HAFTR students return from Poland, Germany

Eighteen HAFTR students have returned from the mission to Poland and Germany that included visits to machanot hashmada (concentration camps) and mekomot hakedoshim (resting places of the holy).

The participating students — Lauren Berlyne, Moshe Dahan, Esti Ehrenfeld, Ari Eichler, David Ellner, Elisheva Engel, Rose Farkish, Eli Friedman, Marc Generowicz, Jamie Jacobson, Ruth Kopyto, Jordan Levy, Daniel Lewis, Ori Milberg, Rotem Noah, Rami Saban, Danielle Sharafi, and Benjamin Sipzner — were led by Principal of Judaic Studies Rabbi Gedaliah Oppen and Rabbi Moshe Hubner, together with Mrs. Yehudis Oppen, Mr. Yehuda Mosesson, and Dr. Marvin Wertentheil.

This second annual Abraham Scharf Z”l Mission exposed the students to knowledge of the vibrant Jewish life in Europe before the Shoah, about the Churban Europa (the destruction) as well as the Gevura (the strength of the Jewish people during the Holocaust), and current Jewish life in Germany and Poland.

The first stop in Germany was davening in a shul that the Nazis used as a storage house. What a moment it was when the Torah was raised by haggba — in the same place where the Nazis tried to eradicate the Jewish people and our history, students from the Five Towns lifted the Torah and proclaimed that the Jewish nation and Torah are here now and will always be.

Next, the group went to the mikveh in Worms, established in 1170, followed by Rashi’s shul and the kever of the Maharam of Rottenberg. The group stopped to daven at the kevarim of the Baal Shem of Michelshtadt, Harav Shamshon Rafael Hirsh, and the Stoliner Rebbe, who was known as the Yanukah. Then they visited the now-destroyed cemetery where the Pnei Yehoshua, the Haflah, Harav Nosson Adler and the mother of the Chasam Sofer are all buried. That afternoon, the group davened an emotional Mincha in the location of the Borneplazt Synagogue, which was burnt and destroyed by the Nazis on Kristallnacht, Nov. 9, 1938.

Three days were spent in Poland learning about some of the great Chassidic dynasties that originated there, viewing firsthand the destruction wrought upon our nation at Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek and Treblinka.