Джеймс Миченер - The Source

In another corner of the synagogue was an area in which Rabbi Eliezer conducted school for the young boys of the Judenstrasse, and all under his care learned to read, for repeatedly he told parents, “Teach your son to read and you give him four arms.” To Eliezer it was offensive to use the synagogue in this way, for boyish recitations interrupted the reading of older scholars, but in all the Judenstrasse not one additional corner could be found.

It was not by preference that the Jews of Gretz occupied so mean a synagogue; under existing law they were allowed no better: “The Judenstrasse may contain a synagogue providing it be not large, nor so high as the cathedral, nor adorned in any way. Once built, it may never be changed in any detail, no matter how slight, without approval of the bishop.” The Jews did not like to see their learned rabbi studying at his rickety table, and some years ago had built him a better, but the guard at the iron gate had gotten wind of their move and had alerted the officials, who had confiscated the new table, fined the Jews and ordered the old one returned.

It was curious, Rabbi Eliezer reflected, that these degrading restrictions had originated not with civil legislators but with the Church. As he explained to his congregation: “The same religion which seeks to win us to its bosom through conversion also forces this Judenstrasse upon us to prove how merciful it is.”

Actually, in Gretz there was little attempt at conversion, for no Jew would leave the guidance of Rabbi Eliezer and no Christian would welcome him if he did. Centuries before, Gunter the Crusader, in his rough German manner, had summed up the local attitude about conversion: “A converted Jew is like chicken manure, hot when it leaves the bird but cold when it hits the ground.”

Furthermore, at this particular time in Gretz there was little reason for Jews to envy Christians, for the latter religion was shattered by contention. Though in 1517 the Jews had watched with indifference as Martin Luther, a monk who spoke Hebrew, launched his first shafts against the parent Church, now in 1523 a surge of hope sped through the Judenstrasse when Isaac Gottes Mann brought home a copy of Martin Luther’s first public statement regarding Jews.

“It’s unbelievable!” he cried as Jews assembled in the alley.

“What does he say?”

“He calls it Jesus Was Born a Jew . And I could not believe my eyes when I read it.” Carefully he recited the singing words:“Our fools and jackasses, these priests, bishops, sophists and monks have treated the Jews in such a fashion that if a man wanted to become a true Christian he might better become a Jew. Were I a Jew and saw what blockheads and windbags rule and guide Christendom, I would rather become a sow than a Christian. For they have treated the Jews more like dogs than men. Yet the Jews are kith and kin and brothers-in-blood of our Saviour. If we are going to boast about the virtues of race, Christ belongs more to them than to us. To no other people has God shown such favor in entrusting them with His Holy Word.”

Isaac looked up, and the hope that he saw in the eager faces infected him and he cried, “May God give Luther victory! If he wins he will abolish the Judenstrasse, because listen to what he says next: ‘My advice, therefore, is to deal decently with this people. So long as we resort to violence and lies and slander, and so long as we forbid them to work and trade and mingle at our side, thereby forcing them into usury, how can we expect to win them or better them? If we wish to help them we must employ not Papist law but Christian love. We must give them a friendly hand, letting them work and thrive in our midst, in order that they may have reason and occasion to become of us and with us.’”

The compassionate words caught the imagination of the Jews, and one summed it all up: “He will let us work.”

But at this moment Rabbi Eliezer came through the iron gate, and seeing the crowd of people, joined them to hear the last words of the monk’s message. In him, too, a surge of hope rose, but being a cautious man he asked to see the pamphlet, and as he studied it in silence and tried to formulate a guess as to what had been in Luther’s mind as he wrote, he came to the sobering conclusion that the Jews would be wise not to pin their hopes too strongly to the Lutheran banner, and he said so.

“What do you mean?” Gottes Mann asked. “He says right here that Jews are to be treated like human beings.”

“Yes, he does,” Eliezer agreed.

“Then I think we should support him,” Isaac said, and his suggestion gained some support.

“False,” Eliezer objected.

“How can you say that?” his uncle asked. He was the principal moneylender and a man of prudence.

“We know the Church,” Eliezer replied. “And how it treats Jews. But we don’t know this monk, Martin Luther.”

“Read his words, Rabbi!” one of the men pleaded.

“I have,” the tall man replied, “and I know what Martin Luther means now, when he wants to use us against his own Church. But what will be his position if he wins? Will he not insist that we convert to his religion?”

At first Eliezer’s argument made no sense. As one Jew argued, “After this long night of oppression Martin Luther comes along and says, ‘In your treatment of Jews you are more like animals than Christians.’ I say, Trust Luther and hope for his triumph.’”

“No,” Eliezer warned flatly, “there will be no support for Luther from the Jews of this city. We must not create a new opponent to supplant the old.”

He asked to borrow the pamphlet, and as he walked to the two tiny rooms in which he lived, airless and cramped, with his wife, his baby, his mother-in-law and two aunts, he felt certain that his decision was correct; but when he had gone over the pamphlet word by word he called his wife, and since she could not read, he read the words to her and watched as she sat with her hands clasping her knees, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen; and at the end of the reading he asked, “What do you think of the message?”

“He says a lot that I like to hear,” she replied.

“But what does he mean?”

“I suppose that he has two things in mind. To use us now and to convert us later.”

“Exactly,” Eliezer cried. He had been married to Leah for two years, and his joy had not diminished. She was as perceptive as she was beautiful, and as affectionate with the people of the Judenstrasse as she was with her own son. She wore her hair parted in the middle and drawn down over her ears, so that her clear, bright face was framed in black. She had lived most of her life inside the locked gate of the quarter, for her father had wisely anticipated trouble if so lovely a Jewess were allowed to be seen by the young men of the city; and after her marriage to the rabbi, Eliezer had also asked her to stay close to home for the same reason. There had been many incidents in which attractive Jewish girls were raped or killed, and the authorities could find no way to punish the malefactors, principally because judges were reluctant to interpret rough play with Jewish girls as in any way criminal.

So for the next ten years Leah, the young rebbetzin of Eliezer bar Zadok, knew only the Judenstrasse, and here she shed a kind of radiance which made the narrow street livable. She was not a midwife, but most pregnant women wanted her to be with them during the toils of childbirth, and she had helped many. She was gifted with the needle, and in the semi-darkness of the Judenstrasse homes she taught young girls how to care for their fathers’ clothes. Best of all she had a vivid imagination and loved to tell old stories about the heroes of Judaism, and mothers of the narrow street grew to expect their children to be at Rabbi Eliezer’s, listening to the rebbetzin as she embroidered fabulous backgrounds to stories which in the Bible required only a few sentences.