When my mom was afraid of me going to Argentina, I pulled out the statistic that Argentina is home to the world’s 6th largest Jewish population (Some Jackass, Wikipedia). Additionally, my great grandmother grew up in the country and somewhere in it I still have relatives. So of course I was going to do the Jewish thing down here.
For the first night of Rosh Hashanah (for that 1% of people reading that that aren’t Jewish or grow up around Jews, the Jewish New Year), I met up with a group of friends and went to a reform service being held in Belgrano, a wealthy neighborhood in the north of the city. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, through getting lost and a late subway ride, I was late as usual for services. It seems that no matter how hard I try, in whatever country, I will always be a little late for the High Holidays.
The first thing that sticks out down here is all Jewish gatherings down here have security. Two big men were standing at the doorway, and I had to show them my driver’s license to be let into the temple. Any other Jewish event, whether sponsored by Hillel, or other groups in the city require some form of identification. AMIA, a group that’s some sort of all-powerful and totally connected Jewish organization in the country requires one to call ahead to visit their facilities and then be subjected to a search by what appears to be the Jewish Members of the US Secret Service.
On a deeper note, the security measures in place are a direct result of a bombing that occurred at AMIA’s old headquarters and another incident at the Israeli Embassy during the mid-90s. The acts were committed by members of Hezbollah, but at the same time, an anti-Semitic population with its routes in policies of the military dictatorships has a presence in the city.
After being helped to a seat by an usher, the first thing that struck me was how similar things were. The way that people were dressed, the way that they looked; it was almost like I could find counterparts for everyone in the sanctuary for people back at home. However, a striking difference, and it might have been because it was a reform synagogue, was the amount of music used during the services.
While someone assured me that music, whether flutes and klezmer tunes at an orthodox service or a piano at a conservative one, plays a large part in all Argentine Jewry, what I saw was a little much.
A wonderfully synchronized chorus, led by a heavily pregnant cantor, performed every prayer in what seemed like a round. Someone even had a tambourine. They were accompanied by the most multi-purpose keyboard I have ever heard. It was a piano for Ashrei. It was a xylophone during the Hatzi Kadish. And we went hardcore Miami Vice with a synthesizer during Adon Olam.
I am convinced that an essential part of rabbinical school is a course in rabbi demeanor. The rabbi’s posture, the way he spoke, looked around the sanctuary, even the way he cut his beard, resembled numerous other rabbis back in the states. His sermon was a wonderful message about interpreting Rosh Hashanah as an opportunity not to make resolutions or great changes but to take who you are already and amplify it. To take the good parts of you to the forefront. To make the better version of you. Towards the end he slipped in a jab against Hugo Chavez and the much maligned president here, Cristina Kirchner. However, like many Argentines, he referred to her husband in her place, showing the widely held belief that the former president, Nestor Kirchner, is de facto president.
Following services, I went to a family dinner that the Argentine Hillel set me up with. Another American and I who were invited to the event showed up to the event with the typical dinner gifts of wine and flowers. The family also lived in Belgrano in a multi-room apartment. The father, a pathologist, the mother, a nurse, three brothers, one of the brother’s girlfriends, and a friend of the father, an ophthalmologist cum tango instructor (again, which old Argentine man isn’t a “tango instructor”) shared their meal with us.
The men there all seemed to take special attention in the other American, a girl from California. The family friend even seemed to attempt the typical Argentine Older Man pick up, “teaching tango.” In spite of this, the family was incredibly friendly. During dinner conversation, their hatred for the Kirchners was also in blatant display. The meal was a collection of Jewish staples, such as knishes, gefilte fish, kosher wine, chicken, roasted potatoes, and of course, challah. Desert was a chocolate ice-cream cake with a meringue and chocolate cake swirl.
The dinner conversations and table demeanor was almost identical to my own holiday meals demonstrating that there actually might be a universal Jewish temperament. Around 1, the other American informed the brothers and me of a party she knew going on at a hostel in the center of the city.
One of the brothers and I came along, enjoying the luxury of going somewhere in a car rather than public transit, bandit taxis, or walking 40 blocks to save a few pesos. The brother was obviously honored for the opportunity to use his father’s car for the night to drive the guests out. And something of note, the brothers were 22, 25, and 28 and still lived at home. Argentines live with their families for more prolonged amounts of time, probably having to do with the absence of campus college life.
We got to the hostel, got to the small bar where the party was being held and were greeted by a costume party. After about an hour of watching Roman centurions, cross-dressers, butterflies, and Cleopatra, we left.
I returned to services the next morning and was greeted by a return of the Moog.
Afterwards, my friends and I accepted an invitation to have Rosh Hashanah lunch at something called the Moshe House. The person inviting us wasn’t sure if it was a pot luck or what, so we brought two pizzas with us. It turns out the place was a house where four Jews in their mid-twenties from different parts of the world live together and host programming for other Jews.
A British woman living there bought a collection of natural ingredients and encouraged us to be creative. I was the only one who really took up on the offer and put together an avocado, apple, celery salad inspired partly by a chicken avocado sandwich I once had and by Waldorf Salad.
When we all took our seats, about fifteen of us from Israel, Argentina, England, Australia, the States, and France, we were treated to a wide variety of all vegetarian foods. I can’t remember being so satisfied off mostly salads. Granted, there was falafel and humus there also, and challah, but for the most part I was able to fill myself on greens and fruits.
After the meal, a group of us sat around, listening to the guitar and drums, singing along. The people there were a collection of random Jews that I had met over the past month throughout the city. It wasn’t an all encompassing event, but it showed the prevalence of Jewish geography even down here.
However, the dinner at Hillel that night was the epitome of Jewish geography. Every Jew that I had met over the past two months was there. I even met someone from Sharon who graduated with my brother and then continued onto UMass, further cementing Sharon’s status as the hub of the Diaspora.
I left with a group of Argentine Jewish friends to visit a place called the Jacob House where a friend told me a party was going on. Supposedly it was an Israeli hostel.
After the guard opened the metal bolted door, we were greeted by an orthodox person who seemed to tend to the house. I looked around as he was making his pitch for us to come to services the next morning there, a pitch that I was very familiar with. I then looked up on the wall and saw a picture of Menachem Schneerson, the deceased figurehead of Chabad Judaism. I don’t have any problems with the Chabad movement, but I’ve always found their sales pitch a bit much.
We looked around the house a bit more and found the group of people staying there. I went up to meet a cute Israeli and I started to perform the typical Argentine greeting of a kiss on the cheek until she backed up. She was shomer nargilah, or however you spell the term for when a religious girl refrains from most contact with males.
A Texan-Argentine, Australian and I left about five minutes after we got to the hostel. We went to one bar to meet up with a group, couldn’t find them, found them, left for a party, found out that it was overpriced, tried to get into the club next to the party, but one of my friends forgot her ID. After this ridiculous chain of events, salvation came in the form of an orange school bus.
The bus was rented out by the pub crawl for the night and they helped my friends and I get into the club for free. It was a typical club night, but the place was better than most.
The next day, I met up with my Australian friend and we took the subway to the house of someone else from the Hillel events, a culinary student from the States participating in an internship at a Peruvian-Japanese fusion restaurant.
We were led to his house down the back hallway of an apartment building to a house built into the back of the place. He shared it with eleven other people. It was a tangle of halls and stairs leading to bedrooms and living rooms, a kitchen, and a terrace. The living room and kitchen were stacked with an assortment of produce and boiling pots, containing flavors from strawberries to nuts to chocolate to blood sausage to fernet to pig to steak to fennel to orange.
The day was a 6 hour feast which was characterized by a progressive and increasing stimulation of my taste buds. Once we sat down to pineapple sweet potato cocktails and chocolate ganoush with a pretzel crust, the memories of roasted pig, shrimp skewers, and an oil and salt glazed steak lingered.
I sat on the porch, looking up at the slight twinkle of stars, looking around at the maze of courtyards, alleys, and terraces below us, looking at the people around me, a random sampling from the weekend’s events, feeling even deeper entrenched into the city, more enmeshed in authentic experiences. Living a life, not just experiencing an adventure.
I’ve been here ten weeks, I have eleven to go. It’s been taken to another level again, but I know I’m not maxed out yet. New Year, New Me, New Challenges.
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