· 10 ·
The Passion of the Fast
Suddenly, summer didn’t feel much like a vacation. We had entered the period of lamentations.
I wasn’t allowed to buy new clothes or listen to music and, worst of all, I couldn’t go swimming at Brighton Beach. Toward the end of July, life changed—it wasn’t about taking in iodine anymore. It was about recalling ancient tragedies dating back thousands of years. It was about reliving the capture of Jerusalem. It was about fasting.
It was about self-sacrifice and suffering—lots and lots of suffering.
Edith was an old master at that.
Indeed, whenever I hear the story of Rabbi Tsadok, the holy man of ancient Judea, I am reminded of my mother in our old kitchen on Sixth-Sixth Street, gearing up to observe the festival of lamentations. Rabbi Tsadok became famous for fasting forty years to avert the destruction of the Second Temple. He failed, of course. The temple was reduced to ruins, Jerusalem was captured by the Romans, and Rabbi Tsadok himself became painfully thin and frail. Yet to scholars and historians, he remains a hero because for those forty years, the temple stood and Jerusalem was safe.
Rabbi Tsadok is perhaps the only person who matched Mom’s passion for fasting. Edith approached the act of going without food and water with an abandon I never saw in anyone else. In the course of my childhood, I noticed that no fast on the Jewish calendar was too minor or trivial or obscure. While most of our American Jewish friends fasted only once a year, Edith at times fasted almost once a month.
There was, of course, the Fast of Gedalia, when she mourned the assassination of a governor of Judea in 582 B.C., or the Fast of the Firstborn, when she recalled the final plague against the ancient Egyptians, that night the Angel of Death traveled from house to house to slay all their firstborn sons. The fast was typically mandatory for firstborn sons, but among Syrian and Egyptian Jews, women were also expected to fast and Edith, a firstborn daughter, did so rigorously. She fasted on the eve of Purim, a holiday of parties and gifts and costumes that begins sadly, with a day of soul-searching and no food or drink. She observed the fast of the Tenth Day of the Tenth Month, when the Babylonian king encircled Jerusalem, as well as the Fast of the Seventeenth Day of the Fourth Month. That fast was to mark a day of unremitting grief—the day Moses came down from the mountain and caught the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf, the day he smashed the tablets containing the Ten Commandments, the day when all sacrifices to God ceased because there were no more animals left to slaughter, the day the sacred Torah scrolls were set on fire, the day an evil king placed an idol inside the Great Temple and desecrated it, the day the wall around Jerusalem was breached and the enemy army entered, and all hope was lost.
Mom’s fervor manifested itself most dramatically at the height of summer. Even as the rest of the world was reveling in all the pleasures the season brings, we had to get ready for the Fast of Lamentation, when we mourned the loss of the temple that Rabbi Tsadok had tried so hard to save.
It was such a somber event, it literally required three weeks of preparation. I watched Edith change before my eyes.
It wasn’t that Mom was incapable of great joie—on the contrary, I was always struck by her girlish bursts of enthusiasms, the fact that she could get carried away and fall in love with a Shirley MacLaine movie, a tablecloth from John’s Bargain Store, or a great novel by Stendhal. It was more that side by side with her joie, there was a profound Levantine melancholy and perhaps a touch of the martyr—the ascetic—that surfaced most emphatically in this period.
If Dad had been a bon vivant in Cairo and continued to relish fine food and clothes, even when he couldn’t afford them, Edith remained at heart the poor girl from Sakakini who went hungry when her mom couldn’t put dinner on the table, except that now she chose to go hungry. Of course, while she was self-denying, she was exceedingly generous with us, her children. We were served, on the contrary, elaborate meals, and I, as the youngest, her fragile pauvre Loulou, was plied with all the stuffed grape leaves and pockets of veal I could stand. Yet even when she took me out to our favorite pizzeria on Eighteenth Avenue, she never treated herself to a slice of pizza. She merely helped herself to the crust I left behind.
My mother was such a passionate believer in the power of fasting, she tended to go beyond what was biblically mandated. If one of us became ill, she fasted for our recovery. When she had a premonition of disaster, she fasted. She fasted when she had a bad dream. She fasted when we had a bad dream, certain it was a thinly veiled prophecy that would come to pass in some spectacular fashion.
Ancient rabbis believed that you could reverse certain tragic outcomes by fasting. Back in Cairo when I became grievously sick with cat scratch fever, my mother fasted constantly, certain God would listen more closely, and perhaps he did: My mysterious fever vanished. She fasted when she was worried about one of us and wanted to bring about a change in our fortunes. And here in America, she dedicated several fasts to Suzette, asking God to bring her errant daughter back home—or at least see to it that she got married.
My mother’s belief in the power of fasting was not uncommon in the Middle East, where faith was always tinged with mysticism. But it was utterly foreign to Jewish life in America, and in Mom’s case, it also proved to be quite dangerous.
She had become very ill the previous August when she insisted on fasting in the middle of a heat wave. The doctor who was summoned to Sixty-Sixth Street seemed stunned. Here was a small, delicate woman who was underweight, seriously malnourished, and most likely anemic, who made a habit of doing without food or water at every opportunity.
And yet no one in our household—not her husband, not any of her children—had the sense to stop her?
The doctor did what he could to treat her. He ordered Mom to break the fast immediately and to avoid fasting in the future. She was heartbroken by the edict and now, a year later, there she was gearing up for the Fast of Alas, the night of Lamentations, all over again.
There was nothing any of us could say to dissuade her.
It was as if summer had been suddenly canceled. Mom was in her own way every bit as strict about religion as Dad.
The more glum the atmosphere in our house, the more I retreated to our television set. I loved Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best and the window they offered on suburban America, such a prosperous country of ranch homes and colonials and lawns that looked nothing like the America I knew. I had a crush on soulful, handsome Dr. Kildare that rivaled and perhaps exceeded my fondness for Maurice. I dreamed of being the perky “Bachelorette” on The Dating Game.
But my favorite was Let’s Make a Deal with its perpetual cheer and bountiful prizes. If Mom believed in denying herself all earthly pleasures, Monty Hall, the host, believed in rewarding yourself with all you could possibly want—a washer and dryer, a mink coat, a La-Z-Boy armchair, a lawnmower. I fantasized about being forced to choose between door number one or curtain number two or the wads of cash Monty proferred as a sure, reliable bet.
On scorcher days, it was a struggle to stay away from the beach. Our first two summers in America, there was at least the World’s Fair to keep us entertained: The rabbis had no prohibitions against going to the fair in this period. We traveled to Flushing Meadow Park again and again—sometimes only Mom and me, sometimes with my dad, occasionally with my older brother César and his friends.
Loulou with César and his Egyptian friend, Raymond Benzaken, at the New York World’s Fair, summer 1965.
We loved to wander around the fairgrounds, but from the start we had a favorite destination. We’d head to the Egypt Pavilion—home. It had a cozy snack bar called the Crocodile Café that served Egyptian specialties. One evening, we ordered locomadis—little balls of honeyed dough that were deep-fried yet light and savory. It was a Greek pastry that was very popular in Egypt, and Mom made them regularly. We hadn’t eaten locomadis since coming to America, and it was as if the essence of Cairo was contained in those hot, melting hone
y balls, each no bigger than a grape.
We were all there huddled inside the Egypt Pavilion—even Suzette had joined us from her apartment in Queens—and we lingered until it was dark outside, and the World’s Fair was about to close for the night, and the attendants told us nicely but insistently that we had to go.
Several members of the Shield of Young David who had been away returned for the Fast of Alas, the night of Lamentations. Our evening began with a simple meal, which we ate silently—soup and some boiled chicken with rice on the side. Dad left to go to services down the block after turning out all the lights in the house.
I gulped down one last glass of Coca-Cola for sustenance. While Edith was undaunted by the prospect of going without food or drink for a full day and night, I was absolutely terrified. From the moment the fast began, I worried that I’d be thirsty and need a drink of water.
It was considered haram—a sin—strictly forbidden to have even a drop of water.
Children had dispensation, of course, but it was important for us, the girls behind the divider, to fast exactly like the adults. To be a grown-up meant you fasted and prayed. Of course, it was considerably easier on Yom Kippur when my friends Diana and Gracie and the others were there with me, and fasting became a competition to see who could last the longest. Tonight, I was going to be alone.
There was still light outside when Mom and I finished our supper and walked around the corner to the Shield of Young David. We could see other families trudging toward any one of the dozen temples in the neighborhood, including the Congregation of Love and Friendship where Dad was already ensconced for the night, and the Synagogue Without a Name next door. It was a grand old structure and the Jews who prayed there were schlecht, as Mom would say in Arabic. It meant that they came from Eastern Europe, worlds apart from us. We had nothing to do with them, nor they with us. They were every bit as distant and apart as our Italian Catholic neighbors.
When Edith and I entered the sanctuary, I almost didn’t recognize it. The chairs had all been removed and the lights were off. The thick velvet curtain that covered the Ark had been taken down as had all the festive embroidered coverings over the lectern at the center, where Mr. Menachem usually stood and chanted the service. The synagogue was stripped bare—like a house in mourning, like a home where a loved one has died.
All around me, people were seated on the floor, including Rabbi Ruben. In the women’s section, I noticed Mrs. Menachem; her hair was tucked under a simple kerchief, instead of her usual wig. She sat on the cold linoleum floor crying as she read from her small prayer book.
My mother shyly went to the back where the chairs had been stacked, carried one to the front of the women’s section, and sat down. When Madame Marie arrived, she did the same. Both were deeply observant but a tad skeptical of the religious customs we were now encountering. Back in Cairo, my mother told Madame Marie, women didn’t sit on the floor in synagogue. “Les Américains, toujours ils exagèrent,” Mom said—Americans always go overboard.
I loved the idea of sitting on the floor.
I found myself a spot and tried to emulate the other women. But I quickly began to feel uncomfortable. The floor was so hard, and I hadn’t brought a pillow with me. Though our section was more full than it had been all summer, I was still the only child. I couldn’t chat with the older women—they were all lost in thought and teary eyed. I couldn’t even engage in my favorite activity, peeking into the men’s section—the lower part of the divider was made of solid strips of plywood, and there were no holes through which I could peer.
It was getting darker and darker inside the sanctuary when we began the critical reading of the night, reciting the Book of Lamentations, Jeremiah’s ode to lost Jerusalem. It began with the single word Alas, which we repeated out loud again and again, like a dirge. Alas, the city that was great has become like a widow. Alas, the enemy has prevailed. Alas, those who feasted extravagantly now lie destitute in the streets. Alas, those who were brought up in scarlet clothing wallow in garbage. Alas, women and children wander about with nothing to eat and no one to comfort them. I noticed that many of the women around me were shaking and weeping.
Once we finished the Book of Lamentations, everyone rose to leave. There was none of the joking and bantering typical after a service when groups of friends would gather before going home. People walked out subdued, their heads lowered. My mother took me by the hand; she didn’t say a word to me all the way home.
The house was pitch-black when we arrived. My father had already come back and was lying down in his room. Mom made her way directly to the bedroom and went to sleep. If the point of the holiday was to relive the despair and desolation of an ancient calamity, then my parents had done a magnificent job—I felt completely bereft.
I couldn’t fall asleep. I had never liked the dark and would always ask Mom to leave at least a small light on in the house, but tonight she had refused. Haram, she said; it’s a sin. I stayed awake much of the Night of Lamentations wondering how I was going to survive the fast and how Mom would get through it. What if she needed a doctor again? I was already thirsty.
I must have dozed off at some point, because I felt my mother shaking me, saying it was morning; we had to go back to the synagogue to pray.
Finally, it was over. Come sundown, we went again to the Shield of Young David to hear Mr. Menachem recite the last prayer of the holiday, and everyone whom I’d seen crying the night before now appeared excited and happy. Mr. Menachem recited the Verse of Consolation—Nahamu, “be comforted”—and it was the antidote to all of our laments. Mom turned to me and repeated, “Nahamu, nahamu,” as if we were going to a party.
We snuck out of temple: There was much work to be done before Dad came home. My mother seemed weak but cheerful—she had survived the fast without so much as a fainting spell. I had broken down and eaten in the late afternoon, but I was still pleased with myself—it was the longest I had ever fasted, and I felt that I was gearing up for Yom Kippur, which was only a month away.
At home, Edith retrieved several lemons from the refrigerator and began squeezing the juice into a large bowl. After adding sugar and some fresh mint leaves—she placed the lemonade in the freezer to chill, a family tradition almost as sacred as the fast itself.
Then, she took out several trays of cheese pastries she had baked the day before and placed them in the oven.
They were called filo be gebna and they were her specialty—strips of filo dough stuffed with shredded Gruyère, which were so light and buttery and warm that the cheese melted inside the thin papery dough. That was to be was our entire dinner—the cheese pastry and the lemonade. “Il faut manger légèrement,” Mom explained—it was important to eat lightly after a fast, no matter how hungry you felt.
Only when my father came home did we finally break the fast. As we gathered at the table, Mom handed him the first glass of lemonade and then passed me a smaller glass; she served herself last. I gulped mine down and demanded another, then another. It tasted both tart and wonderfully sweet all at once. The house was ablaze with light. As I gobbled up filo be gebna, I realized that my sadness of the previous night—the bleak feeling that had taken hold of me as I lay there in the dark—had vanished and I was hopeful again.
· 11 ·
The Messiah Is a Woman
I have always suspected that my family had a fatal flaw—almost a genetic defect—dating back hundreds of years. For all our pride and sense of majesty, our ability to rise and distinguish ourselves, we also had a history of suffering spectacular falls. But what Mom and Alexandra blamed on the mauvais oeil, the evil eye that seemed to shadow us at every turn, I attributed to our tendency to embrace false messiahs.
Literally so. In their most arrogant years, when my ancestors, the Laniados of Aleppo, were at the height of their powers—the rabbis and scholars who guided this ancient city—they fell under the spell of Sabbetai Zvi, the son of a poultry dealer from Smyrna who purported to be the Messiah. In the lat
e 1600s, Rabbi Shlomo Laniado used his considerable influence to galvanize all the Jews of Aleppo.
Their savior had arrived.
Now Aleppo was a passionate community, a community of absolute believers. They had prayed so fervently and waited so long for the Messiah to come. It made perfect sense that he would choose their city to reveal himself. Rabbi Laniado headed the Rabbinical Court, and when he embraced Sabbetai as the Messiah, no one doubted his word. Any day now Jews would be gathering from all four corners of the earth for the return to Jerusalem. The revival of the dead would follow immediately.
Aleppo was in a state of ecstasy. Suddenly there were sightings of the prophet Elijah. Some spotted him praying in the central synagogue, wearing a flowing white robe, ready to usher in the Messianic Era.
Elijah may have visited seventeenth-century Aleppo, but the Messiah did not. Within a few years, Sabbetai Zvi was exposed as a fraud, an impostor, a huckster. Thrown in jail and condemned to death, he converted to Islam as a way to avoid execution; and his followers, those who had continued to hope against hope—the rabbis in my family among them—had no choice but to accept the fact that it had all been a lie. The Messiah hadn’t come after all.
The Laniados suffered a shattering blow to their honor. Yet they somehow survived and the rabbinical dynasty that ultimately produced me and my family endured centuries more. The community was even prepared to forgive them. Because their faith was so overpowering, their judgment occasionally failed them.
The Arrogant Years Page 14