Friday, October 21, 2005 - Sukkot

Just for the record, working 12 hours a day on two assignments is way less cool than working 14 hours a day on six assignments. I'm in the 12 hour category. Oh, and one of those projects? Its an ad/christmas card. Sneaky, eh? Plus I find it highly entertaining that out of 20 creatives, they picked the only Jew and the only Muslim to design a Christmas card. Riiiiiight…

So I went to services again tonight at the synagogue, and managed to find myself sitting next to an American couple from San Diego. Now, more than once, I have commented to myself that many Americans do not travel well. Today I drew that same conclusion again. In the twenty minutes total they spent in the building they managed to stick out like a sore thumb and alienate the people trying to help them. “But Lauren, these are nice good people,” you ask, “he’s a doctor, she’s a mom. Aren’t you being a touch hard on them?” The answer is yeah, probably, but since their behavior perpetuates the feeling abroad that Americans are self absorbed and generally oblivious to what’s really going on in the rest of the world, and in my travels I frequently have to disprove that generalization, well, better to hear it from somebody that loves you than from the French.
I’ll spare you the play by play, but this couple managed to invite the three of us on a little tour of the building after services. They asked several times about the synagogues financial sponsors. “Don’t American Jews contibute?” they asked. Our host was polite, and proudly answered several times that the synogogue was sustained by the community it belonged to. Members pay dues. Dinner is Potluck. They run a museum. The Synogogue stands on its own, financially and spiritually. "Huh" was all they said. Adding insult to injury, the only other questions the couple had were about WWII. When they wouldn’t stop talking about Hitler, the woman had had enough. She said, “okay, I’m going to kick you out now. My friends are waiting for me in the Sukkah.” I’m sure they got an earful.

The woman who showed us around, Jaqueline, is one of the congregants who helps keep the community running. I thought she was very nice, and I did learn a few things from her: This temple, I forget how old, managed to survive WWII. Hitler used it as a barn. By the time the Berlin wall went up, it was one of two synagogues left standing in East Berlin. In 1958, there were only 500 Jews in East Berlin. They didn’t need and couldn’t afford two large synagogues. So they blew it up… I’m actually not sure who “they” is, but they leveled the place. Thirty years later someone decided to rebuild it. Again, I’m not sure who, but there was only enough money to rebuild the front. So as it stands today, the building is wide but not very deep; the walls are a patchwork of the old building and the new; and the glass wall that encloses the back interior walls provides a view of the remaining old synagogue foundation, and a gorgeous sunset.