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.