Friday was an abbreviated day, although still very full. I taught four classes during the morning and will genuinely miss the opportunities I had to study with the Lauder students. Afterwards we met with the Israeli Ambassador. He was a career diplomat who has held many positions, including an attache in Washington. Compared to the American ambassador, who was a political appointee, and who I have written about early, it is now clear to me why many prefer career diplomats and not the political appointments. Enough said. He was very articulate and wearing what was a very tailored and expensive suit. Every answer he gave was substantive and well thought out. Like the American ambassador he also gave his assessment of the American election, but his analysis was much more sophisticated and respectful towards the will of the American voter. It was also interesting how he clearly saw himself first as a representative of the State of Israel, but also saw his role as being an emissary for the Jewish community. He remarked, for example, that in the four weeks he had held the position of Ambassador, he had been to synagogue in Hungary more times than he had been to synagogue his entire life in Israel!
In the evening, we ate dinner at the Moishe house, where young Jewish people(many times those who recently discovered they were Jewish) can live, being obligated to attend and plan five different jewish activities every month. I think, although I am not certain, that it is sponsored by Chabad and I am told that there is also a Moishe house in Washington, DC. Very interesting dinner as we heard stories of the Jewish journeys of these young people. One story in particular struck me, as it was also, for me, a lesson in conflicting narratives. According to this young girl, her great grandfather (or perhaps great great grandfather) witnessed the Dreyfus Affair while he was living in France. His reaction was to convert to Catholicism! Very different than the narrative I was taught about Herzl, whose reaction to the Holocaust was to recognize that assimilation was not the solution but, rather, the establishment of political Zionism and the establishment of a State for the Jews. But, if we were to continue the narratives, we would see that this girl became (or is in the process of becoming) a committed Jewish person and, to the best of my knowledge, Herzl’s own son converted to Catholicism (before committing suicide) and I believe that Herzl does not have any descendants that remained Jewish. (I may need to investigate this further). What would I have done if I witnessed the Dreyfuss Trial?
While the others were telling their Jewish journeys, Tori, Yafa and Rachel shared theirs, as well. Very different stories, to be sure: Tori, who does not identify as Jewish, yet has strong ties to Judaism, Yaffa, born in Lebanon, moving to Israel in a very dramatic way and now living in the United States, and Rachel, a descendant of Hungarian immigrants who settled in Western Pennsylvania, she, herself growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with a small Jewish community. One of the themes of the week, however, is that Jewish is not a one size fits all definition. For sure, in Hungary, the definition of who is a Jew is extremely vague and indeterminate. But, even in America, we face some of the same challenges, sometimes perhaps a problem, but certainly also an opportunity that can make us richer. In order to demonstrate this diversity, I taught the group a song with the simple words (in Hebrew) “A song for the Sabbath day” – mizmor shir l’yom hashabbat. But, while we were singing, I asked people to clap their hands or banh on the table to their own beat…an attempt to show how the idea of Shabbat is entrenched in a Jewish definition, but the way in which it is expressed is dependent upon the person and their own individual Jewish journey.
The dinner ended with singing Hinei Mah Tov. I knew it was an appropriate song given the discussions of the evening, but I appreciated that Yaffa, at the end of the song, was able to express in words the significance of the song. Shevet Achim Gam Yachad – “How good that brothers dwell together”.
