Comments (0)Inside The Sukkahs Of Baltimore
October 9, 2009What a sukkah looks like, it could be argued, says a lot about an individual or a family. Some sukkahs are large, elaborate and well-decorated, virtually a visual feast. Others are austere, small and no-nonsense in their approach to celebrating a holiday that commemorates the Children of Israel’s 40 years of wandering through the desert to physical freedom and spiritual awakening.
This Sukkot, the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES sent staff photographer Justin Tsucalas on a wandering of sorts, to chronicle and document some of the different types of sukkahs around town. “Sukkahs,” suggested Leslie Smith Rosen, one of those profiled here, “reflect the personality of their owner.”
The sukkah itself might be a statement about the precarious nature of the human condition in this world, but what Mr. Tsucalas found were solid structures well-grounded in faith, commitment and spirit. “I was amazed at how similar yet different they all were,” he said, “so clever and unique. A few were nicer than my apartment!” The following are some of the samplings he encountered. Chag samayach! — Alan H. Feiler
‘The Tchotchke Sukkah’
On its bumper, Leslie Smith Rosen’s Volvo has a sticker that proclaims, “I’d rather be reading Emily Dickinson.” But one strongly suspects that even more than absorbing the introspective works of the reclusive 19th century poet, Ms. Rosen, dean of general studies at the Shoshana S. Cardin School, would rather be hanging out in her sukkah.
“[Sukkot] is my favorite holiday, with Purim being number two,” said Ms. Rosen, who lives in Sudbrook. “I love the message of rejoicing and the fragility of life. And what’s more wild than building a thing like this and living in it?”
Indeed. Located in her bucolic, well-maintained backyard, Ms. Rosen’s spacious sukkah consists of wood supports, a green wraparound screen and a trellis roof. Inside are a white, wicker loveseat and chairs, a long table for meals and a portable fire pit.
“We used to have a chimneya but it broke, so we added the fire pit in 2000,” she said. “My book club just met here last night by the fire pit [to discuss Meir Shalev’s ‘A Pigeon And A Boy’]. It was a primal experience. We always have a fire going. It’s so warm and cheery, and gets people talking.”
In addition, Ms. Rosen’s sukkah features strings of little light fixtures above that she and her children — Marielle, 25, Alyssa, 22, and Samuel, 18 — have collected diligently over the years. The fixtures are of items as far-flung as chili peppers, dreidels, pink poodles and flamingos, crabs, etrogim, lighthouses and wedding bells.
“This is the ‘Tchotchke Sukkah,’ or the ‘Ongepatshket [chaotic] Sukkah,’” Ms. Rosen, a Chevrei Tzedek congregant, said with a laugh. “It’s a Hampden motif — the tackiest sukkah in Pikesville.”
This year — her first as an empty-nester — she said she might leave the sukkah up year-round instead of storing it in her garage. “My kids and friends help, but it’s a chore to get it up and take it down each year,” Ms. Rosen said.
The sukkah is a great place to enjoy lunch, relax, play games, hang with neighbors and meditate, said Ms. Rosen, the daughter of a foreign service officer, who was born in Tehran and raised in Chad and France. She also enjoys reading the newspaper in the sukkah.
“That’s how I know it’s Sukkot,” she said, “if I’m reading the New York Times in the sukkah.”
Emily Dickinson would be proud.
— Alan H. Feiler
Bigger (And Better)
Some sukkahs have a tendency to just get larger every year. Take, for instance, the sukkah of Dr. Robbie Babbitt and Nathan Rosen, and their kids, Dani, 11, Zack, 11, and Brina, 9.
This year, Mr. Rosen, a theater teacher in the Howard County Public School System, added 8 feet to the family’s Pikesville sukkah (made of tarp and wood supports) to accommodate more visitors.
“The kids love it,” said Dr. Babbitt, a faculty member at Kennedy Krieger Institute. “We try to eat as many meals in there as possible, and if weather permits, the kids like to sleep out there.”
Besides lights weaved through the ceiling schach, the Babbitt/Rosen sukkah features Jewish artwork and biblical scenes, as well as some drawings by the youngsters (including “Superheroes of the Sukkah”). The family, which belongs to Chevrei Tzedek and Chizuk Amuno congregations, has been putting up its sukkah since 1996.
“This is a very special holiday for our family,” said Dr. Babbitt. “It’s wonderful to spend time in there.”
— Alan H. Feiler
Tropical Paradise
A while back, Dr. Jill Aizenstein purchased a wraparound banner featuring tropical palm trees from a local party supply store.
“I was going to use it in my bedroom as wallpaper, but it didn’t look so great,” said Dr. Aizenstein, who is an online college courses teacher. “So I thought it would be a great way to decorate the sukkah, and it really goes well with the holiday.”
She and her husband, Dr. Andrew Gross, a Catholic University Semitic languages professor, live in Greengate with their daughters, Abigail, 6, Batsheva, 3, and Shulamit, 1. The family, which belongs to Beth Tfiloh Synagogue, has been putting up a sukkah for the past five years.
“The kids love it,” Dr. Aizenstein said of her “standard tarp” sukkah. “They make decorations at school and home, and they hang them up. It’s fun. I like to decorate with things we have around the house.”
Above the palm trees are photos of the desert and Israel taken from calendars. There are also tiki-style tea lights around the sukkah.
“It’s all evolving with the kids,” Dr. Aizenstein said of her family’s sukkah. “We eat in there and say the brachot [blessings], but we don’t do anything out of the ordinary. It’s very casual. Sometimes, we play numbers games and letters games. But we do have a lot of company [during Sukkot]. I’ve never cooked so much. It’s a great holiday, one of my favorites.”
— Alan H. Feiler
Sunny’s Days
Sunny Diamond — yes, that’s her real name — usually gets up every morning at 6. So during the holiday of Sukkot, the Ner Tamid Montessori preschool student and her good-natured parents, Jeremy and Helen Diamond, put on their coats and sit in their Heather Ridge sukkah every morning, in the dark and cold.
“That’s our little minhag [custom],” Mr. Diamond, a real estate developer, said with a laugh. “That’s our special treat. When Sunny wakes up, she wants breakfast. So we’re all up.”
The Diamonds, who worship at Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim Congregation, use a tarp-covered, bamboo mat-topped, “snap-together” sukkah every year, according to Mr. Diamond.
“It’s pretty easy to put together,” he said. “I can do it in a half-hour.”
As far as decorations, that’s up to Sunny, who is 3. “Sunny is the main decorator,” said Mr. Diamond. “She brings home all of these decorations from school. We have an etrog hanging from the ceiling and a lulav on the wall, and pictures of the sukkah.”
The Diamonds have plenty of visitors during the holiday. “Both my wife and I are from Baltimore,” said Mr. Diamond, “so we have plenty of family coming over to visit.” No doubt to see the sukkah — and Sunny.
— Alan H. Feiler
Downtown Cosmos
Somewhere in between the stoops, narrow brick row houses, painted screens, corner grocery stores and hidden restaurants in neighborhoods with names such as Butcher’s Hill, Fells Point, Canton and Little Italy, if close attention is paid, one can find Jewish identity these days in places other than Pikesville, Upper Park Heights and Owings Mills.
It all comes down to sukkahs. Not tons of them. More like a steady rebirth in once-Jewish neighborhoods where they were most probably prevalent.
To discover Becky Pepkowitz and Gerry Gilstrop’s sukkah in Butcher’s Hill off of East Pratt Street is like finding the Garden of Eden next to an inner city alleyway.
Its sheer white walls and corn stalk ceiling is a sanctuary of peace. It is like a hidden jewel, turning the alleyway into a pathway towards spirituality — Jewish spirituality.
“When I first moved here, people in the Jewish community would all tell me that this is where they all were from,” said Ms. Pepkowitz, who was preparing her sukkah table for the coming holiday and Shabbat. “Now, it’s, ‘Oh, you live in Butcher’s Hill. You’re so lucky.’”
Ms. Pepkowitz tells the stories about how at one time her neighbor’s home was used for prostitution. She invited the police vice squad to have a Shabbat dinner with her. After singing Shabbat songs, lighting candles, drinking kiddish and having a great meal, they staked out the neighbor, and the next morning made arrests. The house has since been sold to a Jewish family.
The sukkah started three years ago, made of plastic piping and sheer plastic walls. This year, Ms. Pepkowitz has gone with the sheer, almost nylon material. It’s completely open yet, as a sukkah should be, completely safe as a sanctuary. She gives credit to the Charles Village Building Cooperative and Monumental Construction for helping her build it.
At nightfall, it glows with its tiny lights. “There’s something so unique about this space,” she said. “It’s cosmic.” Strings of lima beans, hot peppers and decorations add to the cosmos.
Just blocks away, in Fells Point, the roof of the Factory Apartments on Ann Street has its own sukkah. There, Justin and Talia Abbott-Chalew and their neighbors have a sturdy sukkah made of wood.
For the holiday, Justin explained that meals would be shared and friends would reunite. And the backdrop — oh, the backdrop — the Inner Harbor, the Patterson Park Pagoda, the Domino Sugar Factory, and hundreds and hundreds of characteristic row homes and businesses.
Some would say that they see from the sukkah a confluence of neighborhoods and city life. Becky Pepkowitz sees that, but she sees more. “I see generations of Jews in those houses,” she said. “I see what was once called Jewish Baltimore.”
And if these sukkahs are any indication, there is a revival in store, one sukkah at a time.
— Phil Jacobs
A ‘Fetching Holiday’
For a quarter-century, Kenneth and Barbara Lasson have erected their sukkah between the den and stone garage of their Upper Park Heights home. For Mr. Lasson, a University of Baltimore law professor and frequent contributor to the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES, the sukkah is a labor of love, even though he admits, “I don’t want to be defined as ‘the sukkah man.’”
Nonetheless, the Lassons’ 12-by-16 sukkah is well-known among local families and, in the past, religious school classes have even gone there for tours.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Mr. Lasson, who built his sukkah with his children when they were little. The sukkah is made of plywood and 2x3s, with a bamboo schach ceiling. “It would be very hard for the wind to move this sukkah,” he said, because two of its walls are permanent. “It’s very solid. It would take a tornado.”
Anyone who has visited the Lasson sukkah is immediately struck by its creativity. Among the decorations are a pottery sherd that dates back at least 2,700 years, plaster-of-Paris fruit replicas, a San Francisco cable car music box and an oil-and-flour decorative jar (which is the first item put up in the sukkah after Yom Kippur ends).
“Whenever we travel, we pick up something for the sukkah,” Mr. Lasson said. “It’s a reflection of our travels.
Perhaps most eye-catching are the eight dioramas created by Mr. Lasson that feature such themes as the Shearith Israel (Glen Avenue) and Beth Abraham (Rabbi Hertzberg’s) synagogues (the latter of which Mr. Lasson is the president); the Biblical stories of Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, Jonah and the Whale; a scene from the Tashlich service during Rosh Hashanah; and a gathering of squirrels building their very own sukkah.
“Kids of all ages love this sukkah,” said Mr. Lasson, a father of three and grandfather of nine. (A video frame in the sukkah features images of the grandkids, all of whom live in Israel.) “The sukkah usually only takes about an hour-and-a-half to put up, but the decorations take a day to get all that done.”
Also in the sukkah is a sink created by Mr. Lasson that is made of an old sewing machine and is run by a garden hose. It enables guests to wash their hands right there in the sukkah.
“We usually have a lot of company. All we need is a gift shop,” Mr. Lasson said with a chuckle. “But it’s something kids remember. … It all started as a regular thing, but this is something I do every year because kids like it. Sukkos is a very enjoyable and fetching holiday. You make your own temporary home, and in our family it’s taken on its own character.”
Among the Lassons’ annual customs in the sukkah is not putting up the booth until after the conclusion of Yom Kippur. Also, the family eats particular meals only on Sukkot — for example, lentil soup with hotdogs on the first night (“My kids have that wherever they are on the first night,” Mr. Lasson said) and meat blintzes. Also, Mr. Lasson maintains a tradition of buying a 5-pound bag of peanuts every Sukkot (much of which is consumed by visitors to the sukkah).
Interestingly enough, Mr. Lasson said Sukkot is not his favorite holiday. “Shavuos is,” he said. “But I like them all. Sukkos and Purim allow for the most creativity and it’s the most sustained fun of all the holidays. [The sukkah] should be an expression of people’s personality. Everybody’s can be unique.”
— Alan H. Feiler