Bauhaus Tel Aviv

Letter to Temple Israel Portsmouth

I will always treasure my daughter’s first Hannukah at Kochavim preschool. It was a very special moment for me and I will tell you why. Raquel had started school about a month before and the day of the Hannukah celebration I was a little late and the classroom party was already underway. Rabbi Larry was there, singing and playing his guitar, and all the children were seated in a circle around him with rapt expressions on their faces. I went and sat next to my daughter and was soon joined by my husband. As the three of us sang “Light One Candle” I was overcome by such joy that the tears streamed down my face.

Having come from an anti-Semitic country such as Spain where our synagogue was tucked away in a small side street and being Jewish what not something you ever talked about with anyone outside of the community, it was a moment that I had never even dared imagine: to celebrate such a Jewish holiday with my family, including my Catholic-raised husband, in such a perfect and yet almost ordinary setting. That was the amazing part: it was ordinary yet extremely special.

There is nothing that makes any of the holidays as relevant as our children do. Like my father said to me once, you only feel like you have done a good job instilling Jewish values in your children when these in turn pass them on to their children.

It was also a powerful moment for me because I began to feel more a part of the community, in sharing this holiday with the teachers, the parents and the children of Kochavim preschool. I had lived in NH for seven years and had never attempted to get involved with the Temple community. When I had my daughter it was the thought of a Jewish preschool that prompted me to make that first call. If that is not clear enough, let me put it this way: it is thanks to the preschool that my husband, daughter and I became a part of the community.

I looked for a Jewish preschool because I know that the first years are when lifelong values are instilled. And I know that as my child grows older it will become more and more difficult to keep those Jewish principles alive in the midst of a largely Christian society. So what better than to give her a base she can forever return to? What better than to make the Temple her comfort zone, something that surely must be a consequence of her spending three or more happy days a week there?

I am always telling my family in Europe how wonderful it is to live in a country where it is possible for us to even have a Jewish preschool. If we were still living in Spain Raquel would not be so blessed. We should not take this freedom lightly. As Jews we should know that the moments in history when Jews have been able to live openly are tenuous and should not be taken for granted. To be sure, there are not many of us in New Hampshire but by closing the preschool we can rest assured that there will be even less of us in the future. Thanks to the preschool not only our children are learning how to live a Jewish life, but thanks to Rhonda and Elian, we as parents are learning how to incorporate Jewish rituals and values into our every day family life as well. We are learning how to make the holidays more interesting for our children and some of us are finding new meaning in them, as we see them through our children’s eyes.

I cannot stress how important I think it is to provide this preschool for our community; for our young children to be nurtured in a setting as far removed from anti-Semitism as possible. Our children are our future and if we want to avoid assimilation, such a huge threat in this country, we must do everything we possibly can to keep Judaism significant in their lives.

I feel that Rhonda and Elian work so hard to create a peaceful and loving Jewish environment for our children that we as parents and Temple members should do everything we can to support them. It is clear to me that their classroom is so much more to them than just a job and they deserve to know that the Temple stands behind them all the way. I thank G-d every day for the blessing of having them in my child’s life.

Casco Bay, Maine

Time flies when you have an addiction

At least this much can be said for me: when I realize I'm addicted, I quit. When we moved to America eleven years ago I had my last cigarette at Barajas airport in Madrid (actually that's a lie, but more on that later), so entering a new phase of my life filled with plenty of stress and culture-shock without the help of nicotine. For a while now I have been fighting the feeling that I should not be spending so much time playing games on Facebook, but it was a quiet background noise in my head, easy to ignore. Until Oscar said to me last night: "You've got a problem. What happened to your writing?" It wasn't the first time he said it but this time I was ready. I deleted Yoville, Farmville and Cafe World. I mean, what was I thinking? The release and sense of liberation was immediate. I spent all afternoon playing with my beautiful daughter and now here I am, writing my blog for the first time since July 22, after having read all the copies of Writer's Digest that had been accumulating on my "to read" pile. I feel quite chuffed with myself for making a clean break.

Just to explain my earlier comment about smoking, I did quit cold turkey but I smoke like a chimney when I visit Israel or Spain. Maybe a good reason to stay put? We'll see.