8/9/97
Ashdod's open door
Come in, sit down, eat something,
speak your mind. Or just listen.
But make sure you say hello to the
ol' lady in the corner
Ellen Dunn's apartment is
Ashdod's grand central station.
High-society it ain't: a seedy two-room
walk-up in the decaying old Moroccan
neighborhood, humble, strictly
functional, and if you think Ellen's
gonna offer any excuses, forget
it.
This is not, as homes can
be, an expression of self, an existential
statement, a symbol: it's an address,
nothing more. Good thing, too, because
Ellen's life cannot be represented
by walls.
If there is a metaphor for
her 67 years alive, it's her open
house policy. Folks come and go,
the wind blows in or doesn't, you
never know who or what to expect.
She's unfettered by convention,
by expectations, by nothing but
a bum leg that is her only harness.
She's not even held back by what
people think.
"Couldn't find anything
but lies in Christianity, so I read.
I'm a big reader. I read myself
right into Judaism." She was
42 when she converted, Orthodox,
in Brookline, Massachusetts. "Told
the rabbi I was gonna live in Israel.
Don't know why I said that, I never
even thought it, but here I am,
an Israeli."
A couple of American ladies
step in and flop onto the couch,
which has borne a lot of tushies
in service to Ellen. A curt nod
from the corner is enough of a welcome.
"Gwan, eat," she commands
gruffly.
The stoppers-by have plenty
to talk about, most of it Ashdod
gossip. Ellen grins, smirks, chortles,
lights up a smoke, directs a barbed
comment or two. Her eyes dart to
the door; Valentina, an animated
Russian woman, enters.
"Hiya. Drinks're over
there."
An American leaves with a
flourish, replaced by a Canadian
and a Brit, and an older couple
-- a dapper yekke and his Yemenite
wife -- with nothing to say. The
old gossip is passed on and new
subjects arise. It's getting crowded;
the Canadian says toodloo.
Almost unnoticed is a tight-lipped,
humorless young Russian woman named
Rena who immigrated half a year
ago, to the day. She seems lost
in the English-language jabber,
but it turns out she was an English
teacher "in a secret city near
Ekaterinburg." When talk moves
on to The Jewish Question, she suddenly
blurts out that nowhere in the world
is it safe to be a Jew but here
in Israel. Joanna, an erudite, thoughtful
woman who grew up free in the Land
of the Free, can't let that
go by, and the chitchat turns to
hot debate. The confrontation is
uncomfortable for some, but over
there in the smoky corner, Ellen's
loving it.
There's enough food on the
coffee table for 100 hungry people,
but the noshers and nibblers hardly
make a dent -- until Yitz bursts
in. Yitz is a potbellied former
banana picker from the Bronx (I
know there's no bananas growing
in the Bronx: that's what he did
for three years on kibbutz).
Yitz, avuncular and voiceful,
guffaws at Ellen. "Jeez, didya
see what's goin' on downstairs?
They got a goddam casino goin'
on down there!"
Ellen shrugs. "No kiddin'.
Police been here three times already,
they shut 'em down, but they can't
stop 'em." She laughs raspily.
"Wanna join 'em?"
She speaks affectionately
about her Moroccan neighbors, who
always drop in when they're not
busy with, uh, other things. "Noisy,
but I love 'em. This guy downstairs,
when I screwed up my leg, couldn't
get down to the mailbox, turns out
he was taking out my bills and paying
them himself. Didn't tell me about
it. Wouldn't even take the money
back when I found out."
Stay long enough, and you'll
go out that door with a couple of
Ellen's tales, perhaps a philosophy
if you ask for it.
"Got this bill from
Income Tax. A million shekels. They
didn't know who they were dealing
with. Then they drop it to 80,000
and start jerking around with my
bank account, then 50,000 and I
tell 'em good luck Charlie. I tell
'em, 'if I wait long enough you'll
be paying me.' Heh heh! It got down
to a few shekels and then
they became adamant. So did I. Eventually
some computer burped and they paid
me 2,500. Heh heh!"
She's blonde, weighty, a
former symphonic oboist. She believes
in reincarnation -- judging by her
eyes alone, she might've been an
eagle once -- and says she's had
mysterious experiences throughout
her life. Parallel to finding her
Judaism, she tracked down her natural
family, one at a time -- including
her brother, who had been "officially"
dead for 22 years, since World War
II. "His brain was altered
by the US Navy. They faked his death.
He knew something dangerous. He
couldn't tell me, no one ever did."
When Ellen found her parents,
she opened a new door -- to her
generational roots. Their parents
became known to her, and theirs
and theirs and theirs. "We've
got this family tree now. Goes back
to 90 BCE."
“What?!"
"Really. Give me a minute,
I'll go get the window shade."
She comes back with an old-fashioned
spring-mechanism blind, and unrolls
it. Meticulously, in pencil, she
has drawn the Temple family descendency
from Ellen Dunn to Harderick, the
earliest known Saxon king. "He
claimed to be the ancestor of Wotan
the Norse sun god. Interesting,
eh?"
(They won't admit it, but
half the people crowded around for
a look are nostalgically excited
by the window shade.)
She explains that land-ownership
records in England made it possible
to go that far back.
If a penciled entry on a
window shade is proof enough, her
mishpocha includes Alfred
the Great, first king of England,
and a Crusader who was buried under
the walls of Acre. And Leofric.
Leofric married Lady Godiva.
"No kidding!"
"Yeah. But she's only
related by marriage."
You can be sure if Lady Godiva's
reincarnation walked through the
door here, Ellen wouldn't be at
all surprised.
