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February 27, 2008
London, Oxford, and Choices
Growing up, my mother always advocated for keeping my options open. Expand your choices, she assured me, and you will be grateful when the moment of decision is at hand. But while I have found her advice both wise and useful, at what point does maximizing your options conflict with maximizing your utility? What exactly defines that integral yet timeless moment of choice, that crucial crux of alteration along our weaves of life? What do our choices really mean, really signify? This past weekend, to create a break from my Polish life (sometimes we need a vacation from our vacation) I decided to take a trip to visit two of my oldest friends, Andrew and Jeff, in London. I went looking for a good time; I left with a brand new perspective on what this whole puzzle really means.
Few people under the age of 25 have known me longer than Andrew. I can still vividly remember the car ride conversation when my mother informed me of my upcoming “play-date” with a brand new friend, someone completely and entirely unknown. I was originally abrasive and stand-offish, as even at the age of 3 my ever expanding social circle was becoming a bit overwhelming. Could I really handle more?
As luck would have it, Andrew and I became fast friends. We began pre-kindergarten together the next year. The funny thing about Andrew and I is that our interests could not have been any different. Andrew was an outdoorsman, obsessed with fishing and nature and animals of all sorts, while I was a sports fanatic and video games connoisseur. Yet each of us would always find time to indulge the interests of the other, whether it was fishing trips for Andrew’s birthday or baseball games for mine.
While in our younger years we were inseparable (his mother even joked that we should purchase a small house together, albeit with two bathrooms), as the years went on our interests grew even farther apart. Andrew’s love of nature evolved into a love of New York nightlife, and by the age of 16 he was already making real money off of promoting parties in downtown Manhattan. I, meanwhile, developed an affinity for politics and history, remaining far more intimidated by the club scene. My below average height and poor dancing skills did little to assuage these fears. Yet throughout it all, Andrew and I remained very loyal to our bond, valuing the complimentary strengths we so clearly saw in the other. I would help Andrew with schoolwork; he would help me with girls. Our friendship seemed to rise above interests and enter some transcendent world of understanding and appreciation.
On the other hand, my relationship with Jeff has been very different. Jeff and I first became friends in Kindergarten, and our relationship really began to blossom when he moved down the block (suburbanly speaking) in the 4th grade. Jeff’s interests and mine matched up more closely, to some extent. I have vivid recollections of afternoons playing commandos and super Nintendo in my house or one-on-one basketball in the park. Memories of bike rides and mall/movie excursions, of tree houses and paintball imbue my memories.
As Jeff and I grew older, and as I watched him firsthand persevere through trials that will exceed the test of time, our interests remained ever similar while our ideologies and perspectives drifted to opposite ends of the spectrum. In a time where I was stuck in the intractability of adhering strictly to my parents’ political beliefs, Jeff was experimenting with genuine Lockean liberalism, straddling a libertarian outlook when he would try to convince me that we should abolish the public school system of which he was a product. (Authors Note: Jeff, if you are reading this, I would like to acknowledge that was an unfair dig that leaves you unable to respond. Feel free to berate me on my Facebook wall or with nasty letters to my future employers.)
Jeff eventually developed a plethora of interests that far surpassed my intellectual capacity at such a young age. He also developed a keen eye (and soul?) for traditional Judaism, and has obtained knowledge of the subject that far surpasses my own. He is one of the smartest people I know, and also one of the strangest. But as the two so often go hand in hand, I cannot help but admire what he has overcome, what he has accomplished, and the greatness he undoubtedly will do in the future.
So here the three of us were, growing up in a one square mile radius, with similar schooling, the same community, and parents who were friends. How exactly did we all end up so differently? Where the peas even really straying from the pod? Or were we just differing emulations of our parents, accentuating the qualities we chose to imitate and ignoring those we chose to forget? Did we have any control?
When Junior year came around, it is no surprise that all three of us chose to study abroad. But our choices could not have been any different. Andrew, ever hesitant of traveling, chose to go to London. The common language and city life suited his persona perfectly. Jeff had chosen to spend a year in Oxford, immersing himself in intensive studies at one of the foremost institutions of learning ever created. I, of course, chose Warsaw, because I have trouble operating inside the box. My trip would give me an insight into the study abroad experiences of others, of my friends.
I have to admit, in the midst of my arrogance I became convinced that everyone I knew was missing out by not coming to Warsaw. It truly felt and seemed like the greatest possible abroad destination. I assumed that Andrew and Jeff were enjoying themselves, but were they really experiencing the same sense of enlightenment that I was? I felt as if they were still stuck in some past age, still tredding water while I was slowly rising to the surface. But there was only one way to find out, so off I went.
I was supposed to meet Andrew at some London night-spot upon my arrival. Of course my superb luck with travel yielded me unable to use my cell phone to contact him, but with the directions in hand I still felt optimistic. I arrived at the club and suddenly realized that I had no way to get a message to Andrew, who was clearly inside. I approached the door hesitantly, my trepidation evident to all around me, when suddenly a woman approached me and asked if I needed something. I began to explain that I had just arrived and was supposed to meet my friend Andrew inside. To my shock, she asked “Oh! Are you Jeremy? From Poland?” This was probably the first and only time in my life that anyone working the door at a club would know who I was. I was escorted in with the royalest of treatments, and met Andrew downstairs, where he proceeded to shower me with whatever I desired. It was typical Andrew: he had left his job promoting clubs in New York only to develop an entirely more lucrative profession in London. Andrew was running the place, and I was with him.
Since it was my 4th visit to England, Andrew and I decided the next day to forego the touristy destinations and instead head straight for what it was I truly desired. The love of my life, the object of my affection, those two magical words that make my heart skip and my mouth melt: Kosher Meat. Oh, how I had missed thee, thou beefiest of kebabs! Oh, how thou had forsaken me, you most deliciously glazed chicken! If the Shakesperean language seems like a little much, then you are failing to grasp what it was like for me to live without any meat for an entire month. That night, Andrew and I went clubbing again. They treated him like he was a king. It was classic Andrew, the coolest guy in the room. I was amazed, I was awed, and I was extremely tired.
On Saturday, Andrew and I made the short but sweet sojourn up to Oxford, England. Jeff’s environment could not have been any different from Andrew’s. Oxford is a quiet town, and Jeff’s days aren’t spent in wild clubs and expensive bars but in libraries and small pubs. Jeff has truly attempted to ingratiate himself into this academic community, going so far as to criticize mine and Andrew’s dress because we looked too “American.” Jeff gave us a nice tour of Oxford, where we saw the World’s oldest library and Harry Potter’s dining room, ate some Fish and Chips where Tolkien and Lewis wrote their literary masterpieces, and watched an exciting and slightly violent Oxford crew race. After Andrew left, Jeff and I walked extensively around the small city, visiting some of the nooks and crevices I had frequented during my stay in Oxford four years prior.
Although I realized the superficial differences between Andrew and Jeff’s experiences, it was only when I began meeting many of Jeff’s friends later that day that the comparisons became ever more glaring. Andrew’s friends, and Andrew’s environment, revolved around having a good time, something at which they greatly excelled. Andrew and his friends awoke ever morning with a smile on their faces, content with a night well spent. What a beautiful thing, to truly reap that much enjoyment out of life.
While Jeff certainly enjoyed himself, there was a deeper mission at play. For Jeff and his friends, they were all, in some way, attempting to raise their level of intellectualism and rational thought, to reach the peak of the individual brain capacity and to become the truly enlightened individuals they all strove to pay. For them, it was not waking up but rather going to sleep satisfied. Is there anything more admirable, more rewarding than that of self-cultivation?
As I left Oxford the next morning, I was again struggling with these differences. How could such juxtaposed experiences both be so equally rewarding? Where did my experience fit in? Was I straddling some line in between these polarities, incapable of full enjoyment yet restrained from reaching life’s great epiphanies? Would I regret this middle ground, this inability to choose? Or was my choice an entirely different one? Was I aiming for some aspect of self-understanding through cultural understanding? Was my enjoyment and education simply too deeply intertwined?
Most importantly, could I exist in this middle ground? Or would I have to choose?
My last stop on my visit was a quick stopover to Hyde Park’s famed Speakers Corner. For those of you who have never been, I encourage you to make it a staple of your next trip overseas. Since the 19th century, men and women of varying political philosophies and orientation have come to the park on Sunday afternoons, holding political rallies and demonstrations. Often these speakers drift well outside the mainstream, and in a beautiful realization of a free society these outsiders are given a venue. Marx, Lenin, and Orwell all exercised their right to free speech in this small square footage of greenery.
Even today, most of the individuals at speakers corner drift outside normal societal bounds. During my visit, there was a man advocating Jews for Jesus, a Muslim from the Bronx, and an absolutely crazed woman predicting imminent doom for the scathingly immoral British people. All of these speakers were more divisive than informative, and it seems far easier to rile people’s emotions than to actually convince them that you are preaching the truth.
Once in a while, however, Speakers Corner can divulge a true gem. Amidst all the crowds of controversy was a man who was simply holding a sign that said “Everything is OK.” The man’s message was simple: who you are is who you are, and where you are is where you are meant to be. This message of self-control over one’s life, and this implication that what we do truly matters, was both ridiculous and fascinating, improbably and uplifting. While I did not buy into this man’s entire shtick, and while, to a certain extent, he probably enjoyed the sound of his own voice, he made me realize a valuable point. We are all defined by our choices.
Andrew chose to go to London because that is the experience from which he would derive the greatest benefit, the great utility, the great opportunity to expand his personal horizons within an environment where he would be comfortable. Ditto for Jeff, for whom Oxford was the opportunity for true intellectual stimulation and interaction with his peers who function on a similar plane, an experience that would be new and fun and always interesting. I lay somewhere in the middle, looking for enjoyment not from a nightclub but from a gathering of differences, looking for education not from a text book but from an experience. I would wake up in the morning with a smile from a night well spent, and I would go to sleep at night feeling smarter than the day before. I was partly Andrew, and I was partly Jeff, but most importantly, I was a product of my own choices. And so were they. And we were all just as happy for it.
That’s when I began to look at my mother’s advice in an entirely new way. Maximizing my choices meant maximizing my own possibilities, widening the breadth of who I am in order to widen the breadth of who I may become. Keep your options open, and let time and experience help you define who you are.
After fifteen minutes of preaching in this small corner of London, this champion of choices made a charge to his growing crowd. If you feel you must stay, then stay. But, he added, as a powerful caveat, if this is not where you need to be, then I encourage you to leave.
The bus to the airport was a short walk away. I had plenty of time, but why waste it here? I wanted to get back to where I needed to be, to my fun and my experience and to where my inclinations were leading. I wanted to get back to Warsaw. Because that was my choice.
Posted by borovitz at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2008
Home is where the juxtaposition is
At a study abroad information session before I embarked on this sojourn of truth, Ralph Williams, Michigan professor extraordinaire, spoke beautifully about what it truly would mean to spend a semester abroad, in another country. While I had forgotten the specifics, my fellow Wolverine, Kayla, had not, and it is her recollection that has led to this stunning revelation: At a certain point, Warsaw begins to feel something like home.
Allow me to backtrack. This past Friday, I awoke with six of my fellow Warsavians at 330 in the morning in order to catch a very very inexpensive albeit very very early flight to Stockholm, Sweden. Frankly, I knew very little about the country. I knew even less about the city. A wikipedia-based crash course (thank you, wikitravel,) taught me that Stockholm is a city of about 800,000 in a country of less than 10 million, and is comprised of a series of islands separated by canals. The rest was a mystery, a chance to see something new and experience something different and maybe see a glimpse of the sun, something so often missing in the gray mist of a Polish day.
The first thought that popped into my head upon my arrival into Stockholm (after I injected myself with caffeine) was that I felt like I had just stepped into a painting. Everything looked so picturesque. Although it was certainly cold, even perhaps a little colder than Poland, the sun shone down on everything so perfectly, at just the right angle and degree that it felt as if Monet himself was contributing dabs of brushstroke to correct and slight imperfections. It felt as if someone had simply placed 21st century commercialism in an 18th century world.
The most beautiful part of the city, by far, is its old town. Constructed over four hundred years starting around the 13th century and located on the island of Gamla Stan, its main attraction has to be the Royal Palace. I’ve seen quite a few Palaces in my day---Buckingham, the Louvre (lest we forget, it was originally a royal home), even Wilanow, in Warsaw---and I can say unequivocally that the Swedes trumped them all. Every room is so ornately decorated with priceless relics of the past adorning its walls. But there are two distinctions that separate this building from its regal brothers. The first is the colors. Most castles relegate themselves to a few colors in its indoor decorations, most often the colors that symbolize the castle’s occupants. But the people of Sweden, and the royal family in particular, know no pigmented bound. Rather, the goal seems to be to both shock you and soothe you, the colors serving a purpose that rises above aestheticism and flirts with temperament. The second main difference is that this Palace really seems livable. It didn’t seem built like it was meant to be a Museum. I could almost feel little children running through the halls, my mother calling me to dinner, my father and I play chess in the sitting room…then I realized that my house growing up was about the size of the master bedroom, and I quickly exited my daydream.
Old Town is also filled with hundreds of hidden alleyways and hidden secrets. The Sotckholm Cathedral was majestic, the cobblestone streets were authentic, and the tourist shops were over priced and under stocked. There is much more to this city, however, then Old Town. There is the Vasa Museum, which houses a ship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 and lay in the Stockholm bay for over 330 years. After re-discovering the ship in the 1950s, it took 7 years and millions of dollars to actually lift the ship, almost entirely preserved, out of the water and into the history books. There is City Hall, site of the Nobel Prize Ceremony every year. There is also a plethora of wonderful museums, housing artists ranging from Rembrandt and Renoir to Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol.
I have to be honest, however. What struck me most about Stockholm had absolutely nothing to do with its architecture or structures or history. It had to do with its people. Perhaps this is a vast over-generalization, but every single person I met seemed like absolutely the nicest person in the world. Everywhere we went, people were helpful and kind, seemingly intent on making sure that we enjoyed their hometown more than they do. It was the little things that were particularly poignant. If we bumped into someone, they apologized; in Warsaw such an event would be met with a scowl. If we asked someone for directions in English, they would go out of their way to walk us in the correct direction; in Warsaw our English would be ignored, our queries met with a shrug. It was sometime around a 40 year old man directing us to the most moderately priced (yet delicious!) restaurant in the neighborhood we were in when it suddenly hit me: I was comparing everything I saw to Warsaw.
Usually, when you travel, and you interact with foreigners on their home turf, you are constantly comparing these new surroundings to your own. In America this, in America that, etc., etc. If I had come to Stockholm from America, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so shocked by the massive amount of sunlight encompassing the city, but coming from Warsaw and its gray skies, the light was blinding. If I had come to Stockholm from America, maybe the friendliness and the English wouldn’t have seemed so foreign, but coming from Warsaw I felt light years away. If I had come to Stockholm from America, it would have been a short visit to another interesting European city, but coming from Warsaw I felt like I had traveled through time, entered some twilight zone of tourism that I had trouble comprehending.
One of the highlights of my trip, by far, was attending services at the Great Synagogue of Stockholm on Shabbat morning. The building is absolutely beautiful, one of the most majestic synagogues I have ever seen in my life. For the well-traveled synagogue goers among my readership (here’s to you, Mom and Dad) it is a smaller, just as beautiful yet less antique-looking version of the Great Synagogue in Budapest,. The service was wonderful, the Rabbi a powerful spiritual leader. Again, however, I found myself comparing this service not to my father’s congregation, but to the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw. The Stockholm congregation was a member of the conservative movement, ideologically right of Temple Sholom in River Edge, New Jersey and ideologically left of my new community in Warsaw. The service seemed to ooze of non-traditionalism, leaving a scent of reinvention and reinvigoration which, though I enjoyed, seemed, yet again, very foreign.
This really began to irk my thought process, confuse me in entirely newfound and previously unexpected ways. I was enjoying Warsaw, sure, but was I really prepared to call it home? New Jersey was my home, where I grew up. America was my home, where I held citizenship. Israel was my home, the land of the Jewish people. But Warsaw?
Additionally, in every comparison I made, I almost seemed to like Stockholm more. Stockholm had more light, friendlier people, beautiful surroundings, superlatives and comparisons that were leaving Poland in the dust. So why was it that I began to miss my dorm, my Warsaw chavura, my city that I didn’t even realize was mine?
Upon discussing my feelings with Kayla, she reminded me that when Ralph Williams spoke to the group of expectant study abroad students, he told them that eventually, anywhere they went would be in comparison to their newfound city. It was natural, she reminded me, to be viewing everything as Warsavians do. Living in their city, in their streets and beds and restaurants and classrooms and bars and beginning to see things from their eyes, from their point of view.
Comparing everything to Warsaw doesn’t mean that it is now my home. It doesn’t mean it isn’t either. If anything, it has allowed me to look at things from an entirely new perspective. It allowed me to realize that sunlight can affect mood, and that sometimes a little attitude is necessary to keep life from getting dull. Stockholm may have been a pretty city, but frankly, after a weekend, there wasn’t much to do. This comparison has sparked entirely new revelations about my Jewish identity, allowing me to consider what kind of Jew I am and what kind of Jew I strive to be. It showed me that anywhere I go, from Poland to Stockholm to Jerusalem to New York and cities galore in between, that there is always a service to attend, a slightly different flavor to connect with God on the menu.
I should come as no surprise that I was ecstatic to return to Warsaw. I had missed my dorm, my lack of sunlight, the abandoned factory across the street and the prison down the block. I had missed the glares and the incessant frowns and the lack of English knowledge. I had missed pierogi and zyviec and Zobruvka and other terms that mean the world to me and are simply Polish to you. I missed these things not necessarily because its home, but because for now, its my basis of comparison. In the end, maybe that’s all home really is. At this point in my life, maybe that’s all it needs to be.
Imagine my surprise when I awoke Tuesday morning being slightly blinded, walking to my window to find a stream of sunlight shining upon Warsaw.
Posted by borovitz at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2008
Chemistry, with a dose of History
I was never very good at chemistry. Sure, I probably did fine on tests and could memorize formulas, but I never really under stood the intricacies of entirely separate entities coming together. Not much has changed since High School, as I am still amazed at life’s amazing ability to bring things, and people, together.
Perhaps I’m not really explaining myself very well. Take Warsaw, for example. Regardless of my purported fearlessness, I was pretty nervous about coming to Poland. Beyond my food and weather concerns, I was most glaringly concerned about the people I was about going to be sharing the next 4 months of my life with. Who would they be? What would they be like? What sort of person decides to go to Warsaw? What was I thinking? What were they?
My fears were, of course, easily assuaged. Not only am I part of an amazing group of people, but we may collectively be one of the most agreeable and inclusive bunch of college students I’ve ever met. When someone has an idea for an activity, the whole gang gets involved. No one is left out, everyone sticks together, things begin to mesh. We’ve barely known each other 2 weeks and already we have been seen to stick up for each other, to look out for each other, to develop a genuine concern for each other’s well being. Maybe its simply the result of living together in close quarters in a foreign country, the lack of a safety net incepting a man made support system. Or maybe its something else entirely. Maybe its just chemistry.
What is it, exactly, that allows things to mix in perfect harmony? What makes the converse occur? I knew in High School that if you combined baking soda and vinegar (especially inside a poorly sculpted clay volcano) that the result would be an adverse one, with the chemicals major components fizzing together to feign the façade of a volcanic explosion. But what is it exactly that brings things together and what is it that tears them apart?
Earlier this week, I attended a performance at the Warsaw philharmonic. It was a combined performance of Argentinian guitarist Rolando Saad and the St. Petersburg philharmonic. These two performers are literally worlds apart; cultural and geographical divides would imply that the differences between them are too great to create anything worthwhile. But while they were unable to communicate in words, they shared a common musical language. The harmony they were able to create, the absolutely perfect assonance of their sound, was emotionally awakening. What was it about these two polar opposites that allowed them to come together so fluidly?
The cruxes of these questions really lie in my search for my own identity. In perfect 20/20 hindsight, I was probably attracted to Poland at least partially due to its role as my ancestral home. For years, my mother told me the story of my great-great grandfather, Meyer Jacob Hecht, who allegorically swam down the Vistula river in order to catch a boat to America at the humble age of 16. I couldn’t imagine it. Leaving home. At the age of 16. When I was sixteen all I was thinking about was school, girls, and the Cleveland Indians. Starting a new life for myself thousands of miles away from my parents? Such a concept couldn’t even register on my radar. What brought Meyer Jacob to America? What swayed him, pulled him, made him think that America would produce the right chemistry for him and his descendants? I decided that I really didn’t know anything about his story. I knew I needed to learn more.
Last Shabbat, at services at the Nozyk Synagogue, I met Yechiel (Yale) Reisner, who runs the Jewish Genealogical Center, located at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. After a resounding game of Jewish geography, which led us to realize that I attended grade school with his nieces and nephews, I began to explain to him some of queries about my past. He offered his services, and invited me to come to the institute later in the week.
Before I had even had a chance to come in, I received an email from Yechiel. He said that an Eisig Borovicz had arrived at Ellis Island on November 15, 1906 from Bransk, Poland, in order to meet up with his son in Cleveland. An email correspondence confirmed what we had assumed: This man was my great-great grandfather, attempting to join up with my great grandfather who had already started to make a life for himself in America. Abram Borovitz (my great grandfather), like Meyer Jacob, came over to this country with nothing, not knowing English, and began to work as a tailor, the profession his family had held for generations. I decided I need to know more.
After class on Tuesday, armed with a sheet full of names and places and dates, I decided to pay Yechiel a visit. His cramped office was filled with books in Polish, Hebrew, English and Yiddish, of names and dates and peoples and places. Birth logs and death records imbued his bookshelves with a real sense of history, a sense of Yiddishkeit.
I was not the first person to visit Yechiel at his office that day. In fact, as he explained to me, a big part of his job is to help people in their search of some remnant of their ancestry, some document or record that fulfills the ancient Jewish promise of “He-nay-nee,” here I am. Sometimes he will receive American Jews or Israelis; sometimes it will be Poles who are just learning about their Jewish heritage. Some people come with as little as a name; others come with stacks of documents that can make things easier or much more complicated.
After a few hours in his office, I was frankly left with more questions than answers. I learned that a Meyer Hecht entered America for the Midwest in 1882, at the ripe age of 42. Whether or not it is my great-great grandfather, I do not yet know. An exploratory email to some distant cousins informed me that Meyer Hecht died in 1925 in his mid 80s, lining up the years quite nicely. I also learned that there was indeed a Borovicz family from Bransk, Poland, and that Bransk was a community filled with tailors, our chosen profession. Additionally, a Ze’ev Borovicz perished in the Holocaust, a fact reported in 1955 by his sister who was then living in Israel. Are these people some distant cousins? Do I have family whose roots stretch back to the shtetl?
Yechiel informed me that I had some work to do. Interviews needed to be conducted. Queries needed to be sent to members of both sides of my families. I need names, I need places, I need dates of entry and dates of birth and dates of death. Maybe I even need to go to Bransk. Because somewhere deep inside these documents lies an answer to my chemistry. Somewhere within this small Polish town, where a Jewish cemetery is the only remnant of a community lost, may be the keys to my heritage, to that which made me, to that which picked everything up and took a risk on a new land that has paid dividends that my ancestors never could have imagined.
Is there any way they could have known the impeccable results of their experiment? The ingredients seemed to have mixed perfectly. So to Eisig and Abram and Meyer Hecht, maybe looking for who you are and where you came from is simply my way of saying thank you.
Posted by borovitz at 09:53 PM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2008
An American in Warsaw
The people of Poland have a staring problem.
This is not to minimize their economic problems (the zlaty is still well behind the euro) or their political problems (until recently twin brothers were the President and Prime Minister, respectively.) But as an American living in Warsaw, everywhere I go, I see people staring.
I was always taught as a child not to stare. Regardless of who people were and how they looked, the “mind your own business” mentality was a staple of my domestication. Frankly, I was taught, staring is just plain rude. In Poland, however, the exact opposite seems to be true. Even every day activities like riding the tram or eating at a restaurant are met by constant glances. Everyone seems to be sizing up everyone else, attempting in a matter of nanoseconds to dissect the intricacies of the lives of perfect strangers. What is the source of this uninhibited curiosity? What is it about Polish culture the makes these glares the norm?
While I had been receiving some stares since my arrival, I did not fully realize their extent until a recent morning jog. Due to Poland’s perpetual inclement weather, I clad myself fully in black under armour. Some may argue that outfit was too tight, unnecessarily accentuating my less-than-perfect physique. To these detractors I say: you might be right. But the way I saw it, Central Park on Sundays in New York is full of overweight Americans in tight clothes attempting to shave off the pounds. What is the harm of me simply trying to stay warm?
It seemed, however, that Warsaw had not seen many outfits quite like mine. The moment I left my dormitory, I could feel everyone’s eyes darting in my direction. This was not simple paranoia; in fact,, my suspicions were confirmed when a group of school girls began laughing incessantly while pointing in my direction (I guess the “it’s not nice to point” lesson hasn’t made it into Polish Developmental Psychology books). I began to feel slightly bothered by the stares. It wasn’t that I was self-conscious about my body. I was just self-conscious about being an American.
This event really got me thinking. What is the real point of studying for a semester abroad? Is it simply to act as an observer, relishing the experience of taking in another culture? Am I an emissary, spreading America and he values to the world? Or am I supposed to completely ingratiate myself in another country, to become one of them and then, hopefully, to begin to understand them? I had always hoped and felt that the latter was true, but I was beginning to doubt if this was even possible.
I do not wish to paint a picture of Poles as unfriendly to Americans. I would actually say the opposite is true. Many Poles seemed to be friendlier to Americans than they sometimes are to each other. But did I really want this special treatment? Could I every truly fit in?
I think a disclaimer is necessary at this point. On an every day basis I can appear as Polish as everyone else, staring aside. Chalk it up to my Polish roots, my light hair, my pale skin, or my general overall whiteness that seems to be a staple of the country (we’ll talk about the lack of minority representation at a later time). In fact, a few days ago someone asked me directions on the street and, recognizing the street name he was looking for, I pointed him in the right direction. More often than not, it is my poor grasp of the Polish language that paints the Scarlet “American” on my breast.
But is it simply a matter of linguistics? Is a superb Polish vocabulary with an impeccable accent all that is separating my full integration and ingratiation into Polish society? An analogous situation comes to mind. I remember, during my trip to Israel my senior year of high school, discussing with some of my Israeli friends over what it exactly it meant to be “an Israeli.” To my chagrin, many of them uniformly agreed that those Americans who make “aliyah,” or emigrate to Israel, are not true Israelis. Their reasoning, they argued, was that these people were simply more culturally American; their love of baseball and pizza set them apart. If Jews returning to their homeland can never truly become one with their brethren, why am I holding on to this pipedream of becoming one with the Poles?
This past Sunday, for the first time, I celebrated a great American holiday outside of the States: The Super Bowl. A few of my classmates and I went to a small bar that we had heard was playing the game. Over a few beers and some falafel (the only place open at 2 in the morning served Middle Eastern food, go figure) I watched the men in blue pull out an amazing victory over the evil empire. J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS (sorry, couldn’t help myself). Anyway, while the game was exciting, what was far more interesting was meeting and interacting with the other 30 or so American ex-pats watching the game with us. Few, if any, of the observers had a vested interest in the results of the contest. Most of us were cheering for the New York Giants simply because of their underdog status. But even though I barely knew these people, watching the game created a very strong bond. We cheered with each other, we screamed with each other, and, after David Tyree’s phenomenal catch, we hugged each other. I don’t know if I had ever felt so American.
This event made me realize that many of my intuitions about living abroad were incorrect. I could choose to live in a foreign country my entire life; in the end, I am still an American. Being an American is so much more than a language or a culture or a place where I live; it is a part of who I am, an ingrained aspect of the human spirit that cannot be removed. I will live in this country as U.S. citizen, I will learn from these people not as one of them but as one of me. But regardless of who my ancestors were, I am not and never will be a Pole. I am simply an American living in Warsaw.
So let them stare. Let them size me up and judge me for my overtly American outfits and poor grasp of the Polish language. I will never be one of them and I will never truly fit in. But that’s ok. Because somewhere out there is a bar or a club of a group of Americans in a foreign country celebrating together, celebrating something that none of them understand and few of them will ever really acknowledge. I am an American, and I am proud.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t need to get a new outfit for running.
Posted by borovitz at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2008
My first week
Warsaw has been everything I had hoped for and nothing I had expected, a convoluted mixture of emotions that has blindsided me like a truck and thrown me for a loop and a host of other clichés too common to paste into my thoughts. I am both elated and confused, in love with this city and scared of what that means. But even as I come to grips with the experience, I have to mention that least the weather has been beautiful.
My arrival in Warsaw was prescient of what I expected this trip to be: Difficult but rewarding. The airline (in all its glory) decided to change my stop-over city from Milan to Rome, and the length of my layover from 2 to 8 hours. I guess they didn’t think I would mind. But in the spirit of adventure and with a large dose of optimism I decided to take it as it was, and used my delay to my advantage. A hope, skip, and a train ride took me to downtown Rome, where I circled the coliseum, walked around the old Jewish quarter, and threw a euro into the Trevi fountain. (I had been thinking about throwing only half a Euro but I thought it unwise to upset the gods so early into my trip.) But the temporary nature of my visit soon became apparent, and just a few short delays later (yea, my luck was impeccable) I met my transporter, Gosha, and set our for SGH, also known as the Warsaw School of Economics.
Immediately upon my arrival at my dorm, I knew I was in the right place. My introduction to my roommate, Sean Clark, could not have gone smoother. A cross between Abraham Lincoln and the little brother Stewie tried to eradicate in that one Family Guy episode, Sean is an Irish Catholic from suburban Philly and runs track at Penn State. Our love of sarcasm and mutual Big Ten appreciation, along with the fact that we both decided to go to Warsaw for no apparent reason, created a nice bond.
SGH is well known, not only in Central Europe (note: if you ever meet a Polish person, do not imply they are from Eastern Europe. They take that very offensively. They see themselves as firmly part of Central Europe) but throughout the continent. It also happens to be conveniently located across the street from a former political prison that housed some of the schools current professors during communist reign. Today it functions as a regular prison, and let me tell you, there is nothing like seeing men with large guns to really wake you up for class in the morning. My dorm is comprised mainly of Polish students. Some of them are very friendly and some of them seem to have egregiously strong livers (others fit both bills, and they have become my closer acquaintances.) The dorm is situated about a fifteen-minute walk away from the school, and is across the street from an abandoned factory where lights randomly turn on around 3 in the morning. As strange as it seems, it is intangibles like these that have truly made me fall in love with my surroundings.
The first week really went by in a blur. Every single person on my program (there are 16 of us in all) seems to be extremely unique, interesting, and friendly. First there is Sean, my track obsessed roommate, who has had the gall to wake me up and make me run with him early in the morning. Our first morning began with a bit of hilarity, as my Maize and Blue under armour and his Penn State winter hat made us look like a Big Ten commercial. The comedy ensued when we realized that morning jogs are not a popular pastime in Poland; the amount of dirty looks that said “Americans” were too many to count. Luckily for us, however, our dorm is only a short distance from Washinski Park, which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in my life. The most numerous inhabitants of the park are gorgeous peacocks and tiny red squirrels, who, unlike the combative squirrels of Ann Arbor, seem to enjoy the company of their homo-sapien neighbors. The park is also home to the famous “Castle on the Water,” which is exactly what it sounds like: a giant castle sitting in the middle of a giant pond.
The rest of my fellow ex-pats are an eclectic bunch with a taste of adventure as poignant as mine. There is Elise, the Texan from Trinity College, who spent five years in Nigeria as a child and has plans to soon get engaged to her Air Force boyfriend. There is Jack, the chain-smoking Arkansan, with a Jewish father and a Polish mother and a serious girlfriend who lives just outside Warsaw city limits. There is Vera, a Ukranian from Central Michigan, who can understand Polish but is unable to speak it. There is also Anna and Kayla, my fellow Wolverines, the trappings of an unlikely triumvurate of companionship that has created a home away from my second home. Our motley crew have begun to truly get to know and understand one another, and the process has been exhilarating.
Our days have been spent exploring the city that is to be our home for the next few months. While we did receive a full city tour on our first day, the real adventures have come when we have set out in small groups on our own. One of my first lessons about the city is that many blocks are comprised of buildings surrounding a giant courtyard. The only problem is, of course, that if you somehow manage to get yourself inside one of these courtyards, your going to have a real time getting yourself out. It took me about an hour.
The most beautiful part about Warsaw is its extraordinary blend of old and new. Since much of the city was destroyed during WWII, the reconstruction is a three-part combination of refurbished antiquity, communist archetypes, and modern architecture. At the center stands the Palace of Culture and Arts, an ugly, gaping tower built by the USSR as a “gift” to Poland (paid for by the Polish people) that can be viewed from almost anywhere in the city and that is “lovingly” referred to as Stalin’s middle finger. Did I mention Poles have no problem being blunt?
Many of our nights have been spent exploring the various bars and discoteques frequented by our new Polish friends, although I have to admit that their energy far surpasses my own. While I am often ready to retire by 2am, beaten down by intense dancing, they seem to be limitless in their pursuits of a good time.
Everything seemed to be going right for me. The city was amazing, the people were friendly, the conversation was stimulating, the culture was fascinating. But something felt off. For some reason, all the right answers summed up to something wrong.
During one of my daytime excursions into the city, I popped into an antique store. Glimmering in a corner like a scene out of Indiana Jones stood a solid silver Hannukiah, the traditional Menorah lit by Jews on the Hannukah holiday. I asked the proprietor for some history on the relic’s origins; he shrugged, simply mentioning that it was Jewish. This event really shook me. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that this ritual item was on display as an example of something lost, something ancient, something stuck far in the past. This Hannukiah did not deserve to be beyond two layers of plate glass. It was meant to be lit. At one point, someone owned this. At one point, someone lit this. That someone is likely dead. And the history that Hannukiah carried was killed with them.
I have been attempting to keep alive some remnant of Jewish identity on this trip. I have done my best to observe my version of the laws of Kashrut, or of keeping Kosher, refraining from eating any meat. My American trip-mates have been very supportive, pointing out vegetarian dishes and asking me questions about my heritage and my ideology. But among our Polish friends, I have been less revealing. To them I am already an outsider, an American. Do I really want to further this alienation and reveal my Jewish roots?
I began to feel like a relic myself, some splash of color thrown into an old Bogart film, blatantly out of place and incapable of hiding. Deep inside me burned dozens of questions: How can I be a Jew here? How can I, as a Jew, observe the memory of a community lost? How do we move on without forgetting what was lost? How can I, as a Jew, truly enjoy myself in a city that witnessed the slaughter of so many of my brethren, my family, my faith?
My difficulties led me to a familiar place of refuge, and I gave a call to my father in search of guidance. After listening intently to my dilemma, my father brought up the play Fiddler on the Roof, the famed story of Shtetl life. The title, he explained, was meant to describe the tenuous situation of the Jews of Europe. We practiced our traditions, followed our rituals, and worshipped God as we had for generations. Yet we did so with the knowledge that the roof was unstable, that one day it might collapse and, in an instant, all we had built could come crashing down. My father suggested that I attend Sabbath services at the Nozyk Synagogue, the last of its kind in Warsaw. There, he said, with hopeful guidance, I might find some of the answers I was looking for. My father ended our conversation with the Birkat Kohanim, the blessing that parents have given to their children for generations and generations. “May the lord bless you and protect you. May he be kind with you and gracious unto you. May he smile upon you always, and grant you with peace.”
I awoke early Saturday morning and began my forty-minute walk to the synagogue. My first shock upon arriving was that it did not seem to be the depressing room of Holocaust survivors I had imagined it would be. Rather it was a vibrant albeit small congregation, filled with a varied group of about 30-40 men ranging in age from about 5 to 85. It was the younger part of that equation that truly gave me delight. The fact that childrens’ laughter could once again echo against these walls, accompanied by the traditional hymns and stories our forefathers passed down to us, enraptured my emotions in a tangled web of ecstacy. I prayed in that synagogue in a way I had not prayed in a long time. I prayed with feeling. I prayed with my fellow Jews. I prayed with God.
Near the close of every Jewish service, the prayer for the dead, known as the Mourners Kaddish, is recited. In a traditional service such as the one I was attending, only those who have lost a parent stand during this comemeration. But that was not the case here. Every man, woman, and child in attendance stood in formation, either in solemn recitation or silent rapture. I could feel the collective thoughts flowing through the room. I could feel the memories of a congregation lost, of a community destroyed.
As soon as the Kaddish was finished, the children of the congregation led their parents in a rowdy rendition of Adon Olam, a traditional closing hymn. Here was Warsaw again in all its beauty. This mix of old and new, combining the memories of ancestors with the promise of a future. We stand, but we do not cry. We remember, but we do not dwell. We will not forget but we will always move forward, aware that our place here is tenuous, that we are fiddlers on the roof, that it all could collapse once again. This was the resilience of the Jewish spirit; this was the beauty of Warsaw.
I couldn’t help but notice, as I exited this clash of who we are and who we can become, that, in the dead of winter, the sun was smiling upon Poland.
Posted by borovitz at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)