Are You Christmas or Chanukah?

December 8, 2001-Different Strokes

Even though I’m away from home, some practices die hard. I’ve managed to maintain my weekly manicure. Scoff if you must, but I find it much like the bar in the show Cheers. After awhile, everyone knows your name & it becomes a social time as well. Yesterday, the manicurist surprised me with a gift. She greeted me by wishing me a Happy Chanukah & presented me with a bag of chocolate candy. Last week, when they asked me what plans we had for Christmas, I explained that we were Jewish & celebrated Chanukah. The owner of the shop mentioned that the man who owned the IGA down the way was also Jewish & wasn’t decorating his store for Xmas. Then I had to explain what Chanukah was about. I was touched they remembered when it started & that it was my holiday. The second thing that impressed me was they remembered that when I was offered a raspberry flavored “lolly” I’d said that if it wasn’t chocolate, it wasn’t worth eating. Here, lollies mean candy in general. Nice folks.

Shabbat services were filled to overflowing. It was the end of term for religious school, which really threw me. The head of the school was on the pulpit handing out gifts & I figured it was for Chanukah. Then she started handing out end of year awards. The secular & religious school years are finished at the end of the calendar year here which makes sense since it’s summer. The children in the school put on a little play & sang a few songs. I found myself grinning as I listened to their sweet Australian accents in English & Hebrew. Their rounded tones & broad pronunciations reminded me of another era. It created a feeling of magic, formality, & sophistication. A warmth filled me as I realized that I was experiencing a Harry Potter Chanukah.

David told a story about a dreidel (spinning top used to play a Chanukah game) that wanted to be menorah (9-branched Chanukah candelabra). The moral was that we have to be who we are & be the best that we are. Unbeknownst to him, a menorah was being presented that night to the head of the ritual committee in honor of all the work he has done for the temple. When the menorah was unwrapped, we gasped. It was a traditional candelabra design with a dreidel as part of the arm of the candle in the center. The dreidel was a music box that could be wound up to play a Chanukah song. It was uncanny.

There was an elaborate spread served after services & I mentioned that they serve a lot more smoked salmon (lox) in Australia than we do in the U.S. They said they buy farm raised Tasmanian salmon & it runs about $A 32/kilo. That’s about $US 8/lb. I don’t know what lox costs now, but in 1983, for Daniel’s bar mitzvah it was $16/lb. It has to be more now. To me, that’s still dear. Ah yes, lox is served on buttered bread. Gag! We’ve never seen cream cheese & lox here. We’ve seen cream cheese on bagel, but that was when there was no lox. Another traditional treat here is buttered bread with sprinkles on it. You know the kind of colored dots that Dairy Queen dips the ice cream in? You got it. When I was a kid at camp, we used to make butter & sugar sandwiches, so I can’t throw stones.

December 9, 2001-Exceptions and Deceptions

We went to Shabbat lunch yesterdayat the home of the Portuguese woman who wanted to convert to Judaism then found out her family were Morannos (secret Jews in Spain/Portugal during the Inquisition). I was amazed at the number of nationalities represented among her guests. There were people from Australia, the UK, Scotland, Hungary, S. Africa, the US, Portugal, Austria, & Israel. The hostess was gracious but refused to sit at the table during lunch. She hustled about in the kitchen & busied herself with serving & clearing. She had hired help, but didn’t even set a place for herself at the table. It was very odd. Others encouraged her to sit down & David made a joke about not trusting cooks who don’t join their guests in eating the food, but it fell on deaf ears.

We left lunch at 3PM & decided to see the afternoon showing of The Last Castle recommended by an American who said it made her feel proud to be an American. I had no idea of what to expect, but Robert Redford couldn’t be too hard on the eyes. I was not disappointed in him, but the movie left a lot to be desired. It was a very contrived tale about a military prison revolt. I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone.

While strolling back to our apartment from the theater, we thought we’d try real American food. We’d seen a Lone Star Restaurant down the road & headed there. We hadn’t gone far when David saw a sign for Indonesian food. The Bli Bli Bali sounded exotic & the menu was appealing. When we went inside to tell them we were going to be sitting outside, we saw that all the tables inside were reserved. We later found out that the restaurant had just been written up in the paper & we were lucky to get any seating at all. The food was good, but unremarkable. The spices have been Australianized, & David needs to order it much spicier if we go again. One item on the menu caught my eye. Even though I didn’t order it, I still wonder about “desiccated chicken.” The tables were very close together so we struck up a conversation with the couple next to us. They were retired now, but had lived in Singapore for three years & had traveled to Bali often. They had children living in L.A., & had been throughout the U.S. They told us they wanted to travel overseas as much as possible while they were still relatively young. We laughed & shared that our philosophy was the same & here we were in their country.

One of the peculiarities about living without daylight savings time is that we always think it’s later than it actually is. It’s dark earlier here during the summer than it is at home. I’m used to it being summer in December, but haven’t adjusted to it being dark at 7PM. We were startled to learn it was only 8:30PM when we finished dinner. With most of the evening still ahead of us, we decided to walk to our favorite ice-cream/gelati place. We detoured out of our way so we could pay homage to the miracle next door. We walked along the Pacific for a time & were once more impressed with the power of it all.

Our path home took us past what had become a fixture in the neighborhood. Sporadically, & for a week at a time, a tent called the Jesus Tent of Miracles is erected. We’ve been curious about it every time it has appeared. David has memories of his teen years in Miami, Fla. where such tents were fairly common. Word had it among the teen-aged boys that the place to pick up girls was outside one of these revival tents after a prayer meeting. It was rumored that young girls were moved by the holy spirit & didn’t know what to do with their feelings of ecstasy. They were easy pickings. As we stood outside the raised flaps, we observed many women were rocking back & forth, swaying on their feet, falling on the ground, & dancing to music heard only in their own heads. One in particular was amazing in that she could reel as if drunk, fall to her knees, & yet not spill a drop of the liquid that she drank from a cup held tenuously in a flailing hand. As we listened, the preacher droned on in a most uninspired way. The healing service took place at 10AM, so this was just the prayer meeting. The minister frequently used the phrase, “walla walla wunga” & got a loud reaction from the crowd of about 30. It was puzzling & when a man came from the tent to stand next to us, this is the conversation we had:
Man- Are you Christians?

Me- No Long Silence Me- Are you with the preacher?

Man- No, but he is a close friend.
Long silence

Me- What does “walla walla wunga” mean?

Man- The preacher had a traditional church in Seattle for 25 years. He realized that he had become distanced from his congregation & especially his family. He couldn’t tell his wife or children that he loved them. All of a sudden, the only words he could say were, “yabba dabba doo.” We thought that he had lost his mind. Do you know what “yabba dabba doo” means?

Me- You mean like the Flintstones?

Man- No, from the song. Me- Oh, the one that goes, “Yabba dabba dabba dabba dabba dabba dabba said the monkey to the chimp?”

Man- Yes. Do you know what it means?

Me- (Thinking of the other words to the song in my mind) I love you?

Man- Exactly! That was the only way he could express his love for his family.
Me- So ‘walla walla wunga” means…..?

Man- The same thing. It is what comes over him when he is spreading the love of God.

He invited us into the tent at that point & we declined. No pressure. He left us alone. I have to say that my overall feeling on leaving was that I was perplexed. It’s a phenomenon I truly don’t understand. The preacher was certainly undynamic. I wonder what the results would have been if he was charismatic. Does it require dynamism to elicit the desired result from the audience, or is it pre-programmed into their expectations?One speaker who promises to excite is scheduled for a time when we’ll be away.

The Friendship Club will have a Jewish judge speak to them in January. He is a Queen’s Council & I’m told it’s a very high position for a barrister to hold. His talk, however, will be about his experience as a Dunerra (sp) Boy. The Dunerra was the name of the ship that transported children from England to Australia during the Blitz. In an attempt to save their lives, they were sent by their parents to a safe haven. When they arrived in Australia, they were placed in what amounted to commodious concentration camps. Among these children were Jewish children. One of the blots on Australian history is that, after WWII, many of the children were given to Australians to adopt & falsely told their parents were dead. Several of them began investigations as they grew to adulthood. It has been quite a scandal.

Toby