Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan Read Online Free Page A

a rabbinical thing to do, but it’s been known to happen. But murder—Jews, and certainly rabbis, don’t do things like that.”
    There had been a trial (in actuality two, since the first had resulted in a hung jury, obviously possessed of a few jurors of the
persuasion that “rabbis don’t do things like that”). And while the rabbi had eventually been found guilty and placed behind bars for the remainder of his life, the case continued to be regularly invoked by the Jews of Cherry Hill as an object lesson in any number of things—from the escalating dangers of adultery (said rabbi had dallied with numerous women before taking to murder) to the advantage of an open-office plan (many of the rabbi’s trysts had happened in his locked study—specifically, on his cherry wood desk). But Carla might well have been the first to use the case to argue against Reform Judaism as itself a slippery slope: First, it was shorter services and less Hebrew; next, it was murdering your wife.
    Such an argument, obviously, did not hold weight with Mark, and Carla had finally given up and agreed to membership in a Reform synagogue. To her surprise, she found that the services were not so different from the Conservative ones she had attended in the area—though they were shorter and the cantor did play the guitar.
    Still, when it came to the bat mitzvah, Carla remained steadfast on certain points that pertained to the traditional nature of the event. She bristled, for example, when told of the volkschuls that existed in many affluent suburbs, where educated, highly assimilated Jews staged “special events” in honor of their children’s thirteenth birthdays. These were celebrations of ethnic history and creativity in which the children could do such things as write a research paper on Ellis Island or perform a stand-up comedy routine in the style of Jackie Mason or Jerry Seinfeld (stand-up comedy being seen as a form of cultural expression as close to the actual practice of Judaism as one could get in modern life).
    Events like these were not to Carla’s taste. For her, the bar mitzvah was a sacred marker of the old ways, to be celebrated with all the conventional trappings. And a principal one of these was a kosher meal.
    Fortunately, her friend Jill Rosenberg had done the groundwork
and sampled the kosher caterers across the Delaware Valley in preparation for her son’s bar mitzvah the year before.
    â€œIf I have to eat another potato knish, I’ll die,” Jill had reported dramatically in the midst of this evaluative process. In the end, she had declared that one caterer stood out from the pack and could hold his own with the best kosher chefs on Long Island. (Jill grew up on Long Island and saw its offerings in the way of food, clothes, and household appliances as the measure for all things.) This caterer, she said, was the king of kosher caterers: “His soy ice cream’s ambrosia. Josh and his friends practically OD’d on it.” What better recommendation could there be?
    â€œAt least try the caterer,” Carla pleaded with Mark now. “If you or Stephanie don’t like the food, we won’t use him.”

Chapter Five
    A nd so, THE NEXT DAY, CARLA, MARK, AND STEPHANIE prepared to drive out to northeast Philadelphia to sample the handiwork of the Iron Chef of kosher caterers.
    Jeffrey was left home with Jessie, who, despite her recent odd behavior, seemed the only person able to get him to sit still and do his work. None of his teachers apparently could, judging by the notes that cascaded daily from his backpack.
    â€œDear Mrs. Goodman,” read a recent note from his language arts teacher, “Your son appears to have a chronic need to use the facilities during the class period. His insistence that he ‘must go or else’ is either an indication of some sort of physiological disorder or the sign of an accomplished liar. Kindly