Yom Kippur

As you may know, yesterday was Yom Kippur. I found a synagogue group here called "Atid" and attended their services on Friday night, Sat morning, and Sat night. The group is technically Reformed, but is actually fairly mixed. As Pamela, one of the girls I met, explained to me, the Jewish community here is so small, they cannot afford the separations that we have in the U.S. In my Catalunya culture class, we learned that only 1/33,000 people in Spain are Jewish! This is so different for me coming from Philadelphia, where the Jewish population is quite large. The community here is really struggling to uphold the Jewish tradition in Spain. I knew that the Inquisition had a significant impact, but I did not realize how much it really destroyed the Jewish life here even to this day. But anyway, I met a lot of really nice people and they kindly invited me out to their college/career age break fast. It was a bit tough to be surrounded by so much Spanish for so many hours, but I managed okay. Typical to Spaniard style, the dinner went til 1:00 am and then we all moved to a bar. I came home at about 2:30 (everyone asked me why I was leaving so early!).

I have a MOUNTAIN of homework to do today, so that will occupy the rest of my day.

Besos!