Revisiting the past to protect our future

We knew that travelling to Kovno would be a surreal experience. After excitedly boarding the plane we landed in Lithuania two hours later and watched the snow lining the streets and covering the rooftops. We walked into the Israeli students' centre, where we were warmly welcomed and enjoyed our first evening with a great dinner followed by very effective speed-socialising.

Friday morning was action-packed. We met our Kovno-born tour guide Chaim, an expert of all things Jewish in Lithuania, and set off for Vilna. The first stop was the shtetl in Žiežmariai, where there had once been a Jewish community and where we walked into what remained of a wooden synagogue. It was an immediate connection to our past, and we experienced the gratification of returning to the place from where our ancestors once fled.

We visited the tomb of Rabbi Eliyahu, the Vilna Gaon, in the city's largest Jewish cemetery following a talk about his ethos given by one of his descendents. We toured Vilna, including the site of the ghetto and the building where the Vilna Shas, the most widely used version of the Babylonian Talmud, was originally printed.

In the evening, we came together for a beautiful, deeply felt Kabbalat Shabbat with the Israeli students. We enjoyed a splendid Shabbaton, with considerable talk, little sleep and great food.