I’m sitting at a tiny desk in my room in a cute, brick-faced historic boutique hotel on the main street of the stunningly gorgeous, revitalized downtown of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. How I ended up in this spot was more or less pure chance.  It certainly wasn’t the original plan to stay the night in the nation’s “most beautiful” small town the day before attending an historic preservation event in Philadelphia.  Yet here I am.

Sometimes writing themes for blog entries just slap me in the face. And this 8-day visit to the East Coast has prompted a doozy of a theme. Um… let’s start with the original purpose of the trip.

My Olympia synagogue, Temple Beth Hatfiloh, has been awarded a 50% matching grant by the National Fund for Sacred Places program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The grant is to replace the roofing and other ancillary support systems of our historic sanctuary building. NFSP provides funds for grant recipients to fly out to Philly and receive training in planning, fundraising and project management. We even got our meals and hotel rooms paid for by the private, non-governmentally funded program. As President of TBH, and someone who has a background in both construction project management and historic preservation, I chose to insert myself as one of the participants in the training along with our rabbi and lead temple administrator.

While Philly was the destination, I decided to kill several birds with one stone (Yes, I visited the John James Audubon Center yesterday, but the analogy would work even without that prompting!) The international center for the Jewish Reconstructionist movement has its administrative headquarters and seminary just outside of the Philly city limits, and I wanted to tour that.  I also wanted to visit with friends and relatives in New York, which is just a couple hours away by car (when traffic is light, but it is almost never light).  So, I planned an elongated visit beyond its core original purpose.

What of the faced-slapped theme? Well, “Reconstructing Judaism” (RJ) is the name of the institutional organization of Jewish religious practice of which our synagogue is an affiliate, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) is the name of its co-located seminary. Our current and former rabbis graduated from that college.

The action of rehabilitation and/or reconstruction is also a core element that all NFSP grant recipients have in their projects.  

Reconstruction. The very word requires two priors. Construction for one.  But also some level of destruction, or at least of abandonment and natural deterioration. The concept of historic preservation for structures fits that term to a tee.  But so too can the act of living itself, as I will explain through the episodes of this trip described below, focused on a theme of reconstruction.

Episode #1:  Reconstructing Judaism

The 20^th Century was certainly a mixed bag for Jews. The Holocaust, mass migration, the founding of a Jewish political nation after a couple of millennia, great accomplishments by individual Jews that advanced human knowledge (Einstein was no slouch for example) and extended lifespans (28% of Nobel prize winners in medicine have been Jewish), as well as our share of schmendricks and those far far worse (how about mafiosis like Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky and schmucks like Stephen Miller?).

In the world of organized religious practice, the 20^th Century also had Jews going in many different directions. When faced with extraordinary changes in the scientific knowledge of the atom to the universe, massive reorientations to the social norms of gender and class, and transformational political alignments, how would religious practice respond in ways that were both sacred and relevant? What of the spiritual dimension of Jewish living?

An American Jewish philosopher, writer and spiritual leader named Mordechai Kaplan developed a theory of the case. Instead of maintaining standard religious practices and theology in the face of enormous change, Kaplan came up with a structure for being an observant Jew which he saw as meeting the needs of the moment and the future of the Jewish people.

Perhaps his most famous line was that Jewish traditional practice “had a vote, not a veto.” He believed that it was up to the Jewish people of every generation to look closely at historic religious practices, and rather than simply discarding or accepting them fully intact, to re-evaluate and reconstruct them as necessary and proper to meet the day’s conditions and concerns. Ancient Jewish doctrine and behavior for Kaplan would never be the final word, but current means of observance must always be in the interest of Jewish peoplehood and continuity.

I am no scholar of Jewish practice, but hearing of Kaplan’s basic approach just felt “right” to me for many years. I found a comfortable spiritual and intellectual home as a Jew with “reconstructionism” as its core.

Now, our temple is in the middle of a strategic planning process. As a leader in that process I want to know more about the status of RJ, RRC, affiliated synagogues and the movement as a whole. I am aware of some recent tensions that have flared, with potential to drive a wedge within the movement. Is schism on the table?  Is the movement at risk? And even without controversies per se, my decision to visit RJ reflects an interest in understanding the center of the Reconstructionist movement’s own sense of its health and vibrancy. Could what happens there effect what happens in the coming years at our temple?

The most dominant current issue with potential to seriously challenge RJ membership and stability is identifying the place for anti-Zionism within what has traditionally been described as a “Progressive Zionist” movement. I intended to raise that with my tour hosts and get their assessment of the issue.

But at the start of the tour, my host, Rabbi Maurice, introduced me to several RJ administrative staff and then we went off immediately to a RRC Torah-reading class.  There were 6 students sitting around a table with one professor, Rabbi Maurice and me. Each student was asked to first read a few lines of text in Hebrew, then translate that text into English. That was followed by a discussion exploring the translation’s accuracy and nuance. There was also discussion on the substance of the message within the portion.  What lessons were being taught? What examples from modern life can fit within the torah story? Active minds were at work!

I found the instructional methods fascinating and effective at building both language skills and the capacity to marshal rational arguments. Discussion amongst rabbis is, of course, the heart of the Talmudic tradition, and it was illuminating to see it played out before me.

After the class, Maurice took me to a lunch/breakroom at the college. We were met by both RJ administrators and students eating their lunches.  It was there where I first raised the thorny question of how the school deals with the different political positions of anti-Zionists and Progressive Zionists. I raised it in the context of trying to understand the impact of that controversy on student enrollment and world-wide affiliation.

At one point, as Maurice and an administrator and I were talking about the subject, a rabbinical student overheard us and asked to join our conversation and say a few words. That was great!  She responded directly and eloquently to the core issue, identifying what I have come to understand as the movement’s “position” on the matter.  The position, in a simplified way, is to continue to identify Progressive Zionism as the movement’s fundamental orientation, but to accept anti-Zionists into the school. There would be no “litmus test” on the question of RRC student enrollment. And for the future… well, everything can be reconstructed, right?

After our breakroom discussion, Maurice and I joined other RJ leadership, including the RRC dean, for a lunch and further questions and interactions in a separate meeting room. (The hummus and eggplant pita sandwich was delicious!) This time, the wide-ranging conversation included the anti-Zionist/Progressive Zionist question, but we also explored the health and stability of the movement in other areas, and the social and observational changes that have been emerging.  For one, I was surprised to hear that self-described 2SLGBTQ+ rabbinical students – the Dean used the term “Queer” as an overarching description – now represent 50% of the enrolled population not only of Reconstructionist seminaries, but collectively in all of Renewal, Reform, Conservative, and Modern Orthodox ones as well. We are in the midst of a massive cultural change in gender identity and sexual orientation.

My overall take is that the kind of disciplined, embracing, openness to new ideas and formulations of what it means to be a Jew is a tall order for assuring Jewish continuity. The Reconstructionist model has relatively few adherents (one internet reference I saw was 40,000 members of the 90+ US congregations and maybe as many as 180,000 Jews who associate themselves with the movement in one way or the other). And it is not now a growing portion of the Jewish world.  At my synagogue, which has experienced consistent growth over the past 10 – 15 years, there is little emphasis on our Reconstructionist affiliation.  We have chosen to be a broad tent, open to all Jews and Jewish-adjacents who can coexist peaceably. That has worked, substantially, because we have a national caliber rabbi who has made a multi-decade commitment to our community. Reconstructionism itself is not the prime attraction.  But given that it is in MY comfort zone, I find myself rooting for RJ and the whole movement to succeed.

How would you like to walk into a building and be greeted like that!

Jacob Weinburg and Rabbi Maurice Harris coordinated my visit and led me through an orientation to the building, programs, students, leaders and… a delicious lunch!

Put a flag on the worldwide affiliate synagogue locations within the Reconstructing Judaism movement.

Kaplan, the theological philosopher of Reconstructionism, is honored throughout the building.

Pictures and letters by and of Kaplan

On the RJ walls are also pictures of the proud graduates of the rabbinical college. The smiling fellow on the upper left corner of the shot is our current beloved rabbi, Seth Goldstein, a half a lifetime ago.

Episode #2: Reconstructing a Life after Loss

Life is filled with trauma. Inevitable trauma. Trauma of memories. Trauma of expectations dashed. Predictable traumas. Avoidable traumas. Random traumas. And all traumas involve, in one way or the other, destruction.

How do we recover from personal destruction?  How do we reconstruct? 

Upon leaving RJ, I knew I was off to visit with people who have recently experienced a great traumatic loss.

For three nights I stayed with my cousin Michael and his son David, who live in Westchester County, just north of New York City.  I’ve known Michael since I was very young, visiting him and his brother at their parents – my uncle and aunt’s – home in Berkeley. Michael recently lost his wife of more than 45 years to cancer. His grief is, of course, profound. And we were able to spend some time talking about his late wife, listening to recordings of her singing with a magnificent, powerful and angelic voice. It was deeply moving to share those memories. 

Michael and I also talked about what he can do now with his life. We talked about choices to reconstruct a new center with new purposes.  But in the immediacy of the time together, Michael had a very specific project that we decided to do for the better part of a day. It was to record a song Michael had written – words and music – for his 95-year-old mother-in-law named Sue. It was silly and weird and fun.

(I don’t know how to link the recording of the silly song to the blog, but let me know if you’d like a copy and I’ll email it to you.)

Michael enjoys music, playing it, creating it, talking about it. (We laughed as we recalled our addiction to Brahms Quintet in F Minor, playing it ad nauseum as kids on our home record players.) He thought that if he were to make friendships in the future, it would be around the notion of music making and performing. That’s reconstructing!

Coincidentally enough, living a half mile away from Michael was a high school friend of my sister Laurie named Kathy, who I had known since I was about 10. Kathy also recently lost her longtime husband, and I asked her whether she was interested in spending a day together in Manhattan. I would be meeting up with other friends and going to the Museum of Modern Art, and Kathy said she was more than game to join in.

She too was in the stage of reconstructing her life after a large traumatic loss. We had a wonderful day together, taking the train down to Grand Central Station, visiting the New York City Public Library, which featured a wonderful exhibit on The New Yorker magazine, Bryant Park with its seasonal outside skating rink in full form, St. Thomas Episcopal Church, where an organist was being tutored, and finally MoMA, where we were hosted by my old friends from Olympia – now living in NYC – Howard and Angela.

Sure, it’s a stretch, but throw in a bit of Jackson Pollack and some Picasso, and you can make a case that there was some destructing and reconstructing going on inside that museum.  Below you will find a few snapped pictures of the MoMA exhibitory, including an absolutely fantastic solo exhibit by Ruth Asawa. I can’t say that Asawa’s work fits this blog’s theme, but it was just so amazing I had to share!

Arriving at Grand Central Station

Eating at Grand Central Station

I loved the rush of being in the greatest city in the world!

Ice Skating in Bryant Park

An exhibit of the story of “The New Yorker” magazine in the hallways of the New York City Public Library.

A family not paying a great deal of attention to Moses as he is about to smash the 10 Commandments on the rocks due the misbehavior of some naughty Israelites. I think, with this painting, the New York Public Library is trying to affirm the importance of reading.

My sister’s good friend Kathy and me are outside the New York City Public Library. We’ve seen each other two or three times in the last 60 years, yet felt an immediate and warm reconnection to our youth

MoMA has all the most famous artists.  Here’s Diego Rivera deconstructing his life and wife Frida Kahlo. Followed by….

Frida Kahlo, holding her own place in the world.

Not, in my humble opinion, the best use of a baguette from Salvadore Dali.

I’m not the greatest fan of his paintings, but these Henri Matisse sculptures are extraordinary.

On the 6^th floor that was a one-woman exhibition from Ruth Asawa. I found the distinctiveness, versatility, patient application of details, and refined skills of this artist to be the most profoundly moving of my life. If you can… see this exhibit!

Given that this second episode on reconstruction focuses on deeply personal, emotional responses to trauma, I’ll mention that on another day in Westchester County, I met up briefly with my friends Martine and Stephen as they traveled down from Massachusetts to visit their grandkids on Long Island.  Martine and I had lived in a group house in Olympia as college students, and our lovely, but short, visit at a Wegmans Supermarket reminded me of all the losses experienced by our 5-person collegiate friendship group. Two spouses had died. Two sons took their own lives.  Two divorces. And we all, in one way or the other, have had to reconstruct our lives in many many ways.

Episode #3: Reconstructing for Survival

On the way back to Philadelphia and before the start of the grant workshop, I had an extra day to travel, see a few sights and be ready to drop off my rental car near the airport. I decided to go to Valley Forge National Historical Park, which I knew as a revolutionary war site but little else.

In the beginning of the winter of 1777-78, the war for independence was not going well at all for the colonies. The individual colonial militias were pretty clearly being outfought by the British.  The civilian population was all the more often siding with the Brits as loyalists than with the colonial revolutionaries.  At Valley Forge, Washington decided to make an effort to bring the various militias together as one army of the republic. It was a brutal winter.  One-third of his troops died of disease at Valley Forge. But after 6 months of military training, the army of the republic emerged united, re-imagined… reconstructed.  The war for independence would last many more years, but Valley Forge was a key to the eventual outcome. Out of loss and destruction, came resolve, purpose, and construction of an identity which would become the United States.

Episode #4: Reconstructing a Community

At the Valley Forge interpretive center, I asked a representative from the local visitor’s bureau where a good place for lunch might be and a place to stay overnight.  She directed me to some corporate locations nearby.  Upon reaching her recommended area I found it utterly sterile – modern commercial anyplaces USA.  So I went to the web and punched in “boutique hotel nearby.” That’s how I ended up in the amazingly sweet and beautiful downtown Phoenixville, mentioned at the start of this blog.  Need a picture? Sure.

Downtown Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

In addition to participating in the national Mainstreet program for downtown commercial/mixed use areas, Phoenixville also has a lovely intact residential area filled with 100+ year old homes. An economy and lifestyle that is now quite different from a century ago, but a reconstruction nevertheless of a place that now works well for its time.

Episode #5: Reconstructing a Reputation?

In the last few years, the standing of the namesake of the National Audubon Society as taken some pretty large hits.  John James Audubon was an artist, naturalist and ornithologist. His color-plate book “The Birds of America” put together in the 1830s inspired a movement not only to study and protect birds, but to recognize the vitality and importance of the natural environment more broadly. The national and local chapters of the Audubon Society have been leaders in ecological awareness and public policy environmental protection for many decades.

But as it turns out, Audubon himself held views and carried out his life in a manner that is deeply offensive to today’s values and laws.  He was a slave owner and proud white supremacist. And as his personal attributes have become a more significant part of his renown, some Audubon chapters have been renaming themselves away from his identity.

The exhibits of the John James Audubon Center in Audubon, Pennsylvania, make no reference to its namesake’s views on race. As one enters the center, you are instructed to go first to the left, where there is a wonderful series of exhibits on the distinctiveness of birds. Their capacity to fly. Laying hard-shelled eggs.  Nesting.  So many attributes where natural selection (and/or G-d!) made nearly perfect adaptations to fill countless niches. 

On the right side of the center is the story of Audubon himself. His background as a lad in France.  His inheritance and emigration to the USA. And his work to popularize the study of birds. But nowhere in the exhibition is there mention of his reputational controversy.

So of course, as is consistent with this blog’s theme – and my want – I asked the staff sitting at the interpretive center’s entry about Audubon the man and the impact on the organization of his recently focused historic deprivations. There was a young woman and young man there at the counter.  The woman responded briefly to my inquiry. The man went on and on.

“Yes,” he said, there have been impacts from the revelations. “Yes, there have been affiliates that have changed their names.” But, somewhat like the controversies in the Reconstructing Judaism movement, he made the argument that we can be both appalled by Audubon’s beliefs and practices and still honor the historic and positive impacts of his work.

This was not exactly an effort at reputational reconstruction. The young man was not defending Audubon’s positions. He did not seek Audubon’s “redemption.” But he was arguing for sitting those views in their historic context. 

He said that the interpretive center leaders were working on additional exhibitory that will touch on the controversy, even as they have decided to keep the name of the place and property the same. Fair enough in my view.

Episode #6: Reconstructing Socialist Ideals

Ok… I’m really stretching this thing.  But given my focus on the word, it is hard not to look upon the results in the mayoral elections of New York City and Seattle as a kind of reconstruction of the use of the term democratic socialism. It has gained an electoral legitimacy that it has not had for many decades in our country. As mayor-elects Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson meet the realities of their offices, we will see how this reconstructed socialism plays out in policies passed and implemented.

Episode #7: Reconstructing our Synagogue Roof

And then, finally, we return to the core reason for this trip: the $175K grant to reconstruct our synagogue roof.

I had come to the training/workshop for grant recipients with a page and a half of specific questions about implementation and grant administration.  I left with every one of those questions answered.  Better still, answered in a way which makes the process for our temple easier and more robust.

A few distinctive aspects to the proceeding and we’ll call this entry far too long but over.

There were 30 grant recipients, representing 29 churches and us, the only synagogue.  As I met various participants and introduced myself, I hilariously kept getting the response, “Oh… YOU’RE the Jewish recipient.” It wasn’t offensive in the least.  We were just kind of an interesting curiosity to them. Apparently there have only been six Jewish recipients of the sacred places grant in the 10 years of its history.

Funding for the sacred places program of the National Trust for Historic Places has never been higher. The previous year there were 26 recipients and the year before that 16.  At a time when federal funds for historic preservation are drying up, the constitutional separation of church and state has resulted in a kind of protection of religious structures through private initiative.  Since the feds have never really weighed in with support, they can’t take it away now.

The three of us temple folks sat at a table with a couple from a Washington DC Lutheran Church. One of them was the pastor, the other a Board member.  The latter gentleman had worked at the highest levels of the Pentagon, telling us stories about the depredations of the Trump Administration, its unethical bearings and foolish and damaging policies.  He quit rather than be a supplicant and now finds value through his church in feeding the poor and engaging in other social justice efforts. And raising funds to reconstruct its steeple!

Episodic Conclusion

Acts of reconstruction.  In the last week, I found opportunities for inspiration. Joys in accomplishments.  I have shared in the memories of losses, and felt the sadness of those losses and the unavoidably difficult challenges in moving toward renewal. 

There is an intrinsically heroic nature in the flow of construction, destruction and the effort at reconstruction. What do you need to reconstruct? What do you want to reconstruct?

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a young person named Saul at the temple after shabbat services. 

“How long have you been in Olympia,” I asked, “and where are you from?”

Saul answered that the family was from the Seattle area, Bellevue in particular. 

“Oh, I grew up in Bellevue,” I responded.  “The Lake Hills area.”

“So did my family,” Saul explained.

“What’s your last name Saul?”

“It’s Petersky.”

“Hey, my best friend in like preschool was Paul Petersky. Any relation?”

“Yeah,” Saul responded. “He’s my uncle.”

Then it got interesting. Very interesting.

It turns out that Saul’s grandmother is Ruth Petersky. Ruth, along with a business partner, Mrs. Metcalf, operated a preschool childcare center out of Ruth’s house in Lake Hills.  A childcare center that I attended in 1959 as a four-year-old boy.  And amazingly enough, Saul’s grandmother is very much alive and lucid at age 95.

“Do you think she’d be willing to talk with me,” I asked.

Saul said, “I’ll ask.”

And that is how I ended up last week on the phone with Ruth Petersky, my childcare provider from 66 years ago.

The preschool was called Tiny Tots Playtime. Ruth said that it operated on many Montessori principles but couldn’t be labeled as such since it didn’t follow all the protocols.  She said she started the day care center in 1959 and divided her coverage into two groups.  On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they took in 4- and 5-year-olds from 9:30am to 1:30 pm.  On Tuesday and Thursday, they took in 3-year-olds over the same time period each day.   They would serve the kids lunch.

The center was located in the basement of Ruth’s home, which was about five blocks from our house. She said she had upwards of 20 kids at a time in the program.

“I don’t understand who would need such a service for only part of a day and part of a week,” I stated quizzically to Ruth.

Ruth explained that for the most part, the service was for mothers who did not have paid work outside the home.  They wanted a break in their parenting week: to get out of the house with friends, do shopping, prepare meals, clean the house or carry out other domestic chores.  Some mothers may have worked part-time. My mother started working part-time either when I was 4 or when I went to kindergarten (I believe my kindergarten was a full-day, not a half-day session.)

Then our conversation took a surprising turn.  When I asked Ruth whether she remembered anything about me and my family, I heard her voice rev up for revelations.

Apparently, when my mother came to Ruth’s home for the first time to check it out, she asked to see Ruth’s bedroom. Ruth thought that was very odd but allowed her in.  There was never an explanation given for the request and Ruth never asked Mom why.

Then there were two incidents related to my family that Ruth remembers distinctly. 

The first is that I apparently picked up a rock at day care and threw it at a window and broke the window.  Ruth thought I was a difficult kid who came from an undisciplined home.

“Your parents allowed their kids to run wild with no discipline, Danny.”  (She remembered me as Danny!)

The second incident, which reinforced her judgment of our family, happened when her husband Pete (not his real first name, but Ruth called him that affectionately) and Ruth were invited to our home for dinner. Upon arrival they were immediately greeted by Ladee – our dog – jumping up on them unceremoniously.  We were not able – or willing – to control our dog from her perspective. And it got worse.  Ladee later jumped up on our dining room table.  Ruth said that I then climbed up to bring Ladee down.  She also said that the house was kind of a shambles.

Her descriptions of our family home were inconsistent with my own childhood and young adult memories.  I know that much later, when older sisters Ann and Laurie were out of the house, I perceived my parent’s home as very neat and orderly. But perhaps when the three of us were still rug rats, it just wasn’t the case.

I do know from Dad’s writings that Mom and Dad went to counseling early in their marriage because he saw her as unorganized. That sure didn’t come across in her mature post-Arthur years.  But now, 80 years after those counseling sessions, we have outside testimony that that might have been a thing!

The conversation with Ruth Petersky was pure joy. She was witty and open and kind. How lucky I am to have an elder give new insights into my life and family even at the age of 70.

From time to time, I look back at writings I did in Keith Eisner’s writing class, or other writing knick-knacks and think, “this could be worth a quick blog entry” for a bit of fun or self-revelation. Below is such a writing from three years ago:

I have a dusty, pock-cratered, now flimsy box which my parents – probably my mother – used to put together birth announcements, congratulations, and pictures of my birth, some 67 years ago.  In the box is a blue knitted banner with the name “Danny” on it.

I went by the name Danny for about 13 years.  My parents called me Danny. My sisters called me Danny.  Other relatives and friends called me Danny.  I called me Danny.

As the teen years came upon me, Danny was jettisoned. I would be Dan from now on – I thought.  It was an adjustment for others.  Some called me Dan, others  – mostly older folks – kept on with the Danny identifier.

But Dan, somehow, never felt quite right.  I would introduce myself to others. Meeting me for the first time, people would call me Don. Or Tom.  Or virtually any mono-syllabic name that came first to their mind.  

When I hit 21 years of age, and went to The Evergreen State College for the first time, I decided that my real identity would be as Daniel. It felt right. And… was almost never mispronounced.

There was a downside, however, to this new, embraced identity.  When I would introduce myself to others as Daniel, and they returned the name “Dan” I felt disrespected. I was judgmental and dismissive of them for doing so, thinking “why are they arrogant to think that the name Dan was somehow more intimate than Daniel and that they somehow deserved or earned that right to intimacy. Instead, it marked for me the opposite.

I want to be a tolerant person.  Thinking the best of other’s intentions. But on this matter, I’m apparently inflexible. Whomever calls me Dan now, has just lost three pegs on my scale of respect… and it just drives me nuts. 

What’s in a name? More than there should be for me… but alas, when it comes to calling me what I wish to be called… that seems to be that.

The remainder of our 2025 European visit was to the beautiful and heroic rolling hills and sacred shores of Normandy. Yet, the story about HOW we sojourned in this land must start with a sunken realization in Prague, two weeks earlier. My goodness!  I forgot my international driver’s license at home.  I even forgot where I put it at home, asking Alex to try to find it and have it expressed over to Lithuania but then giving him no successful leads as to where I had left it. (That was resolved upon my return when I guessed correctly where it was stowed.)

So, the planned rental car pick-up at De Gaulle airport needed cancelation, as did the beautiful rental home in the country outside of Bayeux.  With Jean’s French-speaking aid, we secured train tickets from the airport to Normandy and back again, got last minute (crummy) accommodations, and used public transportation and our own foot power to get to the sights we sought.  Does all that sound like we’re complaining?  Well, Jean had been in Europe for close to a month and we both needed to marshal our energies to gain value from this last leg of the trip.

Our first train ride took us to the city of Caen. After checking into our Ibis by the train station, we walked up to the historical area.  I dined on fish and cheese casserole, Jean had port and sausage with tomato sauce, we imbibed our first glasses of Normandy cider (there would be more such imbibing in the next couple of days), and we stared at the street scene by the Chateau de Caen. 

The Chateau de Caen – It’s a thousand year old castle constructed in William the Conqueror’s era (before being labeled the Conqueror, his nom de guerre was William the Bastard.

I’ve always thought of the word “chateau” as either a sweet little home or part of a proper name. The Chateau This, or the Chateau That.  But in Caen, the chateau was THE Chateau.  Built around 1060 by William the Conqueror – well HE didn’t build it. his subjects/minions did that trick – it is an enormous castle structure, with supplemental buildings within the larger chateau campus grounds.  

We went to the Tourist office where we signed up for a tour that included Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery. We also tried to find a hotel for the third night in Caen, as every place we looked at had been booked up.   We finally found a hotel to stay at near the Chateau, which ended up being the worst night of the trip!  Loud street music, all hours of the night and early morning.  The biggest downside of my misplaced international driver’s license.

The following day we took a city bus up to the WWII memorial museum, spent time exploring the exhibitory, and had a brief cafeteria-style lunch. Our tour began at the museum grounds and was led by a lovely and earnest young woman. We were joined only by one other family of three from Indiana.

At the WWII Museum in Caen.

On the approximately one-hour drive to the D-Day invasion sites, our guide started with her explanations of the reasons for WWII. We were able to engage in dialog on this and emerging topics in the van.  Upon arrival at the coast, we visited a German bunker site first, then on to Omaha Beach. Then we were driven to the American Cemetery.

Nazi bunker site, with extended views toward the west.

Our guide, explaining the significance of the site and the process of invasion.

Overlooking Omaha Beach.

The entire European trip for me was an exploration of heritages. Mine. Jean’s. My Jewish People’s. And here in Normandy’s beaches and cemeteries, my American heritage.

At the American Cemetery, I had a personal connection.  The gravesite of a father of a friend back home, was one of the thousands whose death was memorialized at that cemetery. My friend, Cleve, was born as his father, with the same name, was being shipped overseas for military service. They were never to meet in person. So, it was important for me to bring back to Cleve written materials that the cemetery provides to family members and friends of the fallen, and to bear witness to the sacrifices that were made in the fight against the Nazis.

Upon receipt of the written materials, a cemetery staff person drove us out in a little electric buggy to Cleve’s dad’s grave. He brought sand from the beach and rubbed it against the marble cross which extenuated the labeling.

Thousands of grave markers. If the deceased religion was Christian or unknown, they were given a cross marker.

If the deceased was Jewish, they got a Star of David. There were a handful of these at the cemetery. To our host’s knowledge, there are no Muslim Crescents nor symbols from other religions.

My friend’s grave site. The driver brought sand from Omaha Beach and spread it across the etch description in order to see the images more clearly. He also brought two flags, of France and the US, to mark and honor the fallen soldier.

The cemetery’s memorial grounds.

From there we drove back to the memorial museum. Then Jean and I took the bus back downtown. We had galettes at a lovely outdoor restaurant.  Our table neighbors were from Manchester, England, and we both realized that we were going to Bayeux to see the Tapestry Museum the next day.  But they were going later.

The next morning, we took the train to Bayeux.  The Tapestry Museum featured a work that was done, most likely, soon after William the Conqueror did his thing in 1066. It told the story, in pictures, of the Norman Invasion. We learned much about the history of the period and the history of the preservation of the extraordinary tapestry over a millennium.  As it turned out, the tapestry museum would close within two weeks for renovation, and the tapestry temporarily brought to England for display. (Really wonderful article about transfer here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c14ev1z6d5go . Also important discussion about the number and purposes of Tapestry penises!) So, we were fortunate to view it in Bayeux.

A Bayeux street scene on market day.

At the Tapestry Museum, there are interpretive signs. Note, it says not to take photography, but that isn’t in this location! It’s at the tapestry itself.

Bayeux church. And this isn’t even the cathedral!

We took a walk in a nature park between the train station and Bayeux central city. The Cathedral is in the background.

Throughout our trip, we have seen magnificent medieval churches in virtually every town and city… dotting the countryside with splendor. Bayeux was no exception. After a lovely lunch of fish and rice in cream sauce (Jean had spaghetti), we visited a spectacular cathedral, lazed around for a while in town, then headed back to the train station for our return trip and last night in Caen.

And now for something completely different. Random thoughts on the way to and from Giverny and our travel back home.

1. It is a thrill for me and a joy for her, as Jean converses easily with French-speaking natives.
2. Looking out the train windows, I’m seeing brown cows huddling up together, basking in the sun.
3. European transportation systems: Buses to light rail to intercity rail to airports…planned and frequent and convenient. Beautiful modern light rail in Caen.
4. An early morning walk in Giverny. Unpeopled streets on a warm early morning stroll in a tiny village – the opposite of our Prague experience.
5. The Monet Garden was as tranquil as possible on the last afternoon with couples enjoying its beauty. Pictures taken, kisses earned and welcomed.
6. The check-out girl at the Monet Garden gift shop, when asked about her job after a long day, exclaimed with a sigh how some people can be so rude.  But then after a few pleasant words between us, she said, “but not you!”
7. The taxi ride to Giverny from the train station was from a diffident taxi driver. The draw for tourists to Giverny was beauty and tranquility. For the folks needing to make a living… not so much.
8. The place we stayed in the village was run by a Shanghai-born and raised couple.  Lovely people. She ended up driving us back to the train since we could find no other means.
9. Back to the juxtaposition as a place of tranquility. When we were in Giverny, Israel was at war with Iran and Jean watched Jon Stewart talk with Christiane Amanpour and Ben Rhodes about the horrors of war and historic blunders of US and Israel political leadership. That same day, we ran into two 30-something Israeli women in town.  They are stuck, not able to return home during the war.  Making the best of it with Monet, but…
10. The next early morning, the Giverny streets are cool and empty, but the forecast is for 95 degrees in the afternoon.  By that time, we would be at the airport waiting for our flight to take us home.

I have no consummating words for this intense European trip. I am writing this blog entry nearly three weeks after returning home. Clearly, the Holocaust-related sites have thrown me deeply. Processing those horrors, along with the sweet memories of Jean’s familial connections, along with the beauty of the architecture and other extraordinary human creations, along with current political events, and along with all the daily responsibilities of my life has me feeling a bit spent.  A bit confused.

But I guess that’s not only to be expected but also understood. Afterall, along with Jean, we planned for this mélange of experiences (who said I can’t speak French!). And we certainly got that in her four-plus weeks in Europe and my two-plus weeks.

About 10 years ago, a distant cousin on my mother’s side, Andrea Israeli, worked hard to find genealogical connections from our Lithuanian heritage. A small village in the northeastern portion of the country, called Antoliepta, was most likely the derivation of the family name Antolept.  My mother, born in Orenburg, Russia during World War I, was given the birth name Rifka Antolept.  My grandfather changed that last name and those of his immediate family to Jaffe after moving to America.

Andrea found, quite surprisingly, that there were still relatives living in Lithuania from this side of the Antolept family. More than 95% of Lithuanian Jews were killed during the Holocaust, but with an act of speed, luck and wisdom, an Antolept father escaped to Azerbaijan right before the Nazis took over the country. He returned after the war to marry another returnee. Andrea also discovered that the offspring of this couple, two daughters named Asia and Ela Guterman, were alive and well in our family’s mother country of Lithuania. They both spoke English, and both ended up attending an Antolept family reunion in New York City held 7 years ago.

(As an aside, the horrors of Lithuanian history have not fallen solely on the Jews.  Ela’s husband Audrius told us of the fate of his own uncle who was captured by the Russians in 1940, thrown onto a train, and died on the way to Siberia. No food or water was provided for any of the passengers.  His crime?  As Audrius put it, “he had a college degree.”)

Since the reunion, many in our Antolept family continued to communicate with Ela in particular and everyone found great value in this international connection. As a delightful example for me personally, the last time I was in South Africa with my beloved cousin Sybil two years ago, Ela was on Zoom as Sybil taught an internationally attended Yiddish class.

My sister Laurie and brother-in-law Robie joined with several other Antolept relatives to visit Lithuania about 5 years ago. I promised Ela that Jean and I would visit her and Adrias when we could, and she eagerly encouraged that connection. This visit is the fulfillment of that promise.

Our Lot Airlines flight from Warsaw to Vilnius was a short hop.  Upon arrival Audrius was there to pick us up and drive us to his and Ela’s home in Kaunas.  The core purpose of our visit was just to spend time with Ela and Audrius on their home turf.  And we were rewarded for that with their kind hospitality and Ela’s extraordinary cooking!  But visiting Jewish heritage sites in both Kaunas and the capital city of Vilnius were also on the agenda.

The history of Jewish Lithuania is central to the story of Judaism and the Jewish people over the last 700 plus years. Vilnius was known as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania,” and was the seat of Ashkenazic scholarship and religious practice. The Vilna Gaon, born Elijah ben Solomon Zalman in 1720, was a leader in rabbinic academism, and the foremost counter-puncher to the growing mystical Hasidic movement. 

Statue depicting the Vilna Gaon in Vilnius.

I, of course, have no intellectual basis for weighing in on such matters… but my “heart” tends to go with the rationalists, not the mystics.  Nancy Snyder, a friend at our temple, recently provided me two books on Jewish mysticism, and I was surprised to learn that one basic ethical formulation of Jewish purpose, “Tikkun Olam”, which translates to “repair the world,” comes from the mystical tradition. The Hasids love exultant dancing and that’s good too!

Ela and Audrius set Jean and I up with two guided tours.  One in Kaunas and one in Vilnius. Each centered on Jewish heritage.

But on our first afternoon, Audrius took us on a walk by their home to the remnants of the Seventh Fort of the Kaunas Fortress. The Fort was built in the late 1800’s by the Russian Empire for the defense of Lithuania. It was taken by the Germans in WWI without resistance.  But in WWII, its most dark period commenced, as it was the first concentration camp in Lithuania.  An estimated 3000 to 5000 people were killed there, mostly Jews.

Audrius and Ruka at the Seventh Fort

The next day we met our tour guide, and off we went to significant sites in Kaunas.  She brought us to the Sugihara House Museum, residence of the Japanese diplomat who heroically saved an estimated six thousand Jews from the clutches of the Nazis. His story is inspiring and worthy of a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiune_Sugihara

From the heroism of Sugihara, our guide brought us to the Ninth Fort of the Kaunas Fortress.  It has been preserved as a museum and memorial site to untold numbers of murdered Jews. Here are some pictures and stories from the Ninth Fort.

My, how relevant to us, with our recent visit.

Monument at the Ninth Fort, Kaunas

Unlike at Auschwitz, the killing here was mostly through shootings, with the bodies dumped on the land that outstretches the photo.

Our guide then took us to central Kaunas.  Creative street artists and lovely pedestrian walks make the modern city a pleasant and engaging place to live. 

Well, Lennon’s vision about peace without religion has an intimate tone, after seeing the Ninth Fort and all the preceding monuments to hate.

One active synagogue remains in Kaunas, and I was delighted to see that on it’s exterior entrance wall was the saying:

כִּ֣י בֵיתִ֔י בֵּית־תְּפִלָּ֥ה יִקָּרֵ֖א

In transliteration that is Ki Beiti Beit T’ifilah or in English “For My house shall be called a house of prayer.” That is the same expression we have above the bema in our synagogue in Olympia which is named Temple Beth Hatfiloh… a house of prayer. I saw that same Hebrew statement above the entrance to the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius which we visited the next day.  

A few observations and photos about our trip back and forth to Vilnius.

First of all, the trains are comfortable, run exactly on time, and the tracks are smooth. 

Upon departure from the train station, our guide, Ausra, met us and we went on a walking tour. Immediately outside the train terminal we saw a bus with the front scroll reading:  VILNIUS   Ukraina.

First stop in Vilnius, some hamantaschen from the cafe Balebosta.

And here’s the farmer’s market right next door.

Here’s the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius, with the same Hebrew expression for a House of Prayer as we saw in Kaunas, but this time with an ediface that looks very well maintained. Note the photos on the front are of the Israeli hostages.

Recognize the statue? Why, he’s a kinda local. The mother of Leonard Cohen of “Halleluyah” fame, was born here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

We visited Vilnius on shabbat, so Jewish sites (other than the synagogue of course) were closed.

Vilnius’s main square was lovely. Note in the distance, folks are gathering around a circular object.

A close up of that object reveals that it is a two-way window onto a street scene in Paris. You see them in the rain while we bask in the sun. The next day, we are bound for France!

Jewish remembrance street scene in Vilnius.

Let’s close this entry with a bit more about our visit with Ela and Audrius.

First, a paragraph on Ela’s cooking.  Blintzes. Hot beetroot soup. Beef and potatoes. Herring with scallions and boiled potatoes. Roasted chicken with asparagus and rice. Curd and semolina pancakes with homemade rhubarb jam and wild blueberry jam. Ela told a classic joke.  What’s the difference between a Jewish mother and an Italian mother?  Answer?  The Italian mother says, “eat this or I’ll kill you.” The Jewish mother says, “eat this or I’ll kill myself.”

Oh yes.  And Audrius made the coffee that Jean proclaimed as “very good.” He also does the dishes. Credit where credit is due.

Ela and Audrius’s garden was gorgeous and it gives both of them great joy. As does Ruka their wonderfully sweet collie dog.

After family stories, discussions on the topics of the day, and general schmoozing, our all too short stay with cousins Ela and Audrius was over.  The next morning we took a van to the airport, ate a delicious “business class” meal courtesy Air France, and it was off to Paris. Our trip behind the old Iron Curtin was over.

This voyage into Eastern Europe had fostered a boomerang of emotions. The exuberant tourist street carnival of central Prague mixing with the evolving historic stories of Jewish abundance, survival, destruction, and tenuous rebirth; onto the delightful and fortunate connections with Jean’s Polish family heritage; followed by the deep dive into the abyss of human evil resulting in depraved carnage.

As we drove away from Auschwitz, I needed a break. Time to consolidate feelings and thoughts.  We were looking at a four-hour drive to Warsaw. Time for some KFC chicken along the highway for goodness sake.

Greasy and salty, for goodness sake.

When we initially flew into Poland two days before, arriving at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport (in Polish spelled Lotnisko Chopina w Warszawie ), we had paused to listen to a young girl, perhaps 10 years old, playing Chopin on a piano in the baggage claim area.

If music is the tonic that calms the savage beast, Chopin is the Schweppes of tonics. (Wait… Schweppes of tonics… that can’t be right.)

On our highway approach to Warsaw, Sebastian oriented us to the city we were about to enter, providing historical context and more modern analysis of its municipal role, development and politics. 

At the end of WWII, approximately 85% of all Warsaw structures were completely destroyed or at least uninhabitable. Pre-war, it had been both the nation’s capital and its largest city.  With Krakow substantially intact, there was serious consideration for moving the capital.   But Polish authorities were determined to rebuild Warsaw.

They rebuilt the central city in a fascinating way.  Looking to essentially recreate the city at its most elegant, instead of modeling the main downtown area on pre-war architectural designs, they sought to emulate Warsaw in its 16^th and 17^th Century prime. Of course, there were no photos of that period, but they did have paintings by Polish artists.  Combined with construction diagrams and select photos of buildings from that period, they went about recreating the exterior building and streetscape aesthetics.  They did such a superb job at this re-creation that UNESCO labelled their product a World Heritage Site. This is a highly unusual step for UNESCO which mainly focuses on historical preservation, not modern re-creations.

Here are some scenes from this re-created heart of town:

Sebastian and Jean along the sidewalks of Warsaw.

After checking in to our hotel, Sebastian gave us a quick tour around the neighborhood before parting with us for the evening.  A few highlights:

As the opening salvo of the 1980’s independence movements in the Eastern Bloc from the Soviet Union, there is great honor in Poland bestowed not only upon the Solidarity labor movement, with its leader Lech Walesa, but also the roles of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paull II in supporting and inspiring the nation’s push for liberty.

And Gary Cooper?

Having taken in the brutalist architecture of the Soviet era for the previous few days, and already oriented a bit to the oppressiveness of the Eastern Bloc state ruling class, I found myself having newfound support and respect for Reagan’s assertions that the Soviet Union really was an “evil empire.” 

Walking down the streets of Warsaw, we saw a house that Chopin was said to live in, and we also enjoyed street benches built along sidewalks which played excerpts from Chopin at the touch of a button!

Sebastian pointed out the WWII-era bullet damage to some of the corridor’s historic monuments.

On our last night in Poland, Jean and I ate a delicious meal of non-Kosher (!) delicacies and walked back to the hotel, more relaxed and at ease from the rigors of the long day.

Shh. Don’t tell my rabbi about the pig’s knuckle that kept on appearing on menus and I found (apparently) necessary to test it out on my last night in Poland.

The next morning brought us a return to Chopin airport and our flight into my family’s homeland.  With the tragic histories of Auschwitz behind us and Jewish Lithuania ahead of us, Warsaw did indeed provide a relaxing and healing intermezzo.