This chapter-by-chapter summary contains plot spoilers!

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Navigate the Summary Parts: Part 1: Beginning Part 2: to Chap 6 - meet Berko Part 3: to Chap 9 - bar hopping Part 4: to Chap 11 - the black hats Part 5: to Chap 16 - Verbov Island Part 6: to Chap 22 - the shoot-out to be continued ...

Summary of The Yiddish Policemen's Union
by Michael Chabon
Pages 101 – 145

Go to the beginning/characters' list

(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com)  Chapter 12. Landsman and Berko get to Verbov Island.  It's Friday afternoon and they marvel at the busy prosperity of the community which shows no sign of falling apart in the face of Reversion.  Everyone ignores the two detectives.  Landsman picks a fight with some men who look very willing to participate, and Berko has to back him up with a huge war-hammer that he keeps in the backseat of their car.  The detectives get back in their car and drive on, wondering if the rebbe has arranged green cards for everyone on Verbov Island.

Chapter 13.  The detectives reach the workshop of Zimbalist the boundary maven who gives them tea.  Everyone insults one another, and they all agree that these are strange times to be Jew. Zimbalist, who is not a rabbi, is an outsider on Verbov Island, but a powerful one.  He determines the eruv, the symbolic boundary that extends an Orthodox Jew's "household" on the Sabbath and in turn extends the territory in which the Jews can use certain objects.  If Zimbalist ties enough string around enough telephone poles, he can turn the entire island into an eruv, thereby enabling the mobsters of the rebbe to carry weapons everywhere without breaking the Sabbath.

The detectives question Zimbalist about the murder victim, showing him a photo of the dead guy.  Zimbalist tries to control his reaction, but he cannot hide his recognition and extreme grief. The detectives fix him up with a smoke and some vodka from the bottle Landsman stole from the unconscious musician back in Chapter 9, and Landsman tells all Zimbalist's assistants to take a drive. 

Zimbalist then pours out his story:  the murder victim is Mendel Shpilman, the only son of the tenth rebbe of Verbov Island. Zimbalist taught the boy to play chess and even arranged secret matches for him though the boy was forbidden to play anyone outside of the Hasidic community.  Mendel was a chess prodigy and a sweet-natured boy, but odd stories abounded about him.  Landsman impatiently asks what stories?

Chapter 14.  Zimbalist provides a story: though already married, Zimbalist fell in love with another woman, a lady from the Shpilman family. Since she was related to the rebbe, they had to keep their affair utterly secret. When she got stricken with cancer and lay dying in the hospital, Zimbalist crept in at night to tend to her and sleep next to her bed.  Meanwhile, he was playing chess in the day with ten year-old Mendel. 

One day, Mendel – who led a very sheltered life and had no way to know about this affair – told Zimbalist to carry Mendel's blessing to the lady.  Zimbalist did and the lady experienced a complete cure. He and the lady broke off their affair by mutual agreement, and he found himself a little too awed by Mendel after that to resume their relaxed friendship.  Plus, the Shpilman family discovered the secret chess matches that Zimbalist arranged with non-Hasidic players, and cut off his access to Mendel.

Chapter 15.  Zimbalist, Landsman, and Berko walk down the street to the rebbe's house which is surrounded by his hangers-on, employees, and enforcers. No one wants to let them in on the eve of the Sabbath, and Zimbalist shouts that they're here about Mendel.  They gain access to the rebbe's foyer where his lawyer Aryeh Baronshteyn meets them.  Baronshteyn stalls them until Zimbalist, who clearly dislikes the lawyer, accuses him of trying to take Mendel's place.  The lawyer realizes by Zimbalist's uncharacteristic display of emotion that Mendel must be dead, but he seems genuinely surprised. The detectives get one of the enforcers to walk Zimbalist home to his wife, and then order the lawyer to take them to the rebbe.

Chapter 16.  The lawyer shows the detectives in to the rebbe's study where they meet the enormously fat rebbe.  Landsman and Berko show the rebbe the photograph of the murder victim, which he coldly identifies as his son.  He adds that Mendel has been dead to him for the last 23 years, and that he's even sat shiva (observed the ceremony for the dead) for his son. This greatly offends Landsman who still feels the loss of his own unborn son Django.

The rebbe claims that no one in his household has seen Mendel in the past 23 years.  Landsman asks if that includes Mendel's mother, and the rebbe coldly declares that she would never subvert his authority. Landsman asks about the rumors that Mendel could have been the potential Messiah (the Tzaddik Ha-Dor) born into every generation. The rebbe claims that Mendel had a way of making people feel better and bringing out the best in people – and his "miracle" amounted to no more than that. 

To Berko's dismay, Landsman gets more and more sarcastic with the rebbe who responds with cold venom.  Finally the rebbe accuses them outright of investigating this particular murder case against department orders, which makes Landsman wonder wildly if the rebbe used his own considerable influence to pressure the police department into declaring the murder a cold-case – perhaps because he ordered a hit on his own son?  The clock chimes, announcing the start of the Sabbath.  The lawyer Baronshteyn sees them to the door with a heavy-handed threat not to investigate further or they might "get lost and never come out."
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