Picture Post

By request, I'm putting up my first picture post. It consists of 2 different sets of pictures -
The first is from my trip to the Torture Museum, an obvious tourist trap that got me all excited. It wasn't as extravagant as I had expected, but what they lacked in quality they made up for in brutality and one terrible translator with a dry sense of humor.

The next set is pictures from around Prague, including Vysehrad, one of the oldest parts of Prague and also the location of the CIEE study center and most of my classes.

Shabbat Praha

On Shabbas I checked out the Jewish community. At around 3 on Sayurday I headed over to the Jewish quarter and just wandered around, looking at all the beautiful synagogues. It’s crazy to think that the only reason these synagogues are so well preserved is because Hitler was saving them for his Jewish museum after he finished the job. I found the famous one with the golem in it and figured there would probably be mincha so I talked to the guard at the entrance. He was very unfriendly and spoke no English but it seemed apparent that his job was to keep tourists out on Shabbat. So I had a little argument with him, trying to prove to him that I just wanted to go pray, and this British guy told me that he wasn’t going to let people in for a couple minutes. So he showed me around the Jewish quarter, he showed me where the Chabad is and where the kosher restaurant is. He’s one of those Aish miracles who goes to Israel for a week, flips out, and stays in yeshiva for 2 years. He works at the British version of the Discovery channel and he’s in Prague filming for a little while. After services we went to the Jewish community center for Seudah Shlishit which was around the corner and I had a really nice time. There were a bunch of Israelis and Americans, the rabbi was cool and lives on my street, and the Czech ladies were hot.

I’m pumped to spend more time with this community. Shabbas morning services are at the Jerusalem synagogue, the most beautiful synagogue I’ve ever seen and it’s a block from my house. I also hope that I get a volunteer placement working in the Jewish community. There’s a Jewish school that I would love to work at. I added it in on my volunteering application and Jana, the lady in charge of that, told me they were going to work on it. One of the main reasons I’m here in Prague is to get to know what modern European Judaism is like. Is it growing or dying? How much of the Jewish culture is based in thousands of years of history and how much of it is just imported from America or Israel? I wanna set up a Shabbas meal for Mich and Leili and me with the rabbi. He lives like two doors down. Maybe I’ll wait until a know a little more Czech though. Tomorrow I finally start my intensive Czech classes which go on for two weeks before we start real classes. I’ll finally be able to say more than thank you, hello, and two beers please.

Bein Hashmashot becomes a travel blog (for now)

Since I am now living Prague for the semester, I think that I will be using this blog as a travel journal so that people can check up on me if they are interested. I will try to stay up to date with Israeli politics on whatever else I’ve been writing about but I haven’t posted in a while anyways so I figured this would be a good way to keep in touch without sending out those annoying 5 page emails to everyone I know.

Yesterday I was sitting near the front of the tram with my roommate Dan, and seated in front of us was a blind, frail man in poor health probably in his late seventies. He had bandages over his eyes and sunglasses in front of those, he had a seeing-eye dog, and used metal crutches as it looked like he had some issues walking as well. He wore a bright yellow parka and a violin slung behind his back, possibly for street performing. He sat there peacefully moving his head around, humming softly to himself, and occasionally twitching mildly. As I watched this man, I kept looking back and forth from this man to the corporate chains that we were passing. As I noticed the Sony, the KFC, and the McDonald’s I began to think about how much Prague has changed during his lifetime and how he may be completely oblivious to it. He lived through Hitler’s occupation of the Czech Republic, he felt the communist control after that for 40 years, he was there for the Velvet Revolution in the late 80s, and he is surrounded by the modern capitalist mentality that has boosted the country’s economy yet permanently altered the culture. He probably has his route that he has taken every day for many years and the sudden changing aesthetic of the city may be beyond him. I felt bad thinking about that, and I started to think about how this new zeitgeist for the city is somewhat my fault as an American. Who knows if he prefers capitalism to communism, it may not make any difference at all to him as a sickly street musician, but I felt like I owed him some sort of obligation.

As he arrived towards his stop he began to stand up with the help of his crutches and he called out behind him in Czech. I don’t speak a word of Czech so it meant nothing to me, but in my head, I translated what he said as, “Youth! Can someone please give me a hand?” I looked over at Dan and saw that he was thinking that same thing as me, but none of the Czech people behind me were doing anything. The bus began to get a little bumpy as it took a sharp turn and I saw the man struggle to stay up on his crutches while he called out again behind him. I looked back at the Czechs again and saw that they were looking at me. They may have been staring at me as everyone has for just being American but I interpreted that look as, “It’s your move.” I then stood up and put my hand on his arm to let him know that I was there if he wanted my help. He said something to me in Czech which was either telling me to help him down the stairs or yelling at me to get off him. Since I had no idea what he said, I held him tighter and thought to myself, “This is my task, I have to finish it.”

When the tram came to a stop, I carefully supported his arm as he slowly made his way down. As he finished stepping off the tram he repeated “děkuji” (thank you – the only word I know) multiple times but as he overcame the last stair he turned around to look at me and said it louder. I don’t know if he wanted to emphasize his gratefulness or if I had irritated him by taking pity on him, but either way, getting looked in the face by a blind man is somewhat of a haunting feeling. As I sat back down, the entire tram was quiet and I wondered if what I did was right, and if the Czech people behind me thought I was an idiot or a good man. It didn’t seem to matter at that point because the deed was done, but the image of man’s face was implanted in my mind along with the added layer of my uncertainty at his motives for “looking” at me like that. I can see his scraggly white beard, impenetrable sunglasses, and furrowed brow very clearly in my mind and will continue to think about it until it gets overlaid with even more fascinating experiences.

Some of those include Leili forcing me to run through a street mall in order to get to a Beatles cover band show because it was too good to miss even a second of it. She was right.

Or tonight when Michael, my Czech roommate, brought us to a teahouse with floor pillows, hookah, tapestry-laiden cave alcoves and New-Agey medieval music. It felt like we were all hobbits being beckoned to return to the Shire.

On another note, tomorrow is going to be my first Shabbat in Prague. My program set up all the really Jewey kids in the center of town, a block away from the Jerusalem Synagogue, the most beautiful synagogue I’ve ever seen in my life. So that’s a plus. I will definitely go check that out. But I’m trying to decide if I’m going to start breaking Shabbat this semester. I don’t see how I can’t. What would I do, sit at home by myself all day. Even parts of the program are on Shabbat. If I want to have the best experience, I have to leave my safety zone, and unfortunately, that means I might have to leave my jewish zone at some points as well. I will at least make certain rules for myself like – I won’t do actual work or I won’t use my phone or computer. We’ll see how G-d feels about this in the afterlife but for now this decision is for myself and I think it’s the best one.