Hey there heresy!

It has been a bit over a month now since my resignition from the church was handled and made official. Life as a pagan has not been all that different.

What are the practical differences in my life right now?

1. I can't become a godmother to anyone anymore. But those two blessed children that I already have been assigned to, will keep receiving my material godmotherly guidance going forward.

2. I can't get married in a church. Unless my future spouse is a member. Doubt it.

3. I will save somewhat 400€ next year on church taxes. Yay, cash - book a flight where to?

4. My mailbox isn't filled with the church newspaper anymore on every Wednesday. Wonderful, this should save at least one tree per year!

5. I won't have the right to vote in the church elections. Uh, and never did...

To be honest with you, being a well-brought-up G-d-fearing Lutheran girl, I did let my mind wander... Does this make me a bad person? Will G-d hate me now? Shall I go to hell? How can I go to a church to a friend's wedding now?

All these thoughts were utter bullsh*t. Yesterday alone, 296 Finnish people made the same decision as I did and resigned. I don't feel any different now. Not being a member of the church doesn't stop me from e.g....

"treat others as one would like others to treat oneself"

or living up to any other values that by common sense are considered good. Ugh, the Nordic pagan shiksa has spoken and will go on to celebrate Yule with her family and loved-one while wearing a hamsa around her neck. Hold the ham, though.

Israelis were here

O tempora, o mores... Or perhaps I should write instead o tempora, o "problems". After 16 years of silence, a tiny debate in Helsinki is brewing over these:

Iltasanomat.fi

Yes, can't you see, a major disaster! Someone call the President! We're talking about a posh neighborhood called Kruununhaka in the proximity of downtown Helsinki. The Embassy of Israel used to be located at this particular street corner and back in 1996 built these iron poles to prevent car bombs from being parked next to the diplomatic building.

I'm guessing now someone lost their nerve as this year, yet again, it has been very snowy in Helsinki and the streets in the center are difficult to clear from the snow to begin with. These green poles don't make the job any easier, I guess. Some think that they fit a modern city very well, preventing idiots with regular cars from parking in places they shouldn't park. And - you could consider them a piece of Helsinki's modern history.

Stay tuned for more news on this major problem the citizens of Helsinki have: will the Israel embassy have to pay for removing / painting the poles - or will they be left as is? To be continued... but not here.

(Original article and pictures are here at IltaSanomat)

The 300 of Finland

As I have now finished reading even more books on Holocaust, understanding it actually becomes even more difficult. Controversies, paradoxes, complexities are constantly unwrapped the deeper you dig. One of the most interesting – at least for the Finns – is the case of the 300 Finnish soldiers fighting for their country during the Continuation War against the Soviet Union in 1941-1944.

So, what makes it interesting? These 300 were Finnish Jews. And what makes it even more interesting? Simultaneously as these 300 were protecting the independence of Finland, 220 000 German soldiers were sent to Finland. They fought side by side. The tragic stories of what is happening in Poland and the rest of Europe to Jews had spread to Finland as well. It is no wonder that these soldiers felt a little uneasy finding Wermacht soldiers in the tent next door.

An accident waiting to happen, then? Actually, no. The Jewish soldiers built a synagogue amidst the battles. They were given Saturdays off so all the Jewish soldiers, also from the nearby area, could ski to the synagogue for service. They were given Yom Kippur off to celebrate the most important Jewish holiday. All this – under Germany's eyes.

agricola.utu.fi

 How many synagogues were built - not destroyed - in the German battlefields? This was probably the only one.

Quoting one of the soldiers when a German officer asked him how this was possible, ”in Finland there is freedom of religion, I was born in Finland, raised in Finland, went to Finnish schools and have a duty as a citizen to protect my country when my country needs me”. The German officer said back to him ”I'm no SS, personally I have no problem with Jews”, and they both went on fighting their battles.

Afterwards, these 300 soldiers have been called fascists by other Jews. But the way the saw the situation, just like the Christian Finnish soldiers was that there was no alliance with Germany and they were fighting for the freedom of Finland and not a religious war – citizenship and religion are two separate things. And just as a remark for some rebellion from these Jewish soldiers: they did not greet the Germans. Also, three of these 300 received a German Iron Cross, from Hitler, as an honour for great acts of bravery – but none of them accepted this token.

It is admirable of these 300 to fight for Finland. If the Soviet Union had won, the whole of Finland would have suffered. If Germany had won, only they would have suffered. They concentrated on protecting the whole of Finland. Is that patriotism or what? They made a movie about the 300 soldiers in Sparta... What about a movie about this? Steven Spielberg, are you listening? :)

Watch this space...

Hilarious! Bubala bubbling under... the next big comedy hit?

  Bubala Please!

Let there be light

It is not at all a bad idea for Jews to celebrate Hanukkah, also known as the Festive of Lights, this time of the year. Fine, it wasn't really tailor-made for the Finnish latitudes - but most definitely would brighten things up around here, too.

When thinking of Hanukkah, you know, in my life BB (= Before Boyfriend), it is again kind of funny how many things Jewish I used to know were thanks to American TV shows. I vividly remember an episode of OC where the Cohens celebrate Christmukkah, or how Ross on Friends explained to his son Ben about the Maccabees while wearing his infamous holiday armadillo costume. Is this - seriously - where I (and probably some others too) base their knowledge on? Dangerous..!

Well, anyway, Ross was right. It is about the Maccabees beating the bully-Greeks and regaining control of the Temple. The Temple had been defiled by foreign malpractice and the Maccabees decided to purify it by burning oil in the Temple's menorah for eight days. But to their disappointment, there was enough oil left only for one day. What do you do in this kind of situations? Well, all you need is a miracle, and so, the light burned for the necessary eight days after all.

Hanukkah isn't (apparently) religiously so important in Judaism but has become a popular past-time anyway. The way I have got acquainted to it is actually by the dreidel, meeting the Finnish hillomunkki's Jewish relative sufganiyah and now more recently tasting some delicious home-made latkes (potato pancakes). Coincidentally enough fried in what else than oil - there's plenty of that going around this time of year!

Latkes, lamb and some Israeli wine. Yum!

And pssst, a very observant pair of eyes spotted a hanukkiyah in my neighborhood...

Déjà vu for the sweet tooth

I am always kind of surprised if I find some similarities between Israel and Finland or the Jewish culture and the Finnish culture. I mean, come on. Finland is a Christian run country with somewhat 1000 Jewish inhabitants. We haven't been exposed much to Judaism. Even Stockholm has a Jewish museum - Helsinki doesn't. So these two countries and cultures have kinda grown and evolved isolated from one another, unfortunately.

But, I guess it doesn't always apply when it comes to sweets. Everyone's got a sweet tooth no matter what religion, faith or background, or where you live - if you're Jewish or Finnish... It could be like the question of the chicken and the egg – who had it first? I would be guessing the Jews, since when the Jews were already writing, witnessing miracles, building temples and all that, the Finns were still some one-celled organisms in the bottom of a muddy, murky local lake.

So, how did then a Jewish hamentaschen end up evolving into a Finnish joulutorttu? They might taste a bit different but look nearly identical. The Finnish version has powdered sugar is added for a snowy, wintery touch, though.

joyofkosher.com

kotiliesi.fi

Or how did a Hanukkah treat end up at the coffee break table in Finland? Sufganiyah translates to hillomunkki? My mother would surely love visiting Israel for Hanukkah, as she's a die-hard fan of these jam-filled doughnuts. And for an Israeli, any day at a Finnish office at 14:00 would be like celebrating Hanukkah all over again. The miracle never ends...

dimensionsinfo.com

sinuhe.fi

Happy Hanukkah!

End of Chapter One

Right, my Hebrew classes for this year are over. It was 12 weeks ago when the course started in September, and I can say that I am a bit smarter comparing the back-then situation to now. OK, that isn't too hard to achieve when you start from zero :).

Being completely honest with you, I still can't remember all the alphabet but I can fairly enough say that if I try hard, I can read Hebrew. However, it is kind of a struggle that longer sentences will discourage me and make me dizzy. And as my vocabulary is rather limited, I wouldn't understand what I am reading anyway!

As I am somewhat of a language freak, it has been an interesting journey to learn a language that is so completely different from what I am used to. This - if anything - should keep off Alzheimer's, as my brain is really challenged by the alphabet and reading from right to left.

The story does not end here, I have enrolled to the next level. After that I hope to have enough ingredients to carry a short smalltalk with someone. To be continued in January and below is a sample of my writing. 10 points to those who can read and translate :).

...שלום! אני לומדת עברי. אז יאללה, ביי

Simon says: fire him

It comes as no surprise to anyone who might read this blog that I tend to keep an eye on everything written about Finland + Israel/Jews in the local media here. More often than I would like to admit, the news are not good from my point of view.

The latest outburst is a Finnish politician Pertti Salolainen, whose comments on a morning TV show are the #1 most read headline on JPost right now. Referring to the recent UN vote on PLO's status, Salolainen was criticizing the United States not being able to take a neutral stand to the conflict because of the powerful, influential Jewish community in the USA that controls the country's money and media.

The Simon Wiesenthal center condemns this kind of comments, and has asked the State of Finland officially to declare that this is not an official stand to the matter, especially from a country that joined the International Task Force for Holocaust Education, Research and Remembrance. The comments are regarded as classic antisemitic ideas, whereas some hope the politician was more trying to criticize the US politics and not the Jewish people.

Whatever the case, the issue here is that these were words coming from a public figure with a recognized status in the Finnish political system. It also totally stirs up things again with Finland and its loss of direction in foreign policy. If things continue like this, Finland will be like the kid at the international sandbox that no one wants to play with. Reading the comments of the readers at JPost, seems we are not very popular indeed. And why would we be, this remote, cold & dark racist country with the lowest self-esteem ever?

With his comments, Salolainen joins a very nice league of past political figures I am sure anyone would be proud to be compared to. For example, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu stopped the killings of Jews in Romania towards the end of the war, as Germany was losing. He thought saving the Jews that still were left, would make a wonderful bargaining chip with the West as, in a similar manner like Salolainen implied, he believed Jews control the world.

My blog was originally supposed to be with a positive tone and bring another, brighter viewpoint to Israel and Judaism alongside the common negative stuff you most of the time see written. But with the news articles being like this, I'm struggling to find the positive...

Read more in English: The JPost article
Read more in Finnish: Ilta-Sanomat