The B'nai B'rith magazine · 1927-07-01 · 10 (7.1927) · p. Seite 431

Wayfaring in Provence (Part II) By Israel Cohen Marseilles HE port of Marseilles had always appeared to me to be a place of transit through which one rushed to catch a ship for some far-off land, rather than a city which one might enjoy for its own sake; but this was a mere prejudice, probably shared by many, of which I soon was cured. For, apart from beholding the ingenious . hanging bridge, which can transport half-a-dozen motor charabancs and their human freight gently over the water dividing the old town from the new, and the more amazing tunnel through the bowels of the foreland by which vessels might pass straight into the waters of the Rhone; and apart from being thrilled by the romance of the sea-girt isle of the Chateau d'Iff, sacred to the memory of Monte Cristo, I had only to watch the ceaseless flow of variegated traffic to find enough intellectual refreshment to tickle even the most jaded palate. Seated in one of the big cafes in the tumultuous Cannebiere, opposite the Bourse, we saw a veritable kaleidoscope of humanity reveal itself before us on the margin of pavement. Men and women of all nations, of all creeds and climes, who had landed for a few idle hours until their ship was ready again to bear them away, strolled along in an endless procession. Brawny Argentinians and dapper Japs, dusky Cingalese and flaxen-haired Swedes, Greeks and Malays, Algerians and Americans—they filed along in every variety of color and costume, of physique and physiognomy, of speech and gesture, some lingering, others hurrying, but all gazing around in indolent curiosity. Presently, in the midst of all this motley parade, there emerged a strangely familiar figure^—a bearded old Jew, shuffling along with bowed head and weary limbs. I seemed to have seen him often before and in different places—in the crowded Ghettos of Vilna and Warsaw, of Kovno and Riga, of Vienna and Bucharest; but in all those cities he was at home, and his face bore a look of resignation, if not of contentment. Here he trudged along as an alien, friendless and forlorn, not an idle sight-seer like all the other people around him, but a woebegone wanderer, without any goal in view. Our eyes met for a spell, as though attracted by some strange telepathic impulse, and then he was swallowed up in the swirling throng. The next day, being the solemn day of New Year, we wended our way to the synagogue. It is a modern and imposing building, standing back a little from the narrow street in which it is situated, the space between the entrance and the tall railings forming a convenient exercise-ground for the little knots of worshippers who came out in quest of fresh air. The French flag fluttered aloft from either gate in honor of the great day, and a policeman was on duty to see that the fervour of devotion did not bubble over, perchance, into some emotional outburst. Within, there was a large and animated congregation, which showed that though Jewish life was decaying in the interior of Provence it was still fairly vigorous in what the mediaeval traveller, Benjamin of Tudela, described as "a city of princely and wise citizens." Not only the body of the shrine but the two women's galleries were filled, and as the day was warm and few windows were open, the air was oppressive. The men presented a strange contrast to their co-religionists in any English synagogue, not so much in appearance —although there were many Algerians and Tunisians among them—as in attire, for among the whole of that devout assembly there was not a single silk hat. There were all kinds of other headgear—bowlers of London pattern, Trilbies of different hue, straw hats, cloth caps, even the peaked hats of two or three Jewish soldiers, and the quaint cylinders of the cantors, but though I scanned every row of worshippers from the entrance doors to the Ark, my eye did not light upon the sheen of a single top-hat. Even the president, who occupied an elevated pew near the Ark, bravely sported a covering of straw. I 431 A corner of Marseilles. wondered what the warden of a West End synagogue would have thought, had he seen this multitudinous array of irreverent headgear. The most distinguished-looking hats of all were those on the heads of the beadles. They were magnificent structures, shaped like the cocked hats of a Lord Lieutenant, and adorned with a white and red cockade. The rest of the attire of those functionaries, in keeping with their hats, consisted of black coattails, white tie, and a silver shield on the breast suspended by a chain round the neck. Not even the Marshall of the City of London could have stalked with a prouder bearing than the senior beadle, as he headed the procession of the cantors and the scrolls of the Torah through the thronged aisles to the Ark, which was draped, not with a curtain of symbolic white, as in England, but with a brocade of palish brown. And the Rabbi, clad from head to foot exactly like a padre, must have felt a little thrill of pride as he saw the flock crowding round the scrolls, which they were so eager to touch, if not with their lips, with the corner of their talith; while the women high above, many of them with a dark lace