About the Pictures

I think some explanations are in order if you’ve been looking at my pictures.

A couple of days ago I posted the Duma pictures, and I’m going to add some from my friend Mara’s collection tonight as well. The Duma Simulation was a history project. We were reconstructing elections in 1906 Russia, when they attempted, for the second time, to at least pretend there was a semblance of democracy there. Clearly, it worked well. We were supposed to be simulating the elections in a Jewish town, with all of the major Jewish political parties represented, plus the communists, plus a group trying to convince the Jews to move to America, plus the ultra-Orthodox, the Haredi Jews, who in reality wanted nothing to do with the Duma. Hence the pictures of them protesting outside. I was asked to help run the Duma, meaning that I was not part of one of the parties, but instead, with a friend, organizing the speakers and the rest of the evening and then basically running the program and the elections. People were less-than-excited about having a four-hour program on an evening in the middle of midterms, but it turned out that most groups got into it and really had a good time. There were flyers hung all week long advertising the different groups, which confused a lot of visitors, but amused all of us. The evening of the Duma Simulation is what the pictures show. People came in costume traditional for their group, or just in matching outfits. The communists wore red. The America group wore assorted American flag shirts, red, white, and blue, and baseball hats. There were lots of women with scarves over their heads. The haredi group came in traditional Jewish dress, including all four women from that group arriving looking very pregnant. A few of the groups brought “traditional beverages.” My co-chair and I decided that we could not dress like any of the groups, but that we had to come in some sort of costume. So we thought about the spirit of democracy and decided on the most democratic type of clothing we could come up with: togas! So we showed up to the Russian Duma elections in togas. If you’re curious, the America group won the election, closely followed by the Zionists and the Bund, a Russian-Jewish workers’ group. (In reality, the Zionists at this time period did not get nearly this much support.) I hope that clears up the crazy pictures!

The other new set of pictures is of my Ethiopian family. A group of us from HUC goes to the absorption center every Tuesday evening, and with a partner, each of us is assigned a family. My roommate Karen and I are partners, and I brought a camera tonight. The kids had a great time posing for pictures and then immediately looking at them on my digital camera afterwards. We’re going to try to print out a few of them to bring back next week. Some of the kids have stickers on their faces. They just like to put stickers everywhere, and that’s the best explanation I can give. The fact that Karen and I weren’t covered with stickers this week was a nice change. There are five kids in the family, ranging from about 11 down to 2. The oldest and youngest are girls, and the middle three are boys. They are adorable. I communicate most with the oldest girl, who is the most talkative and has the best Hebrew of all of them (including the parents) by far. The rest of the kids are talking to us a little more each week. The parents hardly speak any Hebrew. They are incredibly welcoming. Every week, the mother makes coffee for me and Karen, and they put out a bowl of apples. I don’t usually drink coffee, but apparently on Tuesday nights, I am now a coffee drinker. The apples we have there are amazing. I keep buying apples at the shuk, but I haven’t gotten any really good ones. But the ones we have there are amazing every single week! Tonight we played with a puzzle, play-doh, some cards, and Karen and I found some dot stickers and played “pin the nose on the smiley face.” It was a good activity for a few minutes, and then they started pinning the dot stickers on themselves. And the TV. And each other. It’s so much fun! [Michael: you might get to meet them! I think we are planning to go the first Tuesday night you’re here, even though it’s our exam week. Will you come?] Sadly, I can’t post names with the pictures. With the language barrier, and the fact that their names are Ethiopian and not Hebrew, we haven’t managed to pick up on them yet. Which is only okay, because I don’t think they know my name or Karen’s name either. Enjoy the pictures!

That’s all I’ve got for now. I really should be studying. And also posting pictures. More soon!