The Rabbi Who Tricked Stalin

by Mordechai Landsberg

In the art gallery’s studio of Mendelevitch there was a new fashioned, wooden made radio. It was set up on a cupboard, where the arts master was used to store his oil and water colors, brushes and some books about the arts of painting and sculpture.

  In one April cool morning Mendelevitch was drinking his daily cofee, and listening to the radio news. Suddenly his face beamed. He shouted at the walls: “Bravo! Bravo!” - that came out of his listening to an unusual announcement there, read by a famous radio speaker or theatre actor:

  “Govorit Moskva…” said the male speaker’s voice, “Our Party’s general first secretary, comrade Yosif Stalin, has appointed a committee, that will check the overall humanitarian and healthcare conditions in our hopitals, schools and other institutions. All that - in order to improve our society’s welfare. Our great leader has ordered that all this committee’s inquiries and analyses should be finalized up to the end of May this year. Its meetings and visits in the various institutions should be reported to Comrade Stalin’s bureau.”

  The painter pulled out a new wooden frame, connected to it, by nails, a stretched white yuta cloth, and placed that on a Painting Stand. He began, very calmly, to draw and paint the view of Smolensk Asylum. It was painted with white, pink, grey and green colors. Behind the main building the watcher could see some houses and huts of the Mads’ dwellings, surrounded by trees. In the center- there was a new and replenished dwelling of Rabbi Aaron. It was a room in a center of a long wooden bungalow, like a garage of nowadays.

  Actually, the Rabbi himself had been removed from the ‘behind bars room’- a week before. Mendelevitch visited him already in his new room, and accordingly he defined its location and shape in the general view of the asylum. According to what he had just heard on the radio, the painter guessed that all the buildings there would be replenished toward the committee’s visit. Therefore Aaron’s actual new room was depicted, based on the new colorful optimistic look…

  Rabbi’s wooden bed was also replenished: It had been smeared with a brown oil color. Actually it was soon covered by old newspapers, because two professional wood and stone whitewashers came into the room, and began smearing the walls: One of them was standing on a ladder, brushing the high areas, and the other was working on the lower wall’s part.

  The replenishers forced Rabbi Aaron to get outside. He strolled again in the nice garden, looking at the pink and white blossom of the apples trees. ‘How nice is the world you have created, God!’ He murmured, while his lungs were filled with the perfumed cold smells of spring. However, he felt a kind of itching- somewhere deep in his heart: He had past reminiscences of the approaching Jewish Passover.. This would be his second holiday in this asylum - far from home, from a touch with family members or friends or neighbors…

  The new shape of the asylum’s rooms, corridors and external walls - had brought Rabbi Aaron quite another thought. He wanted to verify his wild guess, that also something regarding himself was on the agenda. Because suddenly Tall Aliosha re-appeared in the asylum! The Rabbi saw his handwave to him, and of course he had not followed suit. Ten minutes since the two had seen each other, Aliosha approached the Rabbi, took scissors from his pocket and quickly shorted the Rabbi’s beard that has wildly grown. The tall guy knew, that the Rabbi was aware of his existence, then of his ‘activity’ to make his shape look better. Rabbi Aaron would have a good feeling to be again in a society of a familiar person…Aliosha’s guess was, that Rabbi Aaron -andor Levy- would soon either be moved to Siberia or removed to hell. He did not imagine nor hoped that he had been called there for any other alternative. But soon he found what had been the exact purpose of his errand:

  In a bright day there came a committee to the enclosed asylum. It was called by Aliosha “High committee”, as he saw its four pompous members enter the asylum Reception Hall. The VIP-s were dressed with new long black coats, all were having bright black flashing boots, and some were smoking good Turkmenian cigarettes. Red roses were fixed into the upper external pocket of one of them, who was their chairman. That was a sign of some optimistic message that they would carry...

  Immediately after these men had arrived, two shabby persons, of the asylum service staff, appeared in the hall. They were carrying an eliptic nice flashing ‘politure’ table, which they set it up in the middle. Six or seven chairs were also brought there, and the committee members began to concentrate and became already seated joyfully, still smoking and having small talks. One of them got to the reception window and asked the clerks: “Where is the Director? Is he so busy, to be late?”

  The meeting was headed by the flowered Chairman, whose name we could not find in our research of those historical days…However, he soon shook hands with Doc Pavlov, who appeared with the asylum’s manager. The ceremony of hand shakes was very short, and Pavlov distributed to the committee members some documents. While they had intended to turn the first page- Doctor Pavlov moved his head toward the rear door: Rabbi Aaron was there, elbowed by Aliosha.

  Pavlov rushed to them, indicating them to take their seats on the empty chairs at the large table. The committee members were gazing interestingly at both Rabbi ans Aliosha. Two of the committee members even smiled towards the madman, while exchanging ‘looks of understanding’ with each other.

  The chairman began his inquiry of the Chief Psychiatrist, Doc Pavlov. He held a document in his hand, and was turning its pages to and fro:

  “Doctor Pavlov, it is written here,” he said, “that this Patient is dumb and deaf.“

  “Yes. He has become absolutely un-reachable, totally Outist! Our guess is, that the causes of it are family problems, or also religious hallucinations, that he suffers from. You can read about all that in the detailed anamnesa.”

  He pointed on a blue cover file he was holding. Two committee members raised their files, that had been identical to Pavlov’a one, and said to each other: “Yes, the blue, the blue.”

  One of them fumbled by his fingers inside the file and he said:

  “I see here, that your Psychiatric report includes a diagnisis and prognosis…of this man’s insanity. Quite a lot of work.”

  “Yes,” nodded Pavlov, “No doubt.”

  All the committee members were lightly turning over the pages regarding the patient’s condition, and the Chairman turned directly to the Rabbi, pointing on his chest. His voice was like caressing, and its tone seemed to the listener sweet like honey:

  “What is your name, dear comrade?”

  Rabbi Aaron played with his beard by his fingers, making it stiff and entangled with ‘plaits-like strings.’

  “He is…” tried Pavlov to say, but the Chairman hushed him .

  “Do you remember your son’s name?” the chairman asked the Rabbi again.

  Rabbi roared like a lion.

  “I think it’s enough! Take him away, please.” The chairman turned his face to Aliosha, who rose, shook Rabbi’s arm and lightly lifted him by grabbing his both elbows. The Rabbi was raised from his seat, and both Aliosha and he quit the meeting – rushing out through the same door by which they had arrived to the fateful meeting.

  “It’s an absurd, holding here a man like this any more,” The chirman said, looking at his collegues earnestly. He gazed reproachfully at Pavlov.

  “We can absolutely arrive to a conclusion about this case,” he told his collegues, “isn’t it so? Tell me your opinions, comrades. We should not waste time. We have even worse cases today for our inspection.”

  He rustled with some papers he had taken from his file. It was a document (and its copies) for the Committee members’ to sign. The Chairman pulled out his fountain pen, exposed its golden nail, and saw that it had been dry. He stirred the pen in the air twice, and it spilted ink on the neat floor. He smeared the stain by his shoe’s sole. Then he calmly wrote at the middle of the document some sentence, and drew his signature by his nice ink-pen at the bottom. Then he pressed under it a spitted r
ubber stample, that he had pulled out from his pocket.

  He wrote again, then signed and stamped again two additional copies of the same document, which he ripped off from his Forms’ packet. He handed these to his colleagues.

  “We all can sign without fear!” he told them very relaxed.

  The Committee members exchanged quick glances with each other.

  “ I also think so,” reckoned Pavlov.

  “Well, let us sign, let us sign,” said other three committee members to each other. They signed, and delivered the documents back to the Chairman. He stamped them again, this time after spitting on the violet colored rubber of the stamp.

  One of the men who had just signed, had a heavy beard and thick lens in his galsses. He became afraid all of a sudden, and asked his signed document back from the Chairman.

  “Excuse me, that I am not so sure about the argument, that you had written there,” he told the chairman, “was it: We are convinced, that the man Hittin is insane?”

  “No,” answered the Chairman, “My styling was: “We believe, according to the evidence brought to us by the chief asylum’s psychiatrist, that the man Hittin is really insane.”

  “Oh, that’s better than I’ve thought,” said the man, and his hands stopped trembling.

  “I saw on our way here,” said the Chairman to Pavlov and to the asylum manager, “that you have a nice place here, good shaped. Even a small garden, that adds to a calm and seren atmosphere…Hmmm. Had there been a competition for…managing and maintaining such institutions in our Soviet Union, you cxould have reached the first place. Nice, very nice. I will mention it also in my final conclusive Report to our Leader.”

  CHAPTER 45