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d38850e
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To the contrary, he knew the ascetic beauty of such a way of being. He lived every moment mindful of the 613 commandments of the Torah. It was natural to him to separate the milk from the meat, to refrain from labor on the Sabbath, to abide by the laws of family purity in his relations with his wife. The disciplines of that monthly abstinence had only sharpened desire and sweetened their reunion. But to be without a wife entirely...that, to..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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090a6eb
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Aryeh looked, and his head became light. How could he have not seen? The earth on which the Almighty created the plants and the animals--in each and every illumination, it was shown as an orb. That the earth was round, and not flat, was now the opinion of a majority of theologians. Interesting that this artist of a century earlier, when Christians were being sent to the stake for this belief, espoused it. But that, alone, would not condemn ..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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3b96077
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Well, from what you've told me, the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You've got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything's humming along: creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize 'the other'--it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists...same old, sam..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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9f586c4
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But now I could not gainsay the images of him, his silvered hair stained with blood and pale gray tissue, a bubble of crimsoned spittle forming on his lips as he tried to mouth the words of his last prayer. His eyes, his desperate eyes, searching my face as the Berber held me, the arm across my throat hard and wide as a tree branch. Somehow, I struggled free of that grip just long enough to shout the words for my father, the words that he n..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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4aff529
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The angels enter not into a house where there is a dog or a likeness'--are those not the words of our Prophet?
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Geraldine Brooks |
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29ca065
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For a start, most books like this, rich in such expensive pigments, had been made for palaces or cathedrals. But a haggadah is used only at home. The word is from the Hebrew root ngd, "to tell," and it comes from the biblical command that instructs parents to tell their children the story of the Exodus. This "telling" varies widely, and over the centuries each Jewish community has developed its own variations on this home-based celebration...
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Geraldine Brooks |
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812962e
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What was it Dante wrote, about the pope who abdicated his throne to become a contemplative and yet is condemned to one of the lowest circles of hell? Something about being punished for having turned his back on a great opportunity to do good in the world.... And ever since the prince's shocking death, Vienna had been in almost imperceptible decline--a decline of mood rather than matter. But with no liberal face left in the Hofburg to stare ..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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3fab1e7
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Who would have thought that a single suicide--or a double suicide, more properly--could put an entire city in a sour temper? Vienna valued its suicides, especially those that were dramatic, conducted with some flourish--like the young woman who had decked herself in full bridal regalia before flinging herself from a speeding train, or the circus artist who, in the midst of his performance, had cast away his pole and leaped from the high wir..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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22e2764
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Suicide and sexual diseases. Two great killers of the Viennese, from the highest born to the lowest.
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Geraldine Brooks |
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b519038
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A sofer must fill his mind with only the holy letters. He could not be distracted by daily things. "Leshem ketivah haggadah shel Pesach," he whispered to himself again, trying to quiet his mind. His hand formed the letter shin-- the letter of reason. What reason could there be in this constant fighting with the Moors? Had not the Muslims, Jews, and Christians shared these lands in contentment--in convivencia--for hundreds of years? What was..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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7478068
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This is the cathedral. Neo-Gothic. They had midnight Mass there last Christmas, but they held it at noon because, of course, no one went out at night at that time unless they were suicidal. On its left you see the synagogue and the mosque. On the right the Orthodox church. All the places where none of us go to worship, situated within a very convenient hundred meters of one another.
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Geraldine Brooks |
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d03d562
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who they were, or how they worked. That's how I add my few grains to the sandbox of human knowledge. It's what I love best about what I do. And there were so many
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Geraldine Brooks |
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132db29
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It was a lengthy text, setting out the perfidies of the Jews and the insufficiency of measures so far taken to stop their corruption of Christian belief. "Therefore we command...all Jews and Jewesses, of whatever age they may be, that live, reside, and dwell in our said kingdoms and dominions...by the end of the month of July next, of the present year 1492, they depart from our said kingdoms...and that they not presume to return to, or resi..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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4c96114
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When the sun had set and darkness sheltered her from the eyes of the curious, Ruth Ben Shoushan walked into the sea, the nameless infant tight against her breast, until she stood waist-deep. She unwrapped him, throwing the swaddling cloth over her head. His brown eyes blinked at her, and his small fists, free of constriction, punched at the air. "Sorry, my little one," she said gently, and then thrust him under the dark surface. The water c..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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0b166b5
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Every Jew, and every converso, knew that the Inquisition was as much about filling the royal purse as purifying the Spanish church. For payment of a rapacious fine, most prisoners could walk--or hobble, or be borne on a litter, depending on how long they had been held--from the doors of the Casa Santa.
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Geraldine Brooks |
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e7506f5
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The king and queen are preparing an expulsion order--" David sucked in his breath. "Yes, even as we have feared. They have taken the capitulation of Granada as a sign of divine will that Spain be a Christian country. It is, then, their intention to thank God for their victory by declaring Spain a land where no Jew may remain. The choice is to convert, or depart. They have hatched this plan in secret, but finally the queen has confided it to..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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d36a007
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All women's lives are like that, I told myself, as I climbed the stair that led to the better-appointed rooms of the king's house. Which of them ever is mistress of her own destiny? Highborn or peasant, it makes no difference. At least David hadn't had her flogged or killed, as another king might have done. But now that I had heard the tale of her life in her own words, my heart ached for her.
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Geraldine Brooks |
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4f468a6
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art
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Geraldine Brooks |
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3bf638d
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I pushed the thought away. Doubt was like rot. Excise it at the first speckling, the first stain, the first faint stench of decay. But then--I suppose because my mind was on the wine--I thought of that other kind of rot, the soft gray fungus that sometimes afflicts the late grape harvest if the air turns unexpectedly moist. That rot causes the grapes to yield up a heavy, viscous juice of stupendously rich flavor. The wine pressed from such ..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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56124a5
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Let's go then," I whispered. "Let's go and live, since we have no choice in it."
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Geraldine Brooks |
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f34f5a7
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Another general would have let them go and been glad of it. But he saw that if they secured that high ground they might regroup and come at us again, this time with their archers positioned to advantage. So he called us to ranks with a curdling cry. I glimpsed his face through the crowd of men. It was bloodied, dirt-streaked, avid. Then he turned, fist to the sky, and sprinted. He set the pace for the fleetest of his runners, youths who cou..
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Geraldine Brooks |
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06de716
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A canoe paddle is animate, because it causes something else to move. Even a humble onion has, in their view, a soul, since it causes action--pulling tears from the eyes.
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Geraldine Brooks |
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0c08371
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She beckoned me to follow her, and we passed from the portico into rooms whose magnificence has stolen the words from the mouths of the poets.
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Geraldine Brooks |
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2628fde
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Well, you must rest, later. You need to be refreshed to greet the Bride Shabbat." She smiled. For a husband and wife to make love on the Sabbath was a commandment, and it was one requirement of the faith that both of them observed with joy."
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Geraldine Brooks |
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424f70c
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Do not mind my rough old tongue. I have grown too bent with age for any further bowing.
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Geraldine Brooks |