Georgia to South Carolina

October 1

October has arrived. Today we reached South Carolina and are now one state closer to New Jersey. We have 13 more days left to do everything we have left to do and to see everyone we have left to see before we return the camper in New Jersey; and we have 15 more days left before we leave the US on the next flight of our round-the-world ticket. We haven't been on an airplane since the last day of July.

We awoke this morning in Dunwoody, GA and all ate a nice breakfast together, thanks to Uncle Sandy's toaster and coffee maker. By now, Uncle Sandy, albeit with some reluctance, allowed me to show him that I understood how to make myself a cup of coffee with his machine. Razelle and I then dressed for Shabbat, gathered our belongings, packed them into our travel bags and stowed these in the van. We had arranged to arrive at Belle's place in Columbia, SC today at 5:00 PM, so we needed to hit the road right after services.  

This Saturday was Shabbat Tshuvah, the Sabbath that occurs during the days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Congregation Or Hadash assembled at their usual place of worship for these services – not at the nearby Jewish Community Center, but a bit farther away in the Weber Jewish Community High School. Razelle and I arrived early enough to take seats I was happy with. A while later, Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy arrived and, this time, they were pleased with my choice of seats and sat with us.

Today was a bat mitzvah. Both of the rabbis again took turns running the service, and did so in a way that put everyone at ease as they smoothly shared the tasks at hand with each other and with everyone else who had a role in it. The bat mitzvah girl did a great job, and her speech afterwards reflected the quality of the education she had received.

After services, we joined the congregants in the reception hall. During conversations at the table with Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy we learned that this building is a high school connected to the Conservative Movement and that Atlanta's Conservative Jewish community also has an elementary school and a middle school, too. The Reform and the Orthodox movements also have their own respective elementary, middle and high schools. There is a Hillel Organization for Atlanta's many university students; Habad is active in Atlanta; and, as we saw earlier, there are all kinds of study groups, social events, youth programs and summer camps for Atlanta's Jewish community. Razelle and I found all this information to be very impressive.

I wasn't originally sure why Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy chose to live in the Deep South, in Atlanta, but from what Razelle and I saw during our time in this community, especially among the congregants my aunt and uncle chose to join, I can understand now why this community appealed to them. Interestingly, this congregation has only been in existence for eight years. Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy explained that Rabbis Mario and Analia were originally leaders of a different congregation in Atlanta that didn't renew their contracts (their Argentinean accents were too strong then). So they started their own break-away congregation, called it Or Hadash (new light) and a majority of the original congregants followed them. In the short time that Congregation Or Hadash has been in existence it has outgrown one building after another. It now has a property of its own and fund-raising is going so well that construction of its permanent home will soon begin.

After we had eaten and schmoozed, I went looking for Rabbi Mario to introduce myself as a member of Congregation Ashel Avraham in Beer Sheva, Israel. When our own Rabbi Mauricio left Argentina to go to Israel, it was Rabbis Mario and Analia who took over his congregation in Argentina before they, in turn, went to Atlanta. Rabbi Mario remembered me from last December's visit and greeted me warmly. Then I went looking for Rabbi Analia. I found her working with children from the pre-school and elementary school. They were rehearsing the reading of the Book of Jonah, which they would be reading and enacting during Yom Kippur services next Saturday. Kids too small to even be in first grade were reading and chanting the Biblical text perfectly, while their proud parents hovered in the doorway. I was so moved by the sight of this. A new generation of competent Jewish children is coming up, here in Atlanta, here at Or Hadash, under the leadership of these two rabbis, husband and wife. I left the building with a warm feeling about this place.

Before Razelle and I drove off, Aunt Joan and Uncle Sandy, Razelle and I posed for pictures of each other as testimony of our time together. I told my aunt and uncle how very sincerely pleased I was that we had chosen their congregation to be the one we prayed at during Rosh Hashanah as we traveled around the world. Uncle Sandy said he was impressed with how knowledgeable I was. His praise meant a lot to me.

We drove off and soon entered the interstate highway system on the ring-road around Atlanta (I-285) going east. We passed the exit to Stone Mountain we'd taken several days ago and recognized where we were. At the interchange onto I-20 the ramp was closed. We drove two more exits beyond it before we resigned ourselves to being stuck joining all the other cars on the exit ramp making the same back-tracking maneuver. The station wagon creeping up the ramp in front of us was rocking as if some amorous couples were arduously going at it. We saw forms switching seats as if several large restless dogs were going from window to window to look out. We never did figure out what was going on in that car. It went in a different direction at the top of the ramp and left us guessing.

Interstate 20 took us into South Carolina, our 29th state. We took this route all the way to Columbia, SC without any delays. We remarked to each other how funny it is that a drive of five hours doesn't seem like anything out of the ordinary now, after all the distances we've covered in this van. We reached Columbia about half an hour later than scheduled and drove directly to the address I'd programmed into my GPS. When we reached the street with the correct name I noticed that all the homes had three-digit addresses, not four. The demographic was also wrong. Turns out Columbia has two streets with the same name. (Now I understand why people keep giving me their zip codes when they give me their addresses. I never bothered with zip codes before. Live and learn.) I rechecked my notes to find out what I'd done wrong, made a quick call to let Fred and Belle know I was in town and reoriented myself to get to the right address. We saw a bit more of Columbia, SC than we'd planned – the correct address was on the opposite side of town – but we reached our destination.

Fred came out to greet us. It was perhaps an hour before sunset by now, and there was a definite nip of coldness in the air. We hurried indoors to find Irene and Belle waiting inside. I was concerned that our lateness and confusion had make us late for the reception of relatives Belle said she was arranging, but the three of them were all we found waiting for us. Several other relatives from this side of my family live in the area, but none of them could make it.

Belle is 98 years young. Her mind is sharp and her memory of names and relationships of family members covering generations before and after her own is phenomenal. She is a family treasure. Belle has been keeper of the family chronicles for as long as I have been cognizant of such things. Belle is witty, but she also has strong convictions when it comes to the current economic and political issues of the day. Razelle and Belle and Fred debated these issues and all three of them thrived on this repartee.

The five of us piled into Fred's car (Irene, Belle and Razelle in back, Fred and I in front) and we headed to a restaurant. Fred pointed out some of the important landmarks of Columbia we passed along the way. We passed two synagogues. The first was Congregation Beth Shalom, affiliated with the Conservative Movement and running a Jewish Day School. The entrance sign by the road has a menorah on it and clearly states that this is a synagogue. The second was the Tree of Life Congregation, affiliated with the Reform Movement. Fred explained how far back the Jewish community goes and how prominent it was in Columbia's history. I had grown up thinking that Jews in the Deep South had to be weary of discrimination. Fred said that this is definitely the Deep South, but being Jewish here never was a hazardous thing in his experience.

At the restaurant I ordered a lettuce salad. This is a quarter of a head of iceberg lettuce with the dressing of your choice poured over it. I tried to amuse our young waitress by asking her if she knew what a "newlywed salad" is. She didn't. When I told her the punch line, "lettuce alone without dressing," she didn't get it so I found myself explaining it (let us alone without dressing). When she brought it to the table, though, she said with a smile, "Here's your newlywed salad, sir." I think she belatedly got the joke while she was in the kitchen.

Belle's age has not affected her ability to keep up with the rate of conversation at the table; the only problem is that her hearing is not so good and the restaurant was a bit noisy. Once we were back at her place where it was quieter, we talked at length about our trip and our meeting with her sisters in Arizona and about ideas for updating the Serbin Circle genealogy chart. Fred and I were on the same wavelength. I believe that in the electronic age in which we live, family-members-to-come will more likely refer to computer displayed versions of the chart than to a paper version in a frame on the wall. The outer edges of the chart are growing fast enough by now that the print has to be made smaller and smaller to get it all to fit in a picture frame. I proposed some other shapes for wall display, because that is what Belle insists on. I've had the entire journey across the US to think about these ideas, but when I explained them to Belle they didn't appeal to her. I have a .pdf file of the chart in my laptop to refer to when I visit my far-flung relatives. I attached it to an email and sent it to Fred's smart phone. He was thrilled to be able to carry it in his hand-held device and view it whenever he wants, and to be able to forward this file to others who request it. Fred gets my point; Belle doesn't.

During our conversations, Fred and Belle expressed opinions about US aid to Israel and about how Israel uses the aid it receives from charitable organizations. After we'd all called it a night and retired to our bedrooms, but before I fell asleep, I searched the Internet for factual answers to the issues they raised. I will let Fred and Belle know what I found when I see them in the morning.