Encounters In Russia
Futterman, Don
ENCOUNTERS IN RUSSIA Remarkable meetings with remarkable Jews. DON FUTTERMAN We are rerouted at the last minute and arrive in Moscow on an Aero-flot jet at a quarter past midnight, 20 hours after...
...The first slide shows a handful of men and women sitting in a clearing in a forest...
...I recognize one other face in the crowd...
...Are you planning to move soon...
...We resolve to go very early in the morning...
...It won't help us—egh...
...It says you must present all printed materials to customs agent...
...We have seen a blurry photograph in a newspaper of a stern-faced Yossi but do not expect to recognize him from it...
...We walk about 60 yards to a small room, an office being used as a lounge by the IS customs agents smoking and chatting inside...
...She sends her love afld these pictures— Don: We have pictures from Andrea who visited you...
...Moscow Government Council made it illegal to meet in forests in groups larger than seven...
...Here we hang up posters on ropes stretched across the trees...
...Yisroel catches up to us and we are uncomfortable because he will see us riding on the holiday and because we do not want to spend Shavuot this way...
...He talks much too openly and loudly, and his English is too good...
...At the center of the table are two candles, already lit, and a Kiddush cup filled with red wine...
...The question brings bewildered stares...
...Her husband looks at us...
...Wait, here's another part, listen . ..") staving off his interruptions with still another pasuk mentioning love...
...Trust their experience...
...I get excited in this debate, thinking that I know why such strong-arm tactics must be appealing to Jews who have been so abused by the strong arms in their government...
...They are talking to one another, sitting, on chairs and the desk, while I stand for half an hour...
...When our talk slows down I turn again to Aharona— Don: Now what...
...The men are factory workers—the first Russian Jews we have met who are not engineers or doctors...
...This is a love story...
...We are introduced to the other guests...
...Printed materials and anything with paper—magazines, books, newspapers, notebooks, an address book, my siddur are in a separate pile on a higher counter...
...They are expecting an answer, so we describe the Soviet Jewry movement, writing letters to congressmen, the pressures our government can exert, our usual message of support and empathy...
...He gives us to his wife who begins to introduce us to others...
...I feel sad, but I console myself over the loss of the day with the happiness of our successful rendezvous with Yossi and anticipation of the special evening I was sure would follow...
...God give we'll meet each other in our motherland...
...We have nothing to say...
...We came here to visit you because Jews all over the world care about you...
...His face is stretched out wide in a smile and I grab Aharona's arm as we hurry to him...
...He is above suspicion but we fear that he is careless, will get himself into trouble...
...We are loaded with presents for ourselves, for Adriana, her mother, her grandmother, are kissed and hugged and finally we are assured that we always have parents in this town if we ever return...
...They are fascist Zionist propaganda...
...I am from a different organization...
...Last Sukkot...
...No problems...
...Bracha waves at us to keep eating as her blini factory is only warming up...
...We have prepared a show for you," Mrs...
...Don: He said he understands...
...What...
...It is fascist Zionist propaganda...
...My son," the mother begins to weep, tucking her head into her heavy arms and thick hands...
...We know they are watching and we do not know the safest procedure...
...This for all Jews and many come who are not involved...
...He accompanies us to the old man's house so we will not be intimidated by unfriendly neighbors and hostile dogs...
...We smile energetically, trying to create bonds, to envelop each other in warmth that will'have to last long after we leave...
...Our names are in Hebrew, the message is in English: To Don and Aharona, With pleasure we met you...
...Are they Jews...
...We are their first visitors from abroad...
...We laugh together and as we hug and kiss one another preparing to go, I try to etch their faces permanently in my mind so I will never forget them...
...Food, of course, is served in abundance (our best meals are always with refuseniks) and Yisroel is pleased when I put on a kippah and say Hamotzi before I eat...
...Weiss has prepared for us...
...For the moment we feel frustrated by who we are— a young American couple, kids really, with only kind words and encouragement—powerless if not completely useless...
...Shabbat at the Moscow synagogue...
...The mother does not work...
...We were supposed to go right after he did...
...They are books on Jewish subjects in Russian that I have brought with me for Soviet Jews...
...The blue coat stays with us...
...This should frighten me, but instead it only strengthens the feeling that I am talking to a person...
...I do not know how people can live this way all the time...
...This is my first experience with a native speaker since I have begun to make my way through the language...
...We split up—in case one of us is hassled we hope the other will not automatically be bothered...
...We deal with nerves very differently...
...The same thing happened to me when I entered another country...
...Here, at shul, Yisroel rules, acting as the rabbi and gabbai of an elderly kahal...
...This is from the Bible...
...All my questions are met with, "One moment please...
...This helps...
...A uniformed official presents my gray suited friend with a pile of books, the books in Russian along with my siddur and Megillat Ruth...
...I have learned mine expressly for this trip—a three-week crash course facilitated more by a year of college German than by a decade of Hebrew studies...
...It is for my personal use, it is a prayer book...
...The men in black coats are KGB...
...We stand together for a few moments, each of us arching his back to gain an inch on the other...
...It is six p.m., we are early, expecting to wait...
...Refusals are many, permits are scarce...
...Every pair of socks has been unrolled, all pants turned inside out...
...I have no metal concealed that would set it off, but the tip of one pipe thuds against the books in Don Futterman, a member of a garin, is a writer currently living in New York...
...Her first question: "What can you do for us...
...The summer brings a flurry of arrests, Brail-ovsky's trial (he is later exiled to Siberia) and new trumped-up charges (possession of guns and drugs, resisting efforts of civilian patrols) that are frightening in the flagrancy of their fabrication and the ease with which they can be set up...
...We are glad you have come— j Volodya: They are happy you— Don: I understand, I understand— Aharona: What did he say...
...I tell Aharona to watch out for him, I don't trust him...
...Come now...
...But this is Hebrew too...
...She cries frequently at the mention of her son, her husband gets weepy once...
...Yiddish) Bracha: ? (something in Russian)— Volodya: They are from America (broken Yiddish)— Bracha: ? (something in Russian)— Yisroel: We are happy to see you...
...Don: No— Volodya: Adriana writes to them every month in Yiddish— Don: Wonderful— Aharona: What did he say...
...When we reach the street we suck in the cool evening air and breathe deeply and freely...
...But here is what you do not get to see...
...I remember that the sun will stay in the sky until 11 p.m...
...My suitcase is empty (three hours of ingenious packing undone), the clothes are spread out in a row covering the entire counter...
...Sorry no English...
...The activities started five years ago...
...Do you know what the Bible is...
...Let it be very, very soon...
...Weiss—a short unimposing man with an engaging heart and smile— plays in orchestrating these defiant affairs...
...he cannot fulfill all of the requirements of the application to leave...
...We are afraid we will be searched and the books we have brought will be found...
...A great love story...
...Our host has spent some years in exile in Siberia due to his Jewish involvement...
...Our friend from the doorway returns with his wife and son, all three appear to be made from the same physical mold...
...Not only refuseniks come...
...The room is quite crowded and my hosts are unfriendly, but not frightening...
...We are Jews," Yossi tells us...
...We search for a common language, settle again on very broken Yiddish with Russian-English dictionaries...
...An angel...
...She writes to him every month in Yiddish— Aharona: That's wonderful— Bracha: ? (something in Russian)— Yisroel: ? (something in Yiddish)— Don: What did he say...
...Six of us in the forest outside Moscow to have Sukkot...
...On our new planet, in a city distant from Moscow and from its semi-organized Jewish refusenik world, we find another person who takes care of us—Volodya...
...Politics are not for him, he tells us...
...As he draws out the political discussion I get the impression that he has staged the entire debate for the edification of his other young guest (his wife and son have certainly not been involved...
...Yossi raises the Kiddush cup and addresses us in Hebrew: "Please excuse me if I make mistakes...
...His teenage son comes and picks up where his father left off, narrating the slide show...
...Volodya remembers his Yiddish | from his childhood, getting occasional exercise in conversations with the old people at the shul, and with the old man...
...I try to work up some indignation but they are ignoring me...
...He speaks Hebrew...
...Now we go in smaller groups, divided up...
...Weiss adds...
...Finally: "You may take it...
...They do not say so, but we know this law is made against us...
...I fill it out and wonder if they will notice how my hands—and handwriting—are fluttering...
...Perhaps it was only intended as intimidation...
...When Mr...
...She looks to me, points outside the house and then to her eyes, miming a person searching for something...
...We are instructed to make sure we take pictures of him from the waist up, and Bracha refuses to be photographed because she is not properly dressed...
...Yes...
...I am still nervous about creating too much of a scene when I realize they mean to keep my siddur...
...I look very serious (too serious—like I have just killed someone) and Aharona seems giddy and flaky...
...Not allowed...
...No, no...
...Two have had to change their jobs, one has lost hers for good...
...My Russian college books were confiscated at the border...
...Two hours later, back to Moscow...
...I don't understand Russian...
...The mother's face lights up, then collapses into a stern sea of creases and wrinkles, beseeching us on behalf of her family...
...The old man is short, with a long j gray beard streaked with the same j jet black that's in his fiery eyes...
...There are not Jewish things," Mr...
...Our conversation now winds slowly through all of our usual topics: the details of their denials, their hopes for another application (only one a year is permitted), more waiting...
...They give us candy, warm hugs, and tears...
...Weiss notices us, runs over to us, grips our hands and greets us in English...
...Please help me, I know you can, it is very simple, I will tell you what to do...
...Shalom, I am Yossi...
...They have brought these pictures for you from her— Yisroel (examining the pictures): Oy Adriana...
...Without a siddur it may be my only link with Shavuot...
...Two thousand people...
...We will write to your son...
...It is history...
...I wonder to myself how this might be connected to their lower economic status—the closeness of their family, the relation between less education and less inhibition of feeling—and finally scold myself for playing social scientist...
...Do you know who the Nazis were...
...On the plane I look through the postcards and notice the Weisses had written an inscription on the wraparound cover...
...Blue coat still behind us, we return for one more sweep through the main drag of town, then back to our hotel...
...I consider the role Mr...
...Our argument is somewhat inane, even surreal, but it is taking place...
...none seems true or reliable...
...I cannot say anything...
...In your pocket...
...I am sorry too...
...From the sparkling, sterile depths that are the Moscow subwsfy system, the escalator rushes us up to ground level, an echoey room with hundreds of Muscovites tumbling out in the Friday afternoon scramble...
...The Nazis were our enemies just like they were yours\ She died fighting the Nazis...
...He grabs me by the arm, and in the roar of an approaching bus that turns out not to be ours, he yells something at me in Yiddish that I think means, come again to my house and bring your camera...
...the young don't understand...
...I am about to be passed through—they have unzipped the top of my suitcase, patted my clothing, and started to close it when the last customs agent on the line runs the two metal pipes of a metal detector up and down my body...
...The father explains: "When my son got permission to leave we packed up to follow him...
...Volodya: He does not understand— Don: Can you explain it to him...
...He is guarded by the others...
...The posters tell the stories of Jewish heroes in Soviet history...
...We stroll through the coffee clatches, listen at the outer edge of a circle gathered around the Yiddish speaker, an Orthodox rabbi from somewhere...
...I believe you that this is a prayerbook...
...Their son has been gone for four years, I try to feel their pain and suddenly miss my own family...
...There would be few people on our customs lines, no crowds to object if we were singled out for special treatment—careful searches that would delay everyone behind us...
...History...
...I try to hide my shock...
...I am so piqued by the juxtaposition of these terms that I forget for a moment to whom I am talking...
...He has replaced his robe with a fine shirt, jacket and tie...
...I know I should try to get through...
...He stretches his hand out to take my books, he reads the titles...
...Try to be calm...
...Volodya: They want to know if— Yisroel: I understood— He speaks Russian to his wife...
...What is that...
...That's what I want to know, what is the problem...
...A professional tranContinued from page 33 sient, I recognize.the disorder of moving...
...The man who greets us at the door is drowsy, tall, heavyset, and half-dressed—like a giant Stanley Kowalski...
...What about this year...
...I want to tell them—unpack, this is not healthy, this makes your home depressing, this is not the way to strengthen your hope...
...Before we can continue Mr...
...Yisroel is delighted that I have remembered my camera...
...I didn't hear— Volodya: Bracha wants to know what Aharona said— Don: Aharona wanted to know what he said—and she said it's wonderful that Adriana writes to you in Yiddish— Volodya: Aharona wanted to— Yisroel: I understood...
...He speaks Yiddish, but really speaks it...
...We argue...
...Meanwhile my things have been searched...
...Your smile is so big I could see it across the room...
...I begin to read him the story of Naomi and Ruth, and Boaz, of their love ("you see, this is a love story...
...We are lucky we have come, perhaps they are leaving very soon, perhaps tomorrow...
...I grab the first book off the pile and read the title in Russian: Hannah Szenes...
...We crowd together in the foyer and as we bump past our hosts to their dining room we are surprised to see four more people seated around a table set for dinner...
...The room we are in seems unusually bare though it is ringed with large cardboard packing cartons, the couch and some chairs wedged between them...
...What are the boxes for...
...Volodya is our guardian—he will conduct us back to our hotel in time for an Intourist arranged trip that we did not back out of in time...
...This is not fascist propaganda...
...You should read this book...
...It looks too Russian and reminds me of someone from the airport customs...
...Yes...
...It is harder but we go on...
...Suddenly I realize that I am looking at a picture of Aharona and me with two friends at Tel Yehudah...
...He reads the Kiddush—he does not know a tune to it—and we feel sanctified by the words spoken by this 47-year-old Jewish man making Jewish beginnings in Moscow...
...At his home our host draws us into a political discussion—he wants to know why we are not for Gush Emunim, what are the arguments of Shalom Achshav...
...I am told to empty my pockets, my other books are taken and examined, I am frisked, then glared at...
...The next morning we are late for boarding and are rushed through customs...
...The scenes become more crowded, he names the people, mentioning who is now in Israel, who has been arrested, who, like the Weisses, still waits...
...We have spent a long day with Volodya and his family, becoming fast friends, listening to their prized tape of Israeli music, getting stuffed on Russian delicacies, exchanging stories, all the time speaking a very broken Yiddish accompanied by Russian-English dictionaries...
...Our host for the evening talks to us in Hebrew, quite loudly, in the subway, on the streets, all the way home...
...But she will not let us remain melancholy for long...
...But he is still wearing his pajama bottoms...
...You did not...
...Though it would not be Shabbat, we would be with Jews, remarkable ones at that, at home though far from home...
...We are shy, looking for faces we know, hoping someone will approach us...
...He invites us home that night since there is no shiur or dibur (the Hebrew teachers' discussions) to attend...
...Aharona: Ask if we can take their picture— Don: Can we take your picture...
...Yes, what is the problem please...
...He does not...
...She brings out a tape recorder and extracts a special reel from a hidden compartment in the closet...
...and of course there is no one there when I answer it...
...Here please...
...Against Jews...
...And, in fact, the nine passengers on our plane are the only people checking in...
...Their house is under surveillance...
...We have not been followed and the omnipresent surveillance car is still there, but empty...
...What is that please...
...I am sorry we do not trust each other...
...Not in forests...
...Volodya: I don't understand either— (I explain again) Volodya: They know Andrea from America...
...Don: That's what he calls Andrea...
...How can you help us...
...I feel their anxiety and the melancholy that accompanies packing...
...We are afraid to make a wrong move that will endanger someone...
...Another slide shows the three lanky figures draped in their official carcoats reading a poster, each standing with hands clasped behind his back...
...I am an American citizen and—" "Did you sign this customs declaration...
...We will go in only if we are not followed...
...j Volodya's Yiddish surpasses my own, but not by so much as to make our discussions try his patience unbearably...
...Why do you want to go to Israel...
...Also Jewish heroes outside Russia...
...We sit down with Volodya, Yisroel (the old man) and his wife, Bracha, and launch a conversation that travels around the table and back with everyone pitching in, achieving a slight amount of communication with an incredible expenditure of energy...
...Another moment to consider the cruelty of broken families...
...Aharona recites the Russian and Hebrew names of their older child in Israel, adding "your child" in Yiddish...
...Every five minutes one of them starts questioning me in Russian— "I don't understand Russian"—and he moves on...
...What's the matter...
...She fears the film will be confiscated at the border...
...The answer is always the same—we have seen Jews...
...Aharona has been passed without any hassle...
...We all become accustomed to speaking very slowly...
...I consider all the strategies I can think of...
...This man is very funny, the smiling dark haired one has a temper that gets him into trouble with the KGB, the young fellow with the book is their teacher and gives lectures on the meaning of the holidays...
...Don: They are happy to see us— Aharona: Tell him we know Andrea...
...The next slide seems to show a huge crowd...
...The man who finally arrives to talk to me in my native tongue looks very official in his gray suit, but he is neither taller than I nor much my senior...
...It is...
...They do not understand my question so we point to the cartons...
...This has English, see...
...Apparently he is telling them of my sinful act...
...At the door, Yossi recounts the tale of our recognition by smile to his wife and Aharona further amazes them by telling Sophia her full Russian name and those of their children who now live in Israel...
...A very serious fellow, with a heavy Russian accent garbling his English, light blue eyes highlighting a flat, Slavic face...
...We all describe ourselves, our professions...
...What does the Soviet government want from him...
...Finally, Mr...
...They would like more visitors but not so many that they would attract attentidh...
...They are watched...
...Don: He said that Adriana— Aharona: Who is Adriana...
...A customs officiar motions for me to repack—a slight wave of the hand, as she turns the pages of my notebooks...
...He is right...
...These," he shows me, "you cannot take...
...I give up on the Russian books...
...Weiss enters, dashes around the room, covering windows with dark cloths, setting up a slide projector, finally extinguishing the light...
...I am quickly surrounded by customs agents, told to follow them...
...There is no life for Jews here...
...There is another nagging moment when I want to trust him—I somehow can never believe that I am being lied to—but Aharona dismisses him, advising him to ask others for help because they might know more...
...We are torn between fears that our visits may be causing them problems and our feeling of unfulfillment if we do not see them one more time...
...We leave them photographs but they will not allow us to take their picture...
...Six men are squeezed into the car, parked in the middle of the driveway...
...The mother cries again, the son lumbers back across the room, settles in his original chair near us...
...He and his wife, who remind us of teddy bears, invite us to visit them in their own home if we have time...
...Like almost all the Jews we have met, he is a tenacious Zionist, but otherwise is no political radical or dissident...
...They are more emotional, more expressive, sadder, than others we have met...
...We are all tired, but we will meet again at shul the next day...
...He snatches Hannah Szenes out of my waving hand and snaps it down on the pile...
...In the morning we are almost afraid we will wake them up when we ring the bell...
...Are they refuseniks...
...We are very glad you do this and we thank you...
...We were refused permission...
...it is clearly going nowhere...
...I want to know why my suitcase has been searched...
...We eat and drink some more and finally- Yisroel reappears...
...They watch but do not interfere...
...Walking to his home we speak Hebrew, silencing ourselves only when strangers pass...
...But how did you pick me out...
...The next day we leave Moscow...
...After services he shakes when he blesses me, shakes with strength and not frailty, reaching up to kiss me on both cheeks...
...There were 100,000 people at a rally in New York...
...Fascist Zionist propaganda...
...Perhaps the authorities will find the film and develop it...
...DON FUTTERMAN We are rerouted at the last minute and arrive in Moscow on an Aero-flot jet at a quarter past midnight, 20 hours after we started out, six hours behind schedule...
...He laughs and we feel better, closer, when we are all smiling...
...He is apologetic: "I am sorry...
...But that was four years ago," I blurt out...
...The father makes introductions...
...This is our last visit with refuseniks and they have special gifts for us: packages of postcards of sights in Moscow...
...I go to the head of one line, Aharona waits, goes to the back of a second a few feet away...
...Bracha prepares piles of blini and Yisroel, Yitzchak (YisroeFs son) and I drink the first of several vodkas...
...Tracing the path from Aharona's English to my broken Yiddish to Volodya's slightly better broken Yiddish to Yisroel's real Yiddish to Bracha's Russian and back again reveals that it is actually Aharona and Bracha who are talking to each other...
...It is the photograph we had given them ten days before during our Shabbat dinner at Yossi and Sophia's...
...They perch on the edges of the chairs, their bodies pitched forward toward us, nervous, expectant...
...We will, in the end, spend a magical last meeting with refuseniks at the home of the Weisses...
...How did you first become interested, first start thinking of going to Israel...
...Our suspicious looking friend appears before us...
...Volodya is not here to "translate" and the conversation moves more slowly than ever...
...Aharona and I are the only Americans and, waiting for our luggage, we feel very young and alone...
...She writes to us every month in Yiddish— Volodya: Did you understand...
...Yes...
...One moment please...
...He speaks gently, assuring me that he will investigate all sides of the matter when he gets to Israel before aligning himself...
...They are very happy to see us...
...Everywhere I go I meet Jewish educators...
...And you are the only person smiling in the entire place...
...I examine the decarations slip...
...Weiss grabs my hand and her son's hand, calls to Aharona, and suddenly we are dancing free-form debkas in the living room...
...The son, chainsmoking, strides, across the room, sits on another chair...
...This book is about a girl fighting the Nazis...
...You cannot take it...
...Finally he wishes me "HaShem yatzliach darkecha"— May God prosper your way— in an impassioned tone...
...We have stumbled upon the right street...
...I need it...
...We decide to test our theory and weave our way randomly through town...
...It is fascist propaganda and we do not allow such things into our country...
...Weiss returns he mentions that he has been making arrangements for Yom Yerushalayim celebrations...
...Now we relax and assume our more familiar conversation...
...We leave and wait with Volodya at the busstop...
...It's nothing...
...Left alone, Aharona and I study the genealogy in photographs that covers a section of the living room wall...
...We decide to pass by the house and check if the surveillance car is occupied...
...One last try for Megillat Ruth...
...Aharona offers to marry him if it will help get him out...
...Someday she will marry my son...
...The language barrier makes our discussion painfully slow and the pictures are a welcome relief...
...We don't understand what you are talking about, we are very sorry...
...That night we set out for Yisroel and Bracha's home, camera in hand (in case I did hear correctly), and as we walk we think that we are being followed...
...She is like this since he left...
...It is Shabbat, even in Moscow...
...We find their son's home on a map of Israel, point out photographs taken near there...
...He leads us to a couch and disappears into another room...
...it should now be time to prepare for Shabbat...
...at least, their instincts...
...No more...
...The customs agent shakes his head as though disgusted, raises one hand and calls to the other agents on line...
...He speaks Yiddish—I know what he is saying— Aharona: What did he say...
...We must keep them...
...We had been warned that coming in late at night was dangerous...
...Suddenly Yisroel leaves the table and I explain to Aharona that I think he is too frustrated by our inability to communicate to endure any more...
...Aharona: Tell him we have come from America— Don: We have come from America (in German-Yiddish)— l Yisroel: What...
...We decide not to fill out customs declarations slips, not realizing that we need them whether we want to declare anything or not...
...What's wrong...
...I am very sorry, I cannot read Hebrew and I must assume this is Zionist fascist propaganda...
...I enter Russia...
...There are complications...
...We have to play it safe...
...What...
...We heave a collective sigh over the delicious dinner that Mrs...
...That night the phone rings at 3 a.m...
...Even KGB learns Jewish history...
...He is from the KGB, but he is not the KGB, only a young man who has some control over a few of my possessions...
...we ask...
...I think about this and am flabbergasted...
...We feel the shadow that hangs over the refuseniks hanging over us for a moment...
...We deliberately pass in front of our friend Mr...
...It is a bad time...
...We reach for words, clutch impo-tently at the air with our fingers...
...Every year, more activities, more people...
...I ask...
...Allow the refuseniks to take the lead...
...He has captured the older Jews with his Yiddish...
...We will do what we can...
...We are all swimming and playing sports and they do not know we take their picture...
...The slides focus on the crowds who are studying the homemade exhibits suspended from the forest clothesline...
...I see my books being moved away, disappearing...
...Weiss is called to the phone...
...There are a few hundred people standing in clusters of twos and threes, a few larger groups around a special visitor declaiming loudly in Yiddish...
...Books...
...We accept and arrange a time to meet before we go...
...They will combine learning, eating, celebrating and sports...
...History...
...A wonder, but how...
...Israeli dance music soars out of the machine, the volume turned down low but loud enough to hear...
...When they take me back to the customs line I realize that nothing has really happened in that room other than a wait and a mild body search...
...For now we tell stories of our time in Israel, describing the chagim in special detail, passing around photographs of ourselves in Jerusalem, in New York, in our Young Judaea Camp Tel Yehudah, and expressing the hope that we will see them all again in Israel...
...We thank them but are unsure of the meaning of the presents...
...but thanks us for showing them the pictures...
...This is one of the first times I am saying Kiddush, I have just learned it...
...They are never mentioned so no Jews know they existed unless we tell them...
...She shakes her head in vehement disapproval...
...All are refuseniks, all are waiting—from two to seven years— to leave...
...Listen...
...Yitzchak makes us laugh and feeds me vodka...
...She sends her love— Yisroel: What...
...The car is in our view for a full five minutes as we approach, and then pass the house...
...An English translation...
...A man in a blue coat walks a half block behind us...
...Weiss reads our expressions and explains: "Whenever a visitor like you comes to visit us we ask them what they have seen in Moscow...
...My guide tells them my story and soon they are all shaking their heads...
...the father asks, "What can I do...
...They want to learn something of being Jewish...
...Can you help us join our son in Israel...
...my pocket...
...He wants to learn all the sides, he says, though we see quickly that he is well informed...
...A moment, silence, our helplessness...
...Suddenly, he cuts off the exchange: "You should know that I am not with customs...
...What can I do...
...He favors Kach and Meyer Kahane...
...She has gone off to wait, inconspicuously, somewhere on the other side, inside...
...Instead, public parks, any place we cango...
...I am struck by one snapshot, incongruous both in its color and the dress of its subjects...
...In perfect English he announces that he wants to leave the Soviet Union and go to Israel and would we help him get a vizoff, an invitation to Israel, and it is not too much to ask and we can do it, so please, will we help...
...I tell him why Kahane's ideas and tactics disgust me, realizing as I talk that liberal humanism and the fear of becoming in any way like our enemies in efforts for survival are not universal Jewish traits (the Eastern Liberal's Fallacy...
...Eighty yards across the crowd I spot a slight man, hurtling down the steps near the street entrance...
...Perhaps we have stumbled upon one of the few Jewish families that have never lost touch with Jewish life...
...Weiss four or five times, not sure if he is avoiding us on purpose or simply has not seen us...
...Our short, inarticulate sentences stab at each other back and forth, then the even tone jumps an octave as we get angry...
...I smile...
...Why am I being bothered...
...The exhibit is abandoned except for these stark figures and scattered clothing...
...We are delighted, overwhelmed by this sudden unexpected Shabbat, but also suspicious of the guests...
...I heave my suitcase onto the counter and am asked in Russian for something—"What...
...Nine passengers, about 30 customs agents, no one else in our sight in the voluminous Moscow International Terminal...
...Everyone smiles, thinking of the angelic Adriana (we all start using this elegant version of her name...
...What is that please...
...We have been to Israel" leads to passing around our pictures...
...We meet halfway across the terminal floor...
...One man is a gruff fellow, with a face that is hard, unfinished sculpture, hiding, I imagine, great suffering (this turns out to be true...
...Weiss grins and then dances into another room...
...Declaration slip—" I fumble, realizing I am calling attention to myself, and am sent back out into the terminal to find an English declaration slip...
...He has invited a handsome young man—he looks graceful but moves stiffly like most of the Russians—who has become interested in the Jewish world but has not yet applied...
Vol. 1 • December 1981 • No. 7
