Tradition-al Folklore

When most people here the word tradition, they automatically think of the song from “Fiddler on the Roof”. As the chapter suggests, traditions do link us to our families, other people around us, and help us define who we are. Traditions mean many different things to many different people. Each club, group of friends, family has traditions that are unique to them. The chapter discusses the importance of keeping traditions, their roles, and how they disapear. Until this assignment, I had never thought of traditions really disappearing. After thinking for a couple minutes I realized that one of the most important traditions in my life for so long, has been fading right before my eyes.

One of my favorite Jewish holidays is Passover. It is celebrated in the Spring and is right around my birthday. The first two days of the Holiday are the major part where the story of Passover is read two nights in a row. For as long as I can remember, Passover has always been a sort of family reunion to my family. My grandma ( who also lives in Indianapolis) would reconnect with all of our family and invite them to Indy for the first two days. Everyone would have their own job to get ready for the holiday. My job, which became my tradition, was to make a special dessert involving bananas, nuts, and lemon juice. Everyone always looked forward to Adina’s bananas. When I was younger, it was very easy to make this dessert because I always got the day off of school right before the holiday started as I went to a Jewish Day school. As the years went by and I started public school, the tradition began to disappear. College allowed me to come home early and make the dessert as I had done in the past. Last year, I studied abroad in Israel and was not able to come home for Passover. The bananas were not made, and I have been informed that we will be going to someone else’s home for the holiday and will not be needing me to do my tradition. This makes me very sad because its almost like the end of an era for me.

Once I went to college, I obviously saw my parents with less frequency than I did when I was living at home. Because of this, my mom and I started a new tradition that has grown in importance over the last couple of years. My mom will take off work for a day in October and will drive down to Bloomington to pick me up at school. Then we will drive to Nashville for a day of walking around the shops and just reconnecting with eachother. I really appreciate this new tradition because it gives me something to look forward to and lets me have some much needed time with my mom.

Both of these traditions are ones that I have started. They are both important to me whehter in memory or actually still participating in it. I know that when I start a family, I will begin even more traditions of my own. Traditions start and end all the time. They are as important as one makes them.

This is in response to question 3.