Before Pesach we have a custom of burning chametz (bread, crackers, cereal, pasta, anything made of five grains: wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt). When I was a kid, I remember burning chametz in our backyard. Now there are laws about creating fires, so observant Jews get special permission to burn chametz. This burning took place in Edison, New Jersey.
A tradition we have in our family (and others do as well) is to burn the lulav, the palm branch left over from Sukkot, the fall holiday in which we sit in a booth outside for a week.
In this photo you can see both lulavim (plural of lulav) and real bread. It got quite smokey – my husband doesn’t remember it being so smokey in the past. Maybe this is because the regular Edison staff were on vacation for Good Friday and a nice person was left in charge who didn’t quite manage the smoke? I don’t know, but I left there sniffing my clothes, wondering if I smelt like someone who had walked into a smokey bar.
I had enough time to attend biur chametz (burning of the chametz) this year because I managed to get all the cooking I had planned the day before and early in the morning. One of the most popular dishes among my sister-in-law’s family that I made was mushroom paté; personally, my favorite was the marinated beets with ginger and garlic. Planning to make both of those again tomorrow.
A Section of Route 18 with Graffiti in New Brunswick, New Jersey
Last week I had an opportunity to meander through the Native Plant Reserve in Highland Park. I went as far as the edge of the Raritan River, and that’s where I photographed this shot of graffiti on the New Brunswick side. It’s really the only color around at this time of year. You can see photos of the bridge over the Raritan River between New Brunswick and Highland Park on this post.
Last Sunday my daughter and I went to the dog park in Donaldson Park. She wanted to see the dogs, and I was happy to see the sunset. Donaldson Park is on the other side of Highland Park from where we live, and it is right next to the Raritan River. You can park right near the dog parks.
There is a dog park (a large caged in area) for little dogs and one for big dogs. There were a lot more big dogs. They romp around and play games with each other. My daughter was following the interactions carefully.
I enjoyed the oranges, reds, yellows of the sunset. The steeple you see is across the Raritan River in New Brunswick.
Photo by Mason Resnick: Smashed window of Park Place in Highland Park, New Jersey
Yesterday a friend posted online that she had just finished reading The Book Thief and then she discovered five Jewish businesses in Highland Park had their windows smashed overnight. Shortly thereafter Mason Resnick posted these Kristalnacht like photos on Facebook. The end of the story was a disturbed individual was arrested.
I will be visiting the Judaica Gallery today because I need to make a purchase for my daughter – at least those of us that are local can support the businesses that were targeted. Rutgers Hillel and Chabad in New Brunswick also were targeted with smashed glass, as well as the restaurant Maoz. The Highland Park businesses were Jerusalem Pizza, Park Place, Judaica Gallery, Trio Gifts and Jack’s Hardware. Maybe I should go buy some light bulbs at Jack’s.
A big thank you to the Highland Park police for their quick and decisive action regarding this crime.
Update: A Letter from Mayor Steve Nolan (it ends with: “As a community, we are much stronger than a pane of glass could ever be.” – bravo)
Update: An excerpt from a letter from Rutgers Hillel director Andrew Getrauer:
Wednesday morning at 2 AM a Jewish Rutgers student, very
involved in Hillel, was at the kosher Dunkin’ Donuts in Highland Park,
when a man approached him and started a conversation about Jewish
issues. He identified himself as Jewish. This deteriorated into a rant
where the man also declared himself a neo-Nazi and told the student he
should be in a camp and killed like his ancestors, and that he would
start a ‘second Kristalnacht.’ At this point the Dunkin Donuts staff
threw the man out of the store.
Wednesday morning Highland Park woke up to find 5 Jewish-owned
stores with windows broken; 2 Judaica stores, 2 kosher restaurants, and
a hardware store owned by an Orthodox man. A Jewish-owned falafel
restaurant in New Brunswick was also targeted. Hillel staff contacted
the student who had encountered the man at Dunkin Donuts and made sure
he was in touch with police. Hillel staff contacted the ADL and New
Brunswick police to help connect the dots between the various incidents.
There was wide spread anxiety throughout the local community, expressed
thru constant phone calls, emails, Facebook and twitter messages. To
give you a sense of the feeling at the time, people were calling it
“Kristalnacht in New Jersey.”
More details were reported in the Star Ledger, New Jersey Jewish News and other press.
Princeton University - East Pyne Building, detail of turret
Yesterday my eldest son and I went to visit Princeton. This was my third visit to Princeton this year. In the summer I took my daughter and her friend to the Princeton Art Museum. A few weeks ago I went for a conference – I was the NJSGC photographer for the day.
We went on a visit to Princeton University yesterday because my son is applying to colleges, and as he had the day off due to parent-teacher conferences, he decided he would like to visit Princeton. We arranged to meet my niece for lunch at the Center for Jewish Life. Having had a late-for-the-conference experience due to parking issues a few weeks ago, I now consider myself a Princeton parking expert, and we drove straight to Palmer Square Garage on Chambers Street. In the dripping wet we figured out where Clio Hall is, the place where the tour begins. The photos on top and bottom were taken in the sunny summer month of August – it did not look that bright in New Jersey yesterday, lots of rain. We did the tour (one other mother-son team joined us), and then we had the pleasure of my niece’s company at a kosher lunch at CJL. She seems to be enjoying Princeton, and I was pleased to hear she is taking French as one of her courses. She is the sister of the blogger in Norway.
So, now that I’ve left you with some of the details of my day, here’s some questions for you:
If you’ve had a child leave home, how did it feel to have the first one leave?
If you could apply to college now (all expenses paid), where would you go and what would you study?
On Sunday we visited Washington Valley Park in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Our friend found the hike on the website njhiking.com; I had never heard of the park before. Pictured is the lovely reservoir at the bottom of the hiking area.
We decided in advance to follow the red trail – it wasn’t always easy to see these markings for the trail on the trees.
I saw a variety of plants growing – no idea what this striped little plant is called.
I recognized these red oval berries from my childhood – I looked up the bush (red berries with thorns is what I looked for in Google Images), and I learned this is called a barberry bush.
I rather liked this plant inside moss that I found on the trail.
There were various streams on our hike that led into the reservoir. The girls (my daughter and friend) had fun hopping over the rocks.
When we got to the top of the hill on the trail, we were rewarded with views of hawks flying overhead.
You could see quite a distance from the top – the fall colors have faded, but they are still varied, though muted.
Last Sunday we went apple picking at Lee Turkey Farm in East Windsor, New Jersey. The previous September we picked apples at Terhune Orchards near Princeton.
Our first stop was Von Thun Farm in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey; however, they did not feature apple picking until the next Sunday. So we proceeded unto Lee Turkey Farm, which also has a corn maze and pick your own corn. My daughter and her friends enjoyed watching the chickens for a while.
No real reds in this photo, but I loved the rushed look of my daughter running through the corn maze at Lee Turkey Farm.
On Sunday we visited Lee Turkey Farm in East Windsor, New Jersey. Across from the farm is a stream, and some lovely wildflowers were growing. The yellow wildflower above seemed to attract bees.
This droopy pale orange flower added a wispy look to the scene.
These green, round leaves were growing in the stream, but I didn’t see any lilies.
This white flower seems to be a kind of honeysuckle.
Would this little daisy-like flower be a fairy aster?
Last week my daughter, her friend and I went to the Princeton Art Museum. The museum is in the middle of the Princeton University campus, and it features Roman, Greek, European, modern and American art in its collection. The museum offered scavenger hunts for inquisitive children like my own, and the girls chose between Roman, Greek or American portraiture. We first went to the Roman room. After a few minutes of looking at mosaics and busts of people dead for about 2000 years, the girls declared the collection “creepy,” and we went back upstairs to try the American scavenger hunt.
The section with the American paintings was more appealing to them.
The life-size portrait of Elizabeth Allen Marquand, 1887 by John Singer Sargent is more captivating in real life. I would probably sit for hours and draw her, if I had the chance.
After a few minutes of doing the scavenger hunt, my daughter and her friend decided to use the backs of the hunt papers to draw a distinguished family from the 18th century, The Hartley Family with lovely silk dresses.
There’s sculpture and architecture to be seen outside the museum, on the Princeton campus, but I’ll save the architecture for another post. The statue is of John Witherspoon, 6th president of Princeton and a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
Congregation Agudath Achim in Bradley Beach, New Jersey may not be the most picturesque part of the Jersey Shore, but for those who attend services at this little shul, it is a special place. My in-laws’ friends threw us a Sheva Brachot (party after getting married) for us here way back in 1993.
Batya will be hosting a JPiX carnival this coming August 4 – if you have any posts with photos relevant to a Jewish Photo Bloggers’ Carnival, please submit them to http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_987.html.
