USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The early Jewish community of Boston's North End; a sociologically oriented study of an Eastern European Jewish immigrant community in an American big-city neighborhood between 1870 and 1900 > Part 3
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The great events of family life - weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals - were observed among the North End Jews in a manner that greatly differed from the pat- terns familiar to their descendants today. During the decades that followed the immigration of the East Euro- pean Jewish masses, many practices were taken over from the gentile environment which for centuries were regarded as "un-Jewish." Making arrangements for the observance of sad or joyous events became, by practical necessity, the task of such businessmen as funeral di- rectors and caterers. In the social atmosphere of the new world, where following "American" and "progressive" ways was a matter of prestige, it became good business to introduce new forms into the consecrated ancient rit- uals and to sell them as the "new style" and the "modern way." Rabbis of all shades helped this process along sometimes willingly, sometimes reluctantly. As a result, the Jewish wedding ceremony and funeral service and even certain aspects of the Bar Mitzvah celebration in America became, in the course of time, a rather curious mixture of Jewish tradition with numerous other ele- ments coming from varied cultural sources. In the North End, however, this change had not yet taken place.
The elaborate marching preceding the wedding cere- mony was not practiced at all. Two unterfirers (escorts)
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led the bride and the groom to the traditional chupe (wedding canopy). Two couples were usually honored as unterfirers. The two men escorted the groom, the two women led the bride. The two couples were most fre- quently the parents of groom and bride. There was music and much dancing at weddings. "They frequently performed kazatzkis." One interviewee speaks of much dancing of men and women together: somewhat sur- prising for the times. He adds, however, that his par- ents never danced together. Weddings were usually held at the synagogue, both the religious ceremony and the reception. "The Baldwin Place synagogue had a dining hall. Later the more free-circulating people would go to some of the halls on the South End."
Boys were circumcized at home and given a Hebrew name by a moihel (ritual circumcisor) in the area. Girls were named in the synagogue usually on a Sabbath morning. Parties would follow both events.
Bar Mitzvah celebrations were simpler and more dig- nified than the extravagant affairs in vogue today. A "speech" was delivered by the boy in Yiddish, some- times in English, rarely in Hebrew. The rabbi did not address the Bar Mitzvah boy. Bar Mitzvah parties took the form of Sabbath dinners following services.
In the beginning, no Jewish funeral homes existed in the area. Funeral processions would depart from the home of the deceased. As in Europe, the members of the Chevrah Kadisha (Holy Society: a society of laymen dedicated to the reverent care of the dead and to the practice of other deeds of kindness) performed all duties in preparation for the funeral. They bathed and clothed the body of the deceased, prepared the traditional white shrouds and sometimes even made the simple coffin.
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They were guided in all this by the sextons of the syna- gogues who gradually took over more and more of these duties from the busy lay members of the Chevrah. Later some of these sextons established their own funeral par- lors. The founders of two Jewish funeral homes at present operating in Boston were the sextons of two neighboring North End synagogues.
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5 religious life
THE RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES and practices of first genera- tion Eastern European immigrants, settled in their own neighborhood in an American city, are of great signifi- cance in a study of immigrant adjustment. The culture that these newcomers brought with them had been es- sentially a religious culture. The shaping of their religious life in the new land constitutes an important aspect of their adjustment. 31
What former North Enders have to say about religious life in that area seems to indicate that the last quarter of the nineteenth century was, for the members of the first generation, a period of two contradictory tendencies. 32 Externally, they attempted to retain the patterns of European Jewish life; while, in their thinking, they made themselves ready for a drastic acculturation that would become visible only in the second generation.
The evolution in their ideology had begun even while they were making concerted efforts to retain in an un- changed form all institutions and practices that made up their religious life in the old home. The members of this community, with few exceptions, conformed in their ex-
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ternal conduct to the code of religious behavior trans- planted from the Russian small town. Yet, the ferment of a desire for, or at least an acceptance of change was at work in the minds of the people of the first generation themselves. Its consequences would become observable in the almost complete break with religious discipline made by their children.
The son of one of the pious and learned leaders of the Chevra Shas (Talmudical Society) reports, for example : "While Father observed all religious rites in every possi- ble way ... nevertheless ... he would make certain statements .. . that indicated to me that his ideas were entirely liberal. But living in a community as he was he naturally followed the dictates . . . of the community."33 While most interviewees depict the youth of the North End as observant only to a very limited degree, they do not seem to remember any significant tension between these young people and their pious parents. On the con- trary : "The older generation gradually accepted the ways of their children. They knew they could not remain as orthodox [sic]. They were not too willing, but they knew it had to come." This creeping religious liberalism of many in the first generation - frequently thought, occasionally spoken, but rarely practiced - did not al- ways originate on American soil. The ideas the eigh- teenth and nineteenth century had brought to Europe did not remain outside the limits of the shtetl. Many im- migrants brought with them a familiarity with these ideas. The American milieu, with its emphasis on free- dom, gave such "enlightened" ideas a better chance than they ever had in the deeply traditional, learned, pious and considerably rigid environment of the small town. The presence of a strong Reform movement in
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the midst of the older German-Jewish community helped this process immensely. Laxity in ritual practice - de- spised by the society of the Russian small town - had in the new world the prestige of being acceptable to a large part of the older, wealthier, already Americanized community.
As we said before, the results of this process became evident only when the second generation came into its own. The North End Jews of the last decades of the century were, by and large, a traditional group in which observance was to remain the norm for a long time.
Although their orthodoxy had more to do with a tra- ditionalism of habit than with any systematic ideology of observance, still their rejection of Reform was un- equivocal. This rejection, however, was rarely given lit- erary expression, at least not in English. An exception was a little pamphlet, written in an erudite English by a former North End Jew, Louis Millionthaler, grandfather of Bernard L. Gorfinkle, in 1901. The author, who was "looked upon with much regard among his people as a good Hebrew and as a scholar," refuted a suggestion by Rabbi Charles Fleischer of Congregation Adath Israel that henceforth the founder of Christianity should be regarded "as a Jew of the Jews and should rank with Moses and with Jacob as a prophet and as a doer of good." This booklet was considered "a bombshell shot from the camp of the Orthodox into that of the Reform Hebrews,"34 although Rabbi Fleischer's idea did not re- flect the stand of the entire Reform spiritual leadership.
Besides the traditionally minded majority there was, even during that period, a small minority who held militant anti-religious views.35 One interviewee remem- bers that his grandfather never went to Shul even during
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the High Holidays. He had come from a family of "atheists" - "they liked Voltaire and Renan." There were many Maskilim (followers of the Haskalah, a Jewish movement of "enlightenment"). Socialism, rap- idly spreading among American Jews during the years of massive immigration, became a powerful vehicle for ir- religiosity. One North Ender recalls "a small group of a violently anti-religious philosophy. They would de- fiantly arrange a ball on Yom Kippur eve while most Jews attended the Kol Nidre services. During Yom Kippur day they would stand on the street and eat ham sandwiches."
These minorities - vociferous though they were - did not, however, perceptibly change the general picture of the North End as a community observing religious law. According to the majority of interviewees, "every- body" observed the Sabbath and "all" homes were Kosher. One former resident recalls, however, that "these contractors worked on the Sabbath." ("These contractors" are defined by him as "tailors who would contract for making ... suits for [various business es- tablishments] in town.") The son of a builder and real estate dealer remembers that his father kept his store open while other stores were closed ... "My father was a very, very liberal man. [He] was [in liberal ideas] way ahead of everybody." It seems that the owners of retail stores - dependent as they were more than any other occupational group on the patronage of the community - held out longest in their observance of the Seventh Day. One interviewee remembers the first occasion when a store dared to open in the North End on a Sabbath. This happened in 1903. "There was a riot. Windows were smashed and police had to be called." A
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similar public reaction is reported by another inter- viewee to have been felt when a delicatessen store once opened on Yom Kippur earlier than nightfall.
Banks did not differ from small stores in this respect. 36 I. B. Reinherz's prosperous combination of bank and ticket agency was closed every Sabbath. North Enders recall that policemen were regularly stationed near the establishment on Saturday nights to keep order among the crowd assembled there. Clients were anxious to take care of their business as soon as the doors opened after the appearance in the sky of the three stars which, by Jewish law, mark the end of the Sabbath. The Cunard steamship lines once made an offer to Reinherz to make his bank the exclusive agency for the lines. One of the lines' conditions was that his business be kept open on the Sabbath. He would not consider such a condition and the offer was rejected.
The first Jewish services in the North End were prob- ably held in private homes where friends gathered on the mornings of holidays to worship under the leadership of more learned settlers. A Torah-scroll would be borrowed from one of the older South End synagogues and a wor- shiper would be found who could read it. We may as- sume that during ordinary weekday or Sabbath services almost any worshiper could act as a chazn. Reading the vowel-less text of the Torah with the proper chant was more difficult. I. B. Reinherz was a good baal kerieh (Torah-reader). He later acted as such in the Baldwin Place synagogue. As early as 1873 Congregation Beth Abraham was founded by the Reinherz family.37 Until 1890 - when Congregation Beth Israel opened its syna- gogue on Baldwin Place - Beth Abraham was the lead- ing place of worship.
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In addition to these larger, central synagogues, the in- crease of immigration caused various groups to form small temporary congregations. They usually hired a "hall" for the High Holidays when prospective wor- shipers were numerous, then continued to assemble the congregation during the rest of the year in a home, a basement, or a rented store.38 Landsmannschaften or vari- ous other societies sponsored these religious activities. The Agudah Leumit - a cultural, Zionist group of younger immigrants - sponsored such a minyan on Hanover Street. After the fast on Yom Kippur, when the services were over, the Ark was removed and a joyous celebration followed.
How well were the synagogues attended? One inter- viewee recalls that she was frequently sent out as a little girl to call a neighbor over for the minyan. This was be- fore the great wave of immigration began. Around the turn of the century - another former resident tells me - there were several successive services held at the Baldwin Place synagogue even on an ordinary weekday morning. "On Saturday, when leaving the synagogue, it appeared like a real parade. Silk hats, holiday garments, and many long kapotes."
To the early settlers the synagogue meant much more than just a place of worship. Before and after the serv- ices, worshipers discussed all matters that were vital to them in the new world. The stranger, whom a long busi- ness trip brought to Boston, stopped first at the syna- gogue to inquire about lodging in a Jewish home. Here they exchanged experiences gained in peddling, gave advice and encouragement to the newcomers, received news about home and about landsleit who dwelt in other cities.
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The synagogue was for a long time the only place where the immigrants' cultural needs could be satisfied. Many lectures and adult classes were held on its premises. For the learned, this was the place where their knowl- edge would be recognized and appreciated. Since He- brew books were scarce, the synagogue's sforim (He- brew volumes) purchased with great sacrifice, rendered an invaluable service to former students of European yeshivas and chadorim. An unskilled laborer or a strug- gling peddler would earn the esteem of his fellow Jews if he was able to answer a knotty question of law or ex- plain a difficult passage of the Talmud.
Within the synagogues, small auxiliary groups were formed to satisfy specific religious or educational needs. Members of the Chevra Tehillim assembled at given times to recite certain portions of the Hebrew Book of Psalms. When one of their rank died, other members were on hand to read Psalms in unison at the home of the deceased or at the funeral chapel. The North End congregation known as Chevra Tehillim originally evolved from such a Psalm reading society.
The Chevra Shas, a society for the study of the Tal- mud, counted among its members the most learned of the Jewish population. I. B. Reinherz founded the first Chevra Shas shortly after 1873.39 (According to the writer of the article on Boston in the encyclopedia Ozar Yisrael - himself a North End rabbi of the time - this Chevra Shas brought to Boston a set of the Talmud for the first time in the city's history. This statement, if cor- rect, would lead us to the somewhat surprising conclu- sion that the earlier German Jewish communities never owned a set of the Talmud.)
Synagogue services followed the Eastern European
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pattern. All prayers were said in Hebrew. Prayerbooks had no translation or Yiddish translations only. Prayer- books with German or English translations that hap- pened to find their way to North End synagogues were looked upon by newcomers with curiosity as strange products of the new world. Indeed, their pages, on which the sacred words appeared side by side with the unknown non-Jewish print, became, in their eyes, sym- bols of the diluted new-world Jewishness they had been warned against before leaving the old home.
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Bearded, skull-capped merchant and
youthful customer in the old North End.
ES. SIMON
DRESSACLOAK MANIA
DRESS M
TREE
PIET
-
Corner of Salem and Prince Streets, North End, one of the oldest apothecary stores in Boston.
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raising a new generation
IN CHOOSING THE FORM of a Jewish education for their children, the immigrants attempted to copy the pat- terns familiar to them from the old world, as they did in other matters pertaining to Jewish life. Most of them were used to having their offspring taught by a privately paid rebbe (teacher) who set up school in one of the rooms of his not-too-comfortable home. Periodically the child would bring along installments of the tuition fee (rebbe-gelt or sechar-limud) set aside from the parents' earnings, often with great sacrifice. Schools of this type (called chadorim, plural of cheder) were the first institu- tions of Hebrew education to appear in the North End. 40 One of the first chadorim was conducted by Abraham Reinherz.
The number of these schools multiplied with the in- creased immigration after the eighties. At that time vari- ous chadorim seem to have been in existence. While there were no grades, each cheder was concentrating on one phase of instruction only. Some taught the youngest children to read the Siddur, others taught older ones to translate the Bible. One interviewee even remembers
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gemore-melamdim, teachers who taught the Talmud. Thus, the advancement of a student was indicated by the fact that he was able to change from a cheder where Ivre (Hebrew Reading) was taught to one in which Chumesh (the Books of the Pentateuch) constituted the curric- ulum. Translation was usually from Hebrew to Yiddish. However, in some "modern" chadorim the Bible was translated, even at that period, into English. In some chadorim teaching was intensive. Hebrew education be- gan at an earlier age than English. Even while they went to public school, many children spent "a few hours" every afternoon at the cheder. One interviewee recalls, "I knew how to read and translate the Five Books [of Moses] when I was eight years old." His statement is not necessarily exaggerated. Neither is this something that could happen "only in those days." Similar results can be observed today in any one of the European-type schools maintained by Chassidim in many Brooklyn neighborhoods, for example. A good description of North End chadorim is given by this excerpt from an interview :
Q. You were, at that time, just about eight years old. Did you go to Hebrew school?
A. Yes. I went to Lubitsky's cheder. The old Lubitsky had an ordinary old-fashioned cheder. But his son ran a "modern" type of cheder. He had a real classroom with seats and a blackboard.
Q. How were the ordinary chadorim equipped?
A. There was no school furniture in them. The rabbi had a big table and the children sat around. Sometimes the table reached up to the chin of the smaller chil- dren. The rabbi read the Bible and translated it into Jewish. There was no blackboard.
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Q. Who ran these chadorim?
A. I told you about the two Lubitsky's. Another one was run by a man named Zussman.
Q. What was the age of children going to these private Hebrew schools?
A. Seven to thirteen or fourteen.
Q. Did anyone continue Jewish education after that age?
A. I remember no one.
Q. You said these schools were "private." Do you mean that the parents paid tuition to the rabbi directly?
A. Yes, they would pay twenty-five to fifty cents a week. But in young Lubitsky's cheder the price was high : fifty cents. He even took the children on outings in the summer to Middlesex Falls.
Q. Were there any community sponsored Jewish educa- tional institutions?
A. Let me tell you something interesting in this connec- tion. There was a very excellent retired Christian busi- nessman in the North End, a Mr. Samuel F. Hubbard. He was the superintendent of the North End Union. He had a great influence on the children. He taught them integrity and the value of being educated. He asked me in 1903 why it was that Reform temples neg- lected the Jewish education of children. This remark was brought by me to the attention of a Zionist con- ference and the result was that a resolution was adopted urging Zionists all over the country to be- come active in the field of Jewish education. Later the members of the Sons of Zion asked the Baldwin Place Synagogue to establish a school in the synagogue building. But it was only a Sunday School.
From time to time similar attempts were made to open
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community sponsored Hebrew schools. "In Cockrow Hall, corner of Richmond and Hanover Street, there was a shul one year. They had a Hebrew school. Sam Kron- berg was a teacher." The Tulmud Torah at 287 1/2 Han- over Street opened in 1883 under the presidency of H. M. Hillson. "With eighty pupils in 1885 it struggled to maintain itself until 1893, helped from time to time by generous subscriptions of prospering North Enders. The trials of this school were typical of many small educa- tional projects of the refugees in each successive year." 40a The Baldwin Place Synagogue also maintained a cheder at one time. The shames acted as the teacher.
The "staff" of all these schools did not consist of trained educators. In Europe, the parents in the shtetl could at least choose from among the many villagers who offered their talents as melamdim. Even though no one had any "diploma," the parents selected the ones who, by their piety, their knowledge, their "feel" for the children, seemed most suitable. In America, these quali- ties were not abundantly available in the prospective educators. One interviewee says: "Teachers would usu- ally be older men. Immigrants would sometimes start earning their livelihood by teaching.41 A few teachers were able to speak to children in English. Frequent pun- ishment was part of all Hebrew school life."42
The more learned parents followed the progress of their children with attention. The father saw his children mainly on the Sabbath. It was his practice to examine the youngster on that day. "Every Friday evening [my father] would take me upstairs in my house and I had to go through the Sidrah of the following morning."
There were other typically European arrangements for the education of children. The well-to-do family of
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Niman Freedman, to whom Jewish learning was appar- ently of importance, hired a teacher for the instruction of the Freedman children exclusively. He spent a certain amount of time in private instruction with each child every weekday. He was given room and board in the house. On the Sabbath, when no business was trans- acted, it was the father's turn to take advantage of the teacher's services. In the best fashion of learned East European laymen, father and teacher rose at four o'clock on Saturday morning and studied Talmud together un- til eight. Then the children got up, they all had tea and started out for the synagogue.
This type of intensive study of Jewish subjects by all members of the family was, of course, the exception in the North End. There were many who could not afford or did not find it necessary to send their children even to cheder. In order to give at least some very basic instruc- tion to their offspring, many of these became customers of the "Siddur-peddler." This was an itinerant teacher who from time to time knocked at the door of his stu- dent's home with a Siddur in his hand - hence the name - and gave the reluctant youngster a half hour's instruction in Hebrew reading. He collected a nickel or a dime for his services.
Preparation for the Bar Mitzvah was an important as- pect of Jewish education.43 In Europe, at that time, it rarely constituted a separate entity in the educational ac- tivity of the Jews. By following the ordinary process of schooling, the child automatically acquired most of the skills needed for participation in his own Bar Mitzvah. In America, however, many parents had neglected the teaching of their youngsters in their early years until they suddenly noticed that their boy was about "to be-
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come a man" and he was far from capable of acting as the Maftir in the hearing of the entire sacred assembly without bringing embarrassment to his relatives. As a re- sult, a thriving Bar Mitzvah teaching activity began to be practiced by some teachers. The child would be taught practically nothing except to chant his portion in the service (without knowing the meaning of its content) and to recite his "speech" in Yiddish or in English (sometimes in Hebrew). As it happens too often in our own day, the little celebrant would call forth tears from the eyes of his elders by his fluent singing and by his oration drilled for many months even though he would be at a complete loss had he been given the task of reading any other portion of the Bible but his own.
The educational process rarely continued after the Bar Mitzvah age. Sometimes a child would be sent even after the Bar Mitzvah to see his rebbe, usually for the purpose of making sure that he put on his phylactaries and said his prayers. In Europe, many parents would strive to further the instruction of their children long after the Bar Mitzvah age in the hope of being able to send them some day to one of the yeshivas. In a few years, their son would return to the small town as a talmid chochom to the pride of his parents. To the major- ity who remained at home, the prestige of education in the society of the shtetl provided a powerful motivation for further learning. Nothing of the sort existed in the new world. Very soon. after immigration, the acquisition of an American education became the ambition of young people and the dream of their parents. "The people who sat all day in the Chevra Shas wanted to make lawyers and doctors out of their boys and did nothing to give them at the same time a Jewish education" says one of
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