Published by Feldheim, Reviewed by Judith Weil
For your eventual Pesach reading
pleasure/leisure.
An Israeli religious weekly once referred to social workers
as "The most unpopular group in Israel, after the
chareidim" and as "bureaucrats with a great deal of
power." There have been many horror stories in the
chareidi press in connection with the social services,
and social workers are largely viewed, rightly or wrongly, as
people who take children away from their families. This
impression results in chareidi families in crisis
feeling reluctant to contact social services.
This negative image does not fit the pleasant, helpful social
worker featured in "Cactus Blossom", but is certainly true of
the welfare officer who displays great tactlessness, misreads
every situation, and is clearly blinded by her own prejudices
and preconceptions about chareidi society.
In this book, the background for the intervention of the
social services is the Silber family's foster son, Ronny. The
Silbers, themselves, are a typical Jerusalem chareidi
family with whom it is easy to identify - as Mrs. Silber
struggles to juggle her manifold duties. Can there be a
mother whose children have NOT made a bad impression just
when it is most essential that they come over well - as
happens here?
Ronny's own history is sad, and his story becomes sadder as
the book progresses.
Although not essential to the main story line of the book,
the story is set during the time of the Gulf War, and for me,
this is an added attraction. Reading it, brought those
difficult weeks back to me. It is difficult to believe there
is so much I have forgotten. Everyone who experienced those
weeks has his or her own tales to tell. While the Silbers had
their chicks around them at the time, I now recall ticking
mine off in my mind each time there was an attack - especially
when it was Shabbos and we couldn't phone. Our oldest was
living near Haifa: Good - Haifa has now been pronounced
clear. Our second was at yeshiva in the South. Good - people
in the South have now been allowed out of their sealed rooms -
and so on. I also now recall that the Gulf War presented a
new dimension in hachnossas orchim. I raced home on
one occasion when the alarm sounded, expecting to find our
young daughter there on her own, the way I'd left her. She
was there, but not alone. Her father had come home while I
was out, but there were also two strangers in our sealed
room. My husband had invited in two meshulochim who
were at the door just at the crucial moment when the alarm
went off.
Then there were some friends of ours who had fears of
burglars taking all their precious items during a raid; they
put all their valuables into the sealed room. Since that room
doubled as their spare room, guests staying over were amazed
to find themselves sharing the limited space with the Chanuka
menora, with other sundry silver Judaica and bits of jewelry,
the Kenwood mixer and the microwave.
But to come back to the book. It shows how a family can show
its mettle when under threat. It depicts how a family member
can belong totally to that family, even if he is technically
not related. And it makes us realize how terrible it would be
to have this theoretically non-relative taken away by a
bureacracy that doesn't understand what it is doing.
Fortunately, the judge in this case had some sense.
The book contains a subplot about a young woman who has had
no contact with her father since she was a small child. She
has all sorts of assumptions about the failure to maintain
contact, but these turn out to be wrong and she realizes that
her anger was unjustified.
