Irony of ironies

All my life, on Rosh Hashana, I have gone to synagogue, to hear the shofar sound in the New Year. This year, however, in Israel, the Holy Land, I frolicked in a swimming pool and played basketball barefoot on a formerly Stalinist kibbutz, rather than sit and pray in shul. Let me explain.

I have spent (and am spending) Rosh Hashana in Haifa, with my host family. On Monday night, we went to the father, Eli's, mother's apartment, for a nice Ashkenazi dinner. When we ate the apples and honey, I uttered a bracha, but felt out of place, even though my host brother, Amit, found it amusing and decided to say a few others, for fun. There were no yarmulkes, no holiday candles. There was gefilte fish and other delicious food.

The next day, we woke up early and travelled to kibbutz Masereek, a Shomer Hatza'ir kibbutz founded about 75 years ago by Czech-Jewish socialists. We ate a nice breakfast and then went swimming, played basketball and did nothing remotely Jewish. There were apples and honey but not many and I didn't have any. Lunch was delicious. The people living on the kibbutz are from Zehava's family, which is of Lebanese descent. So the food was Mizrachi, spicy and wonderful.

After lunch, I rested and spoke to Paul (name changed to protect identity), the Filipino personal assistant to Zehava's father, who had a stroke. This was fascinating, and I will talk more about it later.

Dinner was a Paraguayan bbq, the steaks were slwo-roasted and wonderful. After dinner I returned to Haifa to rest. Today, I return to the kibbutz. I will talk more about all my experiences soon.