It was late when the phone call from my mother with news arrived.
I was in Ioannina and had to start my performance in half an hour. It was the Jewish New Year Eve, Erev Rosh HaShana 5780, ערב ראש השנה תש"פ.
I wasn´t sure how to react or what to think, what to feel. It was a state of shock. It was supposed to be someone else first, not her. My parents, me, she should come next, and only in a few years, not now.
During the performance, I felt not connected to myself, like it is not me there, under the spotlight.
When speaking the Ottoman coffee out of my mouth, I wanted to make the audience disgusted. I wanted them to not like what they see.
When wearing the Talis* טלית, I wanted it to get dirty, ripped, destroyed.
When eating and spitting the pomegranate, the taste was so sweet and fresh. I wanted to eat it through and enjoy it. But I didn’t let myself. I spat it on me and on the Talis* טלית and noticed this time how the audience was disgusted.
When I came back to Berlin, I rapped the leftovers of the pomegranate, a few figs, coffee, hairs and notes with the names of the people that I most love, dead and alive, which I was using as Tfilin תפילין during the performance with the Talis* טלית and left it somewhere in a corner of the room where I live.
A few days ago, I opened it again.
The Talis* טלית was full of mold and rotten pieces of fruits. A big part of it became black and it became even more ripped. Some parts of the silk became thicker.
I found this Talis* טלית in the women’s gallery עזרת נשים of the Romaniote Synagogue Kahal Kadosh Yashan קהל קדוש ישן in Ioannina, as I was working and sewing there with a small sewing machine that I brought with me from Berlin last spring.
I decided to work with this Talis* טלית as a representation of the her-story of my maternal ancestors and the community they came from. This was also the topic of my performance in Rosh HaShana ראש השנה, about what I inherited from them, knowledge and traditions.
What I didn’t know was that what I also might have inherited from them is what made my sister sick.
I see the mold now as something that became part of the body. Not all of what our bodies contain are things which we welcome. Some things are a huge burden. Some physical, some emotional.
This is the reason why the mold belongs in my story, on the Talis* טלית.
*The Romaniotes were pronouncing טלית like the Ashkenazis: Talis
*Medical histology is the study of diseases in the body
*Hestia Ἑστία is the mythological goddess of mothers and home
Special thanks to Panos for thinking with me about the title, to Robert for proofreading and to my family and especially to my sister for giving me the permission to tell
