[Children of the Ghetto by I. Zangwill]@TWC D-Link book
Children of the Ghetto

CHAPTER XII
14/21

"The _Shool_ he took me to at home had a beautiful _Chazan_, and he always sang it 'Ei, Ei, Ei.'" "I don't care what you heard at home.

In England every _Chazan_ sings 'Oi, Oi, Oi.'" "We can't take our tune from England," said Karlkammer reprovingly.
"England is a polluted country by reason of the Reformers whom we were compelled to excommunicate." "Do you mean to say that my father was an Epicurean ?" asked Belcovitch indignantly.

"The tune was as Greenberg sings it.

That there are impious Jews who pray bareheaded and sit in the synagogue side by side with the women has nothing to do with it." The Reformers did neither of these things, but the Ghetto to a man believed they did, and it would have been countenancing their blasphemies to pay a visit to their synagogues and see.

It was an extraordinary example of a myth flourishing in the teeth of the facts, and as such should be useful to historians sifting "the evidence of contemporary writers." The dispute thickened; the synagogue hummed with "Eis" and "Ois" not in concord.
"Shah!" said the President at last.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books