“But I do know you. I also know you’ve wanted them up here for a long time but Rabbi Dov forbade it.”
Yonah pulled at his earlocks. “The Rebbe disagreed with me. That is quite different than forbid. You see, sir, your information is already inaccurate. This was something that was settled between Reb Dov and myself long ago. It has nothing to do with my legal situation.”
“Not to be disrespectful, but I didn’t think it permissible for a Rabbi to lie. The disagreement between you and Rabbi Dov may have begun a long time ago, but it didn’t really end until he was dead. It certainly didn’t end when he forbade you to meet with the Never Agains.”
Yonah stroked his long gray beard with trembling fingers. “You speak to a Rabbi like this? You are supposed to be Jewish, Mr. Jacob. I told you, Reb Dov never forbade me to meet with anyone.” He turned to Simon. “Why do you allow this man to insult me?”
“He knows what he’s talking about, Rabbi,” Simon answered simply. “We’ll finish much sooner if you answer his questions instead of just trying to get rid of us.”
I nodded appreciatively but kept my eyes on the Rabbi’s face. “There was a period of time when you stopped meeting with the Never Agains, but then you resumed. Why?”
Yonah unfolded his arms and planted them on the table. “I met with friends because the very life of our Yeshiva was endangered by the anti-Semites. Anti-Semites who surround and abuse us.”
“Rabbi Dov didn’t think so,” I pressed.
“The Rebbe didn’t understand the seriousness of the threat.”
“Come on, Reb Yonah, of course he understood. He just didn’t exaggerate it the way you did.”
“There have been Jews like you throughout all of history,” he sneered. “Hating themselves for being Jewish! Scorning those who maintain a link with the real Judaism.”
“We aren’t talking religion here, Rabbi. Reb Dov didn’t think it necessary to enlist vigilantes in this never-ending war. Why don’t you stop your wriggling? You continued your involvement with the Never Agains behind Rabbi Dov’s back.”
Reb Yonah’s lips cut a tight line through his gray facial hair. “The Yeshiva had once again come under attack. But this abuse was not individual anti-Semites taking it on themselves to rid the neighborhood of Hasidim. This was the work of an organized hate group who made it their avowed purpose.”
His mouth opened showing tobacco-stained teeth and it took me a second to realize I was looking at a painful smile. “What do you expect?” he asked with a little less hostility. “In his goodness, in his warmth, the Rebbe couldn’t see what was right in front of him. I had no choice but to find help.” He paused and stared at me venomously. “I have no need to explain myself to you. I have no need to tell you any of this. But, do you think it was easy for me? Do you imagine it pleased me to disagree with my Rebbe?”
“It didn’t stop you from sneaking behind his back.”
An involuntary tic just under Reb Yonah’s eye flickered. “It was impossible to stop the Avengers by ourselves.”
“You took it on yourself to disobey your Chief Rabbi’s decision not to allow the Yeshiva to become involved with the Never Agains?” I wanted to keep the tic working, spread it to the rest of his body.
“Reb Dov believed the attacks would stop by themselves. He didn’t understand these people. We could not wait for a miracle. Our Law grants certain exceptions to many of its edicts. A Jew is never allowed to eat food which is not kosher. But if his life is in danger, he is instructed, by our own law, to eat that traif. There was no comfort in finding myself at odds with Reb Dov. There would be no pleasure if I were forced to break our Laws. Our lives, our community’s very existence, was in danger.”
Reb Yonah tried to regroup and turned to Simon. “I still can’t comprehend why you’re letting this man question me. Nor do I understand why my relationship to Never Again, to my Rebbe, has anything to do with either of you.”
Before Simon could ease the tension I interjected, “It has to do with us if the Never Agains were involved with your Rebbe’s death.”
Yonah reacted like I’d slapped his face. He jumped up from his chair, and motioned for us to do the same. Simon obeyed but I stayed where I was.
“This is a complete shonda. You have the nerve to enter my house and make these insane accusations? To insult our religion, to insult me? To insult all Hasidim? I want you to leave immediately! Even your, your…Sheinfeld would know enough to be disgusted by this.”
“Matt, maybe…” Simon began.
I ignored him and kept jabbing. “Then call Rabbi Sheinfeld. Tell him to come over and join us because I’m not going anywhere until my questions are answered. Honestly answered. Where did you get the gun, Rabbi? Who fronted your diamonds?”
Reb Yonah kept working Simon. “Mr. Roth, you have done a good job for me. Until now you have treated me with respect. Don’t you think this outrage is enough? We are not like the Jews you associate with, but how can you allow these defamations to continue?”
“You don’t see him running to the telephone, do you, Simon? He’s not going to call Sheinfeld because there are too many facts he doesn’t want known.”
Yonah couldn’t stop himself from retorting. “Mr. Jacob, I don’t believe you hear your own words. You find the worst possible interpretation for my meetings with the Never Agains. Then you accuse them of having something to do with the Rebbe’s death. Do you know how deeply you must hate us? The insult of your accusations? You have taken our Rebbe’s death and twisted the blame to fall upon Hasidim. I told Sheinfeld this would happen, but I didn’t expect this virulence from another Jew.”
“Then call and tell him to come over, Rabbi. I don’t care where the blame falls. I just want the truth. The timing of the emergence of the Avengers and your decision to play ball with the Never Agains was just too close to be coincidence.” It was jugular time. “Look, I haven’t gone to the authorities. Neither has Simon. But both of us are going to find out why you met with Kelly before the shootings. Why you were paying him off with diamonds.”
The room had already been crackling with anger and hostility. Now, Reb Yonah’s features almost disappeared behind his beard and rimless glasses. He stood stock still, arms rigid, hands fisted at his side. I didn’t dare glance at Simon so I forced myself to watch Yonah’s color return in blotches of purple rage. His fist smashed down on the table causing the religious books to jump. He kept shouting something in Yiddish until I kicked through.
“Nice act, Rabbi, but you’ll have to use English for us to really get it. It’s time to stop your bullshit. You had numerous conversations with Kelly and met with him at least once before Simchas Torah. I know he ended up with your diamonds. What we have, Rabbi, are Avengers, Never Agains, you and Kelly, diamonds, and a dead Rebbe who didn’t want a vigilante group anywhere near his Yeshiva. But your vigilante pals are here now, aren’t they? You want to sell Rabbi Sheinfeld on all these coincidences?”
Reb Yonah’s face was gray again and he looked imploringly toward Simon who still stood, pale, his eyes staring at the floor. “How can you let him slander me like this, Roth? How can you? I am a Rabbi, you are a Jew. How dare you let him make these attacks? Did you see the diamonds he talks about?”
Simon kept his eyes averted and shook his head.
Yonah’s voice quieted but contained an edge of desperation. “I met with the Never Agains and yes, I did so without Reb Dov’s knowledge. But to then imagine I had met with the likes of Kellyis blasphemy. You are suggesting that I had something to do with my Rebbe’s slaughter.”
Strengthened by his quasi-admission he turned on me. “You sit there like a k’nocker and spew out one lie after another. You are the very worst kind of Jew. I saw you in the camps. You stayed alive by shoveling our dead brothers’ and sisters’ bones…”
“I’m not the one with the shovel, Rabbi. You had telephone conversations with Kelly and you met him at least once in the park,” I repeated. “Calling me a liar doesn’t
change the truth.”
“The truth. A Jew who despises everything Jewish but somehow owns the truth. How is it you came by this truth? What proof do you have? Show me the diamonds. Show them to Roth. Thistruth you speak of is nothing more than your Jew hating imagination. Were you there when these so-called conversations with Kelly took place? Were you there when we supposedly met? Well, were you?”
There was a moment of excruciating silence before a small, firm voice spoke from the doorway’s gloomy shadow. “He wasn’t there, Papa, I was.”
Yakov’s thin, reedy voice riveted everyone in the room. My stomach lurched as I turned in his direction; this was everything I’d wanted to avoid. I glanced at the Rabbi and saw a strickenlook chip into his stony face then pass as his anger regained its footing. Reb Yonah raised his voice and spoke harshly in Yiddish, wagging his finger toward the door.
“No, Father, I’m not leaving. I won’t return to the Yeshiva,” Yakov answered evenly. Then he looked toward me. “You lied to me, Matt. You said there was nothing to my fears, but you yourself weren’t telling the truth.”
I gritted my teeth and kept silent.
Yonah shouted in rapid-fire Yiddish but Yakov shook his head vehemently. “I will not leave. And you must speak in English. This conversation is not just between us.”
Yonah turned to me. “This is your doing! You have succeeded in turning my only child against me!”
“I didn’t want this to happen, Yonah. I tried to keep this private.”
“Lies, nothing but lies.” Yonah couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. “You put these lies in Yakov’s head. From the beginning you wanted to take him from us, from me.”
“No, Abba, it was the opposite. Matt lied to protect you. He told me what I had seen and heard was of no importance so I could return home with peace of mind.” Yakov shook his head at me. “You thought too little of me, Matt. You treated me like a kid who couldn’t hear the truth.”
Simon walked over to my seat and tapped my shoulder. “Matt, maybe we ought to come back another time?”
I thrust his hand away. “It’s too late, Simon.” I refocused on the boy. “I didn’t lie about everything, Yakov. I don’t believe your father was responsible for Rabbi Dov’s death. But I believe he has information that can make sense out of what happened. And you’re right, I do want to give the two of you a chance together. A clean chance.”
“Listen to him, Roth. Do you hear how he seduces my son?”
Simon returned to his chair. “I don’t hear seduction, Reb Yonah. I hear care and protection. If this conversation had been left up to me I would have called in the boy. Yakov approached Matt with his suspicions, not the other way around. Matt wouldn’t allow me to involve him.”
“After which he would have gone directly back to Yakov,” Yonah cried out bitterly. “This man’s entire reason for being here is to drive a stake between me and my son.”
I looked at Yakov while I responded. “The stake was planted long before I landed in your life, Yonah. When Yakov’s mother died you backed off and allowed Rabbi Dov to play father. And when Dov died, you let Yakov dangle. I wasn’t, and am not, trying to tear Yakov away from you or your religion. Yakov was looking for help to find his way back. It’s pretty difficult when you’re young, all alone, and mixed up in the middle of something you don’t understand.”
I turned to see Reb Yonah drag his chair back to the table and sit down. “I am used to being surrounded by hatred. My entire life has been spent warding off attacks. Even before the Nazis occupied Poland we were always preparing for an assault. Everyone lived in constant fear. We were Saturday night sport for the drunken goyim. But this, this is different. This comes from my own son.”
“I’m not attacking you, Papa,” Yakov said from the doorway. “I could never hate you. I didn’t come to the house to blame, but to find answers. I don’t think the lawyer Roth is here from hate, nor Matt.”
The sound of my name rolling from Yakov’s lips re-ignited Reb Yonah’s temper. “You call this anti-Semite by his first name? You go to him with your concerns and fears but not to your own father? This is not what you’ve been taught! Where did you get these ideas if not from this schkutz?”
“You want to beat on the kid for your failures, don’t you?” I challenged. “I understand your anger. I’m forcing you to admit what you are and what you did. I also understand why you think I’m here to stick it to you. But your son is here out of love and respect. If you want to attack someone, attack me or yourself. Leave the boy alone.”
“I don’t need your protection, Mr. Jacob.” I was stung by Yakov’s use of my surname but listened while he spoke to Reb Yonah. “I love you, Papa, no matter what has happened, but I want to know the truth.”
“How is it you’ve come to be involved?” Reb Yonah demanded. “I haven’t pushed you into any of this. This man is the one who did that.”
“No, Papa, it’s not true. I was the one who overheard your telephone conversations. I was the one who followed you to the park and saw you meet with this Kelly. I was the one who told Mr. Jacob about all of it.”
Simon opened his mouth but I stopped him from speaking with a curt wave of my hand. Yonah had slumped forward, the wrath seeping slowly from his face. I watched him mouth silent words and tug at his beard. He removed his glasses, placing them carefully on the table. I felt my body relax as the intensity in the room slackened.
Reb Yonah said something in Yiddish but Yakov interrupted. “You must speak in English, Father. Everyone has to understand what you are saying.”
Yonah looked as if he was going to argue and I thought we were back to battle. But he restrained himself and rubbed his eyes. “I never wanted you to spend your life living with the same fear as I have.”
“You never spoke with me about any of those fears,” Yakov answered. “You only talk to the Never Agains.”
Yonah shook his head and gestured with his hands. “I couldn’t. Your life was difficult enough. We are encircled by a world that begs, entices us to turn away from our beliefs. And beats us when we don’t. To speak with you about the atrocities that happened in my life meant exposing you to my fear. I could not do that and expect you to take from me the strength and courage to be a Jew. Our kind of Jew.”
Yonah paused and when he spoke again his note of despair had deepened. “After your mother died my aggravations were so great I could barely speak to you at all. When I looked upon you I saw her. I saw another piece of my life that had been stolen.”
He dropped his head to his chest. “I had to do something, anything, to free myself of this affliction. It was after her death that I first met the Never Agains. These were not people frozen in fear. These were not Jews who walked quietly to their graves. I believed I could learn, that the entire Yeshiva could learn. That was why I met with them.
“But our Rebbe, with all his wisdom, all his knowledge, could not understand. He, Merciful God, had been spared the horrors of the camps. He had not seen firsthand the blood and bones ofdying relatives in piles in front of open trenches. Our Rebbe had not been forced to wonder whether a beloved had been used to make the thin sliver of soap the guards occasionally handedout. Or whether a child’s skin had been molded into a lampshade.”
Yonah groaned. “Of course our Rebbe knew of the horror, but he did not witness it the way I and the Never Agains had witnessed it. We saw these things with our eyes. With our own starvation, our own death staring at us each day.”
“But why, Father?” Yakov’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Why did you continue to meet with them after the Rebbe forbade it. Why did you meet with Kelly?”
Yonah looked at each of us in turn. “I stopped the meetings. I explained to the Never Agains that the Rebbe would not allow me to bring the organization to the Yeshiva. They were not pleased with my information. Nor were they pleased when I refused to continue my efforts without Reb Dov’s knowledge. In the past they had confronted similar objections, but always continued their work. I w
ould not allow that here. I could not ignore my Rebbe and I could not let anyone else ignore him.”
There was a long pause while each of us digested what he had said. Yakov emerged from the doorway’s shadow and took a seat a couple feet from the table. Silent tears dripped from his eyes. When I looked at Yonah he too was awkwardly crying. Simon was white-faced and staring in my direction but I didn’t think he actually saw me. I let the silence ride then went on.
“But you picked up with the Never Agains later, Rabbi. Why?”
Reb Yonah spread his hands helplessly. “An important Rabbi, a friend from within the organization, contacted me shortly after these White Avengers began their systematic attacks upon the Yeshiva. Though I was at first reluctant, I became convinced there would be little harm if we met.”
“What was the meeting about?”
Some of his feistiness returned. “It was about the horror that has confronted Jews since we first became a people. Our conversation reminded me of why I had originally sought them. These were people who understood what organized anti-Semitism led to. They understood that the abuse would never disappear on its own. It would end with the destruction of our Yeshiva, ourcommunity. My friends understand the world as it truly is.”
“But the meetings didn’t stop with just one,” I suggested in an even tone. We were moving into the present and I didn’t want to trigger his temper.
I needn’t have worried. Reb Yonah was no longer interested in me or Simon. Throughout his explanation he continually glanced at his son. Finally convinced there was no condemnation to be found, he looked directly at Yakov while he answered my questions. “It was the first of many meetings,” he admitted. “I did not want to end my association.”
“What was their intent, Reb Yonah? How did they want to use you?”
He took his eyes from Yakov’s face, glanced toward me, then went back to talking to his son. “I had no sense of being used. I’m not certain they have used me. I have made my own judgments throughout this ordeal.”
The Complete Matt Jacob Series Page 82
