so, germany....
this is such an interesting trip, sorry for the lack of posting... weve been moving at a very teenage israel trip no free time kind of pace. were in berlin, our final leg of the trip. A couple of my friends and i spent some time today trying to figure out the messages they want us to take from this trip. what i am coming away with is that they really want us to have an accurate picture of what modern, post war, post gdr germany looks like, as well as what the current jewish community in germany looks like (85 percent russian immigrant), and look at some of the history both jewish and non of the country... if that is what they want, then they are suceeding. we were also discussing the hopes that we understand germans as people and not germany as a generalized country.

anyway, ideological issues aside, things weve done

bus tours of frankfurt and berlin
an extended guided tour of buchenwald concentration camp, really moving, amazing tour guide

i think one of the most striking things about this trip is that none, thats right none of our guides, hosts, etc has been jewish, but they are all working with jews or jewish history...

oooh friday night we went to services with a couple of jewish college students in berlin, they were really fantastic, just incredibly interesting and involved people.

today we met with a guy named jeffery peck who just wrote a book about the new jews in germany, which was a great discussion of the way that jews, foreiners, and germans all interact here.

today we had some free time and went to the largest remaining section of the wall, a large piece of it has artwork, it has been restored once in 2000, but there is still graffitti all over it, interesting to feel like people are protesting the memorial of such a big part of berlins historý.

ok im gonna wrap up to make sure this posts, but looking forward to the next few days... tomorrow we visit with members of all five of germanys political parties at the reichstag.

much love, see you soon!