Längst nicht mehr koscher

Chane, the maid, serves breakfast. Bread, cold chicken and chicory coffee. The floor of the sitting room is varnished and the walls freshly painted. In the middle of the room is a table, around it cane-bottomed chairs. The room is also furnished with an armchair and a desk. And there’s a sideboard holding Passover dishes, a menorah, silver candlesticks, the Book of Esther in a library case and a pearl handled Sabbath knife engraved with the words “Holy Sabbath”. On the shelves are small jars for spices and herbs, carafes, trays and vases. Beside the door is a large picture in a gilt frame. It depicts a tropical scene - a bluish sky over a bamboo jungle with gazelles in the foreground. A portrait of Moses Montefiore hangs on the east wall of the room.

• You weren’t in synagogue today, says Esther.
• Yes.
• Yesterday and the day before you didn’t go either.
• Yes.
• Gitel has told Chane.
• Let her talk.
• Naphtali has told Schejne. Milka isn’t talking to you.
• What difference does it make?
• Chane told me people say you smoke cigars on the Sabbath.
• That’s a lie.
• Everyone’s talking about it. Joel, Hinda, Mendel. Nobody talks to us anymore. They say we’ll go to the Gehenna.

Moses Hersch laughs.

• Fool. Let them talk.
• But they’re our neighbors.
• I’m a God-fearing man. I pray in the morning and in the evening. That suffices. Gottesmann, Kornhaber, and Mendelson don’t go to synagogue every day either. Ephraim’s Meier and Simon’s Feigele are in the same class as Sische. Azriel, Berman, and Dow don’t go to the cheder anymore either. We’ll soon be moving to Drohobycz.

Moses Hersch takes a pinch of snuff. The infant starts crying. Esther takes him and holds him to her breast.

• Osias has to go to the cheder.
• He doesn’t have to go to the cheder.
• He has to go to the cheder.
• He ought to go school.
• But first to the cheder. He has to learn Hebrew and study the Talmud.
•  He can do that with a private teacher. At the cheder he’ll only learn Hebrew and Chumesh. He ought to learn German. Rabbi Wolf is not a good teacher and his house is disorderly and he’s got hens running around in it and it smells and there are diapers hanging around everywhere and his ungroomed children scream and Rebekka is constantly busy at the stove nagging. You know that.
•  He doesn’t have to go to Rabbi Wolf. He could be sent to Rabbi Selig. Sische was his pupil too. He’s not a Hassid, but he is a man of learning.
• Rabbi Selig isn’t much better and Rabbi Menasse is a Hassidic drunkard.
• He’s got to go to the cheder until he starts school. He’s old enough to begin to learn.
• Take care of the children and attend to the orders.

Moses Hersch stands up, slips into his fur-lined greatcoat and leaves. He has to go to Drohobycz and have the brewery listed at the land registry office. The snow is deep upon the ground. He harnesses the horses to the sleigh.

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