Perth Amboy evening news., 1919-06-30

Here and there fights occurred. Women.
once pious Jewish housewives, many OF
them formerly wealthy, were pulling the
few remaining, disheveled, unkempt, and
vermin-infested hair from each other, fight
ing for a better place nearer the head of the
line, so that they would be sure of getting
som of this mud to feed a starving child
or to still their own hunger. They were
fighting and cursing and throwing each
other to the ground for the sake of this
food"
So it goes on every day, hour after hour,
until IL noon and after. The fighting is par
ticularly fierce between 2 and 3 when many,
many at the end of the line realize that
their turn will never come and the most ter
ribie, the most inhuman, will happen; when
that little door through which this accursed
meal is handed out will close. The cries!
The wailing! The curses directed at the
administrators of this kitchen. themselves
hungry. worn out. victims and martyrs!
The babel of inhuman sounds from thou
sands of throats! The devil himself could
not engineer anything to equal it. The pic
ture remains before your eyes long after
you leave this scene. You see these
people come home. Nothing brought
for the starving child. Nothing
brought for the feeble mother. A
long twenty-four hours must pass and not
a. atOP VI vain N1bCt ~ n ottN u
to be had. In many a home death
will come before the day is over.
This got to be such a natural thing.
Every day death must take its toll OF a few
scores who succumb to the pains of hunger.
You are nonplussed. You begin to curse
yourself for living. Tears begin to choke
you. You clench your teeth from pain, ind
you. the American, who came here to bring
a piece of bread and a word of consolation.
find yourself so hopeless and helpless that
you steal away quietly to your hotel and
throw yourself on the bed and so you lie
for hours trembling. unable to find rest.
Education Amid the Wrctchedness
But, this is not all. You came to see and
you must get your full measure. You now
turn to another scene. to give your heart
solace. and your mind peace. You enter a
Jewish Children's Home. a wonderful insti-
tuition. Almighty God? What a strength
there is in the Jewish soul! In the midst
of this desolation there is a gathering of
children to learn! To learn the Torah.
Hebrew and Jewish history! And the
teachers, young men and women hungry
like the rest, but strengthened by their love
for these children build around these young
souls a structure of love for humanity, of
hope, of faith.
These teachers and these children are
welded before your eyes into one heavenly
scene. You no longer see the real living
people of today, but it seems like a resur-
rection of the teachers and Children of yore.
They demonstrate again before the world
the old Jewish dogma, that the object of
life Is but to purge and purify the soul to
prepare it for the higher state. Even now.
there rings in my ears the sound of these
young voices. Even now l cannot forget
the picture of one of the teachers, a young
man of twenty-seven turned gray from hun
ger and want. Even now, 1 can hear one
of the children reciting one of J. L. Perez's
folk lores, the substance of which is that a
Jew must never lose faith. Here
you sit and gather strength. You go from
class to class and feel happy. Your faith
in the ultimate is slowly coming back to you.
For, a people possessed of such strength
must survive all. But, not for
long. Even here you must be reminded of
the misery and suffering all about you. You