CSP Jewish Roots Trip to Lithuania & Poland: 1000 Years of Memory`

Over 1,000 years ago, Judaism took root and grew in the rich soil of the boundary-shifting area that would become known as Poland. Before America, before modern day Israel, before the Holocaust, Lithuania and Poland were home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. On the eve of the Shoah, some 3,300,000 Jews lived in the area where the influential Jewish leader “the Vilna Gaon” taught cadres of students, the Baal Shem Tov created Chasidism and young David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres dreamed of establishing an independent homeland in Land of Israel. From Vilna to Warsaw, Lublin to Krakow, and Treblinka to Auschwitz, join us as we walk in the footsteps of some of greatest rabbis and thinkers of European history, learn about the complexities of life in the shtetls and cities, draw inspiration from examples of heroism and solidarity during the darkest times, experience the radical changes and surprising continuities of Eastern Europe after Communism, and meet those involved in the recent rejuvenation of Jewish communal life that was unimaginable just a generation ago.

Sponsor: Community Scholar Program (CSP) and Congregation B'nai Israel (CBI)