Missing Dad

August 10, 2008 - 7:03 PM by Rachel Neiman · 3 Comments
Filed under: History and Culture, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Life 

It’s Tisha B’Av, the saddest day of the Jewish calendar. Although I don’t fast, I do feel an affinity, a closeness to the destruction of the Second Temple, maybe because my Dad talked about it a lot. This is what happens when you’re the child of a Jewish historian – or maybe just the child of a Jew – some far-away events become very immediate and very real.

The destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE marked the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora, and the beginning of the long and complicated relationship between the Church and the Jews – a topic on which my Dad built his career. But all this is very abstract and that’s the hard part of trying to mourn on a midsummer day when the weather outside is gorgeous and life in general is pretty darn good. And so I find my thoughts wandering towards the personal and missing my Dad, who passed away four and a half years ago.

“Who am I going to call when I have a question about something? I’m going to have to buy an encyclopedia,” my sister Becky said, only half-jokingly, at the shiva. It was true. If you ever had a question about anything, at any time of the day or night, all you had to do was call Dad. My father had a prodigious memory and was interested in just about everything, from the Sumerian cuneiform glyphs on which he’d done his PhD. (with a good deal of prodding from my mother, as he was always easily distracted) to Jennifer Lopez’s impending marriage to Ben Affleck (he was relieved when it got called off). Now we were going to have to fend intellectually for ourselves.

My mother died when we were young, so there was no one to oversee this absent-minded professor while we were growing up. Her death was our own personal First Temple destruction – damaging on a psychic level – but his death has sent us into a familial Diaspora. Spread out over three continents, we work very hard now to see one another.

Partly as therapy, but mostly to keep alive the work of a great teacher and lecturer who didn’t publish very much, Becky has spent a good part of the last four years sorting, editing and publishing audio and video versions of Dad’s lectures. My other sister had a baby and named him for Dad. Me? I think about him and my mom, and write stuff down.

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Light up the sky

August 3, 2008 - 8:56 PM by Jessica · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness 

Driving into Jerusalem this evening, we were treated to an array of firecrackers lighting up the sky over our general neighborhood. We couldn’t quite figure out where they were coming from at first, but given that we’re in the period of the nine days before Tisha B’Av, it was clear that they weren’t coming from a wedding hall in Talpiot, as weddings aren’t held during this mourning period. As we approached our ‘hood, it became clear that they were coming from Beit Safafa, a nearby Arab neighborhood where someone, somewhere, was probably celebrating something.

It isn’t an unusual happening to have firecrackers going off in our neck of the woods, particularly during the spring and summer months. It starts with Purim, when the noisy merrymaking includes firecrackers, although local rabbis have been prohibiting their use after the number of injuries goes up during the three-day holiday. Then it continues into Yom Haatzmaut, with massive displays in local towns and cities as a sign that Yom Hazikaron/Memorial Day has ended and the celebrations of Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day, can begin.

But once the merrymaking starts in the spring, it continues unabated into the summer, with nearly every event, whether it’s the nightly weddings, outdoor summer concerts or just general solstice revelry that brings out the fireworks. It’s sort of the westernized version of firing a gun into the air during a celebration, a local Middle Eastern custom, or the slightly tamer version of the Israeli love of fire scultpures, witnessed in Scouts ceremonies, when an entire banner or symbol will be set ablaze in the evening light.

Whatever the reason, once you get over being spooked by the sound, which can sound a lot like a bomb — tfu, tfu, tfu — you head outside and look up at the sky for the latest pyrotechnic display. Fun for free.

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