‘The House That Was Leper, Heretic, King’

‘Without his evil inclination, a person would not build a house, marry, or have children’ (Bereshit Rabbah 9:7).

“In my beginning when I was created from stone and wood I believed I would stand forever.

“My facade glowed and my scarcely-seasoned timbers rippled, restless, unreposed, yearning for the scented forest from which they’d been most artfully hewn.

“How long did my crystal-eyed windows dance dust-motes on rays of the glancing sun? How often did my broad-backed, gardened roof shelter those beneath in winter or offer  relief to the sleepless on airless August nights?

“I was magnificent! The holy city of Tiberias was my fiefdom and I was emperor-king.

“But on a day since embedded in my foundations, my owner went away.

“’Dear house’, he whispered, brushing the amulet on my doorpost with a graceful finger before putting it to his lips, ‘without you and my beloved wife, who’s borne me four fine sons, I would have shamed myself, achieved nought. Now we must leave. But I promise to provide a new occupant worthy of your noble frame’.

“With that, he blessed me, intoned a prayer for his family’s safety on their journey to I know not where, then left without a further word.

“But he had lied. No visitor called. I’d been abandoned; was forsaken; felt betrayed.

“Days, weeks, months, until what seemed like forty  years vanished in a breath. I could not comprehend how an edifice like me, the nearest neighbour of the tomb of the great sage and physician Rabbi  Moses Ben Maimon  could be neglected for so long.

“I had become invisible. The glass in my windows clouded and crazed as the frames warped and buckled with age. The columns of my portico  cracked and sagged; my vast main door lost its varnish, became deformed, swinging idle in the path of any  aimless breeze.

“Much worse was how the walls of my once grand reception rooms  grew deaf, then leprous with  sinister hollow streaks of green and red. The very chambers that had hosted the devout at prayer, solemn study sessions and joyous banquets were now exposed to all that was dishonoured and disgraced.

“I had become untouchable; exiled, not only from grand society, but from the very piety I once had held so dear.

“What great sin was mine? To have revelled in my departed majesty? If  so, I swiftly learned humility.  Paradise had become wilderness and a different, degraded life took charge.

“Next I was reclaimed by nature and feral animals made me their home. A donkey grazed on weeds in the once carefully tended courtyard while a family of hyraxes that first used my rock garden as a burrow, wandered in through my broken basement window for comfort against the rain.

“One sad day I was spotted by a rabid she-wolf in her final throes. Everything nearby froze in fear  as the bitch juddered through my main entrance, her foaming jaws agape, desperate for  relief.

“But she could cause no harm; collapsed exhausted in the centre of my  ante-room, convulsed, then died.

“Still, she was my near undoing. Her remains lay rotting for so long that their stench attracted wicked men  whose antics drove me almost manic with despair.

“Yes.  Even I, chief guardian mansion of the Rambam’s final resting place, became a vagrants’ den. I was now a worthless, wretched crack house for the depraved and dispossessed.

“My internal torment continued unabated until I begged Heaven  for the reason for my woes.

“Was my arrogance the sin behind my ruin? Had I caused the Rambam’s feet – and mine – to be dangled in vile muck? Was old pride why  my walls were violated and now half-submerged in the lewd language of the semi-literate and  profane?

“Thus I  hungered for insensibility; begged to return to the dust and ashes from which I’d come. Could I will myself to  shrivel to oblivion? Could I simply vanish, truly invisible, into the dense, black void?

“But I was granted no relief. Rather, during the coldest, deepest part of one night before another dreary dawn my walls heard a faint, familiar  voice.

“’Adon Bayit – Mr House’, it said. ‘You must keep faith. Do not disappoint Me. Hold fast and you will be renewed; be bright and bold as in ancient days’.

“And so it came to pass. My evil years had ended as new owners visited and effected the many cures that have nursed me back to health.

“If I could speak a human tongue they would know that I have welcomed their thousand kindnesses even as my freshly clad facade is furbished by the warmth and honeyed light of each new day.

“Once more I am a fitting eyrie for the ‘Great Eagle’ of Torah. Again I am a place for earnest study and sincerest prayer.

“But now I recognise that I can’t exist forever. Like the wood and stone from which I first appeared, I must age and wither, perhaps to be reshaped for use in different guise.

“So with Heaven’s grace I would like to conclude with thanks for this life regained:

“’Thank you, eternal King. You have mercifully restored my soul within me, allowing me to be a place of deepest study and devout prayer. Your faithfulness is great and only You will last forever’. Let me say ‘Amen’”.

---------------

The Maimonides Heritage Centre -  Mercaz Moreshet HaRambam - was founded in the Autumn of 2003 by American Rabbi Yamin Levy and a group of colleagues in Tiberias – one of the four holy cities of Israel. The full story may be read at: http://www.mhcny.org/?page=ourstory

--------------------

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Natalie Wood
(© Natalie Irene Wood –19 May 2014)

‘Like Putting Band Aid on a Weeping Wound’

It wasn’t all peaches for

Ms Geldof. She preferred

Sprouts. Or juice.

Once a day.

 

So she’s been returned from

Whence she came to the

Half-crazed mum who tried

To hurtle her to freedom

Through the window

Of a moving car.

Now they’re both in it.

Together.

‘The  wittiest,  prettiest,

Smartest – most bonkers

Of us all’, said her dad, Bob,

Who fed the world, but

Never checked on her.

Now Tom, a nice Jewish boy

Who married her in church,

Is left bereft, holding two

Sweetly misnamed babes,

Whose love can never

Staunch the angry flow

Of baffled grief her

Parting’s left behind.   

But never mind.

They’ll know it’s

Christmas in the

Geldof  House when

There’s no peaches

With the pud.

 

Life’s terrible cruel.

And so is Peter Pan.

 

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Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood –10 April 2014)

 

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‘It Was a Gas, Gas, Gas!’

Hey!

Is that Jumpin’ Jack Flash?

I’ve run out of cash.

You’ve always been

So big down under.

 

And that’s where you were

When I needed you most.

Down under.

But it’s too late now.

Paint it black, Jack.

As tears go by, Jack.

Never much good at being

Mother’s little helper.

 

 You promised me

I’d not fade away.

Not true tho’,

Was it, Jack?

 

Never mind, eh?

You can’t always Get what you want.

 

Hey, Jack.

Can you hear me?

I’ll go check if there’s sympathy

For the devil where

I now reside.

It was a gas while it lasted,

Jackie boy – Jack -

Help me,

God help me ….

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Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood –18 March 2014)

‘What Made Maggie Fly?’

There had been the gorgeous gown, splendid church service and a sumptuous banquet with dancing till dawn. No wonder Maggie saw stars.

“Thank you,  Mummy. Thank you, Daddy”, she said. “Colin and I have had a wonderful day”.

“Shush!”, said Dad, putting his finger to her lips. “We wanted to show how much we love you”.

“Yes”, said Mum. “We’ve only ever wished the best for you. Enjoy your new life. Now promise not to think about us – not even once – until you and Colin return”.

So they flew to a Caribbean island – a magical land overflowing with gold-tipped sands, shimmering seas and waving palms.

On their first night – and three nights after – Colin put his finger on Maggie’s lips – just like Dad.

But not quite. More like his entire hand. No wonder Maggie saw  different stars: garish, purple-yellow bruising lights whose spikes dug deep inside her, ripping her apart in dreadful, secret   places until a soothing blanket  of thick black nothingness took the pain away.

-------------

Later, as Detective Inspector Edwin Daniel arrived at the St Mark’s Beachfront Plaza Hotel to investigate how and why a bride had plunged eight storeys and ninety feet to her death, Maggie’s parents opened an email.

“Dear Mummy and Daddy” they read, “I’m coming home. But not the way you’d want. I’ve got to escape Colin. He’s changed. He keeps hurting me. He wasn’t like this when we were courting.

“It’s like he wore a mask that he ripped off the moment we closed the door of our hotel bedroom.

“He lunged at me, pressed his hand hard on my mouth and whispered, ‘You’re mine now, Maggie. I can do whatever I like with you’.

“Mummy – Daddy - I can’t live like this, but please know that you’ve been the best parents a daughter could have.

“I’ll love you always.

“Maggie xxx”

-------------

After the shaming inquest, trial and demeaning publicity, Maggie’s Mum said, “It’s funny how life turns on a hair”.

“What?”, said Dad.

“The night before we got married my own mother shared a confidence. She said my Grandma Olive had told her it had been almost a miracle that she was born”.

“How’s that?”

“Olive had no trouble conceiving. It was because she had to – umm - take the initiative. My grandfather was  diffident about intimate relations and Mum was the result of their one full act of love”.

“But I recall your grandparents as utterly devoted. People to be emulated”, said Dad.

“Yes”, you’re right”, said Mum, struggling to remember Olive’s words, third-hand:

“Grandpa Roland  was somehow ‘asexual’. He loved and admired my grandmother more than he could say. So he put her on a pedestal and shrank from defloration. For him, the act was like a desecration. He wasn’t bothered about starting a family. Although he was a loving, first-class father, he wanted to keep Olive for himself”.

“So”, said Maggie’s Dad, now anxious to end the conversation. “Roland maintained Olive  in mint condition. Just how he liked her. I don’t know about you, but as it’s almost midnight, I think it’s time for bed”.

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Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood –15 March 2014)

‘The Charge of the Hate Brigade’

‘All things move, not in progress, but in a ceaseless round’ (William Hazlitt)

Aunt Khava had sliced lemon, sliver-thin.

“This is how we served it in the old country” she said, lighting the samovar  for our tea. “I prefer life without oranges”. 

This was silly. Khava habitually pares  all her food super-fine. This is because she’s known only privation, not glut; so hates waste and loves oranges!

“Is this about the synagogue attacked at Simferopol, Aunty”?

“Yes! Also ancient and more recent outrages in places all over the  Ukraine and Crimea you’ve never heard of. You must live through events to truly understand them”.

Her disquiet was infectious and I began crumbling a biscuit into tiny shards as she spoke.

“Do you feel like telling me more”?

Khava smiled faintly. “Don’t fret about me. I learned to cope with hard facts long before I came here to Israel – many years before you were born. But I’ll never stop worrying about things there. Don’t forget, for me it’s where the world began.

“Still” she went on,  “no matter what other people think, I don’t compare Putin with Hitler or Stalin. He’s his own man”.

“What”?

“We may see historic parallels in his actions but we should look at curves – not lines.  What we see is simply  the wheel of history continuing to spin”.

I nodded in respectful silence. Here I’d found my aunt’s hidden depths. 

“As a child in Crimea, I caught adult whispers about our area becoming another Soviet homeland for Jews, like the one in Birobidzhan. But Stalin changed all that. Allowing the birth of a socialist State of Israel was good. It would strengthen Soviet influence in the Middle East and speed the end of British imperialism to boot. But the Jews at home? Feh! Better a dead Zhid than one disloyal to Mother Russia. So, he had our intelligentsia scythed,  one by one”.

Then I spoke.

“But why did so many of our cousins stay on after Communism collapsed, scorning the chance to flee to Israel and join us here in Kfar  Zuskin”?

“You’re still young”, said Khava. “Perhaps too youthful to appreciate the comfort  that familiarity affords. They made – invented – reasons -  not  excuses. But what could they justify? Most had long denied, if not simply forgotten their Jewish roots. They didn’t want to learn from history; admit that the Jewish story in the Ukraine is the universal one”. 

“Antisemitism”? 

“That, of course. But like everywhere else, the personal terrors are pooled with those of people on the outside. I’ve already said that it’s too easy to compare Putin and Hitler; to match everything that happens  in 21st century Ukraine to Nazi activity in Europe during the 1930s”.

“From what I’ve read” I said, interrupting her flow, “the entire region’s history is streaked with Jewish blood”.

“Ha! Most poetic! But while the naked facts bear no decoration I’ll indulge in one simile.  Let’s say that while Arik Sharon’s anti-terrorist security fence on our West Bank is built with concrete and razor-wire, Jews were welcomed to the Ukraine by Catherine the Great as a human wall against the neighbouring Turks. But when we became too successful and were accused by surrounding non-Jews of all sorts of trickery, Empress Catherine fenced us in, behind the notorious Pale of Settlement.

“Life occasionally became better before it got much worse. But nothing that the Nazis or Stalin did – or anything that Putin may imagine he can do now – will be different from what’s always happened”.

“Aunty, I’m not sure I understand”.

“All right. Let’s examine, by example, the pogroms during the Russian Revolution, when at least 100,000 Ukrainian Jews were massacred between 1918 and 1921 on an industrial scale. In one incident,  800 Jews were decapitated at a sitting – a fine example to set the Nazis! And as an aside, who do you think first invented the ‘big lie’? Neither  Goebbels nor Hitler. They pinched the idea from Lenin”.

Then Khava lowered her voice as if to share a secret.

“But all this is a prelude to a rarely told family story that I hope you’ll pass on after I’ve gone. Please wait until then.

“Even as the British soldiers involved in the  ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ were entering their ‘valley of death’ at Balaclava, Jewish boys in Crimea as young as ten had tumbled headlong into a graveyard of their own.

“Your grandmother had two great-uncles, Fishel and Zamel.  Fishel died before he would have been barmitzvah  but Zamel lived until his thirties, long enough to produce Leya and Shaya, so being your great-great-great uncle”.

“What happened”?

“Czar Nicholas 1  decided on enforced Jewish army conscription, which involved young boys known as kantonists entering the elementary schools established for soldiers’ children and orphans. The kids were given basic military training and schooling until they were aged 18. This was followed by twenty-five years’ regular army service.

“But many Jewish boys like Fishel died from the extreme conditions and drastic punishments they received as a way of forcing them to baptise. The Czar’s insane, brutal idea was that the Jews would become Christian on demand once torn from their natural families. Fishel died aged 12 after endless beatings and bizarre torture”.

“And Zamel”?

“As the elder, he was tougher and somehow escaped after enduring the notorious steam torture. But the experience so weakened his constitution that he coughed himself to death aged 35”.

Finally,  I understood. It was the fruit of orange scented revolution my aunt so deplored.

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Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood – 09 March 2014)

 

 

‘”My Kingdom for a Horse!”’

Later – much later – Fiona realised she’d won.

“At first,” she told Phil when she felt like talking, “the pressure in my chest became so intense, I couldn’t think about anything else or even remember what we’d done during the afternoon”.

“You’re looking a bit better”, he said, coaxing her to sip some water from the carafe left by the nurse. “But I still don’t fully understand what happened.

“I hadn’t realised you weren’t in bed until I went to use the bathroom about 2.00 a.m., and saw the light from the office desk lamp glowing through the air vent over our door. I thought that you were meeting another crazy deadline and was about to tell you to get some sleep. But you were slumped in your chair, barely conscious and did not respond when I spoke”.

“I was beyond words. People are supposed to relive their past during their final moments. But  I was left desperately trying to recall where we’d been only hours before. I told myself if I could achieve just that, I’d keep myself alive”.

“Thank God you are here. But it’s only because I called the Emergency Services!”

“Anyway as you came in, although I couldn’t speak, suddenly I remembered that we’d gone out for a stroll and that as we’d turned the corner at the top of the street, our Bedouin neighbours slowed their battered white SUV, allowing us to pass”.

“I remember that, too, and how you quipped about what they may advertise on the spare wheel cover!”

“Ha! I’d better not repeat my joke here! Then a little further up the street, we saw some kids playing on the whimsical sculpture that portrays  an armed Jewish underground man with a horse  defending a stockade during the War of Independence”.

“Yeah, that surprised me”, said Phil. “I didn’t know it was a play area”. 

“I’m sure it’s not. I’ve never seen anyone playing on it before. I often wonder about that sculpture – especially where it’s placed almost outside the Bedouin encampment. Its pitch seems to be a deliberate provocation. But that aside, the horse is quite life-like and I began to fantasise about the kids trying to ride it away once they’d mounted it. Then we walked on, arms linked, heads bowed against the piercing wind. The cold made my eyes water and I couldn’t see much in the lowering, harsh sunlight. So we stopped trying to chat.

“Then as we turned again to walk though the public gardens near the observation point over the city  you released your arm from mine, walked briskly ahead, crossed the road, leaving me to run between two vehicles that nearly pincered me as they came at speed from polar opposite directions”.

“’Sometimes’, you said, as I raced to catch up with you, ‘I wonder if you’re any older than those children we’ve just seen. I’ve never quite grasped how you’ve lived until now – playing cat-and-mouse every time you cross a road’.

“Then as we walked the last few yards home, basking in the lingering embers of the dying sun, the wind dropped and for a moment it felt unseasonably warm. That’s all, really. I feel I’ve won a major personal battle”.

“With a little bit of help from your best mate”?

“And that horse – of course!”

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Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood – 13 February 2014)

 

‘Hag Sameach!’

“I wonder,” mused Annie as she and Bernie climbed into bed, “if Moses ever did book signings”.

“You never know,” said Bernie, stretching for a cuddle.  “Perhaps he took P.R. advice and did them in quintuplicate. But I’d be careful whom you ask. You don’t want our rabbi accusing you of  frivolous, womanish mockery. Next - perish the thought - you’ll be asking for the great man’s website address. Nu? What’s brought this on?”

“It’s because we’ll be jointly and severally aged 130 during the next few months, making us ten years older  than him and I’m beginning to take my ‘sagacity-in-infirmity’ image most seriously”.

“So you think that a big, fat zero on your curriculum vitae date-of-birth line  will make you look smarter than you are?”

“No. It’s not that. It’s more about needing respect. You must remember from when you were a kid how everyone a few years past their twenties appeared superior, infinitely knowledgeable and that you hung on their every word – even when you hated them. They all seemed terrifyingly important. But none of the stardust has been sprinkled on me.

“Now children only admire their peers. Your elders are no longer your ‘betters’, just sad, uncool  ‘wrinklies'; people available to taunt. So here I am – gnarled of finger, creped of skin, dim of eye  - and deaf as a post. I look like an old hag”.

“Not to mention ‘daft of demeanour’! You’re talking doggerelised drivel. I love you as you are, silly girl. Remember what your grandma always said: ‘I’m as old as I feel - and a  bit older than my teeth. It’s not my fault I can no longer find them in the dark!’”

“Grandma Dee-Dee had a great sense of humour – and took it with her to the grave”.

“No she didn’t! She passed it on to you. It’s a wonderful legacy – and don’t forget it.

“By the way: do you realise it’s past midnight and you’re now officially a year older?”

“Yeah. You’re right. I’ve never known 60 years pass so quickly! The big fun starts now. So give me a kiss, you ageing reprobate - and we’ll both be in for a great ‘hag sameach’!”

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Author’s note:

‘’Hag (sometimes transliterated as Chag) Sameach’ is the Hebrew greeting for ‘happy festival’. When Israelis wish a person ‘happy birthday’, they say ‘yom holedet sameach’.

Natalie Wood

(Copyright, Natalie Irene Wood – 23 January 2014)