Ted Belman
My “night on the town” started by attending a talk at 4:30 PM by Shuki Yashuv who was a master cabinetmaker and history graduate, before leaving Jerusalem with his wife and 2 daughters for Moshuv Agur in 1999 to set up his winery.
The Agur Winery has repeatedly been recognized by critics for its unique regional bouquet and flavor. It has also been featured in the July 30th 2008 edition of Wine Spectator.
There are now well over 100 wineries in Israel – from those producing millions of bottles, to those producing a few thousand. The quality is at worst international standard and at best, even world class. Carmel-Mizrachi is the largest winery followed by Golan Heights Winery and The Ramat HaGolan Wineries. Visit Wine for a synopsis of the Israeli wine industry.. Shuki talked about the history of wine making in Israel from ancient times and specifically about how the Israeli wine industry has come of age today. Of course we got taste two of his brands.
I had a couple hours to fill before heading to an open air concert to which I was invited. I headed over to Ben Yehuda Street which is a pedestrian mall in the centre of town, less than a mile from the Old City. Actually there are many streets in that area that are closed to traffic on which people perambulate, eat and are entertained. Everybody goes there.
four1.JPGI purchased a falafal which is a vegetarian meal stuffed into a pita. It includes deep fried balls of crushed and seasoned chick peas, hummus, ha reef (spices), chopped tomatoes, pickles, and cucumbers topped off with techinah, a dressing made of sesame seeds. It is very popular, the Israeli answer to the hamburger.
I found a small table and sat down to enjoy it. I noticed a gentleman holding his coveted falafel looking for a pace to sit down and I invited him to join me. Scot Fishman lived in San Diego for about 15 years out of college and law school. He advised,
“Never really practiced law, but went into the financial securities business until joining Fishman and Company about 7 years ago. I was brought up in a traditional synagogue. Not quite Orthodox, but more than Conservative.
In realty, we were pretty secular. I hated Hebrew school, was Bar Mitzvad, but had a real bad taste in my mouth for Judiasm. Only in the past 2 years have I gained an interest, and now it is my love. Never been real happy doing anything, and never really knew what I wanted until my “reJewvenation”. I came here very much on faith, and don’t know where it will take me.
But this may be the first time in my life where I know I am doing what I want and following my passion. I still can’t believe that I am here!”
He is studying at Aish Hatorah and learning Hebrew. We got to talking about Jewish history and Jewish rights to Judea and Samaria.
A gentleman, Irwin Huberman, on my left overheard us and asked to join the conversation. He advised
“I am 55, born in Montreal….lived 30 years in Alberta….owned weekly newspaper in Fort McMurray, Alberta….wrote book on the oil sands and Fort McMurray…
”Worked as head of communications for the environment minister in Alberta…and very briefly in Ontario in the same capacity….
”Hit 50, thought it was time for a change…had Modern Orthodox upbringing….was able to co-lead services in Edmonton when our rabbi departed …decided to enter rabbinical school…
”Academy for Jewish Religion….50 year old seminary in Riverdale (Bronx) NY….specializes in change of career rabbis and cantors…(www.ajrmsem.org)
”Seminary believes (as I do..) that there are many paths (best practices) to the Torah, we can learn from others point of view and from all denominations….for each has something to contribute.”…
He already had a congregation in Long Island, USA. But it was no ordinary congregation. It featured a mix of practices from the Orthodox down to the egalitarian. You name it, everyone was welcomed. He told of his weekly visits to a place in Jerusalem where poor people could come for a meal and some respect. He, as a waiter, served up both. Among the people he served were too bloggers, a story in itself. Maybe I should look into it, as a waiter, of course.
But my gathering wasn’t complete. Just as Reb Irwin got started on his story, a girl on my left asked to join us. She too had been listening. She was about twenty, looked Orthodox by her clothing and was visiting from New York. Her father was a Reform Rabbi and to her father’s displeasure or should I say consternation was becoming Orthodox. Reform Judaism left her hungry and she was finding sustenance in orthodoxy. She too was in Israel to learn.
What started out as a lonely meal ended up as a “feast”.
We bid our goodbyes and good lucks and I headed to the City Hall about half a mile away. The concert was to take place near Safra Square which was adjacent to it. I was invited to attend by Seva Brodsky whose father Yechiel had introduced him to Israpundit. He just had to meet me and the fact that I was perhaps 35 years his senior didn’t at all faze him. His parents had emigrated from Russia to the States twenty seven years ago. He and his brother Ze’ev, fifteen years his junior, had both made aliyah. Ze’ev will be starting his regular annual month-long IDF military reserve duty this week, having served in a combat unit after making aliyah.
To my surprise, Seva brought Sharon, his girlfriend. Sharon’s parents were born in Israel, but her grandparents came from Poland and Macedonia, so she is half Sephardi and half Ashkenazi. She has a PhD in biology from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is currently teaching and doing research at the medical school there. Sharon can trace her roots back to the Spanish Inquisition in the fifteenth century. Most people have little understanding of what the Inquisition was all about.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century, anti-Jewish hysteria was being whipped up and Jews were being killed in large numbers by Christian mobs. Many Jews accepted baptism to escape the violent anti-Jewish outbursts.. Many were forced to choose between baptism and death. In 1492, the Alhambra Decree ordered all remaining Jews who would not convert to Christianity to leave the kingdom.
In that year Columbus who had Jewish roots, set sail for India, financed by Jewish money and no doubt, manned in part by Jews seeking to escape.
The Jews in the Iberian Peninsula which included Spain and Portugal, developed their own traditions and their descendants are referred to as Sephardic Jews as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe and Russian or Mizra Jews of North Africa. Sephardic Jews over the centuries following the expulsion made their way to the Caribbean and the southern States long before The Ashkenazim started coming in the last half of the nineteenth century.
Sephardic Jews developed their own language called Ladino which was a mix of Spanish and Arabic with a smattering of Hebrew. They share much in common with the Mizra Jews because both lived as dhimmis in an Islamic world. You see the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula was dominated by Muslims, then referred to as Moors, and Jews lived among them as they did among the Christians to the north.
The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 to maintain Catholic orthodoxy. It was not definitively abolished until 1834, fifty eight years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in the USA.
The Inquisition, as an ecclesiastical tribunal approved by the Pope, had jurisdiction only over baptized Christians. The Inquisition worked in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of recent converts. Heretics were burned at the stake or if they confessed were only garroted to death. The ritual of public penance of condemned heretics was known as auto-de fe. The auto de fé involved a Catholic Mass; prayer; a public processions of those found guilty; a reading of their sentences and their execution.. They took place in public squares or esplanades and lasted several hours: ecclesiastical and civil authorities attended. Foreign dignitaries were also invited and attended.
Many Spanish Jews fled to Portugal after being expelled. In 1536, at the request of the King of Portugal, the Pope established the Portuguese Inquisition to deal with the influx.
Suspicions were especially raised against Jews who had recently converted to Christianity, called conversos or derogatorily, marranos, as many doubted the sincerity of these conversions. Various motives have been proposed for the monarchs’ decision to found the Inquisition, such as increasing political authority, weakening opposition, doing away with conversos and sheer profit. The Conversos were too successful in the Christian world and had to be put down. Today many descendants of conversos and marranos are returning to Judaism.
For those who want to learn more, I strongly recommend The Spanish Inquisition by Cecil Roth.
Back to the present. The concert featured a beautiful Sephardic Israeli Jewess singing ballads in Ladino and some in Arabic. At one point she was joined by her mother who sang beautifully also. The audience, numbering about 500, to a large extent knew the songs and sang along. Sharon, who understood Ladino, interpreted.
Afterwards we made our way past Yaffo St. through Safra Sq. to the Russian Compound. The compound was built from 1860-1864 to serve the large amounts of Russian pilgrims to the holy city.
In 1917 Allenby marched his troops there. The compound became a centre of government administration for the British Mandate. The entire area was cordoned off by barbed wire fences and entrance was by identity card only. It was nicknamed “Bevingrad” by the Jewish underground after the viciously anti-Semitic British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, and was seen as a symbol of British oppression in Palestine.
The women’s hostel served as the Mandate’s central prison, and now serves as a museum for incarcerated members of the outlawed Zionist underground groups such as the Irgun and Lehi.”
In 1947, two condemned Jews, Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, blew themselves up in the night before their execution with a hand grenade which had been smuggled into the cell inside of an orange. Anything but allow the hated British to hang them.
The story of Feinstein and Barazani became one of the most famous tales in the history of Zionism. Menachem Begin was so moved by the two men that he had himself buried next to them on Mount of Olives
Seva and Sharon drove me home to Ein Kerem. He promised to lend me one of his bikes and a spare helmet for the duration of my stay so I could have another means of transportation. To get to town, I will still have to walk up the hill with the bike, which takes me 30 minutes, a very big hill.
And so ended my night on the town.
No comments:
Post a Comment