I try to understand this world

I am ashamed of seeing people gloating, and counting points like in a game, each time that a human being is leaving the earth.
War is not a video game!

What happened to think that a human life is worth the price of a peanut?

I don't talk about self-defense, but about this few extremist people from both sides.

They don't understand, especially the extremist Jews, that they work on and feed the hatred of their people in the entire world.
I am not going to post the links of the videos that i have seen, asking for the death of respectable Palestinians, working and having been elected at the Knesset.
I refuse publicity for these people who are totally insane.

I am tired of running to my bathroom like a sick pregnant woman. It has to stop!

We are not the chosen people, as i learned it lately, but the choosing people.
Hashem offered the Book to other people who refused it. The Jews accepted it with all the commandments.
I think that you know the joke about the acceptance of the book by the Jews, with the good news and the bad news by Moses. I like this joke.

I try to understand with my little knowledge of the Torah and Quran, why these people have so much hatred in their heart.
Why some educated people can think of massacres and slaughters of all the Palestinians like a final solution?

I read a lot about the holocaust since i am a teenager, despite some interdictions of my mother who knew that i will burst into tears.
I tried to understand the Nazis's brain.
Why so many people can follow an extremist wave without understanding what it was to kill a Jew, a human being?

Hitler was in a total contradiction: the Jews were working for a better German economy, and he found them useless in the same time.
Hitler wanted a strong Germany. He was very hurt by the defeat of the WWI, and Austria needed to be a part of Germany.
I summarize, but Hitler was a man full of anger and hatred. He didn't have the Jews in mind till he met some people who pointed the focus on the Jews.
Human beings need scape goats: Jews, handicapped people, bohemians and homosexuals. Those were the ones of Hitler.

I found some answers in the book of Jonathan Littel whose i already talked about. Written in French  by a Jewish young American man, based on the life of a Belgian Nazi man. Very well written, and historically very well-documented.

My breakfast book that i am reading to breath and to understand, is Judaism for Idiots by rabbi Benjamin Blech.
We say that the history is repeating all the time, that's true. The destruction of the first and second temple is because of us, Jewish human beings for not having respecting two commandments.
And look at what it's going on!
What's next? Holocaust: done
How will you call this war which is taking place right now?

I don't know if we are aware of the consequences for the next future.
Look at Europe, and this hatred against Jews.
Concerning my country, we have to be more cautious about what i heard from Americans or other people who don't live in France. Never talk in broader terms.
France decided to forbid any protest for the Palestinians. The first reason is that there are people from the suburbs of Paris who live for anarchy.
I know these people, and how to talk to them. They are what they call in England: hooligans. Most of them are from North Africa, and born in France. Their parents don't care about them. They deserted school early in age, therefore they are not able to read and write correctly.
I don't blame them, but i don't encourage their behavior and acts. They are in the age to understand things, and to take responsibilities of their life.
I have always been gentle with them, and they were glad that i didn't reject them.
They are muslims but they don't know what it means as they don't know what it is to be Jewish either.
You have other people who are against the Jews by principle, brainwashed by their friends, the islamist intellectuals. These ones are dangerous, knowing how to indoctrinate, manipulate and flatter the ego of these lost souls, and to make them more confident.
I read lately that Europe has opened a sort of rehab centers to help these people who are in terrorist cults to let them understand where their life will end if they stay in the cult: death. They can change their destiny if they want.

And if we are the choosing people, why forget the Book?

Yesterday a Jewish friend made a joke about the Hamas: "Hamas means Hummus".
I replied to him: "Hummus is good, Hamas is bad!"

With my Jewish friend of 65 years old, we decided to go and breath at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and we bumped into this old Hasidic couple, arm in arm. Can you believe that? I smiled at them. They were surprised. I wanted to hug them so much.
She too hates this war, and she used to live in Israel. She was there during a war. She had to get out of the bus many times, when rockets were sent to Israel.
I enjoy walking in this garden, you can see Muslims, and Hasidim, and not to feel hatred between them. They are there for the nature, that's it.

Lovely holy Hasidic couple, BBG, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

Can we see more pictures like that?

screen shot on Instagram, ©all rights reserved

Movies: "Inch'Allah" and "Bethlehem"

I stopped watching news, 
I stopped reading articles,
I stopped reading posts by friends, relatives, etc
about
what's going on in Israel and Gaza.

Everyone is telling his/her own story that it's not the entire truth. 
The medias, and people are creating something that i will call 'a new naivety': you have to believe someone who posts a video, someone who lives there, someone who is a journalist who has a good reputation…

I hate sensationalism. 

I keep in mind what i learned lately:
-"Only one person was originally created for the sake of peace among human beings, so that no man should be able to say to his fellow man, 'My father is greater than your father.'" _ The Talmud
- "Kill a person and you cut off a future world. Save one person and you are responsible for saving an entire world. … We all come from common parentage." _Rabbi Benjamin Blech

I prefer to watch movies for my mental health.
- Inch'Allah by Anais Barbeau-Lavalette
The trailer summarizes perfectly what the movie is talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53XLPquQD6Q
I watched it before the war, and i loved it. 
I am not going to talk about the conflict but the responsibility of the doctors they have in war conflicts. What are they supposed to do when an injured terrorist comes to the hospital?
What is the duty of a doctor: to save him or to let him die for all the crimes he has committed? 

In France, the question is not asked, because everyone has to be rescued. 
Life is more important that the past of this person.
That's a human crime to leave someone die on the sidewalk. You can go to jail. It's called non assistance to a person in danger. There is a duty to rescue. 
The question is asked in this movie but the answer is surrounded with so much hatred and anger from both sides. 
In 2004, i was in Israel when Arafat just left to France to go to the hospital. 
That too was the ramadan, and the election for the second time of George W. Bush. I felt the tensions, i heard some shots, but the Israelis live with that since many years. It became a daily grind. My Israeli friends who live there are fine, therefore you follow the flow of their lives, when you visit them. 
I watched videos of Israeli soldiers who were dancing and partying. That's the Jewish mind that i love so much: a sort of strength. 
I asked some friends why the existence of the Jews (16 millions in the whole world) bother so many people. One answer caught my attention: "The answer is solidarity, love, family, work… and we love life whatever happens, we want to stay alive, and we will stay alive! Life is our motor. Very simple thing: we believe in tomorrow."
I understood one thing through my experiences of life: people can't stand to see the others happy. People gloat to see people miserable.

- Bethlehem by Yuval Adler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeloTZdv0K8
The filmmaker worked three years on the script for this movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlehem_(film)
I don't forget that it's a movie, so a fiction. 
The relationship between Razi and the young Sanfur is interesting by asking another question: between affection, attachment and interest, where are the boundaries in this sort of friendship? 
How a relation of trust can be built between 2 so-called enemies?

A French shalom song to end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM2nqwhc1Lg

Night stroll in Crown Heights, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

My first Israeli protest: shalom!

United for Israel at the UN, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

The Palestinian star who blew the shofar, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

A Hasidic man who doesn't forget his neighbors who too are in pain.
Honorable!
July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

A ballet of flags, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein 

Israel on and in my heart, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

Hasidic woman, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

Israeli flag Chinese umbrella, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

United for Israel at the UN, July 2014 ©emmarubinstein

I was a fake agnostic

"To believe in God is to believe that we are known. God sees. Therefore we are seen."_Jonathan Sacks

Slap, punch, ping in my brain. I was lying on my bed during this Shabbos afternoon, reading.
I had to put the book besides me, i could not go further in my reading.
My hand was on my eyes, realizing later that my hand was in the position of the Sh'ma Yisrael prayer.
The answer that i was looking for for years.
During half an hour, all my memories came up: why Hasidim said that i believe in Hashem without being able to give me a good explanation?
I am digging this hole in my brain to understand this attraction to Judaism since my childhood.

I always have been a fake agnostic finally.

I put my right arm on my eyes, and caressed my left shoulder. Yes, i am still alive, and a bomb is exploding in my brain.

When i was a teenager, i heard and listened a lot the inner voice. It helped me to grow up, to take decisions, to think if it was right or wrong. I hear it differently now, and also less often. I thought that it was Hashem. That was not!

You can hide, but there is always someone who sees you, i knew it.
One of my favorite poem has been written by Victor Hugo in La Légende des siècles* (The Legend of Ages), La Conscience* (The Conscience).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Légende_des_siècles

I copy the link of the poem in French:
http://poesie.webnet.fr/lesgrandsclassiques/poemes/victor_hugo/la_conscience.html
I didn't find the English translation, sorry. I didn't check either what Google Translate offers.

Hugo said that 'Conscience is God present in man."
The poem describes the torments of Cain escaping the eye of G-d (the voice of his conscience), after he killed his brother. The action takes place at the dawn of the humanity in a biblical scene of the Old Testament. Hugo uses superlatives, creates situations increasingly tense and violent before the repetitive failure of Cain to silence the voice of his conscience, reminding him the fratricide.
The last verse is sublime: "The eye was in the grave and looked at Cain."
I studied this poem in High School Junior, i read it, reread it many times. I thank this teacher who let me study this poem. That's never easy to please all the students. I haven't been pleased too many times in school. Most of the books were boring.
And at those times, i didn't think Torah. But the Holy Book was already there, in my mind for years through this fascinating poem.

Jonathan Sacks talks about this inner voice that it doesn't compare to Hashem.
He adds that "The moral sense is prior to the religious sense."
That was so good to read that. His open-mindedness and his analyze of the human being's brain are comforting. He doesn't belong to any sects.
Chabad likes him a lot. Chabad is a sect, a group, before being a community.

Last week, i met my Jewish friend, G., who helped me a lot by giving me the book The Letters of Light which was the first revelation on my path of faith and belief in Hashem without being yet aware. Jonathan Sacks was the second step, a huge step.

I have not seen G. for a while. He didn't know about my last revelations, and my choice to go for an Orthodox conversion. He sent me to meet up some rabbis. I experienced, but i didn't find what i was looking for.
He was painting his bathroom. He is ambivert. He was in extravert option, his ego is big but he knows that i know that he hides a deep shyness. I am the same.
I didn't know how to tell him that, now, i was believing in Hashem. But i had to tell him. I like hearing his point of view. He will point out some aspects, and asks me the good questions.
He looked at me astonishingly. "How did this happen? You always told me: "I don't believe in G-d…"". The book of Jonathan Sacks helped me to put words on my feelings, questions, emotions, i replied.
Now, the Orthodox conversion was too much for him to hear.
"I can't hear that right now, that's not the good moment. Let's wait for T. (his girlfriend), and we are going to sit, drink some wine, and be able of having this conversation. I have to paint."
But later, he came back to the conversation and was a little upset that i was shomer, cover my head, and also to mingle with wealthy intellectuals. "You will get married a rabbi and, have 9 children."
No way! I am a 'daughter' of Simone de Beauvoir and the Existentialists.
I enjoy the company of Hasidim of different sects, that's true, but it doesn't mean that i want to be a part of a whole. I am not a follower. I am not a leader either. I don't believe in a collective thought, but in an individual thought.
To be Jewish is not only to be religious for me, but it's to have a moral sense before. I have one, but i could not be entirely Jewish if i didn't believe in Hashem.
It also means that i always felt Hashem without knowing it. But my work just starts because, i have to learn the prayers and to understand them. I dislike to recite a poem without understanding its sense.

That is one of the reasons why i don't post on CL anymore, because i want to meet Hasidim who likes their Hasidic life. On CL, the big majority of them was unhappy, except my king. :-)
To meet them in stores, and to try to have a conversation with them, brings me more than trading emails with all of them who want to get into my pants. :-)
Those ones didn't have morals, and that bothers me a lot! I don't blame the misery, i have my miserable days like everyone! But i stay at home, and i bother no one!

"The most remarkable thing about such people is that they thought there was nothing remarkable in what they did." _Jonathan Sacks.
According to my experience, people who have morals don't brag, but remain humble. I appreciate that a lot! To help others, to keep your promises, to save people has to be something obvious. If you brag or ask for being flattered, it means that there is something wrong with you.

Bragging is the nerve of this city, NY, where i don't feel comfortable for a while. People who talk and promise many thing: do it instead of talking, or shut up!
My refuge is in the different Hasidic communities and Jewish readings. That doesn't mean either that there are not people who brag in the Hasidic community. I met a lot like that: pretentious and arrogant.
I don't need these people, but i needed them to understand what i was looking for: humankind in Judaism. I want to meet up Hasidim/Frum/Jewish as Hasidim/Frum/Jewish, and find their humankind before the religion.

T. arrived and we resumed this conversation. G. was not upset, but there was something wrong. He was scared that i become a shomer. I can't be shomer, i like touching and being touched anytime. I am starving of cuddles all the times, so i have a cat. :-)
I can't be a Satmar, Chabad… They will never accept me, because my path is unique and mine. I like thinking on my own. We have all different backgrounds, and we need to adapt ourselves to the Holy Book. Everything is a question of interpretation: i don't think like my neighbor.

Torah has morals that we have to respect. Some are the same that the laws of a society.
I have never seen a country or society which allows murder… I don't talk about country with terrorists government. They don't build a country, but an anarchy.
Some country allows polygamy, except for women. Why is it so unfair for women?
I am not polygamist. :-)

G. was right for one point: i don't feel comfortable to travel on Saturday now. I stay at home or i go for a walk around. I spend time to read.
He showed me all the books good for me, and the ones he likes.
He recommended me the Torah translated by Aryeh Kaplan: the best translation so far for him.
Your thoughts about it?
I already bought his Jewish Meditation.

I was glad to make G. happy. He likes being useful. He is scared of failure. He has a hard time to take risks. I tried to help him, but he ran away, pretending that he was busy, when i asked him for coming by to talk seriously business for him. He is so on track!
He ended this conversation by: "You will keep on writing Hasidic porn", relating to the poetry. That's not porn, but erotic! Perhaps, according to a puritan point of view, it's porn! Ver veys!
I don't like either intellectuals from the high society. They are locked in their thoughts and lives.

When i travel, i like seeing cultures different from mine, but i also like feeling the culture: i want to see all the beauties of a city. I mean, i go to dangerous areas. I received stones in Warsaw, Belfast, Istanbul… I want to understand why these people are so angry. I don't visit a city like i visit a zoo.
I am doing the same in the hasidic communities. I take the time to talk to these people about their life, and they enjoy talking for most of them.

Street conversation in Williamsburg, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Black hats and herrings in Willy

Back in Willy for a long stroll. I started by a stroll to see the new graffitis along the East River: nothing amazing, and the photos will be for another blog.

Back to the south Willy to say hello to my favorite hirsute men.
A black hats store was on my road, but the door was locked.
The windows are covered with a paper but you can see what's going on inside if you press the head to them. An old man was there, checking my face with his outside camera.
A note in Yiddish was on the door with the number 2:00. I made the conclusion that it will open at 2pm.
After this time, Hasidic men only came, and rang a bell. A Jewish man, not Hasidic, was smoking outside. I asked him if he thought that they will let me in. He said yes, and that i can ring the bell, and i will see if they open the door.
I did it, and the door opened to me this quiet and pious store.
The kind of store where nothing is on display. You come and ask for a Pupa, Viznitz, Satmar, etc… hat, and you leave with your blue box.
The old man came to me. He was unfriendly, but replied to some of my questions. But i felt that i could not have a conversation about the community and his life. I was unwelcome. Some other Hasidim came him, and looked at me astonishingly.
I wanted to see shtreimels, he only sold black hats. I asked him if i could take photos: "No." That was fine, i left.
I would have loved to see the back of the store, and what they do exactly. Do they fix black hats, do they make them here…?

Black hats store, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

At the end on this stroll, i talked with a Hasidic woman. I remembered that i had seen a outside sign for another hats store around Bedford or Lee Avenue, Three years ago.
She was friendly, and asked me for waiting two seconds, she had to pick up her son from the school bus. When i saw her kid, i melted: a ginger head with peyos. I told her that he was very cute. She smiled and said: 'Ginger hair?' She has understood right away my passion for ginger and red heads. She too was wearing a ginger sheitel.
She added: "A shtreimel is very expensive."
"I am not going to buy one, i just want to visit a store of shtreimel."

Sun & fringes/he needs a wife, find him one please, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

There was another Judaica store, locked. The Hasidic man came to open the door.
Another Hasidic man was there too. The store was a real mess. It's small, and smaller because it is divided in two, separated by a folding screen, probably for another mess behind.
Jewish books, kipah, tzizit mixed with kitsch 'secular' gifts made in China.
I started to talk with the owner, asking him if he was Viznitz, according to the height of his hat. He was a Satmar. Hat mess versus store mess, let's go.
I enjoy teasing Hasidim.
"Where is your shtreimel?"
"I don't have one, i am not married."
"What?"
"Hashem!"
"Do you want a Jewish woman? Why aren't you married?" ;-)
"I don't have time, with business."
He was in his early 30s, i think. He needs a woman to tidy up this mess.
The other man, a Pupa one, was older, and asked me why i wanted to know if he was married. How could i know? Only women have this obligation to wear a wedding ring. That's unfair. :-)
The owner wanted to sell me a book absolutely, but which one? The T.o.r.a.h.
I played a game with them: i was the teacher, and asked them to tell me the titles of the five books of Moses: "I don't know them in English."
"Come on, Genesis…"
They were confused, but very stuck to me. The owner was very close to me, and i felt his horniness. He might be virgin. I didn't dare to ask him if he already had a girlfriend.
I wore a shomer shell. He remained very close to me for each Torah that he showed me!
Then, second lesson: "Show me in this book the weekly Torah portion." I got the giggles. The contents were in English and Yiddish. They had a short hard time to find the portion and agreed with it.
"So you don't know, and you study the Torah since you are child?"
They showed me finally the portion. Of course, i don't know it myself, because as you know, i started the Book by the beginning. I bought the Book, a translation of 1962 by the Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia. An old book which smells good!
I wanted him to find a woman, and be less busy by his messy business. :-)
That was not enough for him, he offered me to buy a lamp to read the Torah.
He mentioned many times Hashem as responsible of his destiny. Hashem will decide if he deserves a wife or not. I hope that he already had sex, because, as we say with my mom, that's pretty sad to die without knowing that. :-)

Window, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Grocery store, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Men, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Too much traffic on Lee Avenue, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

I want to visit all the stores in this area. Sometimes, i don't know what they sell because the display in the  windows are not what we can expect. All these windows reminds me my vacations in Poland during three weeks in 1994. Willy is like old times. I have been in dangerous areas, like the Praga market  in Warsaw. With the European Union, this district has changed.
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2008/aug/27/warsaw.poland
But when i was there, i received stones when i was taking photos. I saw an old lady lying on the floor, her head bleeding. Nobody tried to help her. That reminded me that the Polish people were not angels during the WWII. I left, that freaked me out. My cold Lithuanian blood helped me not to show emotions of fear, and i remained quiet. I had a good Jewish star above my head that day. :-)

Windows, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Windows, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

The last store where i have been was the fish market. So beautiful. I was, once again, in Poland.
The salmon was so fresh and beautiful. All these beard-ish salesmen gave me the desire to buy their fish. In a fridge, there were herrings. I love herrings, cooked like rollmops:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollmops
These ones looked like rollmops. An old salesman came to help me, and it was another great moment of misunderstanding of English. I read the ingredients, but i wanted to be sure that they will taste like rollmops.
Rollmops are a part of my childhood. My mom and I have some food adorations in common. We are not going to kill each other, we share, but it's like a sacrifice for both of us not to steal the food of each other. In the pot we used to buy, there always were two rollmops. And we could not find them easily like now.
I asked this salesman what kind of spices it was, if they were like rollmops…? I had to spell r.o.l.l.m.o.p.s. He did not get it! Even spices was hard to understand for him, he replied: "Acid citric."
I gave up with the recipe and the spices, and i took the risk to buy one. He wanted me to buy two.
So, conclusion: they were not pickled, but the taste was the good one, except the ingredient sugar. Why to add sugar to this delicious recipe?  Next time, i will buy the salmon, and asked them to cut it in dices, and i will eat it raw right away. I live too far, and NY summers are too hot for the transportation of fish. That will be another occasion to communicate with these salesmen, and i will try some Yiddish words like sugar, spices, fish, cut in dices.
Good luck to me! :-)

Elegant Hasidic woman, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Man, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Bookstore, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

He punched Mickey the McCarthyist, yeah!, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Man, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Roll, roll the peyos/Good job!, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Men reading, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Conversation under umbrella, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Conversation with a brother, and i touched his foot! (That's an optical illusion),
July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Exile in Crown Heights

To calm me down, i wandered in Crown Heights and, i ended this stroll at the shul 770.
No words, just comments about the photos i post below.

The Jewish Basquiat, where art thou? I want to curate you, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

A menorah always warms my heart up, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein 

Hi!, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Amongst…, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Same fringes, same waltz, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Crown Heights's diversity: Caribbean versus Hasidim: it's oh so quiet!, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Fringes trotinette* (*scooter), July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Window, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein 

Hasidic lady, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Window, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein 

Cute old Hasidic man, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Hasidic homeless, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Book at 770, love the cover, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Pushka, love boxes, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein 

Before falling asleep, she asked me for charity,
explained me the papers at the door behind her (for the Ohel),
tried to find someone to invite me for a Shabbos meal,
and finally invited me in her place next Friday,
July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Study with a plate of red hearts design, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Lonesome glasses, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Relaxing study, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein 

Black hats obsession, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Black hats interaction with a pole, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein 

Big black hat is watching you, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Telepathy between black hats, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Charity, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein

Relaxing lady, July 2014, ©emmarubinstein