Seders

I finally finished my paper on Monique Wittig. Thank god. She had a few interesting ideas, but it's hard for me to relate to the views of a radical feminist who concludes that "les lesbiennes ne sont pas des femmes." (Lesbians are not women.)

Passover finally arrived, though. First seder: at the home of Rabbi Stephen, who's a friend of my dad's from way back when and was kind enough to invite me. He was the only person there I knew at all (and I only met him for 90 minutes or so about a month back), but everyone was very friendly and I managed to feel at home. Not everyone was French - there was one girl from Macedonia in attendance, and others from Israel and a few other countries.

Second seder: organized by Kehilat Gesher, a Franco-Anglophone bilingual (trilingual, if you count Hebrew) synagogue. It was in a massive room, with well over a hundred people, which, with the limited number of servers, and along with the incredibly long Maggid ("Magguid" according to the somewhat odd-seeming French transliteration), this resulted in a late and slow dinner; the main course didn't even arrive until after 10! More importantly, though, I met some interesting expatriates, along with a couple families who were traveling and just wanted a Seder to go to. It would be quite an experience to live in Paris, but I don't see it happening for me; still, a decent number of Americans I've met seem to have found fairly lucrative careers here.

Photos from the Loire Valley, and Aaron's visit.



Leaving for Barcelona tomorrow, where I'll meet Aaron, and then Rome. Looking forward to it.