Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate

by Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Again silence, until Herb chuckled. “Nancy told me a great joke last night, wanna hear it?”

  “Absolutely. I’d much rather laugh than eat.”

  “Two Polish Jews are lined up before a firing squad. One refuses the blindfold. The other says, ‘Hershel! Don’t make trouble.’”

  Zach managed to smile and sigh at the same time. “That’s funny,” he said. “And it tells me your girl must be Jewish. Who else would tell an ironic joke about a guy named Hershel?”

  Herb nodded, almost sheepishly. “Nancy’s grandfather came from Russia. Her last name, Gordon, used to be Grodno; the immigration people changed it at Ellis Island.” He pushed his croquette around on his plate. “Talk about ironic: you’re obsessed with Judaism, I end up with the Jew.”

  Zach pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser and wiped his mouth. “I’m ready for the firing squad myself, Herbie. Would you mind if I split? You can have my burger. I’m going home.” Zach took a couple of twenties from his wallet. “This one’s from last night and this one’s for lunch. My treat.”

  Herb asked, “What should I tell the office?”

  “Tell them I choked on a soy croquette.”

  ZACH DIDN’T GO home. He walked downtown, stopped to listen to a folksinger in Washington Square Park, then trudged over to Hebrew Union College on West Fourth and Broadway, a building he’d passed a thousand times but, until now, never had reason to enter. Its bright, spacious library bore no resemblance to a rabbi’s study or the musty book room in his childhood synagogue. About a dozen young people were working at wooden tables, hunched over texts, taking notes. Zach approached the librarian and in his best library whisper told her that he wanted materials on the legal status of a person with a Jewish father and a Christian mother, adding—in case she’d assumed he was that person—that he was an attorney.

  The librarian had a round face, limp blond hair, a shiny forehead, and an accent that reminded him of his father’s lontzmen. Based on her voice and Slavic looks, he guessed her to be a Soviet émigré. She said, “Our rabbis just make new rule about this—here, you heard about it?” She handed him a laminated sheet headed “Responsa: Reform Judaism and Patrilineal Descent.”

  Zach’s eye skipped down to the underlined sentence: “Henceforth, any person with a Jewish father may be counted as a Jew if he or she performs appropriate and timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people.”

  “Any idea what they mean by ‘formal acts of identification?’” he asked.

  “To have Jewish papa not enough. Must do Jewish things. Wait, I bring you books.”

  While she was in the stacks, one of the students announced, “Mincha,” and almost everyone in the library headed out the door for the afternoon prayer service—which Zach knew to be one of those “timely public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people.” He also knew he’d be welcome to join them, might even be recruited to “make a minyan,” the quorum of ten Jews required for public prayer. Moreover, he would count for a minyan, not just at the liberal HUC but in any Orthodox prayer group in the world. He knew this because walking through Williamsburg one day he was buttonholed by a couple of black hats who needed a tenth man to make a minyan and they didn’t ask if he was lapsed or ate shrimp as long as he satisfied two criteria—had a Y chromosome and a Jewish mother. He was “Jewish enough” to marry the daughter of a rabbi or even a kohen, the elite priestly class, simply on the basis of Rivka’s membership card.

  The librarian returned wheeling a cart loaded with books. “These are syllabus for Judaism 101,” she said with a toothy smile. Zach couldn’t help but bristle. When he was thirteen years old, he could have taught Judaism 101. He was able to read the Torah without vowels, lead youth services (shacharit, mincha, or maariv), and recite Maimonides’s Thirteen Principles of Faith from memory. He used to be Rabbi Goldfarb’s star pupil but over the last twenty-seven years, he’d forgotten everything and now he was stumped by the most rudimentary question of all: Who is a Jew?

  According to the first book he thumbed through, “A Jew is someone whose mother and grandmother were Jewish or who converts according to Jewish law. If a gentile woman converts before giving birth, her child is Jewish; if not, the child must undergo conversion before he or she can legally be considered Jewish.”

  That sounded pretty airtight, yet there had to be a loophole or the Reform movement would not have found a way to issue their new rule that legitimated the children of Jewish fathers and gentile mothers. Zach tore through volume after volume, checking out every index entry that seemed germane, but the more he read, the deeper his confusion. Different experts contradicted each other left and right. Traditionalists called Reform’s new edict about patrilineal descent “a travesty” and “a deathblow to the cohesion of the Jewish people.” Given the far-flung diaspora and the high rate of intermarriage, these experts said, it was crucial to maintain a single answer to the question: Who is a Jew? Otherwise, Jews who care about Jewish survival would be unable to marry their offspring to each other with any confidence that they were perpetuating their own. There must be a single standard; matrilineal descent must continue to rule the day.

  But authors with equally impressive credentials put forth compelling arguments to the contrary, namely, that the new law establishing the legitimacy of patrilineal descent was buttressed by classical texts and could actually ameliorate the crisis of intermarriage. Zach’s mother had warned him about this “crisis” twenty-seven years ago, but she tended to be so hyperbolic about Jewish survival, he’d always dismissed her fears. Now it appeared that she was right. One book said that nearly two million American Jews had only one Jewish parent, and only two out of five children of Jewish-Christian intermarried couples identified as Jewish at all. But not because the children rejected Judaism. Mostly because they had been rejected by rabbis who wouldn’t welcome them, synagogues that didn’t allow them on the bimah, or because the Jewish family of the intermarried Jewish spouse had inflicted on the Christian spouse enough hurts and humiliations to send their children in the direction of other faiths or none at all.

  As a lawyer, Zach was fascinated by the ideological divisions, but as a man facing a huge decision, he wanted a direct answer. He returned to the librarian’s desk. “I know this is asking a lot, but do you think there’s someone here I could talk to about all this? A rabbi or professor?”

  “They’re all on holiday. Is summer, you know.”

  “I know. But there must be one knowledgeable person left in the building.” The tasseled cords on her embroidered blouse reminded Zach of tzitzis. He leaned forward and whispered, urgently, “I really need to talk to someone. Anyone.”

  Kindness shone from the librarian’s eyes. “Maybe Professor Cantor still here. She came today to return books. I try her extension.”

  Five minutes later, Zach was standing in the office of Irina Cantor, a sixty-something woman with Granny Smith cheeks, straight white hair cut in bangs and cropped at the jawline, a smock dress, and Birkenstock sandals, who wore no makeup or jewelry and looked like an unreconstructed hippie. When he told her his full name, her eyebrows shot up and disappeared under her bangs.

  “Ah, Mr. Levy,” she said, “so you have a Jewish father and you want to know if you . . .”

  “No, it’s about my son,” Zach interrupted, feeling the pressure of Cleo’s deadline. “His mother’s a Baptist, a preacher’s daughter, a black woman. I just met the boy for the first time a couple of days ago. I don’t know what to do about him.”

  “Please, sit down,” said the professor as she turned off the electric kettle whistling on the table behind her desk. “I grow my own lemon verbena. It makes the most delicious herbal tea, much better than the bags. Want some?”

  Zach nodded, relieved to be asked to stay.

  Irina picked a handful of leaves off the plant, dropped them in a teapot, replaced its lid, and let the tea steep. “Verbena does well in this window but I always
take the plant home for the summer. Do me a favor and put it by the door. My husband will kill me if I forget it.”

  Zach carried the pot to the place she designated and set it down. Anyone coming in would knock it over but that was where she wanted it. While the tea was brewing, she put a strainer on one of the two HUC mugs. Meanwhile, Zach surveyed the framed pictures on the wall. In one, she was marching with a group under the banner “Historians Against the War.” Another showed her and a stocky bearded man sailing a catamaran, she at the tiller, he on the mainsheet. There were other photographs of the couple (their hair grayer with the years), posing in the plaza before the Western Wall, surrounded by family, cutting a cake that said, “Happy 40th Anniversary.” And a framed citation from the Association for Jewish Studies. The wall arrangement was neat, her desk a riot of books and paper.

  “Excuse the mess,” she said. “I’m about to leave for the summer and I have to pick up my grandson at day care this afternoon so if you don’t mind, I’m going to continue working my way through these piles while we talk. Unlike Gerald Ford, I’m able to do two things at once. Now, tell me how I can help.”

  Zach recapped his life at warp speed—his promise to Rivka, the break with Cleo, her phone call, the playground, the emotional anarchy of the last few days, the chaplain’s advice, the frustration of his library research. While he was speaking, Irina Cantor was in perpetual motion, spinning the wheel of her Rolodex, adding cards, subtracting cards, rifling through scholarly papers, glancing at their titles, tossing some in the trash, sticking orange Post-its on the keepers, scribbling “Read page__,” or “Clip page ___,” or “See Index,” before shoving them in the Channel Thirteen tote bag that lay open at her feet.

  “So what do you think?” Zach asked at the end of his recitation.

  At that, Irina stopped moving, sat back, and folded her hands across her middle. “I’m a history professor, not a rabbi. I’m affiliated with a Reform institution, not a beit din—that’s an Orthodox court that decides Jewish law—”

  “I know what a beit din is,” Zach said, perhaps a bit too impatiently.

  “When his students were confused, the Rambam—Maimonides, who was a twelfth-century sage—”

  “I know who the Rambam is . . .”

  “. . . wrote his students a letter in the form of a three-volume treatise called The Guide for the Perplexed. Jews have always been perplexed about big questions.”

  Zach returned the professor’s soft smile. “I’m not asking for three volumes, just one well-considered opinion. What would you do?”

  “Take him,” she said, instantly.

  It was the straight answer he wanted, but it didn’t suffice. “I want to be sure I understand this. Are you telling me I should raise a Christian child?”

  “I didn’t say I’d tear the mezuzah off my doorpost and tack up a crucifix. I said I would take my son into my life and my heart.” She poured Zach’s tea, transferred the strainer to her mug, and poured hers.

  “And then?” Zach asked.

  “Then I’d tell him how sorry I was to have missed the first three years of his life, and how thrilled I am that we’re finally part of each other’s family, and how much I want to make up for lost time. I wouldn’t say a word about religion until I sensed that he felt absolutely secure with me—which could take quite some time—but when a natural opening presented itself, I would talk tachlis with him.”

  This time, Irina, not wanting to insult Zach, had not offered a translation.

  “Tachlis?” Zach asked.

  “The heart of the matter. Practical details.”

  “So, practically speaking, what would you say?”

  “Something like, ‘I know your mommy takes you to church and puts up a Christmas tree, which is wonderful. But since half of you comes from me and my ancestors, I’d like you to know about the traditions I grew up with.’ If he shows interest and his mother goes along with it, I would homeschool him in the Jewish basics. Maybe start by explaining the ritual objects around the house, your kiddush cup, the havdalah candle, your kipah and tallit. I would take him through the Jewish calendar.” She gestured toward the photographs. “I’ve shared my passion for sailing with my kids. You can share your passion for Judaism with your son. If he balks, so be it. The most important thing is to make sure he grows up to be a kind, caring human being. In the end, isn’t that what everyone wants for their kids?”

  “Not everyone comes from a people who lost a million children in three or four years.”

  “The world lost a million children, Zach.”

  “To me, the Holocaust is personal. My brother was murdered in cold blood by people who professed to be good Christians. If my mother had been your mother and you’d given your word, would you still take a Christian child?”

  “You just told me your mother became a pediatrician to German children.”

  “She had no choice.”

  “It’s not so black and white. If she had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in the playground with your little boy, I have a feeling she would release you from your vow. If she were my mother, I’d explain to her that Reform Judaism traces the Jewish line through the father as well as the mother—please excuse me for saying so, but you strike me as a Reform Jew at most—and I would tell her, unequivocally, ‘Your son is a Jew, therefore your grandson is a Jew—if he wants to be.’”

  Irina blew on her tea to cool it. “If she were sitting in that chair, I’d point out that the law of matrilineal descent is not in the Torah; it only dates back to the rabbinic period. For thousands of years before that, Jews reckoned their children’s bona fides through the father, not the mother.”

  The professor picked up a Bible and fanned its pages. “Remember all those boring genealogies—Abraham begat Isaac who begat Jacob who begat twelve sons? They’re listed that way because inheritance rights, tribes, priesthood, blessings, God’s instructions—all passed from father to son and, like your Terrell, many of the sons had non-Jewish mommies. Joseph and Moses married Egyptian women, biblical kings married foreigners, but regardless of their wives’ provenance, their kids were considered Children of Israel. So, the idea of patrilineal descent isn’t some radical innovation; it’s original Judaism. Your son is a Jew because you begat him. That’s what I would tell your mother!”

  If only Rivka could hear this.

  “Now, let’s talk about Cleo,” Professor Cantor said as she resumed her clean-up operation, stacked books, threw out more papers and a couple of candy wrappers, tested ball points, and tossed the dry pens in the wastebasket. “How do you think Cleo would react at this point if you said you wanted to convert Terrell?”

  “Negative. Impossible.”

  “Wait a minute. Wasn’t she the one who called you last week? You said she’s always known about your promise to your mom. Why would she have taken the initiative unless she was ready to be more flexible? If you explained to her that, under Jewish law, child conversions are provisional and reversible she might be willing to listen.”

  “How do you define ‘provisional and reversible’?”

  “When child converts come of age, they’re asked if they want to renounce the conversion or embrace Judaism of their own free will. Almost all of them elect to stay Jewish. But there’s a catch.”

  Zach said, “It wouldn’t be a law if there weren’t a catch.”

  “Orthodox rabbis won’t convert the child in the first place unless the parents promise to do things like keep a kosher home, observe the Sabbath, and send the child to yeshiva.” The professor yanked a tissue from her Kleenex box, folded it neatly, and tucked it in the zipper compartment of the tote bag.

  Zach sighed. “In all honesty, even if Cleo agreed, which she won’t, I couldn’t make good on those commitments myself.”

  “Fortunately,” the professor smiled, “on that score compassionate rabbis look the other way.”

  Zach’s interest was piqued. “So what’s involved in a child conversion?”

  �
�You take him to a mikvah, he gets dunked, you recite a blessing, go before three Orthodox judges and declare in Hebrew, ‘I want this child to be a Jew.’ Poof, he’s a Jew.” Irina sipped her tea and looked at Zach over the rim of her mug. “Do you happen to know if he’s circumcised?”

  “He is.”

  “Lucky for him. But he’ll still have to have a mini-bris called a hatafat dam brit—no big deal, just a symbolic scratch on the penis—but it has to draw blood to count as covenantal.”

  “Cleo would never permit that.”

  “I’ve learned not to predict what other people will or won’t do. But let’s assume you’re right and conversion is off the table. How would you raise him?”

  “I guess with two faiths,” Zach replied, “which seems like a recipe for disaster, arguments, problems.” The steam from his mug made his face sweat.

  Professor Cantor nodded. “It just passes on to the child the problem the parents couldn’t resolve themselves.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do with Jesus.”

  “Exactly. Christianity and Judaism are simply not theologically reconcilable—either Christ was God’s son or he wasn’t, either he died for humanity’s sins and was resurrected or he didn’t. That’s not something a kid should be asked to decide.”

  Zach stared out the window. “Any idea what happens to kids raised in two faiths?”

  “Most of them end up belonging to neither. They’re afraid to choose one religion because to them it feels like choosing one parent over the other.” When the professor finished her tea, she took a roll of paper towels from her bottom drawer, wiped out the mug, and set it on the side table beside the electric pot.

  “So, you recommend . . . what exactly?” Zach tried not to appear pleading.

  “Draw straws.”

  “Come on, Professor.”

  “I’m serious,” Irina said. “I have a friend who’s a brilliant child psychologist—and very Jewish—and she says parents who can’t agree on one faith for their child should simply draw straws. She thinks it’s better for the kid to be raised a Christian than become the rope in a religious tug-of-war.”