Eyes on the Names.

It was the day after the German elections that I saw a swastika spray-painted near my home. The alt-right political party gained more votes than were expected and the air around me felt heavier. The German political debates on TV shared similar vocabulary to the ethic cleansing this country once declared. But tonight in Hamburg, Germany, I am walking around the streets of Grindel, eyes on the ground.

Tonight 79 years ago, the largest synagogue in Northern Germany with its remarkable dome and its even more spectacular Modern Orthodox convictions was burnt to the ground. Rabbi Joseph Carlebach established this synagogue just 30 years prior with a speech about the new age of Judaism in Hamburg, delighted about the religious tolerance and modern progress enabling them to open a synagogue in the middle of a city. Finally, we can be Jews in public. It’s too painfully ironic to note that he was the last rabbi in Germany at the end of the Holocaust before being murdered by the Nazis in Jungfernhof.

To my right lays flowers and candles. It’s a circle of where the dome used to shield. I hear names, dates, deportations and death camps. To my left there is a girl and her mom lighting a candle and a policeman reading the information boards created by the Jewish students.

When I was in Berlin, I was slapped by the presence of the Holocaust. The massive impact of history hurled at me and my stomach bowed at the impact. In Budapest, the knowledge of the growing Anti-Semitism wacked me over the shoulder. The Hungarians were eager to push us into the ghetto and didn’t need Nazi support to walk us to the river, shooting some and mentally torturing the rest. Eyes on the ground. Eyes on the bronze shoes on the Danube. Eyes on the description forgetting to mention that they were Jewish. Eyes on the ground holding back tears, holding back the waves of pain as the punches keep coming. It was late at night in Vienna when a conversation turned to politics. It was over that beer that he mentioned that the alt-right in Austria is more center than people think. I inquire more, glancing at my mom, dad and Rachel and her Star of David around her neck. Unashamed, he says that they aren’t really Neo Nazis because they neglect to differentiate on an ethnic Austrian basis, only talk about getting rid of the minorities, but not because of the intrinsic difference. Eyes on the ground. Eyes on him. “So what about Jews? Historically they were in Austria before so would they be considered true Austrian?” He shakes his head, “No. A Jew cant be a pure Austrian. They might be different than other minorities but they wouldn’t be considered ethnically Austrian.”

To my left is the Jewish School Talmud Torah. Regarded for its excellent education, 40% of the students are not Jewish. I smile knowing that people are not afraid to send their children to be taught be Jews, to learn Jewish texts and prayers. In Prague, my dad looks at me and vocalizes that our identity is the tourist attraction. It’s a bizarre mix of feelings when our landmarks, traditions and proof of persecution garners the eyes of so many outsiders. It’s a slap of frustration that my whole world is narrowed down to a summary. It’s an award of recognition of survival from the many generations of pogroms. It’s an awkward obsession almost viewing us as zoo monkeys. It’s the thickness in the way the tour guide in Budapest explained what Jews wear in contrast to the potency of what Amos says in the café tonight. As a photographer, he wanted to make the stumbling stones of the Jewish names come to live. As a non Jew, he wanted to create a practical tradition to turn Kristallnacht into another teaching opportunity. He speaks about the fine line between guilt and responsibility. Eyes on him.

It’s really hard to be a German and learn about the Holocaust. The educational system here layers on the Holocaust education year after year. I can understand how some students grow to become annoyed by the topic and some to obsess. I can empathize with the desire to move on as well to hold on. The country has been through so much and I don’t think I could have ever understood Germany how I do now if I didn’t spend this time here. The wounds from bombings of the wars did not heal completely. The war is not over for the memories on this land. In my ignorant mind, we survived the Holocaust, so clearly Hitler didn’t win. But he did capture more than I was willing to recognize. Most young Jews in Germany are Russians that moved here. Because even though my people aren’t solely a museum exhibit, I feel like we did get extinct. The once vibrant Jewish community is now a somber Kabbalat Shabbat, barely a minyan. The old age home is now dorms for students. The yeshiva is now housing other residents and the names get walked on every day. The country has tremendous strength to commemorate each location, each family, each event but my eyes can’t read each sign and name and remember it all and feel it all and absorb the hit and continue to walk. Tonight 79 years ago was a nightmare coming true. But the news from this year in other parts of the world share similar headlines. My mind plays through the conversations with the 20-year-old who calls for ethnic purity, the German who truly recognizes why I moved to Israel, the strangers asking me about my very personal relationship with my people and the gut feeling that this is never going to change. I am walking down the street near a movie theater that screens movies in English. I watch people stopping to note the candles, read the names and I smile with hope, desperate hope that I can make sense of these thoughts and discover a way to put it all to action.

The song of an alien.

Sitting in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and listening -scratch that- feeling the dynamics of the pianist playing Bach’s Art of the Fugue, waves of emotion wash through me. The wooden walls bubble out a rhythm that bend with the breaths of the dynamic melody. I feel everything. I feel it intensely and unevenly. The music demands and directs it all. She plays her own version of the unfinished final fugue. I exhale.

Writer's block. Insecurities that my words are just regurgitating the same themes. Lack of inspiration as my world focuses on being a therapist to my friends' dramas instead of a mother to my own heart. I miss writing. I miss it when the words spill out better than I could have planned. I even miss it when I struggle to sort through the choppy thoughts buzzing around in the corner of my eye. I read back a few of my old blog posts. Yes, the message of "The Step Waits" mirrors how I felt awaiting the flight to Hamburg. Yes, the connections and frustrations in my fragmented autobiography answers truths relevant to the pages in my mind today. But somehow my half written ideas have gone stale, abandoned by my growing indignation for postponing the writing process yet again and conquered by a self consciousness I never knew existed within me. My unfinished pieces linger. No exhale. I learned to ignore the music since it was too painful not to participate, expecting that the day will come when the words will pour out effortlessly. 

I'm studying abroad in Germany. Yes. That ultimate Zionist that dreams of the Negev and wraps her heart in the flag of her home. That brave, naive and passionate woman that moved to Israel in what seems like a lifetime ago in search for adventure. But the mundane routine left me fruitless. I needed fresh inspiration to bite into. I craved comparison and new experiences. I wanted to lick my lips tasting history and cultural diversity, kissing the wide views and only asking myself what's next to devour- because I realized that this brave woman needed some one-on-one time with her voice. This version of Talya needed a change, a different rhythm to reconnect to the earlier version that welcomed challenges eagerly. And what better place for such an experiment than the country that has the fastest growing Jewish community in the world, yet proved that we have no other home than Israel. 

And now here for over a month, I can feel that it's working. I feel magnetized to every bite of life. My eyes gaze at the world like my five month old niece. Everything historic, everywhere picturesque. The intensity swings both ways as I cross the tightrope of comparing life to the one I know in Israel, balancing between the two worlds of religion and being a 23 year old exchange student, and all set in the landscape of a painful memory. Being part of a challah bake in Hamburg, where next door the original shul was destroyed, dancing in Austria with an Israeli, standing in Otto Weidt's factory for the blind and deaf, the location that hide his Jewish employees.. the sukkah in Berlin gets tossed around from the wind, but doesn’t fall.

Itai and Noa tell me about the Jewish history of Hamburg, about Rabbi Carlebach's hold of both Jewish and secular knowledge. Noa shows me around the supermarket, explaining the German terms and brands that will work for Kashrut. Over a glass of beer some students ask me why I'm not eating. I decide to give in and finally tell them that I have some rules I follow as a Jew. And they inquire and then giggle. I'm not invited out for the next beer. Finally Deborah comes to visit and the beer tastes richer. Noa tells me that she thinks there should be a reverse birthright, for Israelis to travel abroad where Judaism is a challenge, to learn and appreciate the endeavor. I wholeheartedly agree, treasuring my tiny triumphs and agonizing over if and how I will prevail. 

Seth says that I only have limited time to fit in all these experiences. It's true. But Shabbat and Chag magically strengthen the quality of those minutes. Discussing community and political issues with humans with shared values or even arriving to the Shul after wandering around lost in the rain tastes like the sweetest fruit. Singing the same melodies in Zurich for Rosh Hashana, I am overwhelmed by the tunes of tradition and feeling so part of it, so honored to have something to be a part of. Each meal I sit with a different family, adopted into their home, singing the same life story questions I ask them in return. I return back to Hamburg and it feels like a different universe. The way the students in my program react to hearing that I live in Israel and the questions about religion are exhausting. Maybe my taste buds are too sensitive, maybe they don't mean anything bad by it. 

But I feel like an alien. That's the best way I can describe it. I can try my hardest to fit in, to be normal, to explain my traditions in the most chill way, to show that I'm not suffering by these archaic limitations. But in the end, I'm just an alien from the past that's not convincing in deceiving everyone that I'm just like them. And I'm happy to be an alien. There's no one else I would rather be than this adventure seeking, constantly overwhelmed by the complexities of life, totally failing at time management, bike-ride loving, shul going alien... tuning into her music. Traveling by myself allows me to stop and analyze the movements of a bee on a flower, take as many photos as my camera will let me, and gives that Talya the space to challenge herself, to be herself. Being the alien might be tiresome, but the attention it burdens me with reminds me why I appreciate the country of aliens and living in a time when I won't be picked up and taken because I'm an alien. The contrasting looks from the clumsy song of an alien is a totally fine exchange for the other historically relevant options for this identity.