Sydney (Tziporah) Fuerstman

This Shabbat  Sydney Fuerstman received her first siddur (prayer book) from her congregation Temple Beth El in Charlotte, NC.  The gift marks the beginning of her studies toward being called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah.  Sydney is 9 years old.  Her parents are Hunter and Mischa Fuerstman (Cantor Marlena’s oldest son) and she has three younger brothers Nate, Ike and Linus. Syd visits BHC every summer with her family and participates in services and BHC camp.

To watch the ceremony click here.

Last year on Tu Bishvat BHC initiated a challenge to plant 100 trees in Israel. The effort came in the wake of the worst fire in Israel’s history which occurred on December 2, 2010 in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa. Losses were devastating. Forty-four people died, homes were consumed by fire and more than 12,500 acres of forests destroyed. JNF foresters estimated that over 5 million trees were burned. After four days of continuous fighting, the Israeli firefighters succeeded in dousing the flames, but the road to recovery has been difficult. JNF is working with the Minister of the Environment on a plan to rehabilitate the region. Watch the video Operation Carmel Renewal: From Black to Green. Our tiny congregation of some 40 members has thus far planted over 80 trees. With our goal in site and because of a special purchase of trees from JNF we are able for a limited time to plant two trees for the price of one. This year Tu Bishvat occurs on Wednesday February 8. Won’t you help us reach our 100 tree goal by Tu Bishvat? Plant a tree in honor or in memory of a loved one. Please join our challenge. The cost of two trees is $18.00. Send your name, address and the person for whom you are honoring with your check to BHC, PO Box 395, Bethlehem, NH 03574. For more information contact Cantor Marlena at marlena1st@aol.com .

Last week while leafing through a Cooking Light which I had carried with me on my aliyah trip in the fall of 2005, I found an interesting article about quinces (Cydonia oblonga).  Reading the article, I realized that I had missed the quince season which runs from September to December but hoped, since it is was only the first week of January that I might find a few quinces in Machane Yehudah, the Shuk, when Edwin and I made our weekly Friday morning trip there.

Sure enough I found a few lonesome quinces at one of the booths where I
often find special and exotic fruit.

Chabushim (Quinces)

The history of quinces is interesting and there’s lots written on-line but, in short, the quince is a very old fruit (it predates the apple) and perhaps originated in  Mesopotamia.  Some have even credited the quince with being the Garden of Eden’s forbidden fruit.  If you’ve ever tried to cut, much less eat a raw quince you’d find this credit hard to swallow.  The fruit is as hard as a rock and the taste too bitter to eat raw.  However, it has a wonderful floral, bright aroma.  There’s nothing like it.

Edwin came in handy (as usual!) because the shop keepers in the Shuk didn’t know the fruit by its English name and I had no idea how it is called in Hebrew.   Apparently the fruit is referred to in Sephardic poetry and Edwin had come across the Portuguese name marmelo in his work.  (Incidentally marmalade comes from the word marmelo and it is thought that the Portuguese made marmalade from quinces long before the Scots made it from oranges.)   Because Edwin needed to translate the word into Hebrew, he knew its Hebrew name chabush.

Chabush is easy to remember because one of my favorite cantors is Moshe Chabusha.  I never knew his last name was Quince!  To hear Chabusha sing an Uum
Kulthum song chick here .

Yair Harel (percussionist), Edwin, Hazzan Moshe Chabusha in Ghent, Belgium

Chabusha is also an excellent oud (Arabic lute) player and violinist.  You may notice that he plays both left handed.  Click here to hear.

Each spring we make the trek down to Beit Knesset Har Zion located just outside the wall of the Old City at David’s tomb to hear Chabusha sing a chapter of Pirkei Avot [Chapters (Teachings) of the Fathers].  These amazing chapters of wisdom are recited between Pesach and Shavuot in the Sephardic tradition.  There are six chapters and one is done each  Shabbat between the two festivals. Here’s a link to read more about that: http://www.hillel.org/jewish/textstudies/pirkei_avot/default.

Back to quinces or chabushim (pl. for chabush): For Shabbat lunch I decided to make a Moroccan lamb stew topped off with a sambal which included poached chabushim. The stew simmered all Friday afternoon and the delicious aroma of cardamom and coriander filled the house.  The recipe is in the Oct 2005 issue of Cooking Light.  You can find it at epicurious.com by clicking here.

I had some left over poached chabushim and the poaching liquid so I made a quince “butter” which we paired up with some cheeses and baguette that we had bought at Basher Fromagerie an extraordinary gourmet cheese market in the Shuk.  A glass of Yarden white wine completed our motzai Shabbat repast.

The chabushim season may be over but the celeriac is delicious right now and abundantly available at the Shuk.  We started our Erev Shabbat fish dinner with Celery Root Bisque with shallots and fresh thyme.

The soup, stew and the preserves were Shabbat highlights.  Hope you can
join us for Shabbat soon.

Abigail, Ada, Harper, Yonah

Beit Sefer at BHC just finished a wonderful fall season.  Harper Champney, Ada Cowan, Abigail Freidman, and Yonah Friedman met with their teachers, Shira Linowes and Rachael Moss Sunday mornings for the past few months.  Parents and grandparents were on hand to assist.

Shira Linowes

Rachael Moss

The students learned and improved Hebrew language skills and beginning taamei hamikra (chanting the Torah) skills.  They studied weekly Torah portions and worked on a long-term craft project on the Creation Story.  Each session included a brief morning service and blessings for various snacks.

Highlights of the fall season were visits from Professor Martin Kessel who shared stories of Israel including the exciting story of the day the Western Wall (Hakotel) was opened in Jerusalem after the reunification of the city in 1967.  The story was brought to life with pictures of the event which he attended with two of his children who, at that time, were the same ages as our BHC beit sefer kids.  To view Martin’s presentation click on this link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/martink720/WalkToTheKotelJune1967?authkey=Gv1sRgCNKj04zvxZyHQQ#

Here are a couple of photos from the presentation:

http://yiddishacademy.com/

This year thanks to the efforts of Harold Friedman a large outdoor menorah (hanukiah in Hebrew) was given to the town by the NH Lubavitchers.  The menorah was placed along side Christmas decorations on the lawn of the Bethlehem Public Library-Town Hall Building.  BHC president Dave Goldstone lit the shamas (helper candle) and the first light on the first night of Hanukkah, Tuesday Dec. 20.  He was joined by a joyful group.

Photo by Linda Herrman

Thank you to Harold, Dave, the Lubavitchers and all who participated.

Chag urim samaech (Happy Festival of Lights).

     How can you help? What
will you bring to the celebration? Contact me this week with information about
who will be attending, and with your offer of assistance.

1-413-587-0812 or davegoldstone1@gmail.com.

This past weekend we traveled again to Moscow where Edwin taught a mini-course on the  Jewish Music of the Ottoman Empire.  The course was sponsored by a Moscow-based
organization called Eshkol and by the American Avi Chai Foundation.

Avi Chai supports numerous Jewish educational and cultural organizations and events in Israel and around the world encouraging Jewish study and involvement for unaffiliated Jews.  In the Former Soviet Union it operates as Eshkolot.  Eshkolot is an open edutainment (education+entertainment) project that promotes both modern and traditional Jewish culture in the form of lectures, workshops and concerts.

Eshkol sponsors ongoing programs focusing on Jewish literature, culture and families. It is a very progressive organization and seeks to host events not in expected venues such as synagogues or community centers but take their programs into areas where young people work and live and specifically into venues that are appealing to this age group.  This mini-course was held in a hip bar called Lady Jane.  (All photos of mini-course are from Eshkol website and taken by staff photographer.)The bar itself is a renovated public bath house which has been divided into various spaces for performing and socializing.

The mini-course included two lectures by Edwin

Jewish Music of the Ottoman Empire

and a concert and lecture by renowned musicians Hadass Pal-Yarden and Eliyahu Dagmi.  Eshkol director, Simon Parizhsky, translated the lectures from both English and Hebrew into Russian as many of the attendees spoke neither English nor Hebrew.

Introducing Concert of Turkish Sephardic Song

By the scheduled starting time the bar was filled to the brim for the lecture.  90% of those attending were young people – 20 something.  I was told that 140 people had pre-registered for the course and that most of them had some sort of Jewish connection although some were there because of an interest in Turkish music.  Many in the audience had notebooks and feverishly took notes during the lecture.  I thought perhaps the mini-course offered college credit but learned that, no, the participants were there because of a serious desire to learn about different aspects of Judaism.

All the events of the mini-course took place in the evening hours leaving Edwin and me our days free to renew our fascination with the Russian capitol and our very warm relationship with the Moscow Metro!

Moscow Underground

This subway system, built by Stalin, simply must be the best in the whole world – the cleanest (OK Tokyo is spotless too) and the most beautifully designed.  If one can read the Russian alphabet getting around the huge city underground is easy and interesting.  I wrote about the subway on my blog if you’d like to know more check it out.

A light snow was falling when we arrived at Izmaylovo, the flea market located on the estate which was Peter the Great’s playground when he was a boy.  Because of the cold we hurried around the booths of Russian painted wooden crafts, pottery from Uzbekistan, beautiful linens and scarves and much more.  The prices are greatly discounted from those in the heart of town.

The Bolshoi was closed for renovations when we visited three years ago.  This time is was open but the ballet was on break.  We had hoped to get a view of the interior of the theater but such a tour requires advance reservations and not having thought of that, we settled for walking around the plaza and will save the ballet for our next visit.

We were able to get tickets to the Novaya Opera in an excellent performance of Eugene Onegin at the Kolobov Novaya Theatre.  Despite a rather silly staging of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece, the singers and orchestra were top notch.  The audience again was filled
with young people who came in couples and in groups and cheered at the end of the arias and at curtain call.  I wondered if the $13 ticket price for the superb performance is one of the reasons the young people come in droves. A night at the opera is cheaper than going to
the movies in Moscow.

Certainly the weekend was a great getaway mainly because of the warm welcome and gracious hospitality of the Simon Parizhsky, Anna Nudel, and all the staff of Eshkol.  We feel that we connected not just with colleagues but with friends and we look forward to seeing them here in Israel or back in Moscow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CRruSZGXNY

I bought the museum book describing this amazing project and
you will find it in our BHC library next summer.

There is still a Jewish small presence in Suriname consisting
of about 200 souls.  The community which
had split between Ashkenazi and Sephardi in the early 18^th century
reunited and now holds services at the former Ashkenazi synagogue Neve Shalom
(Oasis of Peace).  The community is
overseen by the Dutch Portuguese Jewish community.

The article on the Virtual Jewish Library web site has a map
(in case, like me, you can’t remember where Suriname is located) and is
informative.  However, the section on the
20^th century has a least one error.
Tzedek v’Shalom is no longer in Suriname as I saw for myself last week.

Click below to read it.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Suriname.html