Jewtinatastic

“It’s not the world’s fault you want to be an artist…now get back to work.” – Werner Herzog

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So…after being a bit sidetracked by my “Et tu Patrick?” moment, I think I’m getting back on the horse, so to speak. Sure, half of me feels like it’s dying, but the other half is somehow enjoying herself. Really enjoying herself. Grateful for all of this. Even the bad stuff. I can’t wait until my dying part is, well, um, dead.

Believe it or not, but there was a very real purpose to this trip. As I’ve said before, I am writing a book. And not about my pending divorce…though it all surreally seems to fit so perfectly into this concept of “The Value of Ruins.” It’s almost as if this were supposed to happen.

So, yes. My book is called “The Value of Ruins.” It is a story that unfolds in three parts. Part one is very much about my Grandmother – my fascination with her. The stories I’ve told myself about her. Her mystery. And then, at the end of this section, we see the real Cristina Brunak as we’ve never seen her.

See, my grandmother, who grew up in Warsaw until she left after the war, always insisted that while her father was Jewish, neither she nor her mother were. Which meant that I wasn’t. But somehow, in my bones, that never felt right. The Jew thing seemed to fit. But the more I forced it, the more she denied it. Until 2008. That was the year that my mother – yes my mother, my grandmother’s daughter – finally discovered what my grandmother’s REAL name was. And that she was, too, in fact, a Jew. Which makes my mother Jewish. And me Jewish, too.

This revelation was huge for me. A validation. A realization. An epiphany. It felt right. And I became fascinated, trying to learn as much as I could, at least, about our family’s history. I quickly dubbed myself a “Jewtina.” Even thought about adopting the name “Rossenwasser” – my family’s REAL name – for myself. But aside from that, I didn’t have any real intention of investigating the religious/spiritual/cultural matter of it further.

Then, in March 2009, my agent sent me an email with a link to a Cleveland Plain Dealer article about a group of 90-year-old women who were having their Bat Mitzvah. “This story is perfect for you.” He envisioned a sort of Tuesdays with Morrie tale where we learn about these ten nonagenarians, their lives, their preparations, and, ultimately, their rite of passage – one usually reserved for 12-year-olds. I was immediately attracted to this story and ran up to Cleveland to start interviewing these women.

However, when I sat down to write a book proposal, the right words just didn’t come. It felt so forced, so Akron Beacon Journal Sunday feature to make the old lady readers feel good about themselves. I hated it. Then a friend pointed out to me that what she really thought was fascinating about this story was how it had fallen into my lap just as I’d discovered that I am, in fact, a Jew, too.

To be honest, what really riveted me about these women was what they could show me about who I really am, who my grandmother really was, and how I could embrace this part of my identity. So, these women essentially became my introduction to Judaism, and the second part of my book.

The third part of my book is, well, all of this. The trip to Poland. The search for the truth. For my grandma. For myself. For the real value of ruins.

The value of ruins. It’s a strange idea, right? Well, during the Third Reich, Hitler’s architects would often do multiple drafts of buildings and monuments. And at least one draft would attempt to depict what the building would look like after hundreds of years of decay. How its presence would one day leave an impression on future generations to come, just as the Acropolis or the Mayan pyramids have done.

However, I feel like Hitler’s real ruins are people. It’s in the people we see the effect of the world. In a sense, we are G-d’s ruins, too. And it’s through our ruination that we have a specific value. One that can’t be touched or quantified. But one that makes people like my grandmother so very beautiful, special, and complicated.

So…here I am. A new Jew, trying to find out what it all means. And a ruin myself, in many ways.

Amidst lots of sight seeing and coming to understand where my Grandma came from, I am also focusing on my own connection with Judaism. So that is why I met with Michael Schudrich, the Head Rabbi of Poland, the other day. Tuesday to be exact.

Liz and I got very, very lost. Unfortunately, Warsaw is not a grid city. And no amount of Communist structure has changed the web-like network of roads and roundabouts and alleyways. So after going in circles, we finally gave up and hailed a cab. I showed him the address for the city’s synagogue on a map. He looked at the paper then looked at me, then the paper again. “Synagoga? You?” he said in awe, like it was his first time meeting a REAL Jew. I mean, the black hair, sloped nose, and neurotic presence were just too much for him to handle, I guess.

When we arrived, Rabbi Schudrich was immediately warm and welcoming and full of jokes. “So where are you from?” he asked.

“Akron, Ohio.” I said.

“Sounds boring,” he replied.

I was immediately smitten, especially when he started teasing Liz about her Mexican beauty. “You can take the New Yorker out of New York, but,” he said. “I can still make women uncomfortable!”

Rabbi Schudrich first came to Poland in the 1970s. He was told there were no Jews left. And he didn’t believe it. He continued to return to Poland in search of people who were keeping their identities hidden, thanks to trauma from WWII, Communist persecution, and anti-Semitism that persists until today. “Now, there are thousands and thousands,” he said. “Just like you.”

Just like me! I wondered. I was so excited to meet these other new Jews with complicated stories and conflicts of identity.

“You can meet them on Friday,” he said. “Come for services and then we’ll have dinner.”

Then the Rabbi asked for my phone number so he could also set up a day for me to talk to a group of new Jews about my family’s story. He looked at my new Polish cell phone number and smiled. “You know,” he said. “These three numbers of your phone are 613. And that’s how many commandments we have. Fate, maybe?”

As Liz and I left the synagogue and walked through the busy streets, I thought about how fateful all of this trip has been. How meeting Dorota was so perfect. Living around the corner from Jerzy was just too much. How familiar everything felt. Then how Patrick destroyed my heart. And how my mother came to help me, and how we found the tombstone together. And how, maybe, it had something to do with all of this – all of this revelation and rebirth.

And then I started thinking about the night after Patrick had called me and said he wanted a divorce. I was desperate for a sign to show me that it would fine. That this was really going to be a good thing in the end. So I reached for my Tarot cards. As I shuffled them, I breathed my pain and confusion and despair down through my fingertips and into the deck. I did not ask for any specific guidance. I just put myself in the cards, hoping they’d see what I couldn’t. Then I laid them out in a work spread. And then I called Juice.

Juice is one of my dearest, dearest friends. She is also one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Her spirit is contagious. Everyone who meets her wants to put her in their pockets for safekeeping – like a good luck charm, or a favorite action figure. She is cute and vivacious and wacky and independent and hilarious. And she is a healer. And a hell of a Tarot Card reader.

I read my spread to Juice over the phone. She picked the cards out of her own deck and then went to work. “Start over,” they say. “Start over, start over, start over.”

And then she gasped. “Oh my G-d, Denise,” she said. “Do you see this? The cards start with the Torah and end with the Torah. That’s fucking weird.”

I looked down at the reading. And there, on my first card, The Wheel of Fortune, was the word “Torah.” And then, my eyes moved to my last card, The High Priestess. And in her lap lay a scroll with the word “Torah” upon it. It was a sign, I was sure. And this was all meant to be.

And all of these little coincidences – these little signs – I put a lot of weight in them. Because I want to and I have to. They give me peace. They give me a sense that this is project must go one. And so it will.