Yom Kippur in an Unlikely Place...

...is the title of this piece that I wrote for Temple Beth El in Stamford, and for the Buffalo Jewish Review, and for anything else that will publish it I guess (so bear that in mind--it's written for a particular kind of audience) Also, it's long. And when I pasted it in this box from MSWord, all the tabs for new paragraphs disappeared, and for some reason they won't re-tab now. Sorry.


“Khamasa Gate, Yehudi church,” I told the auto rickshaw driver. “Yehudi chuch.” He hadn’t responded when I said “Jewish temple,” or “Yehudi temple,” or even “Yehudi mandayr,” which means “Jewish temple” in Hindi.
“Ahh,” he said as recognition finally showed on his face. “Yehudi church! Khamasa, Khamasa. OK.”
I was trying to get to the only synagogue within several hundred miles, a place called Magen Avraham located in Ahmedabad, the largest city in Gujarat state, India.
It was Saturday, September 22nd, Yom Kippur. A week or so previous, I had found the congregation’s website, and scribbled down the name and address. The two other American Jewish World Service (AJWS) volunteers placed in Gujarat—though not near me—said they would meet me at the shul.
I was excited to participate in a Yom Kippur service—something familiar in such an unfamiliar place—but I didn’t know quite what to expect. Would the congregation be primarily foreign ex-pats, or a local community? I hadn’t had time to explore the website, so I had no idea.
The auto rickshaw pulled onto a bustling commercial street, full of Hindus and Muslims doing their normal daily business, and there—two buildings down on the left, between an apartment building and a snack stall, around the corner from a mosque—was Magen Avraham. I paid the driver 20 rupees (about fifty cents), stepped onto the street, and put on my kippah.
The synagogue had no watchman or greeter, so I just walked up the steps and looked through the sanctuary’s wide-open doors. A few dozen men were standing barefoot on white sheets covering the marble floor, their sandals piled haphazardly outside. They were dressed entirely in white, some in western-style shirts and pants, others wearing the Indian kurta—a long top that comes down close to the knees—but all of whom looked to be Indian.
After slipping off my sandals, I walked inside. It was a Sephardic-style shul; the bimah was towards the middle of the sanctuary, and there was a mechitzah separation, with the women’s section on a kind of balcony on the second floor. The women above also wore only white, though most of them either wore the elegant, flowing salwar kameez—a loose blouse and slacks set with matching scarf—or the more formal sari, midriff exposed as is standard with nearly all saris.
A few other things distinguished the synagogue. Two plaques engraved with the 10 Commandments were set above the arc, Hebrew on the right plaque and Hindi on the left. The sound of passing traffic and the market outside came through the open doors and windows, and—though initially off-putting—eventually seemed to blend in with it all. And, oddly, blinking Christmas lights were set along the bimah, completing the sometimes bizarre contrast between old and new that exists all over India.
Seeing me struggle to find my place in the relatively new Sephardic siddur, a man of about fifty came over to help. In decent but heavily accented English, he introduced himself as the vice-president of the synagogue, asked me where I was from, and then smiled and returned to where he’d been standing.
The melodies were unfamiliar to me, but I followed along in the Hebrew. After twenty minutes or so, another man walked over, introducing himself in perfect, American-accented English. I thought I’d found another foreigner, and shook his hand happily.
He said his name was Jacob, and asked me where I was from. I told him Buffalo, New York. “Oh,” he said, “the States! Great. And what are you doing in Ahmedabad? Traveling?”
I told him I was a volunteer through the American Jewish World Service’s World Partners Fellowship program, and that I would be working for about nine months at a vocational training center for Dalits (a low caste that suffers terrible discrimination), about 30 kilometers south of Ahmedabad.
I asked him where he was from. “Well, I’m from Ahmedabad,” he said, smiling. “I’m Indian, of course! As is everyone else in this synagogue.”
The quality of his accent surprised me, and I told him so.
“It’s my job,” he said, shrugging. “I teach American English to call center workers in Ahmedabad. The accent is just a gift I have.” He told me that Ahmedabad opened its first call center in 2000, and now employed some 15,000 people in the field. This kind of work brings in crucial white-collar jobs and capital to a very poor, developing area that desperately needs it.
“So,” Jacob said, shifting the conversation back to the service, “Do you have a white handkerchief?”
I told him I didn’t, but that I’d happened to bring a blue one. Jacob told me that everyone would soon spread out a white handkerchief onto the floor, and—fully prostrate—bow several times.
“Just follow what everyone else does,” he told me. “I’m not too religious myself, but it’s nice to do the ritual.”
So, about five minute later, I spread out my handkerchief and—mimicking those around me—got on my knees and bowed towards the arc. I’m sure I stood out as the only person using a non-white handkerchief, but no one else commented on it.
I was glad when the other AJWS volunteers, Adam and Anna, arrived during a break in the service. Before the next batch of prayers started, we took a short walk around the neighborhood. Both Hindus and Muslims seeing us come out of the synagogue were very friendly, shaking our hands, asking us where we were from and becoming excited when they heard the word “America”.
A parade honoring Ganesha—the Hindu god with the head of an elephant—passed on a nearby street. Aaron remarked that India is probably the only place in the world where you can go to a synagogue around the corner from a mosque and watch as a parade to Ganesha tramps past.
Back in the shul, I spent a few minutes talking with two of the older members of the synagogue. One told me that there are only about 65 Jewish families left in Gujarat, down from a population of some thousands only fifty years ago. Nearly everyone, he informed me, has emigrated to Israel or America, including his daughter.
“Matchmaking is a problem,” he said. “We get girls from Bombay, where there are more Jews.” Young Jews in this part of the world apparently do as the locals do, and rely on their parents to arrange suitable marriages.
After sundown the shofar was blown, though the 90-degree heat had apparently taken its toll on the blower, and he had some trouble getting a clear sound. As per local tradition, fresh-squeezed grape juice was then given out to everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed mine, though the heat had forced me to break my fast earlier in the afternoon.
Magen Avraham is surely different in many ways from my own synagogue back home, but despite these differences—or maybe because of them—I’ll definitely be heading back to Ahmedabad’s “Yehudi church” sometime soon.