Debbie Nathan

(Below: Zionist youths in France, 1930s)

Though Rutman was an ardent supporter of Bundism* and thus an opponent of every form of Zionism, he did not believe — as some of his friends did — that political opposition should turn into personal enmity. He was good friends with many Zionists; in fact, his best friend was one. So when he met the woman who would become his wife, it didn’t matter that she was a Zionist who said shalom when she took leave of people, and who called herself P’nina, meaning “pearl” in Hebrew, even though her real, Yiddish name was Perl.

Rutman noticed only that her figure was lovely and slender, her eyes large and luminous, her mouth small and soft, and that her whole being was full of that feminine charm that entreats “Fall in love with me.”

Rutman happened to know a bit of Hebrew, and since he occasionally tried to speak it with her, he had to confess that her charms seemed far greater when her sonorous little voice rang with the musical sounds of that language. Once, as she was talking to him in Hebrew, Rutman simply couldn’t help telling her, “You know I’m an opponent of Hebraism, the effort to establish Biblical speech as a living language. But if everyone ended up speaking it like you do, I’d gladly become a fervent Hebraist. For me you’re a vision of a heroine out of the Bible.”

Their friendship turned into passionate love, and since it was soon a foregone conclusion that they would marry, Rutman tried to bring her to Bundism and away from Zionism. But when he saw that she couldn’t be budged — that she was ready to sympathize with the Bund but absolutely unwilling to renounce Zionism — he stopped his recruiting efforts.

Rutman didn’t put much stock in the ideology consistency of women; he’d never thought them capable of maintaining a coherent political line. And a woman’s allegiance to a party, he believed, was nothing more than a kind of flirting. Still, he hoped that time would make her into a good Bundist by gradually eroding the romantic Zionism that’s so common in high-spirited young girls. So Rutman married his P’nina, and he loved her with all his heart. In her and everything around her, he saw only grace and beauty.

Shortly after the wedding, Rutman made a few more attempts to recruit his wife to Bundism. He employed various arguments against Zionism that he was sure would work. But he saw how she side-stepped the discussion and tried to deflect his arguments, even as she stuck to her own, which seemed to exist in a private, sentimental place that no one else could reach. “Fine,” thought Rutman to himself. “Let her keep her Zionism.” He stopped talking about it to her.

Meanwhile, P’nina hung a lovely portrait of Herzl in the house — that famous picture which shows him leaning over the Rhine Bridge. She also brought in a little tin collection can for the Israel National Fund. She always tossed a few coins in when she had some small change. And every time Rutman played cards with his friends, she would take some money from the stake and piously drop it into the National Fund can. To which Rutman would smile ironically and quip, “Alms for the Fatherland!”

And so the young couple lived for a while without any conflict about ideals or party allegiance ever flaring up between them. Until one day, when the following occurred.

Rutman was eating with a group of friends in a cafe. The conversation meandered over this and that until it settled on the theme “Women.” The main speaker was someone Rutman knew who thought of himself as quite an authority, a pre-eiminent expert on the female psyche. He’d had a good deal of experience with women, Rutman’s friend said, and he’d also done a lot of reading on the matter. He expected his opinions about the fair sex to be taken seriously.

Rutman’s friend said that idealism is nonexistent in women, that in the main, they are incapable of struggling with an ideal. They cannot make sacrifices for it, and they are generally very selfish, with no other interests except personal ones.

Rutman wanted to defend women’s honor. He pointed out that all the social movements had women in their ranks who were even more devoted to their principles than the male members were. But the friend scoffed at him. “Pay close attention and you’ll see that whatever a girl becomes — a Zionist, a Bundist, a Communist — it’s only because she loves a guy who’s a member of that particular party, and she loves him body and soul, including every last hair on his head and everything about his politics. But those politics are never hers. She never reflects on or suffers for them. As soon as she stops loving him and falls for someone else, she’ll renounce the first lover’s politics along with him, then take on the politics and party affiliation of the new lover, even if they’re completely different from the old one’s. She’ll devote herself to the new politics with the same passion as she did the earlier ones, and she’ll be ready to sacrifice for them. But her sacrifice will be on the altar of love, not politics, which are alien to her. That’s how it is, my friend,” he said, in the tone of someone who puts great stock in his own opinions. “That’s the way women are. They’ll never be otherwise.”

Again Rutman wanted to vouch for womankind. Though it is generally true, he said, that a woman is influenced spiritually and ideologically by a man, even so, one shouldn’t take the principle too far. In point of fact, Rutman said, he himself knew women who belonged to parties other than the ones their men were in. Yet this didn’t keep the couples from loving each other.

But the friend wouldn’t budge. “If a woman gets with a man and doesn’t adopt his ideals and his politics, that’s a sure sign that she’s given him her body but not her heart or soul. Those definitely still belong to the former lover, the one she got her current politics from. Examine every case you know of, Rutman, where the woman belongs to a different party than her man, and you’ll find that she got her party affiliation from her previous lover and has stayed faithful not to her first ideal, but to her first love.”

Rutman stopped defending the honor of women, and the subject changed. The crowd continued chatting until, one by one, they left and forgot the whole conversation, as people usually do when they’ve been talking over cups and cups of coffee just to kill time.

But Rutman remembered all too well. He recalled his friend’s words about the source of politics in a woman, and on his way home, he remembered that Pannina had been in love with a guy who had gone to Palestine. She had decided to go, too, but suddenly the young man had fallen for another woman. Rutman recalled that Pannina had her former lover’s old letters lying around, and she’d also saved his old photographs.

That’s what Rutman was thinking on his way home. Entering the house and looking at the portrait of Herzl on the wall, he felt ensnared by a gnawing jealousy. He looked at the stately figure in his house as if at a foe, an alien, who had broken into his cozy abode and stolen his wife’s heart. He noticed the little tin collection can for the National Fund. Remembering how piously his P’nina put coins in it every day, he saw the can as a sacrificial altar that his wife had installed in his house for another lover. Rutman seethed with jealousy. More emotionally than intellectually, he vowed to drive the Zionist enemy from his home.

Rutman slept badly all night. Waking up in the morning, the first thing did was look at the Bundist newspaper. As soon as he started reading a political article against Zionism, he had an urge to give it to his wife.

“Take this, Perele” (making a show of calling her the diminuitive of “Perl” since he no longer wanted to use the Hebrew name P’nina). He handed her the paper. “Read this article and you’ll see what an enemy of the people Zionism is. You’ll see how Zionism is the worst foe of the Jewish masses.”

But she simply did to want to take the newspaper from his hand. “I’m not interested,” she said as she wiped the dust off Herzl’s portrait. “Not in partisan squabbling.”

“What do you mean, ‘partisan squabbling’?” Rutman got excited, just as he did every time he instigated partisan political squabbles. “This demonstrates how the Zionists unite with anti-Semites against the most vital interests of the Jewish masses. Take it! Read!”

“I don’t want to read,” she answered him nervously, and kept dusting Herzl’s portrait. “I already know what the Bund papers say about Zionism and Zionists.”

“What do you mean, don’t want to read?” Rutman got agitated. “What — you want to be a blind believer in Zionism? You have to interest yourself objectively. To study the question!”

“I already studied the question. And I formed my own opinion.”

“But you were younger then.” Rutman was begging now. “Maybe back then you weren’t mature enough. Maybe you were under someone’s influence.”

The woman had already become uneasy, and now she got angry. “Why, today, have you suddenly decided you’re going to turn me into a Bundist? The Bund has enough members. Surely they’ll get along fine without me.”

“Yes, but why don’t you want to reflect on a question and study it objectively? Once upon a time you were were intoxicated by Zionism, and now you refuse to free yourself from its influence.” Rutman was pleading. “You won’t even listen to me!”

The woman didn’t answer. She finished dusting Herzl’s picture and busied herself with other chores.

“You know what?” Rutman refused to drop the subject. “That picture insults me. It hurts my feelings.”

“Hurts your feelings?” she was astonished. “Really, this is news to me. I never took you for such a fanatic. Even if you don’t sympathize with Zionism, you still have to admit that Herzl was an awe-inspiring figure. I’m embarrassed to have to say something so obvious.”

“To me, it’s a sign of your stubbornness, of your life under another man’s influence, of your alienation from me and my politics.”

The woman burst into sardonic laughter. “Poor Herzl. The thoughts and feelings your picture can inspire in a Bundist!” (And, turning to Rutman:) “Rest assured, you can put up a picture of Medem.* It won’t hurt my feelings, even though I’m not a Bundist. Because I’m not as big a fanatic as you.”

“I’ll do that. And I’m also going to take down this picture.”

“Take it down??”

“Take it down,” Rutman answered scornfully.

“And what if I won’t let you?”

“Then I’ll walk out on you!”

V. Medem

What happened then? The wife threw herself on the bed and sobbed hysterically. Rutman wanted to make up, but she buried her head in the pillows and wouldn’t look at him. The young pair spent a week angry with each other. Afterwards they made up, their love now grounded and tempered by the strength that young love gains from a couple’s virgin spat.

Rutman started no more arguments with his wife about party politics. But watching her dust Herzl’s handsome portrait each day, he couldn’t free himself from the feeling that she was dusting off her heart and that she carried someone else inside it. Someone she’d once loved, but had traded for another.

*****

*The Bund was the Jewish socialist workers movement organized in Russia during the period of the 1905 Revolution. Vladimir Medem was the Bund’s leader. Bundists opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine — and in fact, worldwide, most Jews opposed Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s. Naziism and the Holocaust, however, starkly reversed this sentiment.