The palanquin on which Michael Freund will be lifted this November morning has been assembled from a cushioned tropical hardwood lounger, covered in tribal cloth and bunting, and lashed to a pair of stout bamboo poles painted silver. His porters sport dark turbans adorned with eagle feathers and a white sash across their brown torsos. Each carries a single chromatic grass pan-whistle, which they blow in time with the marching, boo-bee-boo-baaaa, as they hoist him shoulder-high above the crowd of several hundred Kuki, Paithe, and Thado men, women, and children waving small paper Israeli flags on sticks. A barefoot drummer leads the procession, and gong players trail. Freund’s legs dangle. The look on his face is a mix of mortification, embarrassment, and deeply satisfied delight: He wishes to honor the tradition that honors him, but he seems to realize that this whole scene is ridiculous, like something Werner Herzog if not Joseph Conrad might have dreamed up: the great white redeemer arriving to gather a remote tribal people, who shout, I low Michaew! I low Michaew!
Freund and his people are in the yard of Beith Shalom synagogue, in a town called Kangpokpi, across from the bazaar, in Sadar Hills, Manipur state, 30 miles from the Myanmar border. A faint smell of burnt rice fields, in full harvest, wafts in from the floodplains and terraces. The antlered, mounted head of a sakhi deer looks down from the pediment of a thatched proscenium, wreathed in a Star of David made of tied rice stalks. Along the short parade route, women hold handmade posters adorned with Israeli flags and scrawled with messages such as: “MAY HASHEM BLESS MICHAEL AND HIS FRIENDS FOR THEIR GOOD DEEDS AND MAKE THEM STRONGER.”
Read Full Article »