Olly, Olly, Oxen Free

 This is a work of fiction. The image is one of myself, from my youth.

"One is devoured by Time, not because one lives in Time, but because one believes in its reality, and therefore forgets or despises eternity."

—Mircea Eliade

by Zvi Baranoff 

I grew up in a sort of false suburb on the edge of a city. The neighborhood border was also the municipal border. On the other side of the dividing line, a few blocks to the west, were the row houses of the city. In our nominally suburban neighborhood, the houses were all duplexes, each surrounded by a small, neatly trimmed and somewhat personalized lawn with a chain link fence around a small backyard. 

Further east, beyond our neighborhood, across highways, through neighborhoods, and beyond our access, there were true suburbs with large lawns, big houses, swimming pools, country clubs, cul-de-sacs, and all the other trappings of privilege that we could hardly imagine. 

I must have been around five years old. I hadn't started school yet. My mother was still trying to keep me tied to her apron strings but the threads were frazzling. I managed to slip loose more and more. I was the youngest of the children that ran wild and unsupervised through the neighborhood. 

Malka was the undisputed leader of that pack of aspiring hooligans. She was the oldest of the crew, at the awe-inspiring age of eleven. Malka ruled over us with intimidation. She understood us with intelligence and cunning. She led us because of her infinite creative capacity for stimulating adventure. 

Our play at elaborate games extended across property lines and over fences that we climbed without fear and with little respect for concepts such as private property or personal privacy. Gardens, garages, the grocery store parking lot, construction sites, and an open field that was destined soon to be an elementary school were all our juvenile domain. 

It was summertime, with long days and none of the daytime regulated by schooling or parental demands. Our days were absorbed in variations of mock warfare. We had begun this particular day singing while marching about the neighborhood, single file. We were arranged in order of height. I was, of course, the tail of the parade. At the top of our lungs we sing-song chanted the words of our marching anthem, with a special shouting emphasis on the word “dick” as Malka had taught it to us. 

“Does your DICK hang low?

Can you swing it to and fro?

Can you tie it in a knot?

Can you tie it in a bow?

Can you throw it over your shoulder, 

like an Oriental soldier?

DOES YOUR DICK HANG LOW!”

When we were all tired of that, we transitioned to other forms of mischief and mayhem. We practiced coordinating aim and strength by throwing rocks at an abandoned building. Malka was the only one of us to have ever actually broken a window of our target house. This fact provided definitive proof to the Divine Nature of her dominance. Whichever of the horde that threw a rock deemed by Malka to be the most true would be elevated to be her lieutenant for the day, with the ability to lord the authority over the rest of us. The introduction of the random opportunity for individual cruelty was an incredible incentive.  Malka would, when it served her interest, rein in her lieutenant, presenting her predictable tyrannical powers as a just and benevolent alternative to the less practiced amateur terror of her acting lieutenant. This was a daily epic challenge for the older and stronger of us. Of course, my being the youngest and the smallest, I stood no chance in this particular test of skill. Nonetheless, I watched my elders and learned tricks and techniques daily. 

We were engaged in a most seriously challenging game of Hide and Seek. In spite of being the youngest of that crew, I was accomplished at the art of subterfuge and avoiding detection. 

 I was laying in a drainage pipe, as snug as a bug. It hadn't rained for a while. The soil accumulated at the bottom of the pipe only held the slightest amount of moisture. The vague hints of mustiness was comfortably reassuring. I was comfortable enough in that drainage pipe to doze off that warm sunny day. 

For more than a year, an incredibly realistic series of dreams began to dominate my sleep, recurring several times a week. The dreams ranged from the mundane to terrifying. In these otherworldly experiences, the rhythms, rituals, and languages were all very foreign to my waking reality and yet comprehensible to my sleeping self. In my sleep I spoke fluently a guttural tongue that I later discovered to be Yiddish, a language shared by most of the inhabitants of the village setting for these dreams. 

Over the following years the frequency of these dreams decreased, but the intensity, vividness, and the realism of these certainly didn't decrease in the least. The angst that these dreams generated actually increased as I aged, perhaps because I began to understand more background of the ethereal occurrences that I eventually called the Shtetl Dreams. 

In that drainage pipe, as I slept, a disturbing dream took hold. I was walking past a building with onion-shaped domes decorated with swirling mysterious symbols. It was many years later that I understood the building to be a church and that the incomprehensible squiggles to be Cyrillic lettering. 

 I heard the rough voices shouting “Zhyd!” I had no clue as to what that word meant. However, I clearly understood that the men and boys shouting were a danger to me. I  ran with all my strength, evading those that were pursuing me, until I found a safe place to conceal myself. 

Then, another call grabbed my attention,  voices from another time and a different continent. “Olly, olly, oxen free!” The cry echoed and reverberated as more voices joined in, picking up the refrain, the familiar and non threatening voices of the children of my neighborhood.

I was muddy and bruised. My clothes were ripped. There was a faint odor of dog waste. My pants were wet and stained from urine. I must have peed myself while sleeping in that pipe. I was in no mood to show myself when I heard the traditional all clear signal. I wallowed in self absorption and self pity, unwilling to move from the protective shell of the spot where I was embedded. Evening was setting in. The other children were each finding their way to homes, families, suppers, and baths. Their voices were gone and only Malka continued to shout “Olly, olly, oxen free!” while looking for me, her lone lost sheep.

I looked out through the opening of the drainage pipe. I could see Malka walking about and heard her calling my name. I remained quiet and unmotivated. Then, she was on her hands and knees, looking into the end of the pipe and directly at me. She reached her arms in and I crawled forward and into her outstretched arms.

Once I was out in the fresh air and on solid ground, Malka looked me up and down, silently judging and analyzing the mess that I was. I stood there, looking up at her with tears rolling down my chubby cheeks. 

Malka took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the tears away. Then, she moistened the handkerchief with her spit and used that to remove mud from my face. Following that, she tidied me up the best she could, straightening my clothing, buttoning my shirt and tucking it into my pants. She wiped away the mud and piss as best as she could, and brushed down my wild hair with her fingers. Malka kissed me on my forehead and told me to go home, which I promptly did. 

Middle East Peace and the Lost Tribes Mythologies of the Lemba

 

by Zvi Baranoff

Peace in the Middle-East is possible if Jews would follow the lead of their cousins, the Lemba people of South Africa. This is, it seems, the learned opinion of Noah Tamarkin, a cultural anthropologist and an associate professor at Cornell University. 

Mr Tamarkin expressed his opinion in a short essay in The Conversation entitled South Africa’s Lemba people: how they view their Jewishness challenges Zionist ideas that identity is linked to one homeland (https://theconversation.com/south-africas-lemba-people-how-they-view-their-jewishness-challenges-zionist-ideas-that-identity-is-linked-to-one-homeland-228632) published April 30, 2024.

Mr Tamarkin seems to be a well intentioned fellow. However, his essay is deeply flawed, with obvious misstatements and falsification throughout. 

The essay begins by describing the Lemba people as “Black Jews who live in South Africa and Zimbabwe.” It goes on to claim that the “Lemba people have long held that they are Jews by descent.”

Are the Lemba Jewish? Mostly not. Are they descendents of Jews? Perhaps. Have they “long held” such beliefs? That depends on who among the Lemba one speaks to and how much time is considered long when discussing history. 

Most of the Lemba people self define as Christians. There are some who are Muslims and Jews. Many of those that self define as Jews also self define as Christians. 

There are hints that could imply that the Lemba are descended from ancient Hebrews. The actual, provable links however, are few. The first “proofs” rely on some vague similarities of the oral traditions of these people to early Hebrew history and mythology. The Lemba also refrain from eating pork - as do both Jews and Muslims. The Lemba practice circumcision. The Jewish tradition is on the eighth day. The Lemba tradition is eight years old. Muslims worldwide also practice circumcision as well as many African people. 

However, the Lemba were unfamiliar with any possible connection to ancient Hebrews and, in fact, were unaware of Jews until they came in contact with Christian missionaries around the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and later to interaction with South African Jews. So, the “long held” belief of a Jewish ancestry dates back to around 1900, which is not very long in the scheme of things. Thousands of Lemba have adopted Jewish practices, in relatively recent times. This has been accelerated through the support of American Jews supplying religious education and ritual materials. 

Christian missionaries have a long history of introducing Biblical mythologies and integration of these mythologies with those of their targeted audience. When one goes out looking for the Lost Tribes of Israel, one inevitably finds them, even if the actual links are tenuous at best. The tales of the Lost Tribes, the ten Tribes said to be exiled from from the Kingdom of Israel around 722 BCE, is shrouded in mythology and actual history is pitifully lacking. Most historians have concluded that the deported tribes assimilated into the local population, although legends of people around the world being the Lost Tribes, reinforced by threads of customs and  beliefs, is tantalizing.

The Lemba origin story is based on a long journey of their twelve clans from a place called Sena. According to the oral traditions, they followed a sacred object called the ngoma lungundu or “drum that thunders”. The twelve clans are reminiscent of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the ngoma lungundu is therefore likened to the Ark of the Covenant. 

The genetic pools that Mr Tamarkin refers to, dating back to the 1990s, show a strong Middle-Eastern connection. This could be Hebrew or it could also be Arab. The genetic link among the Buba, one Lemba clan, does have a fairly high correspondence to the Cohen marker. This is curious. However, the overall information that we learn from genetic studies points to a strong likelihood of the influence of Arab traders that had an extensive network throughout Africa for hundreds of years.

Mr Tamarkin, goes on to state that “Lemba people did not orient themselves towards Israel. Instead they interpreted their genetic studies as proof that Jews were African and that Lemba people were, therefore, indigenous African Jews.” The link is to a book by Mr Tamarkin.

Drawing these conclusions requires intellectual gymnastics. He ignores the origin mythology of the Lemba people that stresses that they come from elsewhere and consider themselves to be separate from the surrounding peoples. The name Lemba may originate from the Bantu word lemi which means "non-African" or a "respected foreigner", although it could derive from the Swahili word kilemba meaning turban or “those who wear turbans”. Mr Tamarkin also ignores the Lemba burial practice of orientation to the north, presumably towards their historic origin and fails to mention that some Lemba that have adopted Judaism have made aliyah to Israel. 

Mr Tamarkin suggests that the Jewish sense of a indigenous relationship to a homeland in what is now Israel is misplaced. Mr Tamarkin proposes that the 15 or so million Jews of the world are African based on the 100,000 (more or less) Lemba being African, although the basis of a Jewish link to the Lemba is the possibility of a migration beginning with an exile from the Land of Israel, to Yemen, and eventually across Africa. 

Whether the Lemba perceive themselves as indigenous to Africa or rooted elsewhere is irrelevant to the sense of a general indigenous relationship to the Land of Israel by Jews worldwide. Around seven million Jews currently live between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, as well as around seven million Palestinians. Clearly, both people have an indigenous relationship to that particular piece of land.

Certainly, a logical argument can be presented that the Zionist ideology and subsequent experiment was a misstep and an historic mistake. There were certainly other perspectives among the Jews at the time of the formation and development of political Zionism. However, there is no denying that there is a strong link to the sense of place, emotionally and genetically. 

We are certainly not going to reorient the attachment of 15 million Jews, seven million who currently live in Israel and six million that live in the United States, with the rest scattered worldwide, to Africa because of a tenuous link of approximately 100,000 Africans. There is no other place in the world than the actual traditional homeland that has this genetic and historical link. 

Mr Tamarkin's essay approaches a fascinating subject, however the lack of intellectual honesty and historical integrity does a great disservice to the Lemba, to the Jewish people, and to the possibility of finding a real solution to the shared destiny of the people, Arabs and Jews, that live on the land that Mr Tamarkin so casually writes off as irrelevant to identity.