As our excursion to India was a genuine, authentic OU “adventure,” it goes without saying that every morsel of food we ate was kosher and that we as a group prayed three times a day. Most of the time, the davening was standard – nothing to write home about. However, the morning minyan the second day was a little out of the ordinary. The plan was for us to board a boat and head down to an island south of Mumbai, where we would get on a bus and drive to a small village to visit a Bene Israel synagogue. Someone had this bright idea: Why don’t we daven shacharit on the boat? Then we can have a pre-packaged breakfast while we’re traveling. We can save time that way. There’s a large box somewhere out there to put all the plans that “seemed like a good idea at the time,” and this doozy certainly would qualify! Continue reading
Author: fredcasden
India for Me…Day 1
We are now safe and sound back in The Land, and I’ve had to put together my “elevator speech,” the thirty second or one minute response when someone asks you a question like, “Well how was it?” or the follow-up question that one perspicacious person asked: “Was it worth the money?” Barbara has had no trouble putting together her answer. “It was amazing,” she will tell the world in no uncertain terms. It’s not that I disagree with her; the OU-Israel trip to India was unquestionably a unique experience, well thought out and organized, one that will leave a lasting impression in the minds of all the participants. It’s just that, as I made clear from the very beginning, I had a very different agenda from that of the other participants (what a surprise!). Visiting synagogues in obscure places, houses of worship that haven’t been prayed in for fifty years? Ehhhh! I’ve seen my share of abandoned shuls in and around NYC, read enough about failed “experiments” in Jewish living in the Exile. Getting decent seats for those of us who hang out nowadays at Musar Avicha in Ma’ale Adumim? Now you have my undivided attention! Continue reading
India for me… (Scene 1)
There it was, a full page ad in Torah Tidbits (the ubiquitous weekly publication of the O.U. Center in Jerusalem) announcing the “Historic Adventure & Mission To Jewish India With Ari & Ari.” That’s all Barbara had to see.
We all do this in our mind: divide people into groups with opposing points of view. For example, people who like herring and people who don’t like herring; people who like bourbon and people who prefer Scotch; people who drink wine and people who (shudder!) drink grape juice; people who go to our shul and people who, for one reason or another, go to the other one. You get the idea.
I had never considered India as being a topic of controversy, but there it was. Barbara being in the “I always wanted to travel to India” camp, whereas I have always been firmly in the “Why would anyone in his right mind want to go there” school of thought. (Of course, there’s the third group, the billion or so people who actually live there, but they’re not part of the equation.)
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A Tel-ing Tale
You’ve been waiting months for this opportunity, and now it’s happening. You’re finally a contestant on the 640,000NIS Question – your category being “Ancient History.” So far the questions have been relatively easy, but you know they’re going to start getting harder as the prize money gets bigger. “For 320,000NIS, name the three most important Canaanite cities.”You start to think. Hatzor (that’s easy!) Ummmmmm……… Megiddo! One more…… What’s the third??? Continue reading
If someone were to ask me….
If someone were to ask me (and so far, nobody has), “Aren’t you scared living in Israel with all the terrorist attacks going on around you?”, I would reply as follows.
“I am from New York. While living in The Bronx, Manhattan, and then New Jersey, I lived through all of these: Continue reading
Not Too Shabby Now
It was hard not to notice it, a bulky shell of a building, the exterior seemingly completed except for the gaping holes where the windows were supposed to be. It sat next to the Bnai Zion library, right on the bus route we take all the time to go to and from Jerusalem. So from the very beginning of our stay here, we passed it, and, after a while, we got used to seeing it, and it became another part of the local landscape.
Once you’ve been here in The Land a while, you get used to the slow, snail-like way most construction projects get worked on. Some are forever in the planning stage (the Tel Aviv light rail, which was first proposed during the Golda Meir days and was only begun several months ago), while others get started but are never finished. Most maddening are the projects that do get finished, but take f-o-r-e-v-e-r and then some. As you might expect, a lot of the projects here combine two or even all three of these eventualities.
It was maybe four years ago when the announcement was made that Bnai Zion (an American foundation, the good folks who have paid for a lot of cultural venues all over Israel – including our library, which has books in five languages, as well as the “seed money” for one of our local parks) was going to fund a music conservatory, to be built on an empty area behind the library and next to the empty building in question.
My obvious question at the time was, will they use the shell of this seemingly abandoned building (whose original purpose I do not know)? That would make sense, right? It wasn’t clear from the original description, but, yes, thankfully in the end, it became obvious that the old structure would be incorporated seamlessly into the new beautiful structure.
Construction began, and we could see that there was a crew working every day. But we could also observe that they were proceeding at the glacial speed that is the standard here. Finally, in February 2014, we could see a sign – in two languages – that the George W. Schaeffer Music Conservatory would be open for business in July 2014. For real? I for one hoped it would happen, but over the years, I have developed a healthy sense of skepticism about Israel time projections. Needless to say, the summer of 2014 came and went, the work crews came and went, and the #174 buses that we take came and went past the site, and still the conservatory was not open for business.
But there was hope. As long as we could see a piece of machinery on the work site or a random construction guy mucking about, we knew the project was still a go, and therefore the building would get finished one day. And then there it was, the new part of the building that would house the music school, ready for business! We could see kids going in with their instruments, and through the large glass windows, we could see cellos stacked against a wall. Progress!
And yes, the concert hall, a/k/a the George and Irina Schaeffer Cultural Center, was finally, finally finished, and there was an opening ceremony and a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, which I’m told was well done.
A few weeks later, someone posted on our local Anglo-Facebook page a flyer about a concert by our local youth orchestra to take place in our new concert hall. And now we need a little background information.
All the while the crew of workmen were digging and drilling and building, numbers of our local youth were learning how to move a bow across a violin, blow into a trumpet or clarinet, or resolutely bang on a drum set – as part of the extensive music program here in Ma’ale Adumim, and I’m sure that many of them were giving recitals in our local community center – all under the radar of most of us. But now they had the wherewithal to do it up right.
The concert here was in essence a dress rehearsal, for the orchestra had bigger fish to fry. They had performed in an international competition in Bratislava and had been awarded third prize, with the opportunity to perform – are you ready? – at Carnegie Hall in NYC. We should have ordered tickets for the local concert right away, but we just never got around to it. Fortunately for us, a friend called a day or two before the schedule concert with an offer of extra tickets at the going rate, 30NIS for two. Good thing, because the concert was sold out. Lots of family, friends, music lovers, and the just plain curious.
If nothing else, I too wanted to see the interior of this George and Irina Schaeffer Cultural Center, which had taken ever so long to finish. Barbara and I arrived with only a few minutes to spare. We met our friend and walked into the beautiful, spacious lobby. The auditorium was filled, and so we walked up to the balcony, which had an additional 200 or more seats. Even that was filling up rapidly. Finally, the orchestra members walked on stage, sat down, and got ready to perform. Someone came on stage and made an announcement. An opportunity to thank the Bnai Zion foundation. As is standard protocol in orchestral performances, the conductor, Benjamin Shapira – the head of the music school – would only then come on stage, take a bow, and then and start the concert.
The only words in English on the programs we scrounged up were Star Spangled Banner, which followed by HaTikva, was to open the program. The orchestra began, dum dedum dum dum dum, at which point Barbara and I got up and stood more or less at attention, glancing around to notice that, while a few people here and a few people there were also on their feet, most of the audience was still sitting. They only got up when HaTikva was played. I could attribute this lack of manners to the gaps in the Israeli educational system, but, sad to say, there were Americans in the audience who, for reasons best known to them, remained seated during the American national anthem.
Because I went to a proper public school in The Bronx, I learned that, not only do you stand for The Star Spangled Banner, but you stand for any national anthem played in an official capacity simply out of R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I was discussing this matter with our dinner guests last Friday night, and he, an émigré from the F.S.U., resolutely maintained that he would not stand for the Russian national anthem, but that would seem to be the exception that proves the rule. I feel confident that the crowd who attended the concert in New York last Sunday stood for the Star Spangled Banner and remained upright during HaTikva. At least I hope so.
The crowd sat down after HaTikva, and the concert began for real, giving me a chance to look at who these young musicians were and how they were doing. According to the program, the orchestra has forty-nine musicians, and while they all qualify as “youth,” some of them looked as if they were eight years old, and others looked like they were on-leave from the army! What they had in common was that they were all good – or so it sounded. (Shall I mention here that the acoustics in this hall are excellent?) OK, the strings didn’t have the silky sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra under the late Eugene Ormandy, but, hey, it’s a youth orchestra! They played a credible selection of “standards” by Michael Glinka, Sibelius, Grieg, Johann Strauss, and Dvorak – in short, a full length concert – and they played with suitable technique and genuine emotion.
What was going through my head as I listened to this young talent bowing and blowing? My monopoly would be broken. I had every reason to believe that, until the following Sunday, I was the only resident of this community of 40,000 souls who had ever performed at Carnegie Hall (in the Spring of 1958, as a member of the NYC All-City High School Chorus, which together with its sister orchestra gave an annual concert). Well, I’m gracious; I’ll willingly share the honor with others who are now the same age more or less as I was back then. I haven’t heard any reports back, but I KNOW they did themselves proud, as well as their community, nestled on the edge of the midbar, a little bit east of Jerusalem.
The concert ended to a rousing ovation, and everyone headed out into the lobby, where we found and greeted a whole bunch of our Anglo friends. Now we had time to look around and realize that there was a full service restaurant with a bar in this lobby. 
The whole place reeked of class! And this beautiful concert hall – to be used for many, many performances in the months and years to come – was built using that old, unfinished shell of a building that had sat there looking drab and unimpressive these many years. Not too shabby now.
Grizzlify, grizzlify…
I remember those heady days during the Spring of 2007, the period of time between our decision to “make Aliyah” and the moment we headed to JFK airport with our hand luggage and one old cat in a carrying case. We, at least I, would awake every morning (a good thing) and spend the day feeling virtuous. One event I remember that took place during that period of time was a Sunday breakfast hosted by the Men’s Club at Congregation Beth Aaron, our shul in Teaneck, with guest speaker Herb Keinon. Lots of people know who he is: a journalist for the Jerusalem Post who every month or so gets to write a column about his and his family’s experiences in The Land over a period of twenty-five years. So long before wannabies like yours truly began blogging about our aliyah adventures, he was doing this in print for a large audience of mostly Anglo-Israelis.
Once his talk was over, I approached Herb and, in my state of virtuousness, let him know that we too would soon be sharing the joy of living in The Land. He wished me well and offered to be of assistance if need be – although we never needed.
Still, Herb Keinon has remained on my “good guy” list and I have followed his “Out There” columns whenever possible. Earlier in the year, a collection of his columns appeared as the book, French Fries in Pita, an autographed copy of which we now possess. In a way, Herb’s title says it all. Should you be wandering the streets of Jerusalem (or a lot of other communities here in The Land) and suddenly need a bite to eat, there is always the ubiquitous falafel stand. And if you ask nicely, in addition to the diced cucumber and tomato salad, the gooey hummus and tahini, the hot sauce if you’re that foolish(no harif, no harif ), and the Israeli ersatz pickles, the server will throw on top of the falafel some soggy semi-edible French fries (no ketchup in sight), which will spill out of the top of the pita holding this mess together. And one might ask: What holds the disparate parts here in The Land, many quite messy, together – like the tomatoes and cucumbers with the deep-fried chick pea goo? Maybe it’s because all of us, in our own way, have a love for this country – even if the French fries don’t quite make it.
I started reading the book and had only gotten to page two of the Introduction, when I came upon something that stopped me in my tracks. Keinon made mention of a five stage phase of immigration, the kind of culture shock that people experience when they have been transplanted from place A to B, a paradigm developed in 1954 by an anthropologist named Kalvero Oberg.
Phase one is the “over idealized honeymoon stage,” in which everything in your new place of residence is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. Phase two seems to be the polar opposite, in which everyone and everything new is now awful. The third phase is one of “regression,” in which you try – at least in your mind – to bring every over-idealized part of your former life to where you are now. Somehow, you’re supposed to get to the fourth phase, one in which you have adjusted to life in your new home, and everything is comfortable and routine. Finally, should you have the opportunity to return to where you came from, you experience “reverse culture shock” as what you used to think of as normal now seems strange.
There is an important element of truth to this paradigm, but like a one-size-fits- all suit, in which the sleeves may be too long and the pants too short, this model is in serious need of tweaking. The whole business of adjusting to a new environment may depend in part on the circumstances in which you moved, your age at the time, your ability to return to your former home, and so forth.
As I was pondering how my own experience as a new oleh fit into Oberg’s schema, I began asking myself another question. If I plan to resume writing my own articles as I planned, where should I be going, what should I be focusing on? Keinon has been writing his columns for twenty-five years, in all seasons, and in all stages of his immigrant experience – for an audience of readers who, in one way or another, are participants in his stories. As Dr. Ben Carson put it recently, “They know.” As any football coach can tell you, it’s hard to give a “rah rah” speech to a team of grizzled veterans. And Anglo-Israelis become grizzled pretty fast, or else sooner or later they skedaddle.
That’s it! That’s what I need to focus on, a more rounded description of the integration process: the realization and acceptance of how we olim fit or misfit in Israeli society, what we have done and what we will never do, not only what we truly love but what we grudgingly accept, how we do or why we don’t maintain some of the beliefs, ideals, and values we brought over with us on the NBN flight. In other words, or to coin a new one, the “grizzlification” of at least one American ex-pat, yours truly. Anyway, that’s the plan. We’ll see how well it works. Stay tuned.
alittlebiteast 