5/16/26- In Defense of Typos

 5/16/26 In Defense of Typos

We’ve just concluded a beautiful Havdalah ceremony to end our last full day in Central Europe. Havdalah means “distinction” and refers to the distinction that we make between Shabbat and the other days of the week. It’s fitting that our trip began and ended with Havdalah. While our 8th grade trip is very much a part of all that came before it, it is also a distinct, unique, and therefore special experience. While this blog and our daily photos coupled with the more important first hand accounts that you’ll hear in the coming days can give you a glimpse into what we took place here, there will be aspects of the experience that don’t translate, that can’t be explained, and that will exist only for those of us who have been blessed to be here together. 

Our last full day in Budapest was spent trying to outrun the impending rain. We started the day with a picture perfect visit to the Buda Castle. There’s no point in describing the view, you’ll just have to see the pictures. From there we headed to Margaret Island, a small island in the middle of the Danube. 

On Margaret Island we rode special golf cart/bicycle type contraptions called (at least in Budapest) “Bringos”. Once we learned how to honk their primitive horns, pull their rudimentary breaks, and pedal together as one, we enjoyed zipping around the island both on and off the official route. It was a novel experience with lots of smiles. A great fresh air activity enjoyed by all. After replenishing with lunch, we hit the Bathhouse. The kids embraced the mandatory swim caps even if some didn’t avail themselves of the inviting pools. Those who swam reported soothing water and lots of fun. The rain began mid-swim but we were undeterred. 

By the time we left Margaret Island the rain was definitely “a thing.” But again, we persevered and returned to the Jewish Quarter for some outdoor shopping. Final souvenirs were selected and remaining Hungarian currency exchanged for an array of goods. 

Post shopping we returned to the Danube for an evening dinner cruise. Together we enjoyed traditional Hungarian cuisine and music along with the stunning views of Budapest. Toward the end the kids organized themselves in a circle for some sharing of funniest, favorite, and other assorted memories. After each share, there was a thunderous applause. 

Annually, I look forward to the joyful responsibility of chronicling our 8th grade trip in this blog format. I do my best to summarize activities but also to connect them to the bigger picture of what a Davis education might mean for our students now and in the future. While I put thought and care into the blog, it’s also done under varying degrees of exhaustion and occasional duress as we navigate evening duties for our kids. As such, there are always typos, thoughts left incomplete, and sentiments that don’t make the “final cut.” Sometimes, after hitting “publish” I’ll notice a typo and go back to tidy things up. I didn’t do that this year. Even though I noticed at least a handful of misspellings and grammatical errors, I felt like this was the year to leave them there. I’ve been reflecting on why I chose to let them be. 

We’re living in a strange moment. A moment when more than the usual amount of people are asking big questions about what it means to be human. A lot of these questions are prompted by AI. Why fall in love with an actual person when you can fall in love with an AI chatbot? Why write your own essay when ChatGPT can do it for you? Why go to a doctor when you can submit a photo of your affliction to an AI program and get a (better? worse?) answer? Why be a messy, imperfect, flawed, stumbling human, when you can pretend to be immaculate in all areas? Sound like an AI rant? Maybe so. But I feel for all of us that are asking even the most innocuous of these types of questions. I’m not an AI apocalypse type person. But c’mon. Can’t we agree it’s a little “weird” out there at the moment? 

So as for typos? I’m embracing them. I’m embracing them as a sign of my humanity. I don’t want you or me to wonder if these words were written by an algorithm. I’m embracing the typos. And I hope that our kids will do the same. 

Sometimes it rains when you’re in Budapest. Sometimes you overpay for a souvenir and regret it. Sometimes the itinerary changes. Sometimes something you’re excited about ends up being disappointing. It happens. And the opposite is true. Sometimes you surprise yourself with how thoughtful and articulate you are. Sometimes you discover a level of strength you didn’t know you possessed. Sometimes you end up being the friend that someone really needed in that moment. Sometimes you really do live your values unironically and with your whole heart. Being human means welcoming it all, our shortcomings and our great moments. We can’t have one without the other. 

When the class of 2026 looks back on their journey, as they have been this evening, they’ll see that it was a human journey. It was a journey they took together, guided by the adults who know, and love, and care for them. The humanness of the journey is what makes it truly transformational, what makes it instructional, what makes it real. Keep this in mind when they unpack their bags tomorrow. Keep this in mind as you help them share their experiences here. Keep this in mind as you model for them how to close a special and sacred chapter in their lives and begin to write the next one. Let the little typos slide, chalk them up to humanity. Teach them how to write with big, beautiful, truthful, iconoclastic, and grateful words. Teach them how to own their unique human stories. Teach them how to create their lives on purpose. They’ll thank you for it even though they won’t need to.

5/15/26 From The Danube to The Frankel Synagogue

 5/15/26-- From The Danube to The Frankel Synagogue

A great day spent exploring Budapest was bookended by two extraordinary Jewish moments. This morning we visited the solemn “Shoes on the Danube” Memorial and this evening we celebrated Shabbat at The Frankel Synagogue. 

During the winter of 1944-1945, the Hungarian Arrow Cross Regime enthusiastically undertook and effort to rid Hungary of her Jews. With unrelenting barbarism and cruelty they built ghettos, coordinated death marches, figured out how to deport 12,000 Jews daily by cattle car, and also bloodied the waters of the Danube River by dragging Jews there, forcing them to remove their shoes, tying them together, and then firing only enough bullets to force the still living along with the just murdered victims into the Danube where those that were still alive would freeze or drown, whichever came first. The number of Jews murdered in this fashion during the horrible winter of 19441945 is somewhere between 5,000-20,000. A stark and powerful memorial, bronzed shoes, humbly marks one of the many embankments where this atrocity occurred. Not lost on those who visit is the fact that these murders took place in plain sight. The Danube is lined with government buildings, cafes, apartments, and even the Presidential Palace of Budapest. While there are many stories of righteous gentiles and miraculous survival, it is a solemn and tragic site. 

After a day of wandering, chocolate making, shopping, and Hungary’s finest Mexican food for lunch, we crossed the Danube into Buda (as opposed to Pest), so that we could visit The Frankel Synagogue for Shabbat. We were greeted by members of their youth group who quickly engaged our kids in a series of fun icebreaking activities. Prior to services we hung out in their BBYO themed youth lounge. There we lit Shabbat candles, ate challah, and hung out. While Shabbat services were a bit hard to follow due to the blend of Hungarian and Hebrew, the many side conversations taking place in the congregation, and the general novelty of the experience, I am confident the overall impression was deeply moving and unforgettable. Here we were, in Budapest, at a Shabbat service, listening to a sermon in Hungarian, watching young children play on the bimah before receiving a Shabbat blessing and a sweet treat, sharing names for the Mishbeirach healing prayer, singing Oseh Shalom and so much more. As was the case last year, we were treated to a true cantorial performance from the synagogue’s cantor. Take a moment to imagine the most iconically Jewish singing voice imaginable. That’s the cantor of The Frenkel Synagogue. His voice transports you into the Jewish past, back to a time when pious Jews truly felt that it was the cantor’s job to lift all of our communal prayers up to the throne of God on High. The combination of the cantor’s voice, the murmuring of the congregation, the creaking of the ancient wooden pews, when all taken together, it felt so deeply and sincerely Jewish. And while there was much about The Frenkel Synagogue that felt unfamiliar to our kids, there was so much more that felt familiar--  Shabbat candles, Challah, blessing children, Hebrew words, BBYO posters, Kippot, the Shema, prayer books. Here we are, halfway around the world, in a place where most of us have never been. And yet somehow we are at home. Our kids may not be able to articulate that, but they felt it for sure.

5/14/26-- Budapest, Layer by Layer

 5/14/26 Budapest, Layer by Layer

It’s easy to fall in love with Budapest. The people are interesting and, for the most part, friendly. Many of them have dogs and, as sometimes happens, look perfectly matched with their canine companions. Residents and tourists alike race around the streets of Budapest in every which way, filling the cafes, crowding the intersections, and participating in the energetic spirit of the city. Neighbors oscillate between wide and impressive boulevards and small and inviting alleyways. There are bookstores, record stores, vintage clothing boutiques, and an endless amount of cafes proudly serving both traditional Hungarian food and every type of cuisine imaginable. There are people of all ages out and about, including many young adults and teens. Even though Prague can boast the likes of Franz Kafka, it’s easy to see why Budapest has the most celebrated literary tradition, including a 2025 Nobel Prize winning author. There’s something literary and intellectual in the vibe here. Unsurprisingly, Budapest is the favored city among our 8th graders. 

Budapest’s charming and lively vibe helps make sense of one of the great questions that Jewish visitor to this city must ask: Why did the Jews stay? Why, when Hungary was an ally of Germany during the 2nd World War, did the Jews stay? Why did they stay when antisemitic laws were passed beginning in the 1930s? Why did they stay when the first deportation of Jews from Hungary didn’t begin until the very late date of May 1944 and the horrors of Auschwitz were not entirely unknown? As Agi, our local Jewish tour guide explained: It’s home. The Jews of Budapest love their city. The same reasons that kept them here and led to more than 430,000 being deported and killed beginning in May 1944 are the reasons why Budapest is one of the most vibrant and thriving Jewish communities of Europe today, with more than 120,000 Jews. The Hungarian Jewish community was, and is, a proud and accomplished Jewish community that feels deeply connected to their home country and city. 

There’s no greater physical symbol of the pride and love that Hungarian Jews feel for Budapest than the Dohany Synagogue. This impressive synagogue is the 6th largest in the world. Massive construction continued on the synagogue as late as 1930, when the rising tide of fascism was already beginning to sweep over Europe. Sitting in the wooden pews of the Dohany Synagogue, we heard all about the Jewish community, including what I’ve shared here. Sadly, on the very same grounds as the synagogue, there are mass graves for Jews that perished in the Budapest Ghetto during WWII. It is against Jewish law to have a cemetery on the same grounds as a synagogue, but it is an even greater violation of Jewish law to exhume bodies for reburial unless absolutely necessary. For that reason, the mass graves remain in the courtyard that was originally intended to have a beautiful reflecting pool. 

Today’s lunch and dinner were, once again, Pizur style. Pizur is quickly becoming a favorite Hebrew word among our 8th graders so be prepared for them to request Pizur style meals back home. As a reminder, Pizur means spreading out and having free choice. After Pizur 1 (lunch) and before Pizur 2 (dinner), we did some fabulous shopping and also rode a beautiful Ferris Wheel. In between our shopping and Ferris Wheel we did something very special: we visited the Budapest Jewish Community Center (JCC). 

Located in a decent sized property on one of Budapest’s main boulevards, the JCC keeps a relatively low profile while offering an incredible array of programming. We didn’t visit the JCC last year, so it was a new experience for all of us. During our hour there we met with a group of elderly adults. This wasn’t just any group, it was their informal singing group. They sang for us and, even more notably, with us. The song selection ranged from Hativkah to George Gershwin to a Hungarian version of Leonard Cohen’s Halleluyah. We sang in Hebrew and in Yiddish and eventually went from singing to dancing. To sing and dance with these elderly Jews was an unforgettable joy. Where else in the world can two groups of people meet across such differences: age, language, nationality… and unite in an even stronger bond of faith, tradition, culture, and heritage? It was, as we say at Davis, a Kol Yisrael moment. Meeting some of Budapest’s elderly Jewish community in such a joyful and authentic fashion was the perfect balm to a morning spent bearing witness to the devastating impact of the Holocaust on this city and country. 

One additional special moment from today needs to be mentioned. Ron, one of our wonderful Israel tour guides, is the only child of two Hungarian Holocaust survivors. While at Terezin he shared the story of his father, the only one to survive when his family was quickly and unexpectedly deported from a small Hungarian town to Auschwitz. Today he told his “mama’s” story and his grandma’s story. His mama’s biological father, a Jew, was essentially sent to his death when the Hungarian army sent him and others like him to clear mine fields on behalf of the army, without any protective gear. Meanwhile, her much beloved step father was killed right in front of her eyes when a stray bullet entered their Budapest apartment in 1956 during a prolonged street battle that was part of the Communist occupation of Budapest at that time. After losing her step father, Ron’s mama made Aliyah to Israel, leaving behind her own mother and all she had ever known here in Budapest. We were deeply moved to hear Ron’s family story. Hearing his story was a reminder that, as Jews, our lives are often deeply intertwined with the more general cadences of human history, for better or worse. 

So far, Budapest has grown only more beloved with each layer that we uncover. Tomorrow we will uncover additional layers of Budapest, some charming and some heartbreaking. It will be meaningful to join with our 8th graders in making sense of this city that is, in so many ways, a microcosm of the world itself: so wonderful and so heartbreaking. But on days like today, I think we can cling in good conscience to the wonderfulness of it all and allow ourselves to say that it was a great day.

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.

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.