The Gates of Zion (46 page)

“Angry?” Ellie said loudly. “Are you kidding? I just think we’re both a little dense not to think of it before this.” She rolled her eyes in frustration.

A tear trickled down Rachel’s cheek, but she smiled with relief. “I thought you were angry.”

“No. Just noisy. It’s the Irish in me.” She patted Rachel’s hand. “So, now that I’ve had my say, what do you suggest we do?”

“Talk to the boy?”

“Right. To Yacov.”

“To Yacov.” Rachel stood and brushed the tears away; then she left Ellie sitting on the bed and returned to the kitchen.

Yacov was licking jam from each finger with the contentment of a cat who just finished supper. “Is it time to go?” he asked, eager for the adventure.

“No,” Rachel quietly replied, filling the teakettle, although she did not especially want tea. “Little boy―,” she began tentatively.

“I am not so very little, you know. I am nine,” he said defiantly.

“
Yacov
,” she began again, “you know I have a grandfather in the Old City, where you are from also, I am told―”

“No, I did not know this.” He folded his hands on the table and looked at her with new interest.

“No, I suppose you would not know.” She put the kettle on and lit the stove, afraid to ask him.
What if he cannot help?
“Yes, this is so.

And I have been away for a very long time.”

“You were in a camp?” Yacov asked.

“Yes.”

“I thought as much. Except that your hair is very long and beautiful. I thought they shaved the heads of women in the camps.”

A rush of panic overwhelmed Rachel. She turned dizzily and started for the door.

Ellie walked in at that instant and, taking her hands, stopped her.

Rachel’s head bowed with shame.

Ellie lifted Rachel’s chin and looked squarely into her eyes. “You have to live, and you might as well start now,” she said softly. “Sit down.”

***

Yacov’s heart pounded. Had he said something wrong? something that offended the beautiful lady?

“Did I say something bad?” Yacov asked out loud.

“No, Yacov,” Ellie replied, as Rachel sat at the table across from him. “You are right that Rachel has beautiful hair. But that’s not what we’re really talking about.” She took the chair beside him. “You see, Rachel’s grandfather doesn’t know that she is alive. He just doesn’t know, you see?”

“But why?” Yacov asked in astonishment.

“Because Rachel has been gone a long time. We thought that if we could get a note to him somehow …”

“Does your grandfather have any other family?” Yacov asked.

“No.” Rachel looked up at him. “I am the last.”

“Then surely it is important that he hear this news soon.” He stuck his lower lip out. “To live alone can break one’s heart. So says Grandfather.”

“He’s right,” Ellie agreed, touching Rachel’s hand reassuringly.

“Rabbis know these things,” Yacov said proudly.

Rachel brightened. “My grandfather is also a rabbi.”

“Then surely they shall know one another!” Yacov’s voice quickened with excitement. “What is his name, please?”

“Rabbi Lebowitz,” Rachel replied.

Ellie gasped.

Yacov frowned. “Shlomo Lebowitz?” he asked cautiously.

“You know him?” Rachel reached across the table and joyfully took his hand.

Yacov sat back in utter disbelief and horror.

Rachel’s expression changed to fear. She withdrew her hand. “Is he … dead?”

“No,” Yacov answered, feeling as if he were choking. He leaned closer and studied her face, trying to remember the photograph Grandfather had shown him so long ago. He took in her softly rounded chin with the small cleft, her vivid blue eyes—so like his own. This could not be the face of his sister; it simply could not be!

“Rabbi Shlomo Lebowitz is
my
grandfather!”

“Cousins?” Ellie stammered, looking from one to the other.

Rachel’s face was pale, her blue eyes bright with emotion. She reached her hand gently toward Yacov’s face. “I had no cousins,”

she whispered.

“Nor I,” Yacov answered, believing at last the clear gaze of the sister he had never known except in the dried, cracked reflection of a yellowing photograph.

“You are Yani?” Rachel asked, caressing his face with trembling hands. “Yani Lubetkin?”

“Yani. Yes, I am Yani. Though Grandfather has not called me that for many years.” His words came in a rush. “And I had forgotten that my older sister had a name. I had forgotten your name.” He began to cry, his slender shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Rachel went to him then and wrapped her arms around him, cradling his head in her arms. “Baby Yani, don’t cry. Oh, Yani! I am your sister who was lost. I am Rachel.”

29

Hanukkah Gifts

Moshe adjusted the headband of his keffiyeh. He felt almost too warm beneath the heavy black-and-brown-striped wool robes he wore, but he knew that once night fell he would be grateful for their warmth.

The little donkey he held at the end of a lead rope nudged him gently with her nose. Moshe scratched her behind the ears and peered impatiently up the Bethlehem road for Howard, who was supposed to meet him within the hour. Moshe had left his watch back in his apartment, fearful that it might give away the fact that he was not a Bedouin nomad. Now he wished that he knew the exact time of day.

He searched the sky above the power station that bordered the railroad tracks and the road that led deep into Arab-held territory.

The afternoon was beautiful and cloudless.
Full of hope,
thought Moshe, watching the Christian pilgrims pass him on their way to worship in Bethlehem.

Usually, Moshe knew, this road was jammed with families traveling to the ancient site of Christ’s birth on this night. The crowds had dwindled to a devout few this year. The Bedouin shepherds he and Howard were to meet tonight had been right about one thing, however―no one seemed to notice him or the little donkey because both blended in with the other sojourners. Today they could travel to the shop of Moddy Elaram without an armored car and a brigade of Haganah soldiers to accompany them, but this would doubtless be their last journey for many months.

Moshe shielded his eyes against the bright afternoon sun and searched the faces for the familiar sight of Howard’s jovial smile beneath an Arab keffiyeh.
I should have waited for him by the
deserted windmill of Montefiore
. At least that was the fringe of Jewish territory. He had been warned that Arab snipers had been at work in the area, but dressed as they were, they would have more worry about being shot by the Haganah. Only a quarter of a mile away from Montefiore, down Julian Way and past the rail station, Moshe was already deep in hostile territory. He hoped that nothing had happened to delay Howard or keep him from coming. They had several miles to cover on foot before they would finally enter the protection of Elaram’s little shop.

Moshe was startled by a deep voice behind him.

“
Salaam
, Professor Sachar.”

Moshe spun around and found himself face-to-face with Howard, dressed in the garb of a poor shepherd; he even smelled as if he had been living among the sheep for a while. He was grinning from ear to ear at the expression on Moshe’s face. “Where did you come from?”

Moshe asked in fluent Arabic.

Howard answered without a trace of accent. “I walked right past you just a moment ago. You didn’t recognize me?”

“No, but I must have smelled you.” Moshe smiled.

“Who will doubt that I have been tending sheep?” He clapped Moshe on the back and took the lead rope from him, clicking his tongue in Arab fashion at the little donkey. “And if we were to look truly native, Moshe, both of us should climb onto the back of this poor little beast and goad her all the way to Bethlehem.”

“When our feet tire, perhaps,” Moshe replied, following Howard.

A small boy rode high atop his father’s shoulders, gripping his tiny hands across the lean young man’s forehead. An infant in the arms of her mother wailed loudly in protest of the dust of the road. Her cries were answered by a gentle voice crooning words that had been sung through the centuries by mothers carrying their little ones along this road:

“
But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among
the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth
unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have
been from of old, from everlasting… .”

The melody spread from one family to a few scattered pilgrims, then to yet another family until at last the words echoed from the barren hillsides that lined the ancient road.

“I think,” Howard said when the song had ended, “that Mary must have sung those words as she traveled to Bethlehem to have her baby.”

Moshe smiled, feeling the continuity of those who had traveled this very road two thousand years before. “I do not doubt it, Howard.

There is no Jewish mother who does not teach those words to her children. The prophet Micah, is it not?”

“Moshe, my dear friend,” Howard said at last. “You know all the messianic prophecies. We have spoken of them many times together.

As an archaeologist you know how the prophecies were perceived by the Jews of the first century.”

“Of course,” Moshe agreed.

“And yet you have never told me why you do not believe in the One who fulfilled those prophecies.”

Moshe squinted, gazing straight ahead through the dust that rose in a steady cloud above them. “I have never said I do not believe in Jesus.” He turned his dark eyes toward Howard, and for an instant their souls locked in understanding. “Although the rabbis do not believe that He was the Messiah, only the ignorant deny that He was a great prophet and great among the rabbis.”

“Then tell me what it is about Him that you deny,” Howard pleaded.

Moshe knew Howard earnestly desired to understand, so he attempted to explain. “I deny those who since the early centuries have denied His Jewishness. Jews have known little of Jesus and have wished to know less.”

“But why?”

Moshe looked at Howard in disbelief. “You are an intelligent man, Howard. Surely you know that the name of Jesus is to a Jew the scourge of God, the fiend in whose name children have been torn in two while their Jewish parents were roasted alive in every city of Spain! When the Crusaders burned Jewish villages, plundered Jewish homes, and hung Jewish men from the rafters while they raped their women, it was all done in the name of the Prince of Peace; was it not?”

“Surely you cannot equate these things with Him, Moshe!”

“Not I, Howard. But in the Middle Ages in the Jewish ghettos, after the thumbscrews and the rack had pulled conversions from a number of Jews, a collection of legends called the Toldos Yeshu grew up about Jesus, slandering His name and perverting His messages. A natural consequence, I think, after the unspeakable things that were done in His name to the very race from which He sprang… .” Moshe frowned and pursed his lips. “The spirit of Toldos Yeshu still exists.

For many, the name
Christian
is a label to fear.”

“The Inquisition was so long ago. A hideous crime. Terrible.”

“For my people the Inquisition has never ended.” Moshe lowered his voice. “In Europe we have not even finished counting the dead. And do not ignorant men who call themselves Christians still herd the survivors into camps and blow our boats from the water? I have heard it said that the Christ-killers deserve no less.”

“You are looking at men, not Jesus.”

“I know that, Howard. I am well acquainted with the teachings of the Gentle Master.” Moshe smiled sadly as they walked along. “I tell you these things only so you will understand.”

“It is not every Christian who denies the people of God.”

“The names of those who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazi death camps are engraved on my heart. I am not bitter against every man who calls himself by the name
Christian
―only very careful, my friend.”

Howard sighed. “I remember a quote by Martin Luther. My father used to repeat it often.” He paused. “Now, let me get it right.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and spoke the words in English, “‘Our fools, the popes, sophists, and monks, have hitherto conducted themselves toward the Jews in such a manner that he who was a good Christian would have preferred to be a Jew. And if I had been a Jew and had seen such blockheads and louts ruling and teaching Christianity, I would have become a swine rather than a Christian, because they have treated Jews like dogs rather than like human beings.’”

Stunned, Moshe asked, “He said
that
? Must have changed his mind later in life,” he added cryptically. “He said some really awful things about the Jews. Anyway, well said, Rebbe, well spoken. Do you know what the church required of a Jew to become a Christian?”

Howard shook his head.

“He had to eat pork—not serious, I suppose, but it constituted a denial of the kosher diet as prescribed in Deuteronomy. Now I ask you, can’t a man be a Christian and follow Kashrut as well?”

“I see no hindrance,” Howard answered in mock seriousness.

“Ah, well, that was the least of the requirements. A Jew had to deny the Holy Books, deny all Jewish Holy Days and festivals. What, I ask you, did they think Jesus celebrated during Passover in Jerusalem? The Gospels are full of festivals sanctioned by the Lord.

And yet even now, Christians have only a vague glimmer of what significance those times had in His life and teaching. They have made Jesus a Gentile.”

Howard’s eyes twinkled with delight at Moshe’s explanation.

Moshe realized he hadn’t talked so much on the subject in their entire eight years of association.

“But He is still not a Gentile, is He, Moshe? No matter what small and wicked men have tried to make of Him.”

“No. He is a Jew.” Moshe held his chin up. “But I believe He came to all men who would seek Him. As the messianic prophecy of Isaiah 53 says, the Messiah came to heal our sins by His wounds as the final sacrifice. He did not come for only one nation.”