336 PINSKI
Eeb Shloimeh grew pale, and felt a rent in his heart. He stared at the platform with round eyes and open mouth.
"The children are to be made into Gentiles," shouted the person on the platform meantime, "and we have plenty of Gentiles, thank God, already ! Thus may they perish, with their name and their remembrance! We are not short of Gentiles there are more every day! And hatred increases, and God knows what the Jews are coming to! Whoso has God in his heart, and is jealous for the honor of 'the Law, let him see to it that the children cease going to the place of peril !"
Eeb Shloimeh wanted to call out, "Silence, you scoun- drel!" The words all but rolled off his tongue, but he contained himself, and moved on.
"The one who obeys will be blessed," proclaimed the individual on the platform, "and whoso despises the decree, his end shall be Gehenna, with that of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who sinned and made Israel to sin !"
With these last words the speaker threw a fiery glance at Eeb Shloimeh.
A quiver ran through the Shool, and all eyes were turned on Eeb Shloimeh, expecting him to begin abusing the speaker. A lively scene was anticipated. But Eeb Shloimeh smiled.
He quietly handed his prayer-scarf to the beadle, wished the bystanders "good Sabbath," and walked out of Shool, leaving them all disconcerted.
That Sabbath Eeb Shloimeh was the quietest man in the whole town. He was convinced that the interdict
