To
MY BELOVED PARENTS
in reverence and gratitude for their
beautiful and holy example

PICTURES OF
JEWISH HOME-LIFE
FIFTY YEARS AGO

By

HANNAH TRAGER

Author of
Stories of Child-Life in Palestine
Festival Stories of Child-Life in Palestine
Pioneers in Palestine

WITH A PREFATORY LETTER BY
LEO JUNG


WITH FOUR PLATES
AND A GLOSSARY


NEW YORK
BLOCH PUBLISHING CO., Inc.


PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
THE STANHOPE PRESS, LTD.
ROCHESTER

FOREWORD

My dear Mrs. Trager,

It gives me great pleasure to write a preface to your new book. I consider it a real privilege, since it represents the fulfilment of a hope expressed some five years ago. When you sent me the first article for "The Sinaist" I told you that your pen would win the love and the esteem not only of the child, but essentially also of the adult readers.

The simple joyousness of your style, the beauty and freshness of the atmosphere, which you very well succeed in bringing to the pages of your books, the strength of your faith, and the vividness of your description, the love of Jew above the love of Palestine, all these combine to render your volumes valuable additions to the small stock of good Jewish literature in English. It is not only that you teach, while talking so pleasantly; that you instruct while you interest and amuse; that you have your own personality in the stories; that you convey the charm of Eretz Israel, and the beauty of holiday spirit; but because your stories help us to feel the depth of faith and the height of ideal as the self-evident, normal factors of Jewish life.

For the children of our age, both young and old, should know that that God-consciousness of the Jew, that wondrous sense of eternity in his mission, is not a laboriously acquired conviction, not the result of some spasmodic effort of grasping the innermost meaning of our history, but the natural pervading spirit of Jewish life, the air which the Jew breathes, when he lives with Torah as his guide and Mitzvah as his ladder towards heaven.

They who read your stories conceive a deep love of Judaism, they find a desire growing in them to live the life which produces such happiness and goodness, they will want to study the Law and lore, of which that life is an outward expression. I have given your tales to children in various countries and all of them were enchanted with them, regretting that "there were only two books by Mrs. Trager." I am glad indeed to find that another one is coming out. And it is in the interest of our youth that I hope you will give us every year some of these nourishing and very palatable fruits of your pen.

You will thereby be doing an additional bit for our God and our people whom you are serving so loyally. You reinterpret to the Jewish youth of to-day the treasures they are so carelessly abandoning, you will shed light and reawaken love and hope in the heart of many a Jew, who seemed to feel that our glorious faith had no message for the child of to-day, unless it were shorn by our 'religious' barbers, robbed of its native beauty and reduced to some platform-commonplace. As a lamented London Maggid told me, "There still live some real soldiers of God." Such are those who use persuasion from the pulpit, such as shine through the example of their own humane Jewishness and such as capture our hearts by artless beautiful tales of Jewish life and lore.

I wish you every success in the world,

Yours very sincerely,

LEO JUNG

CONTENTS

• The Arrival In Jerusalem
• The Welcome
• The Celebration Of Purim
• The Baking Of Matzos
• Lag B'omer
• The Sabbath In Palestine
• The Succah
• How Charity Is Given
• Father Frost In Jerusalem
• Engagement And Wedding Ceremonies
• Jubilee Of Zorach Barnett
• Glossary

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

• The Father Teaching The Child The Meaning Of The Tsitsith
• Chadar (School)
• Yeushiva (Talmudical School)
• The Old Lady

THE ARRIVAL IN JERUSALEM

On a Friday afternoon everyone was very busy in Benjamin's home washing and dressing to go to Shule. The mother was getting the living-room clean and tidy for the Sabbath.

THE OFFENCE

The family lived in a few rooms off Commercial Road, in one of the many back streets. The underground kitchen had to be used as the dining-and sitting-room, for they had not been many years in England and it was a hard struggle for Benjamin's parents to make ends meet and provide