Unscrolled : 54 Writers and Artists Wrestle With the Torah (9780761178743)

by Bennett, Roger (EDT)

  Youth boxing at the Educational Alliance. Lower East Side, New York City, early 1950s. The Educational Alliance was, and still is, an important community center for the immigrant generation on the Lower East Side and their children. This photo comes from a series of photos of kids boxing. I like the mix of boredom and fascination among the people in attendance, but the thing I relate to most is the terrified-looking skinny kid desperately trying his best.

  A copy of this photograph of an anonymous girl sitting on a bench, somewhere in Europe before World War II, was on my desk for most of the ten years I worked at YIVO. Any information about who she was or why her photograph ended up in our collection has been lost, but I do know that the photo is part of one of the original collections at YIVO from Vilna. There are innumerable photos with the same story, but this has always been my favorite. When you look at one of the photos—“orphaned works,” they’re called—you inevitably fill in the blanks for yourself. Who was she? What happened to her? It’s actually a creative process. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and most of the time, those words are your own.

  This photograph comes from a large collection that historian and YIVO founder Elias Tcherikover amassed to document the pogroms—mob attacks—that followed the Russian Civil War. Many of these photographs were presented as evidence in the Paris trial of the Jewish anarchist assassin Sholom Shwartzbard. The official caption that we have at YIVO for this photo reads, “Chernobyl, 1919: Studio portrait of a member of Struk’s rebel band, which carried out pogroms, wearing a fur hat, a holster, and a saber across his chest; pointing a pistol and sitting on a hobbyhorse.”

  This is a piece of art made entirely out of typographical materials by a man named Julius Fridmanis in Riga, Latvia, in the 1930s. I don’t believe he was ever a well-known person anywhere, but I found an amazing folder full of mementos from the printing press that he ran with his father, Abraham, and all the experimental typographical work they did on the side, in which they took an enormous amount of pride. I think it is very similar to early examples of the graphic design art known as ASCII.

  This photograph, with the caption “A Discussion,” is from a 1930s album documenting the activities of the communally run Jewish Home for the Aged in Vilna, at 17 Portowa Street.

  This package of Maseltov Filled Fish Slices speaks for itself.

  Rose Pesotta was an anarchist, feminist, and prominent organizer for the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. This telegram, sent to her in Montreal in 1936, relays a common motif throughout Jewish history.

  Nai Juda recruitment flyer, 1930s. This artifact is a bit of a mystery. Nai Juda was apparently an ill-fated and barely existent utopian non-Zionist Jewish territorialist movement created by Joseph Otmar Hefter. It seems that this recruitment flyer and an anthem are about as far as he got in pursuing his dream. YIVO actually has very little on the subject, and this flyer is from a collection at YIVO of material that the Nazis collected in their quest to understand the “Jewish Question.” This collection somehow made its way from Frankfurt to New York after the war.

  These two business cards were among some possessions donated to YIVO during the time when I worked there. The “bullshitter” one is obviously really funny, but I have to admit that I don’t fully get the “All Schmucks Pick 3” card, although I know it’s funny, too. I’m not sure who Cy Constantine is or was or how his card ended up in this collection, but I once Googled him and found an article from 1989 about an adman named Cy Constantine from Northeast Philadelphia who also performed magic on the weekends for sick children. The article is about how his life changed when his son was the victim of a devastating hit-and-run accident that left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. I believe it’s the same man who handed these cards out, but I have no way of knowing that for sure.

  “Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on the other side of the Jordan, that good hill country, and the Lebanon. But the Lord was wrathful with me on your account and would not listen to me. The Lord said to me, ‘Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again!’” —Deuteronomy 3:25–26

  VA-ETHANNAN (“And I pleaded”)

  Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11

  Moses pleads with the Lord to be allowed to cross into the promised land, but the Lord furiously denies his request and commands Moses to climb Mount Pisgah, survey the region from a distance, and prepare Joshua to be his successor.

  Moses then urges the Israelites to follow the entirety of God’s commandments, reminding them of the cruel deaths suffered in the past by those tempted to worship the Moabite idol Baal-peor. Fidelity to the legal system will ensure that the Israelites become renowned as a wise and discerning people to their neighbors in the region.

  Moses reminds the Israelites of their experience at the foot of Mount Sinai when the Lord spoke to them amid the flames and articulated the commandments on two stone tablets. Although they had heard God’s voice only at Sinai, Moses begs them to resist the urge to craft idols of the Lord’s image. Such an act will cause God to destroy them and scatter survivors across the earth.

  The upside of the covenant is briefly restated: God will never desert the Israelites or let them perish. Moses reminds the people of their exalted status. Only they have heard God speak in a fire and survived. No other people have been led into war by the Lord, or freed from Egypt as they have.

  I am the law

  God’s laws are recounted so the Israelites know to study and observe them faithfully. Moses reminds the community that the covenant is not a relic of history, but something that binds every one of them in the present. He then restates the Ten Commandments, conjuring the fearsome specter of the scene at Sinai to ensure that the Israelites and their children always maintain them.

  The Shema

  The Israelites are exhorted to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and might; to remember the laws and teach them to their children; and to recite the laws continually, bind them on their hands and foreheads, and inscribe them on their doorposts. They should never forget the Lord who freed them from Egypt and should worship no other gods, unless they want to be wiped off the face of the earth. Indeed, they are to tell the stories of the Exodus and Sinai to their children so they develop a keen appreciation of the commandments’ origins.

  Appetite for destruction

  The Israelites are informed that once they enter the land, they will encounter seven nations who greatly outnumber them—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. God will deliver victory, but the Israelites must destroy their enemies and smash their temples. Any form of intermarriage is strictly forbidden, as it is a gateway step toward idolatry, which will ultimately force God to obliterate them all.

  Finally, Moses reinforces an evident truth: God sees the Israelites as a sacred people. Out of all the nations on earth, they have been chosen as the Lord’s treasures. The decision was made not on the basis of size—the Israelites are one of the smallest tribes—but on account of the covenant.

  Ariel Kaminer

  That’s it?” he asked, when Moses finished speaking. From a rocky outcropping toward the back of the crowd, he hadn’t been able to quite hear the whole speech. He had missed some of the interminable dos and don’ts. But the part about Moses’ fate had come through loud and clear. “That’s what Moses gets for the forty years in the desert with God’s chosen pains in the ass? For forty years of hassle?”

  “For forty years of manna,” his wife said with a slight shudder. Yes, the manna was a miracle. But try eating the same damn miracle for four decades. “Man, I never thought I’d miss those matzohs we made the night we first fled.”

  “But you never heard Moses complain. He was always, What’s for dinner tonight? Ooh, manna? I love manna!”

  “Actually, I find that routine a bit tiresome,” she said.

  “Me, too. Him, too, I bet! But what’s his
reward? ‘Thanks for your efforts on behalf of the tribes of Israel. Request to enter promised land denied.’”

  “Was he working on our behalf? Or God’s? To be honest, I was never entirely sure,” she replied. “And I got the feeling he wasn’t always that sure who he was working for either. Or why.”

  Another round of hosannahs rose up from the crowd. It’s always hosannahs with them, he thought. Except at the first sound of trouble. Then they start crying that they were better off with Pharaoh.

  “I dunno,” he said. “His sandals got good and wet before the waters parted, and the guy didn’t look down once. Just kept marching into the sea like that broad sandy path had been there all along. I don’t think you can do that if you’re less than a hundred percent.”

  “No one’s really that confident,” she said with a wave of her hand, “not even when you’ve got the Lord whispering in your ear. Especially when you’ve got the Lord whispering in your ear.”

  “Still,” he said. “Seems like a hell of a way to thank him. He never gets to see the promised land.”

  “He did see it,” she reminded him. “That one time, from the top of Mount Pisgah.”

  “I forgot.” He thought for a moment. “So he got to see it but not enter it. That seems almost worse, somehow.”

  “Maybe it was supposed to be a consolation prize.”

  “Doesn’t seem very consoling to me,” he said. “Seems kind of sadistic. But think about it—he knew he’d never make it across the finish line, but he stuck around anyway, for all that thankless go-betweening.”

  “Hey, God, could you move the awesome fire just a bit farther from the tent?” she said. She could still crack him up with a good Moses impression. “You’re singeing the chosen people’s hair. Also, maybe could You go easy with the smiting? Thanks.”

  “Seriously. He didn’t let on for a minute, just kept right on selling the word of God. Even now, after giving this humiliating speech, he’s right back with the commandments. That is some unbelievable devotion.” They were both silent for a while. Finally he asked, “So, what now?”

  The sleeping bundle strapped to her back squirmed a bit, then nestled back down again. She sighed. Having a baby when she was eighty-nine didn’t feel like it had when she was seventeen, that’s for sure. “Let’s get back to camp. It’s almost dark.”

  “Great. I’m starved,” he said. “What’s for dinner tonight?”

  “Very funny,” she said.

  “And teach them to your children—reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.” —Deuteronomy 11:19

  EIKEV (“If you follow”)

  Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25

  The obedience imperative: moses restates the rewards that await those who maintain the covenant. The Lord will favor the Israelites and ensure they are fertile, healthy, and agriculturally prosperous. All of their enemies will be destroyed without pity or fear. Their defeat will be thoughtfully paced so that wild beasts do not multiply and fill the sudden absence of humans, but the Lord will make sure they are ultimately wiped out so the Israelites can burn their idols.

  In return, the Israelites are to keep the Lord’s laws and remember their long wilderness journey, when God tested them and taught them there is more to life than eating bread alone. Once they enter the resource-rich land, they are instructed to give thanks to the Lord for the vines, figs, wheat, and precious metals they will mine. Surrounded by riches, they must remember the deprivation of the desert experience so they do not take everything for granted. To do so would be to forget God, a crime for which they would perish.

  Moses then warns the Israelites that they should prepare to be outnumbered by physically stronger foes who fight behind sky-high walls, yet they should fear no one, as God will destroy their enemies, punishing them for their wicked ways.

  Moses lingers on the times in which the Israelites forgot the Lord—most egregiously during the golden calf incident—reminding the community just how close they came to being destroyed by God and reliving the role he played to calm the Creator’s wrath.

  Moses mentions God’s gift of the Ten Commandments and the ark, and how they will remind the Israelites to revere the Lord and remember the Creator’s role in freeing them from slavery. If they respect God, they will be provided with grain, wine, and oil from the land. But if they disobey the Lord, the land will dry up and they will soon perish.

  God’s instructions to the Israelites are repeated. Moses tells the community to bind these words on their hands, wear them as symbols on their foreheads, etch them on their doorposts, and teach them to their children. Should they do so, they will retain the land they were promised, and all of their enemies will live in fear.

  Charles London

  The story is an old one, but not this version. This is the story of the children of South Sudan, tens of thousands of kids who crossed the border from Sudan to Ethiopia, then back to Sudan, then into Kenya, boys and girls of all ages lost, sick, dying. They became refugees; they lived on the mercy of international NGOs and charities and the passing whims of passing journalists. They learned a word, which they repeated again and again, over the years. The word sustained them: repatriation. They all wanted to go to the promised land, America.

  I came along one summer, a twenty-two-year-old journalist, new to the desert. I was always thirsty. I was thirsty for water and for stories, and I drank them both greedily during sweltering interviews. The boys told me stories about being bombed by the government forces of Sudan and of being attacked by lions. The girls told me the same stories, and also told me of drownings and abductions, of parents lost, siblings lost, friends lost. All lost. They alluded to rapes. I balked at the plural. The girls got more specific, each rape a story, each story told in the hope it would be remembered and repeated and eventually, that it would unlock the doors to America. Repatriation. Their stories had national aspirations.

  “I tell the other [girls],” Charity, a lanky teenage orphan, explained to me. “I tell them that no matter how hard it is to tell, they must tell their story. They must keep telling it and telling it and telling it. It is only through people knowing our story that [foreigners] will understand what we have been through and will help us.”

  She told me her story, as filled with murder, rape, and pillage as any biblical tale of kings and chiefs. The pillars of fire in her stories were, however, man-made.

  And that was that. Present-day refugees in the desert learned what had been commanded to the Hebrews in ancient times, in the forty-sixth parashah, Eikev, among other places: Tell your story. Tell it “in order that your days may increase and the days of your children . . . ”

  Of course, I did my promised duty to Charity and the other girls like her. I wrote her story down. I told it over and over. I published it.

  It worked for some of the girls, and they received word from on high: repatriation. They moved to Pennsylvania and to Michigan and to the Greater Atlanta area. Others did not, and they are living in Kakuma Refugee Camp still, their desert sojourn the only life they know. The duration is not quite forty years, but coming around to half of that.

  I left the refugee camp that same summer a decade ago and came back to my own promised land, New York City, taking the stories of these girls and the stories of other refugee children from around the globe, and I published a book and published articles and did well for myself by telling their stories. No wandering in the desert for me. I bought property in Brooklyn; I settled in.

  But by what right did I get to live so well while those boys and girls still suffered? I was haughty and covetous. I worked on the Sabbath and I ate shellfish and pork and I gossiped and broke all those desert-decreed commandments from ancient times. I didn’t even inscribe said commandments on the doorpost of my house, once I had said house. It can’t be because of my righteousness that I live the good life. But it could no
t be because of their wickedness that these refugee children do not.

  At least, not yet. That’s the difference between the masses of today’s dispossessed and the ancient Anakites and Moabites and Ammonites. All those forgotten-ites never got to tell their stories. There is the logic of Eikev. We are instructed to repeat the story of the blessings we have received through no virtue of our own so that we may keep receiving those blessings. Storytelling is the key. Those other tribes whose wickedness incurred the wrath of the Hebrew Lord would no doubt have different stories to tell had they not been so thoroughly written out of history. The privilege of survival is the ability to tell your story. So it was with the Hebrews; so it was with the children of South Sudan. So it will be again, when new peoples rise up and others fall down, and the righteous and the wicked keep trying to claim their own little piece of the desert by telling stories. Not all the stories will survive, but as long as someone is listening, someone else will be stiffnecked enough to keep telling them.

  “You shall not eat anything that has died a natural death; give it to the stranger in your community to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” —Deuteronomy 14:21

  RE’EH (“See”)

  Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17

  Moses explicitly sets the choice of blessing or curse before the Israelites. If they obey the commandments, they will be blessed. If they fail and worship other gods, they will be cursed. To that end, the Israelites are instructed to destroy their enemies’ altars and burn down their idols, while offering their own sacrifices in the way God instructed and adhering to the notions of cleanliness.