Lilli Chernofsky by Nina Vida

Author:Nina Vida
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: wwii, world war ii, world war 2, lithuania, shanghai, historical fiction, holocaust, world war two, coming of age, ya, young adult, teenage protagonist, female protagonist, chinese ghetto, shanghai ghetto, shanghai jews, jews, jewish, jewish fiction, jewish history, 1940s, heroine, love, triumph, survival
Publisher: Brick Mantel Books
Published: 2017-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

November, 1941

Chinese fleeing the marauding Japanese poured into Shanghai. Their waste floated in the swollen gutters. Their starving children begged in the streets. In the past eight months a hundred thousand Chinese corpses had been collected from the city’s sidewalks. In the refugee community, people died of hunger and disease. Those who sold their winter clothes in the summer now walked the streets wrapped in blankets. Most of the refugees found the strength to persist. The truly despairing found a beam and hanged themselves.

* * *

There wasn’t enough room at the table in Rabbi Salkowitz’s study for all the men who had been invited to the pre-wedding tisch. The yeshiva students stood in a group behind Aaron’s chair, mufflers and prayer shawls swaddling their necks, earmuffs buried under their hats. Heinrich and Sigmund were on one side of the table, both in new suits, Heinrich bullishly jovial, Sigmund as pallid as bleached muslin. Aaron and Moses were on the other side, Aaron’s white shirt a frame for his red beard, and Moses’ shabby suit grown shabbier. Rabbi Salkowitz was at one end of the table, a mummified figure in embroidered tallith. The seat nearest the door was occupied by Elias.

Rabbi Salkowitz was standing now, tallith swagged around his shoulders. “Rabbi Hanilai has said that a man who has no wife lives without joy, without blessing, without good. Rabbi Eleazar has said that a man who has no wife is not even a man. And Genesis 2:18 says ‘I will make man a helper to set over against him.’” He raised his glass. “A long wedded life to Hannah and Aaron. L’Chaim.”

The men blew on their raw fingers before they lifted glasses of schnapps to their lips.

“What kind of rabbi is he?” Aaron murmured to Moses. “Certainly not orthodox. I don’t care what he says, he isn’t orthodox. His beard is trimmed and his payes cover his ears too neatly. Head of a yeshiva in Poland? What proof? Who vouches for him?”

“No one. The yeshiva was destroyed.”

“Would a roshei yeshiva save only himself? I don’t know, Moses, I have my doubts. And would he marry me to Hannah if he were truly a roshei yeshiva? No. He would ask questions first. He would want to know about her, about me. He wouldn’t marry us without asking questions. How can he be orthodox? It’s not possible. He doesn’t separate the men from the women. Everyone will sit in the sanctuary together.”

“Do you want them separated?”

“I don’t care. But to say you’re orthodox when you . . .”

“The man says he headed a yeshiva. Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’s orthodox and maybe he isn’t. Maybe he isn’t even a rabbi. We’re not living in HaShem’s Torah now. You’re not in your father’s house. Everything has changed.”

“The yeshiva students are the same. Still hungry for Torah, still with their eyes on heaven. They could be on the moon for all the difference the world makes, yet they still rely on the word of God as it’s written, and as it’s interpreted and as .

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