Copyright 1998 Sarah Siegel

Since we were in Israel in February, it was cool everywhere but at the lowest elevations, and my mother had us wear pants the afternoon we were to tour the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood, Mayah She’arim ("One Hundred Gates")....I was tall for an eight-year-old and an elderly man no taller than I approached me, entreating, "Mincha, Mincha. Minyan!" He wanted me to help make the quorum of men needed to say Mincha, the afternoon prayers.

My mother said, "Go. Go."

I was afraid. I didn’t know how I would find my mother afterwards because the man was urging me along for some distance, but then I looked back and saw that my mom was following behind us. I was also a bit astounded to have fooled this man so fully – even if he was old.

At the entrance to the room where they were getting ready to pray was a small basketful of kippot (yamulkahs) made out of black construction paper and staples. I realized then that my presence wasn’t essential for completing the Minyan, but that they drew in as many tourists as possible to help them fulfill a mitzvah -- in this case, commandment -- while they were in Mayah She’arim.

I wore the kippah and no one did a double-take; I passed for a boy perfectly. I felt many things at once: powerful as a guy; powerless to have resisted the man’s entreaty to come to Mincha; embarrassed to look so much like a boy; included among the most exclusive of Jewish male groups; depressed that I wouldn’t have been sought after had I been wearing a dress; worried about finding my mom afterwards.

We did find each other easily and didn’t tell anyone on the tour what had happened. We didn’t discuss it ourselves until I was an adult. "Mom, why did you tell me to go?" I asked.

She didn’t say, "Because I had hoped you would be a son and this opportunity fulfilled that fantasy momentarily," but simply, "I though it would be a meaningful adventure for you and, after all, why should a girl be excluded?..."

Read the next excerpt, " Hormone hora, or dancing with my desires at 15" or return to the home page of Sarah Siegel's Coming-of-age Memoir.

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