The Jerusalem Inception

Chapter 37





As the sun was rising, Elie Weiss made his way through the narrow alleys of Meah Shearim to the small apartment where Rabbi Abraham Gerster had resided for almost two decades. He climbed the stairs and found the front door ajar, as was customary during the mourning period, letting out the voices of chanting men and the aroma of baking bread.

A mirror in the foyer was covered with black cloth, and men in black coats swayed while reciting prayers. Someone handed Elie a prayer book, and he stood by the wall, pretending to read from it. He took quick glances, registering the open doors to a dining room on the left, a hallway straight ahead, and a study on the right, all filled with men.

Rabbi Gerster was leading the service. Elie could not see him, but the tone of his voice said it all, and for a moment Elie was beset by regrets. He had not expected this to happen, had not wished it to happen, and should not be responsible. It had been Abraham’s mistake. He had insisted on marrying Temimah, arguing that a wife would be necessary for a leader in Neturay Karta. And he had compounded that mistake by satisfying his wife’s initial childbearing urges. Eighteen years ago, Abraham had dismissed Jerusalem’s birth as a token of happiness for his wife. Now she had paid back that token, plus interest, and Abraham would contend with grief and guilt and anger for the rest of his life. But from an operational point of view, Elie noted to himself, the woman’s departure eliminated a major risk of exposure, which her intimate presence in Abraham’s life had always threatened.

Everyone quieted down when the rabbi recited the Kaddish. He reached the last sentence of the mourners’ prayer: “He who brings Shalom to heaven …” The men joined him for the last words, “He shall bring Shalom upon us and upon all the people of Israel, and we say Amen.”

While the men removed the black straps of their tefillin and folded their prayer shawls, a few women in long sleeves and tight headdresses brought out bread and coffee. The men lined up to wash their hands, recited a blessing, and ate quickly.

Elie watched them file into the study, each man sitting for a few seconds next to Rabbi Gerster and reciting the traditional shiva farewell: “God shall comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and you shall not know sorrow again.” As they departed, the men glanced at Elie, who stood in the foyer in his plain khakis and wool cap, clearly out of place in Neturay Karta. He made sure to keep his face down, pretending to recite Psalms. No one asked him anything—a house of mourning was open to all who wished to pay a shiva call.

When the apartment finally emptied, he entered the study.

Rabbi Gerster was sitting on a low cot without a mattress, as was the custom during the seven days of mourning. His blue eyes were half-closed, his face gray. He looked up. “You?”

It was a loaded question. This visit violated the strict rules of separation they had followed for two decades. But Elie had a reason to take this risk. “I had to bring you my condolences in person. It’s a tragedy. Absolutely terrible.”

“I told you. It was killing her.”

“If we could only turn back the clock.”

“I shouldn’t have waited.”

“But you reached out to the boy, didn’t you?”

“Temimah wrote to him, but he didn’t respond. I can’t understand it. Why couldn’t he at least send a short reply, a postcard, something?”

Elie didn’t respond. What could he say? That Jerusalem Gerster had not received any letters? That he had no knowledge of his mother’s repeated pleas? That his letters had to be diverted, or he surely would have responded? No, Abraham should never know why his son had not responded, because in his web of conflicting loyalties and heightened emotions, even an accomplished agent of his caliber couldn’t accept that it was necessary to isolate the boy, who had a destiny to fulfill.

“It would have been different if we moved out of Neturay Karta. It would have given my son a message, louder and clearer than a hundred letters, that we really forgive him, accept him, want him back. And then she would still be alive.”

It was true. Abraham had wanted to relocate so that his son and wife could reunite, but he had agreed to wait. Duty came first. That’s why Elie had never contemplated starting a family of his own, which by its nature necessitated painful choices at the expense of loved ones. And the leader of Neturay Karta could not just get up and leave, especially not on the eve of war, when it would not be beyond the messianic elements in the sect to advocate a treasonous patronage pact with the Jordanians, as some in Neturay Karta had proposed back in 1948.

The cot creaked under Rabbi Gerster. “I sent a telegram to him yesterday. Look at it.”

On the desk rested a carbon copy of a postal telegram. Elie picked it up, though there was no need. He had the original in his pocket, having received it last night from his contact at the IDF postmaster office, who had intercepted the telegram on its way to the Negev. But for the sake of appearance, Elie held the copy and read it:



Jerusalem; your mother went to be with the Master of the Universe; she is at peace now; please come home to sit Shiva for her; she loved you more than life itself; signed: your father, Rabbi Abraham Gerster;



“I’m sure your son is on his way here,” Elie lied. “Perhaps he’s delayed by all the military convoys.”

“I don’t think so.” He reached inside his black coat and pulled out another telegram.

Elie took it and again pretended to read, though he had drafted and sent it to this apartment last night—a short and clear response on behalf of Abraham’s son:



Rabbi Gerster; you’re not my father anymore; I am free of your cruelty; and so is Mother, who will no longer suffer under you; signed: Jerusalem Gerster;



Elie put down the telegram. “The boy must be upset. He’ll come around eventually, I’m sure of it.”

“But this response has maliciousness in it, which I’ve never seen in my son. I don’t understand it.”

“He was responding to the news—”

“I must find him, speak with him. After the shiva, I will travel to his base and talk to him.”

“You might cause the opposite result to what you’re hoping to achieve.”

“Why?”

“Give the boy some time. Don’t contact him for a while.” This was Elie’s purpose in visiting Abraham in person—to keep the father and son apart. “Let him work it out emotionally. For a few months, at least.”

“But I’m worried about him. Such anger could cause Jerusalem to take unnecessary risk. You know how it is when one is consumed by anger.”

Elie nodded. “Do you want me to make some calls, check on him?”

“Yes! Get the IDF to assign him to an office, a clerical job. For now. He’s very smart, almost fluent in German. Some English too.”

“Absolutely. I’ll make some calls, get him transferred. He’ll be safe.”

“Do it! If I lose him,” Abraham’s voice broke, “I’ll have nothing. Nothing at all.”

A young man entered the study with a plate of food and a cup of tea. Elie recognized him—the study companion, Benjamin Mashash. It was time to start a file on him.

Elie stood and headed to the door, murmuring the traditional condolences: “May God comfort you among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”

Lemmy sat with his legs over the side of the bed, his feet resting on the cold tiles. There was light in the window. Tanya was asleep, curled under a heavy comforter. He went outside. The air smelled of Jerusalem sage, a blooming carpet of yellow flowers along the rusting barbwires and warning signs: Border Ahead! Danger!

He heard a distant ambulance siren, but he couldn’t tell whether it came from the Jewish or the Jordanian half of the city. He thought of his mother, in constant motion, cooking, mopping, hanging wet linen on wires outside, or helping young mothers with babies. How could she be dead? The finality of it seemed impossible.

He heard the radio inside come to life, warming up with static. A series of beeps preceded the hourly news broadcast on the Voice of Israel.

Tanya got up and poured a glass of milk for him. They stood together by the wooden box of the radio, listening. The lead news was the U.S. declaration of a weapons embargo on Israel until it allowed an American inspection of the nuclear reactor in Dimona, to which Moshe Dayan responded, “With friends like this, who needs enemies?” The White House also denied Eshkol’s claim that the Americans promised that the Sixth Fleet would intervene should Egypt attack Israel. President Johnson issued an explicit statement: “There will be an absolute neutrality by all American forces in the Middle East under all circumstances!” To top it all off, the Voice of Israel reported that Abba Eban had failed to convince the UN Security Council to issue a resolution calling for cessation of hostilities and commencement of peace negotiations.

When the announcer moved on to news about the results of the National Bible Bee, Tanya asked, “Do you want something to eat?”

Lemmy knuckled the radio box. “Why are we begging the world for help? If the Arabs want a fight, let’s give them a fight!”

“It’s not so simple. Eshkol and his ministers are old men who grew up in Eastern Europe, where Jewish survival depended on the Gentile authorities’ protection.”

“But now we have an army!”

“A small army, poorly equipped, and outnumbered by massive Arab militaries equipped with the best Soviet death machines.”

The voice of opposition leader Menachem Begin sounded from the radio: “At this time of historic peril for our nascent Zionist dream, we must put aside personal and political rivalries and call upon David Ben Gurion to return as prime minister and lead Israel to victory!”

“There’s a sign of panic.” Tanya shut off the radio. “The wolf calls the lion to fight off the hyena.”

The Deux Chevaux took a few attempts to start. He placed the Uzi in his lap and folded up the half-window, bolting it in the open position. The car had the sour odor of burnt nicotine, but Lemmy did not ask Tanya whose car it was or who had smoked in it. She was twice his age, beautiful, smart, and independent. A woman like Tanya Galinski couldn’t be satisfied with an eighteen-year-old yeshiva dropout, let alone a soldier who was away most of the time. This must be the reason she had arranged a room for him with Bira.

They reached the hills west of the city. The road followed a long fence, ending in a dirt parking lot near an iron gate. A sign read: Sanhedriah Cemetery.

The sight hit Lemmy with the reality of the situation. His mother was buried here. He hesitated before getting out of the car. How could she be dead? He shut his eyes and felt her presence, smelled the raw fish and dish-washing soap, and saw her hand tighten her headdress. He thought of the hot chocolate she had made for him every morning, and his throat constricted. He pushed the memories away, determined not to cry in front of Tanya, and stepped into the sun.

Through the gate he saw a vast hillside dotted with tombstones. Farther to the right, beyond the stones, a group of rabbis formed a cluster of swaying black coats. They chanted prayers while one of them piled stones to form a marker. The group marched a good distance away and repeated the process of praying in the open field while another stone marker was erected.

Tanya asked, “What are they doing?”

Lemmy had never actually seen this done, but he knew the relevant Talmudic rules. “They’re expanding the burial grounds,” he explained. “Before a Jew could be buried, certain blessings must be recited over the soil to sanctify the site as a Jewish cemetery. Only then it is ready to provide a resting place until the Messiah comes and announces the Day of Resurrection.” He watched the group march again, almost out of sight, where they repeated the ritual. “That’s a lot of sacred grounds,” he said. “Are they expecting a plague or something?”

“A war,” Tanya said. “A terrible, bloody war.”

An old man at a flower stand accepted a few coins and handed Tanya a small bouquet. Lemmy was not sure whether his mother had liked flowers. She had never had any in the house.

“Let’s go.” He headed to the gate.

“Not there.”

He stopped and turned to Tanya.

“We need to go around.” She gestured. “Your mother is buried over there.”

“But this is the only entrance.” He pointed at the gate.

Tanya’s face, usually as smooth as porcelain, was creased in pain. She reached to touch his arm. “She’s buried outside the fence.”

Lemmy tried to digest the information. Again he felt as if in a dream, or a nightmare, where things seemed real but were not. Outside the fence?

Tanya wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “She hanged herself.”

A fleeting image of his mother at the end of a rope made Lemmy groan. He could see the noose tighten around her white neck, tilting her head sideways, her mouth agape, her tongue stuck out, thick and purple, her eyes wide and focused on him.

He grabbed the fence and shook it, fighting to control himself, to drive away the image.

But then the comprehension shocked him again. His father had buried her outside the sanctified grounds of the cemetery! Lemmy no longer believed in those rules, but she had believed! According to Talmud, she would be excluded from the ultimate resurrection of the righteous. And until then, her stone would stand out, attracting derision and mockery. “He is evil,” Lemmy yelled. “Evil! How could he do this to her? She lived for him!”

“He had no choice.”

“He could’ve done her this last favor!”

Tanya put her hands around him. “It was a suicide. Your father had to bury her outside the fence—”

“That’s a lie!”

Brigadier General Tappuzi shut the door to his office. “Okay, Weiss. What’s on your mind?”

“The UN radar.” Elie approached the map. His finger traced the road from Government House, circled east of the Old City to the Mandelbaum Gate, across the border, and over to the IDF command, which was marked with a blue Star of David. “About twelve minutes of driving.”

“So?” Tappuzi tapped the table with a pencil.

“I could get a man in there, blow it up.”

“That’s it? That’s your plan?” Tappuzi grabbed a bunch of papers stapled together. “This, for example, is a plan for a military operation. It has three parts: When? Where? What? How?”

“That’s four parts.”

“Who’s counting?”

“Do you want to hear my plan?”

“But Galinski said Mossad won’t risk sending in a team!”

“Mossad is a bureaucracy. My SOD is different. That’s why it’s called Special. We can do it.”

Tappuzi sat down. “Give me a step-by-step.”

“Forty-eight hours before the IDF launches first strike, you summon General Odd Bull to a meeting here. We disable his car, and an identical vehicle, driven by an Indian-looking soldier in UN drab, crosses the border to Government House. A second man hides in the Jeep with a bag of explosives. He slips into the UN building, the driver turns around and drives back across the border to a safe house. General Bull’s car is fixed, your meeting with him ends, and he goes back. Our guy at Government House hides and waits. Moments before war starts, we give him a signal and he blows up the radar. Mission accomplished.”

“Daring, but full of holes. And even assuming everything works out, how will you get him out?”

“Same drill. You call Bull for an emergency meeting, which will make sense considering the breakout of hostilities, and we send our fake UN Jeep to pluck out our boy.”

“Odd Bull is not dumb,” Tappuzi said. “He’ll suspect a ploy when I call him minutes after his radar blew up.”

“It’ll look like an accident. There are gasoline tanks behind the radar station.”

“And how will our man know where to go inside Government House?”

“I’ve set up an intense training program for the two—the driver and the mole. The candidates are young soldiers, just finishing boot camp. I’ll have them reassigned to SOD and prepared for the mission.”

“What about the car?”

“I’ve located an identical Jeep Wagoneer in Haifa. A wealthy contractor had it special-ordered from Detroit. It’s perfect.”

“You’ll need authority from Northern Command, Armament Division, to confiscate a civilian vehicle. Tell them to call me.”

Elie was at the door. “It’s already in the safe house. The owner wasn’t too happy.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t.” Brigadier General Tappuzi laughed. “Way to go, Weiss!”

“A lie!” Lemmy tore out of Tanya’s embrace. “He could have buried her inside the cemetery!”

“Listen, please,” Tanya begged, “your father had to follow the rules—”

“You know the rules?”

“Suicide is a desecration of God’s image, in which we’re created. Talmud requires burial outside the fence, right?”

“But there’s an exception!” Lemmy hit his fists against each other. “The sages said there’s always regret in the last second of life, between the act of suicide and the actual departure of the soul. This last-minute repentance cleanses the deceased from the sin of suicide. Any rabbi would permit burial within the sacred grounds—a proper burial! Any rabbi except my father, the tzadik!”

“Lemmy, please, don’t hate him. Your father couldn’t extend leniency to his own wife. He’s the leader of Neturay Karta. His people watch what he does—”

“Why do you defend him?”

She hesitated. “One day you’ll understand.”

“I understand it already. He’s cruel and fanatic, a self-righteous, merciless tyrant. He’s a monster!”

“Jerusalem!”

The way she shouted his name, the anger it carried, was like a slap in the face. He looked at Tanya, finally comprehending a reality that had simmered between them since the beginning. “You’re still in love with my father, aren’t you?”

She shook her head once, but her eyes confirmed his suspicion.

“You’ve never stopped loving him. That’s why you defend him.”

Her lips tightened as if she was holding back a cry.

“Is that why you seduced me?”

She groaned as if he hit her.

“That Sabbath, when you came to our home, you argued in his study. Why?”

Tanya opened her mouth to explain, but no words emerged.

“Did you ask him to leave Neturay Karta for you? And he refused, right? So you took me instead.” It was almost like one of the novels he had read. Tanya was the spurned lover who took revenge on the man who rejected her by stealing his only son. “You knew I would fall for it. A horny teenager who had never seen the skin of a woman’s elbow, suddenly reading romantic novels while a beautiful woman offers him paradise on earth.” Lemmy laughed bitterly. “You must think me such an idiot!”

“I don’t.”

“And after you took away his son, you pushed his wife over the edge. How biblical!”

At this Tanya physically shook, the knot in her hair collapsing, the black locks descending around her. “Don’t say that!”

He gestured at the fence. “Is that why my mother killed herself? Did she catch the two of you in the act?”

Tanya grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into his flesh. “I didn’t mean for this to happen! Your father and I did nothing wrong!”

“Killing my mother isn’t wrong?”

“Would you listen to me?”

“Enough!” He turned away from her and faced the rows of tombstones covering the hillside, each with a Star of David. He straightened his olive-green uniform, tilted his red beret until it sheltered his right ear, and adjusted the Uzi strap across his chest. “I’m going to say good-bye to my mother now.” He took the flowers from Tanya. “I’ll hitch a ride back to the base.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to see you ever again.”

“Oh, please!” She was crying now. “Let me explain—”

Choking on his sobs, Lemmy ran along the outer fence of the cemetery.