At the service entrance in the rear of the Knesset building, Elie was directed into the underground garage, through a second security checkpoint, to a long, gray Chevrolet, which was guarded by two men in short-sleeve shirts.
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol was in the back seat, reviewing a pile of documents. He glanced up when Elie got in and returned to his papers, penning brief notations on each document. When he finished, the prime minister lowered the window and handed the document to one of the guards. “So, Weiss,” he said, “what bad news do you have for me today?”
“Religious riots against the abortion law.”
“My enemies should have my luck.” Eshkol sighed. “Abortions! My fellow Yids think we’re in Holland. Next thing they’ll be planting tulips. Can you believe it? Not a generation since the Nazis killed two million Jewish children, and we talk about abortions. We need babies, not abortions!”
“I think it’s more about women, not babies.”
“And why now? What’s the urgency? The Arabs are gathering again to kill us, and I have to waste my time on abortions? I wish I had time to create such a problem for a pretty woman!”
Elie smiled. The clerical-looking prime minister’s only known vice was his young and attractive wife-his third, who had formerly been the Knesset librarian.
“Speaking of pretty, how did you do with Tanya Galinski?”
“It came to nothing,” Elie lied. “Now, about the abortion law, can you suspend the legislative process?”
“They won’t listen.” The prime minister sighed. “I’m under siege. Liberals on my left, Menachem Begin on my right, Dayan behind my back, the religious parties going through my pockets, and Ben Gurion’s errand boy, Shimon Peres, crapping on my head without lowering his pants!”
Elie chuckled.
“It’s not funny! The Soviets have delivered enough MiG jets to Nasser that he can line them up and skip from wing to wing all the way from Cairo to Tel Aviv without getting sand between his toes. And the newspapers say I’m unqualified to defend Israel! Why? Did I lose the Old City in ’forty-eight? Did I withdraw from Sinai in ’fifty-six in reliance on the incompetent UN? They think Dayan is better because he looks like a pirate!”
“I can make you popular again.”
“Ha! I’m chewing pebbles and passing rocks. Popularity is far from my mind.”
“I have a plan that will make everyone coalesce around your leadership.”
“Man plans and God laughs,” Eshkol said.
“It’s a fail-safe plan.”
“And what will it cost me?”
“Appoint me chief of Mossad.”
“A summer-night’s dream.” Eshkol made a dismissive gesture.
“You already have a job-keep those religious hotheads in the box. Or send in the police. They’ll beat down those troublesome Talmudic scholars in ten minutes.”
“The Gestapo was also capable.”
The prime minister’s face paled. Like most Israelis, he had lost most of his family in the Holocaust. Even two decades later, the trauma of the Final Solution remained the most dominant force in Israeli politics, a calamity that served as a yardstick against all other dangers. Many believed the Arabs were preparing to finish what the Germans had started and that the Goyim — the Western world-was content to again cluck its collective tongue and watch the Jews die. With the United States bogged down in Vietnam, and France smarting from an Algerian humiliation, Israel’s only allies had declined to help. Prime Minister Eshkol’s futile pleas to Washington and Paris were viewed by the Israeli public as groveling, further decimating his image.
Elie took out a cigarette, but didn’t light it. “I’ve worked with my guy for nearly twenty years to draw to Neturay Karta the most extreme men from every Orthodox community, so that we can watch them in one place. It costs me a lot of money, but it works. Abortion, however, could potentially create an anti-Zionist consensus in the ultra-Orthodox community, not just in Jerusalem, but all over Israel. Neturay Karta will lead, but their protests will draw huge crowds.”
“Then put a siege on them for a couple of weeks, until things calm down.”
“That’s the surest way to disaster.”
“Why?”
“Imagine the media photos-policemen with guns and helmets, rolls of barbed wire, and bearded Jews in black hats. Shall we feed them rotten potato skins to complete the picture?”
“A Jewish ghetto.”
“In Jerusalem, no less.” Elie waited for the image to sink in. “The Jewish world would be outraged. However, if they are caught using weapons against the government, the balance of sympathy would reverse.”
A guard put his head in. “They’re calling for you upstairs.”
“My plan,” Elie said, “is to stage an event soon-a pretext-to justify harsh measures. The basic idea is to catch a couple of black hats in the act.”
“What act?”
“An armed attack on you.”
Eshkol removed his glasses. “Attack? On me?”
“Two birds with one shot. Not only would it give us a pretext to clamp down on the ultra-Orthodox, but you’ll come out a hero. Assassination attempts are proven to give a shot of popularity even to the most downtrodden politician.”
“Especially if they succeed!”
Elie smiled. “There won’t be any real risk to your personal safety.”
The prime minister gave Elie a long, searching look. “Talk about risk, does your guy on the inside realize what they’ll do to him if he’s exposed as a mole?”
“My guy,” Elie said, “is not an easy man to kill.”
L emmy watched the men return to the synagogue in widebrimmed hats, brushed-up black coats, and pressed white shirts. His father was sitting near the ark, his eyes buried in a book, rocking back and forth. The men sat on the wooden benches, watching him. When everyone was seated, the rabbi got up, kissed the blue curtain over the ark, and faced the silent throng.
“This is a test,” he said. “Our God decided to test us!”
The men murmured their agreement.
“The Zionists want to kill innocent Jewish babies,” he continued, his voice rising. “Zionist doctors will take pregnant daughters of Israel into clinics with white walls, lay them on white sheets, and slaughter their unborn babies!”
Men cried out and hit the tables with open hands. Lemmy looked around, astounded at how his father’s few words impacted them.
Up on the dais, Rabbi Gerster stood hunched over the lectern, his beard coming down his chest, his white, striped prayer shawl draped around his shoulders. When the cries dwindled, his blue eyes turned upward, his hands clenched, pressed to his chest.
The men watched him.
“The Zionists think they know everything.” He spoke very quietly. “They claim that unborn babies feel no pain, that they are nothing but senseless patchworks of flesh and bones. The Zionists claim that, until birth, a baby has no soul with which to rejoice or suffer, with which to serve God even in prematurity by being the very image of God, by demonstrating the miracle of God’s creation and His wondrous powers.”
A few men yelled, “Amen! Amen!”
“The Zionists think nothing of Torah, of God’s words: I shall make man in my image. They think the unborn is disposable, like a skin-mole to be cut off and thrown away.” Rabbi Gerster shook his head. “Not worthy of life.” He took a deep breath and cried, “Pure, innocent Jewish souls, butchered inside their mothers’ wombs!”
The men wailed.
“A carnage sanctioned by the Zionist state!”
Another wail, louder.
Rabbi Gerster paced across the dais, back and forth. “They say it’s a matter of natural law, that the unborn fetus is completely dependent on his mother, a useless organ, which the pregnant mother may cut away.” The rabbi stretched his right hand in front of him, raised the left hand, and dropped it on his right elbow like a guillotine, chopping off his own hand. “Slice it off!”