"Mr. Ishida's Bookstore" by timschochet- starts post #181 (1 Viewer)

[oneohh]

Started.Then stopped.It's not fiction. It's an essay. Show, don't tell.

 

[Frostillicus]

Can you get BradyFan83 to put it into song format?

 

[Frostillicus]

I think golddigger, MasterofOrion, Konotay, and Power Monster should team up and write a book.

 

[Running with scissors]

Goldsteins

I think you should try harder here. Then do a Find\Replace.Did I miss you talking about self-publishing? Or maybe for drawing attention to something else, like this guy?

The name had to be a very common Jewish surname; that's actually central to the later plotline.

how about self publishing? or even giving it away free in the name of a cause you believe in?

self-publishing is worth exploring.

Self / e-publishing is pretty darn cheap in my limited understanding.

 

[JerseyToughGuys]

Send it to George Takei

 

[Mr. Pickles]

Is the heroine's name Dagny?

And another for Rand's salacious sex scenes in Shrugged. What a repressed troll that woman was.

 

[Hellfire Snail]

Is the heroine's name Dagny?

And another for Rand's salacious sex scenes in Shrugged. What a repressed troll that woman was.

As for the novel, the show-don't-tell remark definitely applies. Opening is too dry.

 

[timschochet]

Any other comments? Should I bother continuing tommorow?

 

[Johnny Rock]

I'll take a copy. Will you email it to me or through an ftp site?

No. I'm done emailing it to people. Nobody ever takes the time to read it. If I post it here, in parts, somebody may well read part of it, if only in order to mock me.

Whatever. With all due respect to the Kindle, nobody's going to read a 500 page unpublished book one chapter at a time posted intermittently over an undetermined timeframe amongst random mock replies in a lookatme thread on a fantasy football-themed internet message board.

/thread

My cousin is Acquisitions Editor at McGraw-Hill. Since you're cool about it I'll send her over to FBG to check out the manuscript.

 

[TheWalkmen]

Any other comments? Should I bother continuing tommorow?

 

[timschochet]

I'll take a copy. Will you email it to me or through an ftp site?

No. I'm done emailing it to people. Nobody ever takes the time to read it. If I post it here, in parts, somebody may well read part of it, if only in order to mock me.

Whatever. With all due respect to the Kindle, nobody's going to read a 500 page unpublished book one chapter at a time posted intermittently over an undetermined timeframe amongst random mock replies in a lookatme thread on a fantasy football-themed internet message board.

/thread

My cousin is Acquisitions Editor at McGraw-Hill. Since you're cool about it I'll send her over to FBG to check out the manuscript.

That would be awesome! Of course, if the critics are right, it's not good enough to publish. But you never can tell; maybe she give some constructive criticism at least. I'' go ahead and post some tommorow.

 

[St. Louis Bob]

I remember when my wife tricked me into watching The Cider House Rules.

I thought it was a college flick that would have a bunch of naked chicks in it. You know, the Cider House rules!!!!1!

 

[Gianni Verscotchie]

Any other comments? Should I bother continuing tommorow?

I'd rather beet off with a cheese grater

 

[timschochet]

Any other comments? Should I bother continuing tommorow?

I'd rather beet off with a cheese grater

I'll take that as a yes?

 

[wikkidpissah]

I read the first few chapters of the earlier (which introduced me to the three families in pre-war LA) novel several mths ago and a reader can definitely find worse ways to spend his time than this. If i remember correctly, i had a quibble about a major conceptual problem, but i really liked the style and way that timmy captured that era. How multiculturalism got and gets dealt with is a worthy theme and, when he doesnt force things, timmy writes well enough to have a cover wrapped around a manuscript one day. wikkid say check it -

 

[The Duff Man]

Here is some constructive criticism from someone who has been planning to write for a long time but has never started (ie I have no idea what I am talking about)

One word of advice I remember reading is that your opening needs to engage the reader, which I don't think yours does. I seem to recall a comment that agents get thousands of things sent to them and will read just the beginning before deciding to go on. This comment could be badly outdated for all I know, but it seems to make some sense.

Your first paragraph is very dry. I actually stopped reading before reaching the end the first time I looked at it, then came back to it later and read the rest of the paragraph which was better. Too much narrative description about a guy that the reader hasn't engaged with yet. Why do I care about this guy enough to read all these details about him?

Consider opening with a line like: The Duke was fond of telling people that he had saved a soul.

This type of line could create enough interest to draw someone into reading further.

Beyond that, do you really need to tell all that information about the Duke in the opening paragraph? How much of that information is immediately pertinent to the story and how much could be dispersed throughout the rest of the book when it becomes relevant to the character?

 

[The Duff Man]

Started.Then stopped.It's not fiction. It's an essay. Show, don't tell.

To elaborate on this. I think I counted the word "he" or "his" eleven times in sentences two through seven.

 

[Mister Martie]

"Time Passes Slowly" is a pretty horrific book title. My first thought was that it would probably be extremely boring and/or dry.

 

[Mr. Ected]

My father published a novel partially by himself. The way that it is done is he worked with a publishing company and fronted $$$ to cover the production of the books and he would receive most if not all of the $$$ from the sales of the books. Tim, if you are interested, I will get the information of the place where he had the book published.

 

[Doug B]

I was wondering something, Tim:

Is the Prologue actually the novel's opening, or just something you tacked on later to explain some things? If the novel's actual action starts "in scene", and you let the reader learn about the characters through their actions, reactions, dialogue, etc., then you're probably OK. Was just thinking that maybe the Prologue is attempting to serve a different purpose than the novel proper.

I second the Duff Man's comments about how the Proogue opens up ... but I do think the overall plot idea sounds like it could kick butt. Edward Rutherfurd has written several successful novels that have a lot in common thematically with Time Passes Slowly. Have you ever checked out Rutherfurd's novels Sarum, Russka, or the two novels of The Dublin Saga?

 

[timschochet]

I appreciate the input so far. Gives me lots to think about.

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

I wouldn't read it, but I say go for it! I'm the same way with my comics (see sig link). I highly doubt I'll ever get hired to be a comic writer, but I enjoy doing it and like to share it.

This is now my favorite thing on the internet. It seriously deserves its own thread.

 

[Mr. Pickles]

I wouldn't read it, but I say go for it! I'm the same way with my comics (see sig link). I highly doubt I'll ever get hired to be a comic writer, but I enjoy doing it and like to share it.

This is now my favorite thing on the internet. It seriously deserves its own thread.

Agreed.

 

[timschochet]

Continuing with 10 more pages-

What neither Goldstein or Columbus could have anticipated, however, was that there was a land mass one would run into long before you could circumnavigate the globe; namely, the Americas. Columbus never did realize this fact; he bumbled into the New World believing it was the Indies, and went to his death unaware of the truth.)

Jacob was not convinced. He was too excited by the opportunities Mastrini offered, and so he decided to ignore his brother’s advice and counsel the Duke, anyhow.

Ferdinand listened in detail to Jacob, and then asked as usual, “What does your brother think?” Jacob decided to be truthful; he could not know if the Duke might question his brother directly.

“Moses is very cautious,” he replied. “My brother is skeptical that this Columbo can ever reach the Indies by going due west; he thinks he will starve first. But my Lord, we have to find a new passage to the Indies, unless Spain is forever going to be subservient to Portugal. Any chance at this must be attempted, even a gamble such as this one. Surely the King and Queen will see that!”

“I’m not convinced” the Duke replied. “The King seems uninterested in these matters, and as for Isabella, she relies on her confessor to guide her, Father Torquemada. Whatever that man advises is enough for the Queen to accept it as God’s law on Earth.”

Jacob inwardly shuddered at this mention of the man who, almost by himself, had created the Inquisition, which had already burned several “unbelievers” at the stake. Torquemada was known to be a fanatical zealot who harbored a special hatred for Jews, whether they were converso or not.

“Still,” the Duke pondered, “I suppose you are right. This man does deserve at least an audience with the Queen, which I can easily arrange. As to whether or not I’m to be his patron and invest my own funds…I’ll tell you what. You can tell this Mastrini to send for Signor Columbo, who must be prepared to defend his ideas, first to myself, then to the King and Queen. If they accept his proposal, then you can tell him that the Duke of Drastille will back the construction of the ships with my own money.”

“Splendid, my lord, you will not regret this!” Jacob said. In his mind, he was already plotting how he could manipulate the Duke into allowing himself a word with the King or Queen about the loyalty of Jews and conversos, away from the influence of Torquemada. But this would have to be done later. In the meantime, he summoned Mastrini and gave him the Duke’s message, which so excited the Italian that he promised to act right away. He promised that he would himself bring word to Signor Columbo, who likewise would be sure to come to Spain as quickly as a fast horse could bring him.

This promised visit was interrupted however, by the coming of the third visitor to the Matiste Estates, the Friar Domingo, and to understand his importance to this story, a bit of background is necessary.

Domingo was born an orphan twenty-eight years earlier in Madrid, never knowing who his parents were. As a young child he learned to steal early on, and by the age of twelve, had knifed to death a merchant for his purse. Having been caught for this crime, he was sentenced to be hanged, but had been saved by the magistrate, a nobleman named Domingo who decided to adopt the boy and who gave him his first name. The adoption was a sham; Senor Domingo only wanted the boy for his own pleasure. The boy submitted to several years of rape and molestation. By the time he was fifteen, his patron tired of the sport and sent the boy to a monastery for his education.

Here Domingo excelled; he proved to be a masterful student who understood the most subtle concepts easily. By the age of twenty-two, having spent seven years at the Monastery, the boy was ordained, and Friar Domingo was created.

What Friar Domingo retained from his childhood and teenage years was a great hatred for all nobility and the upper classes. He blamed them for treating him badly his entire life, and for all of the hardships he endured. By the time he was ordained, he also had developed a great hatred for Jews. This was interesting in itself, for Domingo could not recall meeting a Jew during his early years or at his time in the monastery, either. But he correctly saw the Church as a means to power whereby he might gain some sort of equality with the nobles or even superiority over them, and he realized the Jews as an outside race that would never be subservient to him.

Friar Domingo, therefore, was a perfect servant of the Church and particularly the Inquisition, and he was selected early on by Torquemada as one of his chief lieutenants. As such, he was given an honor guard of one hundred soldiers fanatically loyal to the Church (meaning Domingo), and allowed to perform his “pious” work throughout Spain, which he performed with great diligence.

Thus far, however, he had steered clear of the Matiste Estates. It was known that the Duke of Drastille was a great favorite of King Ferdinand and one of the “untouchable” nobles. However, Torquemada, after much pondering, had decided that Isabella, a deeply religious woman but not too bright, was the more malleable of the two monarchs; therefore King Ferdinand needed to be weakened, and this meant attacking his loyal Dukes. Therefore, he decided to send Domingo to attack Drastille. Secretly, Torquemada reasoned that if the whole affair went wrong the Lord of the Inquisition could always blame the whole thing on the overzealousness of one fanatical friar; in the meantime he gave Domingo very specific instructions.

So it was that, unannounced, Friar Domingo, representative of the Inquisition, arrived at Castle Matiste with one hundred men and insolently demanded an immediate audience with the Duke. And although Duke Ferdinand had several thousand soldiers intensely loyal to him and could have destroyed this upstart easily, it was a sign of the times that he immediately agreed to the monk’s demands.

“I come in the name of God,” Domingo began, “and He has ordered me to destroy evil in His name, wherever it be found.”

“That is commendable of you,” the Duke replied. “But there is no evil here. The Matiste Estates are loyal to God and to the Crown.”

“Evil is often hidden,” said the monk. He looked around the Duke’s chambers, which were filled with expensive tapestries, finer than Domingo had ever seen. He eyed a jeweled ring the Duke wore, and a fine silver goblet the other man carried in his hand. “What riches you have,” he said softly, almost whispering. “What enormous wealth you have acquired. And all of it given to you in the name of the Lord, I suppose?” he asked sarcastically.

The Duke, who had been sitting, rose, and stood at his full height. He towered over the monk. “I am the Duke of Drastille,” he said proudly, “and my wealth is my own, but all of it is in service to God and my King. Do you accuse me of evil, Friar? If you do, say so, for I will stand before any judge and proclaim my innocence.”

But Friar Domingo (and his patron Torquemada) was too smart for this. They knew the Duke could not be challenged directly. “I understand,” he said slowly, “that you have an agent who handles your affairs, a Jacob Goldstein, a man who was a Jew but who has converted to Christianity.”

“Yes, that is true,” Ferdinand replied, astonished that this man could know so much about his internal affairs. But then again, he reasoned, he was known and derided as the “Jewish Duke”, so it was probably not that surprising after all.

“You will bring this man to me for questioning,” said Friar Domingo. It was not a request.

“Very well, but for what reason?” the Duke asked, unable to hide his nervousness now. He felt that the Monk had defeated him in some way with this request.

Domingo smiled, not bothering to hide his pleasure. “It is known that some of these conversos are treacherous. They are not true Christians after all, but conspire to destroy the Church from within. I do not accuse your man of this- not yet. But he is in an important position. Your main counselor, no? So he must be questioned for your safety. I am really doing you a favor, you should thank me.”

These words were spoken with so much sarcasm and menace that Ferdinand had no doubt where this was leading. Jacob Goldstein was a dead man. The question the Duke had to decide was, should he try to protect the Jew? (For though Jacob had converted several years before, Ferdinand could never think of him as anything but a Jew.) What risk was there to the Duke if he defied the Inquisitor? Of late the Church had become so powerful in Spanish affairs. He wondered if Torquemada was behind all of this. He knew the Grand Inquisitor wanted Drastille weakened, as a way to weaken the King and thereby strengthen Isabella- was this the means?

Desperately he sought a way out of the trap. “This man is devoted to my service. His family has served mine for over two hundred years. Yes, you may question him, but I will be present. And he is not to be harmed.”

Domingo fairly smirked. “In these matters, God’s ways are proven,” he replied cryptically. “You will grant me use of private chambers, and I and my guards will question this man on our own. It may take several days to learn the full truth. It would be too much of a bother, my lord, for you to become involved, and totally unnecessary. No, I will have to request total privacy in this affair. I think that the use of your dungeon in this castle will really be required. There is no other place that I would not be disturbed.”

The Duke tried once more. “I absolutely cannot allow this. The dungeons are for criminals, murderers. You have no jurisdiction there.”

“My jurisdiction,” replied the monk, “was given to me by Torquemada himself, and his jurisdiction given him by His Holy Father, the Pope, and his jurisdiction comes from our Lord Jesus Christ, blessed be his name. As for murderers, my lord, what greater murderers are there than those that murdered our Lord? No, I’m afraid the dungeon is the proper spot.”

The Duke could think of nothing to say. “Of course,” Friar Domingo continued, “you can always deny me this request. But then I would be forced to return to Madrid and let it be known there that the Duke of Drastille denies the will of God.”

With this last comment, Ferdinand surrendered. He knew it was hopeless. Jacob Goldstein was summoned, and taken away by the monk’s guards. A week passed, and nothing was heard. Jacob’s wife desperately sought an audience with the Duke to find out the fate of her husband, but this was refused. Moses Goldstein, upon hearing the news, girded himself for the worst. He also attempted to see Ferdinand, and was rebuffed. With great courage, Moses also sought an audience with Friar Domingo to plead for his brother’s life. Domingo replied that it would be against God’s will for him, a priest, to give in to “Jewish wiles.”

“Soon,” he told the older man, “no Jews or Muslims or other heretics will be allowed in this Christian kingdom. Then your kind will no longer corrupt us. However, you may save yourself by accepting Jesus Christ.”

Moses could not help himself by responding bitterly, “See how it has saved my brother.” As the words escaped his mouth, he wondered if he hadn’t just sealed his own fate. He thought of his wife and children, and wondered where they go after his execution for speaking in such a way to an Inquisitor.

But Friar Domingo only smiled. “Your anger washes over me harmlessly, for you are a heretic, and I serve the will of my Lord Jesus Christ. I have not yet determined whether your brother is guilty or not. But if he is guilty, it is because he attempted to subvert Christianity from within. If that is the case, then he was never a true convert. His fate is not yours, however. You have the chance to be saved, both here and in Heaven! I sincerely hope you make the correct choice.” And the interview was at an end.

Meanwhile, the procedure by Domingo’s men to determine the guilt of Jacob Goldstein was carried on away from prying eyes, in the castle dungeon. Jacob was kept blindfolded at all times, and allowed two meals a day of water and a slice of bread. He was severely beaten several times each day. Fire was applied to his eyes, his feet, and his genitals. He was placed on a special rack that Domingo had brought with him from Madrid that allowed the body to be stretched until the pain was beyond agonizing. At the end of one week of this treatment, Jacob signed a confession.

Triumphantly, Friar Domingo called for another meeting with Duke Ferdinand. His eyes fairly gleamed when he reported, “Your man has confessed, my lord. He has signed a full confession, admitting to his wickedness.”

“What exactly did he confess to, and where is he?” The Duke asked impatiently.

“It is a most terrible thing,” the monk replied. “Jacob Goldstein is cursed before the eyes of God. He cares nothing for the Lord. He admits to being paid by others of his kind to joining the Church in order to destroy it; that was his supreme goal. He has used your wealth, my lord, to pay for the kidnapping of good Christian children whose blood has been sacrificed for Jewish rituals in which they worship Satan.”

“Impossible!” stormed Ferdinand. “I don’t believe it. Where is he? I demand to see him!”

“He has confessed to it, as I say,” Friar Domingo continued smoothly, “and he has even named the child, one Rosa Villejas, a village girl, I believe?”

The Duke was shocked. Rosa Villejas was a seven year old girl from the nearby village who had gone missing a few years before. After several days of searching, her body had been discovered tossed into a well, severed in three places. It had been assumed that the ghastly crime had been committed by some sort of perverted fiend, but the culprit had never been determined.

“He has confessed to this?” Ferdinand asked shakily, his voice almost a whisper.

“It should not come as a shock to you, sir,” the monk replied, “it certainly does not to me. I have known of these Jewish rituals for some time. Satan demands the killing of innocent children, usually young girls.”

There was something in the monk’s voice that seemed so jubilant about these series of events that it once again filled Ferdinand’s mind with doubt.

“Well, where is he?” repeated the Duke. “Bring him to me, and I will question him about this affair myself.”

“Oh, no, that is quite impossible,” said the monk. “His presence has already poisoned you enough. I could not take the chance of an important duke of Spain being further corrupted in such a manner. As it is, I will be forced to report to Madrid that the Duke of Drastille has unfortunately allowed evil to permeate itself within your provinces. It is hardly your fault, you were deceived, but the King and Queen will still have to know that one of their loyal servants has been tainted.” And he could not help smirking.

The Duke sank heavily into his great chair, still shocked at the turn of events. “And Goldstein? What is to become of Jacob Goldstein, then?”

”Can there be any doubt, my lord?” replied Domingo. “As we speak, my men are spreading the news of his confession about the Villejas girl to the townspeople and villagers. You can expect an outrage over that. When we have enough of an audience, the Jew will be publicly burned alive. It is the only suitable punishment for such a sinner, and the best way to demonstrate to other Jews and conversos that we will not tolerate their crimes!”

So there it was, thought the Duke. The expected result of the affair. A public burning. He had heard of burnings in other parts of Spain, but he could never take it seriously. It was supposed to be a civilized time. The beginning of a new age where Christianity, and all the good that represented, was triumphant. For years, the Spanish Christians has warred against the Muslims of Granada, but that struggle was ending now, victory not in doubt. He, the Duke, had been proud to be a Spaniard in this great time of discovery and exploration. King Ferdinand commanded perhaps the mightiest army in the history of Europe. But now this: the Inquisition. And public burnings.

He knew he was helpless against the tide of events. As was the Jew Goldstein. As was even Friar Domingo, though the monk would never realize it.

“Do as you must,” he whispered, resigned. Then he dismissed the monk and summoned Moses Goldstein to him.

When the Jew arrived, he looked grave and desolate. “My lord,” Moses said, “please tell me, what has transpired? There is an angry mob gathered outside the gates of this castle. They scream, ‘Death to the Jews!’ Some of my friends have been publicly beaten. The rest are in hiding. Tell me, my lord; is this the doing of the Friar Domingo? What has become of my brother?”

His face devoid of emotion, the Duke responded, “Your brother has confessed to the murder of Rosa Villejas, the young girl. He admitted her murder was for some sort of Jewish ritual, worship of Satan. He is to be publicly burned.”

“Impossible, my lord!” Moses cried. “You have known my brother his entire life! You know he could not have committed such a crime. And you know all of us, the Jews of Drastille. You know we are loyal to you, we would never betray you. Those villagers outside these gates, we’ve known them too all our lives, we’ve been friends with them; now they call for our blood. This is the work of the Inquisition; it spreads hatred in the name of seeking power- ”

“Enough!” stormed Ferdinand. “The subject is not open to debate, Jew! I tell you, your brother has signed a written confession. His fate is sealed! I summoned you to tell you that you will immediately take over all of his affairs. Furthermore, I can no longer abide a Jew handling any of my business. It is not my doing, the times that we live in… I order you to convert to Christianity immediately. You and your entire family. It is no longer a choice.”

Moses Goldstein said nothing for a long moment. Then he replied quietly, “And if I refuse you, my lord?”

“You can guess the answer to that!” the Duke responded. “You and all the Goldsteins will be evicted from the Matiste Estates. Immediately! I shall have to find help elsewhere.”

 

[timschochet]

I'm going to go ahead and finish posting the prologue in the next post, and then if people are still interested, I'll start posting Chapter One next week.

 

[timschochet]

“Even if I chose to convert,” asked Moses, “what would protect me from Friar Domingo? From sharing my brother’s fate?”

Ferdinand sighed. “I am so weary of these affairs. I don’t know how to answer you, Goldstein. Do not ask for mercy for Jacob; there will be none. His fate is sealed. You have a chance to save yourself and your family, and your high position here. Many men would love the chance to manage my affairs; I give this chance to you, partly because, as you say, your family has always been loyal. If it were up to me alone, you could go on being a Jew. I have nothing against Jews! But it is not up to me alone. No, I can not guarantee you that converting will protect you from the Inquisitors. But I believe it will be worse for you if you don’t.”

Moses was doubtful of this last, but he saw no point in continuing the argument. Poor Jacob, he thought, my God take his soul into His keeping. Aloud, he said, “I shall be sad to leave here, my Lord. My family shall pack tonight.”

The Duke stared at him in shock. He had never expected the Jew to actually leave. “Then you don’t accept my offer? You actually intend to leave?”

”I can do no other, my lord, and maintain my own sense of myself. Also, from what you say, I don’t believe there is any place left in Spain for Jews or Jewish converts.”

Ferdinand ignored this last, still disbelieving, and his anger beginning to grow. “Then you put your Jewish ness ahead of your service to me?”

”I do, my lord,” Moses answered quietly. He wondered if he would now be executed like his brother.

“I don’t believe it! Perhaps Domingo is right! For centuries, the Dukes of Drastille has helped you Jews, protected you, made you wealthy beyond the dreams of most Jews or even most Spaniards, and now… this! I ask you to convert, not just for my own protection but for yours as well, and you show your gratitude by spitting in my face!”

Moses Goldstein thought of his ancestors. He thought of the countless times the Goldsteins, through remarkable management and juggling, had saved the Dukes of Drastille from certain bankruptcy. He thought of all of the indignities that the Goldsteins, as Jews, had had to suffer in Spain. But he said nothing.

“Be damned to you!” raged Duke Ferdinand. “You will pack your things and leave with your family tonight! I never wish to hear or speak your name again. Goodbye, Jew, and good riddance!”

Moses would have bowed right then, but he knew there was one more question that had to be asked.

“My brother’s wife, Rosalita, and the child, the boy Ferdinand. May we take them with us?”

”Take all of them; I will have no more Goldsteins in this castle! You have betrayed my loyalty.”

And so that very night, Moses, his sobbing wife, and their children packed their worldly goods, while outside the castle, a mob swept through the village streets, beating up any Jew they could find. In order to calm down his wife and family, Moses then explained his personal philosophy, which in time would be accepted by the Goldsteins as a set belief:

“Change,” Moses said, “is the only thing we can count on as being permanent. All else fades. If we as Jews are to survive, we must realize that change can occur anytime, and be prepared for it. Some Jews are content to live by tradition, and depend on tradition and the observance of the Laws to protect us. And this is fine within ourselves, inside our community. But it will not help us in the outside world. There, we must be accustomed to continual transition.”

In the years and centuries that followed, Moses Goldstein’s words that evening would be remembered. Furthermore, the ideas they represented would become ingrained in the Goldsteins, and indeed it would help them survive all of the future troubles they would encounter in Poland.

For Moses had decided to accept the Baron Wynitski’s offer. He knew it would be a difficult journey; furthermore, he spoke no Polish and had no idea how he would converse with the natives of that far away land. But the offer was a good one, and he could resume management of a noble’s affairs, which he excelled at. At least, he thought wryly, until I or my descendants are chased away again. Being a Jew that was fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition, he was quite positive this would happen again eventually; the only question was when.

However, he was surprised to learn that Jacob’s wife, Rosalita, in shock herself over the fate of her husband, (it had been announced that Jacob was to be publicly burned the following evening), refused to leave. “I am not a Jew,” she insisted to Moses, whom she had never really liked. “I have never been a Jew. My son is not Jewish; he was baptized.”

“Yes, that is true,” Moses replied patiently. “But you will always be thought of as the wife of a Jew who is now considered a murderer. So you are tainted. And your son; I’m afraid that he will always be considered a Jew, as well. There is no place for you here. You must come with us, if you are to survive.”

“I shall visit my cousins in Barcelona. They will take me and the child in. We will take up a new name. No one will ever know we were Goldsteins.” And Rosalita was firm in this decision. So Moses bade her farewell, and said goodbye to his nephew one last time. Then, in the dark of night, so as not to be discovered by angry townsfolk, the Goldsteins left the Matiste Estates, never to return.

(Or almost never. Some five hundred years later, in 1989, Moses Goldstein’s descendant Art Goldstein took his wife on a three week vacation to Europe, which included a trip to Spain. Part of the Barcelona package included a bus trip to the Matiste Estates, to see the old castle, abandoned centuries before. Both the Goldsteins marveled at the sheer beauty that was the Spanish countryside; neither of them realized the connection to their own family. They did, however, also visit an old synagogue in Barcelona and were given an account, in general, of the treatment of the Jews during the Inquisition.)

And what became of Duke Ferdinand, and of Friar Domingo? The Duke met with Christopher Columbus, as he had promised Jacob Goldstein he would, and promoted the Italian to the court of Spain. In terms of historical significance, this was probably the most important thing he ever did, (and the single most important contribution of the Goldsteins during their time in Spain), but it did not save him. Within one year after the burning of Jacob Goldstein, Friar Domingo was given permission by Torquemada to “question” Duke Ferdinand. Torquemada apparently felt safe enough by this point that one of the Kings’s most trusted advisors could be subject to the Inquisition. Under the same sort of “questioning” that Jacob had received, the Duke admitted to helping “Jewish interests” against the Crown. He, also, was publicly burned alive.

As for Friar Domingo, the Inquisition allowed him to become more and more powerful in Madrid society. Within ten years, he had reached the height of clerical power, rivaling only Torquemada himself. Perhaps this angered the Lord High Inquisitor and made him jealous; we will never know the truth. But in the year 1501, Domingo died after drinking a goblet of wine that had been mysteriously poisoned.

 

[jon_mx]

... because its almost impossible these days to find an agent unless you get extremely lucky.

How does new stuff get found and published? I kinda thought that if someone wrote something solid, they might have to shop it to hundreds of places, but eventually, someone would bite.

There is a website called agentquery.com, that lists hundreds of agents willing to accept unsolicited material. You have to get one of these agents to sign you up, because no publisher will read unsoliticed stuff. Unfortunately, most agents don't respond either. The few that did offered to read 2-3 chapters, but decided against it. Either my stuff isn't good enough, or they want sure things. They all get hundreds of unsolicited manuscripts every week, and I suspect maybe they will read a paragraph, and if it doesn't hit them right, they move on. Plus with the economy and the decline of book stores, the number of new novels has shrunk as never before. So the likelihood of getting published is like winning the lottery.

I take it there are no wizards in it.

 

[Jed]

Mind numbing. JMO.

 

[dickey moe]

What chapter does Sol Rosenberg enter the picture?

 

[AhrnCityPahnder]

The only book I've read leaked to the innernets a chapter at a time was Hector, he motorcycle and teh juice.

 

[timschochet]

First, before anyone teases me about it, I want to admit that this thread is all about me me me, and I am being as narcissistic as I could possibly be. A few years back I completed a short novel about Japanese Americans during World War II, tried to get it published, and could not. Now I have completed a much longer novel which encompasses the earlier novel but also dealing with several family histories, and this will never be published either, because its almost impossible these days to find an agent unless you get extremely lucky. When I wrote the earlier novel I had proposed to post it, chapter by chapter, on this forum, in order to get some feedback, and I actually posted a couple of chapters, then Mr. Ham of all people frightened me off by warning if I did this I could never get published in the future due to copyright problems. Now I don't care about that anymore. I will never make a cent off this novel, and it will sit on my desk undiscovered until I die, unless I post it here just to get some feedback. I propose to post one chapter a week. If it's bad enough, you guys can enjoy ridiculing it. If it's simply mediocre (as I suspect) then nobody will read it after the first few chapters anyhow. But of course I'm hoping somebody will.Yes I'm being totally narcissistic. And probably myopic as well. But I am proud of my novel- it's about three American families, and also touches on many of the political issues currently being discussed. There are secrets and some good suspensful moments.Should I do this?

One of my main clients is a small publisher. In fact, I'm working on a couple of book layouts & jackets for him right now. I'd be interested in reading the manuscript. Never say never. If it is a good story, I can put it in front of him. FWIW, unlike traditional presses, the author gets the bulk of the money—not the press.

That's very generous of you, truly. The prologue has already been posted in this thread (in three posts) and I will start posting chapter one tommorow.

 

[Sweatpants]

I haven't read any of the thread but is the novel in any way related to My Dong?

 

[Das Boot]

Two questions....

1. Is there any sex in this book?... it sounds like a pretty long read without knowing there's a good chapter or two in there somewhere.

2. I already know your plan... put 1/3 or 1/2 of the chapters on here, get us all addicted to it like crackheads, then you'll charge for the rest of it.

But seriously, how much sex does it have in it?

 

[Shtaym Syek]

I've enjoyed it so far.

 

[timschochet]

Chapter One

It was Glenn’s idea. Glenn Nakamura was a good friend of both David and I, and he put it to us at the latest dinner party, interrupting our discussion (argument) about the Middle East.

“Look,” he said, “I’ve been listening to the two of you argue at every party and get together we all come to, and I’ve noticed you guys have a lot in common.”

A lot in common? How did Glenn come to that conclusion? One of the reasons David and I always ended up at odds with each other is because we quite simply disagreed on just about every subject you could name. David was a Democrat, a liberal, Jewish (although I guessed he was either an atheist or at least an agnostic.) David hated George Bush and everything about him. Me, I was a conservative, a staunch Republican, not always in love with Bush but not ready to demonize him, either. Plus, I considered myself a good Christian; my wife and I tried to attend church regularly with our kids.

“No, I mean it,” Glenn insisted, seeing David’s and my mutual bewilderment. “Look, for example: both of you, like myself, are in your late 30’s, with two small kids. Both of you have good jobs, and are what most people consider to be upper middle class white people, living in a mostly white community with a few Asians like myself sprinkled in. Of course, this is true for nearly everyone at this party! But what truly separates the two of you is your interest in politics, your passion, and your willingness to discuss and even argue issues without getting each other emotionally upset.”

I grinned at this last, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Glenn; this ####er (David) pisses me off every time I talk to him.”

“That’s because you’re an #######” David said amiably, “and everybody knows they piss off easily.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Glenn earnestly, “the two of you were just engaged in a serious argument about Israel. Most people would be shouting at each other by now, or swinging punches or whatever. But you two are always at it, and it doesn’t seem to affect your friendship any.”

“It’s nothing unusual, though” I said seriously, “There’s probably tons of people like us. David and I are comfortable enough with our views that we’re able to express them to each other, that’s all. If you find someone really getting angry over a political argument, it’s usually because they’re not really secure in their own viewpoint.”

“I think it is unusual,” Glenn persisted, “consider: most people we know, they may have political views, but they don’t really want to talk about them. Too difficult. It’s a lot easier and safer to talk about sports, or American Idol, or where to eat for dinner. And when they do argue over these issues, the arguments tend to be short and sweet, with lots of platitudes thrown in, parroting viewpoints we’ve all heard on talk radio and in the news. The two of you discuss issues in depth every time you meet, which leads me to my idea.”

“Idea?” David Goldstein asked. “What idea?”

“You guys know that I added a social science class to my English classes?” Glenn was a high school teacher. “I want to try an experiment for that class. I want to tape the three of us, once a week, sitting down and arguing political issues in depth. For about an hour or more, if it stretches over. Each week, a different subject. You would know the subject in advance, so that you could be prepared. Then, I would play the tapes for the class and elicit response.”

There was a long pause as David and I digested this idea. “But Glenn,” I finally pointed out, “why us? I mean, sure, we can argue and we do, but we’re hardly politicos. Neither of us is running for office, or writing current affairs books, or has our own talk show. I mean, we’re just a couple of guys!”

“That’s exactly what I want” he said, “a couple of guys. It might impress upon my students that everyone should express an opinion, not just the so-called experts. And if it’s not an informed opinion, it’s worthless. I think they should get more out of the three of us discussing the issues at length, rather than the sound bytes yelled at each other on a show like Hannity and Colmes, for instance.”

“What’s the matter with Hannity & Colmes? “ I asked. I was a big fan of Sean Hannity, the radio talk show host. Of all the people an radio and television that I listened to (and it was a growing list, which at times included Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, Bill O’ Reilly, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, even Michael Savage) Sean Hannity came the closest to expressing my own opinion in an easy manner anyone could understand. But Glenn’s complaint about the show did have some merit; there was too much soundbyting going on, and not enough depth.

”Glenn,” David pointed out, “you keep saying the three of us. But I never hear you state an opinion. I don’t even know what your views are!”

Glenn Nakamura smiled. “That’s a good question,” he replied. “It’s true I prefer to listen, although if we go through with this I won’t be able to limit myself to just being some sort of referee. I’d consider myself a political independent. I’m just as interested as you guys are in politics; I watch the same stuff, read the same stuff, and try to follow it all pretty closely. I agree with the conservatives sometimes, and the liberals sometimes; it really depends on the issue. I’m pretty sure there’s an overriding core to my beliefs, but I haven’t defined it for myself. Maybe these taped debates I’m proposing will define it for me, I don’t know.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s not that I’m not willing to do it, provided I can find the time, but I still don’t get why your students would give a #### about listening to some guys who they don’t even know.”

“You’ll have to get rid of the swearing, or I won’t be able to play anything for them,” Glenn said, grinning. He went on to reiterate how the students would identify with us more because we were ordinary guys, and it would allow them to think deeply about important subjects. I was not convinced of this, and I could tell neither was Goldstein, but eventually we both agreed it would be fun, if nothing else, and we decided to try it out for a few weeks to see how it went, if we could swing it with our wives (we did, but as anyone who’s married and has young children knows, it took a bit of horse trading. Jen got a couple of spa days out of it. I don’t know what Jordan (David’s wife) got.)

I think it’s time I stopped and told you a little more about the three of us that would be conducting this little experiment. Glenn Nakamura was 41, about 5’8”, thin as a rail and, as you may have guessed, Japanese. He had been a high school teacher for about ten years; I had no idea what he did prior to that. His wife Ryann was also Japanese, she was in her mid thirties, tiny and cute with a Japanese accent (Glenn had no accent.) She also had worked as a teacher but now stayed home with their two daughters: Amanda, 8, and Corrin, 4. I often wondered how they could afford to own a house (in Huntington Beach, no less!) and for her to stay at home on his salary; I suspected there might be parents involved somewhere but I had no real knowledge about this. Like David, I first met Glenn through our wives and their playgroup, which was first formed when all of our kids were toddlers. Although by now most of our children were in school and making new friends, a small nucleus of us, including Glenn, David, and myself had stayed close.

David Goldstein was a big man: 6’ 4”, 230 at least and muscular. He was a football nut and informed me that he had been a star linebacker in high school, but blew out a knee in his senior year; otherwise, who knows? He claimed he had been recruited by UCLA and Cal. He ended up going to UCLA anyway, where I assume is where he absorbed most of his leftist views. He certainly had no reason to complain about capitalism; David was by far the wealthiest of the three of us. His dad, Art Goldstein, was the owner of Arthur’s Honda, a large dealership in Costa Mesa; David was vice-president. David’s wife Jordan was 32, a redhead, and absolutely stunning. Upon marrying into David’s family she had converted to Judaism and was, as I gathered, quite religious, much more so than David. Of course, I thoroughly approved of this, being quite religious myself. They had two little boys: Ben, 5 and Art, 3.

And as for me? I was 5’10”, brown hair with blue eyes, and I’m not about to describe my weight, or Jen’s either. We were both a little heavy and needed to take some off. I worked for a very successful commercial real estate company in Long Beach; I did alright for myself. Jen had worked in the healthcare industry as an auditor until the kids arrived: Charlotte was our 6 year old, and Jack was 4. I can’t speak for the others and whether or not their wives stayed home out of expediency, but Jen stayed at home because I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Yes, it’s old fashioned, but I firmly believed that children needed a mother at home. But then again, most of my views would be considered old fashioned.

If I had to define myself, I would say that I was a Christian; everything else derived from that. My ancestors, dating back to Northern Ireland, had been Presbyterians, but I had not attended that church since college. I wanted a church for my children which would be more in keeping with my own conservative values (and also one that would provide a good private school at a relatively inexpensive cost- I was not in favor of public education for my kids) and I found it in Salvation Chapel in Westminster.

And what were these conservative values? I believed in America, in the goodness and kindness of Christian America, which had to stay strong and free as a sign post to the rest of the world. I believed in hard work versus luck; the harder you worked, the luckier you got. I had little sympathy with those who didn’t work for a living, who felt that somebody owed them something, who were always trying to blame racism or sexism or some other “ism” for their own problems. I was against most government programs, and believed that lower taxes were good for the economy.

I believed in freedom, but that did not relieve the government of certain moral responsibilities in order to maintain a Christian society. I had better extrapolate on the term “Christian Society” before I continue. As the Declaration of Independence so clearly states, it was God who gave us our freedoms; therefore all of our laws should be based on our modern understanding of what the Lord intends for us. I say “modern understanding” because I am not advocating a return to Old Testament laws. That is a trap the liberals always set; they claim that if you want to live by God’s will, you have to be for stoning adulterers and gays, etc. I believe it is possible to live in the modern world, respect freedom, and glorify the Lord.

But you cannot glorify the Lord unless you accept the Lord’s greatest creations, and that means respect for the sanctity of human life. It is for this reason that I believed abortion should be illegal. Embryonic stem cell research should be illegal. Gay marriage should be illegal, because it mocked the true purpose of marriage, God’s plan that we should procreate and have families.

I believed in a strong military, and believed that the Left, which dominated the national media, was anti-military and anti-patriotic, and this caused most of our problems abroad. I was a staunch supporter of the State of Israel and was suspicious of hypocritical criticism of that state by the rest of the world and the Left; I also believed that most of the criticism was probably anti-Semitic, as well. I believed the Left was anti-Christian, eager to attack Christian values in our society, even going so far as to attempt to do away with the religious elements of Christmas. If I had to name one issue that concerned me over all others, it was illegal immigration, which frustrated me to no end (more on that later.)

And despite the result of the most recent election (November, 2006, at which time the Democrats took control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives), I firmly believed that I was in the majority with most of my viewpoints. That election had more to do with discontent with George Bush’s policy regarding Iraq than any of the issues I have just described. David Goldstein and liberals like him, I believed, would be found to be on the wrong side of history.

So these were my views, as best as I could state them, which I was asked to the first time we met for our debates. On that first night, all three of us taped a short statement which contained the substance of our respective political philosophies. My statement was pretty much a rehash of what I’ve just described. I will put down here, in exact language, the statements of David and Glenn:

David Goldstein

I proudly define myself as a liberal, in a day and age where people seem scared to use that term. My position on politics is pretty simple: I believe in good government. I believe that society has a responsibility to take care of its old, its sick, its helpless, and if this sounds like a romantic view of things, then what the hell! I’m a romantic.

It strikes me as ridiculous that conservatives complain about the cost of social programs, but ignore the costs of corporate subsidies, along with the incredibly horrific amounts we spend on war and the military. The cost of our occupation in Iraq, for example, is a billion dollars a week. Most of this money goes to private contractors like Halliburton, who rob us blind while they go about rebuilding a country that needs to be rebuilt because we destroyed it. The amount spent on this terrible war so dwarfs all of our spending on welfare and education, that it makes the conservatives’ arguments absurd.

Obviously, I am opposed to Bush’s war. But more than that, I get angry that this position makes me somehow unpatriotic in the eyes of certain Republican talk show hosts: they claim that any criticism of Bush is also a criticism of the troops and our flag. I find this really insulting.

I was raised as a Jew, and my family is Jewish, but I don’t personally practice it; I guess I’m an agnostic if anything. I don’t begrudge anyone their religion. But I resent the hell out of people who try to force their religious views down my throat. I believe in a women’s right to choose, the legalization of drugs, and federal funding for stem cell research. I’m against guns, capital punishment, and racism or sexism of any kind.

By far the most important issue I’m concerned about is global warming. Why don’t people realize that if we don’t get a handle on this, nothing else matters! We need a national policy to solve this problem, before it’s too late.

I reject Tom’s theory that his views represent a majority of Americans. Personally, I think most Americans want more freedom for themselves than he and the other conservatives propose. Although I don’t always agree with the Democratic Party, they come the closest to representing my beliefs. The Republicans always seem to be on the wrong side of every issue.

Glenn Nakamura

I am not a fan of either-or alternatives in life, and I don’t believe in them for politics either. I have never understood what seemed to me to be discordant views of the conservatives and liberals: If you are for low taxes, you must also be for capital punishment. If you are for a women’s right to choose, you must also be willing to allow a general amnesty for illegal aliens to this country. And so forth.

I tend to be economically conservative and socially liberal. I used to think this made me a libertarian, and I suppose I am, except with a small “l”, not associated with the party of the same name. I believe in the two party system. I think both political parties are at their best when they’re out of power, and their main purpose is to criticize the other side. Within this criticism often brings out what is best in American politics. I don’t like it when one side or the other has too much power; it bothered me during the first six years of Bush the Younger’s (as I call him) presidency when for the most part Republicans had control of all three branches of government. During this period, the size of government grew exponentially, and this is only to be expected: these guys can’t help themselves; they’re always going to seek to increase their power. The conservatives always talk a good game about limiting the scope of government, but I’ve noticed they talk a better game when they’re out of power. So I like it when you’ve got the president from one party, and the House and Senate from the other party. Plenty of gridlock. And when stuff does go through, it’s bipartisan and usually important.

I listen to talk radio a lot, and pay close attention to political discussion, and one thing I can’t stand is when they point out the hypocrisy of the other side. Like last year when they caught that guy soliciting young boys, and he was a Republican, the conservative talk show host’s only response was to cite Democrats who committed the same stuff in the past, and how no fellow Democrat would criticize their own, but only the Republicans, and this proved the hypocrisy of the Democrats, etc. I say, let’s start with this stipulation: both sides are equally hypocritical. Both parties will attack the other without laying blame on their own side. We all know this already. You don’t have to keep pointing out the obvious.

I also get a little bored when the attention is on corruption. Look, there are corrupt politicians among the Democrats and the Republicans. It’s America’s great good fortune that this corruption is always among a minority, although sometimes highly placed. The talk show hosts are always trying to prove which party is the more corrupt, and I can answer this question easily: whichever party is more in power!

One other set of issues we’re not going to discuss in this forum, if I can help it: conspiracy issues. In any political discussion, there are always a group of extremists out there, left and right, who spend most of their time pointing to conspiracies as the reason for many important events. Most often, these are expressed by whoever is currently in the “outs” with the voters. So, during the ‘90’s, we heard a lot about the incident in Waco being planned by the government, and how Clinton’s aide Vince Foster was murdered. Nowadays, we here how 9/11 was planned by the Bush administration, along with everything else that has gone wrong, even Hurricane Katrina. These people often rely on timeline issues to prove their point; the Dallas Morning News reported that John F. Kennedy was killed a half an hour before it happened (not true, but the sort of urban legend that gets spread around and believed by a lot of people.) If you believe this, or that Hilary Clinton learned about Vince Foster’s death two hours before he was killed, or that the metal columns of the Twin Towers could not possibly melt so fast, or that Princess Diana was killed by MI-6 men to avoid her marrying an Arab, consider yourself a conspiracy theorist of the highest order.

Do I believe in any conspiracies? Sure I do. The Watergate scandal was obviously a conspiracy, but it also represents what’s wrong with most conspiracy theories: Watergate failed because several of its participants squealed to the newspapers, and this led ultimately to Nixon’s resignation. This is always going to happen in America to attempts of this kind, because our government is terrible at keeping secrets. Time and again, they show us how incompetent they truly are at accomplishing anything of substance. Yet we’re supposed to believe they’re capable of planning 9/11 and then keeping it a secret?

Most people don’t believe in any of these conspiracies, but there’s just enough that do, and they’re loud enough that we hear all the time about them, and they confuse debate over otherwise legitimate issues, which is why I want to leave them out of this discussion. I just want to add, however, that we are fortunate in America to have a healthy skepticism for conspiracy theories, unlike some in the rest of the world. For example, the Princess Diana theory I mentioned is believed by a majority of Arabs living in the world today, which is highly regrettable. And what was perhaps the most infamous conspiracy theory of the twentieth century, that Germany lost World War I only because she was “stabbed in the back” in the home front by socialists and Jews, the fact that this conspiracy theory was for the most part accepted by a majority of Germans led directly to the rise of Adolf Hitler and ultimately the Holocaust.

I’ve avoided in this diatribe giving views on a host of specific issues, as Tom and David did. Actually, my views on a variety of issues continue to change. In a way, I’m hoping these discussions will give me some more firm direction.

But I have to disagree with both Tom and David on one point. I think they’re both wrong when it comes to predicting what the public really thinks. I don’t believe the majority of Americans are in their hearts truly liberal or conservative; I think the ones that care about any of these issues (a minority, of course) are more like me: thoughtful, willing to pick and choose on each issue, independent thinkers. We’re the ones who truly decide the elections, not the kool-aid drinkers from the Left and the Right.

 

[Courtjester]

Are there any pictures in it?? Maybe some scratch and sniff sections?

Seriously, I have skimmed through it and one of my biggest problem is your writing style--specifically your sentence structure. Some of your sentences are HUGE. I mean, they go on and on and on--break some of it up so the reader can digest little bits and pieces.

Example: " I was not convinced of this, and I could tell neither was Goldstein, but eventually we both agreed it would be fun, if nothing else, and we decided to try it out for a few weeks to see how it went, if we could swing it with our wives (we did, but as anyone who’s married and has young children knows, it took a bit of horse trading. "

Make a point--period. Make a point--period. It weighs down the idea with all the commas.

Additionally, I think you are sort of getting internet speak confused with conversation. Some of the conversations between the men, read like something you would type here and not something that 3 guys sitting around B.S. ing would say. I think you need to observe the give and take of verbal conversations more. Most guys do not talk that way to one another, no matter their level of intellect.

Overall, I think you will find a rough crowd here for this idea. Even though I was keeping an open mind, I could have told you who the author of this book was even if I didn't know just by reading enough of your posts on here. That hurt the book IMO, because I kept saying to myself, "Yep, that's something Tim would say."

Just my opinion and I am not an English teacher or a writer. I say if it makes you happy, go for it.

 

[Jewell]

Seriously, I have skimmed through it and one of my biggest problem is your writing style--specifically your sentence structure. Some of your sentences are HUGE. I mean, they go on and on and on--break some of it up so the reader can digest little bits and pieces.Example: " I was not convinced of this, and I could tell neither was Goldstein, but eventually we both agreed it would be fun, if nothing else, and we decided to try it out for a few weeks to see how it went, if we could swing it with our wives (we did, but as anyone who’s married and has young children knows, it took a bit of horse trading. "Make a point--period. Make a point--period. It weighs down the idea with all the commas.

Brevity is the key to good communication. People's minds wander. It's generally best to get in, make a point, get out. Your book overall doesn't have to be brief, but each point your making should strive for this. Good luck. Aside from that one piece of criticism, I like what you have so far.

 

[timschochet]

I greatly appreciate all of the advice and criticism so far.

 

[timschochet]

First Discussion

Glenn: OK, I have chosen the topic for the first discussion: illegal immigration. So who wants to go first?

Tom: All right now, Glenn, you chose something truly important to my heart, so I’m going to go first, and I may take a while here to get my point across.

David: That’s fine, Tom, I’ll just wait for you to finish your little nativist rant before I step in and take it apart.

Tom: We’ve been at this for two seconds, and you’re already labeling my viewpoint nativist? What does that mean, anyway?

Glenn: If you’re a nativist, it means you’re basically anti-immigrant.

Tom: See, I knew it. It’s a typical liberal thing to label your opponents’ arguments as nativist or racist, which I know is coming. The fact is, I’m not anti-immigrant. How could I be, when my own family came here from Northern Ireland not so long ago? I believe that immigrants form the strength of our nation.

And I’m not racist, either. I have several Latino friends, some of them in my church, and I consider them to be my equals. Most of them are as concerned over this issue as I am.

But what David doesn’t get is there is a difference between legal immigrants and those that come here illegally. If you’re an illegal alien, you’ve broken the law by your very presence. That’s wrong. And before we go any farther discussing this issue, we need to all realize how wrong it is. And this is at the very heart of my objection. Even if, somehow in a fantasy world, you could make the argument that illegals were good for our society, that they didn’t harm us in any way but actually benefited us, that they didn’t have any cost to our prisons, our schools, our hospitals; even if all this were true, I would still be against them, because they’re illegal. They broke the law by coming here. And if you allow the law to be broken by their presence, then what’s the point of any of our laws? Why not just live in a lawless society?

Glenn You make a fine argument in the abstract. But besides your basic objection to they’re being here simply because they’re illegal, what else bothers you about their presence?

Tom Well, first of all I don’t think you can separate one from the other. For example, if I tell you that a high percentage of crimes committed in southern California are by illegal immigrants, which they are, you might not see a connection, but I do: if they are already illegal, then they’re bound not to respect our laws, so they’re much more likely to become criminal. They’re swarming our prisons. We don’t have enough space for them, and the cost is horrendous.

The cost to our hospitals may be even worse. The illegals swarm the emergency rooms, with no money, so who ends up paying? The taxpayer, of course, and we can’t afford it.

But the biggest problem is in the schools. Most of these kids don’t speak English, so we’re saddled with bilingual education, which is no good for anybody. The illegals form gangs and are dangerous, enough so I send my own kids to a private school. And they don’t learn, which brings our averages down.

They rent apartments and twenty of them will live in one room. They dominate certain parts of Los Angeles like Huntington Park, where you can drive for miles and not see a sign in English.

I could go on ad nauseam. One issue I don’t want to leave out is that the porous border with Mexico also allows terrorists easy access into America. Since 9/11, how can we afford this? Surely it makes no sense to keep allowing these people in at an unprecedented rate, doesn’t it?

Glenn What then, do you propose we do?

Tom Well, OK here’s the thing that really irritates me, is that the government won’t do a darn thing about this issue, despite all of the polls favoring a strong solution. What am I in favor of? I want a strong fence on the border, throughout the entire border, and you can’t tell me this won’t solve the problem for the most part. It could be done easily and cheaply, too, compared to the cost of border patrols and to our law enforcement, in general. The American people want this fence; its eventually going to happen, wait and see.

Glenn Why do you believe the politicians won’t do anything, as you claim?

Tom Well, that’s pretty obvious, at least to me, anyway. There are three reasons we don’t get action from Congress on this. First of all, there are those do-gooders like Goldstein here who honestly believe this is an anti-immigrant issue, when its not. Second, the Chamber of Commerce types want to keep a free flow of cheap labor to the country to support agriculture and other jobs that supposedly the rest of us won’t do. And I honestly can see the advantage to this, I really can. It’s just not worth the heavy cost to all of us. It would be different if the corporate types were paying for the hospital and education fees and the welfare and prison costs, but are they? No. Also, I don’t believe that there are really jobs that Americans won’t do. I kind of think our kids have gotten lazy; it wouldn’t do them any harm to perform some of these menial chores. The bulk of the work could be done by immigrants, and if we need more than our current quota provides, then by all means let more in legally.

Glenn You said there were three reasons?

Tom Yeah, the last reason is that both parties are afraid to antagonize the Mexicans. See, they take it for granted that all Mexican-Americans vote as one block, and if one party is seen as particularly anti-illegal, then this block will go one hundred percent to the other party. The Republicans are especially afraid of this. But it just isn’t true. As I said, I know plenty of Mexicans who agree with me on this subject. And even if they didn’t, you shouldn’t make political decisions out of cowardice. We all know it’s wrong and these people shouldn’t be here; they’re breaking the law, how many more ways can I say it?

Glenn And even if you have the fence, what about the estimated twelve million illegals who are already here? Would you deport them all?

Tom That wouldn’t be necessary. All you’ve got to do with them are two things: first, impose strict large penalties on companies who employ illegals. Second, enforce the terms of Proposition 187: don’t allow them free access to our schools, our welfare, our hospitals. You do these two things, and you won’t have to deport anybody. They’ll leave on their own.

Glenn Last question for you Tom, for the moment: What about their children who are born here?

Tom Well I would change that law in the first place. You should only be an automatic citizen if you’re born here to two legal parents. The ones already here, there’s not too much we can do about. For better or worse, they’re citizens. But I think the law should be changed.

Glenn All right, Tom, you’ve made your viewpoint very clear, and in my opinion, you’ve given some strong arguments. As host of this affair, I reserve the right to withhold my own opinions until the end; that way, neither of you guys can argue with my judgment, which will be final! Just kidding. But now let’s hear from David Goldstein, our resident liberal.

David Well, Tom did make some strong arguments, and I want to go back to one of them. In the middle of all of his arguments, he made the following statement, and I quote: “You can drive for miles and miles and not see a single sign in English.” Consider this statement for a moment. I’ve known Tom a long time, and I don’t believe he is in any way a racist, and yet this statement is clearly a racist statement. It suggests that more than the illegality of these people, more than their supposed high cost to our economy, to our schools and our hospitals, the real problem is they represent a different culture, a culture foreign to the white American culture that Tom and those like him are comfortable with.

And this, I suggest, is really at the heart of this issue, although they’ll never admit it, not even to themselves. No matter what logic the conservatives will give you about the strain on our system and border security etc. etc. there is one fact that is never said but that should be obvious to any thinking person: if these immigrants were from Canada and not from Mexico, no one would be complaining about it. It’s only because they’re Mexican that we get the number of complaints that we do.

Now of course they’re not coming from Canada, because Canada is a wealthy country where its people don’t need to leave. Mexico is a poor country, despite the fact that it is as wealthy in natural resources as the U.S.A. It remains a poor country because its government is so corrupt, and we Americans are to blame in part for that corruption. For over one hundred years, we’ve been supporting various dictators in Mexico in order to secure favorable trade benefits. We never insisted, as we easily could have, and should have if only for our own security, that the wealth garnered by the Mexican upper classes be spread throughout their entire economy; we never tried to help establish a strong Mexican middle class. The result has been a large poverty stricken majority of the Mexican public, and a small percentage of this public is going to inevitably seek a better way to live by coming across the border. I want to stress the fact that this is inevitable, because it shows why, practically speaking, Tom’s border fence idea won’t work. It won’t work because you’re not addressing the true cause of this problem, the Mexican economy. So long as that economy stays the way it is, these people will always come here, no matter what walls you put up or how else you might attempt to enforce our laws. They won’t work.

My next point, just as important, is this: no matter how much Tom attempts to separate illegals from the history of other immigrants who have come to America, the fact is there is more in common between these people and previous immigrants than the nativists will realize or acknowledge. The same comments, the same laws were called upon by Americans against the Irish, against the Chinese, against the Jews and Italians. All of these groups huddled in urban areas, spoke their own, strange languages and opened up stores in those languages; all of these immigrants were poverty stricken and their communities were a burden on our police, schools and hospitals.

And I want to emphasize the crime element, because this is often the biggest complaint against new immigrants. The crime is directly related to the poverty. When the poverty disappears, the crime does, too.

So what happened to these immigrants, the Jews and Italians and Asians? Despite their attempts to form their own communities, the Little Italys and Chinatowns and the Lower East Side of New York, their children learned English and became Americanized, and became part of our strength.

But, you argue, these Mexicans are different not because they descend mostly from Indian background, and are therefore non-European, and are therefore inferior as far as our subconscious mindset goes, whether or not we want to admit it- no, these Mexicans are different because they crossed over the border to get here, so they are illegal. Well, I claim they’re illegal because they can be illegal. See, Tom, my forefathers and yours would have crossed the border if they could have. They would have crossed one hundred borders. And anyhow, we’ve also got to realize that in the minds of many of these people, the border shouldn’t exist, anyway. After all, what we now know as the Southwestern United States was stolen from Mexico-

Tom Stop right there, I can’t let this go any further. You’ve just spewed out about a mile of leftist propaganda, and it’s not right to let Glenn’s students hear this without some kind of rational response.

David Now Tom, I’m not finished yet. I let you have your say without any interruption. I haven’t even gotten to responding to your specific solutions to the problem.

Tom That’s true, but you’ve taken twice as long as I have-

Glenn Guys, let’s set a procedure here. Let David finish his comments. Next I’ll ask him some questions the way I asked Tom. Then Tom can respond, and David can respond, and I’ll give some closing thoughts. OK?

Tom That’s fine with me, except that I may need just as long to respond to all of his statements.

Glenn David, try to sum up your thoughts and keep them concise. Hit the high notes.

David I’ll try, thanks. This is my first time at doing this, and I’ve got so much to say. OK, to sum up so far, I just don’t see this as the major problem that Tom does. More than that, I see these immigrants as overall a great benefit to America. Its trite to say they do jobs we won’t, that’s something I hear all the time, but it happens to be true. More correctly, they do jobs for cheaper than we would do them, and these keeps our prices down. If you appreciate the low cost of groceries, for instance, this is directly related to the presence of illegals. Whatever cost they are to the hospitals and police is more than made up for by the benefit they provide. Furthermore, they’re not sending all of their money back over the border, no matter what is said. They spend plenty of it over here, enough where it plays a part in our economy.

Now this doesn’t mean that I’m in favor of opening the borders. Some sort of border security is necessary. But I think it’s a totally irrelevant argument to suggest somehow that in the wake of 9/11, we need to be more border vigilant in order to stop terrorists. You would have to have not only a wall but one million border patrolmen constantly watching in order to insure that one terrorist didn’t come in, and then you still couldn’t be sure. The only way to stop terrorists is by increased intelligence, everyone knows this: so the argument that 9/11 means we need to secure our borders is made by people with an ulterior motive.

Finally, I’ve got to make a comment on Tom’s other proposals. If you penalize companies for hiring illegals, you’re only going to raise all of our costs. If you don’t allow hospital access, you’re only going to risk a public health menace with things like tuberculosis. If you cut off schools to the kids, you’re only going to create a whole underclass of illiterate kids who with nothing else to do will most likely form gangs and terrorize our neighborhoods. What I’m trying to say is that everyone of Tom’s solutions will make this situation worse, without solving any problems. OK, I’m done.

Glenn All right, now I’ll ask you a few questions before we let Tom have his response. Are you proposing then, that we do nothing about this problem?

David I just don’t see it as big a problem as Tom does. I didn’t say do nothing. I’m willing to listen to reasonable ideas. But all of Tom’s ideas are draconian and would be, in my mind disastrous.

Glenn What about one of Tom’s main points, that these people are illegal and that their very presence is an attack on the integrity of our laws.

David I think Tom, and people like him, make too much of an ordered society. Tom’s a conservative, and it’s a conservative trait to respect law and order just a little bit too much for my tastes, because it makes them feel secure in their place within this ordered world. But I am a liberal, I’m not afraid of change, and I certainly don’t see the world as very ordered. Some laws are just and some aren’t; some people are good and some aren’t. You’ve got to look at each issue subjectively. Just because there is a law that makes these people illegal, doesn’t mean there should be one. Maybe we should change the law. But even if it is illegal, I consider it a victimless crime, and I don’t think people should be charged for a victimless crime. Even Tom admits he’s against rounding these people up, arresting and deporting them. If he truly is troubled by the legality of this issue, then he should be willing to go all the way and support rounding them all up.

Glenn OK Tom, we’re all anxiously waiting for your response.

Tom I’m not even sure I know where to begin. First of all, in response to the very last thing David said, the only reason I’m against rounding up the illegals is the impracticality of it when there are simpler and cheaper ways to solve this problem, as I’ve proposed. But I’m not against the morality of rounding them up, as he seems to be.

Second of all, in regards to his idea that as a conservative, I cling to ideas of law and order, whereas to him as a liberal everything is subjective, I couldn’t agree more. But I put a little different emphasis on these ideas: simply put, I would not want to live in a society where everything is subjective. The sort of moral relativism that David proposes led in the 20th Century to some of the worst regimes in history. I have a strong sense of what is right and wrong, and this was given to me by David’s Lord and mine some four thousand years ago on Mount Sinai. I hold murder to be immoral. I hold rape to be immoral. I hold stealing to be immoral. These are absolutes that I think and hope even David would agree with, and in order to live in a civilized society, we must have law and order to prevent these crimes from happening. David, you said, in discussing the law that makes these people illegal, “maybe we should change the law”. Well, that’s your right to have that opinion. I don’t agree with it, but perhaps you can convince enough people to change the laws and allow open borders between us and Mexico. But until you can get the law changed, it is what it is, and people have no right to break it. I say that if they do, they’re making a mockery of all of our laws.

Now as far as the crossing of the border being a victimless crime, this is a ridiculous argument. Even if you ignore the border patrol, who risk their lives attempting to stop these people, the analogy I would make is to drunk driving. Theoretically, the act of driving while intoxicated is a victimless crime; it only becomes a serious crime when the drunk driver actually causes harm to someone else. But as a society we can’t wait for that to happen. So we make the act of drunk driving illegal, and rightly so. This same reasoning applies to illegals; we as a society are their collective victims and we cannot afford to wait for them to do harm to us.

David’s argument that the Southwestern United States may belong to Mexico anyway mirrors that of La Raza and elements of the far Left. I will only comment that if it’s truly Mexico these people really want, then why bother coming over here? Surely they’re coming to escape Mexico?

David talks about the great benefit illegals bring to our country, and no one would deny there is certainly a need for low wage workers. I believe there are plenty of Americans willing to do these jobs if given a chance. I’d even be in favor of some sort of involuntary youth program to perform these tasks, say as an alternative to the military draft; this would be healthy for our youth. I am not in favor of any proposed guest worker program, as there is no difference between that and amnesty. One way or another, we need to get these people to leave, not stay.

David, of course, completely glosses over the high cost of illegal aliens to our schools, hospitals, and prisons. He doesn’t really want to discuss these issues, because they don’t fit in with his romantic ideal of hard workers who heroically cross the border in pursuit of the American dream. But our resources are at their breaking point, and I hold that illegals present a much higher cost to us than any benefit they represent, even if you ignore the fact of their illegality, which I can’t.

He compares them to the immigrants of an earlier generation, but of course there are tremendous differences besides the illegal issue. The Jews, Polish, Italians, Irish, etc., yes they huddled in the big cities and caused crime and spoke their own languages, all that is true, but what is also true is that they all aspired to be assimilated. They encouraged their children to speak English, to achieve within the structure of our capitalistic society. Do the illegal aliens from south of the border encourage their kids to speak English? No, they demand bilingual education. They seek to be separate from our culture, they don’t contribute to the old idea of the melting pot, and they retain an antagonism towards American values. This is what I was getting at when I spoke of not seeing a sign in English in a city like Huntington Park- it was not racist at all, but instead a concern over the failure of these people to assimilate and the assault on our culture.

Finally, regarding David’s criticism of my ideas: he says stopping free hospital care would spread public health concerns like TB; but it is the very presence of the illegals that spread these concerns. If we found a way to stop them from coming and to get the ones already here to leave, we wouldn’t be saddled with this problem. Nor would we be saddled with their presence either in our schools or as roving gang members. All of my ideas are preventative by nature; I’m trying to keep this problem which is already huge and out of control from becoming even worse. Granted there will be complications with the enforcement of my proposals, but these will seem minor compared to ten years from now if we continue to maintain the status quo.

David says the wall won’t work because first, the economic inequities of the State of Mexico will continue to compel people to cross over and second, it won’t stop a determined terrorist from getting into our country. But he’s not dealing in reality. Of course, a wall will make it much harder for illegals to get through, and much harder for terrorists to get through. In neither case will it eliminate the possibility, but David seems to suggest we should scrap the whole idea because it’s not one hundred percent perfect? What idea is ever that level of perfect? The wall will do the job for the most part; it will significantly reduce this problem to a more manageable level. Who could ask for more? There has to be a wall.

OK, I think I’ve responded to everything. I’m exhausted. And done.

Glenn Any final response, David?

David It would take me just as long to respond to Tom’s points as it did his response to mine, and I’m not sure we’d get anywhere further. This really comes down to two opposing philosophies: Americans are going to have to decide if they want to accept Tom’s rather draconian solutions to this problem, or if they want to accept my premise that this really isn’t that big a problem after all. I think the illegals are being used as a scapegoat to turn our attention away from the bigger problems in our society; economic problems caused by the inequities created by our corporatist state. As long as these inequities occur, there’s going to be a sense of uneasiness and concern about our society, and people like Tom will always point to an easy target like Mexican-Americans as the cause for our concern.

Glenn OK now let me give a few of my own thoughts and then we’ll be done for the evening.

I think you both expressed yourselves extremely well on a complicated issue, and I hope my students will appreciate that. What made you both so compelling is that there is, in my opinion, some truth to both of your arguments. Tom is correct that this is a big problem, especially to the cost related to our schools, hospitals and law enforcement. David’s opinion that these costs are somehow minor cannot be sustained by the facts. Tom’s other concerns, that illegals present also a threat to our culture and by the fact of their being illegal a threat to our very idea of law and order; well, I think these arguments are more problematic. His debate with David over these two issues (culture and law) is philosophical by nature, and one’s judgment really depends on where one stands. For myself, I probably would have to lean with David on the culture debate, but lean slightly towards Tom’s view on the issue of the threat to our laws. But even if we bypass these confusing issues, I think overall Tom is right on his main point, this is a big issue, and cannot continue to be ignored.

David, however, makes good points in his critiques of Tom’s proposed solutions. Tom really wasn’t able to defend himself against David’s criticisms; simply arguing that once the illegals leave all of these problems will be solved is not to me a valid defense. But David, I note, offered no solutions of his own, preferring to belittle the whole problem. And as Tom correctly pointed out, David offered no concrete reason to be against the proposed fence along our southern borders. I personally am opposed to this fence for reasons never stated by David or Tom: I think its important to promote and maintain a stable trading partner in Mexico; I think this issue could be as or more important than the issue of illegal immigration. I’m concerned with the increasing radicalization of Latin America with countries like Venezuela and Nicaragua becoming more and more opposed to U.S. interests. And I fear a border fence would help to alienate Mexico and push her into the opposing camp. So I think there has to be a way other than the fence.

One idea that neither Tom or David pointed out would be the possible reallocation of federal monies, rather than state monies to handle the costs associated with illegals. Consider: the high costs that Tom is concerned with are largely based in the Southwestern states that have a direct border with Mexico: California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico. These states collectively bear the brunt of the problems created by illegal immigration. Yet the benefits cited by David, specifically the reduced cost of labor that we see reflected in our spending, such as in the grocery store- these benefits are spread throughout the entire U.S.A. Wouldn’t it be just, therefore, to establish a federal pool of money to relieve the burden on the Southwestern states? I don’t know how to implement such a plan, its just an idea, but I never hear anything like it discussed, and I think it should be.

Altogether a good performance by all for our first debate. Next week, we’ll take on the subject of Israel and the Palestinians. That ought to be fun. Good night!

 

[Leroy Hoard]

"Time Passes Slowly" is a pretty horrific book title. My first thought was that it would probably be extremely boring and/or dry.

It's called "truth in advertising"

 

[Tom Servo]

Tim --

I've read most of what's been posted. I like the premise in general, and the story itself could be compelling. A couple of things come to mind:

1. Pretty much what CJ said. The sentence structure is a killer. Couple that with a 500 page novel and it turns into a trail of tears.

2. Similarly (at least in the prologue), a lot of background information on the characters was just thrown at the reader as soon as they're introduced. IMO, that's too much information so early on.

3. The characters were stereotypical (Jews as money men; who'da thunk that?) Maybe that was typical of the day, it just seemed too easy to have a paint-by-numbers characters.

Here's a couple of ideas to assist you:

1. Run your story by a local college English prof...even better if it's from a community college; they may feel honored and may use it in their writing class and have their class dissect it for both good and bad.

2. Go to your local bookstore and look through the historical fiction section. Pick up some books and start reading them (a couple of pages). See if it interests you...what about it interests you? What turns you off about the book? Maybe buy a couple of these books, read them, and take notes about what you find out in terms of character development, plot, and so forth. Perhaps you can get the help at the store to recommend good historical fiction to help guide you.

3. Spend some time writing about...anything. Try the short story (let Hemmingway be your guide); try the novella, whatever. Experiment with shorter forms of writing to force you to bring character development to the fore quickly and deeply. Write about great stuff, trivial stuff and everything in between. It doesn't have to be Pulitzer-prize winning; it's not meant to be. The thing is to practice and turn this from a desire and make it a craft.

Just my I'm no author though I wouldn't mind being one someday...

 

[Tom Servo]

And, FTR, the "Tom" in Tim's novel is not me.

 

[videoguy505]

Does this novel have a story?

 

[Notorious T.R.E.]

And time, goes by, so slowly, when TRE reads Tim's book... /righteous brothers

Let me guess, David Goldstein is Timschochet?

 

[timschochet]

And time, goes by, so slowly, when TRE reads Tim's book... /righteous brothersLet me guess, David Goldstein is Timschochet?

THAT, I can tell you, is wrong. Also, the title is from a Bob Dylan tune, not the Righteous Brothers.But I appreciate the feedback so far. I will take the advice to heart. Obviously this book is nowhere near good enough for publication, and perhaps I will revamp it or completely rewrite it. In the meantime, however, I will continue to post a few pages a day, since I am both a supreme egotist and a glutton for punishment...

 

[BobbyLayne]

Is it cool to read this one before I read the prequel "Time Flies", or will it be too confusing?

 

[wikkidpissah]

The followup, Eternity Takes Forever, is a surprisingly breezy read, though.

 

[timschochet]

Chapter Two

Poland, 1491

So it was that in the spring of 1491, after a long and arduous journey, the Goldsteins arrived in the village of Lodz, which was located squarely in the center of Poland. As I have written, little was known about Lodz at this time; it was a small place that showed no inkling of the metropolis it would one day become. The entire village, as well as the surrounding countryside for miles, belonged to the Baron Wynitski, who warmly welcomed the Jews, believing that at long last his fortunes had changed.

Poland at this time was a largely agricultural land; it had recently been strengthened by its union with Lithuania. It was a kingdom with two overwhelming difficulties. The first of these was that it was mostly a flat country, easy to invade, caught between potentially warring powers north, west, and east. This meant that Poland could never be secure; even when it was not being invaded, the threat that always hung over it created somewhat of a neurotic behavior among its inhabitants.

The second difficulty was there was no yeomanry or middle class of any kind. The nobles represented roughly five percent of the population; the remaining 95% were illiterate and poverty starved peasants. Merchants, tradesmen, professionals, the heart of any urban society, all of these would have to be imported before Poland could climb its way out of total destitution.

Moses soon discovered that the Baron’s estate was in worse shape than he had expected, the result of a combination of poor tax collection, and several gambling and spending sprees by the current and previous Wynitskis. Along with his sons, Moses, acting with the Baron’s authority, soon reorganized affairs. He actually lowered the peasants’ taxes in the area but developed better means of collection. This created a two-fold accomplishment: first, he was able to actually collect more revenue, much to Stephen’s delight; second, by lowering the taxes he made himself popular with the peasants, an event which would have long range benefits.

Moses was hindered considerably by the fact that he spoke no Polish. However, his sons soon picked up the tongue. The Goldsteins were well paid and lived in reasonable peace and freedom. Their only problem was a social one: whereas in Spain there had been a large and vibrant Jewish community, here there were virtually no other Jews in the area. Moses, a deeply religious man, was unable to attend a synagogue, because there was none. So he dutifully led his family in more personal prayers to God, and he vowed he would build a synagogue just as soon as a minyan (13 Jews) could be found. And he prayed for God to send him more Jews, especially girls that his sons could marry.

His prayers were soon answered. In 1492, the same year that Columbus began the first of his historic voyages, Queen Isabella, under the influence of Torquemada, finally issued an edict expelling the remaining Jews from Spain.

Very few of the Spanish Jews who were now forced to leave followed the Goldsteins to Poland. Most of them fled first to Portugal, where they were expelled five years later, then to Morocco and North Africa where they would spend the next several centuries as a vibrant minority within many Muslim countires.

But the Spanish Inquisition was influential in other countries in central Europe, in particular Prussia, Austria, and Bohemia. In these kingdoms the great schism (meaning the rise of Martin Luther and Protestantism) had not yet occurred, and they were at this time in history greatly deferential to Spain. In 1504, some thirteen years after the Goldsteins arrived in Poland, each of these countries decided to expel their Jews, in imitation of the Spanish example. The result was a mass exodus to Poland, especially eastern Poland (which at this time also included what is now known as The Ukraine, and what is known as the westernmost part of modern Russia.)

These Jews who now came to Poland were very different from the Spaniards that the Goldsteins had known. They dressed differently, were more communal in their behavior, and spoke a number of central European languages (the most common of these being Yiddish, a five hundred year old combination of German and Hebrew). For the most part, these Jews were made welcome by the Polish Kings and nobility, continuing the pattern of seeking a professional class from outside the Kingdom.

For Moses Goldstein, now in his waning years, the influx was a godsend. Here at last was the community he had hoped and prayed for. Here would come daughters that his sons Solomon and David, now in their thirties, could marry. Moses quickly petitioned Baron Wynitski to allow six hundred of the Austrian Jews to form an autonomous village on the outskirts of Lodz. They would govern themselves, Moses promised, and their presence would result in greater wealth for the Baron, and prosperity for the entire area.

Stephen readily agreed. He was wiser now, and had realized some time ago that Moses and his sons had saved his Barony, not through sorcery, as he had once supposed, but through good management and common sense. Stephen, although a devout Christian who believed in the supremacy of the Pope, considered himself civilized and unprejudiced, and thought the expulsion of Jews from so many countries was wrongheaded and absurd.

So, six hundred Jews came to Lodz. They brought their trades with them, and their Rabbis, and judges who governed all of their behavior. Except in matters of trade, they kept themselves completely apart from the Poles around them, continuing their isolated communal tradition.

Solomon and David were soon able to find wives, and their children grew up speaking Yiddish, with no trace of the Spanish accents of their fathers and grandfathers. These children grew up in the ever larger and growing Lodz Jewish community, which reached 3,000 by 1550. Within this tightly knit group, the Goldsteins were always considered uncrowned kings. They continued to manage Wynitski affairs all throughout the sixteenth century, and were therefore the wealthiest Jews in the area. They had good relations with the barons and the Christian townsfolk, and could always be counted upon to handle any disputes that might occur between the two peoples.

The sixteenth century was a time of great triumph and freedom for the Jews of Poland. Their status was protected by the Polish kings, and they generally got along with the Poles, even as they continued to keep to themselves. Nearly four hundred thousand Jews lived in greater Poland by the end of the century. Great yeshivas (learning centers) were established, where the study of the Talmud flourished. It could be said with assurance at this time that Poland was the capital of world Jewry.

This state of affairs continued for the most part into the first half of the next century. In 1645, Itzak Goldstein, at age 37, took over the management of the Wynitski Barony upon the death of his father. Itzak had been trained for this for several years; the management of the barony had passed to the eldest Goldstein son as long as anyone could remember.

As Itzak looked at his life, he could find no reasons for complaints, except one. His wife, Sarah, had failed to give him a son. He had two young daughters, Rebecca and Golde. Because of Itzak’s wealth, he knew that both would be well protected and marry well. But would this mean the end of the Goldstein line? Who would inherit management of the Barony when Itzak’s own time came? The problem could have been resolved, as it had in the past, if Itzak had a younger brother, but he was an only child. The fate of his family legacy bear heavily on him.

Other than this, Itzak could look at the world around him with great satisfaction. Although he was vaguely aware that his ancestors had come to Poland from Spain over one hundred and fifty years before, he identified himself completely as a member of the Ashkenazi Jews of Poland, and the only two languages he spoke were Polish and Yiddish (although, like any educated Jew of his time, he had of course learned Hebrew at yeshiva, and used it for prayer).

He was, because of his position, the leading man in his community, on a par with the local rabbi. He lived in a nice house which displayed his wealth, and had many other business affairs beyond his main occupation of managing the Barony. He was the closest thing to a bank in Lodz; when Jews needed money for various enterprizes, it was Itzak who could be called upon to supply the capital. He also extended this service to the goyim (Christians) as well, and charged a very small interest. Itzak was seen by the Poles as the unofficial leader of the Jews in the area, and he was always the one sought after when decisions had to be made. This gave him much responsibility, but he generally enjoyed his position.

Itzak Goldstein, like his ancestors, was a pious Jew whose beliefs were deeply held and seldom questioned. Like his neighbors, he kept a strict kosher house, and observed the Laws as rigorously as he could. He attended synagogue twice a week (and all day on the Sabbath) and enjoyed it; it was the center of his life.

Like his ancestors, however, Itzak had a deeply ingrained belief, contrasting that of his neighbors, that change was inevitable. He recognized that for all his contentment, he was a stranger in a strange land. There was much rumbling beginning around this time regarding the Jews from their Polish neighbors. Although the Polish Kings and nobility continued to support and protect the Jews, they were starting to be feared and despised by the peasantry of Poland, whose numbers still ranged around 90% of the population, and whose condition had not altered any in the last century.

Many of these Poles were by now convinced that the Jews were responsible for their misery, even more so than the nobles. Who collected the rents? The Jews. Who lived apart, spoke their own language, refused to act like Poles? The Jews. The Catholic Polish Priests blamed the Jews for killing Christ, and preached hatred. The old legends, carried over from Western Europe, of Jews using virgin Christian blood for secret ceremonies was reintroduced and spread, until it became a common belief in the countryside. And the hatred spread.

There were other problems as well in Poland at this time that had less to do with Jewry. In the 1620’s, Catholic Poland had been engaged in a long and grueling war with Protestant Sweden, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, but achieved no tangible results for either side. Now emerging from the blood spattered Thirty Year War, Sweden again cast covetous eyes on the Polish territories. Meanwhile, the Ukraine was upset at its subservient position in Polish society and threatened to rebel. The Jews of Poland were particularly fearful of this because it was known that the Ukrainians were sometimes sold as serfs (slaves) into Poland, and that Jews were often the traders involved; therefore, the hatred for Jews among Ukrainians was intense, especially among the Cossacks. Finally, Russia had always considered Poland to be little more than one of its provinces; either a Swedish invasion or Ukrainian uprising would give the Russians an excuse to invade themselves, in order to “restore order.”

Itzak Goldstein was well aware of all of these issues, but he was not concerned. Lodz was far away from the Ukraine and Russia, and too isolated within Poland to be much affected by a Swedish invasion. Whatever happened, he reasoned, life would not be too altered where he was; whoever ruled Poland, grain would be needed, and someone would have to manage the large estates, and that meant Jews. As far as hatred for his people went, well, one did not see too much of this in Lodz, where the Jewish population was still relatively small, as compared to the larger cities of Warsaw and Crakow. He had always gotten along well with the goyim, and sensed no animosity. But as I have written, he was mentally ready for things to change, because that was the way the Goldsteins had always survived.

The Baron at this time was named Andrei Wynitski. Like so many of his predecessors, Andrei spent more time outside of Poland than in it. He loved Paris and Rome, and would spend several years at a time living in those two cities, depending upon Itzak to send him funds when necessary. He took absolutely no interest in either the management of his estate or of the issues facing Poland; if war came, he would watch it from the sidelines at a safe distance.

It can be said that Itzak loved his daughters, but, being a man of his time and culture, he paid scant attention to them. The younger daughter, Golde, was a true beauty who charmed everyone she came in contact. At fourteen, because of her good looks and family fortune, she was the most sought after bride to be in that part of Poland. She was a simple, good-natured girl, pleasant to be around and ever-dutiful. The matchmaker had already advanced many offers to the Goldsteins, but Itzak preferred to wait a few more years while he weighed the options.

This left Rebecca, the older daughter, who was now seventeen. No one could say she was a beauty. Tall and thin, with a sharp nose and wide, protruding lips, she was actually quite an ugly girl. Of course, she could never be husbandless given the Goldstein wealth; despite her looks, there was interest in her as well (though not nearly as much as for Golde.)

Rebecca could not have cared less if she never married. Unlike her sister, her thoughts were deep. She was fascinated by what her father did, and asked him questions about it (which he for the most part refused to answer, considering it unseemly for a girl to know about these affairs.) At this time it was unusual for a Jewish girl, no matter how wealthy, to learn to read; yeshivas were restricted to boys. But Rebecca used her father’s books to teach herself how, anyway. Starting as a child, she had snuck peeks at her father’s ledger, and was soon better at equations than he was, although she demurely never showed this. Being a true Goldstein, Rebecca was ready for change; more than this, she welcomed it, feeling that her life was stifled, and that she would be doomed to an unwanted marriage.

Avram Rabinowitz was a trader from the Ukraine who often came to Lodz with plenty of goods the Jews there would appreciate, including books and prayer items from Kiev which could not be duplicated in the more rural community in which the Lodz Jews lived. His wagon pulled by two good horses, was a source of wonder to the various parts of Poland he visited, and after two decades of trading success he had become quite wealthy. Avram was a fat man and a widower, 47, with two sons, Michael and David, who either traveled with him or stayed at their home in Kiev. Michael, the older son at 22, was a good natured lad but not very bright; his father would often introduce him as “the stupid one” which was an honest assessment. David, age ten, was sharper; he read voraciously, and it was thought that one day he would become a great scholar.

Over the years, Avram had come to know Itzak Goldstein quite well; the two had become friends. The fat merchant was aware of Itzak’s worry over having no sons; he was also quite aware of Itzak’s daughter Golde, whom he had cast a hungry eye on for some time now.

This was why, in early 1648, Avram Rabinowitz came to Lodz with his younger son David, and asked to see Itzak Goldstein. “Old friend,” Avram began, “this will be my last visit to Lodz. I have made enough money over the years, and I am getting old, I am retiring. I want to live out my days in Kiev, which over the years has become a great city, not like these hinterlands here.”

“These hinterlands, as you call them,” Itzak pointed out, “provide my income, and they have paid for your right to live in the big city.”

“Of course, of course, but listen, Itzak my friend, I have a proposal for you, you will bless me for I bring the answer to all your problems!” And he pointed triumphantly to his son David, who sat in a chair unmoving, his face immersed in a huge book.

Puzzled, Itzak said, “I don’t understand.”

”So what’s to understand? It is simple,” replied the merchant. “My son David, he is so bright! So smart! Too smart for me, nu? Whatever shall I do with such a son? Then, in the middle of a night’s sleep, the answer comes to me! Goldstein, I think, has need of an heir, and he has no sons of his own. Goldstein needs a smart boy who can be trained to handle the Baron’s affairs. So! Goldstein will adopt my son David, and raise him as his own son!!”

The idea was not unusual. It a world where disease and random killings meant so many Jews died young, adoption, though uncommon, was not frowned upon. In this instance, Itzak thought, he was being given a gift from God. It was well known the boy was gifted, perhaps a genius. But why would Rabinowitz be willing to so freely give up such a treasure?

The merchant quickly answered the unspoken question. “But!” he said, raising a finger in the air, “why should Rabinowitz give up his son, eh? What does Avram want in return, you wonder, no doubt? Why nothing, except, of course, the hand of your daughter Golde in marriage, that is all, such an insignificant price!”

So that was it! Itzak thought, and actually it was a cheap price at that! He knew he could marry off Golde at any time; she was pretty, so that always made things easier. And she would be well protected by marrying such a wealthy man as this merchant from Kiev, so Itzak could be assured he was doing his duty as a father, as well. The fact that Avram Rabinowitz was 47 and his daughter just turned 14 bothered Itzak not at all; such matches occurred every day. Perhaps, perhaps since the older man was so eager (and willing to throw in his son as well) there could even be a discount on the dowry.

 

[Happy Ragnarok]

“The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style–in clarity and vigor–is the difference between life and death for a writer.” - W. Zinsser

 

[timschochet]

Yes, it was an offer worth accepting. But Itzak Goldstein was too shrewd a trader to simply agree to the first proposal. So he decided to bargain:

“I will agree to give you my daughter’s hand in marriage, and I will agree to adopt your son, but in return, you must take my older daughter, Rebecca to Kiev, as well. The two girls are very close, and cannot bear to be separated,” he added as an afterthought. It sounded good, and in fact it was true, although Itzak had no idea whether his two daughters were truly close or not.

Oh, ho, thought Avram, he wants to get rid of the ugly one, as well. But what to do with such a cow? Then he had a truly wonderful idea, and his face lit up. “I’ll marry her to my son, Michael!”

“The stupid one?” Itzak asked.

“Of course!” Avram cried. “He’s far too dim to ever realize she’s not pretty. A perfect match!”

The two men laughed long and hard, and then agreed to the deal.

When engaging with his family, Itzak was not a tactful man; he simply gave orders. It was no different on this occasion, but he was surprised to find his wife and younger daughter sobbing, and his older daughter glaring at him.

“I shall not go,” Rebecca said, fire in her eyes and voice, disobeying her father for the first time in her young life. “I shall not leave Lodz for some unknown big city, and you shall not marry me off to a fool!”

“What is this?” Itzak said; he could not believe his ears. “What is this you say? How dare you speak to your father so?” but before he could continue, Rebecca stormed out of the room.

She refused to cry in front of others, but inside, she was miserable. Rebecca Goldstein had always known she wasn’t pretty, but this had never made her jealous of her younger sister; instead, the two were inseparably close. Rebecca never had too much liking for people; she had always been a loner. She loved the farmlands around Lodz as she loved her life. She was interested in what her father did, although she knew that a woman could never hope to be a merchant or manager. And now she was being sent far away, to a place she did not know, and it had been announced that she was engaged to a man known by everyone to be a dimwit; the rest of her life would be spent devoted to this dimwit: cleaning his house, bearing and raising his children. Was this dismal fate truly to be hers?

Itzak did not speak to her again that night. To him, there was no point; he had made his decision, and it was up to her as a dutiful daughter to comply. Rebecca had no intention of complying; all evening long she plotted in her mind how she would run away. It did not matter what would become of her, at least she would be a free woman, able to make her own decisions.

But late that night, she was visited by her younger sister. Golde, being who she was, never questioned her father’s decision, but she was heartbroken by it. To be married to a man over thirty years older than she! Disgusting. Again crying, she took Rebecca’s hand in hers and begged her to agree to marry the merchant’s son and go to Kiev. “At least then we’ll be together,” Golde pleaded. “Don’t abandon me, I beg you.”

In the end, Rebecca relented. She could not leave her younger sister to suffer her fate alone. So she agreed to accompany her. But this I swear, Rebecca thought to herself: I will return to Lodz someday…

The wedding of Avram Rabinowitz and Golde Goldstein was a subdued affair. Avram, having completed his trade, was eager now to get back to the Ukraine. The day following the wedding, he made room on his wagon for the two sisters, hitched up his horses, and left quickly.

It was many days travel from Lodz to the Ukraine, and during that time, Avram never stopped talking. He described the wonders of Kiev to the two sisters. When the Jews of Prussia had been expelled in the early part of the sixteenth century, the bulk of them had gone to the Ukraine to live, and there they were still. “Why,” said Avram, “there are over three hundred thousand Jews living there- that’s three-fourths of all the Jews that live in Poland-Lithuania! It’s almost a third of all the Jews on Earth. And of this three hundred thousand, at least half live in Kiev, which is the greatest city in this part of Eastern Europe outside of Warsaw! Oh, you will see how grand it is!”

He described the magnificent synagogues, some of them as incredibly ornate as the fine Orthodox churches. And he told of the huge mansions where some of the best Jews lived, which would make any home in Lodz, including the Baron’s castle, “look like a pigsty.” And Avram spoke of the yeshivas of Kiev, where the greatest scholars in Jewish history lived, helping to form a tradition that would last for a thousand years. Yes, the Ukraine had truly become the Utopia of the Jewish people.

Of course, he admitted, there was dislike for the Jews among the Ukrainian peasants, but what was new about that? The greatest anti-Jewish sentiment was from the Cossacks: soldiers, usually on horses, with a distinct look to them. “If you meet them, you will need to bow and scrape a little,” Avram admitted. “But even they will only go so far. They know that we are under the absolute protection of the Polish nobles. And the Cossacks hate and fear the Poles even more than they do us! So they will never harm the Jews, because the retaliation would be great.”

Throughout this lecture, and for many days, Rebecca listened without saying a word. She was still in shock that she had left her home, and would soon be married to a dullard. Avram’s glowing words about Kiev and the Ukraine did little to spell her doubts; she had heard stories in her father’s household for years about the mistreatment of Jews by the Cossacks. If there was Polish protection as Avram claimed, it counted for very little. Rebecca carried within herself her ancestors’ beliefs that change was never very far away; this helped her to cope with the current situation. If Kiev was truly a Jewish paradise, all well and good. But if, as she suspected, her future father in law was exaggerating, then the girl would make the best of that, too.

Avram was correct about the Ukrainian Cossacks hating the Polish Nobles as much as they hated the Jews. To a man, the Cossacks were members of the Orthodox Church; the Poles were Catholic. The Ukrainians were constantly afraid that their church would be eliminated by the Poles. Also, they chafed under what they considered foreign rule over their lands. As I have written, the Cossacks hated the Jews because they were often the agents of the Poles, doing their dirty work. The Jews collected taxes, and held the keys to the Orthodox churches, which they refused to open unless special fees were collected. Some Jews were also involved in the sale of Ukrainian serfs into Poland, where they lived out their lives as slaves, brutally treated.

So it was no surprise that over the last one hundred years, there had been at least forty Cossack uprisings. All of them had been easily crushed by the Polish nobles, who kept a strong lock on the area. However, all of this changed in 1648, during the same months that Avram Rabinowitz traveled to Lodz. He could have no way of realizing that he would be returning to a dramatically different Ukraine, and the difference would result in the greatest calamity to befall the Jewish people in their long history, paralleled only by the Nazi Holocaust nearly three hundred years later.

A Cossack named Boghdan Chmielnicki, who had spent his formative years fighting for the Poles in their army, and reaching a high rank, led the latest Ukrainian Cossack revolt. Chmielnicki was a brilliant general, and demanded discipline from his troops, at least on the field. The result was victories for the insurgents, who quickly slaughtered every Pole and Jew they could find. Anarchy swept through the Ukraine, as the two armies, Pole and Cossack, vied for power.

So it was that on the third day out of Lodz, just as they were entering the Ukraine, Avram and the two sisters were stopped by three Cossack horsemen who intercepted them on the road. The youngest of them, a man named Casimir, knew Avram. Casimir was typical of the young Cossack soldiers that had joined Chmielnicki; in his early twenties, he had never been able to make a steady living outside of the army, whose discipline he hated (along with the Polish officers.) He had killed several Poles at the command of Chmielnicki, whom he revered, and was now awarded with the dubious title of “Colonel”.

He knew Avram because his father, always drunk and worthless, had borrowed money from Rabinowitz to meet Polish rents so as to maintain his small piece of land. Months later, Avram had evicted his father, anyhow. (That he had been forced to do so by the Polish nobles, that it was mostly because Casimir’s father could not be counted upon to perform a single day’s work, none of this mattered at all to Casimir.) Now Casimir’s father was dead, having gone on a drinking binge that finally resulted in his end. And here, in front of Casimir, was the Jew that killed him. And no longer under Polish protection, because in the Ukraine that didn’t exist anymore.

The young Cossack grinned, and climbed down from his horse. “So, the Jew returns from his travels! How goes it, Avram?”

Avram Rabinowitz was perturbed by the threat in the other man’s voice, but he was not really concerned. He did not recognize the other Cossacks, but he had known Casimir his entire life. “Well met, Casimir,” he replied easily. “I am returning from Poland, where I have taken a bride.”

“Really,” said Casimir, now moving forward until he stood directly in front of the merchant, a grin on his face. “One of these two lovely ladies, no doubt?”

“Yes,” said Avram, pointing at the younger girl. “That is my new wife, Golde.”

”I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to witness it,” Casimir replied, “but allow me to give you a wedding present, anyhow.”

Rebecca Goldstein, who had been watching this scene carefully, suddenly knew what was about to happen. Pulling Golde behind her, she called out “Avram, don’t!” but it was too late. Casimir had pulled out his sword, and now he ran it through Avram Rabinowitz. “Here is your wedding present, Jew!” he cried, as the merchant, dying quickly, fell to the ground. The Cossack proceeded to chop him into pieces in front of the two stunned girls.

Then he nodded at the other two men to dismount, and he approached the wagon, his eyes on Golde.

“So pretty,” he said, “such a waste. But perhaps not, eh? Perhaps you will be of service… to a Cossack?”

Fearlessly, Rebecca spat at him. “You are a Ukrainian pig!” she hissed, “Keep your filthy hands off my sister.”

Casimir slapped Rebecca, knocking her hard on to the ground, where she lay gasping for air. Then he proceeded to beat and kick her until she nearly fainted. While this was occurring, the other two Cossacks ripped away Golde’s clothing and began to rape her. Casimir himself raped the older girl. When the men were done, they switched places. Each sister was raped at least once by each of the men.

When Casimir tired of this, he picked up Rebecca by the hair and said, “Now I want you to watch this carefully, Jewish whore!” and he used his sword to decapitate Golde. Rebecca passed out.

“She was awakened again by Casimir splashing water in her face. Rebecca’s hands were crudely tied behind her. “You will come with me,” Casimir ordered. “You are too ugly to kill, and I have need of a Jewish whore.”

He took Rebecca to the campgrounds where the bulk of the Ukrainian army was, and she spent the next several weeks cooking for him, cleaning his clothes and sword, and generally working as his servant. She considered herself lucky because she was not raped again. In general, the Ukrainians ignored her; she was Casimir’s slave. The fact that she was a Jew was overlooked, for there were other Jewish slaves in this army, all of them women.

And indeed, these were the lucky ones. For Boghdan Chmielnicki’s army would garner for itself a reputation that would last for several hundred more years: they intended to destroy the Jewish race, and they came close to succeeding. Jews were killed without mercy wherever they were found. Babies and children were cut in half just as easily and often as men were. Sometimes the women were raped before decapitation, as had happened to Golde. There was no pleading for mercy, no escape.

The Synagogues and Yeshivas were put to the torch. Great tomes of Jewish learning were utterly destroyed. Some Jewish villages were so devastated that not a single living thing was left after the Cossacks had come through.

All of this, Rebecca Goldstein witnessed. She spoke little to anyone, but simply followed Casimir’s orders, not knowing on what day he would simply decide to end her life, and hardly caring either. She thought she would lose all of her sanity upon watching what they did to her sister, but she was surprised to find out that she had lost none of it. She had never realized that she was so mentally tough. Not that it mattered! Day after day, she witnessed one horror after another, so that in a few weeks time, she felt that there were no secrets of life left to her.

Once, she was allowed to meet the great man, Chmielnicki himself. He was a tall, broad shouldered man on horseback, with long mustaches. He had come to confer with Casimir, who he obviously favored among his men. At one point during the conversation, he pointed at Rebecca, saying casually, “who’s the whore?”

“She’s a Jewish slut I found, she washes my clothes,” Casimir explained.

“She’s very ugly” said the General. “She shows on the outside what all of them are on the inside, no?” he laughed.

“I prefer her ugly,” Casimir said. “This way, she can just be my slave. I don’t have to worry about some other soldier grabbing her up.”

“That’s very wise,” Chmielnicki mused. “Perhaps I need to find myself an ugly Jewish whore.” He laughed and rode off.

Casimir looked after him with reverence. Perhaps not quite realizing that he was speaking to Rebecca, he said, “There goes the greatest Ukrainian who ever lived. He’ll free us all before he’s done, mark my words.”

Rebecca had learned to hold her tongue. But privately she thought that Chmielnicki’s reign of terror and brutality against both the Jews and Polish nobles could not last; eventually, he would be hunted down like a dog. As for the Ukrainians, they could win one more battle, or even one more after that, but how long could they survive against the might of their neighbors, the Poles and Russians? She considered all of this murder and destruction to be utterly pointless. When they get tired of fighting, she reasoned, they will want to return to their homes and live like normal people again, but they will find their homes have been destroyed, and all the Jews that could help them rebuild are all dead. And for what?