Free Boogaloo On 2nd Avenue by Mark Kurlansky Page B

eventually, though always a little late, teasing the deadline of official sundown. The tenth man was Nusan, whose lateness was intended to make clear his stand on religion. The older he got, the more Nusan, who no longer believed in God, resembled a Talmudic scholar. He was devout about not believing in God.
    But he did keep his head covered with the same dusty brown felt hat all year. Added to that was a maroon scarf that almost passed for a prayer shawl. It was strange to wear such a scarf in the summertime, except that Nusan wore the same clothes all year. He refused to acknowledge the seasons, as though even this would be too much homage to God. He always wore the same dark gray wool suit. It was certainly wool because he had never cut the white embroidered label off the sleeve that asserted "100% pure wool."
    In the spring of 1985, Nusan had had a heart attack, which had left him with the habit of rocking back and forth impatiently Was it a problem of balance or some inner impatience with his weakened state? He had collapsed during a Passover seder, which he had explained he was "going to but not attending." Taken to Beth Israel Hospital, he was told that he had suffered a heart attack. In fact, the doctors discovered that there had been others. Just one more thing that he had suffered alone and would not talk about. And he began this rocking.
    Whatever the reason, Nusan the atheist was frequently seen with his head covered, a scarf around his neck, rocking back and forth in the manner of a devout Jewish prayer—davening. He, of course, insisted that he was not davening. "Davening," he often sneered, "is God's one truth. You should be ready to duck at all times."
    All he was missing was the beard, which was the subject of the longest-running family joke. Ruth used to say "Beser a yid on a bord, vi a bord on a yid," which literally meant "Better a Jew without a beard than a beard without a Jew." But Nathan and Mordy liked saying, "A Jew without a board is better than a board without a Jew," and eventually, "A Jew without a board is better than a bored Jew," which became the family motto on religious practice.
    It was possible that Nusan truly had no religious feelings, that he completed the minyan out of friendship with Rabbi Litvak, who was his age and had a similar tattoo on his arm, though he had never explained it. Actually, not much was known about Nusan's tattoo, either. He never talked about what had happened or which camps he had been in. He rarely showed his forearm. There was no day too hot for a jacket. Sometimes he would have bad days, angry days, and on those days his forearm was made visible. When Nusan showed his tattoo, the family knew to be careful with him.
    On this Friday, only seven men arrived; they found the eighth buying a Korean challah, and when Nusan arrived it made nine. This was the consequence of the killing of Eli Rabbinowitz. They couldn't even say kaddish for him without one more. "They are killing us, one by one," Yankel Fink said glumly, and Nusan snickered for reasons known only to him. Jack Bialy—whose real name was Jack Kimmelman but whom everyone called Jack Bialy because he made them in his factory on Grand Street and his black shoes always had a fine dusting of flour— protested, "What do you mean by 'they'?"
    "They, they] The ones that killed poor Rabbinowitz, may there be no unions where he now rests in peace," said Yankel Fink.
    "Who killed him? What do you mean by they'?" Jack Bialy insisted.
    Yankel reached his hand up to heaven for assistance in his argument. "Rabbinowitz is dead, we have no minyan, and big deal Mr. Socialist wants to lecture."
    "What does Socialism have to do with this?" Jack Bialy argued.
    Though it might not seem apparent to an outsider, Nathan, blocks away, would have known where this argument would lead. Nusan said, "We can get my nephew."
    Yonah Kirchbaum, who sold Judaica on Avenue B in a little store full of mezuzahs and menorahs from Israel that