Interfaith Accompanying

Rarely would I express gratitude for weather that pushes me off my bicycle and on to the T: late, crowded trains; jostling passengers; travel times increased from 25 minutes to 55 or more.  But today, I'm grateful I took the T, because I found a tweet that intrigued me:

Rev. Laura Everett ‏@RevEverett

Crowd sourcing #Lent : what are you adding/giving up for 40 days? Thinking maybe for me- no glowing screens 2 hrs before bed?

I responded:

Jim Morgan ‏@RabbiJimM

@RevEverett Love it (although of course I don't do lent)--but I think I should do that all the time!! Not giving up tv but taking sleep!

And that got us going on a twitter-only conversation (my first, by the way) in which Rev. Laura suggested that we "swap" Lent practices, even that she would take on kashrut during the 40 days (which is actually more because Sundays, it turns out, don't count).  First order of business, Laura said, was for me to obtain and consume a pancake for Fat Tuesday, i.e. today.  (Kimchi pancakes and potato pancakes--i.e. latkes--wouldn't do, but a crepe would be fine.)

Although I was very excited about the pancake, I wasn't entirely comfortable with a "swap," since it wouldn't do for me to take on a Lenten practice (awkward that, for a rabbi). So I suggested instead that we accompany one another during our periods of spiritual preparation for major holidays.  I would accompany her during Lent as she prepared for Easter through repentance and fasting.  Laura would then accompany me (beginning before Easter arrives, since the Jewish and Christian calendars do not coincide this year) during S'firat ha-Omer, the Counting of the Omer, a time of self-examination and partial mourning practices when Jews prepare for Shavuot--the holiday that celebrates our receiving of Torah.

We haven't discussed it in detail, but over twitter we started a list: we will learn each other's texts, help each other maintain our practices (she's giving up screens after 9:30 pm--I notice I'm writing at 10:30, so I'm not much help so far!), and visit the other's congregation.  I suggested that she join our minyan (Worship and Study Minyan at Harvard Hillel) for Shavuot, where we could offer a joint reflection on our experience of accompanying one another.  In my ignorance, I'm not sure when would be most appropriate for me to join her congregation--I am eager to learn.

And yes--I still made a point of eating a pancake tonight--a lemon and sugar crepe from Paris Creperie in Coolidge Corner (so delicious--I was happy for the dispensation!), and I hope Laura will nosh on hamentashen for Purim (perhaps she'll even join us at Hillel for the Megillah!).

And all of this learning and reflection because of the snow storm that kept me off my bicycle!

Dedicating Ourselves to the Rebuilding of Jewish Life in Ukraine

This week, as my family has lit the Hanukkah candles, I have placed the Soviet Jewry Movement and Boston’s participation in the Dnepropetrovsk Kehillah Project alongside the rededication of the Temple as miracles to be thankful for.  This inclusion is especially appropriate because last week, we celebrated the 25^th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Soviet Jewry.

On December 6, 1987, over 250,000 people, representing 300 Jewish Federations, Community Councils, synagogues, youth groups, and other Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, rallied at the Washington Mall to urge President Reagan to prioritize human rights in his upcoming meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.  The March was the culmination of the struggle to free Soviet Jewry and it succeeded. Like present-day Maccabees, Jews came together against mighty odds and contributed to the ultimate fall of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Jewry Movement was about more than rescuing Jews from the USSR. It was about the freedom of Jews to celebrate their culture and religion. Over the following months and years, more than one million Jews emigrated from the USSR to Israel, Europe, and the United States. 

At least as many remained behind in the Former Soviet Union, a place where generations of Jews were forbidden to practice Judaism and where many hid or even forgot their Jewish identity.  With the fall of Communism, however, came the opportunity for renewal, even as Jewish life remains a challenge throughout the region.

Amid the heroic efforts of many individuals and agencies, we in Boston were fortunate to partner with Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, where a thriving Jewish community has risen out of the ashes of the Holocaust and Communism to become one of the most important communities in Europe.

Through JCRC's 20-year partnership in the Dnepropetrovsk Kehillah Project, which thrives thanks to generous funding from Combined Jewish Philanthropies, many Jews in Greater Boston have been privileged to play a small role in the miracle that has happened there: the rebuilding of Jewish life. In the process, our partners have inspired many of us to reengage our own Jewish identities.

Today in Dnepropetrovsk, 400 students attend the Jewish Day School, Dnepropetrovsk Hillel recruits the largest Birthright delegation from the FSU, and the largest Jewish communal center in Europe has just opened.

At the same time, the community continues to honor its obligation to the heroes and heroines of the past. With Boston’s support and expertise, they have opened the assisted living facility Beit Baruch and the new Jewish Medical Center to care for elderly Jews. Ida Tzypkina, one of the first residents of Beit Baruch (and known to many in Boston as “Yiddishe Mama”), now lives her life in dignity and safety, celebrating her Jewish heritage in ways she never thought possible during the war.

Challenges remain, and Jews in Dnepropetrovsk and beyond still struggle with antisemitism, poverty, alienation, and the lingering effects of the Soviet suppression of Jewish life.  But this year we recall our partners in Ukraine, along with the countless FSU Jews in other lands, who have accepted these struggles and have dedicated themselves to rekindling Jewish life. For this blessing, we thank the heroes of the Soviet Jewry Movement who helped bring this miracle to reality.  We will strive to follow their example.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukkah!

Dnepropetrovsk Trip Report – Executive Summary

October 17-23, 2012

JCRC’s very productive visit to Dnepropetrovsk coincided with the opening of the Menorah Center, the largest Jewish communal building in the world.  With this opening, Dnepropetrovsk confirms its status as a central Jewish address in Ukraine and all of Eastern Europe.  Thanks in part to the advocacy of the Boston Jewish Community, the building is wheelchair accessible and offers an unprecedented opportunity for the inclusion of people with disabilities and their families.  Most of the Jewish community’s offices will be located in the Menorah Center, which also houses a Museum of Ukrainian Jewry and the Holocaust (with the support of the JDC), a hotel, a youth hostel, a kosher supermarket and restaurants, a concert hall, and a large scale ballroom facility. 

Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki has made it clear that the relationship with Boston has helped make the Menorah Center become a reality.  To give a specific example, the community acted on advice from Boston partners to make the management of the Menorah Center independent of its other activities, which has both improved the building and freed the community to focus on its religious, education, and charitable priorities.  Unfortunately, they do not expect to receive any dividends from its operations for some years. 

Beth Moskowitz, the chair JCRC’s Committee for Post-Soviet Jewry, received the honor of cutting the ribbon for the new museum, and was the only woman to be named during the ceremony—another example of subtle Boston advocacy!

Invited to cut the ribbon at the entrance to the museum were Yuri Kiperman, one of the pioneers of the Jewish renaissance in Dnepropetrovsk, Beth Moskowitz, leader of the delegation from our sister Jewish Community of Greater Boston (USA) and the chair of their Committee for Post-Soviet Jewry, and Leon Sherman, a philanthropist who has donated a unique collection of artifacts to the museum (http://djc.com.ua/news/view/new/?id=8101).

Much of our visit was devoted to developing our medical partnerships with old and new partners.  The Corky Ribakoff Women’s Clinic will soon celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, and we hope to celebrate that milestone in the spring.  We were proud to learn that the training Dr. Valeria Sidelkovskaya received this past spring in Boston has paid off: her new skills with the Doppler feature of the Ultrasound Machine we donated in 2009 allowed her to make a life-saving diagnosis.  With our friend Yuri Bolbot, we made plans for a post-graduate course in pediatrics in the spring, including an effort, in cooperation with the Medical Academy and the Dnepropetrovsk Municipality, to spur a media campaign encouraging the immunization of infants and children.  Finally, one of our Boston doctors, a psychiatrist, lectured about postpartum depression at Hospital No. 3 to twenty doctors and nurses from throughout the city.

We also had meetings with several of our agency and Dnepropetrovsk partners, including one with Marsha Frankel of JF&CS, who works (among many other projects) with the Educational Resource Center for Special Needs, and Susan Wolf-Fordham, co-chair of the ERC Steering Committee, where we came together to sketch out a strategic direction as Beit Chana Teaching College (the host of the ERC) begins plans to move downtown next to the Menorah Center.  Our collective vision is to make the ERC a lab school for a new Department of Special Needs Education at Beit Chana.  Both Beit Chana and the community at large are committed to the inclusion of children with special needs throughout the community.  For instance, our Jewish Big Brother and Big Sister program for the first time includes “littles” with Downs Syndrome who have been welcomed with open arms by the other children.

Thanks to the generosity of an individual donor, the ERC has been able to add an accessibility ramp to the new van they received from Women’s Philanthropy during the Community Mission last May.

 Beth Moskowitz watches as Tamara Olschanitskaya and Svetlana Efimova ride the new accessibility ramp. 

   Larissa, Sonia, and Sonia, littles from Jewish Big Brother Big Sister of Dnepropetrovsk at the Day School.

Finally, Beth and Noga Nevel had a productive conversation with the leaders of Dnepropetrovsk’s Next Generation Movement, making plans for a trip to Boston in the spring of 2013 and ongoing social media communication.

The trip culminated in a beautiful Shabbat, with dinner at Rabbi Kaminezki’s and lunch with Zelig Brez and his family.  As usual, we came away with an infusion of yiddishe ruach in our souls and a sense of the blessings of this remarkable partnership.

Grand Opening of the Menorah Center in Dnepropetrovsk - October 16, 2012

Greetings from Dnepropetrovsk! I am here, along with a small delegation from Boston’s JCRC and CJP, to celebrate the opening of the community’s new Menorah Center, the largest Jewish communal building in the world, which contains a museum of Ukrainian Jewry and the Holocaust, a hotel, a hostel, a shopping mall (with a kosher supermarket), and office space for community organizations.

The opening was a formal, caviar-fueled event, with dignitaries from the Ukrainian and Israeli national governments, the ambassadors of the United States and Germany to Ukraine, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, and the mayor of Dnepropetrovsk all present and accounted for. Hundreds of people from Dnepropetrovsk and from around the world stood for an hour or more outside the impressive building as various people made speeches and children from the Jewish Day School sang and waved flowers. After Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amara affixed the mezuzah, the ribbon was cut and the whole crowd poured into the building, admiring the recreated facades of the city’s vanished synagogues and historical films from Jewish Dnepropetrovsk. The halls rang with the voices of excited people and, when it came time to dedicate the new Museum of Ukrainian Jewry and the Holocaust, the strains of “Ani Ma’amim”—“I believe.” Our own Beth Moskowitz, chair of JCRC’s Committee for Post-Soviet Jewry, helped cut the ribbon to the museum (as the only woman to be honored at the opening—a great source of pride for Boston).

Afterwards, we enjoyed what our beautiful invitations called “a lavish banquet,” listening to the Day School’s klezmer band and wonderful speeches. Most moving were the remarks of John Tefft, US Ambassador to Ukraine, who praised both the Jewish community for its strength and the Ukrainian government for its support of religious diversity, the bedrock of the United States’ vibrant democracy. In conclusion, the ambassador, a Catholic who hails from Kansas, recited the Shehechiyanu, in Hebrew, to an audience that included a strong contingent of black-hatted Chabad rabbis (and this one unorthodox rabbi from Boston!). Only in Ukraine. Only, in fact, in Dnepropetrovsk.

Dnepropetrovsk, which was a closed city until the fall of the Soviet Union, boasts one of the strongest and most unified Jewish communities in Europe. Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki, the Chabad shaliach (emissary) handpicked by the last Lubavitcher Rebbe more than twenty years ago, has built a thriving religious community and an impressive charitable enterprise while developing strong ties with the national and local governments. The synagogue here is crowded every Shabbat and the community’s educational programs attract a steady stream of newly engaged Jews. The city is located in the historical pale of settlement (where Jews were allowed to live in the time of the Tsars), so even as Jews emigrate, others reclaim their Jewish identity. For the Jewish community, as for the municipal and national government (and the Ukrainian majority, at least in Dnepropetrovsk), the Menorah Center underscores the admirable status of the Jewish community and its importance to the financial and cultural wellbeing of Ukraine. This in a city and a country in which both the communists and the Nazis believed they had succeeded in destroying Jewish life forever.

The Menorah Center is the brainchild of Gennadi Bogolyubov, an industrialist who is the president of the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community Fund. In his speech at the opening, Bogolyubov said that he wanted to make a gift to all Ukrainian Jews, preferably in Kiev, the capital. In Kiev, however, community leaders could not agree upon a vision. In Dnepropetrovsk, where Bogolyubov was born, there was immediate enthusiasm. Dnepropetrovsk, he realized, is the Jewish capital of Ukraine and this building, its seven branches evoking the seven flames of the menorah, proves it. One can only admire the chutzpah, the self-assurance, the confidence of a community that knows its strength and is not afraid to demonstrate it with a building that evokes the past and endows them for the future.

(You can see pictures of the opening—but text only in Russian—at http://www.djc.com.ua/news/view/new/?id=8094; you can also look at my twitter feed at https://twitter.com/RabbiJimM, where you’ll find pictures, notes in English, and a record of my ongoing visit here; for information on JCRC’s Dnepropetrovsk Kehillah Project, have a look at http://www.jcrcboston.org/focus/strength/dkp/.)

Overview – JCRC Working Trip to Dnepropetrovsk, November 2011

JCRC’s delegation to Dnepropetrovsk was a seasoned and well-connected group. This trip was Beth Moskowitz’s fifth as chair and my seventh as Director of International Partnerships; it was very smooth and remarkably productive. The highlight was a post-graduate course called “Issues in Geriatric Psychiatry,” but every meeting was useful and our time was extremely well spent. Yan Sidelkovsky was at the top of his game and the logistics were nearly flawless—the only issue was that Yan’s work with the Psychiatric Course made it impossible for him to be with us on our program visits. In most cases his absence was not a problem, but at the Day School it was a real loss given the challenges facing Havayah in this year of transition. We will need to think even more carefully about how to schedule our meetings during the medical courses to make sure we have the necessary people around each table. In sum, I applaud Yan and Noga Nevel’s careful and thorough preparation of the schedule and the materials necessary to make the trip maximally fruitful.

The psychiatrists formed a fabulous team, collegial and mutually supportive. Their respect for one another and for the professionals in Dnepropetrovsk, as exemplified by the course head, Dr. Eran Metzger, was palpable and set a very positive tone for the entire visit. The Dnepropetrovsk psychiatrists and family doctors found the course extremely helpful and our delegation made a great connection with the head of the city’s geriatric psychiatry unit. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that one of the other Boston doctors, Michele Baker, is also my wife; the other, Tanya Bolbot Taranovsky, also has a family tie to Dnepropetrovsk, as she is the daughter of Dr. Yuri Bolbot, vice-rector of the Dnepropetrovsk State Medical Academy and a long-time partner of JCRC’s Medical Services Committee. In addition, Marsha Frankel, a social worker with JF&CS, was making her third trip to Dnepropetrovsk and continued her remarkable work with Beit Baruch. The trip was also Eran’s second. These deep connections (to which I can add that Eran was among Michele’s mentors in residency) made the trip especially heimish and fun. It’s a truism that relationships based on continuity and trust make fertile soil for productive work and change, but I can’t stress sufficiently the importance of our repeated visits to Dnepropetrovsk. We will need to continue our work to bring new people to Dnepropetrovsk and to encourage, as much as possible given constraints of time and money, repeat visits and, if the economic situation improves, visits to Boston from Dnepropetrovsk.

I should also mention that the economic and political atmosphere in Ukraine is ominous. The regime of Viktor Yanukovich, who is more aligned with Russia than Ukraine’s previous leaders, Viktor Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshchenko, has begun to show signs of political repression, assigning Soviet style functionaries in regional governments, jailing political opponents (most notably Tymoshchenko herself), and making mysterious and apparently unmotivated statements about plots for armed insurrection. People complain that corruption, which had begun to level off, is again on the rise, and that young people aspire not to careers in business but to government service, since that’s where the real money is! (Not that we met any young people who expressed such an aspiration!) There is a persistent rumor, at least in Dnepropetrovsk—I saw nothing in the newspapers I read, but my reading was very limited—that the government is plotting to devalue the grivna. Such a move would further erode the purchasing power of pensioners and, we heard from Natasha Riyer, who runs our Microenterprise program in Dnepr, the rumor itself has spooked potential borrowers: some 50% of our loan fund is currently unused. We will continue to monitor the situation in Ukraine, especially since political oppression and economic adversity can coincide with a resurgence of antisemitism. As in previous, we noticed no overt antisemitism in Dnepropetrovsk and, what is more, we heard encouraging news about the place of Jews in Ukraine in general from Igor Shupak of the T’kuma Holocaust Research Institute (more about that in another post). However, we will remain vigilant.

JCRC Celebrates 85 years of Hospital #9

On Friday, November 11, Beth Moskowitz and I delivered this speech at the 85th Anniversary of the Founding of State Hospital # 9, one of the main partners in our medical services project in Dnepropetrovsk. The first half I delivered in Russian; the second half Beth read in English with Russian translation. After we spoke, Yan Sidelkovsky (to the left) recited a poem based on the number 85. (The woman to Beth's right is Irina, our translator.) It was great fun to join in this celebration—we immediately preceded the dance troupe!

(Jim) More than ten years ago, with funding from Combined Jewish Philanthropies and private donors, Boston and Dnepropetrovsk doctors collaborated on ambulatory public health facilities for women and children. Under the auspices of the Boston and Dnepropetrovsk Jewish communities and with the leadership of Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki and Nancy Kaufman of the JCRC, we established the Corky Ribakoff Women’s Clinic here at Hospital #9 and the pediatric clinic at Hospital #6. Boston provided medical equipment and supplies, including new ultrasound machines for these clinics, purchased in 2009. More importantly, we arranged for Boston doctors, including David Link, Benjamin Sachs, Lew Lipsitz, and Eran Metzger, to come to Dnepropetrovsk to work with Ukrainian colleagues, including the chief of Hospital #9 Elena Finkova, Yuri Bolbot, and Georgii Dzyak, Rector of the Dnepropetrovsk State Medical Academy. In addition, we brought Dnepropetrovsk physicians to Boston to train at Harvard hospitals. The response from our Dnepro partners has been overwhelming—you have taken every investment we’ve provided and multiplied it many many times. Together, we have transformed healthcare for both doctors and their patients in women’s and pediatric health.

Today, on the 85th anniversary of this great hospital, we reaffirm our commitment to healthcare in Dnepropetrovsk for Jews and non-Jews alike. We are committed to doing our small part to make this city a model for health care reform throughout Ukraine. To this end, we are bringing two of your doctors, Ludmilla Garish and Valeria Sidelkovskaya, back to Boston for additional training in ob/gyn and radiology. This week, we have brought three Harvard psychiatrists to Beit Baruch, the Jewish community’s assisted living facility for the elderly, to collaborate with Ukrainian colleagues on an intensive course in geriatric psychiatry. We will continue to share expertise, to provide training, and to build relationships in these and other specialties.

(Beth) As we celebrate 85 years of Hospital #9 and 20 years of Ukrainian independence, we are optimistic that the new model of health care funding here in Ukraine will further improve the quality and access to healthcare for all your citizens. You, the government and people of Ukraine, are taking responsibility for supporting this great hospital with the resources necessary for a world-class healthcare system. We are so proud of our partnership with Hospital #9, which has become a leader in preventive care, diagnosis, and treatment in women’s health. After 15 years of partnership, we look forward to many more years of transformational work. As our sages said, if you save one person’s life, you save an entire world—let’s continue saving lives

Haircuts and Poverty

Michele (my wife, here in Dnepropetrovsk for the first time as part of our delegation of psychiatrists) wanted a manicure and a haircut, so we arranged with Natasha Riyer, the director of our Microenterprise Loan Program for women (overseen by JVS in collaboration with MATI-Haifa), to point us in the right direction. We ended up at a small salon on Karl Marx Prospekt, “Very Well Salon.” Asya did a beautiful French manicure for Michele and Afina gave me a haircut (Michele went to another salon, this one a microloan recipient, for her cut--“she did a great job with my hair—I’d go back to her if I could”). Afina’s parents moved from Georgia when she was very young, but the family’s heritage is Greek (thus her name). Like many Ukrainians, she’s been abroad, including to Greece, but prefers to live in her native city.

This is my seventh time in Dnepropetrovsk, but the first time I’ve had a haircut. The experience pointed to some of the economic realities in Ukraine: the haircut cost me 50 grivna, about $6.25 (including two trips to the hair washing sink and, somewhat pathetically, a blow dry of my peach fuzz), but inflation on consumer goods, including staple food items, continues to rise. After my haircut, I visited a supermarket to buy some snacks, and spent a similar 50 grivnas on 2 chocolate bars and some nuts (almonds are nearly $30 a kilo). This mismatch between wages and prices affects the whole country, especially the elderly, who unlike Afina, cannot stay on their feet from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. cutting hair.

Before our haircuts, we visited Oksana, a woman—born in 1947, so she’s younger than my parents, but seems much, much older—who lives with her son, Sasha, in a half a house in the outskirts of the city. She welcomed us into her kitchen, hoping we could speak Yiddish with her. She told us that the other rooms in her apartment were under construction, so we couldn’t go there. Yan (our Dnepro staff person) later told us that in fact those rooms are so full of stuff that it’s almost impossible to find a place to stand—she was embarrassed for us to see them. When we asked her about herself, she said that she loves cooking Jewish food and is essentially confined to the house. She is obese and suffers significant pain in her feet. She has sought medical treatment, but rejected the recommendation to amputate her feet—not that she could have afforded such a major surgery. She started crying when she told us about her family, most of whom perished in the Holocaust—her father managed to get out of the city before the Germans came, but his parents and siblings were all killed. She then related Sasha’s story: when he was in school (at a regular government school, she said, because the Jewish school hadn’t opened yet), he was walking home when some bigger boys beat him up, leaving him with severe head trauma and headaches that persist to this day. The hint that antisemitism motivated the attack was hard to miss. He cannot work and spends most of his time with his dog.

Oksana’s economic situation is dire: every month she receives a pension of 800 grivnas ($100), half of which immediately goes to pay for utilities. That leaves 50 dollars a month for medicine, food, and other supplies. (When Michele went to use the bathroom, there were only a few scraps of paper there and she felt guilty using even one of them.) Therefore, the assistance Oksana receives from the community is invaluable. This assistance includes food packages at Jewish holidays and occasional visits from foreign visitors, who bring a small stipend to supplement her income. It’s not clear how she can survive, especially supporting her son (who also receives a pension, even smaller than hers), but as with so many Ukrainians, she finds a way not only to survive, but to continue to live independently.

The juxtaposition of the young women working long hours in the beauty salon (who mostly continue to live with their parents) and this poor elderly woman with a disabled son captures so much of the reality here—the challenges that this resourceful population faces every day.

Greetings from Dnepropetrovsk -- It's Cold!

I'm writing from Dnepropetrovsk, where Beth Moskowitz (chair of our Committee for Post-Soviet Jewry) and I are having an amazing trip. It's truly amazing how much work is going on here in the context of our Dnepropetrovsk Kehillah Project, not to mention how much more is happening outside that context. We are endlessly impressed with our partners here, so I hope to post notes from the trip as I accumulate them. The only problem is that we keep on having incredible meetings, so I can't keep up with everything! It's a nice problem to have!

The main goal of this trip is the success of our intensive post-graduate course in psychiatry, titled "Issues in Geriatric Psychiatry," which is taking place at Beit Baruch, the community's assisted living facility. Led by Dr. Eran Metzger, chief of psychiatry at Hebrew Rehabilitation Center of Boston, the faculty also includes Dr. Tanya Bolbot Tarnavsky, who is a native of Dnepropetrovsk and a psychiatrist south of Boston, and Dr. Michele Baker, a psychiatrist in private practice. Reviews from today (Sunday, the first day of the conference) have been positive, but I'll offer you updates. In preparation for the conference, the psychiatrists learned about our ongoing medical partnerships with hospitals in Dnepropetrovsk as well as a few of our other projects. They then spent a day with local psychiatrists, learning about the state of psychiatric treatment in Dnepropetrovsk.

The other member of our delegation is Marsha Frankel, a social worker for Jewish Family and Children's Services, who is making her third trip to Dnperopetrovsk and has been instrumental in making mental health a priority for this community and for the DKP. Here, she works primarily at Beit Baruch on issues relating to staff burnout, but has been extremely helpful on several of our other projects.

I will be posting as often as I can over the course of our trip--feel free to follow me on twitter @RabbiJimM--there you will find links to photos from our trip.