day One

. DAY 1

21 of the 26 participants gathered at Rochester International Airport to begin our journey. Our first flight was uneventful to Philadelphia. We took a shuttle bus to the main terminal to wait for our flight to Frankfort. Traveling to Frankfort was also easy but there was a bit of a challenge when we needed to connect to Prague at the Frankfort airport. We were unaware that upon landing in Europe we were supposed to go through passport control and then to our terminal for our flight to Prague, which is considered domestic. There was also no gate listed until less than an hour before departure. Albeit the tendency to worry about thee details in a strange airport, the flight to Prague was short and had more leg room than the long international flight (which featured several broken monitors, seats and slo-o-ow service). Lo and behold everyone’s luggage arrived and we met our tour coordinator Janusz who will be with us throughout our stay. The bus ride was about 30 minutes and we all checked in to a very lovely Hotel President right on the banks of the Vlata River.

At 3:00 p.m. most of us met in the lobby to ostensibly take a prescribed walking tour to such sites as the Powder Tower (original gate to the walled city and subsequent gunpowder storehouse) and House at the Black Mother of God (example of cubist architecture) . After changing money to Czech Kronas (17 Kronas to the dollar), we walked through the charming streets of the old part of the city, with long and short stops for shopping, drinking world famous Czech beer, and watching those famous 12 Apostles make a circle above the astronomical clock in he old town square. Each building presents another architectural delight with its own statuary, etchings, friezes, and shape – either we are in a land of make believe and we are time travelling to the land of kinds, queens, and knaves.

The weather is cool and gray, but no rain – fitting for the surroundings. The group is gay and funny and interested in all things – we are completely balanced.

Dinner at the hotel at 7:30 introduced by Sylvie Wittmann, a leader of the Reform Jewish community in Prague. In a short time, Sylvie brilliantly enlightened us on the history of the progressive Jewish community in Prague. Contrary to our assumptions, the progressive community is older than the orthodox and conservative community here. Moreover, Sylvie emphatically stated that here intermarriage has been a blessing. This is so because during WWII the children of intermarrieds were protected from Hitler until 1944, while those without a non-Jewish parent were victimized as early as 1941. In the time before the fall of Communism, no one was really differentiated here in their Jewishness – it was the fall that resulted in differentiating the Jews in Prague. From then on, Jews who did not want to answer to Chief Orthodox Rabbinate regarding their ancestry opted to be marginal and secular and not a “member of the community.” And, then there was Sylvie who sought a religious Jewish identity not governed by the orthodox. I n 1990 she founded Bet Simcha Reform Jewish community with 11 members – having grown to 200 today. Sylvie explained that the survival of the ½ dozen or so Jewish congregations in Prague are mostly due not to individual membership dues, but rather the real estate holdings of each congregation and their rental value. Sylvie gave us lots to chew on.

Dinner: cream of asparagus soup, salmon and boiled potatoes on a yellow sauce (tasty but a very yellow-colored dish), and “to die for” dense chocolate cake for dessert. Sated and ready to say Laila Tov.