Day 1
I did not prepare for this trip I am now on, discovering the Jewish History of the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and knew little of the related history. My interest was piqued by learning that my father’s side of the family came from Salant, Lithuania, and that a relative in the past did some research to find the ancient Jewish cemetery of my ancestors which revealed that the engraved name on the family tombstone was “Shamshon”, yiddish for Samson, and thus my surname “Simpson” given by U.S. immigration authorities.
I arrived a day early together with 5 other women of the 16 in our group and we spent the day exploring the Old City, the heart of this town of 400,000 citizens. Beautiful buildings, mostly now stone after numerous fires over the centuries, very clean, cobblestone streets, and definitely wearing the air of an old world city. Today, it turned out, was the first day of school and we ran into numbers of well-dressed parents and children in their school uniforms with special hats, all carrying flowers for their teachers. I found out later from a taxi driver that the government school we saw in the center of the old city was a school considered “better” and I received the impression that it was an elite school, a different cut from those in the suburbs.
We passed many churches, originally Roman Catholic, and then turned Lutheran, one Baptist, and charming crafts shops. There is one hill in this old part of the city which creates an overlook over the old and new city, as well as over to the Baltic Sea with Finland only a short distance away.
We have had several excellent meals, in a city known for its gastronomy. During one, the four of us sat outside in the beautiful weather eating our excellent pizza and pasta and people watching as the school children, parents, and locals ambled by enjoying this first day of school and a new beginning..
We meet our whole group for a welcome dinner at night and hear from our two well-informed leaders about what lies ahead for us. This includes from the tour organizer, born in Uruguay and having lived much of his life in Israel and now in Berkeley, a sense of the shifting sands of opinions about Israel and subsequently for Jews in this part of the world since the horrors of October 7, with warnings about wearing insignias of religion or interacting with those who might want to engage us in political conversations about the present situation. I think overly cautious but then he perhaps is more personally aware than I of the measures that have been necessary to survive 5000 years of being other than the European norm.
And so to attempt to sleep.