July 4th in Vienna by Meg Frank

Today we spent the day touring the Leopoldstadt, the Jewish museum and the Jewish cemetery. We learned the history of the Jews in Vienna. My key takeaway is that  the treatment of Jews was very cyclical with ongoing acceptance and expulsion. There were three communities of Jews in Vienna starting in the Middle Ages. All of this could be learned from history books, but going with CWB we learned this through an immersion into the Jewish neighborhood and hearing the perspective from our wonderful tour guides who have a stake in the current Jewish community. We saw the remaining wing of what was the largest synagogue of the world and artifacts from synagogues from all over the Austro-Hungarian empire. Wherever we go we meet friends of Tsipy who are passionate, knowledgeable and want to help us become better teachers. I am able now to take back my experiences to my students and share my passion as well.