5/11/26-- The Misery of Terezin

 5/11/26-- The Misery of Terezin 

Built in the late 1700s, Terezin was designed to be a small, fortified border town that could help protect citizens of one empire from citizens of another. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise that Terezin isn’t a welcoming place. Surrounded by a massive moat and steep walls, Terezin doesn’t invite you in. And you certainly don’t end up in Terezin by accident. The Jews of Prague and many surrounding cities, villages, and neighboring lands certainly didn’t. As we know, our fellow Jews were sent there. Forcibly removed from their homes, uprooted from their lives, displaced, driven, and herded. And from that awful place, Terezin, they were sent to places far worse. While some returned, none returned whole. And for most, including all but a few hundred of the children, Terezin was a death sentence. 

Why would a person go to Terezin? Why would a person live in Terezin? Why would human beings intentionally create such a dark and dreary, nihilistic and hateful place? These are agitating questions. They’re agitating because they have answers that we’d rather not hear. Principal among those answers is the simple truth that Terezin served a significant purpose in supporting the aims of one of the 20th century’s most toxic ideologies: Nazism. When viewed from the vantage point of Nazi ideology, Terezin makes perfect sense. Stated plainly: Terezin is a place to collect, store, and process Jews. It’s a place exquisitely and elegantly designed to solve a very specific problem. 

Among Terezin’s eerie qualities is the silence. As we traveled from site to site, we passed more than a handful of local residents. But I can’t recall hearing a single voice. Only the sound of chirping birds. No planes, no lawnblowers, no honking horns, no recorded music coming from homes or cafes. Just the sound of rustling leaves and chirping birds. Terezin is so silent that if you really listen closely you can hear the sound of suffering, the sound of shock, of horror, of disbelief. Of human anguish. I wish I could paint a less stark picture, but it’s really not possible. And knowing that the Nazis used Terezin to film propaganda films to try and mislead the world regarding the true barbarity of their regime, it feels particularly inappropriate to breathe even one single additional ounce of humanity into a place so awful. But even still…

Much of our focus at Terezin was on the brave adults, specifically the artists and teachers, who cared for the children of Terezin. These adults did everything that they could to provide a sense of normalcy, hope, and wellbeing to Terezin’s children. Can we all, for a moment, imagine being such a teacher? Walking into a classroom full of terrified orphans, wondering which will be the next to be deported, lose a parent, or fall ill, die, and be taken to the crematorium? When we hear that Jews kept faith even in the darkest hours, it can only be because of people like this. How could these people set aside their own terror, trauma, and grief? Perhaps we can all sit with this question for a moment. 

A beautiful feature of youth is the simultaneous depth and expression of feeling alongside the inability to truly grasp the horrors of a place like Terezin. So, while I know that our 8th graders will never forget Terezin, I also know that they didn’t fully get it. I’m not sure any of us can. Or even if we can, that we should. Some places, some deeds, some failures of humanity should remain eternally inscrutable to decent people. And at the same time, we shouldn’t grant Terezin more power than it deserves. While it was a place where human beings used power against their fellow man in the most deplorable ways imaginable, it’s also a place that oozes with the infected impotence of a sick and perverted ideology. Those walls, that silence, that barbarism--- all that reminds us just how grotesque and ultimately condemnable and feeble an ideology like Nazism is. In moments when we are fearful, maybe our experience of Terezin can be a source of strength. Not even Terezin, ovens ablaze, could rid the world of Jews. Meanwhile, we thrive, living our values, honoring our traditions, and Terezin remains the same miserable fortress it has always been. A sick and miserable fortified town, hiding behind its walls. 

Well… having said that… as promised, the rest of the day took a lighter touch. Some of our life affirming fun was rerouted because of some afternoon rain, but we didn’t hear any complaints. Tomorrow we pack our bags and leave Prague. Our bags are a bit heavier than when we arrived here, due to some modest souvenir shopping and, more symbolically, because of the many experiences, insights, and memories that we will be carrying with us as we journey on.

5/10/26 Multiple Perspectives from Prague

 5/10/26-- Multiple Perspectives from Prague

Somewhere along the path of life each of us, in our journey toward maturity,  learned to view the world through multiple perspectives. And while we may think that we’ve always had the ability to take multiple perspectives, I suspect that most of us would acknowledge that it’s actually an acquired skill, and a necessary one at that. The ability to consider any given event, person, or experience through multiple perspectives is a sign that we’re on the right path, that we’re capable of empathy, compassion, measured consideration, analytical assessment, and maybe even self-transcendence. Perspective taking strengthens our sense of self, our ability to forge meaningful relationships of all kinds, and ultimately, our ability to arrive at correct, nuanced, insightful, and thoughtful understandings of the world around us. While our 8th graders are well on their way toward being able to hold and consider multiple perspectives, they’re not fully there yet. It’s a developmental task that awaits them in their adolescence and well beyond. Today offered all of us a chance to strengthen this skill. Unbeknownst to them, our 8th graders grew today. 

I found myself considering the idea of multiple perspectives during our final activity of the day, a river cruise here in Prague. As we gently cruised under and around the Charles Bridge, watching the sunset over Prague Castle, waving at the friendly diners filling the cafes along the riverside, I was struck by the simplest of observations: boy, the Charles Bridge looks different depending on whether you’re walking across it or sailing underneath it. Multiple perspectives. 

When we gathered for breakfast this morning, a few of our 8th graders were a bit disheartened when they discovered that breakfast in Prague looks very different from Breakfast in Sandy Springs. Confusion quickly gave way to consumption when curiosity and hunger joined forces. Foods that were foreign, different, and unknown, became familiar. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I’d argue that there was some perspective taking being done at breakfast. 

Shortly after arriving in Prague’s Jewish Quarter it became clear to all us why the Jewish Quarter is a destination not only for Jews, but for all who visit Prague. At the same time, our experiences in the Jewish Quarter revealed the fact that yes, after somewhere between 10 and 2 years at The Davis Academy, our 8th graders see the world through a Jewish lens. There’s a different perspective (and a special one at that) that comes with touring the Jewish Quarter not only as an interested tourist, but as a Jew. Standing in front of the Altneushul, the oldest consistently operational synagogue in Europe, we were able to weave together a complicated but also utterly compelling narrative linking that synagogue with the State of Israel and the first modern Hebrew city of Tel Aviv. How? Because of Theodore Herzl, of course. I won’t unpack it all here and now, but there’s a deep and inextricable link that unites these seemingly disparate Jewish entities. Such a perspective is unavailable to someone who isn’t immersed in Jewish knowledge and learning. Part of what makes it difficult to see through multiple perspectives is that to truly do so, we have to know about more than one thing. We have to learn. And to learn, we have to be taught. And we have to value the learning. 

Another example of multiple perspectives that came to us in the Jewish Quarter came as we toured the Pinchas Synagogue. Unlike the Altneushul, this ancient synagogue is no longer an active synagogue. Instead it is a memorial, etched with the names of 80,000 Czech Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. Available to us as we experienced this solemn memorial were many new and different perspectives. For example, the importance of having a homeland, of Israel. 

While I could continue to mine our time in the Jewish Quarter for even more and perhaps even richer examples of multiple perspectives, I’ll shift to the middle portion of our day. As you might imagine, there was a significant shift in perspective for our 8th graders when a beautiful European square became not only a site of important historical import, but also a place for free time and lunch with friends and eventually as the site of an urban scavenger hunt. A perennial highlight of our 8th grade trips is handing the kids an allowance of local currency, making sure they’re clear on the rules and the safety guidelines, and then letting them enjoy (the appearance of) independence. They came back with smiles, stories, and memories that we hope they’ll cherish. 

So overall, today accomplished one of travel’s greatest outcomes. Whether they realize it or not, today was a day full of growth. We saw Prague through multiple perspectives, and experienced Prague through all of our senses. We had opportunities to experience Prague as Jews, but also as teenagers, as students but also as tourists, as a community but also as individuals and so much more. It was a joy to watch our 8th graders shift perspectives in developmentally appropriate ways. And it was inspiring to see them shift perspective in gratifyingly precocious ways as well, such as during our time in the Jewish Quarter. Tomorrow we’ll very much continue this broadening of horizons, but with a very different tone. As you know, tomorrow we head to Terezin. While the 2nd half of our day will be an inspiring celebration of life, the first half of our day will be one that will change them forever. In the meantime, we’ll let them enjoy their hotel rooms and a night of hopefully good sleep, so that tomorrow we can support them as they encounter the reality of visiting a concentration camp. Our goal in visiting Terezin is not to frighten or traumatize them, but to inspire them to grow ever more human, understanding that this is life’s most noble and urgent pursuit.

5/9/26 a Grateful Shabbat

 5/9/26 A Grateful Shabbat 

It seems like just yesterday, and in fact it was, just yesterday, that many of us gathered in The Kaufman Chapel at The Davis Academy Lower School to briefly welcome Shabbat (a few hours early, in true Davis Academy fashion) before embarking on our Big Trip. Robert Hunter, lyricist for The Grateful Dead, was spot on when he wrote, “The first days are the hardest days.” After having led more 8th grade trips than my jetlagged brain can tally right now, I’m certain that he had days like today in mind: hard days are days that ask a lot of us, that take all we’ve got. 

Between the extensive travel, the time change, the generally high emotions, and a full day of touring central Prague at the height of tourist season, today definitely qualifies as a demanding day. But when we look back, today won’t be memorable because it was hard, but because it was awesome. As a community, we navigated two of the world's busiest airports. We said goodbye to the familiar and embarked on a journey that requires courage, maturity, openness, curiosity, patience, and equal measures of heart, soul, and mind. You can make the argument that every day asks this and more of us, but days like today are more transparent in making the non-negotiable nature of their request abundantly clear. 

While future blog posts may enchant you with varying degrees of analysis regarding our daily themes, experiences, insights, and key moments, this post will honor the fact that, in spite of our extensive travel and robust touring, today was Shabbat. A Shabbat that began symbolically at The Davis Academy, literally/technically/physically somewhere 39,000 feet above Newfoundland, and ended with a Havdalah service in the serene courtyard of our hotel. Even the most experienced travelers among us have never celebrated a Shabbat quite like this one before. Aided by beautiful weather, the awe inspiring beauty of Prague, we embraced the fun of being with classmates and experiencing freedom and independence that comes with the transition from Middle to High School and with travel experiences like the one we’re embarking upon. 

I’ll end with two small observations. First, Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest are far from random European destinations. These cities, when taken together, will allow us to explore one of the most significant questions that Jews should be asking, but which we often fail to even pose. That question: How have the last 150 years shaped our consciousness as a people, a faith, a culture, and a civilization? There’s great power but also an inherent risk in asking this question because certain topics are unavoidable-- antisemitism, pogroms, gas chambers, communist oppression. No answer is complete without addressing these topics, but even more true is the fact that no answer is complete that doesn’t go beyond these sources of adversity, pain, and anguish. Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest all provide different pieces of a Jewish puzzle that many Jews never fully grasp, let alone experience firsthand. In our case, we will experience a great amount firsthand, but the grasping may look different for each of us. 

For a second and final observation, I’ll note that gratitude is a motivator for human behavior. There is not a person among us, student or chaperone, that isn’t grateful to be here. Gratitude is oozing out of our pores. It’s wonderful to be with a group of people that are grateful-- for their portion in life, for the gift that we’ve been given, for the privilege of being able to travel, and for the fact that we are part of such an extraordinary story-- the story of The Jewish People. 

More to follow. Shabbat Shalom and Shavua Tov.