A young man from Amsterdam. He is living on a kibbutz and studying Hebrew. He found out that he is Jewish only 8 months ago when his grandmother died. In her will, she asked that Kaddish be said for her. Raised as an athiest, the young man and his mother did not know what Kaddish was. Research led them to the truth that they are Jews and he is here to learn what that means.
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A young married couple and parents of two. She grew up religious and he grew up secular, but only one street away from her. They didn’t meet until he became religious and started to come to her shul. Her father brought him to Shabbat dinner and they finally met. Now they have moved from their home town to Tsfat, but stopped in Bolivia first to be shliachs for the Breslov community. They open their house to traveling strangers and welcome them with joyful Shabbat meals.
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After a class on the origins of the Kabbalat Shabbat service, we heard singing and went to the auditorium of the Ascent house. Once upstairs we found dancing soldiers. A female soldier came up to us, “They will not let me dance with them, please dance with me.” And we danced and sang together across the room from male soldiers. It was one of the few times they were able to set down their guns during the restful weekend.
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