Shawls? I’d been prepared for messianic Jews, and they wanted to talk capes?
My fingers hover over the phone, as I wrestle with myself. Why am I so reluctant to make this call?
It’s not as if we’re strangers, just old neighbors out of touch for years, not counting her invitations to bar mitzvahs and weddings (the trip to Bnei Brak always precludes my attending). I vacillate for another minute, nails pressed into nervous palms, then coax my fingers to dial the number jotted on a slip of paper.
“Hello, Miriam?” I ask in my most polished Hebrew, “it’s Elana Moskowitz, your old neighbor from Yerushalayim.”
For years, Miriam’s boys had been fixtures in my home, a spirited trio who knocked faithfully every weekday afternoon, asking to play with my son. I saw it as a privilege; they were scions of a towering Rabbinic family. The oldest among them even bore the exact name of his great grandfather, a celebrated European gaon.
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