Discover Jewish Poland with Us
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Take your students on an unforgettable journey
Please join us on a life-changing educational immersion experience in Jewish Poland.
The Taube Center is a proud partner with Hillel International’s Alternative Break program!
We have organized interactive journeys through Jewish Poland, past and present, for student groups since 2013, through our Taube Jewish Heritage Tour program.
Each tour is created in cooperation with the Hillel professional to develop an engaging and meaningful educational experience that stays with the participants long after they return to campus. They often return empowered with renewed interest in Jewish life, taking on active roles in the student community.
Our unique educational approach introduces the students to the 1,000 years of Polish life through today’s growing Jewish communities as we explore the past, memorialize the loss, and celebrate the present.
Each program, a seminar on wheels, is developed with the Hillel professional to ensure that the itinerary meets the specific expectations and news of the students. A sample itinerary includes visits:
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Okopowa, one of the oldest and largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe
Traces the former Warsaw Ghetto
Krakow’s Medieval Old Town
Kazimierz, Krakow’s Jewish district including the Remuh Synagogue Cemetery
An extended visit through the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
Wieliczka Salt Mine
SAMPLE ITINERARY
ARRIVALS: KRAKOW
Met by Taube Center staff at the airport
Light lunch provided
Transfer to the hotel
Check-in, time to refresh
Welcome session and orientation at the hotel
Tram to the Old Town
Guided walking tour around the Old Town
Krakow Old Town contains some of the most breathtaking medieval architectural gems in all of Europe. A prime example of that is The Wawel Royal Castle, which was the political and cultural heart of Poland until the end of the 16th century. Another noteworthy site is Collegium Maius, established in 1364 as part of The Jagiellonian University; one of the oldest academic institutions in the world. We also have to mention the Main Market Square, a staple of Krakow’s architecture and one of the largest medieval town squares in Europe, with a beautiful Cloth Hall standing in its center.
Welcome Dinner
Tram back to the hotel
Overnight in Krakow
KROKE: THE JEWISH KRAKOW
Breakfast at the hotel
Framing the day session
Guided walking tour of Kazimierz, the historical Jewish quarter, including a visit to several out of 7 synagogues and the Remuh cemetery
Lunch at JCC Krakow with JCC representative and JDC fellow, discussion on Ukraine aid relief efforts
Walk to the Galicia Jewish Museum with a brief tour of the exhibition and session: Museums as Memory Holders
The Galicia Jewish Museum, created in 2004, commemorates the victims of the Holocaust and celebrates the Jewish culture of Polish Galicia. The Museum is located in the heart of Kazimierz and is one of Poland’s most visited Jewish museums and cultural centers.
Walk to Podgórze, a former ghetto area, followed by a guided tour
Pierogi Workshop Dinner with Hillel Krakow (TBC including Hillel Krakow director Mariia Herhshova)
Wrap-up session at the hotel and preparation for the visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau
Overnight in Krakow
MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM AUSCHWITZ–BIRKENAU
Early breakfast at the hotel
Departure via coach (an approx. 90-minute drive)
Study tour of Auschwitz I Museum concluded with a visit to the “Shoah” exhibit at Block 27, curated by Yad Vashem
Short break (boxed lunch provided)
The tour continues to Auschwitz II Birkenau
Short visit to the Auschwitz Jewish Center
Auschwitz Jewish Center was opened to honor Oświęcim’s former residents and teach future generations about the Holocaust. The facilities include a Jewish Museum, a Synagogue, an Educational Center, and a cafe. The memory of its Jewish population is preserved in the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, the city’s only surviving Jewish house of prayer, and Cafe Bergson, located in the house of the last Jewish resident.
Coffee break at the Bergson café at the AJC and debrief session
Return to Krakow
Dinner and evening on your own
Overnight in Krakow
KRAKÓW – ŁODŹ – WARSAW
Early breakfast in the hotel
Early departure via van to Lodz and arrival in Lodz (approx. 4-hour drive), framing and introduction to Łódź in the bus
Guided tour through Jewish Cemetery in Lodz
LODZ – Once known for its booming textile industry and considered the Manchester of the East, Lodz was an industrial “promised land” of opportunities for Poles, Jews, Germans, and Russians in the 19th century. Today, the city is searching for its new character and identity after the fall of Communism and the resurgence of Capitalism in a new form. The city’s center, which survived WW2 mostly unscathed, is filled with eclectic architecture of industrial moguls’ palaces and villas located right next to vast complexes of textile factories. The most impressive are the former homes of the Poznanski and Scheibler families with bourgeois edifices of the Belle Époque period as well as the vast areas of tenement housing for the working class, and adjacent factory buildings. The center of Lodz is becoming the major area of revitalization in Poland and one of the biggest within the EU.
Lunch on your own in Manufaktura
Guided walking tour of Jewish Lodz
Departure to Warsaw (approx. 2hs)
Arrival in Warsaw
Check-in, time to refresh
Dinner
Overnight in Warsaw
WHY SHOULD WE LEARN ABOUT POLISH JEWISH HISTORY?
Breakfast at the hotel
Morning briefing and meeting with Konstanty Gebert (TBC)
Walk to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
The Museum, situated on the plaza vis-a-vis the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Memorial, creates a dynamic historical complex, that memorializes the past and honors 1,000 years of the Polish-Jewish co-existence. POLIN, with its eight-gallery core exhibition, has been internationally recognized and draws guests from Poland and around the world.
Audio-guided visit to the Core Exhibition
Reflection session with Zachary Mazur
Zachary Mazur earned his Ph.D. in history at Yale University where he wrote a dissertation on the formation of interwar Poland through the lens of state finance. He is a Senior Historian at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN and a lecturer at the Polish Academy of Sciences Doctoral School Anthropos. He also has a podcast called NextGen Humanities, which is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Optional: visit the temporary exhibition “TBC”
Buffet lunch at POLIN’s Restaurant
Guided walking tour through the former Warsaw Ghetto concluding at the Umschlagplatz Monument.
The monument commemorates the 300,000 Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka in 1942.
Walk or tram to the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
The Institute, established in 1947, is the world’s largest repository of material Polish Jewish heritage. Among its thousands of publications, artifacts, and testimonies, are the treasured Emanuel Ringelblum Archives. The Institute’s core exhibition, “What We Were Unable to Shout Out to the World” is dedicated to the Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto and its creators – the Oneg Shabbat group.
Visit the core exhibition What We’ve Been Unable to Shout Out to the World
“What we were unable to Shout Out to the World” is an exhibition dedicated to the Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto and its creators – the Oneg Shabbat group.
Wrap-up session at the Taube Center space (suggested session: Individualized memory representation)
Dinner on your own
Overnight in Warsaw
THE 11TH COMMANDMENT: THOU SHALT NOT BE INDIFFERENT
Breakfast at the hotel
Van to Okopowa Jewish Cemetery
The Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe, was established in 1806. The cemetery reflects more than 200 years of Jewish life in Warsaw and contains over 250,000 graves. The site also includes mass graves of the Warsaw Ghetto victims. Recently, 21 gravestones originally created by Abraham Ostrzega, a well-known Jewish sculptor, have been restored.
Guided walking tour through the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery, matzevot reading workshop
Drive to Praga, the district of Warsaw on the right side of the Vistula River
Visit the Żabiński Villa, a safe haven for Jews during World War II
A modernist villa where director Jan Żabiński and his wife, Antonina, sheltered over 200 Jews seeking refuge during German Nazi occupation. Their story inspired the book and film: “The Zookeepers’ Wife”.
Lunch in Praga, meeting with LGBTQIAP+ activists on the current situation of the LGBT community in Poland
Drive back to the hotel; time to refresh and prepare for Shabbat
Shabbat candle lighting
Briefing with rabbi Shai Welfeld or Michael Schudrich (TBC)
Shabbat Service at Nozyk Synagogue
Warsaw’s only synagogue to have survived WWII and endured decades of Communism, the Nozyk Synagogue, is an iconic symbol of Jewish presence in Warsaw that serves the local community to this day.
Dinner at JCC Warsaw with Hillel Warsaw students and community members
Overnight in Warsaw
WARSAW: SHABBAT
Breakfast at the hotel
Free morning/Optional Shabbat services
Recommendations for activities in Warsaw will be provided
Lunch at Taube Center Space with Helise Lieberman, Director, Taube Center for Jewish Life & Learning
Guided walking tour of Warsaw’s Old Town (suggested: Treasure Hunt with Hillel Warsaw students)
Dinner in the Old Town followed by Havdalah
Overnight in Warsaw
Early breakfast in the hotel
Check out
Load the coach
Royal Castle and Warsaw skyline view from 30th floor of Palace of Culture and Science
Departure to the Chopin Airport