“You are a silly, silly little girl,” she hissed at me one Saturday morning in front of all the women, “who is trying to change the world.”
For Mrs. Menachem, to challenge the existing order was a desecration. She would never think of questioning any sacred ritual or tradition, let alone the need for a rickety separation, nor could she fathom why I kept railing about it. She feared my influence on the other children and became convinced I was leading them astray.
Mrs. Menachem believed that I needed to be cut down to size. I had to be put in my place now—immediately—before it was too late and I had harmed myself and the other little girls who looked up to me. She hated what I was trying to do to her peaceable little world.
Nineteen sixties America, with its emergent culture of rebellion and change for the sake of change, its angry youth and defiant women, had to be shut out at all cost, even if that meant erecting larger, taller, less porous, more impervious barriers to protect us from its dangers.
Mrs. Menachem was our watcher at the gate, standing guard at the entrance of the women’s section, making sure that it would stay free of outside influence, ascertaining that the divider was still solid enough to keep out interlopers.
We were sworn enemies, Mrs. Menachem and I, engaged in a fight to the death. I regarded her as Emma Peel would a ruthless opponent.
I also had my protectors, none as vigilant as Gladys—sad, overweight, painfully sweet Gladys. Because she loved to eat, food was always plentiful and our luncheons and afternoon snacks were more lavish than those of other congregations. Saturday mornings, Gladys prepared an enormous bowl of lemony tuna fish salad, which formed the centerpiece of the light buffet lunch that followed the service or was served later in the afternoon. On holidays, she cooked more elaborately, typically, southern fried chicken. It was my first taste of American cooking, and I found it transporting. Biting into those coated drumsticks was as close as we’d come to assimilation in our little world that was trying so desperately to shut out America. Gladys embraced me, fed me extra drumsticks, treated me as if I were her daughter.
But why was she always crying in her prayer book? Why did she break down and become so distressed some mornings that no one could console her, not even her younger sister Fortuna who was devoted to her and sat next to her at all times? No one would tell me; it was one of the mysteries of life in the women’s section
As I peered through the holes of the divider I was on the lookout for only one person. There he was in his elegant maroon blazer with gold buttons, absorbed in his prayers in a way I could only pretend to be. Thirteen-year-old Maurice had been the object of my affections since I’d first started coming to the Shield of Young David.
What could I do to make Maurice notice me? That was the question that consumed me. I began formulating a plan. If I put my mind to it, I was sure I could figure out a way that would free me and the other girls forever from the divider.
It was 1966, a good year to rebel and shatter barriers. London, Mrs. Peel’s London, had invaded our own hopelessly sober culture. Skirts were shorter and flashier and more daring, not merely mini but micromini, made of vinyl that came in shiny yellow and fire engine red and black or spiffy white. British bands were all the rage. British shows led by my beloved Avengers dominated television.
I felt supremely self-confident; I kept repeating the mantra:
Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state ought to be avenged by agents extraordinary…
Why can’t we sit with the men?” I asked the other little girls who worshipped with me every Saturday. Halfway through the services, I left my mother and huddled with my friends in the back, where we enjoyed some privacy. I shared my views with them. “Why should we have to sit behind a barrier?”
Diana, my closest friend, nodded in agreement; she was a year younger than me, loyal and brave, and seemed to trust implicitly what I said. The Cohen sisters, Gracie and Rebecca, were a bit more skeptical but willing to be good sports. Celia, who was two years older than us, merely smiled. Celia chafed against her strict upbringing.
For her, this was an opportunity.
I had the outlines of a plan. If I couldn’t break the divider with a single karate chop, I was going to render it meaningless and beside the point. I gathered my friends around me in a corner of the yard where no one could overhear us, feeling like a general briefing his troops on an intricate and highly covert maneuver. I knew that what we were about to do was fraught with peril, that we had to proceed carefully, methodically.
We were going to infiltrate the main sanctuary and sit with the men. I swore all my friends to secrecy. No one in our families—neither our siblings nor our parents nor any other adults—could know. This was the plot:
On a typical Saturday morning, we would begin by placing our chairs outside the entrance to the women’s section. We would sit quietly and pray in that gray nether zone that was neither within the confines of the wooden divider nor inside the main sanctuary where the men congregated. Then, each week, we would quietly advance, pushing our chairs several inches, maybe a foot or two, until we were smack in the sanctuary and seated with the men.
The key was to proceed stealthily and so gradually that nobody would notice.
My thought was to confront the congregation with a fait accompli. One day the women would learn they had lost us, and the men would look up and realize that we were among them. But by then it would be too late: They would have been conditioned into accepting us in their midst.
Because the High Holidays were upon us, we were in a period when our mothers were so distracted they left us alone. They were caught up in their usual frenzy of cooking and baking while the synagogue itself was so crowded nobody took much notice of us. I was sure no one would pay attention as we began our maneuvers.
Even on Yom Kippur, when we were supposed to be atoning for our sins, the women behind the divider turned that solemn day into a gossip fest. While the men prayed and pounded their hearts with their fists in a gesture of repentance, our mothers and sisters talked and talked about subjects that weren’t in the least bit holy. I heard so many rumors being spread that it would have taken another Yom Kippur to atone for the sins of that day alone.
We met during services in the courtyard and plotted and schemed. None of us seemed to consider the possibility we would fail, least of all me.
“We have to move little by little,” I reminded my friends. “We have to do it in such a way that they won’t notice.” Once the holidays were over and the crowds had thinned out a bit, I started searching for the perfect window to execute my plan.
One Saturday morning I left my mother’s side and carried a folding chair to the entrance of the women’s section. It was still early, and there was only a sparse crowd of men and virtually no women. I placed the chair close to the entrance but technically outside the boundaries of the divider.
Then, I sat down, opened a prayer book, and began to read.
To my amazement, nobody seemed to notice or even care.
The men nodded as they made their way past me to their seats in the sanctuary. The women cheerfully waved hello as they filed in and went to sit, dutifully as always, in their pen surrounded by the wooden fence. Celia and her family arrived, and I noticed Moshe, Celia’s little brother, watching us. It could have been any other Saturday.
My friends—Diana, Celia, and a couple of the Cohen sisters—followed my lead. They took their chairs outside the women’s section, placed them next to mine, and opened their prayer books. Gracie had brought her younger sister, Rebecca. We didn’t even dare look at one another. Instead, we stared at the pages of our prayer books and tried to focus on the words on the page.
The insurrection had begun.
We were scared to death, of course. We avoided making eye contact with anyone entering or leaving the synagogue, and for once, we didn’t even whisper to each other. We simply tried to blend in, rising when the rest of the congregation rose, chanting when everyone chante
d, desperately hoping not to attract attention.
One of us giggled and that made the rest of us want to giggle, too.
Even so, the first maneuver went off without a hitch.
We managed to get through the service perched in this nether zone. We were outside the divider, no longer with the women, though not exactly with the men, either. Then, at the end of the prayers, we made our way back inside the women’s section and over to the kiddush table, as if nothing had happened, and devoured forkfuls of tuna fish salad that Gladys had made that morning. It tasted especially delicious, and I ate with relish—elated at what we’d managed to pull off and sure we would prevail.
In a way we already had. We had breached the wooden barrier. We had left the women’s section.
The following week, I got there a bit earlier, carried my chair outside the divider, and pushed it closer to the well of the main sanctuary. It was only by a couple of inches or so, not much more than the previous Saturday, but that was all part of my grand conspiracy. My friends joined me and positioned their seats near mine as we had agreed.
Once again, nobody seemed to mind, and we were left alone. The women, even my own mother, seemed unaware of what we were doing. I couldn’t help noticing, though, that as the men filed in, a couple of them frowned, surprised at seeing us in such an odd place, as if suspended in midair, not seated with the women but not with them, either.
But we were little girls, no doubt absorbed in some amusing new little girl game. What harm was there in letting us play?
After nearly a month of these forays, I felt confident enough to take more decisive action. I decided to position our chairs several feet forward so that we were almost—almost—inside the open well of the sanctuary, not far from the altar where Mr. Menachem read the prayers in his pleasant singsong voice.
It was a bold move. We were now in plain sight of the men. It was hard for us to keep from smiling and restrain our glee. We were so close to reaching our goal—my goal. I had dreamed of this moment. We were at last equal partners with the men, with no wooden partition to block us.
I was secretly astonished my scheme had worked as well as it did: Had we really conditioned the men to have us in their midst? There we were, a ragtag army of little girls seated on wooden folding chairs in the heart of the sanctuary defying all convention, having broken free of the enclosure reserved for us and our mothers.
We prayed silently and held our breath. When the Torah scrolls were brought out, we didn’t try to touch them as they came around, though they were now within easy reach of our hands. We simply stood demurely and blew kisses at them with both our hands, even as our mothers inside the women’s section grasped at them from the holes in the divider.
It was a historic moment as far as I was concerned. I hadn’t smashed the divider as Mrs. Peel would have done, and yet maybe I had.
Mr. Menachem began to read the weekly portion. From his small stage, the rabbi sat in his thronelike chair quietly observing the room as he did every Saturday, as if nothing were amiss. The service seemed to flow at its usual indolent, otherworldly pace.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the counteroffensive began.
Charlie and the other teenage boys—my oppressors, whose self-imposed mission was to maintain order—were suddenly on to us. They’d realized our scheme. They approached us, menacingly waving their prayer books like a weapon. “Get back, get back into the women’s section,” they were shouting. Someone yelled, “Haram, haram,” the Arabic word for sin.
A number of the other men began screaming at us, too. “Haram, haram”—“Sin, sin” they cried so that it felt as if we were being overrun by an angry mob. Everyone was yelling at us, and we found ourselves surrounded by a group of boys and men who kept ordering us to retreat, who kept trying to shoo us back into the women’s section.
Mr. Menachem, who had made a valiant effort to keep reading throughout the brouhaha, suddenly stopped. Rabbi Ruben remained quiet, surveying the scene. He didn’t weigh in; he didn’t order the boys to stop nor did he declare that we could remain in the men’s section. He didn’t say a word.
The women were also silent, watching the strange scene unfold, too stunned to speak. They didn’t try to stand up for us or order their sons and nephews and husbands to leave us alone. They simply sat and stared as we were forced to lift our chairs then and there and carry them back inside the women’s section.
I didn’t dare look at my mother. I stole a glance at Maurice, standing quietly in his usual corner, impassive as always, observing the scene. And I noticed Moshe, Celia’s younger brother, also staring, a witness to our terrible debacle.
It was all over within minutes. Mr. Menachem, after making sure all was quiet, resumed the weekly Torah reading. Charlie and the other teenage boys sat down again. And my friends and I took our old seats behind the divider. I felt crushed and mortified. From my chair, I could see Mrs. Menachem; she looked angrier than I’d ever seen her. But she stayed silent, glaring into her prayer book.
I resolved then and there to leave the Shield of Young David.
“I’m never coming back,” I told my friends.
The following Saturday, I made my way to the Greek shul, a small synagogue on Sixty-Fifth Street that didn’t have a divider, or not much of one. A group of mostly older men and women merely sat on different sides of a sanctuary that looked like an auditorium, with only an aisle and a white veil curtain to separate them. It was, in its own way, egalitarian, far more so than any congregation I had ever attended. I tried to follow the service, but I felt restless and alone.
I missed my friends. To my surprise, I missed the women’s section; I even missed the wooden divider.
A couple of weeks later, I returned to the Shield of Young David and quietly took my seat next to Mom.
“Loulou, s’il te plaît reste tranquille,” was all that she said; Loulou, please try to keep still.
My friends welcomed me back as if nothing had happened, and nobody ever spoke of our rebellion again.
BOOK ONE
The Curse of Alexandra
CAIRO: 1923–1963
· 1 ·
The Secret of the Pasha’s Wife
Cairo was never as hopeful as at that moment when its leading feminist, Hoda Shaarawi, stepped off a train at the Ramses station on Malaka Nazli Street and tore off her veil in a gesture of defiance. The year was 1923, King Fouad was in power, and there was change in the air—this ancient city was rapidly modernizing and nowhere was that more apparent than in the women who were asserting their freedom and independence for the first time ever in a Muslim culture. Hoda’s friends who came to greet her were stunned by her action, but then they, too, yanked the veils from their faces and cast them aside in solidarity and, voilà, a liberation movement was born among the least liberated women in the world.
A few years later, a woman lifting her veil in Cairo once again caused an enormous stir. This time, she was made of granite—a tall formidable statue called Egypt’s Awakening that depicted a peasant girl removing the veil from her face even as her hand rested on the head of the Sphinx.
The message was clear: The land of the pharaohs was forging a brand-new destiny for itself.
That sense of energy and inexorable social change—of barriers being torn down and age-old traditions being upended—was felt throughout Cairo of the 1920s and 1930s, even in the popular music. The crooner and matinee idol Mohamed Abdel Wahab was attracting enormous audiences performing songs with a distinctly Western influence. In a shocking departure from traditional Middle Eastern music, Abdel Wahab included a piano and even a saxophone in his orchestra. While King Fouad was firmly in control, there was still open and vigorous political debate and an outspoken opposition party. As yet another sign of how liberal the culture had become, Jews and Muslims and Christians mixed and mingled without paying much heed to religious differences.
Jews, in particular, had never fared better in a society that in many ways emblemized tolerance. The
y were rising to the top and becoming not simply ministers but pashas and beys. In the pecking order of titles conferred by the king, there were effendis, a grand honor; beys, an even grander honor; and pashas, the grandest honor of all. Influential Jews were now involved in shaping every sector of society, from banking to agriculture, from commerce to education.
At Fouad’s court, a woman—a Jewish woman, at that—now held more power than the queen herself and had emerged as a favorite of the Muslim king, one of his most faithful and trusted advisers.
Madame Alice Suarez Cattaui Pasha was officially la grande dame d’honneur—chief lady-in-waiting to the court. But everyone knew she was much more than that. Even while assisting Queen Nazli, Madame Cattaui had become the confidante of the king, so that she was in the unusual position of enjoying the ear of both of Egypt’s monarchs.
Madame Alice Cattaui Pasha as a young woman in Egypt.
King Fouad depended on this elegant older woman for her guidance and judgment. He let her decide which visiting dignitaries he or Nazli should receive on a particular day as well as those minor aristocrats who could be safely ignored. When there were dinners at the palace, she was in charge of the complex seating arrangements. Because she effectively controlled access to the king, deciding who sat near him and who didn’t, the pasha’s wife wielded unprecedented power in Egypt.
While the poor queen, who had a very testy relationship with Fouad, was said to be virtually a prisoner of the palace, her chief lady-in-waiting was attending glittering soirees all over Cairo. Madame Cattaui was seen around town at ballets and galas and premieres. Foreign diplomats and their wives knew to call on her and woo her because she was the gatekeeper to the throne and could help them wangle an invitation to the palace.
Fouad himself sent her effusive notes of gratitude in French. It was the language of the aristocracy, and truth be told, the ruler of Egypt, so European in his tastes and manners, and fluent in Italian as well as French, could barely speak a word of Arabic.
The Arrogant Years Page 2
