evasive eyes, which never looked directly at a person and seemed forever focused on some object in the middle distance. *
For all this, there was something about him that caused women to have impure thoughtsâa hard-to-define but vaguely titillating vulgarity. Meeting a woman, those jet-black eyes would, fall to rest upon that curve below her throat and appear to be defrocking her, crinoline by crinoline, from that point downward. At the same time, his cynical manner and harsh, bitter tongue, along with his clear reluctance to reveal his past, made him a figure of mystery and glamour. It was whispered that he had insatiable sexual appetites, and was a cruel and demanding lover. It began to be rumored that the Rothschilds âhad areasonâ for wanting Belmont out of Europe. To what hideous Rothschild secret was he privy? There had to be something. Why, if he was their ârepresentative,â was his new banking house not called N. M. Rothschild & Sons rather than August Belmont & Company? The unfounded rumor startedâand is still heard todayâthat Belmont was actually an illegitimate Rothschild son.
The men did not take to him quite so much as the ladies did. Still, they knew it was wise to listen to him, and so he went everywhere and met everyone. He announced himself to be an epicure, and was perhaps the first person in New York to make the serving of good food fashionable. His own dinner invitations to Delmonicoâs assumed priority over all others. In the early days, to be sure, no one quite knew where he lived. (Some said he slept in his office.) And men who had accepted his hospitality and eaten his food began to say to their wives afterward, âFor Godâs sake, donât introduce that man Belmont to our daughters!â
But it would be to no avail. For the next fifty years New York society would dance to whatever tune August Belmont chose to play.
* There were probably less than one thousand Jews in America by the end of the eighteenth century.
* An animator for the Disney studios in California told the author that he had modeled the character of the evil coachman in Pinocchio on a portrait of August Belmont.
4
ON THE ROAD
There was no society in Mauch Chunk to distract Joseph Seligman, even if he had been able to afford its pleasures. Mauch Chunk isnât much of a town today, and it was less in 1837, when Joseph arrived. * But Joseph took to the town, and his work with Asa Packer, with gusto. Packer, a dozen years older than Joseph, became Josephâs tutor and protector.
The Yankee Packerâs affection for Joseph was understandable. Jewish immigrants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had found themselves treated with special friendliness by people from New England. New England Puritanism, with its literal interpretation of the OldTestament, was a sort of neo-Judaismâa Judaism translated into Anglo-Saxon terms. The Puritans coming to America had identified themselves with the Israelites in search of the Promised Land, and King George III was equated with the Pharaoh. They called the new land Canaan and frequently referred to the Covenant they had made with God. Early in New England the Hebrew language became a major subject taught in colleges, and even secondary schools. To refer to a fellow New Englander as âa good Jewâ was to pay him the highest compliment; it meant that he was pious and industrious; it had nothing to do with his blood or his religion. New England parents gave their children Old Testament namesâMoses, Joshua, Abraham, and so on. New England Protestantism was considered an outgrowth, or extension, of Judaism, and New England preachers spoke continually of Zion and Jerusalem, of âthe God of Israelâ and âthe God of Jacob.â
The Puritans were also convinced that the second coming and final judgment were at hand, and knew, as an article of faith, that the conversion of the Jews would precede these
For all this, there was something about him that caused women to have impure thoughtsâa hard-to-define but vaguely titillating vulgarity. Meeting a woman, those jet-black eyes would, fall to rest upon that curve below her throat and appear to be defrocking her, crinoline by crinoline, from that point downward. At the same time, his cynical manner and harsh, bitter tongue, along with his clear reluctance to reveal his past, made him a figure of mystery and glamour. It was whispered that he had insatiable sexual appetites, and was a cruel and demanding lover. It began to be rumored that the Rothschilds âhad areasonâ for wanting Belmont out of Europe. To what hideous Rothschild secret was he privy? There had to be something. Why, if he was their ârepresentative,â was his new banking house not called N. M. Rothschild & Sons rather than August Belmont & Company? The unfounded rumor startedâand is still heard todayâthat Belmont was actually an illegitimate Rothschild son.
The men did not take to him quite so much as the ladies did. Still, they knew it was wise to listen to him, and so he went everywhere and met everyone. He announced himself to be an epicure, and was perhaps the first person in New York to make the serving of good food fashionable. His own dinner invitations to Delmonicoâs assumed priority over all others. In the early days, to be sure, no one quite knew where he lived. (Some said he slept in his office.) And men who had accepted his hospitality and eaten his food began to say to their wives afterward, âFor Godâs sake, donât introduce that man Belmont to our daughters!â
But it would be to no avail. For the next fifty years New York society would dance to whatever tune August Belmont chose to play.
* There were probably less than one thousand Jews in America by the end of the eighteenth century.
* An animator for the Disney studios in California told the author that he had modeled the character of the evil coachman in Pinocchio on a portrait of August Belmont.
4
ON THE ROAD
There was no society in Mauch Chunk to distract Joseph Seligman, even if he had been able to afford its pleasures. Mauch Chunk isnât much of a town today, and it was less in 1837, when Joseph arrived. * But Joseph took to the town, and his work with Asa Packer, with gusto. Packer, a dozen years older than Joseph, became Josephâs tutor and protector.
The Yankee Packerâs affection for Joseph was understandable. Jewish immigrants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had found themselves treated with special friendliness by people from New England. New England Puritanism, with its literal interpretation of the OldTestament, was a sort of neo-Judaismâa Judaism translated into Anglo-Saxon terms. The Puritans coming to America had identified themselves with the Israelites in search of the Promised Land, and King George III was equated with the Pharaoh. They called the new land Canaan and frequently referred to the Covenant they had made with God. Early in New England the Hebrew language became a major subject taught in colleges, and even secondary schools. To refer to a fellow New Englander as âa good Jewâ was to pay him the highest compliment; it meant that he was pious and industrious; it had nothing to do with his blood or his religion. New England parents gave their children Old Testament namesâMoses, Joshua, Abraham, and so on. New England Protestantism was considered an outgrowth, or extension, of Judaism, and New England preachers spoke continually of Zion and Jerusalem, of âthe God of Israelâ and âthe God of Jacob.â
The Puritans were also convinced that the second coming and final judgment were at hand, and knew, as an article of faith, that the conversion of the Jews would precede these
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