ROBERT A. ROSENSTONE
395
ing ancient dietary laws, that their community newspapers appeared
in both Yiddish and Russian? Is it strange that one wing of the com–
munity began to demand that Russian be substituted for Hebrew in
prayer books and services? There was an unfamiliar feeling of bless–
ing here, a hint that maybe, just maybe, the Crimea was to be the
promised land.
Such ideas lasted no later than Easter, 1871. Then history re–
turned and everyone could feel at home again. The pogrom lasted
three days, not long, but long enough. There is a good joke about
pogroms. It is the story about an old woman and her two grand–
daughters, cowering in their house as a troop of booted Cossacks
smash through the door. The men thunder forward and begin to un–
buckle their pants while the dutiful, well-trained granddaughters
throw themselves forward and shriek in unison, "Do with us what
you will, but please, please spare our
buba."
Sternly, forcefully, the
grandmother pushes them aside, begins to raise her dress and, in a
heavy, lilting Yiddish accent says sharply: "Never mind, a
pogro~
is
a pogrom!"
Of course that is for night club stages, decades, continents later.
In the Odessa pogrom real people are beaten and real, breathing
people cease to breathe, and property is looted from real stores and
real houses go up in flames while real police yawn on nearby street
corners. History, after all, is a bad hangover after a party, a very
sharp headache, a taste of smoke and ashes and maybe bile, the cer–
tain knowledge of a painful day to come, a silent vow never to drink
so much again. Authorities blame it all on commercial rivalry be–
tween Greek and Jewish merchants (and the
Encyclopedia Britannica
agrees). Is the community skeptical of this explanation? Evidently,
for suddenly the plans to hold religious services in Russian can find
no more backers .
•
•
•
His name was Chaim Baer and he was walking. The roads
were dusty, the day hot. There were vineyards and cornfields. The
towns were small, wooden, sagging, each with a church, implacable,
arrogant, alien. This is what he would be leaving. He would be leav–
ing nothing. Less than nothing. Family. Yes, family. But the family
was not his, was not him. There was a tie, but there was not a tie,
and there were no words to explain this. Maybe he did not belong to
anyone. Maybe not even himself. The road felt good underfoot. Each
