Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [71]
A new idea was making headway among the Jews and that was the resettlement and redemption of Palestine. Many of the younger people chose the Holy Land and left with a spirit of pioneers. The movement to Zion was small by comparison to the flood going to America, but it carried extraordinary zeal.
The return to Zion was codified by a Viennese Jew, Theodor Herzl, at a convention in Basel, Switzerland, and soon had organizations in every shtetl.
In 1905, the year of Reuben’s birth, another series of pogroms erupted. General discontent was spreading all over Russia and somehow the venom was turned against the Jews, as it had always been. In the neighboring city of Bialystok the suffering was particularly horrible for the Jews at the hands of the army.
Breezes of change became winds of change. Yehuda Zadok was wise enough to know that his sons would probably want to emigrate. He had silently prepared himself to let them go. All of them, except Mordechai.
Mordechai was the flesh of his flesh, the soul of his soul. A young man immersed in Talmud, immersed in Yiddish, prepared for shtetl life. Although the shtetl was splintering, some, like him, could never leave it. He was determined to salvage his own life and perpetuate it through Mordechai.
When Nathan’s turn at rebellion came, Yehuda was ready. Irreversible forces of history were at work and Yehuda had made a pragmatic decision of what to preserve and what to let go.
IT WAS A pleasant spring day. Yehuda was feeling chipper. Max Pinsker, owner of the textile mill, had had his first son born to him. Max was one of a half-dozen wealthy members of the community and a major benefactor of his fellow Jews. He supported the yeshiva among his other notable charitable causes and almost no one begrudged him his seat on the Eastern Wall.
There was a residue of bitterness when the union attempted to organize his factory. He stopped the attempt ruthlessly. Everyone knew the labor people were wild radicals and agitators filled with anarchist philosophies coming out of Russia. They were no damned good! Moreover, Max was humane to his employees, more or less.
One of Yehuda’s positions was that of the mohel, the circumciser. It was an honorary job but no one failed to slip the mohel a couple of rubles for his services. There were always a few slices of cake from the celebration for him to take home to his family.
From a man so esteemed as Max Pinsker came a ten-ruble gratuity for the circumcision. This was a week’s earnings. Yehuda was feeling a bit tipsy and expansive from a tad too much wine at the celebration. What was more, the Sabbath was coming and already people were passing him and bowing.
“Good shabbas, Rev Zadok.”
“Good shabbas, good shabbas.”
Mordechai was at his father’s side, hands clasped piously behind him, imitating his gestures. Of course, the title of “Rev” was also honorary, to denote Yehuda as a learned man. Mordechai would become a true rabbi, a real Reb.
Sophie grabbed her husband as he entered the cottage and with a special urgency that suddenly dampened the spring day.
“Mordechai, look after your brothers and sisters and get them ready for shul,” she ordered. “Yehuda, come with me.”
She led him across the yard to the woodshed. Nathan sat shriveled in a corner, his nose streaked with dried blood, his shirt torn and his cheeks bruised.
“Will someone kindly inform me what is going on?”
“He tried to run away. He took three rubles from my thimble box. The police brought him back, looking like this.”
“Stand up, Nathan,” his father demanded sharply.
The boy struggled to his feet warily, sniffling.
“What happened?”
“Goyim caught him on the road. They took his money from him,” his mother said.
“You little goniff!”Yehuda cried, raising his hand to deliver a clout. On further note, he decided that his son didn’t need another klop. “So where did you think you were going with three