Ethiopian Anusim

Jews come in all colors.

And so do shuls. Please note the Amharic script in which the Ten Commandments are written on the Ark of the Law. Do not let anybody persuade you that Jews are only white.

Pictures taken from Failed Messiah.

Some humor for my slow return

Those of you who have lived in Israel will find this hilarious.

Yom Hazzikarón and Yom Haatzma'ut

Tonight and for two days Israel celebrates its two most important secular holidays: the first of them is Yom Hazzikaron (The day of rememberance) in which the country remembers all the fallen soldiers and the victims of terror. The TV stations that broadcast "entertaining" things shut down or dedicate their waves to memorial programs of specific families: following their grief, sharing with the entire country the memory of your boy or girl who fell in this war or the other. The same thing with radio. The whole country is one huge bleeding wound, one single remembering soul. Tomorrow, when the sun sets, the gloom of Yom Hazzikaron will be raised by the cheer and the fireworks of Independence Day (Yom Haatzma'ut). The stages that have held, some twenty four hours previous, grieving families will be filled with dancers and children, baloons, and flags (ubiquitous blue Stars of David on a sea of white). Sackcloth will be turned into dancing, grief into joy. In any other country such mingling of the most contradictory feelings in the human heart would seem schizophrenic and grotesque. However, in Israel it seems natural and logical. The continuing existence of the State (59 years tomorrow) is guaranteed, sadly, only by the efforts and sacrifices of these brave men and women. May it be His will that in the very close future this will not seem so blatantly obvious!

חג שמח

Sea su memoria una bendición para todos nosotros

Armando Restrepo Estrada
(Enero 8, 1922-Abril 13, 2007)

Hiking through the bottom of the world

I am really sorry I have not been paying attention to this, my little corner of the virtual world. As most bloggers I do suffer from bouts of enthusiasm and exhaustion. So I hope this time I will clean away the cobwebs and settle for good.
A lot of things have been happening since my last post. A new semester, Pesach, Alejandro´s wedding, the preparations to go back to the City Without Mountains. I may or may not get to write about these events. In any case, what I will write about (or more precisely show you) is the three day camping trip we made to Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea. Ein Gedi has been a site for Jewish settlement since the time of King David all the way into the seventh century of this era. Today there is a kibbutz there and several natural reserves which you will see in the pictures.
We spent the last three days camping and hiking, praying in the fields and in the ruins, praising Hashem in the darkness of the desert, making fire without matches, spending the night under the stars and learning from the eagles and the hyraxes how to be better bipedal rational animals who can laugh. (Spanish speakers please follow the link on the hyrax to discover a wonderful piece of trivia about the origins of the name of your language) [Before going on I would like to give kudos to Aaron and Ute for organizing the trip and to Tamir, our wonderful Israeli guide who taught us so much and who I hope gets to visit Colombia one of these days.] Without further ado, the pictures.

First we started at the Kibbutz with a great basket weaving workshop with basket weaver extraordinaire Mychal. The house in the picture is her house. She wove it out of the palm trees in the grove in the picture. She weaves and weaves and weaves and smiles and makes a living by teaching people all there is to know about the date palm (Tamar in Hebrew) and by weaving incredible complex things from the palm leaf. This was followed by a sumptuous lunch provided by ceramist Riki who also lives in the hut and builds mud kitchens.


Mychal and Riki live off the land and have creative professions. As for myself, as it is obvious in the picture, I could never make a living out of basket weaving. (However, I am very attached to my basket no matter how misshaped and uncomely.)

After the basket weaving we decided to make our way up the hill all the way to the oasis of Ein Gedi ("The spring of the Goat" in Hebrew) which involved huffing and puffing up an incredible incline full of rocks overlooking the Dead Sea. After braving the rockslides and the throngs of Ultraorthodox Jews who, for no apparent reason, were all hiking this path in the middle of a hot spring afternoon in their complete Polish garb (black hat and all), we reached the top of the hill and were rewarded by the crystal pool of Ein Gedi whose waters are cool and delicious (and a great place to put your tired, dusty feet after a long hike). Soon after it started to rain (with lightning and thunder and we had to hurry down the path, risking life and limb. I am sorry there are no pictures of that, we are not the National Geographic Society.)

Ein Gedi from below (yes, yes we climbed all the way up that hill and at 30 C no less).

The kibbutz's palm groves as seen from halfway up the trail. Ein Gedi is an oasis of lush vegetation in the middle of one of the harshest deserts in the world. The pool of blue in the background is Yam Hamelach (the Dead Sea): the lowest point in the world (400 m below sea level) and the saltiest body of water on the planet (nothing can live in its waters). Such fun factoids only make the miracle of Ein Gedi more amazing. Indeed, as King Solomon said, "My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna-flowers In the vineyards of En-gedi." (Song of Songs 1.14)

At last, the waters of Ein Gedi. (This pool of three meters of diameter feeds all the green in the valley below. Thus is the power of water in the desert.) Later that afternoon we met with our guide, Tamir, and set up camp amidst the ruins of the old kibbutz. The day ended with us trying to learn to light fire without matches and with long meditative walks around the nearby forest practicing the chasidic art of hitbodedut (isolation) espontaneous conversations with God in solitude.

[To be continued]

Spring is here!

I am sorry for being so out of touch and out of the blogosphere. I have simply been resting and working on other projects that needed my complete attention. But, since I returned to school yesterday, I think I should also reinitiate my blogging routine. So, first, some updates.

Thank you to all that participated in the poll. After a lot of thought, I opted to use the "sh" despite the arguments for the phonetic symbol. After all, this siddur is intended for learners and I do not want to confuse them. As for the iterations, I decided to keep the sh and place a period between the iterated shins, like so: ish.she.

The second update. About three weeks ago we went hiking in the lower Galilee, close to the coast, in the Carmel Mountain ridge. Here are some pictures of how spring is lived in this beautiful part of the world.

Poppies of the Galil

Carmel ridge with the Mediterranean in the background ("Será porque mi niñez sigue jugando en tu playa, escondido tras las cañas duerme mi primer amor, llevo tu luz y tu olor por dónde quiera que vaya....)

De profundis clamavi ad Te Domine (Ps 130)
ממעמקים קראתיך ד

Encuesta (para legos y para expertos)

Hola a todos y a todas.

Algunos de ustedes saben que estoy escribiendo un siddur (un libro de oraciones judío) con traducción y trasliteración al español. Ahora la mayoría de las letras hebreas tienen un equivalente en español que puede ser expresado por una sola letra. Hay, no obstante, dos excepciones. Una de ellas es la que me está quitando el sueño. Esta es la letra shin

ש

Esta letra pronunciada como la sh inglesa (show, shop, shampoo) puede ser transliterada como una sh (lo cual tiene la ventaja de ser más reconocible aunque tiene un toque anglicista que no me gusta para nada) o a través del signo fonético š (el cual es menos conocido pero tiene la ventaja de ser una sola letra la cual puede ser explicada en una tabla de pronunciación que el siddur va a tener en su introducción).
Ahora, para ustedes, lectores de habla hispana (judíos y no judíos), ¿qué es más fácil leer (no necesariamente más familiar)?:

(opción uno) shabbat o (opción dos) šabbat

Consideren que en muchos casos la shin (o šin) viene duplicada:

(opción uno) ishshé o (opción dos) iššé

Su voto me interesa. Por favor tómese un minuto para votar en la sección de comentarios (así sea anónimamente).

Cuba, qué linda es Cuba....

This wonderful picture (which I had to remove because of fear of being sued, but which can still be seen if you follow the link) appeared in the New York Times today together with an article about the Jews of Cuba and their struggle for cultural survival. My wife´s grandfather was one of the last rabbis to serve in Cuba and her family remembers the island fondly. If we could secure a living there, I would love to help this community. Walking down the Malecón with a white fedora, smoking a cigar, debating a particularly relaxed suggya in the Talmud...ah, tropical fantasies.

Y luego no se pregunten por qué

Aquellos que dudan de la utilidad del estudio de las religiones y de la necesidad, incluso en un país predominantemente monoreligioso como es Colombia, de establecer departamentos de religiones comparadas necesitan leer la siguiente pieza del Pasquín y pensar por cinco segundos si en cinco años vamos a poder entender (sin totearnos la cabeza) el sancocho religioso que se está volviendo nuestro país. (O la muy interesante relgión que se cuece en nuestra hermana república que mezcla un evangelismo bolivariano con pelígrosísimos tintes fascistas).

Sin academia no hay paraíso, sin académicos no hay policy. Déjenos trabajar.

One of the Most Enlightening Pieces I have Read on the Subject

When I was born, almost thirty years ago, my country was almost 99.9% Catholic. Since then there has been an explosive development of Evangelical Christianity among both the popular classes and some of the comercial elite and the emerging upper middle class. I think that around 80% of the urban population of Colombia is now Catholic, whilst the rest is some shade of Protestant. My friends in the intelligentsia, all of them raised as upper middle class Catholics, have gone in more exotic directions: everything ranging from Mahayana Buddhism to "bright" agnosticism to American Indian naturalist-paganism, and, of course, Judaism. This just shows the incredible disatisfaction with traditional religion in even a relatively conservative country like Colombia and the great mobility of ideas that bring people to new ideological and spiritual landscapes. Very much like our physical realities are becoming increasingly mobile and more and more people are moving away from the places of their birth, more and more people are moving away from the religion of their parents. We are at the dawn of a new age of conversions. Quite like the Roman Empire in its transit from a Republic to the Caesarate, people are greatly disappointed with their lives and are looking for meaning in a society were many cultures and religions come together in the great Market of Ideas. It was in the early Roman empire where centurions born in Italy worshipped the Aryan deity Mithras, where Turkish matrons converted to Judaism, and the philosophers of the age were fascinated with the arcane knowledge of the Egyptian sages. Against the backdrop of this world could a Jewish cult like Christianity prosper and conquer Europe. Today, in the new Rome, there are Chinese Jews, Anglosaxon Muslims, Black Buddhists, Latino Mormons, etc., etc., etc. Here is a wonderful article to understand this Brave New world which such people in it.

"Religion in a Globalizing World" by Peter Berger

[M]y major thesis this morning is that what is happening with the globalization of religion is a globalization of pluralism. Pluralism, which was a much more geographically, much more limited phenomenon 150 or 200 years ago, has become a global phenomenon, and that has enormous implications.

Bloom's Dream or His Task of Sysiphus (The Movie)

Some of you know me personally. Some of you are close friends. Some of you are kind strangers I have met in the web. Some of you are old old friends who probably recognize in me less and less of he who they used to know. In any case, if you really want to understand who I am, what I want to do and what do I hope to do with my life, I recomend you go (especially easy for those of you who are in NYC) this next 26 or 27 of January to the Premier of the movie "The Longing" (in the Lilcoln Center Theaters at Broadway and 67th). This movie, produced and directed by Gabriela Bohm, narrates the difficulties of those Latinos who want to reconnect to their Jewish ancestry. I have not seen the movie yet, and will probably not see it until I return to NYC by the end of the summer, but if it describes the pain and the unnecessary suffering those returning experience dayeinu (It would be enough!). I cannot guarantee that it is a cinematographic masterpiece or that it is a balanced documentary, but it is certainly a pioneer work in a field that could benefit from more media attention and from more public interest.



For those of you who do not live in NY, the webpage of the producer has plenty of information about the movie and about the project. I recommend you watch the trailer (just go to the tab "films" and then choose "The Longing") and look at the stills (two examples of which I bring in this page).

In the meantime

Thanks Chiquilin for the Tribute. I will write a short story of how the anusim were instrumental in the return of the Jews to England after fourhundred years of exile.

Happy 5000 visit!

Tale of Two Cities

If you did not know that they are separated by only a handful of kilometers and by a fourty minute bus ride, you could probably end up believing that Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are in different countries. In some cases, you could even end up believing that they are different planets. Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world. Burdened and marked by the endless battles that have refreshed its walls with a new color of red every time: Jebusite and Hebrew, Assyrian and Jewish, Greek and Roman, Byzantine and Arab, Crusader and Turk, European and Levantine, Israeli and Palestinian. Its stones are worth more in words and prayers of millions of souls who every day carry it in their lips and in their hearts and by reinventing it in their minds, betray it. Its alleyways are crooked and made of white slippery stone, like lipidous veins of an enormous lythic animal. No other city is Jewish as Jerusalem is Jewish. Tel Aviv is the among the newest cities in the world. Barely one hundred years old, it grows like a cancer on the side of the oldest port in the world: Jaffa, the city of Casiopea and Andromeda, the Kraken's playhouse. The only purpose of this city was to create the new Jew, unencumbered by the dust and the stones of old Jerusalem. Moreover, the only purpose of Tel Aviv was to be Jerusalem's antithesis, its brilliant new replacement. It's streets are wide and full of trees. The only old thing in Tel Aviv is the lottery signs that get washed with the new rains. Tel Aviv's shore is forever young and changing, ebbing with the tides, while Jerusalem holds with its stone talons the sides of the unalterable mountains of Judea. Jerusalem has monasterys and synagogues. Tel Aviv has massage-parlors and discotheques. Jerusalem has the Wall. Tel Aviv has the beach. Jerusalem has the stubborness of the faithful. Tel Aviv has the carelessness of the cosmopolitan. Jerusalem is an old woman, beautiful and wise but set in her ways. Tel Aviv is a friendly coquette, voluptous and inviting. Jerusalem looks perpetually to the past. Tel Aviv is the future, running away from yesterday.

And yet, there are also synagogues in Tel Aviv- hidden in the small plazas and the streets with the name of honored heretics. And to them a handful of faithful flock on Shabbat, quietly almost surreptitiously as if not to make any noise and disturb the noise of the city with their prayers. They know their place, they are humble penitents in the city of sin. And, yes, Jerusalem has its discos too- hidden among the dusty roads of the abandoned industrial park of Talpiyot. The carrousers arrive also silently, in cabs and mopeds, covered by the evening fog. Trying to savour the contained rebelliousness of their dancing. Pouring their pagan joy in the dusty walls of the compound that muffle the beat of the music and protects the city outside. These are wary bacchanals, self-conscious menads. Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes there is life to be had. There is a road and fourty minutes and a country. Sometimes, when the rain stops, there are also cows.

Vorspeis for next post, travelling through the Judean desert