Tales of a Female Nomad (12 page)

One day I take a walking tour of old Jerusalem. The guide is an American woman who now lives in Israel. As we are walking, I ask her if she knows anyone in Mea She’arim. Yes, the woman tells me, she knows an American woman named Zahava and her husband, Ephraim. The guide is sure they would be happy to have me for a few days.

When the tour is over, I buy a scarf for my head and a long skirt, which I slip over my khakis. I also put on a long-sleeved sweater. We walk together, from the elegant King David Hotel into Mea She’arim. It is Thursday. Zahava, a tall, stocky woman in her late forties, invites me to come back the next morning and stay for the weekend. Good. I tell her that I am hoping to help her prepare for and welcome the Sabbath.

The next day, as we are peeling potatoes and carrots for the traditional Sabbath stew called
cholent,
Zahava tells me she has arranged for me to have Sabbath dinner that night with a big family who is celebrating the wedding of one of its seven children on Sunday.

“There will be guests from England and from other Orthodox communities in Israel,” Zahava tells me, and she adds, almost shamefully, “My husband and I have no children. I want you to see the joy of a big family Sabbath.”

The phone rings. Zahava picks it up. She speaks in English. “Oh, I’m sure she will be happy to help,” I hear her say. “But she is going to the Steins for Shabbos dinner.” A pause. “OK. We’ll be over soon.”

The call is from a friend, also an American in the community. Zahava explains that the man who called would like me to sleep at his house. His wife is not well and she is about to give birth. He needs someone to help take care of the other two children. And if the baby should come tonight or tomorrow, he will need someone to baby-sit in the house.

“He told me you were sent by God.”

I’m not keen on the idea of baby-sitting, but it will certainly put me one step deeper into the culture.

Zahava delivers me. Two minutes later I am pushing a stroller on the stones in the courtyard, smiling at the other mothers, wheeling along a street filled with women buying meat and vegetables for the
cholent.

When we get back to the house, my host, Steven, asks for help peeling the vegetables and making the stew. Turning on the stove on Sabbath is not permitted in Orthodox homes, so the stew must be put on early and kept on a low flame for twenty-four hours.

When the stew goes on the stove, Steven lights five Sabbath candles, one for each member of his family and one for me. Then he goes to the synagogue to pray. I feed the kids their dinner, bathe them, put on their pajamas, and get them into bed. All this time the mother is behind a closed door.

When Steven arrives home, the children are asleep for the night. If I were he, I too would think I’d been sent by God.

At the appropriate time, Steven walks me to my dinner. When I arrive, there are only women and children in the house. The men are off praying. Kids are running all over the place. Teenage girls are helping the women in the kitchen. The tables are set for thirty-two people. I help to fill water glasses and carry in platters.

Then the outside door opens and suddenly the room is filled with men in black with long sideburns and big furry circles of hats. The father of the home sits in a big chair, and one by one his children (seven of them) step before him to receive a Sabbath prayer. After the ceremony, the guests sit, women at one table, men at the other. By now I know several of the women by name; they all speak English. But among the men, I am introduced only to the father, who wishes me a good Sabbath but is not permitted to touch my hand nor look into my eyes.

I do not like feeling second class. In this super-Orthodox world, women are dangerous; their very presence can distract the men from their pursuit of knowledge. Women are not permitted in the places where men study Torah; and in the synagogue, they must sit upstairs, away from the more devout and distractible males. During the years I live in Hindu and Muslim communities in Indonesia, I will see similar practices. They all make me feel uncomfortable. But my journey is one of discovery and observation. Wherever I am, I try to participate in the culture, not judge it.

It is not difficult on this Sabbath night to participate in and share the joy of this family. It is all around me, in the laughter and in the pleasure they feel in being together for the celebration of Sabbath, and in the excited anticipation of the wedding two days from now. I cannot wait for the singing. I have read that when dinner is over, ultra-Orthodox families sing Hasidic songs.

I love the haunting melodies of Hasidic music; and I am excited that tonight, in one of the most religious communities in the world, I am going to join the family as they raise their voices in celebration of God. As a teenager, I was in the synagogue choir (
not
an Orthodox synagogue), where we occasionally sang Hasidic songs. They are filled with swaying and
Yaba-baba-bum, bum, bum, bum, Yaba-baba-bum.

As much as I have always loved the singing, the camaraderie, the swaying, the richness of the harmony, I have never felt the presence of the God I was supposed to be singing to. Not in a synagogue, not in a gathering, not inside myself. Perhaps I will feel Him, the God of my ancestors, here in this most religious place.

But first the meal. The traditional meal. With gefilte fish, chicken soup with matzoh balls, brisket with prunes, broccoli, a sweet potato casserole, and four different desserts.

All of it familiar. All of it the food of my ancestors in eastern Europe. All of it binding me to the joy and warmth of this family.

And then, dinner is finished and one male voice begins. Soon, the others join him. And I feel the history of a people, the soul of a religion, the rapture of believers singing to their God. I slowly and softly begin to add my voice to their chorus.

The woman sitting next to me puts her hand on my arm.

“You cannot sing,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

She repeats herself.

“But why?”

“The sound of a woman’s voice is thought to be a temptation for the men. We can sing when we are by ourselves, but not when the men are present.”

And suddenly, for me, the magic, the joy, the spirituality—and the bonding—is gone.

When I say goodnight and thank you to the family, they invite me to the wedding, which is in the Orthodox community of Bnei Brak, an hour away. Mrs. Stein tells me that she will ask her friend Shoshana (not her real name) to sit with me on the bus that will take us there. She will be my dinner partner at the reception (men and women sit separately).

Shoshana and I meet for the first time on the street corner where everyone is waiting for the bus. She is wearing a turquoise silk dress with a full-length matching jacket and a double strand of real pearls.

The other women are as exquisitely dressed. In gold and diamonds and pearls, strappy and stylish heels, and colorful silk dresses. In this community where a married woman may not show her hair, every woman is perfectly coifed, not a wig-hair out of place. Were a stranger to study the assembled women, it would be very clear who is the most devout person in the group. I am wearing what I have: a long black skirt over black tights, black ballet slippers, a white long-sleeved blouse, and a white lacy scarf on my head that I borrowed from Zahava.

Shoshana leads me to a double seat in the back of the bus. She is an immigrant from South Africa, she tells me, where her life was very different. She was born Jewish but not Orthodox. She and her friends in South Africa were modern and sophisticated. Twelve years ago she moved to Israel (she did not say why), became an Orthodox Jew, and moved into Mea She’arim. The community found her a husband.

As we talk, the loudspeaker is playing Hasidic music. I look around. The bus is filled with elegant women in wigs and men in big fur hats.

“See, there he is with our son.” She points through the window to a thin, emaciated-looking man in long black Hasidic clothes and a black hat. He is holding the hand of a child.

Yaba-baba-bum. Yaba-baba-bum.

“We are divorced. He is taking care of our son for the day. Our marriage lasted five years.”

I’m shocked. “Isn’t divorce unusual in the Hasidic community?” I ask. “What happened?”

The music is still blaring religiously over the loudspeaker. The fur hats and wigs and elegant long-sleeved dresses surround us. Shoshana looks up with tears in her eyes and possibly, just possibly, a tiny smirk on her lips.

“Oh,” she says. “The sex was terrible. He couldn’t keep it up for more than a minute.”

For the rest of the bus ride, the ceremony, the dinner, and the ride home, I listen to the story of her marriage, her sex life, and her divorce. This is a woman who is hungry for someone to talk to. I wonder if she too thinks I was sent by God.

The next day I have lunch with Zahava and her husband. It’s the first time I’ve met him. He has brought two American tourists, teenage boys, home from the Wailing Wall, to join us. He is not permitted to shake my hand when we are introduced. During lunch, he does not talk to me nor look at me. And as I sit there listening to him proudly telling the guests that ten teens from Mea She’arim were out stoning cars on Saturday, I realize that the historical and religious bonds that he and I share are meaningless; we have little in common.

After four days in Mea She’arim, my anthropological perspective is askew. In this small community, I have encountered entitlement, arrogance, prejudice, and finally, violence. All in the name of religion. I cannot stop myself from judging. It is yet another instance of my inability to maintain the nonjudgmental role of participant-observer. Eight years later the issue will arise again in Bali, with much greater impact on my psyche and my life.

Before I leave Israel, I decide to visit a Druse village. The Druse are an Arabic-speaking people numbering approximately four hundred thousand, most of whom live in Syria and Lebanon. Their monotheistic religion, which dates from the eleventh century, combines Christianity and Islam, but the details are a well-kept secret. There are more than ninety thousand Druse in seventeen villages in northern Israel. They usually marry within the community. Traditionally, a Druse man who marries a non-Druse woman is expelled from the community.

Most important for Israel is the fact that wherever Druse are in the world, they are loyal to the country they reside in. Druse are the only Arabic-speaking community in Israel in which the young people complete three years of military service in the Israeli army.

There are several Druse names in my Servas host book. The man who is expecting me is described in the book as the director of a children’s home. I like visiting schools and orphanages where I can share my books with the children. And visiting a non-Jewish community will give me a chance to observe some of the diversity of Israel.

When I step off the bus, I am again in another world. The men are wearing long brown robes, white pillbox-style hats, and white shirts under their robes. The women are in long skirts or dresses, their arms covered. I ask a young man in the street if he can direct me to the children’s home. He walks me to the door.

“Welcome,” says my host, a robust man in his fifties with a warm smile. “I no speak English. You speak Arabic? Hebrew?”

Everyone I have met in Israel, until now, has spoken English. It is almost as though I am in an English-speaking country. But I did spend ten years of my childhood in Bridgeport, Connecticut, going to Hebrew school three times a week. I even had a scholarship one summer to a Hebrew-speaking camp. I know the alphabet and I can count, but I haven’t spoken any Hebrew since I arrived two weeks ago. I silently review my conversational vocabulary, which has been dormant for thirty-five years.

From Hebrew school: Yes, no. Big girl, little boy. Mother is in the kitchen. Father is reading the book. Sit down. Close the door. Very good. I eat. He eats. Open your books.

And from camp: Bunk 18. Go to hell. I lost my yellow raincoat.

Nope. I don’t speak Hebrew. Or Arabic.

I follow him to the room where I will be sleeping. I leave my bag and we go back outside.

“May I see the Home?” I ask. “The school? The children?” I manage to communicate in my word-Hebrew. There are four little girls following us around.

“Shalom,”
I say to one of the girls. “What is your name?” I manage it in Hebrew. They only speak Arabic. I turn to my host and ask in awkward Hebrew.

“In Arabic? How say, What is your name?” He tells me. I say it five times. The children laugh and repeat it, making fun of my pronunciation. I laugh too and ask them the question one by one.

The girls are between eight and eleven. I can see from their eyes and mannerisms that they are mildly retarded. There are distortions in their faces and awkwardness in their movements. But they talk and laugh; and when I move on, they snuggle into the hugs I give them.

“May I visit the school?” I ask. I am thinking that I might read some books to the kids. I know the pictures will make them laugh. My host nods and smiles, and we walk toward a building that I think is a school. It is not.

We walk in and I am immediately accosted by the antiseptic hospital smell of clean . . . and the sound of distant groans and moans. This is not a school.

He takes me into the first room, where there are four beds with severely retarded children lying in strange positions and emitting noises that send chills through my body and tears to my eyes.

As we go from room to room, I realize that my language deficiency prevents me from asking the questions I would like to ask, like, Are these children all from Druse villages? From this village? If all these kids are from Druse families, is it inbreeding that has produced a disproportionate number of retarded children? I walk through room after room and look at the different afflictions. I am smiling at the children, saying hello, and wishing I were anywhere else.

Finally, after what seems like hours but is no more than fifteen minutes, we go outside. I breathe deeply. The girls I met earlier catch up with us. Their slight facial distortions seem so insignificant, their speech patterns so fine, their movements so miraculous. They are speaking and talking and walking. I remember their names but I pretend I have forgotten and I mix them all up. They laugh, their laughter loud and uninhibited. What a miracle to be able to laugh.