American republic strove to penetrate the hardened Jewish mode of life trans- pianted to its soil. The old, timeless :wanderer had made it his station, he had unpacked his burdens, stretched his limbs, and attempted to live like a free man. But here, as elsewhere, the wanderer was not unmolested. His brethren abroad troubled him, they were not at rest, and finally they too joined him in the land of the free, and kept reviving in him the memory of the Jew of the Exil. He would have made himself at home here, but the immigrants brought ever and again the memories of his home. its traditions.
its abnormal ideal of life, and he was compelled to adjust his life with that far-off life in view. He could not forget it; his children, to be true to the honor of his ancestors, could not forget it, and between the two environments, the one real, the other intangible yet tangible, the Jewish children wore like shuttlecocks, neither wholly this nor wholly that.
But let the curtain fall. The volume is completed. The further tribulations of a Jewish life, obsessed by the memories of the still unreal life of his own people, do not fit in here. What was given is the epitome of the first volume.
The Jews Reflected in Proverbs
The Jew is the tiniest creature of all, and yet he is generally looked upon as being too big.
Better a Jew without a beard than a beard without a Jew (i. e., a Jew who is not strictly orthodox is preferable to a Jew who takes little care' of the ethics of Judaism).
Better a Jewish heart with a gentile head than a gentile heart with a Jewish head.
Before the Jew goes to market he buys everything cheap. (An allusion to Jewish optimism.)
When does the Jew sing? when he feels hungry.
When has the Jew good luck? When he does not meet with an accident.
A Jew feels less annoyed at his own poverty than at his neighbor's wealth.
We Jews have too little of everything, only of good sense each of us presumes to have enough.
The Gentiles are not accustomed to Golus (cannot endure suffering).
The sea is unfathomable, and so are Jewish sufferings.
To a Gentile "masal" (good fortune) always smiles.
Little do they care for a Jew.
If the Jew is in the right he is whipped more than ever.
A Jew is always better off than a "Meshumed," the former having, in case of emergency, still the chance of being baptized, the latter having no such chance.
It is necessary for a Jew to understand all handicrafts: at Passover he must be a baker, at Shebuoth a gardener, at Rosh Hashana a bugler, at the feast of the Tabernacles an architect, at Chanucah a chandler.
The Jew cannot bear a succession of good days (because he is unaccustomed to happy times).