Grantville Gazette-Volume XIV Read online

  Yakov took the two punches and eyed them closely. "Not bad," he said. "At this rate, you should finish the miniscules by winter.

  Yossie nodded. Some letters in the Helvetica type style Herr kindred wanted were trivial. The l was the simplest. Others like o required a simple counterpunch. And then, there were letters like s. Yossie expected to spend a week or more of his spare time moments getting that letter right.

  "But this is not what I want to talk about," Yakov said, returning the punches. "What should we do for the High Holy Days?"

  "Do we have a choice?" Yossie asked. Rosh Hashanah was just half a month away, and Yom Kippur ten days after that. "I thought we were going to Badenburg."

  "Yes," Yakov said. "I thought so too, but now, it seems that we have a choice. There may be a minyan in Grantville."

  Yossie did some quick arithmetic. The four men living with the Adduccis plus Shlomo, plus Doctor Abrabanel, plus the jeweler Morris Roth . . . "I get seven men," Yossie said. "Where do we get three more?"

  "I told you about that woman Eve Zibarth who teaches at the school," Yakov said.

  Yossie nodded. Yakov had described her as being very American, but able to speak Hebrew with a strange Sephardic dialect.

  "It turns out she really is Jewish. Eve is the American way to say the name Chava. Anyway, today, she introduced me to a man named Jason Gotkin, who it turns out is also a Jew."

  "Jason?" Yossie asked.

  "Yes, an odd name for a Jew. He said his Hebrew name was Yehoshua."

  Yossie wondered what he could infer from the fact that the two American Jews went by the odd names Morris and Jason. Were they crypto-Jews, hiding their Jewish identity? Randolph Adducci's occasional grumbles about "damned Jews" suggested that Americans were not always as tolerant as they liked to think.

  "Jason said that if Grantville can raise a minyan, Uriel Abrabanel will come from Badenburg. He also said that there are two young Abrabanels who are supposed to come from Holland any day now, and one from Turkey."

  "Then we could have twelve!" Yossie said.

  "The Lord willing," Yakov said. "And there may be more. The Abrabanel family is wealthy. Most people from such families travel with servants. On the other hand, the roads are hazardous." He paused. "I learned something very strange about the Americans from Jason."

  "Yes?"

  "The Americans have the tradition of counting women toward a minyan."

  Six months ago, Yossie would have been shocked. Since then, had been around Americans enough that he just nodded. "So they would consider that we already have a minyan? I wonder how they justify that?"

  "I wonder too," Yakov said. "Jason did say that he understands that we would not recognize such a minyan."

  Basiya interrupted. "Are you men going to come in for supper?"

  * * *

  They spoke English at the table out of deference to their hosts. As usual, Paulette Adducci led the conversation, asking each of them in turn to tell what they had done that day. The conversation was frequently more of an English lesson than anything else.

  "I have a trouble," Chava said.

  "A problem," Paulette corrected.

  "Yes, a problem. I can sell more bread, but the oven. It is too small. I can not more bread make."

  "Make more bread," Paulette said. Chava had taken some time to master the Adducci's gas oven, but in the last month, her occasional baking for the neighbors had expanded into a small business.

  "Tip's wants more bread," Chava said. "Where can I get more oven?"

  Randolph Adducci grumbled. "You could ask my son Nick to use his. It's only a three block walk."

  Chava didn't like that idea, or the idea of asking nearby neighbors. Yossie suspected that the root of the problem was that none of the neighbors kitchens were kosher. Explaining that to the Adduccis would have been impossible, since they didn't even know that their own kitchen was kosher. All they knew was that Chava, Gitele and Basiya had effectively taken it over.

  "Jacob," Paulette said. "How is the elementary school?"

  "It is good," Yakov said, and then told of the problems he was having. "The big problem we have," Yakov said, "is books. We need more kinder books, children's books. We need to print new ones. Yosef, we need big letters in that Swiss typeface."

  "Helvetica," Yossie said. "That is what Herr Kindred calls it. I try to finish zwolf point first. Then, if Herr Kindred says yes, we make bigger."

  "Joseph, how is the mine?" Paulette asked.

  "We have trouble with the auger," Yossie began, and then ran out of words. Randolph was very interested in the new small mining machines they were building. The language of the forge was German. Yossie simply didn't have the vocabulary to describe the problems they were having forging the one-foot diameter helical cutting blade for the coal auger.

  "Randolph, how was the pharmacy?" Paulette asked.

  "We're running out of things. People are making soap, but no shampoo. My boss Tino is trying to make stuff, but it's crazy, he's buying dope now, from that hippie Tom Stoner. I swear, if someone came in with eye of newt, he'd buy the damned stuff.

  "Hey," he said, breaking off. "You guys would be interested. Doctor Abrabanel, he comes in to talk herbs and recipes with Tino, and today, he said something. He said he was looking for a building to use as a synagogue."

  26th of Elul, 5391 ( September 23, 1631 )

  "That is it," Thomas said, giving the frame of the tub a shove with his foot. The frame rolled a short distance along the wooden rails that now led from the forge.

  Yossie liked the variety of the work at the Murphy's Run forge. One day, they'd experimented with ways to make roof bolts for the mine. Another day they'd fixed the snowplow blade after it was damaged grading the dam of the new coal waste pond.

  They'd spent most of Tuesday making the metalwork for a new tub, the four wheeled coal carts that ran on the little railroad they were building inside the mine. The tub's riveted iron frame was made from metal from the conveyor they'd disassembled. The wheels and axles were from old mining equipment a Grantville machine shop had salvaged. Once the carpenters added floor planks and side boards, the tub would hold two tons of coal.

  "Joe," Fritz said. "I want to try something before we go home. You tempered some type punches at lunch time, right?"

  "Yes," Yossie said. "Why?"

  "I want to try something," Fritz said, tossing a small scrap of iron into the hottest part of the hearth. "I think I know how to copy your little punches."

  Yossie warily took the roll of cloth from his lunch pail that held the miniscule m and e punches he'd just finished. Fritz had been curious about his type cutting for several weeks. He'd been particularly fascinated by the idea of using counter punches to form the inside curves on the face of a punch. The m and e had required counter-counter punches. "These took work to make, Yossie said. "What do you want to do?"

  "To make the matrix for a casting a chunk of lead type, you'd punch one of these into a piece of copper, right? What I want to do is punch it into a hot bit of iron. It'll only touch it for a moment."

  Yossie decided that the risk was small, and as a result, when he got onto the bus home, he had a fresh copy of the m punch in his hand. It was visibly smaller than the original, because the hot die had shrunk after the m had been stamped into it. In turn the new punch had been red hot when it had been hammered into the cold die.

  Yossie almost missed his bus stop as he thought about the new copying method. It wasn't his usual stop. Monday, Yakov had come home from the elementary school with news. Eve Zibarth had told him that they were all welcome to meet at the new synagogue building downtown on Tuesday afternoon to help prepare it for the High Holy Days.

  "Go across Buffalo Creek from the bus stop downtown, then left. The building has the letters IOOF on the front. Bring a picnic dinner." The instructions were clear enough.

  The building was larger than he expected. It stood two stories tall at the east edge of the business district, almost a perfect
cube of gray stucco. Grantville's middle school was just a block south, and there was a church down the street to the east. The mysterious word IOOF was cut into the stone lintel over the door, and repeated even larger in the central capstone of the parapet.

  "Ah! Just in time," a strange American woman said, as he stepped inside. "Come! We need help moving the stove."

  She led Yossie back into a busy kitchen. Chava and Basiya were there, scrubbing the shelves of the cabinets while Gitele and an older American woman worked at the sink.

  "Who are you?" the older woman asked as Yossie put down his lunch pail and hard hat.

  "My brother Yosef," Basiya said. "This is Judith, Frau Roth."

  Yossie nodded, very conscious of Gitele's presence.

  "Sorry, I'm Samantha," said the woman who'd led him in. "We need to move this stove, to clean behind it."

  Yossie hardly recognized it as a stove. All the removable parts were piled around the sink, and it was much larger than the one in the Adducci's kitchen. The floor and wall they exposed when they moved the thing were covered with a thick layer of dust and filth.

  Judith groaned. "This kitchen hasn't been used for twenty years, and I swear they didn't clean it for twenty years before that."

  "Who are they that didn't clean?" Yossie asked. "And what is, how do you say it, ioof?"

  "I. O. O. F." Samantha corrected, with a smile. "Your sister asked the same thing. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows used to own this building."

  Yossie decided not to ask what an odd fellow was. "Where are the men? I should go daven Mincha."

  "Upstairs," Gitele said.

  "When you're done praying, come help put the stove back," Samantha said.

  A large hall filled most of the second floor, with high windows and a raised stage along the south wall. The sound of a vacuum cleaner filled the room. An American woman was up on a ladder cleaning the windows, Yitzach was working the vacuum, Yakov and two younger men were huddled over something on the stage, and more men were at work in the two closets that flanked the stage.

  "Yosef!" called Yakov, looking up. "Meet Jason Gotkin and Dunash Abrabanel. Dunash just arrived from Holland last week. We have been discussing the question of minhag."

  "The sun is low," Yossie said.

  "Ah," Yakov said, and then called. "Mincha!"

  Moische and his cousin came out of one closet, and a dusty stranger emerged feet first from under the stage. "There are things like this under there," the stranger said, dragging out something big.

  Yakov introduced Yossie to Rafael Abrabanel and then pointed to his box of Hanau Siddurs. As Yossie picked up a prayerbook, he noticed that Jason and the Abrabanels each had their own.

  Through the afternoon service, Yossie's mind wandered occasionally from the prayers at hand to what he could see of Jason's Siddur. It was thick, and he could see that it included not only beautifully set Hebrew type but an equal quantity of English text. He was curious about what it might say, but he was also curious about it as a book.

  "So," Yakov said, after they'd all finished the service. "Yosef, you have not heard our discussion. Instruct us in the laws of minhag ha-macom."

  "We are supposed to keep the customs of the place where we are," Yossie said.

  "But what is the minhag for chanting the Rosh Hashanah service in Grantville? Do we use the Ashkenazic melody, the Sephardic, or the American? Jason says there has never, ever been a minyan in this town." Yakov paused. "Tractate Pesachim," he hinted.

  "Travelers should keep the restrictions of the old place," Yossie said, remembering. "And also of the new place." He grinned. "And it says we should not argue about it."

  "Right," Yakov said. "It seems we are all travelers, some who must keep the minhag Ashkenaz, some the minhag Sepharad, and some the minhag America.

  "What Machzor will we use?" Yossie asked. He and Yakov had a few High Holy Day prayerbooks left from the stock of books they'd brought from Hanau.

  "So far as I know, there is only one uptime Machzor in town," Jason said, answering Yossie's German in English. "An old Silverman I picked up. The Roths have some tapes too, but the real problem is, there is no Minhag America."

  "Why not?" Dunash asked.

  "American Jews were divided, Reform versus Conservative versus Orthodox, and even within the movements, there was controversy."

  Dunash nodded. "We brought three machzors from Amsterdam. I think what we need to do is divide the service."

  "We should compare all the prayer-books, mark the pages that have the same prayers and find the differences," Jason said.

  "Joseph," Samantha interrupted, from the top of the stairs. "We need to move the stove back."

  By the time Yossie and Samantha had the heavy stove in place, Rafael had figured out what it was that he'd dragged out from under the stage. It was a folding table. There were also folding chairs, and as Yossie came upstairs, Basiya, Gitele and Chava were unpacking their picnic dinner on the table.

  Yossie ended up seated with his sister across from Rafael Abrabanel and Moische's cousin Shlomo.

  "Who are you again?" Rafael asked, in English.

  "Yosef Hanauer," he said.

  "Not American?"

  "I'm from Hanau," Yossie said, taken aback. His shirt and jeans were indeed American, from the Value Mart, but he had never expected to be mistaken for an American.

  Rafael shifted to strongly accented German. "How long have you been here?"

  "Since Shavuos," Yossie said, unwrapping his sandwich. "Over three months."

  "Almost as long as my uncle Balthazar. So you've become a real expert on these Americans?"

  Yossie shook his head. "No. I think that would take a lifetime. I can tell some stories, but I am no expert."

  "What's that you're eating," Rafael asked, looking curiously at Yossie's sandwich.

  Yossie spent a minute explaining the American custom of packing an entire meal between two slices of bread.

  "You see?" Shlomo said. "He's more an expert than he'll admit. He's a guildsman too."

  "Who are you again?" Rafael asked.

  "Kalman Gomprecht," Shlomo said, using his German name. "From Frankfurt."

  "Merchant?"

  "I suppose," Shlomo said. "My cousin Moische sent me a good list of things to buy and sell on the road here. Thanks to that list, I'm better off now than I was in the Rothschild house. You came from Amsterdam?"

  "Yes," Rafael said, turning to Yossie. "A guildsman?"

  "I work at the coal mine as a smith," he said. "The American idea of a union is not exactly a guild. The UMWA is . . ."

  "You are a member of the UMWA? Michael Stearns is guildmaster?"

  "He is president," Yossie corrected.

  "But he leads the UMWA. I heard that the UMWA has a powerful militia. Are Jews part of that?"

  "Yes," Yossie said. "The Americans want every strong man to be ready to fight. They don't care if you are a Jew."

  "That battle last week, outside of Leipzig," he said. "I hear that the Imperials were badly defeated. That is not far away. If the Swedes or the Imperials come here next, will you be able to hold them off?"

  "The UMWA held off an imperial tercio at Badenberg, but I wasn't there."

  "Have you been in any battles?"

  "Not really."

  "Yosef," Basiya said. "Don't be modest. Tell him about your trip north."

  Yossie spent the rest of the meal telling the story of his trip to Magdala with Thomas. It was not a story he minded telling, particularly within earshot of Gitele.

  As he and the others from Deborah walked home that evening, they discussed their encounters with Grantville's American and Sephardic Jews. Rabbi Yakov, of course, was fascinated by the puzzle of accommodating their diverse traditions. Yossie, on the other hand, was puzzled by the young Abrabanels he'd met.

  The Abrabanel family was as powerful as any Jewish family in the world, yet Rafael had seemed almost shallow. When Yossie asked Yakov about that, Yakov answered with question
s.

  "How much did he learn about you? How much did you learn about him? Could a truly shallow man learn so much while telling so little?"

  Rosh Hashanah II, 5392 ( September 28, 1631 )

  "Tekiah gedolah," Dunash Abrabanel called, early on Sunday afternoon.

  His cousin Rafael blew the long final blast on the shofar for the Rosh Hashanah morning service, and then Jason Gotkin led them in singing the response. The melody was unfamiliar but this was their third repetition, so many of them joined in singing the ancient Hebrew words.