The Rise and Fall of a Polish Tallis

Sixty years ago, Jacob, who was known in his quarter as Old Jacob, was living in the rue de la Mortellerie. He ran a successful business selling old clothes, scrap metal and even, on occasion, old watches. Old Jacob was loved and respected, and he was renowned for his piety in the neighborhood.

For the occasion of his marriage, he sent away to Poland, at great expense, for a magnificent tallis of fine white wool, embellished with azure stripes, surrounded by a large border of white satin, and adorned with gold fringe, fantastical embroidery, and delicate tsisit in braided silk. On the day of the wedding, the rabbi spread this beautiful new tallis over the heads of Jacob and his fiancée, and he covered it with handfuls of golden wheat, a mysterious symbol of fertility. From that day forward, the beautiful woolen tallis became a precious talisman for Old Jacob, a sacred relic, a family heirloom that he would not have parted with at any price. The religious hearts of our fathers endowed everything with a sacred significance, and the naïve souls of our mothers attached great importance to the ceremonies of a religion that they loved.

The tallis played an especially big role in the religious life of that time: at the high holidays, it served as an obligatory accompaniment to prayer; it did the honors when a stranger was called to the Torah; it acted as a canopy at weddings; it covered the cradle of newborns at their naming ceremonies; fathers spread it like a shield over their sons when they blessed them at temple; and when it belonged to a wise and pious man, it was placed in his coffin, like a veil between this world and the next. . . .

When Jacob died, his beautiful tallis was passed down as a legacy to his son Jacobi. This son started as a simple soldier and wound up as a supplier of Napoleon’s armies. He grew rich by supplying as little as possible and he Italianized his name, as much to lend himself a Corsican air as to erase its overly Biblical traces. Jacobi was frank and obliging in business and a bon vivant like all old soldiers. But he was much less religious than his father: military life had stifled his religious feeling and he frequently violated the principles he had learned in his father’s house. And yet, whenever there was a solemn religious occasion, Jacobi celebrated it conscientiously. He gave to charity, attended services at temple, dressed himself carefully, and his dwelling (he lived in the rue Montmartre) took on a joyous holiday appearance.

Jacobi above all retained a special respect for the memory of his father, and the tallis that he inherited was precious to him. When he donned it for the morning service on Yom Kippur, he draped it about himself with pride, and when he wore it on the anniversary of the death of his father or of his mother, he would kiss it fervently, large tears welling up in his eyes. Even in war, Jacobi was not separated from the sacred tallis. Rolled in his sack, it served in numerous campaigns alongside him. With filial superstition, he credited it with helping him to escape unharmed from battles.

Today Jacobi is dead and his son, a handsome young man of twenty, has inherited his fortune and his tallis. This son calls himself Jacoubé in order to conceal his Israelite origin. He works as a stock broker, dwells in the Chaussée-d’Antin, wears polished boots, long hair, a collar shaped like the alleys of the Trianon, and an eyeglass that holds itself in place between the eyebrow and the eye. In a word, he is a lion. No need to add that Jacoubé is only Jewish by birth, that he knows nothing of the Israelite religion, and that he would blush to be seen in the synagogue. If he is asked about Old Jacob, he responds dismissively, “What is that?”

And what has become of the beautiful woolen tallis, which came from Poland sixty years ago? Do you know what our fashionable chap has done with the holy veil that was so precious to Old Jacob and so dear to the late Jacobi? Alas! Yesterday at the Opera’s first masked ball of the season, amid an infernal galop and the roar of Musard’s orchestra, I noticed the wild dancing of a handsome young man wearing the costume of a post boy from Longjumeau and a pretty working-class girl disguised as a stevedore. Her jacket struck me: it was made of a fine woolen cloth streaked with azure stripes, adorned with fantastical embroidery and gold fringe. It appeared strange and old, and yet, bizarre as it was, it had a certain pleasing je ne sais quoi.

Alas! Alas! The handsome post boy from Longjumeau was the ungrateful Jacoubé, son of Jacobi, and the jacket of the pretty working-class girl was made of the beautiful tallis, which came, sixty years ago, from Poland for the wedding of Old Jacob! Alas! Alas! Alas! In this all too truthful tale, is there not an entire religious epic?