Jews

Today was SO COLD. Despite that, it was a really really great day. We spent the morning at the vineyards, which were even prettier than we'd imagined, and then I tried gnocchi for the first time at the precious restaurant across from our study abroad center and it was so so so good. That was all fantastic, but the evening is really what made my day. Thus, a few pictures of the vineyards, and we will continue.

So Katie has been talking about going to a synagogue out here since the beginning of the trip, and I'd agreed to come along, but despite a few google searches, it had been difficult to find a synagogue. One day, Katie was doing some research at the public hospital and noticed a man wearing a yamaka. With friends' encouragement she went up to him, introduced herself, and asked him about his synagogue. Before she knew it, Alberto had given her his email address and set it up so she and a friend (read: me) could go to a service and even join a family for a traditional Shabbat dinner afterward. And we were thrilled.

We met Alberto at the furthest eastern metra stop at 5, from which he drove us further east to his fiance's apartment. In this city, east = rich. Especially northeast. Here's where we were.

We were basically in the Andes, we were so far east. We learned about Chilean Jewish culture this evening, but we also learned quite a bit about the wealthy culture. On this trip, we have spent most of our time talking about the poor, touching on the fact that the disparity between rich and poor is huge, and that areas like this exist. Usually, however, people refer to the rich as people like my host parents. This was a new ballpark. In the car, Katie mentioned that it was crazy where she lives the night before. Side story: last night the education protests went CRAZY and protestors filled the streets, burning things, banging pots and pans, suffocating in tear gas. Everyone knew about it, except apparently Alberto and friends. "Oh, why?" Usually when we talk about the protests with Chileans, even those who are not involved, they are sympathetic toward the protestors and their plight, and hope they will receive what they are asking for. Alberto, though, was frustrated that the police fought so hard against them yesterday, knowing that this would continue to encourage the silly protestors in their dangerous and pointless fight. Additionally, after the Allende-Pinochet affair, people tend to be pretty positively minded toward socialist Allende (at least he didn't torture people), but when we talked about the size of the Jewish community in Santiago, Alberto was quick to point out that many Jews fled when Allende took office, because they owned a lot of land, and they knew their land would be taken by the state and redistributed. I don't disagree with the things he said, it was all pretty valid, but it was definitely a new side of the economic scale, things we just don't hear in our classes or homestays.

He was a really nice guy, as was his 26-year-old speech therapist fiancé, Connie. We chatted with her for awhile, as we waited for the sun to go down. When it was setting, she brought out the matches and a prayer book. Luckily the Shabbat candles prayer is the one prayer I know by heart, so I could fake my way through "reading" the Hebrew prayer. This came back to bite me in the butt later. We continued chatting about our program afterward and I had SUCH a panic moment. I touched my necklace and suddenly remembered I was wearing a small medal with a SAINT engraved into it. I turned it over and panicked and panicked and looked forward to walking time so I could put it in my pocket. These people were all Orthodox Jews, I really did not want to scare them away with my Catholic necklace in the first five minutes.

Later on, we did start walking toward the temple, and ran into some of the other congregation members. The community was small and very strong. It reminded me a lot of the temple my family goes to once in awhile at home, except smaller. Although there was the moment where we realized the temple was surrounded by a very high wall, a code-locked door, and a security guard. That was a little odd... and I never really found out what that was about. So we got our prayer books, and Connie turns to us and says "You can read Hebrew right, I know you can, you did with the candles!" Uh... right. We looked around and realized a big wardrobe issue, and quickly began buttoning our sweaters and tugging at our dresses to try to force them to sit below our knees. Apparently Katie saw someone later that looked like us, so maybe we were okay. I still left my sweater buttoned for the rest of the night. It appeared Connie had led us to the social side of the room. In traditional Orthodox fashion, we were separated from the men and hidden by a semi-transparent white screen. But this synagogue had two women's sections, and on our side all the young girls were giggling through the service, greeting each other, offering congratulations on engagements, etc etc. On the other side everyone looked serious, devout, and focused. After a lot of page following over other people's shoulders, mumbling/humming along, standing and sitting based on what people around us were doing, and awkwardly covering our eyes, bowing, and stepping places based on what it looked like the person in front of us was doing, the service came to an end an hour or two later. 

Then we met our Shabbat dinner family. As a precursor we learned from Connie that we were eating at the Holowitz's house. Rabbi Avi Holowitz is the principal of what I understood to be the 10th best school in all of Chile (and I would assume it to be the best Jewish school). The prime minister's sons go there. The rabbi and his family moved here from New Jersey nearly fourteen years ago, I think just because they could do something more impactful in Santiago than they could in the US. They really work hard to build a cohesive and connected Modern Orthodox Jewish community in Santiago and keep it vital and growing. They take in many guests and are really active in the synagogue. We'd met his daughter, Leah, before the service so we sought her out and met her younger brother. Another smaller four-year-old boy wandered out with a cup full of potato chips and was declared another brother, followed by Rabbi Avi himself. Apparently there are two more brothers (16 and 20) in the States, studying. Leah is going into her senior year in high school herself in New Jersey, but she was here for a little bit to finish out the summer. From what I understood, they flew back and forth a lot (money really is no big deal in this family, they spend $100,000 a year on heating). The walk was rather enjoyable too, the whole family is full of charming, funny, socially adept people. The rabbi particularly enjoyed my family history. Where was my name from. "Scandinavian. But really my parents like uncommon names and picked it out of a baby name book." What. Do you have other names? "...My middle name? My sister's name is Jessalyn and by the time we got to my brother they got all Jewish about it and named him Mendel." Mendel! Mendel the mouse! Kelda and Mendel! And later. "Well when I was younger we went to reform temples. But when we got to San Diego we started to go to an Orthodox temple, because we liked that one better. But we're not strongly attached to any branch. Why? Well, my parents converted. Actually I converted too." ... "I was a baby, they dunked me in Lake Michigan. In March, in fact." He was already pretty tickled at this point. "My parents immigrated to the US from Holland actually." So they left their countries AND converted?! "Yeah... and actually my father's father was a minister." This could literally be a novel. "And later he got really into Islam, so he wrote books about that... oh and my other grandpa has some Jewish ancestry I think."


We walked over to their gated, heated, large, beautifully designed house and met the mother (Shira), a sixth and final sibling (a 13-year-old girl), and some family friends - an elderly woman and a middle-aged couple. All but the elderly woman could speak fluent English so we spoke English all night. In fact, everyone we met at the synagogue could speak English as well, as could Connie and Alberto. We think this is a credit to their higher quality education, but many of them have connections to other countries, since the Chilean Jewish community is heavily made up from immigrants of the past three generations, so this could contribute to the English as well. We sat down at the table big enough for twenty, though we were just eleven, and went through a few pages of the fastest Hebrew singing ever. Efficiency. An American quality. My favorite moment was when Shira poured the youngest son a cup of grape juice all the way to the brim of the cup while the rabbi was singing and his face just lit up and he could not stop smiling for a few minutes afterward. Little kids are the best. Then we did the washing of the hands and I was pretty proud of remembering that it was right hand, then left hand, from the good old days in Hebrew School. Shira talked to us about how much she loved Shabbat, how it was the only way she could imagine recharging for the next week, having a night free from all responsibility like that. We were served a four-course meal, all prepared by the maid (yes. the maid.) and chatted and enjoyed ourselves. After course number two the rabbi peeled the youngest off his chair, where he laid draped across it, stomach down, fast asleep. Later on, the other two younger children joined him in the living room for sleepytime. 


They are not Chilean, but we could still learn quite a bit about Chilean culture based on their observations. There are some things you just don't notice in two months that you begin to feel after fourteen years. Shira was talking about what would happen if your car broke down in the middle of the desert in Chile. It would be pretty dangerous, and there is no guarantee you could find help. They had just spent a month or more in the US, and that had happened while she was driving and she called AAA and she had been so grateful for American service and efficiency. Somewhere in the middle the rabbi and the younger girl went over her theology homework and we all listened to the story they went over, just to keep the meal Jewish and such. All the food was traditional Jewish dishes and it was really good, and by the end no one touched the brownies served for dessert, we were all too full. Though I did snack on the dark chocolate served with the tea. It was too good to resist. We finished up with some more super fast Hebrew songs and everyone was sleepy and said their goodbyes. It was after 11PM.


Driving is illegal during Shabbat, but the Chilean middle aged couple gave us both rides home in their secret car parked a block away (or not so secret, I got the sense that there was an unspoken agreement about its existence). That was great, because Katie and I had not really thought our plan all the way through to how we could get home, especially since the metra closes before 11. We chatted a bit with them, but at this point we were all pretty tired. Turns out, they live right down the street from me, I'm sure I've walked by their apartment building a few times. All in all, the night was one of my favorite things I did in the past 7 weeks, and I'm so grateful to have had that opportunity.