"We are ruined!" moaned the furniture-dealer who was always failing.
"You have ruined us!" came the chorus from the thick, sensuous lips, and swarthy fists were shaken threateningly.
Sugarman"s hairy paw was almost against his face. Raphael turned cold, then a rush of red-hot blood flooded his veins. He put out his good right hand, and smote the nearest fist aside. Sugarman blenched and skipped back, and the line of fists wavered.
"Don"t be fools, gentlemen," said De Haan, his keen sense of humour a.s.serting itself. "Let Mr. Leon sit down."
Raphael, still dazed, took his seat on the editorial chair.
"Now what can I do for you?" he said courteously.
The fists drooped at his calm.
"Do for us?" said Schlesinger dryly. "You"ve done for the paper. It"s not worth twopence."
"Well, bring it out at a penny at once, then," laughed Little Sampson, reinforced by the arrival of his editor.
Guedalyah the Greengrocer glowered at him.
"I am very sorry, gentlemen, I have not been able to satisfy you,"
said Raphael; "but in a first number one can"t do much."
"Can"t they?" said De Haan. "You"ve done so much damage to orthodoxy that we don"t know whether to go on with the paper."
"You"re joking," murmured Raphael.
"I wish I was," laughed De Haan bitterly.
"But you astonish me," persisted Raphael. "Would you be so good as to point out where I have gone wrong?"
"With pleasure, or rather with pain," said De Haan.
Each of the committee drew a tattered copy from his pocket, and followed De Haan"s demonstration with a murmured accompaniment of lamentation.
"The paper was founded to inculcate the inspection of cheese, the better supervision of the sale of meat, the construction of ladies"
baths, and all the principles of true Judaism," said De Haan gloomily.
"And there"s not one word about these things, but a great deal about spirituality and the significance of the ritual. But I will begin at the beginning. Page 1."
"But that"s advertis.e.m.e.nts," muttered Raphael.
"The part surest to be read! The very first line of the paper is simply shocking. It reads:
""DEATH.
""On the 29th ult., at 22 Buckley Street, the Rev. Abraham Barnett, in his fifty-fourth----""
"But death is always shocking. What"s wrong about that?" interposed Little Sampson.
"Wrong!" repeated De Haan witheringly. "Where did you get that from?
That was never sent in."
"No, of course not," said the sub-editor; "but we had to have at least one advertis.e.m.e.nt of that kind, just to show we should be pleased to advertise our readers" deaths. I looked in the daily papers to see if there were any births or marriages with Jewish names, but I couldn"t find any, and that was the only Jewish-sounding death I could see."
"But the Rev. Abraham Barnett was a _Meshumad_!" shrieked Sugarman the Shadchan.
Raphael turned pale. To have inserted an advertis.e.m.e.nt about an apostate missionary was indeed terrible; but Little Sampson"s audacity did not desert him.
"I thought the orthodox party would be pleased to hear of the death of a _Meshumad_," he said suavely, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his eyegla.s.s more tightly into its...o...b..t, "on the same principle that anti-Semites take in the Jewish papers to hear of the death of Jews."
For a moment De Haan was staggered.
"That would be all very well," he said. "Let him be an atonement for us all; but then you"ve gone and put, "May his soul be bound up in the bundle of life!""
It was true. The stock Hebrew equivalent for "R.I.P." glared from the page.
"Fortunately, that taking advertis.e.m.e.nt of _kosher_ trousers comes just underneath," said De Haan, "and that may draw off the attention.
On page 2 you actually say in a note that Rabbenu Bachja"s great poem on Repentance should be incorporated in the ritual, and might advantageously replace the obscure _Piyut_ by Kalir. But this is rank Reform; it"s worse than the papers we came to supersede."
"But surely you know it is only the printing-press that has stereotyped our liturgy; that for Maimonides and Ibn Ezra, for David Kimchi and Joseph Albo, the contents were fluid; that----"
"We don"t deny that," interrupted Schlesinger; "but we can"t have any more alterations nowadays. Who is there worthy to alter them? You?"
"Certainly not. I merely suggest."
"You are playing into the hands of our enemies," said De Haan, shaking his head. "We must not let our readers even imagine that the Prayer-Book can be tampered with. It"s the thin end of the wedge. To trim our liturgy is like tr.i.m.m.i.n.g living flesh; wherever you cut, the blood oozes. The four cubits of the _Halachah_, that is what is wanted, not changes in the liturgy. Once touch anything, and where are you to stop? Our religion becomes a flux. Our old Judaism is like an old family mansion, where each generation has left a memorial, and where every room is hallowed with traditions of merry-making and mourning. We do not want our fathers" home decorated in the latest style; the next step will be removal to a new dwelling altogether. On page 3 you refer to the second Isaiah."
"But I deny that there were two Isaiahs."
"So you do; but it is better for our readers not to hear of such impious theories. The s.p.a.ce would be much better occupied in explaining the Portion for the week. The next leaderette has a flippant tone, which has excited unfavourable comment among some of the most important members of the Dalston synagogue. They object to humour in a religious paper. On page 4 you have deliberately missed an opportunity of puffing the Kosher Co-operative Society. Indeed, there is not a word throughout about our Society. But I like Mr. Henry Goldsmith"s letter on this page, though; he is a good orthodox man, and he writes from a good address. It will show we are not only read in the East End. Pity he"s such a Man-of-the-Earth, though. Yes, and that"s good, the communication from the Rev. Joseph Strelitski. I think he"s a bit of an _Epikouros_; but it looks as if the whole of the Kensington synagogue was with us. I understand he is a friend of yours; it will be as well for you to continue friendly. Several of us here knew him well in _Olov Hasholom_ times, but he is become so grand, and rarely shows himself at the Holy Land League meetings. He can help us a lot if he will."
"Oh, I"m sure he will," said Raphael.
"That"s good," said De Haan, caressing his white beard. Then, growing gloomy again, he went on: "On page 5 you have a little article by Gabriel Hamburg, a well-known _Epikouros_."
"Oh, but he is one of the greatest scholars in Europe!" broke in Raphael. "I thought you"d be extra pleased to have it. He sent it to me from Stockholm as a special favour!" He did not mention he had secretly paid for it. "I know some of his views are heterodox, and I don"t agree with half he says, but this article is perfectly harmless."
"Well, let it pa.s.s: very few of our readers have ever heard of him.
But on the same page you have a Latin quotation. I don"t say there"s anything wrong in that, but it smacks of Reform. Our readers don"t understand it, and it looks as if our Hebrew were poor. The Mishnah contains texts suited for all purposes. We are in no need of Roman writers. On page 6 you speak of the Reform Shool as if it were to be reasoned with. Sir, if we mention these freethinkers at all, it must be in the strongest language. By worshipping bareheaded, and by seating the s.e.xes together, they have defiled Judaism."
"Stop a minute," interrupted Raphael warmly. "Who told you the Reformers do this?"
"Who told me, indeed? Why, it"s common knowledge. That"s how they"ve been going on for the last fifty years."
"Everybody knows it," said the committee in chorus.
"Has one of you ever been there?" said Raphael, rising in excitement.
"G.o.d forbid!" cried the chorus.