Pulitzer_ A Life in Politics, Print, and Power - James McGrath Morris [7]
For Joseph, Pest was an education equal to books. Whenever he crossed the city’s largest market to visit his grandparents, he saw and learned about life from all parts of Europe. It was a Babel of tongues and a panoply of apparel colors, a striking contrast to the drab peasant costume of his birthplace. Here, merchants and buyers from Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia, Austria, and Germany plied their trades on a city square of covered stalls acres larger than anything Joseph would have seen in Makó.
Leaving the market, and nearing his grandparents’ home, Joseph entered a tranquil street with neoclassical buildings whose inner courtyards housed gold- and silversmiths, jewelers, and spice, fruit, and textile dealers. There was no mistaking that those who lived in this portion of the Jewish quarter had done well. Grandfather Mihály’s success as a merchant earned him the description “the rich Mr. Pulitzer” among his neighbors. “He lived in a house of his own,” said Albert, “a rare distinction in large Austrian towns where often twenty to one hundred families occupied flats or apartments in the same ‘rent palaces.’”
A short stroll in the other direction from Joseph’s home led to the banks of the Danube River, an irresistible draw for any young boy. For upwards of a mile, riverboats from distant European cities tied up to the embankment on the Pest side of the river, where the current was less swift. There they unloaded goods from distant lands. Like the market, the Danube River revealed a tantalizing promise of a world beyond.
Any exploration of the city that Joseph undertook was unfettered by his being Jewish. There were few other major European cities of the era where Jews were freer or more integrated into society. The cosmopolitan pageant of Pest’s wealthy paraded by Joseph’s home as carriages ferrying nobles, wealthy merchants, priests, and city officials came down the boulevard abutting his street. In the evenings, the city’s elite dashed to balls, where the well-to-do displayed their equality with the ruling classes of other nations. And when not at balls, the elegant crowds gathered outside at the theater, opera, and casinos only a few blocks away. At first, only the wealthiest of Jews who had converted to Christianity were able to enter this world. But by the time the Pulitzers came to Pest the imperative to give up one’s faith had greatly diminished. In fact, the Jews of Pest had their own thriving social, economic, and cultural institutions.
The wealth, success, and prominence of the burgeoning Jewish quarter was symbolized by the construction of the Neolog Dohány synagogue, about five blocks south of Joseph’s neighborhood. Almost a block in area, it rose to become the largest synagogue in the world, seating 3,000 congregants. The sanctuary was divided by arches from the nave, like the apse of a Christian church, and the bimah was located in the front. An organ and two pulpits were installed, both unheard of in synagogues until then. It required religious finesse to get around the Jewish prohibition against playing musical instruments on the Sabbath: a Christian was hired to play the organ. The synagogue was soon called the “Israelite cathedral” and became an architectural display of assimilation.
Like the synagogue’s architecture, Joseph’s religious instruction in Pest renounced the strict observance of what were deemed antiquated religious laws; also, this instruction was less concerned with the careful study of the Torah. By the time Joseph reached his teenage years, being Jewish remained a part of his life, but no longer the center of it.
Despite having secured a place in the upper echelons of Pest Jewish society, the succession of deaths continued to haunt the Pulitzers. Before leaving Makó, they had lost