Tonight is Erev Rosh Hashanah. Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah. I'm not exactly the most religious nor the most observant of Jews. Not counting the two Fridays this trip, I last went to synagogue almost a year ago. Over the past decade, even with multiple trips to Beijing and Shanghai and Guangzhou to go "do that religion thing" I've probably spent more time awkwardly waiting for my Christian friends to finish church on Sundays so I can go out to eat with them than I have in synagogue. 

What can I say, the entire known Jewish population of the province I live in hasn't even reached double digits yet.

The part of Beijing where Myf's mom's old apartment is located is, in Myf's words "oyibo central". I'm not entirely sure what the fine distinction is in his multilingual vocabulary between calling foreingers "laowai" (the Chinese word) and calling them "oyibo" (the Nigerian one) but there is definitely a distinction and, to be perfectly honest, a lot of the foreigners we are seeing on the streets are pretty clearly oyibo.

We meet Ana and Louie—two Beijing based friends of mine I last saw in 2016—for lunch at a 'steampunk' themed craft brewery on the outside edge of the Diplomatic Residence Compound before heading to the Flat White Cafe inside the compound. Flat White is inside a converted apartment that really looks like the barest minimum of 'making it not an apartment' upgrades were done. After hearing some of Myf's stories about the former apartment turned UNESCO office he once interned at, I suspect, unlike many apartments in China, these are not condos and there's no way to get permission to do extensive renovations.

From Flat White it's less than ten minutes' walk to the Capital Mansion Building where Kehillat Beijing meets. We are early enough that we get recruited to help out with stuff like putting prayer books on chairs.

I'm pretty sure the last time I attended any part of High Holydays at Kehillat Beijing may very well have been 2003. I know I went to Shanghai in 2004 and 2005, to Guangzhou in 2007, the US in 2010, Singapore in 2012, and Shanghai again in 2014 and 2015. Despite the foreigner population in China skyrocketing, the number of people here is about the same or even less than 2003. The much more religious Chabad House, on the other hand, has expanded to having a dedicated facility probably 10x the size of the social hall Kehillat Beijing meets in.

Other than the visiting rabbi including a modified version of a particular non-liturgical prayer which I'd never really thought long and hard about and thus never realized was politically controversial, the services were lovely. Not being much into Jewish politics of any stripe, I'd never previously heard about such things as "the Negation of the Diaspora", so I wasn't bothered in the slightest. However, at least one fairly prominent member of the congregation got up and walked out.

After services were over, there was a grand feed with brisket and salmon and apple strudel and other random buffet items. Heading back to Myf's mom's old place, I had to walk slowly not so much because I was on a phone call with my parents but because my stomach was so distended with food that I couldn't bear to move any faster.