Swimming with Nazis

Today we will take a much-needed break from our regularly scheduled programming. Over the weekend I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Budapest to learn about the Jewish community there. I am part of a fellowship through JDC that aims to teach and emphasize the value of global Jewish responsibility to emerging clergy. Each year the fellows participate in a Shabbaton to learn from and engage with a particular community. And this year we got to visit Budapest. 

At the ungodly hour of 2:30am my roommate and I left our apartment for the airport. Ben Gurion was shockingly crowded at 3am. I guess even if there aren’t that many people who want to come into the country there are a lot who want to leave. At least for a little while. 

Stepping off the plane in Hungary was shockingly refreshing. I felt a weight lifted off me that I’ve been carrying for the month since I arrived in Israel. I didn’t realize how intense it is to walk past the families of the hostages tent everyday until I went a day without it. I know how important it is to keep them on our minds but I really needed a break from thinking about the horrors. And hopefully my resolve will be strengthened because of it. 

On our first day in Budapest we spent the day at the Jewish Community Center. It was previously a project of the JDC but it has now become independent. Amazing!! Our wonderful tour guide gave us an overview of Jewish life in Hungary and how JDC works to support it. I was shocked to learn there are 100,000 Jews in Hungary today. We learned about the Jewish religious and cultural events that take place at the JCC. We were told we would watch a choir performance which turned out to be 30 or so elderly Hungarian ladies singing Jewish songs in Hungarian. It was adorable and also felt like a fever dream (this was still the same day we had woken up at 2am in Jerusalem so we were all losing it). After a lovely dinner at a Jewish restaurant called Spinoza, we were ready for bed. 

On Friday we visited Mozaik Hub, a JDC project that funds grassroots Jewish organizations in Budapest. We learned about projects ranging from a Jewish gift shop (called Judapest where I made many purchases) to Holocaust memory projects to interfaith work to an app that shows all the Jewish events in the city. It got me thinking how we can replicate this kind of work and cooperation in the North American Jewish community. Next we met with two young adults from Szarvas, a Jewish summer camp in Hungary for young Jews from all over Eastern and Central Europe. As a camp person, this was my favorite part. Just like in the States, this camp has led so many young people to become active members in their Jewish communities. Most of these campers’ grandparents were Holocaust survivors and most of their parents lived under communism. For these kids, being a Szarvas is a once in three generations opportunity to explore their Jewish identity and proudly bring it into the world. That evening we joined the reform Jewish community for Shabbat services at the JCC. It’s nice to know that wherever you are in the world, the Jews will be singing Debbie Friedman. 

On Thursday the person in charge of security for JDC had given us a security briefing. He let us know that on Saturday there would be a far right rally on the Buda side of the river in commemoration of an event that had happened at the castle during World War II. I didn’t totally understand the story but I’m sure you can easily find it on the internet. The security guy told us to tuck our Jewish star necklaces under our shirts and make sure we didn’t have anything outwardly Jewish on us. Turns out it’s a neo-Nazi march. So on Saturday we actively avoided the Buda side of the river and went instead to the thermal baths on the Pest side. We were living our best lives soaking in the minerals when we saw a man covered in tattoos. One read “holy racial war” and another: a giant 88 across his back. (Since H is the eighth letter in the alphabet 88 is hh which stands for hail Hitler). Goyish gemmatria my friend called it. I looked around us and thought about who else in the pool might be a Nazi. “Spot the Nazi” I called it. Because my natural way to deal with scary and heavy things is humor my friends and I renamed ourselves the least Jewish names we could think of: Vlad, Kyle, Greta, and Chip. And instead of Israel we came from a land called Vladistan and practiced a religion called Vlahadut. It doesn’t really seem funny now but we laughed A LOT at those pools. We swam with the Nazis and not just any Nazis, the slacker Nazis! Instead of marching around the castle they decided to take a dip in the thermal baths. 

We were thrilled to return to the hotel, put our Jewish stars back on and join the young adult Jewish community of Budapest for Havdallah. They welcomed us into their community with such openness and gratitude. We ended the trip with a visit to the ruin bar, where the Jewish ghetto once was. Sitting with five other future clergy, drinking wine on the site of a former ghetto, after having spent the day swimming with Nazis, was a moment there will never be words to describe.

When we returned to Israel this afternoon I was simultaneously thrilled and upset to wait in line for passport control. The airport felt full again. There are people coming to Israel. And I was so lucky to be one of them. Despite the heaviness and the intensity and the seemingly never-ending amount of schoolwork, it’s good to be home. 

October 118th

Well I’m COVID free and I have officially finished a full normal week of school. And I have two stories unrelated to anything that I think demonstrate well what it’s like living in Israel. And then I will write a little bit about our two days of learning with the reform movement in Israel. Spoiler alert: we met with the rabbi of the Gaza envelope and it was intense. 

Story #1

Every Saturday night the reform movement holds a pre protest havdallah. The Saturday night protests have turned from protesting the judicial reform to calling for immediate elections and releasing the hostages. It rained and hailed all day Saturday but it had cleared up by the time I left my apartment for the havdallah. So I walked to the corner outside the presidents house and joined the gathering next to a poster that read “there is no Mitzvah greater than freeing the captive.” About twelve seconds later it started pouring rain. I had not an umbrella nor a hood. So one of the older women in the group stood next to me and held her umbrella over the both of us. We prayed havdallah together and sang songs of hope. I thanked the woman who let me stand under her umbrella to which she said in not the nicest of voices “how did you manage to leave your apartment without a hat or umbrella or scarf or anything?” To which I said “well I didn’t think it was going to rain” she rolled her eyes and immediately started taking off her scarf. “I’m giving you this” she said. I tried to refuse and tell her that I was fine but she would not have it. She told me I was not allowed to go to a protest in the rain without her scarf (which she assured me was not fancy and that she could find another one in the shuk for 20 shekels). All in Hebrew of course. She showed me how to wrap the scarf around my ears and head. I thanked her profusely and we went our separate ways. This is the Israel I know and love. This wonderful woman was somehow so mean and so kind at the same time. And every time I wear that scarf I will think of her and think of that night singing Debbie Friedman and fighting for what’s right. 

Story #2

I had just finished a lovely swim at the YMCA plus a hot tub and sauna moment (I needed to calm my nervous system). I was walking down the hill back to my apartment. I skirted around an older man being pushed in a wheelchair. “Can I give you a bracha?” He said as I walked past him. “No thank you” I said. Usually when orthodox men stop me on the street they tell me that I need to dress more modestly or they give me a pamphlet about how to be an eshet chayel. Thus I tend to say no thank you and walk away. “Let me bless you with the smell of this lemon” he said to me as I walked away. “I’m okay” I said “you are more than okay” he said. I kept walking away but wondered why he would compliment me and want to bless me rather than tell me how to be a good wife. It was at this moment that I realized I was wearing one of my long skirts and had so many layers on because of the cold that I definitely looked like an unmarried orthodox woman. I am sure this elderly rabbi wanted to bless me for a good shidduch. Darn. Missed opportunity! 

Now enough with the fun stories. Onto the trauma. (I think my humor is starting to become a bit too Israeli). On Wednesday we spent the day with the executive director of the Israeli Religious Action Center. They do such amazing work. We visited the Supreme Court and got to sit in on two hearings. Both were insignificant but it was very cool to be in the same room as Supreme Court justices. We also got to hear about all the cases the IRAC has brought to the Supreme Court in order to bring more equality in Israeli society, especially in relation to the reform movement. They won a case that allows reform rabbis to get state funding like orthodox rabbis do. They were part of the case that prohibits Kotel security from searching for Torahs. They filed a case against Gett (Israeli Uber) when Gett added a feature that allowed customers to request taxis which had drivers who were shomer Shabbat. Many Gett drivers are Palestinian and the IRAC proved how racist this feature was. They won and this option is no longer available. They won another case that says buses are not allowed to be segregated by gender. There are signs on every bus in Jerusalem that say you can sit where you want regardless of your gender and that is because of the work of the IRAC. And so many more!! By the end of the day, I was so proud of all that the Israeli reform movement is doing to make Israel a more just and equitable country. 

                                      My HUC cohort at the supreme court

On Thursday we spent the morning with the reform community of Holon, a city near Tel Aviv. We got to sit in on the 4th grade parshat hashavua class at the local public school. I loved getting to see non-orthodox Judaism taught in public school. And the rabbi of the community lived in Davis for a year and sent her kids to Newman! I love how small the Jewish world feels. 

A Newman Reunion 

After Holon we went to Kibbutz Gezer, a kibbutz in the center of the country that has a reform synagogue on its premises. This was where we had the incredible opportunity to hear from Yael, the reform rabbi of Shaarei Hanegev, aka all of the Kibbutzim in the South that were attacked on October 7th. She first shared with us what it was like to be their rabbi before October 7th. She showed us beautiful images of the communities and their celebrations. It was surreal to see images of these places that I’ve only seen in the context of destruction and defeat. She told us about October 3rd, when she led an adult bnei mitzvah ceremony for members of the kibbutzim. Three women had their bat mitzvah and three men who couldn’t when they were 13 because of the war of independence. Wow! She showed us pictures of the sukkot celebrations they had in the days before the 7th. And then she told us what it was like to sit in her home in Modiin as her congregants were whatsapping her from their safe rooms. “Nothing prepares you for this moment” she said. “That’s not in the rabbis manual” another rabbi chimed in. She said she kept asking herself what is the appropriate thing to do when there is nothing appropriate to do. As soon as the families were evacuated she went to the hotels and sat in the lobbies just listening to stories. She said in that moment her role as rabbi was just to show up and to listen. There was nothing she could say and no explanations she could give. But she showed up. She called every single member of her kibbutzim. So many of her congregants had loved ones killed or taken hostage. She showed us an image of a flip chart that said “list of funerals today.” Ten funerals a day for more than a week. I cannot even imagine. And on October 13th, she led a Kabbalat Shabbat service for the internal refugees. She said they wanted so badly to be together and pray and sing. I cannot imagine what it was like to have to lead that service. A few weeks later, in her round of calls she reached out to a friend from Kibbutz Kfar Aza to meet up. The friend couldn’t meet up because it was time for her to go back to the kibbutz and pick up whatever she could salvage from her home. Rabbi Yael said “I’m coming with you.” And she drove this congregant back to her home (which had been blown up by the IDF in case there were terrorists inside) to help her collect what was left of her belongings. That is definitely not in the rabbi manual. She told us that in one of the kibbutzim close to the border they had an annual event planned for October 7th called kites of peace. At this deeply loved event kibbutzniks would write messages of peace on kites and fly them over Gaza. Another wow. They later put on the event on the beach in Tel Aviv and flew kites with messages to bring home the hostages. Rabbi Yael tried to end her talk with a message of hope by telling us about the bar and bat mitzvah that she led since the war began. She said the community is finding ways to bring meaning and joy into their lives despite all that they have been through. After such an intense day I went with some of my classmates to see Mean Girls the Musical the movie at Dizengoff Center. That was definitely what I needed. 

Today I took a long walk around Tel Aviv. Whenever I see a sign I stop and read it to both practice my Hebrew and learn about what Israelis are calling for at different moments in time. Today I saw a huge sign hung between trees so I stopped to look up and read it. “Only right turns onto Rothschild” it said. It’s good to know sometimes signs are just signs. Or maybe that one is political too :) 

Shabbat Shalom