Last month, forty-two EMET Outreach students, along with two rabbis and four staff members, spent an unforgettable week touring Poland, Prague, and Vienna. It was EMET’s third exclusive trip to Eastern Europe.
EMET Co-Director Rabbi Mordechai Kraft and Upper Boys’ Division Director Rabbi Nissim Musheyev led the trip. They were joined by three female madrichot, and EMET’s Women’s Director Miss Shira Fendel surprised the group by joining mid-week.
Most participants came from EMET’s flagship fellowship program in Forest Hills and its campus programs at Queens College and St. John’s University. To help prepare students intellectually and emotionally, EMET rabbis taught them about the Holocaust in the weeks leading to the trip, focusing on relevant philosophical and hashkafa issues.
This trip was attended exclusively by Sefardic students, allowing them to explore the history of Ashkenazic Jewry in Europe, including its lifestyle, culture, wonders, and tragedies. Virtually all the students have a limited religious background, yet they were deeply moved and inspired, and many committed to elevate their level of observance.
Jam-packed Itinerary
Students visited death camps, mass child graves, and mass deportation sites. They were also shown the richness of Jewish history, including yeshivas, shuls, and kevarim of Tzaddikim. Impactful destinations were carefully chosen, and while they traveled between locations, staff and students engaged in discussions about what they had seen.
Students visited multiple destinations per day, traveling so frequently, virtually every night was spent at a new hotel. Destinations included the Maharal’s shul in Prague, Madjanek, the Warsaw Ghetto. Lodz, Lizhensk, Belzik, Auschwitz, Pietrikov (the birthplace of Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau), Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin (the largest yeshiva in Poland), Belzec, and other meaningful locations. They also visited the graves of R’ Elimelech of Lizhensk, R’ Chaim Soloveitchik, the Netziv, and other renowned gedolim and tzaddikim. And they visited the factory in which Oskar Schindler saved hundreds of Jews from extermination.
The group spent several hours being addressed by EMET Co-founder and CEO Rabbi Akiva Rutenberg’s grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who currently lives in Poland. She shared her incredible life story, including how she was saved by a non-Jewish family. They also met a woman whose family allowed a Jewish girl to live with them while she was a teenager, risking their lives to save her from the Nazis. To this day, the two are still in contact.
Emotional Growth
Students kept a mature mindset, and processed the deeply emotional nature of what they saw in a healthy way. Rabbi Musheyev was impressed with the level at which students were motivated to grow. “They internalized the positive and negative aspects of what they saw, and it gave them a deeper appreciation of what it means to be a Jew, and be part of the chosen nation.” He added, “Many took on kabbalot for the future. Some pledged to start keeping kosher, others took on Shabbat observance, respecting parents, dressing more modestly, and so on. This was literally a life-changing event.”
EMET launched this amazing program last year, offering this exclusive trip as a reward to graduates of its fellowship program, to help them appreciate their heritage and history in a vivid way. They were blown away by the response and how motivated students became to be more committed. Most have a limited Jewish education, yet virtually every student was inspired and stirred, and some took on major changes and new commitments of Torah observance.
While visiting a mass grave in which tens of thousands of children were buried, every member of the group, including staff, called their own parents to tell them how much they loved them.
Rabbi Musheyev observed that students were sometimes inspired in unexpected ways. “When they saw how many people were killed for no reason other than being Jewish, that sparked a deeper appreciation of their own identity as Jews, and showed them how special they are.”
Astounding Discovery
While visiting a mass grave at Chelmno, former EMET Stonybrook Director Rabbi Dovid Delman spoke with the group via Facetime, describing an astonishing discovery he made last year in that very location on EMET’s first Poland trip.
He noticed five memorial plaques memorializing the five local shtetlach that were murdered and buried there. One memorialized a town named “Belchatow”. He stood in disbelief, remembering that his grandmother a”h had told him that his great grandparents resided in that town. The family knew they had perished in the Holocaust but had no idea what had happened to them. Written on the plaque in Hebrew alphabetical order was a list of the Jews gassed in Chelmno and buried in that forest. Rabbi Delman read the names, and when he reached the letter “Lamed” for Lieberman (his grandparents’ name), he discovered the names of his grandparents and their children, as well as his grandfather’s brothers and his entire family who were buried there. Rabbi Delman was overwrought with emotion.
From Poland, the group traveled to Vienna, where they were greeted very warmly by the Bukharian community, which comprises a third of the Jewish population. The locals gave them the red-carpet treatment, with a fancy Bukharian feast and a DJ. They danced together and bonded through the middle of the night.
After arriving home, one student sent Rabbi Rutenberg the following text message: “This trip has really changed my life in ways I didn’t know possible and opened my eyes in so many ways. I’m so grateful to have such an amazing organization with wonderful rabbis and staff. Keep doing the amazing work that you do and changing lives for the better! Thank you so much!”
This year’s EMET Fellowship has been generously dedicated in memory of Mary Libby Schwartz a”h. Throughout her life, Libby was extremely dedicated to education. It’s a great z’chut for her neshama that through her support so many Jewish students have been able to become educated about their heritage and discover their history in a way that inspires lasting
growth.
Over 40 EMET Students Take An Emotional Trip To Poland & Beyond
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