Well, it's 11:30 pm on Saturday and we are toured, fed and I'm guessing all asleep except me! The flight from Atlanta to Prague was uneventful. Hurray! We arrived only a 1/2 hour late (though got off the ground an hour and a half late because plane arrived late to Atlanta). Met our guide, Janusz as we came out from baggage/customs. Wow -- was Czech passport control nice, quick and easy.. Got right on our bus and into the city to the President's Hotel. HIGHLY recommend this hotel. Clean, nice rooms, updated. (Great shower.....) And GREAT location. Met up with our last group member (#11) - Wendy, who was already here in Europe on business. Then at 2 pm we were driven up to top of the hill across the river to tour the Castle area. ... read more

In a little over a week, 10 of us from Temple Beth El will be heading over to Europe for an encounter with Jewish history in its glory and its tragedy. We will be visiting the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland - with a short stop in Slovakia. We will see old cemeteries, landmark synagogues, and Holocaust sites. We will have two Shabbat evenings with the revitalized progressive Jewish congregations: one in Prague and the other in Krakow. We will hear tales of the Golem; say memorial prayers at Aushwitz-Birkenau; remember the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto; take a brief ride on the Danube River; and more. We arrive in Prague on August 1 and will return to the U.S. on August 11. When we have access to the internet, I (or other group members) will ... read more

David here. Rabbi Hachen does not know that I am doing this but I ended up with such great pictures I had to post them. Our last day had some of the worst rain of the week. Fortunately, our stops were inside. Our first stop was our Tzedakah project. It was at a Jaffa Institute food warehouse in Tel Aviv where we packed packages for distribution. We did it with Harvard, Princeton and Yale kids from the Birthright tour. It was nice to interact with them but I loved watching Rachel look up to them. She even asked Nina and I about her going on a Birthright trip. Nina mentioned that she was happy to see Rachel listen intently as one of the Institute's leaders (a former Bronx native) tell us what the Institute accomplishes on ... read more

Shalom again! This is Debby today. I'm writing this a bit later, but covering all the happenings on Friday. We started with breakfast, of course, but today I skipped it. How much can one eat? (A lot.....) Then onto the bus at 8:30 (yes -- finally a day to get a bit more sleep...) We headed off first to see where Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated. For Americans reading this, it is an even more significant moment in Israeli history than the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Rabin was not only the head of the government, but he was just leaving a massive peace rally in favor of his policies of making peace with the Palestinians when a lone Jewish Israeli gunman shot and killed him. He still had the words of a peace song ... read more

Hi!It's Sarah Paster. Today was so much fun! We woke up a lot later, which was nice, and then we went on this awesome Jeep tour of the Golan hights. It was a bit cold outside, but since my Jeep (my family and Stamberg family) brought 3 blankets and 1 comforter, we were good. We drove through a Kibbutz, and then followed the path of the IDF during the 6-day war. Cool things we saw were a hot-spring, a bunker, and lots of cows. Hi! Now it's Sarah's sister, Becky. After the Jeep tour was over, we walked through a nature reserve and saw the Dan Springs. My favorite part was when everyone took a short rest at a lookout and all of the kids climbed a giant tree. The view was amazing! Then after a ... read more