Two Weeks in Europe

My wife, Sharon, and I recently returned from a 10-day tour of Central Europe — Budapest to Bratislava to Vienna to Prague, with some additional stops in between. Although we have almost always traveled independently and handled all arrangements on our own, this was quite different; a group tour that took care of everything — itinerary, tour leader and local guides, hotels, delicious three-times-a-day kosher meals, transportation other than international flights, transfers, admission fees and gratuities, snacks, unlimited water bottles (very necessary for the unusual 100 degrees plus weather), and more.

This different — and more expensive — trip was our 50th wedding anniversary present to ourselves. (Aside to family and close friends who know that we were married in March 1970, and still remember basic elementary school arithmetic: although we started to make arrangements for this type of trip in February 2020, a pesky new virus that had just started going around caused us — and then the world — to put all plans on hold, resulting in the trip’s postponement until after our 54th anniversary.)

I grappled with how to write about these wonderful two weeks (we added a couple of personal days to the beginning and end of the tour). One possibility was boring you with a detailed day-by-day description of our activities. But (a) I try (hopefully successfully) not to bore, and (b) that would make me exceed even the generous word count my editor allows me. I therefore decided to list 18 (chai!) memories, in no particular order and omitting much, that will hopefully give you a taste of what made this trip so very rewarding and meaningful.

1. First, a word about the tour’s sponsor, Torah in Motion (TIM), a Toronto-based Jewish learning organization, led by Rabbi Jay and Ilana Kelman, that expands the horizons of Jewish thought with articles, lectures, events, podcasts, and tours by outstanding teachers from around the world. Its tours are led by Dr. Marc Shapiro, holder of the Weinberg Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Scranton, and the author of numerous books and articles on Jewish history, philosophy, theology, and rabbinic literature.

The tour included, of course, stops at many well-known national and cultural sites of the countries we visited (e.g., a relaxing evening cruise on Budapest’s Danube River, and tours of the magnificent Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna and the Prague castle area in, well, Prague). But what truly made it so special, in addition to the fact that every detail was first-class, was that it seriously concentrated on these destinations’ many connections to Jews and Jewish history.

We visited medieval and modern towns, shuls, and cemeteries in which great Jewish leaders and scholars, including the Chatam Sofer, Noda bi-Yehudah, and Maharal, lived, davened, and were buried; we wandered through Jewish ghettos, visited Jewish historical museums, stopped at Holocaust memorials, and spent several heartwrenching hours in Theresienstadt. And we had an opportunity to meet, listen to, and speak with rabbis and rebbetzins in all our main destinations, who frankly discussed what it means to live in and lead their communities today.

2. Dr. Shapiro’s vast erudition was critical in making the Jewish aspect of the tour so evocative. His ability to impart knowledge in great depth, formulated in language geared to a knowledgeable group of non-academics, is superb. I and many of you have read Marc’s scholarly work as well as his less formal writing in the Seforim blog, or heard him as a scholar-in-residence in one of our shuls or through his online TIM lectures.

But listening to him speak about the incredible places that he carefully chose for us to visit as we were visiting them was on a completely different level; he brought to life, if only for a few minutes, centuries-old communities, shuls, and rabbis, explained many of the communities’ customs and how they were organized (all very different from our American/Canadian structures), taught us Jewish history and theology, and elucidated how rabbinic responsa impacted on the lives of the Jews who lived centuries ago. He set his teaching, tour leading, and tour logistics bar at excellent, and excellence is exactly what we received.

3. My maternal grandparents and mother emigrated from Hungary in the early 1930s. (I say Hungary, though their hometown is now in Ukraine, and they arrived on Czechoslovakian — or possibly Romanian — passports; borders shifted easily between the wars.) But they spoke, cooked, and self-identified as Hungarian. While my mother’s English had no accent, that of her parents, aunts, and uncles charmingly did, and they often spoke Hungarian among themselves. So in Budapest I was constantly reminded of them. In fact, after we heard R. Binjomin Szanto-Varnagy of the Bet Yehudah shul in Budapest’s Rabbinical Seminary speak on Shabbat morning in a mixture of English, Hebrew, and Hungarian, I told him that he reminded me of my Uncle Marco when he spoke English, my grandfather when he spoke Hebrew, and my mother talking to her parents when he spoke Hungarian.

4. Sometimes, it’s the unexpected that adds extra spice. Take the light and music show at the Danube’s Margaret Island fountain that Zoltan, our tour’s local guide and fixer par excellence, took us to on the evening before the tour actually began, that whetted our appetite for what was to come. Or the fact that Sam, one of three twentysomethings who accompanied us for a few days, turned out to be the 12-year-old boy who lived in the house next door to ours for a few years about a decade plus ago. (He recognized me and not vice versa, which is not surprising since the last time I saw him he was about 5′4″ and he’s almost a foot taller now.)

5. Other serendipitous occurrences included discovering, while we were visiting Prague’s Spanish Synagogue’s museum, that a concert was scheduled there for that very evening; we attended of course. And using my NYC subway skills to quickly master the Budapest metro, I figured out, when we were on our own before the tour began, how to get from the Budapest Opera House (breathtakingly beautiful with a 10-minute mini-opera at the end of the tour) to our hotel, even though it required a transfer. (Btw, European public transit is free for those over 65. Take note, N.Y. and N.J.) And at Budapest’s magnificent House of Parliament (Europe’s largest, a full two meters wider than Westminster, to Hungarians’ great pride) we bumped into an Israeli couple with two granddaughters. They davened at Lincoln Square Synagogue as singles when we were there as young marrieds, know my brother-in-law Monty in Jerusalem, and told us that Israelis were visiting Budapest in droves because it was inexpensive and, important in today’s fraught times, safe for Israelis.

6. I’ve read a good deal about show trials but I never saw one until I was mesmerized at Budapest’s House of Terror by a Communist propaganda film that included long excerpts from the one that condemned Imre Nagy. It, the entire museum, and especially the dank, claustrophobic basement dungeons that included the cell occupied by Raoul Wallenberg, were frightening and horrifying. We were still shivering after we left even though the outside temperature was 104.

7. Trdelnik, a Czech/Slovak sweet ice cream/fruit pastry, is a maichel so delicious that we indulged over and over and over again. If you’re in Prague, don’t miss it — there’s a kosher store right near the Alteneu shul where we then davened Friday night.

8. On the Shabbat before my father’s yahrtzeit I chanted the haftorah in Prague’s Jerusalem/Jubilee synagogue, the most beautiful of the many beautiful ones we visited. And on his actual yahrtzeit I had an aliyah in Prague’s Chabad. I like to think that my father, who was born in Mir in Russia, would have been pleased that this year I observed his yahrtzeit a bit closer to his birthplace and in synagogues more similar to those in Mir than my Modern Orthodox Teaneck one.

9. We had heard that Prague is Europe’s most beautiful city. It is, indeed,
beautiful, as is Vienna. But to us, Budapest’s beauty outshone all. With a wealth of stunning Beaux-Art architecture bordering wide sweeping boulevards, it was simply wow just to walk around.

10. When we were discussing the trip with our kids and weighing its pros and cons, they said that we might make new friends. I pooh poohed that notion with the comment that 77-year-olds don’t make friends; they’re lucky if they remember the names of the ones they already have. Well, predictions have never been my strong suit, as our new Philadelphia friends, Diane (a fellow HILI graduate) and Dave, can attest to.

11. Menashe, our terrific local guide from Bratislava to Prague, made two comments in Theresienstadt that particularly touched me. First, he uncharacteristically rushed us through its museum saying: “You can go online to see the exhibits they have here. I want to spend our time walking around the town in which Prague’s Jews were imprisoned, so you can see and experience where they lived and were tormented and killed.” And when he took us near Theresienstadt’s crematorium and explained its operations, he said: “I won’t be going in with you today. I’ve done that numerous times already, and there are some things that you just can’t do that many times.”

12. We had no idea what it would be like to be on a tour with a group of 29 other people, spending almost the whole day and long into the evening with them. But although the group was amazingly diverse in age, geography, political opinions, religious practice, and even stamina, we bonded quite quickly and learned much from our each other even, or perhaps especially, from those we disagreed with. (Yes, I’m thinking of you, Ernie.)

13. In Vienna, we had the pleasure of having dinner with, and hearing from, Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister, Chief Rabbi (Rav Ha’ir) of Vienna (and a slew of other titles and positions). He spoke a perfect English, described his community in detail, and was seriously thoughtful about intercommunal relations. I chatted with him privately about the chief rabbi of Holland, an acquaintance of his who had been a classmate of mine. He took a selfie of us and sent it to me and my classmate.

So when my daughter Raquel told us she and her husband, Jason, were planning a last-minute trip to Vienna shortly after we returned, I sent them the selfie and his contact info and suggested that when in Vienna they call and invite him to dinner. I also mentioned, hoping it would be an inducement, that he was really modern and came to dinner wearing his long rabbinic coat and tall black hat while riding on a compact folding bike!

Well, you know about parental suggestions to adult children. So my good idea was met with “I’m sure we’d love meeting R. Hofmeister, but it’s going to be a short trip, and we probably won’t have time.” That is, until we received a WhatsApp from Raquel with a selfie of her, Jason, and R. Hofmeister and a message along the lines of (slightly paraphrased): “Look who we just ran into on the street. We saw a rabbi with a tall black hat on a bike, ran over, and flagged him down!” Raquel and Jason introduced themselves and — giddy with the coincidence of it all — explained why two people he had never met recognized him on the street. R. Hofmeister graciously invited them for Shabbat lunch in his home, and (no surprise to me, of course), they had a wonderful time with Rabbi and Rebbetzen Hofmeister, their children, and a table full of interesting and friendly guests.

14. Our 5-star Prague hotel was a bit too expensive for us once the tour ended, so we moved to a less expensive one that TIM had used previously. While its towels were not quite as plush and we didn’t have wireless chargers on our night tables, its staff was just as accommodating and gracious, its spa, where I spent a few hours on our last day, was the most beautiful pool I ever swam in (with a steam room and sauna to boot), and where Sharon was able to lounge on the full-length window seat in our upgraded river-view room watching boats wend their way up and down the Vltava River.

15. In Prague, we visited a lovely, small Franz Kafka bookstore looking for a Czech translation of “Kafka’s Last Trial” written by our friend Benjy Balint. No, we don’t know Czech, but we wanted a selfie of us holding a Czech translation to send to Benjy. No luck there or at the bookstore in Prague’s Kafka Museum (which had fascinating exhibits but, sadly, was curated quite poorly). C’mon, Prague booksellers — this book is really good. (I read it in English).

16. While we enjoyed Menashe’s walking tour around the Prague Palace area, we were frankly underwhelmed when we returned on our own and went inside some of the structures. Two exceptions were the St. Vitus Cathedral and its wonderful stained-glass windows and the Lobkowicz Palace Museum (h/t to my younger friend Chaim), which is the only private museum on the grounds and requires a separate entrance fee. It’s a true gem, with beautifully curated artifacts, an interesting audio tour, sweeping views of the city, and (we fell into this) a one-hour daily classical music concert in one of the palace’s ornate rooms.

17. You probably noticed I haven’t yet used the word vacation. That’s intentional since a vacation was exactly what I needed after these exhilarating, yet exhausting, two weeks.

18. And finally, my friend and reader, Leah, whom I’m sure I’ll meet one day in real life, wrote me before the trip: “I hope it’s not a ‘this is where there were Jews and then they were murdered’ trip.” There was, of course, some of that, Leah, because Europe is, sadly, where too many of our ancestors lived until they were murdered.

But there was so much more. In addition to visiting these fascinating cities and their treasures, we felt a real connection to the Jews who lived there centuries ago and were not murdered; Jews who lived long and productive lives, had families, studied Torah that we still learn today, worshipped God in ways that still feel familiar to us, and davened in shuls that we were privileged to daven in all these many years later.

And equally important, we also felt a connection to those Jews who are living there today, rebuilding at least some of these communities into places where, once again, Torah is studied and Judaism practiced, though now Jews can feel relatively safe and secure.

Torah is in motion in Europe, and we were privileged to see and feel some of it. Thank you TIM, Marc, Ilana (the logistical mastermind), and R. Jay for enabling us to have this incredible experience.