Discovering Deutschland

Today I'm heading back to Duisburg for short weekend filled with activities in the Jewish community. Going back made me realized I never shared my fun-filled week there in October. So heres a little retrospective of the theater camp I facilitated. Apparently Germany has something called "fall break" (clearly I'm jealous) for school children and some of them chose to spend it doing a theater camp in the Jewish community. We made a play together called "Grossmutters Challah". I'm sure you can guess that this translates to grandmother's challah. The whole week's theme was challah. We baked challah, made challah covers and then on Friday we preformed the play for the nearby Jewish kindergarten. Needless to say the kids were adorable and their performance was heartwarming. They did this little Israeli dance at the end that just about made me tear-up. After a week full of long hours and campers filled with boundless energy shabbat was a

What a weekend! I was lucky enough to join JDC Regions  for their wonderful Generation Next conference. Young Jewish leaders from around Europe gathered in Brussels, Belgium. It was incredible hearing about different Jewish communities from so many cultural backgrounds. We met Jews from Serbia, Israel, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Switzerland, Holland, the Baltic countries, Italy and more!   Some of the problems these communities face, such as attracting new members were quite familiar, especially in Germany and others were totally novel. The most fruitful part of the weekend was delving into these topics. I got to hear how these leaders tackle things like declining involvement, insulated communities and emigration. I also noticed the striking difference that still exists between the east and west. It's clear that countries in Eastern Europe are still dealing with repercussions of the fall of communism but at the same time meeting vivacious young leaders from these co