KUMA (finally!)

Okay, so after days of typing, here is the long-awaited Kuma post. My journal from that week explains more than reflection can, so everything below is my words from those days. Enjoy..and comment please!

15/3/10

The Night Before…Liftoff!

The lack of sleep saga has begun. After a goodbye dinner with my roomies at Benedict’s, I scrambled to throw my things together and hopped onto the bus at 1:00 am. Following the orders of a very sleepy Joe, I called everyone to make sure they were ready and sent Joe to bed soundly when everyone was onboard. Even on the ride to the airport, it still hadn’t hit me that I was going to Poland. In a strange way, it still hasn’t.

Right now, I’m sitting in Ben Gurion airpot, waiting for our delayed flight to get going. My eyes are bloodshot, my body aches from sleeping on the ground, and all I want to do is pass out on the plane. Nevertheless, I’m also really pumped to get started. Before I left, everyone asked me if I was excited to leave for Kuma and I never knew what to say. I’m not excited to see horrors that have given me nightmares for years, I’m not excited to cry my eyes out for my people, I’m not excited to finally understand the Shoa on a level beyond books. What then, am I looking forward to? I decided to go on Kuma after the intense ride I went through with “Friedl” and “Through Children’s’ Eyes”. After feeling almost enmeshed with the Shoa and Terezin during these performances, I applied for Kuma looking for some form of closure. Now, after seeing how different I am after six months of Year Course and hearing peoples past accounts of Kuma, I’m not sure if closure is possible. I’m not going to deny that this scares me a little. My reaction to the Shoa in the past has been unbelievably powerful, and a huge part of me is still terrified that I won’t be able to handle the things we’re going to see. I suppose I won’t die from crying, but the depression surrounding such intensity is intimidating.

Finally, I’m sitting on the plane. Seat 19D. Around me are chanichim from all three sections who all have their own reasons for embarking on this week of insanity. In four hours, I’m going to be walking off the plane and onto the land where six million of my people were brutally murdered. I’m going to walk proudly into a still largely anti-Semitic country with Israeli soil caked into my boots from our last tiyul. In a matter of hours, I’m going to be standing in places my own family stood 100 years ago. What would they think if they could see me now? I can only hope that the knowledge I gain in the next seven days and my determination to pass it on will be enough to make them proud of me. This trip is for David and Judith Schoenzeit, Leslie, Eli, Ela, Petr, Hana, Tella, Teddy, Friedl, and most of all, for the future me who will continue to tell these stories.


15/3/10

Yesh Eretz K’mo Ze? (Is there a land like this one?)

After and incredibly long day/night of travel, we finally arrived in Poland. There was a snow storm last night, so overlooking the country during landing felt like staring down at a winter wonderland. I almost lost my passport on the plane (props to me…) but the flight attendants were awesome and I got it back without any problems. At baggage claim, we threw on coats, scarves, hats, and gloves and started our journey… It’s fucking freezing here…

Driving through Warsaw was surreal. The city was snow-covered and modern, and if I didn’t know I was in Poland, I probably wouldn’t have guessed. It felt strange to be so mesmerized by a place that holds such a terrible past, but the winter here is breathtakingly gorgeous. I’m happy here…I guess? That sounds strange, but I’m sticking with it.

Our first stop was the Okopowa St. Jewish Cemetery. Usually associated with death and grief, the cemetery turned our to be a surprisingly fun and inspiring place. Rather than mournful, the cemetery celebrated the thriving Jewish population that lived in Warsaw for hundreds of years before the Holocaust. The 2nd largest in Poland, the cemetery is home to 250,000 souls, stretching throughout Polish history. Among the graves were Yitzhak L. Paritz (the revolutionary writer who wrote the first Yiddish fiction), Reb Chayim Solovechik (whose grandson founded Yeshiva University), and members of the Bund (the socialist Jewish movement – all of whom were killed in the Shoa). Along with an inappropriate snowball here and there, it was a great stop.

Next, we visited the Korczak Orphanage. Korczak was akin to Friedl Dicker Brandeis in his heroism involving children. His philosophies inspired and saved hundreds of children from falling into depression or ending up on the streets. When his students were taken to the gas chambers, he insisted on going with them. His love of children still influences education today. I was really moved by the orphanage. It felt nice to be in a place with so much love radiating from it. I learned a little bit more when we read his children’s bill of rights. Sometimes when my moms come home with their stories about the foster kids they work with, Korczal’s words are all I want to scream at the parents.

The third stop of the day was the Umschlagplatz – the train station where Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto would be loaded on to cattle cars and shipped to Treblinka. This was our first exposure to standing on horror’s history. Even on a place where no blood was spilt, it felt almost contaminating to stand in a real, tangible place where Nazis destroyed Jewish lives. It makes me wonder (worry) how I’m going to handle Tykochin and Treblinka tomorrow. Then names on the wall hit me the hardest. The walls of the Umschlagplatz are covered in first names and scattered family names. I saw “Marcia” and “Stephen” (the names of my grandparents) and paused. It made me realize that if my family hadn’t left, those names could have easily been my grandparents…I might not exist today. It was truly humbling and chilling.

The last stop for today was the Nozik Synagogue. Sadly, it’s the last working Synagoge in Poland to still hold daily services. It’s currently being restored, but it’s easy to see its grandeur. During WWII, the Nazis turned it into horse stables, and eventually it was almost destroyed. It’s gross that anyone could do that to a religious building of any kind, but I suppose the behavior’s not surprising since they also turned Torah scrolls into shoe soles…

Today was nowhere near as intense as the rest of the trip is going to be, but after no sleep, it was a great intro to Warsaw and the Polish “feel”. I’m not sure how I feel about being in Poland in general yet. The concept itself is still slightly disturbing, and I don’t see tomorrow helping out at all, but I’m going to try hard to stay open and accept any opinion changes or new perspectives that hit me throughout the week.


16/3/10

They Weren’t Joking

I woke up today, refreshed for the first time in six months. Staying in a hotel definitely has its perks! In a strange way, I felt really excited for the day throughout breakfast. I guess it’s not unexpected, but given where we went today, I felt strange in my anticipation…

Our first stop of the day was the small town of Tykocin. Everything about the place, including the entire bus ride there, was entirely surreal. Looking out the window, I watched the world go from modern Warsaw to Fiddler on the Roof. The snow accented the barns and the woods, and with every second, I felt like I was going back in time. I became so enthralled by the scene that it was almost a cruel dose of reality when the snow-covered phone lines glared at me as glowing white crosses.

Tykocin itself is a bit like Corvallis: small town, Center Square, a few big buildings, and a lot of small town houses. It used to be a center of Polish Jewry – 2,000 Jews beginning with the first settlers in the early 1600s. Today, not a single Jew inhabits the vicinity. Why? In 1941, Germans raided Tykocin in Operation Barbarossa. Every Jew was marched out to the forest and murdered by the Einzatzgruppen in shooting pits. Seeing the town was interesting, but it didn’t prepare me for what was to come. Walking down the snowy path to the shooting pits was almost like a terrifying flashback. I could feel the fear surrounding the place, hear the trucks, smell the death. Looking at the shooting pits, I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t cry because I was too busy wrapping my head around the fact that only a few feet below me, 2,000 people met their ends. The sheer mass overwhelmed me. During Mike’s reading, I felt tears coming, but I pushed them back. It was finally when walking back to the bus that I broke. My head swirled with images of frail, naked bodies, and blood bubbling up from the ground. The freezing cold froze the tears on my face, and for a moment, I forgot the deaths occurred 70 years ago.

Treblinka was the first death camp I’ve ever stepped foot in. Oddly, I wasn’t overwhelmed with emotion. Having been destroyed by the Germans, a large memorial is all that remains of the 800,000 who were murdered there. The most shocking thing about Treblinka was finding my family’s stone. I never thought about my family in relation to the Shoa. They left Poland in the 1880s and had nothing to do with WWII. Seeing the “Augustow” stone, however, made me realize that I probably had distant family who DID die in the Shoa. I’ve never felt more connected to my family history, or more grateful for their bravery than I did at that moment.

More than anything, certain aspects of Treblinka made me just plain sick. The fact that people live five minutes away is disgusting. The fact that the Nazis dressed up the station is appalling. The fact that the curtain to the gas chambers was the cover to an Ark is nauseating. I’m angry at humanity, but hoping to find something besides anger in the coming days. Tachanah Treblinka…


17/3/10

Let Our Fate Be a Warning

Today was the hardest day yet. Fully centered on the events of the Shoa, we spent the day outside – depressed and freezing. It’s never all bad – we make each other laugh, and everyone feels like family, but early in the morning, it’s easy to feel lost in one’s desire for warmth.

The morning was spent looking at the Warsaw Ghetto and the events of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Just as the Umschlagplatz is nothing but a memorial, the Ghetto is nothing but a single wall that once belonged to a factory. Nevertheless, its impact is not lost. Amidst the modern apartments, the battered, blood-red wall is a symbol of the unofficial death camp. In the frigid weather, it physically hurt to imagine our situation in a summer dress and on 184 calories per day. Being here, seeing everything, I have such respect and awe for the survivors of ANY part of the Shoa. Truth be told, I don’t think I would have had their will power. I don’t think I would have survived.

The second part of the Ghetto exploration was the Mila 18 memorial. During the uprising, Mila 18 served as the headquarters for the resistance, and eventually, it became their tomb when the Nazis bombed and gassed the last of the fighters. I’ve never been fond of martyrs, but after reading the passages today about Mila 18 and the 93 girls who committed suicide rather than be raped by German soldiers, I have much more respect for the concept. When faced with death, I can’t say I know what I would do, but as someone who appreciates dignity in life, I’d like to think I’d try to keep it in death. One of the things that’s always frustrated me about the Shoa is that even when Jews knew they were being taken to their deaths, hardly any fought back, or even tried to resist. Some ran, but for the supposedly most intelligent race in the world, I guess a part of me sadly expected more. I feel guilty for writing this, but its how I feel. This thought brings me to part three – the Rappaport Memorial.

There are two versions of this famous Shoa sculpture. The original stands in Warsaw, and the copy stands in Yad Vashem. The controversy of this dedication comes in its sides. The front depicts strong, God-like Jews (the resistance fighters) and the back portrays that “weak sheep” of the death camps. Many in Israel are still angry at the survivors of the camps for not fighting back. I’m conflicted about this. On the one hand, I can’t blame anyone in the Shoa for their fate, but on the other hand, I wish more had had the bravery of Mila 18. What would I have done?

Our second stop of the day was the death camp Majdanek. This was a completely different experience than Treblinka. My heart almost stopped when I looked out the window today and saw the full-fledged camp. No memorials. Everything was there. The barbed wire fences, the bunkers, the watch towers, the gas chambers, the crematoriums. Everything. Driving into Majdanek almost felt like we ere being taken there ourselves. Walking through the gas chambers, I instinctually avoided walking under the showers, terrified that they would open after 70 dormant years. The place felt like death. The beds held the original mattresses, the walls had fingernail scratchings on them, the gas chambers still held cans of zyclone B. In a separate barrack, thousands of shoes – big and small – piled high to the ceiling. I broke at the dusty laces. Next to the crematorium was a pile of dirt – or so we thought. On November 3, 1944, the “Harvest Festival” took place, and the Nazis murdered 18,000 in a single day (in reaction to the Sobibor revolt). They buried them in shooting pits for lack of time, and when the local people found the bodies, they burned them. The dirt in front of us was actually the collective ashed of 18,000 people…I couldn’t cry, but I did nearly hurl.

To some extent, I feel guilty for not crying more. After awhile though, I became too shocked/sad to cry. It’s easy to cry from the comfort, but to step into the most evil place on earth, it almost feels as though your soul has temporarily left your body.

After dinner in Lublin, we took a quick trip to the local Yeshiva and learned its story. A much happier experience, it felt amazing to look at a page of Talmud in a place of Jewish learning after a horror-filled day. I’m proud of my people. I’m proud to be Jewish.


18/3/10

There Once Was a World

Today was officially dubbed “ridiculously long bus day”, even thought the Madrichim tried to pretend it wasn’t. Making our way from Lublin to Krakow, we spent 11 hours on the bus with three stops in the midst of our journey. The stops were interesting, but still, bus riding was surprisingly intense.

Our first stop was Lejansk – an old Chassidic town. We learned about the Chassidic movement and Rabbi Eli Melech’s influence in Poland. I was surprisingly fascinated by this stop. Even though I consider myself more spiritual than religious, there was something incredibly moving about being in a past center of Judaism and Jewish life. Listening to ancient prayers and seeing the dedication still given to Reb Melech, I was reminded of just how powerful the idea of Jewish community can be. When I wrote my note to the great Rabbi, I truly felt, more a moment, the same magic of the Kotel. It’s humbling to feel moments of massive connection, and even though I’m not a Chasid, I felt a part of their history – of my history.

Our second stop was hard. After much driving, we reached the small town of Bobovo and the small, surrounding forest. We walked for about half an hour into a small enclave of trees and stumbled upon a moss-covered, cracked gravesite. Neglected and forgotten was the mass grave of the Jews of Bobovo. Beneath our feet, completely nameless, lay the bodies of 700 women and children. Mass graves are much scarier than death camps. At the death camps, the bodies are gone, we know much more of what transpired and who was killed, and everyone remembers. Mass graves are different. The people below us had been forgotten, the Kaddish unsaid, the trees erasing their lives from the rest of the world. 700 people simply evaporated. We read quotes from children before the Shoa. It was chilling to realize that all of them had been us. They fought with their parents, didn’t like their vegetables, stressed over school, loved sports and music. I can’t imagine dealing with what they went through at an age when my biggest concern of the day was what the lunch lady would be serving. Would I have had their strength? Their courage?

Our last stop of the day was in Nove-Sacz – the town where one of my peer’s grandfathers was from. It’s really fascinating that so many of us are from Poland. It feels incredible to be returning after so many generations, and under such different circumstances. I hope my family would be proud.


19/3/10

There is Evil in the Air

Auschwitz-Birkenau is the portal to hell. Majdanek was hard. I’d never seen a real camp before, and it felt chilling, but it was nothing compared to today. Everything about the largest Nazi death camp reeks of evil and death. The air is thick with tortured souls and the fear of millions all those years ago. The sheer length of the walk along the train tracks was enough to stop the world around me. With every step, I heard the rumble of the cattle cars and screams of thousands as they struggled to breathe in the crowded, disease-filled cage. The entrance to Birkenau is huge and intimidating. I giant tower atop a red rectangle hovers eerily, surrounded by a double barbed wire, electric fence. Along the fence, every 20 feet or so, are guard towers. The space is sparse and open, and with a gun aimed at your head from every tower, there is no thought of escape. The tracks run down the middle of the camp, where they meet the selection platform and then continue on to the gas chambers and crematoriums by the forest edge. Tens of barracks sandwich the tracks – men to the right, women to the left. The men’s barracks are almost all destroyed – the wood used to make them having been stolen at the end of the war, but the women’s barracks (made of brick) are almost all fully intact. To the right of the men’s barracks, along the way to the crematoriums, are the remains of “Kanada”, the storage area where prisoners’ belongings were kept (hair, silverware, clothes, etc). There are over 30 large storehouses, and each was supposedly stuffed full in its day. Beyond the small forest edge, the death camp continues its horror. In 1944, the Bastards weren’t being efficient enough, so they extended the camp for the 400,000 Hungarian Jews who were executed in the last three months of the war. I diagrammed the basics on the next page for my own future reference, but I don’t think any of these images will soon leave my mind.

My journey through Birkenau was much harder than I anticipated. Having been told Madjanek was the hardest camp, I woke up thinking the worst was over, and while today would certainly be difficult, I was more than capable of handling it. I was wrong.

Before entering the camp, we went up to the highest guard tower and looked out over the entire complex. It’s genuinely shocking how enormous the camp is. I never learned the milage, but it took us about 20 minutes to walk a straight shot, back to front. Walking through the front entrance was one of the more terrifying experiences in the world. The famous brick archway is actually as scary as it looks in the photos. We walked some distance along the tracks until we arrived at the selection platform. Reading testimony in front of one of the actual cars, I felt tears welling up behind my tired eyes. I reached out and touched the old wood, and it felt tainted. Eerie wind blew across, and for the first time, I felt as though I was back in 1943, being shoved off the car and into lines I didn’t understand. Perhaps I made it through, perhaps I didn’t, but regardless, I had to stand in a line, waiting my turn, watching the fate of my loved ones completely helplessly. 1943 me passed the selection, and cried as 2010 me moved towards the women’s barracks in a coma. The barracks were dark, dusty, dingy, and tiny. It was hard to imagine how anyone slept at night. Between the stench, the cold, and the fear, I fear many might have died from pure exhaustion. The biggest breakdown came in the latrine. Holes in a counter top, the latrine was essentially a giant pit with concrete holes over it. Hearing the stories of the degrading things that occurred involving human excrement, I leaned my head against the window and wept. Death is never dignified, but the least people can do is attempt to make it calm and semi-dignified. The Nazis were not humans. No human can watch another human drowning in his own excrement and laugh. No human can use another’s mouth as a target in piss-aiming practice and to sleep with a clean conscience. More than ever, the question that weighed most heavily on my mind was how could someone do this? How could a living being ever justify taking another life? We left the latrine, but I couldn’t stop crying. The camp was finally real. Birkenau was no longer a place of legend – one that I could attempt to distance myself from. The millions who lost their lives; their souls, were now a part of mine; their stories no longer foreign, but physically real. I cannot pretend to completely understand their suffering, but I can say that the degree to which I felt a part of Birkenau in those moments was almost unbearable. When we were given personal time and asked to write a letter, it took 15 minutes just for my hand to stop shaking, for my tears to stop falling. Eventually, I wrote my letter to Ela Weisberger, a survivor of Terezin and Auschwitz. I didn’t know what to say, so I just spilled all of my conflicted emotion and tried to express how in awe I was of her and other survivors.

Our next stops in the camp were the ruins of the far gas chambers and crematoriums in the back of Birkenau. Thankfully, they’re too destroyed to enter, but affect was strong enough without the added experience. Some how, even though I was still overcome, I couldn’t cry anymore. It felt as though my body physically couldn’t handle any more death, and so rather than mourn, I had instead become too numb to feel. As a result, the rest of the experience passed in a bit of a blur. We walked through Kanada and the warehouses and finally did our ending Tekes by the ash lakes. I finally snapped back to reality on the way out as I slowly began to realize the impact of what had just transpired. Me, a Polish, Jewish girl, had just passed through all of Birkenau and come out without a scratch (at least physically). That realization felt like an extremely satisfying “fuck you” to every Nazi who ever so much as glared at one of my people. That realization also enabled me to eat lunch – something I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stomach after seeing the camp.

After lunch, we drove a few minutes to the Labor/Concentration Camp of Auschwitz. I feel almost guilty in admitting that after the morning, I felt almost nothing at the college-campus-esque Auschwitz 1. In contrast to Birkenau, Auschwitz has been converted into a museum and is dedicated mainly to presenting hard facts instead of emotional stories. Facts are important, but nearly irrelevant to a group of well-educated Jews who are here in Poland to connect to the Shoa, not to learn its logistics. I appreciate the significance of the museum, especially in relation to Holocaust Deniers, it just didn’t mean very much to me. One room, however, nearly knocked all of us onto the floor. In amongst the cold facts, is the hardest room to enter in Auschwitz. In a giant room are huge glass cases with the contents of the Kanada warehouses – including a case holding two tons of human hair cut from prisoners on their way to the gas chambers. Opposite it was a case of children’s clothes. In some of the other cases were suitcases, tallits, pots, pans, and other items. It shoved the reality of six million into our faces. I kept it together, but the impact was definitely not lost.

Tonight, we tried to recover from the day with Shabbas. Shabbat in Krakow was wonderful. For the first time in seven months, it really felt like Shabbat. We got ready, prayed, stuffed our faces, and sang corny songs. For shul, we went to the Rama Synagogue across from our hotel. Even though it was old-fashioned Orthodox and we were stuck behind a wall, a large part of me still loved the experience! Mike led the service and it was great to follow someone we knew. I couldn’t follow along the entire service, but I knew all the basic songs and prayers. After a long week of Jewish destruction, it felt unbelievable to be included in my heritage.


20/3/10

Shabbas Day in Krakow

Got to sleep in till 10:00!!!!!!!!!!!! It was the most amazing thing the world. =D I missed breakfast, but Judith gave me a granola bar, so kol besder im ani. Around 11, we went on a brisk tour of the Synagogues of the Old Jewish Quarter. Among them, we saw the first Shul in Krakow (built like a castle), the first reform synagogue in Poland (extremely cool), and we took a better look at the Rama Shul and its history (also very cool, but hard to focus on as my stomach was being particularly talkative. The reform shul was the most interesting to me. It was amazing to see the roots of Kol Ami (in a way) from hundreds of years ago, and even though it still held remnants of Orthodoxy, it was shocking how at home I felt there.

After lunch (which was intense!), we went to our processing groups to discuss the issue of God in the Holocaust. We read a passage by Eli Weisel and then the interpretations of God in the Holocaust by various Rabbis. Many claimed the Shoa had to have been some kind of punishment, for Hashem never acts without a reason. I was appalled and strongly disagreed. While I try to see a reason behind everything, I have huge issues with a God that would brutally murder 6 million innocent people as an unclear punishment. Regardless of Zionism, or assimilation, or competing Jewish factions, there is nothing in human history that justifies genocide, no matter what culture or people. I had a hard time with the processing group, but it raised a lot of great questions that are now part of my never-ending food for thought.

In the afternoon, a few of us went on a tour of non-Jewish Krakow. It was awesome! We walked by the place where “Schindler’s List” was filmed, saw the Wawel Castle, heard the legend of the Krakow Dragon, saw the main university, and shopped in the city market square. We even saw dressed-up Polish soldiers – which was oddly unsettling for reasons I don’t understand. Unfortunately, with all the fun, we also got our first dose of physical, directed anti-Semitism. Four of us were walking by a bench of Polish men, and as we tried to pass, they stuck their legs out to trip us. When we walked around and away with annoyed faces, they murmured “Juden” under their breath. I didn’t think anti-Semitism was still that strong, but apparently I was really naïve. The event shook us, but we quickly came to realize it wasn’t worth our trouble and moved on.

Kabbalat Shabbat was beautiful. We sang in a circle outside and felt loopy and happy. Afterwards, we went to the Galicia Jewish museum to see a photography exhibit and hear testimony from a righteous gentile. The photography exhibit was gorgeous. An English photographer, Christopher Schwartz, whose grandfather was Jewish, making Chris “Jewish enough for Adolph Hitler”, put it together. Chris traveled around Poland for months documenting Jewish life before and after the Shoa, mainly focusing on places that people either don’t visit often, or that have been completely forgotten. I was really moved by the photographs of the concentration camp, Belzec. Despite the fact that thousands of Jews were murdered there, all that remains is a plowed-over field. It killed me to think that we spend so much time remembering those who died in the major camps, but there are so many nameless victims that we never think to mention.

I didn’t particularly care for the speaker, but I respect what he’s trying to do. His story was hard to follow, but I highly respect the fact that he helped save Jews in his home and as a member of the Partisans. All in all, a fabulous Shabbas.


21/3/10

The Final Day

Today was back to a 6:00 wake up, =( We stuffed our suitcases, ate breakfast, and started the last day of our Kuma Journey. Our first stop was the cemetery at the Rama Synagogue. Originally disappointed at the idea of going to yet another cemetery, I was pleasantly surprised with the experience. We saw the graves that the local population restored after the Nazis raided the place, the five graves that were left standing, the wall made of the unfixable graves, and heard a remarkable story of Yosele the Meiser. We tried to do rubbings of the graves, but they were very unsuccessful…

Our second stop was an old, abandoned Kibbutz. We learned the story of the devour youth who eventually perished there, and had our final Tekes in Poland. I wasn’t enthralled by the story, but I definitely see the merit in being passionate and action-oriented about an issue or issues. I love being passionate about music/arts awareness, animal conservation, and gay rights back home, and I know that these are issues that I will always continue to devote myself to. I also really loved being a part of the final Tekes. It felt great to be able to be part of the expression of the week – the ups, downs, changes, and things to look forward to. Doing the Tekes forced me to think about just how much I experienced this wekk and how much my perspectives have canged. I went on Kuma with a lot of expectations, worries, and questions. The experience was everything I didn’t expect and more than I could have ever imagined. I laughed, I cried, I hugged, I isolated, I grew, I feared, and I did everything I could to embrace the experience and I still wish I could have learned more. I gained an appreciateion for my family and my history that I could never have gotten in Israel. My faith in God was challenged and wavered, but at the end, I find I feel even more spiritual and connected that I did seven days ago. Kuma is a strange catalyst…

Our final stop was the previous home of one of my peer’s family. It was really incredible to see her reaction to the building where her family lived. I only wish I could have been so lucky. Afterwards, we stopped for lunch at this ridiculous tourist spot and I nearly killed myself on Perokies. Fun and yummy, but painful.

Now, we’re sitting in the airport about to head back to Israel to finish our Journey at the Kotel. I’m excited to go back home. After a week of intensity, it’s going to feel incredible to return to Eretz Yisrael. Until then,

Rachel Smith-Weinstein, Witstenetski, Schoenzeit, Siskind.