Rabbi and Priest - A Story

Milton Goldsmith

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• Publié par: phiop
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 37
• Langue: English

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Rabbi and Priest, by Milton
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Title: Rabbi and Priest
A Story
Author: Milton Goldsmith
Release Date: March 6, 2007 [eBook #20756]
Language: English
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RABBI AND PRIEST.
A STORY
BYMILTON GOLDSMITH.


Philadelphia:
JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA.
1891.
COPYRIGHT, 1891,
BY THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA.
PRESS OF EDWARD STERN & Co.
PHILADELPHIA.
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
CHAPTER I.—RECRUITS FOR SIBERIA.
CHAPTER II.—MASTER AND MAN.
CHAPTER III.—A FAMILY IN ISRAEL.
CHAPTER IV.—A NIGHT OF TERROR.
CHAPTER V.—THE JOURNEY TO KHARKOV.
CHAPTER VI.—TWO UNFORTUNATES.
CHAPTER VII.—A RUSSIAN NOBLEMAN.
CHAPTER VIII.—AN UNWILLING CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY.
CHAPTER IX.—A MIRACULOUS CURE.
CHAPTER X.—MENDEL THINKS FOR HIMSELF.
CHAPTER XI.—THE RETURN OF THE RENEGADE.
CHAPTER XII.—FORBIDDEN BOOKS.
CHAPTER XIII.—PERSECUTIONS IN TOGAROG.
CHAPTER XIV.—A HAPPY PASSOVER.
CHAPTER XV.—TWO LOVING HEARTS.
CHAPTER XVI.—THE CHOLERA AND ITS VICTIMS.
CHAPTER XVII.—COMMON-SENSE VS. SUPERSTITION.
CHAPTER XVIII.—THE GOVERNOR'S PROJECT.
CHAPTER XIX.—YOM-KIPUR.
CHAPTER XX.—NEEDED REFORMS.
CHAPTER XXI.—A DEN OF NIHILISTS.
CHAPTER XXII.—A MODERN BRUTUS.
CHAPTER XXIII.—LOUISE'S PRACTICAL ADVICE.
CHAPTER XXIV.—A DANIEL COME TO JUDGMENT.
CHAPTER XXV.—MIKAIL THE PRIEST.
CHAPTER XXVI.—A DAUGHTER OF ISRAEL.
CHAPTER XXVII.—AT THE RABBI'S AND AT THE GOVERNOR'S.
CHAPTER XXVIII.—THE PRIEST IN THE SYNAGOGUE.CHAPTER XXIX.—LORIS FALLS IN LOVE.
CHAPTER XXX.—AN UNFORTUNATE ENCOUNTER.
CHAPTER XXXI.—KIERSON'S ESCAPE.
CHAPTER XXXII.—AN ATTEMPT UPON THE CZAR.
CHAPTER XXXIII.—THE RIOTS AT ELIZABETHGRAD.
CHAPTER XXXIV.—RABBI AND PRIEST MEET.
CHAPTER XXXV.—MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN.
CHAPTER XXXVI.—WHAT THE PRIEST HAD ACCOMPLISHED.
CHAPTER XXXVII.—THE LAND OF THE FREE.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
PREFACE.
Towards the end of 1882, there arrived at the old Pennsylvania Railroad Depot
in Philadelphia, several hundred Russian refugees, driven from their native
land by the inhuman treatment of the Muscovite Government. Among them
were many intelligent people, who had been prosperous in their native land,
but who were now reduced to dire want. One couple, in particular, attracted the
attention of the visitors, by their intellectual appearance and air of gentility, in
marked contrast to the abject condition of many of their associates. Joseph
Kierson was the name of the man, and the story of his sufferings aroused the
sympathy of his hearers. The man and his wife were assisted by the Relief
Committee, and in a short time were in a condition to provide for themselves.
The writer had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Kierson a few years later, and
elicited from him a complete recital of his trials and an account of the causes of
the terrible persecution which compelled such large numbers of his countrymen
to flee from their once happy homes.
His story forms the nucleus of the novel I now present to my readers. While
adhering as closely as possible to actual names, dates and events, it does not
pretend to be historically accurate. In following the fortunes of Mendel Winenki,
from boyhood to old age, it endeavors to present a series of pictures portraying
the character, life, and sufferings of the misunderstood and much-maligned
Russian Jew.
In the description of Russia's customs and characteristics, the barbarous cruelty
of her criminal code and the nihilistic tendency of the times, the author has
followed such eminent writers as Wallace, Foulke, Stepniak, Tolstoi and
Herzberg-Fraenkel. The accounts of the riots of 1882 will be found to agree in
historic details with the reports which were published at the time.
With this introduction, I respectfully submit the work to the consideration of an
indulgent public.
MILTON GOLDSMITH.
[Pg 5]Philadelphia, April, 1891.
CHAPTER I.RECRUITS FOR SIBERIA.
We are in Russia.
On the high road from Tscherkask to Togarog, and not far from the latter village,
there stood, in the year 1850, a large and inhospitable-looking inn. Its shingled
walls, whose rough surface no paint-brush had touched for long generations,
seemed decaying from sheer old age. Its tiled roof was in a most dilapidated
state, displaying large gaps imperfectly stuffed with straw, and serving rather to
collect the rain and snow for the more thorough inundation of the rooms below
than to protect them from the elements. The grounds about the house were in
keeping with it in point of picturesque neglect, and were as innocent of
cultivation as the building was of paint. A roughly paved path led from the
highway to the tavern door. Two old and sickly poplar trees cast a poor and
half-hearted shade upon the parched ground, and mournfully shook their
leaves over the scene of desolation. The herbage grew in isolated patches on a
black and uncultivated soil. Nature might have originally been friendly to the
place, but generations of poverty and neglect had reduced it to a condition of
wretched misery.
As was this particular spot, so was the entire village. Slavery had wound its
chains about the inhabitants, stifling whatever energy they possessed, entailing
upon them constant toil to satisfy the exorbitant demands of their task-masters.
[Pg 6]Hence, even with a genial sun and a southern climate, the fields were barren,
the crops poor and the people sunk in abject poverty.
The dilapidated inn, or kretschma, was known in the vicinity by the ideal and
appropriate name of "Paradise"—appropriate, because in it many a sinner had
been tempted and had fallen from grace. It was the popular rendezvous of the
village peasants. Thither the serfs living in the village of Togarog and for miles
around, would repair after their labors in the fields, and forget their fatigue in a
dram of rank Russian vodka. Upon the barren plot of ground before the tavern,
the mir, or communal assembly, was wont to meet, and in open session elect its
Elder, decide its quarrels, allot its ground to the heads of families, and frame its
rude and primitive laws.
In its bare and smoke-begrimed public room, the people of Togarog assembled
night after night, and discussed, as far as the autocratic government of the Czar
Nicholas would allow, the political news of the day. Poor souls! They enjoyed
little latitude in this direction. Items of information concerning the acts of the
central government in St. Petersburg were few and vague. The newspapers,
owing to an extremely severe censorship, gave but meagre accounts of the
political situation in the capital, and these were of necessity favorable to the
government. Now and then, however, came rambling accounts of insurrections,
of acts of cruelty, of large bodies of political offenders banished to a life-long
slavery in Siberia. At times came the news that the Czar had been inspired by
Providence to inaugurate some new and important reform, only to be followed
by the announcement that Satan had held a conference with his Imperial
[Pg 7]Majesty, and that the reform had fallen through. All such information was
carried into Togarog by word of mouth, for few of the good moujiks could read
the papers. Woe to anyone, however, who allowed his tongue too great a
license! Woe to him who dared utter a suggestion that the existing laws bore
heavily upon him. It was a dangerous experiment to criticise in a hostile spirit
any of the abuses heaped upon the degraded people. The condition of Russia
[1]was deplorable. Insurrection and rebellion nourished in all parts of the
Empire. Degraded to the lowest depths, the crushed worm turned occasionally,but free itself it could not. Brave spirits arose for whom exile had no terrors. With
their rude eloquence they incited their fellow-sufferers to throw off the yoke of
tyranny and assert their freedom; and the morrow found them wandering toward
the snow-bound confines of Siberia. Patriotism was not very much encouraged
in Russia.
The proprietor of the tavern, a burly, red-faced Cossack, Peter Basilivitch by
name, was in the employ and under the protection of the Governor of
Alexandrovsk, in which department the village of Togarog lay. The rent paid by
Basilivitch was nominal, it is true, but he sold enormous quantities of