After a wonderful (and far too short) break from Israel over Pesach with Kara and Beruria in White Plains, Toby and I are on the road once again.
We left New York late in the afternoon the day after aharon shel Pesach...and to my astonishment found ourselves on a particularly Israeli exodus from galut (exile). A good half of the seats on the Austrian Air flight to Vienna must have been occupied by Israelis returning from the Pesach holidays back to the grind (including one astonishingly obtuse family of haredi American olim hadashim -- new immigrants, for my non-Hebrew readers -- en route directly to Ramat Beyt Shemesh with what seemed to be half the material property of Monsey in their checked luggage...I finally know how Joseph Roth must have felt at times).
At any rate, Toby and I were among the few Members of the Tribe (tm) on the flight to actually proceed through passport control rather than on to the connection to Tel Aviv. And we were wiped out. I still don't know how Toby held it together. Neither of us slept a wink on the uncomfortable 777, although we did enjoy watching movies together in our shared insomnia. Determined to do this trip on the cheap, upon arriving we headed to the CAT -- the Vienna public train service that runs from the airport to the center of the city and connects to the U-bahn (subway) system rather than take a cab, and Toby was right there with me, not just awake but shlepping his own weight in wheeled luggage. We arrived in Wien Mitte, to find that we had to actually go OUT of the CAT station to enter the U-bahn station a block away. Why the f*%k can't urban planning commissions connect pubic transportation properly?
Compounding the difficulties of our trip was the fact that I, in all my preparations, failed to actually print out a map of the way from the U-bahn station to our apartment's offices. Easy enough, I thought, I'll just get us to Leopoldstadt (the central neighborhood of Vienna's 2nd District) and ask someone where the street, Nickelgasse, was located. Great plan, except for the fact that Nickelgasse seems to be the Viennese equivalent of Platform 9 3/4 in Harry Potter. No one I asked (and I asked about five people) had heard of it. Right, I decided, we'd just wander around Leopoldstadt until we found it...which, miraculously, we did. It is a tiny alley connecting two of the larger streets of the neighborhood -- thus the ignorance of the majority of the population of Vienna on its whereabouts.
We had arrived in Leopoldstadt. Now for the uninitiated, Leopoldstadt is an extremely important place for my work. It is the historical center of the Jewish community of Vienna. After the mid-19th century, when the tiny Viennese Jewish community (which had been located around the more famous Judenplatz in the First District, home then and now of the "old" Seitenstettengasse synagogue, a building designed as part of a general neighborhood construction by Josef Kornhaeusel in 1826) exploded due to liberalized immigration laws, the center of the Jewish world of Vienna -- and it was considerable -- moved across the Donaukanal to Leopoldstadt. Before that, the district had been most famous as the home of the Augarten, a Baroque "Lustgarten" (Pleasure Garden -- that is, contrary to its erotic-sounding name, simply a large Baroque garden for the enjoyment of Vienna's upper crust) built in the 17th century, it now became Central Europe's answer to the Lower East Side.
I can't describe the feeling being here. It is bizarre for a historian of Austro-Hungarian Jewish history with a shockingly little amount of time spent in Vienna to suddenly find himself in the center of the world about which he had been writing for the last decade. We have a little two room apartment (very nice, actually) just down the street from a corner dedicated to Theodor Herzl. A block away is Grosse Schiffgasse, the street where Nathan Birnbaum and his cohort launched Kadimah and from which he published Selbst-Emancipation. He lived here for much of his life in penury, probably in a building with a courtyard not unlike the one I step out into every day and probably of a comparable size -- albeit with a wife and three sons.
Toby and I attended services on erev Shabbat at the Seittenstettengasse synagogue. I had been concerned about getting in, as the shul is known for its tight (and Israeli-sponsored) security. So Toby and I went to the offices on Friday morning, and spoke only Hebrew to the guard. This seemed to work well. I felt like I hadn't left Jerusalem. He took our passports, checked them, and told us "Ein bayah. Mitpalelim b'erev shabat b'sheva, u'v'boker b'tesha" ("No problem. Services on erev shabbat are at 7, and in the morning at 9"). He told us he'd be there, and he'd remember us. He was as good as his word.
The shul was fascinating. Like stepping back in time to about 1935, including a hazan in the same style canonical garments as those worn by Solomon Sulzer, and a full male choir. The only difference was, I imagine, a much smaller crowd (it compared with the group at the Altneushul in Prague when Toby and I where there in December). The interior of the shul was wonderful, just like the pictures I've seen, although a bit smaller. The Rav gave a nice little d'var Torah, replete with reference to the Royal Wedding that had occurred that morning.
After that, Kabbalat Shabbat with the same tunes that Sulzer had written 150 years ago (I know this, as I have seen the score and photographed it -- from the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem). They did throw in a Carlebach tune now and then (much to my annoyance), but in general the whole shebang was the real deal. And it did sound sublime. Of course, it would be very hard for me to listen to this every week...I've grown quite accustomed, it seems, to the Israeli down-and-dirty approach to tefillah.
We had intended to return for the morning davening, but I had made the decision when we went to bed that it was time to get a good night's sleep, come what may, and I wasn't going to wake us up for anything, just rise when the feeling hit us. It didn't hit us until 11 am, as it would turn out, long after time to make it to shul. Oops. Ah well, I had really gotten what I'd come for as far as shul was concerned.
One more note about Leopoldstadt. Remarkably, it is still the home to what remains of a Viennese Jewish community, which breaks down to two groups: haredim and hiloni (secular) Israeli ex-pats. The haredim are hard to miss: they are dyed-in-the-wool Hasidim, judging from the name of their beyt midrash and accompanying bakery, Ohel Moshe, they are Satmar to boot. The Israelis are much more interesting in my opinion. There is an open marketplace nearby, the Karmelitenmarkt, and the biggest outdoor cafe is called "Teva," ("nature" in Hebrew), and is clearly the job-site of choice for Vienna's artsy-boho Israeli expats. Unbuttoned shirts and long hair for the men, tight jeans and flow-y blouses for the women are de-rigour. Once again, I felt like I was sitting in Tel Aviv.
OK, Toby's finally asleep, and it's time for me to sign off. Tomorrow: Baden-bei-Wien where I get to indulge once again in my spa fascination, and hopefully the Secession museum among others.
Shavua tov to my reader(s?).
