Una fiesta judía en el estilo Sevilliano (A Jewish Holiday, Sevillian Style)

It's worth pointing out to start that "una fiesta judía" literally translates to "a jew party." I guess it makes sense that there would be no good translation of "high holiday," considering there are so few Jews in Spain.

Yesterday I went to the only synagogue in Sevilla for Rosh Hashana. It was a really interesting experience.

The synagogue claimed to be modern orthodox. I met up with a few other kids from the program outside of the synagogue before going in. It was in a residential neighborhood and looked like all the other apartments and houses that lined the street. As it turns out, that's exactly what it was... the downstairs, front room in the Rabbi's house turned into a little synagogue. And I mean little--take the size of my living room and dining room in Michigan, put them together, and that space is probably about equal to the entire synagogue, if not a little bigger.

I should probably take the time to define synagogue, in this case. It was one floor; the women did sit in the back half of the room, but we were divided by a very makeshift fence thing that was moved after the services. There were a few pathetic looking framed biblical pictures and Hebrew art on the walls, and a small, homemade altar that housed the Torah. We sat on folding chairs. At the congregation itself, the majority of people were English speakers. There were a lot of other study abroad students. There were so many English speakers that the service was conducted in English and Hebrew, not in Spanish.

The service itself was really different. It lasted for about 30 minutes. I thought I would still be able to follow along with some of the songs and basic prayers, but they were sung and chanted in ways that were totally foreign to me. Everything was also really fast. The Hebrew also sounded really different when the leaders spoke, because it was Hebrew with a Spanish accent.

It was very informal. Some people were wearing jeans, t-shirts, etc. People kept coming in late and were greeted by everyone around them. It wasn't like in the US when you're late and you sneak in quietly. The relaxed nature of it all surprised me, I think, because I assumed modern Orthodox would mean the same thing it means in the US.

The Rabbi himself is Israeli and speaks Hebrew fluently. I think Spanish is his second language, and then English after that (his English had all sorts of Spanish and Hebrew accents going on. It was very cute). He told us that there are about 30 families who are involved in the synagogue, but about 90 or 95% of them are from Africa (Morocco, etc). He said there are maybe 2 or 3 families that are Spanish Jews. He went on to describe the neighborhoods in Spain that have the most Jews and said that there are about 30,000 Jews in total in all of Spain. The festivities last night was almost entirely tourists and study abroad students like myself; the local members were off with their families (mostly in Málaga, where there's a very large Jewish population, or Africa). For the service itself, there were a few local families (in total there couldn't have been more than 60 people, max, crowded into this little room), but they all cleared out shortly after.

After the service, there was a big buffet meal that was set up where the folding chairs had been. It was really, really nice, although it did take awhile to get set-up and the fact that it was almost all American students (ah, the East Coast Jews unite (and soon find they have many mutual friends) even on the other side of the world) made it feel a little weird, like the Rabbi was putting on a show for us. He gave a little speech, did the blessings, etc (all in English, again). We thought the food that was out was it, so we all took a lot (we were hungry, it was pretty late at this point, and there were a lot of people). Then the Rabbi said that there was more coming. That's when we found out that all the food that had been on the tables was just the first course. There were two more full courses coming. That made me laugh. Turns out the stereotype about Jews and their food is universal.

Overall, I'm glad I went and it was an interesting experience, but it made me sad. You could walk 3 minutes in any direction from the synagogue (or apartment with a room with a Torah) and find an insanely beautiful church to wander in. And then you have the Jewish people, most of which aren't even Spanish anyway, who sit in an apartment trying to worship. I'm not very religious or anything like that, but last night Spanish history hit me personally in a way it hadn't before.