Warsaw, Brisk and Vilna - Part One

For those who didn't know, I participated last week in the Menachem Begin Heritage Center's Employees Seminar: "In the Footsteps of Menachem Begin".

We visited and learned about the town in which he was born (Brisk), where he attended university and became a leader in the Betar youth movement (Warsaw) and to where he fled ahead of the Nazis and where he was arrested and sentenced to the gulag (Vilna).  Of course, this included general information about the places and their Jewish and non-Jewish history.

A week earlier, we had a seminar with lectures:

We flew out overnight to Warsaw, landing on Friday morning.  We went straight to the Museum.of the History of Poland's Jews 

where we were received by the Director, Dariusz Stola

a museum with odd spellings

and filled with wonderful exhibits

including Begin

Uri Tzvi Greenberg

Jabotinsky

Betar

and even Abba Achimeir

and even this

We then had a packed breakfast 

A talk on the Rappaport relief:

and then along Zamenhof Street to the Heroes Walkway including Mila 18

and Pawel Frankel's marker there

and the Umschlagplatz 

and the markings of the Ghetto wall

and then off the the Jewish Cemetery

where I said the Kaddish

at the grave of Stefan Wladislav

and to the Pawel Frankel memorial plaque at Muranowska Square at Grzybowska St.:

and finally, to the site where Menachem Begin debated [see p. 226ff]  Ze'ev Jabotinsky during the Third Betar Convention in September 1938, the former Jewish students dormitory across in Praga at corner of Stefana Okzei and Józefa Sierakowskiego Streets :

and off the Westin Hotel for the Shabbat and our first meal at Pinchasi's Kosher Delight.

Kabbalat Shabbat and Arvit were recited at the restaurant.  Shabbat came in 8-ish.

My roommate, Yechiel Fishson, for Netziv Betar Ukraine:

Part Two (to be uploaded soon): Nozyk Synagogue, 

Warsaw University Law Faculty and the Old City.

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