Rosh Hashanah, part II: The set-up

Today I was set up with a Nice Jewish Boy.

After Friday night’s disappointment at services, I looked up Marseille’s main synagogue online. By Saturday night I started feeling like I was really missing out on Rosh Hashanah, so I took the metro up there to see what it would be like. I arrived an hour before services actually started (since I had no idea what time that would be) and wandered around the building, which was enormous and gorgeous (actually, much like a European church). It was probably 50 feet high, though I’m not positive because it’s surprisingly hard to estimate distances in the z-plane. It was segregated, so there was an upper balcony for the women, which was ringed with stained glass windows. The ceiling was painted geometrically and up front, right above the altar, was a dome painted the color of twilight and covered with little gold stars. I’ll go back some time when it isn’t a major holiday and take some pictures, as it was probably the most magnificent synagogue I’ve ever been in.

While wandering around killing time before services started, a grandmother-type accosted and befriended me, taking me protectively by the arm and forcibly showing me around. As she walked me down the street, she quizzed me on all the relevant points of life: Where was I from? Was I Jewish? What was I doing in Marseille? What’s my work? How old am I? Am I married? Do I have a boyfriend? Do I live in Marseille? Do I live alone? Unsurprisingly, my answers converged on “eligible Jewish bachelorette!”, so she invited me to have lunch with her after morning services Sunday.

When we went back to the synagogue and sat in the balcony during the service, she spent the entire time chattering to me in rapid-fire French, and introduced me to her chum who was sitting next to us – and lo and behold! said chum had an as-yet-unattached son who was 26. And he was such a nice boy! (Interestingly, paying attention and/or actually praying didn’t seem to be the thing to do in the women’s balcony, as everyone seemed to either be wandering in and out of the hall or excitedly discussing something with her neighbors.)

Lucky for me, this Nice Jewish Boy happened to be reading Torah Saturday night, so I could see his skills on display, which my adopted yenta proudly and continually brought to my attention. Even after she’d run out of complimentary things to say about his Torah-reading talents, she keps looking at me meaningfully and kissing the tips of her fingers in a very “Oy, he’s such a catch!” gesture.

The next day the four of us went to the mother’s home for lunch. When we all sat down, after a bit of initial random chatter, one of the women said to me, “So, Rachel, ask Bruno a question!” and everyone turned very enthusiasticly and expectantly to me, waiting to see what insights I was dying to learn about my future betrothed. Needless to say, I was unprepared for such pressure, both mentally and linguistically, so when I asked what he did, everyone seemed rather disappointed in my lack of creativity. Seriously, what was I supposed to ask: “How many children do you want?” “Do you like your latkes with applesauce or sour cream?” “What’s your schedule like next week? – cause I’m thinking Thursday would be convenient to go sign our Katubah.”

I don’t know if it was because of or in spite of this initial question gaffe, but the yenta and the mother spent the subsequent four hours speaking French so absurdly fast I managed to understand about 1% of it. The topics of conversation seemed to center nearly exclusively on their grandparents and Israel (not politics, but the land itself), though at one point, we had a mutual discussion about how people (read: Jews) in the US have fewer children than they do in France. Hmm.

Throughout this, the Nice Jewish Boy didn’t much participate in the conversation either, so I spent most of the time looking bewildered and every so often agreeing to comments I didn’t quite understand. When I left, they all called out “à bientôt!” to me, which I’m not sure is totally a good sign. They were referring to Yom Kippur services, which are just around the corner – right?