Sunday, 8/26/12 Warsaw

Awoke this morning to rain "bucketing" down, as they say in England. Really didn't want to walk around, but you're only here once, so Eric and I took a cab to "Old Town." This historic section of Warsaw was totally destroyed in WW II and was rebuilt as close to the original historic structures as was possible by using old paintings and photographs. The rebuilding started in the 1950's and continued into the 1970's. Even in the rain, the place had lots of strollers - this seems to be a national pastime here. To me it was a bit too Disney-like. If Walt Disney had wanted to build a "Poland Land" this is what it would look like. In the first picture you can see a piece of the original city wall that remained.








As we made our way out of Old Town, we came across our first trace of Jewish Warsaw.


Our Melton Seminar began this afternoon. So wonderful to see Haim, our leader, teacher, guide extraordinaire and to see old Melton friends and make new ones. The group is too large (30 people), but each person on it wants to be there. Haim explained that they overbooked the seminar, since some people always drop out, but no one had dropped out this time. That shows the dedication of the group.

Basha is our local Poland guide and she is doing an excellent job so far.


We began with some readings and exercises to meet new people and then took off for a short tour by bus. We attended part of the "Chopin in the Park" concert (fortunately by then the weather had cleared, but the humidity was still quite high).


People were jammed in to hear the fabulous pianist


and the park setting (home of the Royal Museum) was quite beautiful.





After some more driving/touring around to get a sense of the city, we went to Old Town and learned more about Jewish life in Warsaw.



Then our final stop was the Nozyk Synagogue where part of the Jewish Music Festival was taking place. We could only hear the chazzan chorus (from Modi'in, Israel) from the outside, but all the windows of the restored synagogue were open and the voices soared. What was most interesting was the number of people surrounding the synagogue who did not have seats to the sold out concert, but who sat on walls or stood quietly by and listened intently to the music. I hate to end with the line "and they didn't even look Jewish," but truly they didn't! We will be able to talk about this more tomorrow with Haim and Basha when we return for a tour of the synagogue.


The evening ended with a late dinner at a Kosher restaurant across the street from the Orthodox Nozyk Synagogue. We walked back to the hotel and I think it's time for me to crash!!!! Early start tomorrow - Haim wants us on the bus by 8:00 AM.
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