The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-06-28
The Quarter a Real City I'm Itself,
Filled with Teeming Thousands
Drawn Together by Necessity.
HESTER STREET AND ITS PEOPLE
0RIENTALS AND OCCIDENTALs BAR
GAIN IN BABEL OF TONGUES.
With All It's Filth and Crime, 1t Is
Strange, Picturesque and Fasci-
natinG-Ghetto Types.

STAFF Correspondence Of the Journal
NEW YORK, June 26.-There is in all
New York no more interesting spot than
Hester street, between Essex and Norfolk,
a summer day Here one sees the very
heart OF what mas come to be known as
''the Ghetto and Israel Zangwill himself
would surely find material in this curious
neighborhood for many more absorbing sto-
ries of lower Jewish life. New Yorks East
Side is made up mostly of Russian Jews,
and these strange people from over the
are to be encountered everywhere in that
quarter OF the town lying between the East
river and the Bowery, from the Brooklyn
bridge northward for several miles, but it
IS along Hester street-and particularly in
the vicinity mentioned-that the visitor i'm
search OF the unusual and the picturesque
will have his expectations realized.
The street Is crowded with push-carts,
and along the sidewalks are welI-worn.
weather beaten baby carriages filled with
dry goods and countless odds and ends,
while those street merchants who are too
poor 10 afford such conveyances display
their wares on strips OF dirty oil cloth
spread out on the ground. The owners of
the baby carriages are mostly women, al
though here and there may be seen a man
or a boy in charge of one of these vehi-
cles: the owners of the push-carts are al
ways men. II the day is fair, the street and
sidewalks are crowded from sunrise until
nightfall, and even In the most inclement
wes ther-such New York has just been
experiencing for over a fortnight-this queer
open air market place is far from being de-
serted. Between the compact body of street
merchants a stream of people passes to
and FRO. Most of the buyers are women,
many Of whom are hatless, with long
wooden shawls over their shoulders. They
live in the neighborhood, these shoppers,
and they have just left their kitchen long
enough to buy a herring or two for lunch
(they all love herring), two cents worth of
potatoes, a bag of some kind of fruit or
perhaps towel or a piece of cloth. While
their mothers are engaged I'm the fascinating
occupation of bargaining, thousands of
children are hurrying and scurrying about
among the people, the push carts and the
baby carriages, some of them wallowing in
the dirt OF the cutters and all of them
laughing. screaming crying with shrill
little voices that may be heard above the
fumult and din Of the trade and traffic.
AN UNCLEAN SPOT.
1t is an unclean spot-that stretch on
Hester street between Norfolk and Essex
and an ill-smelling one, too. If the I'M
initiated had chosen the Ghetto as a good
place for a mornings jaunt in order to
build up an appetite for luncheon he has
made a most frretrievable mistake. China
town in San Francisco is the proud pos
SCISSOR OF an odor that entities it to serious
consideration, but New York's Hester
street could perhaps go 1t one better in the
matter OF sickening smells. In Chinatown
the odor is always the same and one knows
what to expect before he enters into it's
= unhallowed precincts; in Hester street
there Is ever a new smell fighting it's way
toward supremacy, battling for recognition
and power, meeting with countless dis
couragements, perhaps, in the guise of
struggling minor smells, but always work.
ing onward and upward until the coveted
goal is attained. The writer fascinated
with the low life of the Ghetto, has made
many visits to the interesting market place
and has never failed to carry away with
him new impressions. new emotions, and
so his friends kindly but firmly inform
him-new odors.
There are Oriental Jews as well as Rus
sian Jews In Manhattan's dense east side
population, but the Russians and Poles are
greatly in the majority-an odd fact when
II is called to mind that only half century
ago very few Russian and Polish Jews
even dared dream of emigrating from the
countries of their forefathers, where al
though oppressed sorely from time to time,
they could at least observe their beloved
religion according TO the true ideas of
Judaism. They dreaded the thought of
coming to "a land where there was no
Judaism at all, no matter how inviting in
other respects that land might be- The
Russian and Polish Jews preferred the
cruelty of the country where they could
live the lawful life ordained by the rabbis
TO the freedom of the United States. where
Judaism in its true form was scarcely
known. Those who first left home and peo-
pie TO come TO the new land were. for the
most part, men who had developed the
spirit of adventure I'm their battle for for
tune or else the young Jews who ran away
from home to escape the military draft. In
time these pioneers began TO realize their
hopes, and In their affiuence they remem-
bered their loved ones across the sea who
were being prosecuted more and more as
the years went by in cruel Russia Many
Russian Jews OF mature years came TO
America by invitation OF well-to-do rela-
tives. and these old men. grown wrinkled
and gray in the keeping of their faith pro-
duced. by collective effort, the same re-
lisious conditions among their people in
New York were TO be enjoyed in far
away Russia. And that was the beginning
or the Ghetto in Americas metropolis.
THE GHETTO A REAL CITY.
The Ghetto is a city all In itself, just as
San Francisco's Chinatown is a city apart
from all others. For the same reasons that
the Chinese OF California gather together
in one district OF the Pacific metropolis.
the Russian. Polish and Roumanian Jews
of New York join forces in that part of
the great city where they feel drawn by
religious necessity and the opportunity 10
earn their daily bread among people who
understand them and whom they under
stand. IL is all nonsense 10 talk OF winning
out New York's Ghetto as some theoreti-
cal reformers insist upon doing The Jew
Ssh district may in time be cleansed and
purified 10 some extent, but IL can never
be wiped out. IL is growing at a most
amazing rate. on the contrary No place in