Being Jewish

If the following piece sounds familiar, it may be, as I first published a version nine years ago. The past few days have been fraught with domestic bric-a-brac (insurance claims, tax forms, scams, medical billing systems, that kind of stuff) which has crowded out many new thoughts. Therefore, this old one. I haven't changed much of it.

"I am a Jew," were the last words uttered by Daniel Pearl as his executioner beheaded him. "I am a Jew." The composure needed to say those words at that instant elevated the man and his courage into that eternal realm where myth lives, and where the hideousness of his slaughter is not what we remember, but his words, "I am a Jew.", his last four words that will go on speaking to us forever. Would I have had the courage to do the same? Would I have it now? What would it feel like to have that blade sawing through your throat knowing you had a nanosecond to say something that mattered? A recent daydream bears witness. I was musing about what I'd die for (not from), and of course my wife and children pretty much pushed out everything else. Would I take a bullet for a local congressman? Hell, no, mostly hell no's when it comes to whatever I would take a bullet for period. Why would I? Then something bored its way through that mass of "Why would I?", and I suddenly found myself asking myself if I'd change my religion to keep from dying. Check this out: I'm tied to a pole against a stone wall facing a firing squad. The man in charge gives me a choice. He's sincere. He really wants me to do the right thing. He doesn't want to kill me. Renounce Judaism. That's all I had to do. He's almost begging me. Convert to mine. And I look at him then at the squad of men only a few yards away, seven rifles pointed at my heart, and I say, "Fire." I surprised myself. I knew it was true.

Wherever I went through this old world I never hid the fact that I was Jewish even though my travels took me to places where Jews were scarce or not at all. I felt like I was an emissary of some sort. "You think you know Jews? Well, amigo, check this one out." I also felt like I'd better get the info out that I was Jewish before somebody made a crack thinking there were no Jews in the vicinity. At the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina, my first five minutes into the squad bay I'd be sharing with seventy-five other boots my Drill Instructor called my name out from a clipboard followed by "Get over here!" where he wrapped his fist in my t-shirt and stuck his face smack into mine and said, "You're a Jew. I've never had a Jew in my platoon before. I'll be watchin' you." I can't remember exactly how I felt but it must have been all kinds of terror. "Sir, yes, Sir!" Many weeks later this same DI saved my ass. I had appeared before his hatch with some request only to find another DI with him there from a neighboring platoon who did indeed begin to Jew bait me. Little things. Snipes. But I knew what it was. Finally, he asked me if I knew what the fastest thing in Germany was in World War II? I knew what it was. I'd heard the joke in high school. "I asked you a question, private," said the DI demanding an answer. I knew we had just crossed into a danger zone, but I saw my own DI place a hand on his buddy's arm to stop him. I never had to answer the question. Just in case you're aching to know, "A Jew on a bicycle." Germany. World War II. Get it?

I haven't been to a synagogue in the United States probably in decades, but nearly everywhere I've ever been in this world, if there is a synagogue I find myself  in it. I do not fall down on my knees or scream the holy holy, but I want to see in it and sit in it, hold the prayer book and wonder that one side of the page is in Hebrew, with which I am familiar, but that the other side is in some foreign language. Shalom is the word that binds the two: peace. I learned it had an "Open, Sesame" effect, but you'd have to say it first.

In the Spring of 1973 some miscue found my then wife and I abandoned in Prague. This was years before Prague became the go-to city for hip, young travelers. What it was when we arrived was dismal, gray, and dreary. Even the drizzle seemed dirty. We knew no one but had the name of the hotel written on a scrap of paper. Russian troops were stationed every where we looked, so we made our way to the hotel by showing the scrap of paper to one soldier after another, connecting the dots, so to speak, until we arrived at a tattered hotel that looked like the dilapidated exterior of an eastern European spy set. Its interior reflected its exterior: chipped paint and poorly lit, not exactly a tired traveler's dream. But we had a room! We also had a rude desk clerk who shook his head no English. But we did have a room and climbed upstairs to reach it. The room: Don't think Martha Stewart; don't even think Bates Motel. Think Svetlana Stalin. Decor by. OK. Now what?

I spread a map of the city out on the bed, and there, in the midst of the old city, not far away from where we sat, was a cluster of buildings colored gold, right down the street, a cluster of gold buildings!. Let's go. It was Friday evening nearing sundown, a little chilly, but we were in the streets over which millions of feet for thousands of years had gone before us, and the adventure was on. Kafka walked here. I imagined the Kaballah being argued by a gaggle of men with ear locks on these narrow stone streets. Two Jews. Three opinions. Right? We passed the cathedral in the main square from which berserk parishioners during long ago Easters, goaded by homicidal priests, went from church to storm through the Jewish quarter doing as much damage as they could to people like me. Why didn't I just turn around? Why was I drawn further into this part of the city? If I had to escape where would I go? But that was silly. Why would I have to escape? It was 1973.

We passed a nondescript building where shabbiness had settled like a threadbare shawl around an old lady's sagging shoulders. The guide notes said it was a 13th century synagogue. A man stood out front, well dressed in top coat and hat. "Shalom," I said, and he said, "Shalom" right back. His next sentence asked in English, "Are you an American?" Whoa! Well, it turned out  the reason he knew English so well was because he had two sons who worked for American Airlines in the States. Friday evening services were about to begin. Shabbos. Sabbath. Would I like to join them? It was an Orthodox shul, but they were only able to heat the women's section, so that's where the services were held. Men crowded around the bema, a raised kind of podium in the middle of the room which held the Torah, the holy book. The few women in attendance worshiped on the rim. When it came to that place in the service where the Torah was read I was actually called to make an aliya, a going up. I was being asked to read the Torah portion for that evening. How ironic I thought! Me who used to cut Hebrew school to play the pinball machines in Knocko's pool hall. Barochu adonai homvorach...I could do this thing, and when the service was over, after the Sabbath candles were lit, after the spice box was passed around and the wine sipped, after I had read the words of five thousand years I felt so honored I wanted to give something back larger than what had been given me, but I've never been able to figure out what that could have been.

I didn't want that evening in Prague to end, and so a lot of chatting, questions, declaratives, one or two imperatives, and a lot of translating went on for awhile in the women's section. At some point the man who originally invited us in brought over a young man, 21,22, who spoke sixteen or seventeen languages and had worked as a government guide until his sister escaped to Israel, and he was made to work as a baggage handler in the airport. A member of the Jewish underground, he volunteered to give us a tour of the city completely off the government's books. Everywhere we went people discussed politics at a variety of decibel levels, none a whisper. It reminded me of my uncles back in Baltimore after the seder in the living room hollering at each other about Adelai  Stevenson's abilities even though they all basically agreed he had them. Eisenhower? Don't talk to me about Eisenhower. Five stars. Big deal.

The last night we were in Prague we invited our guide for dinner at the hotel with two young Spanish women we'd befriended who were touring from Franco's Spain. Our guide spoke Spanish, Italian, English and other languages which sounded like three forks caught in a garbage disposal. The Spaniards spoke Italian and Spanish. I spoke English and really stupid Italian. My wife's was much better. A whole lot of translating going on there as well. The topic was freedom. Can you imagine? Freedom. Here, in Eastern Europe, with a communist Jew under an authoritarian government, two conservative catholic women from Franco's Spain who did not fret over their own authoritarian regime ("Everyone has health care"), and two Americans who had come of political age in the sixties, still inspired by the Weavers but having missed Woodstock. The food made Spam look good, but the conversation was a three ring circus of opinions and counter opinions, thought clusters countered by thought clusters, epiphanies, moments of disbelief or wonder. All of us were enjoying life at that moment. Even our Czech guide seemed happy. Me? I was mesmerized. If I had not said, "Shalom", an experience more astonishing than any dream I could have conjured would never have been.

Shalom.