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captivity
head for heights, and on the
very first day of work he fell off
and broke his right arm. The
arm healed, and in any case
his left arm was fortunately
the nimbler one; he already
wrote Hebrew and Aramaic
with the left hand, and now
he took the opportunity to
learn to write Greek and Latin
with it, as well. Ever since that
accident, his father was left in
peace.
When Joseph came up with
lime burning, also a good
profession, but Uri rebelled
and started yelling: not only
would he not be a limeburner,
he would never be a
glassblower either, he would
rather die. That shook Joseph,
who had himself started out
as a glassblower, or rather as a
goldsmith, because Jews were
the only ones in the Roman
Empire who were able to blow
glass around figures of filigree
gold thread, and without
another word he left his son
to rant on for a few minutes
longer, jumping up and down
and even threatening to sign
on as a longshoreman.
He was not serious about
that; with his aching legs and
lousy back he would not have
lasted a day lugging those
loads. Aside from tanning,
that was the lowliest work
a Jew would undertake. The
pay was bad, but if you had
a tessera it was possible to
sustain a family with several
children on the handouts and
the extra income from dock
work. That was to say nothing
about pilfering a bit of the
cargo when the supervisor
was not watching, and he
would not be looking, so long
as he also got a share of the
swag.
In principle, a Jewish worker
was not supposed, on
religious grounds, to steal