Having come out as gay, I am transformed into a strange, marginal person and feel I am depriving myself of a fully valid place in the world. The majority of people hate gays, considering them, at best, renegades and, at worst, perverts.
This has all made me feel immensely unhappy.
I was very lucky to meet Enrique. He was born into a different culture. Although his family are Catholics, their Indian roots remain and there is no escaping that. They had a different view of sexuality, distinct from what is generally accepted in our world. In many Indian tribes there was no prohibition of homosexual relations. Enrique is far more educated in this respect than I am, and he showed me scholarly articles which describe even institutionalized homosexuality. In certain tribes, young men with warrior status were completely forbidden to have sexual contact with women and allowed only boys as sexual partners.
Please understand me correctly. I am not making any value judgments. It is simply a social situation which reflects an aspect of human nature. If you like, it is evidence that homosexual relations have not always been condemned by society.
Enrique freed me from the terrible burden of feeling guilt toward the whole world and gave me a sense of confidence that our relations are a private affair. Our love is nobody’s business but our own, and needs neither the approval nor the disapproval of society. In order for me to feel happy, however , for some reason I need you to stop pretending you don’t know I am gay, to acknowledge the fact and accept it.
That will be honest and, in the end, it will be good.
I know that presenting you with this truth, I am making you confront a purely Christian conflict. In the eyes of your Church I am a sinner, and that hurts you. In consolation, I can only say to you that I hope God is more merciful toward a sinner whose sin is “the wrong kind of love” than toward those whose sin is outright hatred.
In spite of everything, I’m very glad that I have finally written this letter, which I couldn’t bring myself to write for such a long time. I have nevertheless gone away to give you time to collect your thoughts and accept this admission. I love you very much, Mum, and love Grisha and all your friends who I find always so cheerful and noisy.
Your son,
Alex
25. 1989, Jerusalem
L
ETTER FROM
Y
OSEF
F
ELDMAN TO
E
STHER
G
ANTMAN
Dear Mrs. Gantman,
I have started work on your book. I was already familiar with most of the text. It is one of the versions of the Haggadah. The theme you are asking me about is fairly unusual. It is a depiction of a naked woman, whose upper part is sticking out of bushes. The hands braiding her plaits belong to the Lord God. This midrash is most probably medieval but appears for the first time in the sayings of Reb Simeon ben Manassia. I did not know that myself, but yesterday a friend visited who works in the manuscript department of the Museum of Jerusalem. The text is as follows:
“From the sayings of Reb Simeon ben Manassia:
With motherly care the Lord with his own hands braids Eve’s hair into plaits before showing her for the first time to Adam.”
My friend advises you not to sell this book unless you really have to. It is not particularly valuable because it is not of great antiquity but, as he says, it is exceptionally well composed. If you like, I can send it for valuation and you will obtain the relevant information, but valuation is itself fairly expensive.
I shall work on your book next week and hope to have everything finished by the end of the month.
Yours sincerely,
Yosef Feldman
26. 1959–83, Boston
F
ROM
I
SAAK
G
ANTMAN’S NOTES
I never thought I could succumb to the passion for collecting anything at all. It always seemed to me rather base. Love for the item collected proceeds from the vanity of the collector. At a certain point, however, viewing the shelf with my latest acquisitions, and also the pile of invoices which I had kept separate, I realized that I have gradually become a collector. I buy books which I have no intention of reading, and some which I simply could not read. The 18th-century Persian book was bought solely for the sake of its delightful miniatures.
Having established that, I spent the whole of Sunday conducting a survey and compiled something along the lines of a catalogue. Art albums, which I have been buying ever since I had any money to speak of, do not count. I have included only miniatures. My collection comprises 86 books with miniatures, not so much rare as extremely beautiful. I looked through them systematically for the first time, one after the other, and saw that, without realizing it, I invariably only bought books with Biblical subjects. It struck me that my predilection went back to the impression made on me by the first such book I saw in the Vienna National Library when I was studying in the faculty of medicine. I loved going into the rare books section, and in those days valuable books were issued to readers right there in the reading room. I held in my hands the renowned Book of Being from the sixth century, and some of its miniatures were engraved in my memory for life. Of those, the most beautiful was Eliezer, the trusted slave of Abraham, meeting Rebecca by the well. Rebecca is depicted twice, once as she is walking with a bowl, and a second time as she is watering Eliezer’s camels. In the distance the town of Nakhor is painted in a highly stylized manner, and the servant has not yet fulfilled his mission of finding a bride for Isaac but the matter is already in hand. Rebecca’s countenance, as is customary in miniatures, is very finely drawn and resembles my wife, Esther, as I have only just realized. The long neck, the delicate hands, the slender waist, the small breasts without the fatty deposits which always cause so much trouble on the operating table—everything that to this day I still find attractive in a woman. Such is the way a man’s preferences are formed, from a beautifully painted picture seen in his youth.
I once more looked attentively through the books I had bought and confirmed that the women in these highly diverse tales, where there are any, all have large eyes and long necks. They were the only type my attention lingered on. Neither amazons nor vamps have ever attracted me. It is amusing that I should have discovered this when I’m in my seventies.
Another question which belatedly occurred to me is why Jewish books have these miniatures with depictions of people at all. We know that representing the human form was forbidden, so what are we to make of the world-renowned Persian miniatures? After all, Islam also prohibits representation of the human form. I shall write a letter to the indispensable Neuhaus on this matter. Our correspondence is fairly discreet but has not broken off, although in the last three years we have only exchanged greetings during the holidays.
27. 1972, Jerusalem
L
ETTER FROM
P
ROFESSOR
N
EUHAUS TO
P
ROFESSOR
G
ANTMAN
Dear Isaak,
I was very glad to receive your letter, primarily because you have not immersed yourself wholly in medicine but still allow yourself to look at other matters and have, moreover, chosen a good matter to look at. The question you asked is one I have been asked hundreds of times, and some twenty years ago I wrote a brief summary on the topic, in which I continue to take an interest. I am sending you an extract on the matter of interest to you, the prohibition of images. I hope you will find the answer to your question there. Only recently I was reminded of you in connection with a heart operation I face but which has been postponed for the time being.