CHAPTER VII 
SOCIAL LIFE 
    Domestic diversion - Family festivities and indoor games - Social clubs, literary societies, and public functions – Fraternal orders and benefit societies - Students' unions - Athletic sports – Theatres - Cafes - Summer resorts 
Having surveyed the Social Aspect of Modern Jewry from every main angle of vision, we now come to a review of social life in its more conventional and intimate sense, to a description of the forms and fashions in which Jewry spends its leisure and seeks recreation and amusement - its domestic diversions and festivities; its games and pastimes; its clubs, institutes, and public functions; its fraternal orders, students' unions, and athletic associations; and, last but not least, the frequenting of theatres and the flocking to summer resorts. 

The typical Jew of the modern as of the medieval Ghetto finds his most congenial recreation in the study of the Talmud. When the toil of the day is over and the evening repast is finished and the grace has been devoutly said, he takes down from his shelf of Hebrew literature a heavy leather-bound tome of the Talmud, frayed at the edges from years of use, and in the glow of the lamp he cons a page from some treatise on festival services in the Temple or on ethical virtues, reading the text aloud in a quaint traditional sing-song and accompanying the solemn argument with nods of the head and downward scoops of the outstretched thumb, all heedless of the world without and its crowd of fleeting pleasures. Wrapped in the lore of his ancestors he moves in a sphere of the highest bliss, whilst at his side, meek and devoted, sits his wife, diligently plying a needle or perchance bending likewise over a Yiddish version of the Pentateuch, full of legends, parables, and pious reflections. She listens lovingly to the voice of her husband, vainly striving ever and anon to follow the sacred mysteries, but venturing not to interrupt the trend of thought or flow of argument. Yet if a neighbour looks in they both readily break off their diversion and give him a cordial welcome, eagerly entering into a discussion of domestic or communal affairs - the last letter from a son in South Africa, a rumoured engagement, or the forthcoming appointment of a new Rabbi - which occasionally wanders into the more turbulent region of Weltpolitik. The lady bestirs herself to offer the guest a glass of tea with lemon, or if the cause of his visit be of joyous moment she sets a bottle of wine or whisky with glasses upon the table, and a dish of home-made beetroot jam, dispensing a kindly hospitality which serves to gratify her taste for gossip. She is always "at home," unlike her rich sister in the more fashionable part of the city, who receives only on fixed days, the second Sunday and fourth Thursday, and who gives occasional dinner-parties, card-parties, or garden-parties, and otherwise faithfully observes the latest conventions of modern society. 

The placid hours of domestic life in the Ghetto are sufficiently varied by festivals and fasts, with their exacting requirements of dietary and house-cleaning, to banish all thought or desire for outside pleasures, whilst a series of family celebrations-circumcision, redemption of the first-born, Bar-mitzvah, betrothals, and weddings - supply all the merriment that is wished for in these modest circles. It is at the weddings of their children or of their relatives or friends that the pious old folks hear, as a rule, the only music and see the only dancing that enliven the even tenor of their days; and the Jewish folk-melodies (wistfully recalling half-forgotten scenes of long ago in their native townlet in Russia or Galicia), the measured dances (innocent of the degenerations of an immodest age), and the learned or witty speeches at the long and many-coursed dinner, leave a happy impression that remains for months. A daughter in the home generally involves the acquisition of a piano, for she will not be outshone by her friends in social accomplishments, and although the father, with his serious view of life, may oppose the introduction of the instrument, the indulgent mother, with an eye to the conquest of a desirable young man, encourages the girl's ambition and secures its gratification. Only upon one occasion in the year are the sounds of unusual revelry heard beneath the family roof, namely, upon the feast of Purim, when everybody must make so merry and drink so freely that he "cannot distinguish between Haman and Mordecai," and when a group of masked minstrels (Badchanim) go from house to house to sing jovial songs to the strains of a rickety violin or to perform a short comic play. But these minstrels, though still surviving in Eastern communities, are met with more and more rarely in the Western world, where theatre and music-hall develop a too critical taste. Similarly, a traditional feature of Chanucah, the game of trendel a teetotum with Hebrew letters on its four faces, which is played upon this festival in Eastern Europe, has failed to maintain itself in the West, though games with nuts may still be seen played by children in the Passover week in the streets of the modern Ghettos. No pastime of former days, however, can compare with the fascinating attractions of chess or the tempting allurements of cards. The indulgence in cards, often played for high stakes, is found among all classes, but is pursued here and there to pernicious excess, leading to occasional reproof from the Rabbi in his Sabbath sermon. But chess enjoys a deep-rooted and widespread affection in intellectual circles, dating from medieval times, and is even allowed on the Sabbath, whilst the abnormally high proportion of champions contributed by modern Jews affords the best testimony of the skill they have achieved in the game. 

The social life of the community in the mass takes on a host of varied forms, reflecting the ideals, interests, and pleasures of different classes. A cluster of clubs and societies attract different elements, offering a varied programme of entertainment and instruction, much of which is concentrated upon the Saturday and Sunday nights of the winter months, alternating with rambles and picnics in the summer. In the large centres there are not only clubs for working-men, often with a membership of over a thousand, and likewise for boys, in the management of which the leisured class take an active part, but also clubs for girls, who are taught both useful and ornamental accomplishments and give occasional entertainments for the benefit of their parents and friends. The clubs in English-speaking countries are furnished with all the means of amusement and recreation - billiard-tables, chess, draughts, and dominoes, with a reading-room and library for those more studiously inclined; lectures and debates are held upon Jewish and general topics; concerts and theatrical performances give budding talents an opportunity of display, and the indispensable balls and Soirees provoke cordial relations between members and their lady friends. The "social and literary societies," having, as a rule, no permanent premises of their own like the clubs, meet in synagogue council-chambers, hotels, concert-halls, or even in private houses; they generally have more important debates and a superior list of lectures, some of which are given by speakers from other cities or other countries, whose visits, if they be well-known personages, occasion the delivery of a weighty message, perchance of a propagandist nature, and often attract an overflowing audience. Such visits have in recent years become of increasing occurrence. They are exchanged between the Jewries of England and America, and also between them and those of the Continent, serving to improve a mutual understanding and to fortify the sentiment of solidarity. In many large cities, in America as well as in Europe, the social and intellectual life of the working class revolves round an institute modelled on Toynbee Hall; in Berlin and Vienna, in Lemberg and Cracow, it is actually called the Jewish Toynbee Hall, in London it is the Jewish Institute, in Paris the Jewish Popular University, in New York the Hebrew Educational Alliance. These institutions comprise a library and reading-room in which books and newspapers of Jewish interest form the main feature. Free popular lectures and concerts are held, whilst sometimes courses are given in the language of the country for immigrants. Public dinners are held now and again to promote some worthy cause or celebrate some important event, bringing together a large circle of interested persons in convivial array who listen to the speeches with sympathy tempered by an irrepressible tendency to criticize; or the institution or movement to be furthered may be aided by a bazaar, to which titled magnates of the community, and just as readily the Mayor of the city himself, lend their patronage, and in which the wives of prominent members, with their husband-hunting daughters, vie with one another in their personal co-operation. Gifts in kind are there received not only from shopkeepers great and small, but also from a score of "Dorcas" and needlework guilds, which meet alternately in the homes of members to sew useful undergarments and discuss the latest gossip over tea. Once a year the children of the communal schools and classes assemble in their best attire for the prize distribution, when they go through a programme of songs, recitations, and musical drill to the delight of their admiring parents, and the chairman delivers himself of his views upon current educational problems. And remote from all the motley hubbub of the Ghetto, broken ever and anon by the strident bells of a cyclists’ corps out for a Sunday run, or the martial band of a lads’ brigade swinging along with spirited step, - seated in the quiet seclusion of a humble synagogue the faithful followers of the Talmud, parents and greybeards, pursue their pious study under the guidance of a hoary Rabbi and celebrate the completion (Siyum) of a treatise with a humble feast in the selfsame scene, where mundane discourse freely commingles with spiritual themes. 

Jewish life since the latter part of the nineteenth century is also distinguished by three other forms of organization for social purposes: the fraternal order or friendly society, the university students' union, and the athletic association. The fraternal orders, whose origin is traced to the Chevra Kadisha (Holy Society) or burial society mentioned in the Talmud,1 are particularly numerous, far exceeding the clubs and literary societies; they abound in thousands in all parts of the world, and flourish especially in English-speaking countries. The oldest, most important, and most widely ramified of these organizations is the Independent Order Bnei Brith (Sons of the Covenant), which was founded in 1843 in New York by a number of German Jews under the lead of Henry Jones, and which now comprises over 400 lodges with a membership exceeding 34,000, drawn from the middle and upper classes and scattered over the United States, England, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Rumania, Turkey, Egypt, and Palestine. Founded to inculcute the principles of charity, benevolence, and brotherly love, and barring from its meetings all political and religious controversy, the Bnei Brith Order has not only strengthened the bonds of solidarity between the dispersed communities of Israel, but has also accomplished a great amount of social and philanthropic work: it has established hospitals, orphan asylums, schools, and libraries in tile United States, and rendered valuable relief to the persecuted Jews of Eastern Europe. Most of the lodges have premises of their own, some of them exceedingly commodious and sumptuous, which not only serve as a social rendezvous but constitute a fertile source of humanitarian effort. But among the larger class less favoured by fortune the fraternal order enjoys an even greater popularity, for, apart from its social attractions, it provides cheap insurance against sickness or unemployment, and sundry money benefits, and is very often simply called a benefit society. Orders of this kind have sprung up in great number in England2 and America during the last thirty years and are still on the increase from year to year, drawing their membership almost exclusively from the ranks of the immigrants from Eastern Europe and owing their multiplicity to the love of the Russian and Galician Jew for society-formation and to local patriotism. Several of these orders in America have over a hundred lodges each, the largest being the Brith Abraham, with 684 lodges and 185,000 members, and a number of them have recently combined to create a national Jewish Fraternal Congress with a membership of 600,000. The largest organization in England, the Grand Order of Israel, has sixty-two lodges, eight of them situated in South Africa and Canada. Besides the large orders, some of which bear a purely Jewish name, whilst others are designated "Hebrew Order of Druids" or "Oddfellows," there is a host of unattached friendly societies, many of which are called after the native town of the original members. 

The students' unions at universities are of somewhat later development, for it was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that the Jewish students at any of the principal seats of learning were numerous enough to form a society of their own. The first organization was founded in 1882 in Vienna by Jewish students from Russia, Rumania, and Galicia, who entitled their society Kadimah, which means both "Eastward" and "Forward," as an indication of the ideal of a resettlement in Palestine which they advocated. Since then, partly as a result of the advance of Zionism and partly as a result of the Anti-Semitic attitude of the general students' corps on the Continent, separate societies have been formed by the Jewish students at almost every university at which they number at least a dozen, and are now found in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Switzerland, France, and Holland. Some of these societies owe their existence simply to the exclusion of Jews from the general corporation, and they adopt a passive attitude on Jewish questions, but the majority are animated by the ideal of Jewish nationalism and actively foster the Zionist cause. The Jewish nationalist societies in Germany are grouped into two organizations, the "Bund Jüdischer Corporationen," founded in 1901, with a membership of over 600 (graduates and undergraduates), and the smaller "Kartell Zionistischer Verbindungen," founded five years later, with a membership of 250. The Zionist students' societies in Holland were federated in 1908, but those in other Continental countries pursue an unattached existence. Established to assert and promote the principle of Jewish nationalism these corporations have nevertheless adopted all the methods and conventions of German corporations: they each have their distinctive colours and they hold "beer evenings" at which the students sing spirited songs in swelling chorus around tables which they bang with their beer-mugs, presided over by officers who are accoutred in a gorgeous uniform and armed with a sword that does duty alternately as chairman's hammer and conductor's baton. But their songs tell not of Teuton valour but of Jewish hope, breathing the spirit of a rejuvenated people. Besides these convivial gatherings the members cultivate the study of Jewish history, literature, and modern problems, and also practise fencing so as to be prepared for any duel in which they might be involved in vindication of the Jewish name. The Jewish societies at the universities in English-speaking countries are not, like the Continental corps, the inevitable product of an unfriendly, environment, but voluntary associations for the study of Jewish questions and for social intercourse. The Jewish students in England, and to a less extent in the United States, join the societies of their university; but their racial sympathies prompt them also to fraternize with one another. Thus, Oxford has its Adler Society and Cambridge its Schechter Society, whilst at both universities there is also a Zionist Society. Moreover, in the United States, "Menorah" societies for the study of Jewish history and the discussion of Jewish questions have been formed at twenty-five Universities and organized into an Intercollegiate "Menorah" Association with over 1000 members. 

A more remarkable development than either the fraternal orders or students' societies are the Jewish athletic and gymnastic societies that have sprung up during the last twenty years. The love of sport, a conception almost entirely foreign to the Jew of former times, has been fostered in the modern generation in its schooldays and has led to the participation of Jews in all branches of athletics, in some of which they have achieved distinction. Jewish pugilists in England had already acquired a reputation a hundred years ago, but they formed a somewhat abnormal phenomenon in the life of the time. To-day the cultivation of sport has become an essential feature of Jewish life, and the "Ghetto bend" in Western countries can only be seen on the backs of immigrants. Cricket and football clubs now occupy a regular place in the list of communal organizations, and matches take place as a rule on Sunday, the sanctity of the Sabbath not permitting them on a Saturday. The large number of these clubs in London has led to the formation of a Jewish Athletic Association. The importance of swimming was urged over sixteen centuries ago by a sage in the Talmud and is universally recognized in Jewry at the present day. No Jew has yet swum the English Channel, but Captain Webb, who was the first to perform the feat, had a Jewish trainer, Marquis Bibbero; and Jabez Wollfe has more than once very nearly completed the coveted achievement. On the Continent the love of sport has manifested itself most extensively in the cultivation of gymnastics. Stimulated by the new spirit of Zionism, which appreciated the value of mens sana in corpore sano, gymnastic societies were formed in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey, drawing their most enthusiastic adherents from the ranks of university students and comprising women as well as men. There are nearly forty such societies altogether, federated into a single association ("Judische Turnerschaft"), with headquarters in Berlin; it comprises over 5000 members and has an organ of its own besides a special song-book. Rambling and rowing have also been taken up with ardour, and on the Spree, the Elbe, and the Danube may be seen competing crews with distinctive Jewish colours and badges. Particularly interesting is the recent progress of the gymnastic movement among the Jews in the Ottoman Empire. The Maccabee Gymnastic Society in Constantinople has found so many imitators in Syria and Palestine that it has organized them into a league comprising about 1000 members, with Hebrew as the language of command. In Palestine alone there are already a dozen societies in all the leading colonies, urban and rural, and the first Gymnastic Conference in the autumn of 1912 was a significant event of the Jewish renaissance in the Holy Land. Cognate with the enthusiasm for outdoor sports is the success that has attended the development of the Jewish Lads' Brigade in England, which, founded in 1895 by the late Colonel Albert Goldsmid, now comprises nearly 2000 members and holds a northern and southern camp every year. The boy scouts' movement has also found' many followers among the younger generation. 

In the centre of Jewish affections stands the theatre, to the modern development of which Jewish genius - dramatic and histrionic - has contributed so much. Jews are most ardent theatre-goers in every country, attending premieres with almost religious zeal, and managers are so dependent upon their patronage that they must reckon with their susceptibilities in deciding upon new productions. Saturday nights and the evenings after the close of festivals are generally spent in a theatre, in which the daughters of Israel are occasionally lavish in their display of jewels - or does not their darker and more pronounced type attract more attention to their personal adornments than is bestowed upon the rest of the feminine audience? Frequent in their attendance at the playhouse the Jews have a fine critical faculty and often determine the fate of a play. They are passionate lovers of good music, prominent among the admirers of every star in the musical firmament; while they show particular generosity in facilitating the debut of every fresh genius among their people, which is peculiarly prolific of prodigies. The denizens of the Ghetto have theatres of their own, with their own dramas and operas in Yiddish, and their own local stars and favourites. In Warsaw and Odessa, in Lemberg and Bucharest) and in London and New York there are permanent Yiddish theatres - three in New York alone - at which the operas of Abraham Goldfaden and the dramas of Jacob Gordin, not to mention the works of lesser lights, are played before crowded audiences, who are as tempestuous in their disapproval as they are lavish in their applause. Most of the operas are based upon episodes of Jewish history, whilst the dramas, which mainly deal with problems of modern Jewish life, are frequently given a musical setting. But a great many Yiddish plays are simply adaptations of non-Jewish dramas, a weakness being shown for those of a sensational nature; and as the numerical limitations of the Ghetto public involve a frequent change of bill, which means a trying task for the actors' memory, the prompter's box is unfortunately a conspicuous feature of the stage. 

An hour or two after the theatre, apart from the hours of the rest of the day, are spent in a cafe, of which the Jews, with their love of discussion, are among the most regular devotees. In all the large cities, from Amsterdam to Constantinople, Jews may be seen in animated conversation at particular coffee-houses, and, just like the rest of the population, different sections or parties within the Jewish communityforegather in different cafes as in different camps, discussing the latest events of communal or political interest and fashioning their future policy. Thus Cafe Monopoly in Berlin is sacred to the Zionists, whilst the Jews of " liberal" tendency prefer to drink their coffee in the neighbouring Cafe Bauer and Victoria. The same phenomenon is manifest in the Jewish quarter of New York, where the Zionists, the Socialists, and the Territorialists, and the satellites of various local authors, actors, poets, and pundits, each have their favourite resort for the leisure hours before midnight - and after. 

Following in the footsteps of fashion the Jews flock every year, in ever-increasing numbers, to the world's leading watering-places, seeking recuperation for body and mind. Excluded from the summer resorts of Russia and likewise from the principal hotels on the east coast of the United States, the Jewish inhabitants of both these countries take their holiday in the well-known resorts of Central and Southern Europe, from Scheveningen to Lucerne and from Carlsbad to Venice. The liability of Jews to various forms of dyspepsia and rheumatism causes them to repair in hosts to all the mineral wells to drink the waters, and Carlsbad and Marienbad in particular present the aspect of an annual reunion of the Scattered Sons of Israel. The promenades are filled with a kaleidoscopic crowd of Jewish types talking in a dozen tongues - well-fed merchants from England; savants with slashed cheeks from Germany and Austria, spruce Reform Rabbis in tourist dress from America, orthodox Rabbis with flowing white beards and Solemn mien from Russia, a Chassidic miracle-maker in silk gaberdine and fur hat from Galicia, stalwart, black-bearded Jews from the Caucasus in conical astrakhan hats, and olive complexioned Jews from the Orient in fez and turban. Even the most exacting of the ultra-orthodox Suffer no hardship in these resorts in respect of diet and lodging, for there are kosher boarding-houses and restaurants galore to accommodate them all, and the strict routine of the cure is relieved by divine service three times a day and Talmudic disputations at all hours. Drawn together from their dispersion by their bodily ills, the children of Israel discuss the malady of their people while seeking their own personal healing, and then return to their thousand tents. 

1 Moed Katon, 276. 
2 Over thirteen pages in the Jewish Year Book for 1914 (pp. 67-80) are devoted to an enumeration of these societies in England. 
 

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