Being Jewish is often a painful and lonely experience, especially these days.
I was nine when my mother died and I moved back to Berlin – or rather, was moved there. In Berlin, I had no Jewish connection whatsoever. My community experiences in Baden-Württemberg were not the best, but they were definitely more bearable than the Jewish loneliness that awaited me here. That is probably the reason why every Jewish encounter has been burned into my memory, my heart, like a moment of revelation, of love.
There are the Sophiensaele, where I met A over 20 years ago. We are both teenagers taking part in a theater project and her Jewish self-confidence seems both familiar and frightening to me.
I am invited to her home for Shabbat. Her parents welcome me with open arms. Here, too, familiarity and fear are mixed. Not of them. Of my own inadequacies. I go there one more time and then I don’t go back. I am ashamed.
The feeling of being seen
If I happen to be in the neighborhood today, I recognize it immediately, even though my sense of direction is a disaster. And every time I think that a piece of my heart lies in this Berlin street. I don’t think A or A’s parents realize how important that Shabbat was to me. How happy and sad the memory makes me in equal measure. For me, the archway to the Sophiensaele is not primarily associated with theater rehearsals, but with my first encounter with A.
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There is an apartment in Lichtenberg where I spoke to M for the first time in my early twenties and a shared room in Wedding where M told me about her family history for the first time. We lie on a bed, I stare at the ceiling, listen and am grateful.
A seminar room in Hellersdorf, where L winks at me as I leave and wishes me “Good Shabbos”. The feeling of being seen. L becomes a mentor, a friend, a role model. My Jewish places in Berlin are as inconspicuous as they mean the world to me. It’s good to remember that when we seem to have no more space.
