‘A holy moment’
Three generations of an Israeli-American family go to Poland with the Tzofim
Fifty teenage members of Israel Scouts North America — the Tzofim — joined Israeli peers on an immersive journey to Poland for a week in August, visiting Holocaust sites including Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, the Warsaw Ghetto, and more.
Amit Charash of Cresskill, soon to turn 17, was among the five participants from New Jersey — all from the Shevet Metzada troop in Tenafly.
What made Amit’s journey unique was that her father, Yoni Charash, and her grandfather, Moshe Charash, both participated in a parallel trip for parents.
Yoni Charash explained that although most Israeli high schools run organized Jewish heritage trips to Poland annually, this program began in 1994, the year he graduated.
“I didn’t have a chance to go, and I always wanted to do it,” he said. “This year was the first time Tzofim had a separate group for parents, and it was perfect timing because Amit wanted to join also.”
The parents and teens stayed in different hotels and went on separate tours, but they met up at several points during the week.
Amit said she had always assumed that she’d have to miss the Poland journey that her friends in Israel would take in high school. “I didn’t know it was possible to make this trip from the U.S. until my cousin went with people from my Shevet last year,” she said. “When my dad asked if I wanted to go, I said yes.”
Amit was born in Israel; she was 10 when her parents moved to the United States. Her grandfather also is a sabra. Moshe Charash lives in Israel; his father, Naftali Charash, made aliyah from Galicia in 1933. Naftali was able to exchange letters with his parents and four siblings until around 1940, when communication was lost.
“He paid a lot of money for his family to come to Palestine, but the British didn’t allow his two older sisters to come. His parents — my grandparents — decided to stay because they didn’t want to leave their daughters,” Moshe said.
All six of them were murdered in Majdanek, a Nazi concentration and extermination camp on the outskirts of Lublin.
In Majdanek this August, Moshe and Yoni lit a memorial candle, and then Moshe told what he knew about his family’s tragic demise to the group of 35 parents, who together count more than 200 family members murdered in the Holocaust.
“It was emotional for me to stand on this ground; it was like a holy moment for me,” Moshe said. “After I told my family’s story, I collapsed to the ground. I was so happy Yoni was by my side. Many members of the group came over and hugged me.”
He already had been to Belzec, an extermination camp where other relatives had been killed. But he’d never been to Majdanek.
“I would define the trip as shocking and empowering,” he said. “To see with your own eyes all the evidence is much more powerful than reading about it. It strengthened my resolve that we have to do our utmost to make sure it will never happen again.”
Yoni agreed. “In Israel, you learn about the Holocaust in school,” he said. “But when you walk on the ground and hear the stories and stand in Auschwitz and Birkenau and Majdanek and the ghettos, it’s a different kind of knowledge that goes deep within you.”
Amit said one particular memory will always stay with her. It happened at the reconstructed Wall of Death at Auschwitz, where thousands of prisoners were lined up for execution by firing squad during the war.
“One of the girls in my group said her great-grandmother had been killed at the Wall of Death as her own daughter — the girl’s grandmother — watched. She brought an Israeli flag and wrote a message on it for her mother and put it on the wall. It was very touching; it was a full-circle moment.”
Separately at Auschwitz, Yoni and Moshe searched the pages of the huge vertical Book of Names of Holocaust victims and were able to find a listing for Moshe’s aunt, Lea Goldenberg. “It was very exciting and moving to see,” Yoni said.
Tzofim North America held seminars and meetings to prepare the participants for the trip. Amit attended another preparatory session in Israel for the Israeli and American teens together, as her family was in Israel for the summer visiting their relatives.
Yaniv Biran, CEO of Tzofim North America, said this was the first Tzofim delegation to Poland since the October 7 massacre, “which affected all of our members, who either come from Israeli families or have families in Israel.
“It has been a tough year for us, and the connection to our Jewish heritage has become even deeper. This year’s delegation will be different as the past blends with the present, making it even more important for us to make it happen. It’s an essential experience that significantly contributes to their personal and cultural development and sense of community.”
Indeed, Amit said, “The trip was very eye-opening, and I feel more connected to the history of the Jewish people.”
Her grandfather said that his ability to visit those significant sites in Poland with Amit and Yoni “is a victory for my grandfather.”
The experience, he added, prompted him to do “a lot of internal work thinking about the past and what is happening now and what will happen in the future. In Israel today we are facing an impossible situation with our enemies and our brothers; nobody knows what the outcome will be.
“I believe what happens here will affect not only the Jewish people of Israel but also Jewish people all over the world.”
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