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Not trying to compete with Shalom for the biggest Poland trip moment, I
nevertheless share with you the fact that I presently have 34 students and
a couple of faculty traveling in Poland on a trip for Ramaz seniors under
the auspices of Heritage. On Friday, the group suddenly curtailed their
itinerary and sped to the town of Auschwitz when they were called upon to
provide a hands-on Jewish burial for the last remaining Jew in the town,
Shimon Klueger z'l, who passed away Friday morning. In a race against the
clock to be back in Cracow before Shabbat, these students were firsthand
witnesses to the end of centuries of Jewish life, and death, in Auschwitz.
The drama and intensity of this incident aside, there is no doubt that
such trips can have lasting educational value - if they are done
correctly. Such trips must at their core have content and not simply rely
upon the inherent power of shared emotional experience. Precisely because
there is so much emotional impact, the content of the trip, both cognitive
and affective, the historical, religious and human components all must be
carefully nurtured if not scripted, not only before the trip but at every
step along the way. To do so, as in any educational experience, means to
tailor it to the needs of one's students and their particular backgrounds.
Our creation of our own trip was thus not an attempt lifrosh min
ha-tzibbur but rather we wanted to leave only after AP's and to construct
a trip that would guarantee our educational goals, goals which other
schools may certainly share, the details of which I would gladly share
with anyone interested.
If the need for educational thinking is true of the Poland experience,
then it is certainly true of the Israel piece which follows it. Just being
in Israel after Poland does not guarantee a qualitative religious Zionist
experience any more than just visiting Auschwitz will guarantee a lifelong
commitment to the Jewish people.
Jay Goldmintz
Headmaster
Ramaz Upper School</HTML>
