Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,24

at Friday night service. Saturday he was seen at a roadhouse with a notorious woman. Acquaintances sought him out to talk to him, but he would have none of it.

In a way, a strange way, Turnbull became more popular in the community than he had ever been. Scandal is a community service and a free entertainment at that; witnesses generally feel obliged to pay admission with sympathy. Turnbull scorned their sympathy, slapped his wife, shouted at his children and, just before the scheduled appearance of Jonah and the Wails, disappeared for three days.

Cooler heads in the Temple said that this was all for the better, and no police report was issued. Rabbi Lerman, Turnbull's inarticulate assistant, was given specific instructions to get the services over with as quickly as possible.

The services that Friday night were expectably well attended. Reporters and photographers fattened the congregation considerably, and the first half of the proceedings went smoothly. Jonah and the Wails, four grave young men dressed neatly in Mod black, made a fairly conservative entrance if one could overlook the blond wigs. They wore wide leather ties with leaping sperm whales spraying toward the knots. They made their music with two electric guitars, a tambourine and a whale's jawbone that was banged against a single kettle drum. The second half of the service began with the Torah removed from the holy ark and Jonah leading the group in song -

Open the doors

Git out the book

Uh-Uh-uh-uh-uh

And take a look.

We all prayin'

(Yeah,yeah,yeah)

We all prayin'…

It was an instantaneous success, and some in the audience saw a twinge of irony in the fact that Rabbi Joshua Turnbull could not be there to savor his most hard-fought victory. The second song, "Kneelin' and Feelin' and Prayin' and Sayin'," was launched in splendid fashion, with flash bulbs providing punctuation, when the spectre appeared.

Rabbi Turnbull, mantled in a potato sack, his eyes red and wild, marched upon Jonah and the Wails, commanded them to stop. They did. Turnbull mounted the lectern and, foaming with rage, denounced Jonah as a false prophet. He turned to his horrified board of directors and accused them of the sin of the biblical Jonah, ignoring the will of God.

"We are in mortal peril!" he shouted.

Turnbull, holding onto the lectern like a forecastle, felled three Temple vice presidents and was holding his own with a fourth when the police arrived.

"Philistines," he cried, "I'll take the jawbone from this ass and lay your thousand low."

Jonah gave up his bone and fled into the crowd. Turnbull, discovering that it was rubber, threw it at the last of the retreating Wails. Finally, hemmed in by superior forces, Turnbull was overpowered and carted off. The remainder of the service was canceled. And, though the Temple did not press charges against its rabbi, he disappeared forever from King's Neck.

It was rumored in later years that he had changed his name to Brodsky and had found employment as a beadle in a deteriorating Orthodox synagogue in East New York, where he remained, penitent, recluse, who flagellated himself ritualistically. But that was only a rumor, of course.

EXCERPT FROM "THE BILLY & GILLY SHOW," NOVEMBER 28TH

Billy: Yes, Gilly, with Thanksgiving gone, can Christmas be far behind?

Gilly: And don't forget Chanukah. Equal time, you know. Anyway, that comes first, doesn't it?

Billy: I think so. By the way, Gilly, I think we should express our regret at what happened to Rabbi Joshua Turnbull, who was on the show with us not long ago. I'm sure everybody read about his unfortunate breakdown.

Gilly: Yes, the papers certainly had a picnic with it. Billy: The man must have been under fantastic pressure.

Gilly: You can't imagine how sorry I felt. That good, saintly man. It just proves what a strain religious leaders are under today. It's the world we live in.

Billy: Right. I'll tell you, Rabbi Turnbull was especially interested in reaching young people, and that could have done it.

Gilly: I'm not sure I follow you, dear.

Billy: Well, these kids today, they don't care about anything. They don't identify with anything.

Gilly: Wait a minute, dear. Certainly today's young people show a great deal of alienation, but I think you're being extreme. I'm sure youth has its important values.

Billy: Yeah, marijuana and LSD. Look, how about the kids you see walking around the Village?

Gilly: Those are hippies. Or they want you to think they are. And anyway, 1 don't think they're representative of all young people.

Billy: Maybe not, but there are an awful lot of them. Listen, you even see them