"The Beggars"

Jack Bilander

Jack Bilander used a variety of aquatint values, enhanced with a few etched lines, to create this elongated, dynamic composition.

Bilander chose for his subject a pair of beggars, perhaps "Schnorrers" a small segment of Jews who are professional beggars who will only accept the charity of others in order to survive. Accepted in biblical times today the practice is less accepted.

According the the Jewish Encyclopedia: "In the seventeenth century the system was revived; and especially on Fridays and on the eves of festivals the Jewish poor went about from house to house gathering alms. In modern Jewish life this system became a full-grown abuse; and irrepressible crowds of pushing beggars assembled about the synagogue doors (Abrahams, l.c., p. 310). To-day the Jewish beggar, the so-called "schnorrer," is a persistent and troublesome figure in modern Jewish society."