A Few Tiyulim (field trips)

     There have been a few tiyulim in the last couple weeks that I either wasn't able to attend or am not going to explain in depth. Here they are.

1) Belvoir and Tzfat. The students began the day at the crusader castle Belvoir in northern Israel. Here they heard the speech which sparked the crusades, and talked about some of their causes and effects. After that they went to Tzfat, home of Kabblah (Jewish mysticism). While in Tzfat they talked about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and their development of Kabblah as a way to try and make sense of this tragedy. They also learned about Kabbalah itself and a few of its most important developers.

2) Poland. We spent a week in Poland learning about and seeing sites connected with the Shoa (Holocaust). We arrived in Warsaw and went straight to the traditional Jewish cemetery, where we learned about the hundreds of years of Jewish life in Warsaw prior to the Shoa. Then we went to where the ghetto used to be and talked about different types of resistance, ranging from Mordecai Annilevich and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to Janusz Korczak and his refusal to abandon his orphans. Next we went to Tykocin to talk about Shtetl (small Jewish town) life as exemplified by Fiddler on the Roof. After learning about Jewish life in the Shtetl in the morning we drove to Leprachova Forest to see where the Jews of the town had been shot into large pits.
     The next day we were in Lublin, site of one of the most famous pre-Holocaust Yeshivot, Yeshivat Chochmei Lublin (Yeshiva of the Wise Men of Lublin). Here we studied a bit of Talmud to try and bring some Jewish life back into the building. In the afternoon we went to Majdonik, an extermination camp in which virtually everything is still standing (the Nazis, due to the speed of the Soviet army and the poor management of the camp's leader, didn't have time to destroy it). I'm not going to talk about it other than to say its probably the worst place in the whole world and has the most difficult site I've ever seen: an enormous pile of human ashes.
     The next morning we had a lovely tour of medieval Krakow. We had some free time in the Old Town Square and the headed over to the traditional Jewish Quarter (called Kazimierz) where we visited a number of btei knesset (synagogues). My class, in particular, had a fascinating discussion at the progressive Tempel Synagogue about how we should relate to our beit knesset and to Israel. At the end of the day we walked to where the Krakow ghetto stood and talked about ghetto life there. Then, the vice principal gave a moving talk about the righteous among the nations, people who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust and our officially recognized by Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial in Israel.
     Our last day was spent at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 1.5 million Jews died in the Holocaust. I'm not going to say anything else about it other than that it, too, is a strong candidate for worst place in the world. All of the students blogged about their experience in Poland and I'd encourage you to read some of them.

3) Women of the Wall and Nachlaot. The students went to pray for Rosh Chodesh (the new month) with an organization called Nashot HaKotel (Women of the Wall), who advocate for equal rights at the Kotel. Afterward they went to Nachlaot, a collection of neighborhoods that were among the first outside the walls of the Old City. Here they saw many of the institutions of a living Kehila Kdosha (holy community). In Poland we talked quite a bit about these institutions, but, unfortunately, few of them still exist today.

4) This past Thursday the students spent the whole day at Hebrew Union College, the Rabbinical College of the Reform Movement. In the morning they watched a great Israeli movie called "Walk on Water." Afterward, we had speakers representing the Ultra-Orthodox, Modern Orthodox and Conservative Movements come speak to the students. I hope they'll share some of their reactions to these speakers in the comments.