Chanukah in Berlin

Today Thing1 had a party at school.

Although school is, to me, a black hole because she never speaks of what occurs there, this time I had guessed that there would be dancing because she has been dancing around the apartment for over a week. It was really sweet: the three different groups danced and sang. One section was water pitchers, another was candles and danced with flashlights, and Thing1 got her dreidal filled with cookies (which she kept and ate!) and I was given her Hanukiah (called a menorah, incorrectly, in the US), which she made herself!

While I was chatting with her teacher, S, Thing1 disappeared and when I tracked her down, she was playing with Thing2. N, 2's teacher, says that she frequently stops in to play with her and that it makes 2 very happy. I am so glad that they can be together like this. I took heaps of pictures (even a small movie on my camera!), so I hope that I will be able to get one on here before I send this off.

My friend J asked if there were differences between Chanukah here and at home. The major difference is that Chanukah is really a private thing here, that the Jewish community is really tightly knit, because it is as if Jews don’t exist. In a nice way, I guess. It’s just that not a single store has a Chanukah card, or wrap, or books, or info. That the only place to find anything relating to Judaism is in a Judaica store, at an extremely high price. Which I also find really annoying because there is just no reason for things to be priced so high as we are so close to Israel here. I went to the Chanukah bazaar at the Community Center, but it was disappointing. Also very expensive and not much Judaica- a startlingly large amount of ordinary stuff and the interesting looking book display was all in Geman, of course, and my reading comprehension, although better than my hearing and speaking, does not run to “real” books.