to speak like that?! [ to all. ] Under my roof, she got a letter from a soldier. An envelope from the army came to the house of the ADMOR !
CHANA : [ dripping with sarcasm. ] God save us! With an official army stamp which proved—beyond a reasonable doubt—that Chana had committed a mortal sin. Who cared that inside the envelope was a scientific paper? Or that it was from a soldier who started to speak to me on a train to Haifa because he’d never in his life spoken to a religious girl before? When I told him I was interested in science too, that I was reading books underneath my blanket at night because the ADMOR —your husband—didn’t approve of secular studies for girls.
GITTE LEAH : Profanity, that’s what you brought into the house of the saintly ADMOR . Filth.
CHANA : [ patiently. ]—the soldier told me he was working on a project to turn salt water into drinking water, and offered to send me his paper on the subject…
GITTE LEAH : When a woman opens her mind, a lot of garbage gets thrown in….
CHANA : You can’t really believe that, Gitte Leah. You’re just jealous that I had the courage to use the brain that the Holy One, Blessed be He, gave me.
GITTE LEAH : Did you want my husband—the ADMOR —to find the letter? Was that it? You knew how he made my life hell with all his stringencies. Did you want to ruin my marriage completely?
CHANA : All you had to do was ask me. Instead, you started screaming and ran off with the envelope to Madame…. [ to everyone. ] who immediately called a meeting of the family council of geniuses and holy men…. And they decided that there was nothing left to do but marry the sinner off—and fast. So, after I refused my sister’s hairy fat candidate, Madame dredged up a hairless skinny one, with pale clammy skin and a wispy beard, that knew all about the world from what he read in the Kosher Food Bulletin, if he read at all…
FRUME : [ entering the circle, turning alternately to CHANA and the WOMEN .] Ah, so the sought-after prize of Meah Shearim said no. The matchmakers’ dream girl refused. The whole family was wrong, the whole ultra-Orthodox world was wrong, only she was right. Just like now. Leaving her husband and children is only her latest sin….
GITTE LEAH : Don’t overstrain yourself, Mother.
FRUME : You don’t know what it was like to raise such a rebellious child! [ to CHANA ] Tell them, everything, from the beginning, the whole truth: How you were wild and full of chutzpah ; how you did everything that came into your head. Tell them how you lied right and left, tell them how you stole!
ETA and TOVAH : [ shocked. ] A thief? A ganeveta? (thief) May God watch over us!
CHANA : [ sadly ironic .] Yes, I admit it. I stole. [ beat. ] A handful of raisins from a jar that Madame kept on a shelf above my bed, specially for Gitte Leah, her favorite.
GITTE LEAH : It wasn’t only my raisins—
CHANA : Still the same sniveling, sanctimonious tattletale…! Yes, I admit it. I also stole money from Madame’s purse. Some pennies to buy lollipops. I was four and already corrupt…
[ Reactions: Thou shall not steal ]
—and Madame caught me and did what she knew how to do best: take out my father’s belt and deliver a few lashes on my behind, and a few on my back, and a few on my small legs that were trying to run away. She beat and beat and beat, until the “thief” fainted.
CHANA collapses. ZEHAVA hurries to help her.
SHAINE RUTH : Ima , Ima [ BLUMA checks her .]
FRUME : “He who spares the rod, hates his child.” My own mother threw me into an orphanage when she was widowed, but I put my whole life into this child. To change her from a weakwilled thief into a strong, honest, decent…. But in the end it was no use. Just like my own mother, she also threw away her children because she thought only of herself…. [ to CHANA .] A child is not a suitcase that you leave behind
CHANA : [ dripping with sarcasm. ] God save us! With an official army stamp which proved—beyond a reasonable doubt—that Chana had committed a mortal sin. Who cared that inside the envelope was a scientific paper? Or that it was from a soldier who started to speak to me on a train to Haifa because he’d never in his life spoken to a religious girl before? When I told him I was interested in science too, that I was reading books underneath my blanket at night because the ADMOR —your husband—didn’t approve of secular studies for girls.
GITTE LEAH : Profanity, that’s what you brought into the house of the saintly ADMOR . Filth.
CHANA : [ patiently. ]—the soldier told me he was working on a project to turn salt water into drinking water, and offered to send me his paper on the subject…
GITTE LEAH : When a woman opens her mind, a lot of garbage gets thrown in….
CHANA : You can’t really believe that, Gitte Leah. You’re just jealous that I had the courage to use the brain that the Holy One, Blessed be He, gave me.
GITTE LEAH : Did you want my husband—the ADMOR —to find the letter? Was that it? You knew how he made my life hell with all his stringencies. Did you want to ruin my marriage completely?
CHANA : All you had to do was ask me. Instead, you started screaming and ran off with the envelope to Madame…. [ to everyone. ] who immediately called a meeting of the family council of geniuses and holy men…. And they decided that there was nothing left to do but marry the sinner off—and fast. So, after I refused my sister’s hairy fat candidate, Madame dredged up a hairless skinny one, with pale clammy skin and a wispy beard, that knew all about the world from what he read in the Kosher Food Bulletin, if he read at all…
FRUME : [ entering the circle, turning alternately to CHANA and the WOMEN .] Ah, so the sought-after prize of Meah Shearim said no. The matchmakers’ dream girl refused. The whole family was wrong, the whole ultra-Orthodox world was wrong, only she was right. Just like now. Leaving her husband and children is only her latest sin….
GITTE LEAH : Don’t overstrain yourself, Mother.
FRUME : You don’t know what it was like to raise such a rebellious child! [ to CHANA ] Tell them, everything, from the beginning, the whole truth: How you were wild and full of chutzpah ; how you did everything that came into your head. Tell them how you lied right and left, tell them how you stole!
ETA and TOVAH : [ shocked. ] A thief? A ganeveta? (thief) May God watch over us!
CHANA : [ sadly ironic .] Yes, I admit it. I stole. [ beat. ] A handful of raisins from a jar that Madame kept on a shelf above my bed, specially for Gitte Leah, her favorite.
GITTE LEAH : It wasn’t only my raisins—
CHANA : Still the same sniveling, sanctimonious tattletale…! Yes, I admit it. I also stole money from Madame’s purse. Some pennies to buy lollipops. I was four and already corrupt…
[ Reactions: Thou shall not steal ]
—and Madame caught me and did what she knew how to do best: take out my father’s belt and deliver a few lashes on my behind, and a few on my back, and a few on my small legs that were trying to run away. She beat and beat and beat, until the “thief” fainted.
CHANA collapses. ZEHAVA hurries to help her.
SHAINE RUTH : Ima , Ima [ BLUMA checks her .]
FRUME : “He who spares the rod, hates his child.” My own mother threw me into an orphanage when she was widowed, but I put my whole life into this child. To change her from a weakwilled thief into a strong, honest, decent…. But in the end it was no use. Just like my own mother, she also threw away her children because she thought only of herself…. [ to CHANA .] A child is not a suitcase that you leave behind
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