By Ben Belsky, NFTY in Israel Participant, Bus 7
After over a full day of traveling through various airports all across Europe, we finally arrived in Prague around midnight on the 26th. As the plane descended, we had the privilege of getting a beautiful aerial view of the city. There were massive fields of wheat and large sections of trees covering the ground below us; a stark contrast from the scenery of American cities.
Once we landed, we made a point to get back to the hotel and in bed ASAP. We woke up several hours later, at 9 am, and prepared to begin our day.
After breakfast, we walked to a nearby building for orientation. We met our counselors and discussed the agenda for the trip. After orientation, we were ready to tour the city.
Due to the exhaustion from the day before, we had a slow morning. By the time we were ready to begin touring, it was already nearly 1 pm! We began with pizur, or free time. We split into groups of 4-6 people and wandered around the town square, which was filled with shops, restaurants, and street performers. The square was crowded with tourists and Prague residents alike. The buildings were massive and rustic, but well kept and not at all worn down. There was a large stage with a live performance, and street performers covered in gold spray paint.
My group decided to eat at an outdoor deli. Interestingly, a lot of the restaurants were completely outdoors. Since I wasn’t sure what to get, I just got a caesar salad, but three of my group members got something called Big Toast. Big Toast turned out to be two grilled cheese sandwiches stuffed with ham. Apparently they were really good! The salad was good too, but it’s a caesar salad, so it’s kinda hard to mess up. After eating lunch, we wandered around the town square until pizur was over, watching the performers and looking through souvenir shops.
After pizur ended at 3 pm, we headed to the Jewish sector of Prague. Before heading in, our counselors reenacted the story of the Golem, a clay being that was made to protect the Jewish people when the Hebrew word for “truth” was written on a piece of paper and put into it’s mouth. One night, when the rabbi that owned the Golem forgot to take the piece of paper out of it’s mouth, and it escaped. After finding it, the rabbi changed the word for “truth” to say the Hebrew word for “death” and placed it into the Golem’s mouth, causing it to melt. Sam Han played the Golem well (although he didn’t melt very realistically) and the skit was a lot of fun to watch.
After the short skit, we entered the Jewish sector of the city. The buildings there were older than any of the buildings we had seen so far. We had entered a small synagogue first. The small synagogue had a large caged section in the middle, with seats for the congregation lining the walls. This arrangement of the seating was designed so that the members of the synagogue could see each other throughout the services, which would help them connect with each other better than they would if they were sitting in rows like many modern synagogues.
Later in the day, we visited a small Jewish cemetery. We entered through a room with thousands of names covering the walls. Each one was the name of a holocaust victim, and there were over 8,000 names. The room led to the cemetery, and the first thing that you notice is that there are a lot of graves, some big, some small, all worn down. Many graves had letters faded out beyond recognition, others were eroded, or even had chunks broken off of them. A lot of the graves were tipped over or slanted. A couple of them were actually partially consumed by the base of a growing tree. These graves are the final resting sites of countless Jews. There was not enough space to continue to bury the dead, so many graves were dug up to add more bodies. Before we left the cemetery, we washed our hands but did not dry them. This tradition is so we leave the grave site with life on our hands, instead of death.
From the grave site we went to dinner with the Eisner buses. After dinner, we sang the Hashkiveinu really loud in the hotel parking lot, and we got a lot of weird looks from passing strangers.
