anization of our small
society. It was a caste system with social levels sharply marked off,
and families united by clannish ties. The rich looked down on the
poor, the merchants looked down on the artisans, and within the ranks
of the artisans higher and lower grades were distinguished. A
shoemaker's daughter could not hope to marry the son of a shopkeeper,
unless she brought an extra large dowry; and she had to make up her
mind to be snubbed by the sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law all her
life.

One qualification only could raise a man above his social level, and
that was scholarship. A boy born in the gutter need not despair of
entering the houses of the rich, if he had a good mind and a great
appetite for sacred learning. A poor scholar would be preferred in the
marriage market to a rich ignoramus. In the phrase of our
grandmothers, a boy stuffed with learning was worth more than a girl
stuffed with bank notes.

Simple piety unsupported by learning had a parallel value in the eyes
of good families. This was especially true among the Hasidim, the sect
of enthusiasts who set religious exaltation above rabbinical lore.
Ecstasy in prayer and fantastic merriment on days of religious
rejoicing, raised a Hasid to a hero among his kind. My father's
grandfather, who knew of Hebrew only enough to teach beginners, was
famous through a good part of the Pale for his holy life. Israel
Kimanyer he was called, from the village of Kimanye where he lived;
and people were proud to establish even the most distant relationship
with him. Israel was poor to the verge of beggary, but he prayed more
than other people, never failed in the slightest observance enjoined
on Jews, shared his last crust with every chance beggar, and sat up
nights to commune with God. His family connections included country
peddlers, starving artisans, and ne'er-do-wells; but Israel was a
zaddik--a man of piety--and the fame of his good life redeemed the
whole wretched clan. When his grandson, my father, came to marry, he
boasted his direct descent from Israel Kimanyer, and picked his bride
from the best families.

The little house may still be standing which the pious Jews of Kimanye
and the neighboring villages built for my great-grandfather, close on
a century ago. He was too poor to build his own house, so the good
people who loved him, and who were almost as poor as he, collected a
few rubles among themselves, and bought a site, and built the house.
Bui