Story Time

Before you begin reading, this is so cool!

In Yad Vashem, our guide Shoshana pointed to a violin and said look at this. She proceeded to tell an unbelievable story of Motale, a 12 year old orphan who, after surviving in the forest, joined the partisans and was able to lead an incredible mission. I'm going to try to tell this story in as much detail as she did, because I think it's important to catch a glimpse at what these kids are getting on this trip.

Motale was an excellent violinist. Even when it became illegal for music teachers to teach Jewish students, Motale's teacher defied the order and continued to train him. While with the partisans, he was able to utilize this skill to advance the fight. He was sent to busk in a town near the forest where the SS had a hangout. They wanted him to play violin on the street and see what he could hear the SS talking about.

As he did this one day, an officer came to him very impressed and invited him into the club to play for all of his friends. Motale soon became the official musician for mealtime at the club, and was able to bring a lot of information back to the forest.

At one of his performances, Motale noticed a space in the club that would be perfect to put a bomb. He told this to his friends and they taught him how to build an explosive device. He began to hide his violin in the club, take his empty case back to the forest, and bring explosives into the club in it the next day.

After several days of repeating this procedure, Motale detonated the bomb and blew up the SS officers' club.

When the Nazis could not find the partisans, they shelled the forest intermittently, and Motale was killed in one of these shellings. Motale's violin made it through the war and to Yad Vashem in 1996. Since then, it has been played at each annual national Holocaust Memorial ceremony.

To me, that story sounded as intriguing as any of the famous stories that illustrate the despair and heroism of Holocaust education. Shosh told hours of these stories based on the small and large artefacts that fill the corridors of Yad Vashem.

There was the regular question for the group picture at the end of the tour: "do we smile?" but we didn't have the discussion at the time. Maybe at home. But look at it! In the shadows, you can't even tell... 

After Shosh ran out of stories (well, really out of time), we had a pizza lunch (CHAMETZ!!!) and donated the leftovers to the guards at the museum.

From there we spent about two hours on Har Herzel, as Hadar continued telling stories. The students were asked which stories they remembered, and were proud to recall a great lot of them.

After that discussion, it was onto the bus to go see some pen pals.

Table the shulchaning for now, it's party time.


You think these guys were glad to see each other or what?? Today was all fun and bonding. Playing dodgeball and chatting with grade 5 at Lev HaEmek, doing science experiments at Tel Chai College, and going up and down the cable car at Manara Cliff. It was great to see all my teacher buddies that I've collected over the years, and I always say the best part of the trip is the time spent with the Israelis. I can tell this will yet again be the case.

I will let the goofiness and smiling below tell its own story.

Welcome back to school!