Submitted by DeeDee Benel, Jul 17, 2007 23:02

This past Shavuot, a group of 13 Ramaz Upper School students travelled to Belarus and ,of course , we stopped at the Yeshiva in Velozhin. We stared in silence, gawking at the sight of a vacant and crumbly-looking building. We had shared with our students what brilliant Jewish minds had once filled this Yeshivah-- their scholarship, committment to text and study and of course, their delight in intellectual discourse. Your beautifully written essay was truly an emotional reading for me. Our students then proceeded to the Jewish cemetery, a bit up the road from the Yeshivah, where there too they saw demolished graves sites, the areas around were filled with litter and overgrown weeds. We cleaned for several hours and when our students uncovered a grave and cleared away the rubble enough to read the name of a buried soul, they felt somewhat renewed. I plan to forward your article to my special 13 travellers and to their parents who will appreciate it in a very personal way. Thank you!

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