The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-03
THE JEW IN HUNGARY
How Refugees From Russia Live
Where Given Full Liberty.
INCREDIBLE FlLTHANo souALoR
A Warning Against Encouraging Emil
grants to Gather In Colonies In
Cities Of the United States.

the Jewish question in my mind that l
went to Maramaros Sziget. a town In what
Baedeker calls a remote corner OF Hun
gary. But have come away wishing that
every sympathizer with Baron Hirsch
could and would go there to study the
problem which America and England ara
SO cheerfally ready to make their own.
For at Sziget it presents q side hitherto
neglected by both friends and foes of the
mammoth emigration scheme. Whoever
concerns himself with the Jews just now
goes to Russia; it is there Harold Frederick
gathered material for his interesting
series of letters; it is there, report says.
Hall Caine will collect new sensational
elements of romance. 1t is always of the
unfortunate (not to be exaggerated) perse-
cution in Russia we hear in every report
or leader or interview on the subject. At
Sziget, however, is to be seen the Polish or
Russian Jew, not as the victim, but as the
free man, the adopted citizen, with rights
virtually equal to those of every native
Hungarian or Roumanian; at Sziget he
has developed into what he will later be-
come in the American and English
colonies, unless the example of the out-of-
the-way Hungarian town serves as prac-
tical warning. For this reason the Jew of
Sziget is really of more interest to US at
the present crisis than the Jew in the
overcrowded towns of the "Pale of Jew
ish Settlement"
As every one here knows, though it is
fact the American and English public
scarcely realize, for the last thirty or forty
years, since almost perfect liberty has
been allowed them in Austria Hungary,
Russian and Polish Jews have been crowd
ing across the frontier. say almost per-
feet liberty because by law they are still
debarred from marrying Christians, while
in Hungary q. least their religion Is
merely tolerated" not recognized" by
the state. But in every other respect no
difference is made between them and men
of other race or creed. Numbers have
gone to Vienna, where the street of the
Jews is sight long to be remembered,
though its existence is probably unk nown
to the tourists who flock to the near Hotel
Metropole. Some people now call
Buda-Pesth the city of the Jews;
and there is not Hungarian
town in which Hebrew signs do
not hang over many shop door, in which
candles cannot be seen burning for the
at shutdown. But it is above all in Brody,
just on the Galician frontier, and in Mara
maros SEiget that the emigrants, whose
emigration went on quietly without the
stimulus of notoriety or benevolence have
settled. l have heard it said that the
former is the biggest Jew city in the
world, but now that its commercial pros
perity is on the decline, this not too en-
viable distinction is claimed for Mara
mares Sziget. Men still living there can
remember when there was not a Jew in
the town; today more than one-half the
population is Jewish.
l shall never forget my arrival there in
the early morning-it is an eighteen hours
journey from Buda-Pesth. / had hardly
got out of the train when three or four
sons Of Israel fell upon me, begging to let
them drive me to the hotel. When got
to the market place I found more Jews
presiding over huge heaps of watermelons,
which in this strange land reminded one
pleasantly of home, and acting as middle
men for the peasants. As drank my
coffee from the cafe window 1 watched
little Jewish boys walking decorously to
school, piles of books under their arms.
and venerable rabbits talking to each other
at the street corner. When I went out
met more and more at every turn, while I
quickly discovered that the hotels,
shops, the drinking places of the town,
as well as the cabs and market
were run by Jews. And before
long l wandered into the special Jewish
quarter, where every door had its Hebrew
sign, every face it's Hebrew characteristics.
distinctive dress, however ugly, in a
land OF many nationalities where each has
1
count for the hatred which the Hungarian
has for the Jew; for hate him the former
does as heartily, though happily not as
cruelty, as the Russian. Prejudice. of
course, has much to do with the feeling
against him-that prejudice which is born
partly of race, partly of religion, and
which none of us have yet overcome in
dividualiy, whatever we may succeed in
doing collectively when the sufferings of
the Jews of Russia move the rest of the
Christian world to pity. But there are
still other reasons which are admirably
exemplihed at Maramaros SZiget, where
the good and bad qualities OF the Russian
or Polish Jew when he is at liberty to do
as he pleases have had ample play, and
where We may therefore see exactly what
IS to be avoided and what done when he is
brought i'll numbers to settle in any one
spot in the United States or England.
To begin with the native of Maramaros
Sziget can hardly be blamed if he resents
1t, when he sees ali the industries of the
town and great part of its prosperity be-
ing rapidly monopolized by Jews who
nave come TO 1t entirely upon their own
invitation. 1t is against reason that he
should be gratified when he finds that in
the town the day is not far distant when
he must inevitably take baclrseat, while
in the near country already entire villages
are In the hands of the Jews. 1t is the
same old story that has long been told in
Russia the peasant, little by little, falling
into the power of the Jewish money!
lender or tradesman. There are whole
districts where the Jew is the real owner
OF the peasant holdings, and the peasants
are as much his slaves, as not so
long since they were of the Hungarian
magnates. Such Is the happy results of
their emancipation in 1s4S. But this which
IS held up against the Jew, even as if it
were crime, Is really a proof of his in
dustry and intelligence. Industrious the
average Hungarian Jew is without oues-
ton. though l must confess it was a sur
prise to me in Maramaros SZiget to see
many loahng and gossiping in the streets.
Just ike the peasants or the elegant Young
Hungarian swells, dressed after English
models. But that there are among them
loafers and even beggars (the only tramps
L met IN the near country were Jews-old
men with grey curls over their ears),
shows, | think, how completely they have
made the town their own; and after all,
the Idle are in decided majority. The
very Hungarians are forced to admit their
industry and their thrift, as great as that
OF the French peasant, and the more con-
spicuous just now that Hungary, in its
new prosperity. is passing through an era
OF extravaganza. / have been told tale
after tale Of the Jewish emigrant arriving
without kreuzer, living on bread and
turnips or onions until he has collected.
by hook or crook, ten forms, and then