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The Promised Land
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I. WITHIN THE PALE
CHAPTER II. CHILDREN OF THE LAW
CHAPTER III. BOTH THEIR HOUSES
CHAPTER IV. DAILY BREAD
CHAPTER V. REMEMBER
CHAPTER VI. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
CHAPTER VII. THE BOUNDARIES STRETCH
CHAPTER VIII. THE EXODUS
CHAPTER IX. THE PROMISED LAND
CHAPTER X. INITIATION
CHAPTER XI "MY COUNTRY"
CHAPTER XII. MIRACLES
CHAPTER XIII. A CHILD'S PARADISE
CHAPTER XIV. MANNA
CHAPTER XV. TARNISHED LAURELS
CHAPTER XVI. DOVER STREET
CHAPTER XVII. THE LANDLADY
CHAPTER XVIII. THE BURNING BUSH
CHAPTER XIX. A KINGDOM IN THE SLUMS
CHAPTER XX. THE HERITAGE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOOTNOTES
Mary Antin
Published by
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Sons of rich fathers could escape service without leaving any marks on their persons. It was always possible to bribe conscription officers. This was a dangerous practice,—it was not the officers who suffered most in case the negotiations leaked out,—but no respectable family would let a son be taken as a recruit till it had made every effort to save him. My grandfather nearly ruined himself to buy his sons out of service; and my mother tells thrilling anecdotes of her younger brother's life, who for years lived in hiding, under assumed names and in various disguises, till he had passed the age of liability for service.
If it were cowardice that made the Jews shrink from military service they would not inflict on themselves physical tortures greater than any that threatened them in the army, and which often left them maimed for life. If it were avarice—the fear of losing the gains from their business for four years—they would not empty their pockets and sell their houses and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing the Czar's agents. The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and injustice at the hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his family, which he left, often enough, as dependents on the charity of relatives; but the fear of an unholy life was greater than all other fears. I know, for I remember my cousin who was taken as a soldier. Everything had been done to save him. Money had been spent freely—my uncle did not stop at his unmarried daughter's portion, when everything else was gone. My cousin had also submitted to some secret treatment,—some devastating drug administered for months before the examination,—but the effects were not pronounced enough, and he was passed. For the first few weeks his company was stationed in Polotzk. I saw my cousin drill on the square, carrying a gun, on a Sabbath. I felt unholy, as if I had sinned the sin in my own person. It was easy to understand why mothers of conscript sons fasted and wept and prayed and worried themselves to their graves.
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