On the following day Rabbi Aaron walked decisively to the Jewish Agency Office in Istanbul. He talked in Yiddish to the chief clerk there. The man was used to see many strange Jews- asking variuos and curious questions, and having thousand kinds of problems. He showed the Rabbi what was an Immigration Certification Form. People said that it had been very difficult to get it signed by the British Mandate Authority of Palestine.
The conutry’s title “Palestine” was heading only the English version of that Certificate. The Hebrew version, that was typed on the other side of the Certification page, was headed: Certification of Immigration to Palestine (Land of Israel). The simple and innocent “common man” would ask: why was that so?
“The stupid-but-cunning British has understood,” explained the shrewd clerk to Rabbi Aaron, “that the Arabs refuse to read the name ‘Land of Israel’ anywhere; of course on an official Form. They use to claim that the whole country is being robbed from them by the Jews. But the Jews refuse, of course, to admit in that; they demand a title ‘land of Israel’ on any Madatory Form. As you know, the Muslems are hundreds of millions all around the world. The British surrendered to their claim. So the name ‘Land of Israel’ was given in brackets, and only in the Hebrew version. The name ‘Palestine’ remained out of brackets, in any British Form, as the official name of this smallest but holiest country in the world.”
First Rabbi Aaron saw the English version of the Immigration Certificate Form. (Of course, afterward he also read the Hebrew translation, that was on the Form’s reverse side, which he completely understood). The Form had been prepared by the Jewish Agency, for anyone applying immigration, and was addressed to the British Mandate Ruler, as follows :
“To: Government of Palestine (Erets [land of] Israel)
Immigration certificate,
Jerusalem , date …..
GENTLEMEN,
I am directed by the High Commissioner for Palestine to refer to your Application of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .and to inform you, that the person full particulars he/she should apply for a visa to Palestine not later than the 31 March at the office of the British consul, Istanbul, taking with them in addition to this certificate – his/her passport and any document proving his/her identity and suitabiliity as an immigrant for Palestine.”
“This certificate must be retained by the immigrant named below- until arrival of Palestine, where it must be produced and surrendered to Palestine Immigration Authority at the port of arrival. . .
This certificate remains valid only untuil ….. after which date the holder will not be admitted to Palestine.
(signed)The executive of the Jewish Agency Director,
Dept. of Immigration
Particulars of approved Immigrant . .
Name/ age / sex/ occupation/ address. . . . . . .”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Rabbi wanted to get an approval for an immediate immigration.
“No,” said the clerk, “You should apply now in a separate Form, then wait a few months – till the British authority will approve your details, and send a Form like you’ve seen – with all the requird stamples and signatures - to the British Consul here in Istanbul, with whom we stay in tight touch.”
“So, please tell me – till. . .till when have I to wait?” asked nerved Rabbi Aaron, “I have waited all my life for that. Had you known in what suffering…”
“You have to wait here, in Istanbul, for the Certificate’s approval,” said the clerk, “- or return when I’ll call you. There is a big waiting-line of Jews for these certificates. I wonder, that you don’t know that. The Arabs in Palestine press the British to stop Jewish immigration at all.”
“Is there a possibility to. . .render some amount – under the table, and buy such a negligent kind of paper?” asked the Rabbi and winked to the clerk.
“People much richer than you - have tried and failed. But… who knows? You can try. Not by me, sir!”
“I don’t believe, that there is no way to enter the border of the holy land- now,” told him the Rabbi, “Where can I find some smugglers?”
“Oh, I am an official delegate here, Rabbi Aaron. I am avoided to show you what you ask. But I can tell you, that if you arrive in Beiruth, in Lebanon- you’ll easily find them.”
“The problem is, “ said the Rabbi, and scratched his forehead, “that I am with a wife and an invalid son.”
“Oh! So- in no way,” said the clerk, “in no way you can get anywhere with them - without a proper Certificate. D’you want to risk their lives?”
“You advice me - to forget the idea of reaching the holy land immediately?”
The clerk nodded, and handed him the Application Forms.
“So, I will fill this sheets here,” said Rabbi Aaron, “and then wait for your letter or telegram. I’ll inform you my exact address in America, as soon as I get there. I have arrived here from Russia.”
“Oh, a rare immigrant,” said the surprised clerk.
“Tomorrow I am going to take the ship with my family,” said the Rabbi, “people say that America is the best of all possible States in the whole world. But you – do your best to let me have the signed certificates to the Land of Israel. Though my family will kill me for my strange aspirations.”
“It would not be a fair play of you,” reckoned the clerk, “to apply for a Certificate for your family, then get it but avoid to use it. An un-realized application form will cause another Jew to wait: There is a British Quota of Certificates, according to the number of applications, not of actual entries of immigrants.”
“Well, maybe I’ll come first as a tourist.”
“If you think seriously about immigration - why as a tourist?”
“I am experienced in pretending, sir. I can arrive for a month in the holy land - and disappear, as swallowed by Mother Earth.”
“Don’t involve me in all that,” said the poor clerk. They shook hands for departing.
“I’m sorry,” said the Zionist Agency official, that Rabbi named ‘clerk’, “But remember Zion.
Don’t forget us wherever you’ll live.”
Rabbi Aaron and his family were said to embark the ship “Viola”, sailing to Lisbon. From there – they will sail to the United States. He returned to his sister’s hotel with sore face.
Natalya was worried from his strange appearance. She saw him scratching his beard by his fingers and pass a queer look on his lips, like in his bad time. The boy broke his heart, while he said:
“Don’t worry, papa. God has saved you from a worse situation. We will sail to America, nothing is wrong with that country. On the contrary. Blooma told me you’ll buy a private car there.”
“And there are much more Jews in Anerica,” added Gittel, “than in Russia and Palestine together. Even in Poland there are not as much Jews as in United States..”
“Well, I have tried my best,” Rabbi Aaron gasped, trying to calm himself, “and God’s wish is, that I will go with you, Gittel. I could not have known His wish before.”
“Tomorrow we’ll begin our longest voyage by sea,” told him Natalya, “I am sure that we’ll be welcomed in America. You should not be so sad, my dear Rabbi. Your nerves were so strong in in the past. Somebody has refused your request, so what? You did not have to think about it to be so urgent…I mean…”
Still staying in the hotel in Istanbul, Rabbi Aaron had a plenty of time to hear his sister’s hisrory since she had successfully passed the Russin-Polish border. She went with her sweetheart to America, married there, and born two children, a son and a daughter. Her husband became a textile trader, like he was in Poland. She had bnecome to know Mennes within the world war, while his parents came to Minsk with him for a short time. After the break of the revolution they returned to the city Lodzh, and the teenage couple corresponded with ea
ch other. Mennes was born in Poland. He learned the textile trade, and always had a vision of becoming a textile wholesaler in America. He had a sense of humor, and Gittel was short heighted like him. They fell in love and after she had left Russia; she arrived in his parents’ house. Both emigrated very soon together to America. A simple and regular story of Jewish daring youngsters…In their first year in Brooklyn, said Gittel, Mennes had been a salesmen for skirts in a big storehouse, having brought very small amount of money with him from home. Then he opened his own store. In the course of years it had become two departments’ store: One for women- ‘with two tailors knitting standard dresses’ and the other for Brides wedding dresses.
“The orders for these,” said enthusiastic Gittel, “are nowadays more than we can afford.”
“Is it in a central location?” askd Aaron. He told himself that he should show an interest in her tale, while this kind of conversation had been quite far from his heart. He suddenly discerned Gittel as a very different personality than he had known in the past.
“Of course,” answered Gittel, “our store is in downtown Brooklyn. We are living not far from there, and leading a very nice lifestyle. You’ll soon see our sweet children, and our lovely apartment. What more should a family need?”
“Do you get to your store by bus - or by subway?” asked Natalya, “I have heard that in New York most people use the underground.”
“We take a bus for three stations distance. And you’ll wonder - but in a year or two we’ll buy our own car.”
“In Russia - only Gepau should own that capitalistic symbol,” laughed Natalya, and Aaron smiled too.
“Our car,” added Gittel, “will be a nice new black Ford, with a black steering wheel and blue seats. The tyres will have an external white color. I’m already waiting for that day. . .”
They arrived in New York at noon, six days before the Jewish New Year. Their meeting with Gittel’s husband, Mennes Wasserman, was exciting. He waited for them in the harbor, and after they had finished the passports procedure he took a taxi, that drove them to downtown of Brooklyn. Wasseman family was living there in three rooms apaprtment. The surrounding of Brooklyn was not as crowded as Rabbi Aaron had thought about New York. Green parks were seen from not far. Inside them were seen black kids playing with white ones, and also with Chinese faced ones. The Hittins had seen such sights first time in their life… The air was fresh and clean, and people seemed quite polite, and not given in a Russia-like tension and seriousness.
Gittel’s children had been prepared for the invalid boy’s sight, and they behaved quietly and solemnly in his presence. Rabbi Aaron was satisfied to see that his nephew was wearing a Jewish velvet cap. That – in contrary to his father, Gittel’s husband, who had a brimmed dark hat. From the first sight the Rabbi had been impressed, that Gittel’s husband might be ‘a liberal kind of Jew’, or one who would not meet the pedant and strict instructions of Halakha (Jewish old religion dutie) that he would anticipate from the husband of his sister.
Gittel had not hidden from her brother, that her husband Mennes was managing a store for women wearings. That fact had even wosened Rabbi Aaron’s dissatisfaction. He wanted to avoid disturbing Gittel’s peace of mind; but he knew that a man having business with women’s wearings – might mean a kind of an adulterer: The man is busy in thinking how to attract women, sympathize with ‘their needs’ and become friendly with them. Sometimes he would touch their bodies, while measuring their dresses, and frequently enjoy to snatch a tap here and there of a pretty body…All that is problematic from the Jewish Wise Men’s point of view. There is a cautious observation expressed in Talmud:
“A man should take a distance from a woman. He should not wink to her, nor wave with his hand or leg to attract her. Nor should he watch at her beauty. He also should not smell her special perfume, nor look at her colorful dress, and never stand at a whore’s door…”
“If Gittel’s husband,” thought Rabbi Aaron, “makes a living – pending on women clients; and if he even jokes with them only for the sake of a good sell - he is not a person with which I would like to become friendly. Though Gittel herself had claimed, that her husband was not the direct seller, but hase been hiring elder women who work for him. She had told her husband since the first day of the business, that he should not employ young maiden. Nor should he be in direct contact with the female clients. He is just the general manager, so they call it in America. Well…’
Rabbi Aaron became critical of his relatives, but he knew he should restrain himself from expressing his ideas. He is only a guest, pending on his hosts. Mennes praised himself for his help to the Rabbi’s family, and told the Hittins that he had left his store for receivg them. In the coming day, however, he should hurry early in the morning to his business. He said that he would not rely too much on his assistants there. He himself should compare the income in the Cash Register with the invoices, and check the prices of goods sold.
First night in the United States - the Rabbi, his wife and son slept in Gittel’s apartment in Brooklyn. In the morning Gittel remained with her brother’s family, and they decided to stroll in downtown, see stores and ‘be impressed by the wonders of America’ –as Natalya defined it. Then Gittel spoke about finding out a proper flat to be hired for the Hittins.
“First months rental would be paid me,” said Gittel, “and we shall see how you’ll repay me the amounts. Hopefully - you will both find work. But let us do it step by step.”
Natalya was feeding Raphael, while Rabbi Aaron prayed ‘a single man’s morning prayer,’ though Gittel had suggested, that he would walk to the near synagogue. But he still did not rely on his sense of ‘area orientation’. . .Then they went out to downtown and Gittel found there a property broker. He took them by his car, showing one and two flats not far, that they did not like - as only a few Jews were living there. At last they found a small but nice flat in street number seven. It was not far from his sister’s home, and Gittel had made the arrangement for their residing there. In the afternoon Gittel hired a cab, that carried on its roof her old beds, which she had stored somewhere. She added to that an old table, two chairs without back supports - and one with back and sides supports.A cuboard was taken from Gittle’s neighbor Sheine, and one wardrobe was bought by her in the used furniture market.
Rabbi Aron wanted a job of a teacher for Mishna or even Bible in a close ‘Small Yeshiva’. But as the schoolmaster heard that he had no knowledge in English - he said: “Reb Aaron must first learn to speak our local language, sorry,” - and refused his employment application.
However, the Rabbi had a better luck in the nearby Butchery house. He told the Kosher superviser there, that he could immediately show him his expertize in butchery. The man examined his knowledge of the prayer while butchering – according to Jewish Halakha. He heard his well said blessing: “We bless God, that has sanctified us by his commandments and ordered us about the butchery”. So, the man delivered him a hen in hand:
“Let me see,” he told him, and Rabbi Aaron had passed the examination successfully. He was said to be accepted as a second butcher of the Litvisher Cmmunity. They would pay him a low salary, but he thought it to be good for a beginning. The Superviser, however, had not permitted Rabbi Aaron to enter the Butchery House - till he saw the letter of ‘Authorization as Rabbi’, that Rabbi Aaron had received years before from ‘Minsk Chief Rabbi, Haneles’. However- who would guarantee the orthodox super religious Litvak Jews, that this paper is not fake?…Luckily, the supervisor remembered that there were two brothers from Minsk in the Litvak community. They recalled Haneles’ family from their boyhood, and Rabbi Aaron got that job. He was told to begin working after the Jewish new year holiday, Rosh Hashona, with God’s help.
The Rabbi’s wife, Natalya, began to envy her wonderful husband for his immediate success. She had known that for her it would be harder to find work. She would not be a seller in Mennes store, due
to Aaron’s contradiction, and by the way - Mennes had not proposed it at all. . . As for getting a job of social worker, who can deal with poor and miser families - withouit talking even elementary English to them?
Therefore Natalya asked her husband’s approval to take English courses in an evening school. She was not the only one interested in that remarkable local and international language. There were many new immigrants in the neighborhood, and the school was for females only, of course. Mrs. Tabakinsky established it in the religious Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn. However, she permitted also gentile young women, including black and indian faced - to enjoy the studies. To Natalya’s luck, the Rabbi did not visit there.
First time in his life Rabbi Aaron listened, in wonder, to a siren sound, before sundown, indicating arrival of the Jewish Holidays.
“Wonderful modern America,” told him Natalya, “Even gentiles, who are mixed together with the Jewish population, know that the Jews celebrate and pray in the High Holidays.”
Mennes Wasserman invited Rabbi Aaron to to pray with him in the synagogue. They would walk together by foot, with their wives. Raphael would join them and attend the prayers, why not? The Rabbi, his father- will hold the prayers book in his hands, and the boy will look and read some sentences. His prayers will be accounted for and respected by Heaven no less than any others.
“The synagogue is not far from our apartment,” said Gittel to Natalya, “Let’s take Raphael with my children.”
Rabbi Aaron asked Mennes how the synagogue was called.
“Bet Elohim,” said his sister’s husband. The meaning of that Hebrew name was “God’s House”. Rabbi seemed to remember- that in Russia or Poland in the past- Jewish communities would refrain to name a synagogue that had included God’s straight name.(El or Elohim or Adonoy- in Hebrew. The Sephardy Jews had a lot of “Beth El” synagogues, but he did not know that). He thought that Jews everywhere had a fear, that an extreme gentile or a mad Jew would erase or smirch the letters of God, scribed outside of a synagogue. By that - God’s name may be despised... So, “God’s Temple” seemed to him ridiculous, unacceptable, strange and sinful American name. He asked his sister’s husband – if the people praying there were of Jewish Polish origin, or others? Mennes told him that praying there were also Jews from western Europe, like Austria and Germany.
Suddenly Mennes’ rimmed hat fell down from his head, as a wild wind had stormed the Eighth avenue – in which they were walking. The man rushed after his rolling hat, and succeeded to catch it at the sidewalk. However, Rabbi Aaron discerned that Mennes had no Jewish velvet cap under that hat, as expected from an orthodox’ religious Jew. That discovery had irritated him. He called Natalya aside, with Raphael. He pointed on the synagogue’s nice building seen already, and whispered:
“I have a bad feeling about praying there.”
“Let us go and see it from inside.” Natalya said, “Why should you quarrel with your sister? Gittel said, that Mennes had hired there seats for us.”
They were standing in front of the synagogue. It was a three storys building, having many narrow windows in the third floor. The wider ones– in the first and second floors, were Romansque Arched windows. People coming to pray there were facing a Psalms verse sticked over the entry: “Show me thy ways, O’Lord. Teach me thy paths and guide me.”
“Here we are,” said Gittel, and took Natalya by the elbow, touching also the boy’s reins. “we will sit down together with our men.”
Rabbi Aaron became outrageous. He suddenly took Natalya by her left elbow and pulled her aside. She almost ommitted the rein and lost control of the boy, who turned to see his angry father.
“You come back with me, Natalya!” shouted Rabbi Aaron. He turned to his sister, and screamed in Yiddish: “I don’t need you for praying, Gittel. You had not told me the truth about this place…and about your family.You are Reformists, like some Gernam Jews. I’ve heard about that. You won’t force me to despise God. Oy Vey. Oh, Father! Women would sit to pray together with men?! ”
Gittel tried to shout at him: “You can sit alone, in a separate line, Aaron” – but in vain. The Rabbi was feeling his heart’s quicker beats, and gasped while saying: “I have not arrived… in America to be secular, and to show… contempt for God. Oh, I have been such a fool!”
The Hittin family withdrew immediately from that place. They headed back toward their flat. But that was not a big trouble, because Aaron soon saw in a side street – a Litvak synagogue. It was small and very bad shaped – in comparison to ‘Bet Elohim’; but he minded only those who were praying there. As he entered it, he saw ten orthodox Jews - the men praying separated from women by a curtain. What he also liked, was their Yiddish accent. It was similar to his, and he ‘felt at home’.
In one of his first working days as a Kosher butcher, Rabbi Aaron sent a letter to the Jewish Agncy office in Istanbul. He mentioned his name and reminded his case to the Agency’s representative, of whom he thought as “clerk”; but the man was then a strong persona in the Zionist movement. Rabbi Aaron requested him to let him know immediately - when his family’s Certificates of Immigration would arrive. He enclosed his address in Brooklyn, and also a telephone Number of the Litvak community butchery, to where the Istanbul Office may call. . .
As Aaron Hittin had angrily cut any contact with his sister - Gittel arrived in the Rabbi’s flat in the evening before Yom Kipur. “I know, Aaron,” she said in Yiddish, their childhood language, “what our Wise Rabbies had said: All sins would Yom Kipur atone; except sins between a man and his friend. I am more than a friend to you, Aaron. I have rescued you from the communists hell. Haven’t I, brother? I Myself and my husband received you here very respectfully, and done all we could to help you.”
“But you had thought, that you could sink me into the Reformists criminal society. I don’t consider them as Jews at all. They are all cheating Heaven, so I think. Their fate will be horrible. They will burn in hell. You, my only sister, cause me much pain by that. You could tell me - from the beginning, that you have become an Idols’ Worshipper. We know: there had been such Jews - already in the Bible’s time. I don’t know how I can persuade you to repent.”
“I don’t need that. I don’t sin – believing in what I think to be true for nowadays…”
“I expect you to behave like the Jewish strict tradition had demanded us- thousands of years… I am angry about what you had tried to hide from me: that you’ve married a man who is like a Gentile. Oh, God!”
“I don’t agree with that definition. My Mennes is a good Jew. He doesn’t travel in Sabbath, in contrast to others. He promised he would make his car rest in the holy day, when we’ll get it.”
“Your man lives for only one purpose,” howled Rabbi Aaron, “to indulge his body and nourish his stomach.. He deludes himself, that money is the superior aspi-ra-tion of man…”
He gasped, saying the last words in a broken voice.
Natalya discerned his burst nerves, and brought him a glass of water.
“Aaron, Believe me,” said Gittel, “I had prevented from telling you about my quarrels…with my husband, O’key? But at last - of course I’ve surrendered to his way of life. What should I have done? Break and destroy my ‘home Peace’?...We are living now in a different era than you were used to; and in another place. We are far from the past of our forefathers, Aaron. Maybe I am mistaken, according to what you think. You can follow your Litvak way. I don’t antagonize it. But I will be very sorry if you decide to lose me, your sister, and my children. I will have a torn heart. What can I do?” She burst into a short whimpering.
“I had thought badly about America - already in Istanbul,” he said, as to himself, “An internal sense told me, that I shouldn’t emigrate to this place of mechanics and technique and perpetual alarm… I was so close to Erets Israel.”
His mild grey eyes became wet, but he kissed his sister’s hands.
“I will take my family very far.” He said, ”I will listen to my heart. Though Litvak Jews told me this week, that. many new Rabinery schools will be built in America, and Jewish orthodox religion will prosper here. Well, I think that I am no more fit to live in the diaspora. I had read a section of Rabbi Kuk’s book, which I liked. With the hard working and simply living Jews in the Land of Israel- I will feel that I am worth. In man’s and in God’s eyes. Thank you for coming, Gittel. Have a light fasting Yom Kippur. I’ll pray for you. God will write in the Book of Life – you and your family.”
CHAPTER 51