Happy New Year, you're my only vice

As all of you I am sure are aware, last night was the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

Despite being extremely unobservant, I decided to attend Rosh Hashanah evening services at the Spanish Synagogue in Prague.

One of the best ideas I have had so far.

First of all, this was perhaps the most beautiful synagogue I've ever seen or entered. Perhaps even better than the big one in Budapest. There was nothing particularly "Spanish" about it besides that it was in the architectural style of southern Spain, which if I recall, is Muslim style.

The service was fine, not so long, I was able to follow along a bit. At least, it was infinitely more familiar than all of the Christian stuff I've seen along the way in the countless churches I've checked out. The service was conducted by what appeared to be an American Rabbi, with simultaneous Czech translation. The Jewish community in Prague is quite small (after having had quite the bad time from hundreds of years of government oppression from the 10th century until the 20th, when they were mostly removed by Hitler and then repressed by the Communists), so this (the reform service) was composed largely of ex-pats.

I must admit, as unreligious as I am, I couldn't help being moved by the fact that I was in a synagogue in a country like the Czech republic where for the most part the Jewish population had been exterminated. The only reason several of the old Jewish buildings in Prague are still around is that some Jews convinced the Nazis to establish a Jewish Museum. Wow.

At the service I met a guy from Sacramento (who read much, much, better Hebrew than me) and later a guy and a girl from America doing a study abroad program in Prague. After 3 nights of stumbling around town trying to find my way with no more assistance than that of the other travellers in the hostel, now I had some "friends" who had been here a month and could take me to the places they liked to go. The four of us went to a few bars around town, I ate about three dinners (pork and saurcraut, a cheese platter and then a sausage and pickled cabbage), we saw the Frank Gehry Dancing Building, walked along the river and eventually met some Czech people who introduced us to even more places. Definitely one of the more fun nights I've had on the trip. Thank you, Rosh Hashanah!

Earlier in the day, I actually checked out the Jewish Museum I mentioned before, which is the collection of a handful of synagogues and the old Jewish Cemetery. The synagogues were full of old wine goblets, torah crowns, torah covers and even some of the ridiculous outfits that Jews were required to wear in the 17th century to identify them from other Czechs.

I would like to think that I was disgusted by the exhibits about what the Nazis and later the Communists did out of a general sympathy for humankind and a horror at all human suffering. Honestly though, despite growing up in the United States, I can't help but take the centuries of oppression in the Czech republic somewhat personally. I felt extremely sad.

In one of the synagogues, the walls were inscribed with the names of all of the Jews in the Czech republic who were killed by the Nazis. As they were listed alphabetically, I was able to find my own last name relatively quickly. I didn't recognize any of the first names, but it was still particularly terrible to see.