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…
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