Today is our last full day in Europe- tomorrow morning we head for home. The only thing scheduled for us today is the farewell group dinner. Members of our group chose to spend the day in various ways: We rested, we revisited places we saw yesterday (such as the Dohani Synagogue, the shoes monument, and the castle), we explored new sites (such as the parliament, opera house, marketplace), and took cruises on the river.
Jonathan and I went back to the synagogue to see Lucy Braun- the elderly, diminutive holocaust survivor who sells table clothes, challah and matzah covers, and other hand-embroidered items. Jonathan had purchased a challah cover from her yesterday- and after seeing the array of Hungarian hand-embroded items in the castle district in Buda, we decided that we would rather give our money to her. We purchased a table cloth that says in the center in Hebrew: “To honor the Sabbath and holidays.” As we kissed Lucy goodbye, she wished us Shana Tova, and gave us a Shana Tova ceramic magnet- already painted for 5771. On behalf of all of the participants on this trip, we would like to thank Estelle Kafer for having the vision, Fey DeHaas for bringing the vision to life, Sam Kassow for sharing with us from his vast wealth of knowledge of Eastern European Jewish history and general history, and for helping us to understanding the broader context, as well as the subtle nuances, Rabbi Small for encouraging us to raise our voices in communal prayers of faith and affirmation on the continent that saw the murder of six million of our people “Am Yisrael Chi” (The Jewish people live on).
