prematurely gray hairs curling around my temples. But I thought of the disembodied screams that had roused me from my bed, and suddenly a few gray hairs didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
I found the master putting on his short tallis.
“What should we do, Rabbi? Should we prepare for an assault?”
“Just attend to your duties, Benyamin Ben-Akiva,” he answered. “God will show us the way in due time.”
So I grabbed the big wooden club and went to chase the spirits out of the shul.
T he Klaus Shul stood in the elbow of a disreputable side street between the Embankment Street and the cemetery. I listened for the sound of spirits rustling about, then I raised the club and pounded three times on the narrow double doors and told the spirits worshipping inside to return to their eternal rest. I dug out the big iron keys, which jingled coldly in my fingers, found the right one, and opened the shul for shakhres services.
I traded my thick wool hat for a linen yarmulke, and stood on the platform in the empty shul and chanted a Psalm that was supposed to keep the restless spirits at bay. The melody wavered in the chilly air. I never claimed to be a cantor.
Back outside, I listened to the silence and prayed that it wouldn’t be shattered by the sound of boots and breaking glass. Then I doubled back and headed east along the Schwarzengasse to the far-flung Jewish houses outside the ghetto on Geist and Würfel Streets in the Christian part of Prague.
When the limits of the ghetto were established after the Papal decree of 1555, several Jewish households fell outside the line of demarcation, including what was left of the original Old Shul, and the rebellious Bohemians were content to ignore the shrill voices demanding that every single Jew in the city be relocated within the gates. But none of the Jews were more than a minute’s dash from the main gate, just in case they had to retreat inside the ghetto to seek shelter from the gathering storm.
Maybe it was fine for the Jews of Prague, but I wasn’t used to being cooped up like this, behind a wall.
The watchmen were still changing shifts. The night men looked beaten and tired, but their tightly drawn faces betrayed their agitation. And yet somehow I was still hoping to finish up early and go see Reyzl before she got too busy helping her family prepare for Pesach, which fell on Shabbes eve this year, when all work had to stop a half-hour before sunset.
Women carrying heavy tubs for spring cleaning sloshed soapy water on the steps of their homes and onto the newly laid cobblestones. I had to dodge a butcher’s apprentice holding a big basket of meat on his head and step around the masons chiseling away at the paving stones. Then I nodded to another shammes, who was out collecting “wheat money” so the poor visitors would have matzoh tonight. Two Jews were handing sacks of flour to a couple of Christians to store the forbidden khumets for the next eight days.
The big eastern gate rose up in front of me. Penned-in with no place to go, the Jews had built one house on top of another along the narrow streets of the Jewish Town. After a few years away from city life, I’d gotten used to the grassy paths and open pastures outside Slonim, which calmed my spirit and helped me talk to God. How could a man talk to God on a street like this? I mean, besides a cry for help.
“Stop right there!”
The gatekeeper laid a hand on my chest.
“Where’s your Jew badge?”
“My what?”
“Listen, stranger, you’ve got to wear the Jew badge whenever you leave the ghetto. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
I hurried back to the house with the stone Lion of Judah over the doorway and persuaded one of the Christian servant girls to take a moment out of her busy morning to sew a bright yellow ring on my cloak.
We don’t have such things in Slonim.
I rushed back to the gatekeeper, who let me through this time, now that I was wearing the gelber flek , the yellow stain required
I found the master putting on his short tallis.
“What should we do, Rabbi? Should we prepare for an assault?”
“Just attend to your duties, Benyamin Ben-Akiva,” he answered. “God will show us the way in due time.”
So I grabbed the big wooden club and went to chase the spirits out of the shul.
T he Klaus Shul stood in the elbow of a disreputable side street between the Embankment Street and the cemetery. I listened for the sound of spirits rustling about, then I raised the club and pounded three times on the narrow double doors and told the spirits worshipping inside to return to their eternal rest. I dug out the big iron keys, which jingled coldly in my fingers, found the right one, and opened the shul for shakhres services.
I traded my thick wool hat for a linen yarmulke, and stood on the platform in the empty shul and chanted a Psalm that was supposed to keep the restless spirits at bay. The melody wavered in the chilly air. I never claimed to be a cantor.
Back outside, I listened to the silence and prayed that it wouldn’t be shattered by the sound of boots and breaking glass. Then I doubled back and headed east along the Schwarzengasse to the far-flung Jewish houses outside the ghetto on Geist and Würfel Streets in the Christian part of Prague.
When the limits of the ghetto were established after the Papal decree of 1555, several Jewish households fell outside the line of demarcation, including what was left of the original Old Shul, and the rebellious Bohemians were content to ignore the shrill voices demanding that every single Jew in the city be relocated within the gates. But none of the Jews were more than a minute’s dash from the main gate, just in case they had to retreat inside the ghetto to seek shelter from the gathering storm.
Maybe it was fine for the Jews of Prague, but I wasn’t used to being cooped up like this, behind a wall.
The watchmen were still changing shifts. The night men looked beaten and tired, but their tightly drawn faces betrayed their agitation. And yet somehow I was still hoping to finish up early and go see Reyzl before she got too busy helping her family prepare for Pesach, which fell on Shabbes eve this year, when all work had to stop a half-hour before sunset.
Women carrying heavy tubs for spring cleaning sloshed soapy water on the steps of their homes and onto the newly laid cobblestones. I had to dodge a butcher’s apprentice holding a big basket of meat on his head and step around the masons chiseling away at the paving stones. Then I nodded to another shammes, who was out collecting “wheat money” so the poor visitors would have matzoh tonight. Two Jews were handing sacks of flour to a couple of Christians to store the forbidden khumets for the next eight days.
The big eastern gate rose up in front of me. Penned-in with no place to go, the Jews had built one house on top of another along the narrow streets of the Jewish Town. After a few years away from city life, I’d gotten used to the grassy paths and open pastures outside Slonim, which calmed my spirit and helped me talk to God. How could a man talk to God on a street like this? I mean, besides a cry for help.
“Stop right there!”
The gatekeeper laid a hand on my chest.
“Where’s your Jew badge?”
“My what?”
“Listen, stranger, you’ve got to wear the Jew badge whenever you leave the ghetto. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
I hurried back to the house with the stone Lion of Judah over the doorway and persuaded one of the Christian servant girls to take a moment out of her busy morning to sew a bright yellow ring on my cloak.
We don’t have such things in Slonim.
I rushed back to the gatekeeper, who let me through this time, now that I was wearing the gelber flek , the yellow stain required
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