Jack Goes to Europe

This is more an essay than a post, so
I’ve written about various aspects of these questions and linked to
them rather than making one GINORMOUS post that will take you forever
to read.

Germany

Poland

Et Cetera

But there are other themes I haven’t mentioned.  

One is the great time I had being
with my family for the last half of my trip.  My dad is such a joy
to be around and we are so close – it was great to see Rome with him
and Sara and Marie, and celebrating the holidays with them over there
was particularly nice. 

THANKS DAD!

It was also great to be with Sara; as
you know we traveled together for a week after Dad and Marie went back
to the U.S.  We had some great experiences together and a lot of
laughs.  Laughing till your sides hurt is always fun. 
Because we don’t live in the same city, we never ran out of things to
talk about.  Sometimes we would spontaneously say the same thing
at the same time which was funny and disconcerting at the same time.
 

I really enjoyed watching Sara’s mind
work, in part because I know what her experiences have been, such as
backpacking for over a year through Central and South America, and of
course because she’s my younger sister and I’ve known her my whole
life.  Little things like watching her eagerly devour the Italian
phrasebook and copy many words into her own little notebook, or seeing
her pronounce perfectly the Polish word for “excuse me,” which is
“Pszepraszam” (pron. pshe-PRASH-am).  Or when we were at the Roman
Forum and she told me to be sure and check out the perfectly preserved
marble floor in the former hall where the Roman Senate met 2,000 years
ago. 

We observed the Rosh Hashanah services at the Main Synagogue in
Rome.  It was a pretty interesting experience.  The Synagogue
is certainly the most beautiful one I have ever seen.  I’m not
sure what style it is, but it was very ornate while still avoiding
looking like a church.  We had to go through security, of
course.  When we got there we thought, wow, this congregation is
really quite small, a shell of its former self.  But by the end of
the service, it was so crowded that no one could sit down; 8 or 9
people were squeezed into our pew, which had only 6 seats. 
Everyone chattered away through the service, even through the
sermon.  There must have been at least 2000 people there
total.  When we left, the courtyard was filled with well-dressed
Roman Jews.  

The best part was our conversation with Enzo Nahum.  He was
originally from Venice and told us about the experience of the Roman
Jews in the war and about the synagogue.  It was built in 1904 and
survived the war intact.  The story of how he survived the war was
pretty interesting, but I just don’t have the heart to get into
it.  We were impressed with his knowledge of history and details
about Italian Jewry, but one thing he said that sticks in my head
was:  “The Jews can’t count on anyone but other Jews to protect
themselves.”

Yom Kippur was an entirely different story, because we were in
Krakow.  Sara, Sara’s great friend Heidi, Heidi’s boyfriend Teria,
and I went over to the 500-year-old Remuh Synagogue, the only active
synagogue in Krakow.  The service was led by one Rabbi Gluck, who
comes in every year from Brooklyn, New York.  Ironically,
bringing him in gave the service an old world feel, because he sang
with a heavy Yiddish accent.  (E.g., “Boiruch Atoi
Adoinoy”).  His prot