Apothecary Bottles And Jars From Rijksmuseum Boerhaave.

Apothecary bottles and jars from Rijksmuseum Boerhaave.

Page of the Ashkenazi Haggadah, published in the 15th. Century in what would become modern day south Germany. This page contains the recitation “Ha Lachma Anya”, translated in full here: “This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Anyone who is hungry should come and eat, anyone who is in need should come and partake of the Pesach sacrifice. Now we are here, next year we will be in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year we will be free people”.

Matzo bag from my partner’s great great grandmother, probably circa 1900, probably Austria

You know that feeling when you're in a space and you see someone visibly queer like you and you just feel joy and peace and safety, just seeing someone like you out in public?

I was walking out of the pharmacy today and passed by an elderly couple walking in arm in arm. The man was wearing a kippah.

And the second I saw this visibly Jewish couple, I just immediately smiled the brightest smile I've felt all week. An immediate surge of joy and peace.

And something must have registered with them too, seeing a man like me, disheveled and drenched from rain and clearly having a day, suddenly light up at their sight, because they smiled right back.

We exchanged our "hello's" and "have a good day's" and I'm still thinking about them.

About how they must have been in their eighties. Maybe not Holocaust survivors themselves, but so close in time that they would remember almost the entirety of Jewish history from then up till now. And how brave it is to be openly Jewish these days. And they're in their eighties and clearly in love and openly Jewish and so alive.

I love that.

Taking Intro to Judaism is wild when you're converting to a Sephardic community.

We've had two classes in a row about kashrut. The Rabbi is Ashkenazi. He is also trying to teach us all the of the rules so we'll do fine before the biet din. So he's going down the list of stuff like "Probably no turkey, definitely no Fanta Naranja, no food from restaurants that aren't kashrut, milk and meat plates", etc. And again, I get it. He doesn't expect us to follow all of these rules all at once, we're just being educated.

But one thing I'm finding about Spanish Sephardim is that it's an even harder-core kind of diaspora. There's a broad tolerance for, or lack of observance of, food-related rules that I find fascinating.

Kitniyot are something we're expected to know about, but around here, you can have beans and rice during Pesach. During kabbalat shabbat, we were complaining about how it's impossible--not tricky, impossible--to get Passover wine while drinking plain old normal red wine the day after the Rabbi laid down all the rules about handling grapes.

The Rabbi was like "here look I carry a card with all the banned substances listed on it so when I shop I won't buy something with an insect- or blood-based preservative". Which is cool! But meanwhile, the cantor was like "holy shit, bro, how are you and your wife avoiding eating pork and shellfish IN SOUTHERN SPAIN, you are very serious about being Jews aren't you".

It just seems very Spanish to me (affectionate) to learn the rules and then shrug in their general direction because whatyagonnado?

Anyhow, I howled in agony over Fanta Naranja, but I think giving it up would be best anyway. Probably keeping turkey on the menu, though.

A Yemenite Habani Family Celebrating the Passover Seder at their New Home in Tel Aviv. April, 1946. Photographer: Zoltan (Zvi) Kluger (1896-1977). לע''מ/GPO