The global holiday village

Have you ever wondered how a Jewish family living in India might get matzo for Passover?

Of course you have. Silly question.

Well, I can't speak for all of us, but this Jewish family is having their matzo brought to them by an Austrian Catholic who lives in the UK and teaches religion at a university there. He also happens to be one of Robert's best friends, a foodie, and an all around great guy who is coming to visit us here in Bangalore right before the holiday. He'll actually be here for the first night seder too!

But really: an Austrian Catholic living in the UK is bringing Pesach matzo to American Jews living in India. What an amazing, gorgeous world we live in.

PS He is also bringing wine! Wine and matzo!

Kerala, part 4

Fulbright arranged for a tour of some of the historic places in Cochin on the last day of the conference, so of course we signed right up. Free tour that someone else organized? Yes please!

First though, we ate. Lunch that day was a traditional Keralan style meal, and it was so delicious that I'm still dreaming of it.

Here we have a banana leaf plate loaded with Keralan red rice topped with a banana yogurt curry. Moving clockwise you'll see salt, dried and fresh banana, mango and lime pickles, something horseradish-y, a tamarind chutney, three types of vegetables, and a papad. I stuffed myself as thoroughly as possible, and regret that I don't have a bigger stomach. Oh Keralan food, I will remember you and miss you always!

After that we loaded onto several large buses, and set off for St. Francis church. Our guide seemed very knowledgable, but the PA system at the bus apparently had only one volume: deafeningly loud. I spent most of the time with my hands over my ears. Somehow both kids managed to fall asleep!

Anyway, here is St. Francis church. It was the original burial place of Vasco de Gama, but his body was later removed to Portugal. There's still a sign and arrow in the church pointing to where he used to be.

Then we walked a short ways down a street filled with tempting stalls full of colorful things to buy. But our guide was firm: we were to buy nothing until later. I can't blame him-- the idea of trying to herd a group of 35 shoppers down the street sounds pretty unfun!

But still, I wanted to stop and examine the goods, you know? Liel did too. She told me, rather wistfully, that she'd noticed there were a lot of pretty things for sale. Nonetheless, we pushed on, to see...Chinese fishing nets!

That's the Arabian Sea right there. Our guide explained that these nets are the traditional way of fishing in the area, and they're not used for commercial purposes, but by families catching their dinners.

What really struck me about the Arabian Sea though, was it's lack of bathrooms. Liel can go all day without visiting a bathroom when we're out, but that day not so much. Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've helped your child crouch down to pee next to a rock on a beach on the Arabian Sea, feet away from hordes of tourists, vendors, and locals out for a stroll.

Luckily there was a really pretty shaded park area nearby, with a cool painted tree and some great wall art, so I was soon able to put the whole "peeing on the beach" incident out of my mind...or so I thought.

I really like the way Jesus and Krishna are cuddling up next to sign that says, "Please help me".

Then we got back on the bus and headed to Fort Cochin to visit the Dutch Palace. It's a museum now, and no pictures are allowed inside, so you'll have to make do with some pictures of the outside, and the knowledge that there were some amazing murals from the Ramayana inside.

And here we have Zion, looking awesome.

Not pictured is Liel, telling me that she had to poop. Also not pictured is a bathroom, because of course there wasn't one. However, you can see a field in the background, right? It's amazing how much an empty field starts to resemble a bathroom when you have a desperate child, that's all I'm saying.

Moving on!

Our last stop was a 16th century synagogue located in a part of Cochin known as "Jew Town". You can't take pictures inside it either, and it's quite beautiful. The floor is made entirely of hand painted blue and white Chinese tiles, there's a gorgeous Ark, tons of crystal lamps and candelabras, and big airy windows. The outside is rather less picturesque, I'm afraid! At any rate, the synagogue is still in use by the 8 remaining Jews in Cochin. I couldn't hear everything our guide said, but I believe that most of them left in 1948, presumably for Israel.

Jew town was full of shops, which were now allowed to visit. I would've liked more shopping time, but beggars can't be choosers!

And anyway, what I really liked were all the Jew Town signs. I can't get enough of them!

Cafe Jew Town! I should open a cafe by that name when I get back to NY, don't you think??

The kindness of strangers

After my initial post about early life in Bangalore I got a bunch of concerned IMs, emails, and messages from almost every single one of my Indian friends in the US (I didn't have any here yet). All of them were trying their best to make my day, my life, and my stay in India better. The love and concern was so amazing that I burst into tears and cried for a good 20 minutes or more.

I had invitations to stay with a friend's parents in Kolkata, reminders about cousins who were standing by to help out, phone calls made (from Kentucky!) to a furniture store in my neighborhood of Bangalore to see if they sold mattresses and spoke English, and an actual phone call from a sister of a friend who checked her diary, determined that she had nothing pressing to do the next day, and told me she would come over and pick me up and run me around town to buy as much of what I needed as possible. Her sister had called her from the states to see if she was still awake, and if she could talk to me right then.

At the same time the communications worlds seemed to want to shut all this fabulousness out, as I discovered that the phone in my apartment can't call off campus (we don't have SIM cards yet), and then my internet connection died. Luckily people could still call me!

So on Friday my friend's sister came over around 11am. She sat down with me and listened to my list of what I need (excluding the kitchen stuff, as I'm still hopeful they'll make good on the promise to get some for us- fingers crossed), made mini lists of where to go for everything, and off we went.

First we went to a big grocery store with huge wide aisles! I was able to get rice milk, laundry detergent (it turns out that sending your laundry out to be washed is crazy expensive, and, according to 3 local sources, we were also over-charged. But they all agreed it was quite pricy anyway. So, until further notice I'll be handwashing all our laundry), jam, the mango corn flakes Zion desires, pomegranates, a new-to-me fruit called chicku that looks like potatoes, grape juice for Shabbos, and generally enjoy being in such a large space. Then my new friend took me and the kids to lunch at a Kerala style restaurant (it was delicious!! We all especially loved a bread product called appam, which is made from rice flour and coconut milk), and then took me to 3-4 more shops, where I bought bath towels, candles, matches, a clock, and scotch tape. After that we went to her house, where she gave us tea (and fresh OJ for the kids), collected candlesticks, dish towels, and a drying rack for laundry for us to borrow. Oh and she gave me some child sized bangles for Liel, as I had mentioned that she really wanted some and I'd like to get her some for Hanukkah. And then her driver delivered us right back to our doorstep.

And that's not even all! On Sunday we're making plans to meet up with another friend's cousin, who will accompany us to the furniture store that a different friend found for us, and help us get SIM cards and figure out which plan we should buy. And another cousin will be back in town later this month, and is all set to help us in any way she can.

Seriously, (short of the cooktop, kitchen utensils and electric kettle I'm still waiting on) I couldn't ask for more. Even though I am struggling a bit to get my footing here, I feel and experience so much love, from New York to Kentucky to Kolkata to Bangalore, and so many other places besides.

Shabbat Shalom y'all. (Yes, these are our Shabbos candles and current kiddush cup!)

Jews on the move

A new packing dilemma has presented itself: which of our religious objects should we bring with us to Bangalore?

We'll be in India for Hanukkah, Purim, Pesach, and of course Shabbos. Many Shabboses. Hanukkah we've settled- the kids each have a hanukkiah with their name on it, and we're bringing both of those. I even bought candles for them in advance (normally we buy our Hanukkah candles about 3 days before the holiday begins)! They're already packed, wrapped up in some cloth diapers I'm bringing for a woman I met on Rav who wants to cloth diaper her baby.

Pesach is also (sadly) a no brainer, as we simply do not have the luggage space to bring our gorgeous seder plate, matzo box etc. I love them so much, and will miss seeing them at the holiday this year. And there's nothing particular we need to bring for Purim, so that's easy too.

The hard part is Shabbos. We love Shabbos, and love the beautiful objects that we use to celebrate the day.

Our candlesticks

Our kiddush cup

This beautiful incense burner that my grandmother bought us in Budapest (it is an antique and likely belonged to a family who fled Hungary during the Shoah. We treasure it.). It's this cool art-deco-y kind of thing, made of silver, shaped like a flower.

A flower with a star of David on the top.

I'm told that we will be able to find candles and candlesticks quite easily, so I think we will buy those there. I'm too nervous to bring our incense burner; it will stay at home. So I suppose we will have room for the kiddush cup, though I expect wine might be hard to come by!

We're bringing a mezuzah, too, of course. The one we have on our front door has been at the front door of every house that Robert and I have lived in together, and I was very tempted to take it (and put up another in its place while we're gone). However, I believe we're going to take this one instead. It was made by a friend of mine, and I think it will be joyful to see it on the doorpost of our home in Bangalore.

We use these objects on a regular basis to constantly construct our identity, examine our choices, and reinforce our values. It's hard to think of leaving any of them behind, but I'm looking forward to using some of them (and finding others) to create a Jewish home for our family in a new world, just as Jews have always done. And at the same time I am incredibly grateful that we are making this move because we want to, and not because we fear for our lives, as so many Jews (including my own family) have been forced to do. Still, it is the transportable nature of our rituals, our beliefs, and our selves that has allowed us survive and thrive in communities around the world. When we became Jews on the move, we also became the People of the Book.