Immigration and change

Yesterday, my secular Jewish community commemorated Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. I had never been to this ceremony before, and I was very moved by the mix of simple, heartfelt language, heart-wrenching songs, and genuine reverence my friends and colleagues shared. We acknowledge that lighting candles, sharing poems and singing songs that extol human strength and hope (despite evil) is not enough---just as at Passover we extend the "dayenu" of old ("it would have been enough") with a list of goals for what we want to achieve to make the world better, freer, kinder.

I think about how lucky I am to have grown up in a country and era where I have religious/spiritual freedom, where I can be a ruggedly independent female, and where I am not bombarded with bombs, drugs, poverty or illness. Mostly it was my great-grandparents who came to the US, but my Papa was a first-generation American, arriving at Ellis Island in the 1920s. He would rarely talk about his childhood in Poland, but a few farm images were imprinted on his memory, as were memories of arriving at Ellis Island with his mother and siblings, and seeing his father for the first time in several years. His family, and my other ancestors, made huge changes and said important goodbyes (and hellos) which led to my growing up in Long Island...and avoiding the discrimination that tore apart European Jewry in the 20th century.

In 2003 and 2006, I went on trips to Eastern Europe. First, I went to Romania, and found myself for the first time in a country where many people looked like me! Parts of the trip were scary--especially trying to find a place to sleep in Brasov, and worrying about theft. Parts of the trip were gorgeous and poignant, like walking through the ethnography museum and the old village, speaking with a rabbi at the Choral Temple, and making chamber music with a group in Bucharest. On my last day in Bucharest, I was on my own, because my friend had to get back to London for work. Walking through the Parcul Herestrau, I realized that I was the only single female spending a Sunday afternoon alone in the park...except for an old beggar lady. Everyone else was in groups. I may have looked like some of the folks I met in Romania, but my not-thinking-twice about walking outside alone in the midday August sun is something I've acquired as a product of my American childhood.

Second, I visited one of my best friends, who was living in East Berlin at that time. Mostly, the trip was about spending time together and catching up and hearing about her experiences walking along the Camino de Santiago and sharing my teaching experiences. It was also about seeing the university where she had been studying, and philosophizing about hopes and goals and families and change. We did take two day trips, though. One was to a monastery in Chorin--a beautiful place, and a beautiful memory for me. The other trip, on a rainy day, was to Poland. I didn't get far into the country of my Papa's birth, but we did get to Szczecin, and we did get to traipse through the city. Seeing the sign I posted above was particularly meaningful to me, because ...well.. how often in your life is that you're able to see a sign to Danzig/ Gdansk, an old port which immigrants used to head to the US? I believe that's the port Papa left from. Also, it was funny to see how a few older ladies treated me as they passed by me on the street--touching my (very frizzy) hair. A new friend who was translating for me pointed out that they were observing "Jewish hair", affectionately, like they hadn't seen since their childhoods. EEK. It was extraordinary to me how many people were in church, too, because it was Sunday. This was also an interesting experience for me because for the first time I was in the birthplace country of a relative I knew.............and for the first time in my grown-up life I was in a country where I didn't know the language!

Change---I am American. I'm not proud of my country's politics, but I am a product of the experiences I have had here. I'm a bit of a mugwump, because I'm a bookworm and a linguist and a musician and consequently I'm not really definable as your standard American, or secular Jew, or teacher, or pianist. But I do live in this post-modern world, and I celebrate my freedoms, and my life. Had my ancestors stayed in Poland or Romania or Belarus or the Ukraine...there are no guarantees that I would have survived, and the only guarantee is that I wouldn't be who I am now!

On a distantly linked note, I just read Masha Hamilton's The Camel Bookmobile. It's a fictional account of a real-life library bringing literacy to communities in Kenya. It's about the resistance to change that some of the locals have, despite their poverty, because the old ways have worked for so long, and how can books share wisdom that the tribal elders can't? It's also about the counter-resistance in those mothers and teachers and teenagers who know that the tiredland isn't giving as much as it once gave, and that knowing how to read like the people in the Distant City will empower the community for the future. It's about the relationships and the interactions among community members, and between the American librarian and the townsfolk. Just like in Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea, a crucial message is that we have much to learn from the distant cultures, just as they have much to learn from us.

I'm glad that I have read a lot about the shtetl, the old culture of some of my family. I'm glad I've interviewed my grandmother and my great-uncle about any family tales about the old dry-good store in New York, or the jewelry world in Amsterdam . There were so many question marks in their memories, and now there are so many questions in my own world. But I know that I value learning about other people's ways, and appreciating my ways (while being open to change and cultural bridges.)

Thank you, authors, for sharing different worlds with me.

Thank you, my ancestors, for bringing me to this world where I can learn about many different lifestyles.