They throttle anyone bold enough to protest or anyone who dares to try to protect their families. With their knives, they butcher the few castaway dogs that wander in the neighborhood. They rape young girls and old women alike, toss children to the ground, and burn siddurs, all the while chanting their mantra, “Kill the Goddamn kikes! Kill the Yids! They killed our Savior.”
Shmuel and Avram escape detection by hiding in a potato bin, but the soldiers pummel Levi as he walks home from cheder, head in the holy book. They heave Mendel to the floor and kick him in the ribs when he bars their way into his home. He holds them off long enough for Henya to hide sleeping Marya under a pile of dirty laundry and then collapses to the floor in agony, holding his bruised ribs. He tries to retrieve the yarmulke that has fallen from his head. A Cossack steps on Mendel’s wrist with his heavy boots.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he moans.
The screams and cries of terror, the stench of smoke and the burning of sacred prayer books, the river of blood, the barricaded doors and windows caving in to the invader’s powerful fists and clubs bring confusion and dread to all but Marya, who sleeps peacefully in her little wicker basket, concealed beneath a pile of dirty laundry and still sucking her sugar stick.
Henya knows now, without a doubt, that her baby girl is deaf.
Chapter 2
MENDEL: I AM NOT MY BROTHER’S KEEPER
February 1909
Mendel’s footsteps crunch as he blindly battles his way, shoulders hunched, against the gale-force winds slapping his face with hardened snow crystals. Escaping tears turn quickly into pendants of ice strung from his beard, like toy icicles suspended from the eaves of a dollhouse.
Winters in the Pale of Settlement are savage, especially in Odessa, where temperatures plummet to well below zero. Odessa is in the southernmost region of the Pale, a vast expanse established by Catherine the Great in 1791 to geographically restrict the hundreds of thousands of Jews brought to Russia after the partition of Poland.
Residents lack firewood, coal, water, and, for some, the protective covering of an intact roof. Deaths of the elderly and infants occur daily, at times without notice or remark. People learn to harden their hearts when tragedy strikes. And it does. What else can they do but bear it?
With gloved hands tucked into the pockets of his black frock coat, Mendel passes a small circle of mourners, men and women, struggling to dig a hole in the frozen ground to bury the small pine box containing the still-warm remains of their dear one.
“Ahhh, a child,” he whispers to himself, observing the miniature casket, “another child. Dear God, when does it end? And yet . . . and yet it could have been my Leib. Or Disha. So I should feel lucky.” He pauses. “I say lucky? How many years since I lost my Yonkel. Ten years he’s been in the ground. Who knows, maybe he’s better off. For us, we watch our children go hungry, go to bed with cold feet, teeth chattering, no books to read, brutality and fear all around. So maybe it’s a blessing to die before we know such heartache.”
On the canvas of his mind, Mendel envisions his infant son, who died in 1899, a year before Avram’s birth. He named him Yonkel Israel after his beloved father, Rabbi Yonkel Israel Kolopsky. Little Yonkel’s fragile life lasted a mere week. He died cradled in his father’s arms, his wife still recovering from the arduous birth, her womb ripped open like a tattered purse. No matter how much time passes, Mendel will never rid himself of that memory—a memory etched in stone on his soul. Nor will the sorrow that permeates his heart abate.
Henya endured an unsparing labor of seventy-two never-ending hours. With each passing day, her moans diminished in intensity until she lay pale and depleted, with hardly the strength to open her eyes, much less push the child out into the world. The midwife, like the hand of God, reached into Henya’s ineffectual womb to rescue him from the dark abyss of certain death. A reprieve of seven days.
Mendel remained by his wife’s side. Sleepless. He prayed night and day, swaying to and fro, holding Yonkel to his chest as he would a sacred Torah scroll. Despite his petition and promises to God, one week to the day after his entry into the world, with just enough time for the village carpenter to construct the diminutive burial box, they laid their infant son to rest as the shadows that heralded Shabbos shrouded them.
The sound of scraping earth jolts Mendel from his painful reminiscence to the reality of the present. Although halting to help the mourners will make him late for Shabbos service, Mendel pries a shovel from an elderly man’s palsied fingers and joins the grieving relatives as they race the setting sun. He ruminates about why death seems to arrive just as Shabbos beckons.
Maybe, he muses, it makes us more aware of the brevity of life. Not to take the gift of life for granted. Or reminds us that God is showing us that he is all-powerful and that we are only his servants to do his bidding. He gives us life in the blink of an eye and takes it back with another.
Physical labor serves to ease the pain Mendel feels whenever images of his dead child crash the protective barrier of unconsciousness—just as his philosophizing keeps him from feeling the magnitude of his loss or the reality of his helplessness. He continues the sad task at the gravesite, helps the men lower the casket into the breach, and awakens from his trance when the sound of gravel striking the wooden coffin eases.
His thoughts wander to Henya. He broods about her health of late, for she seems removed and irritable, so unlike her typically sweet demeanor.
My wife is truly an aishet chayil, a woman of valor, he reflects. In his mind’s eye, he sees the thickening of her waist but dismisses his ruminations and the thought that she might be in a delicate condition. It’s ridiculous, he convinces himself, the fantasy of an old man, that’s all it is. Lunacy, definitely. Mendel the lunatic, that’s me. He chuckles and reminds himself of the passing time.
With his toil at an end, he plants the shovel into the ground with the sense of satisfaction he experiences after fulfilling one of God’s six hundred and thirteen commandments, mitzvoth. He seldom misses an opportunity.
Mendel’s faith rarely wavers, not even when he lost Yonkel Israel.
The Shabbos following his son’s death, Mendel wrote an elegy that he delivered to his congregation:
Woe, woe, woe is me for my anguish
My ruination is as vast as the earth that covers my precious son, as vast as the sky that covers the earth, as vast as the oceans that cover the world.
My dear beloved is taken from me, never to be held in his mother’s arms again.
My small child, my little Yonkel, is no more, for the Lord has taken him.
I am stalked by sorrow and darkness in my soul.
Only the pain of loss and mourning remain. Desolation
and thoughts of
Death haunt me.
Woe is me for to have gazed at his sweet face, to see the face of G-d.
From my arms to Yours, Dear G-d, please hold him there with You, in peace, forever until I join him.
He shakes his head to disrupt the dread he feels overtaking him and takes his leave of the lamenting mourners to make his way to the crushed rock path leading to the modest wooden structure that serves as a synagogue. He contemplates a time when he can worship in a suitable house of God. He often catches himself conjuring up, as a composer might hear a piece of music before it is notated, an edifice to house God’s music.
“Nothing fancy,” he tells himself, “but still, a sanctuary with a bimah and an ark for the Torah, one with carved doors. And an eternal lamp. A real shul with heat and a mechitza, to separate the women and men. A place safe from those butchers. They should only die! Plotz!” He recoils in horror as he hears the venom spewing from his lips.
“What am I doing, blaspheming on the Sabbath? Look what this violence turns people into. Me, a rabbi who should know better. Full of bitterness and hate on Shabbos, God forgive me.” After a pause he whispers, a smile creeping to his lips, “And yet, a safe, warm shul would be very nice.”
> Mendel’s reveries are interrupted when he glimpses, protruding from the snow-covered ground, one corner of the triangle of the six-pointed star he himself had recently nailed to the lintel, now desecrated with shit.
A murderous rage blurs his vision and clouds his mind. Feeling lightheaded, he leans against the doorjamb to regain his balance. He weeps. He weeps for his people, he weeps for the mourners, he weeps for his family, he weeps for Yonkel, and he weeps for himself. He retrieves the Mogen David, rubs it with unspoiled snow, and touches it with his kissed fingertips to eradicate the revilement. He places it, wrapped in his handkerchief, in the pocket of his overcoat.
A sigh escapes his cracked lips as he wipes the tears from his eyes with his snow-covered sleeve; he presses his shoulder against the warped wooden door and quietly becomes one with the small flock of men, rhythmically rocking back and forth, enveloped in the privacy of their prayers. Absorbed in the cadence of their Shabbos entreaties to Elohim, they don’t notice Mendel’s entrance.
When he is standing next to his companions, he removes his hat, a worn but still-functional sheepskin ushanka with ear flaps, an unexpected treasure found in a garbage can, to reveal his yarmulke.
Mendel’s father, Rabbi Yonkel Israel Kolopsky—a descendant of a line of Kohanim, the ancient tribe of priests descended from Moses—gave it to him several months before he died. It is a black skullcap elaborately embroidered with red and gold thread. The old rabbi bestowed it upon his favorite son, his youngest, not yet knowing that with it, he was passing on his rabbinic mantle. Or did he? Mendel fingers his tzitzit and, like sheaves of wheat gusting gently in the autumn breeze, he merges with his swaying minyan fellows.
Not until he hears the chanting of the Shema, the affirmation of his Jewish faith, does he realize that he has missed almost half the service, and yet as he joins the chorus of bass voices, he feels at peace, the sad events of the last hour and a half slowly recede.
“Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai echad . . .” they intone. These ten men, ranging in age from forty-four to seventy-nine, pass judgment, counsel, teach the children and grandchildren of the remaining members of their ragtag community, and perform marriages and bar mitzvahs. They bury the dead and administer justice, and, like the legendary tale told in the Kabala of the Lamed Vavniks—those thirty-six just men who live, unknown to each other, in every generation to hold the world together with their good deeds—so too these men uphold the traditions of their forefathers’ faith.
Mendel, at forty-four, is the youngest and yet one of the most revered members of his minyan. In spite of his relative youth, they willingly accept his wisdom, believing he may even be a tzaddik. They respect his strict devotion to tradition because, when it comes to religious observance and learning, Mendel settles for no less than total obedience to Torah. That the oldest members of the group had known and loved his esteemed father adds to their veneration of his son. Some, as children, had even known Mendel’s grandfather, a cantor of some small renown.
Mendel grew up sure of his place in the world, as his father’s favorite. He fervently hoped that he, not his older brother, Shimshon, was destined to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and father. His earliest memory is of sitting at his father’s side, looking at the big black leather book with strange markings written upon the worn, yellowed parchment—or so it looked to the six-year-old Mendel. He thrilled to the sound of his father’s words, words his father constantly reminded him were sacred.
“You must cherish this book, boychick. And obey its every word, for it was given to us by the Almighty so many thousands of years ago; it holds all that we need to know to live a good, upright life. Always respect and protect it with all your heart and soul, Mendel. If you do this, you will lead an honorable and ethical life that you can be proud of.”
Little Mendel laid his head down on his father’s lap and whispered, “Yes, Papa. Just like you.”
“My son, someday you will be a great rabbi, greater than your papa and even your zaide, of blessed memory. Like us, you will have read every word of Torah many times over. And each time you read it, you will discover new meanings and fulfillment.”
“Yes, Papa,” Mendel responded without truly comprehending. Nonetheless, he loved these infrequent moments of intimacy with his father.
“You will teach Torah to your sons, and they will teach it to their sons—and so on through the centuries—the way I teach it to you, the way previous generations have passed on HaShem’s words.”
“Yes, Papa,” he murmured and shivered, basking in his winning the honor that justly belonged to his three-years-older brother, Shimshon. Often he asked his father to repeat the story of how Jacob stole his older brother Esau’s birthright and how he tricked his father into getting it. He knew that what Jacob did was wrong, and yet he understood Jacob’s yearning, for he, Mendel, possessed a similar longing for Shimshon’s birthright. He didn’t think it fair that his brother, just because he was born first, should follow in his father’s footsteps, especially because he mocked his father’s piety.
As he grew up, Shimshon had little use for Torah or for any religious observance or doctrine. Always the rebel in the family and impatient with the rules and regulations their faith imposed, he refused to study or practice Jewish rituals from an early age. Unlike Mendel, he was curious about the world of ideas and events. He read anything—anything other than Torah. He hated that he was forbidden to read and write on Shabbos or to engage in activities with the group of boys who shared his interests. He read philosophy, law, and history, especially books about the Enlightenment and the Haskalah. And though he felt displaced and betrayed by his father’s evident affection for his younger brother, he was also grateful to have the focus shifted from him to Mendel.
The hostility between father and son saturated the household and escalated as Shimshon neared thirteen, the age for his bar mitzvah. Shimshon resisted his father’s demands to attend religious school. Whenever possible, he sneaked out of the house to meet with his friends to talk rebellion or to go to the small library to take out “forbidden books.” He even belittled his father’s threats to disinherit him and bestow the rabbinic mantle on Mendel.
“Disinherit me from what, Pa?” he scoffed. “Bubkes! Nothing! Your father’s yarmulke? You’ve already made up your mind to give it to Mendel—be honest—so go ahead. It’s what you’ve always wanted to do. A frayed prayer book? A life of blind observance and poverty, begging for handouts from the congregation? All the while the goyim are killing us?” His father’s stern admonition to stop did not stem the flow of provocative words.
“Reading books written thousands of years ago that have nothing to do with our life today,” Shimshon persisted. “It’s all rubbish. Does not eating pig make you a better person? Does sitting in shul all day do anything to stop what’s going on out there or keep the czar from passing yet another law taking yet another freedom away from Jews—what little we have?”
The old rabbi warned his son to stop. He forbade him to utter another word. He raised his hand to strike Shimshon but stopped midair, his hand close to his head as if poised to administer a military salute. Then he slowly lowered it to his side.
Shimshon insistently continued, “If you read history—real history—you’d know that first it was the Romans, then the Crusaders, then the Inquisition making us into slaves. When are you going to face reality? There’s a world out there, Pa, and it’s not in your books. Or your synagogue. I’m going to be part of it. I’m going to do something or die doing it. ‘Remember Bar Kokhba!’ is what I say. That’s my motto. No more Jews being slaughtered by Romans or anyone else.”
Their fights flared and abated, like logs in the hearth that smolder and ignite in the course of an evening. Three years later, they had the last battle they would wage, one in which father and son would menace each other with clenched fists and words of hate—words that, once spoken, were irrevocable.
“Shimshon? Please stop. Doesn’t the Torah tea
ch us to honor and respect our parents? Ask his forgiveness. Please, you are sinning against God.” Mendel saw where the situation was heading and turned to his father. “Papa, he’s your oldest son. Don’t do what you’ll be sorry for the rest of your life,” he pled in desperation. Moishe, the middle son, managed to stay out of these quarrels.
With years of stored up jealousy, envy, and rage for being cast in the role of the second-best son, or even third-best, Shimshon turned on Mendel. “Where was your God each time the Cossacks came to call? Did he stop those thugs when they raped my Miriam right before my eyes or when she died with her mother looking on? Killed! Only fourteen! What kind of a God abandons the youngest and oldest in their time of need? His chosen people? Doesn’t that put Him on the side of our enemies? What do you say to that? Go! Go study for your bar mitzvah.”
“Be careful what you say, Shimshon, before it’s too late,” implored Mendel, now trying to stifle his own anger. “I know I’m only almost thirteen, but I have been taught to respect my elders. You are my older brother. I love you, and I have always respected and looked up to you, but I have to tell you, you are wrong.”
“Listen to me good, Mendel. It’s all a farce—a deception to keep our minds elsewhere. There is no voice in the wilderness. There is no burning bush. No stone tablets with commandments neatly carved upon them. All I see is violence and rape and death and poverty. Is this the God you pray to?”
Mendel remained silent. Some of his brother’s words reached deep within his heart. He did see the brutality of which his brother spoke. Hiding behind a tree, he’d been an eyewitness to Miriam’s rape, confessed only to God. He had never forgiven himself, even though a child, for doing nothing. Often, he observed a drunken peasant or a Russian soldier or a Cossack enter the shtetl with the sole intention of mischief, which included cutting off an old man’s beard or touching a woman’s breast or threatening a child on his way home from Hebrew school or throwing a yarmulke to the ground. And yet, the only words that he could utter were “Please, Shimshon.”
Odessa, Odessa Page 3