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A case in point is this story that
happened to a friend of hers who was visiting from Brooklyn.
This friend has a cousin in
Jerusalem who desperately needed a babysitter one afternoon for
a few hours. And so Yocheved's friend offered to go and baby-sit
for her baby cousin whom she had not yet seen.
The baby was sleeping when the
mother had to leave, and all looked quiet. But when the baby
awoke crying, and didn't see her mother, and instead saw a
stranger she'd never seen before, well, as you can imagine, that
baby started screaming and screaming and screaming.
Yocheved's friend did everything
she could think of to get the baby to stop screaming: she rocked
her, she sang to her, she jiggled her, she changed her diaper,
she tried to give her a bottle, etc., etc. — all to no avail.
The baby just kept screaming and screaming and screaming.
Suddenly there was a knock at the
front door.
Carrying the screaming infant,
Yocheved's friend went to answer it. True, in Brooklyn she'd
never open the door to a complete stranger, but it was
Jerusalem, and the apartment was on the third floor, without an
elevator, ... and with the baby screaming and screaming and
screaming....
A woman was standing there. She
walked into the apartment, and told Yocheved's friend that she
heard a baby crying. She had come to help. She took the
screaming baby, and proceeded to quiet it down. When the baby
finally stopped crying, the lady handed the baby back, and left.
When the mother returned soon
afterwards, Yocheved's friend told her about the nice neighbor
who had heard the crying and had come to help. The mother was
appreciative ... and it wasn't until several days later that
Yocheved heard the whole story.
It wasn't a neighbor who had come
in to help.
A stranger had been passing on the
street — three flights below — and had heard the crying of a
Jewish baby.
This 'stranger' climbed three
flights of stairs to go into a stranger's apartment to offer to
help.
And she did.
Because there are no 'strangers'
among Jews in our own Land.
* * *
Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein writes for
various publications in Israel, England, and the USA and has
edited several books including SALT, PEPPER & ETERNITY (Targum
Press) and TO DWELL IN THE PALACE (Feldheim Publishers), an
anthology on life in Israel.
* * *
Reprinted with permission from:
On Bus Drivers, Dreidels and Orange Juice,
Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2000.
* * *
Author of ON CAB DRIVERS, SHOPKEEPERS AND STRANGERS (Feldheim
Publishers), ON BUS DRIVERS, DREIDELS AND ORANGE JUICE (Feldheim
Publishers), ON BUS STOPS, BAKERS AND BEGGARS (Feldheim
Publishers), A CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF SEPHARDIC TALES (Artscroll),
and HAPPY HINTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL ALIYAH (Feldheim Publishers),
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