# Read the first page of To Jerusalem and Back by Saul Bellow Read the opening of To Jerusalem and Back by Saul Bellow free, no signup. Saul Bellow observes Jerusalem, Israeli politics, history, argument, and daily life. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/to-jerusalem-and-back-saul-bellow - Genre: Travel writing - Year: 1976 - ISBN: 9780141917795 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780141917795&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780141917795 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9780141917795 ## The opening SECURITY measures are strict on flights to Israel, the bags are searched, the men are frisked, and the women have an electronic hoop passed over them, fore and aft. Then hand luggage is opened. No one is very patient. Visibility in the queue is poor because of the many Hasidim with their broad hats and beards and sidelocks and dangling fringes who have descended on Heathrow and are far too restless to wait in line but rush in and out, gesticulating, exclaiming. The corridors are jumping with them. Some two hundred Hasidim are flying to Israel to attend the circumcision of the firstborn son of their spiritual leader, the Belzer Rabbi. Entering the 747, my wife, Alexandra, and I are enfiladed by eyes that lie dark in hairy ambush. To me there is nothing foreign in these hats, sidelocks, and fringes. It is my childhood revisited. At the age of six, I myself wore a tallith katan, or scapular, under my shirt, only mine was a scrap of green calico print, whereas theirs are white linen. God instructed Moses to speak to the children of Israel and to “bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments.” So they are still wearing them some four thousand years later. We find our seats, two in a row of three, toward the rear of the aircraft. The third is occupied by a young Hasid, highly excited, who is staring at me. “Do you speak Yiddish?” he says. “Yes, certainly.” “I cannot be next to your wife. Please sit between us. Be so good,” he says. “Of course.” I take the middle seat, which I dislike, but I am not really put out. Curious, rather. Our Hasid is in his late twenties. He is pimply, his neck is thin, his blue eyes goggle, his underlip extrudes. He does not keep a civilized face. Thoughts and impulses other than civilized fill it—by no means inferior impulses and thoughts. And though he is not permitted to sit beside women unrelated to him or to look at them or to communicate with them in any manner (all of which probably saves him a great deal of trouble), he seems a good-hearted young man and he is visibly enjoying himself. All the Hasidim are vividly enjoying themselves, dodging through the aisles, visiting chattering standing impatiently in the long lavatory lines, amiable, busy as geese. They pay no attention to signs. Don’t they understand English? The stewardesses are furious with them. I ask one of the hostesses when I may expect to receive a drink and she cries out in irritation, “Back to your seat!” She says this in so ringing a voice that I retreat. Not so the merry-minded Hasidim, exulting everywhere. The orders given by these young gentile uniformed females are nothing to them. To them they are merely attendants, exotic bediener, all but bodyless. Anticipating a difficulty, I ask the stewardess to serve me a kosher lunch. “I can’t do that, we haven’t enough for them” she says. “We weren’t prepared.” Her big British eyes are affronted and her bosom has risen with indignation. “We’ve got to go out of our way to Rome for more of their special meals.” Amused, my wife asks why I ordered the kosher lunch. “Because when they bring my chicken dinner this kid with the beard will be in a state,” I explain. And so he is. The British Airways chicken with the chill of death upon it lies before me. But after three hours of security exercises at Heathrow I am hungry. The young Hasid recoils when the tray is handed to me. He addresses me again in Yiddish He says, “I must talk to you. You won’t be offended?” “No, I don’t think so.” “You may want to give me a slap in the face.” “Why should I?” “You are a Jew. You must be a Jew, we are speaking Yiddish. How can you eat—that!” ## Books with a similar feel - [Fresh Air Fiend by Paul Theroux](https://uncovered.ink/read/fresh-air-fiend-paul-theroux.md) - [The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-marsh-arabs-wilfred-thesiger.md) - [A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson](https://uncovered.ink/read/a-walk-in-the-woods-bill-bryson.md) - [The Best American Travel Writing 2012 by Jason Wilson & William T. Vollmann](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-best-american-travel-writing-2012-jason-wilson-and-william-t-vollmann.md) - [Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price](https://uncovered.ink/read/children-of-ash-and-elm-neil-price.md) - [Three Tigers, One Mountain by Michael Booth](https://uncovered.ink/read/three-tigers-one-mountain-michael-booth.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.