The Jew's Christmas (1913)
18 Dec 1913 • Short, Drama
Isaac and his faithful wife, Rachel, deplore that in America their children are forced to work on the Jewish Sabbath. Leah and Sam are not so strict as their parents and the old customs pall about their more American spirits. Sam is employed in a cloak house and secretly loves his employer's daughter, but she refuses to recognize him. Leah is loved by the handsome gentile floorwalker, and despite her father's objections, she marries him. Isaac orders Leah from the house. Later, the daughter of the cloak manufacturer marries an admirer and Sam is invited to the wedding. He drinks and disgraces himself, and returning home, is turned out by the heartbroken rabbi. He leaves, telling the old man that he will return when the father celebrated the Christian Christmas. Two years pass. Leah presents herself at her father's door with a baby in her arms. The old Jew refuses to see, but the mother longs to take the girl to her bosom. Julian falls under a street car; his legs are severed at the knees. Leah visits him at the hospital and is grief stricken. Ten years later the rabbi and his wife are in poor circumstances, though he is as rigid as ever. Leah and Julian have adopted flower making as a means of livelihood. Without knowing it, the family have taken rooms above those of the rabbi. One afternoon their little girl meets the old man in the yard and assists him. An attachment springs up between the child and the old man and the latter is impressed many times by instances of the kindness of the gentiles towards the Jews in this country. It is this child, on a Christmas night, that finally brings about reconciliation between the girl and the old father.
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None, English
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United States
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