Hail and Farewell
8:45 p.m.
Today was an Abraham Parmesan day. It began with him calling asking if I would bring my camera to the event he had planned and finally ended after he had telephoned me umpteen times later in the day. It was the press conference to kick start the Jewish Community Centre that he has formed for this area. I picked up Hélène and her baby, then Abraham, and we all arrived at the United Church in town and got the place ready for the press. We actually got some press showing up. News is slow around here.
I played my guitar and assisted Abraham in the performance of a traditional Hebrew song promoting peace (Nation shall not take up arms against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore), after which he read his manifesto for the centre, then Hélène repeated it in French, he sang another song, and then took questions.
While Abraham was being interviewed, the CBC local reporter came up to me and asked me what I thought of all this. I had to be straight with her, and told her basically what I said in my recent entry on this subject. I don’t really think what Jews we have in the area are going to want to be a “community”. Abraham has grandiose plans for getting together for kabbalat shabbats, for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and to have a children’s centre. He plans to raise money for projects by having concerts and already has a date for a pot luck Passover seder. I have to admire the guy, but I think he’s being very unrealistic.
I did say, however, that there were some things we missed out on, as Jews without a community, and that was the celebration of holidays. Perhaps Abraham will be able to bring that back.
After I drove him and Hélène to their respective homes (I got lots of baby holding in to satisfy my thwarted grandmotherly urges) and came home, he must have telephoned me four times. He wanted to thank me for everything. He needed to tell me that our interviews would be on the radio on the local show. He called again to say exactly when, also to tell me that he had just done a telephone interview for the Gazette which will be published tomorrow. And once more to say that he had heard us on the radio and we sounded great.
Needless to say, I did not listen to the radio. I was busy talking via Skype with a friend in a far away time zone while the carpenter worked on the tiles in front of our wood stove. He just needs one more day of work, and the insurance company should be happy. Now, if only we could tackle the mess in the basement.
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