Discovering Deutschland

Generally I don't post about my vacations, but the latest trip I took with my mom Lithuania seems to fit with the theme of my Jewish experience in Europe so here we go anyway. Last week we went to find our roots in Lithuania. This needs some backstory. My grandma was born in a town called Memel (now Klaipeda) in Lithuania in the 1920s. When she was 6-weeks old my great-grandparents decided to move to South Africa. Since then my grandmother has never been back, despite being an avid world traveler. So when my mom decided to come to visit me in Germany it seemed like a great opportunity to do some heritage hunting. My mom has been researching our family tree for years now and managed to locate the towns and villages that our ancestors were born in so off we set to go see what these places were like today. Vilnus old city, Capital of Lithuania  Rather naively I underestimated how heavy and emotional this journey would be. Living in Germany of course I'm quite aware

Here we are in month 11 of this German adventure meaning we are back to summer in Germany (at least on the days it's not raining). Of course as an American the beginning of July and summer starts off with a (literal) bang for the Fourth of July. This year American Independence day coincided with Friday night shabbat dinner as well as my last shabbat with my co-fellow  Brianna . It's hard to believe she's already leaving Germany for Israel next week! It's been a truly remarkable year and I can't imagine what it might have been like without her perspective, understanding and support. Couldn't help myself from gushing just a little! First we spent the whole day Friday cooking, which of course is exactly my cup of tea. Brianna perhaps wasn't quite so passionate but the apple crumble, American flag cake, mac & cheese etc. made the kitchen time worth it.  After learning how to make piecrust last week, the carmel apple crumble ma

Back in the US my primary memory of Shavuot is my mom's cheesecake she makes every year. Her recipe is actually quite similar to the German variety made with a yogurty dairy product called quark, (something that after nine months I still can't fully explain), but I still have a soft spot for good ol' American style cheesecake. Let's back up for a second though, Shavuot is the Jewish holiday where we received the 10 commandments and it also the harvest festival. The tradition goes that before the Jews received the Torah they did not know the rules for kosher food and couldn't properly prepare a meat meal. That's where the cheesecake comes in. To celebrate this holiday we eat dairy to commemorate the first kosher meal in Judaism which happened to be a dairy meal! In that spirit, along with Chaya the rebbetzin at Chabad on Campus I decided to have a cheesecake bake-off! Monday night before Shavuot we paired into "teams" to bake! We made peanut

Last weekend I had the honor of presenting at the annual JDC regions event "Gesher" or bridge in Hebrew.  This event aims to bring together jews from the Balkan communities. From Romania, to Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and more young jewish leaders and community members all gathered in Thessaloniki. Seeing so many young jews who were passionate and excited to keep their communities alive was inspiring. After seeing how much spirited fun these communities have when they come together I'm almost ready to move to Greece or Serbia (not to pick favorites). One of the highlights of the weekend was splitting up and doing community service all around the Jewish community of Thessaloniki. I chose to join the group that went to the Jewish day school to revitalize the playground. We painted a murals and games on concrete play area. Later in the afternoon five other people and myself each spoke on a panel about Jewish life in our five respective countr

Spring in Germany is in full spring. The temperatures have been in the 70's Fahrenheit, flowers are everywhere and there are birds chirping (literally) outside my window. Which makes it a great time to reflect on "chag ha'aviv" or the holiday of spring, another name for passover. The last few weeks have been full of Passover preparation, activities and of course seders. Before Pessach we continued our jewish cooking tradition in Duisburg making something I never thought I'd cook, gefillte fish. Thank goodness for Marina who took the lead in handling all the fish and filling (get it geFILLte? German/ Yiddish is such fun!) all the fish heads with cod.  Luckily I was able to work on the matzah balls instead. For the first night I decided to have my very own seder. I've never led a seder before and I had a few friends with nowhere to go for the holiday so I figured it would be fun to band together and celebrate.  I put toge