The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1906-08-24
INTERESTING LETTER
FROM NEW YORK.
Robert Herman, of Greenwood, Attends
Services at Orthodox Synagogue.
New York, August II, 1906.
Mr.. ]. L. Gillespie, Greenwood, Miss.

DEAR jim Before left Greenwood
promised to write you letter while
am busy buying my fall stock, tool
time to see the sights of New York
amongst them visit to the old Orthodox
Synagogue. 1t was on the eve of Tishat
Bah, Aug. o. when | happened to enter
one Of the houses of worship on the low
er East side, The place was unusually
crowded with old and young men, all Of
whom were sitting either on low bench
es or on the floor without shoes or stock
ings. In ono hand thev held lighted
tallow candles and the Kinoth book in
the other. The gas lights we're put out,
the curtain over TIE Ark taken of, and
near it on the floor was sitting an elder
ly person with long black beard tinged
with gray, thick black eyebrows, curly
disheveIled hair which covered the
greater part Of his forehead, and he was
reading the Kinoth in sweet melan-
choly voice and the congregation was
reading after him in low whispering
tone. 1t was exceedingly warm thore;
the air vitated by lighted tallow can
dies was surocating, but the people did
not seem TO mind that in spite of the
perspiration that covered their care.
worn brows, and the sweat that flowed
down their wrinkled faces.
The dmly lit Synagogue, tho gloomy
faces of the people and the melancholy
voice of the reader mingled with the
low murmuring voices of the audience
presented an awful sight.
sat down near the old man who held
in his sbivering hands an old Kinoth
book whose covers were worn away by
age and whose pages were full Of yellow
stains. 1t was family book handed
down from father to son from time i'm
memorial. ain this book said the old
man, pointing to the yellow spots on the
rumpled pages, "are gathered the tears
of many centuries" "Oh, if those tears
could only speak muttered the old man,
but he could not finish the sentence for
tears came to his eyes as he said it,
some of which rolled down his cheeks
and fell on the open page of the Kinoth |
book, thus adding few more yellow
stains to the already innumerabIe that |.
filed up the half torn pages.
Noticed that from time TO time as the I
reader came across very touching pas
sages in the book of Lamentations, in |
which the prophet Jeremiah points out
the dreadful condition of his people,
that the audience could not refrain
themselves. but the low sobs and means
broke forth into loud weeping and cry
ing. The women in the gallery gave
vent to their bitter cries which would
move even a stone. One could see that
these people are not bewaiing the
churban OF nearly two thousand years
ago, but they arc bemoaning some new
calamity that bofelI them. On inquiring
was told that this Synagogue bears
the name of prominent Jewish city in
Russia, because most of its members
came from that place and in that city a
pogram, massacre, was recently made and
that many in the audience were refugees
who fled with the skin Of their teeth,
leaving everything behind them. Now
many details in regard to their dress
and their manners, which / did not, or
which appeared strange to me before,
had come as plain and as clear to nc as
day light
Thus new book of Lamentations"
has been written. The churban of
eighteen hundred and thirty four years
was repeated, multiplied many times at
the beginning of the twentieth century,
in an enlightened age, in the midst Of a
christian Civilization.
These people that see before me, f:
thought, need not imagine the cruelty d;
and brutality of thousands Of years ago,
they need not picture in their mind the
dire conditions so vividly described by i
Jeremiah in which their forefathers \
found themselves at the time Of the de- /:
struction of the Temple. They. like :
Jeremiah, saw the churban or destruc- 3
ton with their eyes and if they were to
add a chapter to the book of "Lamenta- :
tions" it would surpass in horror and :
cruelty any of these scenes described Z
by the Prophet.
Weep my people, cry, cry bitterly, Z
she'd tears; this may tighten your grief i
mourn over your widows and orphans /;
who are wandering about, like the 4
prophet Of old, among the fresh graves !.
with which your cemetery is dotted and \,
wherein are found mutilated bodies, =
TORN limbs, fragments of limbs or pools =
" blood. Bewail those who were bru- y
ally tortured, whose skulls were cleft z,
n twain in whose bodies were torn limb !,
rom limb and thrown to the beasts. },
Try over those babes who were torn I.
rom their mothers and their blood 2,
poured out like water. Bemoan those .,
;ripples and invalids, those that are Y,
ound in the hospital and the mad houses, z,
hose that have fed, those that have ,,
rome into exile. those that are wander =,
ne about in foreign lands hungry, half Z,
starving. worn and tired ont, hopeless .
md despaired. Lift up your voices, let !,
Ionr cries fill up the whole universe, z
81 the voice he heard from one end Of 4,
he world to the other. y
Let u become rcd hot piercing X