Assuta Hospital in Tel Aviv is where I came out into the world and where my life story began. As a guest of Govrin Yehudain, in this case a Chazonishniki family to which I was ejected from my mother's womb, immediately after my birth I was taken to the Torah city of Bnei Brak, in the hope that when I grow up I will be the rabbi of all the children of the Diaspora.
Unlike lucky me, my father and mother were not born in the United States, but they are a holy seed. My father was born in Poland, to the family of the Radzin Rebbe, and my mother was born in Romania, the daughter of the last rabbi of the Romanian town of Merkulesti. In other words, your faithful servant is an Ashkenazi privilege under the supervision of the Badatz.
Both Radzin and Merkulesti were Jewish towns in their day, I was told, and in both of them not a single Jew remained alive. And even Merkulesti itself, it happened, is no longer part of Romania but Moldova.
I am currently in Krakow, Poland. I've been around Poland for years, but I've never set foot in Romania. Not the mountains of Romania like the mountains of Poland. Poland was invaded by the Nazis, and in most cases murdered its Jews, but Romania was not invaded by any Nazis. The Romanians, of their own accord, decided to join the Nazis and murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews of their own free choice. Why? Because they feel like it.
"We are not thieves!"
In my mind's eye, the scion of an extensive family that has almost completely disappeared, they are human animals. Is there any probable ground that I will ever go around Romania? Of course not. And with that, I get on a Polish plane and fly to Bucharest.
If you come to Bucharest, Daniel, a native of Romania who lives in Israel, once told me, take the Capitol Hotel, room 407. You have to be Romanian and Jewish, gentlemen taught, to tell you which room in which hotel to take. All the details. "Rachel, your little daughter," as the ultra-Orthodox say.
I land in Bucharest safely. The weather today, if you wanted to know, is 39 degrees Celsius.
I put my luggage down at 407 and head out onto the cool street.
The first Romanian I meet goes by the name Nicolae. Nicolae is a young man in his 20s, and with great jubilation he tries to paint me a rosy picture of Romania. "The Gypsies," he tells me, "make us a very bad name. They go to other countries, steal, and when they are caught they say they are Romanians, but we are not thieves."
Good to know. By the way, I heard that during World War II you allied yourself with the Nazis, right?
"In the early years of the war, but not in the last few years."
Why did you switch sides?
"Because the Nazis lost, and we are always with the victors."
I heard you murdered a lot of Jews back then, is that true?
"Not many Jews. But yes, we murdered a lot of gypsies."
I haven't eaten for two hours, which the poskim believe is forbidden from Dauritha, and I'm running to atone for this offense.
What is the essence of being Romanian? I ask Victoria, a beautiful human animal who looks more like Scandinavian than Romanian, as we sit down at a kosher wooden table blessed with whiskey and cheese for the most part.
"Being Romanian means two things: The first thing is to go with what is. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, right or wrong. You just go with the flow."
If I understand you correctly, I say to the human animal, what you say can explain why Romania did what it did during World War II. In the early years, she joined the Nazis, murdered Jews and Gypsies, and when the Nazis were about to lose the war, she joined the Russians. In other words, Romania went with the flow.
"Exactly," says the beast.
Interesting. What is the second thing that defines "Romanian"?
"Ties. No matter what you want to be, whatever you want to achieve, you always need connections. If you don't have connections you won't get anywhere in Romania. Do you need surgery in a hospital? You must know the doctors, otherwise you will die, especially if you are an adult. Do you want a high school diploma? You need to have relationships with the teachers, otherwise you will most likely fail. Do you want to graduate from university with high grades? You need connections. You won't be able to see the best theater plays in Romania if you don't have connections with the theater people. I, for example, have money, and I can pay any price for tickets, but it's not enough. This is Romania."
In juicy Hebrew, if you were wondering, they don't say "knots" but "combines."
To be or not to be Romanian
Are you proud to be Romanian? I ask the animal.
"Absolutely not."
What would you like to be?
"Norwegian".
Let's say there's a war right now, right now, between Norway and Romania, and you have to join one of the armies – which army will you join?
She is silent for a moment, thinks, and then says: "To the Romanian army."
What???
"When I asked which army I would join, it made me think deeper, and I said to myself: We Romanians have a great sense of humor. It doesn't exist in Norway. They're not funny."
Are the novels funny?
"Very!"
Give me an example.
"It's hard to give an example if you don't speak Romanian."
A handsome waiter passes by. What does it mean to be Romanian? I ask him.
"We Romanians will always find a way to get out of trouble."
Do you mean to say that you Romanians will always find ways to get rid of the nonsense you do and get away with it, even if you murdered someone?
"Exactly!" jumps Victoria.
If I understand them correctly, novels are human beings who will forever get rid of punishment for any crime, including murder, but will never get a single ticket to a good theater performance.
Choral Synagogue, Bucharest, photo: Izzy Tenenbom
This is quite strange to my ears, although it probably sounds logical and amusing if you say it in Romanian.
And suddenly, the person who was supposed to be Rashkabhag, thinks: Could this country be the birthplace of what we know as "Jewish humor"? In Yiddish, as in Romanian, it would be perfectly understandable that Moishe would avoid imprisonment for robbery, breakage and murder, and at the same time he would never see a single theater performance in Habima or Cameri in his life.
Did Jewish humor really start here?
Let breed a chicken
Started or not, Papanee lands on his table. What is papanes? Papeneche is a dish of the janitor's angels because of which, some say, the first Jews settled in Romania hundreds of years ago. Papanesh is basically a Hanukkah doughnut, but its miracles are much more complex. The peel is hard, boiling and soft, and above and around it is a sea of Romanian cream and pleasure jam prepared in detail under the throne of honor in the seventh heaven. Nothing less.
The beast and I gobble with intense lust, and our lips are full of rina.
And when, by the grace of Heaven, the panache rests in the depths of my belly, I walk toward the Capitol, looking for more novels.
On my way I meet a Jew who has come for years, a Torah observant man. In other words, ultra-Orthodox.
"Come to the synagogue to pray on Shabbat. There is a good cholent after prayer."
Which synagogue?
"The Chorale".
It's not Saturday yet, but I'm going to see "The Chorale." Before entering the building, I see police vehicles and various security forces, and some of the vehicles say they are anti-terrorist forces.
The synagogue itself is beautiful and looks like a royal hall from days gone by. But there is a thorn in it: if I want to go inside and experience the place personally, I have to pay. Why? This synagogue is also a museum, and entering the museum requires money. Make sure, I don't have any Romanian money on me.
I continue my journey through the streets of the city and meet Michaela, a young woman whose image every Romanian boy who passes by curls greedily at the sight of her. "I'm very proud to be a Romanian," she swam to me. In her elegant attire, she looks as if she were the daughter of a Rebbe, and if I met her in New York I would definitely recognize her as a Satmar Hasidic from Williamsburg.
What is Romanian for you? I ask the Satmar.
"We are soft people."
Soft?
"I am very jealous of Poles and Hungarians. The EU tells them what to do but they do what they want, not what the EU tells them. We do what the EU tells us. We are soft. I hate it!"
But are you still proud to be Romanian?
"Yes. It would have been nice if I had been born Polish, but I was born Romanian."
What's so bad about EU law?
"The European Union has told Romania that it must ban people from raising chickens, pigs or cows in their villages unless they are farmers. But people in the village live off chickens, pigs and cows. The government didn't send these people to universities, and all they know how to do is raise livestock and poultry. You take a rooster, slaughter it, cook it, mix it with rice and potatoes - and you have a meal for a few days. You milk the cow, and you have milk. But since a few months ago, because of the European Union, the government no longer allows it. What will the villagers eat?"
שאלה טובה. מה תושבי הכפר עושים עכשיו?
"הם מגדלים תרנגולות, חזירים ופרות".
למרות שזה אסור?
"כמובן".
איך יכול להיות?
"אנחנו רומנים!"
הבנתי.
"אם אתה רוצה", אומרת לי הסאטמרית, "ואם יהיה לך זמן, בשבוע הבא אקח אותך איתי לעיר שלי, שנמצאת כשעתיים מכאן, ואבלה איתך את היום ואתה תראה איך אני חיה ואיך אנשים חיים ברומניה. אני גרה ממש ליד מנזר, ואם אתה מתעניין במנזרים אני אכנס איתך פנימה".
אני משוגע על מנזרים, אני אומר לחסידה.
"ויהיה לנו אוכל רומני טוב ביחד", החיה שלי מוסיפה.
איך נפל עלי נס כזה שרומנייה רכה מזמינה אותי לסעוד איתה, לנסוע איתה, וביחד לזמר מזמורי אהבה לאם הבתולה במנזר חשוך? זכות אבות, אין לי מילים אחרות.
מאוד אשמח! אני אומר לה.
"אתה יהודי?"
איך ידעת?
"אתה לא אוכל חזיר, נכון?"
לא השבוע, אבל אולי בשבוע הבא.
"אתה נראה ממש חמוד. יש לי כמה ממתקים, אני יכולה לתת לך".
היא נותנת לי סוכריות רומניות. "אוכל מתוק לגבר מתוק", היא אומרת בחיוך רומני צנוע.
ואני עבדכם מחייך לי כל הדרך ל־407, שככל הידוע לי הוא החדר הטוב ביותר בקפיטול. אני נשכב על הספה, בפי סוכריה רומנייה, ומלקק להנאתי.
בואי כלה, בואי שרה'לה
ובערוב יום השישי בשבת אני הולך לקבל את דודתי, השכינה הקדושה, ברומניה.
"רומנים הם אנשים מאוד פשוטים", אומר לי יהודי בבית הכנסת של חב"ד כשאני אך מגיע.
כן, גם לחב"ד יש פה בית כנסת, ואם אני כבר עומד לזמר במנזר - למה שלא אזמר בחב"ד.
המקום מלא, פחות או יותר.
מי הם המתפללים?
אני אישית לא מכיר אף אחד מהם, אבל לפי מה שנראה לי הם טיפוסים די ידועים. לשמאלי, למשל, שני גברים עם חולצות טריקו הדוקות וכיפות לבנות צחות על ראשיהם, משהו בסגנון של החבר'ה הטובים מאשקלון. "אני קורא לכיפות האלה 'כיפות העמדה לדין'", אמר לי פעם ישראלי חמוד העונה לשם שחף.
בכניסה למלון "קפיטול", צילום: איזי טננבום
שחף עצמו לא בבית הכנסת, אבל אני הרשכבה"ג כן, ואני מנסה לזרום עם הקהל.
תנו לי בית כנסת, תנו לי מנזר - אני זורם.
בשורה שלפניי חבורה של גברים שנראה כי הם מכירים זה את זה עוד מימי אדם וחווה, וכולם עם כיפות סרוגות על ראשיהם. "אני אדם מאוד לא קיצוני", אומר לי אחד מהם. מה זה אומר לא קיצוני? אני שואל אותו. "אני בחיים לא אעבור קווים אדומים". מהם קווים אדומים? "חיילים שמסרבים. אותם צריך לשלוח לכלא. מיידית. אתה מסכים, נכון?"
אני לא מבין בזה, ידידי.
"מה, אתה חושב שחייל יכול לסרב?"
שמעתי, אם כי אני לא בטוח, שלפעמים חיילים יכולים לסרב אם הם חושבים שהם קיבלו פקודה בלתי חוקית בעליל.
בליבי אני חושב על חיילים רומנים מימים עברו, אבל אני לא אומר לו את זה כדי שלא יקפוץ עלי.
"אתה שמאל קיצוני, קלטתי אותך", הוא אומר לי בחירוק שיניים.
"שמע מה אני אומר לך", אומר לי בחור צעיר עם כיפת העמדה לדין על ראשו, "אנחנו צריכים לזרוק את כל הערבים מהמדינה. אל תגיד שאתה לא חושב ככה. אתה איתי, נכון אחי?"
ביניכם לביני, אני לא איתו, אני עם מיכאלה.
אבל מיכאלה לא פה. פה כולם אנשים שלא אוכלים חזיר.
הקהל הקדוש שלפניי, אם אני קולט אותו נכון, הוא ימין מלא־מלא.
והם שרים. מה הם שרים? "לכה דודי לקראת כלה". וכשהם מגיעים למילים "בואי בשלום עטרת בעלה" בקבלם את פני השכינה הם פונים בגופם לכיוון הכניסה. אני שר יחד איתם, מתחבר אליהם, ומאחר שאני מנסה כמה שאפשרי הדבר לזרום יחד איתם, אני מייד מזהה בעיני רוחי את דמותה של שרה'לה, המלכה הבלונדינית מקיסריה. איזו שמחה! בואי שרה'לה אהובה, עטרת בעלך!
"מזמור שיר ליום השבת", הקהל הקדוש אומר, ואפילו ערבי אחד לרפואה אין בנמצא קילומטרים מכאן.
ילדים טובים ירושלים
מה הישראלים האלה עושים פה? אני שואל נער חמוד שכיפה שחורה מעטרת את ראשו.
שלא כמו רוב המתפללים הנער הזה הוא לא ישראלי, אבל הוא מכיר אותם. "אלה ישראלים שבאו לבוקרשט בשביל הבנות והקזינו וכמעט כולם שוהים במלון רדיסון".
מה בנות? איזה בנות?
אישה חרדית המאזינה לשיחתנו מתערבת. "אל תגיד בנות", היא אומרת לנער, "אומרים 'מועדונים'. ברובם הישראלים פה בשביל המועדונים והקזינו, אבל יש גם אנשי עסקים, במיוחד נדל"ן", היא אומרת לי.
לוקח לי, בני־ברקי שכמותי, זמן להבין מי הן הבנות.
זונות. לכה דודי לקראת כלה. הכלה היא לא שרה'לה - הכלה היא מריה, או משהו בסגנון.
כמובן, מאחר שברומניה אנחנו, אין לי מושג אם מריה זו בשר ודם היא או פרי דמיונם של המספרים.
הקזינו, לעומת זאת, ניתן בידי לברר אם מציאות הוא או חלום.
אני לא מהמהמרים
And when Sunday arrives I go to Radisson. Five steps into the casino, one of the guards, Mount Adam, stands next to me in all his glory and stops me for a formal conversation. "Did you sign up?" he asks. Sign up for what? "You can't log in without registering. Do you have a passport on you?"
To tell you the truth, I tell him, I'm not gambling. I came here just to see who the gamblers are. I heard, and I don't know if it's true, because almost everyone here is Israeli. Is that true?
The mountain of man hears these words and his mouth brings a smile the size of the Romanian parliament, which is one of the largest in the world, if not the largest, and gives me a huge wink with his left eye that casts its shadow over about half of Bucharest. "I see you already know everything," the mountain tells me, adding: "You don't have to check, you already know."
At Radisson my eyes and ears recognize my Israeli brothers in every corner and in every hole, dressed in a "popular" style,
Shouting and loud as if everyone next to them is deaf. Most of them, I notice, walk around with inflated shopping bags of goodies, except for a Rolex. Only those demonstrating against judicial reform, those with "connections" with the elites, wear Rolex watches. Not the people. The people in the casino.
"I'm very happy that Chabad exists," a Jew who as usual prays at Choral under the leadership of Rabbi Raphael Shefer tells me, "if it wasn't for Chabad, the guys from Radisson would come and pray with us."
Rabbi Sheffer, if you don't know, is a visionary, as ultra-Orthodox as he can be, but unlike them, he is also a Zionist. He holds the title of Acting Chief Rabbi of Romania, although he has been the acting Chief Rabbi for quite some years.
And while my fellow people gamble for them in the casino, I go to Chorali to meet Rabbi Sheffer. His Excellency invites me, as his dear guest, to a kosher dairy restaurant next to the synagogue, where we sit side by side, with His Excellency glorified by his reflections. His wife and his loins are in Israel, and he is alone here to serve the Romanian Jews, a small community whose spiritual father he is. The social crisis in Israel is very painful for him, he shares with me, and he believes that ultra-Orthodox Judaism will pay a heavy price when the day comes for joining what he defines as "people of Jewish identity," who in the visionary language we speak means members of Otzma Yehudit and their ilk. What is happening in Israel, he shares with me, is a deep rift between the two parts of the nation, the people of culture and action on the one hand and the people of Jewish identity in the Radisson casino on the other. As for the ultra-Orthodox parties, he tells me, "They don't see ahead what kind of mud they're putting the public into."
"My dream," says Rabbi Sheffer, "is to sit and study all day." His wife isn't here, but the Talmud does—and that's enough for now. What will he do? Will he force his wife to come to Bucharest when she prefers Bnei Brak?No, he can't force her. What else will he do? Will he force his ultra-Orthodox brothers to refrain from cooperating with the casino people? No, he can't. So he sits here, in Romania, and spends his time studying Torah and poskim. And when he's in Chorale, even if he's the only one there, alone, three Romanian security forces "anti-terror" patrol cars stand ready to guard his life with their polished weapons.
And this rabbi, an amazing man in his love for man, prefers that we meet in a restaurant rather than in a synagogue, so that Romanian security personnel do not have to stand for hours on end guarding him from the terrorists.
Settler in Milk Bar
There are no terrorists in the dairy restaurant, only Ateret. Ateret is actually a settler, and her address is Mount Hebron. But these days she is a waitress in Bucharest, living here and not on the mountain. She loves everyone, she tells me, all Knesset members in Israel, without exception. All 120.
Okay, not exactly. When I asked me if she loved Ahmed Tibi too, she looked at me as if I were one of the terrorists that the Romanian security forces dedicate their lives to capturing as long as they wanted.
The rabbi hears us talking and smiles. This visionary understands the matter and does not interfere. Just smiling. Dear Ateret, Are you going to return to Mount Hebron soon? Ateret cannot commit. Whatever happens, only the good God knows.
I came to Romania to meet Romanians, and fortunately I meet more and more Israelis here. What will happen?
Praise God there is Michaela. But devil's tale, the business here gets a little complicated. Michaela sends me a short message. She wanted very much to spend an innocent day with me in the darkness of the monastery, but unfortunately she would not be able to do so.
And if I still wanted to go to a monastery, it turns out, I would have to do it on my own.
The entire Torah at Mount Sinai
About a two-hour drive from Bucharest lies the honor of a Chinese monastery, named after Mount Sinai, of course.
Michaela or not, Maria or not, Sarah'le or not - when next Friday night arrives at a Sinai monastery where I am headed.
Next to the eastern wall, which is as much gold as the Holy Ark at the Panevezys Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, stands a group of four monks who serve as prayer holders. Friday night today, and the frills they utter in their prayers sound like two drops of water to an evening prayer at Mea Shearim's Shtibelach.
And suddenly the priest arrives. He is dressed in clothes that are a combination of the uniform of Rishon LeZion and the Satmar Rebbe, a Hasidic woman of Romanian origin, and in his hand he holds coals, which he points in all directions with strong and rapid movements like the Rebbe from Toldot Aharon in Mea Shearim with his lulav on Sukkot. What's the idea? I'm not sure, but I think he's trying to cast out demons, Satan, or both.
Then the priest, with his long beard, walks with candles, perhaps to remind us that Shabbat has begun. Go figure. Lacquer my uncle.
The prayer continues. Now it sounds like Kaddish Darbanan, and at the end he takes three steps back, in the style of a "peacemaker on high."
He continues to pray, and suddenly turns toward the entrance, along the lines of "Come in peace, Ateret Baala," and again I imagine Sarah.
Am I accidentally at Chabad in Bucharest and the guys next to me are from the casino in Radisson?
Not exactly. With a beard as long as he has, Mount Man at Radisson won't let this priest in.
This is not Chabad. Sophie.
The prayer holders continue, and now they curl in the style of "validated." If it continues like this, fear pops up in my heart, soon they will start curling Kol Nidre for me. That's what I'm missing.
Fortunately, before the Yom Kippur fast begins, the priest leaves – but immediately returns with a collection of notes in his hands. What is this? In the entrance to the prayer house, only now I notice, there are tables with small pages with pens, intended for the holy audience in the Sinai monastery. They wrote their names and requests for medicine and livelihood on these notes when they entered the monastery, and the priest will soon bless them, and their salvation is near. In other words, what my eyes see is Quitlach. Just like in the foyer of the Karlin Rebbe.
Is. Either the worshippers before me are nothing but strictly kosher Jews from Torah Judaism, or in Torah Judaism they are all rural Romanians who raise chickens for a living, and other creatures are not about us. One of the two.
I wanted to meet Romanians, and here I am – their voices, Jacob's voice, and their hands, too. Are these the sons of Romanians who wiped out my family?
I take three steps back, aware that if war breaks out between Norway and Romania, I, a native of Assuta, will join the Romanians. Doesn't make sense to you? Say it in Romanian or Yiddish, and you'll agree.
And as the High Holy Days unfold upon us, my brothers and sisters from Radisson, when Pino Yarnan received with a committee "our guilt, our betrayal, our robbery, we spoke fault, we were wronged and we were convicted," I pray that we will indeed be ransomed, and in the year that comes we will all sit under our vines and figs in love and brotherhood, peace and friendship, licking us Romanian candy. Happy New Year.
Tuvia Tenenbom is a journalist, playwright and writer.
His book "Haredi and Good for Him" was published this year by Sela Meir
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