May 1 - Arielle Hendel

I am writing this late at night in Poland.  We are now at the hotel in Warsaw.  In my opinion, it is not as nice as the one in Krakow because it is a refurbished old place instead of a new contemporary one (Remember Kempinski inn Berlin???).

This was a quite amazing day in terms of two things.  In the morning we went into the Jewish Quarter of Krakow to learn the proud history of Jews there over many generations.  They have refurbished the area, a synagogue is open and it is cute and welcoming like Prague.  I found a Yad in an outdoor maket and the community bought it for the Torah brought back on the last March.

 I saw the synagogue where the Rama (Moses Isserlesin the Shulchan Aruch) taught. It was great.  We did the March of the Living and there must have been at least 12 thousand people there- Jews from all over the world like France, Turkey, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Israel and of course, the good ol' USA and non Jews as well- alot of young Poles.  There were people for MILES! 

It was very crowded, but there was a great feeling of AM YISRAEL CHAI there.

We had a lovely dinner in a restaurant on the way to Warsaw. Everyone we have encountered is nice- no outward anti semitism at all so far.  Several on the trip had profound positive experiences with non-Jewish Polish 'marchers'.  Some traded scarves and pins.  A group was there handing out a written apology from the Christian community.  Yes, a written apology!  We will try to remember to send along the email adress for anyone interested in reading the actual official letter.  Sylvia Metz stood by the marchers and said thank you in Polish to them.  One woman hugged her, apologized for what happened here.  These incidents once again catch us off guard.  More later...it's really late here.