Anyway, a quick note about something I noticed today. Throughout the trip in Eastern Europe, we would encounter places where the pre-war Jewish community was an extremely high percentage of the total population, but it was always hard to imagine what it would be like to live in such a place before the war. We would visit areas of town that were almost completely inhabited by Jewish people, and it would be hard to imagine how house after house was a Jewish home. With that in mind, being in Jerusalem, I think I can get a taste of what that life must have been like--especially on Shabbat. With few cars driving, it's quiet, and walking outside, one mostly sees groups of people walking to and from synagogue, walking to others' houses, or just enjoying the day off. I think this must be what Shabbat in the Jewish areas of towns had been like. Definitely a (comfortable) change from old men reading newspapers and high security to get into synagogue!
Tomorrow will be my last day at Yad Vashem--I'll look if they have any information about the Partisans that would have been around where Grandma Esther was from, and I'll also fill out pages of testimony (with names of people who were killed, and the way I found Sima)--something that I should have done a while ago. I'm also going to go through the museum, which should be an interesting experience, especially at the end of this trip. Then it's time for kippah (yarmulke) shopping for my brothers. More later!
Great Stuff!
ReplyDeleteDo you know what year Esther & Tobias visited Israel? (Did they take pictures?)