Jewish Prague

Prague's Jewish Quarter in Old Town is special because the city wasn't destroyed during World War II, and the Nazis chose to preserve it to serve as a museum about the "extinct race" after their victory. I knew this much before my trip here, but I had no idea what any of that meant about the Jewish community here now.

Apparently Prague was 10% Jewish before the war, and now there are somewhere around 3,000 Jews (out of 1.3 million residents). So the community is extremely small, and there are 4 rabbis in the entire country. Last week, on my first full day here, we went to the only conservative service in the city (and I think the country), which was held in a meeting room in the "Jewish Town Hall" which is like a JCC.

The service itself was nothing like I expected, mostly because it was held in this room but also because the rabbi is American. It gave me the impression that the Jewish community is coming back thanks to outside help, and not from active Czech Jews. But there is a Jewish "youth" group here, with people from about 21-35, so maybe that's not true.

I was pretty uncomfortable because it was strange praying around a table facing other people, and because while the people from my program were sitting at the table, others kept coming in and awkwardly sitting behind us, and I had no idea who they were. But then, completely out of the blue, a girl from my synagogue in Palo Alto walked in with some friends who are on a vacation from their year in Israel. So that made me feel a little more at home.

This week's Friday night services were completely different. We went to the Old New Synagogue (pictured with overly dramatic light - not my picture), which I was told is the oldest continuously operating synagogue in the world. I guess the Nazis allowed services to continue here as part of the museum, but I'm not sure if that's right. Anyway, it's a really small building, and the bimah (stage) is in the middle, and everyone sits around it. Being there, I felt like I could have been living in any of the last five centuries, because it would have looked and probably felt exactly the same.

There was an old man sitting across from me, and I wondered if he was a Holocaust survivor who had prayed in this synagogue since before the war. I spent a lot of the service (and most of the rabbi's 25 minute sermon, which was translated from Czech into English by a member of the congregation) thinking about what praying here must mean to him.

The only disappointing part of a really amazing service was that women sat in an outer ring of the building, with about 4 ft x 1 ft holes in the wall to watch and listen through. I wish they could have experienced services sitting in the main room. When the holes were added centuries ago, it was actually a progressive idea to even allow women to see what was going on.

After the service, we had dinner in the Jewish Town Hall with the youth group. I was sitting next to a couple of the Czech students in my program, and across from one of the members of the youth group, and we didn't say anything to her for about the first ten minutes. I was scared that I would say something and she wouldn't speak English and I wouldn't know what to do. So I was absolutely stunned when after ten minutes she looked at me and with a perfect British accent said, "So how long have you been here?" She turned about to be a British student studying abroad, so we talked for most of dinner.

After the meal, the Israeli Ambassador to the Czech Republic and a woman who I think is working on public affairs with the embassy here because the Czech Republic currently holds the EU Presidency came to have a conversation with the youth group. The kids from my program stayed, as did that old man who I spent most of services thinking about, and who I found out later escaped East during the war and fought with the Russians. He walked up to the Israeli Ambassador at the beginning, yelling in Yiddish, and then in Czech, but he ambassador said he only spoke English and Hebrew (which makes no sense to me). But anyway, the guy apparently was furious about Israel's actions in Gaza, and he called Israelis "murderers." I still really don't know what to make of this, but it's definitely something I'll continue to think about.

The ambassador himself didn't speak except for answering the last question, so the woman spoke and answered everything else. It was entirely about the Gaza operation. And every single question asked was critical of the operation in some way. The most obvious thing was that Israel was completely confident in the justification, but had not developed a post-operation plan. She even said that this was not Israel's responsibility, but the responsibility of the "international community." The other things I really disagreed with was that one of the goals of the operation was to "reduce Hamas' motivation." I have no idea how this can be accomplished by the operation. She also danced around any question about settlement expansion. Personally, taking military action makes sense to me when you have terrorists firing rockets daily into your country, but I think Israel really underestimated the global reaction. I asked about the Turkish Prime Minister who stormed out of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week after ranting about the Gaza operation, and how Israel planned to deal with this rift with countries who they consider to be allies. She said Israel was very surprised about the incident, and it seemed pretty clear that they didn't have a response.

Also, on Monday the Jewish Studies track went on a tour of the Jewish Quarter. My favorite part was the Spanish Synagogue, because it blew my mind that a synagogue could look like that. I kept having to remind myself that it was a synagogue, not a church. I think this is just because I always see beautiful churches in books and on tv, and I'm not used to seeing synagogues that are artistically remarkable. So this is a picture I got online because they don't allow pictures there.

We also went to the Jewish Cemetery, which was used between the 1400s and 1776. 80,000 people are buried there, and it's hilly because there are up to 12 layers of bodies (creepy!).

Next week we have Friday night services somewhere else, and I'm pretty excited to keep seeing different sides of the very small community here.

As for traveling, my trip to Dresden this weekend isn't happening. Apparently train prices go way up right before the day of departure, so we'll have to plan that one in advance next time. But I'm going to Milan and Venice with my entire apartment in 2 weeks! And this Thursday we're going to a sold-out Czech Republic vs. Finland hockey game, and Jaromir Jagr may be playing for the Czechs.

No Cream, Prosim!!

Hello!!

I was pretty hesitant to start a blog before my European adventure began, because I didn't think I'd have enough to write about. But after about 20 minutes on this continent, I was ready to start a blog.

It all started when the clouds finally parted over Cologne on the flight into Frankfurt (a few hours after my first legal drink! courtesy of Lufthansa). Now I've never been to Europe before (excluding a 5-hour layover in Amsterdam). So I have always thought of Europe as a place I learned about in school, but not one that exists in the present reality. I noticed a few things when I finally got to see the land below... Nothing is straight here. I'm used to seeing identical houses from the air, on blocks with 90° angles, and neat square/circle farms. But I quickly saw that every house was different, the streets made no sense, and the land was sliced randomly and beautifully. I also was really surprised that the first thing that came to mind when I saw Germany from the air was... this is where the Holocaust happened. It hadn't been on my mind much during the flight over, but as soon as I looked down and saw some forests, it haunted me a bit.

Oh and before I forget, the Frankfurt Airport would not be worth mentioning had I not found this incredible post-Inauguration newspaper there.

Praha began with a bang, quite literally. Our plane kinda dropped on the ground suddenly, and I think that it was meant to tell me, "Wake up, YOU'RE IN PRAGUE!" Oh and if you ever fly into the Czech Republic, you may have to be worried about the landings, but you definitely do not have to worry about customs because... they don't check anything, they just wave you through.

My apartment here is crazy nice. My program furnished the whole thing with Ikea, so it has a really modern feel. I'm living in a double, and then there is a triple of girls on the other side of the living room, and all four of my roommates are pretty awesome. Unfortunately, in just the first four days our outlets stopped working, then our fridge stopped working, and then our water stopped running. But all of those things are back up, so all we need is wireless internet, which we've been stealing from a great café below us. All of the apartments in my program are spread out, ranging from 3 minutes from our center where classes are (my apartment) to a few subway stops away, so I really lucked out. This is a picture of the living room...

My favorite point in Prague thus far is at one end of Wenceslas Square (pictured), which is more of a huge avenue here that we live near. I was just standing with friends looking down the avenue toward the National Museum, and then looked around in a circle, and all I could see where cobblestone roads and beautiful buildings (not that these are rare here). Walking around has been my favorite part so far. The Old Town looks like a bunch of fake facades at an amusement park or something in Vegas, but it's all real!! Which really boggles my mind. There've also been some really strange walks, like exploring an area that was created in 1348 while hearing Alanis Morissette sing "Ironic" (every store/restaurant plays American pop music). Another incredible walk was the first day it rained, when the stone streets were wet and shiny, and everyone had their umbrella, and it just really looked like one of those impressionist paintings in Paris in the 1870s, I wish I'd taken a picture.

My program so far has been orientation and Czech language (we start classes next week). We've had general, academic, and city orientations, and the city has been by far the best. It was a day-long scavenger hunt around the city in teams of 9, and we won (it was kind of amazing race-like)! On the hunt, I developed a reputation as a planner (shocking, I know), so we'll see how many things I end up planning this semester. It was a lot of fun to find places both known and unknown, but I really wish Bohemia Bagel hadn't put bacon and egg on my pastrami sandwich. Which reminds me about the title of this post... everything here comes with "cream." No one really knows what it is, but I try to avoid having it with meat, since it's definitely dairy. But every time I try to order something without cream, I get really strange looks from waiters/waitresses, so I've stopped asking (Prosim means excuse me, or really anything else you want it to mean, it's utility phrase). The food service here is also often reaaaaaaally slow, I've had a couple 3+ hour dinners.

I'm sorry this post is so long, I promise the rest will be shorter because I won't have so many days to cover! But the near future should be really exciting. I'm probably going to Dresden, just across the border in Germany, for a day trip on Saturday with a bunch of people from my program. It'll be nice to go see somewhere else after touring Prague for a week and a half, although I'm really excited to start exploring less touristy parts of the city (although there are very few tourists here in January). And then for our first free weekend in February (my program has lots of planned activities on weekends), we might go to Milan and Venice!! But this remains to be seen, as my planned adventures can change pretty dramatically any minute.

Thanks for reading! I hope you're all doing well, and if you're anywhere but California, I hope you're managing with the super cold weather again!