ODOUR OF SANCTITY AND CHICKEN SOUP

Gerda Cohen meets the zealots who

worship God in fear and trembling and stone Sabbath-breakers

Jerusalem `WE are preparing Jerusalem for the corn- ing of Messiah,' I am informed by Rabbi Moshe the Firebrand, or rather his spokes- man, as rabbis won't talk to a woman. 'The Messiah will never come if Jerusalem has .movie houses open on Sabbath.' The five- screen cinema, a big concrete thing in the middle of town, is embedded in a dense

black wedge of `Haredim' belting out jolly hymns and berating the few aimless cinema-goers with unison yells of `Shab- bes! Shabbes!'

It is the holy sabbath, a black velvety night of hot December. Above, tiny green stars pierce the dark, and to the east, over the Judean desert, there is a dry radiance peculiar to this high stony city. But no one looks up. The dense mass of God fearers penned behind a police barrier are having much more fun than the couples out to see rubbishy films. On previous Fridays police had intervened; we had hoped for a whiff of tear gas, but all one could smell was chicken soup. `Haredim' literally means those who fear, or tremble, and they adhere to innumerable rabbis whose names are confusingly similar. Detachments of Haredim are detailed to Sabbath cinema duty or stoning cars as the case may arise.

Tonight Rabbi Moshe the Firebrand led his men in a rousing chant from Jeremiah while Rabbi Potash, a member of the city council, gloomily stroked his beard. Some of the God fearers, I noticed, were little boys hardly more than a head over the police barrier, their passionate ear-locks bobbing beneath high black hats. This cinema war has been going on since July, and it's getting stale. The God fearers are now gathering strength for all-out attack on the new football stadium: 'The Messiah will not come if noisy football crowds desecrate the Sabbath.' But these skirmishes are peripheral to the main issue: 'nothing less than total control of the Jewish State' as the Shas party spokesman put it to me, a youngish gentleman with his face almost hidden in black stubble. 'It goes without saying that un-Jewish elements must be purged. Arabs, Christian missionaries, and of course feminists.' For lapsed souls like myself, there will be no place in the Jewish State. 'You can always reform,' he sug- gested, 'see the light!' Born-again Jews throng Jerusalem; their women-folk, tight- ly kerchiefed, have a radiant, dowdy zeal which reminds me of evangelical jumble sales in Oxford.

On a political level, governing education and much else besides, the ultra-orthodox already control large areas of Jerusalem; everywhere north of Jaffa Road is theirs, old ramshackle strongholds like Sanhedria, and new outposts in suburbia reaching towards Arab Ramallah. In addition 'they have tactically infiltrated secular neigh- bourhoods,' said a fiery little fellow from the Civil Rights movement, in beard and track-shoes. 'They stealthily buy up apart- ments and behold! a dozen synagogues where none was before. The God fearers or Tremblers have even set their tents on Mount Carmel where only inoffensive old German Jews used to sit and drink coffee. Even in Haifa, the workers' city, you will see the Haredim scurry about.' And how they do scurry about!

Physically unappetising, they have a particular kind of scurrying walk, belly thrust forward, puny arms wagging — all in black in the baking glare. God fearers wear the garb of 18th-century Polish Jews, often topped by a trilby. 'But why go on?' demanded the Civil Rights worker. 'You will see them in your own home!'

Those who have seen the light, however, do not necessarily belong to the God fearers, who comprise further gradations of piety. To them, Chief Rabbi Jakobovits would be almost an apostate. The high peaks of bigotry are probably held by young Americans coming here from Flat- bush, Brooklyn. This neighbourhood has fallen completely under the control of ultra-orthodox Jews. Flatbush, formerly black, is the base from which they com- mute to Eretz Israel. 'And just because,' one intoned at me in their plangent sing- song, 'just because this is Eretz Israel, we must get rid of non-Jewish disfigurements. Arabs have their own home; so do Christ- ians.'

Minor attacks on church property have become a commonplace. Petty vandalism in churches suspected of missionary ardour is on the increase. 'We trust in the Lord and hold our peace,' rumbled a nice old buffer at the Narkis Street Baptist con- gregation, which actually has one Jewish Christian. Powerless, the Protestants can- not avoid being tolerant.

How comforting the crenellated profile of St George's Anglican cathedral, Victo- rian Tudor against the glare. Built in the 1890s by Bishop Frederick Popham Blyth, it's a nice little church: simple whitewashed nave with streaky black marble pillars; tapestry kneelers from Pangbourne and Worthing, and Selly Oak, Birmingham.

Outside, there are Arab yells and dusty glaring minarets. In the vaulted cool, Brother Gilbert deplored intolerance. `If I were Israeli, I would be so angered by the orthodox. A Jew cannot marry, a Jew cannot get a divorce, without their con- sent; they decide who is a Jew and who can enter the country.' Brother Gilbert, amiable, jowly, white-whiskered, had naught but praise for the helpful Ministry of Religious Affairs. No doubt the new dean would concur — the Very Rev Hugh Wybrew, formerly of Pinner — but under- neath, said Brother Gilbert, in their heart

of hearts `the Jews do not trust us. We are the real enemy'. A tone of wounded virtue was creeping into the conversation.

Privately the Anglicans plume them- selves on a near-unblemished record, whereas the Greek Orthodox Patriarch was caught smuggling heroin. True, the assistant Anglican bishop had been expel- led for alleged subversive activity, but he was now, Brother Gilbert assured me, peacefully in Amman ministering to his flock. The Anglican clergy are Palesti- nians, (barring the Dean and odd workers like Brother Gilbert) and they enjoy per- fect ecumenical harmony with other de- nominations. Yet in Jerusalem, warring priests used to be Christian; now, they are Jewish.

It being Friday, the streets were wafted by aroma of chicken soup. I left St George's for the nearby quarter of Mea Shearim, ramshackle, furiously scribbled with anti-Zionist graffiti and exhortations on crumpled dingy banners, `Jewish daugh- ter, uphold Modesty.' The menfolk scutt- led by as if I were invisible. An old lady invited me in. She had round childish blue eyes and a smile of incredible radiance. 'Ten children, yes, I have ten. Ten children are less trouble than one!' She kept on smiling in that slightly half-witted way, kneading the Sabbath plait with her freckly knuckles. 'We are Hassidim, followers of the Satmar Rebbe. And you?' Her candid gaze took in the sorry story: my trousers, male attire. 'It's not too late,' she began weaving the dough, her smile unfaltering, 'you too can be converted to Judaism and purity. Otherwise, what is the point of coming here? What is the point of Israel?'

One could wonder, travelling up from the coastal plain; Natanga, a half-derelict muddle dispiriting as the West Midlands, dusty orange groves among greedy con- crete; Petah Tikva — 'the Opening of Hope' — endless shambling suburbia where they make two dozen varieties of kosher soup and play football rather badly.

And so on, up to Jerusalem. Dusty forlorn cypress trees waiting for rain; and over towards Jordan, declivities of ash.