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In this book of folk tales, Liz Berg shares Jewish memories: tales, songs and jokes of Jews told by Jews in Britain and Ireland. Some stories moved from place to place, changing and adapting to new landscapes and taking on different texture, but the essence of the tales stay the same, preserved through oral storytelling, captured and recorded on these pages. Here are tales from the time of Diocletian's Jewish slaves working in the tin mines of Cornwall, through to the modern tales being told in communities today, all incorporating the wit and magic of a rich and varied culture successfully integrated into Britain and Ireland.
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For my children and grandchildren
‘I’m impressed with the easy-going style you have.’ – Harvey Kurzfield
First published 2020
This paperback editon published 2025
The History Press
97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
© Liz Berg, 2020
Illustrations © Karen Berg
Cover illustration © Karen Berg
The right of Liz Berg to be identified as the Authorof this work has been asserted in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 75099 545 0
Typesetting and origination by The History Press
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books, Padstow, Cornwall
EU Authorised Representative: Easy Access System Europe
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eBook converted by Geethik Technologies
Foreword
Introduction
Illustrator’s Note
London
Elijah’s Violin
The Sofer and the Donkey
The Hungry Clothes
The Prince Who Thought He Was a Rooster
The Rebbe’s Driver
Ramsgate
The Golden Tree
Oxford
Ewe, Goat and Shepherd
Norwich
Jurnet’s House
Hull
Clocking Off
Leeds
Hob Ikh Mir a Mantl (I Had a Little Overcoat)
How the Moon Got Her Garment
Bradford
Rudi’s Cake
Counting the Cost
York
Clifford’s Tower
Newcastle
The Nigun
Edinburgh
The Corpse Bride
Dundee
The Angels’ Storyteller
Glasgow
Change the Place, Change the Luck
Belfast
Star Girl
The Wedding in the Cemetery
Moishe the Water Carrier
The Cat and the Butter
Dublin
Mick and his Donkeys
The Miracle of Hanukah
The Gilgul
Liverpool
Chad Gadya
Flying Feathers
Az Der Rebbe Tantst
Manchester
The Jealous Queen
Reaching for Rights
Birmingham
Four Boiled Eggs
Tefillin and Mezuzot
Swansea
The Shul with Tzores
Joseph Only-the-Best-for-Shabbos
Cardiff
The Ruby Ring
Ringo
The Red Ribbon
Newport
Old Boots
Like Father, Like Son
Dawlish
The Three Who Ate on Yom Kippur
Plymouth
The Smell of Kugel
Penzance
Fingering Victory
Falmouth
The Amidah Horse
Truro
The Cramped Cottage
Glossary
Contributors
Bibliography
From generation to generation the Jewish people have been great storytellers and passed on tales of everyday life, each sharing the colour, content and narrative, some even an expansion across those generations.
At the core of this tradition is the people’s own story of their wanderings contained in the five books of Moses (The Old Testament), the telling of which word for word has remained a central tenet of the Synagogue service on each Sabbath the year round. At the conclusion of each of the five books, the scroll is held aloft and in acknowledgement of their own history, those present cry aloud the Hebrew for ‘With strength! With strength roll the story on!’ both as a pride in knowing their history and the hopeful continuation of the faith.
Over the centuries since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem the nature of Jewish storytelling has been carried by the people eastward along the Silk Road, westward through North Africa, up into Italy and Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, England and on into Central and Eastern Europe. Each of these cultures have at one time or another produced a Jewish language and culture of historical expression. JÜddish Deutsch, the language of the Ashkenazi Jews, is known better as Yiddish and is a source of great humour and emotional pathos. Judeo Espagnole and Ladino are the languages of the Sephardi Jews of Spain, Portugal, parts of North Africa and later the Balkans. The names of these groups are taken from the biblical descendants of Noah. So you see, even that is part of the ongoing story.
Like many other countries, England has seen the Jews come and go a number of times, but stories translate understanding as they offer a shared experience. Some of the sources behind these stories may have started elsewhere, but the foibles of humanity are worldwide. Perhaps only the geography changes?
A twist of humour has always been part of the Jewish storyteller’s art, as has been the rare gift of healing a hurt through tears and laughter. Even today those of us who call ourselves community storytellers are still here to bind the broken heart of a bereavement, and your smile into a guffaw, and your guffaw into a rolling belly laugh.
The glitter here between the covers is a jewel box of sharing.
A minute of your time perhaps? The hour that we have … to begin with … There’s this story.
Now read on and enjoy! Enjoy!
Del Reid
Jewish cultural historianMentsch
When I told someone I was writing a book of Jewish folk tales in Britain, they laughed and questioned, ‘Is there such a thing?’ Then I explained what I meant: not only stories grown here, but brought here in the successive waves of immigration since Roman times. ‘Ah,’ they said, ‘of course.’
It was clear to me what I wanted to do, but not always clear to those I needed to tell me stories – stories their elders brought with them and either told as they were or changed around a little to fit the places they found themselves in. I wanted to give a voice to those communities who were disappearing before my eyes. There are far more cities and towns settled by Jews than I have space to include here.
Some tales were definitely historically linked to a town or city. Others have, through oral storytelling, gained a place that wasn’t theirs in the first place. But that is true of all immigrants. We change the stories to fit our present and sometimes change our past to fit our future.
In this constantly changing flow of ideas of what makes a people, I think it is pertinent to tell the stories of the Jewish people in Britain. I remember friends of my parents who had numbers tattooed on the inside of their arms. I often wondered as a small child, why? As Jews we are not allowed to tattoo our skin, and it was both the man and the woman! No one talked about it. I knew enough not to ask, not then, not them. Of course, I learned later about the Holocaust, the concentration camps, and the death camps.
My siblings and I are second generation Welsh. Our parents were both born in Wales and though three of my grandparents were born in Eastern Europe, the Russian Pale of Settlement that included Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine and came in during the 1880–1900 wave, my maternal grandmother was also born in Wales to a family that had come to Devonport in the 1840s. Four generations British on one side. Four generations who have not had a suitcase packed by the bed in case they were thrown out again. My own children and grandchildren add to the length of time we have been settled here and being British is part of our identity. As a young girl I started to research Jewish communities, learning stories and tales as I went. Through cheder I heard more tales from the Tanakh, from the Talmud. I was hooked.
This book isn’t a book of anti-Semitic tales. Goodness knows there are enough of them, especially in areas of Britain where Jews haven’t been a presence for more than eight hundred years. How these stories are held in the folk memory and why are different research questions. It is not a book of tales about the Jews from a non-Jewish perspective. Again, this type proliferates in ‘literary’ writing. It is, however, a book of Jewish memory. Tales, songs and jokes of Jews by Jews told in Britain and Ireland. Jews can tell the same tales all over Britain and adapt them to their landscapes or not. What is important is the story.
As the Dubno Maggid said when asked how his stories were always exactly what his listeners needed to hear, ‘Let me tell you a story.
‘A young prince was the greatest archer in the kingdom. He won every contest going. He was proud of his achievement. One day he was out riding and happened upon a ramshackle cottage. No wall was the same height as another, the roof was higgledy-piggledy. He would have ridden by if he hadn’t noticed targets painted on the walls of the cottage and in the centre of every target was an arrow.
‘The prince was amazed. Some of the targets would have been difficult for him, let alone an inferior archer. He called out. A young lad came out. The prince asked him if his parents were home.
‘No,’ answered the lad.
‘Well,’ asked the prince, ‘did your father shoot these arrows?’
‘No,’ answered the lad.
‘Your mother?’
‘No,’ answered the lad.
‘Don’t tell me you did?’ asked the prince.
‘No,’ answered the lad.
‘Then who did?’ asked the prince, understandably frustrated.
‘The lad disappeared behind the cottage and emerged holding the hand of a little girl of about four. The prince watched as the little girl took up her wooden bow and arrow and shot at the cottage walls. As soon as her arrow landed, her brother fetched a pot of paint and painted the target around it, the arrow now firmly in the centre.’
‘And that is how my stories are,’ said the Dubno Maggid. ‘I send them out but you hit the target.’
I have heard this one brought up to date with a sharpshooter in the Austrian army without the Dubno Maggid. Same tale, different landscape, told both times by Jews in Britain.
Sometimes I have attributed stories to certain areas without the certainty that these tales were the exact ones told there, reasoning that these types of stories would, on the side of probability rather than possibility, be told there, for example, tailoring stories in the Leeds area. I have put a story told by the people from that community, for example, German, Iranian or Sephardi, where those communities settled in Britain. If I attribute a story to a country it is the Jewish population of that country who tell the tale, for example, if I state a tale comes from Germany, it is a tale told by German Jews not by the population as a whole, and so on. Jewish tales are Jewish tales and are still being told, transmuted and translated into the idiom of today. For us it doesn’t matter that they were told in Russia, Afghanistan, China, Argentina or Australia – the Torah, the Bible and the Talmud, the Oral Torah, hold stories that shine as much now as they did for our forebears. We set them where we feel comfortable. I have included some personal stories and I am grateful to my individual contributors for allowing me to use them.
I am grateful especially to Sue Field, who supported me every step of the way, encouraging me to write this book and reading each story for me; Del Reid, who shared his wonderful breadth and depth of knowledge of our history with me; the elders in the Stapely Care home in Liverpool, both residents and volunteers, who shared their experiences of growing up in the Liverpool area; and those of Heathlands Village, Manchester, who also shared their experiences and tales. I found connections I hadn’t believed possible.
Although I am not expecting this to be, nor should you, an examination of Jewish practices for the uninitiated, I hope that the stories stand with the briefest of explanation. Before each section of tales, I have added a succinct history of the Jewish community in the area and Jewish rites within the history or tales where necessary. In the glossary you will find an explanation of foreign words as well as an expansion on Jewish ritual mentioned in the stories.
How to transliterate words in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino? Do I use the modern way of spelling according to YIVO*? Or do I use the old way I grew up with? Should there be a consistent spelling of certain words, for example, Shabbat, Shabbos, Shabbes (Sabbath)? Which is right? They all are. It depends on circumstances, which community’s tales I am telling. It is completely inappropriate for me to write Shabbos when telling a Sephardi tale, or Shabbat when retelling an Ashkenazi tale that I haven’t brought up to date. (I once had a shock when I heard a North Welsh story told in a South Welsh accent by an English storyteller. It brought me out of the story immediately, so I am doubly wary.) Should I use the modern kh for the guttural sound like the ch in loch? Although correct, it makes the word look odd to my eyes. I have tried for consistency, but forgive me if I fail in some places. I haven’t included a pronunciation guide as, like local accents and dialects, the Jewish way of saying a word can depend on where you are from within Britain, for example, the rolls that are tied like knots are bulkas, bulkies, bolkies. Or as a joke has it: There is only one way to spell Christmas. No one can decide how to spell Chanukah, Chanukkah, Chanukka, Channukah, Hanukah, Hannukah, etc.
Some words are British Yiddish. Is there such a thing? Well, at Ot Azoy, the annual week-long Yiddishfest held by the Jewish Music Institute (JMI) in London in August, I was in a conversation class. The subject was what we did in the summer. The woman next to me, Haidee Kenedy, told us in Yiddish about taking her dog out on Hampstead Heath and calling for him. What was the dog’s name? Lobos, she said. I started laughing. The other participants from France, Finland, USA, Canada and Holland all looked at us. Haidee turned to me and said, ‘It’s an English Yiddish word. Only the English use it.’
‘It was well-used in Wales,’ I said. My father used to call the boys a lobos if they had misbehaved. It means a scamp, miscreant or rapscallion. Some weeks later I was researching for this book and two people in different parts of the country offered me this little ditty:
The boy stood on the burning deck
His father called him lobos
Because he wouldn’t wash his neck
Or go to shul on shabbos.
I hope these Jewish stories lead you to retell them to your children and your children’s children. Ledor vador. From generation to generation.
Liz Berg, 2020
_______________
* YIVO is the acronym of Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Yiddish Scientific Institute), now known as YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a body that among other things preserves the Yiddish language.
I am a textile artist from Cornwall. I gained a First Class Honours degree in printed textile design from Winchester School of Art and have worked as a freelance designer and college lecturer.
My work is mainly mixed media collage with machine embroidery. I am greatly influenced by the landscape around me and I draw inspiration from the textures and patterns to create my pieces. I manipulate and recycle fabrics, papers and photographs, adding finer detail with machine embroidery and print.
For this collection of work, I was inspired by the concept of the retelling and repetition of folk tales. I love the sense of familiarity created by the recurring themes, even though the stories have been gathered from far and wide, and this was something I wanted to echo in my imagery.
You will see shapes, patterns and textures repeated throughout the illustrations. This hopefully parallels not only the familiarity and rhythm found in the stories, but also the idea of new interpretation – just as stories are re-told and reinterpreted with each telling.
Karen Berg
Henry VIII wanted to make his court the best there was anywhere. To do this, he recruited musicians from all over the known world. In the 1540s he established a royal court of musicians, Italian Jewish musicians and instrument makers, who came from Venice with their families. They were allowed in on licence from the king, arranged by Thomas Cromwell, who paid their passage. Some had arrived earlier, like Anthony Moyses, a sackbut player, who had come in 1526. When Anthony was dying, he chose as his executors not the English wind players he had known for sixteen years but the four Italian Jewish viol players he’d only known for eighteen months. The musicians settled initially in London. They relied on royal patronage whilst also dealing in trade, having strong links to Antwerp. Whilst some married within the faith, there were many who married out. The most successful families – the Lupos, Comys and Bassanos – established musical dynasties that dominated Royal music for more than a century.
The Italian Jewish musicians kept away from the other Jews on licence, the Portuguese doctors and lawyers. At one point the Italian Jews lived on one side of the street and the Portuguese Jews on the other in a small village. They didn’t mix. At all. They held their own services and the families never spoke. The Portuguese Jews looked down on their fellow Jews as ill-educated paupers.
The musicians settled in St Alphage, Cripplegate, where more Jewish instrument makers joined them, this time from Poland. The Jewish musicians who were recruited were of the best in Europe. They developed the violin, which was unknown before its use by Henry VIII’s viol consort. Jewish musicians played a large part in the renaissance of music and some people assert that this viol consort was one of the first in the world.
This is a story collected from Egypt where many Sephardic Jews settled. I like to think that the viol consort might have encouraged the spreading of the tale.
Once there was a king who was on the brink of going to war overseas. He asked his three daughters to name something they wanted him to bring back. His eldest asked for a star-shaped diamond so she could hold the night sky in her hands. His second daughter asked for a gown woven of pure gold so the sun would envy her as she walked. The youngest asked him to come back safely. He laughed and hugged her. ‘I was planning on that,’ he said. ‘Go and think what you would like me to bring back. You have three days before I sail.’
The young princess walked out of the palace and down to her favourite thinking spot on the shore of the lake. Perched on the rock, she stared over the water. Nothing came into her mind that she did not already have.
An old woman came and sat down next to her. ‘Why are you so sad?’ The princess explained.
‘Ah,’ said the old woman, ‘you must ask him for Elijah’s violin.’ Then she added in a quiet voice the princess didn’t hear, ‘It is time for the melodies to be heard.’
The princess thanked her and ran back to her father, who was pleased she had found something she wanted. Amid hugs, kisses and tears of farewell, the king sailed off to war.
Many hard battles later, he was victorious. He set about finding the gifts for his daughters. Before too long he had the star-shaped diamond and the gown of gold. What he didn’t have and couldn’t find was Elijah’s violin. He sent out messengers, who came back empty-handed; he consulted his wise men, who consulted their great tomes to no avail; he sought the seers, who saw nothing in the stars. He set sail, determined to search until he found Elijah’s violin and every place they landed he looked for it. Then one day he climbed into a cave where an old man lived.
‘Yes,’ said the old man. ‘Elijah’s violin is in the possession of the king of this land. His daughter has been enchanted, imprisoned in stone, and there is a great reward for anyone who can cure her. Take these three strands from the bow of the violin and when you are in the presence of the princess, burn them immediately. Then ask for the violin.’
‘Thank you,’ said the king as he tucked the three strands away carefully in his pocket. ‘What can I give you in return?’
‘Nothing. When your daughter plays Elijah’s violin she will release all the imprisoned melodies into the world. That will be my reward.’
‘What is your name?’ asked the king.
The old man smiled. ‘Elijah.’
The king and his men travelled quickly to the palace of the king. Outside the walls, the king made camp and said he was going in alone. He was admitted once he said he wanted to cure the princess. He was warned failure meant his death. He gritted his teeth and agreed. Inside the room where the princess stood a fire burned in the fireplace, but no warmth came into the room. The king shivered.
The princess looked for all the world as if she were made of stone. She couldn’t move, but astonishingly she could speak. When she spoke, life flowed back into her cheeks. When she stopped, she turned to stone.
‘How did this happen?’ asked the king.
The princess told of her finding an unknown staircase in the palace one day and following it to the top. Up in the room she found a mirror with a golden frame. As she looked at herself in the mirror, her reflection crept out of the mirror and forced her to change places. Ever since then she had been petrified, turned to stone apart from when she spoke. Reports had come in of her being seen around the country but her reflection had slipped away before anyone had managed to get hold of her.
The king remembered what he had to do. He took out the three strands and threw them on the fire. They burned so brightly that the air in the room warmed immediately. As he watched, life returned to the princess. Flesh and blood took the place of stone.
‘Your reflection is back in the mirror,’ said the king. ‘Blindfold yourself before you enter the room so she doesn’t have the chance to do this again. Smash the mirror with a stone. Do it now.’
The princess thanked the king and dashed off to complete the disenchantment.
Her father was overjoyed and asked the king to name his reward.
‘Elijah’s violin, please,’ asked the king.
The violin was handed over with great ceremony.
The king left with his men and sailed back to his own country. They arrived a week later to cheers and tears of relief all round.
His three daughters crowded round him. He gave them their gifts. The elder two ran off with the star-shaped diamond and the gown woven of pure gold straightaway. His youngest kissed him and hugged him. She was so glad he had come back safe and sound. Only then did she go to her room with Elijah’s violin.
She opened the case to find a beautifully carved violin nestling inside its plush interior. She lifted it out and took up the bow. As soon as she began to play a wonderful melody started. It was if the violin was playing itself. Melody after melody streamed out of the violin, out of its internal sources.
Suddenly, as the princess continued to play, a handsome young man appeared.
‘How did you get here?’ asked the princess.
‘Through the window,’ he answered.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Far, far away. The music brought me here. I had no choice.’
Soon the princess and the prince, for that was what he was, found they had other things to talk about. Whenever the princess got lonely and missed the prince, she would play the violin and he would appear through the window. They fell in love and exchanged rings, promising to marry.
One day, the eldest sister was passing the room when she heard her sister talking to someone.
‘Our sister has a man in her room, I’m sure of it. You distract her and then I can search her room for evidence,’ she said to her middle sister.
While the two younger sisters were having a mud massage, the eldest ransacked the princess’ room. She found the prince’s ring and jealously threw it through the window, breaking the glass. She opened the case and picked up Elijah’s violin. The music she played was dark and full of menace. The prince was drawn by the music to the room but as he tried to get through the window, the broken glass cut him and he disappeared. The princess shoved the violin back in its case. Hurriedly, she tidied up and left, frustrated.
Fresh and relaxed from her massage, the princess returned to her room. It felt wrong. Something spoiled. She wanted to speak to the prince and so she played the violin. But he didn’t come. She tried again. Nothing. She walked over to the window and saw the broken glass and by the curtain, three drops of blood. She realised the prince must be hurt or worse.
Heartbroken, the princess went down to her thinking spot, the rock by the lake. Not long after, the old woman hobbled up. The princess poured all her woes and worries into the old woman’s ear.
‘Listen. Do you want to find him?’
The princess nodded.
‘Then this is what you must do. Go to your room and have a doctor insist you are too ill to see anyone. Slip out of your room and then begin your search. It might take a long time.’
‘I don’t care,’ said the princess. ‘I have to find him and make him well again.’
‘Good,’ said the old woman. ‘Take three strands from the bow of Elijah’s violin with you. When you see him, burn the strands in the fire immediately.’
The princess did as she was told. The doctor came and put her under quarantine. She slipped out after taking three strands from the bow of Elijah’s violin. She walked and walked. She walked through meadows, she walked through woods, she crossed streams. She was so tired she sat down to rest under an elder tree. As she closed her eyes, about to fall asleep, she heard two doves talking in the branches above her. She opened her eyes and the birds were cooing as usual. She closed her eyes and she understood what they were saying.
‘Did you hear about the prince? He’s been so badly injured, they think he might die,’ said one.
‘Yes. It’s a shame it’s so difficult to get to his palace. More people would try to cure him if they could only find the way,’ said the other.
‘If only they knew the leaves of this tree are maps to his home,’ cooed the first.
The princess shot up and broke off a green leaf. As she stared at it, a map became clear to her. She took new heart and set off with determination. After some time, she arrived at the gates of the palace.
Disguised as a doctor, she knocked for admittance. ‘I’ve come to cure the prince,’ she said, and was shown into the throne room where the king and queen sat.
‘You do know thirty-nine doctors have tried before you. Each one paid the price for failure. Are you willing to give up your life?’ asked the king.
‘If I can see his royal highness alone,’ answered the princess bravely.
The king agreed and the princess was shown into the prince’s bedroom.
He looked so pale and wan lying there, she wanted to rush over and kiss him. But she knew she had something to do first. She took out the three strands and threw them on the fire.
As she watched, his cuts began to heal themselves. Blood rushed to his cheeks and flushed his body. Soon he was awake and looking into her eyes, brimming with tears of gladness. They talked and found they still felt the same as they had done before.
She changed out of her doctor’s disguise back into her own clothes and called his parents in. They rushed in, overjoyed at having their son back. They thanked the princess and gladly agreed to the wedding. The pair lived happily and virtuously for all their lives. The melodies from Elijah’s violin often floated out into the world from their palace.
Bevis Marks, in the centre of the City of London, is the oldest extant synagogue in Britain. It was founded in 1701 and stands in a secluded courtyard with a stone archway with wrought iron gates. Above the gates are the Hebrew words ‘Kahal Kadosh Shaar Hashama’im’ meaning ‘Holy Congregation, The Gates of Heaven’ and expressing gratitude for the safe refuge established by the first Sephardim in the City.
Some of the Sephardim had practised Judaism in secret, celebrating mass in the Portuguese Embassy in London. Their families had been forcibly converted instead of being expelled from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497. These were called Crypto-Jews, hidden Jews or Anusim. There is a further term that is no longer used due to its offensive nature. Others had fled at the same time to the Spanish Netherlands, where after fifty or so years they could practise openly in multi-cultural Amsterdam. Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel negotiated with Oliver Cromwell in 1656 to let the Jews live openly in Britain.
It is said Princess Anne, later Queen Anne, granted the community an oak beam from one of the Royal Navy ships to be incorporated into the roof structure of the first synagogue to be built on British soil for 350 years. The building was designed by Joseph Avis, a Quaker who, it is said, returned to the congregation his profits on the project, saying he wouldn’t benefit financially for building a house of God. The synagogue is very atmospheric, especially at night when lit only by the seven many-branched hanging candelabras, representing the days of the week. The seventh in the middle is the largest, being Shabbat.
One of the most famous congregants was Daniel Mendoza, the pugilist. A heavyweight champion whilst at welterweight and only 5ft 7in, his three epic bare-knuckle fights with fellow boxer Richard Humphries have become the stuff of legend. They fought hour after hour to a standstill, until one of them was on the ground. One bout was arranged by the Prince of Wales. Mendoza later opened a boxing club for gentlemen, travelled Britain giving exhibitions, performed at Astleys offering women the science of pugilism without the gore, and acted in pantomime. It was he who instigated the now common sidesteps and movement during a bout. Previously, boxers stood still and traded punches.
This Sephardi story is about hidden depths.
A scholar’s wife scolded a man hitting his donkey. The man was incensed that a woman had dared to tell him how to treat his animals. He saw she was pregnant. ‘Ha,’ he cursed, ‘you’re so fond of donkeys, let’s see how you are with a donkey for a daughter!’
In the fullness of time, a daughter, Losia, was born to the scholar and his wife. They adored her and brought her up happy and loved. As she grew, her quickness of mind proved a delight to her father, who taught her Torah and then Mishnah and Gemara. Soon Losia was making her father think deeper as they studied together. Even though both parents were proud of their daughter, there was a little corner of their hearts filled with sadness. They despaired of ever standing under the chuppah with her and her bridegroom. Ever since childhood Losia had been teased and stones thrown at her by ignorant children. She went everywhere heavily veiled. But her voice … her voice was the voice of an angel.
One day a young man walked past the window of the scholar’s house. He heard the sound of pilpel, pepper, two people studying Torah. He paused to see if the arguments were thorough. He listened and was lost in the girl’s voice explaining clearly and sweetly a problem he’d long been puzzling over. He fell in love instantly.
Immediately he rapped at the door. When he explained that he wanted to marry their daughter, the couple were overwhelmed.
‘You’ve never seen her. You may change your mind.’
‘I won’t change my mind. Her voice shows how beautiful she is. Her learning shows how beautiful she is. I love her and I want to marry her as soon as possible.’
No matter what arguments the parents put forth, he dashed them away as frivolous. Eventually they gave in. They went to their daughter, who had been standing behind the door listening.
‘What do you say?’
Losia liked the look of the young man and hoped he was a man of his word. She agreed.
The chuppah was set up and the bride came heavily veiled, as was the custom. She walked seven times around the chatan, whose heart swelled with love for the clever girl he was marrying. The wine cup was handed to her under her veil. He stamped on the glass and everyone present wished them mazal tov!