08 Apr 2012 8 Comments
in Family, Food, Holiday, Traditions Tags: Passover, seder
My husband and I set the table this afternoon for our second night Seder. When we finished I realized that we were both wearing our bathing suits. He was still in his board shorts from his morning surf session and I had just returned from the neighborhood pool after swimming some laps. “Now that is being Jewish in Hawaii I thought.”
Chag Sameach to all with aloha from our Seder table to yours.
24 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Food, Hawaii, Holiday, Traditions Tags: Chinese New Year, Gau, Kung Hee Fat Choy
I can’t resist a new year’s celebration. Today is the celebration of Chinese New Year, the year of the Yang Water Dragon. I don’t know a whole lot about it and the explanations that I read online are way too complicated to relate here. I encourage you to check it out.
I do know that I am a tiger. I also know that everybody is eating Gau today so I am too. I think that is a good start. I’m pretty sure that’s how my kids’ classmates feel when I show up to their classes and bring apples and honey for the Jewish New Year! It takes a while to understand.
Kung Hee Fat Choy
19 Jan 2012 Leave a comment
in Family, Hawaii, Rites of Passage, Traditions Tags: GI Generation, Leonard Goldstein, Omaha, Silent Generation
Since I did not grow up in Hawaii, my family and childhood friends live very away. Same for my husband. I am enamored of the idea of a lot of extended family living nearby: cousins to play with our kids, Aunties to pick them up from soccer practice, critical mass at the Seder table.
It would be wonderful if we lived near high school classmates and all our kids were in and out of each others’ backyards playing football and tag.
But it’s not like that. We only visit a few times a year and then we return to Kapolei. We have made Hawaii our home.
We’ve done okay when it comes to forging relationships that feel like family, making friends at work and at the kids’ schools, joining the local Jewish and Kapolei communities. We have an arsenal of reliable babysitters to watch, drive and even tutor our kids. We do alright having lived so far away from our original home towns for several decades.
What’s most uncomfortable living on an island in the middle of the Pacific is when a family member on the mainland is seriously ill or dies. When somebody gets sick I feel helpless that I cannot offer a hand or perform the mitzvah of bikur cholim, visiting the sick. The best I can do is say a blessing for good health, misheberach, and keep that person in my thoughts and prayers.
If somebody dies it is even harder. Not only is it difficult to travel at the last minute for a funeral, the fact that Jewish tradition demands the funeral be held so quickly makes it almost impossible. How can I get that far so fast? In contrast I’ve noticed that the Samoan culture holds the ceremony much later. They wait so family can arrive from far away. I’m not sure which I prefer.
When my Uncle Buddy passed away on January 6, I did not travel from Honolulu to Omaha for the memorial service and burial. I felt very sad when I learned that he was so sick and felt distraught when he died.
When I was discussing with my sister why I felt so particularly sad, she mentioned that it is partly becauses it is the passing of a generation. My friend Toby and David said, “We are the older ones now.”
I also think that these men like my uncle and my father were a humble generation of people who made great contributions. They were the children of immigrants who came to the U.S. to make a better life. They did. They were the first generation in our families to go to college. They had successful careers and raised wonderful families. They lived the American Dream in a meaningful way. I’m not sure if they are called the Great Generation, The Silent Generation or the GI Generation, but I kind of think they were all three.
I am sharing these links so that you can read recent articles about my Uncle Buddy, Leonard Goldstein, and his great contributions to the Omaha community, the Russian Jewish community and our family.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/omaha/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=155362875
http://www.jewishomaha.org/page.aspx?id=148828
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120108/NEWS01/701089935#.Twn8aUKalts.facebook
31 Dec 2011 6 Comments
in Family, Hawaii, Holiday, Traditions Tags: Aiea Loop Trail, Chanukkah, Forty Niner Restaurant, H3, Hanukkah, saimin, Tetsuro Harano Tunnel
When my husband suggested that we get married on my birthday I wasn’t sure why he thought it was a good idea. He joked that it was so he wouldn’t forget our anniversary, but even at that time I knew him well enough to know that it was not the case. I told him that as long as he did not forget my birthday, I was willing to go for it.
I still don’t know why he chose that date, but I’m not sorry. It was a great idea. I married him on my 45th birthday and it is the best present I ever got. 2011 marked our fourth wedding anniversary, among other things.
I was born on December 26. This year, not only did we celebrate what we have come to call our Birthaversary, but we added in the 7th night of Chanukkah, making it a Birthaversariakkah.
There are two very special days on the calendar when I get to choose the family activity without absolutely no input from, or consideration of, anybody else: Mother’s Day and my Birthday. Considering my usual Jewish Mother’s consideration of each family member in almost everything I do, I embrace these opportunities with abandon and glee and almost always choose a day at the beach or a hike. Luckily my family likes these activities too.
For this Birthaversariakkah I chose a hike. We went to Aiea Loop Trail where my husband proposed 5 years ago. This time we did the entire loop. Now I know why we usually turn around.
It took almost four hours to plod up and down the ridge, across the gulch and slosh through the 5 miles of muddy trail. But it offers beautiful views of Pearl Harbor and the Tetsuo Harano tunnel on H3, the usual benefits of the great outdoors and nice memories of the day he stopped us at the side of the path and, with a rainbow in the background, asked me to marry him. We took a picture at the spot.
Once again, it was the perfect hike and the perfect day. The kids behaved particularly well, often running ahead and leaving us to enjoy each others’ company, appreciate some peace and quiet and sneak in an affectionate smooch here and there. We took some great photos. And between husband and teenager, I made it through the extra slippery parts without falling.
We ended the day eating saimin at Forty Niner’s, another family favorite, and lit the candles at home that night.
Thank you for a very Happy Birthaversariakkah handsome Husband and loving family. It was a wonderful celebration.
25 Dec 2011 11 Comments
in Family, Food, Hawaii, Holiday, Traditions Tags: Chanukkah, chocolate dreidles, chopped liver, Hanukkah, Holidays, Lanakila Pacific Meals on Wheels, schmaltz, Tamura Super Market
Everybody gets to celebrate today. Hallelujah!
My family is spending this Christmas morning delivering holiday meals for Lanakila Pacific’s Meals on Wheels program. Our Synagogue organizes an annual group of volunteers and we joined the team three years ago. We have made it a family tradition ever since.
And tonight we will celebrate the sixth night of Chanukkah with a holiday meal shared among friends at our home. I got up early to make chocolate fudge dreidles with the mold we got as a gift from my younger sister, boo. We’ll make brownies later with the other molds she sent. Of course we will make latkes too.
Whenever I cook for the Jewish holidays it makes me think of my mom, especially when I make chopped liver. It was her specialty. She used a hand grinder to combine the liver and eggs and onions. When food processors debuted she continued to grind it by hand, insisting that the new contraption made the liver to mushy. She put it in a circle mold and served it with mini pieces of rye bread. My dad loved it.
My mom made chopped liver for every holiday and I always helped her. Using a special meat grinder attachment to her Betty Crocker mixer, she would grind the liver and the eggs and the onions separately and mix them all together for the perfect blend and consistency. I remember one year she had me separate the egg yolks from the whites and we ground those separately so that when we combined it all together it wouldn’t be too “Yolky.”
I started making it about ten years ago for celebrations at our home in Hawaii. It connected us to her, living so far away, as she shared her recipe and techniques. It evoked vivid memories of childhood that I could share with my daughter. And now it brings wonderful memories of my mom (may she rest in peace) and makes me miss her very much.
The first time I made it, she sent me a meat grinder she used post Betty Crocker mixer. I still use it every year. I’m willing to use a food processor for the potatoes for the latkes, but in honor of Gloria, not for the liver.
The biggest obstacles have been the shmaltz (chicken fat) and the liver. You can’t buy shmaltz in Hawaii. One year she came to visit around Chanukkah time and brought a small cooler on the plane with a jar of schmaltz just for me. Talk about the love of a Jewish Mother!
Since then, I have alternately made my own or just used Crisco.
My mom always swore that calf’s liver was the best choice for chopped liver. I have looked island wide for years, never found any and had to let chicken livers suffice. I ordered them fresh from Tamura Super Market in Wai’anae and they turned out just fine. This year I found calf liver in the commissary. Oh Happy Day.
On this Christmas day, I will grind the liver and eggs and onions as my mother has done before me. We will fry latkes as Jews around the world have done for ages. We will start a new tradition of making chocolate dreidles for dessert.
And on this sixth night of Chanukkah, we will embrace our holiday traditions as we light the candles, say the blessings, share a meal and honor all of the miracles that people celebrate this season.
24 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in Family, Holiday, Traditions Tags: Aloha Jewish Chapel, Camp Erdman, Chanukkah, Family, Hanukkah, Holiday, Kapolei, latkes, North Shore, rainbow, Turtle Bay Resort
We tell our kids all the time, “Chanukkah is not a major holiday in the Jewish tradition. It’s only a festival.” It is a wonderful celebration of bravery and miracles and light, but it has nothing to do with presents. Americans added on that part because of Christmas.
Then we spend 8 nights lighting candles, playing dreidle, eating more than our share of fried food and giving them too many presents. I can’t help it. I love picking out presents for them.
This year we ended up sort of practicing what we preach. We were not together as a family for the first few nights. We have celebrated from different shores. We haven’t given them any presents…. yet.
Not only is this the holiday season, but it is also our wedding anniversary and my birthday. Yes, we got married on my birthday, December 26.
When Chanukkah falls during the later part of December, all of these celebrations converge. My husband and I like to celebrate what we call our “Birthaversary” each year by getting away alone together for a few days. Since we were expecting his mother to arrive next week, we celebrated early, thus missing the first few nights of Chanukkah with our daughters.
The younger girl has spent 5 glorious days at Camp Erdman in Mokuleia. We packed her and some dreidles and some chocolate coins and dropped her off last Sunday. Our teenager stayed with her grandmother on the West Side enjoying family and going back and forth to wrestling practice in Kapalama.
Husband and I packed our own bags, plus an extra one filled with snacks and drinks and hit the road for the North Shore of Oahu to our favorite getaway destination, Turtle Bay Resort.
It has become a tradition for us to celebrate together in this beautiful vacation spot. Before we were married, he was deployed in Iraq from 2004-2006. He came to Hawaii to spend a week of his R & R leave with me at this very place. We have come back every year since that romantic week in 2005.
It was just as romantic this year. What I love about the Turtle Bay Resort is that it really feels like being away on an outer island without the hassle or expense of getting on a plane or renting a car.
We only spent a few days on the North Shore, but it was enough to relax, disconnect from the demands of daily life and reconnect with each other. I consider that a great way to celebrate a holiday and a minor miracle in and of itself.
We enjoyed the secluded beaches to the North of the resort, walking for a few miles along the coastline, dipping our feet in the water, picking up sea glass and coral and embracing the sun and salt air.
Wednesday morning greeted us with a double rainbow right outside our hotel room window. Talk about a blessing.
Add to that some time for my husband to surf in the challenging waves that side of the island has to offer, while I embraced a relaxing moment in the jaccuzzi, then topping it all off with a dazzling and romantic sunset moment, I have to say that it made for a wonderful holiday celebration.
We returned to Kapolei relaxed and refreshed and began to gather our children back at home for a family Chanukkah weekend (and a few presents.)
Tonight we will join some of the local Jewish community at Pearl Harbor’s Aloha Jewish Chapel for Erev Shabbat and Chanukkah services, latkes and song. Others will celebrate at Honolulu’s Temple Emanu-El, but we can’t be at two places at once tonight.
Chag Sameach to you and your family and may it’s light and miracles brighten each of our lives on this 4th night of Chanukkah.
15 Oct 2011 9 Comments
in Family, Holiday, Parenting, Traditions Tags: culture, eBay, Hawaii, High Holy Days, Holidays, Jewish, reflections, religion, spirituality, tradition, yahrzeit candles, Yamim Noraim, yizkor, Yom Kippur
I must apologize to my parents. I am sorry, Mom and Dad. I forgot to light the yarzheit candles in your memory on Yom Kippur.
It wasn’t until the Yizkor service that I realized my mistake.
I love the moment when we are sitting in the Sanctuary, the late afternoon sun is streaming through the stained glass windows casting a golden glow over the congregation and representatives from the Sisterhood stand at each of the memorial boards and turn on all of the lights on the memorial plaques.
I know this is a memorial service for those who have passed away and it is traditionally very solemn, but something about the moment makes me feel more joyous than sad.
There is something comforting about all of those people and all of their lights and all of their lives lighting up together for us to feel and remember them all. It is not like the lonely one or two lights that shine during services at each Shabbat, commemorating the individual Yahrzeits.
It is collective and powerful and fills me.
Somehow I imagine that it has a similar effect on those whose memories are being honored as well. They might feel a little less lonely since they are being remembered in a crowd. Lighting up together, connecting through our collective memories.
So that’s when I remembered that I forgot to light the candles at home and I was sad. It gives me similar solace to see the light of my parents’ memories dancing together on our kitchen counter for a full 24 hours and I missed it.
I light a single candle on the anniversary of each of their deaths, but it feels a bit more lonely and a reminder of our loss.
The funny thing is that I planned ahead. If you call shopping on eBay planning ahead. I ordered yarzheit candles and special holders from Israel. I purchased them months in advance in anticipation of this moment.
And then I forgot.
My family suggested that I could still do it when we got home, but it did not feel right. The flame would seem false. In reality, the service would be enough.
I am pretty sure that it bothers me more than it would my parents. They were of a generally forgiving nature in life. I can’t imagine it would be any different now.
I will remember next year. I will remember them and the others and the candles.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of the Yamim Noraim, my apologies. I will try again in 5773.
28 Sep 2011 6 Comments
in Holiday, Traditions Tags: 5772, camp boo, High Holy Days, Holidays, Jewish holidays, new year's resolutions, Rosh Hashanah
When we go to visit my youngest sister at “camp boo” in the summer, we enjoy one of their many traditions of “Highs and Lows.” It is a simple one.
At dinner we go around the table and share the high moment and low moment of the day. Sometimes there are as many as 13 guests around the dinner table, so there’s a lot of sharing going on.
When I try to do this sharing thing around my small family table at home, I usually get groans and reluctant participation. They don’t enjoy it as much as I or the campers at my sister’s table do.
I love this kind of stuff. It could probably be said that I am one of those people who is always trying to appreciate the meaning in the moment.
I also like to make New Year’s resolutions. I do it every year. The cool thing about being Jewish is that we celebrate the Jewish New Year in the fall and then there’s another one in January. I know that Chinese New Year is also an option, but I have not gone there yet.
One of my many resolutions last January was to start using the calendar on my computer. I have been very successful at this, adding a smart phone to the mix and syncing the two. I have even gone so far as to find a way to update my husband’s electronic calendar with our family schedule.
For Rosh Hashanah I usually take a more spiritual approach. But I make resolutions nonetheless.
So instead of torturing my family this year, I have decided to turn to you and ask: What is your New Year’s resolution for 5772?
Perhaps you will be more like the campers at “camp boo.”
02 May 2011 1 Comment
in Holiday, Rites of Passage, Traditions Tags: hula, Island Pacific Academy, lehua flower, May Day
I am ashamed to admit that when I drove up to the Island Pacific Academy parking lot to pick up my older daughter, who was helping set up for the May Day festivities to be held the next day and I saw how hard they were all working to make a stage and a seating area and decorate with palm leaves and plumeria flowers, I wondered to myself, “Is it worth it?”
I knew right away that I was just feeling guilty that I wasn’t out there sweating with the best of them and that the next day would turn all of their labor into a blessing for my family and the entire IPA community at the 4th Annual May Day Celebration, Na Mo’olelo Hawai’i, The Legends of Hawaii.
Of course it was a blessing. Legendary. And a beautiful story they told.
My Jewish Hawaiian Princess joined the court, representing the island of Hawaii. Both of my girls danced. Our princess wore a hand-made lehua lei that her grandmother ordered from her brother in Hilo.
And the school came together under the clear, sunny sky, in our growing city of Kapolei, to revel in this May Day tradition of hula and song.
Even more remarkable is that the students danced to live music provided by June and Makana Kuahiwinui, Les Harris, Charlie Fukuba, and Madi Davis. IPA music teacher Ruthe Babas sang as well.
Their music was so perfect and their voices so beautiful that I had to look several times to make sure it was not a recording. IPA Teacher Veronique Braithewaite was missed due to her maternity leave, but they honored her with a big photo at the microphone.
I felt a bit emotional thinking that this will be my older daughter’s last May Day with IPA. She will enter ninth grade at Kamehameha Schools next year. I tearfully remembered all of the care from Miss Momi and Mrs. Babas and then felt a little silly. We are not leaving IPA. Our younger girl will be there next year. Our blessings will grow with two programs to attend.
It still tugged on my heart-strings, this rite of passage.
Kol Hakavod and Mahalo Nui Loa to Miss Momi and Mrs. Babas and all of the dedicated students and parents who came together to make this wonderful celebration a part of IPA’s history. Na Mo’olelo IPA.
21 Mar 2011 2 Comments
in Holiday, Traditions Tags: dunk tank, hamantashen, Purim Carnival, School of Jewish Studies, Temple Emanu-El
Blue skies, sunshine and 77 degree weather were the backdrop of Honolulu Temple Emanu-El’s School of Jewish Studies Purim carnival that was sponsored by the “Parent Hui” today.
We had a blast. While some mainland shul’s make this occasion a major fundraiser or perhaps a signature event similar to the Punahou Carnival, ours is what might be described as a bit more heymisha. But no less enjoyed.
The dunk tank was a big hit, especially when the Rabbi was the featured dunkee. The kids lined up for a chance to watch him plunge into the water and climb back out for another round.
Visiting Cantor Karen Gilat led the children in song, families dressed up, the bake sale featured hamantashen and the youth group sold hot dogs.
Shalach manot from my friend Nancy brightened my day.
Most of all, the great feelings of coming together as parents to make sure our kids have good Purim memories and a community celebrating a holiday that represents victory and deliverance is a darn good reason to get my blogging groove back in gear.
Being Jewish in Hawaii 