By Maxim D. Shrayer –
Old virile German men and women come to the Holy Land in early November, warm
their bones at the edge of the Dead Sea, admire Jacques Offenbach at the Israeli Opera,
and sigh with bravura over their long lost youth right at the entrance to Yad Vashem.
Old sentimental Austrian men and women come to the Holy Land in the middle of April,
sip cloudy cappuccinos at Landwer Café, founded by Viennese refugees, unveil their bulging
veins on Bograshov Beach at noon, buy cheap antiquities at the flea market in Old Jaffa.
Old Jewish-Russian men and women don’t come to the Holy Land in the fall or the spring,
don’t drink bitter vodka at Viking Restaurant on Ben Yehuda, don’t listen to runaway poets
at Babel Bookstore on Allenby, don’t drag their heavy feet over the pouty stones of Jerusalem,
because old Russian men and women have already died or haven’t yet been resurrected,
because old Jewish men and women have already been resurrected or haven’t yet died.
Maxim D. Shrayer is a bilingual author and a professor at Boston College. He was born in Moscow and emigrated in 1987. His recent books include A Russian Immigrant: Three Novellas and Immigrant Baggage, a memoir. Shrayer’s new collection of poetry, Kinship, was published in May 2024.
