Hello Everyone 9/9/2002
Hello Everyone,
I'm in a bit more somber mood as I start this. Plus it's 2:30 AM. Over the past several hours I've popped two sleeping tabs, but they've had the opposite effect. Now in addition to plain not sleeping I'm not sleeping and itching like a maniac. Liz started the book The Metamorphisis in her English class today, Gregor Samsa waking to find himself a large bug and all that. I feel instead that I will never sleep cause I've been bitten by one.
In truth, it probably wasn't a bug, but rather a large pot of strong coffee I drank in the market square a couple hours ago. I thought I'd asked for a small frothed milk drink, but like most of the refreshments I order in restaurants, I was mistaken. And since the deep dark coffee cost (euro sign) 3.80 a portion, I drank it all down. More than in the States, I feel compelled to use everything to the last drop here, the rotting berries I eat since I don't want to throw them over the balcony, the shirt I wear an extra day since doing laundry is such a pain. I won't tell you how infrequently I change bed linens since it takes six hours to wash and dry a bed's worth. (But if you visit, I'll make the effort.)
Anyway, the reason I was drinking coffee so late is cause it's Rosh Hashona and the Temple thing hadn't worked out like we expected. Actually, until a couple days ago we didn't even remember the High Holidays were approaching, and when we did I decided to blow them off. But then I realized I hadn't met a single Jewish person in my two months in Germany and wondered who the Jewish population might include. I'd passed Tempelstrasse several times, good real estate near the river, and remembered how each time I'd moved to a new town and visited the synagogue people were welcoming. Plus, I figured for the most part Jews tend to be well educated, so certainly there will be English speakers among them. I couldn't find a number in the phone book, but the hub's secretary made some calls and learned that the evening service started at 7 PM.
The Temple, when we walked inside, was a pretty shabby place and of the several dozen individuals hanging around, none spoke English and in fact, few were speaking German. It turns out most of the con-gregation is Russian, refugees no doubt. At 7:15, eight dowdy middle aged women and one ancient man went up on the bimah with an accordionist and started singing folk songs, few of which I recognized. The rest of the small sanctuary was filled with similarly dressed older people. (I chided myself for having personal grooming thoughts on Rosh Hashona, but in Toledo it seems that's the day to show off your latest upscale mall purchase. Ah, this is what real religion is about, I thought, forcing those materialists thoughts out, the simple happiness of having the right to celebrate your faith. But that's probably wrong, too. Life is rarely that simplistic.)
Anyway, no one returned our goofy nods of hello or L'shona Tovah and we were embarrassed trying to communicate further. So we sat through the folk act, which we learned later was the pre-show--the real service didn't start till sundown. We heard that when we started filing out--again with no acknowledgment --and found ourselves next to a man who turned out to be a former Ohio opera student who'd landed a gig in several Bonn Wagner and Weill productions. Mark, was excited to find other Americans, told us he had a new bride who was home with a kugel in the oven. I expected this meant she was pregnant and offered my congratulations, but it turned out she was making a noodle pudding, the statement was meant to be taken literally. (Mark's lived in Germany six years, long enough to go native and unironic. But he generously offered to have Marianne share her German recipes with me--it's impossible to adapt American Rezepte, he said, which may have been the problem in my last mailing.) Anyway, since we now had a guide to the service, we decided to stay. But I was shunted to the ladies section upstairs where there were no seats and no one would make room for me, so the two of us left quietly and began walking down the Rhine. It was a lovely night. The weather, I should report has changed again--it's still dry, but the leaves are falling and the ivy sided old houses are turning red.
Anyway, two pinched feet later (I was wearing "good" shoes after a summer in faux Birkies(from the word "birch," if turns out) we made it to the Altstadt and the café and the too strong, too expensive coffees. It was one of those archetypal European scenes of students and lovers. Still I had this fleeting realization that none of the students and lovers would turn out to be Jewish--not that that's anything I'd thought or cared about before, but here it's one more level of isolation. In America, or at least my part of it, everyone knows what Rosh Hashona IS even if they don't practice. And with the German norm of dozens of Arab markets, and no Jews, it makes recent news events more disturbing. But then that thought was partially dispelled, too: the cafe menu offered a Frühstuck (breakfast) of bagel with lox. Probably not what we would call a bagel, more likely one of the round breads they refer to here as Sesamring, but geez, something that at least Woody Allen could describe as Jewish.
I've been thinking a lot about the Muslim-Jewish thing these days and particularly as September 11 approaches--thank heaven, by dint of the fact that our TV only gets European stations, we're not subjected to the overkill I hear is SOP in the States. There's a guy from Tehran in my German class whom I've become friendly with. Once I asked him what it was like to live in Iran; the stories we get in America make it seem so oppressive, I said. (I did not remind him of his role in the Axis of Evil.) He replied that even what HE saw on television was not his country, it was the country of the leaders, but not the people. Sometimes I feel that's where the US is headed, too as perceived by others. I wonder if the administration and the general populace are in the same place ideologically or if Europe (and other parts of the so-called global community) are confusing America with its leaders.
Living here makes one aware of the anti-American sentiment that is growing around the world. I don't get this directly from people I talk with, at the most they fault Bush, not Americans in general, and make ambivalent remarks about their own countries' leaders. But we subscribe to International Newsweek--a whole different pub from what you get in the States--and 95% of the letters to the editor chide America for her unilateralism or scold Israel for her treatment of the Palestinians. Although I've often been skeptical of many of America's policies and attitudes toward the rest of the world, reading venom from around that world--in an allegedly balanced magazine--is frightening. Another truism from Woody Allen: If I say it, it's OK; if they say it, it's not. I fear we've squandered the goodwill of the rest of the world--and I think there was tremendous goodwill after September 11 last year--by our arrogance toward the environment, land mines, trade tariffs, stiffing the UN, not adhering to world court judgments, etc.
Further, I think the terrorists, individuals or states, must be gleeful about this; America is now in the eyes of much of the rest of the world, as much the bad guy as they are. My gut is that while European sites were targeted in the past, we won't see that again soon, because the terrorists feel that to maintain European disgust at the States, they must refrain from biting the hand that serendipitously played their card. When we learned we were moving abroad, I was scared of potential terror attacks, but now that fear has diminished. The US will eventually need to take action, in my opinion, about terrorism, but this issue has been folded into the Palestinian/Israeli discord in much of the world's eyes, and on that issue, the world dresses Israel in the black hat. (Mind you, speaking of headgear, there are tons of hajibed women in Europe, and once the critical mass threatens to tip the status quo, the tables I expect will turn again. Europe doesn't want to be Muslimized--ie, outbred--with its threats of insurrection and violence, anymore than Israel; it's just that the numbers are still smaller and there's Germany's history of former oppressions to consider. One irony to this, I think, is that Al Queda/terrorism/Iraq have morphed to the greater world with Palestinian issues. So Sharon's tourist trip to the Temple Mount two years back probably did as much to foment Europe's distrust of America as Bush's policies.
OK, end of geopolitical carp. I expect many rabbis in America have similar themes this week so forgive me for trading a pulpit for an email. But you can't live here and be oblivious to how differently Europeans and Americans view the world. And while stuff can change on a dime, I think this is a fair representation of today's reality. I vacillate between wanting to write Newsweek a scathing rebuttal and saying, yeah, you've got a point. Even though I always followed the international presses in America, over here the rhetoric is notched higher.
Well, I'm tired now (it's 4:30) so I'm going to try bed again. I hope you all get 9/11 II closure (ha!) as it appears from the media that's the intention. At the risk of offending the HR people at the hub's former Michigan headquarters, I just pulled up an email outlining how the office is commemorating September 11. After several introductory paragraphs concerning displaying the flag and receiving commemorative pins upon entrance to the room where the television will be playing, one reads these sentences: "The event has been coordinated to occur at the exact moment the WTC events began, at around 8:46 AM (ET). Free refreshments will be served."
Pins and pop to celebrate a tragedy. No wonder the world doubts us.
Best (and I'll try to be funny again next time),
Barb
I'm in a bit more somber mood as I start this. Plus it's 2:30 AM. Over the past several hours I've popped two sleeping tabs, but they've had the opposite effect. Now in addition to plain not sleeping I'm not sleeping and itching like a maniac. Liz started the book The Metamorphisis in her English class today, Gregor Samsa waking to find himself a large bug and all that. I feel instead that I will never sleep cause I've been bitten by one.
In truth, it probably wasn't a bug, but rather a large pot of strong coffee I drank in the market square a couple hours ago. I thought I'd asked for a small frothed milk drink, but like most of the refreshments I order in restaurants, I was mistaken. And since the deep dark coffee cost (euro sign) 3.80 a portion, I drank it all down. More than in the States, I feel compelled to use everything to the last drop here, the rotting berries I eat since I don't want to throw them over the balcony, the shirt I wear an extra day since doing laundry is such a pain. I won't tell you how infrequently I change bed linens since it takes six hours to wash and dry a bed's worth. (But if you visit, I'll make the effort.)
Anyway, the reason I was drinking coffee so late is cause it's Rosh Hashona and the Temple thing hadn't worked out like we expected. Actually, until a couple days ago we didn't even remember the High Holidays were approaching, and when we did I decided to blow them off. But then I realized I hadn't met a single Jewish person in my two months in Germany and wondered who the Jewish population might include. I'd passed Tempelstrasse several times, good real estate near the river, and remembered how each time I'd moved to a new town and visited the synagogue people were welcoming. Plus, I figured for the most part Jews tend to be well educated, so certainly there will be English speakers among them. I couldn't find a number in the phone book, but the hub's secretary made some calls and learned that the evening service started at 7 PM.
The Temple, when we walked inside, was a pretty shabby place and of the several dozen individuals hanging around, none spoke English and in fact, few were speaking German. It turns out most of the con-gregation is Russian, refugees no doubt. At 7:15, eight dowdy middle aged women and one ancient man went up on the bimah with an accordionist and started singing folk songs, few of which I recognized. The rest of the small sanctuary was filled with similarly dressed older people. (I chided myself for having personal grooming thoughts on Rosh Hashona, but in Toledo it seems that's the day to show off your latest upscale mall purchase. Ah, this is what real religion is about, I thought, forcing those materialists thoughts out, the simple happiness of having the right to celebrate your faith. But that's probably wrong, too. Life is rarely that simplistic.)
Anyway, no one returned our goofy nods of hello or L'shona Tovah and we were embarrassed trying to communicate further. So we sat through the folk act, which we learned later was the pre-show--the real service didn't start till sundown. We heard that when we started filing out--again with no acknowledgment --and found ourselves next to a man who turned out to be a former Ohio opera student who'd landed a gig in several Bonn Wagner and Weill productions. Mark, was excited to find other Americans, told us he had a new bride who was home with a kugel in the oven. I expected this meant she was pregnant and offered my congratulations, but it turned out she was making a noodle pudding, the statement was meant to be taken literally. (Mark's lived in Germany six years, long enough to go native and unironic. But he generously offered to have Marianne share her German recipes with me--it's impossible to adapt American Rezepte, he said, which may have been the problem in my last mailing.) Anyway, since we now had a guide to the service, we decided to stay. But I was shunted to the ladies section upstairs where there were no seats and no one would make room for me, so the two of us left quietly and began walking down the Rhine. It was a lovely night. The weather, I should report has changed again--it's still dry, but the leaves are falling and the ivy sided old houses are turning red.
Anyway, two pinched feet later (I was wearing "good" shoes after a summer in faux Birkies(from the word "birch," if turns out) we made it to the Altstadt and the café and the too strong, too expensive coffees. It was one of those archetypal European scenes of students and lovers. Still I had this fleeting realization that none of the students and lovers would turn out to be Jewish--not that that's anything I'd thought or cared about before, but here it's one more level of isolation. In America, or at least my part of it, everyone knows what Rosh Hashona IS even if they don't practice. And with the German norm of dozens of Arab markets, and no Jews, it makes recent news events more disturbing. But then that thought was partially dispelled, too: the cafe menu offered a Frühstuck (breakfast) of bagel with lox. Probably not what we would call a bagel, more likely one of the round breads they refer to here as Sesamring, but geez, something that at least Woody Allen could describe as Jewish.
I've been thinking a lot about the Muslim-Jewish thing these days and particularly as September 11 approaches--thank heaven, by dint of the fact that our TV only gets European stations, we're not subjected to the overkill I hear is SOP in the States. There's a guy from Tehran in my German class whom I've become friendly with. Once I asked him what it was like to live in Iran; the stories we get in America make it seem so oppressive, I said. (I did not remind him of his role in the Axis of Evil.) He replied that even what HE saw on television was not his country, it was the country of the leaders, but not the people. Sometimes I feel that's where the US is headed, too as perceived by others. I wonder if the administration and the general populace are in the same place ideologically or if Europe (and other parts of the so-called global community) are confusing America with its leaders.
Living here makes one aware of the anti-American sentiment that is growing around the world. I don't get this directly from people I talk with, at the most they fault Bush, not Americans in general, and make ambivalent remarks about their own countries' leaders. But we subscribe to International Newsweek--a whole different pub from what you get in the States--and 95% of the letters to the editor chide America for her unilateralism or scold Israel for her treatment of the Palestinians. Although I've often been skeptical of many of America's policies and attitudes toward the rest of the world, reading venom from around that world--in an allegedly balanced magazine--is frightening. Another truism from Woody Allen: If I say it, it's OK; if they say it, it's not. I fear we've squandered the goodwill of the rest of the world--and I think there was tremendous goodwill after September 11 last year--by our arrogance toward the environment, land mines, trade tariffs, stiffing the UN, not adhering to world court judgments, etc.
Further, I think the terrorists, individuals or states, must be gleeful about this; America is now in the eyes of much of the rest of the world, as much the bad guy as they are. My gut is that while European sites were targeted in the past, we won't see that again soon, because the terrorists feel that to maintain European disgust at the States, they must refrain from biting the hand that serendipitously played their card. When we learned we were moving abroad, I was scared of potential terror attacks, but now that fear has diminished. The US will eventually need to take action, in my opinion, about terrorism, but this issue has been folded into the Palestinian/Israeli discord in much of the world's eyes, and on that issue, the world dresses Israel in the black hat. (Mind you, speaking of headgear, there are tons of hajibed women in Europe, and once the critical mass threatens to tip the status quo, the tables I expect will turn again. Europe doesn't want to be Muslimized--ie, outbred--with its threats of insurrection and violence, anymore than Israel; it's just that the numbers are still smaller and there's Germany's history of former oppressions to consider. One irony to this, I think, is that Al Queda/terrorism/Iraq have morphed to the greater world with Palestinian issues. So Sharon's tourist trip to the Temple Mount two years back probably did as much to foment Europe's distrust of America as Bush's policies.
OK, end of geopolitical carp. I expect many rabbis in America have similar themes this week so forgive me for trading a pulpit for an email. But you can't live here and be oblivious to how differently Europeans and Americans view the world. And while stuff can change on a dime, I think this is a fair representation of today's reality. I vacillate between wanting to write Newsweek a scathing rebuttal and saying, yeah, you've got a point. Even though I always followed the international presses in America, over here the rhetoric is notched higher.
Well, I'm tired now (it's 4:30) so I'm going to try bed again. I hope you all get 9/11 II closure (ha!) as it appears from the media that's the intention. At the risk of offending the HR people at the hub's former Michigan headquarters, I just pulled up an email outlining how the office is commemorating September 11. After several introductory paragraphs concerning displaying the flag and receiving commemorative pins upon entrance to the room where the television will be playing, one reads these sentences: "The event has been coordinated to occur at the exact moment the WTC events began, at around 8:46 AM (ET). Free refreshments will be served."
Pins and pop to celebrate a tragedy. No wonder the world doubts us.
Best (and I'll try to be funny again next time),
Barb
posted by barbara goodman shovers at 11:41 AM
1 Comments:
Hey Barbara,
I stumbled across your blog while being on the look for something totally different - and I'm so grateful I did. I really like the way you write, the many details you observe and describe and it's a pity that there isn't more to read.
Actually, and this is really funny, I'm in nearly the same situation, only that is is the other way around: I'm German (Berlin) and am living in Ohio for a few months to finish my master thesis at OSU. I must admit that a lot of things you describe are also the ones I struggeled with (buying baking ingredients, doing laundry, why do people always really mean what they say) and I do so in exactly the same way. :) Isn't that funny?
Well, best wishes to Toledo and hope your time in Germany wasn't the worst after all!
Annika
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