5/13/26- Budapest Calls

 5/13/26 - Budapest Calls 

We’re all settling in to our final accommodations of the trip-- the D8 Hotel in Budapest. It’s heartwarming that our guides are shocked at how awesome our hotel is both in terms of comfort and convenience. It’s right in the heart of town (Pest, that is), but it’s also nice and quiet. A win! 

Last year we discovered that Budapest offers a level of excitement that sustains us through the final days of our itinerary. Prague is charming, mysterious, and “Central European” from end to end. Bratislava is sleepy, quaint, still a bit mysterious, and really feels off the beaten path. Budapest feels like Paris, like New York City, like Tokyo. It feels like an international destination that’s simultaneously extremely cosmopolitan but also steeped in its own culture. Our kids seem to know what to do with a city like Budapest and they’re eager to get to do it. 

Before leaving Bratislava we visited the last operational synagogue in the city. We met with Rabbi Misha Kapustin, a dynamic and memorable figure. He helped us understand Bratislava’s rich Jewish history (among other things, it is home to one of the first great “Ultra Orthodox” rabbis who gave birth to what we now call Haredi and/or Hasidic Judaism), as well as Bratislava’s more humble Jewish present (10,000-15,000 Jews in the entire country). Rabbi Kapustin is not from Bratislava originally, but rather fled from Ukraine as a political refugee with his wife and two young children in 2014. 

A traffic jam that was eerily similar to last year at the same exact stretch of highway slowed our arrival to Budapest, so we headed straight to lunch at a delicious restaurant in the Jewish Quarter called Mazal Tov. As they have at all meals, the kids dug in. We’ve had zero complaints and much enthusiasm for the local cuisines, even though they’re different from what we know from Atlanta. Knowing that food is an expression of culture, it’s great to see them trying local dishes and reporting back with enthusiasm. Simple roast chicken, chicken thighs in mustard sauce, schnitzel, goat cheese with dried fruits, spetzel with goulash… the list goes on. After lunch we met our local guides, visited Heroes Square and learned more about Hungarian history than we thought imaginable, checked into the hotel to freshen up, and headed back to the Jewish Quarter for dinner. At dinner we had the top floor of a lovely restaurant to ourselves. The kids enjoyed cashing in drink vouchers for fun lemonade and assorted soft drinks, as well as having a private space to relax and enjoy more local cuisine. You’ll be hearing more about Jewish Hungary and the Jewish Quarter tomorrow. We spent so much time there today because it’s the hippest part of time and we are nothing if not hip. 

The coming days will be busy as we cover alot of ground and a wide array of topics, some happy some difficult, some Jewish some not. We’ll have some shopping time, some hanging out time, some time meeting members of the Jewish community of Budapest and much more. We’ll do our best to take each experience on its individual merits and make the most of every moment.

5/12/26 We Heart Bratislava

 5/12/26- We Heart Bratislava 

As I type these words, The Davis Academy Graduating Class of 2026 is making Davis Academy history as the first ever group of Davis Academy students to spend a night in the capital city of Slovakia: Bratislava. I’m guessing that when we return them to you and they start to share their version of the trip, Bratislava will be a highlight. It’s a charming city, nestled between Hungary and Austria, with a beautiful medieval castle, all right on the banks of the Danube River. In our short time here, we toured the castle, took in the beautiful slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, had a delicious dinner, and took an evening stroll to the city square with a Davis Academy sponsored gelato stop to close out the evening. While it’s a touch chilly, we’ve all got a warm feeling at the moment. 

The rest of this post will be brief because today’s focus was simply on getting from Prague to Bratislava (and onward tomorrow to Budapest). Prior to crossing into Slovakia we stopped at a lovely ropes course nestled into the mountainside outside of Brno. We spent a few hours completing the various ropes elements before enjoying lunch al fresco. The fresh air and physical activity helped break up our ride, and keep our energy in a good place until arriving here in Bratislava. Tomorrow we’ll learn more about the unique history and current status of the Jewish community in Bratislava by meeting with the main rabbi here before we head on to Budapest. For now, we bid you a pleasant evening. If you want to feel like you’re here with us, go get some gelato and check out your nearest medieval castle!

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.