Jewish Awareness Week

This semester all of the freshman and new students were required to participate in Jewish Awareness Week. Our week started out with a special Bible class where Dr. Swanson talked to us about the Jewish culture and what they believe differently. Then we watched a documentary that showed some of their traditions…such as a circumcision. On Friday night we went to a Jewish Temple in Pomona and went to a service to welcome the Shabbat (which means Sabbath in Hebrew) In the service all the songs that they sang were in Hebrew. It was very interesting to learn how they worship and their different customs. When the service was over we went to a room…sort of like a fellowship hall and there was wine/juice and bread. The weird thing is…the Jews don’t believe in Jesus so the bread and wine was not communion because they don’t celebrate that. All of the people very welcoming and willing to talk to us about their religion/lifestyle.

On Monday we left school at about 8am and headed to LA for another fun filled “Jew Day.” First, we went Wilshire Blvd. Temple. This is the oldest Jewish congregation in the LA area. The congregation was formed in 1862. This synagogue was the first in LA. The temple was gorgeous! The pictures below don’t even show half of the beauty of the temple.

After leaving the Temple we headed to a Jewish Deli called Factor’s Famous Deli. The food was very good. They waitresses brought us some authentic Jewish delicacies…potato pancakes with apple sauce and sour cream on top, pickled herring, some sort of liver, and kosher pickles. I tried the potato pancakes and the kosher pickles. Both were very tasty. For my meal I had a bacon cheeseburger with kosher beef. It didn’t really taste any different than any other burger I have had. The deli that we went to was pretty famous. JFK used to go there and other various stars drop by.

Our last stop was the Museum of Tolerance. The museum wasn’t solely about Jews, but about general tolerance in our world today. We got to see some recent happenings as well as things from the past. The end of the museum was all about the Holocaust. Each of us was given a card with a Jewish child that lived during this time period. Throughout the museum we learned about our child and what kind of life they were forced to live during the Holocaust. Although I know a lot about the Holocaust, I learned so much more from this museum. They had stories that I had never heard of and talked a lot about what could have been different if more people would have spoken out. Towards the end we found out if our child lived or died. At the very end, our tour guide asked us who was at fault for the Holocaust. Many people thought instantly of Hitler. The answer was ordinary people. She explained to us that if more people like us would have stood up to Hitler and fought against all that was happening that it may have turned out differently. Although we cannot change the past, we can change the future.

The very last part of our week ended with a movie. It was very hard to understand, but still pretty interesting. It was all in Hebrew, but had English subtitles. The main purpose of the movie was to help us see how the Jews in Israel live.

This 4W was extremely interesting and very moving. I learned so much about the Jewish culture and how to be a better citizen. I can’t wait to go on my other two later on this semester.