Bureau of Jewish Education,
Peninsula Havurah High and Holocaust Center of Northern California
Shalhevet -
Passing the Torch from
Generation to Generation
A TRANSFORMATIVE JOURNEY
to POLAND & ISRAEL
Sample Itinerary (Ignore dates)
Trip Dates: March 8 - March 22, 2006
Participation: High School Seniors and Juniors
Program: travel with your peers through Poland, where
Jewish tradition thrived for 1000 years before the Holocaust,
and Israel, where Jewish life blossoms today. The journey
begins with a special course in the spring semester.
Shalhevet (“flame” in Hebrew) is a once-in-a-lifetime experiential
learning opportunity for Bay Area Jewish High School Juniors
and Seniors that includes a 2-week trip to Poland and Israel.
Inspired by the international March of the Living (MOTL) program,
Shalhevet was started in 2004 so that local youth could participate
in a program tailored to the educational and cultural environment
of the Bay Area and so that students would not have to arrange
alternative dates for their Advanced Placement exams.
The program immediately established itself as a wonderful
opportunity for students to reestablish relationships with
local Jewish peers, to intimately reexamine their Jewish identities
and to strengthen their understanding of Israel - all just
before they start the transition from home to college for
real!
The goals of this year’s program, Shalhevet Bet,
are:
- To understand the Mitzvah of Zachor (remembrance/awareness)
and our responsibility to act as witnesses
- To experience/learn about the vibrancy and nature of the
pre holocaust centers of Jewish life in Europe
- To recognize the historical and social context of the
Shoah (Holocaust), its connection to the establishment of
the state of Israel and the revitalization of Eastern European
Jewry today
- To build or strength emotional connection to and factual
knowledge of the complexities of the modern State of Israel
and its relationship to us as American Jews
- To learn and demonstrate supportive behaviors with each
other throughout the Shalhevet experience.
Local teens to tour Auschwitz and Israel on new spring trip
(January 14, 2005, Jewish News Weekly of Northern California)
The overall thrust of the trip to Poland is "the variety
and depth of Jewish lifestyles prior to the Shoah." We want
to understand that pre-War Jews expressed themselves, their
ideologies and their dreams in different ways, such as: Hassidim,
Mitnagdim, Maskilim, Reform, Yiddishists (writers, playwrights
and actors), Hebraists, artists, labor Zionists, cultural
Zionists, Revisionist Zionists, Bundists, Socialists, Communists,
Secularists, Shtetl Jews, City Jews, etc. Of course we won't
be able to study or discuss in depth all of these approaches.
If the students have broadened their understand of the range
of different ways of being Jewish, then we will have succeeded.
Our emphasis while in Israel is to see how different people
above (and others) attempted to live out their ideologies
and their dreams in the Land of Israel. What were the results?
What has survived? What other ideologies have been manifested
in the State of Israel? What types of settlement structures
were established to help make their dreams come true? (Kibbutz,
religious kibbutz, "first Hebrew City", neighborhoods, communal
settlements, etc.) There will not be a 1:1 correlation with
the list in Poland. We will touch upon some of the Poland
list, but there will be others that are unique to Israel in
the here-and now. And of course there are others which ostensibly
died away with the Shoah. Finally, pure lack of time will
prevent us from covering all the major ideologies.
See what last year's particants said about the trip (click here).
Read some of last year's "Daily
Update for Parents".
Check out the details at our FAQs!!!
Still have questions? Come to an info meeting or contact us
at the BJE:
Claire Mikowski, Principal, San Francisco
and Peninsula Havurot (415) 751-6983 x 128
cmikowski@bjesf.org
or
Toby Rubin, Director of Program Development
& Teen Services, 415-751-6983 x116
trubin@bjesf.org
Downloadable forms:
Sample Itinerary (Ignore dates)
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