Jews and Jonah S Ministry Essay Example for Free

Jews and Jonah S Ministry Essay Jews Without Money is based on its author’s own childhood, Michael Gold. It re-creates the Jewish immigrant Lower East Side in Manhattan in which he lived, and it provides insight into the life of first- and second-generation Jewish Americans around the turn of the twentieth century. Gold does a wonderful job at putting the reader right in the middle of the sights, smells and sounds of people who may be materially poor, but very rich emotionally. The book paints for the most part a bleak picture of Jewish immigrant life in America, a picture that will remain bleak, the book’s ending implies, until the workers’ revolution occurs. In this paper I will discuss few issues that come up in the book and in the documents that we have read over the past month, along with a brief summary of the book as well. As the central character and narrator, Mike grows and learns more and more about the struggles that his parents and their neighbors undergo to earn a living. Mike’s father had been a housepainter, but he is disabled by a fall and by lead poisoning. At one point in the book, Mike finds him trying to earn money selling half-rotten bananas. We find out Mike’s mother is the central figure in the family. She supports them by working in a cafeteria and cleaning various apartments. After and before work, she takes care of her ill husband and children. On a terribly snowy winter day, Mike’s younger sister, Esther, goes out into the streets to collect wood for the stove where she is run over by a truck and dies. A lawyer comes to their home and says that if the mother and father sign a paper, he will get them a thousand dollars from Adams Express, the company that operated the truck. Herman wants to sign the lawyer’s paper, but Katie throws him out of the house. It is, she says, â€Å"blood money. † Repeatedly, Mike learns how terrible life is for people in America without money, especially Jews. They need to cope not only with poverty but also with anti-Semitism. When Mike uses a dirty word in school, his teacher washes out his mouth with soap, as well keeps calling him â€Å"Little Kike. † Herman and Katie are furious because the soap the teacher uses was not kosher. When a politician sends them a Thanksgiving meal, Katie asks Mike to tell her the story of Thanksgiving. After he narrates the tale of the Pilgrims, his mother decides that Thanksgiving is â€Å"an American holiday . . . and not for Jews. † The family cannot even eat the beautiful, fat turkey because it is not kosher. When Herman seems to be doing well in the housepainting business and thinks he will begin to earn more money, he falls from a ladder and cannot work. After Esther dies, the mother also is unable to work. When the family is nearly starving, a man from the United Charities visits them and asks all kinds of personal questions, including whether Herman beats Katie. Herman throws the man out of the house. Mike concludes that â€Å"starvation was kinder† than organized charity. Mike keeps hearing from those around him that the Messiah will come and lead the Jews to the Promised Land. He asks his neighbor, Reb Samuel, a very religious man, about the Messiah. Reb Samuel, who teaches Mike about Judaism, describes a â€Å"pale, young and peaceful† Messiah, but Mike prefers one who looks like Buffalo Bill and â€Å"could annihilate our enemies. † At age twelve, Mike quits school to go to work. He finds a variety of unpleasant, sometimes hellish jobs and discovers anti-Semitism in employment. Even some businesses owned by Jews, he discovers, refuse to hire Jews. One night, he hears a man on a soapbox declare that a world movement is coming to end poverty. Listening to him, Mike learns about the workers’ revolution, which he calls â€Å"the true Messiah. † The revolution, he says, forced him to think, struggle, and live. The book then ends with the words, â€Å"O great Beginning! † One of the first documents we read was â€Å"The Constitution of the United States of America (1789)†. The title of this document is almost self explanatory. We all know how this country was formed and how specific the founding fathers were. Article VI states†¦freedom of religion as a basic law of the land. It goes on to say no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States (p. 457). In the book we do see religious freedom however we do see discrimination of it because it is a different religion then the majority. This is truly unfair and the author makes it clear. If the law states and accepts religious freedom why is it so hard to accept others differences and for them to come up in the society? They struggled a lot but in the end they over came the obstacle course. With the law on their back, they are able to practice their religious views and make a difference in America. This story really makes you appreciate the issues that these poor Jewish immigrants faced and confirms that the American Dream certainly is possible as we have the luxury today in 2010 to evaluate the situations of many of these characters descendants. These people worked hard and helped each other and therefore made better lives for their future generations. The most admirable character in the book is Katie. She shows kindness to all, even the prostitutes who live near their apartment. When she works in the cafeteria, the other workers come to her with their problems. She remains gentle and concerned with doing the right thing, even though life for her is a constant round of work. The one time Mike sees her truly happy is when the family goes to Bronx Park and Katie takes the children to gather mushrooms in the woods. She accepts hardship and tragedy with dignity and grace. Only the death of her daughter Esther is too much for her. After Esther dies, Katie is defeated. As I think back about Katie there was one document that connected with me. Julia Richman wrote Women Wage-Workers, and as I re-read the document, images of Katie’s hard work reappeared. In this document, the role of women in society surfaces and takes stand. â€Å"General advance in the education of women, the desire to give children greater educational advantages then the parents enjoyed, the financial value of women’s work, the frequent necessity for women to contribute to the support of families† are just a few things that the article touches up on but they all hit on what kind of character Katie is. The Galveston Movement was a program operated between 1907 and 1914 to divert Jews fleeing Russia and Eastern Europe away from crowded East Coast cities. Ten thousand Jewish immigrants passed through Galveston during this era New York financier and philanthropist Jacob Schiff was the driving force behind the effort, which Schiff supported with nearly $500,000 of his personal funds. Bnai Israels Rabbi Henry Cohen was the humanitarian face of the movement, meeting ships at the Galveston docks and helping guide the immigrants through the cumbersome arrival and distribution process. I found this document very interesting in a way that this was good and a bad idea at the same time. A major theme of the book is the unfairness of the American capitalist system that leads people to dream of financial success but prevents them from achieving it. The hard-heartedness of the capitalist system is best symbolized by the Adams Express truck that kills Esther and the lawyer who tries to make money from her death. The only character who is really happy in America is Harry the Pimp. The honest workers, however, â€Å"eat the bread of sorrow and shame in America. † With so many Jewish immigrants in one place it’s a good start for all of them to achieve something in their lives but at the same time with so much diversity around them discrimination will be extremely high. By diverting people to the southern state they will struggle to adopted but at the same time the opportunities for success are greater then in the over-crowded cities. Also to relate the unfair American capitalist system the document, by Issac Rubinow, The Economic Condition of the Russian Jew in New York City, paints us a high-definition picture of the profession that the Jews take up in the city. Even though the professions of teaching and medicine was high within still the â€Å"Russian Jews are on a much lower economic level, they belong to the â€Å"masses† then â€Å"classes†. With so many Russian Jews in the city the facts cannot be denied and the percent of professional jobs is indeed much smaller then the industrial wage-workers. One of my documents that stuck to me the most and make think about the main character of the book was A Reply to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport by George Washington. He accepts their welcoming letter and says how the citizens of this great nation accept other religious views. â€Å"The citizens of United States of American have right to applaud them themselves for having given mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy, a policy worthy of imitation†. As this thought processed in my mind, something changed in our society in the start of the 20th century. The characters in Jews Without Money contribute to the growth of Mike. He runs wild in the slums of the Lower East Side, playing with his â€Å"Gang of Little Yids. † He describes the bums, horse drivers, prostitutes, and workers who live in his neighborhood. His father becomes a figure of despair. For Herman, nothing goes right. All of his get-rich-quick schemes go awry. Cruelly conscious of the need for money in America, he bitterly rejects the New World in which he suffers so much, at one point uttering, â€Å"A curse on Columbus! A curse on America, the thief! †. This stuck in my mind for a long time as I tried to figure it out. When this nation was found, it was created based on equality for everyone but something went wrong. According to Mike and the people around him there is no feeling of acceptance, equality. He lost faith in this nation that was going to change his life for the better. All the positives that have happened for the citizens of American didn’t do anything for him and his family. His father not being able to work and constantly ill, the death of his sister, hard working mother and all the other bad things around him, nothing good can happen to him. Mike sees hypocrisy in many, especially in the fat Chassidic rabbi imported from Europe at great cost to his relatively poor congregation. When the Chassids celebrate the coming of the rabbi, Mike sees the rabbi stuffing himself and thinks the rabbi will eat all the food at the celebration before the children get a chance to eat anything. He mentions that possibility to Reb Samuel, who sends Mike home without having eaten any of the feast; but, Mike says, Reb Samuel should have listened to the wisdom of the little child. After a while, the rabbi accepts a better paying job at a wealthy congregation. Mike cannot understand America and the effect it has on people because to him it hasn’t brought happiness as it did to other Jews. Jews Without Money is an example of the proletarian novel, the novel by a member of the working class and about members of the working class. In this kind of novel, truth is supposed to be more important than art. It is also a sensitive treatment of the life of a child in an immigrant neighborhood and I can relate to that as an immigrant of the 21st century. Some issues never go away but you can learn how to deal with them and hopefully learn what is better and incorporate the positives in your life. Over the entire book brings out many issues that we see keep re-occurring to this day. They might never go away but we can be aware and act different on them. After reading the book there was one quote that summed up many issues of the book and documents bring up; â€Å"Every persecuted race becomes a race of fanatics†Ã'Ž

The Internet In Classrooms :: Teaching Education

The Internet In Classrooms How Advanced Technology Is Changing the Face of Education for Students and Teachers The first thing a college student typically does when he or she goes back to their dorm room or apartment is sit down at their computer and go online. They proceed to either, read their e-mail, check their online courses for new assignments, or go on one of the many communication websites or programs that are available currently to this generation. None of this would be possible without the readily available Internet access that we often take for granted. The Internet has proven not only useful for entertainment purposes, but has also dramatically changed the educational approach, for both students and educators, and the way knowledge is being obtained. Internet access in schools has experienced an extreme increase within the last decade. By the fall of the year 2000, 98% of the public schools throughout the United States reported to be connected to the Internet (NCES, 2000). This is a reported 63% increase since the year 1994. Also in 2000, the ratio of computers to students was one to six, an increase from the 1994 ratio of one computer for every eleven students (Mendels, 1999). Aside from having Internet access in school libraries and computer labs, the abundance in individual classrooms has dramatically increased. This allows for Internet learning to be more readily available to students on a daily basis. Statistically over 70% of schools have this access in at least one of their classrooms (Mendels, 1999). Many schools have made the decision to go high-tech and create their own web pages via the World Wide Web. This allows them to advertise themselves to the virtual community. There has, also, been a change in how the Internet is being accessed by the various school systems. Dial-up Internet access has often been replaced by the high speed or cable Internet. A large portion of the increased Internet use, accessibility, and popularity as an educational instrument in the classrooms has been aided by the â€Å"Education Rate Program†, also known as the E-Rate Program (NCES, 2000). As of 2001, $5.8 billion has been committed to the growth of Internet access through this single program alone. It was established in 1996, with the goal of making Internet access, service, and connections more readily available to schools at discounted rates, in both urban and rural settings.

Philosophy of life Essay

What is the meaning of life? The answer to this question has sought over since mankind became capable of exercising their brain capacity past a level of primal instinct. In general life is rather meaningless, we all simply exist together on this planet. But before one dwells on the pointlessness of human existence, they should think about the purpose of each individual person in our society. We create goals for ourselves; we all have a role to play in our society. In a sense, we choose our future and in doing so, give ourselves a purpose to live. The purpose of human existence in general may be absent, but in our society and through our goals and achievements, I believe each individual creates their own purpose. Through one question I realized this great truth: what do you want to be when you grow up? For the longest time, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. What did it matter to me anyway? I was a kid (well, I suppose I still am) and didn’t like any of the generic jobs they told us about in elementary school. Police force, teachers, fireman, none of them interested me. Then, in middle school, my life changed, a lot. I got completely new friends, after the old ones left me behind. I slowly started to become more and more enclosed, I spent most of my time out of school alone. As I developed into this over-dramatic teenage state, life suddenly became meaningless. I would often find myself sitting bored in my room, mindlessly surfing the internet or playing videogames. I slowly started to hate it; it was like I could feel my brain melting inside my head. I needed to find a more constructive hobby, and so I found myself musical instruments and started creating more and more music every day. Music became my life and from then on, I knew that my goal, the meaning of my life, was to become a musician. I believe that life was meant to be enjoyed; nobody wants to spend their life in a dead end job. After all, just how much meaning is in an unhappy life? Just ask Monty Python’s John Cleese, who states, â€Å"If I had not gone into Monty Python, I probably would have stuck to my original plan to graduate and become a chartered accountant, or perhaps a barrister lawyer, and gotten a nice house in the suburbs with a nice wife and kids, and gotten a country club membership, and then I would have killed myself. † I find this quote strongly inspiring because instead of choosing a highly respectable, well paying job and living a comfortable life, he choose to work with some of most popular men to ever wear woman’s clothing. Comedy is what he finds gives meaning to his life, and although his second choices would have been nice, Cleese didn’t find as much value in them as he did in Monty Python. Perhaps life itself is meaningless, but I believe it doesn’t have to be. I believe that a happy life is a meaningful one. I believe that mankind may not collectively have a reason for existence or a common goal, but each individual certainly does. I believe that each and every person has to create their own reason to live, instead of waiting for that reason to come to them, or they must just find themselves waiting forever.

Brahms’ Brahms’ Brahms’ Third Third Third - 728 Words

Brahms’ Brahms’ Brahms’ Third Third Third In his early days, Brahms was attracted to the traditional form of classical music specifically Beethoven and Haydn. When the original form of the symphony was created, many composers tried to follow and fit the same mold. In this third symphony from an older Brahms, we see that he fits this mold by having this symphony divided into a fast-slow-minuet-fast. Just years before Brahms wrote his first symphony, he was declared as the heir to Beethoven. This obviously had pressure on Brahms at that point in his life, therefore he had to shift from a more traditional form of writing to making it original as shown in this third symphony even though he followed Beethoven and Haydn’s traditional form. It’s as if he had this heaviness of the past on his shoulders, yet we listen to his genuine response towards this feeling. Yes he followed this form, but we can see Brahms’ rhythmic display, motivic thinking, motivic saturation, and above all his musical wisdom. That being s aid, Im a firm believer that music comes from within a person and I really do believe that Brahms felt this way toward his music. What we listen to today, are movements that put together, have become masterpieces and models for many composers. Brahms third symphony is similar to Haydn’s conception of the symphony which he shows in his Oxford creation. It starts with a fast allegro movement, followed by a slow andante movement, later has a scherzo, and finally an allegroShow MoreRelated Review on Brahms?s Third Symphony Essay example613 Words   |  3 Pages Review on Brahms’s Third Symphony Symphony No.3, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Op.90, F Major Allegro con brio Andante Poco allegretto allegro Brahms was at the zenith of his powers when he wrote the third Symphony. He finished it during the summer of 1883, in Wiesbaden, whence in early May, soon after his fiftieth birthday. We can picture Brahms that summer, in the very prime of his life, his great intellectual and emotional powers fully developed and his mastery widely acknowledged, walking muchRead MoreRichard Muhlfeld s His Quintet For Clarinet, 2 Violins, Viola, And Cello1298 Words   |  6 PagesIn his Quintet for Clarinet, 2 Violins, Viola, and Cello Op. 115, Brahms creates an important and influential work in the chamber music repertoire. By writing his Quintet for the specific clarinetist Richard Mà ¼hlfeld’s artistic brilliance, and by taking musical liberties with conventional forms and expectations, Brahms crafts the intimacy and seriousness one has come to expect from chamber music. Towards the end of his life, Brahms had intended on retiring from composing. 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In this particular song, Peter and Magelone falls in love with each other. Though Brahms is most widely known as an instrumental composer, more than half of his opus numbers are devoted to vocal works. In Brahms’ song cyclesRead MoreReview on Brahmss Third Symphony Essays607 Words   |  3 PagesReview on Brahmss Third Symphony Symphony No.3, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Op.90, F Major Allegro con brio Andante Poco allegretto allegro Brahms was at the zenith of his powers when he wrote the third Symphony. He finished it during the summer of 1883, in Wiesbaden, whence in early May, soon after his fiftieth birthday. 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The global harmonic trajectory of the piece is embodied in the combinationRead MoreThe Development of Harmony from Schumann through Brahms to Debussy1063 Words   |  5 PagesThe Development of Harmony from Schumann through Brahms to Debussy In studying three composers, Schumann, Brahms and Debussy, it is possible through analysis, to construct a Harmonic development through time - from early 1800s to early 1900s. I will go about deducing a harmonic timeline by individually looking at each composer then will conclude with a final comparison summarizing how different harmonic elements develop with the Romantic Movement and its progression.Read MoreI Attended The University Symphony Orchestra Concert1374 Words   |  6 Pagesmovement, andante, was soft and comforting. Caleb showed lyrical and expressive potential of the trumpet. This movement was mostly concentrating on the capability of the trumpet which exemplifies the consummate melodic artistry of Haydn s late work. The third movement, allegro, was light and tuneful. The movement begins with soft violins and the orchestra follows immediately with a loud statement. As the piece stables, there is a pause and the trumpet make its first theme, accompanied by a full orchestraRead More The Florida Orchestra’s Program730 Words   |  3 Pages On April 11, 2014 The Florida Orchestra performed Wolfgang Mozart’s Symphony No. 28 in C major, K, 200, David Diamond’s Symphony No. 4, and Johannes Brahms Quartet No.1 for Piano and Strings in G minor at the David A. Straz Center for the P erforming Arts, Ferguson Hall in Tampa, Florida. Gerard Schwarz, guest conductor, led the Florida Orchestra for each of the compositions. According to The Florida Orchestra Program the list of performers for the violin is Jeffrey Multer, Nancy Chang, JeffreyRead MoreIn This Paper We Will Go Through The Development Of The2089 Words   |  9 Pages In this paper we will go through the development of the keyboard through the nineteenth century in chamber music. We are going to look at three different composers, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms. We are going to look and see how they treated the keyboard in their lives and compositions. For each of the composers we will look at one keyboard chamber piece so we can learn just a little more about how important it was to each composer and why. [introduction paragraph to be