Shabbat Shalom!

About 2 months ago a big group of my friends and I went to a live filming of a Peruvian TV show. While we were waiting in line outside the studio, we saw these four girls dressed in school uniforms. When we took a closer look we realized that their uniforms were embedded with the Star of David. Three of my American best friends who are also here through Rotary- Lea, Kate and David- are Jewish too (we like to refer to ourselves as the Jew Crew) and when we saw these girls' uniforms we freaked out!! Other Jewish teens in Lima?! It is such a rare sight.

There is a very small Jewish population in Peru. To give you a sense just how small we're talking.... my sister just finished her freshman year of college at Indiana University and there are more Jews enrolled in her university than there are in the entire 496,225 square miles that is Peru! So yes, we were taken aback to learn that there is indeed a Jewish high school in Lima.

We struck up a conversation with the girls in the Jewish school uniforms and they started telling us all about their school and the synagogues and kosher markets in Lima. We were so excited to learn more about the Peruvian Jewish culture. One of the girls invited us over to her house for a Shabbat dinner (Shabbat is the Jewish holiday celebrated every Friday night as the time of rest after a hard week), so we OF COURSE said yes, and planned it for a couple weeks later.

Going with the Jew Crew over to to our new Jewish friend's house was so exciting. We were all so curious about it!! We were hoping for some good Jewish food, but we weren't sure what Peruvian Jewish food would be like. We arrived at the apartment building and our four new friends were eagerly waiting outside to greet us. The building was beautiful. It's located in a very nice part of Lima, and just walking into the lobby of the building we felt like we had just stepped into a completely different world. It was more elegant than most apartment buildings in the states! We stepped into the elevator and our friend put in her key. When the elevator came to a stop, the doors slid open and to our surprise, we were staring right into the living room of the apartment! I didn't know what to look at first, the beautiful decor of the apartment, the living room table covered in finger snacks (including a delicious chicken pesto dip, that Lea and I are still dying to get the recipe for) or the four Jewish families who were already rushing over to greet the four stunned Jewish exchange students who had just stepped into their living room. Each and every Jewish brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin, parent, and grandparent greeted us with the typical Peruvian greeting, the kiss on the cheek, but instead of just the simple Peruvian "hola", we were greeted with the typical Friday night Jewish greeting, "Shabbat shalom!" It felt so great to sit around and talk to these Jewish families about the Jewish culture of Peru. Doing the Hebrew blessings over the bread and wine felt great too. Standing around the big dining room table with three of my best friends and our new Jewish families, I felt so at home. It's incredible how connected you can feel to a group of people, solely based on your religious background.

When they brought out the food, my friends and I just stared at each other. I could almost swear that my friend Kate's eyes teared up. The dining room table was soon covered with bowls of salads, potatoes, meats, gravies, etc. There was even challah, a special type of Jewish bread. We spent the night sitting around, eating delicious food and talking. It was so funny to speak Spanish with other Jews. We would be speaking in Spanish and then all the sudden a Hebrew word would be thrown in there. It was so cool to see that even though we were raised thousands of miles apart, we have so many similar traditions. It was in that moment that I realized how important Judaism is in my life. It is a part of who I am, and being surrounded by Jewish culture suddenly made me feel like I was home again.