Kandahar Jewish Community Part II

Look at this flyer I made:

Awesome flyer, right?

I put it up all over KAF. While Warren was gone for on leave, people in our regular group had to step up to fill the void. I helped out by putting up flyers, and by making sure the food and cooking supplies that we have here remains kosher.

Being Jewish on KAF is easier than at most FOBs (once again, Forward Operating Bases). For one thing we have a bigger population and therefore more supplies and support. It's also just a larger base so there's more chance for overlap between cultures here. For instance the French PX and the British snack bar both have lox on their menus! Observe:

Seems like a reasonable price.

It was delicious.

Here are some more of the foods I'll go to when I get homesick.

I'd bet that this is more of an attempt at capturing the souvenir market and less of an overlap in cultures, but I see these around KAF all the time:

Kidush pourer thing.

I don't know what the Afghanis sell these as, but I've only ever seen them used for Kiddish wine at Jewish events. The idea is that someone says the blessing over the wine in the big cup, and then pours it into the holes in the top and siphons the wine into all the little cups on the bottom, so everyone can have some of the blessed wine. More pictures of those:

This one is more plain.

There are grapes on it, that means for wine, right?

OK, now I know I'm right, that's supposed to be Jerusalem on that cup!

As you can see from the flyer above, we only met for Rosh Hashanah on Wednesday evening, and then did our regular Friday night activities at the end of the chag. A non-regular attendee took a bunch of pictures and sent them out. Be prepared, the following pictures include some of the latest captured images of my beard. They may be shocking.

Preparing our "Kandahar Cholent" (it's made of whatever we've got) and matzoh ball soup!

Unpacking the Kiddush wine.

Tada!

Rickey lights the candles.

Shofar blowing.

Benari thinks, "He's going to faint".

Food!

Yummy.

At the other end of the table, a photo-shoot of Jacob and Avi takes place:

After dinner is over and all cleaned up, we have a little shofar jam session.

Shofar so good.

Shofar is hilarious.

Happy Rosh Hashanah from Kandahar!

Friday night, we had a turnout of exactly ten men show up to our Yom Kippur service. We went through the machzor and chose which prayers we'd like to focus on, say, or discuss. On Saturday we had a morning service where followed that same model. Our break-fast consisted of cakes sent by the kosher troops and the aleph institute organizations.

Sukkot is coming, and we're getting an actual Rabbi Chaplain. I hope it's as good as my Jewish experience has been here so far. Here's a picture of the Sukkah that I took around the second week I was here. I know it looks a little decrepit, but hey, there's a Sukkah in Afghanistan!

Almost forgot: Since my recent and auspicious mention in the Gross Schechter Day School Alumni Newsletter (which you can feel free to read), in which I discuss how helpful my Schechter education has been in allowing me to participate and help facilitate the Jewish service here in Kandahar, my mother has been encouraging me to also mention how important my experiences at both Park Synagogue and Camp Ramah in Canada have been in molding my Jewish knowledge. I might as well also plug my experiences at USY, the Siegel College of Jewish Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Alpha Episolon Pi, The University of Vilnius's Summer Yiddish Institute, OSU Hillel etc. etc. etc.

Shout-out to Rabbi Rogozen, Michael Wolf, Rabbis Skoff and Marcus, Arlyne Bochnek, Amnon Ophir, and whoever the point people may be at those other things.