The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-05-27
THE JEWS OF WARSAW.
The Great jewish Commun ~ Into Which
Lynch Law Has Lately Recn Introduced.


From the Manchester Guardian.
In Warsaw. out Of a population of 800, 900.
100000 are Jews. And the Jews form a dis
tnct class OF the population. Most of the
men dress In long Overcoats reaching to their
heels and In small peaked caps. There is no
ghetto In Warsaw now. as in former days,
but numbers Of streets. particularly in the
Old Town. are almost exclusively Inhabited
by the poorer classes of Jews. who form q
strange. restlessly busy world apart.
There are markets in three quarters where
Jews sell and Poles come to buy: there are
hundreds OF little shops dealinE in all manner
or small wares; there are bookshops, with
postcards with pictures OF scenes in Palestine
or portraits Of prominent Zionists. and. again
Erotespue chromos representing scenes from
the war. There are two synagoRues. the
Orthodox. attended chiefly by the, poorer
Jews, and the Reformed, where wealthy Jews
70 af ans this wod IN
Warsaw. with it's thronging hosts of petty
interests it's lack of broad outlook, or OF
tranouilizinG sense Of freedom OF movement
and freedom OF action.
Under the pressure of the sentiment of the
mass the individual Jew is compelled to sub
init himself TO specia rules in regard to diet
and clothing. The humane ordinances of
the ancient Jewish law twisted by schol astc
Ialmudists into instruments OF torture for
the conscience become the moral standard
OF the community the mind is distracted from
healthy reflection by the effort to comply with
Warsaw the position is less difficult than it
Is in the smaller tow ms whore the population
is almost exclusively Jewish, Jewish work
Weather .coreligonsts in. Warsaw, and
COMPLAIN tina, they are compelled by the force
ar the marx 9p o 1 wdaT s
In the Polish capital Jewish exclusiveness
has to some extent broken down. and there
the professional classes, Who are entirely
Polish In sent ment: We have abandoned
the Jewish national ideal said one such gen,
matter that should in no special way .distin-
gnish a man from his neighbors We are
losing our peculiarly Semitic traits. We are
should we go? We have been a thousand years
in Poland; We have no longer any physcalI
not endure the climate if we we're to 90 there.
The sky we love is the sky under which Poland
lies, and the soil we are attached to Is the soil
Of this land. in which W. have worried and SUI
fered for centuries. We are no longer chill
dren of the South we are children Of the
North; and II the physiological evidences of
our Semitic ORIGIN have not vet disappeared.
IL our noses are still hooked and our compile xion
still .swarthy,, we arr, in thought and senti-
We are Jews IA far as religion is concerned "a
eye, feel any great degree of solidarity with
!. The Jews who work in the Polish press en-
trely share these views and are in hearty
sympathy with Polish national sentiment.
The Poles are not generally adverse to init
mate relations with the Jews, Members Of
some OF the most famous Polish aristocratic
families have married Jewcsses. certain
originating chiefly in economic rivalry Re-
Gently mutual credit societies have been
formed tn which Jews are not admitted and
the ant-Semitic sentiment is ENCOURAGED by
the clerical party, the censor and the Govern
ment, But the attitude Of the masses of the
people is. on the whole. friendly, though the
inglv, as q comcal sort Of fellow. And, indeed,
the fool Of the Polish drama Is most frequently
a Jew. The Zionist propaganda is vigorously
combated by the Jewish and Polish Socaistio
organizations and the educated Polish Jews
frown upon its separatist tendencies.