Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Yom Kippur in Guadalajara

We just spent Yom Kippur in Guadalajara, the closest place to Zacatecas with a synogogue. M and I came down here with friend Ben, who is visiting us for a few days while on assignment as the Wandering Jew (blogs.jta.org/wanderingjew).
He arranged for us to attend a couple different synagogues in the community. These visits, and subsequent interviews with community members and rabbis, would form the basis for some of the stories that he would be writing about Jews and Jewish things around the world.
The fast went by well enough and Yom Kippur ended with a blast by about 12 shofars, which was cool. We were invited to break our fast at the home of the president of the larger congregation, a woman named Fanny.
We drove over there with her and sat down at a large table with a few other people. The food was...food, and definitely good enough to eat after a lomg 25 hours. By the end, it was us, her husband, her mother, sister and brother-in-law, son, and various cousins.
We were talking about where we were from, what we were doing in Mexico and so on. It came up that I am a Rubenstein and I mentioned that I have family in Mexico City. Fanny's mom asked, "oh? What Rubensteins? Jackie? Annette?"
"Actually, yes!" I exclaimed.
I proceeded to explain that we had met them for the first time over Rosh Hashana.
"Then" she said," we are cousins too!"
Turns out that she's a cousin of the cousins we stayed with, and, yet again, the world grew even smaller.

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