian and Greek settle-
ments, interspersed by Turks, Gypsies, Mexicans, and a
host of lesser groups. On the west there still linger the Irish
and Germans who at one time had this whole area for them-
selves. In the remaining area, bounded by Roosevelt Road,
Robey Street, Clinton Street, and the railroad embankment
south of Fifteenth Street, live most of Chicago's first gener-
ation immigrant Jews.

A description of the so-called "river wards," which cor-
respond closely to the near West Side, centering around
Halsted Street, is furnished by Jane Addams in her early

1 In 1900 the population per square mile was 39,600; in 1910, it was
50,900; and in 1920, 39,100 (United States Census reports).

i9S196

THE GHETTO

impressions in Hull House, located in the heart of this dis-
trict. In 1910 she wrote:

Halsted Street has grown so familiar during twenty years of
residence, that it is difficult to recall its gradual changes—the with-
drawal of the more prosperous Irish and Germans, and the slow
substitution of Russian Jews, Italians, and Greeks. A description of
the street such as I gave in those early addresses still stands in my
mind as sympathetic and correct.

Halsted Street is thirty-two miles long, and one of the great thor-
oughfares of Chicago; Polk Street crosses it midway between the stock-
yards to the south, and the ship-building yards on the north branch
of the Chicago River. For the six miles between these two industries
the street is lined with shops of butchers and grocers, with dingy and
gorgeous saloons, and pretentious establishments for the sale of ready-
made clothing. Polk Street, running west from Halsted Street, grows
rapidly more prosperous; running a mile east to State Street, it grows
steadily worse, and crosses a network of vice on the corners of Clark
Street and Fifth Avenue. Hull House once stood in the suburbs, but
the city has steadily grown up around it and its site now has corners
on three or four foreign colonies. Between Halsted Street and the
river live about ten thousand Italians—Neapolitans, Sicilians, and
Calabrians with an occasional Lombard or Venetian. To the south on
Twelfth Street are many Germans, and side streets are given over
almost entirely to Polish and Russian Jews. Still farther south, these
Jewish colonies merge into a huge Bohemian colony, so vast that Cl&=
cago ranks as the third Bohemian city in the world. To the northwest
are many Canadian-French, clannish in spite of their long residence in
America, and to the north are Irish and first-generation Americans.
On the streets directly west and farther north are well-to-do English-
speaking families, many of whom own their houses and have lived in
the neighborhood for years; one man is still living in his old farm house.

The policy of the public authorities of never taking an initiative,
and always waiting to be urged to do their duty, is obviously fatal in a
neighborhood where there is little initiative among the citizens. The
idea underlying self-government breaks down in such a ward. The
streets are inexpressibly dirty, the number of schools inadequate, sani-
tary legislation unenforced, the street lighting bad, the paving miser-THE CHICAGO GHETTO	197

able, and altogether lacking in the alleys and smaller streets, and the
stables foul beyond description. Hundreds of houses are unconnected
with the street sewer. The older and richer inhabitants seem anxious
to move away as rapidly as they can afford it. They make room for
newly arrived immigrants who are densely ignorant of civic duties.
This substitution of the older inhabitants is accomplished industrially
also, in the south and east quarters of the ward. The Jews and Italians
do the finishing for the great clothing manufacturers, formerly done
by Americans, Irish, and Germans, who refused to submit to the ex-
tremely low prices to which the sweating system has reduced their
successors. As the design of the sweating system is the elimination of
rent from the manufacture of clothing, the "outside work" is begun
after the clothing leaves the cutter. An unscrupulous contractor re-
gards no basement as too dark, no stable loft too foul, no rear shanty
too provisional, no tenement room too small for his work-room, as
these conditions imply low rental. Hence these shops abound in the
worst of the foreign districts where the sweater easily finds his cheap
basement and his home finishers.

The houses of the ward, for the most part wooden, were originally
built for one family, and are now occupied by several. They are after
the type of the inconvenient frame cottages found in the poorer sub-
urbs twenty years ago. Many of them were built where they now
stand; others were brought thither on rollers, because their previous
sites had been taken for factories. The fewer brick tenement buildings
which are three or four stories high are comparatively new, and there
are few large tenements. The little wooden houses have a temporary
aspect, and for this reason, perhaps, the tenement-house legislation in
Chicago is totally inadequate. Rear tenements flourish; many houses
have no water supply save the faucet in the back yard; there are no
fire escapes; the garbage and ashes are placed in wooden boxes, which
are fastened to the street pavements.....x

| This description—and there are others that corroborate it—
brings out the fact, which holds good for the slum districts
of most American cities, namely, Jthat the slum is the out-
^ growth of the transition from a village to an urban com-

1 Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House (New York, 1916), pp.
97-100.198

THE GHETTO

j munity. In Chicago this transition took place in a single
generation^ Land values rose from the level of farm land to
centrally located urban real-estate levels. The streets and
the buildings soon became inadequate, and the neighbor-
hood rapidly deteriorated. Property owners saw no reason
for undertaking improvements, for the rent they could
squeeze out of their holdings did not warrant costly repairs,
especially since their property was located on the very edge
of the central business district, and would therefore, within
a few years, be more valuable for industrial sites than res-
idential purposes. Meanwhile, however, several generations
of immigrants found this area their temporary living quar-
ter.

^ The immigrants drifted to the slum because here rents
were lowest—a primary consideration. In addition, they
found themselves within walking distance of their employ-
ment. Finally, here, in neighborhoods owned by absentee
landlords, there was very little resistance to the invasion of
people with a lower standard of living and an alien culturej
The immigrants themselves, being for the most part dis-
franchised through non-citizenship, like the hobos, were
politically impotent to improve their condition even had
they the desire to do so, which generally was not the case,
since most of them regarded the slum as merely their tem-
porary dwelling place.

During the nineties of the last century writers on this
district referred to a larger and a smaller ghetto. The
greater ghetto included an area of about a square mile, com-
prising parts of the old Nineteenth, Seventh, and Eighth
wards, bounded by Polk Street on the north, Blue Island
Avenue on the west, Fifteenth Street on the south, and
Stewart Avenue on the east. Of the 70,000 people thenTHE CHICAGO GHETTO

199

living in this area, 20,000 were estimated to be Jews. This
area was practically co-extensive with the "slum district"
as defined in the seventh special report of the Commissioner
of Labor, on the Slums of Great Cities. The lesser ghetto
was found in the Seventh Ward, bounded by Twelfth,
Halsted, Fifteenth, and Stewart. Nine-tenths of the popu-
lation of about sixteen thousand in this area were Jews.1 In
1895 Charles Zeublin described this area as follows:

The physical characteristics of the ghetto do not differ materially
from the surrounding districts. The streets may be a trifle narrower;
the alleys are no filthier. There is only one saloon to ten in other dis-
tricts, but the screens, side-doors, and loafers are of the ubiquitous
type; the theatre bills a higher grade of performance than other
cheap theatres, but checks are given between the acts, whose users find
their way to the bar beneath. The dry-goods stores have, of course,
the same Jewish names over them which may be found elsewhere,
and the same "cheap and nasty" goods within.

The race differences are subtle; they are not too apparent to the
casual observer. It is the religious distinction which everyone notices;
the synagogues, the Talmud schools, the "Kosher" signs on the meat
markets. Among the dwelling-houses of the ghetto are found the
three types which curse the Chicago workingman: the small, low, one
or two story "pioneer" wooden shanty, erected probably before the
street was graded, and hence several feet below the street level; the
brick tenement of three or four stories, with insufficient light, bad
drainage, no bath, built to obtain the highest possible rent for the
smallest possible cubic space; and the third type, the deadly rear
tenement, with no light in front, and with the frightful odors of the
dirty alley in the rear, too often the workshop of the "sweater" as well
as the home of an excessive population. On the narrow pavement of
the narrow street in front is found the omnipresent garbage-box, with
full measure, pressed down and running over. In all but the severest
weather the streets swarm with children, day and night. On bright
days groups of adults join the multitude, especially on Saturday and

1 See Philip Davis, "General Aspects of the Population of the Chicago
Ghetto," in Bernheimer, op. cit., pp. 57-60.200

THE GHETT0

Sunday, or on the Jewish holidays. In bad weather the steaming
windows show the overcrowded rooms within. A morning walk im-
presses one with the density of the population, but an evening visit
reveals a hive.1

In the thirty years since this description was written,
the ghetto has probably changed less than any other part of
the city. Here and there the Jewish settlement has been
dented in by the invasion of subsequent immigrant groups,
railroads, warehouses, and industries, and in a few direc-
tions it has spilled over into neighboring territory. But on
the whole its outlines and characteristics remain^ as de-
scribed.

The present area of the Chicago ghetto may be defined
by the following boundaries: the railroad tracks and ter-
minals on the east, the railroad viaduct on the south, the
street-car line at Robey Street on the west, and the main
traffic artery of the West Side—Roosevelt Road—on the
north. These boundaries are the rough natural barriers that
definitely mark off the ghetto from the surrounding natural
and cultural areas. The center of this area is located at
Maxwell and Halsted streets. Four street-car lines divide
the area further into distinct neighborhoods—the Halsted,
Fourteenth, Blue Island, and Racine Avenue lines. Roose-
velt Road, Halsted, Maxwell, and to some extent Jefferson
Street, are the important business thoroughfares. But there
is not a street in the whole area that does not have a number
of stores and business or industrial establishments.

„^Along the business streets building improvements in
recent years are noticeable, but there has not been a new
residence built in the whole area for the last fifteen years.

1 Charles Zeublin, "The Chicago Ghetto," in Hull House Papers and
Maps (Chicago, 1895), pp. 94~95-THE CHICAGO GHETTO	201

The land values of the area have risen phenomenally during
this period in the business section, though not so much as
in the city generallypftn the zoning regulations of the city
the area is designated for light manufacturing. A number of
large factories are already operating in the area, among them
a piano factory, a picture-frame factory, and a number of
clothing and machine shops. Junk yards abound in the
ghetto, in Chicago as in every other city of America. In
recent years the transfer of the South Water Street fruit and
vegetable market, Chicago's large produce center, to the
southwestern edge of the ghetto has considerably affected
the complexion of the whole area. Considerable land is
held for speculative purposes, with a view to the impending
invasion of the district by other industrial establishments.

As a residential area the near West Side generally, and
the ghetto in particular, has declined in recent years. In
spite of the immigrant population, whose families may be
expected to be large, the number of children has decreased
to a point necessitating the closing of several public schools
in the last few years. Numbers of buildings are being con-
demned for dwelling purposes by the authorities, and since
repairs do not offer advantage to the owners, they are al-
lowed to go to ruin^The ghetto is a striking instance of a
deteriorated neighborhood. Within thirty years the district
has been transformed from a substantial residential neigh-
borhood into a slum, and finally into a semi-industrial area?)

THE GHETTO AS A CULTURAL COMMUNITY

Difficult as it is to set forth adequately the physical
characteristics of the ghetto as a natural area, its cultural
characteristics are unmistakable^ The ghetto is pre-eminent-
ly a cultural community} Into itsTeeming, crowded, narrow"202

THE GHETTO

streets the main outlines of life of the European ghetto and
the Russian pale have been transplanted almost in their en-
tirety. The very location of the ghetto is not merely deter-
mined by accessibility and low rents, but by tradition. The
Jews who have lived in ghettos know the value of nearness
to the market place or the commercial center of the city in
which they live. The ghetto of Prague was located near the
Tandelmarkt; the ghetto of Frankfort, in the immediate
vicinity of the fair grounds; and so with every important
ghetto in Europe. The New York ghetto, bordering on the
East River, the Bowery, and Broadway, and the Philadel-
phia ghetto, between the Delaware River and the business
section, are notable examples of other American ghettos,
similarly situated^Just as the Gypsies generally settle on
the outskirts of a town, so the immigrant Jews settle near
the business section or on the river and railroad fronts])

Similarly the population density of the ghetto is to be
accounted for, not only by the poverty of the immigrants
and their inability to pay high rents, but also by the tradi-
tions of close community life of crowded ghetto quarters in
the Old World. Probably no other people has been able to
live under the crowded conditions that the ghetto and the
slum impose with a lower mortality rate than the Jews.1
Whether this be due to acquired immunity, or to the ritualis-
tically prescribed diet and hygiene, or to the attitude on the
part of parents toward children and the nature of Jewish
family life, it is certain that the Jews have made some sort
of accommodation to urban conditions as presented by the
typical slum district.

No matter from which side one enters this ghetto, one

1 See Kate Levy, "Health and Sanitation of the Jews in Chicago," in
Bernheimer, op. cit.t pp. 318 ff.THE CHICAGO GHETTO

cannot fail to be struck by the suddenness of the transition.
In describing the New York ghetto, one writer has said:
"No walls shut in this ghetto, but once within the Jewish
quarter, one is as conscious of having entered a distinct sec-
tion of the city, as one would be if the passage had been
through massive portals separating this portion of the Lower
East Side from the non-Jewish districts of New York."1
Chicago's ghetto is younger than that of New York, just as
the New York ghetto is a mere upstart compared with that
of Frankfort; but the characteristics of the ghetto are not to
be measured by the years that a given area has been inhab-
ited by Jews. The ghetto, no matter where it is located, has
a long history, and is based upon old traditions of which the
American ghetto is a mere continuation—a last scene of the
final act.^The Jewish ghetto, at any rate, is rooted in the
habits and sentiments of the people who inhabit it, and in all
those experiences that go with the ghetto as a historical in-
stitution?)

The New York ghetto, of course, has a considerable
history independent of its European background. In that
separate history are to be sought its distinguishing charac-
teristics when it is contrasted with the European institution.
The Chicago ghetto can boast only of a much shorter
independent life, but most of its inhabitants, before arriving
in the West, have had a considerable experience on the East
Side of New York, which they have brought with them to
Chicago.

There is also the great weight of numbers. The one and
a half million Jews in the city of New York, through their
very numbers, constitute more of an independent commun-

1 Milton Reizenstein, "General Aspects of the New York Ghetto," in
Bernheimer, op. cit., p. 44.THE GHETTO

ity than do the Jews of Chicago. The active and autono-
mous life of a community of such size is bound to result in
the greater persistence of its cultural traits in the midst of
disintegrating influences. The ghetto of New York has been
more or less a model for all American Jewish communities. It
still exercises a dominating influence over all other cities. It
sets the pace through its outstanding personalities and insti-
tutions. It is the undisputed center of American Jewry, as the
city of New York is the center of the cultural life of America.

New York has been the first stop for most Jewish immi-
grants; Chicago, a second landing. But since the beginning
of the twentieth century the Chicago community has been
the source of a great deal of independent, creative life among
the Jews. As numbers increased, more and more immi-
grants, relatives and Landsleute of those who had settled
here, were brought directly to this city without a preliminary
initiation into American ghetto existence in another city.
With the growth of local institutions and organizations a
number of movements of national significance have centered
herg^

AThere is one important difference between the ghettos
ofttie Old World and those of the New. The former are on
the whole homogeneous bodies concentrated in a single sec-
tion of a city, with a common city-wide, if not regional,
cultural life. The American ghetto, on the other hand, is,
as a rule, split up into various sections, containing various
national groups of Jews and reflecting the influences of
heterogeneous waves of immigration, as well as of successive
generations of the same groups^

Qhi the ghetto proper we finci only the first generation of
immigrants, and generally those coming from Russia,
Poland, and Roumania. The earlier groups of immigrants,THE CHICAGO GHETTO	205

the Spanish-Portuguese, the Germans, and the Austrians,
having come from countries in which they had to some ex-
tent been out of the ghetto for two or three generations, and
having acquired some of the outward characteristics of their
neighbors, have, as a rule, scattered over wider areas and
never attained the cohesion and solidarity of the Russian
and Polish Jewish masses. Moreover, the early German
immigrants came from Jewish communities which to the
extent that they had a separate existence were not decreed
by formal laws and regulations, while the Russians came
directly from the compulsory ghetto. Finally, the German
immigrants were pre3ominantly an urban people, while the
Russians and Poles hailed from the villages and small towns,
and were not far removed in their social world from the
peasants from whom they kept strictly aloofTl

Although they were technically free to settle where
they pleased, they crowded close together in the area of de-
terioration, where they carried on their life much as they
had done in Europe. They felt themselves no more akin to
the more prosperous and partially assimilated German Jews
than they did to the Gentiles. As one of them put it:

When I first put my feet on the soil of Chicago, I was so disgusted
that I wished I had stayed at home in Russia. I left the Old Country
because you couldn't be a Jew over there and still live, but I would
rather be dead than be the kind of German Jew that brings the Jewish
name into disgrace by being a Goy. That's what hurts: They parade
around as Jews, and down deep in their hearts they are worse than
Goyim, they are meshumeds [apostates].1

^The center of life, in the new ghetto as in the old, was
the synagogue. The synagogues of the Polish and Russian
Jews were from the beginning of their settlement in Chicago

1 "Autobiography of an Immigrant," manuscript.206

THE GHETTO

separate from those of the Germansjln January, 1926,
there were forty-three orthodox synagogues on the near
West Side. Most of these are small, only a few having over
one hundred members. They are made up largely of immi-
grants who originate from the same community in Europe.
They are open daily, and are frequented by a small group of
elderly people who gather for prayer and for a discussion of
the Talmud under the leadership either of the regularly ap-
pointed rabbi or of one of their most learned members. For
the most part these synagogues are either converted Chris-
tian churches, or buildings that were once used by congre-
gations that have moved to other parts of the city. No new
synagogue has been built in the ghetto in recent years, and
few of those now there have been kept in repair. As a rule
their deterioration proceeds at a pace parallel to that of
the neighborhood in which they are located, 'fhey are
equipped with a basement, which is used for the daily serv-
ices and meetings, while the main floor is occupied only on
the Sabbath and on holidays. The services consist partly of
silent prayer and partly of chanted responsive readings.
Scarcely a detail is left to the whim or desire of the wor-
shipers. The siddur, or prayerbook, but more often the age-
old law of custom, regulates even the minutest items of the
ritual. Although a cantor or reader is the nominal leader,
the members of the congregation take an active part in the
proceedings, sometimes following their own tempo. As a
result there is often a noticeable lack of unison. Those who
are engaged in business often finish their daily prayers be-
fore the rest, and leave feeling that at least they have done
their duty. A Jewish peddler said:

I drive my horse and wagon up to the shul every day except on
Shabboth, and come back in time for Ma'ariv [evening prayer], ITHE CHICAGO GHETTO

have done it for years, and expect to do it for the rest of my life. I
couldn't sleep at night nor work during the day if I hadn't dawened
[prayed] and layed tphillin [put on the philacteries]. It only takes a
little while, but then when you come out you feel you are a man. A
half-a-Jew is no Jew at all.1

* Next to his family, the main link of the newly arrived
immigrant with the community is his synagogue. There he
becomes oriented to the new surroundings and finds the
familiar scenes and experiences that bridge the gap between
the Old World and the New! A middle-aged Maxwell Street
merchant tells of bringing ms aged father over from South-
ern Russia:

The first chance I had to get a ticket over to him, I did it. While
he was on the way I got a little worried. I thought, what will he do
when he gets here? I am at work and he will know nobody and he will
be very lonesome. And I want to make his last days happy. But
when he came he solved the whole problem for me. The first thing he
asked was, "Where is the Odessaer Shul?" When he got there he was
as happy as a baby. He met a lot of Landsleut, and America and Chi-
cago didn't seem so bad. He went to shul morning and night until a
week before he died, and he knew more about every chevramanys
[member of the congregation] business than I did.®

^The synagogue is the central institution in the whole
community. It usually has its rabbi, who visits the homes of
the members and advises them in their domestic and busi-
ness problems. It generally has a religious school, or cheder,
which the children attend after school hours. It has a cir-
cumcisor. In most cases it has various mutual aid societies,
including a burial society, connected with it^The rav, or
rabbi, is an honored person of some learning, who sometimes
is called upon to decide issues which ordinarily in America

1 "The Experiences of a Maxwell-Street Chicken Dealer," manuscript.

a "From Odessa to Chicago: An account of the Migration and Settlement
of a Jewish Family," manuscript.2o8

THE GHETTO

are considered secular in nature, but which according to
Old World ghetto practice come under the jurisdiction of the
rabbi. The following instance shows the extent to which the
synagogue is a control organization:

Sam, a sixteen-year-old boy, had attacked a little girl and raped
her. The father of the girl went to the father of Sam, asking what he
would do. Sam's father in turn came to a social agency for advice
about the matter. When the social worker called at the home of the
girl he was informed that the case was settled. He had taken the mat-
ter to the rovy and Sam's father had agreed to abide by the rov's de-
cision, which was to pay fifteen hundred dollars damages to the family
of the girl.1

^Through the synagogue the members come into touch
with the important events of concern to them, and the syna-
gogue still remains the most effective organ of approach to
the ghetto community^

The synagogue has throughout the ages been the heart of the
Jewish community, and it still is today. In spite of anything which
may be said to the contrary, everything of importance in Jewish life
is still nurtured and fostered, directly and indirectly, by the synagogue.
Very often we hear dirges and lamentations about the dying influence
of the synagogue, about the insignificant r61e which it is playing in
modern Jewish life. Yet whenever anything goes wrong with us, the
blame is almost instinctively placed at the door of the synagogue.

The order of the day in American Jewish life is the drive. This
institution is our inheritance from the war days; but while other groups
in the community are slowly forgetting about the drives, the American

Jew continues to drive faster and faster.....Of course the purpose

of all these drives is to obtain money, which, it seems to be commonly
agreed, can no longer be obtained without "thunderings and light-
ning." We do not know how successful these drives are, nor do we
know how much money is being wasted in staging them; but at all
events we know that the "drivers" come to the synagogue for aid in
their work—to that old and decrepit synagogue with which many

1 From a record of the Jewish Social Service Bureau, Chicago.THE CHICAGO GHETTO

of our leaders have much profound sympathy. A certain national
Jewish institution, for example, decides to have a drive in order to
raise, let us say, fifty thousand dollars in Chicago. This figure, the
drivers maintain, is a very small one, in view of the importance of the
cause, and in view of the fact that there are at least two hundred fifty
thousand Jews in Chicago. To get fifty thousand dollars out of two
hundred fifty thousand Jews should be a very simple affair, our "driv-
ers" argue, since this makes only one dollar for every five heads. Now,
the easiest way of reaching Jews is through the synagogue, since the
house of worship is the only place where Jews still gather for the culti-
vation of the things of the spirit, and where they are still ready
to listen to appeals of mercy. In fact, there are very few other
places where Jews can be reached outside the synagogue. There are
of course Jewish lodges; but here people get together for mutual bene-
fit purposes only, and they are not ready to pay attention to anything
which does not concern their own "good and welfare." If, then, after
the two hundred fifty thousand Jews are approached through the
various synagogues, and the money is not raised, then our "drivers"
hasten to proclaim from the housetops that the synagogue Jew is
stingy, that he is dead to everything Jewish and humane, and that
the religion for which the synagogue stands is outworn and anti-
quated.

Our "drivers," however, in their heated criticism of the synagogue,
overlook one minor but very significant detail. They forget that the
very large majority of Chicago Jews even do not step into a synagogue,
and that those who do frequent synagogues are the only ones who con-
tinue to support Jewish causes. If Chicago Jewry had a directory of
synagogue members, and if lists of contributors to important Jewish
causes would be regularly compiled in this city, it could be easily
proved that the most liberal Jews in our midst are synagogue members.
Besides, we must remember that after all is said and done, synagogue
members are essentially doing the most significant piece of work in
the community, even if they should refuse to become interested in
anything else. What is keeping the Jewish community alive is the
spirit of Judaism generated by the synagogue and disseminated among
posterity.(The work of the synagogue itself is of greater importance
than anything else undertaken in behalf of any movement or institu-2IO

THE GHETTO

tion, for without the synagogue all those institutions and movements
could not even come into existenceT]

e synagogue, as has been felt by its leaders, has been
fast losing ground with the rising generation, who have been
bored by its ritual and restricted by its regulation of the af-
fairs of everyday life. But since it is based upon the iron
laws of medieval rabbinism and since it flourishes almost
exclusively in the circumscribed world of the ghetto, the
synagogue has resisted innovation. The synagogue has been
especially hostile to Reformism; it has taken the stand that
nothing shall be changed, lest all perish. Even if the syna-
gogue Jew has had contact with the secular world he will
cling to the ritual if he wishes to remain within the commu-
nity^ An editorial in a local orthodox paper reads:

Religion and politics: God is the Maker and Lord of the Universe,

from the milky way down to Loomis Street in Chicago.....You will

agree with me that this omnipotent and omniscient God has plenty
to do, .... without looking into my, our, your, chicken soup pot.
You will admit with me that such a God cannot be worried over the
fact that a knife used for butter is finding its way into a chicken soup
pot. Nor can he be worried over the fact that there is no eirev in town,
or that the one has his beard clipped, and the other shaved. I think
that all that is not God's business, and whoever says it is, is ignorant
and blasphemous.

But still the question whether a knife used to cut cheese finds its
way in a soup-kitchen pot is of importance nevertheless. It is not of
importance to the omnipotent God; but is of importance to us J vs.
The question of Kosher and Trefa is not a religious question, has
nothing to do with God, because he is not a kitchen God, but the God
of the Universe. Though seventy years may be like one day in his
eyes, he must be so busy with the management of this Universe that
he cannot possibly look into a soup-kitchen pot for lack of time. Nor
can he be concerned with the question whether you and I take a close

* S. Felix Mendelsohn, Sentinel, January 16, 1925.THE CHICAGO GHETTO

shave or clip our beards ; whether we have our shoes shined on Sab-
bath; whether we carry a walking cane on holidays or not. From
the point of view of Jewish life and its forms, however, these questions
are all important. They do not concern God in the least, but they may
disturb our traffic here, downstairs; may affect our lives and our very
existence as a people.

All these Rabbinic ordinances, laws, and decrees have been pro-
mulgated by our Rabbis with the only object of creating a wall be-
tween ourselves and the nations sheltering us, so that we remain a
national entity and do not disappear from among the nations of the
earth.

Orthodoxy thus is not religion, but state, politics, forms of social

and political life of the Jewish people.....

If a Jew in the Diaspora ceases to observe the Rabbinical laws and
ordinances, he is likely to intermarry; is likely to assimilate with Gen-
tiles and to disappear as a Jew.....

Orthodoxy is motivated by the desire to preserve the forms of
Jewish life as a means to an end. The end is the preservation of the
Jewish nation in the Diaspora. Reform is a political proposition be-
cause it abolishes and destroys the forms of Jewish life with the ob-
ject of bringing about the destruction of the Jewish people by ultimate

assimilation.....

Orthodoxy means, in the final analysis, the will to live as a Jew,
while Reform means the will to die as a Goy.1

(_The emphasis that is put upon "form" is central in the con-
tinuity of any sect, and orthodox Judaism, in the American
milieu, has been reduced to the position of a sect. It is in
sharp conflict with all those groups who would deviate from
tb" i sanctioned form. It is this sentimental attachment to
traditions and sacred values that makes the control on the
part of the synagogue over the lives of the individuals so
binding and so absolute^ The fact that the Chicago Jewish
community spends approximately one million dollars a year
for Kosher meats, over and above the cost of ordinary meats,
»S. M. Melamed, Chicago Chronicle, February so, 1925.212

THE GHETTO

in order to have them slaughtered according to the approved
method of cutting their throats by a regularly appointed
shochet, or slaughterer; the fact that hundreds of old men and
young refuse to work on the Sabbath and thereby disqualify
themselves for a great many vocational opportunities; the
fact that orthodox Jews will refuse to shave, and that young
rabbinical students would rather use a depilatory powder
than allow a razor to touch their faces—these and countless
other details of ritualistic observance are matters of form,
rooted in sentiment and sanctioned by tradition.

It is these forms, too, that have given rise to some of
the most picturesque ghetto types. The Chassidic Jew with
flowing beard and long side-locks and his long black coat is
still seen occasionally in the ghetto streets. At funerals
one may watch an old lady in front of the undertaking rooms
collecting alms in her handkerchief from the mourners and
bystanders. This Fatchelyudene, as she is called, is capital-
izing the ritualistic form appropriate to the occasion. In and
out of the synagogue there is to be found the ubiquitous
Kleikodeshnik, or professional pious individual, to whom
piousness is merely a form. And there is the Schonerjild, or
idle, learned individual, and the Zaddik, whose virtue is
held up as a model to the young, and the Gottskossak, whose
task it is to supervise the conduct of the community, much
against the members' own will. These and other types
flourish in the ghetto because of the emphasis put on form,
because they are tolerated and developed by the sentiments
and practices of old.

The orthodox community resents and reacts violently to
any attempt to alter or to mock these forms, for they con-
stitute the very fabric of its social life. Thus, when the ques-
tion as to whether a butcher who professes to sell Kosher
meat must really live up to the approved religious ritualTHE CHICAGO GHETTO

came before the courts because a Jewish butcher had been
selling to his customers as Kosher, meat which really had not
been approved by the rabbi, there was an outburst of
indignation which resulted in protracted litigation. A Jew-
ish writer made the following comment on the Supreme
Court's decision in the matter:

The decision of the United States Supreme Court upholding the
constitutionality of the New York State Kosher Law was expected;
common sense and legal technicality in this case dictated such a de-
cision.

Those who fought the law on the ground that it is contarry to the
Constitution to involve religion in law did not have a leg to stand on.
The Kosher law does not compel anybody to eat or sell kosher meat;
the law deals only with honesty in commerce and prohibits a certain
form of misrepresentation which affects many people. When a butcher
says that he is selling kosher meat, it should be kosher, and he should
not mix the product with non-kosher meat, for that is contrary to the
Jewish laws.

Similar laws exist for quite some time. The pure food laws that
were enacted about twenty years ago have abolished another type of
misrepresentation. It is prohibited to label margerine as butter, etc.
Only recently a law was adopted prohibiting misrepresentation in
stamping metals. When gold is stamped 14 k, it must be 14 k. These
regulations are framed to maintain honesty in commerce. They are
the functions of government, and the kosher law is a legitimate part
of such regulations, though it was adopted only a few years ago.

The claim of the opponents that it will be difficult to find out what
is kosher is ridiculous. There is only one sort of koshruth, that which
is guaranteed by orthodox rabbis in accordance with the ancient Jewish
law. The reformers have given up koshruth long ago, and have no
pretense to it. They admit openly that they do not believe in it; but
the hundreds of thousands of Jews who do believe in it should not be
deAauded. The fact that the fight against the kosher law was con-
ducted by Jewish merchants of non-kosher products for their personal
profit is our eternal shame.1

1 J. Fishman, Jewish Morning Journal, January 6, 1925.214

THE GHETTO

The observance of the dietary regulations, in the form of the
exclusive use of Kosher foods, is so universal a mark of ortho-
doxy among Jews that in some Jewish communities the plan
has been considered, and employed, of placing a tax on
Kosher meat to raise the necessary funds for the upkeep of
the communal institutions.

It is easy to understand why nothing arouses the resent-
ment of the orthodox Jew quite so much as the mockery of
his hallowed forms of worship by the Reform rabbis. In an
editorial entitled "The Rabbinic Menace" we read:

The modern rabbi who is aping the Christian pastor is a real men-
ace to the existence and continuation of Judaism in America. ....
The modern rabbi, be he conservative or reform, is attempting to
Christianize the synagogue or the temple by introducing the so-called
religious services on Friday evening or Sunday morning. These reli-
gious services are neither religious nor services, but burlesque shows.
Whenever I attended such services, I felt that the Americanized Jews
are developing into a bunch of hypocrites. These religious services
are often attended by Jews who know better, but still they participate
in the hokus pokus, and tolerate the reading of a portion of the Bible in
English in that oily and priestly tone so strange to the Jewish mind
and the Jewish traditions, and tolerate a rabbi who is just aping the
Christian pastor, and making a monkey of Judaism, and tolerating a
so-called religious performance that is comedy pure and simple.

Either one is a religious Jew and attends religious services in the
same way as our ancestors did, or as all pious Jews still do, or one does
not attend services at all. The so-called "after supper" services are a
mockery, and there is as much religion in them as in the Sunday serv-
ices of the reform rabbis. Aesthetically, they are disgraceful, and re-
ligiously they are contemptible. Only Jews with full pockets and
empty minds can participate in such services and be parties to such
performances.1

There are occasions, however, when the orthodox Jew, in
taking stock of his ghetto organization, finds that he lives

1 S. M. Melamed, Chicago Chronicle, Vol. VIII, No. n.THE CHICAGO GHETTO

after all in a puny world. This is particularly true when he
compares his humble synagogue with the pretentious tem-
ple, and his poverty with the wealth of the "half-goyim," or
reformed element.

It is no wonder that some of the orthodox rabbis are obliged to
deal with "sacramental wine," much as most of them dislike it; they
cannot make a decent living on the pitiful salary they receive. The
Congregation Knesseth Israel, the biggest and richest orthodox con-
gregation in Chicago, with property worth a half million dollars, and
a large sum of cash in the treasury, pays its rabbi only $2,500 a year!
How can a man raise a family on such a salary? Sinai pays its rabbi
$20,000 a year, and he has not one-tenth the responsibility that
Rabbi Ephraim Epstein has. Moses Salk, president of Knesseth
Israel, who is a prominent business man, should know that a rabbi
must not have financial worries, that he must be provided to make a
living and be able to raise a family in an honorable fashion. If the
rabbi is not satisfactory there is a way to release him and secure the
services of one who will be satisfactory. But to pay a rabbi a starving
wage is not only sacrilegious but criminal, and all those who permit
such an outrage are guilty of both crimes.1

^Jgut the invidious comparisons between the ghetto and
the Jewish community outside are rare. More often the only
standard of eminence that the groups within the ghetto
apply is that which is found in their own restricted world.
Congregations are ranked, not only according to their size,
but also on the basis of their reputation for piety and

charity-O

1 Chicago Chronicle, January 16, 1925.

3 "An appeal was made on the Sabbath of Chanuka in the various syna-
gogues for the Denver Consumptive Relief Sanitorium New Building Fund.
Anshe Makarev, the smallest congregation, with a membership of about 30,
contributed $90, while Congregation Anshe Knesseth Israel Nusach Sfard,
of Independence and Douglas Boulevard, whose president, A. Friedman,
claims that it is the biggest congregation in Chicago, where Alderman Jacob
Arvey made a fervent appeal, contributed the munificent sum of $12!...."
(Chicago Chronicle, February 6, 1926).216	THE GHETTO

(The synagogue and the rabbi, as we find them in the
ghetto, leave scarcely a single phase of the life of the congre-
gation free from their control. This is particularly true of
family life) Marriage and divorce, and the adjustment of
quarrels between husband and wife and parents and chil-
dren, all are legitimate relations for communal control.
Recently Rabbi Ezekiel Lipschitz, dean of the orthodox
rabbis of Poland, came to the United States and Chicago
for the expressed purpose of locating the husbands of 18,000
Russian and Polish Jewish women who had been deserted
during the last twenty years. He received the hearty co-
operation of the local synagogues and rabbis. The family
is one of the chief concerns of the community as a whole. A
national organization with headquarters in New York and
branches in almost every city in the United States and
Canada, the National Desertion Bureau, has the expressed
function of locating deserting husbands and wives. In its
work this bureau makes full use of the publicity that the
Jewish press affords. Some Yiddish newspapers contain a
regular column entitled "Gallery of Deserting Husbands,"
in which pictures and descriptions of the culprits appear.

^Even in the most private affairs of the membership the
community takes an active interest. Its criticisms, es-
pecially when voiced through the press, generally are a cor-
rective for the vices of the community/ A leading politician
of the ghetto is scored in the following item:

"Sanitary District Trustee Morris Eller Wins Great Victory for
Chicago Water Supply," reads a screaming headline in Tuesday's
Jewish Courier. And we thought that Michael Rosenberg was also a
Trustee of the Sanitary District, and that he, too, had something to do
with the water situation. But Morris Eller puts his picture in the paper
and claims all the credit for himself. Talk about chutzpaht [nerve].1

1 Chicago Chronicle, January 16, 1925.THE CHICAGO GHETTO	217

The injudicious private act of philanthropy of a member
is made the object of an attack in the following item:

Herman Iglowitz, who was entrusted to distribute $1,000 to
charitable institutions, should take lessons in fairness. Mr. Morris
Cohen, of 3841 Adams Street, celebrated his silver wedding anni-
versary at Gold's last Sunday evening, and in consideration of that
joyful event, he contributed $1,000 to charity. Not being familiar
with the existing institutions and their needs, Mr. Cohen delegated his
friend Iglowitz to make the distribution. We are convinced that had
Mr. Cohen known how unfair Iglowitz would be he would not have en-
trusted him with such a delicate mission. Iglowitz gave to the Jewish
Charities, $150, which means that the Marks Nathan Orphan Home,
the B.M.Z., the Mount Sinai Hospital, and the other affiliated insti-
tutions—30 in all— will receive the munificent sum of $5 each, while
to the Hachnosas Orchim [an immigrant sheltering home], on Sawyer
Avenue, known at best as a superfluous, unworthy, and makeshift
institution, Iglowitz gave $100! The Daughters of Zion and Douglas
Park Day Nurseries, the Beth Hamedrosh 1/ Torah [orthodox rab-
binical college], Denver Sanitorium, and the Haddassah [a Zionistic
women's organization] receive only $75 each, and the Keren Hayesod
(Palestine Fund), Grenshaw Street Talmud Torah, and Ladies' Aid
for Consumptives, receive each $50, but the Sawyer Avenue Hachno-
sas Orchim, where "booze" was for a time part of their income, and
which certain officers peddled on the streets, to the disgrace of the
community, to them Iglowitz gives $100! Gosh, what unfairness rests
in the heart of ignorance. . . . ,x

^The well-known type of the Staatsbalbos, or the patriar-
chal leader, to whom questions of final judgment on reli-
gious and secular matters (however small the realm of the
secular is in the ghetto community) are deferred, arises out
of this closeness of personal relationships of the members of
the community to each other, and the surveillance that the
community exercises over the conduct of each of its mem-
bersT^For instance, the keeping of the Sabbath and the
1 Ibid., February 6, 1926.2l8

THE GHETTO

holidays on the part of each individual is a matter of great
concern to the community. A local Jewish organ recently
wrote:

We are pleased to note that our suggestion to the Rabbinical
Association to enlist the services of the local Jewish press to refuse
to publish items of social affairs taking place on Friday evenings
brought the desired result. The following letter was sent out by the
Chicago Rabbinical Association to the Jewish press:

"In its desire to impress upon the Jewish people the sanctity of
the Sabbath and its importance in Jewish life, the Chicago Rabbinical
Association desires to enlist the co-operation of the Jewish press. We
would, therefore, appreciate it most sincerely if you would refuse to
publish in your paper any announcements of affairs taking place on
the Sabbath. Such a stand on the part of the Rabbinate receiving the
co-operation of the Jewish press may, it is hoped, encourage a deeper
appreciation of the sacredness of the Sabbath and discourage its
desecration."1

^hile the community is of course concerned with the
religious observance of its members as a whole, it is particu-
larly anxious about the younger generatior^ The wild be-
havior of the young people and their frequent violation of
the religious taboos, especially non-attendance at the syna-
gogue, violation of the dietary laws, failure to put on the
philacteries in the mornings, and, most important qf all,
the occasional instances of intermarriage, are regarded as
serious symptoms of community disintegration. Jewish par-
ents frequently will deny themselves the essentials of life in
order to send their boys to a religious school. (Tie family's
status in the Jewish community depends in considerable
measure upon the learning of their children^ In the Old
World this training is mainly religious, such as the cheder
and the yeshiba offer. But in America secular learning may

1 Ibid., February 13, 1925.THE CHICAGO GHETTO

in part compensate for deficiency in religious knowledge.
The main concern of the orthodox father, however, is to have
a Kaddish, i.e., a son, or other relative, who will mourn for
him after his death. A Jewish father appealed to a settle-
ment worker for aid in persuading his son to go to cheder,
with the plea: "He is^ no son of mine. Why, when his mother
died he wouldn't even say Kaddish for her. I suppose when
I die it will be the same way. What good is a son like that?
I wish he had never been born."1 An aged Jewish peddler
came to the office of a social agency asking to be taken to
the hospital for the insane, where his only son was confined.
He said: "I am getting old, and I feel that I am going to die
pretty soon, and when I die I want somebody to say Kaddish
for me. If my son Isidor can't do it, I have the trouble and
the shame of having to hire somebody else. I want to see if
he can say Kaddish."2 The father felt considerably relieved
when he had assured himself that his son was able to repeat
the prayer after him.

The violation of the Sabbath and of other sacred tradi-
tions of orthodoxy has increased to such proportions that
the organized community is stirred to action. Since the
younger generation will not as a rule even attend the Friday
evening service, which is held at sundown, many congre-
gations have attempted to adapt themselves to the changed
conditions of employment in American cities and have post-
poned this service till after supper. These congregations,
while professing to be orthodox, are generally called "con-
servative," to distinguish them from the strictly orthodox on

1	"Culture Conflicts in the Immigrant Family/' manuscript.

2	F^om a social case history in the files of the Jewish Social Service
Bureau.220

THE GHETTO

the one hand, and from the reformed congregations on the
other.

The recent editorial which appeared on this page on the frequent
and flagrant violations of the Sabbath, by Chicago individuals and
organizations, has, we are happy to say, done some good. Many well
known members of our faith have applauded our unmistakable stand,
admitting that things have gone altogether too far in this direction.
The Chicago Rabbinical Association .... has begun to take a de-
cided stand on the matter, since it is from the spiritual leaders that the
community expects light and counsel in religious matters.

In the meantime, however, we wish to point out that our ultra-
orthodox brethren are creating conditions which make it conducive
to their children to violate the Sabbath. Our good and pious brethren,
of course, know very well the significance and importance of the Sab-
bath in Jewish life, and they themselves are careful to observe it by
taking in an early service Friday evening, and by having a good meal
after the service. Their children, however, do not go to services, but
they naturally participate in the excellent meal. Services after supper
these members of the young generation do not care to attend, because
their pious parents convinced them that the late services are conducted
by the "trafah" reform and conservative rabbis who are not builders,
but destroyers of Judaism. Nevertheless, on Friday evening these
young folks do feel in a holiday mood, and they therefore spend
their energy of their "extra Sabbath soul" on card playing and similar
entertainments of frivolity and joviality, and when some one in the
Jewish young people's club says something about the impropriety of
desecrating the holy day of Israel, these ladies and gentlemen know
immediately that this protest must come from the influence of reform,
or conservative rabbis, who have introduced such an un-Jewish idea of
holding services Friday evenings after eight o'clock! Why, their very
parents and grandparents warned them against listening to the ser-
mons of these rabbis, which are given on Friday evenings! It is this
form of reasoning which, we are convinced, is contributing materially
towards the open violation of the Sabbath, for when one should take
the time to analyze the constituency of those organizations which are
advertising their public affairs given on the Sabbath, he would easily
discover that it is most frequently made up of children of orthodoxTHE CHICAGO GHETTO

parents who are opposed to modern Jewish congregations and their
teachings. It is this tragic situation which reminds one of the ancient
biblical proverb: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the chil-
dren's teeth are set on edge."1

One movement recently inaugurated in an attempt to keep
orthodoxy intact, by the Jewish Education Committee, was
the organization of a sort of "Jewish Boy Scout" move-
ment. The Tzofim Handbook, the manual of these Jewish
Boy Scouts, has this to say:

The Tzofim are those pupils who look upon the Hebrew school as
upon .... a small sanctuary, and upon themselves as its Priests and
Levites. Just as the Priests and Levites served the Temple and the
people, so are the Tzofim at the service of the Hebrew school and of the
Jewish people.

Tzofim is a Hebrew word meaning vanguards, watchers or scouts.
The Tzofim are the vanguards who lead the way for the rest of the
pupils. The Tzofim are scouts ready to serve their people.

The Tzofim, like the Boy Scouts, do a good deed a day, have
a pledge, and a sign, and a handshake. They have Hebrew
songs, and have their daily tasks. Their pledge reads:

1.	I promise to be true to the God of Israel, to learn his Torah,
and to try to live according to its commands.

2.	I promise to be loyal to the Jewish people, and to help my fel-
low Jews everywhere. "For all Jews are responsible for each other."

3.	I promise to be true to our ancient ideal of rebuilding the Jew-
ish homeland in Palestine.

4.	I promise to be loyal to America and its ideals of religious
liberty to all.

5.	I promise to be a good pupil and a good comrade to my fellow
students.3

The public appearance of these Tzofim was recently
greeted with communal approval. An editorial reads:

1 Sentinel, February 6, 1925.

3 Tzofim Handbook, published by the Board of Jewish Education, Chicago.2

THE GHETTO

An event of communal importance was the celebration held last
Sunday afternoon at the Kehilath Jacob Hebrew School. Representa-
tives of eight of the largest Hebrew schools in the city came together
to observe Chamishoh Osor Sishevat, and they did it in fine style.
Hebrew speeches and songs and Palestine movies made up the enter-
tainment. But the significant feature of the evening was the cele-
brants themselves: They were not presidents or directors of the
schools; they were not even grown persons, but Tzofim, members of
the organization comprised of pupils of the local Hebrew schools.

Hatzofim, as the organization is known, had two hundred and
fifty of its members at the celebration. Perhaps the most impressive
part of the occasion came when, after the powerful address by Dr.
Alexander M. Dushkin, wherewith he initiated new Tzofim, the young-
sters recited their pledge—a pledge of loyalty to the Jewish people and
its ideals, ending with the words the Jews uttered when they received
the Ten Commandments: Na-Aseh V'Nishma, "We will do and we
will obey."

Hatzofim has a splendid idea back of it, that should attract every
Jewish lad who is intelligent and devoted to his people.....1

The ghetto community is so closely knit, and its mem-
bers are so directly under the control of the community, that
the attempts of Christian missions which have established
themselves in the ghetto have made no appreciable progress
iifi converting any Jews in the ghetto itself.

I^The ghetto is a complete world, but it is a small and a
narrow world. It has its intellectuals, but their intellectu-
ality is of a circumscribed sort. What it lacks in breadth
of horizon, the ghetto life makes up in depth of emotion, in
strength of familial and communal ties, and in attachment
to tradition, form, and s,entiment7^

) The ties of family, of village-community, and of Lands-
mannschaft that bind the ghetto inhabitants into little nuclei
of more or lessautonomous units are only partially apparent

1 Chicago Chronicle, February 13,1925.THE CHICAGO GHETTO	223

to the outsider. The ghetto family will survive crises that
would tear an ordinary family asunder, and a stranger who
is able to call himself a Landsmann, not only loosens the
purse-strings of the first individual he meets, but also has
access to his home. Not only do the Landsleute belong to the
same synagogue, but as a rule they engage in similar voca-
tions, become partners in business, live in the same neigh-
borhood, and intermarry within their own group. A Lands-
mannschaft has its own patriarchal leaders, its lodges and
mutual aid associations, and its celebrations and festivities.
It has its burial plot in the cemetery. It keeps the memories
of the group alive through frequent visits, and maintains a
steady liaison with the remnants of the Jewish community
in the Old World.

Occasionally these organizations join forces with other
local clusters of Jews from the same general region in
Europe. In the case of Jews who come from the same
country, but who are few in number in comparison to the
dominant groups, such as the Oriental Jews, the Spanish-
Portuguese Jews, the Roumanian Jews, and to some extent
the Hungarian Jews, the Landsmannschaft organization may
cover a larger territory. The provincial or national ties are
generally strengthened by a common dialect, peculiarities
in diet, and local customs. In critical situations, particularly
crises in the Old Country involving the whole group, they
act as a body. Sometimes this requires financial assistance
to the community abroad; at others, lodging a protest
against the government; or, again,'enlisting the support of
other Jewish groups locally and nationally to bring about
desired results. Hand in hand with the ties of sympathy
between the members of a Landsmannschaft go also the antag-
onisms and prejudices between these groups which have224

THE GHETTO

been brought over from the Old World. The social distances
between Roumanian Jews and Hungarian Jews, between
Lithuanians and Poles, between Poles and Russians, and be-
tween Russians and Galicians are sometimes so great as to
make corporate action within the ghetto impossible. Inter-
marriage between some of these groups is almost as rare as
intermarriage between ghetto Jews and Gentiles.

The description of the ghetto would be incomplete with-
out mention of the great number of other characteristic
institutions that give it its own peculiar atmosphere and
mark it as a distinct culture area. Among them are the
Kosher butcher shops, where fresh meats and a variety of
sausages are a specialty, and where, besides the butcher,
there is to be found a special functionary, the shochet, who
kills fresh poultry to order, mumbling a prayer as he cuts the
throat of each chicken, duck, or goose with his chalef (ritual-
ly approved butcher-knife). There is the basement fish
store to gratify the tastes of the connoisseur with a variety
of herrings, pike, and carp, which Jewish housewives pur-
chase on Thursday in order to serve the famous national
dish of gefiUlte fish at the sumptuous Friday evening meal.
On the sidewalks in front of butcher shops and fish stores
throughout the ghetto, especially on Thursdays and Fridays,
there sits the bowed and bearded form of the horse-radish
grinder. Often he turns out to be a religious teacher or
talmudical scholar from the Old World, who, on account of
his years, finds other avenues of making a living closed.
There are Kosher bake-shops with rye bread, poppy-seed
bread, and pumpernickel daily, and a kind of doughnut
known as beigel for Shabboth. And finally there is the bath-
rehouse, which contains facilities for Turkish and Russian,
plain and fancy, baths, besides being the modern counter-THE CHICAGO GHETTO

part of the ritual bath, or tnikveh, which is patronized by the
women at certain prescribed occasions. The Russian and
Turkish bath serves the ghetto as a hotel, since it is the cus-
tom to stay overnight, and since there are no hotels in the
ghetto.

The ghetto has its own theater, where plays of the Rus-
sian dramatists are given in Yiddish, and where Sholom Asch
and Peretz Hirschbein appear in the repertoire side by side,
with translations from Shakespeare, Ibsen, Shaw, and risque
Broadway comedies. But the Chicago Yiddish theater, like
the Yiddish press, is for the most part but a sideshow of the
New York ghetto. The Yiddish newspapers and the Yid-
dish theater draw their talent from New York. And if there
happens to be discovered a literary genius or an actorke on
the local scene, the wider and more appreciative audience of
Second Avenue—the Yiddish Broadway of New York—soon
snatches them off.

Native to the ghetto are also the basement and second-
story bookstores, cafes, and restaurants where the intellec-
tuals hold forth on the latest developments in Zionism,
socialism, philosophy, art, and politics, while they play a
game of chess or pinochle. The Maxwell Street police
station, the cigar stores, and the curtained gambling houses
are the haunts of the loafers and gangsters of the district.
Finally, at the offices of the shyster lawyers, the reatestate-
niks, and sacramental wine dealers, one finds the fixers, the
ward heelers, and petty politicians of the ghetto.

^But with all these varied activities and personality types,
the ghetto nevertheless is a small world. The life with which
it throbs is a provincial and sectarian one. Its successes
are after all measured on a small scale, and its range of ex-
pression is limited. Not until the Jew gets out of the ghetto226

THE GHETTO

does he really live a full life. The ghetto community is not
capable of collective action on a larger scale. It has its
tragedies and its comedies, and what it possesses in depth

slave of forms hallowed by tradition and sentiment, but is
shallow in content and out of touch with the world. It is the
product of sectarianism and isolation, of prejudices and
taboos. The ghetto is a closed community, perpetuating it-
self and renewing itself with a minimum of infusion of
influences from without, biologically as well as culturally.
It is almost as completely cut off from the world as if it were
still surrounded by a wall and its inhabitants were still
locked nightly behind ghetto

The near West Side has been the stamping-ground of
virtually every immigrant group that has come to Chicago.
The occupation of this area by the Jews is, it seems, merely a
passing phase of a long process of succession in which one
population group has been crowded out by another. There
seems to be more regularity in this process, however, than at
first sight appears. In describing the foreign quarter of New
York City, one writer has pointed out the constancy of the
association of certain racial and cultural groups in the transi-
tion of the community from one stage to the next. In every
great city there is going on a constant silting process in the
course of which each racial, national, and cultural group
tends to find its habitat in the various natural areas that the
city affords. Moreover, it has been pointed out that the
various immigrant colonies in New York City seem to as-
sume the same geographical pattern that the mother-

and intensity it lacks in breadth and in substance^ It is the
 

THE JEWS AND THEIR NEIGHBORSTHE CHICAGO GHETTO

countries of the immigrants assume on the map of Europe.1
While not quite the same can be said for Chicago, there is an
unmistakable regularity in the association between local im-
migrant groups, and particularly between the Jews and their
neighbors.

The first Jewish settlers on the near West Side were
mostly Bohemian Jews. As was to be expected, they settled
in that part of the city which was open to immigrants from
the point of view of rent, accessibility, and tolerance. But
these early Jewish settlers drifted to that particular portion
of the city lying beyond the central business district which
was occupied by Bohemian immigrants, most likely because
they were accustomed in the Old World to live side by side
with that people, knew their language, and had developed a
modus vivendi, including the attitude of mutual tolerance,
and, most important of all, trade relationships. The Jews
opened their stores and began to peddle in this Bohemian
neighborhood, and prospered. The elevation of the railroad
tracks on Fifteenth Street cut this area in two, and the
Bohemians moved southwestward as the city expanded and
industrial plants arose in that direction, while the Jews re-
mained behind and expanded their area of occupation west-
ward and northward.	'

In the course of the extension of the Jewish settlement
they encountered the Irish and the Germans. As these
groups moved on, the Jews followed, only to be succeeded
by the Italians, the Poles and Lithuanians, the Greeks and
Turks, and finally by the Negroes. Such observations as
have been made in other large American cities, notably New
York and Philadelphia, indicate that a similar order of suc-

1 Konrad Berkovici, Around the World in New York. New York, 1924.228

THE GHETTO

cession is to be seen there.1 This phenomenon seems to be
due, not merely to the chronological order of immigration of
these various groups, but also to the relation of the stand-
ards of living of the various nationalities to one another, and
to the attraction and tolerance of the successor by the prede-
cessor. In the course of this transition the area has become
converted from a pioneer residential section into a deterio-
rated neighborhood, from the outskirts of an overgrown vil-
lage to the slum of a great city.

One may also note a certain degree of regularity in the
economic relations between the inhabitants of the ghetto.
In the early days of Chicago the clothing manufacturing
establishments of the city employed largely Irish and Ger-
man girls. These girls refused to work side by side with the
Russian and Polish immigrants when they began to make
their presence felt in the eighties. In part as a result of this,
the sweatshop system arose. Work was given out to the Jew-
ish immigrants to be done at home. It required but little
capital to set up a tailoring establishment. The enterprising
Jewish immigrants soon realized the possibilities of contract-
ing for the performance of most of the operations required
in the needle industry outside of cutting. This in turn re-
lieved the manufacturer of the responsibility for factory
maintenance, and, besides, lowered the cost of production.
In less than two decades the Irish and the Germans had been
largely replaced by Jewish labor in the tailoring trades, only
to be succeeded in turn by the Italians and Poles, as the
changing membership of the trade unions in the needle
trades indicates.

The immigrants drift to the lowest economic level in the
division of labor, and rise to the next rung in the ladder as a

1 Bernheimer, op. cit.THE CHICAGO GHETTO	22^

new wave of immigrants succeeds them. The Jews took to
peddling when they came here. This occupation had hither-
to been beneath the dignity of any immigrant group. They
made it profitable, and in turn were to some extent, es-
pecially in the fruit and vegetable branch, displaced by the
Italians.

The relationship between the Poles and the Jews in
Chicago is of especial interest. These two groups detest each
other thoroughly, but they live side by side on the West
Side, and even more generally on the Northwest Side, They
have a profound feeling of disrespect and contempt for each
other, bred by their contiguity and by historical friction in
the pale; but they trade with each other on Milwaukee
Avenue and on Maxwell Street. A study of numerous cases
shows that not only do many Jews open their businesses on
Milwaukee Avenue and Division Street because they know
that the Poles are the predominant population in these
neighborhoods, but the Poles come from all over the city to
trade on Maxwell Street because they know that there they
can find the familiar street-stands owned by Jews. These
two immigrant groups, having lived side by side in Poland
and Galicia, are used to each other's business methods. They
have accommodated themselves one to another, and this
accommodation persists in America. The Pole is not ac-
customed to a "one-price store." When he goes shopping
it is not a satisfactory experience unless he can haggle with
the seller and "Jew him down" on prices.

One of the most significant signs of the relationship be-
tween the Jews and their neighbors in the ghetto is found
in the contacts between the members of the younger genera-
tion. They mingle not only in school but they are members
of the same gangs. The recent outbreaks of gang warfare inTHE GHETTO

Chicago show that in many instances the Jews, the Irish,
and the Italians are engaged in joint illicit liquor enterprises,
or combine their forces in "hi-jacking." In politics, too,
while the tendency on the part of Jews has recently been
to put their own men into office, it is not uncommon to find
the Jews supporting an Italian for alderman, or to find the
Italians supporting a Jew for a judgeship or a place on the
Sanitary Board. Partnerships in peddling between Jewish
and Italian boys on the West Side are frequently formed,
and on the whole they seem to be very successful. Each has
a special gift to contribute toward the success of the busi-
ness.

The latest invasion of the ghetto by the Negroes is of
more than passing interest. The Negro, like the immigrant,
is segregated in the city into a racial colony. Economic con-
siderations, race prejudice, and cultural differences combine
to set him apart. The Negro has drifted to the near West
Side for precisely the same reason that the Jews and the
Italians came there. Unlike the white landlords and resi-
dents in other sections of the city, the Jews have offered no
appreciable resistence to the invasion by the Negroes. As
one clothing merchant on Maxwell Street put it, "A dollar
is just as good whether a white hand or a black hand hands
it over. Anyway, their hands are white on the inside."1
Many of the immigrants in the ghetto have as yet not heard
of the color line. The prevailing opinion of the merchants
on the near West Side is that the Negro spends his money
freely, and usually has some to spend, and therefore is a
desirable neighbor. The attitude of a great many Jewish
property owners in the district is typified by the following
statement by one of them:

1 "Reflections of a Maxwell-Street Merchant," manuscript.THE CHICAGO GHETTO

When I rented my two story frame building to a colored family,
some fellows came to see me, to tell me that I oughtn't to rent to nig-
gers because they brought the value of the property down. I told them
it was none of their business whom I rented to. The property in the
neighborhood is in such poor shape that if you didn't rent to anybody
that comes along, you would have it stand empty and pay your taxes
out of your pocket. I asked those fellows whether they would pay
my taxes or rent the building themselves, and they took to their heels.

We Jews ought to be the last ones to hold a prejudice against
another race, after all that we have been through.1

In the ghetto the Negro seems to have found another
haven of refuge inv a city where the areas that he occupies
are already overcrowded. In this connection it may be noted
that the spread of the Negro settlement along fashionable
Grand Boulevard on the South Side has also displaced the
center of the German-Jewish settlement in that area.

The transition and deterioration of the ghetto com-
munity has been proceeding at such a speed that the com-
plexion of the area changes from day to day. Dilapidated
structures that a decade ago were Christian churches have
since become synagogues and have now been turned into
African Methodist Episcopal or colored Baptist churches.
Under the latest coat of paint of a store-front colored mission
there are vestiges of signs reading "Kosher Butchershop"
and "Deutsche Apotheke."

MAXWELL STREET

The heart of the ghetto is marked by two great thorough-
fares: Halsted Street and Maxwell Street. The former is
lined on both sides with imposing emporiums: furniture
stores, sausage stores, fur stores, cloak and suit, silk and dry
goods, shoe, hat and cap, tobacco, and department stores.

1 "Interviews with a Marooned West-Side Family," manuscript.232

THE GHETTO

On Halsted Street business goes on as it would in the Loop.
The stores advertise and have one price. Not so with Max-
well Street. Maxwell Street is as native to the ghetto as
Halsted Street is now foreign to it. On Maxwell Street there
is life; on Halsted Street, decorum. Maxwell Street is the
Halsted Street of a generation ago. The proprietors of the
substantial establishments on Halsted are the graduates of
Maxwell, for the most part. The modern business man on
Halsted Street represents the ideal of the sons of the push-
cart owners on Maxwell Street.

Maxwell Street, the ghetto's great outdoor market, is
full of color, action, shouts, odors, and dirt. It resembles
a medieval European fair more than the market of a great
city of today. Its origins are to be sought in the traditions of
the Jews, whose occupations in the Old World differed little
from what they are here. To these traditions correspond
also the traditions of the other national groups who form
their clientele.

It has been said that the Poles and Galicians seldom
patronize a modern department store, but that they prefer
the thrill which comes with shopping on Maxwell Street.
Buying is an adventure in which one matches his wits
against those of an opponent, a Jew. The Jews are versatile;
they speak Yiddish among themselves, and Polish, Russian,
Lithuanian, Hungarian, Bohemian, and what not, to their
customers. They know their tastes and their prejudices.
They have on hand ginghams in loud, gay colors for one
group, and for one occasion; and drab and black mourning
wear for others.

The noises of crowing roosters and geese, the cooing of
pigeons, the barking of dogs, the twittering of canary birds,
the smell of garlic and of cheeses, the aroma of onions,THE CHICAGO GHETTO

apples, and oranges, and the shouts and curses of sellers and
buyers fill the air. Anything can be bought and sold on Max-
well Street. On one stand, piled high, are odd sizes of shoes
long out of style; on another are copper kettles for brewing
beer; on a third are second-hand pants; and one merchant
even sells odd, broken pieces of spectacles, watches, and
jewelry, together with pocket knives and household tools
salvaged from the collections of junk peddlers. Everything
has value on Maxwell Street, but the price is not fixed. It is
the fixing of the price around which turns the whole plot of
the drama enacted daily at the perpetual bazaar of Maxwell
Street.

The sellers know how to ask ten times the amount that
their wares will eventually sell for, and the buyers know how
to offer a twentieth. Everybody who pushes his way through
the crowd is a potential customer, everybody except sight-
seers, and they are spotted immediately by the discerning
eyes of the "pullers," who are engaged in perpetual conver-
sation with the shifting mass of human beings that pass con-
tinuously between the rows of street-stands piled high with
wares.

The "puller" is a specialist. He has developed a fine
technique of blocking the way of passers-by. Before he is
aware of it, the unwitting and unsuspecting customer is
trying on a suit that is many sizes too large and of a vintage
of a decade ago. The seller swears by all that is holy that
it fits like a glove, that it is the latest model put out by
Hart Schaffner & Marx, and that he needs money so badly
that he is willing to sell it at a loss of ten dollars. If the
customer is skeptical and is inclined to ask how the dealer
can stay in business and lose ten dollars on a suit, he is told
confidentially, "You see, we sell so many of 'em."234

THE GHETTO

On the sidewalk a puller shouts, "Caps, fifty cents!" In
a moment he has a victim by the arm, and the salesman is
trying on caps. "Yes, they are fifty cents apiece." He finds
one that fits. "Seventy-five cents for that one."

"But I thought you said they were fifty cents?"

"Yes, but this one fits you!"

On a trunk wedged in between a herring stand and a
stall piled high with neckties, a middle-aged man with a
trim Van Dyke beard, who still goes to Shul on Shabboth
while his son runs the stand, is seated, engaged in familiar
conversation with his Landsfrau from Lodz, who runs the
hardware stand across the row, when he spots a likely cus-
tomer some ten paces distant. He interrupts his conversa-
tion long enough to shout, "Genuine Solinger razors!" When
the customer approaches his stand he grabs him by the arm.
"A genuine Solinger razor, worth six dollars, for two and a
half!" The customer registers lack of interest, but he is held
tightly by the coat-sleeve. "Let me show how it cuts." In a
moment the merchant has pulled a straggling lock of hair
from his head, and with a deft swish of the razor is demon-
strating its superb quality. "How much will you give me?
Make me an offer." The customer shakes his head. "Make
me an offer; you can't insult me. What will you give me?"
The customer offers a quarter. "Do you want to insult me?
Do you think I steal them?" The customer tries to get away,
but is held tight. The razor merchant, with an air of dis-
gust, makes a gesture of putting the article away.

"Now, make me a decent offer; and remember, be a gen-
tleman."

"A quarter is all I'll give you."

"Well, give me the quarter." The razor is pushed intoTHE CHICAGO GHETTO

the pocket of the customer, who promptly pulls it out and
says, "I haven't got my money with me."

"Well, of all the chutzpah (nerve)! Why do you bother
me, and you let me pull out my hair for you. If I weren't
a gentleman, I'd have you arrested." The razor transaction
has failed, and the conversation with the Landsfrau is re-
sumed.

Up until ten years ago all the life and color that is now
Maxwell Street was to be found around the corner, on
Jefferson Street; but the city has grown and the market has
been pushed farther west, until now it extends to Sangamon
Street, five blocks distant. Many of the owners of street-
stands and shops have grown rich and no longer live in the
district, but they still own the property. The attics and
basements in which they once lived with their families have
now been turned into storerooms and warehouses. The sons
and daughters of these former push-cart owners are now
conducting fashionable shops in other parts of the city, or
are lawyers or doctors, but their parents in many cases still
stick to the gold mine on Maxwell Street.

Competition is keen. The original Maxwell Street popu-
lation closed up shop and went to the synagogue every
Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, but today the mar-
ket is deserted only on the Day of Atonement and the Jewish
New Year. As one veteran put it: "Things aren't as they
used to be around here fifteen years ago. We had a better
class of Jews then. Everybody was gone on Skabboth. But
now everybody is after the money, and you got to get out of
business or stay here every day, because Saturday is one of
our busiest days.1

In accordance with the tradition of the pale, where the
1 "Observations of a 'Puller/ " manuscript.236	THE GHETTO

women conducted the stores while the men spent their time
in pious devotion and learning, a number of Jewish women
are among the most successful merchants of Maxwell Street.
They almost monopolize the fish, herring, and poultry
stands.

Some years ago the street stands were permanent fix-
tures, but recently the city ordinances have prohibited them.
At present all the stands are on wheels, and are removed
nightly. At five-thirty every morning a mob of men, women,
and children may be seen flocking to an empty lot on Thir-
teenth and Union streets, where an old man rents push-
carts for twenty-five cents per day. He knows each of his
carts individually, and whenever anyone hastens away with
one of his three-hundred-odd vehicles without paying, the
owner of the push-carts comes to the market later and col-
lects. He has no difficulty in finding the culprit, for he can
identify every one of his vehicles. By six o'clock in the
morning the best and largest push-carts have been hauled
away. Everyone tries to maneuver for the most favorable
position on the street. A corner location, especially on Max-
well and Halsted streets, is worth fighting for.

Frequently the policeman who patrols the street has to
decide who came first and is entitled to squatter rights for
the day. After "Charlie the Policeman" has settled all the
quarrels, fraternization ensues.

When they are all set for business, around ten-thirty in the morn-
ing, Mr. Cohen, who sells pop, says to Mr. Goldberg, who sells roasted
chestnuts and sunflower seeds, "I'll bet you a dollar it's going to rain."
Mr. Goldberg says it won't, and the bet is on. They go to Charlie,
and what he says goes. And as the dull morning business goes on,
there is a voice yelling every once in a while, "Charley, is it going to
rain today?"1

*Ibid.THE CHICAGO GHETTO	237

fThe prosperity of the ghetto fluctuates with the employ-
menband the earnings of the immigrant and Negro laborers
in the industries of ChicagG^rlt has its weekly routine, cor-
responding to the habits of that population. Thursday is
"chicken day," when the Jewish customers lay in their sup-
plies for the Friday evening meal. Most of the purchasing is
done by the men, who take a much more active part in the
conduct of the household and the kitchen than is the case
among non-Jewish immigrant groups. The man sees that the
chicken is properly killed, for if something should go wrong,
he, as the responsible head of the household, would have to
bear the sin. In front of the butcher shops hang signs: "The
shochet will kill your chickens for ten cents apiece." But
there are also a number of butcher shops where hams and
non-Kosher meats are sold. The keeper of one of these shops
expressed himself as follows: "If they want to eat ckasser
[pork], I should worry. I can sell it to 'em as well as anybody
else. When you are in business you can't be too particular.
Don't the Kosher meat markets have to sell the trefah (non-
Kosher) parts of their meat to the goyim?"1 This same
butcher, however, buys his Kosher meat from another shop,
and would not allow his own family to eat trefah.

Friday is "fish day" on Maxwell Street. The turnover
of some of these street-stands and stores is enormous.
Sunday is the busiest day of all. Poles, Russians, Lithu-
anians, Bohemians, and Negroes, with a scattering minority
of old German and Irish purchasers who in former days lived
next to the Jews on the near West Side but now are scattered
all over the city, come to supply their wants on Maxwell
Street. Many of the stands and stores have their permanent
clientele, and are known for the cheapness of their wares.

1 "Reflections of a Maxwell-Street Merchant," manuscript.238

THE GHETTO

On Sundays there is bedlam on Maxwell Street. The cus<-
tomers are in a holiday mood. Shouts and curses in many-
languages mingle with polite and familiar conversation in
Yiddish.

The Maxwell Street market has been a hotbed of local
politics and graft. Rival political leaders vie with each other
for control of the administration of the market(^The street
venders frequently complain of extortion by politicians.
Since it is very difficult to organize the Maxwell Street mer-
chants because of the many feuds and factions and the ex-
treme individualism of the community and their village atti-
tudes, it has been easy for politicians to build up a system of
private patronage and "protection.'^

Special police patrolled the Maxwell Street market yesterday,
following an assault upon Max Janowsky, new market master, by a
score of angry peddlers, who are said to have resented his attempt to
eject a woman huckster from her stand.

It is alleged that Janowsky, who was recently appointed by Mayor
Dever to replace Harry Lapping after a graft scandal, tried to punish
the woman for refusing to contribute to the $250,000 jackpot, said to
be collected annually by overlords of Maxwell Street.

When he started to yank the woman's cart away from the curb,
according to Alderman Henry L. Fick (20th), his sponsor, a score of
neighboring venders showered him with rocks and other missiles. As
a result he is now on crutches, with his head wreathed in bandages.
The woman disappeared during the melee.

Considerable pressure is being brought to bear upon the mayor
and city council to close the market, on the ground that graft is too
widespread to check.1

The latest feud developed ten days ago, when the banana cart
of Edward Schatz and his son Benjamin was literally "kicked off the
street." Among the venders it was whispered that Alderman Fick
was squaring accounts with the Schatzes for carrying a "shakedown"

1 Chicago Tribune, July 15, 1926.THE CHICAGO GHETTO

complaint to the mayor, which ended in the firing of Lapping. In
sworn affidavits the Schatzes charged that for several years they had
been compelled to contribute $300 annually, in addition to the dime
a day collected by the city, in order to remain undisturbed in business
on the street.

The money, it was charged, was paid to Victor Cohen, who mas-
queraded with Fick's consent as assistant market master. Cohen, it
was alleged, represented "certain politicians having influence over
market affairs."

Another motive for the ousting of Schatz and his son was said to be
a desire on the part of these same politicians to remove the principal
obstacle to their overlord system of illegal taxation. Pay-day on the
market with the Schatzes present could only mean one thing—trouble.
It was also felt that their stay on the market, in the face of an open
break with the bosses, could not have a healthy financial reaction, as
other merchants, who paid because they felt they must, might try to
follow the example of the Schatzes.

With the mayor absent from the city, Alderman Fick has main-
tained a defiant attitude.

"No one can come into my ward and defy me," the alderman is
quoted as saying. The Schatzes have made their bowl, now they're
through peddling bananas on the West Side.

And so Maxwell Street awaits the mayor.1

The ghetto, in the opinion of some, has not passed after
all. The Jews are still paying tribute to their lords for their
right to live and bargain in the ghetto. One of them said:
"America isn't so different from Russia. Of course we
haven't any pogroms, but we have fishes [prejudice] just the
same, and we have to buy our right to make a living from
the grafters and the politicians, instead of the Tsar and the
bureaucrats."2

The ghetto inhabitants, particularly the most recent
arrivals take it more or less for granted that they do not pos-

1	Chicago Daily News, July 15, 1926.

2	"Reflections of a Maxwell-Street Merchant," manuscript.240

THE GHETTO

sess equal rights before the law. They feel that they must
rely to a large extent upon political pull and fixers to obtain
"favors" and achieve their ends, and consequently the
ghetto of Chicago, like the East Side of New York, ha? be-
come the cradle of powerful political machines. The older
settlers soon become conscious of their rights, however, and
assert themselves effectively against the oppressions of
petty politicians.

In spite of its prosperity, the Rialto of the ghetto—Max-
well Street—is fast passing away. As the immigrants get
into closer touch with the outside world, they see that after
all the ghetto offers but limited opportunities for success.
They establish themselves in stores and offices in other parts
of the city and become large-scale merchants, real estate
dealers, manufacturers, and building contractors. Compared
again with the world beyond the ghetto, the ghetto world
shrinks to a vanishing-point. Not only do the Jewish mer-
chants move away from Maxwell Street to more reputable
quarters, but in recent years there have been few recruits to
fill the vacancies. A few recent immigrants still drift to
the push-carts, but generally only for a short time, until
they have accumulated sufficient wealth to move elsewhere.
(Maxwell Street is declining, and is being left to the rats that
haunt its streets at night^)CHAPTER XII
THE VANISHING GHETTO

THE FLIGHT FROM THE GHETTO

"Let us go to America," said a Jew from Kiev to his
wife, after he had lost his fortune in a pogrom, "let us leave
this hellish place where men are beasts, and let us go to
America, where there is no ghetto and no pale, where there
ire no pogroms, and where even Jews are men."1

He came, but he landed in the ghetto. It took him
some time to find out that it was a ghetto; it took him
twenty years to discover that the place on Jefferson Street
Bear Roosevelt Road, where he lived a third of his life-
time, was near the very heart of the ghetto. He had be-
come a citizen, and he had voted at elections; he had a busi-
ness on Jefferson Street, and he had accumulated a comforta-
ble fortune. He had allowed his beard to grow, and he went
to Shul as he did in Kiev. His wife kept a Kosher house, and
le had brought up his boy to play chess and to discuss the
Talmud. It had never occurred to him that there was a
jhetto in America and in Chicago.

He discovered the ghetto quite accidentally, and the
discovery shocked him beyond description. His whole world
sollapsed one evening when his oldest son, after the Friday
evening meal, said to him that now, since he was going to
itw school and the family was pretty well fixed, and as he
lad acquired some friends whom he would like to invite to
lb house, they ought to move out of the ghetto. "The

1 "An Immigrant Autobiography," manuscript.

241THE GHETTO

^nrtto!" said the father, "Are you dreaming? What do other
people have that we haven't got? Don't you like this flat?
Isn't the furniture good enough? Isn't this home swell
enough for you?"

That night the old man could not sleep, and the next
morning in Shut he was a little bewildered by the services.
His mind was wandering. A month later they moved to
Central Park Avenue, in Lawndale. The son felt happier,
but the father didn't go down to hjs store on Roosevelt
Road and Jefferson Street on the street car with quite the
same zest mornings as he used to when they lived upstairs
over the business. Nor did he feel the same way when he
went to the synagogue. His Landsleute, he noticed, looked at
him with a rather quizzical air; they didn't shake hands with
the warmth of days gone by, and they weren't quite as
familiar as they used to be.

Two years later, when the son had opened a law office,
the father sold his store and began to dabble in real estate,
using his son's office as his headquarters. He had found
that the synagogue on the near West Side was too far away,
and had joined a congregation on Douglas Boulevard, three
miles farther west. He had trimmed his beard a little, too.
He still played chess with his son, but instead of discussing
the Talmud they discussed the real estate boom on Craw-
ford Avenue. Once in a while he soliloquized, "And I
thought I was rich; why, I have made more money in the
last year or two than I made during the twenty years be-
fore. Yes, I lived in the ghetto and didn't know it."

What happened in this family is fairly typical of what
has happened in hundreds—yes, thousands—of Jewish fami-
lies on the West Side. Their life in the ghetto was so circum-
scribed, and they were so integrally a part of it, that theyTHE VANISHING GHETTO	243

were unaware of its existence^ They discovered the ghetto
through chance contacts with the world outside; and then
they fled. In most instances it is the children who discover
the ghetto for their parents. They go to school; they work in
the stores and offices in the loop; they make friends; they go
to dances, and the girls are seen home by escorts; they are
mobile, and the worM of the ghetto begins to shrink, then to
bore, and finally to disgust>3^ contrast with the sweep of
Michigan Boulevard, the gaudy splendor of the Trianon
Ballroom, and the grandeur of the Oriental Theater, the
ghetto streets look narrow, dark, and filthy.

Sometimes parents, who feel at home because they have
never been outside, resist for a time, but then family con-
flicts arise that make life intolerable. They eventually yield,
and the exodus begins. What ten years ago was a slow west-
ward movement has now developed into a veritable stam-
pede to get out of the ghetto.

There are no accurate statistics available on the num-
ber of Jews in any part of the city, since the United States
census regards Jews as a religious group and therefore does
not enumerate them separately. Since most of the Jews on
the West Side are Russian born, and since a fair proporfion
of them give Yiddish or Hebrew as their mother-tongue, the
census reports on these classes may be of significance in
indicating the size of the Jewish population in various areas
of the city, and of the movement of the population from one
district to another. Comparisons for different census periods
are made doubly difficult by the fact that Chicago has under-
gone a change in its ward boundaries.1 The school census of
the city of Chicago for 1914, for wards 10, 11, 19, and 20,

1 Details for census tracts have been compiled by the Social Research
Laboratory of the University of Chicago.244	THE GHETTO

when compared with the United States census for 1920,
reveals changes in the proportion of Russian-born persons
as shown in Table I. It is not an unfair assumption that the
majority of the Russian-born persons in these wards were
Jews.

The emigration of the Jews from the West Side is further
indicated by the school principals' reports on the relative
proportion of Jewish children enrolled in the public schools
of the area. The comparisons for the years 1914 and 1923
are given in Table II.1

TABLE I

Ward	1914	1920	No. Decreased	Per Cent Decreased
1	0...........  1	1...........  1	9...........  2	0...........  Total____	i3,oiS 5,831  7,309 I6,775	7,557 3,628 2,850 6,729	5,459 2,203  4,459 9,996	42  37.7  61  60
	42,931	20,814	22,117	50.2 (Average)

TABLE I

In addition to these, the Jewish Training School, with 650
pupils, 547 of whom were Jewish, located in the heart of the
ghetto, has been closed. The flight of the Jewish population
from the district has been considerably more noticeable than
the general exodus of the population from the near West
Side.2

The Michael Reese Dispensary and the Jewish Peoples'

1 Report of "A Study o! the Social and Recreational Needs of the Jewish
Community of Chicago," manuscript in files of Jewish Peoples' Institute of
Chicago, Chicago, 1923.

a The decrease in total number of pupils from 1914 to 1923 was 5,493,
or 48 per cent, while the decrease in Jewish pupils was 4,975, or 63 per cent.
See ibid., p. 29. A sample study made in connection with our present study
in 1925 seems to indicate that the decrease in Jewish pupils has continued
steadily during the intervening years.THE VANISHING GHETTO	245

Institute, two of the leading institutions of the Jewish com-
munity of Chicago, which were but a decade ago in the
midst of the Jewish community, are now drawing an increas-
ing number of their clients from Lawndale and the North-
west Side.1 The old plant of the Jewish Peoples' Institute
is now in the heart of the Italian district. It has a branch on
the Northwest Side to accommodate its increasing number
of Jewish patrons there, and has just erected a large com-

Washburne.....

Garfield........

Foster..........

Smythe.........

Goodrich.......

Dore...........

Medill (grade)...
Polk...........

1914

i,57S

1,525

2,o75
1,225
1,200

1,093

837
1,250

TABLE II

1923

Closed
1,079

775
1,052

23
25

Closed
Closed

Per Cent Jewish

1914	1923
93	Closed
92	30
80	57
88	89
65	2
30	3
40	Closed
20	Closed

Closed
1,079

775
1,052

23
25

Closed
Closed

Total Pupils

School

Jewish Pupils

Closed
i,35i
1,360
1,176
1,200
850
Closed
Closed

1,465

1,400
1,640
1,078
736

329

335
250

munity center in Lawndale, on the assumption that the
center of the Jewish population will be in that area for some
time to come.

^The mass migration out of the ghetto is not to be ex-
^ plained merely on the basis of the deterioration of the area
and its conversion into an industrial zone) Nor is it accu-
rate to say that the Jews are being Dressed out by suc-
ceeding immigrant groups and NegroesiLA study of the mo-
tives of migration reveals that the Jews are not merely

1 From the private files of Mr. Philip L. Seman, general director, Jewish
Peoples' Institute. For the Michael Reese Dispensary an investigation made
in the course of our study revealed a constantly and rapidly declining number
of Jewish patients from the near West Side.246

THE GHETTO

fleeing from the ghetto, but that they are also drifting to
other areas. The physical deterioration of the near West
Side as a residential area and the decay of local culture have
gone on pari passu, of course, and have made the area un-
desirable as a living quarter for those who have acquired
sufficient wealth to afford something better. ^But as a rule
the Jew is not so much running away from the area because
it is a slum, nor is he fleeing from the Negroes; but he is
fleeing from his fellow-Jews who remain in the ghetto. From
the ghetto he drifts to Lawndale, where he hopes to acquire
status, or where at least his status as a ghetto Jew will be
forgotten^?

^	DEUTSCHLAND

If the near West Side is the home of the first generation
immigrant and of the ghetto, then Lawndale is pre-eminently
the area of second settlement, of Deutschland. One of the
important adjustments that any immigrant group has to
make, it has been observed, is that of finding a suitable
habitat corresponding to the habits and attitudes of the
individuals. This adjustment to the areas of a large city
tends to take the form of distinct areas of settlement. When
he first arrives, the immigrant settles in the slum, which is
called the area of first settlement. But if the immigrant him-
self continues to live in this area for his whole lifetime, his
children seldom do. In a fast-growing city a neighborhood
has a life of no more than one generation. It changes its
local color with the turnover of its inhabitants.

fjThe Jews are seldom permanent inmates of the Western
ghetto. The influences from without penetrate subtly and
slowly, and lure at least the children into the more spacious
world around them. In the last stages of his ghetto life the
Jew becomes conscious of the narrowness of his world, andTHE VANISHING GHETTO	247

when he has definitely entered into the full realization of his
status he migrates to the area of second settlement^ In the
concentric zones that surround the core of the city or the
central business district, this is generally the second ring—
the zone of workingmen's homes.1 The Jews of the ghetto
began to migrate toward this region during the first decade
of this century. The current in this direction became strong
when the wave of Russian immigration following the rev-
olution and pogroms of 1905-6 set in and flooded the
ghetto. The settlers who arrived during the eighties and the
nineties of the last century were gradually displaced by the
newcomers. In Lawndale the Jews again came into contact
with the Germans and the Irish, whom they had dislodged
from the ghetto a generation before.

Lawndale, when the Jewish settlers arrived, was a quiet
residential zone of lower middle-class standards. It had
spacious streets, yards, and parks, many wide open spaces,
and substantial duplex apartments. The Germans and the
Irish who inhabited it had had some experience with the
Jews previously on the near West Side. They had given up
Halsted Street without much of a struggle; but on Kedzie
Avenue and on Douglas Park Boulevard, where they had
built new homes, they determined to make a stand. A few
Jewish families got a foothold in the area by buying a home
here and there, but when the tide from the ghetto set in,
it met determined opposition. As they could not rent, they
had to buy—and buy they did. They bought Lawndale in
blocks, and by 1915 Lawndale was Jewish. Jews have done
to Lawndale in Chicago what they have done to the Bronx in
New York:

1 See Ernest W. Burgfess: "The Growth of the City," in Robert E.
Park, The City, chap, ii, Chicago, 1925.248

THE GHETTO

Crowded northward, the Jews discovered the wilds-of the Bronx.
The doctors advised them to go and live there when they had a "touch
k of consumption." It was "the country." What they did with these
wilds is history. They destroyed beautiful forest estates and built
ugly tenement houses, created a new Hester Street where there was
a park. But they also created a town where there were only rocks and
marshes. Theaters, synagogues, institutions, hospitals, factories,
gambling houses, other houses. There is now a generation of Bronx
Jews, quite distinct from the East Side Jew^It's the second-generation
Jew, with all the outward characteristics minus beard and mustache,
playing baseball, great fight fans, commercial travelers, clean-shirted,
white-collared, derby-hatted, creased-trouserety The women are
stylish and stout, white-skinned, long-nosed, bediamonded; social
workers, actresses, stump speakers, jazz dancers, with none of the
color and the virtues of their erstwhile bearded, bewigged parents, and
a few vices of their own acquisition. But they bathe frequently.1

^There is a generation of Lawndale Jews. In the ghetto
they are called Deitchuks because they affect German ways,
aren't quite so particular about Kosher food, don't go to the
synagogue quite so often, patronize the Loop for their enter-
tainment, and speak Yiddish at home only. That is why the
ghetto Jews refer to Lawndale as Deutschiand^) Everything
beyond the pale is either the world of goyim or the world of
Deitchuks. There is only a step between the one and the
other. {The Deitchuk is considered as something worse than
the goy. He is a poor imitation of a Jew, and he is not a goy
only because the goyim won't have himp

The outstanding vocational type of the ghetto is the
Sch&cherjude, the push-cart peddler and small-scale mer-
chant. Deutschland is inhabited by Menschen, or more often,
~ the AUrightnicks. Both are persons keenly conscious of their
superior status, at least economically ; but while the former

1 Konrad Bercovici, "The Greatest Jewish City in the World," Nation
(September 12, 1923), p. 261.THE VANISHING GHETTO

has achieved his success without sacrificing much of
identity as a Jew, the latter, in his opportunism, has thrown
overboard most of the cultural baggage of his group, and as i
consequence is treated with the disdain befitting an apostate
or meshumed. The Allrightnick offends the group because he
is no respector of its values, (fn the ghetto, wealth is incon-
spicuous; in Deutschland it is displayed. The realestatenick
makes hundreds of dollars for every dollar of the peddler,
but the former flaunts his wealth before the world as if it
were millions!) He is self-satisfied, and in his community he
becomes a Macher, a man of affairs. The business traditions
of the Jews are so ancient that we should indeed be surprised
to find that this vocational type lacked status; but the
Allrightnick represents the type of business man to whom
success is everything.

(Jrhe transformation in the personality types that is
wrought by these distinct culture areas is nowhere more ap-
parent than in the contrast between the intellectuals in the
ghetto and in Deutschland. The ideal of learning which in
the ghetto produced the type of student known as the
Yeskiba Bochar, or talmudical student, and the Melammed,
or rabbinical teacher, persists, though in a somewhat al-
tered form. In Europe, and to a large extent in the modern
ghetto, learning was religious. In the area of second settle-
ment it is likely to be of a secular sort. In the ghetto a poor
but learned talmudical student is a desirable candidate for
son-in-law of a prosperous merchant, but in Deutschland
the young doctors, lawyers, and politicians push him into
the background^) Probably nothing has done more to alter
the altitude toward the intellectual, and to change the con-
ctotion of intelligence itself, than popular secular education;
b it the main outlines of the old pattern persist. IntellectualsTHE GHETTO

x flourish only in a community that supports them and
^ives them status. If the community consists only of igno-
ramuses, if it is narrow and confining, the intellectuals
l</?.ve it and seek a more congenial and more cosmopolitan
habitat.

(in the area of second settlement we find a set of distinct
social types, the outgrowth of the changed social organi-
zation. There is the Lodgenik, or joiner; the Radikalke, or
the emancipated woman; the society lady or the philan-
thropic woman who goes back to the ghetto "to do some-
thing for these poor people," of whom she was recently one;
and the Ototot, or the almost emancipated person who clings
to a little bearcPp

These types indicate that the culture area represented by
Lawndale is an area of transition in which the character of
the ghetto is being remolded uncles the influences of wider
contacts and a larger world. Social types range themselves
in constellations, each stellar figure with its little circle
of satellites seeking its place in the life of the group and
changing its position and character as the culture of the area >
is transformed. Together they constitute a sort of galaxy of
personalities in which the culture of the group finds every
expression.

. An analysis of the outstanding personality types in any
givSh. area shows that they depend for their existence on,
and are a direct expression of, characteristic attitudes and
sentiments in the group. As the life of the group changes,
new types appear, but they are on the whole outgrowths and
transformations of earlier types. They are at the same time

1 For the identification of a number of these types I am indebted to
Mr. John Landesco.THE VANISHING GHETTO

indexes of assimilation of the members of a social group to
another, and represent, therefore, various stages in the
assimilative process?)

These types may also be conceived of as the effect of
mobility upon personal behavior. They express the range of
contacts of the individuals with other cultures. The isolated
person is merely a person of few and superficial contacts. The
ghetto Jew is provincial and has a dwarfed personality be-
cause he seldom penetrates beyond the pale. His daily
routine is confined largely to the narrow area of his imme-
diate vicinity. Even when he drives his wagon through the
other sections of the city, he does so with his eyes closed to
the life that goes on, and open only, as the saying goes, "to
business."

There is a striking difference between the migrations
of the families within and those without the ghetto. Of two
hundred families studied, one hundred lived in the ghetto
and the other one hundred in Lawndale and on the North-
west Side. Of the one hundred ghetto families, forty-five
moved in one year (1924). The average distance between
their old and their new homes was three blocks. Of the one
hundred families on the Northwest Side and in Lawndale,
sixty moved in the same year, but the average distance
between their old and their new homes was a mile and one-
half .^Mobility seems to be cumulative, gaining momentum
in the case of the Jews as they leave the ghetto and move to
the area of second settlement. The movement becomes more
frequent and covers a wider range as the confines of the
ghetto are left behind. This movement is a measure of the

1 "A Study of Migration on the West and Northwest Sides of Chicago,"
manuscript.THE GHETTO

restlessness which shows itself on the subjective side in the
speed and the degree of the transformation of the attitudes
of the groujx^/

Instead of the small, ramshackle synagogues of the
ghetto, we find that Deutschland has its modern, pretentious
structures. In place of the strictly orthodox ritual of the
ghetto, Deutschland has its "conservative" synagogues, mid-
way between orthodoxy and reform. Instead of the dingy
and crowded dwellings of the near West Side, Lawndale and
the Northwest Side have their modern apartment buildings
with sun parlors, garages, and baths.

As he emerges from the ghetto, the Jew loses his dis-
tinctive personal appearance. This change in facial expres-
sion and in bearing is most apparent in the young people.
The second generation becomes self-assertive, straightens
out its spine, and lifts its head. The number of athletes
whose parents were ghetto Jews has in recent years been in-
creasing at an amazing rate:

The gloved fists of Benny Leonard and the rest of the Jewish
fighting fraternity should forever put an end to the vicious notion
that our race is devoid of physical stamina. Was there ever a pluckier,
gamer, astuter lightweight in the entire history of the American ring
than Leonard? Joe Gans was a wonderful fighting machine, and
Battling Nelson was a marvel; Wolgast, Ritchie, Freddie Walsh, and

1A study is now in progress of the Jewish community of New York, by
the Bureau of Jewish Social Research, New York City, which in a prelimi-
nary report seems to indicate a similar situation. This study gives the Jewish
population of New York City as 1,728,000 (for 1925) or one third of the
total population of the city. In one decade (1916-25) Manhattan lost 200,000
Jews. Washington Heights was the only part of the city-proper showing an
increase in Jewish population, while Coney Island has become 96.7% Jewish.
(.Jewish Communal Survey of Greater New York. First Section: Studies in the
New York Jewish population. New York, 1928.) See also "Jews of New
York," Survey, 60: 93.THE VANISHING GHETTO

Kid Lavigne were worthy lightweight champions; but the Jew
Benjamin Liner, son of a Warsaw immigrant, is the greatest of
them all!

And there is nothing at all the matter with our new Jewish Feath-
erweight "Champ," Louis "Kid" Kaplan, late from Bialystok, and
now a resident of Meriden, Connecticut.

Abe Goldstein, until recently the bantam champion of the world,
lost only on points to Eddie Martin in a 15-round bout at Madison
Square Garden. There were plenty of fans in the Garden that evening
who felt that Goldstein deserved the decision. Have no fear, he will
stage a "come-back."

As soon as Leonard really lays down his crown a worthy successor
will be found in Sid Terris, an East Side boy. He is the sensation of
the town. Sid was born twenty-one years ago, on Clinton Street.
None of Sid's Gentile antagonists has as yet suggested that the little
fellow with the Jewish physiognomy is a physical coward.

Old-timers needn't be told about Joe Choynski, who fought the
best of the heavyweights twenty-five years ago; Abe Attell, feather-
weight champion 1911-22; Leach Cross, a great lightweight in his
day; Battling Levinsky, Soldier Bartfield, and Charlie White. These
men have made fistic history in this country.

When one turns to the younger fellows in the fighting game, there's
no dearth of Jewish talent. There's Lew Tendler, still the idol of the
Quaker City; Jack Bernstein, Corporal Izzy Schwartz, Charley Rosen-
berg, and a host of others.

But a lie dies hard. Sometimes I think we shouldn't be annoyed
by this sort of loose talk. After all, the people who are certain about
the alleged congenital cowardice of the Jewish race are the selfsame
upholders of law and order and defenders of the constitution that pass
laws to banish Darwin from college textbooks. We can afford to be in
the same boat with the author of Origin of Species.1

(The area of second settlement is also pre-eminently an
area of conflict—conflict within the family and the com-
munity. Families tend to disintegrate under the stress of
col iradictions between behavior patterns which result from

1 Jewish Daily Forward, February 25, 1925.254

THE GHETTO

the importation of extraneous cultural influences into the
home by the children of the immigrants/^

The enlarged world of the area of second settlement re-
sults also in a shift of vocational interests, and increased
organization. Labor leaders who have had experience in
organizing Jewish workers complain of the difficulty of hold-
ing organizations of recent immigrants together. This task
apparently becomes easier as the children of the immigrants
are reached, and as the immigrant removes to the area of
second settlement.2

The social organization of the area of second settlement
cuts across the lines of family and Landsmannschaft. Village
synagogues which were founded in the ghetto are federated
into large congregations in which the distinctions between
Old World local ties reach the vanishing-point. Hand in
hand with the wiping out of the ties of local and familial
solidarity goes also a greater amount of disorganization and
uncontrolled behavior.

As the ghetto becomes depleted and its population be-
gins to center in the area of second settlement there appear
also a number of conservative influences. The new area
becomes predominantly Jewish, although it is not the Jew-
ishness of the same intensity as that of the ghetto itself. Its
institutions and personalities have undergone a change, but
not sufficient to lose their identifying Jewish color. The later
migrants from the ghetto are the least assimilated, and they
impart to the new area many of the outward characteristics
of the ghetto itself.

In their attempt to flee from the ghetto, the partially

1	"Culture Conflicts in the Immigrant Family," manuscript.

2	See William M. Leiserson, Adjusting the Immigrant to Industry, New
York, 1924.THE VANISHING GHETTO

assimilated groups have found that the ghetto has fol-
lowed them to their new quarters. This is as true of Lawn-
dale as it is of the Northwest Side in the region of Division
Street and Humboldt Park. Within fifteen years these areas
have become overwhelmingly Jewish, and have reproduced
—though in a modified form—the general outlines of the
ghetto atmosphere.

(jLong before this transition is completed, however, a new
exodus has begun. The plans of those who fled from the
ghetto in order to obtain status as human beings—as per-
sons rather than as Jews—have been frustrated by the simi-
lar plans of others. Unwittingly the deserters from the
ghetto have become the founders of a new ghetto) Scarcely
does this consciousness begin to dawn upon them when the
flight is resumed, this time to a new frontier lying several
miles from the area of second settlement. The area of third
settlement, in Chicago as elsewhere, is located in the outly-
ing residential sections of the city—in Rogers Park, Ravens-
wood, Albany Park, the North Shore, and the South Shore,
and finally the suburban regions.

" One of the outstanding characteristics of the local areas
in which the Jewish population of the city is to be found is
their separateness and discontinuity from one another. The
ghetto has changed very little in its main geographical out-
lines since it was first settled by the Jews. Its invisible walls
have been pushed out and dented in here and there. The
frontier of the Jewish settlements, however, is never to be
found in an area along the borders of, and contiguous to, the
ghetto, but rather in isolated settlements some distance
removed from the ghetto proper and from each other.''The
movement of the Jews has been in jumps and spurts, not in
continuous lines. This is one of the most striking indications256	THE GHETTO

of the fundamental motive of local migrations: flight from
the familiar, escape into anonymity. The Jew stays in a
given area apparently just long enough to become conscious
of his status as a Jew. Scarcely does he get a glimpse of the
freer world that looms in the distance when he becomes
irritated by the presence of his fellow-Jews, more Jewish
than himself, and restless because his major wishes are left
unsatisfied^

<^he zones of settlement of the Jews correspond roughly
to t&e various generations of immigrants. Those who came
earliest are now farthest removed from the original ghetto.
They are also farthest along in the process of assimilation
and in the departure from Old World customs and orthodox
ritual. In the frontier regions the Jew plunges into the po-
litical and social life of the community with such zest and
enthusiasm that he soon makes himself conspicuous as a Jew
by his very attempt not to appear strange, and to be a real
member of the community

Qn the ghetto the synagogue and the religious life of
the community is predominantly orthodox; in the area of
second settlement it becomes "conservative"; and on the
frontier it is "reformed.^ But the change is accomplished
neither suddenly nor completely. The ghetto is never quite
outlived, especially in the case of the older generation, who,
in their own lifetimes, cannot quite accustom themselves to
the new ways of life. And then there is the problem of the
children. The parents may not have completely forgotten
that they were Jews, and may have made their compromises;
but the children seem generally to carry the de-Judaization
a step farther than their parents—who in their day consid-
ered themselves quite rebellious—are willing to tolerate.
The sentiments that have held the group together in theTHE VANISHING GHETTO

past still assert themselves when the continuity of the group
is threatened.

Rabbi Saul Silber sounded the keynote of pessimism at the ban-
quet which was held by the Anshe Sholom Congregation in celebration
of its fifty-fifth anniversary: "What will become of our children?"
said he, among other things. "Do we want them to grow up pinochle
players and poker sharks, or do we want them to grow up men and
women who have an understanding of the problems of life, who know
the history of their ancestors, who are proud Jews, and who will be a
credit to us? Our children are running away from us because we have
nothing to hold them with, to make them worthy of their Jewish
heritage. Orthodox Judaism is on the decline and will soon disappear
entirely unless we do our duty toward maintaining its traditions. We
have fine boys and girls who grow up in fine Jewish homes ignorant of
the simplest rudiments of Judaism because we do not give them the
opportunity to learn, to know. Let us build houses of worship, social
centers and Hebrew schools, and let us provide the means for the com-
ing generation to learn and to know; there can not be a better or more
profitable investment."

Well spoken, Rabbi Silber. It is unfortunate that the Jewish
population has the moving spirit and neighborhoods change practically
overnight. First it was Douglas and Independence Boulevards, then
the North Shore district, then Rogers Park; now it is Wilmette,
Winnetka, Glencoe, etc. These newly rich want to be "swell," and to
be "swell" is to run away from Jews and Judaism—that's the modern
curse.1

The latest avenue of escape from the ghetto is repre-
sented by the rapid influx of Jews into the apartment and
residential hotels of the city, particularly of Hyde Park and
the North Shore. So popular have these hotels become with
the Jewish population that a "Jewish Hotel Row," as it is
called by real estate men of the district, is rapidly springing
up. Many of these hotels, while not advertising Kosher food,
are nevertheless catering to the traditional tastes of the

1 Chicago Chronicle, January 16, 1925.THE GHETTO

Jews. The middle-class business men among the Jews moved
into these hotels originally, not merely because their wives
wanted to be free from household duties, nor merely because
they had reached a station in life where they could afford
the luxuries of hotel life, but rather because they wished to
be taken for successful business or professional men—not
merely successful Jews.

The hotels offered anonymity; they offered freedom from
ritual and the close supervision of the intimate community.
Here one could be one's self, and, if one spent a little oc-
casionally on parties, dinners, and entertainment, and if
one "Americanized" one's name and put up a good front by
playing golf and being a good sport, one could get to know
the best people, and break into gentile society. There was
no bar to keep the Jews out at first. A few Jewish residents
had lived there for years, and were apparently inoffensive,
if not desirable, guests. But when the flood set in, the hotels
began to lose their permanent gentile guests. In one hotel
the manager joined the Ku Klux Klan. As soon as this fact
became known, some Jews moved out, but finally a Jewish
corporation bought the hotel and changed the management.1
Not only did most of the Gentiles leave these hotels when
the Jewish invasion set in, shortly after the war, but the
older settlers among the Jews as well moved to new quar-
ters.

There is a striking difference between the social strati-
fication of the Jewish community in Chicago and that of
New York. In New York City, where the earliest Jewish
settlers, who are known in the community as the Jewish
Mayflower stock, consisted of Spanish-Portuguese Jews,
that group has always considered itself the elite and had led

1 "Jewish Hotel Row," manuscript.THE VANISHING GHETTO	259

a separatist existence. The German Jews came almost two
centuries later, and occupied a sort of intermediate position
between the aristocratic Sephardim and the Russian-Polish
group, which came toward the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury. The economic position of these various groups has
followed the same rank, although the Germans have to a
large extent outstripped their predecessors in wealth.

In Chicago, on the other hand, the first Jewish settlers
were Germans. The Spanish-Portuguese element has come
only very recently, and from Turkey and Palestine rather
than from Spain. The Spanish Jews in Chicago are, more-
over, not of the same cultural and economic stratum as the
early American Jewish settlers. They, too, have lived a
secluded existence, but largely because of language differ-
ences and prejudices on the part of the German and Russian
Jews.Qn Chicago the German Jews have been the undis-
puted aristocrats, at least until the World War and the
Russian revolution. These two events have somewhat
shaken the sway of the Germans and given a feeling of^self-
confidence and personal expansion to the Russian Jews.;

Hyde Park was until recently a stronghold of the Ger-
man Jews, but the business successes and growth in numbers
of the Russian-Jewish population in recent years has rapidly
altered the complexion of the area/The membership lists of
some of the Reform congregationslvhich a few years ago
were composed solidly of German Jews indicate that the
Russian Jews are in larger numbers giving up orthodoxy as
they change their residence.1 Even the aristocratic German-
Jewish clubs are beginning to open their doors to the more
successful and "desirable" members of the Russian grouji)

The outposts of the Jewish community at the present

1 "A Study of Membership in Jewish Congregations," manuscript.260	THE GHETTO

time are to be sought in the fashionable suburbs of the North
Shore: Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, and Highland Park.
The settlement in one of these suburbs of one of the leading
German Jews of the city has immensely stimulated the pur-
chase of suburban estates by a host of Jews who have found
Hyde Park undesirable because of their Russian-Jewish
neighbors, or who have accumulated fortunes within a rela-
tively short time and now wish to add status to their wealth.
The realization that wealth alone does not bring a superior
social position has come as a sudden and sad realization to
manyr^

It is almost impossible to gather evidence on the extent
to which conversion to Christianity and intermarriage with
Christians is going on under the changed circumstances
brought about by the disintegration of the ghetto. Official
records do not give the necessary information, and in the
nature of the case such matters are not given publicity by
the parties concerned. Such inquiries as have been made
indicate that there is probably little conversion to the es-
tablished Christian denominations. Intermarriage is on the
increase, of course, and the precedents of the early Chicago
Jews, in accordance with which persons outside of their
faith had to be converted to Judaism upon marrying into the
group, are no longer insisted upon. There is, moreover, a
strong drift on the part of the Jews in this city and others to
the Christian Science churches, to Unitarianism, to Ethical
Culture, and Rationalism, and a host of other sects. The
middle-class Jew leans in the direction of Christian Science,
which, as a famous local rabbi put it, "serves the functions
of church and drug store combined, and is a good business
proposition." These sects are more attractive to the Jew
because the process of transition is not so shocking as con-THE VANISHING GHETTO	261

version from Judaism to Catholicism or Protestantism. To
many, Unitarianism and Ethical Culture is but a step re-
moved from Reform Judaism. Since Christian Science has
proved itself so popular among the Jews, a rival movement
known as "Jewish Science" capitalizing some of the features
of Christian Science but without the stigma of "Christian"
in its name, has been organized and seems to be gaining ad-
herents in New York and Los Angeles.

^Ks long as he remains in the ghetto the Jew seldom be-
comes conscious of his inferior status. He emerges from the
ghetto and finds himself surrounded by a freer but a less
comfortable and less homely and familiar world. He flees
Jaffrom his people in order to escape from the bonds by which,
whether he wills it or not, he is tied to his group. In the proc-
ess he changes his character. But the identical desires on the
part of many of his co-religionists lead them to adopt the
same course that he has taken, and in the end he must either
keep on moving or else find the very objective toward which
he is moving disappear on the horizon J}Horseradish QrinderCHAPTER XIII
THE RETURN TO THE GHETTO

CONFLICT AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
^The path that leads out of the ghetto is neither straight
nor unobstructed. No sooner does the Jew venture forth
from the narrow ghetto streets into the broad cosmopolitan
life of the outer world than he encounters external obstacles
and experiences inner conflicts. The transition from one
culture to another, and from one personality to another,
is a process that requires not only time but demands the
co-operation of both groups^)

The emancipation of the Jews has not taken place without internal
struggle and external conflict. Jewry itself has been swept repeatedly
by cross-currents of sentiment. When the forward, outward movement
of the race has been too rapid, it has invariably provoked a racial re-
action in the outer gentile world, and Jewish life has been thrown
back upon itself. What, then, happens is that the Jewish community
contracts and withdraws into itself. Shadows of the old ghetto walls
arise. Jewry returns to the sources of its inspiration and its strength,
and becomes conscious of itself as a people set apart, a chosen people,
a people with a destiny and a mission.1

The following case is typical of the varied turns in the life
history of the thousands of Jews of our modern world whose
life begins in the ghetto, and, after moving in a circle, finally
ends somewhere not far from its starting-point:

During my long residence in New York I have observed the fol-
lowing changes in one man: He arrived a bearded talmudical scholar
in 1810. Rabbi Glockman was then less than thirty years old. He had
a wife and four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest was

1 Robert E. Park, "Behind Our Masks," Survey Graphic (May, 1926),
p. 136.

263264

THE GHETTO

twelve years old, which meant that the father had married at eighteen.
A year later Rabbi Glockman was still teaching Hebrew in a little
afterschool Cheder where the Jewish children were sent by their
parents so as not to forget that they were Jews. The school was on
Division Street, way down on the East Side. Two years later, with
beard a little trimmed, Mr. Glockman owned a Kosher delicatessen
store on Second Avenue near Tenth Street. The place closed on
Friday evening and remained closed till Saturday after prayers. Mr.
Glockman was the president of a congregation. Four years later Mr.
Glockman was the partner in a shirt-waist factory where they worked
on the Sabbath. The beard was completely gone. They lived in the
Bronx. Six years later Mr. Glockman smoked on the Sabbath, ate
"unclean" food, and was denounced in a strike as the worst exploiter.
He employed only Italian labor, and had changed his name to Bell,
George Bell, and had moved from the Bronx to Morristown, because
there were no Jews there. Eight years later his daughter had married
a Gentile. But then the railroad strike broke out. The great Morris-
town plan, by which the wealthiest commuters manned the trains,
entered into vogue. Mr. Bell came to the station every morning with
his overalls under his arms, ready to take his place as a scab—to help
the country. But Mr. T. and Mr. D. and Mr, F., who were at the
head, would not have the Jew with them in the cab. He had to ride
as a passenger. They would not even give him the privilege of acting
as conductor. Today Mr. Bell is again Solomon Glockman. He lives
in Harlem, in the heart of the Jewish district, is a member of the
congregation, and a fanatical Zionist. Even the beard was allowed to
grow back, a little trimmed, to its full length. Until the daughter
divorced her husband and married a Jew she was not allowed to enter
her parents' home.1

The rebuffs administered by prejudice and exclusion serve to
make the Jew keenly conscious of his separateness. He finds
that the outer world will not receive him as an individual,
but insists upon attaching the obnoxious label "Jew" to him
and to his children, not taking cognizance of the fact that he

1 Konrad Bercovici, "The Greatest Jewish City in the World," Nation
(September 12,1923), p. 259. _THE RETURN TO THE GHETTO

265

feels himself no more a part of his people than they con-
sider him a part of themselves. He stands on the map of two
worlds, not at home in either; His self is divided between
the world that he has deserted and the world that will have
none of him?)

Among those Jews who, because they have lived among us all long-
er, have departed farthest from the ancient heritage and penetrated
deepest into the life of the outer gentile world, these recurring outbursts
of racial prejudice and the resulting revulsions of Jewish life inevitably
provoke profound moral disturbances. It is not easy—in the long run
it is impossible—for those who have once gone out ever to return,
even though the ghetto walls are no longer visible. The result is,
however, that they are obsessed with a sense of moral isolation; they
feel themselves not quite at home either in the gentile or the Jewish
world. Life goes on outwardly as it did before, but they are possessed
by insatiable restlessness, and a "secret anguish" gnaws at the core
of their existence.1

Having been successful in business or in his profession,
the Jew who was cradled in the ghetto and has tasted some of
the fruits of the gentile world in free association with his
more intimate circle of associates, with fellow-students in
the university, or with the members of his professional
group, at first seems to find the stories of prejudice and ex-
clusion either exaggerated or at least not applicable to him-
self. His personality expands, and he relaxes somewhat in
his studied manners and courtesies, just to be natural and
act the part of one who is at home and feels at home. All the
time, however, he is conscious of a bit of formality, some-
times overcordiality, which puts him on his guard. Stories
of the prejudice and rebuffs that others of his faith have
suffered reach him. Secretly he hopes that he will be able to
put an end to all these unfounded rumors and will be able to

1 Robert E. Park, op. ctt.t p. 136.	^266

THE GHETTO

return to his people to tell them that prejudice against the
Jew is either a fiction or a justified reaction on the part of
the Gentiles to the coarseness, the aggressiveness, and lack
of tact of the Jews themselves. And sometimes he succeeds.
But more often his hopes are shattered before he has even
entered halfway into the outer world.

I graduated with the highest honors from the medical school. Of
course in my college career I felt somewhat out of the run of things
because there were certain fraternities that some friends of mine
belonged to that never asked a Jew to join. But I took that grace-
fully. I said to myself, "They have a long tradition against admitting
Jews, but as individuals they are quite friendly to me, and I'm sure
they would ask me to join if it weren't for the rules, for which they
are not to blame."

Of course I never hid the fact that I was a Jew, although I may
say that my appearance would never betray my race. I said to myself,
as I looked at all of the ghetto boys in school: "I don't blame them for
being prejudiced. Look at them, with their outlandish ways, their
mannerisms, their unmitigated nerve and forwardness. Who wouldn't
be ashamed to be a Jew? Under circumstances like that, who blames
the fraternities for not taking them in? They can't be just an ordinary
member of anything. They've got to run the thing or ruin it."

Secretly I sympathized with the feeling against the Jews, and I
decided that as for myself, while I would never renounce my people, I
would try to make myself worthy of the friendship of Gentiles. I
sometimes argued with these Russian Jews (I was German myself,
American-born), and told them that if they didn't make themselves
so conspicuous and obnoxious the rest of the Jews would stand a
chance. But they told me that I would find out soon enough that there
were no exceptions, that to the Gentiles a Jew was a Jew whether he
had blond hair or dark hair, and that they could smell them a mile
away.

I got into my profession and worked in an office where there was
one prominent Jewish specialist who was respected by all ol his col-
leagues. There was a model Jew—quiet, dignified, inconspicuous. I
would emulate him. a gentile friend in the profession asked me
whether I didn't want to join a club he belonged to. I didn't knpwTHE RETURN TO THE GHETTO

267

much about it, but I liked him and wanted to be a good sport. I said
I would join. A couple of weeks later he met me rather shamefacedly
and said, "You know I'm sorry, old pal, they found out you were
a Jew and there is a rule against admitting Jews. It's a disgusting ar-
rangement. I've decided to resign my membership." I calmed him
and told him not to go to the trouble, that if I had known it would
cause him any trouble I would have told him so to begin with, but
I didn't know that they excluded Jews. It didn't interfere with my
friendship with him, but it caused me a lot of mental anguish.

I brooded over the thing, and concluded that you simply couldn't
escape it. There are only two ways out: One is to stand up and fight
back like a man, and I didn't have the courage to do that single-
handed, and didn't like to join the kind of bunch that is doing the
fighting, because I think they make the thing worse than it is. The
other is to go right on brooding over your lot, and join the B'nai Brith
and become a Zionist and join the Jewish clubs and the temple, and
let the world take its course. I say I didn't have the courage for the
first, and had no inclination for the latter, so here I am—nobody, a
dual personality—a man with two souls, a man without a country.1

(' The difficulty is that the Jew, as long as he remains in
the ghetto, is of a separate caste, living in a world that is
narrow, but warm with the glow of familiar life, full of senti-
ment, and with opportunity for self-expression within the
limits of the group. But when he emerges from the ghetto he
becomes human, which means he has contacts with the outer
world, encounters friction and# hostility, as well as familiarity
and friendship. But sensitive as he generally is even to the
slightest gestures of those of whom he is not yet a part, he
has difficulty in acting without restraint and with poise. He
shrinks from conflict, and is likely to attribute his failures
and rebuffs exclusively to the fact that he is a Jew?) Like
Lewisohn,2 he tends to return to the flock and become an

1	"The Autobiography of a Jewish College Man," manuscript.

2	See Ludwig Lewisohn, Up Stream, which i^fe story of a sensitive,
intellectual German-Jewish immigrant who findWnmself repelled by the268

THE GHETTO

ardent "Jew" and sometimes even a rabid advocate of or-
thodoxy and Zionism as the only fitting answer to a world
that excludes him and insults him.

The social distance between Jew and Gentile manifests
itself, not only in exclusion of the Jew from the social life
of the Christians, exclusion from clubs and fraternities, but
also exclusion from vocational pursuits, such as trade
unions, and exclusion from certain residential areas. Not
infrequently one finds ads in the newspapers with the post-
script, "Only Gentiles need apply." For a time the carpen-
ters and cigar-makers' unions of Chicago would not admit
Jews; and when a strike came, rather than risk the danger of
Jewish strikebreakers, the unions organized the Jews into
separate locals. The Hebrew Trade Union Council of
Chicago was until recently a going concern. (£he Jew has
been in a class with women and with Negroes. In recent
years this exclusion has of course been overcome, especially
since the president of the American Federation of Labor was
himself a Je^> A recent newspaper advertisement reads:
"A summer paradise. Gentiles! Buy your summer home-
sites now on the north shore of Crystal Lake."1 The result is
the following:

An encouraging sign of the social life of the Jewish Community in
the middle-western states is the enterprise of the Roosevelt Hills
Syndicate. Mr. A. S. De Kofsky, president of the syndicate, is well
known as a builder of a number of modern apartment buildings in the
West Side, and as an enterprising real estate dealer. He saw the need
of organizing a summer resort colony on an extensive basis, and se-
cured a stretch of fine land between South Haven and Benton Harbor,

narrow ghetto, and seeks free expression in the world of letters. Handicapped
there, he returns to the fold. See his Israel, and his "The Island Within,"
for the successive stag^^f the evolution of a pattern of life.

x Chicago Daily May 18,1925.THE RETURN TO THE GHETTO 269

Michigan, with an extensive lake frontage. The Roosevelt Hills
Syndicate, located in the Roosevelt Building, 179 West Washington
Street, has subdivided this land, and offered sites for summer homes
to the Jewish public.....x

£\Vhere it is merely a question of buying one's way, the Jews
have no difficulty; but the effort to break down prejudice in
this fashion soon is found to defeat itself, for instead of
establishing contact with the Gentiles, the Jews find that
they are merely re-establishing contact with fellow-Jews
from whom they were fleeing in the first instance^

CMany years ago Nathan Straus went to a Lakewood hotel to pass
a few weeks at that rather exclusive winter resort. The manager
told him, "No Jews here." So he built a hotel next to it for Jews only.
The result was that in a few years hundreds of little and big "Kosher"
hotels swamped the place. What happened to the "No Jew" place is
history. The natives have not yet regretted the change. Last Christ-
mas there was a Jewish flag on top of the community's Christmas tree
on Main Street^)

THE HOME-COMING

Vjt takes an extreme courage to "face the music" of racial
hostility as an individual. More often the tendency is to
return to one's own people, to the small but human and
sympathetic group of the family and the Landsmannschaft,
where one is appreciated and understood. The applause is
not so loud, but it is more genuine]} That is why a number of
large and sumptuously furnished synagogues on Douglas
Boulevard are considered merely as branches of the dilap-
idated shacks in the ghetto. The older folks find these new
buildings with their strange ceremonies cold and uninviting,
and on Sabbath and the holidays they return to pray in the
familiar, though humble, structures where they find their
cousins and Landsleute.

1 Chicago Chronicle, January 16, 1925. * Bercovici, loc. cit.270

THE GHETTO

Life in the fashionable hotels is boredom to most of their
inhabitants who have come from the ghetto or even from
Deutschland. The patent leather slippers fit a little too tight-
ly and the tuxedo suit is a little too snug; and most of all,
there is nothing to do.

Wonder how many of the North Shore Ma Jongg Brigade and
Bridge Regiment are members of a literary group or study circle?
How many of these overfed, bejeweled, loud-voiced mink-coated
women belong to the Council of Jewish Women, or theHadassah? What
interest in life have these noveau riche besides cards and parties and
rechilos?1

at has held the Jewish community together in spite
of aft4:hese disintegrating forces is, not only the return of
disappointed Jews who have sought to get out, and, failing,
have returned to become apostles of nationalism and racial
consciousness, but also the fact that the Jewish community
is treated as a community by the world at large. The treat-
ment which the Jews receive at the hands of the press and
the general public imposes collective responsibility from
withoitb^The New York Jewish Community (Kehillah)
owes itVformal organization, at least, to such an external
stimulus:

Beginning with the mass immigration of Eastern European Jews,
one generation ago, the problem of organizing the Jewish community
in New York City became more acute from year to year. But the
formative forces making for such an organization were continually
gaining strength, and it required some external impetus to bring these
forces into play and to precipitate the formation of a Kehillah, or Jew-
ish Community, in this city. This external impetus was supplied by
the Bingham incident, in the fall of the year 1908. General Bingham,
who was then Police Commissioner of New York, made a statement
that the Jews contributed 50 per cent of the criminals of New York
City. This statemen^was afterwards retracted as the result of many

1 Chicago Chronicle, February 6, 1925.THE RETURN TO THE GHETTO 27

meetings held by Jewish organizations, which protested vehemently
against this unfounded accusation. While probably undue importance
was attached to this incident at the time, it is certain that it sufficed
to arouse the community consciousness to a degree where the organi-
zation of the Kehillah became feasible.1

In Chicago the Jewish community is only in an embry-
onic stage of formal organization. There is a Kehillah, but it
includes only the orthodox synagogues. But on the other
hand, the centralization of fund raising and communal in-
stitutions has brought about a degree of unity in recent
years which eclipses the solidarity of theN Jewish community
in any other large city of the country.CUntil recently the
German Jews, i.e., the reform element, and the Russian
Jews, or orthodox element, each had its separate set of com-
munal institutions. Consolidation for any length of time of
the more important communal enterprises invariably was
frustrated by the internal dissensions of the factions. Again
under the impetus of external pressure the group was welded
into a solid mass^

Nothing probably has done more in this direction than
the revival of anti-Semitism. The attacks of Henry Ford
and the organization of the modern Ku Klux Klan have
mobilized the Jewish community into numerous organs for
combat. The immigration legislation has called into exist-
ence national and local organizations for political action.
And the cataclysmic changes in the economic condition of
Eastern-European Jewry has produced international Jewish
relief organizations which collect millions of dollars annually.
Finally, the revival of anti-Semitism on a world-wide scale,
with the heightened social consciousness of the Jews, has

1 Harry Sackler, "The Kehillah of New York:^. Brief History," Jewish
Communal Register of New York City, New York, 1918.>72

THE GHETTO

turned the Utopian Zionism of the nineteenth century into an
active nationalistic movement with practical objectives and
organized political action^ The alarming rate of intermarriage
has turned the Jewish community inward and caused it to
scan its social structure with a more critical eye. The un-
bounded faith in nostrums so characteristic of the Jew is
shown by the promptness with which he turned to a recon-
struction of what he considered the weak spots in this struc-
ture. The slogan has been, "For God's sake let us do some-
thing !" A recent editorial reads:

The Jewish community of Berlin, Germany, has recently pub-
lished some interesting statistics. In the year 1922 there were regis-
tered in that great city 1,422 Jewish marriages, out of which 781
(more than half) represented intermarriages. Leaders of Berlin Jewry
are naturally agitated over these figures, and they are now looking
for ways and means whereby the tide of intermarriage in that city
could be stemmed.

The causes of this startling phenomenon are not hard to find.
German Jewry has for the past half-century busied itself with com-
bating anti-Semitism. In recent years we have been hearing a great
deal about a variety of cultural Jewish work of a very high order which
has been done in Germany in general, and in Berlin in particular. All
this, however, has been carried on primarily by the goodly number of
East European Jews who in the last few years moved to Germany, and
by the German Zionists. These two elements, however, constitute
only a minority. The majority of native-born German Jews who are
at all interested in Jewish questions have been concerned about anti-
Semitism more than anything else. Of course, since the tide of anti-
Semitism is strong in Germany, the Jews of that country naturally
had to fight it. But then German Jewry committed a serious error
by devoting its best energies toward this negative activity. German
Jewry should have realized that propaganda against anti-Semitism
does not give its youth anything constructive, and it cannot therefore
keep them within the Jewish fold. What the Jewish youth needs is
knowledge and inspiration, and this German Jewry has failed to give
them. There are, of course, a number of other reasons for the increaseTHE RETURN TO THE GHETTO

273

of intermarriage among German Jewry, but we maintain that the
strongest reason is to be found in the absence of a vigorous religious
life among our people of that country. When Jewish young men or
women marry out of their race, it simply shows that there is nothing in
Judaism which they love or care for.

Let American Jewry study these facts and learn a much-needed
lesson. The Jews of this country are seriously divided on religious
questions. All of us, however, are agreed in our opposition to inter-
marriage. At present it is no secret to anybody that the number of
intermarriages in this country is quite large, and that it is constantly
on the increase. This number will undoubtedly grow and multiply if
we don't wake up to the seriousness of the situation. The leaders of
our communities believe that our greatest problem is charity and re-
lief; but while we do not wish to minimize the importance of these
activities, we know that the spirit of charity alone is not going to keep
our youth interested in Judaism. The panacea for Jewish ailments is
Torah v'avodah, study, and practice. If the Chicago Jewish com-
munity is not to repeat the unpleasant experience of Berlin, we must
impart to our youth Jewish knowledge, and we must train them in the
ways of Jewish life.1

Appeals similar to the foregoing have frequently been
made in the local community. The result has been a revival
of interest in "Jem&i education," the building of additional
Hebrew schools of a modern type, conducted along the lines
of the latest pedagogical principles. The support for these
schools has come not only nor even mainly from the ortho-
dox Jews. Even the Reform Jewish section has taken an
interest in the revival of religious learning; if not for their
own children, then at least for the children of the ghetto.

(Apparently there is no limit to the extent to which pres-
sure from the outside is able to solidify a groujpThe height-
ened group-consciousness of post-war days is seen even in
the consolidation of the irreconcilables in the community:

1 Sentinel, January 16,1925.274

THE GHETTO

Merging our forces: Last week we ventured to express the predic-
tion that the future type of American Judaism will consist of a com-
promise between reform and conservatism. We were therefore happy
to observe that our views are being corroborated by careful students
of the trend of American Jewish life. The Jewish Morning Journal,
which is a large and influential Yiddish daily of New York City, in
discussing the resolution passed by the convention of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations to call a conference of all the Jewish
religious bodies of the United States for the purpose of advancing
Judaism, made the following comment:

"The boundary lines between reform and conservative Jews are
not being effaced by resolutions, but by the forces of life. But the
resolutions are symptomatic of the changing conditions. The tendency
is undoubtedly toward the right, the majority of Jews leaning towards
orthodoxy, even if they are not very pious themselves. And yet it is
becoming more and more difficult to distinguish between Polish and
Lithuanian Jews who graduate from the Hebrew Union College (a
reformed seminary) and their landsleit who are educated at the New
York Jewish Theological Seminary. A federation of the United
Synagogue, whidh represents orthodoxy, and the Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, which represents reform Judiasm, is inevitable
and will come about sooner or later."

We simply wish to add that the Jewish Morning Journal has al-
ways been a conservative newspaper, championing orthodoxy, and
vehemently opposing reform. That the above words should emanate
from so unexpected a source is truly a sign of the times.1

Between 1914 and 1924 the American Jews raised the
stupendous sum of sixty-three million dollars for the relief of
the Jewish war-sufferers. This sum came from 900,000 con-
tributors. Among the most active of the "drivers" were
Jews who had hitherto taken little interest in the Jewish
community. But

.... The touch of common danger made all kin. In the pools of
war-blood all Jewish hyphens have been washed away. Jews today

1 Ibid., February 6, 1925.THE RETURN TO THE GHETTO

275

are closer together than ever before. Louis Marshall and Judge
Horace Stern are espousing a Jewish agency for Palestine (formerly
they were anti-Zionists). Samuel Untermeyer is pleading the cause of
Zionism. These examples could be repeated a thousandfold.

We are no longer orthodox and reform, conservative and radical—
all are becoming united, bound together by that ancient formula,
"I am a Jew!" And for this we owe our brethren across the sea an
eternal obligation which outweighs our help to them, as fidelity to
faith casts the scales of Israel against even the gold of unselfish char-
ity.1

In these campaigns the Chicago community stood second
only to New York in the size of its contributions. The extent
to which the local Jewish community has grown and has
become capable of collective action is decisively demon-
strated by its local fund-raising campaigns for communal
activities. In 1923 the sum of $2,500,000 was raised through
official channels in Chicago. In 1925 a "drive" for $4,000,000
was started under the slogan "Are You a Jew?" which was
oversubscribed. The chairman of this campaign expressed
himself as follows:

The United Drive for $4,000,000, of which I have been made
chairman, has taken as its slogan this query, "Are You a Jew?"
Many of you, understanding the question in its true significance,

answered it in the spirit of those who asked.....Of those who could

not so accept it, there are three classes. First, there is the Jew who is
wise—wise not in the ways of sacrifice nor in the ways of service, but
wise in the ways of the world. His are the little wisdoms of the time-
server and the menial. He hungers after the aristocracies of wealth
and social place. But despite every guile and every circumvention to
which that hunger goads him, the doors of all snobbery are forever
slammed in his face. He shall not enter them though he deny his father
and cast off his mother. Yet for him there is a hope of salvation. Let
him remember that, though he has striven in vain for the prizes to be
won in Vanity Fair, he may still make for himself a place in the only

1 Henry H. Rosenfelt, This Thing of Giving (New York, 1924), p. 325.276

THE GHETTO

aristocracy Jews can ever know. I mean the Aristocracy of Souls.
There he will be rated by his impulses, not by his vocation. There he
will be judged by what he gives, not by what he has. There he will be
ranked as noble or ignoble by the nobility of his own soul, not by the
blood that flows in his veins.

And second, there is the Jew who is frightened and ashamed.
Ashamed of what? And why afraid? Is he not in America, in our
Blessed Land of Promise, where he is assured equality and the end of
all oppression? Then why does he speak of his Judaism in whispers,
and cower if he thinks himself overheard? Because, though his body
is safe, his soul is still dark with the shadow of the pogrom. Because
though his speech and his manners are American, his heart is still
heavy with the dread of persecution. Because some inner sense of
shame has made him shameful. Because some inner servility bids him
accept exile as his due, and the ghetto as his rightful dwelling place.

Through pretense and through denial he seeks escape. But from
what? From the shame in his own heart, there is no escape. From his
obligation as a Jew, to Jews, there is no escape. There is no escape
from his ancestry, there is no refuge from himself. His kinship with
his people is deeper than he knows, deeper far than he dares acknowl-
edge. He is shackled forever to the past from which he comes. Let
him then learn that his personal freedom is forever bound up with the
freedom of all Jewry. Let him learn that, as the shame and the fear of
the Jew in Russia have become his fear and his shame, so is the oppor-
tunity of the Jew in Russia his opportunity. Let him be imbued with
the simple courage of the Jew who can accept, without fear and with-
out shame, the fact of his Jewishness, as without fear and without
shame that same Jew accepts the fact of his Americanism.

And third, there remain those who, falling into neither of these
categories, were nevertheless troubled by the publication of the slogan.
These are my personal friends—generous men, men of warm hearts
and wide experience, in the best sense of good Jews, who have come
to me with the frank disagreement which is the privilege of intimates.
.... Their love for me is as staunch as their loyalty to our cause,

but they regret what they describe as my want of dignity.....What

they call want of dignity, I call reverence. What they think unseemly,
to me is sacred. I wish, no more than they, to cry our ancestry in the
market place, nor to flaunt our faith where it is irrelevant. But inTHE RETURN TO THE GHETTO 277

this drive, what we are matters—it cannot be forgotten or hushed over.
This is a drive for Jews to carry the burden of Jews. It matters ter-
ribly that we should know—that we should ask, one of the other,
"Are you a Jew?"1

As the chairman of this drive put it, "there is no escape,"
for the whole community combined to make escape impos-
sible.

Here is the essence of the recent membership campaign of the
Jewish Charities of Chicago, a campaign so far-reaching in its incep-
tion, so thorough in its execution, so amazing in its results, that it
challenges every non-Jewish citizen of Chicago to stop, look, and
listen; and while listening, respectfully to remove his hat. At the
beginning of 1924, this central organization of twenty-six affiliated
Jewish Charities, with regular subscriptions amounting to somewhat
over $1,090,000, faced a deficit of $200,000.00 for the fiscal year.

On November 11 of that year, at the close of a four weeks' mem-
bership campaign, 9,000 new names had been added to the list of
regular subscribers, making a total membership of 21,000; and the
extraordinary momentum of the drive is still bringing in new sub-
scriptions, daily, in substantial numbers.

Meeting of the deficit was the smallest part of this achievement.
Deficits have been met before. This one could easily have been wiped
out by laying the figures before a few loyal and generous subscribers.
The heart of the business is in those 9,000 new memberships, averag-
ing $18 each; in the astonishing fact that practically every Jew in
Chicago capable of contributing ten dollars or more to charity was
given the opportunity—perhaps several opportunities—to subscribe.

"You are not begging. You are offering a privilege," reads the
team-workers' manual; and from the beginning to the end of the
solicitation this tone was consistently held.

The inner workings of such an undertaking have a vital signifi-
cance. It will interest you to know that for five years before this census
taking an unofficial clipping bureau had blue-penciled and noted the
Jewish names mentioned by Chicago newspapers in connection with

1 Jacob M. Loeb, Are You a Jew? Address delivered at Sinai Temple,
November 1, 1925, published in pamphlet form.278

THE GHETTO

real estate transfers, weddings, parties, robberies of valuable jewels or
fur—even in the "Lost and Found" columns. Such prospects were
carefully cleared against the subscribers' list of the Jewish Charities,
and divided among the volunteer solicitors who took the census.1

Then followed personal calls, often in committees; and
when these failed to bring the desired subscription the cul-
prit was called upon by some important member of the com-
munity whose personal solicitation was considered sufficient
pressure. There were rallies and dinners at which oppor-
tunity was given for those who had already contributed to
win added recognition by increasing their subscription in the
presence of the most distinguished members of the com-
munity. If the ability to act corporately be the test of a
community, then the Jews of Chicago are well on the way
to becoming a community.

There are at the present time approximately 300,000
Jews in the city.2 Of these, 159,518 gave Yiddish or Hebrew

1	"Taking the Census," Social Service, January, 1925.

2	The exact number of Jews in Chicago has never been determined. In
1902 the Jewish population was estimated by the Jewish Encyclopedia as
80,000. A study made by the Chicago Tribune, based upon the 1910 census,
indicated a population of 134,834. The next figures are those taken from the
school census of 1914, which showed 166,134 foreign-bora Russians and
native-born of Russian fathers. At least 90 per cent of these, or approxi-
mately 150,000, may be reasonably estimated to be Jewish, of Russian
birth or parentage. The Jewish Yearbook estimated the total Jewish popula-
tion of Chicago in 1918 to be 225,000, and in 1922 the school records indi-
cated a total Jewish population in the city of 285,000. The distribution of
this population is as follows (from "Jewish Social and Recreational Needs of
the Jewish Community of Chicago," manuscript):

Lawndale.................99,000 Irving Park (Albany Park).. 4,500

Northwest................77,000 Englewood................ 4,000

West Side................. 73>°°° Rogers Park............... 3,000

South Side................30,000 North Side................ 6,500

Incomplete tabulations of the 1920 census indicate a larger Jewish
population on the South Side and the North Side than here given, but a
considerably smaller number on the near West Side.THE RETURN TO THE GHETTO 279

as their mother-tongue in the United States Census of 1920.
This indicates that substantially more than one-half, and
probably three-fourths, of the Chicago Jews are Russian or
Eastern Jews. The rate of influx of these Jews has prob-
ably been somewhat reduced, however, by changed im-
migration laws.

CWhile the ghetto has been emptying, there have been
few new recruits to fill the vacancies. the past it was the
influx of a constant stream of orthodox Jews that was relied
upon to hold the community together and to perpetuate the
faith. Today, however, this force can no longer be depended
upon. The revival of race prejudice against the Jew has
served as a substitute. It has immensely stimulated group-
consciousness and strengthened solidarity. It has turned a
great number of Jews who were in the advanced stages of
assimilation back to the tribal fold. It has given impetus to
the Jewish nationalistic movement and to orthodoxy^

Prejudice from without has revived the ghetto wall, less
visible, perhaps, than before, but not less real^The rise and
decline of the ghetto seems to be a cyclical movement. As
the Jew emerges from the ghetto and takes on the character
of humanity in the outside world, the ghetto declines. But
as this freedom is restricted, generally as a result of too
massed or hasty an advance, distances between Jews and
non-Jews arise; and the retreat to the ghetto sets in. The
very existence of the ghetto tends to hold the larger Jewish
community togethei^ Jews like Lewisohn and Philipson
rightly see in the persistence of the modern ghetto the core
of the "Jewish problem":

The modern ghettos, the Jewish quarters in the large cities of the
world .... are another direct result of the officially instituted ghetto
of the Middle Ages. The poverty-stricken huddled together in these28o

THE GHETTO

districts, because here they find companionship and sympathy, and
their social instinct is satisfied. But at least they are not forced to
stay there, and as soon as they desire, they can remove thence. If
such a thing as a Jewish question in any but the religious signification
of the term can be spoken of in this country, it is in reference to these
Jewish quarters in New York and other large cities, and their inhabit-
ants. How to break these up and disperse their denizens over the
surface of this broad, fair land, and make them self-supporting, self-
respecting citizens, is the great problem now pressing for solution.
.... These voluntary ghettos are a constant menace, for they arouse
the worst passions of non-Jewish demagogues, and the Jews are re-
ferred to as a class, and discriminated against as a separate body.
.... These last visible vestiges of ghetto existence must be wiped out.

They are fraught with menace.....Away with these ghettos, too.

The law cannot order their removal as it did with the officially insti-
tuted ghetto. Voluntary effort alone will accomplish it. In the words
of the old prayer, "May we see it done quickly in our days."1

^While the Jews see the modern ghetto as a menace to
their status as persons and as citizens, the inhabitants of
the ghetto itself are immune to the conflicts that disturb the
peace of mind of the rest of Jewry. The "Jewish problem'' is
a problem of a divided consciousness that is experienced by
the partly assimilated Jews on the frontier of the gentile
world, not by the inhabitants of the ghetto itself, who cling
to the warmth of the familial and tribal hearth^

^The modern invisible ghetto wall is no less real than the
old, because it is based on the sentiments and prejudices
of human beings who are products of distinct cultures, and
upon the most fundamental traits of human nature that
govern our approach to the familiar and our withdrawal
from the strange.\JThe Jews as individuals do not always
find the way to assimilation blocked. They make friends as
well as enemies. It is not altogether obvious, however, that

1 David Philipson, op. citpp. 217-19.THE RETURN TO THE GHETTO 281

the contacts between cultural groups inevitably produce
harmony as well as friction, and that the one cannot be
promoted nor the other prevented by any ready-made ad-
ministrative devices, 'interaction is life, and life is a growth
which defies attempts at direction and control by methods,
however rational they may be, that do not take account of
this dynamic process. In the struggle to obtain status, per-
sonality comes into being. The Jew, like every human be-
ing, owes his unique character to this struggle.^CHAPTER XIV

THE SOCIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF
THE GHETTO

NON-JEWISH GHETTOS
The ghetto is a chapter in the history of the Jews and of
Western civilization worth the telling for its own sake. But
the ghetto has a much wider significance which makes it
of interest to the student of human nature and society.
What we find in the ghetto is essentially the same phenom-
enon that we see in the social life of other minority groups
who live side by side with one another, or, as often is the
case, live side by side without one another. Whether it be
the treatment of the Czechs in the Austrian Empire of the
Hapsburgs, or Fiume in the Italian Irredenta, or the British
in India, or the whites in the cities of China, or the Chinese
in San Francisco, fundamentally the problem is the same,
because the human nature aspects of the situations are akin
to those of the ghetto.

The relations between the two groups in such instances^
are usually relations of externality. Problems are settled by
rules and laws, not by personal contact and intimate dis-
cussion. It is because the contacts between the larger and
the smaller, between the dominant and the subordinate
groups, are confined to mere externals that they are able to
live jsq close to each other at all. In such cases human
groif manage to live side by side, much like plants and
anim ■, in what is known as symbiosis. The economy that
arises persists without consciousness being at all involved.
But among human beings consciousness and feelings will

282SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GHETTO 283

arise, and two groups can occupy a given area without losing
their separate identity because each side is permitted to
live its own inner life, and each somehow fears the other or
idealizes the other. ^This relationship has been properly de-
scribed as accommodation, to distinguish it from the assim-
ilation that takes place when two people succeed in getting
under each other's skins, so to speak, and come to share
each other's inner life and thus become oneX

The Jews drift into the ghetto, as %as already been
pointed out, for the same reasons that the Italians live in
Little Sicily, the Negroes in the black belt, and the Chinese
in Chinatowns. The various areas that compose the urban
community attract the type of population whose economic
status and cultural tradition is more nearly adapted to the
physical and social characteristics to be found in each. As
each new increment is added to the population it does not
at random locate itself just anywhere, but it brings about a
resifting of the whole mass of human beings, resulting finally
in the anchoring of each to a milieu that, if not most dear-
able, is at any rate least undesirable.

(What is important in this connection is, not where each
shaft locate, however, but the fact that each seems to find its
own separate location without the apparent design of any
one. Once in the area, each group tends to reproduce the
culture to which it was accustomed in its old habitat as near-
ly as the new conditions will permit. It is this tendency
which is responsible for the abrupt transition in local atmos-
phere as we sometimes pass from one street to anoftfr in
the patchwork of little ghettos that constitutes th^jreat
immigrant quarters of our large cities/^

Unlike the ghettos of old, these fSCw ghettos do not need
a wall or gates to keep the various species of man apart.284	THE GHETTO

Each seeks his own habitat much like the plants and animals
in the world of nature; each has its own kind of food, of
family life, and of amusement.

r^Tjie physical distance that separates these immigrant
areas from that of the natives is at the same time a measure
of the social distance between them and a means by which
this social^ distance can be maintained) This does not so
much imply mutual hostility as it implies and makes possible
mutual tolerance. These segregated areas make it possible
for the immigrants to avoid the ancient dictum, "When in
Rome, do as the Romans do," and permits them to be them-
selves^But the price that is paid for this freedom and re-
laxation is the loss of intimate contact with the other grouji^
Here and there an individual bridges the gulf and does
fraternize with the stranger, but he does so at the risk of
excommunication from his own group, without the assur-
ance of a welcome reception in the othef^ And yet it is the
occasional adventurer into the camp of the enemy or the
stranger who is finally the agent bringing about the fusion
of the two.

THE GHETTO AND THE SEGREGATED AREA

The ghetto illustrates another phenomenon in local com-
munity life, a phenomenon which underlies also the segrega-
tion of vice areas, of bright light centers, of bohemias and
hobohemias in modern cities.(lf we compare the medieval'
town with the modern urban community we find that the
two structures have something fundamental in common,
namely, the segregation of the population into distinct
classes and vocational groups) This process is essentially a
process of competition. Basically it is akin to the competi-SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GHETTO 285

tive co-operation that underlies the plant community. It
differs from the plant community in that human beings are
more mobile, and through locomotion can seek those areas
in which they can most satisfactorily gratify their fundamen-
tal interests and wishes.

Just as there was a natural ghetto, a voluntary ghetto,
before the ghetto was decreed by law, so vice areas existed
before police regulations drove the prostitutes into restricted
zones, and just so business centers arose before city planners
and zoning ordinances took cognizance of these specializa-
tions in the urban economy. And as the ghetto persists long
after it has been abolished by law, so the red light district
goes on long after a righteously indignant populace assuages
its conscience with the conviction that vice has been driven
out of town.

This specialization of interests and cultural types is at
bottom a phase of the elementary process of the division of
labor. Each area in the city is suited for some one function
better than for any other. Land values, rentals, accessi-
bility, and the attitude of its inhabitants and owners
determine, in the last analysis, what type of area it shall
become. The more fundamental of these factors is probably
that of economic values, for the sentiments of the people
tend ultimately to bow before this criterion which is the
expression of the competitive process. Ultimately a city
plan or any artificial regulation will be successful only" to
the extent to which it takes account of these factors and
to the extent to which it reckons with the fact that these
areas are the product of growth rather than of deliberate

Not only does each of these areas have its own external286

THE GHETTO

characteristics in the form of buildings, institutions, and
general appearance, but each also has its own moral code. A
population seeks an area in which it is tolerated and in which
the wishes of its members can be gratified with the least
amount of interferenceJ^The Bohemian drifts to the Latin
Quarter because there he can be himself, express himself
with the minimum of restraint. The hobo seeks the main
stem, not only because its institutions and standards of
living are suited to his personal requirements, but also be-
cause here he finds himself and makes his home. The immi-
grant drifts to the slum without even being aware of the fact
that he lives in a slurn.^

The ghetto furthermore demonstrates the extent to
which a local culture is a matter of geographical location.
The anthropologists have made us familiar with the concept
of the culture area by which they refer to the distribution in
space of more or less integrated complexes of material or
/ immaterial cultural traits. The persistence of traditional
j Jewish life seems to depend upon the favorable soil of the
I ghetto, upon exclusion from the disintegrating and corroding
I influences of other cultural areas. Once the individual is
/ removed from the soil to which he and his institutions have
been attached, he is exposed to the possibility; of losing his
character and disappearing as a distinct type^His institu-
tions, too, can ill afford the strain that comes witli migration
to another locality. That is why the synagogue in the
ghetto retains its importance in Jewish communal life which
it promptly loses as soon as it migrates to Deutschland. Each
of these areas has its own distinct types of dominant per-
sonalities which change as the local life of the group under-
goes transformation. Where the Jew lives is as good an in-
dex as any other as to the kind of Jew he is. \SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GHETTO 287

THE GHETTO AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

If we knew the full life-history of a single individual
in his social setting, we would probably know most of what
is worth knowing about social life and human nature. If we
knew the full story of the ghetto we would have a laboratory
specimen for the sociologist that embodies all the concepts
and the processes of his professional vocabulary. The in-
stitution of the ghetto is not only the record of a historical
people; it is a manifestation of human nature and a specific
social order.

£"The ghetto has been viewed in this study primarily as
aneffect of isolation. The isolation of the Jews has not been
merely of a physical sort, but it has been pre-eminently of a
^less tangible and less visible character. It has been the type
of isolation produced by absence of intercommunication
through difference in language, customs, sentiments, tradi-
tions, and social forms. The ghetto as we have viewed it is
not so much a physical fact as it is a state of mindj (The
isolation of the Jew has been akin to the type of isolation of
the person who feels lonely though in the midst of a crowd)

There was a time when students of human nature as-
sumed "that strikingly different customs have been pro-
duced by peoples with differing instincts, or with instincts
of different degrees of strength or intensity."1 The Jews, it
has been argued by some, are living a separate secluded
existence because they are haughty and clannish, and not a
sociable people. They lack in the instinct of gregariousness.
Fortunately, in the case of the Jews we have a long written
history, which leads us to believe that there was a time, at
least, when they were not clannish, when they were a people

1 Ellsworth Faris, "The Nature of Human Nature," Proceedings of the
American Sociological Society, XXXII, 25.288

THE GHETTO

of many contacts. The attempt that so many Jews of today
are making to break into the gentile world seems to be an-
other instance to the contrary. It is probably more correct
to say that the Jews became exclusive because at a certain
period of their history they were excluded. Another answer
would be that they were separate because they had a dif-
ferent cultural life from that of their neighbors.

If students of human nature have learned to be cautious
about any one thing more than another in recent years, it is
to be cautious about attributing the character of a people
and of an individual to human nature without a scrutiny of
the historical experiences of the group or the individualist
may be a platitude to say that the Jews are what their his-
tory has made them, but it is a platitude worth reiterating
(Jlie Jews owe their survival as a separate and distinct
ethnic group to their social isolation. The continuity of
their particular social life and their survival as a social type
depends primarily upon the continuance of this isolation,
just as the distinct character of any people depends upon its
exclusion from contacts with other peoples. What made the
career of the Jews in European ghettos so adventurous and
stormy was not the fact that they were so different from the
rest of the population, but that they were so much alike?)
"Where racial characteristics are marked, and where the
social distances that separate the races are great, it some-
times happens that the individual is not discovered at all.
Under these circumstances, as Shaler points out, the stranger
remains strange, a representative of his race, but not a neigh-
bor."1 As the Jew leaves the ghetto his type undergoes pro-
found transformation. He changes, not merely his dress, his
facial expression, and his bearing, but he generally complete-

1 Robert E. Park, ibid., p. 136.SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GHETTO 289

1 y transforms his consciousness: "In the vast tide of cos-
mopolitan life the Jewish racial type does not so much dis-
appear as become invisiblef^Vhen he is no longer seen,
anti-Semitism declines. For race prejudice is a function of
visibility. The races of high visibility, to speak in naval
parlance, are the natural and inevitable objects of race prej-
udice.'^

In quite another way the ghettp is able to throw light
on a subtle feature of isolation. (The ghetto is a cultural
community that expresses a common heritage, a store of
common traditions and sentiments. The attitudes and sen-
timents in the consciousness of the Jew, and the institutions
and practices in which they find their external expression,
have been centered around the religious life of that people.
The Jewish culture, to speak in anthropological terms, rep-
resents a synagogue complexT)The Jewish community of
today, like that of the medieval ghetto period, has much in
common with the modern sect. "Free intercourse of oppos-
ing parties is always a menace to their morale.....The

solidarity of the group, like the integrity of the individual,
implies a measure at least of isolation from other groups and
persons as a necessary condition of its existence."2 Within
the sect, as the ghetto clearly shows, life becomes increasing-
ly a matter of form. Finally the form has to be preserved at
all costs, though its content has long ago evaporated.

When the ghetto walls do finally crumble, at least suf-
ficiently to permit the escape of some of the inmates, those
that get a taste of the life in the freer world outside and are
lured by its color are likely to. be torn by the conflicting

1Ibid.

3 Park and Burgess, Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Chicago,
1924), p. 229.290

THE GHETTO

feeling that comes to hybrids generally, physical as well as
social. On the one hand there is the strange and fascinating
world of man; on the other, the restricted sectarianism of a
little group into which he happened to be born, of neither of
which he is fully a member. [He oscillates between the two
until a decisive incident either throws him headlong into the
activities of the outer world, where he forgets his personality
and metamorphoses into a new being, or else a rebuff sends
him bounding into his old familiar primary group, where
life, though puny in scale, is rich and deep and wanfr^

This same problem is not only encountered by the indi-
viduals in their own lifetimes, but it is the problem of suc-
ceeding generations in any immigrant group. This ac-
counts for the fact that the immigrant himself scarcely ever
is fully assimilated into the new group in his own lifetime,
and at the same time is seldom a criminal, but that his chil-
dren do become assimilated and are at the same time giving
rise to problems of disorganization and crime.^The ghetto
shows that what matters most in social life is not so much the
"hard" facts of material existence and external forms as the
subtle sentiments, the dreams and the ideals of a peopterr

What makes the Jewish community—composed, as u is
in otlr metropolitan centers in America, of so many hetero-
geneous elements—a community is its ability to act corpo-
rately. It has a common set of attitudes and values based
upon common traditions, similar experiences, and common
problems. In spite of its geographical s£parateness it is
welded into a community because of conflict and pressure
from without and collective action within. The Jewish com-
munity is a ^cultural community. It is as near^an approach
to commAnal life as the modern city has to off e/.

The anomalous status of the Jew is based upon.theSIGNIFICANCE OF THE GHETTO

solidarity of his communal life and his amazing ability to
act collectively, (it is his historical isolation—it is the ghetto,
voluntary or compulsory, medieval or modern, which not
only accounts for his character, but for the fantastic concep-
tion that others have of him. The history of the Jews and
the history of the ghetto are in essence a history of migra-
tions. In the course of these migrations the Jews have de-
veloped connections which have crystallized into what seems
to be an international organization. As a result the Jew ap-
pears to be not merely ubiquitous but something of a mys-
tery./ If, therefore, we have not found a solution to the so-
called "Jewish problem," is it not possible that in dealing
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THE GHETTO

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Zueblin, Charles, and Others. Hull House Papers and Maps.
Chicago, 1895.INDEX OF AUTHORS

Abrahams, Israel, 14,16,18, 19, 23,
30, 33, 36, 52, S3, 55, 57, 65, 79,
82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 102

Addams, Jane, 195-98
Adler, Cyrus, 144

American Jewish Yearbook, 149,

150,189, 278
Andreas, A. T., 153

Belloc, Hilaire, 64
Bercovici, Konrad, 227, 248, 263-64
Berliner, A., 2, 3, 57, 61
Bernheimer, Charles S., 137, 182,

199, 202, 203, 228
Browne, Lewis, 5
Burgess, E. W., 247, 289

Chamberlain, H. S., 63-64
Cohen, Israel, 52, 66-7, 79, 80-1, 88,
104-5, "i» 112-13, "6, 123-24,
125,128-29

Darwin, Charles, 66
Davis, Philip, 199
Depping, G. B., 13
Dixon, Roland B., 63, 70
Drachsler, Julius, 126
Dubnow, S. M., 30, 89, 90, 92, 98-
99,100

Eliassof, H., 153, 189
Encyclopedia Americana, 4
Encyclopedia Britannica, 33

Faris, Ellsworth, 287
Finkelstein, Louis, 57
Fishberg, Maurice, 65, 71-73
Fishman, S., 213
Franzos, Karl Emil, 35
Friedman, E. M., 87

Graetz, H., 2,13,16, 57

Heine, Heinrich, 49
Hendrick, Burton J., 145
Honiger, 20

Huidekoper, Frederic, 11
Husik, I., 86

Jacobs, Joseph, 12-13, 77, 79, 83,

118-19, I27
Jewish Encyclopedia, 2, 34, 153, 278

Kallen, Horace M., 128
Kautsky, Karl, 106
Kish, A., 46
Krakauer, Isidor, 41

Labbe et Cosartii, 12
Landesco, John, 250
Leiserson, W. M., 254
Leroy-Beaulieu, Anatole, 72
Levy, Kate, 202
Lewisohn, Ludwig, 123, 267
Loeb, Jacob M., 275-77
Low, Minnie F., 182

Meites, H. L., 153,iS4~55» 156,160,
161,163,172-73,175,180-81,185,
187,190
Melamed, S. M., 211, 214
Mendelsohn, S. F., 210
Meyerson, Abraham, 69

Park, Robert E., 247, 263, 265,

288, 289
Peters, Madison C., 132
Philipson, David, 2, 3, 4,11, 12, 13,
17, 22, 30, 32, 34, 35, 4i, 43, 44,
45, 46, 47, 53, 58, 59, 60, 61, 65,
82,114, 122, 130, 279-80

Rashdall, 83

Reizenstein, Milton, 203

301302

THE GHETTO

Ripley, W. Z., 66, 69-70
Rosenfelt, Henry H., 275
Ruppin, Arthur, 67, 79, 98, 117,126

Sackler, Harry, 270-71
Seman, P. L., 245
Shaler, Nathaniel, 288
Simmel, Georg, 78
Snowman, J., 68-69
Sombart, Werner, 76-78, 136

Stobbe, Otto, 13, 16, 17, 20, 35
Szold, Henrietta, 137

Taylor, H. O., 83

Waetjen, H., 77
Wechsler, I., 69
White, Andrew D., 83
Wiernik, Peter, 134, 143-44, 186

Zangwill, Israel, 117,118, 119-21
Zueblin, Charles, 200SUBJECT INDEX

Accommodation, 4, 18, 24, 29, 38,

62, 78, 202
Adler, Felix, 146
Adler, Liebman, 172
Adler, Samuel, 146
Agriculture, Jews and, 75, 90,103-4,
148, 156, 185; and colonization,
124,144
Alliance Israelite, 104, 124
Allrightnick, 249
Antidefamation League, 192
Anti-Semitism, 44, 106, 192, 291-92
Areas: of settlement, 4,128-29,149,
164,179,195-201, 254-56; natural
and segregated, 2, 4, 6, 9-10, 18-
27, 42; natural and cultural, 9,18,
20, 195, 202-3, 231, 256
Ashkenazim, 84, 131, 135, 142, 158
Assimilation, 108, 127, 131, 149

Badchan, 81

Badge, Jewish, 31,38, 61, 64-65,118

Batlanim, 81

Beggars, 81-82,172

Beilis case, 91

Besht, 98

Black Death, 41

Bnai Brith, 161-62,166

Borne, Ludwig, 49

Bund, 107

Burial societies, 61,158, 190, 207

Cabalism, 92, 97, 98,109
Caro, Joseph, 88

Cemetery: importance of, 60, 140-
41; of Frankfort, 48; of Chicago,
IS7-58» 160-61
Chajon, Nehemiah, 98
Chassidism, 87, 92, 97, 98, 109
Cheder, 61,91,108,147,168,176, 207

Chicago: Jewish settlement of, 144,
153-70; local Jewish areas in, 155-
56, 164, 166, 169, 172-73; Jewish
community organization in, 158-
59, 165; ghetto, 171-93, 195-240;
Jewish community growth, 189,
*92-93, 198-201
Chinesism, 127

City life, 4, 9, 18-20, 25, 33, 68-69,
72, 75, 90, 93, 95, 142, 146, 148,
202; and Jews, 75-76, 90
Collective action, 37-38, 60, 109,

138, 144, 162, 188-89, 274-78
Commerce, 14, 22, 24,49, 73, 75,134;
and trade, contrasted, 78

Community: crises, 45-47, 53, 188;
organization, 9, 18, 22-23, 38, 51-
52, 57, 60, 89, 123, 147, 167, 193;
disorganization, 38, 62, 148-49,
173, 194-201; problems, 37-38,
140-41, 165-69; life, 9, 18, 19, 26,

60-61,157;	closed, 68, 72; cultural
5, 6, 9, 51, 60, 97, 128; solidarity,
27, 37, 50-52, 56-57, 59, 109, 123,
141, 178, 273-74; and primary
contacts, 18, 20, 57, 72; non-
descript, 128; and collective ac-
tion, 290; and personality, 9, 123,
204

Communities, federations of, 56, 91;
contacts between, 36, 49, 54, 56,
85-86, 88, 89-90, 93, 99-100, 104,
128, 138, 144, 157
Connections, importance of, 36, 49,

54, 78, 85, 124, 134, 138-40
Contacts, primary and secondary,
18, 20-21, 25-27, 36, 42, 51, 78,
80, 94, 99, hi, 125
Control, social, 5, 20, 23, 37, 57-58,

61-62,	83, 216-20
Conversion: to Judaism, 30, 33, 67,

68, 89, 118, 161; to Christianity,
37, 5o, 58, 59, 68, 100, 103, 118,
137, 145, 222, 260-61

303304

THE GHETTO

Converts, treatment of, 81
Crusades, effect on Jews, 13-15, 29,
89

Culture conflict, 8, 42,' 51, 110, 125,
127,172, 263-69; and psychic con-
flict, 69, 263-81

Damascus incident, 144
Deutschland, 191, 246-61
Diaspora, 11, 51, 63, 67, 75,101,108
Dietary laws, 60, 68, 158, 224
Division of labor, 9, 38, 55, 228-29;

and mentality, 75-82
Dreyfus affair, 149

Ecology, of ghetto, 51, 52; and cul-
ture area, 286
Education, 54, 55, 61, 91, 93, 101,

148,176-77, 273
Einhorn, David, 146
Emancipation, 47-48, 88, 108, 115-
16

Enlightenment, 99,100, 102,109
Expulsions, 29, 33, 42, 114-15, 131-

32,136
Extra-territoriality, 56-60

Familiantenrecht, 154
Family life, 26, 37, 109, 141
Felsenthal, Bernard, 146, 166
Fettmilch incident, 45-46
Fires, in ghetto, 35, 41, 47; Chicago,
171-72

Ghetto: Administration of, 5, 20,
22-23, 54, 56-58, 91; autonomy
of 22, 23,54-58, 89-91,97,99-100,
124,144, 204; as an institution, 4,
6, 9, 18, 29-39, 5o, "8; as a
privilege, 19, 20, 21-23; a state of
mind, 8, 49, 69, 118; compulsory,
12, 29-39, 48, 51, 82, 285; disap-
pearance of, 74, 97-130, 240-61,
276; effects of, 36, 66-69, 71, 82,
93,122, 252; institutions in, 52,54,
60-62, 123-24; legislation, 12, 15-
16,18, 21-22, 29,40-44, 50-51,65,
93; location of, 30, 35, 36, 42, 50,

51, 192, 202; movement out of,
33, 36, 37, 38, 54, 58, 67, no, 118,

129,	191, 241-61, 279; origin of,
3, 18-27, 50, 123, 125, 203; origin
of word, 1-4; non-Jewish, 6, 20,
282-87; return to, *22-23, 263-81;
voluntary, 4, 18-27, 41, 50, 122,

130,	285
Goodman, Moses, 164
Gottlieb, J., 153

Greenebaum, Elias and Henry, 161
Guilds, and Jews, 45, 72, 79, 91
Gypsy, and Jew, 51,140

Haskala, 100, 103
Herzl, Theodor, 105
Hess, Moses, 104
Hinter~B erliner, 146, 170
Hirsch, Emil G., 146, 175,186,188
Hirsch, Samuel, 146
Hobo, and Jew, 51,198
Horner, Henry, 157
Hull-House, 188

Immigrant colonies, 4, 20, 124, 150-

51,195-98
Inbreeding, 67-69
Inquisition, 87, 131-32
Insanity, 68

Intellectuality, 76-77,107, no
Intermarriage, .50, 65, 67, 112-13,

125-26, 136, 137,145,161
Isolation, 4, 9-10, 20, 27, 33, 38, 62,
64, 65, 73, "8, 142, 287; psychic
and social, 71, 73, 82; Jews a
product of, 9-10, 34, 38, 62, 66-
69, 75

Jews: as nationality, 64, 101, 104,
108; as religious group, 53,64,108;
as cultural group, 64, 94, 108; as
hybrids, 66, 70; number of, 127,
136, 149-51; and capitalism, 76-
78, in; as intermediaries, 14, 36,
49, 78, 83; physical traits, 63, 64,
. 68-71; as ethnic type, 71,94, 287-
88INDEX

30S

Jonas, Joseph, 143-44

Kabbala. See Cabalism
Kalisher, Hirsch, 104
Khazars, 67, 89

, 19, 22, 23, 107, 212-14, 237

Landownership, 12, 25, 32, 41, 58,

72, hi, 131
Landsmannschaft, 142, 147, 168-69,

222-23, 254, 269
Lasalle, Ferdinand, 107
Lilienblum, Moses, 104
Lilienthal, Max, 146

Maimonides, 84

Marginal man, 36, 73,110

Marriage, 68, 80, 154

Marrams, 131-32

MarshaUikj 81

Marx, Karl, 106-7

Maskilim, 149

Maxwell Street, 231-40

Mayflower, Jewish, 133

Mendelssohn, Moses, 99, 100, 103

Messianic movement, 92, 98, 102

Migration, 11,13,25,51,89,124,140

Mobility, 13, 14, 25, 36, 51, 78; and

personality, 251
Money-lending, 24, 25, 49, 78
Mutual Aid societies, 138, 148, 157,

160-61, 207
Mysticism, 87, 92, 97

Napoleon, 112

Nationalism, 84,101,103

Negro, 6, 20,64,67,118; as successor

to Jew, 230-31
Noah, M. M., 104
Nomadism, 76

Pale, 3, 4, 79, 80, 88, 95,147

Peddlers, 78,135,143,148,154,167-
68

Persecution, 15, 44, 87, 91,131, 132,
144; effects of, 69, 71, 82-88, 92,
97; and nationalism, 102, 105-6
Personality, Jewish, 73; a product of
ghetto, 71, 122, 252; types, 9, 37,
38, 43, 79, 80-81, 225-26, 248
Pfefferkorn incident, 45
Philanthropy, 37, 54, 57, 61, 79, 80,
81, 136, 148, 149, 162, 166, 188,
192, 217, 274-78
Philo, 84

Pinsker, Leon, 104
Poale Zion party, 107
Pogroms, 89, 91, 93, 115-16, 147,
190-91

Population: density, 43, 51, 128,
146, 195; succession, 4, 146, 164,
191, 226-31; sifting, 5, 20, 51, 180
Press, 145, 148, 162, 178-79
Provincialism, 36, 72, 82, 86, 92, 94,
101,141,168

Rabbi: position of, 54-56, 79, 80,
85; salary of, 186; influence of,
83, 85, 144-45; Meir of Rothen-
burg, 48, 85
Rabbinism, 92,100
Race: Jews as, 62-71; disappear-
ance of, 125; prejudice, 64, 69, 87
Racial: colonies, 20; uniform, 64
Realestatenick, 225
Reform movement, 107-9, 142-43,

145-46, 150, 161-62,165
Religion, and race, 67, 68, 72; and

occupation, 78
Responsa, 48, 85
Reuchlin, John, 45
Riesser, Gabriel, 115
Romantic movement, 49
Rosenwald, Julius, 191
Rothschild: family, 48,49; Edmond
de, 104, Lionel de, 115

Sabbatai Zevi, 92, 98
Salvadore, Joseph, 104
Sanhedrin, 1123o6	THE (

Schlemiel, 79
Semites, 63, 66
Sephardim, 84, 131-37, 142
Shadchan, 80
Shamus, 55, 79
Shlakhta, 90
Shochet, 55, 79
Shubert, B., 155
Sicilians, 58

Sinai congregation, 165-66, 174
Slum, 33, 35, 47, 93, 147, 148, 196-
200

Smolenskin, Perez, 104
Social distance, 8, 9, 16, 27, 38, 50,
78, 118, 148-49, 173, 223-24, 268,
284

Social movements, 87,92,94,97-110
^HaTtype, Jew as, 70-71, 73, 81
Socialism, 101, 106-7, 148,149
Spinoza, 84, 88

Stranger: Jew as, 13-18, 20-22, 25,
26, 78, 111; r61e of, 36, 54; status
of, 60-61
Stuyvesant, Peter, 133
Sweatshops, 148, 186
Symbiosis, 21, 24, 282
Synagogue, 19, 23,36,37, 52, 56,87,
107, 147; in New York, 134, 148;
in America, 138; in Chicago, 158-
59; and community, 52, 57, 60,
140-41; as community center, 52,
54, 86, 123, 205-10; and temple,
165, 174; functions of, 52-55, 61;

influence of, 82-83, 86, 216; com-
plex, 289

Talmud: learning, 82, 97-99, 103;
culture, 92; students, 80; Torah,
147

Taxation, 17, 21, 24, 33, 54, 56-59,

79, 90
Theater, 225

Toleration, 4,16,18/20, 31, 90, 111,

112, 282-83
Trade, relations, 14, 22, 24, 25, 78,

229; routes, 50-51
Travel, 34, 36, 86
Tzofim, 221-22

Universities, 82, 83, 84, 93, 115, 116
Usury, 78, 99

Vocations, 15-17, 20, 23, 24, 29, 36,
72, 75, 77-79, 90, 93, 146, 153,
181-82, 185-86, 240

Wealth, 37, 57, 78, 79
Weltanschauung, 49, 142
Wise, Isaac, M., 146

Yeshiba, 61, 91, 108; bochar, 80, 249
Yiddish, 89, 100, 102-3, I47, I48,
167, 181; literature, 102; press,
148,180

Zemansky, David, 167
Ziegler, I., 155
Zionism, 101-5, r49

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