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...)

 

 

Thank God (but only at home) for new friends, and for the warmest, most supportive administrations/shuls I've ever encountered

Does recounting life here necessitate my including the really embarrassing stories as well? Like when I went to 3 not-the-right campuses until I found the right 1? On 3 metros and 1 bus and 1 other mode of transportation? In 3 or 4 separate areas of Paris? For just under 2 hours? (Causing almost 1 teardrop?) Only to find out that my class starts NEXT week?
Fiiiiine.

My latest realization is that while I was initially embarrassed of my foreign accent and poor speech, my foreignness is actually my savior. I used to dread the moment, three second into any interaction, when my interlocutor realizes I'm foreign - but it's just at that moment when s/he usually smiles, replaces coldness and impatience with relaxed muscles and readiness to help, and either starts pointing, guiding, or drawing me a map. How very liberating, comforting, and helpful a realization. And asking questions usually results in interesting, if short conversations.

Anyway, I've officially finished the language practicum and my French is now perfect.
Hahahahahaha.
I told that to a French friend of mine (after a five minute conversation en français) and he laughed, so I'll let you decide the extent of my sarcasm.

Okay, now we must back up a bit cuz lots of shtuff has gone down - let's take it one by one:

CHABBAT PLEIN
There is a Jewish student center in Paris called le Centre (Edmond) Fleg, which slightly resembles a campus Hillel, but serves Parisian Jews ranging 20-30 years old. To my great luck, they had a "Chabaton" during my 3rd Shabbat in Paris. I and a friend from Barnard spent both Shabbat meals at the Center, where we made our first Parisian Jewish friends. Everyone was extremely welcoming - as soon as people heard we were foreigners, they came to our table to say hi and offer contact information. Apparently American exchange students are rare. I have to say - there have definitely been moments when I've thought to myself, "Okay, so that's why they say the French aren't warm," but for the most part, I've been impressed by just how welcoming people have been in so many different situations, which brings me to...

REID (Angel-infused) HALL
Reid Hall is the home base. Next week, I begin taking courses in the French University system. But for now, I have been basking in the kindness and warmth of the Columbia University staff at Reid Hall. I had expected that upon our arrival, the staff would not cuddle us too much - they'd remind us that we're in France now, and we have to learn to fend for ourselves. Well... I couldn't have been more wrong. From the moment I walked into the first orientation session, through personal advisory meetings and regular hall-way greetings, I am continually moved by the staff's support. Reid Hall houses numerous exchange programs, but the Columbia hallway is about 30 feet long. The staff somehow knew each student's name from the moment we arrived, and they are perpetually smiling, patiently deconstructing our French, and helping us figure out how we want to spend our time here. Further, there is tremendous support built into the academic program. We have tutorial sessions for our various courses, where we grow acquainted with research and paper-writing, French-style.

Reid Hall also arranged numerous activities for us to sign up for at our will. Conversation workshops to improve our spoken French, Photo and Plastic Art workshops with darling, talented teachers who of course greeted us not only with lessons but also coffee and delicious (-smelling) French cuisine. A night at the opera, the theater, etc. I signed up for (almost) everything.

ATELIER (workshop) CONVERSATION/
CHABAT CHEZ MOI (at my place)
Ummm, so most students dodged these ateliers, but I signed up for 6/6 cuz I needed the extra practice. Excitingly, I made some really fun friends - while I still have trouble asking the cost of a crêpe, I managed to get into some moderately heated political/religious discussions almost every session. Let's just say I was nicknamed "madame la rabbine de Columbia" despite being warned that in France, religion is only for the home. Perhaps that's why the friend (S.) who thus dubbed me also invited me to Shabbat dinner, which I attended after accompanying her to the shul of the only woman rabbi in France (I'm told). It happened to be ROCKChabat, which made for some delightfully beautiful tunes - Lechah Dodi to "Hallelujah" (Leonard Cohen) and Adon Olan to "Satisfaction" (Rolling Stones). Young French Jews singing Hebrew in French accents to Classic Rock tunes - goosebumps-inducingly beautiful. S.'s family was welcoming, interested, and lots of fun. Her 21 year old brother disagreed with all my previous interviewees and told me that indeed there are French television series worth watching (to help learn French). Later, S. helped me work on my French numbers. (Just to clarify - I skipped two levels of French, so while I can use the French subjunctive, saying "148" presents a challenge.) We counted (her practicing English, me French) from 1 to 1 million - obviously skipping around. She was great about it - prancing back and forth across the living room as I translated her English sentences back into French and simultaneously teaching me about herself, France, and even Zionism - "I was born in the year 1985," "the French Revolution happened in 1789," "Theodor Herzl wrote 'the Jewish State' in 1896," etc.

SYNA DES VOSGES
The next day, I decided to try a new "syna"(-gogue). As Madame (my host mom) always says, we have 10 shuls just around the corner - and while the one on rue Pavée is historically famous and on rue de Tournelles, breathtakingly magnifique, built during the Eiffel Tower's construction, I hadn't yet found one that quite floated my boat. And then I found Syna Place des Vosges. Place des Vosges is a gorgeous square park built by Henry IV, surrounded by a beautiful square building, two blocks from home, which I hear becomes Edenic in the Spring. Madame told me I could find an Ashkenazic shul somewhere in the square. When I tried to open the wrong door, an adorable pre-teen boy called to me. Upon finding out I'm new in town, he smiled and said "Wooow, bienvenue a Paris!"

Immediately, I felt at home. The Rabbi delivered a profound, text-based, relevant d'var torah, and announced one of his congregant's Bat Mitzvah. After services, I introduced myself to him and he assured me he'd guide me to other foreign (and French) students. Later, I returned for a short Talmud lesson, followed by afternoon services, and what turned out to be a Tu B'shvat Seder/Bat Mitzvah. Throughout my time at the shul, I felt as if I was part of a big Italian family. Everyone was SO friendly and warm! I'm looking forward to returning.

MY SHOTS AT MARRAIGE, KABBALAH STYLE
Later, Madame's best friend came over. This was a monumental occasion, for I had never met the face behind the voice she speaks to about 10 times every day (that is not an exaggeration, I don't really get it). She took great interest in my love life, and was all but horrified to hear that I'm a Scorpio. "C'est très dur, très très dur," she told me. Apparently I must find someone more "fort" than I (very poorly translated as "stronger"). I told her my name means "gentle," but I'm not sure that overrides the power of the Sign. Dun, dun, dun...  Still, we got along really well - contagious smile, gorgeous lipstick - she was a complete darling!

Anyway... I'm off to try Chabad numéro 1 and then back to Syna des Vosges tomorrow morning - Chabat Shalom!

Angry about Haiti + rushed plastic arts workshop =

The New York Times compiled a disturbing, moving, painful montage of pictures from the week following the tremblement de terre (earthquake) in Haiti. Lots of people/newspapers here were talking about the earthquake in light of France's complicated relationship with Haiti. It struck me that people (myself included) always said it'd have been better to learn Spanish in order to communicate with impoverished people and countries, and that French is the language of philosophy and sky-pointed noses. And then I found all these videos of Haitians describing their experiences. Hearbreakingly, I understood their words.

The next day, I arrived at the Atelier (workshop) Arts Plastiques that Reid Hall had arranged for those interested. Our artist host/teacher provided all the paint, magazines, glue, and tools that we needed, and invited us to make art. As I looked through some of her art books, I kept seeing paintings of people, of bodies, but my appreciation of the talent and beauty was disrupted by images from the previous night. Bodies, arms, legs - they're not supposed to look like they did in those NY Times photos. Bodies are not supposed to be under buildings, mixed in with broken chairs and garbage and other people's crushed bodies.

I began to sketch some ideas, and then I picked up a science magazine. It was perfect. Somehow, discussions of race and medicine, of health care and nutrition advice, really resonated with my disorganized, not-yet-formulated feelings and thoughts. People can talk all day long about blame and responsibility, but at the end of the day, we're left with bodies, homelessness, new orphans, and a world that must figure out how to react.

So -
the form: collage
the material: decontextualized images and text
the time limit: Shabbat was starting in 1.5 hours.

I worked faster than ever before, producing something angrier and more graphic than I've ever made, after which I used a twisted paper clip to tear through parts of it. Of course, I was still deeply upset, but it felt good to get it out a little bit. Matte medium stuck to my fingernails and hands, I ran home to Shabbat.

 

 

If a picture speaks a thousand words, how many words, then, does a Monet speak?

"Are you Rabbi Joseph Brandriss's granddaughter?"
I think that was the first time anyone ever asked me that, especially since I infrequently encounter people who knew him. But when I walked into an unfamiliar French shul on Friday night, an adorable older man addressed me with that very question. The family I was staying with for Shabbat had told him about me, and we quickly got along. Taking me under his arm, he said he'd take me to Lille to visit my grandfather's shul and to meet a community of elders who knew him and his parents. At the Shabbat table in front of a house full of guests, my new friend recounted the d'var Torah (word of Torah) that my grandfather had presented to him some 65 years ago. Later, he offered to give me and some friends a private lesson in Torah and/or Jewish philosophy, and promised to introduce me to the young male (and female) Jews in the area.  He also assured me that I wasn't the only one who shed a waterless tear when we first met.

Okay, enough family history for now. The rest of this post shall speak for itself - partly because I just began a three week, three credit class, and it's a beckoning! But mostly because these pictures truly tell their own story.

In short:
Two of my dear American friends came to visit.  Over the course of the week, we went to Versaille, Musée de l'Orangerie (home to Monet's water lily paintings), a Jewish family that gave me a crash course in Parisian Judaism and all but adopted me, Haagen Dazs on the Champs Élysée....

Open Market in Versailles

Inside the Château (Palace) - Hall of Mirrors

Endless amounts of gold

Elisheva, Being.

Me, loving Montaigne 

[...key creator of the essay as a literary form! "Essay," from the French verb essayer = to try/attempt! Montaigne subscribed to Skepticism, and believed that while we could never know the final word on anything, we could make an attempt to broach any topic. Thus, the essay.]

[P. S. We weren't listening to the Shins or anything, rather a guided tour by the little men inside our headphones.]

Napoleon

"Whatever, I just came from the gym."

 

The Gardens!

[Sorry, I had to take a moment.]

Claude Monet

~ Good Night ~

Not-complaining

They** say that when you go abroad, it's important to maintain:
1. perspective
2. a sense of humor

So here's to you, Columbia website: from the perspective of my grumbling stomach, I have not eaten since lunch and I feel like a punished child sent to bed without dinner. My sense is that it's humorous that my host sleeps in the kitchen/living room and therefore denies me a way to change the perspective of my estomac. Please don't tell my mother that I ate cereal bars for dinner, and to my mother, I'm on it... it's just that after studying the French list of kosher foods for about an hour and then realizing that anything crumb-producing or sugar-containing will be frowned upon, I came home almost empty-handed, -stomached, and too cold to care. I'm hungry for another cereal bar, but I wouldn't want to shock my system with this alien food - I'm pretty sure getting sick is out of the question in this très belle maison.

Meanwhile, I offer a toast to the French (though the French toast they offer me is in fact hard and not dipped in egg nor cinnamon). I hail them for severely limiting electricity and water consumption. From my experience, many American homes and institutions (myself very much included) display minimal awareness of that which lies beneath the surface of lights, heaters, and water faucets. We turn knobs and flicks switches without fully appreciating our effects on the environment. Here, the forces that be force the French to heed mère Nature because heating and electricity is very expensive and hot water is limited.

THAT SAID, I never fully lost my fear of the dark and I have split second nightmares every time I walk from the wash room to my sleeping room at night, since of course we're prohibited from keeping lights lit "superflously." On the bright (well, dark) side, I can't stay in the hallway for very long since it's unheated and I must watch that my toes don't freeze and stick to the floor. If they did, I fear that Madame would lament their clashing with the rest of the body in the painting outside my room (for whom I fear as well since she looks like she could use a sweater, or at least a shirt).

The other night, my friend described her poor relationship with a previous host mom, and I began to imagine a scene of an abroad student raiding his or her host family. I localized my vision, and immediately a picture of water puddles on counter-tops entered my mind. Now I ask you, what does the following say about the house/-keeping here: if my host mom walked into the wash room and saw water on the counter-tops, she would gasp and understand with certainty my diabolic intentions.

What I really mean to say is that I absolutely adore my host mom, and with every passing day we're growing to further get each other. She came home with an urn and havdalah candle for me, and when I asked to reimburse her she explained that "Hashem paid." I told her that I too appreciate Kabbalah, describing my unexpected appreciation of the Tania. She asked me if I have a fiancé in les États-Unis, and (unrelated?) offered me nail-polish remover for my chipped self-manicure.

And now, my most redemptive moment of the day: upon learning experientially and painfully repeatedly that I need to learn French and fast, I sought new, maximally enjoyable resources, whereupon I found [painfully adorable], [upliftingly pretty], and lots more. Watch out all ye mockers of my pah trey b'yen frroncez - Simba and Tarzan are my new primary sources of extra-curricular vocabulary and accent help. If you'd entered my room around 2am this morning, you'd have heard me repeating after them - C'est moi Simba, c'est moi le roi...


**Why hasn't postmodernism done away with the universal "they"? Do they all still share the same view? Didn't we kill the Father, Author, and Word? If there are a multiplicity of realities, how is it that they all agree?! Maybe they have some advice to offer the rest of the world, 'cuz who else in history shared such unanimous, harmonious opinions outside of them?!

Attractions, Distractions, World-Changing Actions

'Spoiler' Alert: The end of this post contains the reason I'm alive.

I jumped out of my house and into the streets. In my bag, a map; in my head, an intention to meet Paris. I ignored the former, but the latter guided me quite far.

I didn't want to go another day without seeing the Seine, and about 12 minutes into my walk, I found her. Three minutes later, I was standing in front of Notre Dame. Let me rephrase that: I live a 15 minute walk from Notre Dame! I marveled at the outside for a few minutes until adrenaline urged me to continue on. Someone had told me about Shakespeare & Co., a legendary English bookstore across the river, so I used it as an excuse to explore the area. I love the independence and freedom of having minimal work (for now), and of being a foreigner in a new city that demands exploration.

I LOVE walking the streets of Paris. And I LOVE that I don't have to take a camera anywhere because I can just revisit that Where! I love hearing French all around me (though I despise feeling excluded because of my weak speech). I love the cobble stone roads and that historical landmarks overwhelm this city, and I love that everyone is so damn stylish. I love that storekeepers and street-goers are mostly kind and patient with my embarrassing French, and I love that men (and women) greet each other with two kisses.
I find it weird - but in a loving way - that seats outside cafés face the street so that people just watch you as you walk buy, and that it's the norm for people on the subway to stare unabashedly at fellow riders.
I HATE that so many people smoke. I hate that there are so many homeless people (though I find it weird that some wear moderately nice jeans - pardon the crassness, but how French...). Simultaneously, I'm stricken by the abundance of people who appear middle to upper class, and wonder where the poor(er) live. I hate that the apparent lack of poverty makes me wonder where the poor reside; that I intuitively feel that there must be people suffering somewhere to allow for the formers' lifestyle. I intend to research this, and I'll report back with my findings.

Though I never found Shakes. & Co., I got to know the area surrounding (and within a 4 hour walk of) my home. On my way back, I got distracted by signs for further local sites. Before heading over to Musée Carnavalet, a museum of Parisian history a few blocks from home, I saw a sign for "Mémorial du SHOAH." I followed it until I found the museum, outside of which stands a wall containing a list of French "justes," or righteous gentiles. A few deep breaths later, and after scanning through a long list of names, I found "Jeanne Rousselle," the woman who saved my grandmother, one brother and one sister, during World War Two. Madame Rouselle was the head of a sanatorium for children with respiratory diseases. My grandmother and her sister posed as nurses and their brother as a patient. Another of their brothers was studying to be a rabbi at the École Rabbinique de France (Rabbinical School of France) and thus got to know the man who later married my grandmother. He escaped to Southern France but was then imprisoned. My grandmother and siblings used to save some of their food rations to send to him in prison, only to find out later that he'd died and they'd sent all the food for nothing.

 

 

Once, when the Nazi or French collaborators came to find hidden Jews at the sanatorium, they wanted to check if the boys were circumcised. When they reached my great uncle, one of the nuns said she wouldn't go near him because he was extremely contagious, but told them they could if they wanted to. The officers got scared, bypassed him, and thus he survived. When Madame Rouselle saw that my grandmother and siblings stuck to their faith and maintained Jewish practices - kashrut, Shabbat, etc. - she said to them, "You taught me to be a better Catholic." [This reminds me why I should take the time to understand the list of kosher food here, despite the overwhelming complications.]

Decades later, when my great uncle nominated Madame Rouselle to be one of the righteous gentiles listed at Yad Vashem, they researched her and found out she'd hidden and saved 57 Jewish children. For everyone's safety, Madame Rouselle had never told the Jewish kids about the other Jews living there with them.

My grandmother and grandfather (a"h) came to the United States and had six children, over 20 grandchildren, and as of late a handful of great-grandchildren. My grandfather served as a Rabbi first in France and then in Sudbury, Canada; Wassau, Wisconsin; Beacon, New York; Austin, Texas; and Silver Spring, Maryland, where he became President of the Washington Board of Rabbis. Even today, his shul in Silver Spring invites my grandparents' above-mentioned progeny to an annual Scholar-in-Residence Shabbat in my grandfather's honor.

Seeing Madame Rouselle's name on that wall was viscerally, emotionally, and mentally moving, and I remain amazed that I'm currently breathing, writing, and praying just seven minutes from the monument.

I am taken aback that the even nowadays, the Jewish Community Center here is called the "Centre communautaire de paris" and lacks the word "Juif" in its name because as a local Jew told me, "as it is France they cannot call themselves Jewish!!" But more on that another time. For now, I am contentedly exhausted from the day, and thankful for those who made it (and all the others) possible. As was written outside the museum,

"Devant le Martyr Juif Inconnu incline ton respect ta piété pour tous les martyrs, chemine en pensée avec eux le long de leur voie douloureuse, elle te conduira au plus haut sommet de justice et de vérité.

זכור את אשר עשה לך עמלק של ימינו אלה אשר הכרית גוף ונפש של שש מאות רבוא בני–ישראל תף ונשׁים -- ללא מלחמה."

 

 

Second Impressions

I don't expect to continue posting this often, but since I hastily described my first impressions of and experiences with my host, I will hastily update them--

I ADORE her. She keeps a beautiful home, and has a particular way of doing everything, which I am quickly trying to learn. Though I'm sure she could afford a maid, we do our own dishes, take out our own garbage, and clean the (royal) tub and sinks after using them. She brings my slippers to the front door so that I don't enter in my boots, and she insists that we keep all lights and heat off when we're not in their direct vicinity. We eat simple, healthy food, and with it a fruit and this drink whose name I haven't yet caught but that supposedly puts one to sleep.
She is extremely DIRECT, as in straight forward, which is one of my favorite qualities in people. She is quick to solve emergent complications (vegetarianism, etc.), and expresses our solution in commands but ever so endearingly - "You will buy yourself two cheeses. You will use that to make sandwiches for school." She smiles infrequently, but that is somehow further endearing because it is simply her way, and she shows care in a subtler fashion. She is also deeply religious and ascribes many things to "Hashem's will," albeit without claiming complete observance.

I think my first mistake expectation-wise was that I thought - since after all I'm in a modern Western country - that Paris would not be completely different from New York. Well that is completely wrong and at times confusing, but overall amusing, informative, and enlightening. And with that, I bid you Shavua Tov :).