Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago — John Shaqi
Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years AgoTrager, Hannah
Religion
Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago
Trager, Hannah
Children -- Palestine; Jerusalem -- Social life and customs; Jews -- Social life and customs
"Huldah told me that she would have been quite happy in her
mother-in-law (for she really was a good kind woman) if only she would
more often allow her to talk to her husband, 'and I do so like a talk
with him,' she said to me with a sigh, 'for he is so wise. When my
mother-in-law sleeps after the Sabbath dinner, we go into the next room
and we sit talking, and he tells me tales from the Talmud, and sometimes
reads aloud from it. I do so enjoy those Sabbath hours,' she continued,
'for I have only my bedroom which I can call my own, but I am not
allowed to be much in it,--the little time I have with my husband each
day makes me very happy, for I know he loves me dearly (although he does
not say so), for when he comes home his first word is for me,'
"'Sometimes, when my mother-in-law is in a good temper, she lets us eat
out of the same dish, and then he jokingly puts the daintiest bits on my
side; often when I wake in the mornings I find pinned to my pillow a few
words he has copied from the _Song of Songs_, put there before leaving
for the Synagogue.' Then Huldah added 'After returning himself from the
Synagogue on Sabbath Eve, my dear husband always looks at me with a
loving smile when he reads that part where it says: ''The price of a
virtuous woman is far above rubies, the heart of her husband trusteth in
her.' 'Yes indeed,' she said, 'thanks be to God--I am a very happy wife,
and when God blesses us with children, my cup of joy will be very full.'
"And this child-wife of fifteen did indeed look very happy as she
spoke--and I, deep down in my heart, thought, 'What would they say to
such match-making in England and Western Europe,' and yet in Palestine
such marriages arranged by the parents are nearly always happy.
"I must close now, Your loving Millie."
When Mr Jacob had finished reading, some of his young listeners said
they thought it was a very foolish way to arrange marriages. One of them
remarked: "How could there be any love, if a couple rarely met each
other before marriage."
Another said: "For my part, I would never marry unless I felt sure that
I was in love with my husband to-be and that he also was in love with
me. Love is everything in life, _I_ think."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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