News & Impact

I didn’t know what to feel as we approached Auschwitz Birkenau. There was no dramatic music or flashes of tears or terror. I felt a more subtle kind of fear. The kind that starts as a small chill at the bottom of my spine or as a fleeting shadow when I’m home alone. It was eerie and silent but haunting none the less. I realize how that there are stories, beyond the black and white photos that history books never told me. They never seemed to explain the way that gravel crunches under worn shoe soles, or how electric fences… Read More

  This is Peretz Wolf-Prusan, blogging in from Krakow, where we arrived from Berlin Friday morning.  We were met by our guide Kamala and whisked to the Stradomska Center for Dialogue where we learned a great deal about the revival of Polish Jewish life in a very short time with Dr. Karen Underhill, Taube Jewish Heritage Tour consultant and educator.  She took us on a walking tour of the Wawa Castle, Old Krakow, including the Main Market Square and the Cloth Hall.  I had been on similar tours with Holocaust trips, but never in late June!  Krakow is warm, OK,… Read More

Today we stood under the Brandenburg Gate and learned about the waves of history that have flowed through this gate.. from the Prussian Monarchs through the Nazi era and the fall of the Berlin wall. Including JFK and his famous declaration.   This moment truly illustrates our cohort of amazing students. After viewing memorials to the darkest times of history they continue to engage intellectually, support each other, and end each day with a smile on their face. They continue to impress us and those we come into contact with along the way.   Enjoy their words from our days… Read More

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After 20 hours of travel and a quick stop over in London we have arrived to Berlin! After crossing the international date line we entertained ourselves with games of ninja and airport yoga and snacked on fish and chips while passing the time in Heathrow. Yvonne shares with us some of her first impressions: So, today was the flight….10 hours is a doozy, but the time went by fast due to all our adventures. For dinner we had our introduction to a kosher airlines meal which meant somehow nearly all our food came out frozen, but who after all doesn’t… Read More

Over their many years together, Jim and Dale became known as a San Francisco couple you could count on: to take part in campaigns for LGBT rights, to help friends living with—or dying of—HIV, and to support their city’s many cultural and athletic institutions. “I taught Dale to love football,” says Jim, 77, an ex-jock and Air Force vet, “and he taught me to love the ballet.” But as Jim and Dale, who is 69, have gotten older, they have had to face their share of infirmities. Jim has congestive heart failure, osteoporosis, and many other physical ailments. Over the… Read More