Celebrating Jewish New Year in HK

And I didn't have to cook a thing!

Our synagogue, the United Jewish Congregation (UJC), certainly knows how to look after its members during the High Holidays.  After services on Erev Rosh Hashanah, there was a festive dinner at the Jewish Community Centre.  Unfortunately, services ended late, so we didn't eat until 10 p.m.  While we were having dinner, the heavens opened up and we had a T3 downpour.  Fortunately, we live around the corner from the JCC.  Unfortunately, we were all dressed up and didn't have an umbrella.  Jeff, my knight in shining armour, ran home with his briefcase on his head, fetched my flip-flops and a large golf umbrella, and came back to rescue me.  While he was gone, I chatted with a woman who has been living here for 20 years.  She was afraid to take a taxi home in the rain - I'm not sure how many hours she waited, since the rain did not let up until the next morning!  (Yes, we meet all kinds of crazy expats here.)
On the first day of RH, our main challenge was getting used to the different tunes for familiar prayers.  Jeff and I kept turning to each other and saying "don't know this tune" or "yay, we know this one!"  (We missed Rabbi Weiss and the Narayaver service in Toronto, as well as Mary-Ann, Evelyn, and Richard, our shul buddies.) The service here is Reform, and there's a lot of reading by the Rabbi and responding by the congregation.  We enjoyed the fact that we did not have to get there until 10:30 (services started closer to 11), and we were done by 12:30.  The seats are upholstered - comfortable for naps during Rabbi Stan's sermon.  Instead of a permanent Chazan, we have a cantorial soloist.  Diego is a young fellow from Buenos Aires, who just arrived in HK about a month ago.  He's tall and lanky, and reminds me of Andrew.  I thought he did an excellent job in leading the service, but Jeff felt he was emoting a bit too much.  Since it was his debut in HK, we felt that he had to prove himself.
After services, a pleasant buffet lunch was served.  The congregation is very friendly, and we appreciated the fact that many of the members came over to us to introduce themselves and get acquainted.

Around 2 o'clock, we hopped into a minivan and went to Stanley Military Cemetery. We were led by Alastair, an older member of the congregation, who has a passion for the Jewish history of this part of the world. We visited the graves of Jewish soldiers (some Canadian), volunteers, and citizens, who died during WW2 in the battle for Hong Kong and its aftermath. So many people died during the War that they had to resort to using paving stones and road markers as grave stones (e.g., Essie Greenberg). We placed stones on the graves, and then stood under a tree and said Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. It was a very emotional experience.

Alastair not only told us about the fighting, but also about the Japanese occupation. Many foreigners were detained under brutal conditions in the Stanley detention centre (formerly a school). Isn't it interesting how we can walk today in very peaceful, idyllic places like Stanley or Ypres in Belgium, and almost forget the horrors that took place not so long ago?

From the cemetery, we proceeded to the beach.  It was a very hot (34 degrees), cloudless day, so there were quite a few local Chinese families enjoying the sand and the water.  I can't imagine what they thought of our group, all dressed up and throwing bread into the South China Sea, as we recited the Tashlich prayer!  Rabbi Stan blew his formidable shofar at the end of the prayer.  All-in-all, a memorable day.

Day 2 of RH is definitely optional at the UJC.  I counted a total of 20 in the auditorium.  Rabbi Stan's sermon was about his road trip last summer to a monastery in New Mexico and an Indian reservation in Oklahoma.  I'm not quite sure why he chooses this topic ("what I did on my summer vacation") each year on the second day of RH (as I have been advised).  I guess it's hard to come up with a meaningful theme each week of the year, but I would have preferred a speech with relevance to Hong Kong Jews, rather than a story about his meditations at a monastery.
Before Kol Nidre, Jeff and I ate our Chinese version of a traditional Shabbat meal.  We went to a very good Cantonese restaurant recommended to us by a taxi driver!  The "salad" was hot pot lettuce, cooked at the table in a yummy sauce.  The "gefilte fish" was a whole fish, chopped and mixed with vegetables, then stuffed back into its skin,  and presented on a steaming platter.  But the best dish was our "brisket"- honey-glazed bbq pork, sliced diagonally, with sauce drizzled on top.  All this was washed down "mit a cuppa tea".  Close enough to the real thing.  When we arrived at services, we told Hanora and Ed about our dinner.  They told us that they had eaten at Grappa's, a popular Italian restaurant.  No one cooks in HK!
At the end of Yom Kippur, the Kadoorie family sponsors the break fast for the entire Jewish community. (The Kadoories were mentioned in my Shanghai blog last week.  They moved to HK in the 1940s, and own the Peninsula Hotel chain as well as the  HK electric company.)  Hundreds of people show up for this wonderful spread.  It pays to befriend people who have lived here a while - Ursula and Stephen told us to avoid the crowds in the main hall, and to eat upstairs where there's always a place to sit.
Over all, the holidays were a little of the same, a little different, but very enjoyable.