As it turned out, Beit Warshava services started at 8 PM. Rabbi Sid Schwarz (Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews Can Transform the American Synagogue), his wife and daughter were guests of the synagogue for several days. He had led the Seder, and led Shabbat services as well. They were very comfortable and familiar services, led in a warm style. The congregation meets in a very large villa, made available by a significantly wealthy Polish Jew living in LA. The congregation has a bit of time until it has to start paying the bills for the facility. Since they have had access to it, however, they have grown. It's a three story building, with large meeting rooms, elegant furniture, huge bathrooms, internet connection, a fully modern kitchen, a full time, live in housekeeper and cook who prepares Shabbat dinner for the community each Shabbat. !
At Shabbat dinner we met Uri Heppert, who lives in Jerusalem an intense Polish chauvinist, complaining that most liberal and Reform leaders ignore the fact that Reform has Polish, not only German roots. We see this in Prague as well. Heppert, by the way is a lawyer, has written a couple of books. Interestingly, he has worked on several social and religious cases for the Reform movement in Israel.
Mark asked Jan, the outgoing president how his English is so good. In response Jan said that he had lived for many years in Canada, but decided to return to Warsaw, because he considers it one of the many holy cities of the Jewish experience.
We were surprised to learn that the Polish have crackers called (pronounced?) "matzah" that look and taste just like Matzah (but are significantly smaller. And, they are not (to the best of our knowledge) kosher for Pesach.
... we finally ended up with a Minyan using xeroxes of selections from the Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills Minyan Siddur.
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Everyone then enjoyed a lunch of much Shabbat and Seder leftovers; Mark spoke about preparing for Pesach and his Haggadah in the afternoon.
Two young women from America, working in Warsaw, invited us to stay for the "Women's Seder" to be held Monday evening. This was the first time that Mark had been invited to a Women's Seder. We were very tempted to stay. However, that would have thrown our schedule off quite a bit, so we declined.
Sid spoke about God in AM and congregation building in the afternoon. After all that sitting and talking, a walk with Sid, his family and the son of the current president to a lovely nearby park was perfect.
