On Jewish feasting

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Patriotic blue and white marshmallows!
A limited edition especially for Israel's Independence Day (starting tonight) and also for the upcoming Lag BaOmer holiday when kids gather around bonfires.  

City Daily Photo bloggers are posting their favorite "Let's eat!" photo today for Theme Day. 

If you say "let's eat" to an American Jew, what comes to mind is the old joke: 
How can you explain most Jewish holidays?  Simple:  They tried to kill us; we won; let's eat. 

Think of the history and the feasting that go with Chanuka, Purim, Pesach, and Independence Day, for example.   True, eh? 
Today we are in the very somber and painful Remembrance Day when we think about the many thousands we have lost to wars and terrorism, and tonight we must transition into the fireworks, happiness, and barbecues of our 69th Independence Day.
The bitter and the sweet. 
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The Great Synagogue of Basel

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The Great Synagogue of Basel was built in 1868.

But, it says on the plaque, the first synagogue of Basel existed already in 1200.

A friend took me to Basel on a cold gray day in December.
We looked at the exterior of the impressive building but everything was locked up.
It was a Shabbat afternoon and not a soul was to be seen.

But we can learn from the Jewish Virtual Library website that

the Great Synagogue is a national landmark.  The synagogue, first built in 1868, was expanded and renovated several times over the past century-and-a-half. The Great Synagogue, at Leimenstrasse 24, houses two synagogues, a choir, mikveh, and is beautifully designed. Next door to the synagogue is the community center, library, and day school.

That website, by the way, tells the not always happy history of Jews in Switzerland since the Middle Ages;  very interesting, and not what you'd expect.

The nice website of the Basel Jewish Community, however, paints a rosy picture of today's Jewish situation:

Around 2000 Jews live in and around Basel, a dynamic commercial and industrial city with a rich culture and located in the heart of Europe. Founded over 200 years ago, the Israelitische Gemeinde Basel (IGB) is one of the largest Jewish communities in Switzerland. It is equipped with all the necessary organizations and a well-developed infrastructure. The community is an institution under public law, and legally on equal terms with the churches. As a so-called united community, the IGB includes Jewish members of any religious orientation. It is run according to the rules of the Halacha.
While the majority of the members of the IGB identify with a non-practicing direction of Judaism, there is still a vibrant religious life in this Community. Daily Shacharith as well as Minchah and Ma’ariv services are carried out. Before the Shacharith service, a Daf Yomi takes place daily. On almost all shabbat mornings, the Synagogue Choir Basel contributes to the service. The IGB is one of the few communities in Europe, in which all shabbat as well as Yom Tov services are led by a full-time and professional chazan [cantor].

You can click on my photos a few times to see the details.
And don't miss  panoramic views of the interior at Synagogues360.
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UPDATE: The building has undergone many changes in its long history, including the addition of the two domes.   Here is how it looked in 1930:

(photo source: http://dbs.bh.org.il/image/the-great-synagogue-in-aulerstrasse-basel-switzerland-1930)

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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday,  ABC Wednesday and Our World Tuesday.)
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Can't make a streimel out of a pig's tail

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Y is for Yiddish wit, for example:

You can't make a shtreimel out of a pig's tail.

• Fun a khazer-shventsl ken men keyn shtrayml nit makhn.

• English equivalent: You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
• Meaning: You cannot produce anything of good quality from poor raw material; often used of people.

In case you've never seen a shtreimel, it's that fur hat on the right.
Worn by certain ultra-orthodox Jewish men on holidays and Shabbat.
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(Linking to ABC Wednesday.)
UPDATE: Please see added interesting information in the comments.
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One of the Austrian synagogues destroyed on Kristallnacht

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Tonight is the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Israel Museum just posted this good summary on Facebook:

November 9 - 10 1938.
"Kristallnacht," the Night of Broken Glass.
The Nazis unleashed a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms against Jews in Germany, Austria, and in occupied areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

30,00 Jewish men arrested.
7,500 Jewish-owned business had their windows smashed and their wares looted.
267 synagogues destroyed, countless Jewish cemeteries desecrated.
91 Jews murdered.
Zachor.  Remember.

This used to be a synagogue in Stadtschlaining in Burgenland, Austria.
It was devastated on Kristallnacht.

We discovered it yesterday, on Sunday, so the gates were locked.

"Synagogue, built in 1715
In commemoration of the ordeal of our Jewish fellow citizens --
 many of whom were murdered in 1938-1945
-- Israelitische Kultusgemeinschaft Graz  1988"

The former synagogue now houses an organization for peace work and conflict resolution.

Jews first lived in the village in 1697.
By 1857 there were 650.
By 1934 all but 19 had moved away.
In March 1938, with the Anschluss, these 19 were driven out of their hometown.

This is part of the history in German.
But you can read more in English:
A factual and brief history of the Jews of Stadtschlaining in the Austrian Archive of Synagogues.
or
A fascinating story of what one American woman found when researching her grandmother's life in this town.

(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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A Jewish funeral, Israel style

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Have you ever been to a Jewish funeral?
I can walk you through the normal Israeli way of burial if you'd like.
Last Tuesday we were at this big cemetery in central Israel. 

Relatives and friends of the deceased arrive on their own and then gather in  this building.
There is a little time to greet the mourners and converse.
The body should be buried as soon as possible after death, preferably with 24 hours.

 Then the shocking part comes, when they bring the body, wrapped in a white shroud, on a stretcher and put it on this bier.  That's where I start crying.

Folks gather round while someone gives a eulogy.  

The collar of the close family is cut by the Chevra Kaddisha (burial society) official.

The immediate relatives (male)  recite the Kaddish prayer. 

On the wall is written verse 7 of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) 12:

"And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it."

 

 

Four mourners carry the stretcher out onto this wagon . . .

 
and the long walk to the far side of the sprawling cemetery begins.
The Orthodox Chevra Kaddisha man chants prayers and Psalms along the way.

The body is lowered into a deep grave, covered with a few concrete slabs, and then covered with the good earth of Israel.
Male people are welcome to shovel a bit of dirt.
But the main work is then quickly done by a young religious man with a turia (a big hoe).
The closest relatives say Kaddish again.   El Malei Rachamim (God, full of mercy) is sung by the cantor.
A few people bring flowers but the more Jewish custom is for each to put a little stone on the grave. 
And that's it, the end of a life. 

My kids and I lingered around the fresh grave until a Bobcat drove up behind us and already started digging new holes.

Then the tractor drove in loaded with the concrete slabs.
Wow, they couldn't wait.
People are dying to get in to this cemetery.
Other cemeteries have run out of ground and are now burying people in multi-story fashion.

Thirty days after the burial the family returns for the ceremony to set the tombstone.
I must admit, the Jewish way of burial and mourning is very respectful and the ritual is supportive.

People say in Hebrew,  "May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem and may you know only good news."
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You are welcome to see the two previous posts on this subject.
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Linking to ABC Wednesday.)

Hanging in the balance

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Until reading this article by Rabbi Yirmiyahu Ullman, I never realized that our Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur holy days in the Hebrew month of Tishrei coincide with Libra, the seventh astrological sign of the zodiac;  and Libra's symbol is the balance scales. 
The zodiac symbol of the scales is based on the Scales of Justice held by Themis, the Greek personification of divine law and custom.

We now enter into the solemn day of atonement, Yom Kippur.
God will be examining each person.
In the balance are last year's good deeds opposite misdeeds, merits vs. sins.
According to Jewish tradition, next year is also hanging in the balance.

Rabbi Ullman explains it like this:

Each person should think during the entire year, and particularly during the period of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as if he, his country and people, and the entire world are partially meritorious and partially guilty and that the judgment of all is hanging in the balance.    If he commits one sin, he is capable of tipping the scale of transgression for himself and others, causing their destruction and his.   Likewise, the performance of just one mitzvah can tip the scale of merit for himself and the entire world, bringing salvation and deliverance for all!

  Wishing you all a gmar chatima tova, i.e. that in the final reckoning in tomorrow night's final prayer service,  God will decide to inscribe us in his Book of Life and then seal the good inscription for the entire new year.

Israel is shutting down.  So silent.  No one drives.  The airport and all public transportation is closed.  Broadcasting has stopped.
May we have a painless fast (no food or water for 26 hours).
Now I must do the hard part, shutting down the computer until tomorrow night.
Shalom.
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(More posts about Yom Kippur.)
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World Sauntering Day

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Grandkids Dean and Libby, 2011,  Australia

Happy World Sauntering Day!
Never heard of this day till today, but I am all in favor of sauntering whenever possible.

The Wiki article about the day explains, "It is simply to walk slowly, preferably with a joyful disposition. Sauntering has been spoken of most notably by many of the naturalist writers in history including Henry David Thoreau and John Burroughs. . .
Its purpose is to remind us to take it easy, smell the roses, to slow down and enjoy life as opposed to rushing through it."

I think we photo-bloggers are already in the habit of sauntering, otherwise we would miss all those nice things waiting to be seen and photographed.
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I learned of World Sauntering Day at this nice Jewish Treats blog post, where it is compared to the positive  Jewish character trait known as zreezut (haste).
He says

Jewish living is about balance. One needs to know the appropriate time for z’reezut and the appropriate time for “sauntering.” Indeed, one does not exclude the other. Slowing down allows one to be more aware of others, which may provide a chance to discover new mitzvah opportunities (which one can then hurry to take care of).

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Yemenite synagogue

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So during Heritage Preservation Week we got a free guided tour of three older synagogues, all in the Alef neighborhood of Beer Sheva.
In the whole city there are over 200 synagogues.

Welcome to the Abba Shalom Shabazi Yemenite Synagogue.

 Women sit in the upper balcony and can look down on the men below.
The pews are along the sides, and the reading desk for the Torah scroll is in the center.

The scroll is kept in a  hard case, a tik,  Sephardic-style, in contrast to the Ashkenazi custom of covering the scroll with a soft mantle, a me'il.

This Yemenite congregation has many beautiful Torahs,

all kept in the aron kodesh, the holy ark.
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Jews lived in Yemen ever since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
 Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet.
So many of the new immigrants were directed to Beer Sheva that they needed to build two Yemenite synagogues in the city.
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More about Yemenite Jews in Wikipedia.
UPDATE! -- In a secret mission at the end of March 2016 some of the last Jews who remained in Yemen  were brought to Israel!  Read the story here.
Only about fifty Jews still want to live in Yemen.
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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday.)

Lucy Goosie's Lag BaOmer

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Bad blogger, that's what I am tonight.
Forgive me, but I just can't get psyched to put on shoes and socks and venture out now, after 10 p.m., to the periphery of Meitar to look for and photograph the traditional bonfires of our Lag BaOmer holiday.
It's not that I mind getting all smokey-smelling and having to wash my hair and clothes, it's just that I'm lazy tonight.

But maybe even better than bonfire photos,  I give you this detail from artist-friend Lucy Ridsdale's painting called Cleansing Fire.
Thanks Lucy! 
The Hebrew letters say Lag BaOmer.
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To know more about this holiday you could see the short explanation by the Velveteen Rabbi 
or the more detailed ones at  Jewish Treats blog.
Or watch the short video about the spirited yearly hilula celebration on Mt. Meron.
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UPDATE:  My Australian friend Lucy Ridsdale is an amazing young woman.
See her in an olive tree in an earlier post. 
She is a painter and a perpetual pilgrim.  In fact she earned a degree on the subject of pilgrimage.
Right now she is finishing a Master of Arts in Ritual Chant and Song in Limerick, Ireland.
You never know what she'll be doing next.
Take a sample taste of her blogs:
Taking the Long Way Round [Ireland]
La Via de la Plata, Pilgrimage on a Camino de Santiago
One step at a time is good walking [her 1000 km on the Bibbulmun Track in Australia]

We can all learn a lot from this Wild Goose.
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Huge gathering of Jews in the streets of Jerusalem today

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Haredi Jews in Jerusalem's Old City

Hundreds of thousands of religious Jews are flocking to Jerusalem today for a huge prayer rally protest against legislation to draft the haredi young men into the army. 

See my previous post for more about it.

Ynet adds "Inside the haredi community there were calls from rabbis ... to attend the rally, and the community's leaders gave a rare permission for women to attend – but on separate streets. All boys from the ages of nine and older were also called to attend."

It probably has never happened since the Israelites gathered at Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and probably will not happen again today,  but the Talmud says that a special blessing should be recited when one sees 600,000 Jews gathered together in one place:

ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם חכם הרזים

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe,
the wise One who knows all secrets.

(Rashi interprets this to mean that that only Hashem knows the secrets that each of these individual people think.)

Meanwhile 4,500 (some say 3,500) police and "ushers" are assigned to try to keep order in today's huge gathering.
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Times of Israel is having a live blog to update us as it happens.
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People on the street

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City Daily Photo's Theme Day is about people on the street.

My people here are at one end of Jaffa Street at what we call the entrance to Jerusalem.
Above them is Calatrava's Bridge of Strings which carries the tram and a few pedestrians over the busy intersection.

An older man had fainted or fallen on the sidewalk and a gurney was quickly brought for him.
So you have the young Magen David Adom (our Red Cross) volunteer medics in white, the religious onlookers in black, and two police officers.

On Sunday a stage will be built at this place and busloads of haredi Jews will converge from all over Israel and Jerusalem for a massive prayer rally and protest.
They are coming together to fight proposed new laws to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into the army.

Highway 1, the main road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, will be closed to private cars after 2 p.m. Sunday from the Latrun area to the capital.
The Jerusalem Central Bus Station will be shut down in the afternoon.
Buses and the tram will stop running near the entrance to Jerusalem.
Some schools in the area will close at 1 p.m. 


The gridlock will be bad enough; but mainly let's pray there is not much violence.

See more in Arutz Sheva and  The Times of Israel  and Haaretz.

UPDATE, Sunday morning:
 Ynet says "Inside the haredi community there were calls from rabbis on Thursday to attend the rally, and the community's leaders gave a rare permission for women to attend – but on separate streets. All boys from the ages of nine and older were also called to attend the rally."
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ENTRY into Jewish adulthood

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Entry into Jewish adulthood--a neighbor's bar mitzvah ceremony.
At the synagogue in the moshav/village where I used to live, in the Jerusalem Hills.

City Daily Photo bloggers' Theme Day today is about "entry."
See what entries others posted at the group's website.

Wikipedia explains:

According to Jewish law, when Jewish boys become 13 years old, they become accountable for their actions and become a bar mitzvah. A girl becomes a bat mitzvah at the age of 12. Most non-Orthodox Jews celebrate a girl's bat mitzvah in the same way as a boy's bar mitzvah.
 Prior to reaching bar or bat mitzvah, the child's parents hold the responsibility for the child's actions. After this age, the boys and girls bear their own responsibility for Jewish ritual law, tradition, and ethics, and are able to participate in all areas of Jewish community life. Traditionally, the father of the bar mitzvah gives thanks to God that he is no longer punished for the child's sins (Genesis Rabba, Toldot 23:11).
In addition to being considered accountable for their actions from a religious perspective, b'nai mitzvah may be counted towards a minyan (prayer quorum) and may lead prayer and other religious services in the family and the community.

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From India to Israel--a big change

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 For several days the blog has been showing Moshav Nevatim in the Negev desert.
Here is their Cochin Jewish Heritage Center.

Click to enlarge  and start to plan your  visit.

 The walls of the lecture and video room are covered with wonderful old photographs of the Cochin communities.
Here above are the young men of  Kehilat Ernakulam  over half a century ago.

The left photo is from 1952.
About then the Jews starting leaving India in order to immigrate to Israel.
Our guide at the museum emphasized that the different religious groups in India lived together  in sovlanut and savlanut, with tolerance and patience, and there was no anti-semitism.

And here the men are already at Nevatim, a moshav (a collective agricultural settlement) in the desert, working hard picking  apricots in the  1970s.
The Cochin Jews were also settled on four other moshavim when they made aliyah in the mid 1950s.
Nevatim had previously been abandoned and the group found primitive and difficult conditions on their arrival in 1954, and they were not used to working in agriculture.
But they were dedicated to the homeland of Israel and they took up the task of working hard to make their little patch of desert bloom.
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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UPDATE Nov. 12:  A new article appeared today, very interesting:
 http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-jewish-war-hero-and-the-last-vestige-of-a-dying-indian-community/
Lt. Gen. Jacob, an old hero living in New Delhi, says "India has always been very good to us. I am very proud to be a Jew, but am Indian through and through. I was born in India and served here my whole life; this is where I want die.”
“The only place I encountered anti-Semitism was from the British in their army,” he says. “Among Indians it does not exist.”
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Honoring the Torah, the elder, and the females

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Here is more from our visit to the Cochin Jewish Heritage Center in Nevatim.
(Please see my last few posts for more about the Jews of India.)

"Torah case adorned with chains (tali or niyali) and Torah crown.
Parur and Ernakulam,
late 19th - early 20th century.
Case: wood covered with silver sheet.
Crown and chain: silver repousse."

"In honor of [the Simchat Torah holiday], a manara (elevated platform covered with a canopy and decorated with Torah ark curtains) is erected in the synagogue, upon which the Torah scrolls are placed."

 (Quotations are copied from the museum's signage.)

"The common practice of the community was to circle around the Torah ark seven times. . . .
The circling around was attended by songs from the Kolas, the songbook of the Cochin Jews, and by dancing before the Torah.
. . . The women participated more actively in this holiday than in others and even came downstairs to kiss the Torah.  The girls, moreover, were permitted to join in the Shevah Hakefot [the circling] alongside the boys.
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At the conclusion of the day, all members of the community escorted the eldest member to his home, whereupon they received his blessing and then continued in the dancing and celebration."
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Miri, our wonderful guide at the Heritage Center, said they still do all these in Nevatim, their moshav in the Negev where the museum is located.
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Moving up

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In the previous posts we've been talking about the synagogue of Nevatim in the Negev,
the one built by the resident Jews,  who originally immigrated from Cochin, India.

Now come up the stairs to the women's section of the synagogue.
What surprised me to hear from Miri, our guide, was that in their Cochin tradition,  women have long been taught to read Torah!

So the Torah scroll in taken from the holy ark on the main floor and brought up to the upper gallery to this table  where the Torah portion of the day is chanted for all to hear--both the women in the balcony and the men below ("out of the depths I cried to You . . . ").

I am not saying that women chant the Torah on Shabbat (our guide did not say that), but with their learning it is natural for them to want to be close to the scroll.

The vertical blinds of the mechitsa screen  look quite see-through and easy to open, if the women are so inclined.  

Our tour group from Meitar learned a lot of good things at Nevatim, both in their synagogue and at their Cochin Jewish Heritage Center.
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UPDATE: The Times of Israel just now published this article about a new historical novel about the Baghdadi Jews of Kolkata  (Kolkata/Calcutta  being on the opposite side of the Indian sub-continent from Cochin).
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