Fellow faculty...

I forgot -

When I had new faculty orientation at the art school I'm teaching at, there was a luncheon presentation, and I was at a table with a handful of other adjunct faculty members who were teaching for the 1st time.

To strike up conversation, I asked them what they taught.

One, a well-dressed lady in black who was in her mid-30s, was like, "Comparative architecture," and then briefly talked about the 3 American cities she was treating.

Another, a balding Mexican guy in his mid-30s who was wearing a tie-dye hoodie, was like, "Graffiti."

The last, a younger (white) woman in a black beret and a bulky rough-woven grayish lavender wool sweater, was like, "Fiber."

Life among the Hasidic Jews of Williamsburg (4 of 4): A Friend’s Wedding Night.

From Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (2012; p. 174-175):

[My childhood friend Golda, who coincidentally moved into the same apartment building,] invites me over for coffee after her husband leaves for shul in the morning.  Like all newly married women, we fuss over her dishes and linens and pore through her wedding album.  She takes me into the bedroom to show me her gorgeous mahogany bedroom set, with its brooding armoire and stodgy dresser.  The small room is dwarfed by all that furniture.

She sits down on one of the beds, smoothing the coverlet with a slim, graceful hand.  She looks up at me, her face pained.

“You should have seen the night of the wedding,” she whispers.  “There was so – so much blood.”  Her voice cracks on the second sentence...

“There was blood everywhere – on the bed, on the walls.  I had to go to the hospital.”  Her face creases suddenly and I think she is going to cry, but she takes a deep breath and smiles bravely.  “He went into the wrong place.  It ruptured my colon.  Oh, Devoireh, you can’t imagine the pain.  It was so bad!”

I’m flabbergasted...  How exactly do you rupture a colon?

“You know,” she hurried to explain, “they tell them in marriage classes to go really fast, before they lose their nerve, before we get too scared.  So he just pushed, you know?  But in the wrong spot.  How was he to know?  Even I wasn’t really sure where the right spot was.”

“How are you feeling now?” I ask, deeply moved by her story.

“Oh, I’m fine now!”  She smiles widely, but her eyes don’t crinkle the way they used to, and her dimple barely flashes.  “My husband’s going to be back any minute, so you should probably go.”  Suddenly she’s in a rush to ferry me out the door, as if she is afraid to be caught in conversation with a neighbor.

Back in my apartment, I go into the bathroom and close the door.  I sob into a towel for twenty minutes straight.  Where is Golda’s family, I want to know, in all of this?  Why hasn’t somebody, after all these years, after all these mistakes, decided to take a stand?

. . .

Life among the Hasidic Jews of Williamsburg (3 of 4): The Week or So After the Wedding.

From Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (2012; p. 172):

The days after the wedding, which should be the happiest of my life, become consumed by the effort to consummate my marriage.  But as each effort results in failure, [my husband] Eli becomes more and more anxious, and as a result, his family exerts more and more pressure on us to be finished with it.  By the third try, Eli can no longer muster any eagerness from his own body, and I cannot submit to something that isn’t there...

In yeshiva, Eli says, the boys would jerk each other off.  Because there were only men around and no girls, the sight of a boy could get him aroused.  After many years, he explains with a sigh, to switch suddenly is weird.  “I don’t even know if I should be attracted to you.  I didn’t even have an idea of what a girl looked like before I saw you.”

I’m suddenly horribly self-conscious.  I took for granted that he would be excited at the mere glimpse of me.  But now I see my body through his eyes – foreign, mysterious, and confusing.

. . .

Life among the Hasidic Jews of Williamsburg (2 of 4): The Morning After.

From Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (2012; pp. 168-171):

When I open my eyes in the morning, the sun is shining weakly through the window blinds and the air conditioner is whirring sluggishly against the humid August air...

[My husband] Eli dresses quickly and grabs his tefillin just as his father knocks on the door...  It’s time for morning prayers...

In a minute [my aunt] Chaya is here with the electric razor [to shave my head in accordance with community rituals]...

I hear footsteps in the hall.  I think it’s Eli, but it’s my mother-in-law, lips pursed, hands folded in front of her, glancing away from the peephole...

I offer Eli’s mother coffee, tea, any excuse to use my new dishes, and when she politely refuses, I insist on arranging chocolates prettily on a silver dish.

“So how’d it go?” she asks.

I smile but I’m politely confused...  I murmur vaguely and indistinctly, “Oh, fine,” and wave away her question like an annoying fly...

My mother-in-law’s face draws tighter and she takes her hands off the tablecloth.  “My husband tells me it wasn’t finished.”

I’m speechless...

The door opens before I can say anything, and Eli and his father are at the door.  My mother-in-law stands up and reaches forward to air-kiss me good-bye.  I don’t lean in toward her, and she leaves with her husband, shutting the door behind her.  My eyes are on Eli, but his eyes are downcast...

“What happened?” I ask Eli.  “What did you tell your father?”

He cringes at the urgency in my tone.  “I didn’t tell him anything; he asked me!” he protests quickly...

I’m panicking now, thinking of the possibilities... of the way gossip travels like lighting in my world...

Eli interjects, a pained look on his face.  “It’ll be fine.  My father says we’ll just have to do it tonight.  We’ll get it done, and once it’s done, no one will be able to say anything.  We’ll try to leave the minute the 'sheva berachos' is over, so we won’t be too tired...”

. . .

Life among the Hasidic Jews of Williamsburg (1 of 4): Wedding Night.

From Deborah Feldman’s Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots (2012; pp. 167-168):

“You can take a shower now,” I call into the dark of the apartment.  [My husband] Eli is in the kitchen, still dressed, uncorking a bottle of cheap kosher champagne.  “Your favorite.  [Your aunt] Chaya told me,” he says.  I smile quickly.  I don’t really like any wine at all.

As he showers, I go to the bedroom with my champagne flute in hand and set it down on the nightstand.  My mother-in-law has already laid out layers of cheap towels over one of the beds, and there is a bottle of K-Y jelly as well.  I put on a long white nightgown.

I sit down on the bed next to the nightstand and pop open the bottle of K-Y, squeezing a pea-sized blob onto my fingers curiously.  It’s surprisingly cold and viscous.  Carefully, I lie down on the bed so that my hips are on the towels and reach down to anoint myself gingerly with the clear, cold jelly.  I don’t want to get the new linen dirty.  It’s very dark, until Eli opens the bathroom door and light pours faintly into the apartment.  He comes into the bedroom wearing a towel wrapped around his waist, and the outlines of his body are strange and new.  He smiles uncomfortably before squatting on top of me like his teacher said, letting the towel roll off.  I still can’t see much.  I ease my knees apart and he moves closer, adjusting his weight on his palms.  I feel something hard nudge my inner thigh.  It feels bigger than I expected it to.  He looks at me anxiously in the darkness.  He’s nudging everywhere, waiting for some sort of direction from me, I think, but what do I know?  This is as much a mystery to me as to him.

Finally he pokes, I think, in the right area, and I lift up to meet him and wait for the obligatory thrust and the deposit.  Nothing happens.  He pushes and pushes, grunts with the effort, but nothing seems to give way.  And in fact, I can’t see what should.  What is expected to happen here? 

After a while he gives up and rolls over to one side, his back to me.  I lie there for a few moments peering up at the dark ceiling before I turn to nudge him slightly.  “Are you okay?” I ask. 

“Yes.  I’m just very tired,” he murmurs.

Soon I can hear him snoring lightly...

. . .