On Christmas Eve 1999, all the Jews in the world die in a strange, millennial plague, with the exception of the firstborn males, who are soon adopted by a cabal of powerful people in the American government. By the following Passover, however, only one is still alive: Benjamin Israelien; a kindly, innocent, ignorant man-child. As he finds himself transformed into an international superstar, Jewishness becomes all the rage: matzo-ball soup is in every bowl, sidelocks are hip; and the only truly Jewish Jew left is increasingly stigmatized for not being religious. Since his very existence exposes the illegitimacy of the newly converted, Israelien becomes the object of a worldwide hunt. .Meanwhile, in the not-too-distant future of our own, "real" world, another last Jew — the last living Holocaust survivor — sits alone in a snowbound Manhattan, providing a final melancholy witness to his experiences in the form of the punch lines to half-remembered jokes.
In one of our many pious books, we are told the following:
One should not stack books of a lesser holiness atop books of a greater holiness.
Tellingly, in another one of our pious books this dictum is turned on its head — in a story:
A rabbi stacked a book of the Talmud atop a book of the Torah. Another asked him, Why are you doing that? And the rabbi answered him, In order to preserve the book of the Torah, because by covering it with this I will save it from the dust and the ashes that might fall upon it.
Regardless of which one follows, the book you are holding now should, when stacked, always be placed in the middle.
This book you are about to read contains no holy words or letters, neither words nor letters in the Holy Tongue, and nowhere within it are mentioned any of the many names of God.
Therefore, this book may be ripped or torn, burnt, otherwise destroyed, and whatever remains require(s) no burial.
“ ”
DEADICATED
to mine enemies,
without whom none of this would have been possible
and Thy write hand shall save me…
Witz:
being, in Yiddish, a joke;
and, as the ending of certain names,
also meaning son of:
e. g. Abramowitz,
meaning son-of-Abram
(also found as — wic, — wich, — wics, — wicz, — witch, — wits, — wyc, — wych, — wycz, — vic, — vich, — vics, — vicz, — vitch, — vits, — vitz, — vyc, — vych, and — vycz).
IN THE BEGINNING, THEY ARE LATE.
Now it stands empty, a void.
Darkness about to deepen the far fire outside.
A synagogue, not yet destroyed. A survivor. Who isn’t?
Now, it’s empty. A stomach, a shell, a last train station after the last train left to the last border of the last country on the last night of the last world; a hull, a husk — a synagogue, a shul.
Mincha to be prayed at sundown, Ma’ariv at dark.
Why this lateness?
He says reasons and she says excuses.
And so let there be reasons and excuses.
And there were.
A last boat out, why didn’t they catch it? They didn’t have their papers? their papers weren’t in order?
He says excuses and she says reasons.
And so let there be excuses and reasons.
And there were, if belated.
Misses Singer strokes her husband’s scar as if to calm him. But what she calls a scar he knows is his mouth.
Late because they’re stuck in one exilic fantasy or another; late because the adventure of ingathering doesn’t seem all on the up and up; late because they’re owed payments, and you’re goddamned right they’re going to collect…what’s yours? I’m just waiting for this one deal of a lifetime to come through, and, when it does, God! the moment it does, you’d better believe I’m out of here…
Singer stops, stoops to pick up a shoe, sized wide, fallen from his withered foot last step.
