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This is the fourth part in aseries looking into religion inKorea. The first objective is togive expatriates a springboard from which to develop spiritu-ally. Feature articles have ex-amined Christianity, Buddhi-sm, Hindu ism, Juda ism and wil l examine Is lam and S ikh ism. Ed .

When you think of religion inKorea, Judaism does not exactlyspring to mind.

But over the last decade espe-cially, Seoul has seen demandfor Jewish products and foodrise, and in 2008 the ChabadHouse opened in the Itaewondistrict of Seoul.

This was a significant eventfor J udaism in Korea. There arequite a few Christian andMuslim services available to for-eigners, but there was nothingfor Jews.

If you werent associated withthe m ilitary and youre J ewish,you had had to arrange forsomeone to sign you in to a U.S.military on base.

Chabad House opened inSeoul in April 2008, and t hey of-fer services to help Jews livingin or visiting Seoul.

Like other religions, there a redifferent strains of Judaism:Orthodox, Conservative andReform. Chabad-Lubavich is

Orthodox. It was founded inRussia in the 18th century andis now based in Brooklyn, NewYork. In th e 1950s they start edto send shluchim, or missionar-ies, around the world in order toreach as man y Jews as possible.Currently, Chabad-Lubavichhas over 3,000 centers world-wide.

I had a chance to meet withRabbi Osher Litzman at hishome to ask him a few questionsabout Chabad House and howthe tra nsition has been for him,his wife and their family.

Chabad is a home away fromhome for every Jew, whateverhis or her background. Whenasked what Chabad House pro-vides for people in need,Litzman answered, You cancome talk to a Rabbi, get kosherfood, get religious materials forthe holidays, participate inevents, practice Judaism andlearn more. This is all abouthaving one p lace to come, to feelmore connected and to meet oth-er Jews.

Litzman then explained thecurrent schedule for J ewish ser-vices: We have services every

Friday night, every Saturdaymorning and afternoon, and onholidays. Sometimes we haveservices during the weekday aswell. The schedule can be foundat Chabad of Korea website(jewishkorea.com).

They are also establishingother regular events, like theTefillin Club, which is a placefor men to come, enjoy and relaxand have kosher food. Theymeet on the first Sunday of eachmonth at the Seoul Cigar Club.

They also have a similar gath-ering for women. Th e womensgathering is based on theJewish calendar and is sched-uled near Rosh Chodesh, the

first day of the Jewish month.Litzman added that there are

plans in th e works to create reg-ular activities for children.

So what exactly does koshermean? Kosher means that theproduction of the food has beensupervised and does not violateJewish dietary laws, saidLitzman.

He then explained that peoplewho are in search of kosher foodin Korea are lucky becauseCostco actually stocks manykosher food items. (On) kosher(foods) there is a symbol thatmeans that someone inspectedthe manufacturing process andfound it in accordance to Jewish

dietary laws ... Korea is blessedwith Costco. Costco has manykosher products except for milk,cheese products and m eat.

We produce kosher cheeseourselves, but it is still a prob-lem to obtain kosher meat. Wehave to find a good solution forthat.

When asked to describeChabads regular congregationhe said, Every week we find atleast one more Jew. Hanukkahwas two weeks ago and it was awonderful time. Many new peo-ple came to the event we had infront of the Hamilton Hotel.People saw us building theMenorah.

Right now ther e isnt a de-mand for it, but the rabbi didnot rule out the possibility of aChabad House one day openingin a location outside Seoul.Well, there are not manyJewish people who come here totour. This is most likely becausethere are no kosher optionshere.

In Beijing, they have akosher restaurant. In Thailandthey have kosher restaurants.All over the world they havekosher restaurants, but nothere. We just opened. There aredirect flights between Isra el andKorea, but I thin k weve hadfewer tha n ten tourists since weopened.

He explained that most peo-

ple they work with are here asexpatriates. Also, (we) havebusiness people coming in fromall over the world. All of themhave said that they would notstay here for the weekend if wewere not here.

The response from theJewish community has beenboth positive and strong. Therequest for us to come was fromthe community ... Many Jewsthat live and work here didnthave a place to pray for YomKippur.

Now that Chabad is here,Rabbi Litzman can help Jewishfamilies become more obser-vant. Now people have the op-portunity. We have a family thatdecided to keep kosher. Wekosherized their kitchen.

He then went on to describehow Jews in Seoul are now ableto follow Jewish traditions moreeasily now that they are here.Another (member has decided)to put on the Tefillin, leatherboxes which contain biblicalverses and are very importantfor prayer rituals every day not only one, but a few. Somepeople bought Tefillin and somepeople had it before and nowtheyre using it.

We are giving peopleMezuzot. Mezuzot are hand-written biblical verses put ondoorways that he described asnot only Biblically commanded,

but also a k ind of method Jewsuse for home security.

People are getting books andwe have lecturers. These lec-tures usually occur at the sametime as the Friday andSaturday services. We areabout to establish a library. Wewant to open a Jewish libraryhere in Korea. We are request-ing donations for books.

In terms of upcoming specialevents, he mentioned that theywill be bringing in rabbis fromother locations in Asia and fromaround the world.

Korea is the best place tolive. You get a tast e of every-thin g. You can feel that you livein America sometim es. You havemodern technology and a nicesubway. (Its) better th an NewYork even.

Wonderful people live here.We have gotten so much helpfrom so many people and theydidnt want a pen ny.

For more information onkosher meals, synagogue ser-vices or classes please go to theChabad-Lubavich Korea web-site: jewishkorea .com

For information on theTefillin Club go to jewishko-rea.com/Teffilin.html

Regina can be reachedthrough her blog at expatjane.blogspot.com E d.

By Regina Walton

18 COMMUNITYTUESDAYFEBRUARY 3, 2009

When designating duties, themost important thing to consid-er is not t alent, or even experi-ence. The most important crite-ria are all of the following:

1) The person you assignshould not be pregnant.

During the first trimester ofpregnancy, for example, mywife spent virtually all of hertime sleeping, working and ly-ing on the couch complaining ofmorning sickness. Things havechanged for the secondtrimester, however, in that shenow spends all of her timeworking, sleeping and lying onthe couch complaining of backpain.

But pregnancy is a hard timefor the husband too, and theworst part is not the financialresponsibility t hat s coming, northe emotional responsibilitytha ts alrea dy arrived: Its the

housework.From t he moment my wifes

stomach turned against her both inside and out I noticeda part icular trend every Friday,the first day of my weekend. Onthose days, at a time when somany budgets are now in thered, the currencies of dirty dish-es, unwashed laundry and plas-tic bottles were tur ning surplus-es. These situa tions couldnt beaddressed before Friday, be-cause I always come home fromwork late and because my wifeis too busy a) lying on the couchand b) groaning.

There are many duties to beperformed on Fridays, when Imhome and shes not, but what

she always asks Thursday nightis for me t o vacuum t he floor. Itsnot that this is a more impor-tant task than the laundry ortaking out the tr ash, its just theone Im least likely to do withouther asking.

Vacuuming has long been myleast favorite chore, not becauseits the har dest, but because Ifind the least benefit in doing it.Some have attributed this to acondition called Male Eyes, inwhich men cant see the individ-ual specks of dirt on a carpet.This is a fallacy, however: MaleEyes doesnt inh ibit us from see-ing them, but it does prevent usfrom seeing their significance.As far as were concerned, if wehave no guests coming over, afew extra specks give the floorflavor.

In order for me to actuallycare about a foreign substanceon the carpet, it would need tobe a) a few inches in diameter

and b) bright yellow or purple,in which case vacuuming woulddo no good.

Still, I do eventually manageto muster th e energy required toovercome my apathy, and setthe vacuum t o work. After test-ing it to make sur e its actuallypicking stuff up, I give everyinch of the kitchen, bedroomand living room floor a thoroughsweep, making sure to havepicked up every visible shred ofdirt, paper or plastic.

After looking over my handi-work, I put the vacuum away,and only then do I unfailing no-tice some now clearly visiblespecks of foreign substance inan area Im rat her positive Ivacuumed.

Apparently, these specks areutilizing some manner of high-tech cloaking device which theydont tu rn off until Ive put thevacuum away. Id bring it backout again, but I feel their inge-

nuity should be rewarded.Next comes taking out the

trash. In Korea, recycling ismore than a platitude everyoneappreciates but most feel incon-venienced by. Here, its a lawthat everyone appreciates butmost feel painfully inconve-nienced by. In our home, thereare th ree separate bins: One forpaper products, of which thereare a lot; one for cans, of whichthere are a few; and one forplastic things, of which thereare so many that it more thancompensates for any deficiencyin cans.

My task is to carry all threeboxes to the elevator, hope it is-nt crowded, go to the first floorand leave them in t he appropri-ate bins. The three boxes are notlarge, but while carrying allthree, the plastic bottles, con-tent in their present form andopposed to being recycled, havebeen known to attempt escape.

How do just two people everacquire so many bottles in oneweek? I ponder aloud. Soon, thecombined effort of lifting thegarbage and such contempla-tion leaves me very thirsty. Isure could go for a whitish liq-uid tha ts high in calcium andhas a convenient, unscrewableplastic top, I state aloud.

No closer to answering myoriginal query, I begin the laun-dry. Since Korean householdsregard drying machines a luxu-ry nearly equivalent to owningones own MLB franchise, m ostof us hang our clothes on a rackto dry. The first part of this task carrying whatever washedload has been sitting in thelaundry machine (probablysince last weekend) is thehardest part.

After that, one need only putmore of them (after separatingby colors, if one feels particular-ly vigorous) in the machine and

turn it on. Soon, youre well onyour way to having more cleanclothes.

Well, maybe. Recently, mywife, while commending my ef-forts at washing, hanging andfolding our garments, pointedout that many of them were nowcovered with tiny specks of tis-sue paper. This coincided withthe Korean win ter, which isntthat cold compared to, say,Neptune, but does prompt asurge in the sales of pocket-sized tissue packets.

Next time, can you searchyour pockets before you do laun-dry? she asks. I suppose Ishould feel chastened, but I canonly reflect on the times beforemy married life began, when Iwas always forgetting that mydirty pants had ink pens inthem.

Compared to that, I supposetissue paper is progress.

(rjamesyork @herald m.com)

Pregnancys no cakewalk for men, either

By Rob York

Judaismin Korea

The first ever public Menorah in Korea. Photo by Rabbi Osher Litzman

Rabbi Osher Litzman (right), from Israel, is the Jewish leader of theJewish community of Korea. Pierre Cohen-Aknine is originally fromFrance and has been living in Korea for the last 27 years.Photo by Jung-keun Song

Expat Living is a section dedicated tothe daily living of expatriates.It is printedon Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.To share stories about your life abroad,send stories or story ideas to MatthewLamers at mattlamers@heraldm.comSubmissions may be edited for lengthor clarity.