Spring......... Break!

Originally I wanted to take an epic voyage across Spain and Italy, but a wise friend suggested staying in France since after all, I'm here to be in France and to work on my French.  So far for me, France = Paris, and despite my deep-rooted New Yorker bias toward big cities, I know that there's more out there. Also, with only 1.5 months left before heading home, I would have hated to spend a third of that time in foreign lands. So... after a stressful couple of days booking train tickets and hostels, M (my friend) and I were off to see la France.

1st stop: BORDEAUX. Yup, as in the wine.
Bordeaux is gorgeous. We got out the train station and immediately I had to remove sock/sweater layers that Paris stiiiill required. The sun was strong, the boardwalks hot, the walk to the hostel not very far. We dropped off our backpacks and headed out on the town. My God, it was beautiful. There's a river that crosses through the city that adds to beauty. As do the 400 year old buildings.

And the super friendly people. And the ability to wear sandals after three months of boots in Paris!
As we were walking through the old village area, we happened upon a certain stone in the ground:

We were standing just in front of the house where Montaigne's Essays were printed! T'was very cool. Meanwhile, as I was standing upon this stone, my friend happened upon one of the prettiest little coffee shops I've ever seen. We had a cup of coffee while talking to the friendly owner and his wife. Just to give you an idea, here's a piece of the store's back wall:

Roughly translated as: "Nobles and traders are all here welcome, and can sit together without offense [...] to have a coffee far from noise and from blame.
Extract of the rules of coffee houses, beginning of 20th century"
!! What fun.

The auberge (hostel) was great - we met a really nice group of Brazilians (who have a special place in my heart from here on out, thanks to Aline). Shabbat was really nice - it was amazing to have walked around a city that didn't feel particularly Jewish and then to open a synagogue door to the sound of a room full of Jews singing Lechah Dodi. Moments like these have been among the most moving and impression-making. The locals welcomed us delightfully and it was fun getting to know some of the youth as well as the adults.

On Sunday we went to Saint Emilion, a gorgeous wine village whose first grapes grew in the 2nd century CE, and whose history begins in pre-historic times. Incroyable. 

IRUN/ SAINT SEBASTIAN
So apparently while we were squishing grapes in Bordeaux, someone was doing the same with the Earth and a volcano happened. We met people on the train who were traveling from Paris to Madrid in order to get home to the U.S. Oh, but that's because in conjunction with the volcano (say Eyjafjallajökull 10 time fast, or once), the French trains decided to go on strike. Luckily, M and I were headed to Barcelona. The only disruption we experienced was having to stop in Irun/ Saint Sebastian for a night. Considering that some people fly to Europe just to honeymoon in Saint Sebastian, we didn't feel too bad for ourselves. Gorgeous evening, waking up to the Spanish sun, 8am train to Barcelona.

Incidentally, M and I sat across from two primary school teachers.  Also incidentally, my friend and I back in Paris were working on a research project on diversity in Parisian primary schools, based largely on interviews with teachers and students. Bingo! The conversation that followed added about two pages to our final paper.

Next stop...

"Israelienne"

...everyone thinks I'm Israelienne. I'm sitting at a bus-stop in Nice, France, talking to my friend in French when an elderly woman turns to me and asks, in Hebrew, "At medaberet ivrit?" (You speak Hebrew?) No, I said, taken aback that from overhearing my French she thought I was Israeli. Next I was amazed at the story she proceeded to tell me about her life travels through North Africa, Israel and then France. "Be a strong woman" she told me as I got off the bus. She'd experienced a fair share of hardships because her mother always told her that good Jewish girls don't speak up. I assured her not to worry.

But this type of episode is far from rare. Just last night my French female friend introduced me to some new people - already after "Salut, bon soir" (hey, good evening) they had me... or had me wrong. "You're Israeli?" "Oh, but you were born there?" "Fine, but your parents are Israeli?" Second generation American, mes chéris. "You're joking." No!

I'm at a pizza shop in Marseille speaking with a fellow customer and after one sentence, "we can speak Hebrew, it's okay." Okay, monsieur. Why not.

At the student center in paris, "No, you're not American." "No, you're lying." "Do lots of Israelis speak French?" Buying challah for Shabbat - "you're coming from Israel?" In shul Friday night, "You're Israeli?" No! No! No!

The funniest part? In Israel they think I'm French.

Ramaz Fame, Seminar in Leipzig

BERLIN

Very quick overview: personal tour of the city by community member including stop at the striking, moving, effective Shoah Memorial; stepping into the Guggenheim there where I asked if they had any remnants of my beloved high school art teacher's "Bible Stories" photography exhibit there... which they did! I bought a book with pictures from the exhibition - including photos of high school friends since we we had been the subjects of my teacher's photos. Unbelievable. Here's a link (mind the bad high-school haircut), including a photo of me and some friends posing as the jealousy story of Rachel, Leah, and Jacob; "Vashti's Blemish"; taking my headphones out to hear the "Revelation at Sinai." Click on "Divine Gestures" and flip through - you might recognize a face or two (A. Fish, J. Feldst...), or for the Ramaz-ers out there, a hallway or two http://rachelrabhan.com/Artist.asp?ArtistID=18308&Akey=Y2PRXC57.

...sleeping in the Midrasha/Yeshiva there (incredible entities!); Shabbat meals with the rabbi, more explanations of the German Jewish community; Shabbat afternoon babysitting the rabbi's adorable children in the park, growing quite attached to one another!; eating matzah and cucumber on the sidewalk; early train to Leipzig where we'd be contributing to the Pesach seminar there.

LEIPZIG

This community is incredible - their Jewish center was opened by Jews from Eastern Europe, some of whom learned about Judaism from organizations like YUSSR (Yeshiva and University Students for the Spiritual Revival of Soviet Jewry) and were thus inspired to help build Jewish life upon arriving in Germany. Many of the people we met only learned of their Judaism at age 7, 13, or later. My partner and I gave shiurim, led discussion groups, and fell in love with the people we met. By the end of the two days we spent with them, I truly felt that I'd bonded with many of the high school-ers and the people my age who run an integral institution of the German Jewish community.

During the discussion sessions, the high school girls I spoke with went pretty deep. I opened up the topic of the central importance of human-to-human interactions in Judaism, and was met with difficult, sincere questions: who says that the world was made for humans? Were humans God's mistake? What's a God? Simultaneously, my girls inspired me with their remarks about prayer - one said she feels God's presence most when falling - like a flash of "God's the only reason I'm ever breathing." Another recounted that she connects most to the prayer some say before going to sleep in which we verbally forgive anyone who may have hurt us that day - she points out the difficulty of saying the prayer with intention - do we really dispense of all grudges on a daily basis? What a hate-free existence - incredibly powerful but incredibly challenging.

Two of the girls I worked with walked me to the train station at the end of the holiday - they insisted on holding some of my bags and walking me to the door of my train car, waving as we parted. An incredible end to an incredible holiday, taking lots of memories, perspectives, and images home with me. Deeply inspired - not gonna forget this trip nor the people I met, stories I heard, or living monuments I saw anytime soon.

Germany, Family, Growth & Change

When my parents bought me a traveler´s backpack before I left to France, I bet they didn´t think I´d be filling it with enough kosher-for-Pesach candy to feed four German villages. Well I did. When I saw myself in the mirror before leaving my house, I laughed out loud at my image – my backpack extended from my lower back to a half-foot over my head. I had to bite my lip and stare at the ground as I walked to and through the train station because I kept laughing every time I saw people´s reactions to me. Parisians do not do bulk.

I'm heading to Hamburg, Germany, from which I will go to Flensburg to help run Pesach sedarim there. Next will be Berlin for Shabbat and Leipzig for the end of Pesach to participate in a Pesach seminar there. Can´t say much more about the trip cuz I just don´t know what´s gonna be!

The days before I left were stressful, culminating with my rushed packing – kind of like some other Jews who rushed about this time of year a while back – only I was on my way to Germany instead of leaving Egypt – and yes, it felt exactly like that.

I´m on the train seeing more of France than I´ve seen yet and ain´t she a fine patch o´ beauty! Seriously, I´m sitting here giddy that I´ll be riding over 48 hours of trains over the next week and a half. I'm thinking that a train ride is a very postmodern way to see a country. Whereas traditionally society tracks and emphasizes a certain number of histories, lives, personages, postmodernism (as far as I understand) suggests our ridding of such hierarchies of importance and recognizing the presence of multiple histories. There´s usually a good reason why certain sites become attractions, but perhaps seeing the countryside, the less universally recognized but equally French houses, skylines, and churches, are also France.

GERMANY
[writing from train to Berlin for Chol Hamo'ed]

SHABBAT IN HAMBURG –

I really did not plan to do any touring during this trip but once you´re here, you don´t have so much of a choice – new cities beg to be explored. Also, the guy with whom I was to lead sedarim is from Australia and thus made sure to see as much as possible since he´d traveled so far. I came with. In Hamburg, we walked all along the beautiful port and ended up at Beatlemania, or the Beatles museum here. Lots of fun.

Over Shabbat we got our first lesson on modern day German Judaism from the Rabbi, his wife and their many guests. On Sunday morning, we were off to Flensburg!

FLENSBURG

The kindest, most gentle-looking, Jewish-Abba-embodying man picked us up from the train station (who we later found out has quite a story of his own, as did everyone we met in Germany, inevitably). He took us to the Jewish community center where we quickly saw that it was not lacking in material objects, rather people to guide the use of the objects. The Russian women who run the center greeted us with a bouquet of flowers each, a sit-down lunch, and handed us pens and paper on which we were to write the schedule for the next few days as dictated to us, through a translator. This was just the first instance of the Russian women running the center with incredible organization, beauty, and dignity. We had a moderately coherent conversation in English, German, and Russian.

They sent us on a day-trip to Denmark the next day since Flensburg is right inside the German border, and we got to visit a camp where Danish Jews were kept (and not-killed) during World War Two. Again, this is just one instance of the overwhelmingly kind treatment we got throughout our time in Flensburg – the community members were so grateful that we´d come!

I stayed with a woman named Marie who spoke zero words of English and held me around the waist as we walked to and from her house each time as if I had broken my foot. Every time she did so I tried to imagine what my French friends would have done, but I went along with it because I knew that she just really wanted to take care of me. Every night, she asked me what time I wanted to be woken up and by the end, we had a solid set of hand motions that made for successful communication. Meanwhile, if in Dublin I suspected that my red-haired father who always says “Ladies and Gents” is secretly Irish, in Flensburg I began to suspect his German roots. Call me ignorant but all my life when he said “Good morgin!” I thought he was just, well, being my father. Just don´t tell me that there´s a place in the world where we pronounce the “k” in “knife.”

THE SEDER

…was really, really nice, albeit hours shorter than what I´m used to. We asked questions together, my seder-leading partner and I told divrei torah, an adorable child sang the mah nishtanah, and at the end certain people told us that this had been their first seder. It was incredible how many people attended - 60 the first night and 20 the second night - especially considering that many had work/school the next day. [The whole Jewish community in Flensburg - most of which is Jewish but also including non-Jewish spouses - is 80 people.] Everyone patiently sat through the process of my partner and I speaking in English followed by translations into German and then Russian.

On the second night, we began the seder by asking the attendees to introduce themselves and explain what Pesach means to them. Talk about exodus stories... more than a few people mentioned personal histories of leaving countries where they had been un-free. My partner and I tried to tell divrei torah about personal, psychological freedom because political, religious freedom was a delicate topic - many people still did not feel 100% free in their new country. It was quite a night - moving, intimate, bitter-sweet - and we went home feeling quite fulfilled, hoping that the Flensburg community felt the same.

We got personal tours of Flensburg from community members throughout the end of the first days and led programs for the few but adorable Jewish children there, and we left with gifts in our hands (and hearts) from the Russian women. 

Cows, Pourim, and Dublin!

I have been so out of touch, taking notes on napkins and pieces of scrap paper from train stations all over Europe, but I´m finally typing it all out. I will summarize lots because there´s too much going on now to elaborate on the past! So here we go - snapshots, thoughts, memories that stuck:

SALON D'AGRICULTURE

In the words of my host mom – it´s the day when all the cows from France come to Paris. Picture lots of hay, lots of dairy products, lots of goats, and Sheilla walking through it all in her fur coat with her nose in the air to avoid the smells. Meanwhile Aline is sticking her nose right into those of the cows, getting her camera as close as possible to the action.

"POURIM"

Amazing costumes – Avatar, Obama, the works. Everyone was extremely welcoming and I met some people that have by now become close friends. I dressed up as a “Native American” - mostly because Sheilla gave me this amazing dress to wear but also because after the fact I realized the appropriateness. If the French were politically correct enough to refer to Indians as “Native Americans,” they might have thought my costume was funny. While picking up soft drinks for a Pourim Seudah the next day, the cashier eyed me strangely until she finally wished me a “Joyeuse Pourim.” Only in… Paris?

All together Pourim was a great experience – the only downside to meeting so many people during this holiday was that thanks to Sheilla´s incredible job doing my make-up (i.e. turning my skin 15 shades darker), many of peole didn’t recognize me the next time we met! Luckily my American accent served as the glass slipper to prove my identity.

IRELAND!

“Celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2010, St. Patrick’s Festival brings the nation alive, and promises six lively days and nights of free celebrations and encompasses a feeling of what it means to be or just feel Irish. We will be in Dublin and Limerick for the biggest and best celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in the world – join us!”

…well perfect timing then. I was in Dublin for the holiday weekend and it was like Christmas in New York. Everything green, everyone jolly, festivities everywhere. I was visiting my friend Shira who is studying abroad there and in addition to spending time with her, I got the privilege of a fantastic, personal tour guide. In just one weekend, she made sure I got to see most all the tourist sites – Trinity College and the Book of Kells, the many beautiful gardens, the Temple Bar area, and Kilmainham Goal, one of my favorites.

Also, she lives in this Bayit-like house (Jewish student home with people from all over doing all sorts of things), so I got to hang out with and hear the stories of lots of young Jews chillin' in Dublin. After spending the weekend dining with Chabad, praying at the first Ashkenazi synagogue I’d been to in a while and getting to know her darling Irish friends moderately well, we all went out together on Saturday night and had a euphorifically awesome time. There was also a group of British students at the house for the weekend which added to our bloody good time.

On Sunday we took a day-trip to a beautiful port town called Howth with one of Shira´s French house-mates (one of her three French house-mates, who helped me tremendously throughout the weekend with my French accent, God bless!). We saw seals, men playing Irish music, and lots of beautiful ocean.

The whole weekend was super refreshing – speaking English, meeting lots of young, interesting people, interacting with the Irish on the street, in cafes, and basically everywhere because they are some of the friendliest people I´ve ever encountered! I love Paris, but I wouldn´t say that openness and friendliness are its strongest qualities.

Lastly, and most humorously for me— so in Ireland we drive on the not-right side of the street, by which I mean the wrong side of the street ;). Fine. But then I kept noticing that the Irish do all sorts of things on the not-right side and though Shira is still skeptical, I´m convinced that it´s all related, and very funny. Their doors open the not-right way, and they even do the “bise” (double-kiss) starting from the not-right side! It was a bit confusing, and very funny.

So, after being very sad to leave Paris for the first time since the semester started, I was very sad to leave Dublin, which I´d grown to adore over the week-long seeming weekend. As I landed back in Paris, I almost wanted to cry as I thought of entering back into the land of French. But it was the kind of crying you do as you jog up a hill, or finish something excrutiating but that you know is good for you. Still, I was happy to be coming home, and happier still that it truly felt like home!

Family Matters

I walked into a CHABAD family's house on Friday night, greeted by six children who went from shy to burying me in questions and art-projects in about four minutes. I fell in love with them in about three. They were brilliantly creative - the oldest, age ten, asked me if I wanted to hear a story. Anyone who's ever lived with me knows that I love (bedtime) stories, whereby I was thrilled to listen. After the first child finished, the five-year old got up to tell his own story. I probably understood about 20% of what they said, partly because I couldn't stop dwelling on their impressive creativity and the French coming out of these payiss-laden heads.

At one point the five-year old asked me, "Tu es Chabad ou Sepharad?" (Are you Chabad or Sepharad?) I asked him if those were my only choices. But he definitely had the upper hand. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard him repeating after me and realized that he was mocking my accent! I was so impressed! To recognize my strange speech and identify it as that which adults call an accent, and then reproduce it - it was adorable and really, really funny. His mom, half trying to stop him, couldn't help but laugh throughout the night every time he started imitating me. He was great at it. Luckily, the eight-year old girl helped me with my pronunciation skills. Not "ruge," "roooouuuuge." (Or what sounded a lot like, "not ruge, ruge!") Then she read me her book about Jewish holidays. I might have been bored, except that following along was an invaluable French reading lesson! As my Rabbi from Riverdale told me before my year in Israel, young kids are the best language instructors. They love feeling like they have something to teach an adult - instead of getting annoyed or tired, they enjoy helping you with your accent, vocabulary, and even grammar - so everyone comes out a winner. Plus, unlike adults who can understand what you mean when you mis-pronounce or misuse words, kids simply have no idea what you're saying. They force you to find the just word and the perfect pronunciation. God bless them!

Speaking of God's blessings... I present you, ALINE -
Definition on thinkbabynames.com: noble, kind; precious; light.
Implications for my life: a new housemate, who happens to have all of the qualities listed above.
Three different girls lived in the second bedroom here before Aline - long stories and not mine to tell - but Aline is here to stay for a while. And I adore her. This is kind of awkward because she's likely going to read this, but in short - she's Brazilian, 27, and here to study, learn French, explore.

The first night she arrived, I couldn't believe my ears as we started talking. She's interested in economic development, did a masters in international affairs, and has an amazing taste in music, books, fun, life, etc. She's not Jewish, but extremely respectful of Judaism and religion in general, and she's become a pro at separating between meat and milk. We hang plenty and explore Paris together, and she's the last piece in the puzzle that's made my living situation optimal - Dieu merci.

We'll go to the open-market near the Bastille/our apartment, she'll (try to) cook Brazilian-style (delicious) rice, I'll lie on her bed while she works, listening to her glorious music in the really relaxed atmosphere of her room (which is always warm, partly because of her but also because unlike my room, hers actually has a fourth wall and thus retains heat...).

My host mom told Aline to go to a Purim party with me and I told her she's welcome but that she'd think Jews are nuts, after which she reminded me that she's Brazilian. Perhaps a few pictures from the Carnaval parade we attended together will help explain -

Aline in front of a sign for Carnaval.
I'm slowly learning to pronounce Portuguese like a proper Brazilian. "HEEo de jaNAAAAYrro."
(Also, the facial expression above is like Aline in a nutshell.)

Aline and her people ;)

Israeli dancers?

This is a classic me and Aline moment.
We're both looking around and then all of a sudden one of us is grabbing the other's hand - craziness surrounds and we, petite and good at squirming through crowds, find our way to the next adventure. Aline's probably telling me about "BrraZEEye" and I'm responding with some Hebrew idiom, followed by its explanation and some tidbit about a Jewish custom.

Meet crazy-eyes. I think she was shocked at all the weird costumes...
hmm...

And as if I haven't met enough people here who have taken me in as part of their extended family, my VRAI (real) PARENTS came to visit soon after Aline moved in! I won't elaborate too much, partly because I think their experience here was like that of my first week, which I've already described. They were constantly blown away by the beautiful, incredibly old buildings and the general quaintness of Paris, especially my quartier! They did lots of exploring and traveled to Lille, where they found my grandfather's shul and my grandmother's childhood building, from which the majority of her family was deported. My mom said that she wanted to ask someone there if they were the ones who had told the SS that the kids came back from hiding every morning and turned them in, or if they were the ones who had saved the kiddush cups.

On a lighter note, it was really fun hopping around Paris with my parents - I've rarely ridden the NY subways with them, and to hop around the metro and tourist sites was very pleasant. On their first night here, I prepared my first French meal with my host mom's help, complete with fresh products I'd bought at the open-market earlier that day and all of Madame's beautiful dishes. (Feel free to admire the gorgeous kitchen!)

We enjoyed an impressively coherent conversation that was a jumble of English, French, Hebrew and the occasional Portuguese. Everyone got along heart-warmingly well, and when I arrived home after walking my parents the awesomely-minimal two blocks back to their hotel, the dishes had been washed and dried.

More recently, Reid Hall organized a "COCKTAIL DES FAMILLES" where all the host families and their students congregated for cocktails, brief student performances, and comical interactions. We students enjoyed finally being able to put faces to the descriptions we'd heard  throughout our first weeks in Paris - any of us could have described the bathroom tiles, cooking ability, and accepted shower-length in the homes of each of the hosts there. (That's only a slight exaggeration.) I know that my characterization of my host mom didn't let the Reid Hall crew down when Madame walked in - with Aline who she of course brought as her wing-woman - in a leopard-patterned coat and shades. I believe the adjective "pimpin'" was used to describe her.

Meanwhile, Madame (who by the way, officially told me to call her by her first name, Sheilla), has recently inculcated into me her slammin' style. The other day, she walked into my room in a big, furry, eggplant - or a really furry purple coat. I only partly supressed my shock/laughter. Suffice it to show you the following pair of rockin' sneaks she bestowed upon me:

Golden.

Atelier (Workshop) Photo!

Below are some photos from my first ever photography excursion, led by Philippe Vermes, who's had pieces exhibited at numerous museums in Paris and around the world. He is a wonderful teacher, and guided us with the spirit and energy of a teenager throughout the Bastille area, down along a boat dock on the Seine, and through the rainy alleys of train-stations, statues, and kind men and women who engaged us for some words of wisdom about their favorite city in the world.

The first photos are my own, amateur shots. The second group are Monsieur Vermes' shots of us taking shots. With our cameras. Enjoy!

 

(and now for the master...)