Children of the Ghetto

CHAPTER IX. THE FLAG FLUTTERS.

The Flag of Judah, price one penny, largest circulation of any Jewish organ, continued to flutter, defying the battle, the breeze and its communal contemporaries. At Passover there had been an illusive augmentation of advertisements proclaiming the virtues of unleavened everything. With the end of the Festival, most of these fell out, staying as short a time as the daffodils. Raphael was in despair at the meagre attenuated appearance of the erst prosperous-looking pages. The weekly loss on the paper weighed upon his conscience.

'We shall never succeed,' said the sub-editor, shaking his romantic hair, 'till we run it for the Upper Ten. These ten people can make the paper, just as they are now killing it by refusing their countenance.'

'But they must surely reckon with us sooner or later,' said Raphael.

'It will he a long reckoning. I fear: you take my advice and put in more butter. It'll be kosher butter, coming from us.' The little Bohemian laughed as heartily as his eyeglass permitted.

'No; we must stick to our guns. After all, we have had some very good things lately. Those articles of Pinchas's are not bad either.'

'They're so beastly egotistical. Still his theories are ingenious and far more interesting than those terribly dull long letters of Henry Goldsmith, which you will put in.'

Raphael flushed a little and began to walk up and down the new and superior sanctum with his ungainly strides, puffing furiously at his pipe The appearance of the room was less bare; the floor was carpeted with old newspapers and scraps of letters. A huge picture of an Atlantic Liner, the gift of a Steamship Company, leaned cumbrously against a wall.

'Still, all our literary excellencies,' pursued Sampson, 'are outweighed by our shortcomings in getting births, marriages and deaths. We are gravelled for lack of that sort of matter What is the use of your elaborate essay on the Septuagint, when the public is dying to hear who's dead?'

'Yes, I am afraid it is so.' said Raphael, emitting a huge volume of smoke.

'I'm sure it is so. If you would only give me a freer hand, I feel sure I could work up that column. We can at least make a better show: I would avoid the danger of discovery by shifting the scene to foreign parts. I could marry some people in Born-bay and kill some in Cape Town, redressing the balance by bringing others into existence at Cairo and Cincinnati. Our contemporaries would score off us in local interest, but we should take the shine out of them in cosmopolitanism.'

'No, no; remember that Meshumad' said Raphael, smiling.

'He was real; if you had allowed me to invent a corpse, we should have been saved that contretemps. We have one 'death' this week fortunately, and I am sure to fish out another in the daily papers. But we haven't had a 'birth' for three weeks running; it's just ruining our reputation. Everybody knows that the orthodox are a fertile lot, and it looks as if we hadn't got the support even of our own party. Ta ra ra ta! Now you must really let me have a 'birth.' I give you my word, nobody'll suspect it isn't genuine. Come now. How's this?' He scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Raphael, who read:

'BIRTH, on the 15th inst. at 17 East Stuart Lane, Kennington, the wife of Joseph Samuels of a son.'

'There!' said Sampson proudly, 'Who would believe the little beggar had no existence? Nobody lives in Kennington, and that East Stuart Lane is a master-stroke. You might suspect Stuart Lane, but nobody would ever dream there's no such place as East Stuart Lane. Don't say the little chap must die. I begin to take quite a paternal interest in him. May I announce him? Don't be too scrupulous. Who'll be a penny the worse for it?' He began to chirp, with bird-like trills of melody.

Raphael hesitated: his moral fibre had been weakened. It is impossible to touch print and not be denied.

Suddenly Sampson ceased to whistle and smote his head with his chubby fist. 'Ass that I am!' he exclaimed.

'What new reasons have you discovered to think so?' said Raphael.

'Why, we dare not create boys. We shall be found out; boys must be circumcised and some of the periphrastically styled 'Initiators into the Abrahamic Covenant' may spot us. It was a girl that Mrs. Joseph Samuels was guilty of.' He amended the sex.

Raphael laughed heartily. 'Put it by; there's another day yet; we shall see.'

'Very well,' said Sampson resignedly. 'Perhaps by to-morrow we shall be in luck and able to sing 'unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.' By the way, did you see the letter complaining of our using that quotation, on the ground it was from the New Testament?'

'Yes,' said Raphael smiling. 'Of course the man doesn't know his Old Testament, but I trace his misconception to his having heard Handel's Messiah. I wonder he doesn't find fault with the Morning Service for containing the Lord's Prayer, or with Moses for saying 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.''

'Still, that's the sort of man newspapers have to cater for,' said the sub-editor. 'And we don't. We have cut down our Provincial Notes to a column. My idea would be to make two pages of them, not cutting out any of the people's names and leaving in more of the adjectives. Every man's name we mention means at least one copy sold. Why can't we drag in a couple of thousand names every week?'

'That would make our circulation altogether nominal,' laughed Raphael, not taking the suggestion seriously.

Little Sampson was not only the Mephistopheles of the office, debauching his editor's guileless mind with all the wily ways of the old journalistic hand; he was of real use in protecting Raphael against the thousand and one pitfalls that make the editorial chair as perilous to the occupant as Sweeney Todd's; against the people who tried to get libels inserted as news or as advertisements, against the self-puffers and the axe-grinders. He also taught Raphael how to commence interesting correspondence and how to close awkward. The Flag played a part in many violent discussions. Little Sampson was great in inventing communal crises, and in getting the public to believe it was excited. He also won a great victory over the other party every three weeks; Raphael did not wish to have so many of these victories, but little Sampson pointed out that if he did not have them, the rival newspaper would annex them. One of the earliest sensations of the Flag was a correspondence exposing the misdeeds of some communal officials; but in the end the very persons who made the allegations ate humble pie. Evidently official pressure had been brought to bear, for red tape rampant might have been the heraldic device of Jewish officialdom. In no department did Jews exhibit more strikingly their marvellous powers of assimilation to their neighbors.

Among the discussions which rent the body politic was the question of building a huge synagogue for the poor. The Flag said it would only concentrate them, and its word prevailed. There were also the grave questions of English and harmoniums in the synagogue, of the confirmation of girls and their utilization in the choir. The Rabbinate, whose grave difficulties in reconciling all parties to its rule, were augmented by the existence of the Flag, pronounced it heinous to introduce English excerpts into the liturgy; if, however, they were not read from the central platform, they were legitimate; harmoniums were permissible, but only during special services; and an organization of mixed voices was allowable, but not a mixed choir; children might be confirmed, but the word 'confirmation' should be avoided. Poor Rabbinate! The politics of the little community were extremely complex. What with rabid zealots yearning for the piety of the good old times, spiritually-minded ministers working with uncomfortable earnestness for a larger Judaism, radicals dropping out, moderates clamoring for quiet, and schismatics organizing new and tiresome movements, the Rabbinate could scarcely do aught else than emit sonorous platitudes and remain in office.

And beneath all these surface ruffles was the steady silent drift of the new generation away from the old landmarks. The synagogue did not attract; it spoke Hebrew to those whose mother-tongue was English; its appeal was made through channels which conveyed nothing to them; it was out of touch with their real lives; its liturgy prayed for the restoration of sacrifices which they did not want and for the welfare of Babylonian colleges that had ceased to exist. The old generation merely believed its beliefs; if the new as much as professed them, it was only by virtue of the old home associations and the inertia of indifference. Practically, it was without religion. The Reform Synagogue, though a centre of culture and prosperity, was cold, crude and devoid of magnetism. Half a century of