F TAY-SACHS
R F R E E E E
H eadlines
1918 Continued from Page 1
cemetery near Cobbs Creek in
the hopes of stopping a deadly
pandemic. Rosenberg and Jacobs were
part of a shvartse khasene, a
custom created to save the
Jewish people when all seemed
lost. On Oct. 20, 1918, influenza
was ravaging populations all
over the world, and the Jewish
immigrant community of
Philadelphia was no exception.

The ritual, known as a black
wedding or plague wedding in
English, was a desperate attempt
to bring down God’s mercy.

During a shvartse khasene,
have interpreted the rite as
a good deed designed to end
God’s divine wrath. Cholera
was a terrifying disease that
could kill people within hours,
and by fulfilling two mitzvot
— helping the poor and facil-
itating the creation of a Jewish
family — Eastern European
Jewish communities may have
hoped to end divine wrath.

Press samples from the time
period that describe the plague
weddings as raucous and
joyous affairs suggest another
reason for the celebration.

“It was a theory in the 19th
century that you could be more
susceptible to cholera if you
were afraid and if you were
against the physically and
mentally disabled may have
meant it was considered
permissible to use them as
spiritual scapegoats to carry
the burdens of the Jewish
community as a whole. There
is no evidence that the selected
couples were asked for consent
about participating in the ritual
and, even if they did agree,
they may have been pressured
by a sense of obligation from
having received charity.

W hen
t hese
Jew ish
immigrants arrived in the
United States during the late
19th and early 20th centu-
ries, they lived in tight-knit
communities that preserved
There was a popular understanding that you should try to ward off
the fear and anxiety that came with a pandemic in various ways. And so
I suggest that the cholera wedding might have been a way for ordinary
Jews to try to bring some joy to a very very bleak situation, which we
understand very well today from our own circumstances.”
NATAN MEIR
the Jewish community collec-
tively pays for the graveyard
wedding of a poor or disabled
couple who may not have the
resources to get married on
their own. The custom origi-
nated in Eastern Europe
and gained
popularity during 19th-century cholera
epidemics in Russia, Poland
and the Pale of Settlement. In
his new book “Stepchildren
of the Shtetl: The Destitute,
Disabled, and Mad of Jewish
Eastern Europe, 1800-1939,”
Natan Meir, Lorry I. Lokey
Professor of Judaic Studies
at Portland State University,
argues that the origins of the
shvartse khasene can be inter-
preted in a variety of ways.

“It’s a wonderful example
of a very rich religious ritual
that religious studies scholars
and anthropologists can look
at from many different angles
and keep discovering new
things,” he said.

Meir said some scholars
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM anxious,” Meir said. “And
therefore, there was a popular
understanding that you should
try to ward off the fear and
anxiety that came with a
pandemic in various ways. And
so I suggest that the cholera
wedding might have been a
way for ordinary Jews to try
to bring some joy to a very
very bleak situation, which we
understand very well today
from our own circumstances.”
Another more sinister
possibility, Meir argued, is
that the wedding served as a
symbolic sacrificial ritual.

“These disabled people,
these marginalized figures
within Jewish society in Eastern
Europe, were often perceived
as half-dead,” Meir said. “Of
course, they’re living people,
but there’s something about
them which was perceived as
very liminal, which is kind of
on the border between this
world and the other world.”
Widespread discrimination
the old traditions. Faced with
the deadly 1918 influenza
pandemic, which killed 12,000
Philadelphians in four weeks
and almost 700,000 Americans
in two years, they turned to
these customs for guidance.

“At the time of Harry and
Fanny’s wedding in the fall of
1918, the Spanish flu epidemic
was at its peak,” wrote Charlie
Hersh, administrative assistant
at Jewish Learning Venture and
a former education specialist
at the National Museum of
American Jewish History, in an
article for My Jewish Learning.

“Public gatherings were banned
while social groups, including
synagogue congregations,
donated time and supplies. In
an atmosphere of desperation,
a handful of Jewish couples
hoped this tradition from the
‘old country’ might make a
difference.” While the Cobbs Creek
plague wedding attracted huge
crowds, many American-born
JEWISH EXPONENT
Jews were horrified by the
superstitions the ceremony was
based upon. Shortly after the
wedding took place, the Jewish
Exponent ran an opinion piece
denouncing the event.

“The wedding held in a
Jewish cemetery last Sunday
for the purpose of staying the
ravages of the epidemic was
a most deplorable exhibition
of benighted superstition. We
are told that the custom origi-
nated in Russia. It and the
participants should have been
permitted to remain there.

Unfortunately the publicity
given to the occurrence will
convey to many people that
this is a custom sanctioned
and encouraged by the Jewish
religion. The people who do
such things do not know what
Judaism means,” an outraged
contributor wrote.

One month later, the paper
published a slightly more
flattering announcement about
another shvartse khasene that
took place in New York. The
ceremony was held in Mount
Hebron Cemetery and joined
Rose Schwartz and Abraham
Lachterman in matrimony.

“The tradition on which
the couple acted is one which
declares that the only way to stop
a plague is to hold a marriage
ceremony in a cemetery. When
& & TAY-SACHS
CANAVAN CANAVAN
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CALL (215) 887-0877
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This message is sponsored by a friend of
Nat’l Tay-Sachs & Allied Diseases
Association of Delaware Valley
Miss Schwartz and Lachterman
consented to offer themselves
to stop the influenza epidemic,
the neighbors were so grateful
that they provided food,
taxicabs, a wedding gown and
even the furnishings for a flat.

Two thousand persons cheered
the courageous pair as they
started for the cemetery,” the
announcement read.

The influenza pandemic
eventually came to an end in
the spring of 1920. The couples
who volunteered to be wed in
Philadelphia and New York
were honored for their service
to their communities. l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
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