Tribe’s largest ever Poland trip returned home this week. 98 Year 12 students toured the country learning about the rich tapestry of Polish Jewish life before the Second World War, focusing on what was lost in the Shoah as well as learning about the Holocaust itself. The Learn2Lead trip began in Warsaw where the group visited the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, the remains of the ghetto and learned about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In Lublin participants had the opportunity to learn in the Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin founded by Rabbi Meir Shapiro in 1930 before visiting Majdanek concentration camp where tens of thousands of Jews were murdered. The sixteen and seventeen-year-olds also went to Auschwitz I and Birkenau to understand how the Nazis enacted the Final Solution and see the site of the mass murder of a million Jews and tens of thousands of other people. The group spent Shabbat in Krakow including making havdallah in the sixteenth century Rema shul, built by Rabbi Moshe Isserles.
Participant Talia Dimson, 16, whose family belong to Woodside Park United Synagogue, said: “The trip was so engaging with such personal stories and told in such a captivating way, and I will never forget it. I’m so happy I came on the Tribe Poland trip and believe it is something everyone should experience.”
Joel Herman, 16, part of the Ner Yisrael community said: “Tribe Poland made me realise my true identity of being Jewish and how important unity is in today’s day and age. After seeing the ruins of the war and hearing about the tragedies of our past, I am so grateful to have been able to revisit these former places of terror with fellow Jews, underlining Am Yisrael Chai and that it will never be broken.”
And Sam Wolfson, also 16, from Hampstead Garden Suburb United Synagogue, said: “The trip was a true experience of a lifetime packed with meaning and lessons for the future.”
The group also included participants from the Jewish secondary school in Hong Kong. Tribe is the United Synagogue’s young people department.
David Collins, United Synagogue’s Chief Programmes Officer, said: “Tribe is committed to engaging, educating and inspiring our young people. This year’s Poland trip gave us the opportunity to educate almost 100 teens about our people’s history. We were also able to talk about an exciting future for our Jewish community.”
