what remains?

“I'm not sure they’re true believers – not any more than I am” – she laughed, but also started wheezing slightly. We were fast marching uphill, from the Synagogue down on the Avenue de Stalingrad back up to the Jewish museum in the Rue des Minimes – and we didn’t want to miss the second part of the museum reopening programme. 

We paused for a while, and after a deep breath, she continued: 

“But these men want to preserve a tradition – keep the stories alive.  As to me, I no longer believe and I resent how traditional religions diminish women – I am my own person, I’m not going to sit demurely in some kind of Synagogue-gallery watching the men saying their prayers. It’s a very long time since I last was in a Synagogue, but now, as I grow older, I feel the need to go back.  Nostalgia perhaps - all these Jewish traditions will be forever linked to my childhood (1) ; the magic of the Jewish feasts, the family meals, the sheer beauty of the recited texts. It would be a disaster if all that were to vanish forever. I suppose that’s why these men go to such lengths to keep the old synagogue running”.

   

“These men” had been the hosts at a synagogue open-door day, patiently explaining Jewish customs and stories to a very diverse group of visitors (2).   They were in their late forties - early fifties, soberly-but-smartly dressed, looking more like typical secular, fashionable French intellectuals than like devout Jews.  They did wear skullcaps. 

One of them had explained how with a few friends they had lovingly adopted this synagogue, ensuring both its material and spiritual continuity.  

“We love this place, it really looks like one of those old  east-european ’Shuls’.   It represents such a long and rich tradition. I used to be secularly minded, but then I realised with quite some dread that if my generation would renege on this heritage - then the line of remembrance would be forever broken (3).  So I started studying the Thorah, reading the Talmudic texts, and became more or less the president of this synagogue.  Meaning that I fix the lamps and repair the heating system when it’s broken, but also that I do a lot of reading, arguing and disputing over the old texts with the other members. Each Saturday we try and gather 10 Jewish men to reach the required quorum for public prayers and readings.  We don’t always succeed. My own children are not at all interested in religion – sometimes my son does come over, but in fact only to do me a favour, to fill the quorum when needed”.   

The visitors had looked around, full of curiosity – some aspects familiar (the seven branched candelabra!) others puzzling.  They were timidly peering at the unfamiliar letters in a book, but soon emboldened to take pictures all over the place – click-click- click- whoosh-flash .

In-between the flashes, the president had unperturbedly continued his reflections:

 “in fact, in daily life I work at a building restoration company – we do a lot of work in France, in small villages. Often the local church is in bad shape – materially and spiritually, with leaking roofs, crumbling walls and no priest or faithful left.  But when the local population is then offered the choice between either tearing down the church or investing in a costly restoration, they usually choose the restoration. Because that church is part of their history, part of their heritage."

We were back at the museum – where security measures had definitely slackened since the draconian screenings earlier in the morning. There hung a kind of elation in the air – a mixture of relief (no incidents) and proud excitement (we did it , we’re open again! And  with so many visitors!).

In one of the rooms a second hand book fair was going on – my companion immediately set course to the tables of books,  smiling wryly – “yeah you know, we Jews and books – if nothing else, at least the books remain ” (4)

A few cross-reading references and an enumeration

1.    “At the youngest age, when words can be magical and stories spellbinding, a unique vocabulary came along with the sweet and savoury Sabbath-meal offerings.” (From “Jews and Words” by Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger).
2.     The little group of visitors consisted of a keenly interested European expatriate, an awkwardly looking older couple of local neighbours, a nervous young man asking very critical questions (eg “do Jews think they’re God themselves? “ – answer : “heavens no [hearty laugh]  it’s just that practicing Jews do not need intermediaries such as priests”), a few people with Jewish roots (judging by their remarks), a trendily dressed Muslim couple (identified as Muslim because of the headscarf the woman, which in the present circumstances functioned as a very nice statement of cross-cultural goodwill) and, of course, an ever pensive & watchful flâneur. 
3.     “relay the narrative” – [avoid to have] “countless lines of memory irretrievably broken” (Ibidem) 
4. “Not a genetic continuum, but rather a series of people carrying texts, burdened with ideas, stubbornly and lovingly passing them on”. (Ibidem)