In New York, like in Bychawa and like in Pechev before it, Yentl Mendel found herself torn in two. The Reform Jewish community of her adopted country was strange to her, in some ways that were welcome and in others less so. Similarly, recent immigrants from Europe who shared her misgivings tended to be less religious than her and objected to the local Reform community primarily on the grounds of assimilation rather than on disagreements about religious practices.
Was it so much to ask for family pews and a less flexible approach towards tradition?
In any case, the financial realities of emigrating to a new country afforded less time to religious study than she had enjoyed in Bychawa. Far from studying at a yeshiva, she worked full time at a garment factory. Granted, her employer was Jewish and allowed his employees to take the sabbath and religious holidays off work, but it was hard and gruelling work for little money. Sometimes she wondered if she should have stayed at home, gone to a new town, a new yeshiva, and started again.
Sometimes, in quieter moments, she wondered if she should have taken Avigdor up on his proposal. Borne him children, kept his house and studied at night, behind shuttered windows.
And sometimes, in even quieter moments still, she wondered what would have happened if she had told Hadass the truth. Sweet, loving Hadass, who adored her and whose steel trap mind had been wasted as Yentl’s own so easily could have been with a different father. Would Hadass have kept her secret? Would they have lived, childless and outwardly at a loss to why, a happy and companionable life together as equals?
In the few moments that were utterly silent she wondered… was there a way she could have had them both?
But in New York it was never truly silent. The city was a living, roaring animal. And so, she put such thoughts out of her mind.
She was happy with her choice, for the most part. Her collection of sacred books grew and she spent as much time as she could puzzling through them, even while her finger shook on the page from exhaustion and her eyes blurred with sleep.
Little changed for years, except in that her study grew to include Marx and Engels alongside the Torah and the Talmud after she became involved with the Women’s Trade Union League about seven years after she arrived at Ellis Island.
But then, in 1920, the thing that would change everything happened. Prohibition.
The Volstead Act prohibited alcohol in almost all cases but two: as a prescribed medication and, more importantly, as sacramental wine. And, whatever her impression of the religious habits of the Jewish community in the Lower East Side over the past fifteen years might have been, suddenly saying the kiddush was vitally important to a growing number of them. It maybe went without saying that more people took advantage of the allowed ten gallons of wine a year per family than had previously celebrated shabbat dinner, but what perhaps didn’t go without saying was that the members of the goyishe community who were willing to break the law were more likely to know a bootlegger called Moshe than Luciano.
Many were rabbis, and many more said they were. It was harder to prove they weren’t than it was to catch someone posing as a Roman Catholic priest. In the eyes of law enforcement, if someone said he was a rabbi then who was to say he wasn’t?
And, as Yentl knew from experience… if someone said they were a man… who was to say he wasn’t?
Anshel was surprised to see himself looking back from the mirror for the first time in almost two decades. He was a little older, more grey about the temples, but he wore his age well.
At first his congregation was a conservative 100 strong. By 1924, Baruch Hashem, he was blessed with serving the needs of over a thousand members of the community, officer, which more than explained the wine in his possession, thank you for the work you do in keeping the city safe, have a little something for your trouble.
He didn’t feel bad about breaking the law. Not this law, pioneered by the kind of people who looked down on his people and would never consider them true blue Americans. Besides, it was better work than garment making.
Even on nights like this, hanging around a dark alley with bottles of kosher wine clinking conspicuously in his satchel, waiting for a customer referred to him by a friend of a friend.
He saw someone approaching and relaxed. Baby faced, the kid couldn’t be more than 18 years old. Unlikely to be a cop or someone working with the cops. Anshel cleared his throat.
“Mr Abrams?” he asked the kid.
“Mendel,” the kid replied, eyes darting to the side rather than meeting his. Good, it was who he was supposed to meet.
Anshel went for his satchel at the same time the kid went for his own, presumably to get the money, but when he straightened up again, they were both clutching two bottles of wine.
They stood still for a beat.
“I think there’s been a mistake here,” the kid said.
“I was told that you were looking to buy.”
“I- no. I just heard that I was expected here, to um…”
“Okay,” Anshel sighed. “Well, we’ve both wasted a trip, so let’s-“
“Mendel?” A voice came from behind them and they both turned. The stranger looked between them and at the bottles in their hands.
“You take your son with you, rabbi?” the stranger asked dubiously.
The kid’s head snapped around.
“I’ve never met this man before in my life!”
The stranger—Abrams, Anshel surmised—blinked at the outburst and held his hands up.
“All right, boychik, no harm meant.”
The three of them stood in shifting silence for another tense second.
“I came for two bottles, but I can pay for four,” Abrams said finally.
Anshel shared a glance with the kid.
“Works for me,” he replied.
After the deal was done, the kid waited a few moments before following Anshel away from the alley.
“Wait up.” He fell into pace beside Anshel and put his hands in his pockets. “Why were you there?”
“Why was I there?” Anshel asked. “Why do you think?”
“I mean,” the kid started and cut himself off with a frustrated exhale of air. “I was told I was supposed to, uh, meet Mr Abrams. That he asked for me, for Mendel.”
Anshel let out a peal of laughter.
“Oh, kid,” he said. “Meet ‘Rabbi’ Mendel.”
He turned and put out his hand to shake. The kid—Mendel—took it gingerly.
“Nice to meet you, rabbi,” he replied with a deference that the audible quotes around rabbi perhaps didn’t deserve.
“Likewise.”
They walked together for another half a block, saying nothing.
“So, was it your mother’s maiden name?” Anshel asked. “You don’t meet too many Mendels with it as a first name.”
“Kind of,” Mendel replied. “It was the name of someone my parents knew in the old country.”
“Where exactly?” Anshel asked. “Maybe they’re a cousin or something.”
“Poland,” Mendel replied, and Anshel nodded once. “They met in Bychawa in the yeshiva there, but he was from somewhere else. Some little village my father could never remember the name of.”
Anshel stopped and Mendel walked on another several yards before turning back, noticing he had left his partner behind.
“Your parents,” Anshel said. “Are they… they’re not… Avigdor and Hadass?”
It couldn’t be. It was impossible.
From ahead, Mendel took a double take.
“You? You’re… oh my god, you’re Anshel.”
From there, it was impossible to convince Mendel not to take him home to his parents, his heart pounding every step of the way.
Hadass opened the door to her son and her face split apart in a wide grin. She called over her shoulder and Avigdor came up behind her from another room, giving the twin of the double take his son had less than an hour before.
“Anshel,” he whispered and leaned forward, taking his hands.
Hadass reached forward to cup his cheek.
Nothing was impossible.