Fall 5768
2007

Seminar 2008
Plans for Seminar in the summer of 2008 are underway! If you were at Camp Ramah during the summers of 2006 or 2007 you are invited to apply to Seminar 2008 on this site. You can also check out all the important information on this site. Click here for more information about Seminar 2008. If you have more questions, please contact our New York office.
You can still see photo highlights of Seminar 2005 at the Seminar photo album.

Finding My Roots in Poland and Israel
Danielle Natelson, Seminar '05 (CA, Kvutzat Nahshon)

Shabbat Shalom. As you all know, I recently returned from a 7-week trip with Ramah Seminar to Poland and Israel. My experiences in both countries were unbelievable and have helped me both mature and strengthen my Jewish identity.

I'm sure that when most of you would approach me and ask about Israel, you would ask, "So, how was Israel!?" and would expect some response like, "Oh my gosh! It was AMAZING!!" and I would indeed respond that way. But I am also sure that when you would ask about my trip to Poland you would ask in a much different tone, "So… how was POLAND…?" and would expect a response like, "It was awful. I had a horrible time." But honestly, I didn't have a horrible time and it wasn't awful. Of course the concentration camps and Holocaust sites we visited and the anti-Semitism my group personally experienced were horrible and brought me much anger and sorrow. But the truth is, my Poland Seminar was NOT entirely focused on the tragedies of the Holocaust. We also spent a lot of time learning about Jewish life before the war. If there is one thing I want all of you to take from my trip, it's that Poland shouldn't just be remembered for the Holocaust but rather for the Jewish community and culture that thrived before the Holocaust. I want you all to remember that I don't regret one minute of my week in Poland.

One of the best parts of Poland was seeing all of the magnificent synagogues that were built before the war. Most of them are still in very good condition and were not destroyed. Of all the synagogues we visited, the one in the small shtetl of Tykochin was the most magnificent. Even though the shtetl surrounding the shul was very poor, the people there had a sense of togetherness, unity, and family that we could still feel as we walked through the shul, and in that sense, their communities were very rich. They were rich in culture and in happiness. Before I went to Israel, I wrote an essay for the Mercaz Scholarship Foundation about Rabbi Abraham D. Feffer describing his shtetl in Drobin with the quote, "Poor, East European shtetl, how rich you were, and rich North American city, how poor you are!" In this quote rich and poor are used in the way Pirkei Avot uses them: "Who is rich? He who is happy with what he has." The shtetl was poor financially and materially.But because of its strong sense of community and the quality of life there, the shtetl was much wealthier. That is how we saw Tykochin.

But of course there was the other part of the Poland Seminar. We visited many Holocaust sites and concentration camps during our week in Poland. We went to one of the Umschlagplatz's, where Jews were deported to the camps, that has become a memorial, to the Tykochin massacre site, where the entire shtetl in Tykochin was murdered by the Einstats grupen, to Schindler's factory, and to 5 of the many concentration camps where 6 million innocent Jews were killed, including Treblinka, Majdanek, Pleszow, Auschwitz and Birkenau. Treblinka was the first concentration camp we visited in Poland. Before we got off the bus, our tour guide told us, "We are going to visit the memorial site in the middle of Treblinka, but I want you all to understand something. There is nothing left here anymore. The camp ran from 1942 to 1944 and then it was destroyed by the Nazis to hide what happened here. I want you all to understand…there is nothing left." The memorial was where the gas chambers once stood. We walked along what would have been the railroad tracks that led to the gas chambers. And then we stood in front of the memorial. When our tour guide told us there would be nothing there, I didn't really know what to think. But there really is NOTHING left. That was hardest thing to grapple with, the idea that nothing remained of the horrors in that camp. The Nazis destroyed the camp and attempted to erase the fact that millions of people were murdered there. I was angry and upset and very emotional. It was ironic that as Jews, we walked out of Treblinka alive, because everyone who came there was murdered immediately. Not one person survived Treblinka.

The next concentration camp we visited was Majdanek. I had never heard of Majdanek, but I was told that it was one of the most horrific death camps. Unlike Treblinka, virtually everything remains untouched at Majdanek. It was the first concentration camp that we actually saw and walked through the gas chambers and the crematorium and the remains of the barracks. But I remember three vivid pictures from that rainy day. One was that just across the street from where Majdanek stood, was a neighborhood that has been around since before the war. It was incomprehensible to me that people could live right next door to such a tragedy and deny that it was going on or do absolutely nothing to stop it. Some of the barracks have been converted into small little museums with remains and artifacts as well as pictures and maps. In one of the barracks were two glass boxes, one filled with shoes and the other filled with girls' and women's hair. I was shocked. I had seen pictures of it before, but I had never seen it in person. To me, robbing someone of his or her hair is like identity theft. Your hair is a statement about who you are, about your personality, and shaving people's heads is attempting to take away their uniqueness. The same goes for shoes. Throughout the whole trip, seeing hair and shoes hurt the most. Right next to the location of the mass graves where Jews were shot, is a memorial for all the victims who died in Majdanek. It's a huge cement bowl…filled to the top with human ash. There are even some pieces of human bone. I will never forget that sight. All of those ashes literally represent people who were murdered just because they were Jews.
We also visited Pleszow, a smaller camp in Krakow that I had never heard of. Like Treblinka, nothing but a memorial remains, and the most upsetting pat of our visit there was that today there are people sunbathing on the very ground on which thousands of Jews were murdered. That lack of respect was evident all over Poland, but I couldn't believe people could be so disrespectful. And it's not like they didn't know, because the sign in front of the site clearly states what took place there.

The last and most difficult concentration camps we visited are the two that most people think of when they hear the words, "concentration camp." They are the most well-known and largest concentration camps. On that last rainy day of our Poland Seminar, we visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. We went to Birkenau first and spent 4 hours covering the camp in its entirety. Like Majdanek, virtually everything remains. We began our day praying at the top of the watchtower. We stood tall and proud as we silently proved that the people who suffered and perished did not die in vain. We walked through barracks & lavatories, gas chambers & crematoriums, mass gravesites, and even the "reception center" that newcomers went through upon their arrival into Birkenau. We saw a room that had walls and walls of pictures, of people who had come into Birkenau and never left. We walked along the original train tracks that could have been bombed by the Allies, thereby saving the lives of so many, but instead were left untouched and therefore carried millions of Jews to their deaths. It was all so overwhelming and so powerful. So many emotions ran through my head that day, they have become a blur.

We then continued to Auschwitz. I was very upset in Auschwitz for two reasons. First, Auschwitz has become more like a museum than it should be. Second there were so many people who were taking their kids for a nice Sunday family trip that it completely ruined the tone that we had set for ourselves. Each barrack is its own little museum, specializing in one area of the camp. One of the most emotional parts of Auschwitz was seeing the preposterous sign saying, "Work makes you free." Although I had seen this sign in pictures, it nonetheless sent chills up my spine. The other very emotional part was seeing a glass box especially for girls' braids. I have never cried so much in my life than when I saw all of those braids, still intact, each from an innocent little girl who took so much pride in them.

After everything we saw throughout our week in Poland, good and bad, we were so excited about Shabbat. It was honestly the most amazing Shabbat I have ever had in my life. On Friday night, we prayed in the "Great Temple" in Krakow, just the 115 kids from our Ramah Poland Seminar, all three buses together. We had so much "ruach" it was unbelievable. After that week together, we were much more appreciative of our heritage. Our joy and spirit continued throughout Shabbat and to Havdalah, which was one of the most amazing Havdalot in my life. There in the middle of the marketplace near where we were staying, we were singing "Shavuah Haba'ah b'yeruhalayim," next WEEK in Jerusalem. Many Polish citizens gathered to watch us, but we didn't care or seem to notice. We were so proud to be Jews and to bring back some of the Jewish community that had thrived not so long ago, and we were sure not afraid to show it.

The week I had in Poland was amazing, and it was important for me to go there and have that experience. It made me appreciate Israel and having a Jewish homeland so much more, especially since I had never been to Israel. I met amazing people on our seminar who helped me through the week, through the good and the bad, and as a result we formed lasting friendships. But Poland is not a place I'd like to visit again. The amount of prejudice that we experienced was eye opening. I have never experienced that before in my life.

Flying to Israel, or more importantly landing in Israel was very powerful. It really felt like we were coming home. When we hit the runway cheers rang throughout the plane. It didn't even matter anymore that it was 4:35 a.m. and we hadn't slept. We were just so happy to be in a country that we could call home. We got off the plane right on to the ground and a group of us who had never been to Israel bent down and kissed it in tears. After recuperating all day, we closed our week in Poland with a visit to the "Kotel" as a group. Although it was the first time for only some of us, we treated the visit as the first for all of us, as if each of us was visiting the "Kotel" for some one who never got the chance to. It was unbelievable. It took my breath away to see it in person. I can't think of anything that is a more powerful symbol to any group of people. I was speechless, and in some ways I still am talking about exactly how I felt. Although we visited the "Kotel" a few more times, the first time was definitely the most memorable.

If I were to stand here and talk to you about everything I did in my 6 weeks in Israel…I'd be here for the next 6 weeks. I'd be happy to talk about my itinerary in more detail later, but for now I'm just going to key in on a few places that were special. The Israel part of Seminar officially started in the North. We descended down Mount Arbel, swam in the Kinneret, visited a Druze village and saw the northern borders, among other things. But we truly felt like we were in Israel when we got to Jerusalem. Everything around you is Jewish. I have never felt more comfortable being a Jew anywhere than in Jerusalem. A few highlights of Jerusalem were: our 2-a.m.-climb up Masada for sunrise, swimming, or shall I say floating, in the Dead Sea, the "Kotel" tunnels, seeing all of the quarters in some way or another, and Yad Vashem. Luckily, when we went to Yad Vashem, we didn't split up by our regular Israel bus group. All of us who had been to Poland went together. Two images stand out in my mind; in the section about Auschwitz, there was a picture of what the entrance looks like today. When my friend and I stood in front of it, we were speechless. Finally, my friend said, as if reading my mind, "Oh my gosh…can you believe this is exactly where we were standing in relation to the entrance in Poland?" She immediately pulled out her digital camera and showed me the picture she had taken of the entrance. It was exactly the same. On the back of the picture at Yad Vashem, is a picture of what the entrance used to look like. During the war there was no grass…nothing was growing…the ground was covered in snow. A second vivid memory is the children's memorial. It is a big dark room filled with lights, but the lights come from the reflection of 6 burning candles. In the background, the names of all the children killed in the Holocaust are repeated, along with where they were from and how old they were. Our guide told us to try and focus on just one name…I remember mine…her name was Rina, and she was 12 years old.

Later in the summer we had our Etgar week. Etgar means challenge, and my Etgar was definitely a challenge. I took Gadna…I spent 5 days, living the life of an Israeli soldier, and boy was it tough. We had physical activities, like a day in the field doing drills. We had to stand at attention all the time. In Hebrew its called Hakshev, and by the end of the week I just naturally stood that way. We had to keep in mind the two "holiest" things in the army…time and our uniforms. If we were late or if any part of our uniform was wrong, we had to do pushups. There were days when I cried and wished I would just get hurt so badly that I wouldn't have to do it anymore. I had the best sleep of my life that week because by the end of the day we were so exhausted that the minute our heads touched the pillow, we were out! And we did all of this in an army base in Sde Boquer, which is in the south. It was so hot everyday. By sunrise it was already over 100 degrees. We had an Omes Chom, which means a heat wave, everyday. But by the end of the week, it was totally worth it. Not only did we feel so accomplished, but also we took so much pride in Israel and in Tza'hal. And, after we trained for a week, I got to shoot an M-16 machine gun…11 times! So I wouldn't mess with me if I were you!

In the South, we stayed on two kibbutzim and in a Bedouin tent. We went mountain biking, zip lining, snorkeling, and on a camel ride which was so much fun. It is truly amazing how much life there is where there seems to be nothing. In the South, the dream of Ben Gurion, to make the desert bloom, is coming true. It wasn't until we were in the south that it really hit me how amazing it is that such a small country has such a large variety of climates and landscapes. And, by the end of the trip, we had swum in every body of water surrounding Israel…pretty cool huh?

The most amazing part of Israel was Shabbat. In Israel, especially in Jerusalem, everything stops on Shabbat. There are no cars, and everyone walks to shul. For three of the Shabbats we chose our synagogues. Each Shabbat was a great experience. One Shabbat, I went to the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. It was huge! It was so beautiful. The choir sounded so familiar and then I remembered…The weekend that we were in Poland was a Chazanut weekend, where cantors and choirs from across the world come and lead different parts of the service, and the choir from the Great Synagogue was one of them. I remembered their upbeat tune of Adon Olam that we started using on our Seminar Shabbats also. The other Shabbat we had was part of our Host weekend. I stayed with a friend of my dad's named Miriam Braun whom, although I had never met her before, I made an instant connection with. On Shabbat afternoon, we spent time with her parents. Her father was the Chazzan at the shul in Englewood, New Jersey that my dad's family would attend on high holidays. The cantor's family lived upstairs from my great grandmother, and my dad's family would visit all the time. When my dad joined our temple, he brought Miriam's father's tunes with him, and made them a part of our High Holiday tunes. When we spent time with Miriam's father, we sang the tunes that I know that he sang in his shul and it made him very happy. I can definitely say that I appreciate and enjoy Shabbat so much more now that I've been to Israel.
I haven't even begun to tell you half of the stuff I did this summer, but as I said before that would take 7 weeks. Please feel free to ask me more questions at any time. I'd like to close by saying that Israel has become a big part of my life, and this summer shaped my identity as a Jew and as a person. And although I felt unbelievably safe, there is still a lot of violence and unrest there. My prayer is that one day there will be peace in Israel and that it will be a home to each and all of you.

Shabbat Shalom.

 

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