Northern star

An interesting architectural detail from Töölö Bay, Helsinki, where some nice old wooden villas from early 1900s are situated.

Christian Crisis

We have the following saying in Finnish: tieto lisää tuskaa. Freely translated, it means ”knowledge brings agony”. Meaning, the more you know, the more aware you are and the more this might cause you anxiety and worry.

Ever since starting to explore the back shelves of the nearby library for some books on Judaism, WWII etc. I have made some agonizing discoveries. The horrible events of the holocaust are a thing in their own league, but now from another point of view I am personally shocked to read that Martin Luther was antisemitic. Probably, because he was disappointed that Jews didn't accept Jesus as the Messiah. He condemned Jews as a danger to Christians who had found their faith, and wrote the Jews are ”strangers who can be tolerated only to a certain extend in a society”. This kind of writings, from 1530s until his death.

And my country is Lutheran after Martin Luther. And that makes me Lutheran as well. Why didn't anyone mention this man's hostile take on the ”mother religion” and the Jewish people before? Sure, if these were just some random texts written over 500 years ago and on theoretical level studied in universities only, it might not be that bad. But Hitler himself and the Nazis justified their actions based on Luther's – a fellow German by the way – writings. This was less than 100 years ago! Luther was a source of inspiration for a genocide.

Fine, even if Martin Luther had antisemitic thoughts, it doesn't make all Lutherans antisemitic. But to me personally it is a disturbing fact to know that I officially in this country's books (and my tax statement) support an institution based on this man's legacy. Has the time come to reconsider what I really get out of my church anymore anyway? My last ray of hope was to get a church wedding one day – but even that seems to have gone down the drain, so what's keeping me there?

albanbooks.com

Little did he know who would be inspired by his writings later on...

Still in love with falafel

Remember how I earlier wrote about that great falafel place here? Well, I recently paid another visit to Fafa's and just have to mention it again. To my regret, the place is located a bit far from my home so I rarely cross paths with this lovely small food joint. But sometimes, my hunger for great falafels grows so big that I need to make a pit-stop here!

News since the summer, Fafa's now has an official website and they have their own pita bread factory as well. This might explain why the pita doesn't taste like the same industrial stuff served in other, similar style restaurants. They are also opening a new branch in Kallio, Helsinki, so I might be in the future able to pop in for a lunch when at the office...

As before, this place comes highly recommended, and everyone that I have taken there has also loved the food!

A sinking feeling

If history tends to repeat itself at all, a ship called Estelle is on its way to some not-so-smooth sailing. Operated from our Western neighbor Sweden by an organization called ”Ship to Gaza”, the ship sailing under Finnish flag has left Italy and is now heading to its final destination - hoping it to be Gaza but the destination might as well be the bottom of the sea.

Due to the fact that the ship sails under our blue-white colors, the Foreign Ministry wants to make it clear that the Republic of Finland is in no way involved in this mission. It also warned the two Finns (among Israelis, Swedes, Canadians, Americans and Norwegians) on board that if a military conflict persists, there's little hope for them to get any consulate help from Finland.

Everyone has their own way of pushing through an agenda, but is this kind of operation truly peace – or actually a form of provocation? It is a well known fact that the waters around Gaza are blocked, and any foreign ships without permission trying to enter may not be greeted in a friendly way.

Quoting the mayor of the Italian city of Naples visited the ship on Friday: “This is not an initiative in favor of Hamas but in favor of Palestine, of the Palestinians who live in Gaza, and in favor of two states living as neighbors in peace and security”. This is understandable, but isn't there any other way of doing it than sailing in such dangerous waters?

Tradition, religion, love

Tipped the all-time favorite musical in Finland, this weekend I went to see ”Fiddler on the Roof”. Since the musical hasn't been performed on a big stage for a while, the shows have been mostly sold out since the premiere in August this year.

I had not seen it before and didn't actually know much about the story, but the main themes are surprisingly enough tradition, religion and love. Placed in a small village in the Ukraine in early 1900s, the musical gives you a window to the life and days of a Jewish community. Tevye is a poor milkman with wife and five daughters, out of which three are approaching the age to get married. The musical starts off with a song called ”Tradition” - the father's plans are to find husbands to the girls through the village's matchmaker. Needless to say, not everything goes according to his plans or tradition. Instead of finding a wealthy, nice Jewish boy, the hubbies turn out to be poor, revolutionary or... goy.

Act I is wonderful fireworks of witty comedic dialogue/monologue and interesting portraits of Jewish traditions and habits. Preparing for shabbat, references to the Holy Book, kippahs, tzitzit, tallit and of course a very fun Jewish wedding full of dance and happiness. The wedding party, though, is bluntly interrupted and ruined by Russian officials making a demonstration.

Act II then continues with the gloominess of how the wedding party ended. New loves are found and traditions are being challenged again. But sadly, the expelling of Jews from villages in Ukraine continues and even the people you have got to know through this story need to leave Anatevka, the village they for such a long time have called home. Some head for America, some for Poland. The widowed matchmaker does what is said every year during Pesach - next year in Jerusalem – and sets her course towards Israel. The lively, lovely village seen in act I is now empty. To emphasize this, the director had added his own touch to the ending scene: Tevye sings in three languages Eli, Eli lomo azavtoni (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me).

I naturally then started thinking what happens to everyone. The story has kind of a sequel called "Rags" (1986), but it never became as popular as its predecessor. And why is the story called ”Fiddler on the Roof”? As misleading the title could be, the fiddler isn't in any particular role but used as a metaphor how life in the village is as challenging as playing a violin while balancing on a roof.

This musical has been popular throughout the years, and I think not only it is because of its timeless sarcasm and humor, the topic still applies to date. Even if the problems dealt with in the musical aren't exactly the same anymore, the underlying factors remain similar: our world keeps changing, and we, as parents, daughters, Jews or Christians, eventually need to change and adapt to it.

In addition to that, it was interesting to see a Finnish intrepetation of Jewish culture, holidays and traditions instead of only always seeing them in Hollywood movies. Who would have thought that l'chaim and mazel tov would so cheerfully echo in a dimming autumn evening in Finland :).

Sonderkommando

Moving on to a totally different "book review", compared to my last post. Yet again, I was sucked in by a book by a Shoah survivor. I already earlier wrote about Ladislaus Löb, so this time it was Shlomo Venezia's story that mesmerized me. I actually finished the book in 4 hours or so.

The book Sonderkommando is Shlomo's story from Auschwitz and how he was made to work in a group with some other Jews held in the same camp. Sonderkommando, meaning special unit, consisted of these "selected" people who were handling the disposal of the numerous bodies and maintaining the gas chambers and crematories at the camp. Basically, cleaning up the mess the Nazis created when executing these mass murders.

Shlomo Venezia was a Greek-Jew, living in Thessaloniki (also known as the Jerusalem of the Balkan). His family had fled Spain in the 1400s and settled in Italy (hence the family name Venezia) until ending up in Greece. His mother for instance didn't speak any Greek, only Ladino, and his father died when he was a little boy. Due to his background though, he had Italian citizenship and avoided the persecutions in Greece for a little while, until the transportations also from Greece to the death camps began. He was 21 years old when ending up in Poland.

What makes Shlomo's story special is, that not only did the Nazis want to exterminate him for being a Jew, there was an additional cause why he was wanted dead: they did not want any witnesses alive from the sonderkommando. It is by a miracle, you could say, that he was saved – a young man that didn't expect to live and didn't even think of the future, but still fought for his life every day and survived.

The book is actually an interview, so the story is immortalized almost word-to-word in the book. He talks about the happenings with great honesty and detail. How he felt in a way he was helping the Nazis but had no choice. How you had to be selfish and fight for your survival under those conditions. How a 2-month-old baby girl is the only known survivor from a gas chamber – only to be shot dead by SS officer minutes later. How the hair of the bodies was cut and sent off to factories for making fabric, or gold teeth pulled out and sent to Berlin for melting. How the chimneys of the crematories were all shiny from the burnt fat of the dead bodies.

Gruelling, disgusting, sends shivers down your spine. Stories like this leaves you get again wondering how on Earth the human kind could allow a genocide so brutally efficient, organized, planned and targeted to happen. Quoting Shlomo himself though, stories like this need to be told and printed, so nothing like it would ever happen again. I had wanted to read this book for a while now, and I am glad I finally did - to never forget. Sometimes it is good to know and be aware about things, even if one is not able to fully process or comprehend them or the big picture.

The horrifying truth, packed inside these covers.

Stories from Israel, or, way beyond

Last summer I got as a present a book written by Etgar Keret. The book is titled ”The Nimrod flipout” and it is a collection of Keret's short stories. He is an Israeli writer, also called the voice of the new generation in his native country.

My very first acquitance with this author was in some late spring night on Skype when some of his stories were read to me. Yes, like a child listening to bedtime stories. I wouldn't have been able to make any sense of that book in Hebrew anyway, so that's why I guess I received my very own English version.

I haven't read fiction for a while but must admit Keret's imagination sure is something else. He goes straight to the point – but I guess that is of the essence when writing short stories. No ifs, no buts. The plots of his stories are something out of this world that I don't know how or where anyone gets that kind of ideas. This is not meant in a bad way, though. I'm actually jealous that someone has such a big pool of imagination and unheard ideas to write about. In fact, some of the stories are so original that I'm not sure if they were written by an author – or by someone who temporarily lost their marbles.

The stories aren't directly about Israel or Jews; some of them you could take, change names and put in any other country too. Some, however, do have references to the modern Israel and Israelites. E.g. flip outs/suicides in the army and someone getting killed by a suicide bomber are things that probably (unfortunately) happen there more likely than in Finland for instance. Or recognizing a body without a head to be a foreigner, as the man is not circumcised.

Don't get me wrong here, though. Dead bodies and suicides might make you think it is a sinister book that will push you on the verge of depression. Not at all! The stories won't make you reach for the tissues. They are just written in Keret's own humorous way.

The works of Etgar Keret have not been translated into Finnish but our local bookstores can provide you with a copy in English or Swedish. His publications are not limited to ”The Nimrod flipout”, so feel free to venture your favorite title. I look forward to reading them more in between my mission to read biographies. 

And let's see if Keret mentions Finland in any other stories than ”Bottle” (how surprising for Finland and bottles to be mentioned in the same context...:).

Amusing and edgy, and definitely takes you by surprise!