engage in what he had been prevented from doing in Tel Aviv: research and teaching, as well as maintaining a clinic in which he could see private patients.
I was eight years old and Benjamin was six. Two trucks draped with tarps, one small and one medium-sized, were hired to transport our belongings. We stood by the kiosk, eagerly awaiting their arrival. My mother said one large truck would have sufficed, but Yordad decreed that it was “forbidden to mix the clinic with the family”
Dr. Mendelsohn was in the habit of classifying and separating and isolating elements. He instructed us to return the blocks we played with to their box according to their colors and sizes. He sorted his clothing not only by season and type but also by time of day worn, shades of color, and fabric. He did not drink while eating nor eat while drinking, and he moved from food to food on his plate: first the schnitzel and only afterward the potatoes; first the fish and only afterward the rice; first the omelette and only afterward the salad. My mother said that if he had the time he would eat each component of the salad in turn: first he would gather bits of cucumber, then the peppers, and at the end, the tomatoes. But his prohibition against mixing extended far beyond food: he did not mingle one matter with another, or alcohol with secrets, or types of medications. He assigned each its own importance, and each brought that small smile to your face along with that single dimple in your left cheek and the asymmetry of your upper lip, which mocked Yordad openly whenever he was overly strict with us in the matter of table manners. Sometimes he would ask—and I do not know if he was being serious or joking—“What would happen if the queen of England were to invite you for supper?” And you would retort, “Exactly the same as would happen if we were to invite her.”
Yordad prepared the salad for all of us himself. He cut the vegetables with great expertise, seasoned them with oil and salt and pepper and lemon; then, when he had taken his share, he announced, “Now you people cut the onion and add it to your own salad.”
Years later, when Benjamin brought home Zohar, the woman he would marry, to present her to his parents, she said, “Dr. Mendelsohn, in my house we call the salad you prepare ‘children’s salad.’”
Yordad sized her up with his eyes. “Interesting,” he said. “And what kind of salad does one eat in your house?”
She laughed. Her laughter roused me because it reminded me of Tirzah Fried’s. “Salad in our house is made with meat and potatoes,” shesaid. “But if we do use vegetables, then we add soft cheese and warm slices of hard-boiled egg and black olives and chopped cloves of garlic.” Her description was so simple and true that I felt the need to taste it right away. Zohar smiled at me, and I was flooded with an affection for her that has not ended to this very day She is a large woman— full-bodied, full of life—who loves to eat and read: “Abadi’s Oriental cookies and fat novels.” In the Beit She’an Valley kibbutz she hails from she has three brothers as big as she and some dozen nieces and nephews, “all the same size: extra-, extra-, extra-large.”
Like many other affections, this one, too, stems from similarity Not the similarity between us—we are not similar at all—but the similarity between our spouses, between her husband and my wife, and as Zohar herself said to me many years later, in a moment that mingled alcohol with embarrassment, laughter with loneliness, “Our troubles are very similar. It’s just that your trouble is crappier than mine and my trouble is shittier than yours.” I felt a covenant had been established between us, that of two interlopers who had been appended to the same eminent family
I love her twins, too—Yoav and Yariv—in spite of the jealousy I felt when they were born, and I am proud to say that I am the one who coined their nickname, the Y-Team,
I was eight years old and Benjamin was six. Two trucks draped with tarps, one small and one medium-sized, were hired to transport our belongings. We stood by the kiosk, eagerly awaiting their arrival. My mother said one large truck would have sufficed, but Yordad decreed that it was “forbidden to mix the clinic with the family”
Dr. Mendelsohn was in the habit of classifying and separating and isolating elements. He instructed us to return the blocks we played with to their box according to their colors and sizes. He sorted his clothing not only by season and type but also by time of day worn, shades of color, and fabric. He did not drink while eating nor eat while drinking, and he moved from food to food on his plate: first the schnitzel and only afterward the potatoes; first the fish and only afterward the rice; first the omelette and only afterward the salad. My mother said that if he had the time he would eat each component of the salad in turn: first he would gather bits of cucumber, then the peppers, and at the end, the tomatoes. But his prohibition against mixing extended far beyond food: he did not mingle one matter with another, or alcohol with secrets, or types of medications. He assigned each its own importance, and each brought that small smile to your face along with that single dimple in your left cheek and the asymmetry of your upper lip, which mocked Yordad openly whenever he was overly strict with us in the matter of table manners. Sometimes he would ask—and I do not know if he was being serious or joking—“What would happen if the queen of England were to invite you for supper?” And you would retort, “Exactly the same as would happen if we were to invite her.”
Yordad prepared the salad for all of us himself. He cut the vegetables with great expertise, seasoned them with oil and salt and pepper and lemon; then, when he had taken his share, he announced, “Now you people cut the onion and add it to your own salad.”
Years later, when Benjamin brought home Zohar, the woman he would marry, to present her to his parents, she said, “Dr. Mendelsohn, in my house we call the salad you prepare ‘children’s salad.’”
Yordad sized her up with his eyes. “Interesting,” he said. “And what kind of salad does one eat in your house?”
She laughed. Her laughter roused me because it reminded me of Tirzah Fried’s. “Salad in our house is made with meat and potatoes,” shesaid. “But if we do use vegetables, then we add soft cheese and warm slices of hard-boiled egg and black olives and chopped cloves of garlic.” Her description was so simple and true that I felt the need to taste it right away. Zohar smiled at me, and I was flooded with an affection for her that has not ended to this very day She is a large woman— full-bodied, full of life—who loves to eat and read: “Abadi’s Oriental cookies and fat novels.” In the Beit She’an Valley kibbutz she hails from she has three brothers as big as she and some dozen nieces and nephews, “all the same size: extra-, extra-, extra-large.”
Like many other affections, this one, too, stems from similarity Not the similarity between us—we are not similar at all—but the similarity between our spouses, between her husband and my wife, and as Zohar herself said to me many years later, in a moment that mingled alcohol with embarrassment, laughter with loneliness, “Our troubles are very similar. It’s just that your trouble is crappier than mine and my trouble is shittier than yours.” I felt a covenant had been established between us, that of two interlopers who had been appended to the same eminent family
I love her twins, too—Yoav and Yariv—in spite of the jealousy I felt when they were born, and I am proud to say that I am the one who coined their nickname, the Y-Team,
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