Moses, Jesus Christ and Karl Marx visit New York.(Fictional Work)

A Satirical Sketch by Jacob Gordin From Ale shriftn fun Yankev Gordin (NY: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1910)

Explanatory notes and a glossary appear at the end of the translation.

1. Prologue

Golden rays flood glorious paradise, the fantastic Garden of Eden. Heavenly birds sing chorales and hymns, enchanted flowers charm the eye with their uncommonly bright colors, and a warm breeze carries a pleasant aroma to all. The extraordinary inhabitants of this garden of joy and delight walk among the wondrous trees and talk about sublime things, others are sitting on thrones made of lilies and roses in the shade of thousand-year-old trees. Under the ancient Eyts Hakhayim, the Tree of Life, sits Moyshe Ben Amrom, Moses, son of Amrom, with his long silvery beard, his cold, clever look and frank, broad forehead. Next to him sits Yeshua Ha-Noytsri, Jesus of Nazareth, with his scraggly little beard, his friendly, naive look, his delicate little head and kind face. Opposite them sits the age-old Buddha, with his pigtail and short, round nose, smooth face and eyes that are as deep as endless eternity and as incomprehensible as unlimited Nirvana. Not far from them, under the Eyts Hadaas, the Tree of Knowledge, sit Aristotle, Newton, Darwin, Karl Marx and other wise men. Suddenly Karl Marx stood up and walked over to group sitting under the Tree of Life. Newton winked at Aristotle, and with a kind smile, said: "That's one thing I've noticed about our fine friends, the Jews; even here in the Garden of Eden, even such Titans among them as Marx remain Jewish and are drawn to each other. Just look at those three: Moyshe, Yeshua and Karl. The whole world is still dealing with them!"

"Marx often talks with Moyshe and Yeshua, not because they're Jews," answered Darwin. "He has a lot to discuss with them because he's their adversary. Moses created the first testament, Jesus gave them the second testament--and the third of our dear Jewish friends, Karl Marx, established the third testament, which will become the whole world's religion, the faith of all people ..."

Meanwhile, under the Tree of Life they were having a lively conversation. Each of the debaters believed that his ideas ruled humanity. After a long debate they decided to find out: They would visit a large city, for example, New York, in order to convince themselves just how many of the principles of "Mosesism," "Jesusism" and Socialism regulate the lives of modern people.

"So, and Buddhism? Don't you know that in New York they're always building new temples and new sects?"

"Herr Buddha," Marx answered with a little smile, "they won't let you in to the land of the yenkees. They'd take one look at your pigtail and arrest you. What do you need that for? Don't forget, now they've got a Commissioner of Immigration named Powderly. Once he was a friend of the workers. And a 'one-time' friend of the workers is the worst enemy of tolerance and freedom."

So this was the outcome: Moyshe Rabeynu--Moses our Teacher--Jesus Christ and Karl Marx, one by one, would each visit America's great metropolis, the famous city of New York. The first honor was given to the elderly Moses, who immediately called for the supreme angel, the shape-shifter Metatron, and commanded him to make an eleveytor from the rekia hashamayim, the firmament of the heavens, to the earth. Metatron spoke the words: "Yehi eleveytor! Let there be eleveytor!" And an eleveytor-baks was quickly created and Moyshe Rabeynu and Metatron flew down from the seventh heaven straight to the roof of the Hebrew Institute.

The whole population of glorious paradise was very interested in this trip and awaited its results with great anticipation. Under the Tree of Life and under the Tree of Knowledge this trip provoked heated discussions. Aristotle proposed that they set up a special telephone in heaven. But the motion could not be adopted, because they found out that the franchising rights to the telephone belonged to a trost that could sue them with consequent losses and inconveniences. By unanimous vote--minus one--it was resolved to condemn all trosts and all monopolies. The one vote against the resolution came from Jesus Christ, who said that one should judge not, nor protest any injustice, one should only pray for one's enemies and forgive them. Nobody voted with him, not even one meshumed, not one converted Jew.

But let us leave the inhabitants of heaven and return to Moses, who is now on the ruf-garden of the Hebrew Institute.

2. Moses

Moses landed on the ruf-garden of the Hebrew Institute at the precise moment when the dzshenitor was cleaning up and no one else is allowed there. The dzshenitor, a healthy Ayrishman, cursed at him: "Gad dem yu doirty sheenee," and swept him all the way down the steps to the strit, right onto Eest Brodvey. This is how a Jewish institute treats an old, grey Jew? The great teacher's heart was very troubled, but he consoled himself with the fact that this institute was run by Reform "yehudim." Such Jews! Surely, if Jesus were to come, thought Moyshe Rabeynu, they would welcome him. They would cozy up to the goyim to show what tolerant and enlightened people they are ... But what "biznes" can they do with old Moses?

So Moyshe Rabeynu walked along and saw one of his beloved Jews, a true, hard-working Jew, with unkempt peyes and a forked beard, standing on the korner with a pushkart and selling grapes. Moses was delighted when he saw this kinsman, and happily stood opposite him to watch how he behaved. What's this? Instead of a pound, he only gives three quarters. A Jew! ...

"My friend," Moses said to him, "don't you know that Moses has commanded you: Evven shleyma vetsedek yiheyeh lekha? (A perfect and just weight shalt thou have?)"

"What's it to you, you old fool? Hit the road, if you don't want to get your bones broken. Grinhorn! ..."

Moyshe Rabeynu walked further until he saw three golden balls in front of a window. He stood up and looked in. A healthy, overfed Jew was sitting at a table and many Jewish men and women were bringing him things to pawn--this one some jewelry, that one a warm overcoat, this one a quilt. Moyshe Rabeynu had just stepped in the door when the balebos of the paun shap shouted at him: "No shnorers! No beggars! Get aut of hier!"

"I'm no beggar, God forbid, I just have a question for you: At night, do you give every poor person their quilt back, and their warm blanket, as Moyshe taught you?"

"Listen, you! A pauper may get cold, but he won't die from it. Moyshe! Who cares about Moyshe these days? Moyshe said that you shouldn't charge a Jew interest, and from Jewish interest I've built two tenement houses. Ha! Ha! He brings up Moyshe! ... Old man! You're a real "Moyshe" * yourself! Take a walk! Scram!"

And everywhere he went, Moses saw that people paid as much attention to the Scriptures as the snows of yesteryear. He said to his beloved Jews, "Loy sasig gvul reyekho." Thou shalt not encroach upon thy neighbor, and he saw, on the contrary, the opposite, that wherever a Jew had managed to scrape together a living, another Jew encroaches on him. A groser encroaches on another groser, where one printer sets up shop, three other printers follow, where there's a drug store, five other Jewish drug stores shove their way in, seven dentists are fighting for one Jewish tooth. When one Jewish doctor sets up shop, soon the whole street is filled with Jewish doctors, like flies on sugar. And as Moyshe Rabeynu walked among them asking questions, his beloved Jews made fun of him. In some places they threw him down the stairs, and in the street a gang of Jewish hooligans made him a real kaboles ponim, a real welcoming ceremony, shouting at him and hitting him. Some of them pulled his beard, others spat in his face.

He was sick, sore and dead tired when the sun began to set and he realized that he had to find a place to spend the night. As he was going along, he saw a nice-looking building on which was written: "Beth El"--God's House. "Zeh ha-shaar la-donoy tsadikim yovoyu boy."--This is the gate to God, the righteous will enter it.

God's House, thinks Moyshe Rabeynu, that's where I'll find real Jews ... He went up the marble steps, opened a door and saw a Beautiful--a magnificent--synagogue. On the platform was a small table, and the rabbi, the president, the shames and a trosti were sitting there playing a noisy, heated game of pinochle. To his question--where could he spend the night?--first they told him to go the devil, then they had the khutspe to laugh at him and told him to go to Forsayt Strit.

On Forsayt Strit he was approached by cheerful "mademoiselles." They whispered secret and obscene things into his ear, they laughed at him, they pushed him around, and one had the khutspe to pull the hat off his grey head. And when Moyshe Rabeynu, astonished and puzzled, grabbed ahold of his grey head, he began to shout: Gevalt, how could Jews act this way? Haven't I told you, "Loy siheyeh kadeysha mi-bnoys Yisroel"?--There shall be no harlot of the daughters of Israel?--a Jewish pimp who was about to run for alderman burst out and gave him a blek ay. And from the second floor, one of the "daughters of Israel" dumped a pitcher of dirty water on his head.

The sun had long since set. Elektrik and gez light filled the whole city and old Moses was still wandering around the narrow streets of New York.

All that he had seen of Jewish life made Moses angry and sick. He had seen how rabbis, instead of following his Torah, were busy selling Kosher Seals of Approval, and creating new mitzves, new commandments. The pious Jews had tacked so many other Torahs on to his Torah that he was no longer able to recognize his Torah. The enlightened yehudim had grafted on so many goyishe reforms that he couldn't believe that they were Jews at all. They call themselves rakhmonim bney rakhmonim, the merciful and the sons of the merciful, Moses thought, but they don't want to help an old, grey-haired man. The head rabbi of the yeshiva wanted to sell him a Kosher Seal of Approval for a quarter of a dolar, but wouldn't give him anything to eat. In the Jewish lodges they told him that "benevolens" is a biznes and that he was too old. On Eighth Strit the "Charity-niks" insulted him and a polis man honored him and crowned his head with a nightstick. Barely alive, with broken bones and an aching heart, he returned to Paradise. He heaved a huge sigh and, as an honest and upright man, openly declared: "Friends, Mosesism is no more. It lives only in dead, lifeless forms."

"I knew that already," answered Jesus Christ joyfully. "The religion of vengeance, the Torah of a-tooth-for-a-tooth is already long dead. The religion of love lives now, the Torah of forgiveness and pardon rules among the people ... Now you'll see what glad tidings I will bring to you. Metatron, take me down to New York!"

3. Jesus Christ

Jesus arrived delighted and blissfully happy on the op-taun streets of New York. What he saw filled his heart with joy. Splendid churches every step of the way, marble mission houses, yong men krishtian assosieyshons buildings. The Bible Society with a million gospels in seventy languages ... It's alive! "Jesusism," the religion of love, is alive. I'm just wondering about one thing, thought Jesus, I expected to meet a lot of Christians on the streets of New York with their eyes plucked out and their hands chopped off and I don't see any. I taught them that if thine eye leads thee to temptation, pluck it out. If thy hand leads thee to sin chop off your hand. My poor brothers, how many eyes and hands do they pluck out and chop off every day? As he was thinking this, he saw an Irish Catholic man walking along with a cross on his chest and a plucked-out eye.

"My brother, sadly, you had to pluck out your eye so that you wouldn't give in to temptation? ..."

"Oh! You fool! We were beating the hell out of each other. I knocked out four of John's teeth and he bashed out my eye. Oh! Jeezus Christ! Did I bash him one!"

Jesus did not want to hear his sinful talk and jumped onto a kaybel-kar. He didn't even have time to sit down when the kar gave a leap and stopped. There was noise and shouting. Two children had been run over.

"How can you murder children? Where is your love? Merciful heavens!"

"The company," answered the conductor, "doesn't need any love, all they want is more profit." Jesus did not want to ride in a kar that was spattered with human blood, and he walked away on foot. He met a man who only had one hand.

"My brother," he said, "I can see by your pale, honest face that you're a pious man. Have you chopped off your hand so that you wouldn't sin?"

"My hand was cut off by a machine in a fektori. The boss kicked me out and I'm pale because I've got nothing to eat. My lawyer is bringing a suit against him, so maybe we'll be able to gouge something out of him."

"Gouge something? Vey iz mir, and where is love, that I left behind as my legacy?"

"Love? Ask the man who's walking towards us, that's Parkhurst, apriest, a Christian man."

Jesus went up to Parkhurst, and to see for himself just how he was upholding Christian morality, he smacked him on the right cheek and declared, "Offer your left cheek, as Christ has taught you!" But Parkhurst did not offer his other cheek; seething with rage, he took his heavy walking stick and clobbered Jesus and broke two of his fibs, flattened his nose, cracked his skull, and then had him arrested.

Jesus Christ sat for three days in the vork house and when he was freed, he decided to walk the streets of New York and preach love. On Fifth Evenyu he stopped several people so that they could listen to what he said:

"It is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for an elephant to pass through the eye of a needle ..."

"Anarchist! Anarchist!" all the listeners started yelling. A polismen quickly searched him to see if he had any bombs and then took him to kourt.

"Love your enemy! Forgive your enemies! All men are brothers," the voice of Jesus Christ reproached them. "Bring no vengeance! Sow no hatred, no jealousy! ..."

In kourt they burst out laughing. "A meshugener! A crazy man! He's sick!" They sent for prominent doctors, who observed him and determined that the man was suffering from a frightful madness that they called "mania religiosa." This is a very dangerous illness, and they advised that he be put in a straitjacket, and sent him to the mad house on "Black Island." And kakh hayah. And so it was.

4. Karl Marx

When Jesus returned to Paradise barely alive, wearing the cap and institutional robe of a committed lunatic, nobody needed to ask about the results of his trip ...

"Now," said Karl Marx, "I will go and see how they are following the laws of socialism. Metatron, let me down in a part of the city where my beloved poor folk live."

You can imagine how low poor Karl Marx fell, when he saw how they live on Rotger Strit. He didn't even have time to catch his breath before he heard people with their mouths full of meat and keyk shouting enthusiastically: "Scientific socialism! Twenty sent a hamburger steak!" Others were shouting, "Workers of the world--You can all drop dead!" and "The liberation of the proletariat, and where are the dominoes?"

Karl Marx went in to a small room and looked around. He had hoped to see shining faces, beaming with thought and self-awareness, intelligent faces of thinking proletarians, honest faces of sincere socialists, but when he saw the same thing written on all their faces--" Our party is the group and only our group is the party"--he heaved a huge sigh and quietly asked, "Friend, where can I find accurate reports about socialism in New York?"

"--Accurate? That is not the correct word. You should really say 'official reports.' You can get them two doors down. That's where we eat and conduct all our activities. But if you want to go in, first you have to answer a few questions about scientific socialism."

The old teacher smiled broadly and answered modestly, "I will tell you what I know."

"Has your nose ever crinkled up when you've heard the name 'DeLeon'?"

"If the name has something unbearable in it, then the nose will certainly crinkle. But it is quite foreign to me. I have only heard this name from you."

"Have you ever laughed, even unwillingly, when you thought about the sergeant-majors of socialist party discipline?"

"I don't know what you mean, and I don't understand what that has to do with scientific socialism."

"You hear? He doesn't know and doesn't understand. Bravo! He's almost ours. Come, you may have the privilege of visiting our official eest sayd holseyl and reteyl store for scientific socialism, advertayzments, discipline and tactics."

The elderly Karl Marx was delighted when they led him into a room where several people were sitting and writing. From downstairs came the pounding of a printing press. Many workers were running around, harried and overworked. This was made by Jewish workers for Jewish workers.

"Nu, children," Karl Marx shouted happily, "how is the holy work going?"

"The holy work! Ha! Ha! What do you say to such an old fool? Hey, old man, have you read my scientific article on Chinese marriage ceremonies? It's delicious. I only write about marriage ceremonies, or about microbes, or about myself. Socialism will truly triumph greatly when the workers read, for example, how I have travelled there. If they pay me, I'll also write about how I travelled back. You see how I'm always ready to do anything in the name of scientific socialism. Now I'm writing about microbes. 'A microbe is a little animal, that throws itself at another microbe, which is also a little animal, and all the microbes, which are little animals, throw themselves at all the little animals, which, as a matter of fact, are actually microbes ...' Old man, you see that I'm a socialist, I stand on my section's platform, but I'm against the materialistic spirit of Karl Marx's theory. Overall, I subscribe to very little of Karl Marx. Of course, I'm no friend of Baron Hirsch. But I sure don't see eye to eye with Karl Marx."

Karl Marx listened and kept quiet. He heard people speak openly about how tactics often required them to distort the truth, how tactics led them to use such means as blackmail, lies, slander and falsehood. He heard cynical comments about jobs, about biznes, about politics. He saw that people didn't give a damn about anything important, and heard about feuds, brawls, factional splits, and with a bitter heart and a broken spirit he went out into the fresh air.

A while later he found himself in Villiam Strit: the word that they greeted the old Karl Marx with was: "Feyker!"

"May I ask what progress the Socialist Workers Party has made?"

"Yes, we have made great progress. We have thrown everyone out and kept them out, and soon there'll be nobody left to fight with. But, old feyker, I see that you are a "dzshu" and I have to ask you: Who are you with--with us or with "them"?

"I'm with Karl Marx."

"With Karl Marx.--That's not good enough. Anybody who is not with us is against scientific socialism."

"I'm with Karl Marx and I want to ask you a question about what you are doing with socialism, which--"

"You hear? He is with Karl Marx! He wants to question us! I make a motion that he should be expelled."

"We second the motion," answered several shocked voices. And Karl Marx was expelled.

And when they showed Karl Marx out of Villiam Strit, and he wandered lost and dejected over the streets, and he saw how little they were doing in New York with his great ideas, when he understood what base and crude undertakings were being carried out in the name of socialism, he fell against the cold stone of a capitalist building and shed bitter tears.

At that point the Heavenly Spirit lifted him up to the clouds and said to him: "Wipe away your tears, and look and listen!" And the old teacher saw that over the whole land, legions of workers were beginning to mobilize, he saw organized armies marching over fields and mountains; he heard mighty voices, that hadn't been bought and paid for, calling others to the struggle and leading them to victory.

"Ah!" the great teacher cried out with joy, "the true struggle is just beginning! It's happening! It's coming and it's triumphing!"

Explanatory Notes

At night, do you give every poor person their quilt back, and their warm blanket, as Moyshe taught you? The reference is to Exodus 22:25-26: "If thou at all take thy neighbor's garment to pledge, thou shalt restore it unto him by that the sun goeth down; for that is his only covering."

Black Island. Blackwell's Island in the East River (changed to Roosevelt Island in 1921) was home to two hospitals, one of which was called The Lunatic Asylum.

De Leon, Daniel (1852-1914), Jewish socialist, split from the Socialist Labor Party in 1895, called trade union leaders "labor fakers," a reference that turns up in the Karl Marx segment. Another split in 1899 resulted in the formation of the Socialist Party of America.

Evven shleyma vetsedek yiheyeh lekha. A perfect and just weight shalt thou have (Deuteronomy 25:15).

Loy sasig gvul reyekho. Thou shalt not encroach upon thy neighbor (Deuteronomy 19:14).

Loy siheyeh kadeysha mi-bnoys Yisroel. There shall be no harlot of the daughters of Israel (Deuteronomy 23:18).

Parkhurst, Reverend Charles Henry (1842-1933), a Presbyterian reformer who rose to prominence in 1892 by attacking corruption in Tammany Hall and exposing saloons, gambling dens, and houses of prostitution.

Powderly, Terence Vincent (1849-1924), head of the Knights of Labor from 1879-1893, appointed US Commissioner General of Immigration by President McKinley, a position he held from 1897-1902, during which time he instituted the first restrictions against immigrants with contagious eye diseases.

Glossary

balebos--owner, manager **

feyker--faker (see De Leon above)

gevalt--a cry of fear, astonishment, amazement, desperation, protest

goyim, goyishe--non-Jew, non-Jewish

khutspe--nerve, gall

peyes--hair and sideburn locks worn by Orthodox males

shames--the sexton or caretaker of the synagogue

vey iz mir--literally, "woe is me"

yehudim--Hebrew for "Jews." It is placed in quotes in the original Yiddish text

* In the local language, an ignoramus [footnote in original]

** The wording in the definitions of balebos, gevalt, payes and shames comes from Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish.

Kenneth Wishnia is an assistant professor in the English Department at Suffolk Community College. He has written several novels featuring an Ecuadorian American female detective, which have been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Anthony Award for crime fiction.