Even though five years have passed, I am still in an enthralling mood when remembering those golden days. In each and every moment my heart really misses those beautiful places and my dearest friends whom I got there. And at the same time, I am so thankful to the Jewish organization named Raje, which gave me and my friends a chance to get such a great experience in life. It is this great well known charitable organization that provided funds for our trip. It was a three week trip and it started at our school. First, our group moved to the most attractive land of Prague. It is a beautiful place which enthralled us. We could see there the oldest temples and shops in the world and we didn’t take a chance to miss those. Then we started our journey through an area where we found only the Jewish community. While I led my way through this place, my eyes filled with tears as there I saw the funeral place of about 17,000 Jews who were assassinated. While I wiped my tears, I saw that this scene was a heart wrenching sight for my friends too. It was the most heart-breaking situation which we experienced in our journey and I can’t forget it in my life. I think that this experience will be there in my heart until my last breath. I really feel that Prague is the most attractive city which I have ever seen in my life and it looks like a village that we read in fairytales. Mostly, people of Jewish community lived in Prague, but later the majority of them changed to Christianity when one of the old synagogues and Jewish district were burned out. There are many synagogues in Prague, and among them three synagogues are very famous and beautiful. As the synagogues were damaged, most of them are rebuilt. When we enter there, we feel like we are in a wonderland. The Jewish people’s culture and dress style are totally different and all of them are very orthodox. In Prague, most of the people are emigrants from other places and it seems that mainly inter-caste marriages take place among Jewish people. I think it is in Prague we find the most historic places and many of them are in Jewish villages. “A popular tourist site, the Hebrew and Roman faced clocks; (the clock with the Hebrew letters turns counterclockwise) can be found on the office of the Jewish Community Federation of the Czech Republic and the Jewish Town Hall.” (Weiner). When I was in this city, I used to go to two restaurants to enjoy the special Jewish dishes which are very famous. In Prague, there are many temples, museums, parks, and it is the best place for shopping where we get many monuments. In museums we can see many photographs, scripts, paintings, pictures of famous artists etc which are incomparable. From there we moved to Israel and the days which we spent there made us feel that it is really our own abode.
The trip to Israel is an unforgettable experience in my life. We saw an entirely different kinds of people and many beautiful natural scenes. We could understand the real history of Israel, which until that, we studied only in our history class. Caesarea is the most attractive place because of its beautiful landscape. There are many famous museums there and we visited almost all of them. The old towers which still remain there make the visitors feel that they are in the Roman era. We moved through each and every small place. We saw the walled city of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea too. The dress style of the people in Israel is entirely different from people of other countries. There we saw that women with traditional Jewish concepts are entirely different in their dress style. The women are very humble which can be realized from their dress style. They cover their body “from head to toe in conservative long skirts, long sleeved tops, closed flat shoes, hose and headgear” (Israel, where style mirrors a country of contrasts). But the others, even though they cover their body they use highly colorful and modern dresses. There we saw a mixture of traditional and modern concepts of lifestyle.
We viewed many marvelous scenes there. The most challenging experience in our trip was that we climbed the mountain to have a glimpse of the sunset. I think it is from here one can watch the setting of sun more beautifully than from any other part of the world. I and my friends enjoyed this. This scene was the most enchanting one. We can’t ever view such beautiful places in any other place in the world. The class which was conducted for us in Jerusalem gave a brief description on Theresienstadt concentration camp of Nazi Germans. It was here, many Jews of Germany, Austria were imprisoned. We learned much about Jews and their culture from the class we attended.
The trip to Israel and Prague is an unforgettable event in my life. I am so proud of myself to have experienced a trip like this.
Works Cited
Israel, where style mirrors a country of contrasts. Youlookfab. 2009.
Weiner, Rebecca. The virtual Jewish History Tour Prague: Tourist Sites. Jewish Virtual Library: A Division of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. 2009.