After our annual celebration of American independence, I’ve always looked forward to Bastille Day, or fête nationale française (France’s national day of celebration), which falls on this Friday, July 14. Growing up with my mother working as a French teacher, we often spoke French in the home, listened to French music, watched French movies, and enjoyed many trips as a family and with my mom’s students to France. I am definitely a francophile, fascinated by French cuisine, culture, and identity.
Traveling abroad as a young person was truly an eye-opening experience. There was so much new food to sample and so many sights to take in. Of course, we visited many churches and French national landmarks, but in every single city we traveled to, my family and I searched for synagogues. Sometimes I saw Jewish houses of worship that were large and decorated and glorious, like the Grand Synagogue of Paris with its incredible organ and thousands of seats.On other trips—like one to the smaller Loire city of Tours—we would find just one small room with an ark and just enough space for a minyan, hidden behind a creaky wooden door. I loved searching for mezzuzot in a country that, although not always welcoming to outsiders, contains the world’s third-largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States. As much as I enjoyed being in France on those childhood trips, I also learned the important lesson that I could be myself—that I could be Jewish—anywhere in the world. As long as I could find a synagogue, I would find a home wherever I went.
Next year, our Wise community will travel to Morocco in February and to Israel in December. We will explore places with Jewish communities large and small, all with rich Jewish histories and incredible places to adventure. I very much hope you’ll consider traveling with Wise, enjoying home and community wherever we are together. Shavuah tov!
More information on our 2024 Wise travels here: https://wisela.org/wisetravel/
—Cantor Emma Lutz