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Learning Via Traveling

The Jewish Family Outreach Service has organized an excursion to Jewish places of Belarus for its most active volunteers. Most of them are clients of the JFOS.

The first destination was Volozhin town. Jews have been first mentioned in the history of Volozhin in the middle of the 14^th century. There still exists an old Yeshiva built in 1803 and named “Etz Haim” after its founder Haim Volozhin. The group was also able to visit Jewish Cemetery that “survived” the time.

The next stop was in Myr (Grodno region) where the volunteers could see Myr castle, the synagogue, the building of Yeshiva and rabbi's house, Jewish Cemetery and the place of Jewish massacre. The volunteers visited a grave of a rabbi who had been executed together with his wife by the fascist during WWII. Legends say that “executed” Torah was buried in the same grave. At the end of the excursion the group visited a museum that represents a private Jewish house of the 19^th — 20^th century with newspapers of that time, gramophones, and etc.

All the volunteers enjoyed the trip and were very grateful to Inna Pavlovna Gerasimova (the director of the Museum of Jewish History and Culture) who had been their guide during all the excursion. The employees of the JFOS stressed that the most important for them was to share some knowledge of Jewish history and traditions with the volunteers of their organization.

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