By Michael Lewis and Omri Elad, NFTY in Israel Mechanchim
After months of preparation, our chanichim, or participants, have arrived and the summer has finally begun! As NFTY in Israel staff members, we have spent weeks thinking about how meaningful this summer can be for participants as they explore the journey of the Jewish people in the place where it all started. As we began our journey in Prague, we asked our participants why they think we start our journey here in Prague and continue onto Poland before heading to Israel.
Our first day in Prague was totally dedicated to this answer – exploring Jewish life in Europe. On a beautiful vista over the old city, we saw that Prague was the quintessential European city with four parts: a castle, a cathedral, a river, and a Jewish Quarter. The Jewish journey to Europe began during the end of the Second Temple Period – as Jews dispersed across the Roman Empire, we became integral in helping local economies develop trade based on relationships with Jews across borders, boundaries and languages. When Christians and Muslims were fighting during the Crusades, the Jewish people were brought to Europe to help facilitate trade.
The Jewish community found a home as far back as the 9th century in Prague and Jewish life soon abounded in the Jewish Quarter. We visited three synagogues and explored the place the Nazis preserved to turn into a museum highlighting their efforts to destroy the Jewish people from the face of the earth. We saw the Altneushul, the home of the Maharal and the oldest continuously functioning synagogue in Europe, where legends like the Golem helped Jews feel power in a land of complete powerlessness. We jumped forward 500 years to the Spanish synagogue of Prague, where the modern Jews of Prague sought to balance their desire to be assimilated Czechs with their Jewish roots — an early version of Reform Judaism that we are familiar with in the United States.
We met figures like Franz Kafka, the prolific Jewish author who continuously struggled with the question of what it means to be a Jew, and Peter Ginz, a young Jewish man. A poet and an artist, Peter was the same age as many of our participants when he suddenly found himself trapped in the middle of the Holocaust.
Through all of this, we also had some moments to enjoy the sights and sounds of one of the most beautiful and classically European cities. We ate lunch in the main square of Prague and noshed on delicious Trdelnik, traditional Czech sweets, for dessert.
Over the next week, we will continue to ask these critical questions – why are we here in Europe? What can we learn from the Jews who lived in Europe for 1,000 years? In what ways can we, American Jews, learn from the European Jewish experience? How did Europe come to be a hotbed of antisemitism and the sight of the most gruesome genocide in human history? And how does this all connect to our relationship with the State of Israel?
