Hi there! Shalom! And Priviet!
This is my first posting on the Moishe House Blog since my roommate Natasha and I just started Moishe House Minsk this month. Organizing and hosting our first two events has been amazing fun!
Our first event was a “Chanukat Bayit,” or “House Dedication” in Hebrew. It was our kickoff event. About seventeen people showed up and we did havdalah together, put our new mezuzah on the door (which has since fallen off because we had to use clear tape to hold it on! The wall we need to hammer it into is concrete so nails didn’t work... Any suggestions?) ate cake and cookies, and watched our Moishe House Minsk PowerPoint presentation. Then there was some schmoozing. Then I believe there was a brief mini dance party in Natasha’s room. Second wind I guess…
And our second event, Americansky Halloween, was going to just be candy and a scary movie, but it turned into something much, much better when I found out that in Russian, “pumpkin” is “tikvah,” which in Hebrew means “hope,” and is the title of the national anthem of the State of Israel! I decided to infuse some Jewish content at the last minute and made a presentation on "Hatikvah" before our scary movie. Then I played two versions of "Hatikvah" for our guests: one typical Israeli choral one, and another one sung by a group of Jews in Uganda, the Abayudaya Jews. Maybe some of you have heard of them? Anyway, I don’t think any of our guests will ever eat anything pumpkin again without thinking of “Hatikvah!”
Oh, and then we watched “The Reaping,” dubbed into Russian, which was an experience unto itself.
Lastly, I guess I wanted to express how cool it has been to take part in the Moishe House project and join all of you around the world!
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