TWO FINE NON-FICTION JEWISH BOOKS

In the past few weeks, I have come across two very different books, both non-fiction, which I think are worth tracking down and reading, whether you choose to purchase them or not. The first is on a topic which most non-Orthodox Jews do not find of great interest: the mikvah. Most Jews have a vague sense of what the mikvah is--the ritual bath. But even in the State of Israel, home of so many hareidim--ultra-religious Jews--the buildings which hold them, if not the religious act--have fallen into hard times. In early October of 2009, a long article in The Jerusalem Post entitled "Troubled Waters" declared "for many women who frequent more rundown mikvaot in other neighborhoods of Jerusalem, the experience makes it difficult for them to imagine that a monthly visit could have much spiritual significance."

A new hardcover book, The House of Secrets--The Hidden World of the Mikveh, by a secular but deeply respectful seventh generation Jerusalemite (Beacon Press, 248 pages), was surprisingly enlightening and moving. Varda Polak-Sahm researched the topic for a full decade, and, in translation from her Hebrew text, it is an extremely powerful document. In her Prologue, the author visits a mikvah, and the rambling orders of the keeper are fascinating: "In order to be clean and one hundred percent kosher for immersion, you must remove all jewelry, false teeth and contact lenses before bathing. Clean the gunk out of the corners of your eyes. Clean your nose inside and out. Clean the holes in your pierced ears. Comb every hair on your body...." Polak-Sahm is remarkably sensitive to the practice, even while admitting that "for me, the mikvah was also a symbol of religious coercion and the intrusion of the religious establishment into the private domain." Yet she quotes verbatim from young women who respond to the experience of the mikvah with warmth and even admiration: "After I immersed in the pure waters of the mikvah I became pure myself. The immersion makes it okay for me to have sex with my husband again. He's even obligated by the Torah to make love to me tonight when I return from the mikvah; otherwise he's committing a really big sin. You know what a burden is lifted from your soul when you leave here after bathing in the mikveh? It's just incredible! Unbelievable! No words can describe this amazing feeling."

What I like so much about this highly poetic, loving (yet occasionally critical) book about the mikvah is its scholarship and intelligence. She notes that "the mikvah is a place where one is stripped down on both the physical and spiritual levels, where women undergo a transformation from girl to woman, from virgin to bride, from impurity to purity." Then, she quotes from prominent, non-sexist rabbis in a fair and sensitive fashion. She teaches Torah, noting its obsession with blood ("between one kind of blood and another, between male blood and female blood"), warns us that "it would appear that the woman is a passive victim of a male conceptual system that torments her with a wide range of prohibitions and social exclusion," and then quickly admits, "so it would appear, yet this is not the case."

There is something irresistible about seeing a very thoughtful, secular woman grow in admiration for a religious ritual which she had long thought sexist and condescending. (And I was charmed by the arguments between Eastern European Jews and North African Jews on which community sees "great pleasure in immersion and sexuality" and which is "very ambivalent toward immersion." I'll let you guess.

I like this book very much, and was impressed with its nuance and research. And to get a rave from my favourite Orthodox feminist, Blu Greenberg ("Refreshingly, this writing is neither a Pollyanna version of the laws of family purity nor a cheap shot at them") says far more than I ever could. Very highly recommended.

And speaking of powerful and meaningful non-fiction, I must urge you to track down the paperback (Lester, Mason & Begg)by the superb Canadian historian Harold Troper (of "None is Too Many" fame, which he co-authored with Irving Abella), The Rescuer: The Amazing, True Story of How One woman Helped Save the Jews of Syria. It is a 2007 work about the extraordinary Torontonian Judy Feld Carr, who almost singlehandedly led the struggle to get the capture Jews of Syria out of that hell-hole of modern Jewish slavery, over three agonizing decades of dealing with smugglers, bribing officials, sneaking money to those who needed it (even in prisons), ultimately managing to get some 3,000 Syrian Jews into the State of Israel. I've met Ms. Feld Carr many times, and long supported her amazing work, and it was always an honour to know this modern Moses. She's a tough cookie--I was a bit disappointed to read that she and her husband were deeply involved with Rabbi Kahane and the Jewish Defense League, an individual and group which I have long found distasteful. But what an argument for how a single person, like a Schindler, can save so many lives through action, letter-writing, fund-raising, passion and sheer chutzpah. It's been a while since a book has made me feel guilty for not doing more to help our fellow souls. And as so many Jews know, arguably the single most important mitzvahs--commandments--of the Torah's 613, is to "ransom the captive." This, Ms. Feld Carr did, and those 3,000 will rapidly turn into tens of thousands over the coming years. What a story.