We are currently sitting in the Munich Airport, waiting for our connecting flight back to the States. We have had Shabbat to reflect on our time here in Budapest and we all feel as if we have gained so much. While our original goal in coming here seemed unclear to many of us, we all feel as if we have walked away enriched by our experience. It is rare to visit an international city and spend so much time with the locals. We all feel so fortunate to have made the connections we made at the Lauder school. Everywhere we went, we had the opportunity to hear personal stories and be exposed to differing points about Hungarian, American and Jewish life. While many of the stories reinforced the narrative of the “sad, Hungarian, Jew” (as one of the Moshie House residents stated), it made us all realize that the community is just beginning to come to terms with its history and it is a slow process.
Friday we taught our last classes and said goodbye to our partner teachers. I had the fortunate experience of teaching a 9th grade ELITE class and shared the lesson about Holidays with them. They were engaged and seemed to enjoy the lesson. My last class was a group of 7th grade students. While I have thoroughly enjoyed all the students I have met at Lauder, I have to say the 7th grade greeted me with the most amount of excitement. They were so excited to practice their english and share all the details about their school. I felt like I finally understood a little more about the way the school works. The students apply in 1st (or 3rd?) grade for the English track program. About 15-20 students are chosen for the track based on their English ability at that time (so kids with native english speaking parents have the advantage). By the time these students are in 7th grade they are reading US grade level english books – with the parents of some of the students being their teachers. When they reach 9th grade every student takes the ELITE classes. There are 15 sessions that are English based and then they have other classes. Then they repeat the 9th grade year with the gov’t required classes. In 9th grade, students are required to choose another language (Hebrew, Spanish or German). Most students choose spanish. The students start school at the age of 7, so by the time they are Seniors and have done 9th grade twice, they are 20 years old!!!! No wonder they all seemed so mature.
The last day at Lauder was filled with enriching experiences. We had the opportunity to sit with the Headmaster for an hour to discuss the mission of the school and learn more about the programs they run. We met with the Israeli Ambassador and had the opportunity to ask questions. The Ambassador did not shy away from sharing his opinion – about US politics as well as his feeling about the politically appointed US Ambassador Bell.
We also got to enjoy the art exhibit Ben and the Lauder students had been working on all week. He was very proud of the work they had accomplished in such a short amount of time and for the rest of us it was nice to see the students that we had all briefly met express themselves in such a personal way.
After saying goodbye to our colleagues we were ready to begin the Shabbat. For some that meant going back to the hotel, for others that meant some much deserved free time to explore the city. Tori and I opted to spend our afternoon at the local Bath – Szechenyi Baths. The baths are hundreds of years old and a popular local and tourist attraction. There are about 20 baths to enjoy – including one very large bath outside. These hot tub like baths are based on the original thermal baths from the area. The building is grand and it took over two hours just to explore the building and each bath. It was very therapeutic both mentally and physically. I couldn’t help but look at the huge structure and wonder what it must have looked like over the years. Yet another example of the rich history of Budapest.
Saturday was a continuation of our time to relax. I took the opportunity to go for a run from Pest over the bridge to Buda. It was very clear very quickly that people do not run in the streets of Budapest. Many people were looking around me like something was wrong and I was running from something. But crossing the bridge was beautiful.
Saturday for lunch, Ben and I were invited over to Ildi’s house with Cili. It was a great opportunity to have lunch at Ildi’s house and have a relaxed conversation about life in Budapest. Ildi is an artist and has a beautiful apartment, covered with tapestries, instruments and artwork. Learning about the school programs they go to and the opportunities given to the teachers was enlightening. They use the city and surrounding countries to enhance their classroom learning. We talked in more detail about what being Jewish means to the students. Many of the students consider themselves atheists, so they do not identify as being Jewish in religious terms, but more in cultural terms. Most of the students celebrate Christmas which is seen as more of a national holiday than a religious holiday. The students do not mind exploring their Jewish identity, but they do not want to connect thier identiies only to the horrors of thier history and have it define them in that way. They struggle the most with Holocaust memorial day in their school. Most of the students are strongly connected to the Holocaust having a family member (likely a grandparent or great-grandparent) who was in Budapest at the time of the Holocaust.
Our last afternoon in Budapest was spent on a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter. Our guide had numerous great stories to share with us and was quite blunt with her portrayal of many historical events. We walked along the streets near our hotel and learned about the righteous gentiles in the city who helped jewish members of the community escape the Holocaust. We walked past a large orthodox synagogue that is no longer in use. We saw a statue of Ronald Reagan who was being honored for his role in ending the Cold War. We walked past the American Embassy which is heavily guarded – a new security measure put in place after WWII. The only other embassy so heavily protected is the Israeli embassy.
On our tour we stopped at a Holocaust Memorial that has drawn much controversy. The Memorial holds the German population responsible for the Holocaust and does not hold the Hungarian population responsible at all for the devastation of the Holocaust. The current government is responsible for this memorial and it is again a reminder of the nationalization of the history that is occurring in Hungary today.
We ended our tour by the Danube, by the Shoe Memorial. During the Holocaust, the Nazis rounded up the Jewish citizens of Budapest and lined them up by the Danube and shot them. The previous government set up a memorial to remember the victims of the Holocaust by placing bronze shoes by the edge of the river. It was a very emotional moment as we walked amongst the shoes and imagined the chaos and emotion of the individuals on the bank of the river. We were able to conduct our Havdalah service at the memorial, once again showing the contrast between what was and what is. People being persecuted for being Jewish with those, both Jews and non-Jews proudly participating in Jewish ceremony.
In the end, there was an immense feeling of gratitude and appreciation for the experiences we had here in Budapest. Spending time with Cili and the students was one of the most enriching experiences. The reality is that people are people, teenagers are teenagers. I had one students approach me to tell me he was asked to live in LA for a year, and he was nervous about it. When I asked him why, he said he had never gone to school with anyone of a different race than himself. He didn’t know what to say or do. My advice to him was to connect in the ways students here connect – music, social media – that in the end, teenagers are teenagers. Girls were crying in the bathrooms, babies were crying on the streets. We all feel the same emotions.
But one thing that we as Americans do not face is the burden of our history. While we have parts of our history that we are not proud of and need to account for, and are still dealing with today, we are not actively trying to rewrite that history. We do not have to look at another group of people simultaneously as our liberators and our oppressors, as the Hungarians do with the Russians. We are fairly far removed personally from the Holocaust. We can openly practice our religion and state our beliefs without looking over our shoulder. So while many of us are rightly concerned about the protection of our civil rights and liberties under a new government, I think or at least I hope, that we can also all recongize that we have traditons and rules of law that have evolved to protect us and allow us to express ourselves in a way that we feel comfortable.
I look forward to our continued relationship with the Lauder School and having Cili visit us at the Day School with her students.
