Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 235, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 October 1913 — NEW YORK GREATEST JEWISH CITY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NEW YORK GREATEST JEWISH CITY

FOR centuries it has been the custom of certain old world governments to confine the Jewish population to definite section of the cities where the Jewish* population has been large. These Jewish confines have been known as Ghettos. When the exodus of Jews from Russia, from Poland, from Roumania, and Hungary was at Its height these old world Hebrews took unto themselves that section of the lower East side of New York which lies east of the Bowery clear down to the East river and in the course of time this district became so wellnigh universally Jewish that the word Ghetto came to be applied to it. It was in reality a veritable Ghetto, comparable to the greatest Ghettos of the old world, only vaster. It is still today a greater city of Jews than the world has ever known. Accustomed through the centuries which have gone to be forcibly confined within a given area, transplanted to the new world, where no such restrictions have ever existed, these people have yet adhered very largely to their traditional habits. Held together not only by the bonds of orthodoxy, but by the scars of ancient political bondage, they have brought with them not only their religion, their racial traits and customs, but the forms of life and habits which their previous existence had Imposed upQn them. It would seem a misnomer, perhaps, to characterize any section of this wonderful city as “unchanging,” but the Ghetto represents more nearly unchanging New York than any other. Btreet Merchants. In the perspective of 30 years, or even 20 years, the lower East side has completely altered. Immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland and from Germany, who at that time practically possessed this section, have departed. Their exodus began with the advent of (he Jewish population. Certain streets were, however, retained by these nationalities until very recently, but now even this old guard has given up and the section is altogether Jewish, with a slight fringe of Italians. In other words, the great orthodox Ghetto of ten years ago is the self-same Ghetto today, only more so. Here and there a towering office building has taken the place of a tenement house or a ramshackle business building; certain magnificent schoolhouses, the largest in the world, have been erected, but the drift of life through all the old Btreets is just the same. Pushcarts line the streets to the inconvenience and demoralization of traffic, whole blocks of them, solid, in certain streets, and on these carts are displayed every conceivable article of necessity to human existence. At the corner of Essex and Hester 'streets is the same old Jewish labor market, where loiter the workmen waiting to be employed, carpenters with their saws and hammers, locksmiths with their huge rings of keys, plasterers, bricklayers, men of every grade, representatives of every trade, standing hour after hour, and frpm time to time bargaining, with a prospective employer over the price of their time and their labor. The peanut stands, the old women peddling Strings of garlio and bags of onions, the fruit venders and the pickle merchants with their pails of luscious cucumbers, pickled apples and tomatoes, and down under the shadow of the new bridge the fish women, whose wares are exposed to all the dust and dirt and filth that files through this miserably uncared-for section of the city. On almost every corner and scattered through many blocks, are the pavement soda water fountains, where •oda of many bright hues is dispensed at one and two cents a glass. The doorways are blocked by fat old women, whose chief occupation in

life seems to be to sit wit£ folded aims and watch the kaleidoscope of the street. Myriad children swarm under foot, shouting back and forth to each other, sometimes in Yiddish, sometimes in English, usually in sen-, tences of both tonguos. r ~'“ Changing, Yet Changeless. The very fact that all of this life is so precisely like the life of the East side eight or ten years ago naturally makes one curious to understand what has become of the influence of the public schools, the playground centers, the settlements, and all the other innumerable philanthropic charitable and educational institutions which have been established there for many years. As one walks through the streets there are few, if any, evidences of progress, It is still an orthodox Jewry. Ten yeaps ago thousands upon thousands of boys and girls, young men and young women, were looked upon as “Americans in process.” One naturally asks what has become of the Americans or what has happened to the process. In the answer to this Question lies one more of the interesting features of this situation. The lower East side is in the'nature of a great human sieve. Here the Immigrants come and locate immediately they have landed, for In this Ghetto they find a life in outward semblance similar to the life of the Ghettos they have left in Europe. Every one speaks Yiddish and consequently ignorance of English is no drawback. Jewish customs prevail. The prevailing atmosphere Is Jewish. Here they are at home. The schools, the settlements, and the social centers are open to their children, who are never slow to avail themselves of the advantages and opportunities offered them. But as soon as the younger generation has secured ever so slight a foothold, they are seized with the desire to move "up-town,” so they go to the Bronx, to East New York or to Brownsville, making place for the more recent arrivals from Europe. Thus it is that the East side while composed of a different population, is still the Bame; while changing It •Is still unchanged. The flux of life which continues month after month expels from its borders those who have become slightly Americanized. At the same time, receiving others of the orthodox type who maintain the standard of life and keep unsoiled from the world about them the oldtime atmosphere of the Ghetto. In certafn respectß the East side of today Is a better East side than of ten years ago. For one thing, there is less criminality of a serious character. Formerly young boys, scarcely out of school, took lessons from experienced pickpockets and practiced their trade among the throngs of the East side streets and the Bowery and on various crosstown cars which intersect the Ghetto. But a little time ago an ordinance was passed which made "jostling” in a crowd a misdemeanor and a penal offense. This practically broke the backbone of the pickpocket ring for jostling is essential to the successful operation of pickpocketing on the part of novices. The old-time Fagln no longer exists and the youth of the East side have learned that pocketpicking' dors not pay. Gambling exists because gambling will always exist In a Jewish population. It is a temperamental and racial trait. Municipal judges inform me tb«t drinking is on the Increase among the Jewish population of the East side. This has never been a racial characteristic. Drunkenness, like total abstinence, has heretofore been unknown, or practically so, among this population, but latterly there has been a tendency, especially on the part of the younger generation, toward the consumption of spirituous liquors, which has resulted In a marked Increase of drunkenness on the part of the younger Jews.