Nesting

September 7, 2001-Mail Watch

I just realized that the measuring cup we bought yesterday is metric. Help!

Another box arrived. It’s been opened by customs. It was just some toiletries. Still no shoes. I’m beginning to feel more settled though. I even bought a flowering plant for our balcony.

A note for you who plan to set up housekeeping in a fully furnished apartment. Bring your own hangers. They don’t have enough here and since closet space is limited I spent $A50 on ones that accommodate multiple shirts and pants. I have tons of those hangers at home. Aaagh!

I feel as if I fell into Gulliver’s Travels or down the rabbit hole with Alice. Everything about this apartment is Lilliputian. I’ve been ironing David’s shirts and slacks. The ironing board is low to the ground and short in length. His clothes are neither. The iron has fallen off once already. The bathroom sink is lower than standard and the washer and dryer are undersized. It wouldn’t be bad if they were the same capacity, but the washer is larger than the dryer. But plugs on the end of cords are over-sized and have three prongs each at a different angle. It’s a trick lining them up. Every time I plug the iron in I think I’m taking an IQ test.

I’m so used to being smug about doing everything “the best” in the U.S. that I’m intrigued by my surprise when I find competence here. The manicure yesterday was one thing, but the advice and service at the dry cleaners has been excellent. It’s such a small thing, but we really appreciated it when the attendant told us she wouldn’t be able to remove a stain and showed us how to do it. She might have just taken in the garment, returned it with the stain, and collected the money while explaining that it wasn’t removable. David’s white clerical robe is also being done there. They were unfazed by it and said they often clean judge’s robes.

For some reason the state of Queensland doesn’t have Daylight Savings Time. It gets dark pretty early and I don’t think it will change during summer. Another oddity is that the Burger Kings are called Hungry Jack’s. They have the same logo and food. There’s no Halloween and people don’t understand why we celebrate a pagan holiday in the U.S.

I went to the public library. I can’t be without a book to read. I’m coming to the end of the ones I brought with me. They’d be happy to give me a visitor’s library card if I can produce evidence I’ll be here for six months or more. They need a rent receipt, electric bill, etc. Since the apartment isn’t in our name I have to get a letter from the management stating that we’re long-term tenants. It’s like getting a note from my mother.

David’s Field Trip

David just returned from an all day odyssey. He was asked to visit a dying woman. She lives in the Bush. Fodor’s calls it the hinterlands. The son picked David up at temple and returned him home. But the man had a very poor sense of direction. He lives in Sydney, had just flown into Gold Coast that morning, and had no idea of where anything was. He got lost finding the temple but finally got David to the hospital in Leidley between Ipswich and Toowoomba. The woman has liver cancer, is 72, and is at ease with the fact that she’s going to die. She’ll be buried in the Bush without a ceremony and simply wanted to have David say some prayers.

The hospital was small and had mostly wards of six or more beds. She was in a private room and was getting what amounted to hospice care. Her ex-husband was present along with her son. They all took out kippot (head coverings), and David did the vidui (confessional recited by the dying) with her. It seemed quite meaningful to them all. David is learning that rabbis here travel to be with Jews in isolated areas. It’s not unusual for rabbis in Sydney to fly to a remote area for a bar mitzvah. David may be doing just that in Byron Bay in October. A lot of the Jews in Australia aren’t only in the Diaspora (living outside the land of Israel) but are living in Galut (exile). It’s touching how hard they work at retaining their identity and passing it on to their children.

(This is David writing) This woman I went to see was remarkable. She had a wonderful sense of humor and kept up a banter until she became too tired. She recited the Shema with me only to question my pronunciation (I was using S’fardit and she had learned it in Ashkanazic). She was a pharmacist in a family of doctors and had a keen sense of her Jewishness though she had lived in isolated places in the Bush for more than twenty years.

Shabbat

(Toby again) Services tonight were from 6:30 P.M. to 7:20 P.M. That’s the service I’ll go to. The soloist has a good voice but sings everything at the same tempo and with the same phrasing. At least she’s on key. She’s probably in her early 70’s and a convert. She does an excellent job with the Hebrew. All the singing is in Hebrew here. The service is more traditional than Akron. To make matters more interesting, the soloist is from Scotland. There’s a definite Scottish/Aussie ring to her Hebrew. It’s kind of like in the Southern U.S. where Hebrew has a twang. David gave a very short sweet sermon about differences and distances and how the now is what’s important to us here. It was well received.

We went to the Bruce’s for Shabbat dinner. Their aunt, uncle, and grandfather were there as well as their children. Daniel and Rebekah are great young people. They’re very comfortable with adults and hold up their end of a conversation.

We learned that the highest tax bracket for earnings over $A 47,000, is 46%. That covers their health care. Translated into U.S. dollars, if we earn $100,000, pay $33,000 in taxes, and then another $8-9,000, for health insurance, it comes out about the same. The advantage in Australia is that there’s less of a bite the less you earn. In the U.S. the tax rate goes down when you earn less, but the insurance cost stays the same and doesn’t adjust with earnings. The other side of it is that their $100,000 here buys them less than our $100,000 in the states.

Everything was going well. We had discussed Israel and the aunt (I forget her name) wanted to drop the Bomb on all the Arabs. David respectfully disagreed. She was against women as rabbis. Again, David respectfully disagreed. David mentioned that Reform Judaism in America was doing what sociologists say is impossible. They’re getting more ritually conservative and more liberal in their stand on social issues, e.g. women and gays. She headed immediately for the “abomination” thing and David intercepted her with, “My daughter is a lesbian.” After a volley of, “She isn’t really,” from her and. “Oh yes she is,” from David, I thought her vocal chords would seize up with her desire to express her rabid disdain and her effort not to offend “the rabbi.” Unfortunately, grandpa was nodding off so things ended and they all went home. Our hosts knew about David’s activities in the Lesbian, Gay,Bisexual,Transgender community from his resume, and we had mentioned Wendy at a previous dinner, so they were ok. Daniel’s comment about gay rabbis was, ”At least they’re Jewish.” I’m sure word will be out by the next day.

Toby