The Gates of Zion (39 page)

“I am a follower of Christ, sir,” the captain replied as the six English guards clustered around him.

“So! The one we call Yeshua?”

“Indeed. I do believe that He is the Messiah. That He has fulfilled the prophecies.”

Rabbi Lebowitz tugged on his whiskers, conscious that the circle of Jews and Gentiles was closing tighter around him as he pondered his reply. “Many Jews agreed with you, Captain, at one time. Otherwise you would not be standing here telling me you are a Christian. Your ancestors were still praying to trees while this Yeshua was teaching from the Torah, and His Jewish disciples were discussing His parables. True? Of course true.”

“Well spoken, Rebbe,” agreed the two Ashkenazi students as others murmured approval.

Every eye turned toward Luke then, awaiting his reply. “Yes, I see your point. But does it not say in Isaiah—I believe it is Isaiah fifty-two—that even the Gentiles will see the Messiah and believe?”

“Well spoken, Captain,” the old rabbi noted. “But I fear that the Gentiles have made Yeshua into a Gentile. And so over two thousand years Jews have been murdered and tortured in the name of Yeshua. And what does God have to say about that, eh?”

Luke took a deep breath. “Isn’t it written that the character of God remains unchanging and forever the same? No matter what we try to make Him, for whatever reason, Jesus is the same as He was two thousand years ago, when the first Jews believed.”

“Well put.” Rabbi Lebowitz raised his hand to silence the Yiddish discussion that was taking place behind him at the rear of the crowd.

Grandfather approved of the gentle, good-natured way in which this Englishman expressed his views. He had discussed before with Christian goyim and usually such discussions involved hostility and hot debate and ended with the phrase
Christ-killers
. “Perhaps we shall continue this conversation over supper sometime when the followers of Allah and his prophet allow us poor scholars once again to sup,
nu
?”

“I should be pleased to bring the bread to such a meal, sir.” The captain saluted and turned to his men. “Front and center,” he commanded. “Two at the sides and one each front and back. Rabbi, if you will be so kind as to organize three abreast, please.”

Rabbi Lebowitz, an unlikely looking general, gathered his little band together. As they marched through the hostile Arab Quarter, the Englishmen scanned every doorway and rooftop shadow they passed. The captain walked just in advance of the group, his Sten gun cocked and ready in the event of an ambush
.

The captain would be the first shot,
thought the old rabbi,
if we are
attacked
He made a mental note that he would indeed invite the captain to break bread with him―if there was still bread to break.

***

Six days had passed since the funeral of Miriam and her son, Ishmael.

Along with a thousand other Arab Christians, Miriam’s grandson had packed his meager belongings and gone to the safety of Beirut, Lebanon.

Daily the Christian Arab exodus accelerated, stripping the government offices of the cream of the Arab intellectuals, crippling the post office and phone services. Tomorrow, Ellie knew, the doors of the Christian churches would be open to the few who had the courage to openly worship their God. Many of those who stayed on prayed silently behind locked doors and looked toward the Mount of Olives in hopes that Christ would once again set His foot upon that sacred spot and bring peace to Zion.

Ellie scrubbed the dishes, proud of herself for the cheese blintzes she had made under Rachel’s direction. Rachel had retreated to her bedroom―with Shaul following happily at her heels―to prepare for a trip to the hospital to visit Yacov.

Uncle Howard poked his head in the kitchen door. “You about ready, hon?”

Ellie turned off the water and dried her hands. “Just let me get my coat.” She switched off the light and led the way to the door.

Uncle Howard gave a low whistle of approval at Ellie’s red sweater and skirt. “You look like Christmas,” he said happily.

Ellie stopped and knocked on Rachel’s door. “You coming, Rachel?”

Rachel opened the door, wearing a skirt that Ellie had given her and the beautiful, royal blue sweater that matched her eyes.

“Not one beautiful girl, but two!” exclaimed Uncle Howard.

“You are kind, Professor.” Rachel blushed. “Both of you are kind.”

Dry leaves scudded across the nearly empty streets of the New City.

Rolls of barbed wire lined the sidewalks like the dying vines of an enormous briar patch. Ellie glanced anxiously at Uncle Howard he drove around multiple barriers and detours on their way to Hadassah Hospital.

As they passed the headquarters of the Palestine police, Ellie thought how much it resembled a wicked castle in a fairy tale. Tall electric fences surrounded it, and everywhere the tangled wire emphasized the policies of the British government toward a Jewish homeland.

“Is this a prison?” asked Rachel from the backseat of Uncle Howard’s car.

“Police headquarters,” Uncle Howard explained. “The wire is to keep people out, not in. We call the place Bevingrad, after the British foreign minister who was responsible for all this mess. He is the man who kept you out of Palestine. Blocked immigration to appease the Mufti.”

“Seems almost funny,” Ellie mused. “All this wire. Fences and guns.

They wanted to keep the Jews out of Palestine, and now they hide inside a prison of their own making.”

She looked back at Rachel and studied the younger woman’s profile.

A sad smile momentarily crossed Rachel’s lips, but she did not look up.
She knows all about prisons,
Ellie thought.

“Does Bevin live here?” Rachel asked, taking in the sight of the armed British guards on duty at the gates.

“No,” explained Uncle Howard. “In England.”

“Then why has he worked so hard to keep us out? My mother and father tried so hard to come here before the war. If only―” Rachel’s words ended, but Ellie heard the anguish in her unfinished sentence.

Rachel cleared her throat and began again. “This is such a tiny corner of the world, is it not?”

“Nowadays the British worry about losing their empire and the wealth that goes with it―Egypt, India, Palestine. If they offend the Arab nations, they may not have gasoline to fill up their automobiles,” Howard explained.

“So they exchange lives for petrol,” Rachel said dully.

“Such things change very little. When Jesus Christ walked these hills, He stood on the Mount of Olives and wept for this city. Later He told His followers all the things that would happen to it. Down to the destruction of the Temple.”

“And did it happen as He said?” asked Rachel.

“To the last detail. He spoke of the things that are happening today as well. To the last detail,” Howard repeated. “As a matter of fact”— he winked at Ellie—“I think He even knew how scared a certain archaeologist would be every time we drive through Sheikh Jarrah to the hospital.”

“Whomever do you mean, Professor?” Ellie joked.

Rachel rested her arms on the back of the front seat. “What is it like in America, where you come from?” she asked eagerly.

Ellie handed her a copy of
LIFE
magazine. “This’ll give you some idea. Where I live, everything is lit up and decorated right now for Christmas. Santa Claus is in every store window, and people are shopping like crazy for last-minute presents.”

“I shall wait here in the car,” Rachel said to Ellie as Uncle Howard pulled into the Hadassah Hospital parking lot and stopped.

“You sure?” asked Ellie. “You might enjoy it. I think the boy can even speak Polish.”

“Go ahead. The ride is simply lovely,” Rachel said as they climbed from the car.

***

Rachel continued to sit in the backseat of Uncle Howard’s 1932 Plymouth —the ancient reminder of some American diplomat’s stay in Palestine. She thumbed through Ellie’s copy of the December 22 issue of
LIFE
that had come by special courier from the Jewish Agency. On its cover a child stood holding a hymnbook while tiny angels played harps above her head.

It is almost Christmas in America.
Rachel smiled to herself at the memory of Christmas in Poland before the war, when Gentiles had decorated their streets and homes and sung the songs of their religion. Usually their celebration had fallen within a few days of Hanukkah, one of the brightest festivals of the Jewish year. She remembered the last Hanukkah her family had spent together in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Her little brothers had gathered around as she lit the first of the eight candles in commemoration of the eight days of holiday and the Jewish fight for freedom. Gifts had been exchanged, and she had saved enough to purchase a top for each of her three brothers—including the baby, Yani. In spite of the hunger and hardship of war, laughter and light had filled their house.

They had not known that it was their last Hanukkah together as a family. Less than a year later, in the middle of the night, their doors had been broken down by the Nazis, and the Jews were herded into cattle cars as men with guns sang:

“Crush the skulls of the Jewish pack

And the future, it is ours and won;

Proud waves the flag in the wind

When swords with Jewish blood will run.”

Had it not been for a few good people among the Polish Christian community, all would have been lost. As the Lubetkin family had waited in the cold at the Warsaw train station to board the cattle cars, a photographer and his wife had shown up to take pictures of the Jews … and had left with Rachel’s infant brother in the wife’s basket. That was the last Rachel had seen of Yani. Her mother had wept silently as she was pushed and prodded onto the train. But she did not turn to look after the fate of the child, fearful that the Nazis would see and know that the tiny, smiling baby in the basket belonged to her … and was a hated Juden.

Now Rachel turned the pages of
LIFE
magazine, devouring the pictures with her eyes. Everywhere there was a bounty. An elderly man stood at a window as an old woman basted a turkey on a woodstove laden with food. A tree stood decorated with candy and popcorn, and a brand-new shining car was driving up in the snow outside the window.
“Here they come, Mom! And Jim don’t need
the wishbone―they’ve
got
their PLYMOUTH!”

Rachel smiled and peered over the frayed material of the backseat.

On the dashboard, the word
PLYMOUTH
hung haphazardly from the glove box. So this car she sat in was American, too. It certainly did not look anything like the automobile in the magazine, but she had a strange and happy sensation pretending that she was a passenger in the car in the advertisement.

She turned another page to a drawing of a large, white refrigerator stuffed with food.
KELVINATOR―of course!
the caption read.

You’ve never seen anything like it … never expected it … never
even dreamed there could be a refrigerator like this. One of
America’s great new postwar products.

She was filled with wonder at the explanation of the machine’s powers. In Poland she had never heard of a machine that could keep food fresh and cold for days.
What a miraculous place must this
America be—with its inventions and dance bands and men and
women who actually dance together, not only in the same room,
but touching one another as well!

As she flipped through pages containing photographs of parties and the story of the Duke of Windsor, Rachel was shocked when she came to the photograph of the
Ave Maria
perched on the sandbar as refugees straggled to the beach and British gunboats glowered in the background. The caption read,
Refugee Boat in Palestine Beached
Intentionally.
Somehow the reality of the event seemed detached from the picture, and Rachel wondered if the very eyes that scanned the luscious advertisements would be able to comprehend what had transpired inside the hull of that little ship.

“It was here that I first met Moshe,” she told herself, pointing to the bow. “And here that we were unloaded from the freighter. And here is where I jumped. But they will see only wet people on the beach and a little fishing boat behind the waves.”

She turned the page, startled to read the words
Creator and Created
titled above
Editorial
.
“The same world,”
Rachel read aloud, slowly and carefully to practice her English,
“that this week
celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ is suffering from an inadequate
sense of that event’s importance.”

She made a mental note to ask the kind professor what the meaning of these words was.
“The right name for our troubles is
secularism
,
which is defined not as the denial of God but as the practical
exclusion of God from our thinking and living. God becomes a
remote or merely historical figure lacking contact with the real
problems of our day.”

Rachel repeated the last phrase and looked out over the panorama of Jerusalem spread out below Mount Scopus. “What real problems do these Americans have?” she asked out loud. She ran her index finger down the column of print.
“For example, in Europe now . .
.”
She paused and nodded. “There, you see, they write of the problem in Europe, not America.” Then she continued reading, satisfied that the bounty of such a land would exclude any problems
. “The problem is
not so much the ruined bridge or the lack of transportation, but
rather an illness of spirit that can only be expressed in the cruel
phrase ‘the death of the heart.’”

Rachel knew this illness. It was the curse of her life that she still walked among the living while her own heart had died so long ago.

She leaned closer to the page, her finger touching every word.
“The
pathos of it is that many of these hearts have died while half
professing God, seeking in vain to recapture His importance.”