Members of the Tribe

by Zev Chafets

  Menachem Begun, the Brazilian Chasid, gave me a little coaching. “Don’t try to stop everyone. Let the ones who don’t look Jewish go by—you know, blacks, Orientals, Latins. The other ones you should at least ask. You’re a beginner, you can’t pick out the Jews.”

  “Can you?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Sure. It’s easy, just look right here,” he said, pointing to his nose.

  Even with coaching, I soon realized that stopping Jews on a midtown Manhattan corner is like trying to hit major league fastballs—they go whizzing by faster than they look from the stands. By the time I asked people if they were Jewish I was talking to the backs of their heads. After a couple minutes I was more or less continually mumbling, “Are you Jewish are you Jewish are you Jewish,” and attracting some peculiar stares. Menachem and Mendy, standing a few feet away, were immensely amused by the spectacle, but after a while they stepped in to give me some more pointers.

  “Stand back and offer the pamphlets from a distance—if you get too close, it scares people off. Ask ‘Are you Jewish?’ in a loud voice, but polite. And you don’t have to ask the whole thing, just, ‘Ya Jewish?’ like that.” Mendy and Menachem made it sound easy, but even with my new stance and abbreviated text, I couldn’t get anyone to stop.

  A little later, I looked up and saw that I was sharing the corner with a colleague, a funky-looking black man wearing an orange vest over a battered imitation leather jacket. Like me, he was distributing leaflets—but, I noted enviously, with considerably more success.

  I sidled up to him. “What you got?” I asked, and he handed me a flyer announcing specials on stereo equipment at Sound City. I offered him one of mine, a personal letter from the Lubavitcher rebbe on the importance of tefillin. He took it out of professional courtesy, but when he thought I wasn’t looking he let it fall to the pavement.

  Discouraged, I headed back to the tank, where some of the boys were talking to a beat cop. At first I thought he might be hassling them, but it turned out they were discussing the policeman’s days as a yeshiva boy in Kew Gardens. “As a cop, these guys are a pain in the ass,” he told me. “They won’t move their van when you tell them to; they play their klezmer music so loud that the storekeepers complain; and when you try to talk to them about it, they won’t even listen. But as a Jew, I like what they’re doing. I mean, somebody’s got to go out and remind people that they’re still Jews.”

  * * *

  In the mitzvah tank, the Chabadniks are reasonable and friendly, ready for amiable argument. But it is a bogus pose; there is a fanatic’s hard edge just under the personable facade. The Chabad Chasidim see themselves as medical missionaries in the midst of an epidemic of assimilation and impiety. The rebbe has prescribed a cure—fundamentalist Judaism—that very few American Jews are prepared to take plain. Chabad’s great skill is its ability to sugar-coat the pill.

  Nowhere is this more evident than in Hollywood. Chabad and show business were meant for each other. The rebbe—for all his piety and isolation—is a master showman who stages his public appearances carefully and beams them around the world via satellite. And in recent years, Chabad has become expert in the use of another American show biz art form—the telethon.

  The Chabad telethon is one of the great media events of the Jewish world. When I was in Los Angeles I watched a tape of one with Marilyn Miller, an old friend who was one of the original writers on Saturday Night Live. Marilyn grew up in Pittsburgh, where she was active in the Reform youth movement, and she still takes an interest in Jewish life. Lately she has been trying to establish a sitcom library for the Jerusalem Cinemateque. But none of the old comedy series, or even Saturday Night Live in its heyday, ever came up with a more improbable premise or a zanier entertainment than the Chabad special.

  The show opened with a group of sweating Chabadniks dancing frenetically to the sound of a klezmer band. The number ended with one of them spinning wildly with a quart bottle of Canada Dry ginger ale balanced on his nose. This feat won loud applause from the host of the show, Jan Murray of Treasure Hunt fame, who emceed the evening dressed in a black tuxedo and matching silk yarmulke.

  Murray told a couple of borscht belt jokes and then introduced the stars who were there to raise money for the rebbe—Ed Asner, Connie Francis, Shelley Berman, Martin Sheen, James Caan, Tony Randall, Elliot Gould, and dozens more. My personal favorite was a Korean nightclub crooner who sang “Volaré” and “B’Shanah Ha’ba’ah,” a Hebrew standard whose words he managed to mispronounce in their entirety. Murray didn’t seem to notice.

  Performances alternated with film clips of Chabad’s philanthropic activities and testimonials from some of Hollywood’s most powerful (and least pious) Jewish stars and movie big shots. There was something about them that reminded me of a stoned Elvis appearing at the White House on behalf of Richard Nixon’s war against drugs.

  The television special, like much of what Chabad does in America, was the product of dedicated and talented emissaries, men who know the world and are willing to reach out to assimilated Jews on their own terms. The effort goes on across the country—in Chabad houses on college campuses, in mitzvah tanks, and anywhere else the missionaries can gather an audience.

  In L.A. on Super Bowl Sunday, I attended a Chabad show biz study session at the Westwood home of Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz, one of the rebbe’s chief West Coast operatives. I was invited by Roger Simon, a novelist whose Jewish private eye, Moses Wine, was portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss in the movie The Big Fix. Simon was working on a new Moses Wine story that involved Jewish mysticism, which is how he began attending the weekly class. His motives were of no great concern to Rabbi Schwartz, however; there is a rabbinical principle that holds that if you start out doing the right things for the wrong reasons, you will eventually do them for the right ones. Chabad believes in mitzvah momentum.

  Simon and I arrived at Schwartz’s comfortably unpretentious home a few minutes before ten in the morning. A dozen men and women in French designer jogging outfits, Reeboks, and yarmulkes were gathered in the kitchen, sipping coffee. The men discussed the Super Bowl, which was being played that afternoon just down the road in Pasadena. The women debated the respective merits of jogging and speed walking. Most of them were between thirty-five and forty, and I knew from Roger that almost all of them had some connection with show business. He pointed out a high-powered agent, several musicians and movie-score composers, a couple of middle-level studio execs, and a film industry lawyer.

  Chabad is not the only Jewish group that cultivates show biz contacts. The film industry is a Jewish business, after all, and many of its leading figures have been active on behalf of Israel or other Jewish causes. In Los Angeles, synagogues recruit Jewish stars as drawing cards. But no one has been as successful as Chabad in attracting and exploiting show biz people.

  At exactly ten, Rabbi Schwartz joined the group. He is a short, tubby man in his mid-forties, with a red beard and a genial expression. Steel-rimmed glasses were perched on his nose and he wore paisley suspenders over a white, short-sleeved shirt. He looked like a campus eccentric, a sociology professor from the 1960s about to conduct a graduate seminar.

  Schwartz took his place at the head of a long table and the others gathered around. For a few minutes he chatted idly with the group, making ostentatiously hip conversation dotted with references to Magic Johnson, Bob Dylan, and “the Village.” The technique was familiar; in Jerusalem, Chabadniks stop young tourists at the Wailing Wall, ask them if they want to turn on—and then hand them copies of the rebbe’s sermons, saying, “Turn on with this.”

  The class came to attention after a few minutes, and Schwartz began with an announcement. Meir Kahane was scheduled to come to Los Angeles, and Schwartz suggested that they attend his lecture. Several people groaned, but the rabbi accepted the reaction with unruffled good nature. “You don’t have to agree with the man. But he has an interesting message. You owe it to yourselves to hear him firsthand.” This appeal to open-mindedness h
ad an effect; several people wrote down the date of the JDL leader’s appearance.

  Rabbi Schwartz then passed out a schedule of Chabad House events for the coming month. The group’s L.A. operation is a combination of Torah and tinsel. Its two major events for February were “Survivors, an evening with former concentration camp survivors”; and “Hollywood and Hassidism—Bruce Vilanch who wrote all the Donny and Marie Show sequences … will cause great diversion with humorous choice tidbits of today’s Hollywood.”

  The flyer also advertised the Chabad House weekly Sabbath service: “Friday Night Live! Have a tequila sunrise at sundown every Friday night at Chabad House. The singing and dancing will break the ice. The horseradish on the gefilte fish will defrost the system. And the jalapeño pepper chicken soup will start the 100 proof juices flowing. Enjoy fascinating new faces that will tickle your Platonic fancy, and get some kosher smarts playing stump the rabbi.” And, at the bottom of the flyer, “For Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, non-affiliated and any Jew that moves.”

  Chabad isn’t averse to selling Judaism like a singles bar, but in the est belt of Southern California its strongest card is mysticism. The Chabad House offers a number of courses, including a beginner’s seminar that promises “insights into human psychology, depression and ecstasy, divine and animal soul, meditation and self-awareness, male and female energy, spirituality and self-centeredness, ‘karma’ and free choice, etc.”

  After the flyers had been distributed, Rabbi Schwartz began the class by describing how he had explained the hidden meaning of the Song of Songs to Carole King (and, having revealed its message, convinced her to sing an excerpt from it on the Chabad telethon). Then he passed around mimeographed copies of the day’s study material, “Bosi l’gani,” an article written by one of the Lubavitcher rebbe’s predecessors. The article is a mystical and linguistic interpretation of a single Hebrew phrase in the Song of Songs.

  Schwartz read the phrase aloud in English: “I came into my garden, my sister, my bride.” Then he asked the man on his right—a sound track composer—to continue reading. The man cleared his throat and began to recite:

  “The midrash explains that shir hashirim is not a simple love story, rather a metaphor describing the relationship between God and the Jewish people. The above verse refers to the time of the destruction of the sanctuary, when the shechinah, The Divine Presence, came into the garden—was revealed in the earth. Developing the concept further, the midrash (on the above verse) emphasizes the phonetic relationship between the Hebrew word for my garden, ‘gani,’ and the Hebrew word ‘ginuni,’ meaning ‘my bridal chamber’ (since the verse uses the term ‘gani,’ my garden, the possessive form, implying a place of privacy, it can be interpreted to mean, ‘my bridal chamber,’ a private place for the groom and bride [note commentaries on the midrash]. It interprets the above verse as ‘I came into my bridal chamber, the place where my essence was originally revealed’).” The sound track man put down his mimeographed sheet and several of the others nodded solemnly, as if they had been given a sudden insight into the workings of the universe.

  One by one, the class recited from the article. They stumbled over unfamiliar Hebrew terms, sometimes completely losing their places as the text became more and more obscure. An intense young woman with a trained speaking voice and a scarf tied severely around her head grappled with “Normally the Hebrew word for ‘walking’ would be ‘mehalach.’ Instead the Torah uses ‘mis-halech’ (which implies a state of withdrawal), as the midrash comments, ‘walking and jumping, walking and jumping.’ ” When she finished reading, heads once again bobbed in agreement.

  Orthodox Jews approach mysticism late, after long years of Torah and Talmudic study, and with a firm grasp of Hebrew. Even then, mystical texts are often inaccessible. Teaching “Bosi l’gani” to people like these was like teaching advanced nuclear physics to students who think that an apple thrown in the air will keep on going. The yuppies in Rabbi Schwartz’s living room that morning comprehended what they were reading about as well as a group of Yiddish-speaking Chasidim from Poland would have understood the front page of Variety.

  If anyone was aware of the absurdity of the scene, however, they didn’t let on. Schwartz smiled benignly through the reading, and the students exhibited an adolescent eagerness mixed with the self-confidence of people who have made it in a tough town.

  “Shlomo, I want to know if I’ve got the seven tzaddikim who brought the revelation right,” said one woman in a tentative voice. “Let’s see, there was Abraham, Isaac, and, ah, was Jacob in there someplace?” The woman managed to make the question sound like an inquiry about the final four at Wimbledon.

  Another woman mentioned that she had recently read a midrash that explained how Eve’s creation gave forth an unnatural love of men by women. Rabbi Schwartz looked puzzled; he had never heard of any such thing. Suddenly she snapped her fingers and laughed without embarrassment. “Now I remember, it’s not a midrash, it’s from Milton.”

  I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Rabbi Schwartz. It couldn’t have been easy for him to sit around in his paisley suspenders talking Torah to a bunch of Americans who wanted to know if God was sincere. Despite his ersatz American cool, Schwartz comes from a world where Judaism is a way of life, complete and consistent. His students, for all their earnest curiosity, were only visitors in that world.

  One of the women in the group took me aside and confided that now that she had become religious, she was planning a pilgrimage to Mount Sinai during the holiday of Shavuot. “Is there, like, I don’t know, a Hilton or anything where I can stay nearby?” she asked. I told her there was only desert and a monastery, and she visibly cooled. “Well, in that case, maybe I’ll just come to Jerusalem. I know there’s a Hilton there,” she said. “Jerusalem is just as good as Mount Sinai, I guess.”

  “Look me up when you get there,” I offered, and she smiled.

  “Don’t worry, I will. Maybe you know some cute guys you could fix me up with.”

  Not long after I got back to the East Coast, a friend, Arthur Samuelson, suggested that I go up to Boston to meet Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, also known as the Bostoner Rebbe. I didn’t really want to go—Brooklyn and L.A. had satisfied my appetite for Chasidic encounters. But Arthur, normally a skeptical and irreverent fellow, was persistent. “Forget the stuff you saw in Williamsburg,” he said. “And forget all those stone-throwing fanatics in Jerusalem. This guy’s the real thing. Besides, how often do you get a chance to meet a genuine Chasidic rebbe?”

  He had a point; I was still fascinated by the concept of a wonder-working, miracle-making rebbe, and eager to meet one. More than anyone else, the rebbes—dynastic heads of Chasidic sects—are representatives of the Jewish civilization of Eastern Europe that the Nazis destroyed. They are relics of another age, full of dark shtetel arts and mystical fervor, able to command the unquestioning obedience of followers who behave like subjects.

  Most rebbes are ancient men from Europe, but Levi Yitzchak Horowitz, the Bostoner Rebbe, is an exception; the first Chasidic rebbe to be born and raised in the United States. According to one of the group’s publications, Horowitz “assumed the leadership of his court” at the age of twenty-three. Not many men born in the Dorchester section of Boston have their own court, and I was intrigued by the opportunity to see one face to face.

  When I called the Bostoner synagogue, a woman with a brisk New England accent said, “New England Chasidic Center, rabbi’s study” in a businesslike tone. I wasn’t sure how to make an appointment with a mystic, but it turned out to be as simple as fixing a date with the dentist. The secretary gave me instructions on how to reach the Chasidic Center, requested a number where I could be reached in case of a change in plans, and wished me a good day. After I hung up, I realized she hadn’t even asked what I wanted to see the rebbe about.

  Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Horowitz claims descent from the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidism, and from a long line of famous rebbes. His father, Pin
chas David Horowitz, was born in Jerusalem and came to the United States during World War I; there he became the first Chasidic rebbe in Williamsburg. After a few years, the old man left New York for Boston and founded “the new dynasty” at 87 Poplar Street. The current rebbe was born there in 1921. Twenty years later the old man died, and in 1944 Levi Yitzchak took over the Boston court.

  The literature of the New England Chasidic Center is refreshingly free of false modesty regarding the accomplishments of the rebbe, “[a] miracle man of mythical dimensions [who] is the surrogate for his Chasidim. His prayers are an intercession. He pleads as an advocate to heaven.” According to his pamphleteer, “This city of loving kindness, Boston, is famous because of the rebbe.”

  Despite this claim, the Irish cabbie who drove me out to the rebbe’s Beacon Street headquarters in Brookline had never heard of Grand Rabbi Horowitz. He was a fortyish man who told me he grew up in Brockton, “the city of champions.”

  “Today it’s Marvin Hagler,” he said, “but back when I was in school it was Rocky Marciano. Heavyweight champion of the world. What a guy.”

  “Did you know him?” I asked.

  “Yeah, him and his brothers. I knew the whole family. Hey, I took a lot of punches in the head because of the Rock.”

  “You fought Rocky Marciano?”

  “Naw, nothin’ like that. See, Rocky got to be champ when I was in high school. And all of a sudden, everybody in town wanted to be a fighter. People fought all over the place—on the way to school, in school, on the way home from school. Every time you turned around, somebody tried to punch you in the head.” The cabbie paused, lost in nostalgia, contemplating the prolonged donnybrook.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, though. He really put Brockton on the map,” he said. “Anywhere in the world, you say ‘Brockton’ and people say, ‘home of Rocky Marciano.’ ”

  “Boston is famous because of the rebbe,” I said.