r •

PAGE TEN

44,

THE DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
-
-

Where are the Ghettos
of Yesteryear?

*,us.

E S S

MOTO
CARS

By JAMES FUCHS

T

HE Ghettos of Eastern Europe the wake of the new Ghetto: in 1896,
as distinguished front their Am- and for sonic time thereafter, Yiddish
erican counterparts, are liqui- dailies and periodicals were so liar-
dating through murder, battle, and rowly circumscribed in their spread,
sudden death. Liquidation in the that it was difficult to get one at an
East, thus far does not spell change uptown news stand. Whoever unfold-
-it spells destruction. Eastern Jo- ed one on a Brooklyn "L" made him-
derialis began to crumble at a snail's self conspicuous to curious fellow-
pace after the persecution of 1882— travellers. In 1898, the editorial rooms
. at a slow, but somewhat speedier pace of the Forward were ..one flight above
during and after the peygnAls years . of a beer saloon at the corner of-Bowery
19034907—with more people born and - Division . Saeet. On the stairway
into their miseries than emigrating leading to the sanctum, the ghosts of
out of them. Then came the Great all the herrings and frankfurters ever
Desolation of 1915-1918, scattering the eaten at the lunch-counter downstairs
Jewries of the East like chaff to all held a permanent and malodorous
the four winds—slaying by the ten mass-meeting. No second-hand deal-
thousands and thinning the ranks er in his sound senses would have
with a store fearful efficacy than riots given more than a dollar and a half
or emigration in their wake. The for the entire office furniture. The
Eastern Ghettos of Yesterday, 'lag- stove was cracked and smoky, the floor
gard, livid, and terrible to look upon, had been washed shortly before the
are still with us. In a sense, their Civil \Val-, and the visitors, on ac-
older aspects arc more glaringly con- count of a scarcity of chairs, had to
spicuous now, in the pale twilight of sit upon newspaper piles. Such was
a peace that is no peace, than during the normal aspect of a Ghetto redakt-
the darkness of the war. In cities sie of 1898. Twenty years later, be-
litc Warsaw, Vilna, Cracow, there are hold now marvels upon marvels! In
a few broad, wind-swept streets where the amplitude of East Side redaktsies,
the rich and the disheartened of the the old-time human types with the
Eternal People live and tremblingly shiny coats and fringed trousers have
swear that there have been no pog- given way to linotypes, the yellow
roms. But within rifle-shot of the linen of the editors is now supplanted
castles and snuggeries of these enuchs by yellow headings and the news-
the old Ghettoes persist, with blood- paper plants own houses ten stores
bespattered pavements, battered doors high, where elevators instead of fried
and ruined walls, crying aloud to the herring malodors are lifting you tip
beholder that the thing that has been to !leaven! On II6th Street a non-
still is . . . the old fable of wind and Yiddish paper has to be ordered, and
still competing for the wanderers' the sensation of the Brooklyn railroad
cloak is still applicable. Violence trains is now a rare copy of the
does not get the cloak—least of all Staats-Zeitung, in lieu of Her Tag
or The Jewish Daily News.
when the cloak is a gaberdine.

5,

Make It An I

Delivery in the Spring is Not So
Hear How 20,000 Owners th

This Christ!,

To be sure, the Jewish masses—and
their newspapers with them—have
made a conquest of uptown. But in
a rather important sense, uptown has
made a conquest of them. As they
crossed and overflowed the old-time
Ghetto bounds, they came in contact
with English-speaking America—
on garment-making Broadway, in
Harlem, in Brooklyn—wherever the
highs tide of the larger life carried
them after their 'prentice years down-
town. The trail of the sweat-shop-
worker's Americanization usually
leads back to the evening school as a
first milestone. Next in line conies
the reading of Woman Wear—the
daily bulletin of the garment trades
—which the cloak-operator need not
In surveying the changes of time,
read and does not read, but which
there are first of all the boundaries of
everyone in the trade above the low-
the Jewish conquest of New York to
est rank—every cutter, designer, sub-
be considered. In our greenhorn days
contractor—must read to keep abreast
of 1896 the Nova Hierosolyma of the
with the trade doings. The daily news
Atlantic border was so restricted in
purveyor in the vernacular comes
scope that it consisted of only three
next. There used to be intermediary
parts like Caesar's Gaul; downtown
stages leading from enthusiasm for
below Houston and north of Canal
the Forward to enthusiasm for the
street, a rustic neighborhood where
Brisbane editorials as witness a brief
Jewish hayseeds were supposed to
attempt of the Hearst papers, after
lire, known as B-r-r-onnsville, and a
Kishineff, to run parallel news col-
I I ngarian-Jewish annex, rather
umns in Yiddish and English. That
cleaner than the rest and presuming
was an excellent notion in 1903. It
upon its very doubtful "superior"
is an antiquated one in 1919. Our
civilization, including Houston Street
people do not stand any longer shiv
and stretching north as far as Tenth
ering at the brink of an ocean of
erect and Second Avenue. There English letters—they plunge right n.
i
was extant then a noticeable sprink-
without abandoning, however, the
mg of German goyim—a streak of
Yiddish world of print. For the true
Teutonism traversing the Ghetto in
answer to the question: Where are
au irregular line and dating front the
the Ghettoes of Yesterday? as ap-
time before the diasporic shake-up of
plied to New York, is this:
1882, when downtown was distinctly
The Ghetto of Yesteryear has
Teuton rather than Yiddish. This
changed
and is changing by exten-
other German element had a tight
hold on Avenue A and disputed pre- sion and inclusion. Twenty-five years
dominance on lower Second Avenue ago, it was sectarian, intolerant,
with the Jewish Hungarians, whence opinionated and exclusive. It is stilt
it branched out into Chrystie, Hous- opinionated, nt its old-time exclu-
ton and Canal Streets. (That was the siveness has given way to a compre-
time when to be a Dutchman was to hensive electicism. It admires im-
be the flattered darling of the Ameri- partially Abe Callan and Dr. Crane of
can press.) From the vantage-ground the Globe. On the walls of its home,
of their neater externals, the Dutch Ferdinand Lassalle finds himself in
and Hungarian Jews of the coffee- pictorial company with President
house region on Second Avenue made Wilson and with Washington cross-
common cause against the "Pollak" ing the Delaware. On the book-
of their scorn, who was considered shelves of Ghetto homes Abraham
socially impossible north of Houstrn Reisin contends for space with Joseph
Street. The alliance did not hold Conrad and the Massage of the l'res-
water on Avenue A, where Hungari- idents. The other day we paid a visit
ans and "Pollaks" alike were apt to to Maisel's book store in Grand
meet with the uncompromising rejec- Street, after an absence of several
tion of Plattdeutche anti-Semites. In years. After looking over the shelves
those days, Yorkville was a beer- we exclaimed in astonishment:
"Who reads 'Lime-House Nights'
swilling, pork-eating, sauerkraut-per-
fumed bailiwick of what the news- and 'The Beloved Vagabond' in these
papers used to call "our solid intelli- parts?" and the answer came back.
gent citizenry of German extraction." swift and pat:
Harlem above 96th and below 116th
"The sons and daughters of the
had just been discovered by a few people you used to know, ten years Ghetto of Yesterday has changed by fun of flux and stir and life, not the
At
extension and inclusion. Don't forget ghastly ridiculousness of a Pennsyl- W. C. Kettering Opens
daring Jewish spirits. The Bronx, ago."
New //ranch to Handle
twenty-five years ago, was an awe-
to mention, under the heading of in- vania-Dutch community two hundred
it
It is not only in range of dwelling
High Grade Cars tI
some wilderness, inhabited, no the and range of readings that the old- clusion our new Yiddish Greenwich years behind time! New fashions
story runs, by goats and recalcitrant time Ghetto has changed through ex- Village which heats the old one hol- crop up in the new Ghetto, and sonic
al
policemen only. Williamsburg, around passion and inclusion—its religious low when it comes to turning adulter- of them are laughable enough—but
Detroit is rapidly becoming a "high si
ated lunacy into an article of com- our thirst for yearning, our neighbor-
that time, was Deutsch to the core, life has likewise absorbed a good deal
ci
idea" city, according to \V. C. Kette
decidedly hostile to an incipient Jew- of the tone and temper of its Ameri- merce lie likewise sure to make men- liness, our broad humanity, and the
1168 Cass avenue, who has just is
ish settlement, and drinking the health can surroundings, without yielding up tion of our futurist painters and illus- Law of our Fathers—these are the o pened a new branch for luau dl ii g al
of Mr. Ahlwardt, just arrived front the ghost. In' the olden times, when trators, whose conspicuous incapacity undying fashions bequeathed to us by
pt
excels their goyisch prototype. Fi- the Ghettoes of Yesteryear which live
Berlin, in innumerable steins. . . . anyone said "rabbi," certain insepar-
nn
nally, don't forget that for the last in them." (American Hebrew.)
Of
A dozen brief years—counting from able epithets sprang up in your mind
five years or so our poets have been
1896—and presto! the ethnic land- like hammers in a piano when a chord
scope has changed to such an aston- is struck—such epithets as 'old." dividing their time between imitating French Talmudist Accepta
foreign
symbolists in Yiddish and
ishing extent as to he utterly unrec- "bearded." "skull-capped," "world-
Call to Americo Pulpit
kugnizable to all who spent the inter- estranged, and so on—an array of writing execerable vers libre in Eng-
lish."
To
which we made answer—
val away
New York. By 1908, adjectives that looks pitiful flO• in its
nearly all the Dutch villages of Man- lack of wide applicability. To the like the fattier of the Haggada speak-
New- York—Dr. Georges Baearat
has accepted a unanimous call from
hattan and Brooklyn are wiped off older type of ribbi, the bewigged ma- ing to the roshes—
of Ports-
the Jewish
the map—are deeply submerged by tron, holding up a slaughtered goose
frn
"No one doubts that when the most mouth,
to become its Rabbi. This
an
the rising Yiddish high tide. York- for his inspection, was the true prop
numerous Jewry on earth expands is the first rabbinate which Dr. Baca-
ville, Williamsburg, Avenue A are and pillar of a devoted congregation
and includes in all directions, it will rat has filled since he has been in the
in;
provinces now of the Jewish conquest. To his modern counterpart in an enor-
expand in some undesirable ones and United States.
of
Ahlwardt would starve now on Meser- mously enlarged New York Ghetto.
include a lot that is trashily imita-
Dr. Ilacarat, who was born in
l'a
ole Street, the last Plartaentsche Mo- young rather than old, smooth-shaven
tive and insincere. What of that
France, has earned great repute
hicans of the "F.bene"are moribund in rather than bearded, seminary-bred
As a race, we are pretty tough-fibred. unsung French and Jewish scientific
the midst of Russian surroundings; and anything but world-estranged, the
Ne
and 1 suppose we have lived down , circles for his studies in philology and
coffee-saloons are conspicuously in lady with the goose has ceased to he
vie
worse things than imitations of an history. During the war he was ac-
evidence between 70th and 86th Street a problem—unless lady and goose
impotent art. There are quite a fess- use in social and welfare work, for
where erstwhile only the pigs knuckles happen to be one and the same at the
the
humors of the transition stage which which he has received the warm
of the profane attracted a market; meeting of the I.adies' Auxiliary.
go.
y ou forgot to mention. There is the praise and commendation of the far-
during Passover week, matzoth be- There still exists in New York in-
ful
sub-contractor of yore, promoted to a rier French Ambassador to this coun-
came perforce the nourishment of the genious darshamin capable of read. manufactursehm, painfully decipher- try. NI. Jusserand. Dr. Bacarat is a
Th
Ilarlem heathen who has to travel all Mg ethical meanings into the most ing the Ness. York Times, at the bid- no
a lmuic
d
sch ol ar, theand has
net
on the faculty of
the way from Lenox Avenue to Third hopeless-looking Scripture texts—but ding of his daughter, in an uncom- d te
Rabb-
the
in search of leavened bread. Six years behold, instead of being represented fortable 'swell' Lenox
arc
fIC parlor, ical College of New York.
later, at the outbreak of the war, the by frowsy maggidim of alien aspect. with his heart yearning for the War- I
trei
rnj
Koscher delikatessen-geschaft, the the darshan—tradition is now carried I ieit and the house-front stoop in Or-
The large Jewish Communities of
W. C. KETTENRING.
Roman eagle of Jewish civilization, on by accomplished American schol- chard Street. There is his son whose Borisov, Novohorisov and Bobruisk
and
has been carried to the farthermost ars, silver-tongued Ilebraists writing mission in life it is to be a 'radical' are the scenes of continuous heavy high class cars, including the Locomo- t he
limits of the Bronx, where goysche an English of superb idiomatic t horn in the side of Mr. Nicholas' fighting between Polish and Bolshe- bile and Revere.
lice
barbarism, only a few years previous, strength. men like Brother Joel Bahl. Butler. There is his daughter, to vik forces. The latter are bombarding
Mr. Kettenring, who has handled ern
flourished without dairy-restaurants his hundertzwanzig jor!
whom the old man's conspicuous the houses, and the population is con- only the highest grade cars, says: ers.
and in clownish ignorance of Der
A friend of a sarcastic turn, to d o•ntown-ness is a weariness and a fined to the cellars. In the circum- "With Detroit's increasing prosperity kno
Grosse Kundes.
whom we read this brief account of vexation of the soir4. There are any stances, there can he no question of has come a change of ideas. The peo-
The mention of Der Kundes brings Ghetto-changes. had this to say:
lumber of comicalities—but Heaven carrying on work or trade, and very ple are fast adopting the ideas of the lam
to mind the first sweeping change in
"You are right—the New fork ,e thanked, they are the incidental little food is obtainable.
large eastern cities in motor cars as littl

When the hurricane of persecution
blows, the Wandering Jew does not
shed his cloak, and the Ghettoes of
today, thinned out and hollow-eyed,
are like those of yesterday. Only
under the suave sun of American life
do these rigors sway and melt and
get in the flux. The euthansia of the
Ghetto of Yesteryear begins the mo-
ment the Eastern immigrant sets foot
upon New York soil. It is a gentle
fading-out through enlargement, a
gradual entering into a new life rather
than the bitterness of death that
conies over the community of old, the
New York Ghetto as we used to know
it in our greenhorn days a quarter of
a century ago.

What better gift than an Essex?
Have all the year's use of it and re-
move doubt as to delivery in the spring.
There can be no advantage in waiting.
The Essex so leads in qualities which
must ultimately be the features of all
moderate priced cars that until they
can be incorporated by others, it has
no rival. Everyone says so. Hear
what owners are saying about the
Essex. More than 20,000 Essex cars
were delivered in 10 months. In
excess of $30,000,000 were paid for
them. A new sales record was estab-
lished, because every Essex owner
seems to have made it a point to urge
his friends to buy.

Note Its Economy

The Essex won its way through sheer
merit. What car has more champions?
Where can you find such perform.
ance, or fine quality and good looks?
Owners tell you how their car outper-
forms larger, costlier cars. Some have
driven their Essex more than 15,000
miles without a nickle for repairs.
The tire, gasoline and oil 'economy is
unusual. In these respects the Essex
is like light-weight, low-priced cars.
But the Essex also has the fine car
durability and the finish and looks of
higher priced cars.

It has their
Its acceleration, sp
always compared
priced field. So
qualities.

Three Mot
Choose

There are three r
from: the five-passen
roadster that has the
which is so arranged
ideal business vehicle
ing space under the
are fitted with full
curtains. The third
a five-passenger coo;
traveling sun parlor.
tection from all weat....
can be opened up to be
able in summer than an
But you have seen thest.
cars. They are all about yon
have heard all about them
owners.

The opportunity to get
in time for Christmas is y
act quickly.
It will be difficult to
in the spring if you wait
for practically every dea
orders on hand in excess o
son's supply.

THE BEMB-ROBINSON COMP)

286 East Jefferson Avenue

Is

from