iom hashoa / yom hashoah / holocaust remembrance day

Five years ago I walked hand in hand from Auschwitz to Birkenau with Trudy, a Holocaust survivor, on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, to remember the six million that perished, celebrate those who survived, and to show Hitler that he did not succeed. Five years later I remember what I was feeling on that walk, almost in a celebratory mood as I walked with thousands of people in a sea of blue and proud to be a part of something greater than myself. When we entered Birkenau we followed Trudy to one of the barracks where she proceeded to sit down and tell us her story sitting on the bunk of the bed where she once lived. I remember sitting on the floor of the barracks in Birkenau thinking about how terrible the atrocities that occurred but how I was so thankful to be able to have this experience, live freely, carry on the stories, and I vowed to never forget.

This year I had the opportunity to go to the memorial service held for the Buenos Aires community.  Thousands of people gathered to hear a collection of stories, poem, songs, and more. The part that touched me most was a Holocaust survivor telling her story. It was of course in Spanish so I will do my best to translate and paraphrase some of her main points. She discussed the marks that have been left on her since the Holocaust. First, she spoke about the number put on her arm at Auschwitz. When she entered the camp she told them she was 16 years old and the woman screamed at her "how dare you lie to me, you are 18, now go over there to the 18 and over line". Little did she know that this woman saved her life as all the children under 18 that day were led directly to the gas chambers. She also told us how she hurt her knee in the camp. During the final days in the camp, the Nazis came in and said everyone was being taken on a death march and they told everyone who couldn't march to stay. She was encouraged by her peers in the camp to walk and they pretty much held her up as they walked. She would not have made it otherwise. She also told us about the nonphysical marks that she is left with. For example, she is thankful every time she has a warm shower and mostly is thankful to wrap a towel around herself after a shower ("¡Que felicidad!" / What happiness!). She says it makes her quite upset when the "youngsters" complain that they do not like the food they are given because she is just so thankful to have food at all. Her ending struck me the most:

 "I still don't know why I lived, but I know for what. I want all of you to take my story and stories like mine and share them so my one story becomes retold to one, hundreds, thousands, millions of others. Until our stories are like a chorus, spread throughout the world, and never forgotten so we can ensure this will never happen again."

I vowed five years ago marching from Auschwitz to Birkenau to never forget. I feel so blessed every time I get to hear Holocaust survivors's stories and even more so hearing stories from all over the world because I am part of the last generation that gets to hear these stories directly from survivors. Taking part in a Yom Hashoah service on another continent filled me with so many emotions that ultimately boils down to a similar feeling I've had this whole year…the gratitude I have for being able to connect with our global Jewish world and do what I do each day.  I'm overcome with gratitude five years later that I got to be a part of this experience in Argentina, among thousands of others also vowing to never forget and retell the stories so a Holocaust never happens again.  

I went. I saw. I remember. And I'll never forget.

rico. muy rico. riquísimo.

I've been eating a lot of really yummy things lately. I wanted to share a few of my favorites:

Tiradito from La Rosa Nautica in Puerto Madero. Fresh white fish with a citrusy and red pepper sauce. Accompanied by sweet potato and delicious corn kernels. NOM.

Steak dinner with all of the fixings at La Cabrera, rated #17 on the list of top Latin American restaurants. I love that dinner ends with a lollipop tree (that includes chocolate Easter eggs on Easter)

Matzah ball soup in Buenos Aires for Pesach…what a treat! Passover for me is not complete without matzah ball soup at least once.

Medialunas - sweet croissants are my downfall here in Buenos Aires. Especially these from Lucio's in Palermo (corner of Scalabrini Ortiz y Guemes) that are made fresh (aka warm) throughout the day. 

Pineapple has been amazingly fresh the past few weeks and has been a great addition to picnics in the Jardin Botanico (Botanical Gardens).

Las Cholas is one of my favorite Buenos Aires restaurant for the quality and price correlation. My favorite dish is a cazuela con calabaza, choclo y miel (casserole with squash, corn, and honey)

Homemade fish tacos with pineapple peach salsa and guacamole for the win. NOM.

I love food. More on food in Buenos Aires to come later.

una clase de tango / a tango class

Last week I ventured over to La Viruta in Palermo for a tango class. My friends and I went to the beginner class, learned the basic steps, danced with men ranging from eighteen to sixty-five, and occasionally when we didn't have partners danced with each other. It was super fun although I don't think I'll become a tango expert anytime soon. For those of you who want to try out a tango class, I definitely suggest it and would love to give you a few of my tango tips:

• Listen to the music
• Sounds simple but easy to forget. 
• Man leads

• I had a hard time with this one, so hard actually that a very large fifty year old man who is three times my size says to me in Spanish "you like being in charge don't you". I got a good laugh and probably continued to lead even though I was trying hard not to.
• Men are the "ojos", eyes…don't move until they do
• Going along with "man leads", females walk backwards the whole time tango dancing so don't move unless they start moving you or you will bump into others…guys are the "ojos"
• 7 steps
• The most important part of tango to learn is the basic seven step sequence. Thankfully right outside of La Viruta they had a diagram of the steps in case we had already forgotten.
• Firm but relaxed grip/stance

• The tango stance is quite important and you will be corrected by the instructors or told you are too tense or too relaxed if you are not in the proper stance.
• Don't look down - make eye contact even if its awkward
• Our instructors told us the worst thing we could do is look down while dancing and instead we should be watching our partners or at least looking up the whole time. It can get a bit awkward staring at the eyes of someone you have never met for so long but just go with it, its all in the fun (just don't break out in laughter at them)!
• When in doubt, dance with girls
• Personal favorite - it is really fun dancing with your girl friends and even better, one of you gets to lead!
• Wear gloves 
• Well not really but do beware of sweaty hands, both yours and your partners. Switching partners every few minutes leads to lots of sweaty hands

As you can see, I completely made up all of these tips but its all in the adventure of learning tango. Hope to go for another class at some point, maybe I'll eventually make it to intermediate!

pesaj en argentina / pesach in argentina

Pesaj Sameaj from Buenos Aires, Argentina! Spending a year in Argentina means having the chance to celebrate an entire year of Jewish holidays in another global Jewish community. While I wish I had been in Rochester, New York celebrating Passover with the rest of my family, I knew it would be interesting to experience Passover in another country.       My favorite part of Passover is bringing together family and friends to celebrate, sing, and retell the story of the Exodus. For the first Seder this year I went to the house of my friend Yael, who is an artist and also the local coordinator for JDC Entwine trips in Argentina. My two friends Arielle and Becca were here from the US to celebrate so I wanted to make sure we went to a somewhat English-friendly Seder and as I knew from Rosh Hashanah, Yael's mother and grandmother are amazing cooks! 

There is something amazing about Jews around the world. Although we come from completely different cultures and backgrounds, our Jewish values and grandmother's desires to stuff our faces with food are completely universal. Although my friends could not explain to our hosts in Spanish why this night is different from all others, my friend Arielle did sing Ma Nishtanah, the four questions, for everyone in Hebrew as she was the youngest at the Seder. Yael's mom at one point said something along the lines of "wow, I can't believe you guys came from the United States, know how to sing Dayeinu, and also eat gefilte fish during your Seders in the US…Jews really are the same everywhere". This sort of sums up my Passover experience in Buenos Aires. It doesn't matter what language the Haggadah is in or in what form the matzoh balls are served, celebrating a Jewish holiday with Jews from any part of the world brings a sense of comfort and familiarity that comes from our shared values and traditions. 

Although we didn't eat matzoh ball soup, we did have a delicious dish of matzoh balls with meat and carrots.
#matzohballsareuniversal

Fun fact: As you can see, in Argentina all the "ch" sounds that you find in words such as challah, pesach, and chanukah become "j"'s, resulting in jalá, pesaj, and janucá. That's why we say Pesaj Sameaj instead of Pesach Sameach.

Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are having a meaningful and wonderful Passover!

BBYO's J-Serve

This past Sunday our Argentine group of teens participated in J-Serve, an international day of youth service. Through our partnership with BBYO, teens in Argentina took part in J-Serve at the same time teens from all over the world were participating in service projects in their own communities. The day began with a discussion about volunteerism within a Jewish context as our teens discussed questions such as:

• Why are you here today?
• Do you like to take part in service work? Why?
• Is it important to help others? 

We then discussed the following quote that says: 

Kol Yisrael Arevi'im Zeh La Zeh

All of the nation of Israel is responsible for one other

Todo la nación de israel es responsable por el otro

with the following questions created by our group's coordinator Mai:

• Do you think a Jew is responsible for other Jews? Why?
• What does this responsibility reply?
• Do you feel you have a responsibility to help others?
• Within a context of service, is it more important what you receive than what you give or what you give than what you receive?

After this discussion, our group headed to a children's food bank in another neighborhood in Buenos Aires. This food bank operates out of a church and is open each week for children around the neighborhood.  It not only gives the children food but also a place to have activities and play in a safe space each Sunday. We prepared special activities for the kids, brought them food our teens had collected, and all the materials for the activities. The activities included creating maracas to use as musical instruments, decorating notebooks that could be used either for school or to draw/write in, and playing sports. At the end of the day we served the kids snack, taught them one of our favorite songs, and handed out sweets to all of them that had come. All of the kids and our teens left with smiling faces and beautifully decorated notebooks and maracas. This was the first time the Argentine teens participated in BBYO's J-Serve and it was a huge success. I am excited to have them continue this project in the future!

Here more about Melu's experience here.

casa--> hogar y ledor vador / house --> home & generation to generation

Liliana's patio looks so nice!

I had the pleasure of spending the past week with a JDC Entwine college trip from Cornell University. We spent the first few days in Rosario, Argentina getting to know the Jewish community of Rosario and painting the apartments of residents. These were the same apartments I was at with the UVa group that came a few weeks ago so it was really great getting to see what they had painted now being used by residents. For example, Liliana's patio now houses beautiful plants...it's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do! Aside from painting we also visited many of the other Jewish institutions in Rosario including the Kehilah, Bialik School, USAR, and Beit Scopus.

When we finished painting we had the opportunity for a ceremony where we put up mezuzahs on three of the apartments. The residents of two of the apartments were there to put them up with us while the third was put up on an apartment that is currently uninhabited. This led the group to a fruitful discussion where some were saying they were upset they didn't know the residents that would be living in the third apartment and others bringing up the Jewish values around anonymous giving and how painting a house and putting a mezuzah up for an anonymous family is just as if not more valued in some cases. I personally appreciated that for some of the apartments we got to see the resident's pure joy on their faces about having a mezuzah on their door while the third we might not ever see but we know when they enter their house for the first time and see the mezuzah, there will hopefully be an innate feeling of comfort and feeling of home. This led us to talk about how the pure act of putting up a mezuzah really changes the house (casa) into a home (hogar). I know when I first entered my apartment in Buenos Aires and saw a mezuzah on the door I felt at ease and knew I was moving into a home. 

Manie, 100 years young at Ledor Vador

Gangam style performed by elderly at AMIA

The rest of the week was spent in Buenos Aires where the group got to know a much bigger Jewish community. Friday was spent first at a school playing with children, then at an elderly home, taking part in an elderly modern dancing class (they performed Gangam style for us), and Shabbat with a young professional Jewish minyon. I loved the aspect of Ledor Vador (Hebrew for generation to generation) this day brought as we worked and met with people from all different generations. I even got to see my friend Manie again who is 100 years old and when asked what her secret for living a century is, she replied by putting a finger to her lips and saying "its a secret, I can't tell you". I love spending time with the JDC Entwine trips that come, as I said when the UVa trip came, its wonderful seeing the Argentina Jewish communities through their eyes.

Thank you JDC Entwine and Hillel at Cornell University for letting me share this experience with you!

BBYO's stand-up week in Argentina

You might have heard me say it before but my teens are amazing. I am always impressed by them but this past week I have been blown away by their intelligence, outlooks on the world, and desire to be change agents and advocates in this global world. This past week my teens took part in BBYO's StandUP Week through social media and shared their thoughts on what causes they stand up for around the world and within their local community. I wanted to share with you a few of their responses (thanks Tomi, Tami, Melu, Herni, Mai, and Ari for letting me post them!) so you can get an idea of the issues/causes my teens care about and so you too can be blown away by their responses. Their words speak for themselves. Happy reading!

Tomi stands up for those who live in different realities: 

 Herni stands up against bullying:

Ari stands up for those who need things that people have and they don´t realize how lucky they are for having it:

 Melu stands up for those who can't speak their mind:

Mai stands up against bullying:

Tami stands up for the missing people and for the people who fought in the war:

Their words were an inspiration to me and I hope you've been inspired a bit as well! 

Happy Monday!