The
Spirit
of the
Ghetto

THE SPIRIT of
THE GHETTO

STUDIES OF THE JEWISH
QUARTER IN NEW YORK

By
HUTCHINS HAPGOOD

With Drawings from Life by
JACOB EPSTEIN

NEW YORK AND LONDON
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWO

Copyright, 1902
by
Funk & Wagnalls
Company

Printed in the
United States of America

Published
November, 1902

NOTE

A number of these chapters have appeared asseparate articles in "The Atlantic Monthly,""The Critic," "The Bookman," "The World'sWork," "The Boston Transcript," and "TheEvening Post" and "The Commercial Advertiser"of New York. To the editors ofthese publications thanks for permission torepublish are gratefully tendered by
The Author.

PREFACE

5

The Jewish quarter of New York is generallysupposed to be a place of poverty, dirt, ignoranceand immorality—the seat of the sweat-shop,the tenement house, where "red-lights"sparkle at night, where the people are queerand repulsive. Well-to-do persons visit the"Ghetto" merely from motives of curiosity orphilanthropy; writers treat of it "sociologically,"as of a place in crying need of improvement.

That the Ghetto has an unpleasant aspect isas true as it is trite. But the unpleasant aspectis not the subject of the following sketches. Iwas led to spend much time in certain poor resortsof Yiddish New York not through motiveseither philanthropic or sociological, but simplyby virtue of the charm I felt in men and thingsthere. East Canal Street and the Bowery haveinterested me more than Broadway and FifthAvenue. Why, the reader may learn from thepresent volume—which is an attempt made by a"Gentile" to report sympathetically on thecharacter, lives and pursuits of certain east-sideJews with whom he has been in relations ofconsiderable intimacy.
The Author.

CONTENTS

7