The rabbi sighed and shook his head. “We have also tried to get you papers to enable you to travel beyond the Pale, but I am afraid that is impossible. You are too well known by the police.”
He paced back and forth. “We have decided there is but one thing to do. There are some Jewish families in this district who have passed as gentiles and who own small farms. We feel it would be the safest plan for you to hide with one of them until spring at least.”
“Rabbi Solomon,” Jossi said, “we are very thankful for everything that has been done for us, but my brother and I have made a plan of our own.”
“What is that?”
“We are going to Palestine,” Yakov said.
The good rabbi looked stunned. “To Palestine? How?”
“We have a route in mind. God will help us.”
“No doubt God will help you but let us not press Him for a miracle. It is over three hundred hard cold miles to the port of Odessa. Even if and when you reach Odessa you cannot get a boat without papers.”
“We are not going by way of Odessa.”
“But there is no other way.”
“We intend to walk.”
Rabbi Solomon gasped.
“Moses walked for forty years,” Yakov said; “it will not take us that long.”
“Young man, I am well aware that Moses walked for forty years. That does not explain how you are going to walk to Palestine.”
“I’ll tell you our plan,” Jossi said. “We will go south. The police won’t be looking for us so strenuously in that direction. We will cross out of the Pale into Georgia and then over the Caucasus Mountains into Turkey.”
“Madness! Insanity! It cannot be done! Do you mean to tell me you will walk over two thousand miles, through the cold of winter, across strange lands and fifteen-thousand-foot mountain ranges without papers … without knowledge of the country … with the police after you? Why, you are but little more than children!”
Yakov’s eyes were burning with passion; he looked at the rabbi. “Fear not for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north, give up and to the south, keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.”
And so it came to pass that the Rabinsky brothers who were wanted for murder fled from Kharkov and moved to the east and to the south through an inhumanly bitter winter.
They trudged through waist-high snow during the night, bending their young bodies against howling winds and fighting off the numbness of frostbite. Their bellies rumbled with hunger. They stole from the countryside and in the hours of daylight they hid in the forests.
Through those tortured nights it was Yakov who filled Jossi with the spirit of their mission. It was Yakov who urged another step and another and yet another when all strength was gone. It was Jossi with his powerful body who held his younger brother up. Between their two strengths they somehow managed to keep alive and moving.
Many a night Jossi had to carry Yakov on’ his back for eight hours because the younger brother’s feet were raw and bleeding and he could not walk. Many a day Jossi had to sleep on top of Yakov to pass his warmth on to his weaker brother. Often they crawled the last few yards to a hiding place.
Over the ice and the snow they staggered south with but cloth wrappings around their feet-yard after yard-mile after mile-week after week.
In the spring they reached Rostov and collapsed.
They found the ghetto and were taken in and fed and sheltered. Their rags were exchanged for new clothing. They had to rest several weeks before they were fit enough to continue the journey.
Late in the spring they went on again, fully recovered from their winter’s flight.
Although they did not now have to contend with the elements they had to move with greater caution, for they had left the Pale behind and could no longer depend on protection, food, and shelter from the Jewish communities. They skirted the Black Sea south of Rostov and moved deep into Georgia. All their food now was stolen from the fields -they never let themselves be seen by daylight.
As winter came on again they were faced with a tremendous decision. To hole up in Georgia, to try to get through the Caucasus Mountains in winter, or-to attempt a boat across the Black Sea.
Each plan had its dangers. Although trying the mountains in winter seemed the most foolhardy their urge to leave Russia behind was so great that they decided to risk it.
At Stavropol at the base of the mountains they staged a series of robberies which completely outfitted them with clothing and food for the assault over the mountains. Then they fled into the Caucasus toward Armenia with the police on their track.
Through another brutal winter they moved deep into the mountains, walking by day, climbing the treacherous passes in the dark, and pillaging the countryside. The first year had hardened them and made them wise-the obsession to get to Palestine was greater than ever and drove them onward. Yakov would babble passages from the Bible by the hour to
drive their bodies forward. They made the last part of their push instinctively, in a numbed daze.
And in spring they received their second miracle of rebirth. One day they stood up and for the first time breathed free air-as they left “Mother Russia” behind them forever. As Yakov passed the border marker into Turkey he turned and spat into Russia.
Now they could move in daylight, but it was a strange land with strange sounds and smells and they had no passports or papers. All of eastern Turkey was mountainous and the going was slow. They went to work in the fields in places where they could not steal food, but twice that spring they were caught and thrown into prison briefly.
Jossi reckoned they would have to give up thievery, for it was too dangerous being caught; they might be sent back to Russia.
In the middle of summer they passed the base of Mount Ararat where the Ark of Noah had landed. They pressed on to the south.
In each village they asked, “Are there Jews here?”
In some there would be Jews and they would be fed and clothed and sheltered and sent along their way.
These Jews were different from any they had known. They were peasants filled with ignorance and superstition, yet they knew their Torah and kept the Sabbath and the Holy Days.
“Are there Jews here?”
“We are Jews.”
“Let us see your rabbi.”
“Where are you boys going?”
“We are walking to the Promised Land.”
It was the magic password. “Are there Jews here?”
“There is a Jewish family in the next village.”
Never once were they refused hospitality.
Two years went by. The brothers pressed on doggedly, stopping only when exhaustion overcame them or they had to work for food.
“Are there Jews here?”
They pressed over the Turkish border into the province of Syria and another strange land.
In Aleppo they received their first taste of the Arab world. They passed through bazaars and dung-filled streets and heard Moslem chants from the minarets––-
They walked on until the blue-green of the Mediterranean Sea burst suddenly before them and the howling winds and cold of the past years were exchanged for a blistering heat of one hundred and twenty degrees. They plodded down the Levantine coast wearing Arab rags.
“Are there Jews here?”
Yes, there were Jews, but again they were different. These Jews looked and dressed and spoke like Arabs. But yet they knew the Hebrew language and the Torah. Like the Jews of the Pale and the Jews of Turkey, the Arab-like Jews took the Rabinsky brothers in without question and shared their homes and their food. They blessed the brothers as they had been blessed before for the sacredness of their mission.
On into Lebanon they walked-through Tripoli and the wildness of Beirut-they neared the Promised Land.