Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar PeopleZangwill, Israel
Religion
Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People
Zangwill, Israel
Jewish fiction; Jews -- England -- London -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
In the evening she accompanied her father to _Shool_. She did not often
go in the evening, and the thought of going only suddenly occurred to
her. Heaven alone knew if she would ever enter a synagogue again--the
visit would be part of her systematic farewell. Reb Shemuel took it as a
symptom of resignation to the will of God, and he laid his hand lightly
on her head in silent blessing, his eyes uplifted gratefully to Heaven.
Too late Hannah felt the misconception and was remorseful. For the
festival occasion Reb Shemuel elected to worship at the Great Synagogue;
Hannah, seated among the sparse occupants of the Ladies' Gallery and
mechanically fingering a _Machzor_, looked down for the last time on the
crowded auditorium where the men sat in high hats and holiday garments.
Tall wax-candles twinkled everywhere, in great gilt chandeliers
depending from the ceiling, in sconces stuck about the window ledges, in
candelabra branching from the walls. There was an air of holy joy about
the solemn old structure with its massive pillars, its small
side-windows, high ornate roof, and skylights, and its gilt-lettered
tablets to the memory of pious donors.
The congregation gave the responses with joyous unction. Some of the
worshippers tempered their devotion by petty gossip and the beadle
marshalled the men in low hats within the iron railings, sonorously
sounding his automatic amens. But to-night Hannah had no eye for the
humors that were wont to awaken her scornful amusement--a real emotion
possessed her, the same emotion of farewell which she had experienced in
her own bedroom. Her eyes wandered towards the Ark, surmounted by the
stone tablets of the Decalogue, and the sad dark orbs filled with the
brooding light of childish reminiscence. Once when she was a little girl
her father told her that on Passover night an angel sometimes came out
of the doors of the Ark from among the scrolls of the Law. For years she
looked out for that angel, keeping her eyes patiently fixed on the
curtain. At last she gave him up, concluding her vision was
insufficiently purified or that he was exhibiting at other synagogues.
To-night her childish fancy recurred to her--she found herself
involuntarily looking towards the Ark and half-expectant of the angel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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