The Amazing Book Report Project!!

By David Alon,    NFTY-EIE

For the past 5 years at EIE, the students in my Jewish history class have participated in a comprehensive book report project.  Each student has chosen a book from my own library that I read once and inspired me in some way.  The topics covered by the different books cover a broad range of events and ideas in the monumental history of the Jewish people.

Here below is the updated list of the all the books that the students in my class have the option to choose from.  I offer a brief description of each one and why it is essential for understanding the Jewish people and Israel.

The Chosen by Chaim Potok.    (fiction)  Moving story of two orthodox boys, both gifted students, growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940s-50s.  One is modern orthodox whose father is a leader in the Zionist movement, while the other is ultra-orthodox and is expected to succeed his father as the rabbi of a large Hassidic sect which opposes Zionism.

Valley of Strength by Shulamit Lapid.    (fiction)  Story of a middle-class young woman who escapes the pogroms in Russia in 1882 and becomes a pioneer in one of the early Zionist agricultural colonies of the First Aliyah, and her romance with one of the veteran pioneers.  The plot focuses on the challenges that beset the Zionist pioneers in their attempt to create a new national identity for the Jewish people in their ancient homeland.    

Start-Up Nation  by Saul Singer & Dan Senor.    (non-fiction)  An in-depth look at how Israel has emerged as a world leader in science and technology through the sheer ingenuity of its people.  Looks at the different aspects of Israeli history and society that have triggered a thriving hi-tech economy.   

Fear No Evil  by Natan Sharansky.    (biography)  Gripping account of Natan Sharansky's years of imprisonment in the 1970s-80s in the Soviet Union for his pro-Israel and human rights activism, and the international campaign led by his wife to secure his freedom so he could ultimately make aliyah to Israel in 1986.  This book is central for understanding the struggle for Soviet Jewry.    

Exodus  by Leon Uris.    (fiction)  Famous novel depicting the birth of the State of Israel.  Though fictional, it is filled with historical detail.  Loosely based on the well-known story of the Exodus ship of Jewish refugees after WWII trying to break the British blockade of Palestine.  This book is written in suspenseful style reminiscent of a Hollywood script. 

The Vanishing American Jew  by Alan Dershowitz.   (non-fiction)  A controversial look at the incredible economic and professional success of American Jews, while analyzing the challenges of assimilation and inter-marriage that are a direct consequence. This book was written in mid 1990s as a reaction to the author's son's decision to marry a non-Jew, and raises thought-provoking questions about the future of Jewish identity in the U.S.        

History On Trial  by Deborah Lipstadt.    (non-fiction)  Deborah Lipstadt is a professor of history and Holocaust studies who published a book attacking some well-known anti-Semites for openly denying the Holocaust.  She was subsequently sued for libel in a British court by David Irving, one of the Holocaust deniers she singled-out.  She writes about her experience as a defendant in the year 2000 in which the history of the Holocaust was literally put on trial.

World Perfect:  Jewish Impact On Civilization  by Ken Spiro.   (non-fiction)  Rabbi and historian Ken Spiro traces the origins of modern democratic values to the revolutionary ideas first put-forth by the Jewish people in the Tanach.  With wit and insight, he compares Judaism to other great civilizations of the past and is astonished to learn that it is Jewish ideas that became the pillars of Western Civilization.

From Beirut to Jerusalem  by Thomas Friedman.    (non-fiction)  Ground-breaking and controversial best-seller by a Jewish-American journalist who spends years reporting out of Lebanon and then Israel in the 1980s.  Published in 1988 but still relevant today, it gives an in-depth look at the unpredictable turmoil of the Middle East and also a critical look at Israel's miss-steps in Lebanon in 1982 as well as the intifada in the West Bank & Gaza in the late 1980s.  Essential for a deeper understanding of MidEast current events + written in very engaging manner.        

Mila 18  by Leon Uris.    (fiction)  Suspense filled historical novel based on the true story of the famous Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis in 1943.  This book tries to recreate for the reader the conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto and daily dilemmas that people faced.  Like Exodus by the same author, Mila 18 reads like an edge-of-your-seat Hollywood thriller.

My Promised Land  by Ari Shavit.    (non-fiction)  A sobering and critical look at both the triumph of Zionism + the State of Israel, and the tragedy of the on-going Arab-Israeli conflict.  The author writes a lot about the Palestinians too and the hardships that resulted from becoming refugees following Israel's War of Independence in 1948.  Told from an un-apologetic leftwing point-of-view, but attempts to give an objective look at Israeli history and society.  Extremely well written as the author tries to get inside people's heads and explain Israel to the rest of the world.

The Jews of Silence  by Elie Wiesel.    (non-fiction)  Originally published in the 1960s, Elie Wiesel writes of his visit with Jews living in the Soviet Union and attempts to make their desperate plight known to the outside world.  He is able to gain an understanding of how Jews have managed to keep some semblance of an identity despite the brutal oppression by the Soviet communist regime.           

Scapegoat  by Eli Amir.    (fiction)  Poignant story of a teen-age boy who immigrates to Israel from Iraq in the 1950s.  Though his family lives in a crowded transit camp, he is sent with a group of Iraqi Jews to live on a kibbutz where he is unfamiliar with the Ashkenazi customs and the world of labor-Zionist, socialist ideology.  This book gives a good insight into the experience of Mizrahi Jews in the early years of the State of Israel.

The Lost:  A Search for Six of Six Million  by Daniel Mendelsohn.    (non-fiction)  This book reads like a mystery that slowly comes together as the author traces the fate of his relatives who perished in the Holocaust.  Although he grew up in the U.S. with minimal Jewish identity, he wanted to go to the Ukrainian village where his family came from and find out what really happened.  The book takes the reader on a journey to different countries to meet the survivors who can help piece together the real story of the author's family.    

Still Life With Bombers  by David Horovitz.    (non-fiction)  Published in 2004 at the height of the Second Intifada, the author tries to explain what it's like living in Israel and raising a family with small children in an age of terrorism.  This book is about the disillusionment that stemmed from the failure of the peace process from 1993-2000, and how the resiliency of the Israeli people allowed the nation to overcome a deadly wave of suicide-bombing from 2000-2004.

The Red Tent  by Anita Diamont.     (fiction)  This book spent weeks on the best seller list.  A new take on the Hebrew Bible, this book retells the events of the Book of Genesis from the narration of Jacob's only daughter Dinah.  To those who read the Tanach, Dinah is a minor character who is raped in the city of Shechem and later avenged by her brothers.  In this version, the author is able to inject a woman's point-of-view into a male dominated story and cast a new light on how we interpret the Bible.    

Like Dreamers  by Yossi Klen HaLevi.     (non-fiction)     This gripping account offers a window into the soul of modern Israel.  The author traces the lives of 7 Israeli paratroopers who liberated the Western Wall in the Six Day War in 1967 and follows their development all the way to 2004.  The main characters range from kibbutznik peace activists to religious West Bank Settlers, both sides believing that their way is the utopian vision to secure the Jewish future.  A must read for anyone wanting to learn in depth about the divisions and also the unifying elements in Israeli society.

The Haj  by Leon Uris.  (historical fiction)  From the same author as “Exodus” & “Mila 18”.  This novel tells the story of a family of Palestinian refugees who are displaced by Israel’s war of independence in 1948.  Attempts to show the complex reality of both inter-Arab conflicts and Jewish-Arab conflicts.  A very important book for understanding the Palestinians and how the past has shaped the current reality in the Middle East.

Ally  by Michael Oren.   (non-fiction)  Written by Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S. during the Obama years.  An insider’s look at the tension between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Iranian nuclear program, the West Bank settlements, and clashing world views.  As essential book for understanding the complex U.S.-Israel relationship.  Just published in 2015.              

Beaufort  by Ron Leshem   (fiction)  Translated from Hebrew.   Intense novel depicting a group of Israeli soldiers manning an isolated outpost in southern Lebanon in the year 2000 as the Israeli army prepares to withdraw in the face of constant attacks by the Hezbollah terror group.  Gives a personal account of the daily dilemmas and tensions that IDF soldiers face, and the complex geo-political situation between Israel and Lebanon.        

Konin.  A Quest  by Theo Richmond     (non-fiction)   This book describes in vivid detail a small Jewish town in Poland before the Holocaust and succeeds in reconstructing what daily life was like.  The author’s parents grew up in the town of Konin which inspired him to go an exhaustive search for other old ‘Koniners’ around the world to gather information about the town and its fate.  While not exclusively about the Holocaust, the book does devote a good deal of time to what happened to the Jews of Konin during the WWII.  This book is absolutely essential to anyone trying to understand what Jewish life was like in Poland pre-WWII.

NFTY-EIE Tel Aviv Graffiti Tour

by Nathan Apel,         11^th grade,    Ontario Canada

April 11, 2016

Welcome to your own personal simulation of NFTY-EIE’s Graffiti Tour through the neighbourhood of Florentine, Tel Aviv. Your guide, and resident of Florentine, EIE Jewish history teacher Aaron Gertz, has immense knowledge on the topic of graffiti. Florentine is currently undergoing a process known as gentrification (the process of renewing/ rebuilding deteriorating areas). A common product of gentrification is artists moving in, followed by the gay community, then students, then couples, and conclusively, the settling of families. Florentine is presently in the first part of this process, therefore LGBTQ flags and Israeli flags are common spectacles that are often promptly placed upon balconies and windows.

The tour commences with an introduction of our first graffiti artist of the day, “Kislev”. Kislev is the most highly acclaimed graffiti artist in Tel Aviv, and has been given the moniker of the “Israeli Banksy” (Banksy is a world famous graffiti artist who focuses on political/social issues). The following painting illustrates an elf (Kislev) with spray can in hand, floating towards another elf (Banksy) while being carried via balloons of love. The works of Kislev are easily identified by his signature logo of an elf.

 

Gigantic Tel Aviv street mural painted by graffiti artist "Kislev" paying tribute to "Banksy"

An interesting phenomenon in the graffiti community is prominent artists working together. An example of this is BabyK who is a Frenchmen, but his works are frequently found across Florentine. Likewise, there is a Polish group who painted a sickly looking animal to spell out “ospa” (plague). Tel Aviv is an attractive destination for groups of graffiti artists because there are no strict graffiti laws. Small fines are issued when caught and sometimes police officers will not even punish the artists. Here, Aaron told a story of an artist, whom when caught, simply explained to the authorities the art he was creating and was left in peace for its completion. As a result, other than New York City, Berlin, and London, Tel Aviv has become one of the most pursued canvases for graffiti in the world.

Baby K graffiti

Tel Aviv street art by Polish graffiti artists OSPA

During the remainder of the tour I will be guiding you through eight significant pieces of graffiti and some of their respective artists. Firstly, there is an artist that goes by the name Dede who did a collaborative piece with his friend Wonky. Wonky is known for his depictions of strange looking monkeys and Dede is known for using Band-Aids; these Band-Aids are a metaphor for not being able to completely fix emotional scars. Dede’s service in the combat unit of the Israeli army, where he had to deal with difficult situations, lead to this re-occurring theme in his artwork.

Dede and Wonky collaborated on this mural in Tel Aviv's Florentine neighborhood

A unique graffiti style is that of Vered Dror, who uses braille. This type of artwork originated from when Vered was in Zagreb, Croatia for a graffiti competition. After days of planning her masterpiece for the competition, she noticed public places vandalized with swastikas painted on them. Vered Dror asked several locals why nobody was cleaning these horrific symbols up and everyone answered by simply saying “I didn’t notice”. Outraged, she abandoned her previous plan for the graffiti competition and placed all around the city a single statement in braille: “I didn’t notice, I didn’t see a thing”. Vered went on to unanimously win the competition.

braille graffiti created by Tel Aviv street artist Vered Dror

 Graffiti artists in Tel Aviv are very proud of their city. As a result, an artist’s pride is often reflected in one’s art work. For example, MAS972 is a graffiti artist whose name (972) is the country code dialed when calling Israel. Also, 035 (either 03 or 05) is the landline number for Tel Aviv whose work can be easily spotted all around the city.

"035" standing for the two telephone area codes of the Tel Aviv area

On a side note, due to the large gay community in Tel Aviv, graffiti expressing gay pride is not an unusual sight. One of the wittier pieces is an image depicting Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street embracing each other saying “Hi kids, we are getting married!”

Arik and Bentz (the Israeli Bert and Ernie) appear in graffiti announcing they are getting married

           

MAS972 takes his name from the country code for dialing Israel

           As we approach the conclusion of the graffiti tour there is a focus on political art. Firstly, is the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth and ninth Prime Minister of Israel. The image depicts Yitzhak’s assassination illustrating the crosshairs of the sniper on his head. The painting was created in Yitzhak’s honour and commemoration. Secondly, there is a slogan relating to conflict between Jews and Arabs. When first sprayed, the slogan translated to “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies” יהודים וערבים מסרבים להיות אויבים, However, someone vandalized it to say “Jews and Arabs are enemies” יהודים וערבים בטח אויבים. Later, one of EIE’s Jewish History teachers, Evan, changed it again to say “Jews and Arabs are not enemies” יהודים וערבים לא אויבי.  Good job Evan!

street art in Florentine neighborhood depicting the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin on Nov. 4, 1995

         

The slogan "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies" graffitied on a wall in Tel Aviv

   

         The remainder of the day was spent learning about cultural Zionism, the revival of Hebrew, and Jewish identity in Israel through viewing giant mosaics, a model of Tel Aviv, and doing a street survey. My friend Ben Adler writes about these topics in his blog. Tel Aviv is a beautiful city and I thank you for joining us on our graffiti tour!

Nathan Apel,  NFTY-EIE Spring 2016

Zionism Tiyul:  Chalutzim and Kibbutzim

By Tamar Jacobsohn,   11^th grade,   Bethesda MD

Another exciting day in the lives of Mishpacha Kitat Oren:

We woke up at 6:15 and were greeted with a two hour bus ride up to Kfar Tavor in the North. When we arrived, our first stop was the Aliyah Museum. We explored what life was like in a Moshava which is a zionist agricultural settlement. The Chalutzim, or pioneers in an organization called BILU, that came to Israel created Moshavot with hopes and dreams that Israel would become an Am  עם, not just a group of individuals. This was during the 1^st  Aliyah between 1881 and 1903, however there were still difficulties during this time period. These Chalutzim, who were labor Zionists, faced issues like going into debt to their benefactors like Baron Edmund de Rothschild, drought and malaria. We also saw this in an interesting, but poorly dubbed movie in a 360 degree theater.

Our next stop was a quick drive to a beautiful overlook onto the Kinneret. David showed us a picture of the very same place looking incredibly different from 1908. We also read writings from the "American Shalom Aleichem" (AKA Mark Twain who visited the same site in 1867) explaining the previous ugliness of the gorgeous place we laid eyes upon. We took a quick stop for lunch on a Kibbutz with a date store. So many tamars!

The third stop, the Kinneret Cemetery, was a modern cemetery just a few hundred meters from the shore of the Kinneret’s blue waters. One person that we looked at that was especially touching to me was Rachel, a famous Hebrew poetess. Her gravestone was extremely beautiful and next to it was a box labeled “Shirat Rachel.” I found it amazing that people could read her poems just next to her gravestone. 

Our last stop of the day was a mock Kibbutz built to look like the first proto-Kibbutz. The Kibbutz seemed to mimic the explanations we have received about the first Kibbutzim. Kibbutzim stemmed from the second Aliyah from 1904-1914. They were based off of socialism, but not specifically the Russian type of socialism. The spiritual father of labor Zionism, who David pointed out to us in the Kibbutz named A.D. Gordon believed in the religion of labor. He said physical labor would lead to the redemption of the land. The Kibbutzim that stemmed from the labor Zionist movement were centered around sharing absolutely everything, down to the underwear. The Chader Ochel was the central place where meetings were held, but there were still a lot of difficulties there like money, productivity, education, work roles, gender, property and security. 

This time period brought an extreme amount of Zionists into Israel to start building the country’s population. I believe these people were strong to pick up their lives and move to a foreign land as well as determined to fulfill “Shivat Tzion.”

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The Mother of All Tiyulim

by Hannah Karpin, 11th grade, Southern California

We started off the morning at a Crusader’s Fortress in Kohav HaYarden and learned about the First Crusade that took place from 1096-1099. During the Islamic rule over the land of Israel, Pope Urban II gave a unifying speech that inspired Christians to take over the region. This barbaric, violent crusade initiated all of the other crusades that followed. The crusaders fought from fortresses like the one we visited. They were spread out on mountaintops in order to give the impression that the army was a lot bigger than it actually was. 

Next, we stopped at Kibbutz Afikim for lunch in their Hadar Ochel on the way to Tzfat to learn about Jewish Mysticism. We learned about the Zohar, which according to tradition was written by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi) and was a mystical commentary on the secrets of the Torah. The traditionalists would argue that the Zohar was written on a mountain top by Tzfat. The modernists, on the other hand, would say that the Zohar was written by Rabbi Moshe DeLeon in Spain in the 14th century. The Zohar inspired the mystical ideas of Kabbalah (literay "receiving") that was invented by the Rabbis in Tzfat. The main requirements of studying Kabalah are that you are Jewish, male, married with kids, and extremely knowledgeable of the Torah. We visited a few synagogues to see where the Jews prayed hundreds of years ago. A fellow Jew politely interrupted our lesson to sing us his creative versions of Jewish prayers. At another synagogue, the praying Jews felt disgraced by the fact that girls entered their Beit Knesset and they rudely kicked us all out. We encountered many different types of people on this tiyul but it was an interesting experience.

After a long day of learning, we stopped at a farm on the way back to Tzuba for a dinner of cheese platters and cheese pizza before calling it a day. As David says, this was the “Mother of all tiyulim”.

A Pilgrimage Every Jew Should Make

NFTY-EIE's Poland Pilgrimage:  A Faculty Perspective

By David Alon

"Don't you ever get tired of guiding the sites in Poland?" my students asked me the day before our departure.

"Well," I answered, "You can look it at it two ways.  It's true that I've done this trip fifteen times already, and there can't possibly be anything new that I haven't seen or experienced. However, when I experience all this through the eyes of the students, it's as if it is the first time all over again!"

That was my standard reply that I gave each time a new class of students put that same question to me.  It's not necessarily a rehearsed answer that I just say automatically; I really do believe those words.  But this time I continued to ponder it, and it occurred to me that guiding EIE in Poland is meaningful for me far beyond the opportunity to show a new group of students the sites.  Everything that we do, everything that we see is so multi-layered, so multi-faceted, so complex, and so nuanced that for me personally, there is something new to discover on each subsequent visit.

For as long as I have been on the EIE faculty (since Fall 2006), the Poland Pilgrimage has been an essential component of the educational curriculum.  When I sit down with each student for a one-on-one conversation at the end of the semester, the Poland Pilgrimage is most often mentioned as the most memorable experience.  As a staff, we work very hard to make the trip a success.  The madrichim work tirelessly to ensure that everyone is prepared, and that we do everything possible to look out for the health and well-being of each student.  Beyond that, my fellow Jewish history teachers and I invest all of our energy and creativity into assembling a curriculum that is compelling and worth-while.  From a faculty point-of-view, the key to a successful experience in Poland is not allowing ourselves to be complacent.  No matter how pleased we were with previous semesters, we are always looking for new ways to improve and enhance each element of the week in Poland.

Why We Spend A Week In Poland

Taking the entire student body to Poland for a week along with the faculty is certainly a logistical challenge.  Wouldn't it be better to just teach all this material in the classroom at Kibbutz Tzuba?  After all, the students have already come all the way to Israel and visit Yad VaShem; isn't that enough of an accomplishment?

I believe that we spend a week in Poland to both "pay tribute" and "bear witness".  We pay tribute to the magnificent Jewish communities, the kehilot kedoshot קהילות קדושות, that thrived for centuries in Poland and Eastern Europe; and we bear witness to the immense tragedy of the Shoah.

Many Israeli high schools take their 12^th graders on similar trips to Poland (we often run into them everywhere we go).  However, the focus of those trips is overwhelmingly on Holocaust sites and Holocaust education, only paying lip service to the richness and beauty of the Jewish communities that were destroyed.  Our goal at EIE is to place equal emphasis on both life and death.  "Life" meaning Jewish life that existed for centuries going back to the Middle Ages.  One simply cannot comprehend what was lost in the Shoah without first learning in-depth about the entire civilization that was Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jewry.  In fact, each day of the Poland trip is a delicate balance of teaching about life and death.

Warsaw

It is almost impossible to find the words to describe the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, but I think the most appropriate phrase is Beit Chaim בית חיים, meaning "house of life".  Yes, there is an irony in calling a cemetery a house of life, but that is precisely what the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery represents, thriving Jewish life.  Warsaw was a city of over 300,000 Jews before the Shoah.  Beyond the sheer numbers though, Warsaw was the absolute center of Yiddishkeit, the emphatic cultural capital of Eastern European Jewry.  The overall theme for day one of the trip is the cultural richness and diversity of the Warsaw Jewish community.  Nothing speaks to this more than visiting the cemetery.  It is at once a picture of orthodoxy and acculturation; Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish; rich and poor; scientists, writers, and rabbis; famous and renowned, and simple and modest; monuments to a community at its height of success, and memorials to its tragic destruction.

Guiding the students around the area of the former Warsaw Ghetto is a challenge in the sense that the entire city was destroyed and rebuilt.  To visit Warsaw today is to take in a view of drab communist era apartment buildings interspersed with ultra-modern sky scrapers and shopping malls that sprung up after 1989.  Only a tiny fragment of the original brick wall of the ghetto remains, and it is right smack in the middle of an apartment complex.  (Students always ask me how people can live there, and to this day I have struggled to find a satisfactory answer.)  Even more challenging is the task of trying to tell the story of the Warsaw Ghetto in one afternoon.  Do I focus more on the tragedy, the fact that most of the residents of the Ghetto were gassed to death in Treblinka in the summer of 1942?  Do I focus more on the heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943?  How do I even define the uprising?  As a symbolic victory despite the fact that it was brutally suppressed by the Germans?  As a beacon of light and hope in an ocean of darkness?  Like so many other things that we do during the trip, we are left with more questions than answers.

Tykocin

קהילה קדושה kehila kedosha is a Hebrew phrase that is hard to translate.  The literal meaning is "holy community", but that translation doesn't do justice to what it actually means.  Poland and Eastern Europe was once home to a countless number of shtetlach, small towns and villages reminiscent of Fidder On The Roof's fictional Anatevka.   A place where the rhythm of life is Jewish, the language is Jewish, the culture is Jewish, and everything that one sees and does is connected to tradition and Torah.  Tykocin in northeast Poland is such a place.  Jews first settled there in 1522, building a prosperous community based on the local trade routes.  The jewel of Jewish Tykocin is the magnificent restored 17^th century synagogue that sits in the center of town.  The walls of the beit knesset are adorned with the Hebrew prayers of the siddur, including the poignant phrase עבדו את יהוה בשמחה ivdu et Adonai b'simcha (worship God with joy) which conveys the essence of the Hassidic movement that was so popular among Jews from this area.

To see Tykocin is to see how our ancestors in Poland lived.  Walking through the unpaved streets, one can imagine boys on their way to the kheyder, merchants and craftsman selling items out of their houses, the cacophony of the market place…and then we arrive as a class to the town cemetery, a completely different picture than what we saw the day before in Warsaw.  One can scarcely make out the faded Hebrew on the tombstones, many of them sinking deep into the Polish soil.  But we have not come to Tykocin as mere tourists, we have come with the sacred mission to breathe some life back into this once thriving kehila kedosha.  One of the absolute highlights of the entire trip from my point-of-view is the opportunity to pray the mincha service in the Tykocin synagogue.  True to the words עבדו את יהוה בשמחה ivdu et Adonai b'simcha, we prayed fervently with all our might, singing and dancing and with joy, so glad to be able to bring a small semblance of Jewish life back to this community.

Despite all this emphasis on life, we cannot escape the dark truth that 1400 Jews, almost the entire Jewish population of Tykocin were exterminated by einsatzgruppen on August 26, 1941.  The nearby Lepochova forest, the site of this atrocity like so many other forests where mass shootings were carried out, remains silent except for the rush of the wind through the trees.  Three mass graves marked off by a metal railing draped with Israeli flags, candles, and memorial items left behind by previous delegations.  For months I have seen our students talk, smile, laugh, run, and express themselves, but this is the first time I have observed them in stunned silence trying to comprehend the imprehensible.  In the Lepochova forest, there are no words.

Lublin and Majdanek

One of my favorite parts of the Jewish prayer service is אלו דברים שאין להם שיעור  elu dvarim sh-eyn lehem shiur, the passage that declares that the study of Torah is equal to all of one's good deeds and righteous acts combined.  Jewish Lublin embodies this quotation.  The renowned Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva is the essence of this prayer.  In Judaism, the study of Torah is never meant to be an end unto itself.  One does not study Torah just for the sake of learning, but because the wisdom imparted from studying Jewish texts serves as basis for all that we do in this world.  The brightest Torah scholars from all over Europe came to study in Lublin because of its outstanding reputation as a center for Jewish learning.  At EIE, our visit to the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva is not just an acknowledgment of its former glory, it is a chance to recreate the atmosphere of Jewish learning that pervaded its halls.  We chose to study in particular this day a Talmudic passage from Tractate Kiddushin dealing with the eternal question:  what is more important, study or action?  We read it aloud, we argue, we debate, and through it all we realize that this was the sound that was heard in these hallowed halls for the all-too-brief decade that the yeshiva existed in the 1930s.  The flame of scholarship that was kindled here by its founder rabbi Meir Shapiro is still burning brightly today in the form of the Daf Yomi system, the one-page-of-Talmud-a-day method that has swept across the Jewish world inspiring generations of Jews to explore the infinite wisdom of the Talmud, the central pillar of Judaism.

I have never met Halina Birnbaum, but I know that I have a lot to thank her for.  A Holocaust survivor who had her entire world taken from her at a young age, she found the courage to rebuild her life, and even more to publish her personal story in the gripping book Hope Is The Last To Die.  It is the perseverance and fortitude of people like her that have helped Am Yisrael emerge from the ashes of the Shoah.  Halina Birnbaum was thirteen years old when she was sent to the Majdanek concentration camp; thirteen year old when she witnessed her mother and brother taken from her forever.  It is her story that provides the backdrop for how I guide the students in Majdanek.  It is thanks to her that I can read personal testimony about the most minute details of prisoner life here.  And even so, Halina's words barely scratch the surface of the unimaginable nightmare of life in this concentration camp.  But after three hours of gloom, after finishing at the gas chamber and crematorium, I find my spirit lifted by the inspirational words and prayers of our students in the memorial ceremony that they have worked so hard to prepare.  I don't leave Majdanek despondent, but rather with my head held high knowing that these amazing teenagers are the future leaders of our people.

Krakow

If the previous day of the Poland trip is the most intense, then day four in Krakow is lightest in terms of content connected to the Shoah.  "Shul hopping" is what I like to call it.  That is, visiting five different synagogues that in one way or another personified the pre-war Jewish community of Krakow.  The beauty of Jewish Krakow is that it is hard to differentiate between myth and fact.  Is it true that King Kasimir the Great had a young Jewish lover named Esther in 1300s (they were so in love that the king used a secret tunnel from Wawel Castle in order to meet her at night according to the legend)?  Is it true that in the 1600s there was a rich miser in the community who was labeled with the unfortunate moniker "Mr. Olam HaBah" (meaning "Mr. Next World") because everyone thought that his refusal to give any tzedakah was a sign that he was saving all his money to take with him the next world?  (Only to discover after his death that all his life he was giving anonymously and never sought recognition for his generosity!)  Is it true that once God himself made the Earth swallow up a wedding reception for continuing past sun down on a Friday and thus violating Shabbat?  Indeed, Jewish Krakow straddles the fine line between myth and reality.  The main question that I put to the students is what does the existence all these myths and legends say about the Krakow Jewish community.

Unfortunately too many people get their impression of Jewish Krakow from the movie Schindler's List which was filmed and takes place there.  I believe, however, that the real story of Jewish Krakow is found in the multiple synagogues of Kazimersz, each one a testament in its own right to specific shade and layer of the once vibrant kehila.  None more so than the Beit Knesset De Remu, the synagogue named for Jewish Krakow's most revered 16^th  century scholar Rabbi Moshe Isserles, known as the Remu.  His monumental  halachic work known as the Mappa (the table cloth) became the concise halachic guide to Jewish practice for the entire Ahskenazi world, similar to what Yosef Karo's Shulchan Aruch written in Tzfat did for the Sephardi world.  In a time in which the observance of halacha was the backbone of all Jewish life, the Remu's writings were indispensable to the perpetuation of the Jewish people.  That's why it’s so surprising to walk across the street and enter the Temple Synagogue, Krakow's so-called Reform shul.  I say Reform, but certainly nothing like we know the Reform movement today.   In many ways, the Temple Synagogue more closely resembles what we call today modern orthodox.  Whatever one wants to call it, it cannot be denied that the Temple Synagogue is spectacular in every respect:  the ceiling, the windows, the bima, the ark, the décor, everything.  Perhaps the most gratifying part of this day is that it is the students themselves who do the guiding.  We have designed this "shul hopping" to me more of a self-guided scavenger hunt than just the teachers talking and explaining.  From my perspective, it gives the students the chance to take ownership of the guiding and kind of do-it-themselves.

Even though this is a lighter activity than the other days of the trip, we cannot ignore the ultimate tragedy that befell the Jews of Krakow (that Schindler's List does a great job of portraying).  After learning about the Golden Age of Polish Jewry from the different batei Knesset, we silently walk across the bridge of the Vistula River retracing the steps that the Krakow Jews were forced to take when they were ordered out of their home and into the ghetto.  It hardly needs to be explained.  The students just get it, they know that we are transitioning from the lively atmosphere of "shul-hopping" to the seriousness of the Shoah.  With a maturity beyond their years, they tackle the difficult topics of ghetto life and the excruciating dilemmas that those in the ghetto confronted on a daily basis.  I am amazed at their ability to talk about the controversial actions and decisions of those in the ghetto in a non-judgmental way, not easy for anyone to do, let alone a teenager in today's world 70 years removed from the Holocaust.

But Krakow has an uplifting story as well.  The inspiring story of Oscar Schindler was destined to be told and shared with the world.  The story of one man who defied history, who defied his time and circumstance.  The heroic story of Oscar Schindler is just one example of over twenty two thousand righteous gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews.  Although the factory itself has been transformed into an art school and gallery, the setting itself hasn't changed, and neither has its significance.  It is here that we share the unbelievable stories of Irena Sendler, the Danish underground, just a few striking instances when courageous people refused to give in to the evil and madness of the Nazis and look away indifferently from the atrocities, which is precisely what most their neighbors were doing at that time.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

There is simply nothing to say that can adequately prepare one for a visit to Auschwitz.  The size of Birkenau is incomprehensibly enormous.  The staggering amount of people murdered is difficult to realize despite the number we attach to it.  How do I find the right balance between the dry historical details and the personal stories when guiding?  Standing on this cursed soil, we are required to use all of our senses to begin to understand where we are.  Although the railroad tracks went quiet seven decades ago, we touch them with our bare hands and attempt to feel the vibrations, those same vibrations that carried 400,000 Hungarian Jews to their death.  In fact, the entire framework for guiding at Auschwitz is based on re-tracing the steps the community of Hungarian Jews in the summer of 1944, the vast majority of them immediately selected to be murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival.  During this time period, an SS officer at the camp decided to take a roll of black-&-white photographs recording the arrival, selection, and walk to the gas chambers of a train filled with Hungarian Jews which became one of the most important historical artifacts that gruesome process.  I say out loud to the class that "the people in these photos were murdered in the gas chambers within an hour or two of their arrival," but I'm not sure if that sentence registers.  I'm not sure if even I can understand this awful truth even when I utter these words.

There is a building at Auschwitz-Birkenau known as the "sauna".  This is the reception center where those selected for work were sent to me transformed into fulltime prisoners.  Among other horrors, this is where numbers were tattooed onto arms, where one's hair was cut off, and where the stripped "pajamas" were issued out.  In short, this is the place where people entered as individuals and left as numbers, the place where any last semblance of humanity was shredded.  But the "sauna" is significant not just because of its gruesome history.  It contains one of the most poignant exhibitions on display, dozens of old photographs that were confiscated from people's suitcases are assembled into a remarkable display showing what these folks looked like in happier times, as they are meant to be remembered.  It is not lost on me that in the same place where people were deprived of their humanity, these pictures have succeeded in restoring a small glimmer. These photos are at once charming and haunting.  There is a Mona Lisa-type aspect to many of them in which the eyes of those in the pictures seem to follow you.  It is possible to gaze into their eyes and attempt to connect with them.

Ultimately, we are able to do something that those victims could not.  We recite kaddish, we sing HaTikva, we wave Israeli flags, and we walk out of that darkest of places.  There is hope, there is a tomorrow, there is a free Jewish state in our ancient homeland.  The only fitting way to end this day is with a message of Am Yisrael Chai.  For this, we are fortunate to pray the evening prayer at the Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue in the town of Oswienciem.  This is the Polish town that the Germans took the name Auschwitz from.  For the Jews of this town, it was "Ushpizim", the holy guests that one invites into the Sukkah on the holiday of Sukkot.  This was a place where Jews felt at home, it was Polanya.  It would be so easy to give into our despair and retreat into the pain, but we overcome.  As we recite the Amida prayer, the central paragraph states that God remembers the righteousness of our ancestors, and thus will bring redemption (geulah גאולה) to their descendants (meaning us).

To Eretz Yisrael

There is a special feeling one gets after returning home to Israel after a week in Poland.  There is a feeling of completeness, a feeling of coming full circle to our biblical roots in the land of our ancestors.  Hebrew is a language that warms the soul.  To return to Israel and be immersed once more in Hebrew is to appreciate the miracle of the redemption of the Jewish people.  Now the true understanding of what we just went through starts to slowly sink in. The understanding of the life that was, and the tragedy that ended it is ingrained in our collective memory.  The realization that this is a pilgrimage that every Jew should make in their lifetime.

Here's the link to a great article about ARZA, the Reform movement's political advocay wing towards Israel.  A delegation of youth representatives led by Rabbi Josh Weinberg attended the World Zionist Congress held in Jerusalem in Oct. 2015. Here's a great article that appeared in Times of Israel detailing how ARZA's hard work is paying off in articulating its vision for liberal Zionism and fostering positive change in Israeli society.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/at-world-zionist-congress-reform-stakes-its-claim-in-israels-future/