Sun, Sand, Sharks

October 6, 2001-Speaking in Code

It’s still too cool for us to swim, although it hasn’t deterred the tourists of OZ. In your language it’s 78 degrees. We fought our way north along the sand into a gale. The surf was high and the flags were waving in all the colors of the Australian beach warning signals were meaningful to all but us. We lashed our hats to our heads with dorky chin straps and bent our bodies into the wind. We held the brims with one hand and wiped fine sand granules from our sunglasses with the other. What was to be a leisurely stroll to enjoy scenery turned into a battle against the elements and a shouting match. Between the wind and surf, our most frequently used word became, “What?”

After decoding red and yellow flags between which you could safely swim, blue flags where surfing was permitted, yellow caution flags suggesting that your life should be in order before wading out, and ominous red flags indicating the rip tide areas reserved for the suicidal, we noticed white signs that prohibited dogs.

I pointed out a yellow and orange object floating in the rip area to which David replied, “What?” He thought I was showing him a motorized raft. When I re-directed him, he said, “What?” This went on for a while until our attention was drawn to the sound of a motor being started. The Surf Rescue Squad was making like David Hasselhoff and taking off into the froth in their sexy little power rescue boat. What excitement! We were going to see these heroes in action. Too macho to wear life jackets or sit down in the craft, they bounced through the waves undeterred by sense or safety. They were on duty and nothing was going to keep them from their responsibility. They were headed for the very object I had tried to show David. They arrived at the location, leaned into the sea and were hidden by a wave. When they emerged, I expected to see them loading an exhausted swimmer into the boat. They came up empty-handed, but sped off in another direction. As we watched them zero in on yet another yellow and orange object, we realized we’d been watching the august members of Australia’s finest life savers come to the rescue of two buoys that needed to be repositioned to mark the area where the rip tide had shifted.

When we returned from the hike along the beach and had diligently de-sanded our Teva’s and our feet at the spigots available along the way we couldn’t resist dipping our toes in the pool. So we finally took the plunge. Well maybe it would be more accurate to say we took a baby step. We set foot/feet into our pool.

Exhausted from our adventure, we dragged our sandy bodies into the mall, bought some greeting cards and ice-cream cones, and trudged home. We showered the sand off and I’m washing the clothes we wore. Drains in this part of the country have to be lined with silicon to withstand all the sand going through them. David is napping. We have one hour to be up and perky for a 50th anniversary re-commitment ceremony and party at the Temple.

Later-October 6, 2001-Slight Revision

I found out that those buoys we’d seen off shore were attached to shark nets. I’m telling you they were pretty close in. It was an easy swim out to the nets. I can envision myself diving down and being face to face with a shark with only the net between us. I’m not too keen on that. I guess the nets are really effective. There hasn’t been an attack since they started using them over 30 years ago. Florida is now the shark attack capital of the world.

Toby

Warnings and Misteps

October 5, 2001-Dangers Lurk

We’ve been warned that our trip to Cairns is at the height of the box jellyfish season. They’re also called blue bottles here. They’re not a problem out at the Reef, but many beaches are closed to swimming when they appear. Saltwater crocodile know no season. They’re a protected species and are thriving. Looks like it will be the pool for us. Someone did offer a solution to the jellyfish-stinging problem. If you wear pantyhose, the tentacles can’t wrap around you and do their worst damage. I asked David if he wanted to try some on, but he declined. That’s another Australian fashion statement you can add to your list…pantyhose under a bather, swimmie, or swimming costume, as they call them.

There was a comparative list in the newspaper the other day. It was an overview of beaches regarding the number of “drownings, stings, and nibbles.” It’s a school holiday now and the article went with the usual warning to swim in a guarded area between the green flags. Every morning the surf lifesavers groom the beaches with huge sifting machines. The sand is really kept in pristine condition.

It took twice as long to get our mail from home this time. I guess it’s because there are less planes flying. It was sent Global Priority and took 2 weeks. Airmail cards and letters have taken from one week to the record of over three weeks.

Keeping The Faith

While eating lunch al fresco, again, and looking at the clear blue sky and sand dunes, David’s phone rang. It was the musician who will be playing at the bar mitzvah he’s doing this week end in Byron Bay. The person on the phone didn’t know the tune to one of the songs and asked David to hum a few bars. It was really funny. He got up from the table, walked to an unoccupied part of the restaurant’s patio, and began singing into the phone.

The bar mitzvah is really a psuedo event. It will be on a Sunday in the backyard of the boy’s parent’s home. He will read his Torah portion, but it will be from a book, not the scrolls. I guess they’re pretty isolated down there and it was just what they could do. Their family is coming in from New York. The ceremony was going to be on Massada in Israel about a month ago but……..9/11.

Fairies and Being PC

David has been discovered. His speaking ability is known out there. He got a call from a Mormon church in Brisbane asking him to speak at an evening event. He hasn’t accepted yet, but the topic is one he can hardly resist. They want him to speak on Family Values. They don’t even know about the GLBT (gay,lesbian,bi-sexual,transgender) connection. Did I mention our daughter is a lesbian? I think he should speak just to shake them up, rattle their cage, and open their eyes a bit. I would hope Mormons might be a little more open minded about alternative families given their history. I know they’re not very accepting on the GLBT issue.

Speaking of fairies, do any of you like fairy floss? I bet you do. It would bring back warm memories of county fairs and sunny afternoons at the park. I prefer the pink kind, but lately, it's been showing up in all the colors of the rainbow. Some of you may have even rented machines to make the stuff at a home party. Although it’s sticky, it usually doesn’t cause any lasting damage to what it might come in contact with. There are different techniques used to eat the stuff. Some people lick at it taking swipes with their tongues. Others dive in face first and wear what they don’t swallow. I kind of like to pull off the gossamer pieces and plop them into my mouth. That way I can lick my fingers clean too. What’s fairy floss? We call it cotton candy.

October 6, 2001-More Info

As we left to go to services last night, there was a large gathering of our Falun Gong neighbors. I’ve mentioned that they have a meeting place on our street. They were dressed in yellow robes and seated in circles on the ground. There were police guarding the site. We were in a hurry so couldn’t stop to get a photo. It’s the first activity of any kind we’ve seen there. I haven’t seen anything about it in the paper today.

The secret’s out. I called a member of the congregation this morning (it’s Saturday) to RSVP to an Aussie BBQ at her house. She was surprised that I wasn’t at services. I didn’t point out that she wasn’t either. I restrained myself from saying that attendance is only in David’s contract. I just said I don’t do Saturday morning. My cover is blown. I know David wouldn’t be there on Saturday morning either if he didn’t have to. He likes going to pray, but work is a different thing.

I have more information on the woman we had breakfast with yesterday. Her “accident” occurred when she was quite young. She was in the Israeli army and was injured by a grenade. She was in a coma for four weeks. No one expected her to be able to speak or function normally. She’s a strong person.

Same, Same, Whoops

Prime Minister, John Howard, has called for an election. It will be held in a month. Only a month of campaigning and political ads to watch. That’s one thing we can learn from the land of OZ. Don’t you wish?

We had Shabbat dinner at the home of the couple who are trying to get pregnant. They also are the hosts of Hiroko, the chopped liver and challah loving Japanese exchange student. There was an interesting moment of tension as an American-Australian cultural clash unfolded. The host, asked for the cucumbers to be passed to him. Everyone sat mutely around the table but no one moved to pass the cucumbers. I looked at the food within my reach and saw no cucumbers. David did the same. In fact, we saw no cucumbers on the table at all. The silence lengthened. Who would be so rude as to ignore a request for food to be passed? Then the host pointedly asked David to pass the cucumbers. Looking at the table in front of him, David saw his own place setting, challah, diet cola, egg mince (egg salad), salt, pepper, smoked salmon (they don’t call it lox), and pickles. The light dawned. David said, “Oh, you mean the pickles?” There was a confused exclamation of, “Pickles?” Then they realized that David was referring to what they call cucumbers. They thought it odd that we named a vegetable by what had been done to it and not what it was. They claimed that “pickle” is a verb and we had made it into a noun. We provided a great deal of amusement for everyone. It’s a tale that will be re-told for generations. They’ll say, “Remember that rude rabbi from America and his wife who wouldn’t even pass the cucumbers at Shabbat dinner? Well, they really weren’t rude, they were just stupid.” Once again, we are separated by a common language.

Toby

Adventures Old and New

October 4, 2001-Old Stories, New Friend
(photos:
Wearing dorky riding helmut,
Wetting down hat hair in stream,
Making Billy tea & damper)

Took a woman from the temple to breakfast this morning. She’s probably in her 80’s and a widow. She was born in Israel and her father was an orthodox rabbi. He always opened his house to visiting service men and that’s how she met her husband. She was 15 years old. When she was 17, they got married and she moved to Sydney, her husband’s home. He was the head of a large asbestos company and they lost their shirts when that industry collapsed. They were living a very affluent life and it all crumbled. She adored him and her one regret is that he wanted to become Jewish and she wouldn’t let him. She said she was young and thought she knew it all. Her parents were modern orthodox and very accepting of him. They truly loved him. She and her husband moved to Gold Coast to economize after he lost his business. Sydney had become too expensive.

She is a very accomplished person in her own right. She has a PhD in philology. I’m not sure exactly what it is and don’t have a dictionary, but it has something to do with languages. She speaks English, Hebrew, Russian, French, German, and Japanese to name a few. She learned Japanese late in life because it sounded interesting. She taught at several universities and traveled the world lecturing. She danced professionally and mentioned belly dancing as one of her talents.

You can tell by looking past the dissipated woman she is now to see the graceful beauty she was. Her mouth sags slightly to one side. It was marred by an accident that required a metal plate to be put in her skull. She proudly proclaims she literally has a hole in her head. Her hair didn’t grow in for years, but when it did, it was wispy and thin. She wears it up and fastens it with a variety of large artificial flowers. I suspect the flower covers the area of the plate and gap in the hair growth. She admittedly dyes her hair and sprays the front magenta. She tells people who criticize her that she doesn’t ask them why their hair is gray so they shouldn’t remark on her choice. She wears bright colors and elaborate costume jewelry. She’s quite flamboyant and would not go unnoticed in a crowd.

She desperately misses her husband who died three years ago. Her children and grandchildren live far away. Her spirit is hovering under the surface and she only needed a few leading questions to unveil her story. She’s a woman who constantly forgets her age and is surprised when something rudely gets in her way and reminds her of it. She regaled us with tales of people who fought changes and said she and her husband always believed things must change. Whether the change will be for good or not is unknown, but change is inevitable.
Giddyap!

We went horseback riding in the hinterlands this afternoon. It was near where we explored in the national park area on Sunday. It was a 3-3 ½ hour ride with a stop by a river for billy tea and damper. That’s tea boiled over a campfire and bread wrapped in foil and baked in coals. I think it used to be cooked on a flat iron pan on the coals, but modern Aussies have new ways.

It took about 30 minutes to fill out waivers, choose helmets, check shoes, and mount up. When it came to filling in whom to notify in an emergency, I didn’t have anyone to put down. It was an odd and lonely feeling. I decided on Syd Bruce but didn’t know his phone number. He’s in the phone book, so I put his street and town.

They provided boots in all sizes if they didn’t think yours were safe. If you preferred not to wear their boots, they had a gizmo that attached to the front of the stirrup to prevent your foot from slipping through. Hats were standard hard riding helmets but these either had sun visors or rims around them to keep off the sun. Mine had a full rim and David couldn’t resist taking a picture of my dorkdumness.

We were divided into groups by ability and assigned horses. I decided to have an easy time of it so I put myself in the middle group that had ridden 10-20 times despite having owned a horse and jumped. David went into the advanced group. Then they asked if anyone was nervous and I raised my hand. That assured me of getting a nice quiet horse with a pleasant disposition. Murphy turned out to be 17 years old and the little girl who adjusted my girth assured me no one had ever fallen off of him. He turned out to be a very responsive horse.

They told us they wouldn’t let us canter unless they thought we were steady enough at the rising trot. That means posting. The horses don’t get to canter much and tend to go very fast when they do. The saddles were Australian working saddles and the stirrups were English style. The saddles looked like English saddles in that they had no horn, but the cantle (front) was a little more pronounced than English saddles. They also had a more prominent knee roll to steady your leg. If Australian cowboys use them, I don’t know where they fasten the rope when they lasso the stock.

The trail was on a 2500 acre piece of property encompassing a mountain and valley.. There were cattle grazing, rivers, and a main road going through it. We saw some wallabies hopping across our path and a green snake slither across the road. We were hoping to spot koalas, but were unsuccessful. A guide told us that koalas sometimes get so stoned on eucalyptus they fall right out of the trees.

When we stopped at the river for tea, some people took a dip. The weather had cooled off and the rain was hard enough to plop into our hot metal teacups and bounce back into our faces. During our snack we were kidding the bush riders (guides) about Australian time and the TV shows not going on at the hour or half hour. There were people on the ride from Melbourne and they were surprised. They said that shows in Melbourne go on exactly when scheduled. We attributed the non-adherence to scheduling here as just a part of the laid back attitude of Queensland. The conversation went on to how the five different states had different laws for driving age, drinking age, traffic rules, etc. I confounded them by mentioning that we have 50 states and they’re all different.

The horses waited patiently under the trees as we finished our tucker and they nickered as we approached. They knew we’d been clued in that they enjoyed the damper as much as we. After we gave the horses their snack, we mounted up and found that their tack was wetter than expected. We came away with wet bums.

After I’d mounted, my horse did a full body shake to get the rain off. It was a first for me. I’d seen them do it, but had never been on board when it happened. It’s like those old beds in motels that would vibrate when you put a coin into a slot. We did get to trot, but never cantered. There were two kids in the group who were having a hard time and some adults who weren’t too steady either. We hadn’t posted in years and it took a few times to feel comfortable.

The owners provided a rotweiller, 2 Australian cattle dogs, and some cats to play with as a way to relax after the ride. As David always says when asked if he had a good ride, “I got off the horse and it was my decision. That’s the definition of a good ride.”
Aussie Style

The answer to the question about the food oddity of the day is that black pudding is the same as blood pudding. Black pudding is Irish and blood pudding is from Eastern Europe. The names are probably interchangeable. I’ve heard of blood sausage too. There is no need to speculate on what goes into that.

On the news there was a story about a new ride opening at an amusement park in Melbourne. As a promotional ploy, the first people to ride it did so in the nude. The entire thing was televised in living buff. Now that’s something you wouldn’t see in the U.S.

We’re getting ready for dinner now. It’s good old American hot dogs tonight. We have to eat something to counteract the Aussie fare.

Toby

Say It Again

October 3, 2001-Acronyms

Contacting the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered) community was as easy as looking in the phone book. It was listed under Gay Counseling. The number turned out to be in Brisbane at an AIDS center. PFLAG (Parents, Friends, and Family of Lesbians and Gays) has an office there. We're scheduled to be the program for their meeting on Oct. 13. There’s a chapter in Gold Coast and we should have information about them soon. We’ll let you know how it goes.

I mistakenly called the GST a government sales tax. It’s a goods and services tax. It’s only a year old and people are feeling the effects. There was an article in the paper that restaurants in Brisbane are closing or lowering prices in an attempt to attract customers. People are belt tightening on eating out.

The GST applies to almost everything and they now have less disposable income. The GST is 9-10%. Fortunately for us, we can get it back when we leave. We’re saving receipts like crazy. The article went on to say that others are of the opinion that business has fallen off because of the Ansett Airline crisis, decrease in tourism, and failure in the stock market.

Things are falling into place for our Cairns/Ayres Rock/ Alice trip. We booked a one-way car hire from the Rock to “the Alice”, as they call it. We avoided one-way fees by booking for 3 days with Thrifty. They give you limited mileage (or do they say kilometerage?). It’s 450km between the two locales and King’s Canyon is between them. We hope to add that to our sightseeing and our mileage. Fortunately we got an RACQ discount. That’s Royal Auto Club Queensland (e.g. AAA).

Understanding the confirmation number was another story. The woman I was speaking to had a thick accent and spoke rapidly. She tried to be helpful as she rattled off numbers and letters. When she said, “Pay as in Pater , X as in X-roy, and J as in Jewleet) it threw me. We reviewed it together several times in American and Australian until we were both satisfied that I had the right code. By the way, it was Peter, X-ray, Juliet. I mentioned that Juliet was an unusual choice and I might have said, “J as in John.” She replied that they all use standard common words to clarify the letters. Maybe Juliet is a common name here.

Combos

Another word about strange food combos. Avocado and beet root (just plain beets to us) is added to sandwiches no matter the rest of the ingredients. I’ve seen it on burgers, turkey, etc. An everything burger or “burger with the lot” means the patty, an egg, beet root, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, and onion. A trucker’s brekkie at one place included liver, black pudding, steak, bacon, sausage, chips, egg, fried tomato (and you thought it was Southern), and toast. Gag!

Toby

After A Month

October 1, 2001-Gay or Military?

On the radio this morning I heard an artist/writer being interviewed about his time in Afghanistan with the Taliban. He said it struck him as a somewhat gay culture. It was totally male and had erotic overtones of the younger men serving the older ones. One example was that of the young men bringing coffee or tea to the leaders in the morning. I don’t know. Maybe living in dirty tents turns some men on, but it doesn’t do it for me. It just sounds like military life as it has been lived for eons.

October 2, 2001-Mini-Rebellion

They get a surprisingly good crowd here for Sukkot. Jack and Margaret took us to lunch afterwards. They are part of the glue that holds this place together. They’re Scottish. I was told in no uncertain terms that the drink is Scotch and the people are Scottish or Scots. I love their accents. She, a convert, is our soloist and he’s the bar/bat mitzah tutor and volunteer rabbi-for-life. Ten years ago she dedicated herself to learning to chant the service and has been doing it ever since. He is retired from Honeywell. This is his hobby and passion.

Before services this morning there was a disagreement about whether or not to turn the air conditioning on. It was really warm today and I know that David gets hot under his robe. I voted for A/C so the nay-sayer put it on low. The other man wanted the air on cooler and was getting nowhere, so he went out and bought a fan. David now has total control over the fan. I don’t know if they're being frugal or heeding complaints that it was cold during the holiday services. In any event, the air conditioning rebellion has been quelled for the time being.

Going Places

We went to Qantas yesterday to check out how our Aussie Passes worked and ended up booking a trip for Cairns (Great Barrier Reef) and the Center (Ayres Rock and Alice Springs). One of the major Australian airlines, Ansett, has gone under and Qantas is struggling to take up the slack. They just don’t have enough seats. Add to that the fact that planes flying to the center are very small and it became a problem finding seats for the times we wanted. There are also a limited amount of rooms at Ayres Rock so we were concerned about getting a hotel. We made a split second decision to hold the flights while the agent looked around for a better date. When she went back to check on our reservations there were no seats left on our flights at all. We were lucky she had them on hold. With airline seats going empty all over the world, this is a unique problem. Qantas’ international flights are not full either. We had to book part of the trip off the Aussie Pass due to the limited seating in that class designation. Thanks to the great exchange rate it only is costing us $US200 more. Plus, when all is said and done, we get the GST (government sales tax) back when we leave.

Toby

Different Strokes

September 30, 2001-Different Traditions
(Photos:
Woodchopper's In Restaurant-Mudgeeraba,
Toby at top of falls- Goomoolarah)

David went to temple this morning to help the kids decorate the sukkah. Here’s a list of what they use: palm branches supplied by the city from trees that it prunes, oranges hung in net bags, New Year’s greeting cards, and drawings the children made. I like the idea of using the greeting cards.

Different Pronunciations

This afternoon we had an excursion up to Springbrook National Park. We went by way of Mudgeeraba , Coolalinga, and the Numinbah Valley. While there we walked on trails through a rainforest and went to overlooks to gaze at the natural bridge at Purlingbrook where the falls go through a hole in the roof of a cave. At Goomooarah Falls we were able to see the Gold Coast shoreline high rises and the Pacific in the distance. It was spectacular. We passed a sign that said “Boomerang Farm” and were curious. When we turned into the area it was just a subdivision. I wondered how they could grow boomerangs anyway. I guess it would be easy. You wouldn’t have to replant them. They’d just keep coming back each year.

We once again saw warning signs about kangaroo crossings. There was an article in the paper today telling about a man who was killed when he collided with a kangaroo. It came through his windscreen. I saw what looked like a large gopher at the side of the road. When it hopped, I realized that it was a roo. I don’t know if it was a small kangaroo or a wallaby, but it definitely wasn’t a gopher.

Different Eats

We had lunch on our way up the mountain at an inn in Mudgeeraba. The restaurant was built in the Queensland style with the signature wraparound porch. We ate on the porch and found that the food was exceptionally good. David had lamb and I had my first pie. Here pie means meat pie. Mine was beef and mushroom. The presentation was artful and it came with fries and salad. David’s was served with a fabulous mint jelly and side of roast veggies. It was a delightful place. Oh, an item on the menu was bugs brochette. Bugs are small crayfish. We took a pass.

Different Folks

I had a strange moment on one of the trails in the park. We were looking over the edge of the ravine at the waterfall when two couples joined us. They were debating about how high the falls were. One of them, a young man with an unidentifiable non-Aussie accent, asked us how many meters high we thought it was. I replied by saying that I was more comfortable with feet than meters and almost added that I was from the U.S. There have been State Department warnings for years about trying not to be obviously from the U.S. Now I took it to heart. Maybe it had made more of an impact on me than I realized. I remember that when we were buying luggage tags for the trip I wouldn’t buy the ones with the American flag. What I had failed to think about on the trail today was that David had on his Temple Israel, Akron, Ohio, t-shirt with Hebrew on it. So much for being cautious.

Toby

From David

September 29, 2001-Jews in Oz

This is the uncharacteristicly silent one of this duo. Toby has been doing such a great job writing; I have been content to just add a thought here and there. I thought I would write a bit about my impression of Australian Jewry as it is represented on the Gold Coast.

This is an immigrant nation, and as such, there are many different traditions that try to blend together. There is no “reform” Judaism, as we know it. I am told that there is one rabbi in Melbourne, now retired from the active rabbinate, who is the last “reform” rabbi in the country, at least until I arrived.

Our services are much more traditional than even many “traditional” reform congregations in the States, In fact, the word “reform” is never used, but rather the term is ”progressive.” We have, for example, a minimum of three aliyot each Shabbat morning (Torah is not read on Friday night), and there is a mi shaberach prayer said after each of them. The haftarah, however, is almost always read in English. They are used to more Hebrew in the service, and never sing anything in English. Kippot are required, and all the men wear talliyot during the morning service. There is a lot more facing the ark (during the T’fila for example), and every time the ark is opened, somebody is given that honor, and they seem to daven in unison. (An aside, they “strip” the Torah here, rather than “undress” it.)

On the other hand, their everyday lives differ little from ours. Few of the orthodox bother to sit shiva after a funeral, rarely is kriah (the cutting of a garment at a funeral) done, and returning to the shiva home is uncommon. The temple kitchen uses the same definition of kashrut as we did in Akron. Many of the “leaders” of the Jewish community don’t ask for or expect to get a day off on the High Holy Days. I suppose attendance Friday night and Saturday morning is decent by percentages (about 20-30 at each out of a possible 170 or so), but Shabbat is no more special for the people here than in the States. Most of our members started orthodox, but even those who belong to the orthodox shul fail to keep kosher and few are shomer Shabbat. This is definitely a place of interesting contrasts.

There are moments that I want to come in and simply change things. There have indeed been some changes since I arrived (they used to have even more aliyot). I keep remembering that in six months I will be gone, and they will return to the care of the lay people that have kept the congregation alive all these years. So I teach, and work with the children, and the converts, and engage in counseling. I accept the definitions I have found, for I do believe in the Jewish dictum, “minhag ha makom, minhag, the custom of the place is the custom.”

L’shana tova,
David

Email Fodder

September 28, 2001-Surviving

Congratulations to all of you who survived Yom Kippur. I hope you had an easy fast. David walked in today with his pulpit size high holiday prayer book and stashed it in a suitcase. It was a good feeling to have that behind us. Now maybe we can start to loosen up and get more free time. Free time will come only if we plan for it now.

Congratulations also to Tom for being the only contestant who bothered to answer the question from the Millionaire show about spotted dick. The answer is that spotted dick is a pudding. He also said that for obvious reasons there was some pressure to change the name to “spotted Richard.”

Slowing

Things have really slowed down. It’s Friday afternoon and we just got back from the grocery store. David is sitting out on the balcony with a “tikkun” learning tomorrow’s Torah portion. A “tikkun” is a book that has the Torah writings in two columns opposite each other. One column has the text as it appears in the Torah, without vowels, and the other column has it with vowels. He says that this portion is difficult because it’s poetry.

I had a great morning. I love living in this village-like atmosphere. I walked over to get a haircut across the street and on my way home I stopped at the convenience store in our building to buy flowers for Shabbat dinner tonight at the home of a congregant. David says he loves living over a “refrigerator.” The other night he wanted ice cream so he went downstairs and bought a “Nutty Buddy” cone.

Although we’re not going to Syd and Janet Bruce’s home tonight, we have a standing Shabbat invitation there. They have family over every week, so two more is no trouble. We also have a standing invitation to join them on Wednesday nights for Thai food at the restaurant up the street. We really enjoy their company. After services Syd told me that he’d never met a rabbi before who agreed with his politics. I said that a few months ago David’s politics were different. Syd said that his were too. I guess they’re evolving in the same direction.

September 29, 2001-Sharing

I think that the people here do things just so I can have material to email to you all. Our host tonight was the woman who told us about the visiting rabbi in Brisbane whose American accent wasn’t as thick as ours. As it turns out, he’s an Israeli.

That’s the least of our email “sharing time.” At Shabbat dinner last night we met Hiroko, a Japanese exchange student. She is 17 years old and is living with the parents of Marcus, the one-year-old redhead. They are also the couple trying to get pregnant. Hiroko will be learning her English from a family that speaks heavily accented Australian with Yiddish terms thrown in. I doubt she will be able to distinguish Yiddish from English. Hiroko is now going to school in Australia where they spell words differently than she has been taught in Japan. In Japan they use American spelling (color not colour). She has been to Yom Kippur and Shabbat services so that Hebrew can be thrown into the mix of languages. At dinner she ate several large helpings of challah topped with chipped liver. When we left, she was corn rowing the hair of our host’s 13-year-old daughter. Everyone is enjoying the multi-cultural experience even if it involves cultures they didn’t expect to be represented.

Now for the 13 year old daughter of our hosts. She was the one having her hair corn rowed by the Japanese exchange student. I should preface this by saying that she’s a seemingly lovely young woman. She’s an athlete and proficient as an actor in theatrical productions. Her parents claim she is nervous and sensitive. I believe they also described her as high strung. For a little background, I need to tell you she was the only live birth out of 6 stillborns this couple had. They refer to them as their “dead babies.” We’d been privy to an after dinner conversation recounting the tales of each birth, death, and burial with attendant complications of where to bury, whether to sit shiva, and will a rabbi do the funeral.

As a toddler this daughter, their only living child, was a bit squeamish when going to the doctor. That didn’t seem unusual but then she had to be sedated at age 3 ½ to have a cavity filled. When they told about taking her to the emergency room with possible appendicitis my ears perked up. I expected she would freak out in those surroundings. Just the air of tension in an ER would send a calm person’s pulse racing. She threw a tantrum and staged a non-negotiable rebellion with unconditional demands. This 13 year old cannot abide white sheets. That was it. She would not get into the bed until they changed the sheets to a non-white color. I rest my case. The email angel is blessing me with these odd stories.

Telling

Odd too is the way light switches work here. It’s funny how our minds get wired to direct our bodies to take action. You look left, right, left to cross the street. We do the opposite here. You ride up escalators on the right and go down on the left. We do it the other way around. You walk into a room and flick the light switch up to turn on the lights. Would you believe that just because we’re hanging on upside down light switches turn on by flipping down? When I go into the bathroom in the middle of the night I still fumble.

David was too burned out to write a sermon last night so he did an “Ask the Rabbi.” He loves that format. One of the questions was about how the holidays of Succoth differs here and in Akron. He told the story about the time when the temple in Akron was undergoing extensive renovation. The building inspectors were there almost every day. As Sukkoth approached, one of the inspectors saw that the skeleton of a new structure was going up on the vacant lot next to the temple. He asked to see the permits for it. When none were produced, he slapped a “stop work order” on the structure. It turned out that it was the sukkah that was in question. That is the temporary booth-like structure that has the roof open to the stars and is built during Sukkoth. It’s decorated with branches and fruits and vegetables of autumn. It symbolizes the dwellings erected by the Children of Israel as they fled across the desert to escape the Egyptians. David called the mayor who asked him how long the sukkah would be there. When he was told it would be only a week, he told David to forget about it. David left the stop work order on the sukkah so that every year thereafter it was part of the decoration. The Aussies got a kick out of that. But what gives us a charge is that it’s spring here when we’re celebrating a fall harvest holiday. They decorate with apples and paper chains, but not squash. They’ve never heard of Indian corn. I guess the Children of Israel hadn’t heard of it either.

Toby

Yom Kippur Down Under

September 26, 2001-The Fair Pacific

I keep talking about going across the street to the shopping mall, but I don’t think I’ve ever described it. It’s called Pacific Fair. It’s part two-story modern enclosed mall and part village-style shopping. There are the usual department store anchors plus privately owned stores of every kind. They have two shoe repair shops, six beauty salons, a private butcher and separate green grocer as well as a full supermarket. There are a few food courts, separate restaurants, cafes, and a 12-screen cinema. Ponds decorate the center along with a supervised kiddie playland where parents can leave their children while they shop. The village shops are all along pedestrian streets and lanes. It gives the impression of being in an old time downtown. You can do your banking, see the doctor, and collect the government payment of your medical bills right at Pacific Fair. Of course there are banks, an auto repair shop, a bus depot, and taxi stand. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen anywhere. There have to be hundreds of stores.

We went to Pacific Fair again today to pick up our yom tov challah. We'd ordered it, but it wasn’t ready. They offered us a long braided challah bread instead. We told them it was the special round holiday loaf we needed. You’d think that at Goldstein’s Bakery they’d know. They called all around and a challah was located. Mrs. Goldstein was contacted on her mobile phone and agreed to drop it off. This is a big operation. I think there are 10 stores on Gold Coast with three at Pacific Fair alone. Poor Mrs. Goldstein. She was so apologetic. Of all orders to screw up, the rabbi’s wasn’t the one she would have chosen. What she said to us was, “It seems that we’ve mucked you around today, haven’t we?” We agreed that things had gotten mucked up and that mucking around wasn't what we needed to be doing while we were getting ready for Yom Kippur. She gave us the sweet (defined as plain) challah we'd ordered and a bonus fruit challah (one with raisins). Both were gratis.

As we walked home through the mall, we saw two women walking towards us holding hands. In Europe, women frequently walk around arm in arm, but it’s an unusual sight here. I don’t know where the gay/lesbian/bi/trans community is, but it has been invisible. If we weren’t rushing home, I would have stopped them to chat. I probably would have scared them before they figured out we were friends. We need to do some GLBT searching after the holidays.

More To Tell

Another service, erev Yom Kippur, and another story. I met a woman named from Hungary. She’d lived in Budapest until the revolution in the late 50’s. She and her husband fled to New Zealand. They wanted to get as far away from Europe as they could. They later brought her parents to New Zealand.

They needed to earn a living, so they opened a restaurant. Salad bars were just becoming popular, but the Kiwis weren’t ready for “lite” cuisine. After throwing leftover greens away each evening, she decided to take action. She went to a small but successful restaurant and appropriated one of their menus. They copied the offerings and re-opened with hearty foods like fish and chips, meat pies, and bangers and mash. They were a hit.

I was excited to hear they’d been married at the Doheny Synagogue in Budapest. We'd visited it when we went on the tour of Eastern Europe with members of the Akron congregation. It was being restored to its former glory then. It re-opened for Rosh Hashanah that year. We'd learned that two of the major donors for the restoration were Tony Curtis and the Gabor sisters. Anyway, the day after her wedding, her husband, who was in the army, was called up. She was a political activist against the Communists and went into hiding for two years. She hid in a basement on the street where the synagogue is. I’m sure we walked right past that house.

How did she come to be in Gold Coast? She and her husband used to vacation here. Before he died two years ago, he told her he thought she would be happier here so she came.

David managed to get his sermon up to 15-17 minutes tonight. His theme was Alchet Shechatanu L’fanecha. It means, “For the sins we have sinned against You.” He concentrated on the sin of omission and confessed to not paying enough attention to the terrorism that had been going on for years because it didn’t directly affect him. He quoted the statement attributed to Martin Niemoller, a Protestant minister, who said that, “First they came for the Communists. I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.” The entire text is on line under Niemoller’s name. It was a strong statement. He ended by saying that when they come for us, he hopes someone will be left to speak up for us.

September 27, 2001-Deadly Silence

Once again a woman didn’t come to services today because she didn’t want to ask for time off work. The irony is that she works for Goldstein’s Bakery. This woman and her family are extremely active at the temple and she isn’t a shy, retiring person. Strange.

David’s sermon (11 minutes) this morning was one familiar to you all. It was his definition of Judaism. It was safe, he was eloquent, and it was well received.

With no choir or instrumental music morning services were only two hours long ending at noon. Afternoon readings start immediately after a brief break. There’s no special service for young folks. Yizkor (memorial service) started at 4:30.

David warned me that during yizkor they read all the names of the deceased. I thought it was as we do and they read all the names of those who died during the last liturgical year. Wrong! They don’t have a memorial booklet that lists the names. They read the names of everyone who has died who was a member or relative of a member of the congregation for the entire history of the congregation. It’s a good thing there’s a small membership. They are aware that some congregations print memory books and even use it as a fundraiser. Evidently they like to hear the names. How long does this take, you ask? I timed it. It took 11 minutes. It reminded me of the reading of the names for the AIDS quilt. Actually, it’s vice-versa. Whenever I’ve heard the names read when the quilt was displayed, I’ve thought of our kaddish (memorial) lists.

Under the circumstances, I found my mind wandering as we read the list of sins that we might have committed during the past year. I must confess, I’m not without wanting revenge. I wonder how I can ask for forgiveness for a sin and know that those feelings are in my heart right now? It’s a dilemma I haven’t begun dealing with. It was exacerbated by a radio broadcast we heard as we were getting dressed this morning. There’s a lot of airtime here given to the Muslim view and sympathy for their cause. I don’t know if it’s increased since the mosque was burned in Brisbane or if it was always this way. I do have to remind myself that Australia is basically British, and the British have favored the Arab side of things. Even though the majority of the Muslim population here doesn’t endorse the events of Sept. 11, I wonder how many of these upstanding Muslims silently cheered with each terrorist act that led up to it? I wonder if the militants perceived silence as an endorsement of those acts? Their leaders and the Muslim world population at large were silent until now. Could they have come forward to prevent the atrocities that lead up to Sept. 11? Could the Germans have intervened in the events that lead to the Holocaust? The risk of confronting the Nazi regime was far more dangerous for the German people than similar risks would be to the Muslims living outside the control of the Arab fanatics. How many of them secretly gave money to support those organizations that masterminded the events of Sept. 11? These questions go back to David’s sermon of last night. None are blameless. It bothers me that the Muslims living in the Diaspora are being cast as sympathetic victims. They are to blame. We are to blame. The guilt of silence is universal. Truly, in this case silence=death. What sort of treatment is being given to the Muslim population at home?

At the break fast, I sat next to a delightful woman from Nice, France. She happened to mention an article in the paper today about the Imam in Brisbane. It was very sympathetic to him. He was quoted as saying that with the devastation that took place at the Twin Towers it's hard to tell who really committed the crime. He said it probably was not the Palestinians or bin Laden’s group, but that it was more likely “the others” who want to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims. Guess who “the others” are? Somehow they’re trying to blame it on the Jews…again. What’s scary is that with Bush trying to build a coalition of Arab states to support the U.S. anti-terrorist response, it looks as if Israel will be odd man out…again. A lot of pressure will be brought to bear on them at the negotiation table.

I have just confessed my sins for last year and am building new ones for next. My thoughts at this time are far from peace and charity. I’m so glad that Bush is able to use the coalition building skills that got him elected. The nation and he never dreamed who his building buddies would be.

It was a hard fast for both of us. I don’t know why. I woke up hungry this morning. Usually I can get a couple of hours without hunger pangs. Well, it’s over. I think this really was David’s last time doing High Holiday services.

Toby

Did I Tell You?

September 24-25, 2001-Stale News & Views

Today is Tuesday. David is watching the News Report with Jim Lehrer. It comes with a disclaimer that it was broadcast in the United States on Friday. Nothing like getting up to the minute news. He just switched to the local news.

We had lunch at the casino across the street from our building. They have several restaurants but the people we were with chose the buffet. It was typical Las Vegas fare. We went into the gambling area for a while and it was quieter than in Vegas. Don’t know why. Next month smoking will be banned in all casinos in Australia.

TV shows here tend to start on the half hour. Some run only 45 minutes. I guess they stop writing when they run out of ideas for the script. They always run over. If we want to watch something at 9:30 PM on another channel, we’re in trouble. That show might have started on time. They’re casual about most things here.

It’s 9:36 PM now and the show we're watching the Australian version of Millionaire. I don’t think we could get past the first level. One question was," What type of food is spotted dick?” The choices were: A-pudding, B- sausage, C- cheese, D- bread. Any guesses? I think I’ll just sit here and email you the rest of the show. Here comes a commercial for toilet paper that promised that it would be “soft down under.” Cute. In the Dove chocolate bar commercial they call it “chocky.” Another Millionaire question: Which of these Holden models were introduced first? A- EJ, B- HK, C- FE, D- VB? The answer: FE. Holden is GM in Australia.

Did I ever tell you that there is no such thing as unlimited phone calls here? You pay for each call. It varies, but it can be $A0.20-0.25/call.

Americans & "isms"

I just had the maintenance man come up to show me how to change a light bulb. The overhead fixtures don’t give much light and are tricky to open. We really need more light in the bathroom. We thought they only had 1 bulb in a 2-bulb fixture, but as it turns out, it’s a 1-bulb fixture. It’s made to take a 60 W bayonet globe (you know what that is now), but I could use an 80 W if I keep the cover off. Lovely look, that. I think I’d rather do my toilette on the balcony in full sun.

Big Brother just spoke to me. There are speakers in our living area and bedroom. When we first moved in I thought they could be hooked up to a stereo system. Silly me! It is a PA system that allows management to make announcements to tenants. I guess it could be used in an emergency. I hope it only works one way. It just spoke to me and a rather nice sounding man’s voice said, “This is a test.” It then wailed and beeped. That was followed by the same voice telling me to ignore it. It was, “only a test, thank you.” They’re always polite. I don’t know if I told you or not, but instead of saying, “Excuse me,” as they push past you, the say, “Sorry.”

David brought home a Jewish calendar. It’s put out by the orthodox congregation here. On every page there is an ad for a well-known realtor in the area. His name is Max Christmas. It’s a big ad. I thought it was a nice inter-denominational touch.

We will eventually get some of our photos on a CD or floppy and email them to you. We went to K-Mart to price it and the woman there didn’t know if it included the disk. She said, “Pshaw! It’s too late to call the office.” She actually said “pshaw.” I thought that only appeared in old English literature. It’s Dickensian.

There are two new Aussie words we learned. David was asked if we wanted chicken schnitzel for breakfast or crumbled fish. He chose the chicken. I got the crumbles. When you think about it, it makes sense. When you use breadcrumbs to coat the fish, it is covered in crumbles. The other word was just on TV. There’s a problem in the outback with cattle duffers. Those are cattle thieves.

A fact about our weather: Being upside down on the globe has its effect. Our cold weather comes up from the South and our hot weather from the North.

Toby

Nosing Around

September 23, 2001-Flicks

(photos:
Toby,David, & koala;
Toby & roo;
Toby & lovelorn emu)

The weather here has two descriptions. There’s mostly fine & fine. Mostly fine is pretty damn good. Fine is perfect. The rain last night didn’t take away from the 300 sunny days that I told you about because it rained at night.

Last night we were going to walk across the street to the movies to see Blow. It was raining so we drove. We ended up meeting a couple we know and saw Bridgett Jones Diary with them. It was a more fun and upbeat choice. We grabbed a bite to eat afterwards and called it a day. I can’t say enough about our location. It’s so convenient. By the way, the movies were at a first run cinema. They really do get them late. It’s a twelve-screen complex and very impressive. The lobby/snack area is modern and huge with dramatically high ceilings. The cost was $A8.50/person.

Flack

We woke up to bad news here. One of the mosques in Brisbane was burned to the ground last night. There is a lot of anti-Islamic feeling here now. Aside from the crime of it, it does raise sympathy for the Muslim community.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to pamphlet Afghanistan and tell the people that if they hand over bin Laden, we will re-build their houses, schools and hospitals and get their agriculture going again? Maybe we don’t need to do that and we already know where he is.

Kute Kritters

Today we went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. They have about 150 koalas that are in the breeding population. They only get about 15 joeys (koala babies) per year. Koalas aren’t endangered. The joeys aren’t released into the wild because their habitat is decreasing and it can’t support any more. There are 40-80,000 koalas in the country. We actually got to hold one and pet it. My cutie gripped me so hard I got a puncture wound. Glad I had all my shots. It was “no worry.” The staff was ready with a cleanser and alcohol wipe. They are as cuddly as they look. Their coats are thick and soft. They eat constantly when awake. The food passes through them in 20-30 minutes, so they have to move slowly and sleep a lot to conserve energy. They sleep about 16 hours a day.

The park also has a kangaroo compound where you can walk around with the roos and feed them. They’re quite blasé about it. Kangaroos are also not endangered. They even cull them in over-populated areas as they do the deer in Northeast Ohio. The cause of the problem is loss of natural habitat. We learned that kangaroos have one joey and can get pregnant while nursing the first-born. If the nursing mother gets pregnant, the fetus stops growing until the nursing joey is weaned. Then the fetus starts to develop again. Amazing!

We also saw Tasmanian devils, dingoes, wombats, & an emu who fell in love with David. The acreage on which the sanctuary is located is quite lovely. It’s on a river and is left in a mostly natural state with wooden walkways and dirt paths. One way to get there is to take a ferry from Brisbane.

Getting to the sanctuary took us on toll roads. Some toll roads are privately owned. I guess it goes back to the old English system. It’s an interesting entrepreneurial concept.

Toby

Woes, Weirds,etc.

September 21, 2001-Fame

Fame is fleeting. The Brisbane Courier didn’t carry very much on the interfaith service. They mentioned the denominations represented and quoted the Buddhist and Muslim. The photo they ran was of a woman placing flowers at the wall.

Woes

We’ve been having a problem getting on line. Our ISP has been hit by a virus. Thinking that was the problem again this morning, David kept trying to send our email. This time, there was a different wrinkle. He got thrown off AOL and they said that we had an invalid password. After several phone calls to our ISP here and to AOL in the U.S., he was told that we’d been tossed out of AOL for sending “spam.” If I was talking to AOL, I’d have assured them that we not only don’t eat Spam, but we wouldn’t send it either. It seems that their automated screening systems are set up to detect an inordinate number of the same emails being sent to an extraordinary number of people. Vigilance has been heightened since the terrorist attacks. David tried to tell them that he didn’t think terrorists did blanket emailing. I would have added that, being Muslims, they wouldn’t send “spam” either. The fix wasn’t hard and we’re back in business. I guess I’ll have to curtail any mass mailings and send them out a few at a time. You’ll be happy to know the AOL police are keeping the world safe.

Weirds

Now for another “only in Australia” or maybe I should call it “not in the U.S.A.” Paul Kelley, a pop singer/song writer, was being interviewed about his new album, “Nothing But a Dream.” In giving the background on the inspiration for a song, he said that it was about Jesus and friendship. As a child he learned that “No matter how much you f----d up, Jesus was still your friend.” I do not lie.

I haven’t mentioned one of the minor problems we’ve had while driving. Our car horn honks very easily. We’ve both inadvertently sounded it while turning on the directional signal. The good news is that we’re no longer turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal. When the horn beeps it sounds like it’s coming from another car. We jump and look around wildly to see what we’re doing wrong. We’re still having some trouble distinguishing between the cell phone ring, cell phone message beep, dishwasher, oven timer, dryer, phone, and door bell. The other day we heard what sounded like a truck beeping as it backed up. We looked around and started to move aside, but David’s cell phone had a voice message.

Remember I told you about the dry cleaner’s daughter who would probably be working at Mustard Seed? Well, we’re now getting special perks there. David needed some mending done on a shirt that was to be laundered and the repair was gratis. I hope she gets the job. Her boyfriend already picked up a Mustard Seed t-shirt for her.

Eats & Other Quests

We found a new food. Pinjam is indigenously Australian. It was made by early settlers and is a little like a thin crust pizza or matzo. The version David had was made with pistachio nuts in the crust and a topping of turkey, cranberries, and cheddar. Food combinations are unusual here. Mango and roasted pumpkin are big in sandwiches and salads. Cranberry sauce turns up in unexpected places. We had dinner at a Mexican place last night. There was actually a Mexican staff in the kitchen. It was very good, but again, different. I had tamale pie made with chunky beef, corn, black olives, and sultanas (raisins). It was covered with cheddar and served in a very hot crock. It was delicious, and flavorful, but not spicy. David ordered a chicken burrito topped with almond slivers and stuffed with sour cream, potatoes, and tomatillo sauce. It was a bit bland so he added hot salsa. We washed it down with a ½ litre of sangria. They had an interesting set-up for drink orders at this restaurant. The server doesn’t take the order. You have to go up to the bar even for soft drinks, and order there. It’s cash only at the bar and can’t be put on your food tab. Another difference is that you actually get to sit in your chair at the table in a restaurant before the server pops in to introduce herself and ask, “What would you like to drink?” Servers here tend to work anonymously. There’s no tipping because servers get paid from $A11-18/ hour so they pool tables. They get double time for nights, weekends, and holidays.

I know this is going to sound pathetic, but we’ve had one of our best laughs in the grocery store trying to buy a light bulb. First of all, they are listed as “globes” on the aisle. Secondly, they only had boxes marked “bayonet lamps.” Never having been in the military, David was unsure if our light fixtures at the apartment were in need of military issue globes. Given world conditions, it couldn’t hurt to have one on hand, so we bought it. Blessedly, they use wattage as a measure of illumination as do we. Sadly, when we got home, we found that a “bayonet-globe/lamp/bulb” was not what we needed. We had ordinary screw-in “bulbs/lamps/globes.” The bayonet issue pops into a socket. You push it in and give it one turn. The little protrusion on the base (the bayonet, I presume) locks it into place. Enough illumination on that subject. We returned it to the store and are now on “bulb/globe quest.”

That brings me to “brisket quest.” I found a butcher who had them and I watched as he meticulously cut it from the side of beef and trimmed it to perfection. Some of the old fashioned things about this place are a bonus. The brisket is now happily roasting in my electric fry pan. Hey, that’s what came with the apartment. It smells great and seems to be as good as the oven method. For those of you who weren’t at Daniel and Vikki’s wedding, brisket is a very important part of the Horowitz family. To quote from the speech I gave at their wedding:
“Brisket was a staple in our diet. This was before ‘fat free’ was even a part of our vocabulary. Brisket was easy to make in quantity and generally yielded enough portions to be packaged, frozen, and served up for future meals. I hadn’t realized that Daniel was not only eating the brisket, but that he was also creating a philosophy around it. One day he verbalized his doctrine of marriage in relation to brisket. He had determined that since we were never without leftover brisket, it must be multiplying on its own in the freezer. Given that premise, he decided we had only ever bought one brisket in the entire time we had been married. He therefore declared that a marriage would last as long as the brisket did.”
I’m happy to report that our marriage is once again intact. I’m also happy to report that the brisket is quite large and will provide much “old food” (leftovers) to freeze and for future meals.

Stats

I’ve noticed that police here are at least 6’2” or more. In fact, Australians tend to be large. I had a theory that I’d be able to buy pants that were long enough for me here because I pictured Aussies being tall. But people told me that they were from British stock, so they most likely would be short. I guess that stock has bred with some Nordic neighbors or else the outdoor living and sunshine agrees with them.

Here’s a statistic to make you weep. There are on average 300 days of sunshine on Gold Coast each year.

Toby

Worldwide Reality Check

September 20, 2001-More Questions, Less Answers

(photo-Brisbane)

Your rabbi emeritus/friend is a TV star. He made all the networks for the 6:00 news tonight. He joined with members of many faiths at a service called by the premier of Queensland. It was held in a park in Brisbane. In attendance was the Governor of the state (appointed by the Queen). The faiths represented were Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Uniting (Methodist), generic Protestant, Bahai, Hindu, Buddhist (a woman from New York who is organizing a group in Toowoomba), Muslim, Anglican, and our own American Rabbi. The clergy all wore vestments of one type or another, and David wore his black robe, tallis (prayer shawl), and kippah (skullcap).

The Muslims were introduced as “those who have suffered more than most in the aftermath of the terrorism.” Their mosque was defaced. I wasn’t having any of that. They read from the Koran about God being One and that we are all the children of Adam. The reading spoke of not condoning killing innocents. They said that when you kill one person it’s as if you have killed all humanity, but if you save one life it’s as if you have saved all humanity. These were not the Muslims who committed the atrocities on September 11, but these were Muslims who haven’t objected to the violence in Israel, when the Cole was sabotaged, or our marines blown up in Saudi.

The Christians spoke of love and peace and of coming together to understand one another. What do they think has been happening during all the attempts at peace negotiations? While we were talking, the terrorists were plotting. They offered a beautiful responsive prayer for those lost, those saved, the survivors, the president and his advisors, etc. David found it very moving. Unlike the other faiths, they ended with Christian specific language that excluded non-Christian participants.

The Buddhist monk prayed that hate would yield to compassion. She said that we are not individuals, but are one Being. I think that we are of the One and have shown compassion to our enemies. It has given them the time to organize a strike that killed upwards of 6,000 people last week. Do I sound bitter?

The premier offered condolences to those touched by the tragedy. He hoped to be able to help create a better world, come together for peace, and asked that attacks on Muslims cease.

An American representative from the consulate touched us both when she said that if you asked any American in Australia how they felt after the attack, they all said they wanted to be back in the U.S. It was an emotional moment for us. She thanked everyone for good wishes and support. She said, and I think rightly, that the attack was not on America, but on the World. There were people from 60 nations who were killed. She pointed out that there was a difference between those who practiced what their faith taught and violent extremists.

And what did David say amidst all the platitudes and warm fuzzies? He read the 37th Psalm. David asks that you read it when you have a chance. It calls on God to cut off evil men and to be patient. Our enemies will meet their end. After all, we are the people of a vengeful God, aren’t we? That’s what everyone always says about the Bible. As for me, I think that God has a very long fuse, but it’s about to end. Am I impatient? You bet. But the questions I’ve posed before still rankle. Why did it take this to make me understand the reach of terrorism? Why did it take this long for me to care so deeply? Why did it take until it actually hit home?

The service ended as it had begun with a youth choir singing. The closing song was Amazing Grace. The government and military dignitaries walked up to a 15 ft. high sandstone wall on which were draped the flags of Australia, Queensland, and U.S. and placed flowers at its base. People in the audience followed with their offerings. I have to tell you that this wall looked like The Wall in Jerusalem. Another heart rending moment.

As the crowd dispersed, I saw a woman dissolving in tears. Her companion was literally holding her up. I hugged her and thanked her for being there. Hearing my accent, she said she too was American. Her brother-in-law is a New York fire fighter. He’s inconsolable, but working at the site every day. David was approached by a couple of Jewish people in the audience who told him how they appreciated having a rabbi there. But what tore him up was when a young girl broke away from the choir and introduced herself as Jewish. Then a woman came up to him and said, “I’m an American Jew and I need an American hug.” Lots of hugs. Lots of tears.

Brisbane Impressions

We spent the rest of the day sightseeing in downtown Brisbane. I have to tell you that it wasn’t an impressive city. I may be spoiled after Sydney. Brisbane is smaller than Cleveland but bigger than Akron. Its “oldest” landmarks date to the mid-1800’s. The drive in took about an hour and we were entertained by some of the signage along the way. One politely said, “Please drive quietly. This is a residential district.” We were on a 6-lane expressway. How quiet could we be?

Some Answers

Learned some interesting facts from the Bruces at dinner last night. There’s zero tolerance for drivers between the ages of 17-20 having any alcohol in their breath or blood. They will lose their license and have to re-test at age 21. Adults can only have 0.05%. We also learned that there’s no income tax on winnings from gambling, contests, or game shows.

David told them story of how a woman told him she had given her husband the wog and that’s why he had pneumonia. That was a conversation stopper. Evidently “wog” is an epithet for Italian and Greek immigrants. It’s crassly used to refer to the diseases they spread because many were sick when they arrived in Australia. Whoops!

We told them about seeing a 3-4” cricket on the road and they agreed that was indeed a veggie-eating grasshopper. In fact, Syd said he’s a bit afraid of them. They attack! Wouldn’t you know that Australia has aggressive crickets? I don’t know what they do when they jump on you. Maybe they rub you to death with their hind legs.

Toby

Routines

September 19, 2001- How Do It Work?

David met with a woman who somehow comes under the heading of “how do they find him?” She’d been living in Israel for a few years and wants to study to become Jewish and return to Israel. Why is she in Australia now? Although she came home to be with her dying father, the real reason is that she was deported. While in Israel, she found cheap lodging at a place that was raided in a dragnet looking for people who were in millennium cults. This occurred before the secular New Year last year. She was the only one there who had legal papers to be in the country, but she was deported too. She has a lawyer in Israel working on her case so that she can go back.

Six Degrees of Separation

This is for “small world” experiences. We’ve been using the same cleaner since we arrived. They’re very friendly and, after Sept. 11, always ask how people back home are managing. This time, the owner asked us if Akron, Ohio, was anywhere near Solon. Her daughter, Kate, will be going there in November to meet her boyfriend’s parents. Since Kate will be there awhile, she has applied for a 4-month work permit. For those of you in the area, you will recognize where she is planning to apply for a job: Mustard Seed Market. We wrote down our full names for Kate and that of the owners who we know.

David and I met for lunch at Pacific Fair, the shopping center across the street. We ate out at the lily pond. I passed on the ice-cream “spider” and sympathized with the server when the wind came up. She had forgotten her “jumper”. An ice-cream spider is “a fizz" with ice cream in it. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention that’s soda with ice cream. A jumper, to the best of my recollection, is a cardigan.

David went back to work while I went off in search of a yo-yo. Somehow, we didn’t bring one. I found a nice Duncan in Target. As I headed for the checkout line, I passed a rack of t-shirts with American flags on them. I don’t know when they were put on display, but it was nice to see them here.

I needed stamps, so I went to the Post. As I waited in line I saw a sign that we’d never have in the U.S. It was at an unoccupied service window and said,” This counter is presently unattended. Please proceed to the nearest adjacent service point.” First of all it has two three-syllable words and one with four syllables. Secondly, it is composed of two sentences of fair complexity. Thirdly, it is unabashedly polite while being very informative. It assumes literacy at about the 10th grade level.

I was also struck by the formality of language that is used by a usually casual Aussie society that adores slang. I had to leave a message for Daniel Bruce, the 20 year old whom we find to be so charming. We are borrowing an old cell phone of his and occasionally get calls (usually from women) for him. His outgoing message at home apologized that he was “unable to attend the phone at the moment.” I love it.

Things are settling in again. David is vacuuming and our front door got fixed this morning. I called David at Temple to warn him that it was fixed. If he came home and put his shoulder to it like we had to do in the past, he’d come sailing in and fall on his “bum.”

We’re meeting the Bruces for dinner at the same Thai restaurant we went to last week. They’ve gone there weekly for years. We really enjoy their company.

Tomorrow is David’s debut in the Brisbane religious community. We’re going for the Premier’s interfaith service. There were big ads for it in the papers today. We haven’t decided if we’re driving or going by train. It’s easy either way, but David has to bring his robe, so a car might be better.

Toby

A Holy Day in Gold Coast

September 18, 2001- Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah evening in Gold Coast Australia is standing outside the sanctuary at 6:00PM watching fruit bats fly off for their evening feed. Rosh Hashanah day is an Australian sunny cloudless blue-sky wonder with temperatures in the mid-70’s…again. It’s watching a barefoot man wearing shorts and walking his dogs. Rosh Hashanah in Gold Coast is the president of the congregation, a schoolteacher, not coming to services because he couldn’t ask for time off work. It’s his wife ducking out of lunch at her in-laws so that she too can go to work. It’s driving past a shop with a neon sign that says “Condom King” on the way home after services. It’s learning that I do want a “fizz” (pop/soda) when I’m thirsty. It’s hearing that the American rabbi in Brisbane has less of an accent than we do. It’s arriving early at temple and finding people there with gifts of baked goods for us. It’s David walking out on the bima (pulpit) and creating an atmosphere of worship that hopefully inspires prayer.

This morning was Rosh Hashanah, as we know it, yet different. Temple was crowded with an estimated 120 attending. This is a participatory group. They know liturgy, songs, and responses. They use the same prayer book we do in Akron. Women read from Torah, but here men wear kippot and tallisem (head coverings and prayer shawls).

David’s sermon was 12-13 minutes long. I don’t know if you realize that I always time them. It wove the Isaac story in with the idea of the malach (angel of God) being the first Progressive (Reform) Jew. The premise was that the malach stopped Abraham from blindly following what he thought was God’s wish. Abraham was told to think about what God really meant and to confront God’s decree. David suggested that’s what we Reform/Progressive Jews do as a movement. In light of new knowledge and information, we constantly re-evaluate our positions on tradition and daily life.

David gave the shofar blowing a go and did well. But after the first “blow,” there was nary a sound. In his disarming way, he turned to the congregation and said that this was his worst nightmare. Thinking that youth would triumph, a young man came up to give it a try. He didn’t even produce a squeak. Finally, an older gentleman who used to play a horn rescued us and gave out with several admirable toots. In David’s eagerness to produce a sound, he pressed too hard with his lips, his upper lip had swollen, and he couldn’t find a good fit for the subsequent attempts. I assumed all the blame for the shofar blowing fiasco since I wouldn’t let him take it home to the apartment last night to practice and it was my shoes that displaced his own shofar in the parcels that were shipped here from Akron.

Too Much Information

We sailed through the remainder of services without a glitch. You can’t count Marcus, the 13 month old, who crawled onto the bima then fell off onto his face as a glitch. It was a low bima, but he complained loudly.

Speaking of Marcus, his parents are trying to get pregnant. I love that phrase. It’s as if the man is really going to get pregnant. Ha! Why do I know this? Well, why wouldn’t I? It seems to be common knowledge in the Jewish community. At services this morning, I was introduced to a woman who is the mother of the gynecologist who is helping the would-be parents conceive. The topic of conversation at lunch was how long they’d tried. After they left the lunch and got to their house they called the potential grandparents of this unborn potential child to tell them that “they” were not ovulating. I know the content of the call because the grandparents shared it with everyone.

Much Too Much Information

I told you about bats, but what about birds and rats? It’s common to be visited by birds in the restaurants here since most restaurants are outdoors or open to the street. We had a robin dine with us for lunch yesterday and seeing it prompted David to ask me if I remembered one of the lovely restaurants in Hanoi. It was the first dinner we had in Vietnam. I remembered the evening fondly. It was in the courtyard of an old French home. The garden was lush, the architecture classic, and the food was scrumptious. David thought that a month later and many miles removed from Hanoi, I was prepared to hear about who else dined with us. It seems there was a large rat in the lush garden alongside our table at that lovely restaurant where we enjoyed our scrumptious dinner. Ignorance is bliss.

A New Ambassador

David just got a call from Uri Themal a Jewish government official and rabbi. The premier (governor) of Queensland wants an interfaith service for those lost in the terrorist attacks. The orthodox rabbi is unreachable now since it’s still Rosh Hashanah for him and the premier wants to know by tonight who will be the Jewish representative. It looks as if David is on deck to represent all the Jews of Queensland. Is that a promotion? Does that make him the head rabbi of Queensland? Heck, David has spoken before the President of the United States. This is no biggy. It would be nice publicity for the congregation here though.

Toby

New Customs

September 17, 2001-Before

David doesn’t have a cold, laryngitis, or the flu for Rosh Hashanah. That alone is amazing. Of course, he did have a funeral today. Wouldn’t you know?

He said that funeral practices are different here. The chevre kadisha makes all the arrangements. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a group of people who volunteer to wash and prepare the body in the traditional manner, dress it in shrouds, and stay with it until the funeral. Coffins here are shaped like the old-timey ones you see in Western movies. They taper at the foot. There are no vaults in graves here. Straw is placed at the bottom, the coffin is lowered, and more straw is placed on top. The mourners don’t cut kriah (cutting of a black mourning ribbon symbolizing the rending of garments). They don’t go back to the home of the mourners, nor do the reform Jews sit shivah. Sivah is like visitation, but takes place after the funeral. Most orthodox here sit shivah a maximum of three days.

David is so much more relaxed this holiday season. After the havdalah service (separating the Sabbath from work week) Saturday night, the men opened the sliding wall between the sanctuary and social hall, changed the Torah cover and ark curtain from blue to white, and set up 5-6 rows of extra seating. Voila! They were ready for the High Holidays. Just a note of difference: when taking the covering off and putting it on the Torah in the States we say that we dress and undress it. Here they strip it.

It's common for people to give money to a temple to honor someone or an event. Sometimes a needed item is purchased with that donation. Often a plaque is placed on that object . There is such a plaque here, but I was more interested in the location of the plaque than the name on it. Someone donated money so their name could be on the electric hand dryer in the ladies room. I haven’t checked out the men’s room.

David’s tension may rise when he starts to practice blowing the shofar (ram’s horn) for tomorrow. The man who usually does it is stuck in Seattle until Wednesday. David has done it before, but the shofars here are hard to blow. He almost took his from home, but I guess my shoes took precedence.

During

We’re pretty much used to driving on the left. Now is the time for us to be diligent. Confidence can lead to errors. Still, it’s surprising to see the number of dogs who seem to drive cars here. But just when we think we’ve got a handle on the culture, someone throws a foreign word out. David visited a man in the hospital today (they do say “the” hospital unlike the British who say “in" hospital). The man had pneumonia. His wife said that she had the “wog” and then gave it to him. That’s why he got sick. Nasty, that wog. Don’t know if they have a vaccination for it. Speaking of vaccinations, we seem to have missed flu season. We asked at a chemist when we saw signs urging people to get flu shots. We forgot that their winter is over.

We got the news that a friend's daughter had a baby girl. Went to the card shop and discovered they have lots of cards for “mums” but not “moms.” They also have Xmas cards and decorations out. They’re worse than we are in the U.S. It isn’t even Halloween. Oh, I forgot, they don’t celebrate Halloween.

I picked up my round holy day challah (braided bread) at Goldstein’s Bakery this morning and searched some more for a brisket for next week. The butchers seem to have heard of that cut of meat and congregants say it’s available. The thing that puzzles me is the question that the butchers pose each time I ask if they have brisket. They want to know if I prefer it with or without a bone. Is there a meat maven out there who knows what a bone-in brisket is? It also seems that all the meat markets get brisket on Tuesday.

After

We’re now home after services. Things went well. David used the Falwell/Robertson statements as a jumping off point for his sermon. He blasted those of any extreme fundamentalist persuasion (Jew, Christian, Muslim, etc.) who blame our woes on those whom they believe defy God’s law as they see it. David emphasized that these zealots ignore any notion of free will. People came up to me to say that it was as if he was speaking directly to them. Since our music is simple and David’s sermon was eleven minutes long, services were out in one hour.

There was a newcomer tonight. He is new to Australia from Atlanta. He knows several people we do in the U.S. His wife was home with their 19 month old. She’s an Aussie who grew up in the outback and wasn’t raised Jewish. The interesting thing is that her mother’s side of the family is Jewish and it is likely that her great-grandfather was a rabbi in Poland. I introduced him to the other young couple at temple. Hopefully, they'll join.

We were able to speak to Daniel, Vikki, and Wendy. Alex was asleep. It’s so hard to time calls. We exchanged New Years greetings and caught up with the news. We also got to speak to Wendy’s new girlfriend. She sounds lovely.

I used my library card and it worked. The systems here are the same as at home. I will settle in with my junk reading and try to forget reality. I cry intermittently and find it to be a relief. I have had a tight feeling in my chest. There’s a pressure there as if I have a light weight sitting on it. It goes away if I’m distracted or cry. Walking seems to help too.

Toby

Getting Things Done

September 16, 2001-Preparing for a New Year

David finally has his sermons done. High Holiday services tomorrow night will start at 6:30pm. It makes it a little awkward for dinner. Before is too early and after is too late. I think we’ll probably split our meal. We’ll do kiddush, motze, and soup before services and the rest after. We’re doing this for logistical reasons, but also so that our Yom Tov dinner doesn’t resemble our usual meal at home with our family. We weren’t invited to anyone’s home in the evening due to the timing, but we’re going to lunch at a home after services on Tuesday. For all of you who play the game of which congregation gets out of services earlier we will win hands down this year. We’ll be out fourteen hours ahead of you.

At Sunday School this morning David realized the Australian kids have no grip on where things are in the U.S. Now that the two Californians have joined the school and the terrorist attacks were on everyone’s mind, the kids were eager to learn whether the attack was near the new students’ home. They got a lesson in geography as well as world affairs. Another set of facts they enjoyed playing with was the time difference.

Last night there was a havdalah service and meet-the-rabbi session. We gave the congregation our gift of a Don Drumm Shabbat platter. They seemed to like it and the gesture. We also gave them a book about Akron with lots of photos of historic buildings including Temple Israel. I learned a bit more about a charming newlywed couple in their 60’s or 70’s, married eighteen months, Sophia and Ferdy. She’s Australian and he’s Columbian and had been living in Miami, Florida. They met over the Internet on a Jewish singles chat line put together by a woman in Israel.

Scoping It Out

I asked for directions the other day and ran into another Aussie slang term. Aside from not being able to discern the directions due to a thick accent and rapid speech, I had to translate her terminology. I heard something about “left at the lolly shop.” As I walked in the general direction in which she had pointed, I noticed a candy store. Yep, a lolly shop is a candy store. Yesterday afternoon we took another walk along the beach. This was our first daylight stroll. It was extremely windy so the waves were churning. Still, they’re not a good surfing size here. As we walked we heard a squeaky sound. We’d noticed this when we walked at night in our tennis shoes, but today we had Tevas on. Since it wasn’t our shoes and it most definitely wasn’t our imagination, we surmised that it must be the sand. Indeed, they have squeaky sand here. I’ve never heard this phenomenon on any beach I’ve walked on. It’s another Australian anomaly.

We walked over to a kebab stand for lunch. I hesitated patronizing them. I didn’t know if they were friend or foe. Their menu had grape leaves they called “sarmas.” I said I’d heard that food called “dolmathes” in Greek and was curious what language “sarma” was. It’s Kurdish. The kebabs, which we call gyros, were delicious.

We decided to go over to the outdoor market to search out toiletries at a discount. I mentioned we’d gone last weekend and they had everything including the kitchen sink, but no socks. I stand corrected. They have socks.

David mentioned something that made me feel a little better about people here not calling to see if our family was OK after the terrorist attack. We never called Israelis who we knew in Akron after their many terrorist bombings. Now I feel as if we’re very self- involved.

Toby

An Awful Night

September 14-15, 2001-Sleepless in Surfer’s

Our neighbors had the TV blaring all night. These are the same ones who kept us up on 9/11. David tried to knock on the door one night but the TV was so loud they didn't hear him. Then we decided it was unsafe to confront them. We heard their door slam at 2:15AM last night followed by the TV being turned on. It was a 007 movie. We reported it to the off site night switchboard. They called security, which is also off site. By the time they arrived (4:20AM) the movie had just ended. We heard security come out of the elevator, listen at the door, and go down again. A few minutes after they left (the time it takes to rewind a videotape) the news went on. They had opened their balcony doors so the noise was even worse. We spoke with the switchboard several times and he spoke with security and management, but it wasn't until 5:30 AM when management got through to the tenant's mobile phone. It finally got quiet. I found out this morning that the apartment above the offenders was also complaining. The noisemakers have been asked to leave

On a more positive note, our cabinet door and kitchen faucet are fixed. Our front door still sticks, but that’s the contractor's responsibility, not maintenance. I tried another manicurist yesterday. David has his hot dog/bagel quest and I have my nail quest. The result was that she drew blood. She did, however, provide a perspective of the U.S. from a lovely 30-year-old Aussie viewpoint. She’s a professional water skier and was in the U.S. for seven months last year skiing at Sea World in San Antonio and Jazz World (?) in New Orleans. I asked her how she liked the Cajun food and she told me she liked spicy Thai cooking, but Cajun tasted burned. She much preferred Olive Garden. I too like Olive Garden, but if I were in New Orleans that would be the last place I'd go. One thing she really loved about living in America was that we have squirrels. There are none here. But then we don't have kookaburras.

9/11 Fallout

I don’t know if I told you, but only two people called us the day the attack happened just to ask how we were and if our family was OK. The man whose daughter is stuck in Canada was at temple last night. He’s the one who thought services should be canceled. As I waited to go into services, several people came up to ask how I was doing. All I could say was that it’s so far away. One man told me, “Those things happen.” I was shocked at the insensitivity. After services, Janet Bruce put her arm around me and gave me a hug. I asked her if she was the only one who understood. She said that a lot of temple members were older and had seen so much in their lifetime. They’d lived through WWI, WWII, the Holocaust, some were survivors, they had seen Israeli terrorist attacks, etc. I think I understand what she was saying.

I told Janet I don’t like what this has brought out in me. Lurking under my pacifist exterior was a mean spirited desire for revenge. I’m experiencing a sense of shame too at the naïve and brazen pride I felt and exhibited in being a U.S. citizen. I felt invulnerable. I also feel guilty. What took me so long to get it? First they attacked the Israelis and I was horrified, I protested, but it was so far away. Then they attacked the Kuwaitis and they were not “my people,” but my country defended them. They slaughtered Afghanis and blew up their religious icons, but that was a Russian problem. It took me this long to understand that there are no “others” in this world anymore. It’s too small and connected.

I’ve become paranoid. I know these thoughts are unhealthy, but I don’t see an end to this madness. When there was a train wreck in Utah, I thought of terrorism. I began to imagine which bridges could be blown up in order to continue the attack on the country’s other transportation systems. The terrorists are biding their time. It’s an eerie reminder of the tunnels we crawled through in Cu Chi, Vietnam. The enemy is among us daily and are indistinguishable from us. Pogo was right. We have met the enemy and he is us.

You remain a major source of information. The 24-hour coverage here has given way to Saturday morning cartoons. We’ve just read the articles some of you sent about what Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson discussed. For those of you who haven’t read about it, they’ve blamed the terrorist attacks on the feminists, liberals, homosexuals, ACLU and People for the American Way (read Jews), pro-choice advocates, etc. I have used many epithets in describing them. Now, at this time in our country’s history, I will call them traitors.

The Aussies are showing signs of smugness. They’re glad to be an unnoticed nation on the bottom of the globe. John Howard may have disturbed this notion for them by offering aid to the U.S.

Sermonizing

David was at the top of his game last night. His robes arrived with the last parcels and people remarked on what an imposing presence he was on the bima (pulpit). His sermon was a succinct interweaving of the Torah portion and current events. I cried. Not all of you on the email list celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s a time for reflection and taking inventory of one’s past; a time to atone for what we have knowingly or unknowingly done to harm others; a time of conversation between God and us; but first we must turn to humankind and personally atone for wrongs we might have perpetrated. To you all, we wish the happiest New Year possible. We know we’re in your thoughts and prayers. You’ll be in ours.

Toby