The Jerusalem Inception - By Avraham Azrieli Page 0,25
Gerster’s daily lecture and independent study until sunset and the evening prayers. Lemmy and Benjamin usually stayed in the synagogue for another hour to settle their arguments.
Dinner at home was the conclusion of a day of studying. While Temimah served them soup and a dish of meat and potatoes or fish with vegetables, his father always asked the same question: “What do you know tonight that you didn’t know this morning?”
This question led to a discussion of the pages of Talmud that Lemmy had studied with Benjamin. Invariably, Rabbi Gerster shed new light on the subject, revealing hidden threads and subtle concepts that had escaped Lemmy.
Each scholarly day ended when his father recited the final prayer after the meal and retired to his study. Lemmy always helped his mother clear the dinner table before wishing her good night.
He read Tanya’s books every night, including books she borrowed for him at the public library. His nights filled with excitement as his eyes raced across printed pages filled with strange characters, foreign societies, and human conflicts. When his eyes burned, he’d go to the bathroom, splash cold water on his face, and return to reading. The forbidden books transported him to locations far beyond the walls of Meah Shearim, and the excitement lingered even when his eyelids refused to stay open and he fell asleep for a couple of hours before another day started.
Lemmy learned to juggle his daily studies and nightly escapades. The days were filled with the intellectual intensity of cracking Talmudic riddles with Benjamin among the companionship of a synagogue filled with cigarette smoke and familiar faces. The nights were spent in literary forays outside Neturay Karta. He erected a virtual wall between the life he shared with Talmud, family and friends, and the solitary adventures of his nights. He knew that a crack in the wall could precipitate a deluge of acrimony—his father’s wrath, his mother’s tears, Benjamin’s hurtful betrayal. But the books’ allure was too great.
Chapter 12
On a frosty morning in late December, Tanya switched the eavesdropping equipment to automatic recording and left her home for the long walk to the bus station in West Jerusalem. Across the border, in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City, church bells tolled to summon the faithful to Christmas mass.
The bus took almost three hours to reach Tel Aviv, often stopping to wait for the army to scout the road ahead for Arab terrorists. Getting off the bus at the central station, Tanya walked west toward the Mediterranean coast.
The first Jewish city in modern times, Tel Aviv, which meant Spring Hill, was nothing like Jerusalem. Its inhabitants were secular Israelis. Women wore outfits that revealed the contours of their bodies, and men were muscular and sun-beaten in a healthy, exuberant way that contrasted with the pale Jews of Jerusalem. The sea air was fresh, and the sun shone as if summer hadn’t yet departed.
She changed into a bathing suit in the public showers at the beach and walked across the strip of soft sand to the water. The sea was almost flat, only shallow waves lapping at her feet. She took a deep breath and ran into the chilly water of the Mediterranean.
By early afternoon, the unseasonably mild weather had drawn hundreds of bathers, who rose and fell with the waves, squealing in a blend of Hebrew, English, German, and Arabic. A lifeguard with bronze skin and a hairy chest rowed his white fiberglass board toward Tanya and offered to take her for a ride. She declined, and he continued on his patrol.
After drying herself, she spread a towel on the sand and lay down in the sun.
Bira and Eytan met her for dinner at an outdoor café near the beach. He was a dark Israeli with a sunny smile, and seemed unconcerned when the two women lapsed into German, reminiscing how Tanya had taught Bira to ride a bicycle in a Munich park until they both fell into a shallow reflecting pool.
Tanya spent the night in the tiny apartment Bira shared with five other soldiers. They chatted late into the night, and Tanya went to bed content that her daughter had acclimated to life in Israel. Bira had grown up in a succession of European cities, their frequent relocations dictated by Mossad needs. But the disadvantage of a rootless childhood was balanced out by a multilingual fluency that served Bira well in her IDF research duties, while she easily made new friends among her fellow troops.