Early April 2007

Well, it has been an eventful month—here are only a few of my impressions.

First, I LOVED seeing everyone in Columbus—what a pleasure it was to sing for services at TBS and to see so many of my dear friends from the congregation (and other congregations, too!) afterwards. And throughout the week, spending time with Koleinu singers, family members, and others of whom I have thought so often. Thanks to all of you who made special efforts to call, e-mail, and visit with me.

Then to Germany, for the tour with the Galron singers (the choir from Israel I joined, and who have been a family to me since I arrived in Israel.) I never imagined going to Germany at all, much less to sing. But I found myself in Leverkusen (on the Rhine between Cologne and Dusseldorf.) Our first performance was in a small church very close to the Musikschule and our hotel. The Musikschule is run by a young man who has made Jewish music a special study, and through the school has developed a track of study that focuses on klezmer music (mostly instrumental music of Eastern Europe, that came very close to being eradicated during the Holocaust.) The klezmer band is very, very good, featuring a beautiful young woman on violin and a man who plays clarinet, and a very young woman who plays amazing strummy guitar and can make it sound like a balalaika! None of them Jewish, but all of them with the Jewish “soul” like mine! Lovely music performed well, and with style.

Then we took the stage, and did about half of our program, only about an hour. [Background for those of you just joining us: Galron performs without holding music, so I had 2 months—8 rehearsals—to learn the alto parts of 28 songs, all but one in Hebrew, all with some sort of choreography (not complicated, but I still needed to know where to be!) I ended up learning about 75%, and faked the rest. I felt pretty good by the end.] The one song in English was one in which I had the main solo—fun!

The audience was very enthusiastic, clapped along when they were supposed to, and enjoyed it very much. So—first one down!

We performed at the main synagogue in Dusseldorf, and at the cultural center in Wiesbaden, each performance getting better. Between these performances, though was one that I want you to know about.

We traveled to Duisburg, and after an afternoon on a boat touring the largest man-made river-based shipping harbor (in the world? Or in Europe? I don’t know!) We walked up the river to the synagogue. I noticed the razor wire and the enclosed guard booth first. OK. But after, I noticed, close to the river, a brick building—actually the remains of a stairwell, going up 3 stories, with doors and windows bricked up and a tree growing at the very top. Unusual.

Beside this structure was something else—a one-story half building, open on all sides, with some pillars supporting two peaked parts of the roof. More unusual.

Inside the new synagogue the architecture was very modern, disjointed—odd. To get to our dressing rooms we went up stairs, then across a wooden walkway, artistic, OK. But when I walked across it a second time, quickly, and alone, I felt it quiver, then shake. Unnerving.

On the wall of the 2nd floor hallway, between the doorways, were photos. Leftmost was a photo of the Great Synagogue of Duisburg, an interior shot of the bima (place central to the services, and where the Torahs are kept.) Very grand and beautiful, in a 19th century style.

The next photo was an exterior shot of the building, with the dome, an impressive, massive building.

The next photo was a shot of the dome, as it was burning, on Kristallnacht.

(If you don’t know about Kristallnacht, please stop reading this email now and Google it. It will be one of the most important searches you have ever made, and far more important than anything I could write.)

From our dressing room window I could see another stairwell out in the park. And other ruins recognizable from the photos. My mind got going.

This new synagogue was built, with great courage, on the ruins of the old. And as I spent the evening in it, between performing and dressing and leaving, I realized that the new synagogue was also a warning to the people who entered it: Never forget that the potential for evil and danger to us is always present, anywhere.

And yet, as I left the building with my group, off to have some of the best Italian food I have ever eaten (never yet having been to Italy!) I also realized that the synagogue in the ruins is also testimony to the Jewish ability to look to and learn from the past, live in the present, and let the future bring what it may. This is one of the reasons we continue to survive, wherever we are.

I found the Holocaust to hang in the air of Germany. Undiscussed, unacknowledged, but when Jews are present, it is present too. Galron has performed there four times in about 12 years, and one of the veterans told me a story of their first visit. During the last dinner with the planners and the choir, the night before they returned to Israel, the director of the Musikschule, feeling expansive, asked who in the room had family members who were killed in the Holocaust—12 of the 16 choir members raised their hands, and poor Jurgen was shocked, then overcome. He did not understand (who does?)

But nearly my whole family is German, and there were a lot of things I learned about them while I was there—that gave me a context to understand some homey, tiny details I never knew I noticed. One of the waitresses laughed one morning during the excellent breakfast, and my heart caught—somehow my Grandma McGee Fuhrman Ayers was right there in the room with me! When I told the woman about it we wept together. And laughed!

So now I have returned to my new life—and it is finally “home.” Having returned on a Saturday, everything was closed, but I happen to know the only grocery that is in fact open on Shabbat, so I walked there and got my eggs, hummus, Bulgarian cheese, and cabbage for my salad. And walked home among the palm trees, 3-foot-tall snapdragons (seriously!) and counted my blessings yet again.

Next (and soon): My new apartment, what a great country this is, and “people who need people.”

Chag sameach, happy Easter to some of you, happy, safe, healthy, and kosher Pesach to the rest! Photos of Germany soon!