Our trip so far has been rich and full. We’ve experienced beauty and history in the places we’ve visited, we’ve experienced the pain and shock of entire communities left only in their buildings and graves, and we’ve celebrated Judaism newly reborn and carried upright. Again, I apologize for the lack of editing in this piece. Time for writing on this trip is at a premium.
We began our full day in Prague with a trip to Prague castle. Beautiful and picturesque, it was far more than I anticipated. My only visit to a castle prior to this trip was Casa Loma in Toronto, so I expected a grand building with turrets and ornate rooms. What we encountered however was a whole series of picturesque palatial buildings at the highest point of the city. More than a castle, it is a village in its own right for all the politicians, high ranking officials and state visitors of the Czech republic. It is also apparently a place for filming movies including Amadeus and Casino Royale.
After the tour, we made our way down and walked across the famous Charles Bridge. Marking the different support columns are religious (Christian) statues, many of which were quite beautiful. One however was deeply troubling. It is a statue of Jesus on the cross, his head surrounded by the Hebrew words Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh, Adonai Tz’va’ot. These are words from Isaiah and from the K’dushah, and they are the words we say to emulate the angelic hosts praising God, saying Holy, Holy, Holy are You, God of Hosts. Major Jewish theological statement. Apparently centuries ago, there was a well-off Jew that the leaders of the city wished to punish, so they forced him to pay to have these words forged in metal and put him to surround Jesus. Really religiously offensive. This deliberate religious attack we were subjected to for centuries and centuries— it makes my stomach turn.
Fortunately my stomach did not turn enough to keep me from enjoying lunch in Prague’s main city square. Beautiful surroundings and delicious food. Sadly, it was only after our lunch break that we came across, right off of the plaza, a kosher meat restaurant that claimed to have been visited and praised by Michelle Obama. FLOTUS.
Later, we took a tour of the old Jewish quarter, visiting a number of synagogues, seeing a few homes and buildings once owned by famous Jews (including Kafka’s house and his memorial cafe), and an old Jewish cemetery. One ancient synagogue had been turned into a monument to all the Jews murdered by the Nazis in the Czech Republic. With the deliberate painstaking work that letters are written in a Torah scroll, the names of every single person killed covered all walls of the main sanctuary and the women’s gallery, with city names written in yellow, last names in red and first names in black. And they’re still finding new names and memories to add to the walls— there’s a section at the end for recently added [discovered] names. It’s one thing to have a number; it’s another to see so many names.
The cemetery where the Maharal (Rabbi Judah Loew, 16th century, subject of the legend of the Golem of Prague) is buried is a fascinating place. It is a very small plot of land, relatively, for a cemetery where hundreds upon hundreds of Jews have been buried, over centuries. It seems that after all plots had been filled, the community would cover everything with a few feet of earth, raise the tomb stones, and bury the dead anew on top of the old. And they would repeat and repeat. The result is a cemetery 6-8 feet above street level, with monuments nearly stacked together in a crowd of memory. Some of the Hebrew inscriptions are so old that it would take hours of analysis to figure out what was said on them. Our people had so much history in this place.
After a long day, it was time to unwind, and so we enjoyed dinner while cruising up and down the city’s main river. The guys and I enjoyed the city scenery while enthusiastically playing a game of Risk, seeking world domination at a board game scale (no real deaths there).
Friday we left Prague and the Czech Republic to make our way to Krakow, Poland. On the way, we stopped in Brno (capital of Moravia, a Czech province) at what is Villa Tugendhatt, an apparently famous mansion with a beautiful view built at the turn of the century in a revolutionarily modern style. (Stay tuned for photos, they should be posted to the public within two weeks, they’ll be much more effective at demonstrated what we encountered than my words). What struck me was that this architecturally-ground-breaking home was once a Jewish home– that such wealth in this community in Europe was in Jewish hands, and like Jews all over the place, we all were equal in having to leave lest we lose everything. The family who owned this home was able to get out in time. Those who followed included Nazi officers using the building as office space, and Communists who used the building as a school for handicapped children. And, unlike the hosts who treated this home with love, later hosts who simply took what was available on the land looted the beautiful woods and stonework of the building, leaving skeletal remains for posterity. Fortunately, this home is now a museum and many of the looted fragments of house have been reclaimed and reinstalled. It is now a testament to modern architecture and the family that served as patron.
Soon after we arrived to Krakow, it was time for Shabbat, and we had great plans. We first went to services at a local synagogue. Services were a bit of a surprise to us– frankly, any kind of service would have been as we had no idea of what to expect. Services were held in a 150-year-old synagogue with beautiful moorish architecture, and they were packed; locals and visitors from all over the world were there. It happened to be an Orthodox service, and this was the first Orthodox service experience for most of the Confirmation students. Separation of sexes and people going at their own paces all over the service was significantly less than ideal, but everyone loved the energy in the room when the Cantor and his choir were singing (or leading) Kabbalat Shabbat).
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Following services we joined together at the neighboring Krakow JCC for a community Shabbat dinner. They have a community rabbi, originally from Long Island, who spends two weeks of every month serving the Krakow Jewish community (he spends the rest of his time in Israel). This is a community that really only found life again over the past few decades. There had always been Jews in the area since the war, but they had kept things quiet for a long time, out of fear for safety and survival. Recently, however, there has been a surge in interest from the local non-Jewish community about Jews and Judaism. Either 22 or 27 years ago, non-Jews started a Jewish music festival that continues to take place annually (coincidentally, we are here for it!) that attracts musicians from all over the world. Jews have come out of the woodwork and are really pursuing a meaningful spiritual identity, and non-Jews are pursuing Jewish learning and action as well. It seems that there are many non-Jews who volunteer at the JCC. Actually, our Shabbat dinner– something that takes place for the community every week, was prepared and waited upon by these lovely non-Jewish volunteers. A young lady, Aga, welcomed us at our table as we sat down and told us all about this JCC, and it was only after 20 minutes that we found out this enthusiastic JCC volunteer was not Jewish at all. She just loves the community Jews and serves now as director of development. Also, this JCC has an interesting story of origin. The Prince of Wales (Charles) was traveling in the area asking members of the Krakow Jewish community what they could use (including many survivors), and what they said was that they needed a place to gather. So, within a year or two, he made it happen.
Anyway, we had a lovely Shabbat dinner surrounded by locals and visitors with delicious home-cooked kosher food.
Shabbat morning, we prayed our own way, making services together with Reform prayerbooks and guitar in the hotel courtyard. Following, we left the hotel for Wawel Castle, a 14th century fortress made up of different architectural styles from each of its monarchs. Well worth traveling to see it, and unlike Prague Castle, you can tour the royal rooms. Unfortunately no pictures were permitted.
We followed the castle visit with lunch time in Krakow’s main square which happens to be the largest public plaza in all of Europe. I enjoyed some really tasty pirogies.
Later we toured the old Jewish town of Krakow, which happens to be outside of old Krakow in a place called Kazimierz. It wasn’t so much a ghetto as a place where Jews went when they were kicked out of the Christian neighborhoods in main Krakow. In good turn, the Jews did not allow Christians to live in their neighborhood (thankfully, relations have improved, centuries later). Among other sites, one highlight was the synagogue of 17th century Rabbi Moses Isserles, the scholar who wrote the Ashkenazi glosses in the Shulchan Arukh, one of the most important works of Jewish law in our people’s history.
While the Jewish ghetto from Nazi Poland was in a different part of the city, Spielberg actually filmed part of Schindler’s list in Kazimierz, as it still is made up almost entirely of old buildings. The site of the Jewish ghetto has recently been filled with more modern buildings.
Our afternoon continued with a visit to the Schindler’s Factory museum. We were expecting to tour Schindler’s old factory, but all that is actually left is the building. Eventually his machinery was moved to factories further away from the site, later in the war. Instead, this museum is an immersive and interactive history of the Jews of Krakow, from their early days through the end of the war. While it wasn’t what we were expecting, it was a meaningful and educational experience.
Our Shabbat ended with a delicious dinner at a Jewish style restaurant (complete with a Klezmer trio for dinner entertainment), and havdalah back at the hotel. A few hotel patrons joined us through their open windows for this service.
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