Leadership with a Side of Waffles

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 communities makes me optimistic for the future. I'm far from being any kind of expert but I'm glad I got the experience to start learning about the reality of the Jewish situation in Europe first hand.

The only problem is now I have lots of new countries and communities I want to visit and only so much time!

Of course I can't forget the food Belgium is famous for, my personal soft spot. I went a little overboard on desserts this weekend but I'm not in Belgium every day (it was worth every chocolate and waffle).

Now it's back to Berlin to rest up for the next adventure. Who knows were I'll end up next!

Comments

Summertime Film Finale

This week marked not only my 11 month milestone but it was also the last movie night for the summer. In Duisburg throughout the year we've been hosting monthly events for Jewish young adults. One event I've been hosting bi-monthly is our Jewish film night or "Kino Abend". This event was passed down to me by my predecessor Amira, who never fails to help me choose the latest title. We've done all kinds of movies ranging from "Kaddisch fur einen Freund" or Kaddish for a friend, a story about a young Palestine refugee who moves into an apartment below a Jewish old man in Germany and the friendship that they develop. Perhaps the most thought provoking event was our movie night and discussion about the "Hannah Arendt" movie. She was a famous Jewish German historian/philosopher who wrote about the "banality of evil" in reference to Nazis during WWII. This movie was inspired in fact by a course I took in university where we r...

Going Back to My Roots

Generally I don't post about my vacations, but the latest trip I took with my mom Lithuania seems to fit with the theme of my Jewish experience in Europe so here we go anyway. Last week we went to find our roots in Lithuania. This needs some backstory. My grandma was born in a town called Memel (now Klaipeda) in Lithuania in the 1920s. When she was 6-weeks old my great-grandparents decided to move to South Africa. Since then my grandmother has never been back, despite being an avid world traveler. So when my mom decided to come to visit me in Germany it seemed like a great opportunity to do some heritage hunting. My mom has been researching our family tree for years now and managed to locate the towns and villages that our ancestors were born in so off we set to go see what these places were like today. Vilnus old city, Capital of Lithuania Rather naively I underestimated how heavy and emotional this journey would be. Living in Germany of course I'm quite aware ...

Duisburg Days

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 ...

Discovering Deutschland

Search This Blog