by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
Naturally my daughter and I couldn’t “see” all of Australia in the brief eight days we were touring there. Or to know it beyond a few choice locales. It would be like claiming familiarity in a week with the vast but disparate territories that make up the U.S. or Canada. But there were certainly many unforgettable moments, enough to make us want to return for more.
Who could forget sailing into Sydney harbor at sunrise? We rose at 5 AM in order not to miss the sunrise, and, as we stepped onto the ship’s top deck, already crowded with passengers who didn’t want to miss it either, we gasped at the first sight of perhaps the most beautiful harbor in the world, yet strangely reminiscent in its early morning, ethereal beauty of Vancouver’s equally breath-taking harbor in Canada. As a matter of fact, I thought fondly of Canada throughout my visit to Australia. Both countries were historically colonies of Great Britain in the time of its proud, great Empire. Both are now independent countries, of course; yet, as a Canadian-born person, I felt an almost automatic kinship to Australians, both of us retaining more than a little bit of Brit “keep your chin up” in us.
It was not such a happy entry into Australia for England’s Esther Abrahams, in 1787. But she did keep her chin up, despite her disastrous early history. Her story is so well known in Australia that her portrait looks down at visitors today at the Jewish Museum in Sydney. Tourist brochures mention her. Internet sites record her story. At the age of 15, unmarried and recently pregnant, she was convicted at London’s infamous Old Bailey courtroom of stealing 24 yards of silk lace and sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia, where she would work as a convict. She sailed there on Lady Penrhyn, one the First Fleet’s sixships of convicts, certainly not in the luxurious comfort my daughter and I experienced on our cruise ship, but below the waterline with the portholes bleakly boarded up, and along with 262 other convicts, 15 of them Jewish. Of the 582 convicts aboard the first six ships, 193 were women. And, of all the convicts shipped to Australia in the years transportation as a sentence was in force, an estimated 7 % of them were Jewish. Some of them were part of Australia’s first police force, which was made up largely of convicts.
It would have been a sad entry for Esther Abrahams into the hardships – rape, among other things – that female convicts faced in colonial Australia if she had not encountered a young marine lieutenant, the well-born George Johnson, aboard the ship; his duties took him down below to keep order. Since she was a most attractive young lady, with curly, black hair, an oval face, a rather long nose, and a rosebud mouth, and he was 23, he promptly fell in love with her. He even purchased a nanny goat at one of the stops so that Esther’s newborn, Roseanna, could have milk. She was to become his “de facto” wife when they landed, and — since she had plenty of brains as well as beauty – they accumulated large financial holdings, He finally married her some 25 years later. In the interim, they had seven children together.
Although Johnson was later court-martialed for his part in the mutiny against the colony’s infamous governor, William Bligh, he was cleared of most of the charges. For six months, in fact, he served as the acting Governor of the colony in Bligh’s stead. And that is how, Esther Abrahams, former Jewish felon, became the “First Lady” of Australia for a short time. It is said that she wisely kept herself in the background.
After Johnson died, he left his extensive property to Esther; after her death, it was to go to his children. Unfortunately, her eldest son couldn’t wait for that eventuality, and it resulted in unsavory litigation; he tried to declare her senile. She spent her last years living quietly in the home of her youngest son, David. Some of her descendants became influential leaders in Australia.
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
It was on a middle-sized Cruise Ship that I realized how much I had absorbed from my six years of rabbinic education. Like the medical doctor of an earlier time who made house calls with a medical bag in tow, I had taken a small suitcase of books with me, as well as the short sermons and other material I had pre-prepared in file folders before boarding the ship in Vancouver, Canada for the High Holy Days. We were headed for the South Pacific. I knew that I would have very limited access to the Internet for supplementary material, so I had taken the precaution of bringing a dozen copies of specific services and — since plants or fruit could not be brought onto the ship — of preparing a bubble-wrapped lulav with artificial leaves representing the palm, myrtle, and willow for Succoth services. These were my materials. The rest was in my head and my heart. In addition, as Guest Staff Rabbi on the Cruise Ship, I would have to adapt to the different rooms and schedules assigned for religious services. They would be empty rooms until I used my then newly-minted rabbinic capabilities to make them into Makoms, into sacred spaces, and the diverse people who would come to fill them into a temporary community.
Well into the cruise, a woman with slightly greying hair, Bernadine, hugged me to her joyfully in the corridor outside the room where I had just conducted an Erev Shabbat prayer service. Our ship was a mere dot on the vast Pacific ocean at the time, voyaging between Vancouver, Canada and Sydney, Australia. On the way we had already visited some of the many groups of Pacific islands: Hawaii (Honolulu), American Samoa (a U.S. territory where the indigenous people are intent on preserving their culture, yet there are many churches of various denominations, with the Mormon Church predominating); Fiji (only 133 of 300 plus islands are inhabited); Vana’atu (Mystery Island, an uninhabited island, where some episodes of “The Survivor” were filmed); and New Caledonia (formerly a French colony, where American troops were stationed during WW II). But at that moment of our cruise hug, all we could see through the ship’s many large windows were sky and sea melting into one another. A time and place to marvel at the works of the Divine, indeed.
“I have the courage now,” Bernardine cried, happy tears escaping down her cheeks. “I thought I was too old, but you inspired me.” She had been working with seniors for years and had long yearned for but hesitated to enter a degree program in gerontology. “I’m going to take the plunge,” she confided. With his arm around her shoulders, her husband nodded his own encouragement. They were both devout Catholics. We had first met when I was invited to “preach” at one of the Catholic masses held daily on the ship. On another occasion, I was asked to read a passage from the Old Testament. In return, the priest (a retiree) attended most of our Jewish services — where I honored him in a similar fashion.
In a meaningful interfaith service at the Arizona Memorial in Oahu, all the on-board clergy (the priest, the Protestant minister, and myself as rabbi) participated jointly in memorializing the men who died at sea at Pearl Harbor — the infamous attack that caused the U.S. to declare war on Japan. After that deeply felt occasion, we three clergy enjoyed having several lunches together. We discussed religious similarities and differences between our respective faiths. Their congregational concerns were very much like those we face in Jewish life today: declining membership and attendance; making religion relevant to a new generation; intensified focus on educating youth; attending to the changing needs of a growing elderly population more likely now to stay in their homes than opt for costly assisted-living residences; interference in (or fear of) speaking from the pulpit about public issues that needed to be addressed; and, yes, we talked honestly about Israel.
So did a number of people (both Jews and non-Jews) who would approach me from time to time on the ship to ask challenging questions, things they were too reticent to ask in more formal settings. Some were evangelical Christians who wanted me to know that they were definitely “pro-Israel.” One person asked me if sacrifices still figure in Judaism today, and if the blood libel had any truth to it. Another man quoted chapter and verse from the Book of Daniel and wanted to know why, in the light of these prophecies, Jews still would not accept Jesus as their Messiah. Fortunately, my pluralistic rabbinic training at AJRCA had prepared me to field questions such as these. I always had to be “on” as a rabbi.
My tour of duty also included Sh’mini Atzeret (it was fun to pray for rain with water, water all around us!) and a joyful Simchat Torah. Our little Jewish “community” all took turns reading from the Plaut Torah (in book form since we didn’t have a Torah scroll) in English. Other than an Israeli couple (and an American who lived half the year in Eilat) who made up my regular minyan of ten or 12 people—a good turnout considering the small proportion of Jews on the ship — none of my “congregants” could read Hebrew.
It was satisfying to shape such disparate people — from Canada, Australia, England, America, Mexico, and Israel — into a little community that gleefully took the two loaves of challah and two bottles of ritual wine provided for us for the festivals and Sabbath eves into the dining room for Friday night dinner together. They even approached several “Jews who don’t go” on the ship and encouraged them to join our Friday nights.
One couple who live in Mexico asked if I would be willing to travel there to lead services in their small, artistic community’s synagogue. Their lay rabbi had left for a bigger synagogue in another town. “We can’t pay you,” she said, “but you’d have a nice vacation and a place to stay. We could probably pay your airfare.” A very nice offer, but unfortunately, I still have to pay back my student loans.
However, my experiences as Guest Staff Rabbi (this was only my second cruise; I’ve since had five more) can’t be measured in dollars and cents. Being a Cruise Rabbi demands adjustment to the personalities and prayer expectations of people who may be from conservative, reform, non-practicing orthodox, and even alternative backgrounds. In my conversations with some Israelis on the ship, they defined themselves as secular Jews, yet they consider the orthodox way the only “right” way to be Jews.
That’s why Arik — who “goes to shul only once a year and that’s enough!” — couldn’t bring himself to accept an artificial lulav, electric candles (because we were not allowed to light real ones on the ship), and a lemon from the ship’s kitchen instead of an etrog (the fourth species, a member of the citrus family) for Succoth, the Jewish harvest celebration in the autumn. “A lemon is not an etrog,” he said excitedly. He is right. It’s not. But where do you get a fresh etrog in the middle of the South Pacific ocean on a 25-day cruise? At least we had dinner together in a temporary shelter (okay, not a branch-covered hut, but at least an Ark of sorts). On the first night of Succoth, we waved the artificial lulav in every direction (which way was east?), thanked God that we had survived to this season, and invited imaginary guests to join us. When we stepped outside on deck, looked at the stars, and inhaled the cresting waves, we were a community, joyful and hopeful for the future.
Later, when we explored Isle des Pins (Island of Pines), one of the New Caledonian islands, we climbed about 150 rough-hewn, slippery stone steps to reach a tiny church that was several hundred years old and still in use. Originally built by Catholic missionaries using indigenous artisans who put into play their imaginative woodcarving, it was perched high on a mountain top. At the rear of the church, overlooking the sea, stood a tall Catholic memorial carved in stone. At its top, a saintly stone figure held a cross aloft, Statue of Liberty style. The memorial was dedicated to the men of the island who had served France in two World Wars. And circling the memorial stone were native totems, tall ones to recognize those who had been high chiefs, as was the native custom. In between the tall totems were symmetrically interspersed, shorter totems to signify lower orders in the indigenous hierarchy. Here, in this beautiful, natural setting with abundant flowers, traditional Catholicism was mixed with native culture — a phenomenon we call “syncretism” today — to honor the men who had given their lives for freedom.
One might say, comparatively speaking, that this memorial was not exactly an oval-shaped, bumpy-skinned etrog in its adherence to strict religious belief, but in its combined purpose of respect paid and beauty intended to elevate and comfort, it was like a fresh lemon, golden yellow and round. It was both touching and reverent. As this blended memorial etched itself into the camera of my memory, it supported my belief as a young-old rabbi that the spirit of religion often trumps the letter of the law.
*This article by Rabbi Corinne Copnick was originally published in 2015 on the AJRCA website.
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
New Caledonia, a French-speaking collectivity of our South Pacific stop-over islands on the way to Australia – about 750 miles away — definitely has a “je ne sais crois,” an indefinable special quality. The New Caledonian islands consist of Grande Terre, the Loyalty islands, the Chesterfield islands, the Belearchipelago, the Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. (I loved Isle des Pins when we stopped there– oh, the nostalgic smell of pine trees for someone born in Canada!) These islands also attract birdwatchers from around the world.
This group of islands was very different from other South Pacific Islands I visited, however. For one thing, it’s noticeable that tropical flora does not have a monopoly on the landscape; trees and plants that are more familiar to the Northern Hemisphere mingle with more exotic varieties here. (I loved Isle des Pins when we stopped there – oh, the nostalgic smell of pine trees for someone born in Canada!) The temperature, too, seemed more moderate when we visited the capitol, Noumea on Grande Terre, an island that has a lot to recommend it.
The residents of Grande Terre pride themselves on being a little Paris of the South Pacific. Most people we encountered could speak English, but the preferred language of this island today is French. The shop windows are fashion savvy and show a high degree of sophistication in the expensive, quality products they display. There are excellent museums, especially the ones that review the World Wars, both I and II. Even the money is French (ah, but New Caledonian French), as we soon discovered when we tried to exchange U.S. dollars for New Caledonian francs (surprisingly, they were worth more than American dollars) at the island’s main bank.
You see, the island’s policy is not to accept any foreign money at all, not even U.S. dollars. Every visitor must change the money of their country of origin to New Caledonian dollars. And if you don’t spend it all, you can’t exchange what is left for your own currency. Since my daughter and I did not have much time to spend on the island, we calculated that exchanging $20.00 US would be ample. We thought that touring the much touted (deservedly) World War II museum would take a couple of hours. That, and a cup of coffee, would consume the time at our disposal before we had to return to the ship.
But we could not exchange $20.00 US. No way, no how. Not at the bank machine, not in the bank. The minimum amount exchangeable was $50.00 US. The museum’s admission price was the equivalent of $2.00 US, so for the two of us, that made $4.00 US. Certainly enough money would remain for a delectable shared French pastry at the corner café and possibly an espresso. Non, non, non. Not possible. It was $50.00 US or nothing.
Americans from the U.S. are not used to discovering that there are corners of the world where their money is scorned. But rejected our dollar bills were. That was the pleasantly-stated decree of the three beautiful, elegantly dressed beauties – coiffed, made up, bejeweled – as they sat on the stools that graced the long front-counter of the bank. The cashier proffered the same opinion from her caged window at the back of the bank; and, despite our pleas, the even more beautiful and fashionable manager finally summoned from her secluded office confirmed what her employees had said. Nothing less than $50.00 US could be exchanged into New Caledonian money. And no remnant of that money could be changed back.
Until …
Noting that the gorgeous manager’s English was tinged with a French accent – not any old French but quite obviously Parisian French, we began to converse with her in French. New Caledonia reminded us so much of France, we enthused, even of Paree. Oh, yes, we had visited Paris, and, mais oui, of course we spoke French because we were born in Montreal. A French city. So much in common. Suddenly, she was willing to make a one-time exception. The bank would exchange 20 American dollars for us. We exchanged smiles and little pleasantries along with the money. In well-tutored French all around.
New Caledonian money in hand, there was still time for us to enjoy the World War II museum. It is truly a wonderful museum. With considerable artistry and modern technology, it depicts, not only the course of this war as experienced in New Caledonia, but also how such a diverse community, made up of so many different nationalities and ethnic groups, especially the aboriginals, were knit together by war. The population of these islands is a mix of the original inhabitants (the Kanaks), people of European ancestry, Polynesians, Southeast Asians, and those few descended from the Pied-Norand Maghrebans. Periods of slavery (“blackbirding”) were also part of their history. The two hours my daughter and I spent at the museum were not enough to completely integrate all this information.
However, the museum exhibition did help us understand how for years and years, the island had been batted back and forth between so many foreign empires, and why it was so important for the islanders to maintain their independence from foreign influence. These deeply-entrenched feelings extend to their money. Their economy is strong (they have some of the largest deposits of nickel in the world), which give these islands prosperity and financial independence). New Caledonia will therefore conduct its affairs in NEW CALEDONIAN money.
After our museum visit, there was insufficient time for a French pastry or café-au-lait before returning to our ship. But we had gained a valuable understanding. The left-over New Caledonian dollars that remained in our wallets now had a special significance: New Caledonia was no longer a colony of any foreign power. Its non-exchangeable dollars stood for freedom – and unity.
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
When I moved in 1985 to Toronto, Ontario from Montreal, Quebec, where I was born and lived most of my life, I was surprised to find that my beloved IBM Selectric typewriter would no longer suffice. Not if I wanted my copy to present a current image. So I was kindly informed by a colleague who wanted to help me “integrate” into the Torontonian professional milieu.
Not long before, I had toured the offices of a major Montreal newspaper with a writer’s group. There was still only one computer in the news office, which we regarded with great respect as we were given an informational talk on how the newspaper’s environment (still full of typewriters just like mine) would not only soon become replete with computers, but it would also become paperless. Shock and awe!
But in business-like Toronto offices, the computers were already there. Everywhere. It didn’t take long to become “hooked.” How had I lived for so many years without a computer? Clueless at first, I had taken reciprocal lessons from an Israeli computer genius who needed English lessons for his young (hyperactive) daughter. So we traded expertise.
At that time, I was learning on a WordPerfect 3.I program that my genius teacher installed in the second-hand computer I acquired from him, and I still appreciate the invaluable advice he gave me: “Don’t read a manual,” he said. “Never. Learn from the machine. Press all the keys, one by one, and it will teach you everything. Don’t be afraid. Nothing will happen. If you make a mistake, you can fix the code.” In those days, the visual miracle of Windows with its drop-down menus had not yet arrived on the personal market. Before Windows, you still had to press “Reveal Codes,” and lo and behold, a mathematical vision appeared on the computer screen. The code underlying the keys. So you learned to “fix” things by learning to read the code to a degree and deleting the mistakes you had made. (Who knew then that in the 21st century some people would be cyber-hacking into computer codes for nefarious reasons?)
Then around 1990, everything changed again. The Windows program was the new imperative along with that world-changing vehicle, The World Wide Web. Now I could put my writing business on the Web, and suddenly people all over the world could access it. The Internet. Accessible with a few keystrokes. Who needed an office any more?
Twenty-seven years had elapsed by the time I found myself, in 2017, Guest Staff Rabbi on a cruise headed for the South Pacific. I couldn’t imagine life without my computer and cell phone. Neither could my daughter who, putting her own business on hold, had accompanied me. Sadly, even though there were supposed to be “hot spots” on the ship, and even though my daughter had invested in an Internet package, it was almost impossible to “connect.” Even when occasionally we did, the expensive connection was so slow that we couldn’t finish a single email before it was “lost” once again. Other passengers had the same problem. No Internet. No cell phone. And you can’t go to an Apple store for help in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
We didn’t exactly have a funeral for our lost access, but we did have to adjust to life unwired, however temporary. It was a 47-day cruise.
And then we landed on one of the 80 islands of Vanuatu, 65 of which are uninhabited. These once volcanic islands are located in Oceania between Australia and Hawaii. In fact, they are about 1,000 miles east of Australia, and closest to New Caledonia, the Fiji islands, the Solomon Islands, and New Guinea. Over the years, the Vanuatu islands have been plagued by large earthquakes, danger of tsunamis, and repeated cyclones. But they are gorgeous, surrounded by turquoise waters, and fine sandy beaches. It’s small wonder that when the first people arrived there some 4,000 years ago, they stayed. Unfortunately, they were decimated by disease once the Europeans arrived. In 1606, the Portuguese explorer, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros sighted these islands, which he called Espiritu Santu. By the time Captain James Cook found them in 1774, he renamed them the New Hebrides. In the 1800s, traders arrived to exploit the island’s fragrant sandalwood. Then, for a long time, the New Hebrides were under British and French control. With the advent of World War II in the 1940s, the Americans arrived, and in the 1980s, the Republic of Vanuatu emerged as a parliamentary republic.
It was at the most southern of the islands of this Republic that our cruise ship docked. Popularly called Mystery Island, it is uninhabited, and its real name is Inyeug (which is close to the main island, Aneityum). Islanders refuse to live in Inyeug because they believe it is inhabited by ghosts. Even today. Although a few entrepreneurial islanders will come to sell trinkets to tourists by day, at night they have all vanished. The tourists have returned to their cruise ships. It’s eerily dark on Mystery Island.
Of course, our ship arrived there in daylight. When we disembarked, we were informed that we could walk around this entire island paradise in less than an hour – 45 minutes perhaps. So I set out with my daughter, and as we “oohed” and “aahed” our way around the flora of this beautiful, empty place, her phone pinged. A ping in the middle of an uninhabited island in the South Pacific? Did we hear right?
Amazed, my daughter picked up her cellphone. “Hello,” said the person calling her from California. “Good to hear your voice.” What??? There was reception on the island??? There must be a cell phone tower somewhere nearby. How could it be?
That’s when, halfway around the island, we noticed that a modest grass airstrip ran along one part of the beach to the other side. Planes could land here too! As my daughter continued her business conversation with the U.S., we learned that some of the islands of Vanuatu had been used for the remote locations of the popular television series called “The Survivor.”
Mystery Island was a mystery no more. Modern civilization had been here. It pinged.
by Rabbi Corinne Copnick
Before I travelled to Brazil, it never occurred to me how much hard work it takes to get less than a handful of nuts from the nut tree (nuts do grow on trees). They look a lot different in their natural state than they do included in a delectable chocolate bar. First someone agile has to climb the tree; then he (usually) has to chop down the large husk, which falls to the ground. Next the thick, hairy, husk is smashed open (it takes considerable effort – and precision – by a man or woman, a lot more than, say, opening a jar with elderly hands when you can’t remember where you put the jar opener). Inside that inner shell is the core of the husk, and inside that core lies its heart – perhaps four Brazil nuts. That’s why they are so expensive when you buy them in a North American supermarket. They’d be a lot more expensive if agricultural labor in Brazil were not so poorly rewarded.
Producing the chocolate (made from cocoa or cocoa beans, which also grow on trees) for the bars is also a lengthy process. The beans, which are the basis of chocolate, have a leathery rind, and they beans inside have to be extracted from the rind, fully fermented, and dried. Because the seed has fat, cocoa butter also can be extracted.
I visited one rural village where the chocolate beans were broken down in the old-fashioned way by a donkey hitched to a small mill. The donkey provided the power as he went round and round as directed. Round and round over and over. Using more modern methods, the industrialized production of chocolate from cocoa beans is big business today.
I have now visited nut plantations, cocoa plantations, coffee plantations. Some of the processes involve roasting in an open flame oven as well. The number of different products that can be made from these agricultural materials is amazing. But my personal affection is reserved for the coconut. One caveat: if you sit under a coconut tree when the nuts are ripening (that is, no longer green), it may be your last day on earth should a coconut fall on your head, something that is quite possible. So while you can sit under an apple tree romantically in North America, beware the coconut tree in South America for shading yourself, a seductive option in the tropical heat, to say the least.
As with the Brazil nuts, it’s also quite a job to climb a tree and hack down and then open a coconut. However, it’s worth the effort because every single part of the coconut can be used. Think of all the ways in which a coconut and its foliage contribute to society.
Actually, it was not in Brazil but rather in one of the Fiji islands in the South Pacific (there are some 330 of them, only about 110 of them inhabited, plus 500 islets) that my love affair with the coconut began. Many of the islanders have very frizzy hair, and some of them still let it grow out wild and bushy. My own hair, which is pleasantly curly in dry Southern California but grows to frizzy proportions in a humid tropical climate, can actually look quite presentable, even pretty, with daily applications of coconut butter, a product I found commercially from a Fijian company that ships its products all over the world. I slather the coconut butter (really intended as a skin cream) all over my face too. Some of the creams intended to protect your skin in from climactic wear cost a lot of money. A word of advice: try coconut.
The people of the Republic of Fiji (for a long time, from 1879 -1970, they were a Crown Colony of Britain) are warriors by nature. Even on their main island, Viti Levu, their small dwellings huddle defensively close together in their villages, despite the fact that there is lots of surrounding land. They maintain a large standing army, of which they are proud – native Fijians have served in major wars and continue to partner with their allies in democratic countries. As small memorials attest, they are proud of their patriotic service.
For many years, Western countries trod lightly when dealing with Fiji – that is, explorers and missionaries avoided going there because of Fiji’s history of aggressive cannibalism. In fact, an early missionary’s leather shoes that refused to soften in the boiling vat are still on display in the Fiji museum, along with the impressive sea-going vessels that the Fijians crafted to sell (despite the fact that they were not sailors).
Eating their human enemies ritually gave them their enemies’ power, they believed. They had special long forks by which they fed their priests in symbolic rituals. This human food did not actually touch the priests’ lips – it just slid down their throats. I’m ashamed to say that I bought a tourist version of the ritual fork for my grandson. Better a chocolate bar with Brazil nuts. Or aromatic Brazilian coffee. Or coconut butter face cream from Fiji for his hair (it’s curly too).
No one eats another human in Fiji today — and given the multiple benefits derived from the coconut and the from the surrounding sea, they really didn’t (and don’t) need this kind of protein. As a matter of fact, Fiji has one of the most developed economies in the Pacific, with extensive forest, mineral, and fish resources. I must admit, though, that as a first time visitor, I felt a little queasy when I considered that the cannibalistic history of these vigorous islanders was less than a couple of hundred years behind them. As history reminds us from time to time, even in 2017, civilization can be a thin veneer, indeed.