Children of the Ghetto Part 68

"Yes, yes," interrupted Raphael, "it shall appear next week."

"G.o.d bless you!" said Pinchas, kissing Raphael's coat-tails pa.s.sionately and rushing without.

Looking up accidentally some minutes afterwards, Raphael was astonished to see the poet's carneying head thrust through the half-open door with a finger laid insinuatingly on the side of the nose. The head was fixed there as if petrified, waiting to catch the editor's eye.

The first number of _The Flag of Judah_ appeared early in the afternoon.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TROUBLES OF AN EDITOR.

The new organ did not create a profound impression. By the rival party it was mildly derided, though many fair-minded persons were impressed by the rather unusual combination of rigid orthodoxy with a high spiritual tone and Raphael's conception of Judaism as outlined in his first leader, his view of it as a happy human compromise between an empty unpractical spiritualism and a choked-up over-practical formalism, avoiding the opposite extremes of its offshoots, Christianity and Mohammedanism, was novel to many of his readers, unaccustomed to think about their faith. Dissatisfied as Raphael was with the number, he felt he had fluttered some of the dove-cotes at least. Several people of taste congratulated him during Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, and it was with a continuance of Messianic emotions and with agreeable antic.i.p.ations that he repaired on Monday morning to the little den which had been inexpensively fitted up for him above the offices of Messrs. Schlesinger and De Haan. To his surprise he found it crammed with the committee; all gathered round little Sampson, who, with flushed face and cloak tragically folded, was expostulating at the top of his voice. Pinchas stood at the back in silent amus.e.m.e.nt. As Raphael entered jauntily, from a dozen lips, the lowering faces turned quickly towards him.

Involuntarily Raphael started back in alarm, then stood rooted to the threshold. There was a dread ominous silence. Then the storm burst.

"_Du Shegetz! Du Pasha Yisroile!_" came from all quarters of the compa.s.s.

To be called a graceless Gentile and a sinner in Israel is not pleasant to a pious Jew: but all Raphael's minor sensations were swallowed up in a great wonderment.

"We are ruined!" moaned the furniture-dealer, who was always failing.

"You have ruined us!" came the chorus from the thick, sensuous lips, and swarthy fists were shaken threateningly. Sugarman's hairy paw was almost against his face. Raphael turned cold, then a rush of red-hot blood flooded his veins. He put out his good right hand and smote the nearest fist aside. Sugarman blenched and skipped back and the line of fists wavered.

"Don't be fools, gentlemen," said De Haan, his keen sense of humor a.s.serting itself. "Let Mr. Leon sit down."

Raphael, still dazed, took his seat on the editorial chair. "Now, what can I do for you?" he said courteously. The fists dropped at his calm.

"Do for us," said Schlesinger drily. "You've done for the paper. It's not worth twopence."

"Well, bring it out at a penny at once then," laughed little Sampson, reinforced by the arrival of his editor.

Guedalyah the greengrocer glowered at him.

"I am very sorry, gentlemen, I have not been able to satisfy you," said Raphael. "But in a first number one can't do much."

"Can't they?" said De Haan. "You've done so much damage to orthodoxy that we don't know whether to go on with the paper."

"You're joking," murmured Raphael.

"I wish I was," laughed De Haan bitterly.

"But you astonish me." persisted Raphael. "Would you be so good as to point out where I have gone wrong?"

"With pleasure. Or rather with pain," said De Haan. Each of the committee drew a tattered copy from his pocket, and followed De Haan's demonstration with a murmured accompaniment of lamentation.

"The paper was founded to inculcate the inspection of cheese, the better supervision of the sale of meat, the construction of ladies' baths, and all the principles of true Judaism," said De Haan gloomily, "and there's not one word about these things, but a great deal about spirituality and the significance of the ritual. But I will begin at the beginning. Page 1--"

"But that's advertis.e.m.e.nts," muttered Raphael.

"The part surest to be read! The very first line of the paper is simply shocking. It reads:

"Death: On the 59th ult., at 22 Buckley St., the Rev. Abraham Barnett, in his fifty-fourth--"

"But death is always shocking; what's wrong about that?" interposed little Sampson.

"Wrong!" repeated De Haan, witheringly. "Where did you get that from?

That was never sent in."

"No, of course not," said the sub-editor. "But we had to have at least one advertis.e.m.e.nt of that kind; just to show we should be pleased to advertise our readers' deaths. I looked in the daily papers to see if there were any births or marriages with Jewish names, but I couldn't find any, and that was the only Jewish-sounding death I could see."

"But the Rev. Abraham Barnett was a _Meshumad_," shrieked Sugarman the _Shadchan_. Raphael turned pale. To have inserted an advertis.e.m.e.nt about an apostate missionary was indeed terrible. But little Sampson's audacity did not desert him.

"I thought the orthodox party would be pleased to hear of the death of a _Meshumad_," he said suavely, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his eyegla.s.s more tightly into its...o...b..t, "on the same principle that anti-Semites take in the Jewish papers to hear of the death of Jews."

For a moment De Haan was staggered. "That would be all very well," he said; "let him be an atonement for us all, but then you've gone and put 'May his soul he bound up in the bundle of life.'"

It was true. The stock Hebrew equivalent for R.I.P. glared from the page.

"Fortunately, that taking advertis.e.m.e.nt of _kosher_ trousers comes just underneath," said De Haan, "and that may draw off the attention. On page 2 you actually say in a note that Rabbenu Bachja's great poem on repentance should be incorporated in the ritual and might advantageously replace the obscure _Piyut_ by Kalir. But this is rank Reform--it's worse than the papers we come to supersede."

"But surely you know it is only the Printing Press that has stereotyped our liturgy, that for Maimonides and Ibn Ezra, for David Kimchi and Joseph Albo, the contents were fluid, that--"

"We don't deny that," interrupted Schlesinger drily. "But we can't have any more alterations now-a-days. Who is there worthy to alter them?

You?"

"Certainly not. I merely suggest."

"You are playing into the hands of our enemies," said De Haan, shaking his head. "We must not let our readers even imagine that the prayer-book can be tampered with. It's the thin end of the wedge. To trim our liturgy is like tr.i.m.m.i.n.g living flesh; wherever you cut, the blood oozes. The four cubits of the _Halacha_--that is what is wanted, not changes in the liturgy. Once touch anything, and where are you to stop?

Our religion becomes a flux. Our old Judaism is like an old family mansion, where each generation has left a memorial and where every room is hallowed with traditions of merrymaking and mourning. We do not want our fathers' home decorated in the latest style; the next step will be removal to a new dwelling altogether. On page 3 you refer to the second Isaiah."

"But I deny that there were two Isaiahs."

"So you do; but it is better for our readers not to hear of such impious theories. The s.p.a.ce would be much better occupied in explaining the Portion for the week. The next leaderette has a flippant tone, which has excited unfavorable comment among some of the most important members of the Dalston Synagogue. They object to humor in a religious paper. On page 4 you have deliberately missed an opportunity of puffing the Kosher Co-operative Society. Indeed, there is not a word throughout about our Society. But I like Mr. Henry Goldsmith's letter on this page, though; he is a good orthodox man and he writes from a good address. It will show we are not only read in the East End. Pity he's such a Man-of-the-Earth, though. Yes, and that's good--the communication from the Rev. Joseph Strelitski. I think he's a bit of an _Epikouros_ but it looks as if the whole of the Kensington Synagogue was with us. I understand he is a friend of yours: it will be as well for you to continue friendly. Several of us here knew him well in _Olov Hasholom_ times, but he is become so grand and rarely shows himself at the Holy Land League Meetings. He can help us a lot if he will."

"Oh, I'm sure he will," said Raphael.

"That's good," said De Haan, caressing his white beard. Then growing gloomy again, he went on, "On page 5 you have a little article by Gabriel Hamburg, a well-known _Epikouros_."

"Oh, but he's one of the greatest scholars in Europe!" broke in Raphael.

"I thought you'd be extra pleased to have it. He sent it to me from Stockholm as a special favor." He did not mention he had secretly paid for it. "I know some of his views are heterodox, and I don't agree with half he says, but this article is perfectly harmless."

"Well, let it pa.s.s--very few of our readers have ever heard of him. But on the same page you have a Latin quotation. I don't say there's anything wrong in that, but it smacks of Reform. Our readers don't understand it and it looks as if our Hebrew were poor. The Mishna contains texts suited for all purposes. We are in no need of Roman writers. On page 6 you speak of the Reform _Shool_, as if it were to be reasoned with. Sir, if we mention these freethinkers at all, it must be in the strongest language. By worshipping bare-headed and by seating the s.e.xes together they have denied Judaism."

"Stop a minute!" interrupted Raphael warmly. "Who told you the Reformers do this?"

"Who told me, indeed? Why, it's common knowledge. That's how they've been going on for the last fifty years." "Everybody knows it," said the Committee in chorus.