“He had gone with his mother, the abandoned wife, to seek assistance from the rabbinical court on East Broadway. She had begged the attending rabbi to force her husband to grant her a get, a Jewish divorce. By Jewish Law, it is the husband’s power alone to grant a get, and a woman in Hannah Klepfish’s position inhabits a despised no-woman’s-land, not married but not not-married, wandering in desolation between two worlds. The rabbi had sat there in judgment of her, with his barbed beard of dirty... red, like the rusted pads of steel wool that she used for scrubbing her pots. But the Pharisee would not be moved. The Law would apply. Until this day, Jonas could not recall his mother’s sobs without feeling that his body might split apart from the agony. And it came to pass in that house of judgment, amidst the humiliation heaped upon them, that the decree had come down. As they were being shown out—Jonas, six years old, supporting his prostrated mother—an ancient rabbi, hardly taller than little Jonas, had placed his opened palms atop the child’s head, and had shouted out, in the voice of the prophet, “Hoy, hat der kleiner ein moah godol uneshomo niflo’o!”—“Oh, the little one has such a great brain and a wondrous soul.”MoreLessRead More Read Less
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