The Maccabaean

THE wandering Jew! Every Jewish boy knows him. But he is not the Shoemaker of Jerusalem; that being who can not die, and whose eternal business it is to guard the interests of his own descendants; it is not that wandering Jew every Jewish boy knows. It is the wanderer of the Twentieth Century who has trailed from Spain to Holland, from Holland to Germany, from Germany to Poland, to Russia, and tience to the land of freedom.

And once in that land of freedom, one would expect him to settle down. But hı never settles down; he is never lost sight of; he reappears everywhere. Even in the city of Joey’s birth he also puts in an ap- Dearance,

Though himself one of the tribe of the wandering foot, Joey felt quite a home body until the Russian refugees began to pour into the city. Until then he had not known what it was to break up home, except when it was necessary to remove to another street. He did not know that his father, too, had been a Russian "refugee." Beyond the sea meant nothing real to him. He believed that the stories of the ancestors of the Jewish people were invented by his father, or mother, or grandfather.

The tradition of the Exodus is that every Jew must taste of the bitterness of affliction, and every Jew must live through the trials of the Exodus; and so it is and always will be until the Day of Days arrives.

The steerage was the seive through which the wanderers were pressed and strained before they reached the land of liberty. They brought with them to Gosh-

en an ineradicable odor, which seemed to cling to them forever. And Joey thought it was transmitted to their children. If there ever was a danger of the odor becoming extinct, it was renewed by fresh hatches of immicrants. u

How his mother greeted them, though, and hugged and pestered them with questions! She relieved them of their baggage, offered them food, all with such glee, and at once laying aside all other work, sat down to a long, vivacious, tear-brimming, joyous chat. Pouring the coffee, she just worried the news out of them. What was news to her was no news to them, and they did not know how to begin; but she managed to lead them on to tell her everything. Their Yiddish was redolent with words she had forgotten. They were very strange to Joey, who listened to them as if they were the words of a play.

"Ever since you left (how many years is it?) everything is different. You may find everything in place, but yet it's different. The market place? The same haggling, the same plagues for profits! Everything the same, but with a difference. It is so hard to live there. Since Yudel ran away from the army, his father has been ruined. Some think he has his money hidden away, but you would not think so if you saw how old and weak he is. It's the officers that plague him; and then Hannah has lost her eyes. (Ei, Ei, Ei, stone blind?) When the boys were home they helped, now they are all in America. Do you ever see them?"

", "They live around the corner. What's become of Chash Perishke? Still a geru-