We went to a bat mitzvah in extended family last weekend, down in Cincinnati. This was a big deal for my wife, who had a Very Bad Experience when she was living there 25+ years ago and has been paranoid about going back ever since. (My guess is that the perpetrators are dead by now. Or they would be if I could find them. But I digress.)
As in Indianapolis, the Jewish community in Cincinnati has grown fat on the bounty of the land* over the past couple of centuries, and has accordingly moved all of its synagogues and community centers and schools out to the suburbs**.
So we visited Congregation Adath Israel Saturday for services and luncheon, and came back that night for the party.
Now look. I am healthily male and have no problem with young girls wearing short skirts and 4" heels and generally looking like streewalkers. I mean, if you can rock it, rock it. I'm happily married but I still enjoy admiring the Creator's handiwork.
But I am fucking astonished that they were wearing such things in a synagogue on Saturday night. WTF? Is there no concept of modesty anymore, or is the synagogue just another club venue? I saw two young women there (out of fifty) who were dressed appropriately, and they both looked like they were as disgusted with their peers as I was.
And the music...good G-d. I'd prefer accordions, or even J-Pop I think. They had a DJ who played Disney teen music all night. And they were doing karaoke. My teeth were on edge. My wife said, "Well, at least it has a beat." I said, "That's all it has...and it's the same beat and the same chords and the same overcompression and the same general crap over and over and over again." I kept threatening to go out to the car and get my USB stick and force the DJ to play some Within Temptation. I mean, if you're going to crank it up, crank up some good Symphonic Metal and really fuck with people's eardrums.
I actually said, "I now understand why our parents called our music noise."
But the food was fabulous. The luncheon was all milchig, so pasta, veggies, cheese, fish (lox), bagels, the most fabulous egg bread I ever ate...wow. We skipped the dinner because it was Chinese and sushi, but at the party was dessert...wow again. Black and white cookies to die for...chocolate mini cannolis, brownies, more cookies, fruit, jeez. And all of the food was catered by the mother of the bat mitzvah, who spent most of the day going quietly nuts trying to manage the kitchen and schmooz with family and friends. Once dessert was served, she got out on the dance floor and worked it all out. And I can't say I blamed her.
For dinner, we went to a place up in Blue Ash (we were staying about two blocks away from it, actually) called The Firehouse Grille. Oh, my G-d. Fabulous. Try it when you're down there. For some reason there were a shitload of New Orleans fans in the house that night, and I suspect their evening was pretty well ruined by the Seattle Seahawks. Personally, I enjoyed seeing Purdue's Finest go down a few times.
So anyway. It was a nice weekend and the wife allowed as how she felt like she could now go back to other family things in Cincinnati. So it was a win on several levels.
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* Work with me.
** Except that the Isaac Mayer Wise congregation, aka K.K. B'nai Yeshurun, has kept their historic Plum Street Temple downtown as well as their new building up in Amberly Village. Among other things, rabbis of the Reform Movement are ordained there (I've attended twice, before I threw off Reform for Conservative and finally Orthodox Sephardic).
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