Po-Lan-Yah

I am headed to Poland for the next week. Another week of finding Jewish life in the cemeteries, concentration camps, and freezing cold weather. We are taking our Netzer kids and joining EIE.
I promise to write something uplifting soon.

Later,

josh

!!!ירושלים של ברקת

Mazal tov to Nir Barkat for winning Tuesday's Jerusalem municipal elections! This is a really big deal., and I am hopeful that things will turn around quickly. I was trying to reflect on what it meant to be mayor of a city like Jerusalem. I mean, to follow in the footsteps of King David, Solomon, all the kings of Judah, and Teddy Kollek is no simple feat.

I think Nir Barkat is able to do what needs to be done, which is why I voted for him. It did not go over with out controversy, as he is a non-Orthodox candidate. Everyone calls him the secular candidate, but I think that word is somewhat meaningless. The problem is that he has right-wing tendencies. He has plans for more Jewish "neighborhoods" in East Jerusalem trying to connect the outlying "suburbs" with the West (literally and metaphorically). However, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Is somewhat of a shit hole. Don't get me wrong, I love living here and have a nice setup, but poverty is rampantly rising, streets and sanitation are out of control and the traffic situation is nightmarish.
I think that Barkat has the best chance of improving the situation, which is why I voted for him:

You might notice two envelopes. Yellow is for mayor and white is for city council. Yes, two votes (I, coming from Chicago, can identify with voting early and often). My city council vote is a whole other complicated matter.

Anyhow, democracy wise, things are on the up and up, and we'll see what our newly elected can do.



~~~~
On Another note I would like to start a regular update on the blog of the day's or the week's "Scary" news item. It will be my pick of what to be scared or worried about next. Whether they legitimately warrant your fear is for you to decide. Our first pick is:

"Iran says it test fired new surface-to-surface missile capable of hitting Israel"

Yikes!

General Impressions of Germany



I know it means jewelry, but I guess here any schmuck can be considered art...

I also was so relieved to see that the Reform movement was staying true to its German roots and was still considered to be relevant today, especially in the coffee shops.

With more to come....

Dachau & Stuttgart (updated)

Uh, how do you say Lantzman in Arabic?

I’m not sure what I was expecting to find in Stuttgart, but I was hoping it would be better than my morning’s visit at Dachua. Truth is, I am tired of going to concentration camps. I’ve seen my fair share of barracks, gas chambers and cold dank cement buildings that served as home to an assortment of tortures and beleaguered suffering.

Dachau offered a slightly different perspective – that of the American liberators. I went there specifically to discover the experiences of my own grandfather Robert Zacher, who fought in the 20th* Armored Division and helped to liberate this camp. I wanted to see what he, my namesake, saw and to begin to gain a sense of the impression it left upon him. So, with audio guide in hand, I listened to the testimonies of various U.S. Army liberators as I passed through the gates of “Arbeit Macht Frei”. It’s not as scary or as daunting as Auschwitz I, but make no mistake, it gets the point across.
As impossible as it is to put one’s self in the place of a prisoner or holocaust victim, it is almost equally impossible to see life through the eyes of a liberator. I can begin to fathom what my barely 18-year-old grandfather, who had to fight his way into the army, experienced. Entering the camp and seeing piles of bodies, rooms filled with corpses, and the often-described stench of death. What was it like to be confronted by walking skeletons, or “Müsselman”as described by Frankl and Levi? I am told stories of him speaking Yiddish to such victims and handing over his gun to a prisoner to “do what he needed to do…”, but being there made it all seem real. I never met m grandfather and in fact I was born exactly 8 years after he died, but I feel like visiting Dachau was a chance to connect. I think that Dachau is a very well done exhibit and I appreciated the way that the story was present and I, of course, have lots more to say about it, but will opt to do so at a later point.


From one grandparent to another, I left Munich for Stuttgart in attempt to discover the past of Grandma Eve. I have had the privilege of knowing Grandma Eve well for the past 30 years, but I realized that I know very little about her childhood or about the lives her family led in Germany before the war. I was sort of hoping that a visit to Stuttgart in the South of Germany would enlighten me a bit.

I am not sure what I hoped to expect… Ok, that’s not entirely true. I know what I fantasized about....
That I would find some pristine street aligned with Porsches and Mercedes (as Stuttgart is the Benz headquarters) and knock on the door of a typical mansion. I would be met by a gray-haired Frauline with a big grin and a harsh tone. Standing in her frilly apron and “Sound of Music” uniform, she would usher me inside and offer me some of her freshly baked Plum Kuchen. She would then go onto tell me that she knew Grandma and everyone else that lived on that block, and would ask of her well-being in America. She would reminisce fondly of them being school-girls together and would then apologize for not having kept in touch, “but you know, with that pesky war and such busy lives, who could find the time…” She would show me pictures of summer vacations and how much her father enjoyed reading Grandma’s uncle’s business column in the syndicated edition of the Frankfurter Allemagne Zeitung.
She would tell me that HER family was against the war, and helped to resist. I would then ask her what that meant, and what exactly they did to resist? Maybe they helped collect our family’s possessions and shipped them to America after their departure? Maybe they wrote letters to the Reich protesting the unfairness and harsh reality created by the Nuremberg laws, or maybe they would help pay for a way to escape Nazi Germany.
“No, no, none of that,” she would sigh. “But, we helped the resistance” she reassured me. Thank you, how comforting. Before I began to ask too many questions, and inquire about the familiar looking painting, she would wrap another piece of kuchen in a napkin and usher me on my way.

I found something very different. I think we all know that I would not come across anything close to the previously contrived scenario. However, I did find the experience to be enlightening nonetheless. When traveling in South America, we used to have a rule that stated: Upon arriving in a new city, before making any moves, sit, have a beer, and then go on your way. Upon arriving in Stuttgart there was no lack of potential watering holes. However, I decided to forego this tradition in order to figure out what I was doing.

Armed with nothing but a street name, I approached a taxi drive to ask if maybe he had heard of it.

“Spittler srasse,” he repeated gazing out into the sky. “Nein.” He finally answered. A balding man with dark skin, he began to say something in heavily accented German when I cut him off and asked:

“Where are you from?”

“Here,” he replied in English.

“No, where are you from?” I persisted.

“Palestine.”

“Where?”

“Palestine,” he repeated as if I had never heard of it.

“No, I mean where in Palestine?” I beckoned.

With a laugh and smile, he slapped my shoulder and said:

“ah, you’ve never heard of it...”

“Try me.”

“Tul Karm.” He stated with a snicker of having bested me.

“Ana ‘aref” (of course I’ve heard of Tul Karm)I reply in Arabic,

“Ana min al-Quds,” I continue in his language now to the bemusing of the other Kurdish drivers.”We’re lantzman!” I exclaim in English hoping he would get it, and then also find it amusing.

“Mah ata oseh po?!?” he retorted in Hebrew ignoring my lantzman comment.

I just looked back and shrugged my shoulders. He wasn’t asking out of curiosity. All was now clear. He knew who I was, and I knew who he was. Without any serious attempt to continue the conversation he gave me a nod and pointed to the tourist info center where I could find help in locating the street. I think that he was appreciative of the fact that some random traveler knew of his home town. There was so much more to ask him. How long had he been here? Why did he leave? Does he have any plans to return? To visit? What about his family? What are his feelings towards Germany? After all Heinrich Heine’s oft quoted maxim that, “where books are burning, people are soon to follow” - was uttered shortly after hundreds of Qurans and Musilm books went up in flames…

I stood there for a moment to wonder. How was it that by some weird twist of historical and political fate, I came from the U.S. via Israel, to explore the place from where my grandmother was exiled, only to get there and meet a man in exile from the place that I live? This was just too rich. Someone should write a story about it.

I made my way to the tourist bureau and asked directions to Spittler Strasse. We chatted a bit and in response to a perplexed look I explained my motive. “Ah, I see,” he said. I asked him if he gets a lot of people making similar request. “Ya, every now and then… mostly Americans,” he explained. And so be it.

Stuttgart was originally an agricultural of Southern Germany, and became known for their potatoes. (Hence the name Stuttgart = stud garden) Today it is a bustling city climbing high on either side of the river with quite a nice park at its center. Making the steep hike up to Spittler, I decided that I would search out for anything remotely resembling our family roots. So, I peered into shops looking for those funky tools that Greta used to have. Anything really, artwork maybe or food. “Excuse me, do you carry plum kuchen?” I asked a local bakery. “Really you do? Oh that’s fantastic! Can you also sing Maoz Tzur in German because Mama and Greta could (that’s Gertrude Sichel to you). Ah you also live frugally and save every penny for later? I knew that had to come from somewhere.

So, all I found were Turkish (Turkische) shops selling weird tools, definitely not made in Germany. I finally reached the top and found Spittler Strasse! Full on with a panoramic view of the city. Nice one, Grandma!

I began following addresses from apt complex to huge single family home. The addresses went from 23 right to 26. No #25. Just an empty space in between – I found it strangely appropriate. This would have saddened me deeply if [my uncle] Rob hadn’t prepared me for it. I stopped two Lithuanian women passing by, and as pleasant as they were, they weren’t terribly acquainted with the architectural or real estate development of the post-war period on this particular strasse. No one was around to tell me what had been built since 1945 or really 1989 for that matter. Oh well.

With some time left before my next train, I went to check out the Synagogue. Nice enough building, but as it was already nearing six o’clock, no one was to be found. So, I ended my pilgrimage to Stuttgart by toasting all of my family in one of the city’s renowned biergartens, and thanked them profusely for having the good sense to have left when they did.

I made it back to Berlin, just in time to stay up all night, drink more beer and watch the United States of American elect Barack Obama. It was a massive story, and I appreciated sitting in an old East Berlin factory-turned-bar/part-time art gallery, to watch CNN on a projector with the left-wing intellectual expat crowd. (Of course I spent most of the evening with a German student on leave from a university in London who had just written her thesis on the 2^nd generation of Germans after the war, and their new anti-Semitism. Obviously).

~~~

I was more than thrilled to watch Obama’s acceptance speech and it was for me a nice ending to having spent the past few days listening to both of his books.

I spent the next day and a half with Gideon in Berlin, and am now at the conference in Spandau (on the outskirts of metro Berlin). I’ll write more about that later.

Auf Weidersehn.

*Correction - thanks Uncle Phil!

Riding the Rails

I left Berlin with the goal to seek out some family heritage. And of course also to see other parts of Germany, and have adventures, etc…
I booked a VERY expensive interail ticket to Munich and Stuttgart. Now, I have to pause here and devote some time to the trains.
I am well aware, and usually the first to make the joke about the irony of the impeccable DeutschBahn (DB), but it is incredible.
It is massive, fast, clean, on time to the second (let's not forget who we're dealing with here...), and dependable. The DB workers are knowledgeable (also in English), friendly and willing to help. The woman behind the counter also, without bending any rules, saved me almost 200 Euros!!!

The high-tech ICE trains also come equipped with outlets, tray tables and even an internet hotspot (I’m writing now on the train). Passing through the countryside over rivers and through woods; picturesque villages each bearing a protruding spire - I gazed nostalgically at the green rolling Bavarian hills reminding me of rural Wisconsin or Pennsylvania – probably one of the reasons so many Germans settled in those states in the mid-19th century.

I arrived in Munich, found a cheap hostel and went exploring. Munich is known for its museums, Beer culture (Oktoberfest), and of course the ’72 Olympics. Without any baggage it’s an incredible city. I understand what my friend Tori meant when telling me that it was her favorite.

I walked through Marienne Platz to the upscale Schwabing and then back to whet my pallet with the famous Bavarian wheat beer of Haufbrau, or preferably some others that are less exported. Sitting in the bierstube, biergarten or bierhalle, I was enjoying myself. Good times for all as locals and tourists together washed down stein after stein of strong fresh brau. Sitting alone in a corner with a book, working on #2 of the dark wheat Ayingers, my mind started to wander and take me back 85 years this week to the famous Munich beer hall putsch, which got Hitler arrested, but played a central role in the steady catapulting of the [NSDAP – later called] Nazi party to power. Maybe it’s a curse. Why can’t I just sit and have a beer? Why must I always ruin a good time with a terrible reference from the past.
I guess I have no choice. That’s baggage. As they say, it’s tough being Jewish. How true, especially here.

The Jewish Museum vs. A Museum of Judaism

There’s no doubt that the millions that were shelled out to build the Judische Museum was worth it, however, I have a few caveats...

Entering in to the labyrinth of corridors, windows and weird angular corners, one is taken on a tour of three axes. The axis of Holocaust – short path; axis of exile – short of path; and the axis of “continuity” – takes you through the whole museum and is really the main exhibit. We then are taken on a very well done interactive tour of Jewish life in Germany from the (approx) 11th-12th centuries and on to a small exhibit on post-war Jewish life (I’ll get to that later).

Sprinkled throughout the museum are side exhibits attempting to explain different aspects of Jewish life. “Learn to write your name in Hebrew!” or “What is a Kippah?” or “Was is Schabbat?” Nice. More than nice, it’s eye opening and leads one to think “wait a minute… they’re assuming that the majority of visitors to the museum have never met Jews!” This might as well be the Field Museum or an exhibit at an ancient extinct culture.

I suppose the Germans have never been known to be terribly emotional people, and I agree with my friend Gideon’s reflection on the museum that they often have the tendency to completely over-document. Quantity wins out over Quality here.
I found myself trying to get a sense of feelings. (Yes, I know, me? Feelings?) What exactly is the message that they're trying to send about the German-Jewish relationship? Were the Jews from Mendelssohn to Einstein accepted Germans? Amos Elon basically contends that not really. My sense was that they wanted to shock German youth by showing that so many of those great advances in science, medicine, art, literature and philosophy can be attributed to… JEWS.
As we got to the section from 1933-45, it was rather straightforward. No big philosophical questions such as: How could this happen? Or, how did the Germany of Bildung and Kultur give way to the artless spiritless overarching sweep of Nazism.
Maybe its because they don’t know. That’s ok, I don’t know either. I can make an intellectual rationale, but truth is, is that it’s beyond my wildest comprehension.

The museum ends with a section telling the personal stories of 18 individuals who were born in the 1950s & 60s and remained in Europe. Was this an attempt to display Jewish life post-holocaust? Hopefully not, because in my limited experience with post-war Europe, I know that there are more stories out there ready to be told.


Contrast this museum with the national holocaust memorial in Berlin. Across and down a bit from the Reich/Bundstagg sits a massive square lined with over 2700 rectangular cement blocks of varying height. That’s it. An underground information center graces the Southern edge of the square, and the only plaque or explanation to be found were behavior instructions on the floor asking children not to run or play there. About a block away we found a sign pointing to the “Memorial for the murdered Jews” (in German) but nothing at the actually square.
Gideon maintains that “everyone knows what it is,” while Mara thought (and I agree) that at the very least they could put a sign or a plaque or something.

Ich bin Ein Berliner

Shabbat morning we discussed the Parsha over coffee and bagels, and then went back to the area of OranienBurger Str. The former East Berlin district, this was now a center of counter-culture boasting a glorified alternative art gallery called “Tacheles” – a remainder of former Jewish/Yiddish culture.

The former Communist East Berlin is now a trendy/artsy/yuppy area. It is great and we were so glad to have met our good friends Christiane and Sebastian and their one-year-old son Jakob! After catching up, it was great to have been able to barrage them with questions about feelings, history, culture and language.

We made a major pilgrimage to the grave [marker] of none other than the great philosophical hero Moses Mendelssohn!

His is the only grave marker left of a formerly Jewish cemetery in the middle of town. I guess the Germans really appreciated Mendelssohn, although from studying history it was always clear that to the ‘enlightened’ Germans, he was a great scholar despite “his being a Jew.”

I have lots more to say about the Jewish museum and visiting the long stretch of what is left of the Berlin wall – now called the East side gallery. I am in Munich now, and that will all come soon.

Auf Weidersehn…

Deutschland

Germany. Germany. Just the sound of it was packed with baggage in history. It brought harshness and was unforgiving, yet familiar, banal and calming. I had been preparing for my journey but as the city came into sight and we got ready to land, I felt my heart beat, almost wishing for us to tilt back up into the sky and quickly head back home. I don’t know why, but I was quickly able to get over my minor panic and make my way onto this formerly cursed soil.
Most people I talk to find this angst silly. “Really, you mean you’re actually nervous?!? Forget it man. Get over it, what do you expect?” are the typical reactions. Not that they’re wrong, I just can’t help it.
I met a 29-year-old Swedish women from Brussels who was going the same way and we quickly found our way through Tegel and on to the U-Bahn to find our hostel.
I arrived at 17:45 and Mara had just gotten there a few minutes before. We checked in and hastily changed to try and salvage any possibility of making Kabbalat Shabbat. Back down into the U-Bahn to Oranianburger Strasse, where we easily spotted the golden dome of the Moorish style Neue Synagogue.
Built in the mid-19th century it survived a Kristalnacht fire, was largely destroyed by the WWII bombing. The East German (GDR) government agreed to rebuild the outside façade of the building, but together with the Gemeindscheft (Jewish community) decided that there was no longer a need for a 3200 seat sanctuary – in the style of the large 19th century Classical Reform heichalot like Temple Emmanuel, Sinai or Sholom - leaving the Hebrew quote and the façade.

The security guards gave us a stern guilt trip about our tardiness – apparently that just wasn’t done here – and we made our way up to a small packed room where an operatic hazzan was belting out the repetition of the Amidah. Egalitarian with traditional nusach, the small room was packed with a variety of characters, for whom Mara and I brought down the average age considerably. We talked with some American-Jewish tourists near-by and listened to an American-Reform Rabbi struggle through the Kiddush he was invited to lead having brought a delegation from his “Temple.”
On our way out, we made an attempt to schmooze, and decipher some of the intricacies of the community. We gently approached the four or so “young” people and introduced ourselves. We met Eva, a tall buxom blond haired woman with a backwards “Chai” necklace. After a short conversation we gathered that she was from a small town in the North and in the process of conversion. We met a Swiss Jew, and Israeli juggler in Berlin to study with a Russian master. Really only one person who was there lived in Berlin, grew up there and was “active” in the community, yet had only some vague familiarity with the conference this coming weekend that I am planning on attending.

I was excited to be there and I was able to locate the plaque which I learned the Marianne and Stanley Dreyfus helped to dedicate 20 years ago on the 50th anniversary of kristalnacht.
Our impressions of the community were later confirmed - that the façade of the outside of the schul had some correlation with its inside. This, of course, is awfully presumptuous of me having visited for one evening, but such is life.

There are definitely other schuls and other communities, which I hope to discover when the opportunities present themselves.

We met Mara’s aunt and uncle for Dinner, and enjoyed walking around trying to gain our bearings. So, this was Berlin…

Europa, Europa
It’s easy to forget what life is like outside of Israel. Honestly, it is. It’s also easy to forget the recent history while strolling down the Rue or Strasse of a European city.
My several hours today in Brussels served as a true eye-opener of what life is and could be in Israel. My first impression of Brussels is mild-mannerism. People are friendly, willing to help out, and have the unique ability to switch languages to accommodate you.
I wanted to test it out, and walk down the street just to see if anyone could give me directions in Finish, or Sanskrit or any Asian language, but I don’t speak those languages so whatever.
Brussels is clean. And Europeans just seem to get it, as many street corners are reliably equipped with three waste receptacles for plastics, glass and refuse.

Having arrived at 5 am, I found the only waffle place open and had a talk with the waiter who turned about to be Turkish. He of course, had no trouble swerving in and out of Flemish, French, German, English and Turkish. In his ten years as a Belgian resident he lauded this European gem as the best place on earth, and how easy it was to be a Muslim even though he wasn’t religious.
Anyhow, I had a nice time which was of course not nearly long enough to be exposed to the complexities and problems of societies and focused on the important things such as world famous [Belgian] fries and Trappist beer;

Thai food and book stores.

I am sitting in the central square in Brussels on my way to Berlin, having just had a fantastic Belgian waffle and hot chocolate; I thought I would spend a few minutes catching up this blog on the past few months. It is freezing here in Belgium, and I’m not quite prepared for the winter.
The purpose of this blog is to share interesting stories and provide my own perspective on life in Israel as well as general musings about politics, Jewish life and whatever else interesting happens.

Yes, it’s a little self-centered, but no one’s forcing you to read it…

~~~~

Life since the summer has been interesting. I’ll spend less time talking about my job for now. That has been interesting and challenging, but sometimes gets in the way of life.

Every now and then we have to stop and realize where we live. I’ll give an example.
On September 12th we experience a pretty full spectrum of Jewish life in Israel as we attended two weddings. (But, you can’t dance at two weddings at the same time??? Or can we?) Preston and Suzie’s wedding (a friend from the army) was pretty traditional and took place at “Kinor David” just outside the walls of the Old City. Traditional atmosphere, excellent food and Scotch, but of course festivities ended early as it was Friday (not to worry they partied on motzie Shabbat).

We departed Jerusalem and changed worlds completely. Traveling straight up the Jordan valley road, we made it all the way to Kibbutz Shamir, where Mara’s friend Guy was to marry Gali. It doesn’t get much further North than Shamir as you can peer into Lebanon from the Kibbutz. In complete contrast to the previous wedding, this one was at 6pm on a Friday evening, with a Reform Rabbi (Samuels). Virtually no kippot, jeans and a very chill atmosphere. I have to say, that to my intrigue Guy and Gali really put their heart and soul into making a tekes that they were comfortable including playing around with the traditional nusach, adding and subtracting here and there to make a really beautiful huppa.
After the huppa, there of course was no Kiddush or motzi or any of that kind of thing. A fascinating example of the Kibbutz movement (as one stream of Judaism) embraces certain traditions while rejecting others.
Mara and I stayed over at the kibbutz, and went out for a tiyul the next day.

OII*
On our way back to the kibbutz I decided to pick up a soldier and help him make his way. It was Shabbat, and obviously no buses. I pulled up, he got in, and then I asked him for his ID. “Happily,” he replied, “but shouldn’t you ask for ID before the guy with the gun gets in your car?” he said with a wink. “Good point,” I replied recognizing him as Bedouin career soldier.
As we drove and looked out at the Golan heights horizon. Our uniformed Bedouin passenger launched into an unsolicited stump-speech on the importance of keeping the Golan, and how those “Arabs won’t stop at anything to get all of Israel.”

Wow. Crazy world.



*Only in Israel