Pesach in Vienna (with comments from both of us)

How totally strange to be here for this holiday instead of with our family and friends in New Jersey! But it will definitely be a Passover to remember.
The best part was not really having much to do to get ready for the holiday! Not much in our apartment so not much to clean out and change! And nothing to prepare for seder! Nice but weird!

First night was spent at a community seder at the small progressive synagogue we discovered not too far from our apartment. This congregation has only been in existence for 10 years and only had their own place for the last 6 years. They renovated a ground-floor area in an old building, into a rectangular payer space, an office, a library and a tiny kitchen. The sanctuary has a barrel-vaulted ceiling – vaguely reminiscent of medieval shuls - and wonderful acoustics when there is a service. It was set with tables for almost 90 people – really squeezed in! (Most of the congregation was there, as well as a number of visitors like us) We were seated at the English table (a little like sitting at the kid’s table, but with less splashing) , along with a couple from Florida whose college daughter was studying in Tel Aviv. T and they met her in Vienna and were traveling around with her for spring break (note; literally every American nuclear family we have met while traveling had one child on semester aborad, who the rest flew over to meet for spring break); a lovely woman from the congregation named Julie-anne (with one Amercian and one Viennese parent, who grew up in both the US and Vienna) and her teenage daughter, and a young family named the Firestones- Dave and Ava and their 6-year-old son Samuel. He is from Cleveland and she is Viennese and they live here. (I think a lot of the congregation consists of people from here or elsewhere who have partners in Vienna, either Jewish or not. A huge percentage of the congregation is intermarried. Life never travels in the straight lines we expect – we are always told that intermarriage would lead to extinction, but there is a revival here after what was pretty much a null Jewish generation). An orange was on the seder table, btw, and the rabbi gave the Susannah Heschel explanation, and this was something quite new to most there.)

Most of the seder consisted of a dramatic reading of the Hagadah by the rabbi and not much else! He is British, and somewhat of a circuit rider. He comes to Vienna once a month and to another congregation in Germany once a month and then is in London the rest of the time. (He was going to Germany for the second night.) He speaks fluent German and mostly did the prayers in Hebrew and the readings in German, with a bit of English thrown in occasionally to keep some of us on our toes. Meanwhile we had brought a Hagadah with us so we were able to follow along as he read, and every once in a while he asked someone else to read a bit. I don’t know how he kept going all night, but he did. Also Julie-anne and her daughter did some simultaneous translations of his various commentaries and asides to keep us connected. The people at our table were all very nice and good company so it was quite pleasant. There was amazingly little singing and I kept wanting to break out in various tunes that I was used to, but I would have been doing it solo! (no frog songs or pat the matzah!) Sometimes they would start a section with a tune much like an Eskin favorite, but it would quickly fade.

The rabbi is a very nice and quite witty man, but he insisted on going through EVERY word of the Hagadah! Some he read twice or three times (Hebrew, German, English). And this is in a Progressive group! The only thing we did here that might be fun to add to what we do next year was a fun pop-up rendition of Echod Me Yodehah.

The food was quite good- catered though at one point I observed a young woman washing every dish by hand in the tiny kitchen that they had there- no dishwasher! Ugh! And when one of the two toilets went out, there were long lines at the loo the rest of the night.

One of the nicest things about the seder was that during the course of the evening, the Firestones invited us to their house for the second seder that they were planning for the following night. They are a very lovely young couple who met in Israel and decided that since they are both teachers, they could have a much better life in Austria than in the States, since they would not have to worry about paying for education, health care or retirement here. In addition to their 6 year old son they also have a 3 year old daughter, and grandparents nearby to help. Ava’s mother is not Jewish, but her father and grandfather were here during the war and escaped to Belgium where they worked for the Resistance and hid out. Then they returned to Vienna after the war, a fact that she still does not understand, given the attitudes of their fellow citizens during the war! She clearly had a Jewish education, but I am not sure if that was accomplished earlier or later in her life.

Also at their seder there was another woman who was a friend from the synagogue and another couple who were not Jewish and had never been to a seder before – maybe had never heard of a seder before (Jewish life is small and not so public here as opposed to, say, Budapest. Many current day Viennese have never met a Jew, or at least someone they knew was Jewish. Rich’s enlightened and traveled colleagues certainly seem to know very little about Judaism). This man works for Hewlitt-Packard selling systems or something and she is a teacher. They were very nice and at the end of the evening they said they wanted to invite us to their house! (so much for Austrians being cold and not hospitable!) The seder was very simple but nice. I am not sure they had ever done one themselves before, since Dave was a bit nervous about running it! But we were very touched to have been invited to join them all. Very hamische and quite interesting to see their home and how they live.

I volunteered to make something to bring over there, but once home I realized how hard that was going to be! The kitchen here is fairly well equipped with pots and pans, but most are fairly small and there is not the arsenal of equipment I am used to having. No electric beater for instance, so I couldn’t beat eggs or egg whites or chop nuts which are required for so much! But I was able to make matzah balls (in 3 separate pots!) and brought them along for her soup!

Otherwise, it has been a challenge to resist the wonderful baked goods with our coffee around here! We had bought some chocolate macaroons that were absolutely the worst, most sawdust-y things I have ever tried!

On Thursday we left again for Budapest since Rich is off school for a 2 week spring break. We brought along our matzahs and peanut butter, but it was a challenge! I will relate our adventures in the next post.