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The Charlotte Jewish News - November 2013 - Page 15 BBYO Trip to Bulgaria: Jewish Teens from All Over the World By Harper Moskowitz Entering my senior year of high sehool, I knew I wanted to do something different over the sum mer. I looked at programs that eould have taken me all over the world, from Ghana to Thailand and everywhere in between. In the end, I deeided on a BBYO pro gram ealled Ambassadors to Bul garia. Even though I had been in BBYO for three years, I only knew one person who went on this program. This left me with many questions. What are we going to do? How long is the flight? Do you make friends with the people on the trip? Do you get to explore? By the time I left Bulgaria, I knew the answers to all these questions and more. When I got to JFK on the after noon of June 24, I went into the trip with a eompletely open mind, though I was seared for my first trans-Atlantie flight. Although the flight was long, it was great bond ing time. I only knew two other people, so I took the flight time to make friends, who ended up being my best friends for this trip. When we finally landed in Sofia, Bul garia, we heard the ehant “AZA BBG BBYO.” It was the other partieipants waiting for us to ar rive. It felt great to land in a for eign eountry and know people are exeited to see you. What makes this trip speeial is that there were teens from ten dif ferent eountries: Canada, USA, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia, and Lithuania. This gave me a whole new perspeetive on “Jewish Geography.” In BBYO and sum mer eamp, Jewish geography oe- eurs all the time. The Jewish world seems small, then I went to Bulgaria and all of the sudden, the Jewish world wasn’t so small any more. My world instantly ex- eompletely ehanged the tone of the trip. Not only was I learning about Bulgarian Jewry, but I was learning about Jewry in nine eoun tries from people who were my friends, not teaehers. Our Shabbat serviee was the moment on this trip where I really felt united with all the partieipants. We spent Shabbat in the only Orthodox syn agogue in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, the seeond largest eity. Although I didn’t know every tune, and some prayers were longer than what I was used to, it was inspiring to ehant Hebrew prayers with not only seventy partieipants from ten eountries but also the loeal eom- munity. All seventy of us may speak different languages at home and to eaeh other, but in that mo ment we were all speaking the same language and we all felt pas sionate about our Judaism. “The Jewish world seems small, then I went to Bulgaria and all of a sudden, the Jewish world wasn’t so small anymore.” Friendships were forged on the summer trip to Bulgaria. panded; not only did I know teens from all over the world, but we all had something in eommon: we were all Jewish. Religion brings people together in many ways, and beeause the Jewish population is so small, it intensifies the bond Jews have with other Jews. The global aspeet of this trip n’t understand eaeh other; we were able to eommunieate on so many different levels. When the orphans left, I hoped I made an impaet on his life, beeause he made one on my life. Our last night, we went to a tra dition Bulgarian restaurant, we sang and ate and it was a great way to end the trip. The best part is that we weren’t the only Jewish people in the restaurant. Sitting at a large table about three feet away from me was a group of Israelis touring Bulgaria, and together, we sang “Am Yisrael Chai” at the top of our lungs. This moment eneom- passes everything I loved about my trip to Bulgaria. That being Jewish brings me eloser to people I may have never met and that global Jewry is an important as peet of Judaism that we should all eherish. ^ #bbyo The seeond to last day of the trip was by far the most antiei- pated day; this was the day we were going to work with orphans. Before I left Charlotte, I shopped for toys and elothes for the kids, and teens from every eountry got donations and toys for the ehildren as well. We were all so exeited to meet them and hopefully bring joy into their lives. I had the pleasure of pieking up the ehildren from the orphanage. When they all got on the bus, every ehild seemed eontent just star ing at their surroundings. Watehing how some thing so simple kept them entertained re minded me that today was not about us, the partieipants, but about the kids, and giving them the best day we eould. When the kids got to our hotel, the first thing they got to do was piek out as many toys and elothes as the wanted from all of our donations. One memory I have is that one little girl grabbed a staek of braeelets and in stead of keeping them all for herself, she passed them out to all her friends and then to all the teen partieipants. Seeing how she eame from a plaee with very little, but she still wanted to share everything was inspir ing. I sat with a five year old boy on the bus and I looked after him for the rest of the day, I got in a group with two Ameriean guys and together the three of us formed an unbreakable bond with eaeh other and the boy. He didn’t speak any English, but after a short time, it was easily seen that language was not a bar rier. 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The Charlotte Jewish News (Charlotte, N.C.)
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