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Jewish geography at its prime: In early 2008, my sister, Risa, was flying back from Israel. She was talking to the passenger next to her on the flight and somehow mentioned that I would be spending a year in Tanzania. The fellow passenger mentioned that he had some friends that were currently living in Venezuela but would be moving to Dar es Salaam around the same time as me. And better yet, a Jewish family. My sister saw this as a potential family I could spend the holidays with, so she exchanged contact information with the man. A few emails went back and forth but ultimately I never got in touch with this family.
Fast forward to my high holidays with Chabad at the Israeli restaurant in Dar. I’m talking to a woman there and she mentions that she and her family recently moved from Venezuela. It had to be them. An email search confirmed the conviction. Small world!
Knowing I was kosher, the Rabbi gave me a kosher frozen chicken. This woman who moved from Venezuela, Ilana, asked me if I had a grill to cook it on. I told her I definitely didn’t have a grill, and in fact, didn’t even have a place to live. Conveniently, her family was going away on vacation for the week so she offered their house to me and Jeremy, the other homeless Kiva Fellow. So we house-sat for a week. It was glorious to be in a real house with internet and air conditioning. Actually, I was more excited for a Western toilet as the place I was staying the previous two weeks had an Eastern style squat toilet. In Africa, it’s the small things.
A good old google search for “Jews in Dar” turned up some woman’s blog about Chabad sending a Rabbi here for the high holidays last year. Well, a comment on her blog and an email later and I had an invite to Rosh Hashanah dinner! It wasn’t the same as the corn beef, matzo balls and pecan pie I eat each year at the Kraft’s, but it was nice to spend the holiday with some fellow Jews. I didn’t walk home after due to safety reasons but I think G-d will understand. The next night, the two Chabad Rabbis who showed up this year conducted a quick service at an Israeli restaurant. I had no idea there was an Israeli restaurant in Dar and even a small Israeli community for that matter!
The Rabbis stuck around for Yom Kippur too. Dad, you would have loved to be here for Yom Kippur. The service the first night took longer to get started than it took to actually conduct the service. Waiting for ten men (as Chabad requires) took a long time. Good thing I brought the newly arrived Kiva Fellow who happens to be Jewish. We were stuck at nine men when we decided to bend the rule a bit and count a 9-year-old even though he did not yet have his Bar Mitzvah. Now that we had our Minyan, we got started and were finished a whopping 30 minutes later. Yes, I’m being totally serious. It was so early I was even able to walk home safely! The next day, they would only conduct a service starting at 5pm because the secular Jews here were all going to work. I spent the day reading and playing cards.
In the past, my family has complained about having hot weather on the holidays, but Dar gave a new meaning to that. As I was walking to the 5pm service, I had to keep my eye on the prize – a cold soda. Again, we didn’t start until 5:30pm because Israelis are always late and they were going to make up about 50% of our Minyan. The fast ended at 6:55pm, and by then we were long done with our service. We all broke the fast with some homemade Rugelach. While they were delicious, it just didn’t compare to Deb and Lou’s break fast spread with hot bagels, four different types of egg salad and mud pie. On the bright side, the Rabbi did give me two vacuum packed bags of kosher deli meat – pastrami and turkey breast – all the way from America. The sandwiches were to die for!
So the moral of the story is that while my holiday activities were not to the scale that they are in New Jersey, there seem to be Jews everywhere in the world to celebrate with.
I have this mental picture of the two Rabbis bringing the Torah on the plane as carry-on luggage. I wonder if they passed it through the security belt and if they held it on their laps the whole time : )
