Where were you when the siren went off?

I spent Passover in the Former Soviet Union- Ukraine, to be exact.  For one week, two classmates (Jen and Jill) and I traveled around the Crimean region of Ukraine with a 28 year old rabbi (Misha), a 23 year old translator (Tonia) and a Ukrainian rabbinical student from the Reform seminary in Germany (Yuriy).  While we complained (a lot) about the lack of proper toilets, mayonnaise in everything, pork at the seder table, and not being able to eat bread, we came into a different perspective of Reform Judaism.  When we're children, we think the world revolves around us.  It's the same for American Jews, I think.  We think that Jews can only live in North America and Israel.  As it turns out, the communities of Simferopol, Yivpatoriya, and Sevastopol are quite vibrant, though small. 

I first realized how lucky I was to be a Reform Jew from North America (living in Israel) when we were at the Hillel seder in Simferopol.  I sat next to Emil, a 23 year old recent college grad who joined Hillel just a few months before.  I explained to him that normally in the US, Hillel is for college students and I asked him why he didn't join while he was in college.  Without batting an eye, he repsonded, "Well, I only found out I was Jewish a few months ago."  I was floored.  In the FSU, as it turns out, mostly everyone's story of their Jewish journey is similar.   I can not imagine how it feels to come into such a serious part of your identity so late in life.  The young adults at Hillel were only a small percentage of the young Jews in Simferopol, most assimilate into the Russian Orthodox culture.  So... I quietly ignored the pork-mayonnaise-egg-pickle salad on the table and we taught the group "Pharaoh, Pharaoh." 

In Yivpatoriya, we went to visit a Jewish man living in a home for people who are mentally and physically disabled.  Like Emil, he also found out very late in life that he was Jewish.  Since his discovery, however, he wears a kippa all the time (in a place where it is not really safe for him to do so) no matter what the consequences.  Misha brings him books whenever he visits, so he is very knowledgable on the history of the Jewish people and the current situation with Israel.  He grilled Jen, Jill, and I about how we feel working with the Conservative and Orthodox movements and what Judaism is like in the US.  At the end of our visit, he began to cry.  "I want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.  Don't forget that there are still Jews here," he said.  It will be impossible to forget now.

This time in Israel is very special.  Last week, we celebrated freedom from slavery.  Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Last night, most restaurants, bars, and cafes closed down and people let yahrtzeit candles flicker in their windows.  At 10 am today, a siren sounded throughout the entire city.  We stood on the street as people pulled their cars over and got out, commemorating the siren with their silence.  The feeling was overpowering watching everyone stop their daily business to focus their attention on the Jews that were killed in the Holocaust. 

The coming week holds more emotion and a cause for celebration.  Next Wednesday is Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day, where we will go to a local high school and listen to the names of the soldiers who died fighting for Israel.  The day after that, in contrast, is Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day.  To commemorate Israel's 60th year, there will be barbecues, fireworks, dancing...

These three events come wrapped in the same week.  Why and how can Israelis celebrate these together?  How can they swing from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other?  Being here, it's so much easier to understand.  While the Holocaust was not the only contributing factor to the creation of the state of Israel, it certainly was the most poignant.  After years of being persecuted, expelled, and eventually exterminated, the Jews needed their own state (which was not so clear to me at the beginning of the year).  These days force us to remember the millions of Jews who died in the Shoah at the hands of the Nazis, and the thousands who died defending the land.

"A cry is heard in Ramah

Wailing, bitter weeping

Rachel weeping for her children.

She refuses to be comforted

For her children, who are gone.

Thus said Adonai:

Restrain your voice from weeping,

Your eyes from shedding tears;

For thereis a reward for your labor

-declares Adonai:

They shall return from the enemy's land.

And there is hope for your future

-declares Adonai:

Your children shall return to their country."

                Jeremiah 31:15-17

God, I sound like a Zionist.  Eek.