I signed a petition to save Kunsthaus Tacheles

Never Done: I signed a petition to save Kunsthaus Tacheles

I don't know how to describe the Kunsthaus Tacheles (Tacheles art house) except to say to imagine the most substantial five-story stone building that takes up a city block, and then fill it with international artists, punks, and hippies. Name it for a Yiddish word that means basically straight talk about real things, like economics and world events. Spray paint every available surface, and build out galleries and studios on every floor -- some ceramic studios, some theater studios, some painting studios, some jewelry. Some doors open; some doors closed. Some with signs welcoming visitors; others with signs telling people not to take any fucking photos. Make one whole floor a marketplace, piss in the corners from time to time so the smell will linger. Curate performance art and music and all sorts of performance in the massive space. Give the entire top floor of one wing to an amazing Belarusian painter to paint huge intricate work in response to Chernobyl. Outside, some people could live in some trailers and make a sculpture garden with a little café, and there could be some old couches scattered around for punks and tourists to hang out on and woo each other. The whole thing should feel like it was squatted originally, and now it should feel like it's a massive radical art space that should never, ever, ever, ever be displaced.

But guess what? It's on a block with very fancy real estate across the street. Restaurants, event spaces. And some developers are chomping at the bit to get their hands on it. Walking through the massive space, I cried thinking about the priorities of the people who would ever want to dismantle such a vital space. It's not that I can't imagine that the space and the artists have their -- shall we call them issues? Any place that smells like piss probably has its issues. But any place that is covered head to toe and wall to wall and floor to ceiling with art is also a space committed to hope and beauty and revolution -- and WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE? Better yet, why can't they support it? A lot of people are. It says so all over the walls and floors and ceilings. And on the top floor, in the Belarusian's studio, there were petitions in 9 languages, asking people to voice their support for Tacheles. I signed the one in English, wrote down that I live in Brooklyn, NY.

A small thing to do, and yet something to do. Without even knowing much of its history until I got online later to research it, I walked through the nooks and crannies of this space in tears. Tears of hope and appreciation for the artists who created it and keep it going, and tears of anger at the thought that it might come undone.

I support Tacheles.

I drank a beer on the S-Bahn and prepared a seder in under two hours

Never Done: Drank beer on public transportation
Never Done: Prepared a seder in under two hours

I think I would be missing a huge opportunity if I did not write about my experience of otherness while in Berlin -- especially from the perspective of my being a Jew. As I've written before, one of the key elements of Mussar practice is to explore the burden of others when evaluating our own ethical actions. I find it easy to think that through in terms of how my actions affect specific people (not always to easy to act correctly, but easy to think through) and harder sometimes to grasp the ways my actions affect, say, a nation of people. A nation of people like, for example, Germans. Actions like, for example, reacting with fear (moving away on the subway platform, crossing the street) when I encounter a group of young, drunk German men. Not that that's such a strange reaction for me to have to any drunk men, but we all know that what we feel inside projects externally, and I look into the faces of these guys and I think to myself, I am not like them. They are not my people.

How different is this from how I felt during the years I endured living in Hoboken -- another town filled with drunk white guys? It's different. While I crossed the street to avoid those guys too, I didn't feel like they were representing their entire nation (or even their state.) At a core level, they didn't make me feel like the other, even though I didn't feel the same as them. Hard to explain, and I expect nationalism plays into it some, but I also think that the experience of being a Jew in Germany, for the first time, with our particular history of otherness, is unavoidably at play.

In an attempt to break down the barrier, I decided to drink a beer on the S-Bahn, like so many Germans do. I didn't need to pretend I was one of them, but just to see what it would feel like to do what they do. So I bought a beer at a kiosk in the S-Bahn station, and the vendor asked me if I wanted it open, and I said yes. So there I was with my open beer in the station, and we walked over to our next train, and I took some sips and said the Shehekhianu. I knew I wouldn't really have the same experience that they have because I just don't drink that much; it only takes a few sips to make me tipsy, and I don't like getting drunk. But in some ways, just carrying the open beer through the station -- and up and out onto the street -- was the heart of the experience for me, and I do think it helped me break down the barrier I was hoping it might. Later, when I was heading home alone to throw together a seder (more on that in a minute) I had to wait 10 minutes for a transfer, and I stood near four guys who were already several beers in to their post-work wind-down. And while I didn't love the checked-out look in their red eyes, and I still wonder what it means that there is so much public drinking in this nation which has faced so much national trauma -- while I still wonder all that, I also felt just a tiny bit less of the other by virtue of having a shared experience.

I wish I had enough time to do this all justice, but I am running out here. Janina, Kathleen, and I found out that the first night seder we were planning to go to in the evening was really a second night seder, so at the last minute, we decided to make our own. At the next last minute, Kathleen and I decided she would hang out for a couple hours, and I would go back to pull the seder together. I'm going to gloss over this, but basically, I got to a grocery store at 5:30, and filled my basket with the essentials: bitter herbs, a parsnip (to represent the shankbone), wine, grape juice, and horseradish (which was hard to find without knowing its name in German!) I already had some apples, nuts, and dates for the kharoyses, a little bit of oat matse I had brought with me from home, and some eggs to hard boil. Then I got stuff for a meal -- salad and fish. I was home at the apartment by 6, and had the eggs on the stove by 6:05. I had an entire seder plate and meal prepared by 6:45, when I realized we should have some potatoes. So I went back out, bought some potatoes, and got them going too. Long story short, as I made this seder appear out of thin air, I realized, I know how to do this. It all came as second nature, and in Germany no less. I didn't have a hagode, but I figured we could tell the story ourselves. I just wasn't worried about it.

When Janina arrived, she brought the perfect additions: a box of matse, some cinnamon and ginger (that made the kharoyses taste much better, parsley (we replaced the spinach I had used, more juice, and an entire smoked chicken. Also, she brought two Yiddish hagodes. There's much to say about all this that I would write if I had more time (and I might go in and revise this post later, so check back if you're interested) but for me the most significant part was that I knew so well how to make this happen, and as I stood alone in Christian's kitchen grating apples and chopping nuts, I felt connected to Jews worldwide, and grateful for the chance to be connected in that way. And then we sat together at our little table, me and two gentiles who love Jewish culture, and we created our own awkward, impromptu Yiddish, English, sort of musical, sort of political seder. Omeyn.

I spent a day in Germany

Never Done: Spent a day in Germany

And there are just so many ways I could break that down more specifically:

Never got off a plane, stood in line for passport control, and saw a good friend (David Krakauer) through the glass, standing in line for security. (We didn't get to talk, but we did get to pantomime.)

Never took the S-Bahn. Never took the U-Bahn.

Never tried to explain to German people that while I don't speak German, I do speak Yiddish, and maybe we could figure out together how to communicate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When it works, I think the real communication comes not so much in getting the words right, but in the delight we all have in trying so hard. I have already started to modify some of my Yiddish vowels to German ones, and it's making a difference. While it might be a difference in actual comprehension, I think it's at least equally important that they can tell I am trying. I've never been in this position before -- all my life, wherever I have traveled, I have been in the uncomplicated position of knowing that it is respectful (and for me, linguistically interesting) to do my best to speak the language of the place. That I move to meet them, and not expect them to move to meet me. This time it's got a twist. If I only knew English, I would feel the same. That it's Yiddish that I know adds a layer of complexity, because when I have the thought that it's important and respectful that I start to bend my vowels and reach for words that I have picked up in German instead of Yiddish, I have this nagging thought in the back of my head, "Do I really have to bend my Yiddish to make it easier for the Germans? Or could the Germans perhaps bend a little to understand my Yiddish?" I realize that when I have these thoughts, I'm in some territory that transcends me and the person I'm speaking with, and that it doesn't really make sense to resolve a grievance between Yiddish and German when I am trying to figure out how to say "oatmeal" (Is it what horses eat? Yes!) but I would be lying if I said it didn't creep in there anyhow.

Was never in Berlin.

After being friends for twenty years, never before traveled with Kathleen.

Never missed my mom's yortsayt. (You can't light a candle on a plane! I ended up lighting the candle 24 hours later.)

Never walked past a street book vendor in Berlin and saw a book with a swastika on it. (I just kept going, because we were on our way to our first meeting.)

Never sat in a cafe with Kathleen and a filmmaker who has made two films about the Red Army Faction, and listened to them talk with each other, each from their own unique perspective. I know this is the heart of the trip, but it's also not mine to write about publicly, so I'm telling you now that I'll be pretty fingers-off-the-keyboard on this topic.

Never (literally) fell asleep standing up. It turns out that we don't have internet in the apartment where we are staying, and so Kathleen and I went looking for some alternate modes of communication -- in particular, a SIM card for Kathleen's phone. But by the time we found a place that had one, I was nodding off at the counter, my knees buckling and jerking me awake. I think I maybe had one hour of interrupted sleep on the plane the night before, and we hadn't had time to rest before going back out to our first meeting, so I was running on fumes.

Never went into a German department store (where K got the 100% cotton socks she'd been dreaming of getting since the last time she visited Germany.)

Never been so happy to finally fall asleep lying down, under a poster of Charlie Chaplain, in Christian Dawid's beautiful new apartment, in PrenzlauerBerg, in the former East Germany.

ChiRunning

Never Done: I was introduced to ChiRunning

I had a late night phone date with Kathleen to talk about our upcoming trip to Berlin (whoa, in just over 2 weeks.) For those of you who do not know, we are going to Berlin as part of Kathleen's journey to build relationships with people who were directly involved with the murder of her brother, Eddie Pimental, in 1985. He was murdered by members of the Red Army Faction, a leftist, anti-imperialist organization in Germany, when he was 20 years old. Kathleen wants to meet the people connected to his murder in friendship, and learn more about how her brother's death has affected them. She is doing this because, in her words, whenever people connect after acts of violence, we inch closer to a more peaceful world.

We went over a list of all the stuff she still needs to do before leaving and what I can do to support her (my job is to support her) and who we will be meeting with and who we still need to try to get meetings with and how to speak better German in two weeks and what kind of cultural stuff to do while there and what to do for peysakh since we'll be there on the first and second seders and whether it's OK to wear jeans or if I should bring slacks also just a lot about what she's trying to accomplish, and who might be able to help her accomplish it. For me, it's all a ginourmous learning curve. I write down every name Kathleen says, and try to remember if I've already heard that name, and if so, if I can remember who that person is. I don't actually know German, so I don't always spell the names correctly, and so when I go to look them up, I get to de-code the language and culture. I am trying not to worry about all the stuff I don't know, and to just stay steady about why Kathleen asked me to do this: I've known her for 20 years now; I've seen her through huge transitions in that time; and I believe in her.

More than anyone I know, Kathleen sets goals for herself and then sets out to accomplish them. She is diligent and patient and focused and realistic and hard working and (are there maybe a few more mides (middot) she embodies?) humble, calm, and honest. What it comes down to, is that Kathleen is not a drama queen. And to demonstrate it, last night, after we had spoken about everything we could think of, she asked me, "What will you need on this trip?" What a lovely question to ask of the person who is going there to support her! I told her I could really only think of three things. 1) enough sleep, 2) time to blog, and 3) time to train for the triathlon as much as possible. And that's when she told me that she's started running, and that she's been learning something called ChiRunning -- a running technique specifically geared to reducing and preventing injury, and to "transform injuries into wisdom." I love that! I want to transform my injuries into wisdom!

So after we got off the phone, I went to the ChiRunning website, and started to poke around. I was intrigued right away that they don't recommend lifting your knees up high when running, which is the first thing I learned from my new running coach, and which felt horrible on my messed-up knee. But most of all, I was intrigued that the technique comes from a place of gravity and core strength, and I had such a strong sense that it's going to be useful to me that I ordered the book and DVD. Who would have ever thought that when I said "yes" to Kathleen's invitation to go to Berlin that it would bring me to a new running technique? We really never know where life is going to take us.