Grantville Gazette-Volume XIV

by Eric Flint

  Chaim's face lit up. It was a story told many times. "Reb Elizar prayed and the rain stopped. He told us to eat quickly. We carried the food out and rushed through the meal. We were barely finished and back inside before all the rain he held back by prayer came down at once."

  "As Elijah prayed and there was no rain in the time of Ahab. Then what happened on Mount Carmel? Elijah prayed fire down from heaven to consume the altar he had built. You know the story of Old Ehud who did not have anything to cook for the Sabbath. He prayed. Then he started a fire to boil water so he could let the fire go out after sundown and still cook in case some kind soul who might be bringing him food was running late? What happened?"

  "Without fish, there is no Sabbath. A bird lost hold of a fish it was carrying and it fell down the chimney."

  "The Lord has given power to the faithful. He calls on us to be obedient. We are to dress differently, eat differently and live differently. The word kadosh, we use it to mean holy, but really, it means separate. The job of a Jew is to make a separation between the sacred and the profane, between the Sabbath and the rest of the week, between kosher food and treif food, and between Jews and non-Jews."

  "But Father, they pick on me."

  "What happened when the children were teasing Elisha about his bald head?"

  "Two she-bears came out of the wilderness and killed them."

  "You see? When the time is right, you will see the vengeance of the Lord. Tomorrow you will go to school. You will study hard. One day you will make a business. Then these boy's who tease you will need a job or credit or charity and they will come to you hat in hand. The Lord has promised to bless us, his chosen people. He has given us power. But we must keep his Laws." Yankel thought he had made the point and the discussion was over.

  "You mean like the Lord has blessed the Abrabanels?"

  "Yes!"

  "But, Papa, they do not wear peyot."

  Yankel wanted to scream, but didn't. "Chaim, we are men of power. We are to dress accordingly. The Golem of Prague? How was it brought to life? Was it not when Rabbi Loeb, its creator, put the Name of God on a piece of parchment and put it under the creature's tongue? It was the power of the Name which brought it to life like the lightening did for Frankenstein."

  "It is just a dumb story, Papa." The line was delivered with the pure disdain of a child.

  "Yes, the golem is just a story," Yankel said. "But I would not call it dumb." What he didn't say was that when he was Chaim's age, he still believed in the golem. The boy should have had the pleasure of believing for another year or two. That anyone should claim it was a dumb story bothered him. Here in Grantville with its mechanical marvels, the story of the golem offered a vehicle to decipher what the Law required of them. It was illegal to walk farther than a Sabbath's journey on the day of rest, as it was illegal to work your ox on the Sabbath, but was it right to run a non-living engine? Was it breaking Shabbat to illuminate with electricity when no fire need be kindled? Where else but the story of the golem would they look for a template?

  "Mister Wiley called it dumb."

  "Who is Mister Wiley?"

  "The guest speaker at school yesterday."

  "Oh?" Yankel responded.

  "Yes," Chaim said. "He also said there was no longer any need to keep kosher. It's just superstition. We made it up, anyway."

  Yankel became still in his soul. A knife was being thrust at the very heart of his child. "It is just superstition? Chaim? How can it be just superstition when it is the command of the Lord? How can we believe and not be obedient? Is belief in the Lord just a stupid superstition?"

  "I don't know, Papa. It is what the man said. You will have to ask him."

  "I hear you!" Then Yankel asked, "Did this guest speaker talk to Yudl's class also?" Yudl was also in fourth grade but he was in another class.

  "Yes, Papa."

  "I will speak to someone about this speaker." Quietly, he left the boys' room, but inside, in spite of his calm appearance, there was a raging storm.

  Back in the kitchen Rachael was waiting.

  "I must go to the school. I need to speak to Yudl."

  "Is it that bad?" she asked. "It is cold outside and Yudl will be home for supper."

  "It's worse. They would teach our sons that our beliefs are stupid superstitions and there is no need to be obedient to the Law. How would they like it if a Jewish teacher told their children Jesus did not crawl out of the grave or fly away, but the body was stolen and his people made the whole thing up? Chaim was told we were stupid and superstitious for keeping kosher. This we cannot allow."

  Yankel did not want to wait. He did not want to face his older brother before he had talked to his nephew and knew just how bad it was. He had persuaded his brother to except the Abrabanels' invitation to move to Grantville. "Yes, it is a long way from here but the Abrabanels say it is safe there. They say our children will receive an education the likes of which is to be had no where else. They are printing in Hebrew. They promise we will have enough work to stay busy all of the time." Now this happened! He wanted to talk to Yudl to assure him this man Wiley was wrong. "I need to talk to Yudl. He will be in the library at the school. I am going to the school."

  In the library, Yankel saw a man setting up a display in the glass cases. He recognized an Indian war bonnet from a movie of the week. Talking to Yudl was suddenly sidetracked.

  "Excuse me, are you Mister Wiley?" From there the conversation became loud and heated and went down hill in a hurry.

  * * *

  Victor Saluzzo, the high school principal, was present at an early Wednesday morning breakfast meeting of the three principals and Edgar Paxton. Edgar was the Superintendent of Schools and had arranged the meeting over the phone late the night before.

  "Guys, thanks for coming. We've got a situation which could turn real ugly, if we don't get a handle on it right now. Loren, why don't you start by telling us about what happened?"

  Loren Reading, the principal at Blackshire Elementary, took a deep breath. "William Wiley was giving his Indian arrowhead speech to the fourth grade like he does. Well, the golem of Prague came up in one of the classes."

  "You'd better go over what that is again," Edgar said.

  "Well, less than a hundred years ago in Prague, a rabbi made a statue out of clay and brought it to life, or so the story goes. Part of the problem, apparently, is that at least one Jewish family let the kids believe in it like some people do with Santa Claus."

  "Loren, back up-time there are rabbis who say it was real," Victor chipped in.

  "You're kidding?"

  "Nope."

  "Well, anyway, the golem came up, and William said it didn't happen. Then he said the Jews made up kosher, and everybody made up God. I didn't find any of this out until I called Mrs. McDonald, after what happened in the library.

  "She's a fine woman, and I am grateful she came out of retirement to help us out and all, but handling so many young children day in and day out just exhausts her. I saw her out in the parking lot looking for her car. Someone had to tell her it was home on blocks and she should take the trolley."

  "I've been known to misplace my car in a parking lot myself," Victor said.

  Loren shook his head. "Nonetheless, she should have reported what happened. But she didn't. We've got a new trainee for next year, thank goodness, so she can start taking it easier again."

  "Tell us about what happened in the library, Loren," Edgar prompted. "Stay on topic, please."

  "Well, Chaim Buchbinder's father, Yankel, came to the library while William Wiley was setting up a display in the cases. I heard them yelling at each other all the way down to the office. The young lady working as the after school librarian is great with kids, but she didn't know what to do with two grown men. I told William to go home. Then I tried to get Yankel to calm down and talk to me, but he froze up like a suspect talking to a cop. When he left, I called his son's teacher to find out what was going on.

  "I figure I'll tell Willi
am to take his display on home. I don't need to be explaining to parents why someone who is telling their kids God is just make-believe is still hanging around the school."

  "Loren," Edgar said, "that's a problem. I know William Wiley better than you do. If you cut him off and don't let him display his arrowheads, he'll make a free speech issue out of it like you don't want to ever see! He can do it. The man is good at causing a ruckus. He knows every button to push and just the right way to do it."

  "Well, I can't have him around the kids. What if it comes up again?"

  "How about this?" Victor offered. "We ask him to move the display to the high school. Tell him more people will see it there and I'll tell Verlinda to make sure he has plenty of help and not to leave his side all the time he's there. That should keep him out of trouble."

  "Let's try it. I just wanted to give you guys a head's up before the phones start ringing off the hook. Stress that he is not a teacher and that he won't be coming back. He's going to scream bloody murder when he hears, but it can't be helped. I don't know what else we can do. But I'm sure we haven't heard the end of it."

  * * *

  Later in the morning, the secretary knocked on Loren's office door. "Sir, you have visitors."

  A quiet student, with an even quieter parent, was shepherded into the principal's office by one of the younger Abrabanel associates.

  The shepherd made the introductions. "Mr. Reading, I am Isaac Abrabanel. This is Yankel Buchbinder and this is his son, Chaim."

  The air was tense. Loren sought to ease the situation. "I know Chaim. There is a chair in the library which will not let anyone else sit down in it except him." The joke could not have fallen flatter in a punch press. Besides he was confusing Chaim and his cousin Yudl.

  Loren watched as Isaac looked at Yankel and waited for the man to screw up his courage and speak.

  "Principal Reading, sir . . ." An obviously uncomfortable Yankel paused while he shifted from foot to foot. He looked at his backup. Isaac nodded. "We have a problem, sir." Yankel paused again and then blurted out, "I can no longer allow Chaim to attend school."

  "Please, sit down and tell me about it."

  When the three of them were seated, Loren saw Yankel once again look to his guide. The boy's father struggled through what Loren knew was strange new world where one could bluntly criticize the head of a school, a government official even, to his face. Isaac once again nodded.

  Loren wished that Jacob Hanauer was there. Between his duties as Rabbi of the Ashkenazic Synagogue, teacher in the Hebrew school and publisher of elementary reading books, Jacob had quit his teaching post at Blackshire School before the Buchbinders arrived in town. As an experienced teacher, down-timer, a Jew and a rabbi, Jacob would have been a huge help.

  Yankel quietly said, "Sir, I have talked to your teacher, Mr. Wiley. It is my opinion he is not morally qualified to teach children."

  "That is quite a statement. Let me point out Mr. Wiley is a guest speaker, not a teacher." Loren wanted to distance the school from the problem.

  "Sir, he told my son he did not need to observe the Law as the Lord told us to observe them. When I asked if he would want a Jewish teacher telling his children Jesus did not rise from the dead, he laughed and said he wished someone would tell them the truth. Such a man has no business molding the lives of children."

  Loren asked the boy, "Did he tell you not to observe the laws of God?"

  Chaim, hesitated and then nodded.

  "Tell me about it. How did the subject come up?"

  Chaim gave him a full, if slanted, account, focusing more on being teased on the playground afterwards than anything else.

  "I see. This teasing, did it happen before Mister Wiley spoke to your class?" Loren asked.

  "Yes sir, but not as badly," Chaim replied.

  Loren gently grilled the lad for a bit more and found out the teasing was ongoing from the beginning of the school year, then asked the boy to step out of the room.

  "Gentlemen," Loren said, "let me assure you, Mister Wiley will be addressed. He is not a school employee and does not represent us in any way and will not be speaking to our classes again." Loren knew that up-time William might have gotten away with being a guest in a public school with his attitude. Here and now, with the prevailing public opinion, it was a large problem just waiting to happen. With civil strife along religious lines rampant in Europe, strict neutrality and respect had to be observed in the schools. It was best to avoid the topic all together.

  This still left a second matter to be addressed. Loren made hard eye contact with Yankel. "Mr. Buchbinder, I am embarrassed about this. Mrs. McDonald is a fine teacher from the old school. She was retired and returned to help out with the massive overload. This is her last year. Still, how this slipped past everybody without it being noticed and reported . . . well, if it had been reported something would have been done. As it is . . . I suggest you tell your son that the next time he is teased, he should poke his tormenter in the nose."

  Complete astonishment washed over Yankel's face. "But, Chaim will get in trouble! To, to . . . you are telling me that my son should hit a Christian! Impossible. Dangerous, more dangerous than I can say. What would happen . . . he would be killed!"

  "He'll end up in detention after school for an hour a day for a week, where he will have to sit quietly or read." Loren smiled as if to say that was no real punishment to a student like Chaim. "Yes, it will end up on his school records, but this sort of thing is expected. It shows character and is even a good thing, as long as it is rare and it is clear he did not start it. After he's stood up to them a few times, the teasing will stop."

  Isaac said, "Yankel, why don't you and Chaim head back to the shop? We will discuss whether or not he will go back to school when I catch up with you."

  When Yankel was out of the room, Isaac said, "Principal Reading, I need to impress on you just how seriously this matter is being taken by the Jewish community. I hope you are aware this sort of thing could force us to expand our Hebrew school into a full-time school." Grantville's synagogue, a block from the middle school, had a Hebrew school where Jewish kids took after-school Hebrew lessons four days a week. "The Lutherans have, after all. Even the Catholics might do so.

  "This is something we will do if we have to, but we really do not want to. So far, we have been satisfied with our experiment supplementing the public school with a part-time Hebrew school, and we do not want to retreat from the larger community.

  "When we invited Yankel's family to come here because we needed book binders to work with our printer, we guaranteed them full-time employment, good housing, and education for their children. There is no way we could equal the quality of your public schools for the teaching of secular subjects."

  "Mister Abrabanel, let me assure you again, this was a fluke. It should not have happened. I cannot conceive of something like it happening again. Likewise since it was completely unforeseen, any future event—" Loren held both his hand palms up about shoulder high and shrugged. "—will be equally unforeseeable. We have taken firm steps to see to it that any foreseeable problem has been addressed. The only thing you can do to help at this point is to reassure the family and encourage them to move on."

  * * *

  Chaim came home from school the next day with sore knuckles, an eye growing blacker by the hour and a smile on his fat lips.

  * * *

  Cinco de Mayo . . . er, der Fünfte Mai

  Written by Edith Wild

  "So what the heck is a taco, really?" asked Maria, David's girlfriend.

  It was with great fanfare that the owners of the Thuringen Gardens added real honest-to-god tacos to their menu in May of 1634. May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, was to be celebrated with a mariachi band, Mexican food, piñatas, Mexican-style candies, cotton candy and German beer. Of course, the Gardens was packed with anyone in Grantville who was addicted to tacos. This included David Dominic Villareal and company.

  "They're . . . well, they're just good,"
David said. "I've missed them, missed them a lot. The fast food kind, that is. Mom does great spaghetti, but her tacos . . . well, never mind. It's nice to be able to go to a restaurant and order what you want, don't you think?"

  Maria held on to David's hand. They were the usual party of twelve, David, Maria, some of his friends and their girlfriends. They were normally in the Gardens at least twice a week, often more, drinking beer and eating typical Gardens' food. Maria did like sauerkraut and sausages, so why tacos? David had gotten her to agree to try them, even though she still had her doubts.

  "May fifth will be forever different," David said. "It's time to celebrate our heritage as Mexican Americans, not just Thanksgiving and Fourth of July."