An Orphan's Tale

by Jay Neugeboren

  I wanted to ask him to tell me everything he remembered about Charlie, but I didn’t. He might get suspicious.

  There were old Tephillin bags piled in boxes and he gave me one, and also a white and black Talis that still has some silver threads in it. He gave me a copy of PIR-KAY AVOS which has the Hebrew and the English and I told him it was my favorite book, but he didn’t react. Even though I’m the only real student he has left I don’t believe he really cares about me.

  We walked back to the classroom and I told him about the Home being closed and that they’re going to use our buildings as a halfway house for Jewish mental patients. I gave him the reason I saw in the letter, about the supply of Jewish orphans drying up and he only laughed. He got angry and said that the real reason was always the same: the lack of religious observance. The Home was failing because it was failing God. Our kitchens were no longer Kosher, our Shul was unused, our boys received no real Jewish upbringing.

  He said that the Home was like the state of Israel because its real purpose was to lead the Jewish people away from religion and God!

  I never saw him speak with so much passion before and I wondered if Charlie ever heard him speak like this. He stood in front of the blackboard and waved his good hand in circles above his head. He said the Zionists were willing to sell all of Jewish history for a nationalist “mess of pottage.”

  He said that Zionism represented the greatest heresy of all time. He looked at me with great anger and told me to remember his words because nobody else would ever tell me the truth. I didn’t say anything but I concentrated as hard as I could.

  This was what he said: “ZIONISM IS AN ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH A JEWISH KINGDOM ON EARTH WHICH WAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE PRIVILEGE OF THE MESSIAH ALONE.”

  He got so excited that he began to choke and his face turned from red to gray but I still didn’t say anything or move from my desk. Marty and a 10 year old boy named Norman were peeking through the window with their eyes bulging. Dr. Fogel punched his own chest with his fist and his color began to come back. He gave me a piece of paper and told me to write out a receipt for the Talis and Tephillin and book.

  Larry Silverberg was very friendly to me today but he forgot to ask me for my answer.

  What I want to know: more about Israel and its history, so I can refute Dr. Fogel!

  SATURDAY

  Today was visiting day so I went into the Shul with my new book and stayed there all day, memorizing and sleeping.

  This is what I told myself: The Sabbath is a day of rest and a day of study and I am doing both!

  I stood in front of the Ark and chanted my Haftorah. I opened the Ark but I was afraid that if I tried to lift a Torah out by myself I would drop it.

  There were only 6 boys at supper, and the Puerto Rican cooks and dishwashers ate with us and talked in Spanish about baseball players. After supper I took out my Tephillin and sat on my bed and unwound the leather straps. I wondered if the boy who once used the Tephillin was still alive somewhere and if he had a son who was putting on Tephillin.

  When the lights were out and time had gone by the guys got into each other’s beds and whispered about things they would do to girls and movie stars when they had the chance.

  To remember to do before leaving:

  buy new batteries for my flashlight

  withdraw money from bank

  telephone Charlie’s home

  buy sack for carrying notebooks and Tephillin +

  put aside extra set of clean underwear

  A question: Is there an orphanage anywhere for Jewish girls?

  *

  The narrow line of colored glass that ran along the top of each section of the wall shimmered in the sun. Danny sat on a chair by the window, his tephillin bag in his lap, and watched the courtyard below. When the police car had appeared fifteen minutes before, Danny had been surprised to see Mr. Gitelman step out of it, but he had not, he realized, been afraid.

  The boys stood huddled in a group, at a safe distance, watching Larry Silverberg being handcuffed. Danny felt nothing, except relief: he would not have to give him an answer.

  A group of Puerto Rican boys stood on the other side of the street, outside the gate, watching. Larry Silverberg stepped toward the car, then raised his handcuffed hands above his head and looked up toward Danny. Danny moved away from the window, put his book and tephillin in his locker, and took out some of his money.

  When he came to the window again, the police car was gone and only three boys were left in the courtyard. They played catch with a football. Danny left the dormitory, walked downstairs and along the main corridor. Mr. Gitelman’s office door was open.

  Danny went in and, nobody there, he telephoned Charlie’s home in New Jersey. A woman answered and said that he would be back later in the day. Danny left his name and said he was from the Maimonides Home for Jewish Boys.

  Then he walked from the building, showed his pass to the guard at the gate, and stepped onto the sidewalk. He stared back through the iron bars at the boys left inside the courtyard, and he wondered what—not being friends with any of the boys he himself had been growing up with—he would have to share with Charlie when they were together. What stories of the Home could he bring to him?

  He looked at the bronze plaque on the wall next to the gate and wondered if Charlie would remember it.

  THE MAIMONIDES HOME FOR JEWISH BOYS

  Founded: 1897 “Give me Friendship or Give me Death.”

  Moses Maimonides 1135–1204

  He took the IRT subway to Grand Army Plaza and went into the public library, to look things up. Afterward he walked in Prospect Park and thought about what he’d read. He wondered what Charlie and his friends had done evenings in the Home years before, and decided that having had more boys then made the difference. In the year Charlie had left the Home there had been 326 boys enrolled.

  He took the bus to the neighborhood in which he’d seen Charlie, and he walked along the streets. Most of the stores were closed, but in a used-clothing store he bought a green cloth sack for $3.49, and in a drugstore he bought batteries and candy bars. He returned to the Home in time for supper and he listened to the boys at his table compare things Larry had done to them. Steve was proudest because he still had large purple marks on his arms and legs. They talked about running away and hiding out in movie theaters and getting jobs as delivery boys. One of them said he knew where a summer cottage his aunt and uncle owned was, and the boys became excited about going there. Danny didn’t ask them if the cottage was heated for the winter.

  Mr. Gitelman came into the dining room while they were eating and announced that Larry was going to have to go to court because the mothers of two young boys had brought charges against him. He had been forcing the boys to steal things for him by doing things to them that Mr. Gitelman would not mention. He warned all the boys to be careful and to report to him personally if they wanted to tell him anything. They would never get in trouble for telling him things, he said. “You don’t know how good you have it here until you get sent to the kinds of places he’s been in,” he added. “Believe me.”

  Danny left the room while the boys were eating dessert, went upstairs, and wrote.

  *

  SUNDAY

  This morning the police came and took Larry Silverberg away. Now they’ll have nobody to rally them when the time comes. I think I was glad that he was gone because it makes it easier for me to get ready to leave.

  I went to the library this afternoon and read about Zionism.

  The word Zionism was first used in 1892. In Europe at that time there was still a head tax on “Jews and cattle” that moved from town to town.

  There have always been Jews living in Jerusalem! Jews tried to create a state there in the 16th century and at other times too!

  A saying I found for Dr. Fogel: “It is better to dwell in the deserts of Palestine than in palaces abroad.”

  A question I thought of for him: If we had a place to call our own in 1941 w
ould 6 million of us have died?

  I looked at pictures of Jewish children frozen to death in the snow in the Warsaw Ghetto and I was surprised because instead of making me cry the pictures made my body go stiff. A girl sitting near me saw the way my fists were clenched with anger and she moved to another table.

  A question for Danny Ginsberg: Why do I care so much about a Jewish Homeland? Is it because I never had a real Jewish home of my own, or is it because it’s really something worth caring about?

  Here are the last words of my Haftorah: “Thus saith the Lord God, Because ye are all become dross therefore behold I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.”

  I read a story about a great Zionist named Michael Halpern who was being mocked by a group of Arabs at a circus, so he entered the lion’s cage unarmed and sang the “Hatikvah.”

  What that proves, according to Danny Ginsberg: True strength comes from imagination.

  *

  Danny handed Dr. Fogel his tephillin and Dr. Fogel told Steve to come to the front desk and show Danny how to put it on. Steve did as he was told. He made the blessing for the box and strap which go on the arm and he slipped the leather loop over his elbow and onto his biceps, so that the small black box containing the Shema faced in toward his heart.

  He wrapped the strap that came from the box around his forearm seven times, for the seven blessings. He rolled the end of the strap around his palm and held it there while he picked up the second tephillin box. He kissed the top, said a prayer, and placed the leather loop that came from the bottom of the box around the crown of his head and under his yamulka. Danny thought that the box looked like a miniature square hat with a narrow black rim. Two leather straps hung down from the nape of Steve’s neck to either side of his shoulders, and Marty and Heshy giggled, watching.

  Dr. Fogel glared at them and pulled open the drawer to his desk. Inside, Danny knew, there were nipples for baby bottles, and even though it was silly, it scared the boys to think of Dr. Fogel handing them one to suck on.

  Steve unwound the strap from his left palm and drew it through the spaces between his fingers, three times, so that on the back of his hand the straps looked like the letter “shin,” representing the name of God.

  Dr. Fogel told him to take the tephillin off and he did, winding the straps carefully around the black rims of the boxes and kissing the tops of the boxes lightly before putting them back into the bag.

  Danny realized that, except for playing ball, putting on tephillin was the only thing Steve knew how to do.

  Dr. Fogel asked Danny to come to the front of the room, and he asked him what the meaning of Bar Mitzvah was.

  “Son of Commandment,” Danny said.

  Dr. Fogel asked him how he would be different after his thirteenth birthday and Danny said that in the eyes of the Jewish people he would be a man.

  “In what ways?” Dr. Fogel asked, smiling.

  “I can be counted among the ten men necessary for a minyan without which a service cannot be held and mourner’s Kaddish cannot be said,” Danny recited. “I will be considered responsible as an adult for all my actions. I will put on tephillin every morning. I will—”

  “Yes, yes,” Dr. Fogel interrupted. “But in what way will you be a man?”

  Behind him, the boys had their heads on their desks, hands over mouths, to keep from laughing out loud. Dr. Fogel kept his eyes on Danny. Danny said what came into his head: “I’ll be a man by taking care of Jewish orphans.”

  Dr. Fogel smiled. “Very good,” he said. “That is a very good answer.”

  Danny saw Dr. Fogel’s smile, and it seemed unnaturally large, so that he could not see the man’s eyes above the smile. He felt confident suddenly. “What I want to do is be a doctor on a kibbutz in Israel,” he went on. “So I can take care of Jewish children whose parents have died for God.”

  “For land,” Dr. Fogel corrected. “For land.”

  *

  TUESDAY MORNING

  I couldn’t write anything last night about what happened yesterday because Mr. Gitelman made the night watchman check on us every 15 minutes. He must know we all know about the Home closing and the boys whispered in bed about being afraid he’ll find their hideout.

  Yesterday in Hebrew class Dr. Fogel made Steve show me how to put on Tephillin and he asked me questions about being Bar Mitzvahed and I answered him. Since the class ended the boys look at me in a new way because I’m the only one of them who ever spoke back to Dr. Fogel.

  They might ask me to take Larry Silverberg’s place but I won’t do it in the way they think!

  Now it’s just getting light outside and I see the gate open for delivery trucks the way it is every morning. I went to the savings bank yesterday morning and closed my account. With the money left in my locker I have $72.54. When you become Bar Mitzvahed they give you a $25 Savings Bond but I won’t wait for that.

  I followed Dr. Fogel from the Home in the afternoon so I could see where he lives if I ever need him. He walks quickly and it doesn’t bother him at all when dogs bark at him. I think the Puerto Rican boys in the neighborhood don’t make fun of him because they’re afraid of his arm.

  When we came to a street where a group of Chasidic Jews were standing around a mobile van, he crossed to the other side. Chasidic Jews try to make Jews more Jewish by taking them into their vans and teaching them things about Judaism, but Dr. Fogel told us to beware of them. He said they were like gypsies who love to steal children! He said they worship their Rebbes more than God.

  But I like to watch them move around and talk to each other anyway. When women go by the Chasidic Jews look the other way. Dr. Fogel calls them cowboys because of their big black hats and their long beards.

  From where I was almost a block away I could see their eyes sparkling in their faces and I wondered what they talked about to each other when they weren’t talking about God and Torah. I wanted to get near them just so I could touch their long black silk coats.

  By the time I made myself stop staring at them Dr. Fogel was gone and I couldn’t find him again so I came back here.

  What I was thinking last night before I fell asleep: that my mind contains tunnels, boxes, corridors, caverns, mazes, layers, webs, and grids. In one second I can think something more complicated than my words can ever show, even if I had all the time in the world and I could write out all the details and relationships.

  But if my mind is as complicated as I believe it is, why do I write so simply?

  A good answer: My words are the other self to my thoughts!

  After I took my money out I worried that the bank might telephone the Home to tell them and that Mr. Gitelman will tell everybody to be on the lookout.

  I’ll know tomorrow if they let me out the gate without stopping me!

  *

  Danny was surprised at how gently Dr. Fogel was treating him. Dr. Fogel had told the others to go outside and play and he had taken Danny to the shul again. He touched Danny’s shoulder lightly with his good hand and asked him to put on his tephillin, and when Danny did things in the wrong order, Dr. Fogel did not get angry.

  Danny remembered that Orthodox Jews did everything in an order, even to the point of putting the left foot out of bed in the morning before the right foot.

  After Danny removed his tephillin and put the boxes away in his tephillin bag, he chanted his Haftorah for Dr. Fogel. Then they took out the Torah and went over the Maftir portion several times. Dr. Fogel told him he was doing very well, and Danny wondered if Dr. Fogel was changing because of his knowledge about the Home’s closing.

  When they had returned the Torah to the ark, Dr. Fogel told Danny that he was a very wealthy man.

  Danny wanted to please him, so he recited from the Pirkay Avos: “Who is the wealthy man? He who is content with his portion.”

  Dr. Fogel sat down. “No,” he said softly. “I have land. Do you know how much?”

  Danny shrugged.

  “Guess.”

  “An acre?�
��

  Dr. Fogel laughed. “Guess again,” he said. “You’re a bright boy. Guess again—I have land enough for Leviathan.”

  Danny stood in front of the ark, facing Dr. Fogel, and he imagined that he was a rabbi and that Dr. Fogel was the only other Jew left in the world. He told himself that he could say anything he wanted because, after the next day, he would never see him again.

  “A hundred acres.”

  Dr. Fogel clucked inside his mouth. “I have over three thousand acres,” he said, and smiled. Danny said nothing. “Do you want to know how I come to have so much land?”

  “Do you want to tell me?” Danny answered.

  Dr. Fogel patted the chair to his left with the palm of his hand. “Come. Sit next to me and I’ll tell you the story.”

  Danny sat next to Dr. Fogel and Dr. Fogel, his good hand touching Danny’s arm occasionally, started telling him about his father, who had escaped from Poland as a boy in order to settle in Palestine. But the man to whom he had given his money had tricked him, and at the age of thirteen and a half Dr. Fogel’s father had awakened one morning to find that he had arrived in America.

  Danny asked no questions. He wondered if Dr. Fogel was telling him of his father’s trip because he knew of Danny’s own plan. And if he knows, Danny wondered, does he want me to escape or does he want to keep me here with him?

  Danny felt dizzy. He pressed his fingers tightly against the seat of his wooden chair, between his knees. He did not hear everything Dr. Fogel said, but he saw Dr. Fogel’s hands moving toward his own, the limp fingers of the man’s right hand kneading the good fingers of the left. Danny jerked his hands upward and let them rest in his lap. Dr. Fogel was talking about a Jewish settlement his father had established on one of two large tracts of land. The settlements existed to train Jews who wanted to go to Palestine.

  Danny tried to make his own mind go backward, so he could hear again about what Dr. Fogel’s father had done in New York to earn enough money to buy the land, but he couldn’t recapture the words. Danny thought that it had to do with buying and selling notes, and that the notes represented money. Dr. Fogel said that his father would search out wealthy Jews from New York who had come from his city in Poland—his landsleit—and would get them to donate money to him for his settlement.