The huge sanctuary of Temple Mishkan Israel, a red brick architectural treasure that graces the main street of historic Selma, Ala., is used only on the High Holidays or for special occasions.
For Jewish life in the Deep South to overcome the twin plagues of attrition and assimilation, American Jewish culture must change, argues Macy Hart, executive director of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute for Southern Jewish Life.
The train stopped at a country town, and the conductor asked if Rosenbush was Jewish. Hearing that he was, the conductor told Rosenbush that nearby Demopolis was home to several Jewish businessmen.
Once we declared here that we would visit Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, we expected people to say, \”How quaint! How interesting! What an unusual place to visit.\” Instead, we invariably heard, \”Why Bratislava?\” And in Prague, when we announced our next stop, the reaction was, \”Why do you want to go there?\” Amazingly, even in beautiful Bratislava itself, residents asked in wonder and bemusement, with no hint of being impolite: \”Why would you want to come here?\”
Folks in Bratislava are not used to tourists. It is not, as they say in the travel trade, a \”destination.\” No tourist buses crowd the streets like in Prague. No Israelis swarm here. And even if tourists come, we were told, they are ultra-Orthodox Jewish tourists visiting Budapest who take a taxi to Bratislava for a quick visit to the tomb of the revered early 19th century sage Rabbi Moshe Sofer (the Chatam Sofer), and then scoot back to Budapest without so much as a backward glance.
Tourist Cuba is a bit like a time-machine ride through a Cold War theme park. Vintage Detroit autos rumble past charming Havana hotels refurbished to their pre-revolutionary glory. Posters for featured movies at a film festival keep company with ones that blare slogans like, \”La Revolucion Siempre,\” or the revolution always.
Yet, when Roe Gruber and her daughter took a Havana apartment for a month last summer, the Tustin residents were able to escape the tourist cocoon. They learned new skills, like coping with Third World shortages by offering bribes for tomatoes and theater tickets.
If you own a diamond, you can be 80 percent sure it\’s been to Antwerp, Belgium, at some point in its life. Perhaps it was graded there in the heart of ancient Europe — or ground, polished, valued, bought or sold there.
Here\’s a tip to non-Jewish travelers looking for a low-cost vacation cruise. Pick your cruise dates to include the Jewish High Holidays in September or October, because then the ships offer their deepest discounts to fill the empty berths left by the noticeable absence of Jewish passengers.
So you\’ve roamed the Coliseum, marveled at Florentine art and gamboled in gondolas and you\’re ready for a different side of Italy. Or perhaps you\’re about to dip a toe into Italian culture, including its little-known Jewish heritage, for the first time.
In August 1942, the Gestapo arrested Walter and Elisabeth Blumenthal, an elderly Jewish couple in Berlin. As they were driven away on a truck, a neighbor noticed Walter tossing something from the vehicle. The neighbor later retrieved the object: a brown leather wallet, elaborately embossed in gold with the initials WB.
Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, is a time to recall the miracle that occurred more than 2,000 years ago, and celebrate the discovery of the small amount of oil that burned for eight days, the amount of time needed to prepare pure oil from the local olive trees to rekindle the flame. That miracle is the focus of the Chanukah celebration that begins at sundown Friday, Nov. 29. Was it also a miracle that this event occurred at this time, since the months of November and December are the usual time for the olive harvest?
In early November this year, we joined Faith Willinger, our Florence-based food-journalist friend, on a trip to Naples and the Campania area of Italy. One of the highlights of our trip was spending several days at the hotel-restaurant La Caveja, located in the small village of Pietravairano, just a one-hour drive north of Naples.
