IE DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE
AN OLD-FASHIONED ROMANCE
BY ETHEL TAUROG
FIVE
C.F.
NOTES FROM THE DIARY OF A CORRESPONDENT
BY HERMANN 110EXTER.
Up and out at Albany for a breath
The old grandmother sat on a bench
".\ young man like all young men"
in the park under a large shade tree. she replied: but it seemed to me that of fresh air, while the 'sorter does
A black flowered 'kerchief covered she did nut mean it.
And this is ''soap wait an Y 'Hi g ht. ' halgiag. 'Ellen
is to the window to follow the Hudson
her brad and was carefully knotted where the romance begins.
"One day I was sent into Aunt and watch the dark and lofty Cat-
under her chin. She looked over my
Gold
cis
home
to
return
something
sk.11s rise from the Mohawk valley.
shoulder at the book I was reading.
t gluttons, cool. sunlit morning.
"A romance?" she asked.
we had borrowed. I happened to pass '..-,,
,
f i „
close 10 the table Where my cousin, ' here ' a tite distance, the ' ait lights
I nodded.
"When I was a young girl we' did Pinchus, sat with Samuel, the teacher. up the Kaaterskill Nlirrititain House,
not know anything about books well A book dropped to the floor. Samuel, the S ""'" in"' and 3 "'we hostelry
romances. Maybe there weren't any the teacher, stooped to pick it up, and ' t witched an the ed g e at the Italia "
50 did I. when lie bad picked fin t
, „
1,000 feet :lose sea-level.
then; but that I can't tell you because
h e Moiffitain
hook I noticed a folded letter WI the F■ .1sr1 I . Viefe lip there. Or on my way.
I don't know."
oor.
I
off,
,,,,ords,.To
Rebecca,'.
I
'
lle
11101S011
still halls my atten-
saw
"Surely, there were romances then," f l
I asserted. "There have always been written on it in ink. There was no turn, with the magnificent buildings
other Rebecca in the whine not', of \Vest Point, gray against the green
romances."
and es , in in fin, whole
There
street of „floe. hills, fast rolling into view.
"Maybe," replied the grandmother.
"lint, you will Wiese me, though we we his, rl, except our Rebecca.
a , tittle wh'"
"'",
111 '" re'
nand,
and
,
.eery
W■
1111••S
rue
nisi
knew nothing about romances, there crushed the letter
, dress parade. a most inspiring sight.
was a romance right 111 our family." (velum; that my face was burning„
the
military
academy
in
the
ran Into our house and gas, the letter '
"Really!" I ejaculated.
i world.
If you're not ashamed to sit and In my sister. And so it soils that
rarr td ""
where
irvi
hf.f.non. l i k e you ,, ay
a
wrote and Where I used to go for "g
a
listen to an obi woman with a 'ker-
nut „ (jar that. lesson sew!' the master pianist and
was
carrier,
and
there
chief, 1 will tell can a true romance
,
teacher,
Rafael
Joseffy.
The l'ali-
which I saw with illy own eyes and I did not bring it letter to nrysisrer
Helier-ea from Samuel. the teacher, Or sides—nature's wonder wall liegin.
ill which I myself had a little part."
Hain' dir•ctly opposite the Ugly hi•-
The grandmother folded her hands a letter to Samuel, the teacher, front
torites which line the Youker's water-
in her lap and thought for a few mo- my sister Rebecca.
"How long this letter writing went wont. Then Spuyten-Duyvil, the bit
ments before she began her talc,
on I
g It'll
ho
of
water that makes Islanhattan an
cani n
you exactly. w
"I myself came from a small town
in Russia, where my parents and my knows how long it would have gone Is l and . and we are al New Yark '
rhe
city advertises its cleanliness
grandparents and my great-grand- on if my father had not conic back
parents wore horn. My great-grand- from another town, where he had
father was Rabbi Ephraim, and there gone 011 laiSilless, with soot' great
a story of struggle to success, 101 , 1
was not his equal in the whole prov- new,
with0111 ruCOUNO . 10 the usual tricks
H'e'll, my daughter,
said my
ince. Naturally his sons and his
of the dramatist. The hero is not
grandson — my father — were also father to Rebecca, 'I have found fen all good
and the vd/fnn_fiff•n, is no
learned; but my father was not a you a husband whost• equal you won't sillian in the piece. The acting of the
rabbi, and with him the long chain find in all Russia. Good luck to you leading
II character is such that the
of rabbis in our family ended, Nly and good luck to all of In. The en" stun' unfolds
itself on the screen
father had no sons, only' three daugh- gag•nient will take, place in thr . tre
with little need for the titles, although
"
the
first
der
ers.
You
can
understand
that
my
t
werk ' —et
ar the moth'' these, when they appear at all. are
father was anxious to get a husband
"When h r ha d "' tit ' a Y t "g that ' more in keeping with the characters
for his oldest daughter, my sister Re- R ;ilt eeettr the , a"' "' p airatal
than is usual even in the best of too-
becca, a well-learned and a poins wrote as a meet Or paiwe, and tears Hon pictures.
Even when Yiddish
filled her big black eyes.
youth.
words are in, rl, as they are in seV-
" t
"My sister Rebecca seas fifteen and
is from sudden joy,' my mother real places, the audience understands
a half years old when matchmakers said.
because the acting, not the reading
began to come to our house with dif-
R e,herea, "" t1
, l . wer e te tt !matter really does the explaining.
w
ill not mar-.
ferent kinds of brilliant matches for alone she saw firmly:
"It is the mother character we love.
her. For, let me tell you, besides the ry this man that our father has found
I will marry 1'r•ra Gordon play it, and, although
name of our family and my father's without asking me.
- r many believe that a beautiful girl is
Samuel.
the
teacher,
and
no
one
etse.
wealth, which meant a fat Bowery for
Rebecca, my sister was renowed for Then she gave me a letter to take to reviled , for a heroine in the movies,
' slie is the greatest heroine We 11115e
her beauty. Sometimes, when a Samuel, the teacher.
,„ ver seen. We cry with her and we
matchmaker was locked in a room
"I mad' up
mind no tell try are
e
not ashamed to admit it. Do we
with my father, Rebecca and I used mother about Rebecca's intention to
to creep up to the door and listen to marry the teacher; but when the en- cry because a Jewish mother is suf-
fering
and toiling that way for her
the virtues of the match which was gagement was celebrated and I saw
the groom whom my father had chos- F ill? She is no more a Jewish mother
being proposed.
than
she
is Christian, or Nfoham-
"However, matchmakers came and en for my sister—a thin youth with
went, for my father was difficult to stooped shoulder: and a foolish smile medals, or Buddhist. She is mother
the
world
over, and that s why we
suit. This Rebecca consideren very —and then I thought of Samuel, the
Her acting is real, her
his beautiful brown en-es lose her.
fortunate, for at that time she Ilan teacher. with
kind
if
characterization
is superb, and the
and his
smile,
fi•f that
already met Samuel.
were
Rebecca
I
would
run
away
with
more
Jewish
she
makes Mamma Kan-
"I told you, I believe—and if I
r tor the more unversal becomes the
didn't tell you I will tell you now - Samuel, the teacher, even to the end
mother love she portrays. That part
that the house in which we lived was of the world.
"Rebecca took the gifts that the of the picture alone makes it stand
a double house, and a heritage from
out
as one of the great attainments
my grandfather—my father's father. groom gave her. The wedding was
In of the film art.
In one-half of the house we lived and arranged for four weeks later.
"But even more than a picture of
in the other half lived our Aunt those days sye did not wait very long
(:oldie, a sister of our father, with after the engagement to celebrate the mother love, it is a vision of a race,
her husband and their three sons. wedding. Dressmakers began to and as such a vision dear to all man-
The oldest of the sons, Pinchus, was make clothes for the bride. A week kind. Its locale is the Ghetto, its
a year younger than our Rebecca. before the wedding hired cooks and diameters the poor, who strive to
Pinchus, our Aunt Goldie said, did other women began to help prepare find a better place in the world for
not have the head for becoming a for the wedding feast from early in their offspring, and in striving sacri-
rabbi, so she wanted hint to become the morning until late at night. A fice everything; its them, their suc-
a merchant. 'In order to be a suc- wedding then, you must know, lasted cess, not by overthrowing some vil-
cessful merchant in these modern a week, and sometimes longer. I will lain, so fondly presented on our
times,' our Aunt Goldie said, 'a man leave it to you to imagine all the ex- stage, but by overcoming the only
must know how to write a Russian citement in our house the last week villains of real life—poverty, ignorance
and lack of opportunity. What
letter and how to read a Russian let- before the wedding.
ter; and,' she said, 'in order to learn
"'Here, my golden little sister,' said greater subject could a dramatist
how to read a Russian letter and Rebecca to me, handing me a letter want? '1-11.11110reSqllei with ordinary
how to write a Russian letter, they to Samuel, the teacher. 'For what citizens of this country might have
say that it is necessary to learn gram- yoll have done for me I will never been a success; with its character-
garbed in Jewish clothing and with
matique. 1Vhere, she asked, 'can he forget you.'
the American-Jewish' dialect and the
learn grammatique?' As luck would
"In that note, the last one I ever Jewish pecularities it becomes in-
have it, somebody that heard his carried from my sister to Samuel, the tensely specific, its impressions be-
question recommended to Aunt Gol- teacher, they had made the plan for come stronger, and success is
die a teacher who knew the gram- running away.
achieved. But its appeal is none the
matique. So a teacher began to come
The day before the wedding a we- less to all. There is nothing in the
to Aunt Goldie's son, Pinchus, to
teach hint grammatirpre so that he man dressed in the clothes of one of story to offend one of any race or
the cooks, her whole fare covered as creed. And Catholic priest, Protes-
should be able to write a Russian
if she had the toothache, slowly tant minister, rabbi, movie actor and
letter and read a Russian letter. The
walked past my father and out into sweatshop worker all shed their tears
teacher's name was Samuel.
the street. Nobody paid any atten- and laugh their laughs together at
"I remember the first time I saw
tion to the woman except L who had this strange photo-play production."
him. I went to borrow a pestle for
climbed up to the attic and was look-
our mortar four maid had broken
Is it tragedy, ordinary drama or
ing out of the window. I suppose
ours), and I saw a strange young
comedy' Or is it something that
you have already guessed that the
man sitting at a table with Pincluts,
might be classified under one of the
W011iall was Rebecca. She looked
Aunt Goldie's son, and on the table
many subheadings that we have found
back once at the house and nodded
there were hooks. I stood there and
in the field of dramatic art of late?
her head. I stayed up there until I
could not take my eyes off him, so
That part could not lie gotten very
could hear the rumbling of the wheels
handsome he was. His hair was
clearly from the persons questioned
of the wagon no longer. Then I
brown like a nut, am! his eyes Were
by the inquiet-, so he went into the
wiped my eyes and went down int;
big and brown, and when he looked
theater and happened to stumble on
the house.
at one the heart began to beat
to the last bit of the last scene. Gas-
"What else should I tell you? The ton Wass, as Leon Kantor, had just
strangely. So much fire there was
in his look. When I Caine home I weeping and the wailing and the seek- recovered the use of his arm, crippled
could not tell my sister Rebecca ing that went on when it was found for a time by a shrapnel wound in
enough about Samuel, the teacher. that Rebecca was gone I lease to you the great war. The career as a en,
My mother overheard our and repri- to imagine. It was the first and only Inist which seemed wreeked was
time I saw my father cry.
manded me sharply.
again in a roseate view. The girl he
"'A girl,' she said, 'does Trot look
"Even when Rebecca wrote to us had jilted. Alma Mittens, as Gina
at strange young men. If any one and said she had a little son whom Berg, was radiant treatise his only
should hear of it the disgrace would she had named Ephraim, after our reason for jilting her was that he
Le great.'
great grandfather, MN' father did not feared he :night be a cripple for life,
"0 course I took rare after that go to see her.
But my mother dependent on her. And Vera Gor-
to talk to my sister about Samuel, went, and I went with her.
She don, as Mamma Kantor, was express-
the teacher. When no one was near wasn't rich, but her husband, Samuel, ing a mother's joy as only Vera Gor-
to listen. For I found many excuses worked night and day, teaching, writ- don can do it. "I told you, Abra-
for going into toy Aunt Goldie's ing letters for business people and ham, God always hears a mother's
house. reckoning up accounts, and he made prayers," she says, turning happily to
"My sister Rebecca listened to me a living for her. And as much as he the husband. And he answers: "1
lightly and told me openly she did made, Rebecca was happy. I mused to suppose a papa's prayers got nothing
not believe that this teacher was so get letters often from her. But now to do with it."
remarkable. I haven't received a letter for such a
Is it comedy, or what is it? Any-
"'Go and look at him yourself, long time. It is hard to get letters way, almost 150,000 persons have wept
from
Russia.
flee
letters
used
to
then,' I told her angrily. And, will
and laughed at it in the smallest
pout believe it, up to that time it did bring hark to me those times when theater on Broadway, and the end
not enter her mind that she could I was a child and when I carried those is not yet in sight.
find an excuse for going into Aunt letters from Rebecca to Samuel, the
leacher."
Goldie's house to see the teacher.
JEWS PROVE PATRIOTISM
' "Well. I asked Rebecca when she
The old woman knotted her 'ker-
returned from my Aunt's house with chief more firmly under her chin and
a chopping howl which we neither smiled reminiscently at those roman-
LONDON.—Major Cecil Battine,
wanted site nettled.
tic days of her youth.
the Warsaw correspondent of the
"Humoresque" Shows
At Broadway Strand
Week of September 5
ri A
in big, broad lette r , .
Then the
theatrical bill-boards, very gay and
:Miming, the Harlem River. and right
into the push-cart center of Ilarleni'•
Ghetto on Park avenue. Thousands
flocking to buy food and raiment.
cooking utensils and jewelry', crockery,
laces, hooks and what-not, at prices
that beggar repetition. The porter
turns on the lights, calls you aside
fur a dusting-- and there you are,-
Grand Central Turmoil and lit' out
The Pershing Driveway has been
completed since my last visit, their
are fewer holes in the streets, some •
new skyscrappers. Skirts are shorter.
The feminine eyebrow has become
the merest suggestion of the Cry,
tor's original conception—an elevated
eyelash, nothing limel'.
The only
natural faces in New York are those
of the foreigners, and they, too, seem
bent on rapid change.
The subwa y - is as smells. and
cluttered as reef, the crowds just as
wild and uncivil. '11d I think of the
gentleman from Japan, who, when
his guide through New York's tun-
nels told hint to hurry to catch a train
then at the station, inquired:
"How long before the next train
arrives?"
"Three minutes!"
"What will you do with the other
Iwo if you make this train?"
.1nd so home, where letters inform
nor that I must be back in town. Anil
I go. Musical agents, each one claim-
ing the world's greatest as his own.
I am loaded with press material and
a supply of pictures, pressed with in-
vitations, and assured of "Special
prices," much like the people Anna
Yezviska describes lu her "The Fat
of the Land." One man interests me,
the young J. I'. Pand, who does things
because he wants to do them, regard-
less of time, expense, personal sacri-
fice; big, clean, vital interesting, and
I decide to bring the great Indian
poet, the mystic, Sir Rabindranath
Tagore, back to Detroit next season.
.And then back to Washington
Heights atop a green bus, running
down Riverside, the finest driveway
of its kind in the world. Out on the
Hudson float six or seven of Uncle
Sam's greatest battleships, the heart
of the Navy, mothering a floatilla of
destroyers, coal barges, a hospital
ship, and a score of smaller craft.
\Vhite-clad figures line the rails, buni.
ing is about to be hoisted to the
peach-basket masts. Sailors loaf on
the green grass, or walk with ungain-
ly strides.
There are no such sunsets anywhere
as the fortunate see daily over the
Palisades. Brilliant where there
not a cloud in the sky; fascinating
and bizarre when the clouds build
castles and caravans; seas, ships and
shifting scenes; all there right on top
of the darkening walls that rise out
of the silvery Hudson.
Goethe wrote: "Amerika du hash
est gut." Had Ile known New York,
of today, he would surely have added:
"New York, du bast es besser!" From
the Catskills to the Atlantic in half
a day, and between the two, best of
all, my home!
An Interior
Designed and executed by De-
troit Furniture Shops, facili-
tated by factory associations.
Detroit furniture $hops
Warren and Riopelle
Open Saturday Afternoon
Ily automobile, via Wood ward
Avenue, east on Warren Avenue to
Riopelle Street,
Telephone Melrose 1320
By street car, via Woodward Avenue
and Crosstown cars, east to Riopelle
Street, then walk two blocks north.
a
f.
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T
HE partiality to Hudson of men who regard their cars primarily for their
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Those who must depend on motor transist are uncompromising realists where
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Daily Telegraph," writing in today's
issue of that paper, says:
cool—in the worst days of June and
July—it was the same story. The
"No description of Warsaw would
house was full and kept full through-
out the day, from noon to 11:30 in be complete without a word on the
the evening. What makes it draw Jewish population, which consists of
settlements dating from the Middle
"Humoresque," a screen drama by such crowds when the accepted ver-
Ages, as well as the colonists deliber-
Fannie Hurst, which comes to the dict on Broadway is that light musi-
ately
quartered there by the Russians.
Broadway Strand Theater, Sept. 5, cal ''girlie" shows are the only at-
It is a purely Asiatic population, with
was the surprise of the summer traction that will pay in the hot
no
European
characteristics. The such
months?
theatrical season in New York.
wear the Asiatic gaberdine, a queer
The inquirer tried to figure the thing
Playing in the Criterion theater, the
little cap something like a I'arsi's,
smallest playhouse on Broadway, the out for himself, and failed. He had and all have beards. When a Pole
popularity of the picture was so great seen the "Miracle Man" and John quarrels with a Jew he often pulls his
as to compel the nolice department Barryinore in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. heard, and, as the result, reports reach
to enforce new traffic regulations for Hyde." lie had seen "Blind Hus- the West of a pogrom. In reality
the surrounding district. Long lines bands," and all the Fairbanks, Ray. the Poles are marvellously tolerant of
of men and women of all walks of Pickford, DeMille and other big photo these alien and very undesirable im-
life waited for hours in front of the play attractions of the last year. He migrants, who live in a separate na-
theater every day of its presentation, could understand their success for a tionality on I'olish soil without any
to obtain admission. Finally the New week or two on Broadway—not in effort at assimilation; for one thing
York Tribune, sensing something un- the hot 'summer months—bin this the indolence of the Pole has caused
usual, sent a special writer to investi- miracle of success was beyond hint him to lean on this Jew population.
gate the situation. And the following So he Went to the only authority
"For some time past I noticed the
is his account, as it appeared in the known on the subject—the public it-
growing anxiety of the Jews, who
self.
New York Tribune of August I.
were far better informed than the
"Why "Humoresque?"
For ten successive nights he asked Poles of the true state of the war.
After a nine weeks' run at the Cri- ten people who were leaving the per
They were anxiously discussing the
terion Theater "Humoresque" is dra•- formance what they thought of it
situation in little groups in their quar-
in bigger crowds than it did in its and why. The interrogation was at
ter and in the picturesque Saxe Gar-
first week. It is playing to capacity random.
dens, while swarms of Polish children
almost since it opened. But any day
The questions were asked of Jews continued to play their games heed-
at half after two in the afternoon or —men and women—Christians in gen-
less of impending evil. It is only just
half-past eight in the coning one may eral, two Catholic p, tests, one motion
to add that so far the Jews have not
see the long line at the box office picture actress, one Chinese strident
been wanting in patriotism. have
waiting patiently for those inside to at Columbia, two army officers and shown no sign of sympathy with Rol-
get out, for Hugo Riesenfield will not one sailor. Their answers, put into shevism, whose disorder they certain-
allow many to stand in this, his third composite form • make up the sum. ly dread, and have offered to help in
and smallest house. No matter what mare here offered: the defense of the city through their
the weather, rain or shine, hot o
"We like the picture because it is elders.
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