Assaf Gavron - The Hilltop

And the sun, the very same sun, pressed on westward. Passing Kharmish, it followed its elliptical orbit over the Judean Mountains and down to the green lowlands, and on to the coastal plain, and westward, pausing not even for a moment, across seas and continents and islands and countries, eventually making its tender mark on the East Coast of the great United States of America and glimmering in the windows of the buildings in Washington, D.C., where deliverymen dropped fresh, steaming, hot-off-the-press editions of the Washington Post into yards and onto doorsteps and at the entrances to offices and into mailboxes, where trucks unloaded bound stacks of the newspaper outside stores and from where cables relayed signals that displayed dots on computer screens and mobile telephones around the globe, and where sleepy readers who had just then woken to their own personal symphonies collected their copies from their doorsteps and perused them over coffee, over a slice of toast, over a bowl of cereal, on the subway and in the car and at the office. Only then did something of a butterfly effect ensue, with the rustling of a newspaper in Washington leading soon after to a huge storm over the Judean hills.

“Article? What article? Shuv-el, stop that!” The call from the head of the regional council had disturbed the Assis family’s dinner, which included cottage cheese spread on the tablecloth, bits of egg thrown into the air, and orange juice spilled on the floor.

“What are you saying, Dov? Who? Shuv-el, Shuv— Just a minute, Dov, I’ll get back to you shortly.” But the moment Othniel pressed the red button on his Nokia, the device rattled again with another incoming call. Natan Eliav, the secretary of Ma’aleh Hermesh A., was on the line. “Yes, Natan, yes, yes, I don’t understand it. Listen, I need to— I’ll get back to you in a— Rachel! Rachel!” he called, and the third time, to signal the urgency of the matter, he stood up and switched from the religious enunciation to street-speak:“Ra-chel!”

A meeting of the Planning Committee, chaired by Rachel Assis, was scheduled for that same evening. Shaulit Rivlin cradled Zvuli in her bosom, Gavriel Nehushtan caressed his sparse beard, Hilik Yisraeli stirred a cup of coffee, and Othniel joked, asking, “Is today Planning or Absorption?” Anyone willing to serve on a committee of sorts did so, and so, for the most part, the same four or five outpost residents were members of all of them.

Hilik dunked a cookie into his coffee just as Othniel asked if anyone had received any current information.

“Current information about what?” Gabi asked.

“I don’t know. I got a bunch of calls about some newspaper article. Did something happen in the region? I didn’t have a chance to get back to them.”

No one knew, and Rachel said, “There’s always something happening here. Let’s focus on the meeting. I’ll read out the list from the previous meeting. I’d like to finally get things prioritized today.” She rustled the printed page and began reading in a stern, teacherly tone:

“On the horizon:

“One. Establishing a fixed structure to serve as a kindergarten for the children of the settlement (Housing Ministry).

“Two. Building a mikveh (deputy defense minister).

“Three. Developing a lookout facility on the adjacent hilltop, with an observation point facing the desert and a visitors’ center. (Contact the Public Works Department.)

“Four. Construction of fixed homes for existing and future families (Housing Ministry).

“Five. Absorption of families and the expansion of the community’s land area (Tefahot Bank).

“Six. An Internet website with promotional videos to help recruit funds and attract new residents (Yakir Assis?).

“Seven. Approaching the Interior Ministry’s Names Committee to request a renaming of the settlement to distinguish it from Ma’aleh Hermesh.”

“What names have you proposed?” questioned Shaulit. She wanted to propose naming the settlement after her father, may God avenge his blood. Othniel figured as much. When the playground was established, she wanted the park named after him, too. “Doesn’t Zevulun Park sound more appropriate than Mamelstein Park?” she had asked anyone who was willing to listen at the time. Her request was denied.

“I haven’t proposed anything yet. I’ll convene a discussion at another time. We’re constantly convening one committee and then we begin discussing issues related to another one, so please, let’s maintain a little order.”

Silence ensued, followed by a brief discussion about names nevertheless. Then one about a fixed structure for a kindergarten, the issue that had been bumped up to the top of the agenda despite reservations voiced by Gavriel, who proposed building a new synagogue and leaving the kindergarten in its current location.

As always, Shaulit raised the subject of the mikveh for the women. Rachel seconded her. It wasn’t easy living in an outpost hundreds of meters away from the closest ritual purification bath and maintaining the laws concerning niddah . The women were sometimes forced to maneuver around under the cover of darkness and hide behind bushes and think twice before hitching a ride. It was embarrassing to know that a stranger would immediately smell the fragrance of shampoo and see wet hair under a head scarf and know what they’d be doing that night. Othniel was about to say something, but his telephone rang. He glanced at it and apologized. It was council leader Dov again. He told Othniel about an article about Ma’aleh Hermesh C. that appeared in a newspaper in the United States. He didn’t have precise details, but he’d received a call from someone at the Foreign Ministry who heard from someone at the embassy in Washington. The matter was being looked into — exactly which newspaper, small or big, important or not, a supporter or an opponent, remained unknown.

“About Ma’aleh Hermesh C.? In America?”

“That’s what they said.”

“Are you sure?”

“That’s the rumor.”

The remaining committee members watched Othniel. The meeting was forgotten. Othniel was bombarded with questions. The phone rang again. He stepped outside and the Planning Committee followed him. Darkness had descended on the hilltop, the stars were out, inviting the Shema Yisrael prayer. A large crowd suddenly materialized and gathered outside the Assis family home. Josh received a call, spoke in English, and everyone stared at him because it sounded like he was getting some interesting information. He put his hand up to his forehead and said things like “No shit!” and “You’re joking!” and “Are you sure?” and “Unreal!” and his bright eyes wandered to and fro in an expression that wavered somewhere between puzzlement and astonishment. By the time he said, “Bye” and pressed the red button, everyone had gathered around him, waiting in expectant silence.

“It’s an article in the Washington Post ,” he said, “a big article, about the settlement.”

“C.?” yelled everyone en masse.

“C., C., only C. It talks about the playground. And Mamelstein. And the story with the D-9s.”

“What does it say?”

Josh had a vacant, pale look in his eyes.

The ring of an old rotary dial phone ripped through the darkness. Othniel removed his hand from his pocket, clutching the device. He looked at the display. “Unknown number,” he announced. Everyone went quiet.

“Hello?” Othniel said, and then, “Which ministry?”

And in a lower voice, as he stepped away to give himself some space to facilitate a more intimate conversation, “The Defense Ministry?”

Family legend tells that the forefathers of Joshua Levin were Marranos, or anusim— Jews of the Iberian Peninsula who converted to Catholicism to escape the expulsion of Jews from Spain in the fifteenth century but secretly preserved Jewish traditions. Many years later, in the eighteenth century, some family members decided to make their way to the New World, and journeyed, via Livorno in Italy, to the province of Nuevo Mexico, then in the north of Mexico and today the state of New Mexico in the United States. The legend goes on to say that despite the long years of Catholicism, and regardless of the undisputable fact that foreign blood types infiltrated the family fabric (Irish blood, for example, was responsible apparently for the red hair), they continued to observe customs such as the lighting of Sabbath candles up until the early twentieth century, when Josh’s great-grandmother suddenly rediscovered her Jewish roots, moved to Brooklyn, and married Israel Levinovsky, a young Hasidic Jew who had immigrated to the United States from Lithuania a short time before.