The Legacy

by Melanie Phillips

  Something else seemed strange. What was it? Ah yes, that was it. No advertising in the streets, he suddenly realized: no billboards or advertisement hoardings, and so no pictures of fast cars or women in underwear or sexually suggestive slogans. How refreshing, he thought.

  One warm night, he was walking along a winding lane on the edge of a park when he heard music, loud music, a rock band playing somewhere. He followed the sound as it got louder and louder. In the near distance, the ancient walls of the Old City were strung with white fairy lights. Through a wire fence, he looked down into a huge open space between the park and Old City walls. Illuminated on a stage by colored strobe lighting, a singer backed by a band was belting out rock songs in Hebrew. In front of him, thousands of ecstatic young people packed into banks of seats were belting them out with him, waving their arms in the air and singing every word.

  He passed a knot of young people on the path who were also singing and dancing, enjoying the free concert down below. Half the city must be hearing this, he thought in wonderment. The pounding beat, the joyous, abandoned singing and dancing, the music of the carefree Western youth being sung in this ancient language of piety beneath the twinkling, magical walls of this ancient civilization—it was all quite enchanting. He had a physical sensation of something falling away from his shoulders, as if he was emerging from a chrysalis. He found he was smiling. The young people on the path gyrated; he danced alongside them.

  He was nearing the end of Eliachim’s story. One morning, he looked up from his books and saw through the window a young soldier standing in the garden, praying. He was about 19 years old. This must be Amitai, he thought: Yael’s son, the one who cleared mines and booby-trapped tunnels: home on leave.

  He was, Russell noticed with envy, a boy of exceptional beauty, tall and powerfully built and with a majestic profile. Perched on top of unruly dark curls, which not even an army haircut had quite tamed, was a small, flat, blue and white knitted kippah. Over his army fatigues, his broad shoulders were draped with a tallit, or prayer shawl. As Russell watched, he pulled the tallit over his head so that his face was obscured as he gently swayed back and forth in his prayer.

  He was touched by this strong, muscular soldier with his gun now propped up against a tree, this boy not yet out of his teens who would once again soon be pitting his own life against who-knew-what horror, showing such trust and faith in something beyond all that, and which he was certain would never abandon him. As Russell stared at him, he realized he was jealous. He thought about his father as a soldier, the father who had apparently acted with the heroism of which he was certain this boy was capable—the father he never knew. He tried to imagine his father in that terrible battle in Normandy, and failed.

  And by effacing himself in his tallit, by obscuring his head so that all that could be seen was the white of the prayer shawl over his khaki trousers tucked into thick black boots, this boy himself turned into something eternal, an image stretching back thousands of years. It was as if Russell was staring at a Jew praying in Temple times, or even earlier. The feeling was visceral, it was overwhelming, and he didn’t like it at all.

  * * *

  Eliachim’s story (6)

  Now I choke upon scalding tears to write these words. My fingers tremble so severely with the foul memory of what they must now transcribe that the letters themselves are in revolt against their very formation.

  It was on the eve of the great Sabbath before the Passover that the hand of the Lord unleashed an evil to cause the angels themselves to hide their faces in grief and confusion.

  The children of the covenant huddled in the castle looked down upon the ferocious multitude gathered beyond the castle walls. The besieged had no strength for want of food.

  Then a great groan rose up from our people as we heard a sound like the rumbling and cracking of the earth itself that grew ever louder and more terrible, accompanied by the redoubled shrieking and stamping of the mob. And we observed with shaking limbs that there drew ever closer to our citadel the mighty engines of war to lay siege to our fortress.

  In huge carts they were dragged to the castle walls. There was the great ballista, the giant crossbow that would hurl huge stones or arrows or flaming torches; there were infernal catapults that would crush buildings to heaps of rubble. And there were assault towers that would allow the bloodthirsty mob to climb the walls once they had been thus breached and surely slaughter every last holy soul who was huddled inside.

  Now a great moaning and sighing arose, for there was not a single man or woman in that sacred assembly of martyrs who did not understand that at last they were staring straight into the pit. They fell to the ground and sobbed and rent their garments. The little children screamed for terror at the sight and sound of their parents so distraught. And then I saw my beloved Duzelina, her face as white as any shroud, gather into her arms her small brothers and sisters and hide their faces for comfort in her shawl.

  Then all that assembly of martyrs formed a great and solemn council; whereupon the holy sage Rabbi Yomtov of blessed memory stood and addressed them with fateful and terrible words. “Men of Israel,” he said. “The God of our ancestors in whom we place our most perfect and unquestioning faith now commands us to yield up our lives in the defense of His holy law and His commandments. We are about to enter the valley of the shadow of death and there is no way we can prevent our departure from this world. The blasphemers and idolators are determined to slaughter us. All that remains for us to decide is how we shall face this in the manner that best proclaims the glory and oneness of God.

  “If our enemies take us alive they will taunt us and humiliate us and inflict upon us unspeakable cruelties and torments before they end their diabolical sport with our slaughter. Should we then sit here and wait for those who would destroy not only our lives but the honor also of our faith? We are a people of sacred purpose. We must turn this evil into the glory of God by taking our own lives in His great name.”

  He then sat and put his face in his hands and wept. Then the elders of our people debated earnestly his words one with the other, even as the hammering and grinding of the construction of the great siege engines beat its infernal din beneath the castle walls. For others brought forth the contrary words of others amongst our sages. These laid down that in the fateful choice between death and transgression none shall trespass upon the sanctity of life save in the event of three demands; which are idolatry, abomination of the flesh and the taking of human life.

  If we are forced with a blade at our throats to steal another’s cattle or to break a solemn oath, then our sages instruct us to commit such transgression for the greater purpose of preserving the life that the has been bestowed upon us. But if we are so threatened in order to abandon the word of the one true God, or to lie with another man’s wife or to commit foul murder, then we are commanded to embrace death.

  So spoke the supporters of Rabbi Yomtov. But yet others scarcely less learned spoke otherwise and called forth the words of the sage Rabbi Ishmael, who had ruled that the children of Israel should choose idolatrous worship over death. For if man did not live, what purpose would be served by the holy commandments other than as an empty mockery of the word of the Lord?

  In this way did those who sought to avert the horrible decree argue with all the skill of their craft. But straight came the reply from Rabbi Elijah who was in that company second only to Rabbi Yomtov in learning and piety, and who said our lives are not to us like our cattle or our houses or our gold to do with as we would wish but are given to us so we can sanctify the name of God.

  Then Rabbi Yomtov rose once more from the meditation of his heart and spoke these words to the holy congregation of martyrs. “Our enemies are fast upon us. Before the sun sets once more and the stars rise again in the firmament the castle will be taken. Let us therefore delay no longer but most speedily do the will of our Creator. We must every one of us harden our hearts for
this holy task so that none shall spare neither himself nor his sons nor his wife nor the babes at her breast. Each shall slaughter the other according to our rituals and the last remaining shall slaughter himself by piercing his throat or his belly so that the idolaters sully none of our house by their abominations.

  “We shall leave this place of darkness for the shining light of paradise. May the merciful and compassionate one hear our prayers and avenge the blood of His servants, and save us from the waters of idolatry and abomination.”

  Then Rabbi Yomtov of blessed memory asked all who were in disagreement to seclude themselves from that place. Most stayed, and they gathered all their possessions with great weeping and sorrow and burnt all that which the fire would consume.

  But I fell to the ground in great perturbation of spirit and tore my clothes and prayed to the Lord yet again for forgiveness. For I knew this was all my doing, that this was punishment for my sin. Yet I had but fourteen summers, and I was not yet prepared for the life everlasting and to sit on a throne in the company of angels. I had a great love of this world that God had created, the buds and the blossom that even then were bursting from the trees, the sound of the lute and all those pleasures which are as music to the senses, of which in truth I had scarcely partaken.

  But then came near to me my beloved Duzelina, whose once rosy lips were now as white as parchment; and she fell to her knees before me, and between piteous sobs beseeched me to slaughter her before turning the same knife upon myself, so that even though we were never to be one flesh in this world our blood would be commingled and we would be united in the world to come.

  I could not commit such an unthinkable act. I told her of my grief and guilt, and further of my fervent wish to cling to life and to the last vestiges of hope; and I implored her to put her faith in God’s great compassion and mercy that through the miracles at His command He would avert this horror.

  At these words she sprang to her feet, and with flashing eyes declared in a firm and ringing voice that it was wrong to question the will of God. Those who did His will would leave this world of darkness for shining bliss, and would exchange all that which crumbles into dust for the paradise which lasts for all eternity.

  With this she fell once again to the ground and sobbed and lamented. My brothers made a canopy of their prayer shawls above us both, and I pronounced the vow that I took her according to the laws of Moses and all of the house of Israel; and thus married, I embraced her most tenderly. She caressed my face and we murmured endearments between our sobs, before she tore herself from me and vanished back into the inferno where her family prepared to sacrifice themselves to safeguard the holy name of God.

  And now there followed scenes of horror. With the fires still blazing from the burning of their possessions, and the din of the siege engines growing ever louder along with the shouts of the bloodthirsty mob, all of the men cried out that they could delay no longer for the enemy was fast upon them. Let us make haste, they said with one firm voice, to deny the foe his blasphemous victory. Let those who have knives examine them so they be not nicked or blemished, in accordance with our rituals of purification, and then pronounce the blessing for slaughter before cutting the throats of this holy congregation and then plunging the knives into their own bodies.

  And then the men wrapped themselves in their prayer shawls, and most tenderly embraced their wives and took their children in their arms and covered their bodies with kisses and shed tears over their dear ones, who in turn clung on to them and wept upon their necks.

  Some lay down upon the ground and threw their arms around their wives and their little ones and stretched out their necks for others to perform the melancholy office of execution. Others themselves plucked up their courage and cut the throats of their sons, their daughters, and their wives before running their knives through themselves and falling upon their slain families. Dear God, they slaughtered each other; husbands upon wives, grooms upon brides, brothers upon sisters, mothers upon the infants at their breast.

  Alas, alas, my own flesh and blood were slaughtered before my eyes. My father slaughtered my mother and then ran his knife across his own throat. My brothers slaughtered their wives and then Jechiel stretched out his neck to Aharon who straight after plunged his knife into his own body. But now hear, all you generations that stand confounded by these terrible deeds, of the fate of my sister Zipporah and her four sweet young sons. Zipporah was upright and pious, and said to her women friends not to spare her children lest the Christians should take them alive and bring them up in the false religion of idolatry. But when she saw the knife that was to slaughter them she screamed and fell on her face and cried out, “God of our fathers, why have You thus forsaken us?”

  Then she took the knife herself and checked it for blemishes and pronounced the benediction for slaughter, and said to her companions to hide the smallest children lest they saw their brothers’ deaths and ran away. One by one she cut their throats; but the youngest, Ezekiel, saw his brothers were slain and screamed, “Mother, mother, do not slaughter me” and hid behind a door. His mother, distraught with weeping, cried out “You too I cannot spare,” and dragged him from behind the door and slaughtered him. Then she lay down with her dead children tucked beneath her sleeves and stretched out her own throat to the knife. When her husband Eleazar saw all his beautiful children slaughtered in a row like sheep he screamed aloud in agony, and ran his knife through his own stomach so his entrails spilled onto the ground.

  Why did the sun rise the next morning upon such slaughter? Why did the heavens not shroud themselves in darkness and the stars lose their brightness?

  I fell to the ground and lay there all night long. I could not weep; my body was frozen in horror and guilt. For was it not I who had caused this horror beyond imagination? If anyone should have lost his life it was surely I; and yet I was alive, cursed by my love of life to spend the rest of it in a living hell.

  At daybreak, those few who remained huddled together shouted from the battlements the report of the massacre, and threw the dead over the walls. May the Creator forgive them, they cried out to the uncircumcised that God had saved us from the slaughter to embrace the Christian faith, as the horror had convinced them of the truth of that religion. The treacherous leaders of the mob, may they be cursed for all time, promised clemency and so our company opened up the gates of the castle at last.

  But as soon as the gates were open the mob burst in and butchered the remnant with great ferocity and cruelty. They smote them with clubs, pierced them with knives and spears and arrows, cut off thumbs and ears and sliced open bellies. I was struck repeatedly with stones and fists and knives and burned by flaming torches; but by some miracle was spared worse injury. I fell to the ground among the corpses thrown from the battlements, which were piled up so high they formed a mountain, and feigned that I was dead as the massacre raged around me.

  I lay there all day in that horror without moving. At nightfall a laundress came and bore me to her home where she concealed me and bound up my wounds. From there I was smuggled in a cart to a Jewish home in Lincoln, and from there transported among sacks of potatoes to my kinsmen in London.

  All my dear ones lost! I still feel upon my cheek the brush of that soft skin and hair that smelt of honey that now I will never feel again. My beloved is in paradise among the heavenly hosts, and my father and mother and brothers and sister and all the many others who were so foully massacred by the Christians, may their bones be ground up with giant millstones. My heart is broken into pieces. How can the god of mercy have done this to his children? Only because of the great wickedness with which I desecrated his name.

  These last several nights have been quiet, thanks be to God, and they say the King himself is much displeased on our account and has given instruction not to touch the hairs on our heads. But which man can place his trust in such promises when the priests whip the population against us to a frenzy of hatred an
d murderous intent?

  Now I am in hiding and in fear for my very life. I am of sound constitution so that my crushed and beaten body has once again become whole. Yet I am sorely afflicted by great agony of mind from which I fear in truth I have half lost my wits. Where can I go that will afford me refuge? Am I to be punished by having to wander this earth from sea to sea? For wherever we settle, there the people become inflamed against us by their preachers pronouncing their blasphemous falsehoods and hatred. I am sheltered in the house of my kinsmen, but in their eyes I see only fear and misgivings. For there is no house however mighty its owner, however thick the stone of its walls, which can protect us from these barbarous Christians and their impiety and jealousy, may they and their descendants be cursed for all time.

  In the morrow I shall entrust my being to the shelter of the most Holy One. For I am to be dressed as a woman, being slim and yet beardless and, they say, delicate of feature; and thus disguised am to be smuggled abroad, back to those very Frankish lands from which my ancestors were forced to find refuge not six decades hence but where they say the terror against the children of Israel has been quieted in recent times.

  But are we destined to be forever in perpetual motion, batted back and forth like shuttlecocks across lands and oceans in a ceaseless voyage in search of refuge across the face of the earth? For how long will it be before the Frankish lands too will succumb once again to the murderous hatred that never ceases to consume us? The whole of Europe is in flames before the advance of the Christian pilgrims who go to take the holy city of David from the Saracens, and who under the banner of their idol behave with unfathomable savagery towards all those who refuse to wear the convert’s shift and proclaim the blasphemy of the Christian heresy.