Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [160]
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” said Miriam.
“I haven’t finished yet. Tonight I’m taking everybody to Giorgio’s for dinner.”
“And tell me, Père Goriot, will the kids have to pay for their own burgers and fries, and eat up at record speed, so that you can get home in time to catch the first inning of the ball game?”
Then Blair sent Miriam a copy of an article he had written for the American Exile in Canada, which she attempted, unavailingly, to hide from me, as even she was embarrassed.
Suppose Canada, Blair ventured, was forced by the masses of its people to assert independence “by nationalizing U.$. owned industry and ending the free reign of U.$. investment. The inevitable U.$. invasion would be tough, brutal, and blood-letting.” But, Blair figured, Canada would win:
The important thing to remember in the eventuality of a Yanqui invasion is that the mass of Canadians would fight the pigs. Guerrilla and partisan struggle would decimate the Yanqui invaders. The mass of Canadians would support the partisan defenders, aid them, feed them, hide them, adopt them as their brothers. We must learn from the Vietnamese how to struggle against Yanqui invasion.…
Didn’t that prick know that the last time the Americans had descended on Montreal, Lt.-Gov. Guy Carleton had fled, the city had capitulated, and a spokesman for the habitants, Valentin Juatard, had greeted the Yanqui pigs as brothers, saying, “Our hearts have always desired union and we have always received the troops of the Union as our own.”
4
Zipporah Ben Yehudah
Dimonah
Negev
Eretz Yisroel
Tishri 22, 5754
The Clara Charnofsky
Foundation for Wimyn
615 Lexington Ave.
New York, N.Y.
U.S.A.
Attention Chavera Jessica Peters and Dr. Shirley Wade
Shalom, Sisters,
I was born Jemima (after the eldest of Job’s three daughters) Fraser in Chicago thirty-five years ago, but since I came to the town of Dimonah in the Negev four years ago I pass by the name of Zipporah Ben Yehudah. I am a Black Hebrew, a follower of Ben Ammi, the former Illinois state wrestling champion who taught us we were the true Israelites. Yes. A Black people dispersed by the Romans to Africa, and then brought as slaves to America. Our bros include the South African Lemba, who also call themselves Israelites even if they don’t keep glatt kosher any more. In the year 1966 of the Christian Era, Ben Ammi, still preaching in Chicago’s South Side, had a vision that came to him in the fire-bombing of a liquor store. Rapping with Jehovah, he learned it was time for the true children of Israel to make aliyah. Three hundred and fifty cool cats took part in the Great Exodus, and now Gott zedank we number 1,500 but continue to suffer like the slings and arrows of the anti-Semitism of the white Jewish usurpers.
Let me tell you, being a Black Jew in Eretz Yisroel is no bowl of cherries. There are golf clubs in Caesarea that won’t have us and restaurants in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that are fully booked if we turn up. The Israelis of pallor disapprove of some of our rituals, especially polygamy, which is based on a true reading of the Five Books of Moses. We shame them, perhaps, because we are more observant than they are. We fast for the entire Shabbat. We are strict vegetarians, avoiding even milk and cheese. And we don’t wear synthetic clothing. In a nutshell, we have returned to the true faith, before it was corrupted by “Euro-gentile” civilization, so called.
We are patriots. We don’t dig Muslims because they were the main slavers. And we are against a Palestinian state. Our community is rigidly disciplined, far removed from the Black street culture of Chicago. In spite of what you might have read in the Jerusalem Post we don’t do drugs. Our children bow slightly when greeting adults and our women defer totally to their husbands. The ultimate word in all matters belongs to Ben