At the death of a kosher store

Situated in the Western side of Berlin, Schalom used to be one of the oldest kosher store in the city, created after the war as a family business. I discovered it on Sybelstrasse, close to Adenauerstrasse metro station, shortly after moving in the city, and for a long time it was my only source of kosher food. There were not too many at the time, with another one, bigger, but much expensier, close to the KaDeWe, closed one year ago because of the debts accumulated. 

Schalom was small, with very few products, but it had meat, which was a high commodity at the time. For Pesach, they used to have some gorgeous crunchy French matza that made me come back year after year, although I was already won over by other kosher options. It also used to be a source of information for various Jewish things going on in the city. I omitted to mention 'reliable' on purpose, because as the financial situation of the store was getting a bit worse, the information offered generously to the visitor was sometimes too much and not always friendly.

The other kosher options created, especially in the close neighbourhood, were killing the store. Bigger variety, better prices, neutral service, more space...The customers were more or less the same everywhere, but they were becoming people more interested in having at least once the week a full kosher meal as they had in Israel or America. When the overall prices of food are so cheap in Berlin, to convince non-religious people to buy kosher and thus, twice the usual price, needs a lot of persuasion. And even the religious families will prefer to save some money buying from a more convenient store, guaranteed that the kosher conditions are meet. Nowadays, you can find meat  with different hechshers accomodating various religious options and although Berlin is far way from the kosher richness of England it is much easier to survive Pesach or to prepare a fine family kosher dinner.

Meanwhile, Schalom store was sold shortly after Pesach, the space being probably used for an art gallery. It is over now, and a chapter is closed. This is the way of things. 

Brit mila in Germany

If this blog was silent for a long time, there is a motivation and it has to do with the mental and physical challenges before welcoming a new baby to the world. The baby b''H arrived, a bit later than expected, but shortly after Kol Nidre. After the happiness of becoming the new boy neshama to the world, second in line were the worries about preparing him for the challenges of being a Jew.

The first step: brit mila.When you are living in Israel or in big communities, finding a right mohel, being sure that there is a synagogue where to go, inviting people in due time etc. As brits do not have a high occurence here, due to the limited number of new Jewish children born, I considered that it is very important to find a mohel with the proper medical knowledge besides the religious background. Another challenge that needed a bit of research and a lot of phone calls (if interested to find a recommended mohel in Berlin area, do not hesitate to get in touch via the blog).

According to the halacha, the brit should be done the 8th day after birth, including on Shabbat or yom tov. The problem appears when the kid had a small infection and you need to overstay in hospital and thus, to miss the deadline. Normally, the brit can be done any time after and if it was delayed once, it does not matter when it is done. However, the sooner the better, so the search continued with high intensity after being out of hospital with the baby. 

As we tried to follow both the tradition and the medical requirements, asking doctors if the child is good enough to go through the brit was normal. Less normal was to agreee with the message read on the faces of the non-Jewish doctors when explained that we are questioning the medical condition of our son because we want to make the brit: from pity to disgust. This explains the support of some German medical representatives after the 2012 court decision Cologne according to which brit was considered "a serious and irreversible interference in the integrity of the human body", not justified by the freedom of religion and the rights of parents. One prestigious chief doctor in a very respectable hospital in Berlin outlined during a short discussion that the opinions against the brit are not necessarily a German trademark. Of course, as history showed it already on several occasions, forbiding the brit is a trademark of anti-Semitism across centuries. 

The less expected answer come from a hospital that we initially considered as a possible support during our search where we were told that the brit is done there only till the 18th day and that only after 3 years. The more we asked the more we realized how pitiful we are for being away from the place when you do not have to explain why your kid does not have yet a name and why it is so important to have the brit done. A place where being Jewish is enough.

Looking for the lost tribes

It is time for starting the spiritual preparation for Shabbes, after another difficult week which showed how powerful our tormentors can be.
I am fascinated by the histories of various Jewish groups sparsed from all over the world and I had the pleasure to read and watched two interesting documentaries:
- one about the lost Jewish cemetery in Karachi, Pakistan
- and another about the Jewish identity in Burma (Myanmar)
Indeed, you can find us in the four corners of the world, but maybe it is about time to return home, one by one...

Who We Are: Identity and Words

Being Jewish is so important for the identity of a writer? Or it is rather a kind of secret obligation to address exclusively and preponderantly Jewish issues in their books? Or it is simply impossible to go out of your cultural background when writing, although the issues addressed doesn't deal necessarily with identity matters?

The collection of articles edited by Derek Rubin and authored by various writers - more or less famous, more or less known beyond the boundaries of the Jewish culture, or simply more or less interesting - isn't offering the universal solution but various faces of various interpretations of their Jewish identity.

What do I think about this issue? Expressing your identity is a creative choice. Nobody force you to do so, but you will be able to convince your reader when your words are reflecting a specific reality reorganized in a new way or outlining completely new corners. You will write better about what do you know better. As Isaac Bashevis Singer said: "Every writer needs to have an address".

I liked a lot the cover of the book (see image) and I was happy to discover new names and works that I already included on my reading list for the next days - and mostly nights.

Following, there are some quotes from some of the authors:

Saul Bellow: "I am often described as a Jewish writer; in much the same way one might be called a Samoan astronomer or an Eskimo cellist or a Zulu Gainsborough expert". (p.5)

Cynthia Ozick: "A Jewish book is liturgy, ethics, philosophy, ontology. A Jewish book speaks of the attempt to create a world in the image of G-d while never presuming to image G-d". (p.19)

Chaim Potok: "You can grow up along the periphery of your subculture and enter the rich heart of Western secular humanism - say, be going to university, the generating plant of Western secular civilization (...) You can grow up along the periphery of your subculture and experience only the periphery of Western civilization". (p.31)

E.L.Doctorow: "Of course the writer's background, religion, tradition, nationality, lived life is crucially directive as to what she writes about whom and where...but as a reader I find quite beside the point that Garcia Marques is Catholic from Columbia - or Jane Austin is an Anglican from Britain, as instrumental as their culture may have been in forming them". (p. 38)

Philip Roth: "The test of any literary works is not how broad is its range of representation - for all that breadth may be characteristic of a kind of narrative - but the depth with which the writer reveals weather he has chosen to represent". (p. 49)

Leslie Epstein: "I believe that the return to Israel, the sensation of being immersed in Jews and Judaism must have represented in some sense a return to my own past and not just to that of my coreligionists". (p. 70)

Erica Jong: "By writing, we reinvent ourselves. By writing, we create pedigrees". (p. 99)

Jonathan Wilson: "A Jew can never really be English: it's as simple as that". (p. 157)

Melvin Jules Bukiet: "No one - not a German and not a Jew - who isn't a child of survivors can begin to understand the bottomless depth of rage inside those born into the Khurbn. No one can understand how we can hold collectively guilty not only the octogenarian perpetrators but the rest of the nation that saw nothing for the twelve-year reign of the Thousand-Year Reich, and their children and their children's children and the yet unborn tainted by their German blood". (p. 173)

Nessa Rapaport: "The moment I noticed our sacred texts flowing through me without cease was the moment I became a Jewish writer". (p. 177)

Lev Raphael: "My writing is deeply Jewish not just in subject matter, but in its sense of urgency to break every constricting silence. The refusal to accept silence and marginalization, the importance of speaking for ourselves, of telling stories, have been recurring themes of my fiction and essays". (p.200)

Binnie Kirshenhaum: "We're attaching ourselves to the world of our grandparents". (p. 225)

Thane Rosenbaum: "I am a post-Holocaust novelist, which means that I rely on my imagination - my capacity to reinvent worlds and reveal emotional truths in order to speak to the Holocaust and its aftermath, one generation removed from Auschwitz". (p. 244-245)

Jonathan Rosen: "The Talmud tells us that in the womb we all study and master the Talmud, but that at birth an angel touches us and we forget everything we've learned". (p. 253)

Allegra Goodman: "I have come to think that a writer cannot have enough labels if they are keys to new audiences, if they are combined and subverted imaginatively. I work with as many as I can - Jewish writer, woman writer, Generation X. Each provides a different opportunity". (p. 268)

Rachel Kadish: "I grew up with two paths stretched before me: the life I would live in the United States and the life I would live if I had to flee". (p. 286)

Tova Mirvis: "I do some of my best writing in shul. Not with pen and paper, not with my computer, all of which are forbidden on the Sabbath, but in my head. What moves me to write is the gap created in shul, the contrast between worlds: the public and the personal, the holy and the prosaic". (p. 300)

Dara Horn: "Jewish literature is a contemporary commentary on ancient Jewish texts". (p. 315)

Yael Goldstein: "As my favorite works of literature, the stories of the Bible had always functioned as the standard of depth and largeness I longed to reach when I wrote". (p. 329)

Good signs for the Jewish life in Croatia

Little by little, from a person to another, the personal example is very important for making a difference and creating leadership. Very often, we know a lot about the past, but nothing about the present and the future. I don't know too much about the present of the Croatian Jewish community, but this article gave me the hope that the Jews there have a future.

Counting the rockets

Over hundred rockets were hit into Southern Israel from Gaza in the last three days. A man was killed, many injured. They are hitting schools, synagogues, public spaces. The rockets are continue to fall. I rhetorically wonder ever and ever again: how will US or France or Germany react when faced with this daily reality - because we don't have to forget Sderot where rockets are part of the "normality"? Would they apologize and be sorry for defending their citizens?

Egypt is pressing Israel to apologize and apologize and investigate the death of five security personnel. The fact that Egypt wasn't able to defend its borders and to prevent the infiltration of terrorist isn't a reality deem of the high attention of the media and its analysts of all colors. Another strange thing happened at the UN, where the Security Council failed to condemn the attack from Eilat because the proud member Lebanon who's almost a feud of the Iran-sponsored Hizbollah opposed.

There are many questions to be asked, of course. One regards the famous almost invisible Hasbara. But I'm afraid that now it's too late. You can't build in times of crisis but to use the symbolic resources built in between crisis. It was a well-known reality that close to September and there after we should expect various difficult situations and attacks of all sorts. It wasn't any surprise at all. A surprise would be a unite and coherent answer from the mishpacha. Now, I couldn't care less who did you vote with at the last elections, where are you coming from, how many books did you read or if you are secular or religious. It's more important to act together and nothing else.

The good news from the South is that the Eilat Red Sea International Jazz Festival will be held as scheduled, although some artists cancelled their presence. Somehow, we can dream about a certain normality.

In the North, business as usual, for the moment. People are going out, enjoying the life and falling in love.

Exploring the sense of Gaon

Image via Wikipedia//Painting of the Vilna Gaon

The term means honorable sage (גאון, גאונים) and was given to the heads of the two Babylonian academies of Sura and Pumbedita. There are no data whatever to show when the title "gaon" originated. Sherira, who is the source for the exact sequence of the Geonim, apparently considers "gaon" an ancient title of the head of the academy, for he says that the Amora Ashi was gaon at Mata Meḥasya (Sura). But Sherira himself begins to use the title consistently only toward the close of the sixth century, "at the end of the Persian rule," when the schools of Sura and Pumbedita resumed their parallel activity after a period of interruption. One is justified, therefore, in assigning to that date the beginning of the period of the Geonim—all the more so as the period of the Saboraim cannot be extended down to the year 689, as Abraham ibn Daud assumes in his historical work, "Sefer ha-Ḳabbalah." According to an old, well-authenticated statement, 'Ena and Simuna, who flourished in the first third of the sixth century, were the last saboraim. The interval between this date and that of the reopening of the schools referred to above, may be included in the period of the Saboraim, and the period of the Geonim may be said to begin with the year 589, when Mar Rab Ḥanan of Isḳiya became gaon of Pumbedita. The first gaon of Sura, according to Sherira, was Mar Rab Mar, who assumed office in 609. The last gaon of Sura was Samuel b. Ḥofni, who died in 1034; the last gaon of Pumbedita was Hai, who died in 1038; hence the activity of the Geonim covers a period of nearly 450 years.

Functions

The Geonim officiated, in the first place, as directors of the academies, continuing as such the educational activity of the Amoraim and Saboraim. For while the Amoraim, through their interpretation of the Mishnah, gave rise to the Talmud, and while the Saboraim definitively edited it, the Geonim's task was to interpret it; for them it became the subject of study and instruction, and they gave religio-legal decisions in agreement with its teachings.

As the academies of Sura and Pumbedita were also invested with judicial authority, the gaon officiated at the same time as supreme judge. The organization of the Babylonian academies recalled the ancient sanhedrin. In many responsa of the Geonim, members of the schools are mentioned who belonged to the "great sanhedrin," and others who belonged to the "small sanhedrin." As may be gathered from the statements of Nathan ha-Babli (tenth century), and from various references in the geonic responsa, the following customs connected with the organization of the academies were observed in the two "kallah" months, Adar and Elul, during which (as in the time of the Amoraim) foreign students assembled in the academy for common study. In front of the presiding gaon and facing him were seated seventy members of the academy in seven rows of ten persons each, each person in the seat assigned to him, and the whole forming, with the gaon, the so-called "great sanhedrin." Gaon Amram calls them in a responsum ("Responsa der Geonim," ed. Lyck, No. 65) the "ordained scholars who take the place of the great sanhedrin."

During the kallah which took place in the month of Adar the gaon laid before the assembly every day a certain number of the questions that had been sent in during the year from all parts of the Diaspora. The requisite answers were discussed, and were finally recorded by the secretary of the academy according to the directions of the gaon. At the end of the kallah month the questions, together with the answers, were read to the assembly, and the answers were signed by the gaon. A large number of the geonic responsa originated in this way; but many of them were written by the respective geonim without consulting the kallah assemblies convened in the spring.

Nathan ha-Babli's account, from which the foregoing statements have been taken, refers only to the kallah months. The remaining months of the year passed more quietly at the academies. Many of the members, including those of the college designated as "sanhedrin," lived scattered in the different provinces, and appeared before the gaon only at the time of the kallah. Nathan designates the permanent students of the academy by the Talmudic term "bene be-rab" (sons of the schoolhouse), in contradistinction to the "other students" that gathered at the kallah. These two classes of students numbered together about 400 at the time when Nathan wrote his account (tenth century). When a resh kallah or any other member of the college died and left a son who was worthy to occupy his father's seat, the son inherited it. The students coming to the academy during the kallah months received support from a fund which was maintained by gifts sent to the academy during the year, and which was in charge of a trust-worthy man. The members sitting in the front rows seem to have drawn a salary.

Two courts were connected with each of the two Babylonian academies. The higher court ("bet din gadol") was presided over by the gaon. It appointed the judges for the districts within the jurisdiction of the respective academies, and was empowered to set aside the verdicts of the several judges and to render new ones. The other court belonging to the academy was under the direction of the ab bet din, and judged minor cases.

Judicial Functions

The geonim occasionally transcended the Talmudic laws and issued new decrees. At the time of the gaons Mar R. Huna at Sura and Mar R. Rabba at Pumbedita (c. 670), for instance, the measures taken in relation to a refractory wife were different from those prescribed in the Talmud. Toward 785 the geonim decreed that debts and the ketubah might be levied on the movable property of orphans. Decrees of this kind were issued jointly by both academies; and they also made common cause in the controversy with Ben Meïr regarding a uniform Jewish calendar.

The gaon was generally elected by the academy, although he was occasionally appointed by the exilarch. The gaon was entirely independent of the exilarch, although the geonim of both academies, together with their prominent members, went every year to render homage to the exilarch. The assembly at which this homage took place was called the "great kallah."

The gaon of Sura ranked above the gaon of Pumbedita, and a sort of court etiquette was developed in which this fact found expression. The gaon of Sura sat at the right hand of the exilarch, while the gaon of Pumbedita sat at the left. When both were present at a banquet, the former pronounced the blessing before and after the meal. The gaon of Sura always had precedence, even if he was much younger than his colleague, and, in writing a letter to him, did not refer to him as gaon, but addressed merely "the Scholars of Pumbedita"; the gaon of Pumbedita, on the other hand, addressed his letters to "the Gaon and the Scholars of Sura." During the solemn installation of the exilarch the gaon of Sura read the Targum to the Pentateuch sections which had been read by the exilarch On the death of the exilarch the gaon of Sura had the exclusive claimto his official income until the election of a new exilarch.

The gaon of Sura evidently owed his superior rank to the ancient reputation of the academy over which he presided; for Sura had been the leading academy of the Babylonian Jews during the period of the Amoraim, first under its founder Rab and his pupil Huna (third century), and then under Ashi (d. 427).

But it was Saadia's activity that lent to this academy unusual luster and an epoch-making importance for Jewish science and its literature. Then, after a long period of decadence, another worthy occupant of the office arose in the person of Samuel b. Ḥofni, the last gaon of Sura.

Significance

The importance of the Geonim in Jewish history is due, in the first place, to the fact that for a number of centuries they occupied a unique position as the heads of their respective schools and as the recognized authorities of Judaism. Their influence probably extended chiefly to the Mohammedan countries, especially northern Africa and Spain; but in the course of time the Jews of Christian. Europe also came under the influence of the Babylonian schools. It was for this reason that the Babylonian Talmud came to be recognized as the basis for religio-legal decisions throughout Jewry and as the principal object of study. Even the facilities offered for such study to the Diaspora were due to the Geonim, since the geonic exposition of the Talmud, with regard to both text and contents, was directly or indirectly the chief aid in comprehending the Talmud. The importance of the period of the Geonim for the history of Judaism is further enhanced by the fact that the new Jewish science, which steadily developed side by side with Talmudic studies, was created by a gaon, and that the same gaon, Saadia, effectively opposed the disintegrating influences of Karaism. The activity of the Geonim may be seen most clearly in their responsa, in which they appear as the teachers of the entire Diaspora, covering in their religio-legal decisions a wide field of instruction.

In the course of the tenth century, however, even before the Babylonian schools ceased with the death of the last gaon, other centers arose in the West from which went forth the teachings and decisions which superseded those of the Geonim. The fixed gifts which the Jews of Spain, the Maghreb, North Africa, Egypt, and Palestine had contributed to the support of the Babylonian schools were discontinued long before and the decadence of these schools was hastened thereby as much as by the internal conflicts to which they were subjected.

Sources:

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=68&letter=G&search=geon

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/115539/jewish/The-Age-of-Scholarship.htm

Something about Responsa

In rabbinic literature, Responsa are known as She'elot ve-Teshuvot (שאלות ותשובות "questions and answers") and comprise the body of written decisions and rulings given by poskim ("decisors of Jewish law"). The responsa constitute a special class of rabbinic literature, to be distinguished from the commentaries (meforshim)—devoted to the exegesis of the Tanakh, the Mishnah, the Talmud—and from the codes of law which delineate the rules for ordinary incidents of life.

The responsa literature covers a period of 1,700 years—the mode, style and subject matter have changed as a function of the travels of the Jewish people and of the development of other halakhic literature, particularly the codes. Responsa contain valuable information about the culture of the Jews and the people among whom they lived. Information may also be gleaned about the moral and social relations of the times, occupations, the household, customs, expressions of joy and of sorrow, and recreations and even games. Older responsa are also important for readings and emendations of the Mishnah and the Talmud.

This category plays a particularly important role in Jewish law. The questions forwarded are usually practical, and often concerned with new contingencies for which no provision has been made in the codes of law, and the responsa thus supplement the codes. They therefore function as a source of law, almost as legal precedent, in that they are consulted by later decisors in their rulings; they are also, in turn, incorporated into subsequent codes.

In addition to requests for Halakhic rulings, many of the questions addressed were theoretical in character, particularly amongst the earlier responsa. The responsa accordingly contain rulings on ethics, business ethics, the philosophy of religion, astronomy, mathematics, history, geography, as well as interpretations of passages in the Tanakh, the Mishnah, the Talmud and the Midrash. Thus, while early Jewish literature has few historical works, many notes on the history of Judaism have been introduced into the responsa.

Sources:

Bar Ilan University Responsa - http://www.biu.ac.il/jh/Responsa/

The Jewish Encyclopedia http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=576&letter=S

Purim is here! Ready?

Times changed, by the enemies are still here.

Hope you will cook some tasty meals and will be ready for some extravagant cocktails.

Hag Purim Samech!

A freilichen Purim!

Related articles

• No Purim whisky for Yeshivah boys (thejc.com)
• Ayal has Monopoly on Purim costume (thejc.com)
• Why Purim is more than a story of us and them (thejc.com)

Jews in Damascus

Fighting for survival.

Reconnecting with the recent past

NYT: A Ukrainian immigrant reconnects with its roots, a life story.

True cartoon confessions

18 Jewish women and their memories, in San Francisco.

Time for a new conversation

Waiting for the next steps of the dialogue.

A failure

or a different context?

By aiming to address this complicate and complex issue of "Jewish establishment", the risks of simplification are huge. And not avoided in this article.

In Judaism, you do not have a central-authoritative authority from the organisational point of view. It is availble from the religious point of view, where almost each community is having its own traditions and culture. No difference regarding the communities from North America.

In the same time, the gap between the conceptual ideas regarding many issues - including the settlements - and the reality - pressures and dangers - from the ground is getting bigger. Unclear to know what will prevail.

Will Bar Refaeli answer?

to this request to do not marry Leonardo di Caprio?
What's wrong with Leo?