What are we doing here? Members of our group plan to take turns blogging, so I won't be sharing every detail of our trip every day. That being said, each day is so full of experiences, questions, and reflections that I want to share with you. So today, let's explore how a nice Jewish girl finds herself in Kenya in the first place. When I was asked to be involved with this trip, I couldn't say no. Let me admit up front that I love to travel, and I have always wanted to go to Africa. But it's not just the location of this trip which drew me [...]

We landed in Nairobi last night after over a day of travel. Our delegation has twelve members, all young Montreal Jewish leaders, plus a diplomat from the Israeli foreign service. Including me, there are five Temple members on our trip. Today was a remarkable start. We began the morning at the Gatoto school (www.gatoto.org - check it out!). The school has 1082 kids between the ages of 4 and 13... and a staff of just 40, with fewer than 30 teachers. Class sizes range between 50 and 70 students. The school started out in a one-room church in the adjacent slum (which we drove through to reach the [...]

  This picture shows me and two other Reform rabbis - Rabbi Erin Polansky and Rabbi Stephen Wise - going for a canoe this morning. Rabbi Polansky came up with the great idea of calling us a "boat din" - punning on "beit din," a three-person rabbinic court. I can't say we made any significant rulings, but it was a wonderful opportunity to explore a river and share ideas. In the spirit of sharing ideas, I want to use this blog to share the words of one of our campers, who also is a Temple member. Sophia Dolgin's family recently moved to Montreal and joined our community, and [...]

Rabbi Grushcow here, reporting on Day 7 of our trip. Appropriately enough, Day 7 was Shabbat. Jerusalem on Shabbat is like nowhere else in the world. The city, at least where we were, was quiet and calm. A small contingent got up for services, while others enjoyed Shaarei Sheina ("Gates of Sleep"). Services were at Shira Chadasha, a self-defined Orthodox Feminist congregation. There, men and women work together to create a community which is as egalitarian as possible within their understanding of Halacha (Jewish law). Women are called to, and chant from, the Torah, and lead parts of the service, and everything is lay led. I Left the [...]

Hard to believe; it's already Day 6, and today it's Nancy Maklan who is sharing our doings. Today was a day of immense contrasts. We started out early for an all-morning visit to Yad Vashem, Israel's extraordinary Holocaust History Museum. Yad Vasem is not an easy experience, but it began with inspiration as we walked through the quite lovely Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations. In this outdoor space each of the many trees and each of the names engraved into a long wall represents one of the non-Jewish heroes who saved the life of at least one Jew during the Holocaust without receiving any recompense in return. This lead us to the principal museum building, designed by our own Moshe Safdie, who had carefully created a [...]