The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-10-02
JEWISH INNOVATION.
The Ancient Race Keeping up with the
Progress of the Age.

| Progress of the Age.
The Jews are moving with the rest OF
the world. They find they must, or be
forever stranded upon the shoaI of some
past time. They have as keen money
interest in the world as any other people
or sect, and this will eventually drift
them into the current of affairs passing
before them, and bring them into sympa-
thy with the age in which they live.
The Jews have many ancient religious
customs, rites and Observances which have
been transmitted from generation to gen.
Grafton so long that they seem like a
packet of old jewelry-out of fashion,
and very incOnvenient to take care Of
Fashions have changed, and they cannot
be worn as the world goes, but they have
to the promised land. Many of these
customs have become burdensome They
belong no more to the Jews; the Jews be-
long to them, and such transportation of
ownership makes great difference in the
spirit and temper of the observances
themselves. The present orthordox and
reformed divisions of the Jewish church
very naturally grew out of the religious
and civic situation. 1t is also natural
that these divisions should drift wider
and wider apart. Sweeping changes are
constantly taking place in the ritual of
the reformed Jewish church. They have
their separate temples for worship, sepa-
rate teachers and newspaper organs. In
the old Jewish synagogue the men sat
covered in the body of the church, and
the women were slowed away in the gal
leries. In the reformed temple both
sexes sit together and enjoy equal privi-
leges of place. The men also deem it not
only polite, but find it comfortable to
take off their hats in the house.
These are very small things, perhaps,
but they constitute a departure. The
reformed church has dropped some of it's
cumbersome ancient Hebrew load, and is
running lighter than the orthodox purists
The members of it may also have given
themselves more license in the matter of
diet than the old code prescribed. Many
since Moses issued his bill of fare The
Christian world took notion to discard
the original Jewish Sabbath and estab-
fish day of rest for itself In Christian
countries the Jews find it very inconve-
nient, in business point of view, to
observe their own Sabbath on religious
grounds and the Christian Sunday upon
compulsion, because no regular business
is doing around them on that day. The
Reformed Jews may have to make an
other compromise with the general con-
ditions which surround them ON all
sides, and SO they will go drifting away
from their old landmarks, but lighter and
ivelier ut every step.
A few days ago another of the twenty
six Jewish congregations in New York
ranked itself upon the heterodoX or re-
formed side of the Jewish question. 1t
was the B'nai Jeshurun. The synagogue
had been remodeled and threw open its
doors TO Il mixed congregation, male and
female, who occupied family pews just as
people do in any other church. While
the improvements were in progress one old
Jew lifted up his voice in the courts,
protesting against the innovation as a
violation of his rights as a pew-holders
and submitting that the changes were
'' immodest, unchaste, unlawful, and con-
trary to the rules of said congregation"
The court silenced him by deciding that
the society had the right to make changes
in the mode of worship, and left
the question to be decided by the con-
gregation. OF course the conscientious
old fellow was ruled out, and SO much of
the world as worshipped in that house
went past him-,St. Louis Republican.