Two Tales of Tefillin and Other Photos of White Nights

or

in which I meet old friends and make new ones

Click on the link for the photos and text . . .


The other day a group of Iranian Jews came to the synagogue. Living in Los Angeles, I am rather familiar with Persian Jews and their various customs -having spent time visiting Persian merchants in LA's fashion district on a weekly basis to don Tefillin with them- and thus called the group over for little inspiration and spirituality.
Soon Shmueli and I had them all putting on tefillin . . . Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I noticed a familiar face -one of my close friends from Down Town LA!

One can not describe the joy and surprise of traveling half way around the world, only to see the face of a longtime acquaintance!


Putting tefillin on with my buddy Mr. M -the farther we are apart, the closer we ultimately see we are together.



The Shul

That evening the Rabbi told us to stroll around the city and visit some of the hotels in order to locate to locate various vacationing members of the Tribe.

As we walked down one of main thoroughfares, passing the acclaimed Мариинский театр (Mariinsky Theatre), we stopped briefly in a 24 hour convenience store to pick up a calling card (Called Hallo Mama, it costs 150 Rubles and gives rates to call Palestine[sic], but not Israel). Besides calling cards, they sold fruit, bread and a sickening amount of alcohol . . .


. . . including these 3 liter bottles of beer.

Putting on Tefillin 10 minutes to Ten:

In the Astoria, one of Petersburg's nicest hotels, we met a lovely couple from Denver resting in the hotel's lounge after a long day touring the city.
Joining them, we spoke for over half an hour about various topics of interest -Jewish history in Russia and S. Peterburg, the holocaust, life in Colorado and the discovery of natural gas of the coast of Haifa -
Before Petersburg they had been in Lithuania, where Colly, the husband, had roots. We spoke about the community there, what was, what could have been and the recent blossoming Jewish life after the Holocaust and Communism . . . Concluding that we needed to do something practical, I suggested putting on tefillin.

It was already 9:50 in the evening, but with the sun shining outside, it hardly could be called night.



I'm sure the tefillin made things even brighter.

White Nights:

Walking through the streets in the eerie evening light, everything took on a surreal, dreamlike state. My senses told me that I was tired from a long day's work . . . but it just seemed too bright outside.










My thoughts exactly (I'm only kidding calm down)





The Mariinsky Theatre


The shul in Reflection


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