JewsByChoice.Org

I might have been four-years old, I might have been younger. For sure it was before I started kindergarten. It was Rosh HaShonah in Brooklyn, a beautiful, clear autumn day cool enough to bring the color to your cheeks but not cold enough to make them sting. I remember holding my mother’s hand and walking through the streets of my Great-Aunt Mima’s Boropark neighborhood. I asked where we were going, and she told me we were going to shul, to the second-oldest synagogue in Brooklyn. It was Rosh HaShonah, a holy day, and we were going to services.

We turned a corner and walked to the middle of the block. I saw my mother’s older sister, my Aunt Anna, standing in front of the synagogue smoking a cigarette. “Channah! Channah!,” my mother yelled, shaking a finger at her, “it’s Rosh HaShonah and you’re smoking in front of the shul?” My aunt looked at her like she was crazy. “What? I’m standing in the gutter, I’m not standing on the street.”

My mother grabbed my hand and we walked up a short flight of concrete steps and entered the shul.

The light outside the shul that day was clear and bright, so the darkness of the synagogue when we entered it momentarily blinded me. The first thing I noticed was the smell of old books. A not unpleasant smell, not unpleasant at all. As my eyes became accustomed to the dark I saw we were in a long, narrow corridor with high walls. The corridor was lit by old-fashioned brass sconces, spaced about ten paces apart, in which one small orange light bulb burned. The corridor was crowded with people making their way into the shul, so our progress through it was slow. My head was about even with my mother’s hip. I looked up at the small lights of the sconces, and noticed there were narrow metal plaques with writing on them up and down the walls of the corridor as far as I could see. I asked my mother what they were, and she said, “Those are the names of members of the congregation who had died.”

So there I was, a small boy holding his mother’s hand, walking through a dim, narrow corridor, the smell of old books in his nostrils, passing under the gaze of ages and ages of Jews long dead. I was not afraid; I don’t remember being afraid. But I remember feeling a presence around me, and I was very quiet in its presence.

The long corridor opened onto a huge interior room, easily the size of a gymnasium, but square. The room was two stories high and bright with light that came in from huge windows on that floor and from a balcony above. In the middle of the room was a tall, thin structure like a steeple or a gazebo, in which were four old men who looked like God. They were old old old with white beards, bent over a table reading something, muttering something, swaying back and forth. My mother led me through the sanctuary and I looked around. Rows of seats surrounded that structure on four sides, and in those seats were more men, some old, some not so old, but all of them holding books and muttering and swaying. One would stand up, bow, quickly sit down, and then another on the other side of the room would take his place. It made no sense; I didn’t understand.

My mother led me to a seat and sat me down. She told me to be good and to not make noise. She had to sit upstairs with the women, and pointed to the upper balcony. I looked up and saw a gallery half filled with women leaning over the railing and looking down at the men. “I’ll be right up there,” she told me, “so be good and don’t be afraid. You’ll be able to see me from here.” Then she left me. I wasn’t afraid.

I sat in the chair, my feet not reaching the floor, and looked around at the men holding their books and muttering and swaying. What were they doing? What was in those books? What were they all muttering about?

An old man was sitting next to me. He had a full salt-and-pepper beard and was wearing a long black caftan. He had old, brown, liquid eyes, and seemed to me stern and sad. He picked up a book, opened it, handed it to me, and pointed to a place on the page. It was in Hebrew but that didn’t matter, I was too young to even read English.

And that’s when it happened, that’s when I knew: this is where I come from, this is who I am.

My fate was sealed. There was no escape.