Although this literature has assumed such great proportions and has produced a score or more of good writers, it has still remained an unknown quantity to a large number of the better classes who have not yet broken entirely with their mother-tongue. They continue looking with disdain at the popular language and thus make it hard for those who devote themselves to the service of the people to produce the desired effect; for, failing to get the support of those whose opinion might weigh with the masses, the latter are somewhat indifferent themselves. Another unfortunate factor in the development of this literature is the petty jealousies of many of the writers, which have again and again kept them from uniting for concerted action. If in spite of all this it has been able to hold its own and to evolve to such perfection, it is due to the untiring, self-sacrificing, noble efforts of Zederbaum, Spektor, Rabinowitsch, and Perez. All honor to these men!
MANY years before the great immigration of the Jews had begun, there was a sufficiently large community of Russian Jews resident in New York to support a newspaper. In the seventies there existed there a weekly, The Jewish Gazette, and there was at least one book store, that of the firm of Kantrowitz, that furnished the colony with Judeo-German reading matter. The centre of that Jewish quarter was then as now on Canal Street, where there was also the Jewish printing office of M. Topolowsky, from which, in 1877, was issued a small volume of Judeo-German poetry by Jacob Zwi Sobel, probably the first of the kind in America. His few songs are all in the style of Goldfaden. One, entitled 'The Polish Scholar in America,' is especially interesting, not from a literary standpoint, but from the light it throws on the condition of the Jews before the eighties. Whether they wished so or not, they were rapidly being amalgamated, on the one side by the German Jews, on the other by the American people at large. Many tried to hide their nationality, and even their religion, since the Russian Jews did not stand in good repute then. The vernacular was only used as the last resort by those who had not succeeded in acquiring a ready use of the English language, and its approach to the literary German was even greater than that attempted by Dick at about the same time in Russia. However, English words had begun to creep in freely and to modify the Germanized dialect. It is evident that the seeds of the American Judeo-German, as it may now be found in the majority of works printed in New York, had been sown even then. The proneness to use a large number of German words is derived from the time when the smaller community had been laboring to pass into American Judaism by means of the German Jewish congregations.
Suddenly, in 1881, began the great forced emigration of the Jews from Russia, and in the same year the main stream of the unfortunate wanderers commenced to flood the city of New York, and from there to spread over the breadth and the length of the United States. At present there are, probably, not less than three hundred thousand Russian Jews to be found in New York alone. The aspect of the Jewish colony was at once changed. It was thrown back into conditions resembling those in congested Russian cities. There came misery, poverty, and squalor. The struggle for existence was even harder than it had been at home. They had exchanged the tyranny of the autocracy for the liberty of the republic, but they did not at the same time better their material well-being. It was then that the sweat-shop with all its horrors had its beginning, or at least found its most objectionable development. And they were not all laborers who were forced to tread the sewing-machine, or roll cigars and fill cigarettes. Many of them had seen better days at home, some had even been students at gymnasia and at universities. Without any previous training in their particular occupations, forced to do ten and twelve hours' work of the hardest labor, they had no time to think of any but the most sordid, more immediate physical needs. Some indeed succeeded in establishing themselves permanently, but the majority groaned under a heavy yoke. Only by degrees did more and more of them issue from the sweat-shops, to take up other occupations; but few of them ever forgot the horrors of their first years in America. The whole course of the Judeo-German literature is a reflex, on the one side, of their sufferings, on the other, of the greater liberty, the slowly increasing well-being.
With the large immigration came also some of the literary men: Zunser, Schaikewitsch, Seiffert, Goldfaden. They at once set about to produce books with the same vim that they had developed at home. But the field was not so profitable, and they had to turn to other work. Schaikewitsch and Zunser have become printers instead of writers of books, and Goldfaden gave up his attempt in despair and returned finally to Europe. However, in the short time that they have been active in America, they have succeeded in doing immeasurable harm not only to Judeo-German literature, but to the people for whom they wrote as well. They have corrupted the language in accord with the forms which they found in vogue among the Jews who had been here before them, and they started out to minister to the sensational tastes of the masses who received their nourishment from the lower English press of New York. The amount of many-volumed so-called novels that they have produced is simply appalling. These are mainly adaptations of the most sensational novels in whatsoever language they could lay their hands on. Goldfaden also started The New York Illustrated Gazette, the first of the kind in Judeo-German, but it lived only a short time. In spite of the mass of printed matter in the vernacular, literature did not pay in America, and Goldfaden left the country in disgust.
But the eighties were not by any means devoid of interest and far-reaching importance to Jewish letters. During that time Judeo-German journalism received its fullest development. In Russia a daily press could not exist at all, and the few weeklies that had been issued from time to time had to move in such closely circumscribed limits that journalism ever remained there in its infancy. But on the other side of the Atlantic, the first thing the Jews learned to value and to make free use of was the newspaper. A large number of these were started in the first ten years of the great immigration, but most of them have been of short duration. In the struggle for existence the oldest newspaper, that had had its beginning in 1874, came out victorious. It bought out and consolidated twenty Jewish dailies and weeklies and now appears in the form of The Jewish Gazette, as the representative of the more conservative faction of the Russian Jews of America. But the most active in that field of literature were those who at the end of the eighties clustered around the newspapers that were published in the interest of the Jewish laborers. Of these Die Arbeiterzeitung was the most prominent.
A number of causes united in making the socialistic propaganda strongest among the Russian Jews. They had come from a country where all the elements of opposition naturally gathered around the political parties that stood in secret conflict with the Government and also the social order of things. In America, they came at once in contact with the sweat-shop and similar industrial oppressions, which only sharpened their dislike of the social structure. Intellectually they stood higher than those of their brethren who persevered with the conservatives, for they had at least come to think about their condition and the affairs of the world, while the others clung to old superstitions and did nothing to drag themselves out from the slough of ignorance into which they had fallen in Russia. At the same time the many intelligent men who had been driven to the United States nearly all had belonged to the opposition parties at home, and it was from them alone that the masses could be saved from the clutches of the sensational novelists. This struggle between Schaikewitsch and his tribe on the one side and the intelligent writers on the other began towards the end of the last decade, and the older men are being as surely driven to the wall here as they have been in Russia by Rabinowitsch and the newer school of writers. These younger men have, with but one exception, been driven to Judeo-German letters as their last resort. Some of them had never before published anything in any language, and none of them had ever practised writing in their vernacular. They all belonged to that class of Jewish young men who had received their instruction in Russian schools, or who had in any way identified themselves completely with their Gentile comrades. They had all reached their school age in the seventies, when everybody was as eager to become Russianized as two decades before their parents had been to oppose the new culture. Either as belonging to the Jewish race, or because of their sympathies with the Nihilists, they had to flee from the country. These form to a great extent the basis for the Russian intelligence in the United States.
They brought with them the idea of the Narodniks, which was that their energies ought to be devoted to the uplifting of the masses. They could not hope to become in any way influential among the native population in the American cities. They, consequently, directed their attention to their own race. One of the first to arrive in America with the great immigration, was Abraham Cahan. He was born in the year 1860 in Podberezhe, in the government of Wilna. His early years had been passed in a Jewish school perfecting himself in Jewish lore. At the age of fourteen he entered the Hebrew Teachers' Institute at Wilna, from which he graduated in 1881. He was appointed a teacher in a government school in a small town in the province of Witebsk, but he had soon to flee, having been discovered by the police as a participant in the nihilistic movement. The next year he arrived in New York penniless. He had a hard struggle for three or four years. Since that time he has been active as the founder of several excellent Judeo-German periodicals, as a writer in the dialect himself, as a contributor to the English press, and, finally, as a writer of English books. Of the latter, 'Yekl' was published a short time ago by Appleton & Co., and 'The Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories,' by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. He has also contributed to the Cosmopolitan, Short Stories, and the Atlantic Monthly.
His Judeo-German activity began with the foundation of the Arbeiterzeitung, devoted to the interest of socialism and enlightenment among the Jewish masses. To this gazette he contributed largely. Most of his articles are popularizations of sciences, but he has also written several books of stories, mostly from the life of the New York Ghetto. Like his English stories, they are composed in a good literary style, and present vivid pictures of Jewish life as it is modified under American conditions. It may be safely asserted that his English sketches are conceived by him first in the Judeo-German, after which they are adapted for an American public. While showing great merit, it cannot be said of his novels that they equal those of the writers in Russia. In fact, there has not arisen in America any author who has shown the same degree of originality as those of the mother-country, even though they frequently surpass them in regularity of structure, and in the fund of information they possess. Among the large number of writers in New York who have contributed to the literature, it can hardly be said that any individual style has been developed. They resemble each other very much, both in the manner of their compositions, and the subjects they treat. Nor could it be otherwise. They nearly all are busy popularizing science in one way or other, or they write novels from the life of the Jewish community, which, in the less than two decades of its existence, has not developed, as yet, many new characteristics. They imitate Russian models for their stories and novels, mainly Chekhov. They are all of them realists, and some have carried their realism to the utmost extent.
One of the most fruitful popularizers of science has been Abner Tannenbaum. His works have all the merit of being based on real facts, though these are presented in the attractive form of novels, whether original or translated. He is now exerting an influence also on the Jews of Russia, where his works are much valued. He was born in 1847, and, up to the year 1889, was a wholesale druggist. In that year he arrived in America, and, for the first time, began writing in the vernacular. At first, he translated novels from German and French, especially the works of Jules Verne. Later, he wrote some novels after the fashion of the German pedagogue, J. H. Campe, in his works 'Robinson the Younger' and 'The Discovery of America.' Since 1893, he has been a permanent contributor to The Jewish Gazette, where he has been writing and popularizing encyclopedic items.
The early history of J. Rombro, who is writing under the pseudonym of Philip Krantz, does not differ much from that of Abraham Cahan, with whom he has been active in the publication of the same periodicals. He had to flee from Russia about the same time. He went to London and Paris, from which place he contributed to various Russian magazines. In London he met Winchevsky, who, at that time, had been editing a Judeo-German newspaper, The Polish Jew. He was asked by him to write a description of the riots against the Jews. "It was a hard job for me," so writes the author, "and it took me a long time to do it. I never thought of writing in the Jewish Jargon, but fate ordered otherwise, and, contrary to all my aspirations, I am now nothing more than a poor Jargon journalist." The author's evil plight has, however, been the people's gain, for to his untiring activity is due no small amount of the enlightenment that they have received in the last ten years. In 1885 he was invited by a group of Hebrew workingmen, rather anarchistic than social-democratic, to edit a socialistic monthly, The Workers' Friend. Against his will, for he was a social-democrat, he accepted the offer. This monthly became the next year a weekly. Later, he translated Lassale's 'Workingmen's Program' into Judeo-German. About that time, in 1890, he was invited by the Jewish socialists of New York to come to the United States and edit a strictly social-democratic paper. He gladly accepted this invitation, and March 6, 1890, the first number of the Arbeiterzeitung was issued; since 1894 it has been appearing under the name of the Abend-Blatt as a daily, and it is now the official Jewish organ of the socialist labor party. He was also the first editor of the Zukunft, started by the Jewish socialist sections of the United States in 1892. Now he is contributing to the monthlies Neuer Geist and Neue Zeit. His articles are all characterized by great earnestness, and by a good flowing style. He is far from being a blind partisan, and he knows how to treat impartially questions of a general import.
The nineties have passed in the United States in the often-repeated attempt to establish permanent Judeo-German magazines. There have been a large number of them in existence, and one after the other has met with financial failure. Now, however, there are several that promise to last a longer time. Never before has the periodical press in Judeo-German been brought to such a perfection as regards its outward form and the variety of subjects that it has incorporated in its pages. The first of the kind was the Zukunft just mentioned. It lasted until the year 1897, when it gave way to the Neue Zeit, which is practically a continuation of the first. It differs little from similar popular science magazines in other languages. We find in it such articles as, What is Socialism? Philosophy and Revolution; A Dog's Brain, by John Lubbock; Shakespeare, his Life and his Works; Pasteur and his Discoveries; and similar scientific articles. To these must be added many literary articles, stories, poems, reviews, and the like. Among the several good contributors of the latter class of literature we shall dwell at a greater length on B. Gorin and Leon Kobrin.
B. Gorin is the pseudonym of J. Goido, of whose activity in Russia we have spoken before. After the failure of his undertaking in Wilna, mainly through the interference of the censor, who delayed his publication in every possible way, he went to Berlin to attend lectures at the University. He soon went to America, where shortly after, in 1895, he became the editor of a Philadelphia Judeo-German newspaper. From there he went to New York, where he published the 'Jewish American Popular Library,' a collection of short stories in the manner of his Wilna edition; but its life was cut short after the seventh number. He has since been the editor of the Neuer Geist. The most of his sketches were published in the Arbeiterzeitung and in the Abend-Blatt, when it was still edited by A. Cahan. At first he confined himself exclusively to short sketches in the style of the Russian writer, Shchedrin, but soon he followed the example of all of those who have written in America, and has translated foreign authors, has written reviews, and popularized science. In Russia he had begun the translation of 'David Copperfield.' In America he has translated Chekhov, and has in one way or other introduced the Russian Jews to the works of Daudet, Maupassant, Sienkiewicz, Korolenko, Dostoyevski, Bourget, Garshin, Potapenko, and many German and English novelists.
One of the most original writers of the realistic school in the manner of the Russian Chekhov is Leon Kobrin. He has lately started the publication of a 'Realistic Library,' of which the first number so far issued contains several sketches that have been written by him in the last two years. One of the best in that volume is the first, 'Jankel Boile,' a story from the life of Jewish fishermen. One is rather inclined to doubt that his Jewish characters really exist as he has depicted them; it almost seems as if they were a transference of Russian men to Jewish surroundings, for they seem to do things that are not met with as peculiarities of the Jews in the many novels by Judeo-German writers. But it may be that he speaks from intimate acquaintance with a class of people that is not generally accessible to the average writer. Barring this, the story is very vividly told. It is a sketch of a Jewish boy who has grown up with the village boys, and who has but the faintest idea of his Jewish faith. He falls in love with one of the peasant girls of his acquaintance, whom he courts, and for whom he is about to give up the faith of his fathers. In the last moment, when out in the night on a fishing tour on the stormy lake, he is caught with remorse at his impending apostasy, and he commits suicide by jumping in the lake. This is but a bare outline of a most excellently developed story, in which realism has been carried to a ne plus ultra. His portrayal of the lower classes with their indomitable passions reminds one very much of the remarkable sketches of the Russian Gorki.
At this juncture mention must be made of the many short sketches by Gurewitsch, who writes under the pseudonym of Z. Libin. They belong among the best Ghetto stories that have been written in New York, and they display undoubted talent. Cahan, Goido, Kobrin, and Libin are all young men yet, and from them alone a regeneration of the Jewish novel may be expected.
In 1893 Krantz and Sharkansky started a monthly magazine, The City Guide, but only two numbers of it appeared. Two years later Winchevsky began issuing in Boston The Emeth, a weekly family paper for literature and culture. It is a pity it was stopped before the year was out, for of all the magazines that have seen daylight in America, it was by far the most ably edited. Among his contributors of belles lettres we find the names of the authors just mentioned, and also several others. Nearly everything else is from the pen of the editor. While in many of the leaders his socialistic bias is pronounced, yet most of his articles deal with subjects of a general interest. Of his poetry we have spoken before. His prose style is even better. It is smooth, idiomatic, and carefully balanced. He is one of the few authors who bestow great care on a good Judeo-German style, and file and finish it. Most interesting are his epigrams and philosophical reflections, and his satirical sketches, which he generally ascribes to the 'Insane Philosopher.' Winchevsky has been very productive. Outside of his many original stories and sketches, his poetry, and sociological articles, he has translated a number of works, among others the Russian Korolenko and Victor Hugo's 'Les Misérables.' His translations are the very best in the Judeo-German language. Few have equalled him in the art of translation. The distinguishing characteristics of all his productions are dignity and refinement. Although he frequently depicts Jewish life, the Jew is but an accident of his themes, for he has ever in mind the social questions at large, as they affect the whole world.
The year before Schaikewitsch began the publication of the Hebrew Puck in imitation of the English Puck. Being of a humorous nature, that magazine does not show the glaring defects of his other works to any great extent. In the same year Alexander Harkavy started The American People's Calendar, which in addition to the matter that more strictly belongs to an almanac contains also several useful articles of a literary value. Harkavy has developed an untiring activity in the publication of books by which his countrymen should be introduced to the English language and to a right understanding of American citizenship. He has written all kinds of text-books, has translated the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and published The Hebrew American, an English weekly with footnotes in Judeo-German. He has also written a large number of popular articles on linguistic subjects. Many of these contain valuable matter, but it is often difficult to disentangle the facts from his personal speculations, which are not always based on scientific truths. He lacks training, and his style is otherwise colorless. But for all that, his deserts in the education of the Russian Jews of New York must not be undervalued. Of his translations we might also mention the 'Don Quixote,' of which so far only the first part has appeared in Judeo-German. Among the writers of historical essays, the most promising is the Roumanian, D. M. Hermalin, whose 'Mohammed' and 'Jesus the Nazarene' are not only fair and unbiassed statements of the foreign religious teachings, but also belong among the very few books in Judeo-German that are supplied with a critical apparatus.
The best magazine now in existence is the Neuer Geist, of which the first seven numbers were edited by Harkavy, but which now appears under the editorship of Gorin. It is a periodical of science, literature, and art, and has no special political bias. We find here the same contributors as in former monthlies. To those mentioned before may be added the names of Budianov, Feigenbaum, and Solotkov, who have written many good articles on sociological and philosophical matters, and Katz, who is an astute critic. Here has also appeared the best translation in verse of one of Shakespeare's dramas, 'The Merchant of Venice,' from the pen of the poet Bovchover. Another, smaller magazine, Die Zeit,[110] is published by the Hebrew poet M. M. Dolizki. Another well-conducted monthly is the Neue Zeit, issued by the Jewish-speaking sections of the Socialist Labor Party of the United States. There is no material difference in the composition of the contributors' staff. A few more names might be added to the list of men who have been active in spreading information among the Russian Jews, such as Feigenbaum, Wiernik, Bukanski. Seiffert has written some interesting accounts of the Jewish stage in America, but his language is of the order of Dick or even worse; Rosenfeld and Sharkansky have at various times produced some sketches and even dramas, but they are more strictly poets, as which alone they will survive.
The time is not far away when there will not be a Judeo-German press in America. The younger generation never looks inside of a Jewish paper now, and the next following generation will no longer speak the dialect, unless something unforeseen happens by which the existence of that anomaly shall be made possible. Already The Jewish Gazette, taking time by the forelock, has begun issuing an English supplement to its Judeo-German weekly. It wants to secure its lease of life by passing over by successive steps to a periodical published entirely in English, without a violent loss of its subscribers. Several of the intelligent writers in the vernacular are at the same time contributing to the English press, while some have entirely abandoned their Judeo-German. In the meanwhile that literature is developing a feverish activity. From its ashes will rise new forces in the English literature of America that will add no small mite to its pages. In the short time of the existence of the Judeo-German in America, it has passed through three distinct stages: the first was the era of the sensational novel; then followed the socialistic propaganda, coupled with the evolution of the press, but particularly the magazine. Now, without abandoning entirely the social and political ideals, the writers are combining to popularize science and to produce a pure literature. The latter is more or less under the sway of the Russian writers Chekhov, Korolenko, and Garshin. What Russia has done for the Jews in the seventies is reaped by the masses in the nineties in America.
IN the beginning of the eighteenth century two plays written in Judeo-German appeared in print, 'The Sale of Joseph' and the 'Ahasuerus-play.'[111] They were intended for scenic representation on the feast of Purim, which even before that time had been given to mimic performances. These mysteries, together with another written at about the same time, 'David and Goliath,' have held uninterrupted sway up to our own time wherever the Jargon has been spoken. Schudt has left us in his 'Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten'[112] a detailed account of the popularity of one of these plays from the start, of the manner of its performance at the house of the Rabbi of Mannheim, of the formation of the first travelling company for the execution of the drama at other towns, and many other interesting facts connected with it. These mysteries differ little from the coarse comedies and burlesques current at the time among the Gentiles, from whom, no doubt, many of the details were borrowed. Soon many imitations of the original 'Ahasuerus-play'[113] and 'The Sale of Joseph' came to rival the older plays in popularity. Of the first a form is known to me in which the Leckerläufer is substituted for the original Pickleherring, the grotesque harlequin, while of the second I possess at least two widely different versions, not to speak of Zunser's large drama of the same subject. Altogether, this matter has not, as far as I know, been properly investigated, so that little can be said with certainty about the relations that they bear to each other. 'The Sale of Joseph,' or 'The Greatness of Joseph,' as it is frequently called, was translated at the end of the last or the beginning of this century into Judeo-German by Elieser Pawier from the original Hebrew under the title 'Milchomo be-Scholom.' It is a much more serious production than the older work, and this, rather than the one printed in 1710, has lain at the foundation of future adaptations. At least one, the versified drama under the name of 'Geschichte vun Mechiras Jōssef u-Gdulas Jōssef,' published in 1876 in Jusefov, distinctly claims to be a translation from the same Hebrew source. How many such plays have been actually performed it is not possible to determine now without a more careful inquiry among older men in various parts of Russia. There have just come to light a number of mysteries once popular in the Government of Kowno, while some have been printed within our own days. Such, for example, is 'The Book of the Wisdom of Solomon,' which is based on the Biblical story of Solomon's life, but which contains also Talmudical commentaries on certain facts connected with his reign. The latest, and by far the best, drama on the 'Sale of Joseph' comes from the pen of Zunser, who not only has given it a literary finish, but has perused all the sources that throw any light on several difficult points connected with the play, and has furnished in some perplexing problems solutions of his own, so as to make the whole uniform and historically correct. In his introduction he mentions a few important facts about the popularity of the subject, and the manner of its performance, or recitation. He says: "No other story from our Holy Scripture has made such an impression or has become so known to the masses of the Jews as the 'Sale of Joseph.' ... As far back as we can remember it has been played among us by beggar-students, or by the old-fashioned badchens at weddings."
It is not uncommon to see a performance of this play given at the present time in some small town. The actors are generally the beggar-students who have to play both the male and female parts, as no women are allowed to perform together with the men. Some large unoccupied room is furnished with benches on which the sexes are generally seated separately. The stage is of the most primitive character, without decorations of any kind; and the actors like to parade in fantastic clothes which have nothing in common with the historical truth. Either the whole of the play, or at least certain passages are sung according to traditional tunes. In the 'Sale of Joseph' it is always the monologue of Joseph before his mother's grave upon which the greatest care is bestowed, as it is the most pathetic part of the drama. It is probably the prototype of M. Gordon's ballad of 'The Stepmother' and similar popular versions, for in them, as in Gordon's version, Joseph's mother sends up her consoling words to her son from her grave. An excellent description of such a performance is given in Dienesohn's 'Herschele,'[114] where the hero of the novel plays the part of Joseph.
These mysteries are not the only form of histrionic art. On the Purim, many masqueraders may be seen passing from house to house, followed by a curious crowd of children, anxious to catch a glimpse of the strange mummery of men and impossible animals. In some places the children and even grown persons manage to enter the house either by sheer force, or under the proverbial pretext that they are the "bear's brother." The actors begin in a chanting way: "Good evening, my good people, do you know what Purim means?" after which they proceed with the explanation and the performance of some grotesque scene. Each group has its own Purim play, which is generally some unrecognizable fragment of the 'Ahasuerus-play,' but frequently also some original production which is jealously guarded from being imitated by rival boy performers. There is no merit in them, but an investigation even of this form of the Purim play might bring out some interesting points or bits of antiquity. The length of the burlesque is graded according to the expectation of the final monetary reward, to which they allude with the stereotyped phrase: "The play is out, give us a coin, and throw us out of doors!"[115]
The possibility is not excluded that in addition to this semi-religious form of the drama, there may also have been given performances of profane plays at an early date in Russia. It is not known whether any of the dramas written by Aksenfeld, Gottlober, or Ettinger have been played by amateur actors, but we have at least one well-attested case of a performance of that kind in 1855,—twenty years before the establishment of the Judeo-German theatre by Goldfaden. In that year the students of the Zhitomir Rabbinical school celebrated the coronation of Emperor Alexander II. by a play in which the life of the Jewish soldier and the kahal were depicted. This drama is said to have been written by one Kamrasch, but never to have been printed. It is also asserted that it served as the first impulse to Goldfaden to create a Jewish theatre, which, however, he realized only much later.
There existed a dramatic literature long before Goldfaden. We have had occasion to mention the works of Ettinger, Aksenfeld, Gottlober, Abramowitsch, Falkowitsch, Levinsohn, Epstein. After the popular poetry a semi-dramatic style was better calculated to impress the people with the new culture than simple prose, which at that time had not been well worked out. Nearly all of the prose style of the early days is more or less affected by the drama, and even Abramowitsch has not entirely got away from it. Nearly all of his stories are introduced by the stereotyped words: "Says Mendele Mōcher Sforim," and there are other similar dramatic effects scattered through them. This, which is an imitation of Hebrew originals, has also been the usual way of introduction with other Judeo-German writers of the early days. The drama of Ettinger is entirely constructed after the manner of a German play, has five acts, and the laws of dramaturgy are carefully carried out. It really looks as though he had intended it for the stage. In Aksenfeld the adaptation to the stage is less apparent, while the others do not seem to have had the performance of their plays in mind at all. What is surprising is that Aksenfeld and Gottlober should have introduced in their dramas a number of couplets and songs which have no meaning unless they were meant to be sung by the actors. Possibly they followed the precedent of familiar German plays even in this particular, without any other purpose before them; or it may be that they foresaw the possibility of their future representation and thought it best to imitate the Purim plays, which had always some songs intermingled with the spoken dialogue of the actors.
In 1872 Goldfaden published two of his comedies.[116] The first, 'The Two Neighbors,' is a splendid farce, in which two women are discussing the prospective marriage of their two babies playing on the floor. The children get to fighting, and one of them is hurt. This changes the tone of their mothers, and they heap curses on each other in the vilest manner. The other, 'Aunt Sosie,' is the best he has ever written. We do not find in it the rant of his later dramas, and the subject is taken strictly from Jewish life. Aunt Sosie is a woman of the type of Serkele. She is anxious to get her sister married, and maltreats her husband's niece. Her husband is under her thumb. By the aid of his friend Ispanski he manages to cheat his wife and to get his niece married to his wife's brother. Sosie is about to marry her sister to a Lithuanian Jew, a cloak-maker, who is already married to another woman. His lawful wife comes in time to prevent the bigamy of her husband. It is easy to see that the whole is a close imitation of Ettinger's comedy.
During the Turco-Russian War, in 1876 and 1877, the city of Bukarest in Roumania presented a lively spectacle. It was the seat of the Russian staff, and all the news from the field of war was carried there, and all the contracts for the commissariat were let there. The city swarmed with Jews from Russia and Galicia, who had come there to find, in one way or another, some means to earn a fortune. Bukarest became a Mecca of all those who did not succeed at home. And, indeed, as long as the war lasted most of them managed to fill their pockets. With the easily gotten gains there came also a desire to be amused, and coffee-houses were crowded by Jews who came to them to listen to the songs of some local ballad singer. It was also not uncommon for such singers to give performances of their art in private houses to assembled guests. Goldfaden had also come there in the hope of bettering his condition. It occurred to him that he might widen the activity of the balladists by uniting several of them into a company for the sake of theatrical performances. This he did at once. Bearing in mind the fact that Jews had not been used to the regular drama, but that they were fond of music, he wrote hurriedly half a dozen light burlesques, mostly imitations of French originals, in which the songs written and set to music by him were the most important thing. There is no other merit whatsoever in the plays, as their Jewish setting is merely such in name, and as otherwise the plot is too trivial.[117] But the songs have survived in the form of popular ballads. It is interesting to note that this first Roumanian troupe consisted exclusively of men, who had also to take the women's parts.
After the conclusion of the war, in 1878, Goldfaden returned to Odessa, where he established a regular Jewish theatre.[118] Women were added to the personnel, and a number of writers began to write plays specially adapted for the stage. Katzenellenbogen, Lerner, Schaikewitsch, Lilienblum, and the founder of the theatre were busy increasing the repertoire. Of these, Katzenellenbogen was the most original and most literary. It does not appear that his dramas have been printed, but the songs taken out of several of them and issued by him in a volume of his poetry attest a high merit in them. Lerner was satisfied with reproducing some of the best German plays in a Jewish garb. Of these he later published, 'Uncle Moses Mendelssohn,' a one-act drama; a translation of Gutzkow's 'Uriel Acosta'; a rearrangement of Scribe's 'The Jewess'; and a historical drama, 'Chanuka,' of which the original is not mentioned by him. The dramas of the other two are quite weak, but they do not yet indicate that degree of platitude which they have reached later in America. The success of the theatre was complete. The original company divided in two, and one part began to play independently under the leadership of Lerner, while the other started on a tour through the Jewish cities of Russia, visiting Kharkov, Minsk, and even Moscow and St. Petersburg. In many towns they were received with open hands, in others the intelligent classes saw in the formation of a specifically Jewish theatre a menace to the higher intelligence which was trying to emancipate itself from the Judeo-German language and all its traditions. They went so far as to get the police's prohibition against the performances of Goldfaden's troupe.
This procedure was only just in so far as it affected the character of the plays, for there was nothing in them to recommend them as means of elevating or educating the masses. They had had their origin at a time when amusement was the only watchword, and they had had no time to evolve new phases. Seeing that in order to succeed he would have to furnish something more substantial than his farces, Goldfaden produced in succession three historical dramas: 'Doctor Almosado,' 'Sulamith,' and 'Bar-Kochba,' to which at a later time were added 'Rabbi Joselmann, or the Persecution in Alsace,' 'King Ahasuerus, or Queen Esther,' and 'The Sacrifice of Isaac,' and a fantastic opera, 'The Tenth Commandment.' None of these are, properly speaking, dramas, but operas or melodramas. They have at least the merit of being placed on a historical or Biblical basis and of following good German models. Their popularity has been very great, and the many songs which they contain, especially those from 'Sulamith' and 'Bar-Kochba,' rank among the author's best and most widely known. The latter two operas were translated into Polish, and given in a theatre in Warsaw. Just as the Jewish theatre was entering on its new course of the historical drama, the Government, by a rescript of September, 1883, closed them in Russia, and this was followed later by another prohibition of Jewish performances at Warsaw, where the first law had been obviated by giving them in the so-called German theatre.
About that time two young men, Tomaschewski and Golubok, of New York, started a theatre in New York. The troupe consisted of actors who had just arrived from London, where they found it too difficult to establish themselves. The first performance was given in the Fourth Street Turner Hall. As formerly in Russia, the Reformed Jews of the city used their utmost efforts to prevent the playing of a Jewish comedy, but in vain. It was given in spite of all remonstrances and threats. After that the theatre was permanently established in the Bowery Garden, under the name of the Oriental Theatre, which soon passed under the directorship of J. Lateiner. In 1886 another theatre, The Roumania Opera House, was opened in the old National Theatre, at 104-106 Bowery. It would not be profitable to enter into the further vicissitudes of the companies, their jealousies and ridiculous pretensions at equalling the best American troupes. Unfortunately, the authors upon whom they had to depend for their repertoires were Lateiner, Hurwitz, and other worthy followers of Schaikewitsch, who by rapid steps brought the Jewish stage down to the lowest degrees of insipidity. Not satisfied with producing dramas from a sphere they knew something about, they began to imitate, or rather corrupt, existing foreign plays, to give foolish versions of 'Mary Stuart,' 'Don Carlos,' 'Trilby,' and similar popular dramas. There were, indeed, some men who might have saved the stage from its frightful degeneration, but the theatre managers would not listen to them, preferring to pander to the low taste of the masses by giving them worthless productions that bore some distant resemblance to the performances in the lower grades of American theatres.
Only during a short period of time, early in the nineties, it looked as though things were going to be improved, for the managers accepted a number of adaptations and original plays by J. Gordin. Gordin belonged to that class of educated men who, though they had been carried across the ocean with one of the waves that bore the Jewish masses from Russia to the shores of the United States, had never stood in any relation whatsoever to their fellow-emigrants. He had been a Russian journalist, and in America he was confronted with the alternative of devoting himself to Judeo-German literature or starving. He naturally chose the first. Although he had had a good literary training, he had never before written a word in the vernacular of his people. At first he tried himself in the composition of short sketches from the life of the Russian Jews, and finding that his articles found a ready acceptance with the Judeo-German press, he attempted dramatic compositions. He has translated, adapted, or composed in all more than thirty plays, of which, however, only one has been printed. As his large variety of dramas give a good idea of the condition of the stage during its best period, they will be shortly mentioned here. Among the translations we find Ibsen's 'Nora'; among the adaptations we have Victor Hugo's 'Ruy Blas,' 'Hernani'; Lessing's 'Nathan the Wise'; Schiller's 'Kabale und Liebe,' under the name of 'Rōsele'; 'The Parnes-chōdesch,' from Gogol's 'The Inspector'; 'Elischewa' and 'Dworele,' imitations of two of Ostrovski's comedies; Grillparzer's 'Medea'; and 'Meir Esofowitsch,' on a subject taken from Mrs. Orzeszko's novel of the same name. Several of his plays display more original creative power. Of these it will suffice to mention: 'The Wild Man,' treating of the degeneration among the Jews; 'The Jewish Priest,' illustrating the struggle between the progressive Jews and the old orthodox factions; 'The Russian Jew in America,' dealing with the condition of the Russian Jews in New York; 'The Pogrom,' in which the late riots against the Jews in Russia are depicted.
Gordin and a few other men, such as Rosenfeld, Korbin, Winchevsky, might have introduced new blood and life into the Jewish drama, but the managers and the silly actors who in their pride permit their names to go down on the billboards as second Salvinis and Booths have willed otherwise. But then they are following in this the common course pursued by all dying literatures, and they are not, after all, to be blamed more than the public that permits such things, and the public in its turn is merely succumbing rapidly to the influence of American institutions, which before long will overwhelm peaceably, but none the less surely, the Jewish theatre and the Judeo-German language. Before the inevitable shall happen, they have attempted to cling to their old traditions; but it is only a very faint glimpse of their old life they are getting now, and in the very weak performances that one may still see on the Jewish stage there is already a great deal more of the reflex of their new home than the glow of their old. It is very doubtful whether the Jewish theatre can subsist in America another ten years.
Of late the theatre has been revived in Galicia and Roumania; if I am not mistaken, there exists also a Jewish theatre in Warsaw. The plays performed there are mainly the productions of Goldfaden, Lerner, and a few other writers of the older period. Occasionally a play is given there that has previously been played in New York. If the theatre is to survive in Europe, it will naturally develop quite independently from the American stage. It must remain more national if it is at all to be Jewish. And such we really find it to be. In addition to the several dramas mentioned throughout the book there might be added David Sahik's 'A Rose between Thorns' and Sanwill Frumkis's 'A Faithful Love,' which are among the best comedies produced in Judeo-German.
Excepting the peculiar development of the theatre in America, the Judeo-German drama has remained more or less a popular form of poetry. In the form of Goldfaden's farces we may see an evolution of the farcical Purim plays, while his historical dramas stand in very much the same relation to our time that the mysteries occupied two centuries ago. Similarly the theatre, even at its best, has remained of a primitive nature.
IN spite of the brilliant evolution of Judeo-German literature in the last fifty years, the older ethical works of the preceding period continue in power and are reprinted from time to time, mostly in the printing offices at Warsaw and Lublin. Among these we find a large number of biographies of famous Rabbis, testamentary instructions of wise men, essays on charity, faith, and other virtues, and an endless mass of commentaries on the Bible and other religious books. Most of these are translations from the Hebrew. Of late there have also begun to appear treatises on moral subjects written specially in the vernacular. We have had occasion to mention the works of Zweifel. There have also been written sermons of a more pretentious character in Judeo-German, and even the missionaries have used the dialect for the purpose of making propaganda among them: the first to attempt this were the English missionaries, the last have been emissaries from the Greek Church. Of course these have had no influence of any kind on the minds of the people. One of the most fruitful branches of the liturgical literature has been the Tchines, or Prayers. They are intended for women, and there is a vast variety of them for every occasion in life. Some of the older ones are quite poetical, being translations or imitations of good models. But many of the newer ones have been manufactured without rhyme or reason by young scholars in the Rabbinical seminaries of Wilna and Zhitomir. These were frequently in sore straits for a living, and knowing the proneness of women to purchase new, tearful prayers, have composed them to their tastes. They have hardly any merit, except as they form a sad chapter in the sad lives of Russian Jewish women. The old story-books and the prayers have been almost the only consolation they have had in their lives fraught with woe.
In one of Abramowitsch's novels a woman, purchasing a prayer from an itinerant bookseller, gives the following reason for being so addicted to them: "For us poor women, the Tchines are the only remedy for hearts full of sores and wounds; they furnish us with the only means of weeping to our hearts' content, and of finding relief for our saddened spirits in a warm stream of tears.... It is truly aggravating and painful to see men who do not understand and who do not wish to understand our hearts make light of women's Tchines and begrudge us the only consolation we have. Let them take a seat in the women's synagogue on a Saturday or some holiday, and let them watch the many poor, unfortunate women who have come away from their homes under difficulties:—one suffering an evil fate from her husband, another a forlorn widow; one heavy with child, another downhearted and exhausted from watching long nights at the bed of her sick, suckling babe; one with swollen, blistered hands from standing at the stove, and another with her face careworn, and pale from heavy slave's work, from walking eternally under a yoke;—let them watch all these sad, downtrodden women standing around the Reader, let them hear them wail and lament with eyes uplifted to their merciful, all-kind Father in heaven, bathing in tears and ready to tear their hearts out of their bosoms. If the men could see such a scene with their own eyes, they would, I am sure, never open their mouths again to ridicule the prayers of women."
Outside of these prayers and ethical treatises the most popular books since the middle of our century have been two elementary works,—one on arithmetic, teaching the rudiments of the art, the other a letterwriter. It is probably no exaggeration to say that a hundred editions of the latter book have appeared in print. It was composed by Lewin Abraham Liondor, and was intended as a guide for Judeo-German spelling and letter-writing by children and women. This has been almost the only text-book written in and for the vernacular. Liondor knew how to make it entertaining by having a series of connected stories in the form of letters and an occasional song interspersed in them. The book begins with an interesting dialogue in the form of letters between the letterwriter and the author, and ends with a number of letters from and to a schadchen, the go-between in marriage affairs. From the dialogue one can see what great popularity this humble work has had in its time. There have been issued in the last ten years a number of similar letterwriters, more in accord with the demands of the time, but the naïveté of Liondor's book has all disappeared in them, and they present no interest to the reader.
It has never occurred to Judeo-German writers to treat their language grammatically. They all started out with the idea that it was not a language, but merely a corrupted dialect which could not be brought under any grammatical rules. In this opinion they have persevered up to the present. Where they felt it, nevertheless, their duty to establish some kind of system, they have dealt only with orthography, and thus of late a few pamphlets on that subject, but of no scientific value, have been produced by them. Much greater has been the attempt of Judeo-German authors to furnish their people with text-books for the study of foreign tongues. As early as 1824 a Polish grammar appeared in Warsaw. Wherever the conditions have been favorable for it, the Jews have tried to learn the languages of their Gentile fellow-citizens. If they have so long persevered in the use of their dialect in Russia and Poland, the fault is with the Government and not with them, as we shall soon see. In the seventies Jewish youths were admitted liberally to the gymnasia and universities, and they eagerly availed themselves of the privilege and threw themselves with ardor upon the study of the Russian language. The most encouraging time for them was from the year 1874 to 1875, when all seemed to presage better days for them. The schools were crowded with ambitious children, and there were many left at home who had to get their Russian education privately or through self-instruction. To help these, a number of excellent text-books were written. Such were the books of Skurchowitsch, Lifschitz, Zazkin, Chadak, Feigensohn. All these appeared within the short period of two years. Later a number of other similar productions followed. Lifschitz also published at the same time a Russian-Judeo-German and Judeo-German-Russian dictionary, which is one of the most valuable stores of Judeo-German that we possess. Everything was preparing the way for the extermination of the native dialect in favor of the literary language of the country, when the short-sightedness of the Government drove them once more back into their separate existence.
Previous to the seventies there could be found only grammars for the study of German, French, and even English, but no works to make the study of Russian easy. Since the year 1881, when the forced emigration began, new interests have taken hold of the minds of the Jews. They have been scattered to the four winds, have formed colonies in Germany and France, but more especially in England, South Africa, and the United States. Most of those who have gone to their new homes, and who still intend going there, hardly know any other language than Judeo-German. But they must learn the tongues of their adopted countries, and we find a large number of text-books of all descriptions prepared for them. They have been driven also to Spanish America, and we find Spanish word-books and grammars written for them. Sadder still, they have begun to dream of returning to their former home in Palestine, and Arabic word-books have become their latest necessity. It must not be forgotten that this class of publications has no claim to scientific recognition; though they are sometimes written by educated men, they are meant to serve only for the immediate needs of the wandering Jew. They consequently reflect, like the belles lettres, the conditions under which the Jews are laboring.
At the dawn of the new era, in the first half of this century, few thought of the study of foreign languages. The masses were too ignorant in more essential things to be ready for that kind of instruction. It was more important that they be made acquainted with the most obvious facts around them. We saw how one of the most popular books of those days was 'The Discovery of America,' which also gave some facts in regard to physical geography. In the sixties, when books of instruction for the first time were being printed, history and geography were the first to receive the attention of those who wished to further popular instruction. Almost one of the very first to be issued then was Resser's 'Universal History,' and this was followed not long after by a primer on geography. Only after the riots, a more direct attempt was begun at the education of the people from the standpoint of their vernacular, and since then geographies and histories of the best foreign authors have been adapted to their humble needs. We find then, among others, a translation of Graetz's 'Popular History of the Jews.'
When we reach the nineties, we get a whole literature of popular science. We have Bernstein's 'Natural Science,' Brehm's 'Essays on Animals,' and a large number of other similar adaptations for this period. The most systematic distribution of such books was carried on by A. Kotik and Bressler, who published a series of text-books on the useful sciences. Among these are several on anthropology, on political economy, and even on Darwinism. But none of these can compare in literary value with the excellent essays of Perez, or even with some of the articles in the various periodicals. Within the last few years the popular stories of Tannenbaum in New York have become very popular in Russia, where nearly all of his works are being reprinted as soon as they have appeared in America. One of the most persistent kinds of this class of literature has been the one that gives instruction in popular medicine. We find such information teaching what to do in case of cholera in the first half of the century, and later for nearly forty years many such useful essays have been written by Dr. Tscherny. This exhausts the scanty collection of a scientific nature that has been produced for the masses.
Conditions have not been favorable in Russia for the development of a periodical literature such as the leaders of the people have always had in mind, and such as the writers now would like to see inaugurated. The Government has put so many obstacles in the way of their publications that they have nearly all been of an ephemeral nature, and have had successively to give place to new and just as short-lived periodicals. The earliest use of Judeo-German, at least of German written with Hebrew letters, we find in a gazette published in Prague in the beginning of the century; the next was a similar paper that was published in Warsaw in 1824. After that there ensued a long silence until the year 1848, when a constitution and the freedom of the press were announced in Austria. The happy news was brought to the Jews of Galicia by a Judeo-German proclamation issued by Jizchok Jehuda Ben Awraham in Lemberg. In a simple language the author tells his co-religionists of the change that has come over them, of the formation of a National Guard, of the Freedom of the Press, and of the Constitution. It proceeds to give the late occurrences in Lemberg, and expresses the hope of a close union with the Gentile population. "And to-day when the Gentiles cast away their hatred against us, we Jews who have always had good hearts shall certainly be one body and one soul with the Christians." A month later A. M. Mohr started a political gazette under the name of Zeitung, in which a corrupt German, rather than Judeo-German, was employed. This paper has subsisted, with some interruptions and various changes of form, up to the present time. The following year there was issued a rival paper, Die jüdische Post, which added a commercial column to the political news.
In Russia no periodical appeared until Zederbaum issued his supplement, Kol-mewasser, to the Hameliz in 1863. This weekly was not only a gazette of political news, but also a literary magazine which, as we have seen, has fostered the Judeo-German literature and has made it possible for Abramowitsch and Linetzki to develop themselves. In 1871 its life was cut short. In 1867 a short-lived attempt was made in Warsaw to issue a weekly, Die Warschauer jüdische Zeitung, which followed closely the precedent set by the Kol-mewasser. Many of the contributors to the older magazine have written articles for the same. For some reason, emanating mainly from the censor, no periodical in Judeo-German was published in Russia during the seventies. The Jews were, however, not entirely without reading matter of that class, for at different times magazines and gazettes were issued for them abroad. The first of the kind was the Jisrulik, which appeared in Lemberg in 1875 under the joint editorship of Linetzki and Goldfaden. This differed from its predecessors in so far as it made the literary part the most important division in its columns. Most of the matter was furnished by the editors themselves, or rather by Linetzki alone, for Goldfaden's name does not figure upon it after the first few numbers. In less than half a year, the Jisrulik was discontinued. From 1877 up to 1881 Brüll issued in Mainz a weekly, Hajisroeli, devoted to the interests of the Russian Jews. Upon its pages one may now and then find the names of some of the older writers, but on the whole it seems to have been only in distant contact with its countrymen at home. Another weekly of the same character was started in 1880 under the name of Kol-leom in Königsberg. Only the next year Zederbaum succeeded in obtaining the Government's permission for his Volksblatt, which appeared uninterruptedly until 1889, some time after its chief contributors, Spektor and Rabinowitsch had discontinued their connection with it and had started annuals of their own. Since then, several new ones, all of them of very short duration, have seen daylight. At the moment of writing this, permission has been granted by the Russian government to a Zionistic society, in Warsaw, to publish a magazine under the name of Bas-kol.
There has been a steady progress in the periodical press, such as could be expected under the tantalizing restrictions attendant on a Judeo-German press in Russia. The Volksblatt is both quantitatively and qualitatively an improvement over the Kol-mewasser, which in its turn is far superior to the gazettes preceding it. The Hausfreund and the Volksbibliothēk, Dās hēilige Land, and Die Jüdische Bibliothēk are all more systematic, more in accord with the modern form of periodicals, than the Volksblatt.
There has been and still is another potent factor in the dissemination of useful knowledge and even of good literature, that is furnished by the almanacs, of which a large number have been issued at various times. The best of these were started in the seventies, just at the time when the periodical press was discontinued. One of the earliest of the kind was The Useful Calendar, the first of which was issued in Wilna in 1875 by Abramowitsch. In addition to the usual information given in publications of this sort, there are in it tabular data on geography, history, statistics, and similar sciences, all gotten together from the best and most reliable sources. It is a close reproduction of similar almanacs in the Russian language. Soon after a similar series was begun by Linetzki, who added a column of anecdotes to those of a more serious nature. In the nineties, when there was again a lull in the publication of the annuals and magazines, the almanac was revived, but in a still more improved form than before. In fact, it now differs little from the annuals, for the calendar is the minor part in it, while the literary division is worked out with great care. The first of this new kind was edited by J. Bernas under the name of The Jewish Commercial Calendar for the years 1891-1896. Among the contributors to the literary department we find the familiar names of Perez, Dienesohn, Goldfaden, Frischmann. Since 1893 Spektor has been issuing an annual almanac, The Warsaw Jewish Family Calendar, which is constructed after the manner of Bernas's publication. Another similar series is that issued by Eppelberg of Warsaw. The most perfect of the almanacs is the one which was started in 1894 by G. Bader in Lemberg under the name of the Jewish Popular Calendar, of which not less than two-thirds is occupied by literature. As contributing editors are mentioned Abramowitsch, Frug, Perez, J. M. Rabinowitsch, and a few others who have not appeared before in Judeo-German literature. These almanacs are calculated to do a great deal of good among the masses, as they are circulated in much larger editions than any other books, and as they generally escape destruction at least for the period of one year, whereas the people have not learned to preserve printed works longer than during the time they are perusing them. The rapidity with which books disappear from the market and from the possession of private individuals is something astounding. Of books printed in the sixties one need hardly hope to be able to find more than one in ten asked for, while even those that have been printed comparatively late, in the eighties, have frequently become a rarity. This is partly due to their being sold in uncut, unstitched sheets which easily fall to pieces. But much more often it is the result of indifference to the printed word which, to a certain extent, is also shared by the corresponding classes of their Gentile countrymen. The works that have been published in the last twenty years stand a better chance of being preserved, as they are well stitched and not seldom even bound. They are also printed on much better paper than the majority of books of the older time.
What few Judeo-German books were issued in Russia before the sixties were printed mostly in the printing offices of Wilna and Warsaw. Up to the forties, the books that proceeded from the first place bear the names of the printers Manes and Simel, after which begins the activity of the firm Romm, which is still in existence; but Romm is not the only firm there now as it has been for nearly fifty years. In Warsaw we find in the beginning of our century the office of Levinsohn; in the forties many works were also printed at Orgelbrand's. In the sixties and the seventies, most of the better works were published in the South. The firms of Nitsche, and Beilinsohn in Odessa and of Schadow, and Bakst in Zhitomir printed nearly all the Judeo-German books of the Southern group of writers. The books of the Odessa firms are particularly well printed, and put together in an attractive form. In the last twenty years Berdichev, Kiev, Wilna, Warsaw, have been the leading cities to print such books, while Lublin in Poland, and Lemberg in Galicia, have brought out a mass of religious and legendary literature. The Lemberg chapbooks can hardly be equalled for the miserable way in which they are gotten up and printed.
Anciently Jewish bookstores could be found only in the largest cities. In the towns and villages the books were disseminated by the itinerant bookseller who carried with him a variety of things which did not have anything in common with the book trade, such as candlesticks, show-threads, prayer shawls, and other things necessary in the observance of the Mosaic Law. Even now this wandering bookseller has not gone out of existence. All the stories of Abramowitsch are told in the person of Mendele Mōcher Sforim, i.e. Mendel the Bookseller, of whose part played in the distribution of literature and as a newsmonger many interesting details will be found in his works. It is interesting to note that a few years ago several Russians who had undertaken to spread good books among the people resorted to the same means that for a hundred years, if not longer, had been in vogue among the Jews. The books were hawked about in a wagon from village to village, and to attract the peasants, many other useful things were sold by these itinerant bookstores.
Since the dispersion of the Russian Jews in Europe and America, there has arisen in the diaspora a large number of periodical publications which serve as the medium for the dissemination of all kinds of knowledge. In England there were issued in the eighties the weeklies The Future and The Polish Jew, and in the nineties a monthly The Free World. Some good essays on sociological questions, mostly of a socialistic nature, were issued by the 'Socialistic Library' and 'The People's Library' in London. In Paris there has appeared since 1896 a weekly, The Hatikwoh, under the editorship of Bernas, the former compiler of a calendar. In that city Zuckermann is publishing also a 'Library of Novels,' in which one may find translations of many of the popular French works. Roumania has had a gazette, the Hajōez, ever since the seventies, which has published a number of novels in book form. The most of these are translations; the few original ones that have appeared in that collection are of little value. A few other papers may be found in Jassy and other places. In 1896 H. L. Gottlieb started a monthly in M.-Sziget in Hungary, but it lived only two months. Most of the articles in prose and poetry are by the editor himself, whose style resembles that of Linetzki and Goldfaden. There have also been published a dozen books, mostly farces or parodies, in Judeo-German, but with German letters. Nearly all of these appeared in Austria and Hungary. They add nothing to the store of the Judeo-German literature.