Universal Dependencies - English - LinES

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Security measures are strict on flights to Israel, the bags are searched, the men are frisked, and the women have an electronic hoop passed over them, fore-and-aft.

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Then hand luggage is opened.

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No one is very patient.

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Visibility in the queue is poor because of the many Hasidim with their broad hats and beards and sidelocks and dangling fringes who have descended on Heathrow and are far too restless to wait in line but rush in and out, gesticulating, exclaiming.

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The corridors are jumping with them.

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Some two hundred Hasidim are flying to Israel to attend the circumcision of the firstborn son of their spiritual leader, the Belzer Rabbi.

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Entering the 747, my wife, Alexandra, and I are enfiladed by eyes that lie dark in hairy ambush.

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To me there is nothing foreign in these hats, side-locks, and fringes.

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It is my childhood revisited.

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At the age of six, I myself wore a tallith katan, or scapular, under my shirt, only mine was a scrap of green calico print, whereas theirs are white linen.

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God instructed Moses to speak to the children of Israel and to 'bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments.'

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So they are still wearing them some four thousand years later.

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We find our seats, two in a row of three, toward the rear of the aircraft.

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'Do you speak Yiddish?' he says.

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'Yes, certainly.'

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'I can not be next to your wife.

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Please sit between us.

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Be so good,' he says.

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'Of course.'

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I take the middle seat, which I dislike, but I am not really put out.

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Curious, rather.

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Our Hasid is in his late twenties.

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He is pimply, his neck is thin, his blue eyes goggle, his underlip extrudes.

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He does not keep a civilized face.

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Thoughts and impulses other than civilized fill it by no means inferior impulses and thoughts.

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And though he is not permitted to sit beside women unrelated to him or to look at them or to communicate with them in any manner (all of which probably saves him a great deal of trouble), he seems a good-hearted young man and he is visibly enjoying himself.

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All the Hasidim are vividly enjoying themselves, dodging through the aisles, visiting chattering standing impatiently in the long lavatory lines, amiable, busy as geese.

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They pay no attention to signs.

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Don't they understand English?

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The stewardesses are furious with them.

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I ask one of the hostesses when I may expect to receive a drink and she cries out in irritation, 'Back to your seat! '

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She says this in so ringing a voice that I retreat.

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Not so the merry-minded Hasidim, exulting everywhere.

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The orders given by these young gentile uniformed females are nothing to them.

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To them they are merely attendants, exotic bediener, all but bodyless.

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Anticipating a difficulty, I ask the stewardess to serve me a kosher lunch.

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'I can't do that, we haven't enough for them,' she says.

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'We weren't prepared.'

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Her big British eyes are affronted and her bosom has risen with indignation.

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'We've got to go out of our way to Rome for more of their special meals.'

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Amused, my wife asks why I ordered the kosher lunch.

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'Because when they bring my chicken dinner this kid with the beard will be in a state,' I explain.

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And so he is.

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The British Airways chicken with the chill of death upon it lies before me.

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But after three hours of security exercises at Heathrow I am hungry.

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The young Hasid recoils when the tray is handed to me.

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He addresses me again in Yiddish.

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He says, 'I must talk to you.

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You won't be offended?'

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'No, I don't think so.'

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'You may want to give me a slap in the face.'

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'Why should I?'

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'You are a Jew.

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You must be a Jew, we are speaking Yiddish.

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How can you eat that! '

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'It looks awful, doesn't it?'

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'You mustn't touch it.

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My womenfolk packed kosher-beef sandwiches for me.

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Is your wife Jewish?'

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Here I'm obliged to lie.

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Alexandra is Rumanian.

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But I can't give him too many shocks at once, and I say, 'She has not had a Jewish upbringing.'

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'She doesn't speak Yiddish?'

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'Not a word.

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But excuse me, I want my lunch.'

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'Will you eat some of my kosher food instead, as a favor?'

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'With pleasure.'

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'Then I will give you a sandwich, but only on one condition.

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You must never never eat trephena food again.'

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'I can't promise you that.

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You're asking too much.

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And just for one sandwich.'

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'I have a duty toward you,' he tells me.

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'Will you listen to a proposition?'

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'Of course I will.'

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'So let us make a deal.

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I am prepared to pay you.

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If you will eat nothing but kosher food, for the rest of your life I will send you fifteen dollars a week.'

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'That's very generous,' I say.

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'Well, you are a Jew,' he says.

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'I must try to save you.'

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'How do you earn your living?'

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'In a Hasidic sweater factory in New Jersey.

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We are all Hasidim there.

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The boss is a Hasid.

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I came from Israel five years ago to be married in New Jersey.

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My rabbi is in Jerusalem.'

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'How is it that you don't know English?'

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'What do I need English for?

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So, I am asking, will you take my fifteen dollars?'

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'Kosher food is far more expensive than other kinds,' I say.

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'Fifteen dollars isn't nearly enough.'

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'I can go as far as twenty-five.'

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'I can't accept such a sacrifice from you.'

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Shrugging, he gives up and I turn to the twice disagreeable chicken and eat guiltily, my appetite spoiled.

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The young Hasid opens his prayer book.

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'He's so fervent,' says my wife.

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'I wonder if he's praying for you.'

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She smiles at my discomfiture.

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As soon as the trays are removed, the Hasidim block the aisles with their Minchah service, rocking themselves and stretching their necks upward.