Monthly Archives: August 2015

by | August 31, 2015 · 7:57 pm

His Brother’s Keeper, A Mystery Series – Part 1, Chapter Eleven

Welcome to His Brother’s Keeper, a fictional mystery series set in 2000, in New York. I’ve decided to periodically lend my blog to a friend, Eva Hirschel. Eva doesn’t have a social media presence but she does have a mystery that she wanted to publish serially on-line, so I’m giving her a hand. (If you’re just tuning in now, I suggest that you start at the beginning). Here is Part I, Chapter 11. Enjoy!

Chapter Eleven

IMG_0747The synagogue was a proud, old building, erected during what must have been a boom time in Altoona’s Jewish history. It was designed in the Moorish style that was once popular for synagogues. Like many other congregations in Western Pennsylvania, it had seen better times. Leaving Simon and the kids chasing each other through the piles of crunchy leaves on the synagogue lawn, I walked up the steps leading to a row of heavy carved wooden doors. Once inside, I looked around. Photographs of congregants at a variety of activities lined one wall. On the other wall were framed photographs of every confirmation class, going back to 1911. The contrast between the old sepia-toned photographs and newer color photographs told the story of change. In the earlier photographs, the girls wore long, white, ruffled dresses and demurely held flowers in their arms. The bareheaded boys wore dark suits. The color photographs reflected the evolution of both the congregation and Judaism—both the boys and girls wore tallitot and kippot, and they held Torah scrolls in their arms instead of flowers. There were also fewer students in the more recent photographs. In the 1911 photograph there were 12 students, in 1935 there were 23, in 1970 there were seven, and in 1999 there were three. The entire history of the Jewish community in Altoona could be read in these photographs. The Jewish community had grown up around the railroad industry. Jews had come to the area as peddlers catering to the needs of the local workers. Some of the peddlers had stayed and established roots, opening dry goods stores and groceries. But what was once a vibrant, flourishing community had waned with the end of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company’s reign. Young people left the area for big cities and opportunities elsewhere. Only a proud fraction remained.

Looking for the rabbi’s study, I peeked into a room that turned out to be the sanctuary. It was a majestic space in the classical style,, with a domed ceiling painted sky-blue and an organ and a choir balcony above the bima. Though the room could easily hold three hundred people I wondered if even thirty showed up for weekly services. Closing the heavy door behind me, I wandered down the hallway looking for the rabbi’s study.

Around the bend in the hallway I saw a door marked “Rabbi Bergman.” I approached and knocked lightly.

A slightly built man in his early forties opened the door. He was good-looking in an average sort of way, with a neatly trimmed dark beard and mustache. On his head sat a blue and white embroidered kippa; his suit was an acceptably serious dark blue of unremarkable cut. His look just screamed “RABBI;” he looked like about ten other of Leah’s classmates I’d had occasion to meet, and nothing about his nondescript physical appearance matched the extraordinarily deep and textured voice I had heard on the phone.

Introducing himself, he shook my hand and welcomed me in to his study. The study was a large, white room overflowing with books. Glass-front bookshelves covered the walls of the room up to shoulder-height, broken only by two windows across from the desk. Above the bookshelves, at evenly spaced intervals around the room, hung various items, like Rabbi Bergman ’s diplomas and his s’micha, or rabbinic ordination certificate. The only bit of color, other than an occasional brightly colored book jacket, was a reproduction of a Chagall painting. The tops of the bookshelves were piled with books, as was the desk, the two chairs in front of the desk, and a coffee table in front of a pale gray couch. There were several more piles of books on the floor.

Rabbi Bergman motioned for me to sit on the couch and, moving away a pile of books, seated himself on a chair. “Sorry about the mess,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “It’s just, well, no excuse. I like books.”

“No problem,” I said. “I’m so glad you made time to talk to me.”

“Not a lot of time, but it’s my pleasure. Like I said on the phone, I don’t know how I can help you, but I’ll try. How is my colleague Rabbi Brown?”

“She’s fine,” I answered, “and sends her regards.”

“We were chevruta partners in a Talmud study session at a conference a few years ago. She’s got quite a mind.”

“That she does,” I said, already tired of the chitchat. “She’s pretty amazing.”

Before I could decide how to steer the conversation around to my topic of interest, Rabbi Bergman said, “So what can I tell you about Jack Gelberman that would be helpful?”

“Well, Rabbi,” I began, and he quickly cut me off.

“Please, call me Steve.” He had said that over the phone. Still, it felt strange, even if he was a friend of Leah’s. A rabbi was a rabbi, after all.

“I’m trying to get a sense of him, of his family, of who he is, where he came from. I don’t really know specifically what I’m looking for. This kind of thing is very tricky, you don’t what you’re looking for until you find it.”

He nodded. “Okay. Well, let’s see. He wasn’t a very active member. Kept to himself most of the time. I always got the feeling that he joined more out of obligation than commitment. I had the impression that he came from a much more traditional background, but had rejected it or left it behind. It seemed like he was conflicted. In other words, that joining this synagogue was an uneasy compromise between what he had known at another point in his life, and doing nothing. Maybe he joined for his wife’s sake, or for his children’s, I don’t know. But he never gave and he never took. Never got involved in any thing.   When I first got here as a young, green rabbi, I was disappointed, because I could tell that he knew a lot, I could tell that as a child he was given a solid Torah education, but he wasn’t willing to mentor or teach or share any of that knowledge, not even to chant Torah occasionally, or work with a bar mitzvah student, nothing. In a small place like this, without a lot of resources around, I tend to count on knowledgeable older congregants. Our children’s education is a group effort here.”

I was writing away furiously in my notebook, and looked up when he stopped talking.

He seemed to be considering the direction he wanted this conversation to take. “Look,” he began, “I can’t disclose any thing personal. And in any case, I was only here a few years before he retired and moved away. He never came to me except when his wife died, and even then you could hardly call our conversation personal. But there are two things that stand out when I stop to think about him, and this might help you. I think it’s okay for me to talk about them, because I’m just giving you my impressions, not disclosing anything.”

I nodded encouragingly.

“I knew he was a survivor, but he wasn’t like the other survivors. I mean, not that there’s one way to be a survivor, but even so, he seemed different. He never wanted to participate in any Holocaust observances, any memorials. He never came to Yizkor, and had no yahrzeits listed on our congregational list. Even the survivors who did not talk publicly about their experiences mourned their dead. He never did, at least not within the community. What he did privately, I don’t know.

“But two things happened that, at the time, made me really stop and wonder about him. The first was when we were doing a congregational Shabbaton, a special Shabbat, on Jewish life in Poland before the Holocaust. We had a scholar-in-residence come in from YIVO in New York, and we had spent a whole Shabbat on this topic. Everything was connected, the sermon, the songs we sang at services, and then all kinds of activities. It was a wonderful learning experience for the congregation. Knowing that he was a survivor and probably from Poland, I called him and asked him if he would lead one of the discussions on Shabbat afternoon, before Havdalah. It was our next-to-last session, and it was going to be on the destruction of Eastern European, and especially Polish, Chasidism, the end of all those dynasties. I thought he might know something about it, and I had plenty of readings to recommend, in case he didn’t know that much. Being so new and eager, I thought maybe all he needed was a personal invitation to get more involved in the congregation, and that this would be the perfect hook.”

“And how did he respond?” I asked.

“His response was that it wasn’t important. That what happened had happened and we should let the dead stay dead. But what was really weird was that he got very angry about it, and this was someone who was as mild-mannered and even-tempered as they come. He actually raised his voice at me, told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, and said, ‘Who do you think I am?!’ Well, I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, and so I just apologized and moved on. It bothered me for some time afterwards because I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong. But what do I know about being a survivor? I chalked it up to my naiveté, which, granted, was considerable. But now you’re saying he may in fact have come from significant Chasidic lineage.”

“It seems like he didn’t want anyone to know.”

“No, and I don’t think anyone did. It didn’t seem like he was someone with a lot of friends. Acquaintances, yes, colleagues down at the high school, but not friends. He was a loner, except for his family. And that brings me to the other story. His wife, Judith, died fairly close to the time he moved to Florida. She had been sick a while, apparently, but no one knew. Well, I didn’t know, and usually if someone knows, they let me know. When she died he called me from the hospital, very formal, and asked me to do the funeral. Of course I said I would. I asked to come over to the house that night to talk to the family and go over arrangements.”

“And what happened?”

“He said no, it wasn’t necessary. Actually, I said funeral, but he didn’t want a funeral–no funeral, no eulogy, just a graveside burial. He said he wasn’t going to sit shiva, and didn’t need for me to arrange a minyan to come to his house for the week. Nothing. I’m not really sure why he even wanted me at the graveside. Didn’t need any help, not a thing. Usually when there’s a death in a congregant’s family, I spend a lot of time with them going over Jewish death and mourning rituals, talking to them, giving emotional support and arranging for community support, even when it’s a congregant I barely know. But no, he didn’t want anything from me. I asked him if he was sure, and he said, ‘The dead are dead. There’s no need for making a production out of it. She’s gone. It’s over. I don’t need a lot of pious nonsense.’”

“He sounds bitter.”

“But that’s what so’s weird. He wasn’t, usually. I’d heard that his students at the high school loved him, he was quiet and reserved but at the same time so warm to people. People felt this immediate comfort in his presence, even I did outside of these two situations, like he wasn’t going to judge you but just accept you. He had this intense way of looking at you that just make you feel safe. It’s a strange thing to say, I know. But it was a one-way kind of thing. He didn’t open up to people, but they would open up to him.”

“And what happened at the burial?”

“He was mostly silent. He said the Kaddish, but nothing else. He told me beforehand that he wouldn’t shovel dirt on the coffin. He said there was enough dirt covering Jewish bodies to last an eternity. But his children did it, and he didn’t stop them. When it was over and I was going to my car, he walked over and quietly thanked me. He said that it was the first funeral he’d been to, the first time he been able to properly bury someone he loved, and that he really appreciated my help. Then he turned and went back to his family. I didn’t really know what to do, since I felt I had barely done anything, hadn’t used my rabbi’s toolkit, so to speak. But apparently it was what he wanted.”

“Humm,” I said, chewing thoughtfully on my pen. “Did you do any follow-up after that?”

“Well, actually, that was strange too. I called a few days later, just to check in and see how he was doing. That’s a normal thing for me to do, just doing-my-job sort of thing. His son answered the phone and told me that his father couldn’t come to the phone because he was davening ma’ariv, the evening service. Remember, he had told me he wasn’t going to be sitting shiva, he wasn’t doing any mourning rituals, he didn’t want a minyan to come pray with him. But there he was, davening alone. It was so sad, and touching at the same time. To have such an intense need for privacy, yet also clearly the need for comfort from the tradition. I asked if I could come the next day to daven with him, and his son said no, it wasn’t necessary. Very polite, but no, my presence wasn’t necessary.”

“And what about the son? Can you tell me anything about the family?”

“Not much. I know he has a daughter, but she left the area long before I came. I only saw her at the graveside. Nathan, the son, was a member here, but like his father, not involved. His kids never were in the school here; if they had been I would surely have known them better. Anyway, that’s another story, nothing to do with the father, but about Nathan himself. I can’t say more about without breaking confidentiality. And they moved fairly soon after that. So I don’t really know them.”

“Well, this has been extremely helpful. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it. It’s a nice thing for the granddaughter to do for him, though it seems like there are of ghosts Jack might not want disturbed. Do you think there’s really a chance he came from an important Chasidic background?”

“I’m getting more and more convinced, that’s for sure. But I still have a lot of research to do, and many books to read. I met with Rabbi Joel Springer, and he gave me a lot of homework to do.”

He laughed. “Well, you’ll certainly gain an education doing this, if nothing else. He’s a great teacher. But you know, it’s funny. In rabbinic school, in the classes with Rabbi Springer, we study all this Chasidic wisdom, and Chasidic Torah commentary. It’s great stuff, and makes for great sermons. But it’s completely divorced from modern day Chasidism. I mean, you live in Brooklyn. Those people are nuts.”

“You mean one particular group, or all of them?”

“Yeah, they’re all a little nuts. But Chabad, Lubavich, whatever we call them, they’re really crazy. They’ve got one foot outside of the border of Judaism as it is, and they’re very close to stepping out all together. I have colleagues who don’t even consider them Jews anymore, with their messianic nonsense. There’s a joke circulating now that goes, ‘What’s the religion that closest to Judaism?’ ‘Chabad.’”

“I don’t know that much about it, only that they thought that their rebbe was the messiah, and then he died.”

“Yeah, surprise! I know it’s only one group within the Lubavich camp, but still, they’re nuts. Some say it’s a power play, I don’t know. But meanwhile, there’s no heir, and they act like he’s still alive, running the show. They keep waiting for him to rise from the dead. Well, doesn’t that sound like some other religion we know? It’s just crazy. They took out a full-page ad in the New York Times declaring him Melech Ha-Moshiach, the Messiah King of the Jews. I’m sure you saw, there were billboards all over places like New York, Los Angeles and Tel Aviv. They walked around with beepers, waiting to get the call the he was coming. I mean, is that Judaism? Come on. Now they keep vigil at his grave, waiting. They have huge get-togethers, where they rent stadiums, and they show a video montage of him, without even any voice-over. They dance and sing and pray as he looks out over them from the screens above. This is idol worship. This is nuts. This isn’t Judaism.”

“But wasn’t Chasidism always somewhat messianic?”

“Yes, sure, but in the abstract. It’s one thing to hope for a better world, and to even think that maybe joyful prayer and keeping the commandments will hasten that day, and it’s another thing entirely to have decided that the rebbe, who by that time had had a stroke and couldn’t talk, was actually the Messiah. I just don’t get it. So I can study Chasidic teaching all day long, and love it, but this stuff happening today, it’s totally foreign to me.”

He got up and went over to one of the piles of books he had moved off the chair. He returned, holding a thick magazine in his hand. “I mean, look at this. Somehow I got on their mailing list, don’t ask me how. Every week I get this publication, MiBeit HaMashiach, ‘From the House of the Messiah.’ Can you believe this?” On the cover was a picture of Schneerson, the late Lubavich rebbe. His was seated at a table, his face was turned to the camera and smiling munificently. Behind him was a throng of men in beards, black suits and white shirts. “I mean, this is this week’s edition. The man died what, five years ago? But every week this publication comes out, and every week it’s got his picture on the cover, and every week it analyses old sermons or speeches he gave to show that he really is the messiah and that he’s coming back. It’s got all kinds of things in here about how to get prepared and how to do more mitzvos. This is totally crazy stuff. And they say that Reform Judaism has crossed over the line of no return? Come on.   We may have women rabbis and same sex marriages and drive on Shabbat, but we have not yet proclaimed that one of our deceased rabbis is the messiah and will rise from the dead.”

There was a knock at the door and a woman stuck her head in. “Oh, excuse me, Rabbi. We’re setting up the sanctuary and I just need to take the Kiddush cup. Sorry to interrupt.”

“That’s okay.” He got up, stretched, and walked over to one of the bookshelves. From behind a stack of books he extricated a large, ancient-looking silver Kiddush cup and handed it to the woman. The design of the cup was crude, and yet strangely beautiful, with simple vines and leaves spreading upwards from the thick base. “Here you go. I’ll be out shortly.” He turned back to me and said, “Sorry for the rant. Guess I got a little carried away.”

“No problem. That’s a beautiful Kiddush cup. It looked very old.”

He was already taking a robe off a hanger behind the door. “Yes, yes. An anonymous gift from a congregant. Well, I think I need to get going. Are you going to stay for services?”

I nodded. “If my kids can get through it, I’d love to. Can I ask one more quick question?”

“Shoot.”

How apt, since that’s exactly what I was doing. Shooting in the dark, to be exact, going on some vague hunch that I couldn’t explain at the moment. “Did Jack Gelberman ever mention any other living relatives, besides the immediate family? Were there any other relatives at the funeral?”

Steve steadied the hanger with his free hand. “No, no one. Sorry. You know, you might want to talk to Mort and Betty Klein. They’re congregants here, lovely people, and they were friendly with the Gelbermans. Mort and Jack taught together, that kind of thing. I never thought of Jack Gelberman as someone with friends, but the Kleins were probably as close to him as anyone else was outside of the family. Maybe they could be of help to you. Here, I’ll give you their number.” Carrying the robe, he walked back over to his desk, and all with one hand, checked a directory, copied down a phone number onto a piece of note paper, and handed it to me. “Great then. Really nice to meet you.” He put on the robe over his suit, zipped it up, and stretched out his hand. I stood up to shake it. “I’ll see you in the sanctuary shortly. You can see how different services are here than at Leah’s shul in Brooklyn. I’m still expected to wear this thing, but that’s okay. They’re good people here. Anyway, I’ll see you inside.”

I took that as my cue to exit, and thanking him profusely, went out to the community room where I found Hannah sitting quietly on a chair sucking the end of her ponytail, and Simon chasing Caleb.

Simon saw me approach and gave up the chase. “The changing of the guards,” he said to me, grinning, “and boy does that little guard need to be changed.” With that he handed me the diaper bag, and sat himself down next to Hannah.

[To be continued…]

His Brother’s Keeper is entirely fictional. None of the characters or situations described in this series are based on real people or events. Copyright (c) 2015 by Eva Hirschel.

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by | August 25, 2015 · 4:53 pm

His Brother’s Keeper, A Mystery Series – Part 1, Chapter Ten

Welcome to His Brother’s Keeper, a fictional mystery series set in 2000, in New York. I’ve decided to periodically lend my blog to a friend, Eva Hirschel. Eva doesn’t have a social media presence but she does have a mystery that she wanted to publish serially on-line, so I’m giving her a hand. (If you’re just tuning in now, I suggest that you start at the beginning). Here is Part I, Chapter 10. Enjoy!

Chapter Ten

IMG_2489The trip to Altoona was uneventful, or, as uneventful as long trips can be with small children. We left Brooklyn at 6:30 in the evening, partly because I wanted to get some work done in Altoona during the next day, and partly because we figured the kids would sleep in the car. They did, eventually, at about eleven o’clock and after more songs, snacks, bathroom stops and stories than I cared to remember. I had brought along a collection of Jewish folktales that my parents had given the kids for Chanukah. I was surprised to read in the back of the book that many of the stories had Chasidic roots and some were even attributed to the Baal Shem Tov himself. The kids particularly liked one story about an illiterate shepherd boy who can play the flute but can’t read a word of the prayer book. He goes to synagogue and is devastated to realize that he can’t pray. So instead, he plays a song on his flute to God. The other congregants are scandalized by his impropriety, but in the end the boy triumphs when the rabbi declares that the music he made with the flute was a prayer that went straight to God because it came from the boy’s heart. It seemed to sum up what I had read about Chasidism, with its embrace of the poor and uneducated masses and allowing everyone access to God through expressions of heartfelt joy.

It was a long trip, almost seven hours with all the stops. When we finally got to the hotel, checked in, carried in the sleeping kids and the bags and pillows, Simon and I had collapsed in our bed and fallen right asleep. I still hadn’t found the right opportunity to tell him the details about yesterday’s meeting with Sarah Gelberman.

In the morning, the first stop was the town clerk’s office. I left Simon back at the hotel with the kids, on their way to the heated indoor pool. Altoona was a small city in Western Pennsylvania, not far from one of the Penn State campuses, which had reached its zenith during the height of the steam railroad’s dominance in industry in the forties. While there was clearly an effort towards rehabilitation going on, it was also clear that the downtown had seen better days. The city clerk’s office was located in a small, nondescript municipal building downtown that, according to the sign in the lobby, housed Altoona’s Department of Taxation, the City Manager, the City Solicitor, The Purchasing Department, the City Inspector, the Zoning Department, the Water Authority and the Water Billing Office.

The clerk’s office was on the second floor, up a wide staircase. A black door with a brass sign next to a water fountain announced, “City Clerk.” I opened the door and entered a large, drafty room. Inside was a row of chairs facing a low railing. Behind the railing sat a middle-aged woman at a battered metal desk, entering information into a computer. The rest of the space behind her was taken up with rows and rows of filing cabinets and steel shelves of boxes labeled by number. In one corner was another woman, also working intently at a computer. On the left was a bank of offices, to which the frosted glass doors were closed. Sunlight filtered in through dingy arched windows at the back of the aisles. The woman at the front of the room looked up at me, her teased blond hair and red lipstick the brightest things in this drab room. The nameplate in front of her computer informed me that she was Mrs. A. Romero.

“May I help you?” she asked politely, glancing back at her screen.

“Yes, hi,” I began. “I’m doing some research and I need information on a former resident of Altoona.”

“Alive or deceased?” she asked mechanically.

“Alive,” I said.

She cocked her head slightly, looking in my general direction. “Well, honey, if the person is alive there is very little I can do for you, ‘cept what’s public domain.”

“Yes, I know. That’s fine. That would help. What I’m looking for specifically is a teaching certificate.”

She frowned, looking quickly over her shoulder to the row of offices behind her. “Now, this isn’t about a lawsuit of some sort, is it?”

I smiled, trying to look as innocuous as possible. “No, no, not at all. I’m a genealogist, trying to track down some information for a client, whose grandfather used to live here. It’s a surprise for his birthday, so I can’t ask him directly.”

Pushing her chair back from her desk, she looked up at me with interest. “Well, isn’t that the sweetest thing. My husband is working on his family tree. It’s a lot of work, but soooo interesting. Now what’s the name of this former Altoona resident of yours?”

“Jack Gelberman,” I said.

A smile broke out on her face. “Gelberman? And you say he was a teacher? A man in his mid-seventies or so, it would be?”

I nodded, holding my breath. Could she have known him? That kind of coincidence only happened in books.

“Why, honey, that must be Mr. Gelberman who taught at the high school. I’m a local myself. My Dad came out here to work for the railroad. Sometimes it still just seems like a real small town. Sure I knew him, a sweetheart of a man, quiet but so kind and thoughtful. Always had a word of encouragement, always believed in his students. I had Mr. Gelberman myself for basic science, so many years ago. And then my daughter had him for physics. That was his specialty. I was terrible at science, but Tina, my daughter, she was a very good student. He was one of her favorite teachers. How nice to think of him again after all this time.” She sighed and continued. “Tina became a teacher herself, you know, and I think it was in part because of the example of Mr. Gelberman. He was never too busy to help a student, never made anyone feel stupid, even people like me who didn’t understand a thing. He was so smart, he probably could have been a great physicist, but no, this was what he wanted, to teach high school for his whole career. Don’t know how he had the patience. Here, come on in.” She raised a latch in the railing and a portion swung out to allow me to enter the inner sanctum. She patted the empty chair next to her desk. “Sit down. Let me pull his file.” She got up and walked to the back of the room while I made myself comfortable. “Such a small world, you know. Let’s see, where would it be?”

Her description of Jack Gelberman sounded a great deal like Mrs. Freiburg’s description of Nossen Shlomo. A good man, a mensch, kind and compassionate, but quiet, not leadership material, not ambitious.

She continued looking, talking to me while she searched. Her voice floated back to me from between the cabinets and through the shelves. “I remember his son Nathan, he graduated high school with my little sister. Is it Nathan asked you to do this research?”

“No,” I called back to her. “It’s his granddaughter.”

“How absolutely sweet. Which one? Ah, I think I found it here.” She reappeared from behind a file cabinet, carrying a manila folder.

“Sarah.”

“Sarah. Yes, I remember Sarah. They moved a while ago, around the same time Mr. Gelberman retired I think, but I remember the grandkids. You know, they sort of stuck out around here, but boy were they cute. I remember running in to him at the playground. I had taken my grandkids, and he was there with his. Such a sweet man, so good with kids.”

She began to tell me about her own grandchildren, but I wasn’t listening. I nodded and oohhed and aahhed appropriately when she showed me the framed pictures of them on her desk, but I was too busy processing the information that Sarah Gelberman had been born and lived here in Altoona. Why, then, would she not have told me her grandfather had lived here? She must have known. And what did Mrs. Romero mean by telling me that they stuck out around here? Was she referring to Sarah’s bright red hair? Did all of Sarah’s siblings have the same color hair? Red hair was not common, surely, but it wasn’t that remarkable.

“So would you like to see the teaching certificate?” she asked, pulling me out of my reverie.

“Yes, please.”

She opened the folder, pulled out a yellowed certificate, and handed it to me. There it was, actual documentary proof of Jacob Gelberman’s existence. Holding a document was very different somehow than reading something on a computer screen. According to the certificate, he received a B.A. in physics from the Penn State campus in State College, Pennsylvania, in 1952. He’d continued at Penn State, getting an M.A. in physics and finishing the requirements for a teaching license in 1954. Those dates would jibe with Sarah’s information that he had been a Holocaust survivor, because it would have meant that he had arrived here at the latest around 1948. He’d worked at Altoona High School from 1954 until his retirement in 1996. The certificate also listed his previous places of employment before he began to teach. Between 1951-1954 he worked at a Seltz’s Shoe Emporium as a clerk, and before that, beginning in 1947, he worked at B. Solomon and Son’s Grocery. So he had probably arrived in 1947. It looked like a typical immigrant’s story, arriving with nothing and working at non-professional jobs, getting an education, and landing in the middle class. As a teacher he would not have been wealthy, but his family would have been comfortable, and he would have a nice pension for his retirement years.

It was all interesting information, and helped add to the picture I in my mind of Jack Gelberman. The most interesting bit of information though, was what was listed on the line next to “place of birth.” The handwriting was cramped and hard to read, but it was clear enough that I could make out the words, Chalisz, Poland. I knew from my reading that Chalisz was a variant spelling of Halizch.

I had to hold my breath for a moment. Even though I hadn’t wanted to share my doubts with Simon, in the back of my mind I’d been plenty concerned that Sarah Gelberman was leading me on a wild goose chase. But here it was, evidence on an official document. It still didn’t prove beyond a doubt that his grandfather was the Halizcher rebbe, but all evidence was pointing in that direction. How many other Jack Gelbermans of just this age could there have been from Halizch, Poland? Then again, there were still plenty of questions. I needed definitive proof, but I also needed a plan. In the meantime, I asked to see his voter registration information.

“I can’t tell you who he voted for,” she said laughing, “but I can tell you the first time he was on the voter registration rolls. That I’ve got right here.” She turned to the computer and got to work. “Been a registered voter since 1956. If he was a Republican, he would have helped get Eisenhower elected. But if you don’t mind me asking, how does that help you? Maybe it’s something I could tell my husband.”

Great, I thought, win her over by giving her a lesson in genealogy. Whatever works. “If I know when he first voted, it might give me some idea of when he became naturalized. It takes five years to become a citizen and be eligible to vote. We know from the employment records that the latest he could have arrived in the U.S. was 1947. So he should have been eligible to vote as early as 1953. Why the gap? It’s probably not significant. Either he wasn’t interested in voting until it was a presidential election, or he had just not gotten around to it until then. What it gives me is an approximate date of the latest possible time he might have arrived, which in this case I didn’t really need that since I had his employment history, but it can still be useful. And it also gives me a good estimate of the earliest time he might have arrived. We don’t know anything before 1947. If he had been a registered voter earlier than ’53, we’d have to assume he had been in the country before ’47. In this case, however, either he wasn’t interested in voting, or he really did arrive right around the time he appeared here in Altoona and started working for the grocer.”

“Wow, that’s clever!” she exclaimed. “I have to tell Anthony! Thanks for the tip.”

While I had been discussing voter registration with Mrs. Romero, the other half of my brain had been hatching a plan. This next part wasn’t going to be easy. Mrs. Romero seemed so nice, I hated to be devious. But devious I would be.

“It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much. You’ve been so helpful to me.” With as much casualness as I could muster, I said, “He seems like such a nice man, from everything I’ve heard about him. And did you know Mrs. Gelberman too?”

She smiled again. “Not well. She passed away some years ago. But she was lovely too, like him. She used to volunteer a lot, at the library, and with the Red Cross when they did blood drives, things like that. Always trying to help. Not as quiet as her husband, but still a private person. I think she also went through the war. You know. A terrible thing those people must have lived through. We don’t have a whole lot of people of the Jewish faith here, but those who are here are good people. The town made a real effort after the war to welcome the refugees and helped them get settled.”

“Were there a lot of them that came here?”

“No, not that I know of. I think just a handful of some young, single people like Mr. Gelberman must have been back then. People without families, who could make fresh starts in a place like this. Gave them opportunities to work and learn professions. We should all take such good care of each other, you know. It was a nice thing.”

“Did the Gelbermans ever talk about their experiences, that you know of?”

“Oh, no, never, not in public anyway.” She sighed. “It wasn’t done. You know, today nothing’s private anymore, with those talk-shows about sex and scandals and all, but once it wasn’t considered polite to talk about people’s tragedies and sorrows. As far as I know, and I didn’t know them well, they never spoke about it publicly. Still, Altoona was a small town then, and we all knew. There weren’t many foreigners, and with those accents they stood out. We just knew they’d gone through something terrible, but I can’t tell you what exactly. I didn’t even know he was Polish until I saw that teaching certificate just now. We just thought of him as European, maybe Austrian or something. Tina once told me that during a blood drive at school she saw his arm—he had those numbers there. She was real upset about it. But he always took care to wear long-sleeve shirts, even in the summer, didn’t want people to see, I guess. Didn’t want to call attention to himself. What people do to each other in this world, it’s terrible.”

Trying to steer the conversation back to Mrs. Gelberman, I asked, “So did they meet here in Altoona?”

She pinched up her face, thinking for a moment. “Well, that I can’t tell you, honey. I would have been in grade school then, I didn’t know them or anything about them yet. It’s possible, though. Maybe they met at the university.”

Time to go in for the kill. “But even if they met elsewhere, they might have gotten married here.”

“Possibly. Maybe. I don’t really know. It doesn’t look like he lived much of anywhere else since he got here, but who knows.”

“So, if they had gotten married here, their marriage certificate would be on record here with you.”

Wagging her finger at me, she smiled. “You’re a cute one. You know full well I can’t show that to you. As long as he’s alive, and he’s not the one asking for it, it’s against the rules. Invasion of privacy.” But she laughed nicely, to show that she wasn’t offended by my attempt. “Sorry, honey.”

“I don’t want to invade his privacy. It’s just that if I could see his marriage certificate, I might be able to find out his parents’ names. And that would be a big help in getting on with the research for Sarah. That is, for his birthday. It would lead me to the research I need to do in Europe about his family.” I decided to play it for all it was worth. With her husband working on his own family tree so she might understand. “The information on his marriage certificate is the key to the whole thing, you see.”

She cocked her head and looked at me sideways. Quietly, with a glance at the other woman in the back of the room, she said, “You know I can’t.”

“I know.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“I know.”
“It’s against all the rules.”

“I know.”

“No, I really can’t. I could get into big trouble.”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Okay, I’m glad you understand.”

“Absolutely. Positively.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for asking. Sarah will be so disappointed. But it’s not fair of me to ask.”

“I wish I could help.”

“I know. I appreciate it anyway.”

“No, I just can’t.”

“I know.”

Silence. Checkmate. She sat still, checking her nail polish finger by finger, then swiveled her chair and looked at the woman at the other desk, who appeared completely engrossed in her work. She got up from her chair, took an index card and a pencil, and went to the back corner of the cavernous room, on the side far from where the other woman sat. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear the click of her heels as she searched for the right cabinet. The sound of drawers opening and closing echoed through the room. After a few moments of silence, punctuated only by the other woman’s tapping on her keyboard, I heard the heels coming closer. Mrs. Romero came around the corner of a row, and headed back to me.

“Well, then,” she said. “No, no record of that. Sorry I wasn’t able to help you.” As she spoke, she passed me the index card.

I glanced at the paper and saw that she had written the following:

                        Mother – Basya Marcusevich

                        Father – Nathan S. Gelberman

That was it! A direct connection to Yosef Yehudah, the Halizcher rebbe. Mrs. Freiburg had told me that one of Yosef Yehudah’s daughters was named Basya, and that she had married Nossen Shlomo Gelberman. Nathan was the English version of Nossen, which Jack must have thought was more appropriate for American documents. The “S.” had to be for Shlomo. And it was looking very likely indeed that Jack Gelberman was really the grandson of the last Halizcher rebbe, despite the stories that neither he nor his brother Leib had survived the Holocaust. This was amazing. With this information, it would be relatively easy to access further documentation. I looked up at Mrs. Romero, wanting to express my gratitude. But she had turned her attention to a pile of papers next to her computer. I coughed softly, hoping she would look at me. But she kept her face averted, absorbed in her papers.

“Thank you so much,” I said.

“Enjoy your stay in Altoona,” Mrs. Romero said stiffly, dismissing me.

***

The minute I got back to the hotel Simon relinquished responsibility for the kids. All signs indicated that he was extremely stressed and not happy to be here, stuck in a hotel room in Altoona with the two kids. They had already gone swimming, and visited the mini-golf across from the hotel.

Before I could even fill him in on my productive morning, he held up a hand and said, “Abby, not right now. I’m not in the mood for any of that. There’s something big going on at work, which don’t forget is the thing that basically pays all our bills, and I need to deal with it. Just let me be.”

Realizing that it wouldn’t be wise to respond with what I wanted to say, I turned the t.v. on for the kids, who were delighted at this special treat. A little bit of Cartoon Network wouldn’t scar them for life.

“Okay, Simon, give me ten minutes and the kids and I will be out of here.”

But he didn’t answer. He had plugged in his laptop and portable printer, and was already connected to the hotel’s wireless. It was clear he was mentally back at his office, even if he was physically in Altoona. “Okay, I’m here,” I heard him say into the phone.

I sat down on the bed and made some notes in my file about this morning’s events. What a lucky break I’d had. It would have been glorious if I could have gone on-line myself, but there was no way I was going to attempt that now.

As soon as I was done, I gathered the kids and we went back downtown to tour the Altoona Railroader’s Memorial Museum. Instead of being grateful or thanking me, Simon gave me a dirty look as we left the room, and barked at the kids to be quiet while he was on the phone.

The kids were enthralled by the museum. Caleb loved anything to do with trains, and Hannah had a great time playing store and house in the re-created storefronts and period rooms of Altoona history. In the heat of the moment, I bought them both train whistles in the museum gift shop, which I knew I was going to sorely regret later. On the way back to the hotel, I stretched out our time by taking the kid’s to MacDonald’s, another special treat. If you can’t break rules once in a while, why have rules to begin with? Filled up on chicken nuggets and fries, and after the whistles were confiscated, the kids fell asleep during the ten minutes it took to get back to the hotel. I called the room on my cell phone, but it was busy, so Simon must still be dealing with work. I called his cell, and left him voicemail that we were outside the hotel in the car, and that I was going to wait for a while to give the kids a chance to sleep. I knew that if I tried to put Caleb into the stroller to get him upstairs, or even if I carried him, he would wake up and never go back to sleep. Hannah I couldn’t carry anymore anyway. And if they didn’t sleep this afternoon, we were in for a rough evening at services. So I sat in the car while they slept, reviewing my notes and figuring out how to proceed. As I went through everything, I realized there were still more questions than answers.

[To be continued….]

His Brother’s Keeper is entirely fictional. None of the characters or situations described in this series are based on real people or events. Copyright (c) 2015 by Eva Hirschel.

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by | August 13, 2015 · 9:43 pm

His Brother’s Keeper, A Mystery Series – Part 1, Chapter Nine

Welcome to His Brother’s Keeper, a fictional mystery series set in 2000, in New York. I’ve decided to periodically lend my blog to a friend, Eva Hirschel. Eva doesn’t have a social media presence but she does have a mystery that she wanted to publish serially on-line, so I’m giving her a hand. (If you’re just tuning in now, I suggest that you start at the beginning). Here is Part I, Chapter 9. Enjoy!

Chapter Nine

IMG_2224I was upstairs with Caleb when I heard the doorbell to my office ring. We had rigged it so that I could hear the bell wherever I was in the house. Caleb was mid-tantrum, refusing to wear anything to the park but his favorite fire engine red shorts, despite the fact that it was a cold autumn day.

It was probably someone selling candy for the local public school, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. But you never know. I opened the window in Caleb’s room and leaned my head out. Looking down, I saw a head of bright red hair. My lucky day.

“I’ll be right down,” I yelled. She titled her head up, squinted, and waved.

I took a deep breath. “Caleb, you may not wear those shorts. End of discussion. If you do not put on pants, you will not go to the park.”

Caleb crumpled, deflated. “Can I wear my Batman costume?” he asked.

Another deep breath. “If you wear pants and a sweatshirt underneath, yes, you may.”

He jumped up and put his arms around my neck. “Thank you, Mommy. Thank you!”

I kissed him. “Bye, Cabe, I gotta go now. Go get dressed, and Ronit will take you to the park. Love you.”

“Bye, Mommy,” he answered, busy looking through his drawers for just the right pants and shirt. “Love you too.”

***

I opened the door to my office and let Sarah Gelberman inside.

She nodded her head in greeting, nervously tucking her hair behind her ear as she seated herself on my couch. Luckily this time it was clear of toys.

Before I could even stall with pleasantries while I decided how to approach our conversation, she began to talk.

“How is the research going? What have you found about my grandfather?”

Taking a seat across from her, I studied her demeanor. She seemed to be earnestly interested, but what was the nervousness about? “It’s going well,” I began. “I’ve found some information, but it’s just getting going. I told you it would take some time.”

“Yes, I know, but I’m so excited.”

“I understand. What I don’t entirely understand though is why you didn’t leave me any way to contact you. I need to be able to get in touch. Without a way to contact you, I can’t do the job.”

She chewed her lip. “Okay, well, it’s just that I’m a student, you know, so it’s hard to find me. I’m not in a lot. Classes, studying, you know.”

“Don’t you have voice mail? Or an answering machine?”

“My roommate doesn’t always give me my messages.”

“A cell phone?”

“I don’t keep it on much. Too expensive.”

“So give me your parents’ number. It’s policy,” I lied, opening a file folder. “I need to have a contact number and address in my files.”

She thought for a moment. “Okay, okay, sure, no problem. My address is 47 East Second Street. The phone is 673-9136. 212.” She proceeded to give me her cell number as well, and watched as I wrote the information into my file.

“So what have you found out?” she asked.

“Well, I’m in the process of tracing your grandfather’s family tree. Meanwhile, I’ve been collecting information about the Halizcher rebbe Leib Mendel and his family, so I’m working on it from both ends. The two family trees still haven’t met in the middle, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. I just haven’t come up with the documentation to prove anything yet. And until I do, I can’t find out anything about your father’s brother. But I’m making progress.”

“Okay, sounds good,” she said. “How long do you think this is going to take?”

I shrugged. “Hard to know. Another week or two, at least. It depends how complicated it gets. If I need to contact people in Israel regarding records of Holocaust survivors, it could take much longer. I thought you said there was a lot of time.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I’m just excited.”

“Are you sure there’s no rush, Sarah?” I asked, trying to catch her eye. “Has something changed?”

She was skilled at avoiding eye contact. She kept her eyes firmly focused on her right leg, which she swung up and down over her left knee. “No, no, really. I’ve just never done anything like this before. It’s cool.”

I gave her a brief report on the information I was collecting, and the ways that I was going about collecting it. I told her about my attempt to learn more about Chasidism. I even told her about my visit to Borough Park, though I left out Mrs. Freiburg’s name and any mention of Arieh Freiburg. It was clear that Sarah Gelberman did not completely trust me, and I certainly did not yet trust her. Not revealing my sources was something I had learned long ago, and it seemed especially fitting in this situation. Despite the fact that she was the client, I didn’t want to give her any more information than necessary until the story came together.

When I finished filling her in, she thanked me and laid a thick envelope on the table.

“I haven’t gone through the original money you gave me,” I said, surprised.

She nodded. “It’s okay. In case you have to do some traveling. In the end, if there’s anything left over, you can return it.”

“I really don’t need more for a while,” I said. “You’ve paid my retainer, and given me an advance that will cover quite a lot of travel.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. My parents. You know. This way they’re sure you’ll have enough to keep going. Won’t stop in the middle, that kind of thing. It’s okay.”

I looked at her, again to no avail. Her gaze was firmly focused on a stain on the carpet. Someone was going to have to give this young woman some lessons in eye contact. “I wouldn’t stop in the middle. That’s not how I work,” I replied. “Worse comes to worse, I would just call you. Your parents could send a check.”

“It’s okay,” she repeated. “No need. They feel better this way.”

“Okay, then,” I said, shrugging. “Tell them not to worry.”

I walked her to the door, promising to provide an update in a week.

“And remember,” she said, as she turned to go, “It’s supposed to be a surprise. You can’t contact my grandfather, or do anything that will clue him in that something is going on.”

“Don’t worry,” I said to her, smiling my most reassuring smile. I’m quite discrete.”

“I know,” she answered. “That’s what I’d heard.”

It was only afterward, as I was entering my notes from our conversation into the computer that I realized I had never asked her why she told me her grandfather had lived in New York City and not Altoona. What kind of researcher was I! So much for my fantasies — I would never have made it as a real P.I. Not only that, there were countless other questions I hadn’t asked her as well. Like, for example, if her father had any other siblings who might be able to supply more information. In fact, come to think of it, I’d done most of the talking, and I hadn’t learned anything new from Sarah Gelberman at all.

I was furious at myself for not being focused and prepared. I opened a new document, and began typing a list of questions for Sarah Gelberman. No more fooling around. If I was going to do this, I had to do it right. And if there really was something weird going on here, I had to find out. When I finished the list, I printed it out and put a copy in the file folder labeled “Jack Gelberman.” That made me feel a little bit better. The next time I talked to her, I would be ready to ask questions and hear answers.

I dialed the phone number she had given me, hoping to leave a message for her to call me as soon as she got home. If not, I would just keep calling, even if it meant trying her by cell phone on the ride to Altoona. I was bound to get her eventually. Instead, after three rings I got a message from the phone company telling me that this phone number was disconnected. I had felt like an idiot a minute ago. But now I felt like an absolute moron.   And what’s worse, a gullible moron. Needless to say, the cell number wasn’t active either.

That was when I remembered the envelope on the table. Inside was a stack of hundred dollar bills. One hundred of them, to be exact. I know, because I counted. And then I counted again, and added it to the money she had already given me. She said her parents were funding this. Still, it was a lot of money to spend on a birthday present.

***

Simon arrived in time for an early dinner before we set off for Altoona.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this, Abby,” he grumbled as he picked out a suitcase from the hall closet.

“Oh, come on Simon, we’ll have a grand adventure, off into the unknown,” I said, throwing toys and books and snacks for the kids into canvas bags. “Who knows what we’ll discover. It will be fun.”

“With this particular project of yours, it’s certainly true that who knows what we’ll find. Whether or not it will be fun remains to be seen. I’m just worried — it’s seems like there’s more here than meets the eye.”

“It seems so innocent on the surface. I’m sure there’s a good explanation for the weird stuff, for Sarah’s hinkiness and for that Arieh guy’s creepiness.” I tossed tapes and a cassette recorder into the bag, along with Hannah’s favorite coloring book. “I’m hooked, though, whatever it is. I want to know what’s going on.” And I hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Simon all the details of my meeting with Sarah this afternoon. I had left out crucial items, like the money, and the fact that Sarah had given me fake phone numbers. It wasn’t that I wasn’t going to tell him, but it was a just a matter of when and how. The timing would have to be right.

Simon’s disembodied voice floated down from the bedroom. “I do too, but in a sort of distant way. I’d be happy reading about it in a book. Not seeing it unfold right up close. I don’t want you to get caught in the middle of something ugly or dangerous.”

“Hey, Simon, pack the kid’s toothbrushes and toothpaste,” I yelled back at him. “And make sure I took my toiletry bag. If it’s still there in the bathroom, please pack it. Thanks. Anyway, how could this be dangerous? And ugly, sure, a lot of the research I do touches on things that are ‘ugly,’ but I’m only the researcher. It doesn’t affect me.”

There was silence as we each continued to pack. I went into the kitchen and grabbed packs of juice boxes, then checked that the kids’ pillows, jackets and sleeping bags were by the front door.

Simon came down the stairs with his bag. “Let’s just hope that’s true in this case, Abby, let’s just hope that’s true.”

[To be continued….]

His Brother’s Keeper is entirely fictional. None of the characters or situations described in this series are based on real people or events. Copyright (c) 2015 by Eva Hirschel.

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by | August 10, 2015 · 5:51 pm

His Brother’s Keeper, A Mystery Series – Part 1, Chapter Eight

Welcome to His Brother’s Keeper, a fictional mystery series set in 2000, in New York. I’ve decided to periodically lend my blog to a friend, Eva Hirschel. Eva doesn’t have a social media presence but she does have a mystery that she wanted to publish serially on-line, so I’m giving her a hand. (If you’re just tuning in now, I suggest that you start at the beginning). Here is Part I, Chapter 8. Enjoy!

Chapter Eight

IMG_2275Thank God for friends. Was there a prayer for that, I wondered.   Sometime during the night, while I was occupied with other matters, Leah e-mailed me the name and phone number of the Reform rabbi in Altoona. She had also given me the name of Altoona’s Conservative congregation and a link to their website. What was even better was that she knew the Reform rabbi, Rabbi Greg Bergman, personally—they had studied together at a rabbinic conference a few years earlier—and she promised that she would call him today and give him the head’s up on my call. Good friends, especially reliable ones, were truly something to be thankful for.

I was going on a hunch that if Jack Gelberman had really lived in a small city like Altoona, it was likely that he had been a member of a synagogue at one time. That wouldn’t necessarily have been the case in a big city, but small cities without large Jewish populations were different. And since his children and grandchildren seemed to still be Jewish, then the chances were even greater that he had at least belonged to a synagogue when his children were young. Contacting the two local synagogues seemed like a good place to begin gathering information, and might provide useful leads onward.

Sometimes genealogical research was like archeology. There were so many layers of sediment to dig through. I’d do hours of research to find out someone’s mother’s maiden name, but that was only in order to get to the next layer, like the mother’s birth certificate or place of birth, or her mother’s maiden name or her parents’ marriage license. Every new bit of information led to another generation, another town, another trail of records. And there were often major roadblocks, especially when I worked for Jewish clients. Countless records were destroyed during the war. And even before the war, there were many inaccuracies and false turns. For example, from as early as the 19th century it had been illegal in Poland not to record a birth. But often people who lived far from registry offices would wait until there were several births to register, so that siblings born years apart would be registered together. The fall of the Soviet Union had been a big boon for genealogists, as previously closed archives were opened to researchers. It was frustrating work, but also exhilarating. Getting that elusive piece of data was a great rush.   It was always worth the work.

Occasionally I would promise myself that the next time things were slow, I would research my own family tree. It was crazy that I knew so little about my own family, given the skills and experience I had gained helping other people with theirs. I knew the websites to check, the libraries to visit, the books to read, the agencies to contact, the questions to ask. Yet there was something frightening about beginning the journey toward my own origins. I knew too well the kinds of surprises I stumbled across in other people’s family trees, and I wasn’t sure I was prepared to deal with whatever I might uncover in my own. Most than likely there was nothing—as far as I knew my family was a run-of-the-mill average Jewish American family of Eastern European descent. I had one great-great-great grandfather who had fought in the Civil War, one grandfather who had escaped the Tzar’s army, and one great-grandmother who had been a vocal E.V. Debs and Margaret Sanger supporter. In fact, family legend had it that that same great-grandmother had come to the United States alone at the age of sixteen because she had run away from the marriage her Chasidic father had arranged for her. All of which was interesting, but nothing too out of the ordinary in the annals of American Jewish history. Perhaps my reluctance had more to do with the disappointment I would feel if my family was simply ordinary. One thing I never wanted to be was ordinary, or typical. So I didn’t know which would be worse, to find some horrible surprise in my family tree, or to find none. All in all, better to not even do the research, at least not yet. I didn’t have a free moment to begin, anyway.

I had promised Hannah that I would take her and Caleb to the library after school, so there was a lot to accomplish in a short time. I got started by tackling one of the books that Rabbi Springer recommended, A History of Chasidism by Rabbi Nissim Rudowsky, filling up index cards with notes and questions. When I put the book down two hours later, my head was swimming with more questions than I had had before beginning to read. Chasidism was a fascinating topic, and I was learning a lot. There was so much I hadn’t understood about the place of Chasidism in Jewish history, and how far back some of the roots of this pietistic movement reached. Nor had I understood how much Chasidism influenced the rest of the Jewish world. Today they were seen, at least by modern, liberal Jews like myself, on the one hand as a quaint, anachronistic, sometimes even embarrassing minority within the Jewish world, an ultra-religious fringe that reminded us of where we might have come from, and just how far we had come. And on the other hand they were seen as a dangerous, threatening group of Jewish fundamentalists with a right-wing political agenda and unethical business practices. But of course, Chasidism was not simply old-time-religion, Jewish style, rather it was a specific expression of Judaism and Jewish spirituality that had its origins in a certain place and time in Jewish history. Today Chasidism seemed removed from the other branches of Judaism being practiced in the United States, and yet so many of the songs we sang in synagogue, the stories we told our children, and the spirituality we sought came out of Chasidism.

The other thing I was learning was about the devastation the Holocaust wreaked on Chasidism. I knew that Jewish life in Poland had been irrevocably destroyed, that a whole world and way of life had vanished. But I hadn’t understood up to now what that meant. Poland had been the central home of Chasidism since it was born in the 18th century. Among the hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust had been a great many Chasidim. Whole dynasties like the Halizchers were wiped out, complete histories were erased and family trees came to abrupt ends. Chasidism had had to be rebuilt, almost from scratch, after the war. The remnants of communities regrouped and rebuilt. Some rabbis had survived, and they gathered followers around themselves once again. Today Chasidism was thriving like it never had before. But the horror and magnitude of what had happened during the Holocaust was overwhelming. It didn’t matter how much I already knew about the Holocaust, how many books I had already read. It was still incomprehensible, beyond the imaginable.   And the faith in God and in human beings which so many had continued to show was also incomprehensible. And yet, if Jack Gelberman really was Yankeleh, the Halizcher Rebbe’s grandson, why had he turned his back on his past? Why had he let his grandfather’s followers believe for all these years that he was dead? What had happened to his faith during those terrible years in Europe? And why hadn’t he passed his story on to his children and grandchildren? If I did manage to put together a family tree for him, would it be as great a surprise as Sarah seemed to think it would be, or would he be upset or even angry to have his past dug up? And then back to that important, disturbing question—why did Sarah tell me her grandfather had lived in New York City, and not Altoona?

I lay on the couch, absorbed in thought for some time longer. Finally, I made myself get up. It was eleven o’clock, and I needed to leave in half an hour. It was time to call Altoona.

I asked to speak to Rabbi Bergman , identifying myself as a friend of Rabbi Brown’s, and his secretary put me right through.

Rabbi Bergman , or Steve as he asked me to call him, possessed a deep, melodic voice. I wondered if it was a natural attribute, or a skill he acquired in rabbinic school. I bet no one ever fell asleep during his sermons.

I had a story prepared about why I was doing this research, but at the last minute I decided to just explain the real reason, without going in to too many details. To my great delight, he knew Jack Gelberman.

“I’d be really happy to help you however I could,” Steve said. “It sounds like a nice thing for his granddaughter to want to do for him. But I don’t really know that much about him. And you realize, of course, that what I can tell you depends on what you’re looking for. There are things that would be inappropriate for me to share about a congregant, of course.”

“Yes, sure,” I answered. “Like attorney-client privilege.”

“Something like that,” he said.

“I’m just looking for basic, public-domain kind of information, things that could lead me to other information. Just trying to track down his family tree, nothing sinister or mysterious,” I said, thinking I should have crossed my fingers when I said those last few words. It was hard to lie to a rabbi. “You know, since he came from Europe after the war, it’s hard to find those records.”

Steve cleared his throat. “Look, services start at eight Friday evening. I’ll be at the synagogue from around seven on. Why don’t you come by and we can talk a little bit. If I can help in anyway, I’m more than happy to. Okay?”

Great—eight o’clock services. Caleb and Hannah would be basket cases, and Simon himself would be undoubtedly annoyed. But I said, “Sure, that would be great. I really appreciate it. Um – just one quick question now, to make sure I’m not barking up the wrong tree entirely.”

“Okay.”

“I take it the Jack Gelberman you knew has moved out of Altoona.”

“Yes, that’s right. He retired and moved down to the West Coast of Florida a few years ago.”

Bingo! I took a deep breath, contained myself, and said calmly, “Great, see you Friday then..”

“Okay, good.”

Altoona, here we come. Better remember to check out some books on tape when we were at the library this afternoon. It was going to be a long ride.

***

The Committee didn’t meet on a regular basis, but we tried to get together as a group at least every other month. It was difficult, since everyone had complicated schedules. Some of the Committee members I saw and talked to on a regular basis, like Leah and Bird. Some I rarely saw outside of our get-togethers. But the group had a life of its own, like the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Individually, we were just a bunch of friends. But as a group, we were something amazing, a tightly knit organism of strong, intelligent, interesting women, as necessary for each of our existences as air and water.

Tonight we were meeting at Bird’s place. Bird was the daughter of former sixties flower children. Her brother was named Cloud and her sister was Sky. Thank goodness they stopped having children before they got to Frog or Grass. Bird and her partner Lydia lived in a spacious, airy, sun-filled loft in a part of Brooklyn known as DUMBO, the area Down Underneath the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. It was a semi-industrial area that was also home to many artists and other urban pioneers. Their loft, decorated eclectically but with great care, had once been part of a thread factory, and its enormous windows offered panoramic views of the Hudson River, the Manhattan Bridge, and the Brooklyn Bridge. Lydia’s collection of Yoruba art was displayed on glass shelves that wrapped around a center supporting column, and their collection of 19th century glass toilet water bottles was arranged around another column. Their many books were arranged alphabetically on bookshelves that covered whatever wall space was not taken up by the windows. All the furniture was either black or a soft, buttery cream. Every book was in its place, and there was no clutter on any visible surface. I knew Bird and Lydia well enough to know that it wasn’t just because there were guests–they really lived like this. Then again, they had no children.

Besides Leah and Bird, the Committee consisted of Meg, a documentary film-maker and professor; Emma, an ob/gyn who was getting married next summer; Claire, who worked in international banking and was pregnant; and Lucy, the director of a center that provided refuge and legal aid to battered women, and who had recently adopted a baby with her partner Amy. With the exception of Lucy, who was living in Northampton, Massachusetts, we had all wound up in the New York area in the last few years.

Bird put out some bowls of chips, salsa, and dips, along with sliced vegetables and freshly prepared endamame. I grabbed a chilled bottle of my favorite beer, Brooklyn Brewery’s Chocolate Stout, and hopped up on a stool.   How wonderful to be out in the evening just for fun, not for work, not something connected to the kids, just for myself. It was a treat whenever Simon and I got our acts together enough to go out on a date, but this was something I missed too, getting to go out on my own and see my friends.

As everyone arrived, clusters of conversations sprang up while the Mets and the Yankees slugged it out on the radio in the background. Bird and Leah were both serious baseball fans and had to have the game on. Claire asked me pregnancy questions, and I tried to allay her fears. She looked great, better than I ever did in either of my pregnancies. As a matter of fact, she looked better pregnant than I looked any day. Some people just had all the luck. She was a few inches taller than I, but looked even taller in her orange platform slingbacks. During the day Claire dressed buttoned-down corporate, but after hours she was something else altogether. She was one of those women who could make any crazy old outfit look like a new fashion trend.   Her shoulder-length curls were swept up in a loose knot at the top of her head.   She wore a tight-fitting orange and gray striped tube dress that showed off her new curves and bulging torso, and silver bangle bracelets. The woman had guts. During both my pregnancies my wardrobe consisted of three choices of black leggings, one pair of blue stretchy overalls, one black jumper and one denim jumper, and an assortment of over-size T-shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts, and Simon’s discarded button-downs.

I couldn’t help ribbing Claire about what her pregnancy was doing to her breasts, which she herself normally described as concave. “You look great in that thing,” I said, “but I know the real reason you’re wearing those tight-fitting outfits, my dear, and it’s not to show off your belly.”

She smiled and wiggled her torso. “Hey, this is the first time I’ve had ‘em, so I might as well flaunt ‘em. Now I know how you girls feel. The only problem is, I can’t get a bra that fits right. I don’t even know what size I am anymore.”

“Yeah, and it keeps changing, too. Wait and see what happens when you start nursing!”

“Well, I’ll need nursing bras, but I need some good bras for now.”

“I’ve got the place for you. You’ve got to come with me to Miss Sylvia’s and meet the ladies. They’re the best fitters around.”

“Name the date and I’m there.”

Soon Bird began to produce an intriguing array of bowls and platters and dishes, and we heaped our plates before moving over to the sitting area. Bird was a great cook, having had to learn to fend for herself at an early age while her parents were otherwise occupied at rallies and sit-ins. She had prepared a do-it-yourself kind of meal that involved tortillas, caramelized red peppers, grilled vegetables, shredded cheese, whole cloves of roasted garlic, refried beans, brown rice, sautéed tofu, and salad, along with various salsas and sauces. The objective was to create your own fantasy vegetarian fajita. It was going to be messy, but delicious.

For some time there was only the sound of slurping, chewing, chomping, and swallowing. One of the things that amazed me when I first got to know this group of women was that no one in the group was afraid to eat. Up until I met them, I had only known women who were scared of food. In high school I learned that it wasn’t feminine to be hungry, finish the food on my plate, ask for seconds or eat with gusto. Instead, mealtimes were battlefields, during which every bite was a possible sabotage of the body-image we were supposed to aspire to in order to be attractive. Until college I hadn’t known that eating disorders were diagnosable and could be treated; I had thought it was simply normal for women to deny themselves food or to binge and purge.

The coffee table filled up with empty plates, and the room began to buzz with conversation. When it was my turn to give an update, I found myself telling them about Sarah Gelberman and my forays into the world of Chasidism.

“Chasidism, of all the things, Abby,” exclaimed Meg. “What’s the pull for you? Sounds like there’s something.”

I answered, “It’s interesting, a whole new world and familiar at the same time. I’m getting a crash course in a slice of Jewish life I know nothing about.”

Bird got in to lawyer mode, ready to challenge me. “What’s familiar about them? Is this some kind of back-to-your-roots thing? What do you have in common with a bunch of Jewish fringe radicals, these sexist racists who have some of the worst business practices when it comes to real estate in New York City.”

Leah, defender of the faith, jumped in. “Whoa, let’s hear it for multicultural sensitivity. Any other thoughts on the subject, Bird?”

Trying not to sound defensive, I said, “Come one, there’s all kinds. Some may be abusive slumlords, but just like in any group most are good people. And they’re not all one group anyway. There’s lots of different groups, and they don’t even all like each other. As for them being sexist, it’s not for me how they live, but you have to see it in context. It’s not sexist, just different.”

“All right, maybe,” conceded Bird. “It would take a lot to convince me there’s anything interesting or worthwhile about Chasids, but okay. I don’t know everything.”

“Just don’t tell your clients that,” Leah said, trying to interject some humor. “Like with any other group, stereotypes are stereotypes, and there are so many misunderstandings. And yeah, what happened in Crown Heights in ’91 brought a lot of ugliness to the surface, but it’s also about two groups, both of whom feel they are beleaguered and no one will cut them a break, trying to survive and even thrive in a small amount of space.”

“Okay, fine. Still, you have to admit there are some extreme aspects to the way they live their lives,” said Emma. “Last weekend a colleague had a Chasidic couple who were doing IVF. Saturday was going to be their day, nothing you can do about that. The commandment to be fruitful and multiply takes precedence over the commandment not to violate the Sabbath. So they got special permission from their rabbi to do the procedure on Shabbat, and they stayed near the office in a hotel Friday night so that they wouldn’t have to violate the Sabbath by driving. Okay, so far, so good. But when it was time to do the procedure, they realized that it wasn’t okay for the doctor to be doing what she had to do, since they knew she was Jewish. So they reached a compromise that the husband was comfortable with—the doctor could do the specialized work that only she could do, but they would ask for the help of a non-Jew sitting in the waiting room, and that person would be the one to turn the lights on and off and press the buttons on the sonogram, and do those kinds of things that constitute work that can’t be done on Shabbat.   Well, thank God there was someone in the waiting room who didn’t mind helping. But the whole thing was insane. What they can do, what they can’t do, getting the rabbi’s stamp of approval on everything.”

“Does your practice have a lot of Chasidic patients?” I asked.

“Yes, a good percentage. We’re talking about a group that puts a huge value on being fertile and multiplying. I see women who have had ten, twelve children. Can you imagine? The bigger the family, the better, and the more boys, even better. I’ve had to comfort women who have just given birth to their first child, a girl. And women who have just had their eighth, ninth, or tenth daughter, and still no son. And the worst is when for some reason they are not going to be able to have any more children, and they haven’t yet had a son. You can’t imagine the heartbreak.”

She was right, I really couldn’t imagine it.

“I saw a great documentary recently about them,” said Meg. “ It seems like a nice way to live in a lot of ways, in terms of the way the community takes care of itself. They seem to really support each other and do for each other in all sorts of ways. That’s something few of us experience today, that close sense of community and community support.”

“That’s true,” Emma agreed. “Lord knows we could all use more of that. But it’s a downside too. There’s not a lot of independent decision-making going on, not much room for divergent thinking or behavior. There’s a lot of looking over one’s shoulder. It’s intense social pressure.”

“What about the whole ritual bath thing? How can you justify a belief system in which women and women’s bodies are considered impure?” Bird asked.

Leah waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t buy into that perspective. Mikveh can be a beautiful, empowering thing. It’s not about physical impurity, it’s about ritual impurity. That whole issue is misunderstood. It’s about being re-born and emerging in a new spiritual state. I take people to the mikveh for conversion, or before a wedding, or to mark the end of something significant like chemo, and it’s very moving. As for the issue of monthly mikveh visits after menstruation, I hear that for religious couples having to abstain for a certain amount of time each month is a great aphrodisiac. Judaism isn’t anti-sex. After all, it’s a mitzvah to have sex on Friday nights. The Talmud actually says that women are entitled to be sexually satisfied by their husbands. It’s more about letting women have their own space while their have their periods, having ownership over their bodies and the rhythms of their cycles. That may sound archaic to us, but it’s pretty progressive when you think how long that’s been around.”

Claire laughed. “It sounds like it’s the kind of thing that depends on whether it’s a choice or an imposition. When I don’t want it, I don’t want it, and no one has the right to force me, but when I do, I don’t want some rabbi or priest or politician telling me I can’t. Right? ”

We all nodded.

“That’s the problem with so many of these religious systems, it’s other people telling you what to do,” she continued. “They’re boundary issues, who’s in, who’s out, how much can the system tolerate. Dylan wants to have this baby baptized, but I don’t know, I just can’t pledge my allegiance to the Catholic Church. My parents will be upset if we don’t, but how can I promise to raise this child a Catholic when I’m such a non-believer myself. I have no problem with being spiritual, with God per se, but I have problems with the church.”

Bird said, “Well, sweetheart, I was raised with no religion, and look how I turned out. Scary, huh?”

“You know what our problem is?” Meg asked. “We’re getting too dam old. We’re closer to forty than twenty. I used to be the young prodigy on the Film School faculty, as cool as my students, and now I’m starting feel like their mothers. They’re so young, and hip. I don’t even know what hip is anymore. That’s what’s scary. Who cares about religion, no offense Leah, but what about our lives? Where are we going? How are we getting there?”

“We are not old!” I declared.

“We’re here, that’s where we’re going,” Claire said.

“No complaints,” said Emma. “Though I hope I won’t have a hard time getting pregnant when we finally start trying.”

“Have you ever looked around the video store and seen how many new movies have been made or written or produced or edited by people we went to college with?” said Meg. “It’s getting depressing. I want my one big break before I’m forty.”

“I want to find a publisher for my book. And find a great guy,” said Leah.

“I’m pregnant,” said Bird, and we turned to look at her. “Surprise!” she continued, smiling. “Donor number 376, my lucky number.”

No one said anything for a moment, and then everyone started talking at once, offering congratulations, dispensing advice, and asking for details.

When it was time for dessert, Bird brought out a gorgeous marzipan covered birthday cake full of candles for Meg and Emma, who had birthdays three days apart. We carried the cake, champagne, glasses and some blankets out into the hallway and up a rickety metal staircase to the roof deck. When we were all settled into the various unmatched beach chairs and chaise lounges that Bird and Lydia had scavenged, and wrapped the blankets around ourselves, Bird lit the candles. The lack of streetlights in this industrial neighborhood and the many darkened warehouses made the stars above appear especially bright. The East River looked deep and forbidding at this hour, like it concealed many secrets, but beautiful at the same time. The Manhattan skyline glittered garishly in front of us, rebuking the dark Brooklyn waterfront.

“What a gritty little piece of paradise you’ve got here, huh, Bird?” I said appreciatively.

“Let’s each make a wish,” said Meg, “And see if we can make it come true in the next twelve months. Don’t you think we can have some power over our lives?” She handed each of us a lit candle. “Come on, let’s say our wishes aloud, one by one, so we can help each other make those wishes come true. I’ll go first. I wish to find a distributor for Moon Dance.” She blew out her candle and licked off the marzipan that clung to the bottom. “Go on, you next Emma.”

“Hum.” Emma bit on her lip, thinking. “Okay, I have two wishes. I wish to get through my wedding without destroying my relationship with my mother or Mark’s mother, and I wish to get my article published. Okay, three wishes. To be pregnant by this time next year.”

“Not a bad list. Let’s see,” Claire said. “I wish that by next year at this time I will have gotten the hang of this motherhood thing and will have figured out how to balance it all.”

I laughed. “Good luck.”

“My turn,” said Leah.

“But we know what you wish,” said Meg.

“Maybe I’ll surprise you,” she retorted. “Ha. I wish for peace in the Middle East. The end of hunger. A cure for AIDS.” We laughed. “Well, I do. Okay, and someone to enjoy those good days with.”

“I wish for Lydia to get a big job that’s she bidding for, and I wish to make gobs of money between now and next year, so that I can take time off when the baby is born and not feel guilty or poor,” said Bird.

“You’re not allowed to wish things for other people,” said Meg. “Against the rules. Go again. Though you do get some points for being a better spouse than anyone else here!”

Bird shrugged. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m terrified about being pregnant, and I hope everything will be okay for me and for the baby. I hope I’ll be a good mother. I hope I’ve made the right choice. I hope it won’t resent having a test tube for a father.” She blew out her candle.

Everyone looked at me, waiting to hear my wish. “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you ever wonder when your life is really going to start? I feel like I’m just waiting until something really happens, but nothing ever does. I guess I wish for the adrenaline to start pumping again, to feel like I’m doing something important, to feel like what I do matters. You know?”

“Abby, how can you say that? You’re working, you love what you do, and you’re in the motherhood trenches. You’re raising two amazing kids,” Bird said.

“Yeah, but I keep feeling like I’m waiting for my real life to begin. Like I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go. Little things are interesting, sure, and my kids are great, but it’s so contained, so manageable, so safe and routine. No highs, no rushes, just another day.”

“What’s wrong with that?” said Leah. “It sounds pretty great, actually. No high peaks, but no deep valleys either. That’s not a bad thing. You have a lot to be thankful for.”

“Leah, no sermons, please,” I said. “I’m not talking about values or objective reality. I’m talking about how I feel.”

“I know what you mean,” said Emma, “You want to soar.”

“To breathe pure oxygen,” said Bird.

“To star in your own movie,” said Meg.

“To be the heroine of your own life,” said Claire.

I leaned back and looked up at the stars. “To be spectacular.”

[To be continued….]

His Brother’s Keeper is entirely fictional. None of the characters or situations described in this series are based on real people or events. Copyright (c) 2015 by Eva Hirschel.

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by | August 9, 2015 · 12:21 pm

Some Good Books, Summer 2015 Edition

It’s been a great summer of books so far. Here is a roundup of six of my most recent reading adventures. With this edition of Some Good Books, I’m introducing a new feature in my book reviews – a rating system. I don’t want to get too competitive with this. I don’t want to hurt any writer’s feelings (I know how it feels!). And most of all, the books that I review are – with perhaps a rare exception – all good books and all worth reading.  So I’m going to use a rating system of three, as follows:

© – Good Book, but I wanted it to be even better

©© – Great Book, deeply satisfying 

©©© – Amazing Book, dazzling, blew me away

I suspect that most books will be in the ©© – Great Book category, and that only a rare book will be ©©© – Amazing Book,  but we will see.

Early Warning, by Jane Smiley ©©

41vsJlW27nL._SX334_BO1,204,203,200_This second book in Smiley’s trilogy about an American family, following Some Luck, did not disappoint. In fact it was, once again, a distinct pleasure. Like the first book in this series, each chapter is another year in the life of the Langdon family, seen through the experience of one of the extended family members. This volume begins in 1953 with the family now far-flung across the country and only a small handful still left in and around the family farm in Iowa. What was once a nucleus of a family working together to eke out an existence on the land is now a loose collection of related but diverse groups creating their own  narratives, including the next generations of the family. Their encounters with the events of the post-war years spin out in a myriad of ways, and yet there are still threads that connect them deeply to each other, often in surprising cross-generational ways. As in Some Luck, Smiley’s writing can at times seem deceptively prosaic, but the powerful beauty of this family tale shines through as the characters move through their encounters with love, loss, deception, desire, vulnerability, and all of that which makes us who we are in a constellation of others.

Mislaid, by Nell Zink ©

51PsntlX17L._SX328_BO1,204,203,200_I loved the premise of this book, perhaps even more than the book itself. The title is indeed clever. But where it may disappoint (more on that later), it is still worth a read. The plot is a challenge to the easy binaries that make up our collective narrative. Identity and self-representation, sexuality and race, are all thrown into the mix and stirred together into a murky stew. As an adolescent, Peggy aspires to be a man and believes herself to be a thespian, later corrected to lesbian. So she goes to an all-women’s college in rural Virginia, complete with a deeply metaphoric swampy lake of hidden dread.  There she meets an instructor, a louche, penniless gay poet from a local wealthy family. They jump into a sexual relationship, get married, and have two children, a son and a daughter. Because what else would one expect from a lesbian college student and her gay professor (get it, Mislaid??)? Jumping ahead a bit, she leaves him and takes just the daughter with her. The daughter is a blond, wan little girl, but somehow Peggy manages to convince everyone that they are black, so that she can successfully hide their real identities and not get found by her husband. The characters are rich and complex, but without totally spoiling things, I’ll just say that the story gets too easily gift-wrapped up with an unbelievably redemptive happy-ever-after conclusion in which everyone gets let off the hook. Still, definitely lots here to discuss and dissect.

The Sunken Cathedral, by Kate Walbert ©
51zlMF2ZtZL._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_The main character in this novel is anxiety, of the particular New York City kind. The many human beings who inhabit this novel are secondary to the free-floating anxiety that runs through the pages of this book. Anxiety about extreme weather, about a changing city and its changing neighborhoods, about the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, about growing old and isolated in the city, about finding a way to have a meaningful life in the middle of urban anonymity – all these kinds of anxiety run through this tale. And yes, it made of an anxious reading experience. I wanted more – I wanted the characters to rise up out of the anxiety – but they did not. And yet the idea of a mighty city being at the mercy of forces beyond its control, and thereby being reshaped by forces both within (economics and changing demographics) and without (flooding as a result of climate change) are powerful metaphors for aging. The two main characters, Marie and Simone, are French immigrants who survived the war to come to the United States as young women. Close friends who have both now outlived their husbands and launched their children off into the world, they decide to take a painting class. The others who people this book are their neighbors, their children, and those they meet in the painting class. As New York submits to excess water it cannot control, the lives of these two stalwart survivors too are battered by forces outside of their control.

A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson ©©

41EzuQhyFfL._SX321_BO1,204,203,200_This book came highly recommended by someone whose taste in books I respect, and so I dove in. But I admit that I was surprised to like it as much as I did. This story tells the tale of the 20th century through the character of Teddy, first a beloved young boy in England, an aspiring poet, then a pilot in the war, and later as a husband, father, and grandfather. Surprise is indeed a major element in this tale, as Teddy’s life continues to unfold in unexpected ways. Surviving the war, when so many British pilots did not, is one of the main elements that makes Teddy who he is. Having accepted the idea that he might never have a future, he has to figure out how to live in that future. Again and again, he encounters situations he never expected to have to face, and manages to find a way through. There is nothing remarkable about Teddy, yet his kindness and compassion make him a character worth caring about. And then Atkinson plays with us, taking away what she has just given us readers, and poses the very writerly question: what if? What if indeed. That is the question that the writer wrestles with in the privacy of his or her own head, the very core of writing fiction. Writers do not generally expose this question to the reader. But Atkinson puts the question right out there and asks us to wonder along with her: What if…

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson ©©

41wEB2EBqOL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_This novel came before A God in Ruins, which was written as a companion to it. But I read them the other way around, and so my reading of this one is informed by having read them in this order. The characters in Life After Life are much the same as in A God in Ruins, though with different focus. The novel centers around Ursula, Teddy’s older sister. Teddy himself appears at certain moments, as do other members of their family. But Ursula is the main attraction. Like A God in Ruins, this novel is a tale of the 20th century told through the story of one person, in this case Ursula. Born in 1910 on a snowy night when the doctor can’t through to the house, she is miraculously saved. Or is she? In fact, she dies before she can draw her first breath. Or does she? Throughout her life, Ursula dies, over and over and over, coming to various experiences and ends, or not. Through the life, or lack thereof, of Ursula, Atkinson explores the ideas of chance and destiny, of the impact that one person has on the world and those around him or her, and the question of what can happen if just the slightest change is made in one’s routine. If “a” happens, does it necessarily lead to a life of “b”? But if one can avoid “a”, then can one avoid “b”? One small act can lead to life of utter misery, or even death, while a different and equally banal act can lead to life of joy. It is the eternal question of the road not taken, and an exploration of how one small choice can cause a life to cascade into a completely different future. Though this kind of device could become kitschy or even annoying in some hands, Atkinson manages it masterfully, and creates a captivating reading experience in which it’s hard to put the book down.

 The City of Devi, by Manil Suri ©©©

41KUOSX-YCL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Looking for a Bollywoodesque post-apocalyptic novel set in India complete with Hindu gods and goddesses as well as superheroes (and if you’re not, why aren’t you?!)? Look no further. Just want a great, absorbing book with compelling characters and an unusual plot? This won’t disappoint. This volume, the third in Suri’s trilogy based on Hindu deities, manages to combine both absurdly, almost comically, exaggerated and deeply universal human elements. Told from the point of view of two very different but (as it turns out) related characters, this moving tale unfolds after havoc has been wrecked on the civilized world. A 9/11-like event has occurred on an international scale, creating worldwide instability. Unfettered capitalism, power grabs, religious-based and political-based terrorism, and the undoing of the technological infrastructure have combined to create a desperate situation in which two strangers, Sarita and Jaz, both set out to search for their missing loved one, becoming entangled along the way. Beyond its over-the-top backdrop and its frenetic pace, at its core this is a story of love, survival, and the universal need to create connections.

Coming Up…

Looking forward, the Man Booker Longlist was recently announced. My next edition of book reviews will focus on titles from that collection.  So far, I’ve read 2 and they have been quite good indeed.  In the meantime, happy reading.

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