By Steve Kramer
KFAR SABA, Israel –I recently received a new book to review from the Israeli English language publisher, Gefen Publishing: Careful, Beauties Ahead. It’s probably the fifth book by Tuvia Tenenbom that I’ve read. Each one has been a very informative read.
Tuvia is an expat Israeli born to a Yiddish-speaking rabbinical family in Bnei Brak, Israel’s largest majority ultra-Orthodox city. He has lived in Germany, the US, and elsewhere for many decades, working as a journalist and author. Holding multiple academic degrees and speaking several languages, Tuvia is also a playwright, essayist, and the founding artistic director of the Jewish Theater of New York.
Tuvia has a very idiosyncratic, satirical writing style. It takes time to get used to it when beginning any one of his books, even after having read several. Tuvia’s unthreatening appearance and talkativeness has led to his success describing Jews and their place in society in countries such as Germany, the UK, Ireland, the US, and Israel. Tuvia’s sardonic personality belies his cherubic appearance, and the reader is soon caught up in Tuvia’s droll reporting of mundane encounters with people all around the world.
Tuvia’s latest book, subtitled “My year with the Ultra-Orthodox,” features Israel’s Haredim from Jerusalem and also his hometown, Bnei Brak. Tuvia makes good use of his childhood Yiddish. That homely language was often his entree into the Ultra-Orthodox world. What comes through loud and clear is Tuvia’s affection for these Jews (some of whom refuse Israeli citizenship until the Messiah comes) and his befuddlement with their often-blind adherence to the pronouncements of their sect’s spiritual leaders (the Rebbes). “Go figure” is often Tuvia’s conclusion after listening to a follower explaining his beliefs as commanded by his particular Rebbe.
Tuvia greatly admires many aspects of Hasidic life in Jerusalem. For him, the young families with many children are all impeccably dressed, eat the most delicious food (Tuvia never turns down an offer of food), are the most beautiful, and the most generous in sharing what they have, especially in Jerusalem. Some of the various sects wear archaic clothing based on the locale from which the first of their Rebbes originated.
Some of the topics Tuvia emphasizes in the book are the “spilling of seed,” referring to sexual profligacy by unmarried men; the forbidden looking at women (even your wife); the Secret of One, men and women combined and the living and the dead combined; various methods to find your all-important mate; the great desire of many younger Haredim to engage with the world beyond Mea Sha’arim (the major Haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem); and many other topics.
Tuvia’s book expresses his ambivalent feeling of his “body” leaving the Haredi world while his “soul” remains there. Near the end of the book, there’s a section on Haredim who no longer believe, but fear the consequences of breaking away from their family’s life in the sect. For the first time Tuvia observes what it means to leave a community and what it means to divorce yourself from a community. He feels the angst of those who would like to disavow their Ultra-Orthodoxy, but can’t or don’t. The men and women can leave it spiritually but are forced to hide their feelings because they would become outcasts to their entire community. Not only that, their entire family would suffer the harmful consequences of such an action, most likely banishment.
Tuvia says: I left that world, but the Haredi Jew deep in me never left. “The Jew in me is solid.” Tuvia, the cosmopolitan, modern Jew, feels that Haredim are his family despite his obviously different lifestyle choices.
Careful, Beauties Ahead is available for purchase on the publisher’s website, on Amazon, and in bookstores.
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Steve Kramer is a freelance writer based in Kfar Saba, Israel.