JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Lessons learned from spending the High Holidays abroad

By Alex Weisler · October 9, 2011

When I went to Penn State, heading home to New City Jewish Center -- my Conservative shul in suburban New York -- for the High Holidays was easy: Hop on a Greyhound, brave a layover in Philadelphia or Harrisburg and I was set.

And if I didn't feel like venturing back to New City, there were student-led services at my university's Pasquerilla Spiritual Center -- relaxed affairs that felt intimate and formal all at the same time.

Budapest is different. Twenty different religious communities, four different denominations -- for a Jew who all too frequently finds himself in synagogue for the High Holidays and nothing else, the sheer amount of options was overwhelming.

So I asked around, providing my criteria -- small, intimate, egalitarian if possible -- and received one consistent recommendation: the Frankel Leo synagogue on the Buda side of the Danube.

For French geneticist, Iceland offers unexpected Jewish journey

By Alex Weisler · October 8, 2011

Patrick Sulem poses in front of the Decode Genetics complex in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Alex Weisler)

Patrick Sulem's hometown -- sunny Montpellier in southern France -- has four synagogues, but he's convinced his Jewish life is richer in synagogue-less Reykjavik.

"When i was in France, I probably would have just done religion with my family, my tradition," said Sulem, a genetic researcher who has lived in Iceland with his wife and children for ten years. "Here it's an experience -- just the fact that you have Sephardim, Ashkenazim, Israelis."

I met Sulem at the offices of Decode Genetics, where he has worked for a decade. Sulem met his Icelandic wife, an elementary school teacher, when she studied abroad in France, and they now live in Reykjavik with their two daughters, ages 6 and 9.

Religion is not a major focus in their home, but Sulem, who is of Algerian and Syrian descent, said his daughters enjoy their Jewish heritage and find it "exotic."
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Copenhagen’s Jewish museum is a quiet, moving gem

By Alex Weisler · October 2, 2011

The exterior of the Danish Jewish Museum in downtown Copenhagen. Unfortunately, photos are not allowed inside. (Alex Weisler)

I thought my stop in Frankfurt was a quick hit, but my visit today to the Danish Jewish Museum was over in the blink of an eye.

I made the mistake of not researching the museum's opening hours before heading into the city on a long layover en route from Reykjavik to Budapest. Just like Frankfurt, the Copenhagen city center is surprisingly close to the airport -- just a 12-minute train ride.

What I should have done was hit the Jewish museum first and then take the boat tour of the city's network of canals. But I reversed that, eating lunch, then opting to jet around for an hour or so on the water before finally walking over to the Jewish Museum.

To my horror, it was about 4:40 at this point -- and the museum closed at 5.

Tickets weren't cheap (really, nothing in Denmark is) but I decided I wanted to see this place. I'd heard rave reviews -- about the facility's striking architecture, courtesy of Daniel Libeskind; about its diversity of exhibits; and about how compact it managed to be without feeling small.
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In Iceland, tiny Jewish community has grit, proud energy

By Alex Weisler · September 28, 2011

Chabad Rabbi Berel Grunblatt puts tefillin on me in Reykjavik's Eymundsson bookstore. (Courtesy of Rabbi Berel Pewzner)

Time to cross "putting tefillin on in the middle of a crowded Nordic bookshop" off my bucket list.

I arrived in Iceland yesterday and met up with Rabbis Berel Pewzner and Berel Grunblatt about an hour later at a bustling bookstore cafe in central Reykjavik.

Grunblatt, who hails from Argentina, and Pewzner, whose parents run the Chabad house in Harrisburg, Pa., are both part of Chabad's Roving Rabbis program, which sends young rabbis to remote corners of the Jewish world.

Reykjavik is a small city -- slightly larger than Allentown, Pa., and slightly smaller than Hartford, Conn. -- that feels part college town, part "Northern Exposure."

Iceland is said to have an impossibly small population of just about 40 Jews, a diverse mix of Americans and Europeans, Israelis and North Africans, Ashkenazim and Sephardim.

But they've managed to gather together on-and-off for years for the important events -- Passover, the High Holidays, Chanukah, a Tu B'Shebat-esque tree-planting day in a local forest in May, after the ground has thawed.

They've done it without a synagogue, without a formal structure of any sort -- until Pewzner took interest and began reaching out earlier this year.
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Whirlwind tour of Jewish Frankfurt opens my eyes to personal growth

By Alex Weisler · September 28, 2011

Frankfurt's Holocaust Memorial commemorates more than 11,000 city residents who died during the Holocaust. (Alex Weisler)

It seems odd to write a blog post about Frankfurt, given that I spent less than two hours in Germany's fifth-largest city -- but the city is charming enough to merit one.

Faced with a five-hour layover en route from Budapest to Reykjavik and armed with the knowledge that it only takes about 15 minutes to travel from the Frankfurt airport to the city center by train, I decided to pop in.

I wandered along the Main river, gaped at the city's futuristic skyline (hey, l miss New York) and visited a handful of shops and churches.

But the real highlight for me was definitely the city's Holocaust Memorial -- a stark white wall located just next to Frankfurt's Jewish museum and surrounding its medieval cemetery.
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Gleðilegt nýtt ár—or why I’m spending Rosh Hashanah in Iceland

By Alex Weisler · September 25, 2011

Confused by this blog post's title? Don't worry: That's "happy new year" in Icelandic.

Yep -- at 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning, I'm headed to Iceland -- for Rosh Hashanah, of all things.

Iceland has no synagogue and no organized Jewish community. The country, which has just over 300,000 residents in total, is estimated to have only about 40 Jews.

Most are Israelis and Americans married to native Icelanders, but they still come together for the High Holidays and Passover. And in recent years, the community has made an extra push, importing Chabad rabbis for major holidays and setting up a Facebook group.

The Rosh Hashanah celebration to be held Thursday and Friday in downtown Reykjavik is believed to be the first "in documented history," according to Rabbi Berel Pewzner, the Chabad rabbi leading the services.

"I've kind of made it my mission to help establish a Jewish community in Iceland," he wrote me in an email. "There remains much work to be done in finding Jewish people there and bringing them together -- I'm sure there are many more Jews living in Iceland, however being that they are very assimilated, we do not know of them yet."
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In Budapest, a vast array of exciting Jewish options

By Alex Weisler · September 20, 2011

A Hungarian folk singer performs at the open house for Budapest's Balint Haz community center. (Alex Weisler)

In Budapest, the (Kiddush) cup runneth over.

I'm used to cities that have one marquee event a year, where Jewish culture is something distinct and separate from a city's soul.

Not so in Budapest. Here, the Jewish Quarter is the place to be -- full of hip bars, interesting restaurants and quirky boutiques. It's the fast-paced heart of a city where I haven't found a boring neighborhood yet.

In fact, there's so much going on that for the first time this trip, I've found myself having to say "no" -- or at least having to cut out early or arrive late to balance all the opportunities thrown my way.
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World Union of Jewish Students creates new collaborative framework

By Alex Weisler · September 20, 2011

About 25 Jewish student leaders from around the world drafted the document. (Courtesy of Andrea Gergely)

Two weeks ago, I left Chaniotis, Greece, with a bus full of other young travelers -- but about 25 Jewish student leaders from around the world stuck around to draft a "statement of principles" for the World Union of Jewish Students.

The first-of-its-kind document outlines the main priority for the group, which oversees 48 student unions around the world: building a communicative, value-based organization dedicated to training the next generation of Jewish leaders.

When I met with European Union of Jewish Students President-elect Andrea Gergely and Ukrainian Union of Jewish Students President Victoria Godik, they were bursting with excitement over the document.

The statement was developed using the World Cafe brainstorming method, which involves small groups building off of each other's ideas.
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Growing Budapest youth group offers fun, community

By Alex Weisler · September 18, 2011

About 60 young Budapest-area Jews converged on the Israeli Cultural Institute Saturday night for a youth group's fall kick-off party. (Alex Weisler)

Five years ago, Hanoar Hatzioni was a long-dormant fixture of Budapest's Jewish youth group scene -- but on Saturday night, more than 60 children came out to celebrate the kick-off of the group's fall season of programming after a summer hiatus.

Occupying a top-floor room in the city's year-old Israeli Cultural Centre, the children snacked on butter cookies and popcorn and devised impromptu line dances to songs like Alexandra Stan's "Mr. Saxobeat."

Standing on the sidelines and surveying the happy mayhem was Szokratesz Kosztopulosz, the group's coordinator and one of a group of four who revived Hanoar Hatzioni here.

The group mainly draws from the student body of two of Budapest's three Jewish high schools, but Kosztopulosz said he plans to make a push to reach kids who are not affiliated with the official institutions of the Jewish community here.
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For EUJS, plans go far beyond Summer U

By Alex Weisler · September 17, 2011

I was first introduced to the European Union of Jewish Students at Summer U, the raucous week of beach parties the organization holds annually. This year, EUJS based the event in Chaniotis, a small resort town on the Aegean Sea in northern Greece.

But as event organizers were quick to assure me during my week in Chaniotis, there's a lot more to EUJS than 500 young Jews dancing up a storm to top 40 hits.

This morning, I sat down with EUJS's newly elected president Andrea Gergely and Ukrainian Union of Jewish Students President Victoria Godik, a member of the EUJS presidium -- the organization's governing body.

I met with the two women at the European Youth Centre's Budapest branch, where Godik, who serves on the center's international planning committee, was helping to coordinate a December study weekend to be titled, "Secularism and Religions: Working Together for a Common Europe."

EUJS was the only Jewish organization invited to collaborate on the project, which will also bring together young Muslim and Christian leaders.

Both Gergely and Godik rarely strayed from talking points, but that didn't bother me because those talking points -- the work EUJS does -- were so interesting and so varied.
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