Cluj Jewish Community

Today we are going to the office of the Jewish Community to pay for tomorrow’s Seder.


It's as hard as converting. They are too small to have a presence in the temple so they have a small hidden office staffed by old people. This is significant for two reasons: only those under 40 typically speak English, and we were told that the 300 Jews left in Cluj are all senior citizens.

To get in contact with the Jewish Community, Jan went to the tourist office. They made three relatively lengthy calls and found that there are no Friday night services, Saturday morning services are held at a small building in the city center (downtown) and that there is a "dinner before Easter" that we can come to. So Jan walked to the small building as told--no sign, all locked up and all windows covered by curtains.

The next day Jan went back to the tourist office (they speak English and have access to a phone), and they called again. This time they were told Jan should come to the Jewish Community Office, also in the city center but about 3 blocks from the location of services. They told her that it is at the back of a courtyard, through an alley.

Jan went there and found a person who asked that she come back tomorrow morning because there was no one who either spoke English or who could take our reservation. Jan is not sure which.

The next day, Jan went back, walked in the door, but all 3 doors leading from the front hall were closed. People were briskly walking in and out of the doors and out of the building, there was talking behind all 3 doors. Jan didn't know what to do so she waited until a young person came, asked him and he ushered her into the main office.

It was all old wood, desks and counters in several places, at least 5 people working there and lines in front of most of the people. Jan walked up to the line with no people. You guessed it, he didn't speak English.

The young man who brought her in was recruited to see what she wanted. Jan explained, he explained and Jan was sent to the back of the room, which is where the young man was going too. He finish his business but sort of hung around for a second to help Jan. After about 5 minutes of explaining who Jan was, why she was here, yes she was Jewish (remember, this poor young guy was translating all of this), the staff explained that they knew they were having a Seder, probably on the first night at 7 p.m. but didn't know the location or how much until everyone signed up. Either Jan should come back later or they would get back to her.

While Jan had her "personal translator" with her, she asked if she could make an appointment to meet with an English speaking person to explain the local Jewish community and Temple. The woman told her translator to take her across the hall, which he obediently did. The man across the hall spoke English and was very busy but was interested in Jan’s story so he wanted to talk to her on the spot. Jan thanked her translator and tried to say good bye, but the Director said the young man should stay in case he couldn't find the right words! Jan explained that she didn't know the young man, but the Director said that's ok, he should stay!!

We chatted for a few minutes where Jan learned that there were 80,000 Jews in Cluj (now a city of 300,000. We don't know what it was pre-WWII) They were all deported (a word used everywhere we have been in Europe for what happened to the Jews.) After the war 8,000 were still alive. Most emigrated to Israel. The rest started over here because nothing was left of their land, homes or belongings. He explained that there are no young Jews because there are mixed marriages and children are not being raised Jewish, or the younger ones are moving out of Cluj.

Then he asked if Jan needed to buy matzo and wanted to come to the Seder. He walked her and her translating buddy back to the other office, got our names down on the Seder list, and put her in the line to buy matzo. It turns out that was the line she was in earlier and that's why the place is so busy. They sell matzo, kosher wine and kosher grape juice from their office.

Jan finished her visit and walked out with her buddy, her matzo and instructions to come back the Sunday before the Seder and pay for the Seder. She asked her buddy if he was Jewish. He told her his grandfather was, and he had just come to buy him a box of matzo!

P.S. We went back this morning. The women in charge of the Seder said “Jan Goldstein!!” with a thick Romanian pronunciation and both of us received double kisses as we left.

Eggs Aren’t Always for Easter

We’ve connected with the English speaking community through the Lutheran Church. We went to a wine-tasting through one of the groups. Jan has gone to a couple of women’s events and is making friends. When she was in Romania eight years ago, she brought back beautifully hand painted eggs. They are typical of Eastern European crafts but Romania is the only country still painting and selling all year round. The other countries only sell them around Easter. Jan’s women’s group met with an egg painter, who demonstrated, then taught the group how to decorate.

The artist uses a “paint brush” that her husband makes by wrapping stiff copper wire around the end of a stick with a 1/4” sticking through the whole at the end. She dips the stick into melted wax and paints on the egg shell.

She usually starts with black wax, melted in a red tin cup, sitting in a can with a light bulb in it to melt the wax. She has a fine “brush” and a thicker “brush”. After the demonstration, Jan got to try her hand.

Tada!! The one I did is the white egg on the left.

We learned that it takes almost 1 hour to make an egg. She paints 30 with the black wax, then melts a different color and fills in some in that color and continues until the egg is done. The red egg is died red (important egg color in Romania) and then painted with white wax. She and her husband live off of her pension of 400 Lei/month (about $133) plus the money they make from selling the eggs. The eggs that I bought (traditional chicken size) was only 10 Lei. So she makes about $3.33/hour.

March 2010 in Cluj

The most recent pictures of Cluj were snow covered and that was about 20 days ago. Everyone kept saying that the 30-36 degrees that we were experiencing was colder than normal. Last Thursday it was high of 36. This Thursday is the second sunny day with a high of 68! The birds have arrived, the trees are budding and the people are out!


There are small strips of park with playground equipment every couple of blocks. Everywhere we walk, we see multi-generational groups (men and women) pushing babies on swings. Preschoolers are wearing jackets and pants for spring weather, but they ALL have knit caps covering their heads and ears.

We were invited to a presentation for the international students and staff of Babes-Bolyai U. All we knew was that it was to tell us about the Romanian Orthodox Easter and some of the traditions surrounding it. The presentation began at 5 and was to include dinner. It lasted 3 hours and 25 minutes!!! We learned about the Orthodox Easter, some of the art representing the holiday, listened to the university choir sing traditional songs and watched very talented classic dancers perform traditional folk dances to Romanian folk music. The performances were top notch, and the dinner gave us a good taste of typical Romanian. Although the evening was too long, it was a great learning experience. The University takes its international exchange with students and professors very seriously.

Pictures of Prague

We attended a Czech Pilharmonic Orchestra concert in Dvorak Hall in the Rudolfinum.

The Jewish Quarter. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the Old Jewish Cemetery.  It is a relatively small area with 12,000 people buried, litterally on top of each other with head stones within one foot of each other.  During the years where there was no Jewish Community to take care of the cemetary, many of the stones toppled. 

Each synagogue is used for the community Shabbat service. This is Old-New Synagogue built around 1270. There are candles near the Torah arc for the upcoming service.

The Charles Bridge has many statues of saints.

The plaque is about St. John Nepomuk who was thrown off the Charles Bridge in 1393 for not telling the king his wife's confession.  The shiny parts are rubbed by everyone to make a wish come true. What is Chuck wishing?

The statues are near the Prague Castle. They start with a whole man and as they go up, lose part of the person until there is nothing left...a commentary on communism.

The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square is an unbelievable clock.  It is 500 years old, still works. The clock maker was blinded so he could not make another one.

Four Days in Prague

Prague is a beautiful city. The buildings are incredible. Each seems to be different from the other. Most that we saw have statues over or next to the entry. Many have statues around windows or on top of the building. Buildings that were not painted had the black from coal soot. Buildings that could be painted were painted all shades of earth tones or light colors. Most painted buildings had different color trim. We were really awed by the beauty of the city. The sidewalks and roads were frequently new cobblestone or brick in nice patterns.

We were in Prague 4 full days and saw lots of the old historic sites. The city has five areas that made it very easy to navigate: Castle Quarter, Old Quarter that had the Jewish Quarter in it, New Quarter and Little Quarter.

There are some similarities in the Czech Republic to Romania.

• Menus have measurements for each item…100 mg of meat, .41 liter of beer. The cups and glasses frequently had the measurement on the glass. We read that this is left over from Communism where everything was supposedly open and exact.

• There is a very extensive tram, trolley and subway system. It is well utilized in both cities. We never seemed to wait more than 5 minutes for our train regardless of where we were going or when.

• Lots of people were on the streets walking…to the grocery, bakery, work, home. Everyone was walking.

• Most under 40 speak English.

We read that goulash and different dumplings are traditional Czech food. So we ordered that for our first meal. Chuck got the goulash with bread dumplings and I got stuffed dumplings. We were both surprised. Chuck’s was beef with gravy and the dumplings were boiled or steamed bread dough. Jan’s was more like a dessert. It was bread dumplings stuffed with sweet strawberries with cheese and cinnamon-sugar on top.

We decided to venture into other foods for our other meals and were more successful. We found a nice little bakery for breakfast that had seats and hot drinks. Jan got hot chocolate and was in heaven. It is more like a combination of dark hot chocolate and chocolate pudding. The ad for it was a straw in a chocolate chunk and that was what it was like.

Our last night we ate a pub and shared a table with a couple from Moscow (they didn’t deliberately put the tourists together.) Nina spoke a little English…more than the Russian that Jan remembered. And now we have friends who have invited us to stay with them when we come to Moscow.

Jan’s cousin Ricki lives in Prague and suggested we visit the Franz Kafka Museum. It was well worth it but the reason it’s in the blog is because of the fountain in the courtyard. Their hips move back and forth and their penises go up and down.

The last picture is of Ricki and us. She works at Radio Free Europe and is creating and training for the inclusion of video feeds in the 20 countries that RFE services. She took us on a tour of the facilities, headquartered in Prague. It was really interesting to learn about this organization that we’ve heard about but don’t need in the US. It provides unbiased news about the country in which it broadcasts. And Ricki is developing RFE’s entrance into online videos.

Sibiu, Romania

We took a 3½ hour bus ride to Sibiu. The bus and roads were in good condition. The route is so busy that there were three buses on our return trip. Sibiu is a regular town, but one that was able to maintain its original walled in medieval town center. Since it isn’t tourist season, we were the only guests in a charming hotel. They proudly gave us their best room, with a patio overlooking a very small courtyard, instead of on the street side. They had a restaurant on the premises and offered to prepare a traditional Romanian dinner for us. We had stuffed cabbage rolls, polenta, sliced sheep’s milk cheese, bread, tea/coffee and tzuika (traditional liquor made out of plums) for about $5 per person. The woman running the desk, kitchen and dining room spoke Romanian, German and Italian. Jan speaks some Spanish, Chuck speaks French, German and some Romanian. So Chuck and she communicated mostly in German. It was a very fun evening.

The town was great fun to roam around. The following are pictures of Jan’s favorite part: the vents in the steep roofs look like eyes. She tried to find the reason on Google but didn’t get anywhere. She asked about it and was told they are just vents.

The next few pictures are of the wonderful buildings. Notice the first one—the dark roofs are medieval, the reddish roofs are renovated on medieval buildings, and in the distance, the regular city with high rises. The next picture is looking down at a “block” of houses. We know that as in many countries, the style is to build up to the street and have what we would consider their yard within the wall. You can see here how little room there is and how houses were just built every which way.

The last couple of shots of the city are of the wall and tower that protected the city way back when. We didn’t find dates but these buildings and wall are hundreds of years old.

We spent our second day at what is called an open-air cultural museum. It’s the largest in Europe. They went around Romania and dismantled fine examples of houses, workshops and farm buildings typical of people who worked in the common trades of old. Then they reassembled them in the park. It was wonderful to see the styles beginning with log cabins with rock or dirt floors and thatched roofs to what looked like pretty modern houses and workshops. But even the 20th century ones differed between the different states. Most churches were built out of stone. However, there is a region known for their wooden churches to allow them to be dismantled quickly. As we were wandering around, we saw several dressed up people all going the same direction. It turns out one of the wooden churches brought to the park was being used for an Eastern Orthodox service. We were invited in and stayed long enough to understand that the service was in Romanian, mostly sung by the priest with little participation from the congregation, who knelt or bowed occasionally. It was very interesting for us.

The first picture is of an older home with a typically tall pitched roof. The next is a similar building, but insulated with mud or concrete and paint. Next is also something we found typical, at least to this park. Almost all of the work was assisted by hydraulic power. The workshops were either built right next to the river or actually on the river, to make use of the flowing water power. The last picture is of what we assume is one of the first Ferris wheels. The literature called it a swing.

We spent the day in the park and were finishing up our last 45 minutes when this old guy who only spoke Romanian picked us up and started explaining the exhibits. Since we gathered most from just looking, we were uncomfortable and couldn’t figure out how to dump him without being offensive. He was VERY persistent so we followed him to a couple more exhibits. It turns out that he works at the park and really knew his stuff, which he amazingly was able to explain to us. He showed us three or four different types of sunflower oil presses: animal powered, human powered (kind of like a stairmaster) and several that had levers so that the seeds could just be pressed really hard. He also explained how 32 horses walked in a circle, 2 by 2 and ground grain. He insisted he take our picture inside one of the houses and it turned out, not only did he know how to tell us about the oil presses; he also knew how to take good pictures. Below are the pictures of the end of our fun day.

Welcome to our new home

We’ve been in Cluj-Napoca Romania for a little over a week now. The city has a population of about 350,000. Again, everything is different than what we’ve experienced at home, France or India. To us it seems densely populated. There are hundreds of communist era apartment buildings that are either all alike or look very similar. Even the newer apartment buildings have a similar look. Most are out of concrete and have no decoration or uniqueness to them. At first it was difficult because it wasn’t pretty and we couldn’t find landmarks. But we have gotten used to the buildings and are figuring things out.

We are staying in a relatively new 10 story building. The blue on the building is actually a deep sky blue although it doesn’t show up well on the picture. It’s kind of a hybrid between a hotel and student housing owned by the university, located in a park dedicated to sports.

Our studio is very spacious with lots of storage. We have an entry hall, bathroom, kitchen with hot plate and fridge, big room with beds, shelving and a desk, and a small patio. We love our large window that looks over the sports fields and then hills. All of the trees will be beautiful when spring comes.

The first order of business was to outfit our studio. It came with sheets, towels and one roll of TP. We spent 4-5 hours shopping at mega stores during our first two days. Things are different here. They don’t have the plastic that we have in the US. We could get disposable plates and flatware, but nothing in plastic that could be washed. Also, groupings that normally come in sets of 4 in the States, come in sets of 3 here. We ended up with nice and cheap that we are using creatively. Hopefully we can donate to a shelter here when we are done.

The next order of business was figuring out the public transportation system. Cluj has inexpensive taxis, trams (hooked to overhead electricity and on tracks), trolleys (buses hooked to overhead electricity) and buses. But as far as we can tell, none really intersect. Chuck, with his good sense of direction, found his way to the university and his office. Jan, with her lousy sense of direction but ease of asking questions, took a little longer but is getting the hang of it.

Babes Bolyai University, where Chuck is working, is also a good looking newer building. He shares an office with five others, although they are rarely there because of their teaching and other duties. He has been invited to meet with the dean, go to a student internship fair, and is included in the weekly staff meetings. But he is mostly reading since the computer at work is probably at least 10 years old.

Both March 1 and March 8 were some kind of women’s day holidays. The tradition for the first holiday is for any men to give a small gift to all women they know (they work with, they’re friends with, family, etc.) The gifts are small broaches, figurines (½”). They each have a small ribbon hanging from them. The women at the front desk of our hotel showed us one that she received from the man who brings the newspapers. The women traditionally wear them for the first week. We only saw two women wearing them. One of them said it was because her young son gave it to her. Then on March 8, the women receive flowers. Again, not like in the US. We saw only one flower being given in most cases. Chuck asked a male colleague when Man’s Day was and was told that the other 363 days are man’s day.

Last weekend we went to the opera, Rigoletto at the Opera house. The building was elegant in its heyday. But its paint was a bit faded. The voices were really good, as was the orchestra. We really enjoyed it and will go again.

This weekend we are taking a bus to Sibiu, about 3 ½ hours away. We’ll post again soon.