These and Those

I credit R. Cooper with presenting our group with a broad, illustrative picture of Jewish life in Poland before (and after) the Shoah in addition to exposing us to & teaching us about Nazi horrors. In my posts, I must necessarily gloss over some of the sites we visited because I lack the time to [...]

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There’s a stunning, old shul (synagogue) in Tikocyn, Poland. It’s made of stone so it remains standing… the wooden synagogues of Polish yesteryear are no longer. The shul currently serves as a museum; the prayers painted upon its walls have been redone by Poles who traced the faded, unfamiliar letters (and made some errors in [...]

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A brief explanation. As David pointed out already, the Poland trip was filled to the brim with learning , walking, and reacting. Getting back to the hotel at midnight, we were expected up and bright eyed by 5:45. As the days went on, it became increasingly difficult to process our thoughts by the [...]

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One of the Poland trip participants wrote an e-mail to her father about the Poland trip, and sent it to me for this Pardes blog… here it is: 
Hi
Poland was an enriching experience. The days were emotionally intense and long
and cold, but Rav Levi Cooper–my Hassidic teacher and main tour guide made sure
the trip was educational [...]

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I had intended to post daily from Poland, but the schedule left me exhausted; I didn’t sleep for more than five hours at any time… late nights and early mornings (particularly for those who woke up to daven Shacharit)… trekking through the bone chilling cold and snow of Poland… travelling back and forth by bus [...]

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R. Levi Cooper told us that we should avoid experiencing our tiyul to Poland through our camera lenses. He told us that some people use their cameras as defense mechanisms.
When the tiyul participants volunteered to take responsibilities upon ourselves so that things might run as smoothly as possible, I volunteered to be one of the ‘Poland [...]

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Several weeks ago, I decided that it was high time for me to visit the Tayelet in J’lem, and I woke myself up at an early hour to daven (pray) the shacharit (morning) service with my tefilin (phylacteries) at sunrise, facing the Old City of J’lem.
It was a chilly morning, and I felt it. According [...]

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I would like to share a unique shabbat experience I  had a couple of weeks ago. It was on a small religious yeshuv (town/gated community) called Hoshaya in the North of Israel. I went with my boyfriend to stay with one of his friends from Hebrew Universtiy who is studying archeaology with him. We [...]

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My family’s visiting Israel this week for the very first time.  Not only is it their first time in Israel – it’s also their first time traveling abroad, if you don’t count Caribbean cruises.
I’ve been excited about this week since I first arrived in September, especially the opportunity to show them my “turf” and introduce [...]

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