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I am not a synagogue goer, though I do go on occasion.  I grew up going to weekly

services at the Beth Israel Synagogue in Derby, Connecticut, co-founded by my

grandfather when he arrived from Lithuania. The synagogue was our community,

and our tribe.

My husband is Armenian and he never liked religious institutions.  Our son Noah,

born in Chile, grew up celebrating more or less everything with us inviting friends

and eating together.  Now Noah has his own family – a South African wife named

Chesray  from a colored village in Capetown, her 23 year old non-binary niece whose

father is from a Zulu tribe in Soweto, and a biological  daughter, named Ahava by her

African mother. We all live on the Upper West Side, long referred to by its inhabitants

as a Shtetl.

One Friday afternoon when I picked up Ahava from school, we were approached

by two young Hasidic men.  They asked Ahava if she was Jewish.  Her reply: Sort of .

Her mother asked me to take her to Rosh Hashanah services.

The week before the holidays, Ahava stayed with us.  She brought two graphic novels

to read.  One for her and one for me.  My book, called Two Tribes, was written

by Emily Bowen Cohen.  She  tells the story of a young girl whose parents are divorced.

Her mother’s Jewish. And her father, Native American, lives in a New Mexican pueblo.

While she was with us, Ahava asked about Rosh Hashanah. 

I called some synagogues in our neighborhood to see about holiday services,

and decided, without any real reason, that it would be easier to go to Temple Israel

in Catskill, New York. Our friend Beatrice is visiting too.  The daughter of Auschwitz

survivors, she grew up in Paris and lives there still. 

She never went to a synagogue, and never celebrated Jewish holidays either.  We all

went together to the afternoon children’s service, and did Tashlich in the Catskill

Creek.  Catskill has an amazing and unusual Rabbi, Zoe Zak.    She’s an old friend

of Larry Bush’s,  and she sang for us a while ago at a Chanukah program that Larry

and I arranged.  Rabbi Zoe is a singer.  She posts on the synagogue website that she’s

available to help all of us whenever we need her.  A wonderful unusual offer.

This week has been extraordinarily beautiful, especially Thursday.  My childhood

rabbi, Theodore Gluck, told us that the first days of the holiday are an omen for the

year. We woke up to a spectacular day, hoping he was right.  We all went together.

The synagogue is next door to the painter Thomas Cole’s house and studio so we went

there first which somehow  seemed like a Rosh Hashanah activity.

Temple Israel always has the same policeman at the door – a friendly local man who

welcomed us with Shana Tova.  The synagogue itself was a happy surprise.  Maybe

because it was the children’s service, and the Rabbi is warm and welcoming and

there was no difficult sermon about many or maybe because it was a spectacular day,

or because of the gifted clarinet player (the synagogue always has music) or because

the children and their parents were an unexpected mix of races, cultures, and sexual

orientations.  We were each of us surprisingly happy. We felt better, somehow.  That

community, as imperfect as everything else, can happen, and that some tribes, anyway,

are more open and more possible, than they were in my childhood.  That beautiful

music always makes life better, and that rituals, traditional or not, can make us feel

better about what we know and do.

After the service, we prepared for guests.  We invited 14 people who live on the road

where we live.  Some were Jewish.  Some were not. 

Ahava and her friend Laia drank from my Bas Mitzvah Kiddush cup.

I made my mother’s brisket, my grandmother’s kugel.

Other people cooked too.  We read Marge Piercy’s New Year poem, ate round challah,

and celebrated beginnings, traditions, and one another.  The only political

conversation we had was about Ta Nahisi Coates new book The Message.  None of us

read it yet, so the discussion was more vague than heated.

As for the rest, I’m grateful to be on this wildly imperfect planet, grateful to be able to

celebrate now.

What about all of you?

Shana Tova to all.

Love, Esther

PS Our Alte holiday zoom celebration is Tuesday night.  Let us know if you’d like the link to join.