The Road Taken by Seymour (Sy) Gitin

Author:Seymour (Sy) Gitin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penn State University Press

In another episode involving the encounters of humans with animals at the Albright, it is impossible not to chuckle about what happened to Mark Smith when he was an associate research fellow in 1988. On the day before he was to return to the United States to accept the Dahood Prize in Bible at the ASOR meetings in Chicago, one of the cats that inhabit the Institute scratched Mark, breaking the skin and drawing blood. It was so severe that Mark had to be taken to the department of health for a rabies shot; the cat was also taken there to be tested. But by the time we received the report on the cat, Mark had already left for the States. Wally Aufrecht, who was in residence at the Albright and was also leaving to attend the ASOR meetings, agreed to inform Mark of the results of the department of health test on the cat, which was negative.

Although I was aware of Wally’s somewhat odd sense of humor, I didn’t know that he would “give the news” to Mark in the following way. Part of the Dahood Prize award ceremony included a lecture by the recipient, and Wally took a seat in the front row of the lecture hall directly opposite the speaker. Five minutes into Mark’s lecture, Wally held up a large sign that read, “The cat died.” To Mark’s credit and to Wally’s dismay, Mark didn’t flinch or react at all, although it brought on a short outburst of laughter from those of us sitting in the front row. Mark just continued his presentation to its conclusion as nonchalantly as possible. Poor Wally was flabbergasted with the lack of reaction on Mark’s part. Of course, I explained afterward that the cat hadn’t died—nor did it have rabies.

The Albright’s program was also open to independent researchers, many of whom stayed in the Institute’s hostel. One such researcher was a Catholic nun who had come to Jerusalem to study the archaeological evidence relating to biblical sites. Since there were two Christian fellows with families, she suggested that there be an Easter-egg hunt for the children. Omar provided us with a hundred hard-boiled eggs, and after the adults and children had painted them, the Albright staff hid them in the ground around the courtyard. Come Easter Sunday, the Albright children and some of their friends from school were let loose in the courtyard. After about an hour, when about sixty eggs had been found and gathered, the staff decided to end the hunt and continue the holiday celebration by partaking of the special lunch that Omar and the kitchen staff had prepared. The next day, the staff began looking for the remaining forty eggs, but that job had become more difficult because they had neglected to make a map of where the eggs had been hidden. Thus, while fifteen more eggs showed up, the remaining twenty-five could not be found. After a few days, the putrid stench of rotten eggs filled

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