No plans for Saturday night?

Whether you're a permanent resident in Helsinki or just visiting, and are into listening to some klezmer music, I suggest you check out a cafe called Bulevardin Kahvisalonki.

In addition to serving delicious coffees and baked goods, approximately once a month on a Saturday evening, a very laid-back jamming session by a versatile variety of musicians is put together in this cafe. Feel free to sing along (if you know Yiddish or Hebrew:) or tap away to the beat with your feet. The atmosphere is relaxed and funky! Be sure to come a bit early, as the tables are bound to be occupied quite quick.

Next time I need to bring some friends to get acquainted with this folk music, as it really is a treat for us Finns to be served this kind of entertainment. There's no entrance fee nor tickets, so you can easily attend for the sheer pleasure of it. And thanks for a certain someone blog reader for tipping me off for this klezmer jamming session. You were great! :)

In order to avoid any copy-right issues, I'm posting a clip from YouYube, recoded at the same cafe a few years back.

PS. The Helsinki Klezmer Festival for 2013 is coming up! Check out the details here.

The 100th post

It's official, I have found stuff worth of 100 blog posts to babble about. Go figure! This all really started one evening last year. My brain was going overload, projecting texts and thoughts that built up in my silly little head after meeting my bf, reading books, visits to the Holy Land... Fingertips on fire, I suddenly realized I had written 10 texts on Israel and Judaism, in a mere couple of hours. Where to put all that? Make it public? Does anyone want to read these? Well, what the heck, let's give it a shot.

www.bubblews.com

The blog has by now gone beyond these original 10 texts. New ideas and topics have popped up along the way. The only place I have advertized this blog is on Finnish "Blogilista", which is a never-ending website listing hundreds and hundreds of blogs. Some of you, especially Finnish readers, probably found your way here through there.

The rest of the readers of this blog are my family and friends. Or so I thought. Turns out I was wrong. Often when explaining something to my father, sister, mother or a friend, I said "but yeah you probably read this in my blog already". I could tell from their faces that they hadn't visited this site for ages (not that they should feel guilty about it). But they merely don't find this as interesting as my past life blog, as it isn't full of juicy gossip on my relationship or the language isn't Finnish.

This actually means then that the majority of you people reading this blog are total strangers to me! I can see I have visitors from all over the world. So I wonder who my readers are... Jews, other shiksas, people interested in history or traveling to Israel? Don't be shy, take the time to introduce yourself in the comments field. It's about time I knew something about you, like you know a little something about me... :)

gsickminds.net

We are what we eat

I recently read a book on all things kosher. The topic interests me, as I happen to love food and in my culture, there aren't any restrictions when it comes to eating food. We Finns can chow on pork, bear meat and hare. In a city called Tampere, they just love mixing blood in their sausages making the sausages black, and this autumn's crayfish season is just closing in. We can flush all this down with a glass of milk - a very typical drink even for adults at a mealtime. The raspberries we pick may have some tiny maggots in it. But like my grandmother - and now mother says, it's OK to eat them - they are practically made of the raspberry anyway.

Finnish blood sausage wrapped in bacon - do not try to sell this in Israel! (pic from lautasellasi.blogspot.com)

An observant Jew would probably faint at this point. Or to say the least, feel very disgusted. Actually, I also started feeling a bit queasy when thinking of a greasy pork ribs with melted cheese and a glass of milk. Ew. Keeping kosher in Finland would be extremely hard, and the only way out I can see is to become a vegetarian. Then you would be on the safe side for the most part.

www.israeli-t.com

Nowadays when I eat or cook, I often find myself thinking if this is "kosher" (OK, even though the beef or chicken I buy here at the super market isn't officially kosher). The other day I was cooking a nice beef steak with chanterelles and onions, and topping it off with cooking cream, I couldn't help but think of Deuteronomy 14:21 from the Bible... You know, the part about not cooking a kid in its mother's milk. A while back, I was attending a seminar and the buffet lunch had pork for the warm meal - the second option being shellfish mixed with rice. One weekend when doing BBQ with friends, we took big mushrooms, filled them with cream cheese and wrapped the whole thing in bacon. A Finnish summer BBQ delicacy but a taunting nightmare for anyone keeping kosher.

(www.biblicallykosher.com)

The book that I read had some really interesting insights to the kosher rules. Firstly, only recently has the European Union passed regulations for kitchens to have separate utensils for vegetables, dairy products and meat, in order to prevent bacteria from spreading. At an observant Jewish home, this has been a tradition for centuries already.

www.ekollel.com

What also makes sense is not to eat anything naturally dead. And check an animal that you have slaughtered if it was fully healthy. It is kind of disgusting to think what exactly could be found in a cheap frankfurter or minced meat - the production line where they generally throw all the crap that's left. Probably they throw in anything that wasn't good enough to be used as plain meat. Eating blood is a big no-no, which, you know, should be left only for vampires anyway. And since humans aren't really the top of the food chain, we shouldn't go after beastly animals that could as well kill us.

All the rules, in the end (according to the book), actually encourage people to live in harmony with the nature and above all, respect the nature. In addition, having discipline like this when it comes to food is good for the human nature. Gluttony and freely stuffing your face hasn't been proven healthy anywhere on this planet.

I have been allergic to fish and shellfish since I was a baby. It used to be so bad back in the day that my face would swell up even if I smelled fish. Nowadays, actually towards the end of this summer, I have learnt that I am no longer allergic to shrimps and crayfish. Hooray! But I couldn't help but wonder if this was one of G-d's jokes on me: I'm a shiksa, so of course I should be able to enjoy a shrimp or two every now and then. Whatever the irony might be here, I guess I should in the end be grateful for any medical healing (or blessing) that comes my way.

www.memegenerator.com

Forgive me

Autumn is a busy time for the Jews holiday-wise. Just as you've managed to put away the apples and honey of Rosh Hashana, it is time to concentrate in Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is often considered the most important holiday in Judaism, even for those who are not that religious. Yom Kippur lasts only for 25 hours, and it is about atonement: confessing your sins and asking for forgiveness.

I kind of like the idea of Yom Kippur. It could be called the day of the year when you come clean, both spiritually and literally.You keep your body clean by fasting for the duration of Yom Kippur, it is a tradition to wear white (= the color of purity), and you atone your sins between yourself and G-d. What is noteworthy is that sins committed against another person are not cleared ”automatically”: this you need to take separately with the person in question, before Yom Kippur.

(www.messiahmandate.org)

Comparing to Lutheranism, the religious context I pretty much have grown up in, I can't recall any particular time or day when forgiveness particularly is asked for. In fact, Lutheranism is based on the assumption and attitude built in every Lutheran that you are sinful and unclean no matter what you do. The cardinal sin is within us and no matter what you try to do, it is up to G-d's forgiveness to see the good in us. This is actually quite a gloomy take on things. Every day of the year a Lutheran carries this sin, acknowledging the fact of impurity, imperfection and unworthiness. Mix that with the coldness and darkness of the North, and you've got a road paved to depression and suicide. Sounds much like Finland, actually!

In the Roman Catholic church, there is a custom of confessing your sins to a priest every now and then. You can do it anonymously in a booth, the priest listens to you and gives you the recipe for purging yourself from these sins. 10 times Ave Maria and so forth. And I probably don't have to point out all the money the Catholic church has made with this sin business over the years. Uh.

Therefore, I think the Jewish way is kind of a fair and reasonable way of looking at the imperfection that lies within all of us. Instead of feeling guilty of your faults every day with ”no way out” like Lutherans, or buying and bargaining yourself clean whenever you feel like it like the Catholics, there's a period each year in which you rightfully are allowed and even expected to purge yourself from sins and wrong-doings. It is timed right after the new Jewish year has started, making perfect sense to have a fresh start. And most importantly, the earthy wrong-doings you don't settle with G-d but with the people, showing you need to have the morals and guts not to leave it all up to G-d, but actually act on your own mistakes already in this world to get them right.

Northern Star #3

Not only in random buildings in Helsinki, the familiar Magen David can be found in an old Finnish bank's savings box. Länsi-Suomen Osake-Pankki was established in 1912 and merged into other banks in 1929. This means the savings box was made some time between 1912-1929.

Sure, spotting this star in Finland might not have any deeper meaning than just being a star - but I find it funny anyway :-).

Your coins are safe here!

Second year student

I've voluntarily cursed myself with a continuation of another Hebrew course. Yes, as if the humiliations of last semester weren't enough, I decided to rise up for the challenge yet again and keep struggling with this foreign language. It is stressful at work again so I need that counterbalance anyway...

A tiny factor for creating stupid, useless arguments between an Israeli guy and a Finnish girl is to urge the Finnish person to read Hebrew. Reading without what I call the vowels. Infuriating. It is simply impossible to guess what a word means if your basic vocabulary is on the same level what a chimpanzee would know after completing immense training for years in this language. To give the Israeli an idea what it is like, I tried the same in Finnish. Do you know what this word is?

rhtomtti

Yes, a few vowels missing. For a Finn, it might be easy to figure out but for you foreigners, probably not. (Hint: I twisted this word in Hebrew to something nasty, similar to the word you use for "glass" in Hebrew.)

To bring back some of the alphabet learnt last time around, I'm posting some familiar writing below encountered in Israel. But for the record, I would not have been able to figure out the red & white text if I hadn't recognized the logo and famous bottle shape...

Mickey D's! Mem, kof, dalet, vav, nun, lamed, dalet, samech... Be-te avon!

Le chaim!

Happy New Year!

For someone so Finnish, it is funny to think that it would be time to celebrate new year just now. To me, new year's means freezing nights, glimmering stars in the sky that reflect on the white snow, numb fingers when trying to light fireworks outdoors - but at least the champagne stays chilled. Now it's autumn, and my environment couldn't be further from all of these things associated with new year.

But now it is the Jewish new year or like the natives would call it, Rosh Hashanah. Believe it or not, even my Finnish calendar noted it and had a little print "juutalainen uusivuosi" for yesterday and today. Cute! Rosh Hashanah is actually the sort-of birthday of Adam and Eve, as it is believed they were created in Tishrei - this Jewish month.

I already learnt something about the Jewish new year last autumn in Hebrew class. "Shana tova" - meaning "wishing you a good year" - is something you could typically say to a person during these days. Even though this particular greeting wishes you a good year, it is above all hoped to be sweet. That's why it's typical to dip slices of apple, the season's fruit, to honey. The honey is supposed to secure your coming year of being sweet. Strangely enough, apple happens to be Adam and Eve's forbidden fruit - but I don't think there's any connection there.

depositphotos.com

I have heard some (non-Jewish) people saying that they can relate more to the Jewish new year. And in a way, it is true. Even in our culture, this time of the year means the commencement of something new, especially in schools and other educational institutions. Even at work, after summer holidays, it might feel like you get the chance to take a new approach on things.