I've had a difficult first week in Ecuador. My work here in Guayaquil has been very rewarding on the one hand, but very tiring on the other. I have embarked on a senior thesis/independent study project that has turned out totally different than I had expected. My grant proposals claimed that I was going to investigate the intersection of level of Jewish observance and political views in the Jewish communities in Ecuador. I wanted to see if the more observant Jews support the more conservative candidate and the more liberal (read: Reform/Conservative) Jews support the socialist President Correa. After the first few interviews I conducted, I've realized that the Jews here don't really see any influence from their religious views on their political views. It's been pretty disheartening that my whole premise doesn't work in Ecuador. I'm going to continue conducting my interviews hoping that I can find a more relevant theme.Consulting, huh? This past week I've been doing a lot of independent Jewish community consulting. I've stayed with the lovely Defranc family in the Loma de Urdesa area of Guayaquil, who house the Shtibel Igualtaria de Guayaquil in their living room. Complete with a bima and a torah, albeit pasul, they host full traditional egalitarian services every holiday and Shabbat. Their whole community amounts to them and two other families. Since they count women in their minyan, they have a minyan if all the members come. They are all very dedicated to the Conservative community and are lucky to have Rabbi Juan Mejia, a recent smicha graduate from JTS Rabbinical School, as their long-distance teacher. After Shavuot Shachrit services lasted from 8:30AM until almost noon, we discussed how to improve the services so that people stay more interested and active in the prayers. I suggested doing parts of psukei d'zimra popcorn style so that more people can actively lead and so that it doesn't turn into the David Defranc show, while everyone else sits and watches. Since I think the 3 + hour service isn't particularly sustainable, I offered a rotation of psalms in psukei d'zimra in which they would alternate between the first ones and the last ones, half in Spanish and the other half in Hebrew, until their internalize what the prayers mean and until their Hebrew reading becomes quicker. Having visited budding Jewish communities in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Peru, I've seen a lot of different approaches to mastering the prayer service and becoming stronger communities.
Orthodox Synagogue of Guayaquil
Among the other communities I've visited here in Guayaquil, have been: the Guayaquil Chabad, which is the most mainstream and only Orthodox synagogue in the country, Bet Jadash, a Reform community and member of the World Union of Progressive Judaism, El Elohei Israel, an ex-messianic community led by the ex-evangelical pastor Nery Montiel, and Ami Yisrael, a similar ex-messianic community led by Yisrael Vilacis in the South of Guayaquil. Guayaquil's Jewish communities are very far from achdut. Rabbi Uriel Tawil, the Chabad Rabbi, originally from Argentina, doesn't view any of the other communities as Jewish. From a strict Orthodox perspective, none of them have converted with Orthodox rabbis. At Shavuot lunch with Rabbi Tawil, we vehemently disagreed on many of the issues of pluralism and accepting these converts as Jews. Rabbi Tawil is a great guy, but we simply agreed to disagree and I proceeded to change the subject. Maybe I'm too open-minded (if that's a thing) on some of these issues of conversion in Latin America. But often times, to convert with an Orthodox bet din here, you have to buy a plane ticket to New York, Miami or Israel and pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars.Yisrael Vilacis from Ami Yisrael
and David Defranc from Shtibel
Anyways, Shavuot here was great. I led a tikkun leil Shavuot discussion about chukat hagoy, which evoked a very powerful conversation about what it means to be a separate people, when there is so much pressure in Ecuador towards Christianity. They mentioned how important kashrut is for them to constantly remind them not to go in the path of the non-Jews here. The points that later authorities like the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch make about not dressing like the non-Jews was a little more difficult for them (and I to understand). "So Jews cannot wear the latest fashion?" Monica Defranc asked me sincerely.
I'm very excited to fly to Quito on Sunday and start my internship at the US Embassy in Quito after almost three and a half months of waiting for my clearance. Still, I know very little about what I will be doing at the Regional Security Office in Quito. I'm a little nervous about this opportunity, but I'm sure it'll be a phenomenal learning experience.
