The brown door

There's many ways to spend a Thursday night in Manhattan. You can see a fantastic and lavish production of La Traviata at the Met or go to the Israel Film Festival. Or meet up with new friends who take you to very unusual and very real places - the kind of places you wouldn't have known existed because they have no websites and when you pass them by in the street, all you see is an open brown door. But you won't see the brown door because it will never even occur to you to look up and notice the building when you're so busy being fascinated by the tacky neon lights of Times Square lighting up the whole neighbourhood.

Behind the brown door hides a synagogue. It reminds me of those grotty buildings in England where you can go upstairs and play pool late into the night. Here, you could go upstairs and find yourself in the Cholent: a club-like establishment for young Jewish people who have turned their backs on their communities or certain aspects of their culture, or the Jewish religion altogether. The dropouts club. They bring their guitars and their shisha pipes, someone makes a huge pot of cholent, and they hang out. The paint is peeling off the walls and the room stinks of the smoke of cigarettes and grass. One of the young men runs a survey for his psychology course. Another one with long curly payes (sidelocks) starts singing Carlebach tunes. Others just sit around the table and talk over a bottle of beer.

It's so comfortable and peaceful here. No one demands anything of you. No expectations, no pressure to conform. They all understand where the others are coming from. Physically, Williamsburg or Boro Park, the major ultra-Orthodox centres of New York. I wonder what they're all up to during the day; how they cope with the confusion, negation, rebellion, and confrontation that's been such a central part of their lives. But when they're at the Cholent, abnormality becomes the norm and nothing's too crazy. At the same time, they can be as Jewish as they want to be - and no doubt, these young people are and will remain very Jewish in their own ways. They need to get away from the stifling and claustrophobic world they grew up in but do not even try to pretend that they can live without it.

Cake for breakfast

It's nice when your birthday falls on Thanksgiving day: the whole country celebrates with you.
There's no rush in the morning, though I have to be up early to catch the parade. Still, I have time to share the carrot cheesecake I got with the kids at home.
Lots of people gather in the streets to watch the parade. But the really privileged ones have friends whose apartments are on the route of the parade. It reminded me of Hungary in the fifties when very few people had TV sets and all those who did were obliged by some kind of unspoken rule to let the neighbours come over in the evenings and watch TV with them. So people with parade-watching apartments make parties on Thanksgiving morning, and invite all their friends. And there's bagel and you all crowd by the window and the children run around and tear the house down. Everybody's having a great time. I thought I was going to hate the parade, but I actually loved it. There were the huge balloons that reached up as high as the fifth floor, and all the marching bands and pom pom girls and dance groups in their happy innocent American way celebrating their country and the birth of their nation. I was so moved I even forgave the silliness of the balloon-watching ceremony the night before. These people know how to be happy and content; we Europeans should learn from them.

Heroes of America

They officially call it Inflation Viewing but people just refer to it as 'blowing up the balloons'. This is the big event preceding Thanksgiving in New York that all you newcomers absolutely have to go and see. So I decided to be an obedient foreigner and went and patiently queued and rolled with the crowd to see the gigantic colourful balloons being blown up for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now that I have made the pilgrimage and paid tribute to Snoopy, Ronald Mcdonald and Kermit the Frog, I can reveal to you, rational Europeans, that this ritual has totally no sense or meaning to it whatsoever. Children have fun trying to identify the massive cartoon figures lying face down on the ground but why adults go is beyond me. Thousands and thousands of people wait patiently for their turn to take a look. The atmosphere is jovial, could be described as pre-Christmasy, and they even play seasonal songs to keep the crowd entertained in the freezing cold. But what the balloons - or the whole parade for that matter - have to do with Thanksgiving itself is a mystery. But then we in Britain drive on the left side...

Winds

November came with icy wind that lay in wait in side streets and attacked as you turned the corner. It's typical of New York they say, with its tall buildings and surrounding rivers, this biting wind. It brought to an abrupt end the days of running outdoors. The skies were still bright blue but the women walking their dogs were now wearing long down coats and ear muffs, the city's winter uniform.

On Tuesday 4 November all the women from my class went to vote. In my country we never vote on a weekday. They had to get up early to make it in time to the polling station. In my country, we vote with a pen and piece of paper, ticking boxes. Here, they say, they vote on machines. No human mistakes, no cheating, and immediate results. If everything goes according to plan, an hour or two after all stations have closed you know who the new president is.
We were all watching it on big screens in the pub: the German journalists, the delegation from Finland, the Lebanese interfaith expert and the group of young Jewish professionals called Access who organized the event. As the distance between the candidates steadily grew, I knew America was writing history. A history where it was no longer fantasy for a black man to win the elections. Many of us had been sceptical whether it could really happen - but in this country of freedom and endless opportunities the principle that nothing was impossible had proved true again. And we rejoiced, not because we all agreed that he was the better man for the job, but because we knew that the day this could happen was a day of triumph for democracy and progress. And now I'm hoping there is a Jack Bauer out there, looking after our President Elect, watching his every step.

Sukkos and the city

I'm washing my hands by a table in the middle of Amsterdam Avenue. I look up as I say the blessing and it's those tall monstrous Manhattan buildings all around, and a flow of yellow cabs and a full moon in the clear dark sky. How much more bizarre can Sukkos get?

Not many people here can afford their own sukkah. They all live in flats you see. This is not like London where you can step out through your back door straight into your sukkah. Here it's a journey every time you want to have a meal: a journey to your synagogue, or the back yard of your building, where you share the space with dozens, if not hundreds, of other people. You then remember that this is exactly what the festival is all about: being on a journey as an individual and also as a community.

The rooftop sukkahs are the best. Up there it doesn't feel claustrophobic any more. But as I sit there on the splendid terrace of a massive penthouse apartment, having the most amazing single malts, I still can't decide whether I will ever like it here. I feel an alien and I'm not sure if that's going to change.

And then I make my own little journey, down south to Silver Spring near Washington, and encounter a very different, cosy and youthful and warm Sukkos-experience and then I travel north of Manhattan, to Riverdale, which does actually sound like an enchanted place as someone pointed out to me, its name being so close to magical Rivendell, and I award my hosts with the 'Sukkah with the best view' prize as their balcony overlooks the Hudson river and its New Jersey banks which look breathtakingly beautiful at this time of the year.

Simchat Torah is a truly festive occasion here. You are obliged to try hard to be happy over the holiday and everybody tries willy-nilly, but here in New York people are actually doing a good job of it! It's particulary interesting if you're a woman. Women are dancing in huge numbers, not the sad sight I'm used to in Europe, and we get a few Torah scrolls, and we get our own all-women hakafot (celebratory rounds) and in the more modern communities we of course get everything - each woman is called up to the Torah, and they may read it for themselves, and they may be elected the Brides of the Torah. And then because we're in America and this is a really free country, we go out into the street - cordoned off by the police - and dance and sing some more and let the whole world know that we're celebrating!

There is room for you

We're going to have a prayer group. All women. We need ten. Those who have already signed up go around trying to persuade people to come. I remember with an ironic inner smile how my male friends in Budapest used to play this game of getting-ten-together before every Shabbat. I've never done this before. Never prayed women only. Never thought it was important. Right now I'm just curious. You don't get this on the Continent - I want to see what it's like.

And it's eight o'clock on a Thursday morning and people are slowly arriving one by one, sleepy-eyed but committed. The roles have all been assigned. A leads the service in the front. She's not doing this the first time. In fact, none of them are. I'm the only neofite and they honour me with an aliyah, a chance to be one of the three who are called up to the Torah. I shake with excitement and anxiety. The blessings that I have heard hundreds of times before, but have never actually said out loud. Will I know how to? Will I get it right? They envelop me in a prayer shawl and show me how to hold the handles of the scroll. It is rolled open and I'm bending over a real Torah scroll for the first time in my life, I hear the blessing in my own loud and shaky voice, it flows so naturally, and then the reading, and I see all the words in front of me and they suddenly make so much sense. So this is what being part of a people is all about. Being a link in the chain of tradition. Suddenly the fact that I'm a woman and that women are traditionally not supposed to be doing this do not matter any more. I am everyone who has done this before me, and we are all of us tradition itself. We make it come alive. My colleagues smile encouragingly, shaking my hand, they don't believe it was my first time. Nothing will ever be the same again.

The next week I'm the one who reads the Torah for the others. Again, I'm doing this for the first time in my life. I'm thinking of my teacher. He would be so proud if he could see me. He knew well before me that this was going to happen if I come away to America, this land of opportunities. I practise and practise my small portion till I know it back to front, and I know there's no getting out of this. They all depend on me, we have agreed, I'm in charge of this and it's my responsibility for all of us. I have learnt how to do it and I feel so proud and accomplished. Very scared, too, as I do every time I have to perform publicly, but this is different. I'm needed. And it goes so smoothly, I hold the silver pointing device in my hand, and the letters are so beautiful, and the melody is so beautiful they say, it's minhag Anglia I say, and feel so grateful to the man who taught me. When I was learning with him, I didn't realize what it was that he was giving me, but he knew very well: it was empowerment. Showing me the gate to a richer, more meaningful, more committed Jewish life.

My last crazy year

I'm riding in a rented car with four women I've never met before. We're going to be school mates. But before school even starts, we're going out team-building in some forest somewhere in Connecticut. I'm looking through the window as we whizz across Manhattan, past the George Washington bridge, on this lovely sunny late summer morning. And I think to myself, a couple of days ago I was living in Golders Green, London, and now I'm a full-time student of Jewish text in this vast country so distant and so unknown to me. What am I doing here? Am I totally crazy? Well, I have been before and it seems to be happening again but I suddenly get a feeling that maybe it's happening for the last time. That when this year is over I will just want to be normal. Grow an anchor and let it bind me to a place, a person, even a profession perhaps... and for a minute I think yes, I've grown out of loving crazy things. That things will be very different after this. But then the day moves on, and we swing on ropes and hug each other balancing across beams twenty feet high up in the air and we bond and create unforgettable memories and then I think, this is just fine, the anchor will come when the time is ripe anyway.

The Elevator

I think I know now what Frank Sinatra meant when he sang that he wanted to wake up in the city that never sleeps. He meant this place was never quiet. There's constant noise: airplanes, helicopters, cars honking (don't do it, says the sign, there's a $350 fine!) and hundreds and hundreds of air-conditioners create a buzz that's with you all the time. I crave silence. And have found one quiet place. The elevator. In these Manhattan apartment buildings, the elevator is a very special place. An institution. First of all, you've got a man living in there. He operates it. You never press buttons - unless you're a child fortunate enough to be buddies with him and then he lets you climb onto his tall chair and reach up to press the 'door close' button. Some people know the elevator men by name and have a friendly chat with them and some never speak to them.
The elevator man knows a lot about you and the building. After a few days, he remembered which floor I lived on. Which is great on Shabbat when all I have to do is get in the lift and say no more. No doubtful situation about me asking him to do the job. Still I get guilty and have a sense that my presence is a command in itself and maybe I should just walk up to the twelth floor...
The elevator man takes deliveries for you and delivers them to your door. He also takes bunches of keys from wives whose husbands have left without keys. He also comes to fix things in your flat, say when the toilet gets blocked and the downstairs neighbour starts complaining about a dripping ceiling.
But sometimes the elevator doesn't work. Then you get into an even more special elevator which is much much bigger and is probably meant for moving furniture. It doesn't even have a door so as you're flying up you can see all the floors rushing by. A bit scary, but it's a great system. I've never once had to walk up the stairs so far.

week one

The city was an illusion. We all have this when we listen to Frank Sinatra sing New York New York and it feels like the best place to be, where it's all thrills and fireworks or finding our real selves, the best possible us. But in fact, New York is just a place where people live. Just like any other place, with small shops and pubs and buildings tall or not so tall. We have all the legends of course. We have Central Park, we have Friends and Sex and the City and all the rest but at the end of the day, and especially at the end of the day, New York is a not particularly pretty but a pretty friendly place to have a drink. Or have a run. Or I hope one day go to the opera. The city has many faces I'm sure. But right now I'm looking at one face, the Upper west side of it all. And it's surprisingly relaxed and quiet, and the people go in flip-flops and crocs and the women in shul are not Jewish Princesses at all, it's all very easy to blend into. And then you find that you're in a place where you don't actually know anybody. You want to call a friend and there's no one to call.

School is good. It makes my brain work. Just what I wanted. I'm trying to remember to say a blessing for the good fortune I have every minute possible for being able to spend a year doing nothing but learning. It is a blessing. I'm not sure where it's taking me but it must be a good place. We're all women, younger, older, reformer, frummer, but we all love it, and we love discussing it. And some of us put on tefillin in the mornings, and I guess some never pray. I'll have to locate myself somewhere on this map of feminine observance where you can pick and mix your own personal Judaism, where there are no boundaries and no one approving or disapproving. These guys profess self-expression, and they mean it. Do I buy that?

When you're in the beit midrash, you're expected not to be on your own. You have a partner. No individual study. You have to get used to this constant sharing, constant dialogue, neither the struggle nor the achievements are yours alone. You as an individual are no more. You exist in pairs. You have to learn how to learn from the other, whether she be less or more informed than you, whether you are interested in her as a person or not.
Our teacher is great. She's quaint. She has it all and knows exactly where she's taking us. She seems so fragile and yet she's so powerful. And she'll take us through Sanhedrin, through rebellious sons and death penalties and rabbis struggling to create a judicial system that prefers exemption to conviction.

In New York we get hurricanes. I know this sounds very exotic but by the time they arrive they've already lost most of their power and just bring rain. Lots of heavy heavy rain. Umbrellas won't do. You need the whole waterproof equipment, and there's no way you can get a cab when the rain begins to fall. You walk, and you get drenched. It's just water. But it gets you three times on the same day, and you're wet from head to toe, and your phone stops working as it has also got soaked. And the dollar bills in your purse. But it all dries out the next day when it's sunny and warm again.