On Sunday and Monday of this week, hundreds of Jews departed from JFK airport in New York as they headed to Poland to take part in the “March of the Living” in Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
The March of the Living is an annual educational program which brings students from around the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom HaShoah), thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex built during World War II.
Participants of the program, many of them children of Holocaust survivors or survivors themselves, flew on El AL charter flights, with many of them planning to travel to Israel next week to celebrate Israel’s independence day.
Chabad at the Airport, directed by Rabbi Yossi Rapp, greeted the group and offered many of them the opportunity to put on Tefillin.
One man, a Holocaust survivor, whose son had put on Tefillin on the way to the first flight, proudly put on Tefillin as well.
A group of students who are taking part are being led by a delegation of Shluchim, which includes Rabbi Mendel Duchman of Los Angeles, Rabbi Yossi Lew of Peachtree City, GA, Rabbi Pinny Gniwisch of Montreal, Rabbi Pinny Andrusier of Cooper City, FL, and Rabbi Moshe Rappaport of Mequon, WI.
