Short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer

The world of a Jewish boy, born in Poland in 1904.
He is a survivor, and wrote stories about his childhood in A Day of Pleasure.

His parents are pious, and you see that at his young age, he is very mature and determined. Determined as he knows what he wants or what he doesn't want. I like that kind of people. The ones who change their mind every second drive me nuts.

Old city, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

I enjoy reading his book like if i was a child reading a fairytale or a story before sleeping.

How was the Hasidut before the war? That seems so easy to live in Eastern Europe. They seem so well integrated to the society of that time. We know that it's not true indeed.
In one of the short stories, Reb Ichele and Shprintza, we met the first Hasidic rebel. He is the son of this couple, he shaved his beard and he cut his peyos. They don't reject him. He is sat with them at the Sabbath meal before joining his girlfriend to go and watch a movie. Their youngest son is a rebel too. He doesn't want to wear sidelocks.
One of my teacher said that when you have not been raised with no religious education, you will wonder who you are at a moment of your life. I felt concerned. But i am not sure that everyone is concerned.
I think that it depends on your priorities in life.

I have a friend from my childhood. His father was Jewish and his mother is not. Both are Americans and live in France since 30-40 years. His dad died when he was 4 or 5 years old.
I was his babysitter. He had a brother who died in a bicycle accident when he was 18 years old. That was one of a big drama in my life. We were all close when we were toddlers. We belonged to a group where there were many different couples from different backgrounds, religions, etc. I spent so many funny times with them.
Some died or took a distance because of the dramas of life.

Mea She'arim, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

That little boy grew up, and the distance between us came naturally. I have been to his wedding. And i felt sorry. His wife said something that i didn't appreciate: she was bothered that the father of my friend was a Jew. Ouch! She has been raised Catholic. I don't like her family either.
But i respect the choice of my friend.
So far, i never heard that he had an identity crisis about his father's roots.
We grew up, and our priorities were completely different.
When he was a child, he already was into money. That was a sort of obsession for him.
And it still is, and it's worse. And his wife's family is the perfect match for his obsession. They always advise how and where to invest.

We are far from close now. His mother had repetitive cancers, and he is not nice with her.
At his wedding, there was no homage to his brother. I was shocked.
I was bored at his wedding. I went to bed early after the meal.
I don't blame that people need money, but i think that there is a limit of greediness.
He is a surgeon, she is a doctor, they have 4 children. They have a lot of money, but it's never enough.
Can we say that the greediness of money makes you blind about who you are, or is it too judgmental?

I cut friends out of my life who had the same obsession.
I can't check my bank account 5 times a day like them.

We live in a different world.

The deal during Shabbos was to have hot water. People went to the store of the Reb. They don't bring money because you can't carry money on Shabbos.
The question of Moshiach is asked, and the reply is: when the Messiah will come, there will be a continual Shabbos.
But how to cook? We won't need it because it will be the Paradise. That makes me dream. :-)

Old city, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

The last thing in this short story, is the introduction of a Jewish Eunuch: "This man was a great enigma to me, a man who grew no beard. What could be odder than a beardless Jew?"
For me, that too was an enigma.
Thus, i googled "Jewish Eunuch" and i found something about a prophet called Daniel. That's the name of my father.
I always thought that there is something oversize, divine, (un)conscious which inspired the mind of our parents when they gave us our name. A name can be a weight or not, for all your life.

One of my childhood friends had a compound name. We lost contact when we were 15, and found on FB, when i was still in Brooklyn. We were very close, and the years split away when we met up. Nothing had changed.
We can talk about anything. The advantages are that we know the woes of each other.
She encountered a duality with her name, and made the choice to abandon one of them.
A friend of her who is interested in that subject told her that morphologically, her body is divided according to her compound name.

An Eunuch means  to be a man who has been castrated. And the following expression about someone who has no guts, that means, vulgarly, that he has no balls.
I was stunned that the name of my father suits him perfectly. He was the slave of his very dominant mother. He still remained closed in that position since she passed away: a lost cause.
That's terrible to hear that it's a name of a prophet and a Eunuch, because the image of the prophet is someone who makes things change with the divine will and help.
The birth of my father was a miracle for my grand-mother. She had a hard time to have children.

In the short story, the Eunuch was a sort of schizophrenic man.
I love the conclusion of the story by this little boy: "Eunuch or not, sane or insane, a Jew is a Jew."

Funeral at Mount of Olives, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

Three French movies

- The Other Son by Lorraine Lévy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Xk7_Jk0TA

Two babies have been switched at birth during an attack in Haifa. Blood test of Rhesus will make them find out the truth.

One baby is Israeli, the other one is Palestinian: two identity crisis as a nation and as a religion.
What makes this movie great is the choice of good actors.
The story might sound like a cliché, but the filmmaker and screenwriter found out an exit to this drama.
They chose not to go into a huge drama, i mean, a drama with physical violence. They chose the side of the discover of the others, the curiosity of their reciprocal life..
The cliché that the Palestinian family is poor, yes, they are poor but they try to get a better life. Their "Jewish" son studies in France and wants to be a doctor.
The "Muslim" son is a dreamer, and wants to be a musician.
The identity crisis has multiple faces: the meeting with the rabbi who tells him that he is not a Jew but he can become one. He is 18 and had his bar mitzvah.
No meeting with the imam but the meeting with the hatred of his brother against the Jew. The forgetting of being a human being with who he shares 18 years of his life.

- Dans la Vie* by Philippe Faucon (*In Life)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eir_Gtedh6I
A movie against the clichés about Muslim and Jewish French communities which can't stand each other.
Don't forget that many Sefardi have a common past and souvenirs of old times in North African countries.
That doesn't mean that there are no issues.
In this movie, the actors are not professional. They are old ladies who will share their souvenirs of Oran, Algeria. A time where Arabs and Jews share their meals, celebrations.
Colonization and decolonization were a failure. We are all paying the price.

Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

- The Art Dealer by François Margolin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQKMsm31Bso

The movie is about the theft of art collection which belonged to the French Jews during the war. The French government is responsible and kept collections in its museum. They don't make it easy to the Jewish family which would like to get their art collection back. 

The actress sings two Yiddish songs. After the show, she sang one and a singer sang another one.

I post a short video of the song.

It happened that i have seen this movie because there is a revival of Yiddish culture in France. Can you believe it?
I can practice my Yibrew now.
I invited Sefardi women from my Beit Midrash.
None of them couldn't come, but i bumped into a lady who is one of the few who wears a sheitel.
She is half Sefardi, half Ashkenazi, but she looks like more Ashkenazi (Ukrainian roots).
She spent many years in the Satmar community of Anvers.
She is also the lady who gave me Mishloach Manot (Purim baskets).
I didn't know her very well, but we liked each other right away at the private show.
And i knew later why. She gave me a new enlightenment of my love of the Hasidic community: they are more welcome than secular Jews.
For those who think that Hasidim are living in a closed surrounding, that's not true if you come to them.
Will you dare to do it as i did? That's your business. :-)
She didn't understand that the audience, in majority, old people, were not so friendly: "We are all brothers", she said many times. She was the rebel finally.
She told me: "I am the only one with a wig." I think that i have seen another lady but i was not sure. She wanted to know where she was.
The Yiddish cine-club asked us for bringing food and beverages for a buffet that will be after the show.
The French love food, and the French Jews are terrible with food.
The Hasidic lady didn't dare to eat, she came with her sandwich, because there was a mix of kosher and non kosher food. I bought kosher food. I ate nothing because, like her, i wanted to socialize. She has made a crumble with fresh food and boudoirs biscuits: http://www.google.com/search?q=boudoir+biscuit&hl=en&gbv=2&tbm=isch&oq=&gs_l=
She is not shy usually but she couldn't put it on the tables. She gave me a box of her crumble.

I saw her today at the Beit Midrash, and we talked with a Israeli woman during our break between two classes. She has a sense of humor a little sarcastic. She is going to Anvers for Pesach, and said to the lady, something like: "I am going with those who know how to do a seder correctly…" :-)
When you see her, you don't think that she has something cool in her behavior. Her wig is not really straight, and sometimes electrical.
In the next future, i will probably taste her recipes.

I took a new class about the Mishnah - how to live Rosh Hashanah all year? with a Lubaba Sefardi rabbi very relaxed. The shul had a black out of about 15 minutes. We couldn't write and read, thus he talked about Pesach. That was an interesting moment: when you close your eyes to listen to music, you do feel it better.
And i will take a new one with a brilliant man/ He is not a rabbi. He is psychologist, and director of the Wiesel Institute. The class will be about the Berechit: the creation, the Man, the World.
That will be for after Pesach.

Weekly parashah: Vayiqra

My first homework was to write about the parashah Vayiqra.
I used to write about texts, painting, movies… in high school and university, but i never wrote about the religion and especially the Torah.
The wife of my Hebrew teacher insisted that we all tried to write something for a magazine online. That's why i said yes, i will write something.
I have a very little knowledge as you know, thus that was for me like climbing the mount Everest.
She was full of passion, and i was very happy to please her. She is very kind, generous and always helpful with Hebrew.

Old city, on his way to the Kotel, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

That parashah is about sacrifices, and as being an almost vegetarian, that was very hard for me to read it.

I googled and found a few commentaries about that parashah. I found some Lubaba commentaries which explained the symbolic that made me feel better physically.

I sent my text to that woman and another rebbetzin. They are both Orthodox, wearing the wig.

The second one studies the Torah, and often writes about it. That's a person of huge knowledge.

I met her yesterday afternoon, after a class with her husband, to edit my text.

I didn't think that she had another job than to manage the Beth Midrash for women.

She talked on the phone about to leave her "cabinet" which means in French: lawyer office, accountant office, minister office or doctor office only.

In my class, none of the students knows my religious status. Why? I can't stand those looks, thus i avoid them by telling nothing. We are in the classroom for the same thing: to enjoy learning Hebrew and Judaism.

The only person who knows is my Torah teacher.

I felt, before meeting the rebbetzin who edited my text, that i had to spread the truth. That was weird. I met her once during an afternoon of study about Hanukah. I didn't feel special affinity with her. But i felt a deep kindness, and that she seemed to be a good listener.

Mea Shearim, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

We sat in her office at the shul, and she thought that i was Jewish (because of my last name) but like if it was missing something. That's probably how i wrote the text which made her think that, or my style.

I hide my immodesty by keeping a fake fur scarf around my neck. I wear very colored tights and shoes with some black clothes. I am different from the other women. 

A student from my class told me the day before: "I like you a lot, you are farfelue*" (*airy-fairy). :-)
She knows that i am experimenting Judaism in many ways and shuls, like a bee gathering nectar and pollen. She doesn't know my personal Hasidic stories at all. Nobody knows at the shul, and you too, dear followers. :-)

I spread the truth, and she understood exactly what i felt.
She was sad to see the behavior of some Jews who reject strangers and converts. She was: "That's totally against the Torah". Those who refused to marry their children to converted, those who reject them, etc…
I told her that it was very hard for me to live as a Jew in Paris. We need more Jews, but they leave the country. To be a part of the community is not the best here.
She didn't give me advices, but her attention.
She was happy that i tried to write something. She was sorry that the weekly parashah was not the easiest one. I offered to write another one in two months, she agreed that i need a parashah with a story.
Man! She knew exactly which is the weekly parashah in two months. :-)
She will edited my text because we were short in time, and she will cosign.

I got back home and i googled her name to know what end the suspense of the word cabinet.
She is a psychoanalyst. I was not actually surprised. That's why she didn't give me advices except to avoid people who will reject me.
When i told her the story about my mom who didn't want me to say that my father was a Jew, she nodded her head like if she heard so many stories like mine: the trauma post-war…
I felt relieved by that Torah-py.

Mea Shearim, Yerushalayim, January 2015, ©emmarubinstein

I am disturbed

By one of my rabbi teachers said one week ago.
I followed this new class since January. It's about Messianism, and Hasidism.
I was not convinced by the first classes. That rabbi is actually very focused on his papers. It's that kind of person who has to finish his reasoning and can't be disturbed by other questions.

On the sidewalk of the Hyper Casher store, there are still candles, flowers, posters, notes…
Vincennes, March 2015, ©emmarubinstein

Hyper Casher under construction in the background,
on the left "The hatred of Jews, that's enough!",
on the right, the names of the three Muslim soldiers killed by Mohammed Merah
who killed after that a rabbi and Jewish children March 2015, ©emmarubinstein

Sephardi Hamantaschen, March 2015, ©emmarubinstein

Last week, he repeated us something that two French politicians told him. One from the left wing and one from the right wing: "One day, the state of Israel won't exist anymore."
Just before, we were talking about the Messiah, how people see Jews in the world, all the amalgams with the Jews.
One woman from my class talked about what the French man said during the Shabbos meal with the Breslev family that i had when i was in Tsfat: she heard that the Messiah will come soon.

He said something which is open to debate with the European deputies: do we have to spank children or not?
As a child, i prefered a spank than a slap in my face. I felt much more humiliated by a slap than a spank. :-)
The other thing is the circumcision and the right on our own body. There is an association which talked about that, and which is against that, saying that men are losing an erogenous zone amongst other things.
I had a non Jewish friend who had a circumcision in his 30s. He is gay and very sexual. He was not happy to have surgery, but he found out so much more enjoyment with his new penis that he loved to be circumcised. :-)

Giant homemade hamantaschen with a crèpe and Speculoos paste,
March 2015, ©emmarubinstein

Yesterday, i had to say to another student what the rabbi said about the future disappearance of the holy land on a map. I felt relieved. I already said that to my mom, and she was not surprised.
That made me think of my schedule to go back there. Something will happen.
I couldn't imagine to see 8 millions of people who will die suddenly.
There are many conferences and discussions in France about how to get out of the deadlock with the Middle-East: to understand the culture first before taking some decisions, drastic decisions probably.

I already talked about the book by Jonathan Littell The Kindly Ones and the emptiness of Europa that you can feel after a genocide.
I felt the same when the rabbi pronounced this sentence.
That woman who told the same with the coming of the Messiah reminded me the naivety of the Jews during the WWII. They don't want to see evil in the others. It's a strength but we should be prepared. To be positive doesn't have to make us forget that they want us dead.
A spark can lead to an explosion.
I am scared, i don't want to be the witness of such a drama…

Purim in the Marais, we are on war against terrorism, March 2015, ©emmarubinstein

On their way to a Purim party, all the stores were closed, March 2015, ©emmarubinstein

One Kosher restaurant open to celebrate Purim, March 2015, ©emmarubinstein

Purim 5775

I will write later.
Purim Sameach!
Check this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIkaRrbWA2I&index=12&list=UUrsfSn3F_xMLd-xYQKbFGNw