CBS Blog

Poland – January 23, 2025

Posted on January 24, 2025

I didn’t write a post yesterday. Please forgive me. We spent nearly the whole day in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I was not yet able to put anything into words but I will soon. I will share a pair of stories that bring home for me the layers of history, conflict, and geography I have experienced this week. […]

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Poland – January 21, 2025

Posted on January 22, 2025

Today we “visited” the Jewish communities of Lublin, Kazimierz, and Sandomierz. I put “visit” in quotes because all that’s left of Jewish life in these places are plaques and cemeteries. But even these stone markers attest to the rich Jewish life that once thrived here. I asked Rabbi Poupko if he thought all that existed […]

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Words from Rabbi Chapman – JUF Rabbinic Mission from Poland, January 20, 2025

Posted on January 21, 2025

In just over 24 hours so far in Poland, I have visited dozens of sites that attest to both the majestic Jewish civilization that flourished here for hundreds of years, and its brutal annihilation over a few short months. In Treblinka, I walked the same steps hundreds of thousands of Jews from across Europe walked […]

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Rabbi Chapman from Tel Aviv Israel…

Posted on May 29, 2024

Dear CBS Family, For the past few days I have had the privilege to be in Israel on a solidarity mission with JUF. Along with leaders from Chicago’s Jewish community (including some Beth Shalom members!) I am here to see firsthand the impact that Oct. 7 and the subsequent war has had on the country. […]

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Sadly, the More Things Change the More Things Stay the Same – Scott Bosley

Posted on April 2, 2024

I never saw this trip on my bingo card of life but I’m so grateful it magically appeared and that I took advantage of the opportunity to participate. It was educational, eye opening, and emotional that I can sum up with the following two thoughts: 1) Sadly, the more things change the more things stay […]

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The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same – Scott Bosley

Posted on April 2, 2024

I never saw this trip on my bingo card of life but I’m so grateful it magically appeared and that I took advantage of the opportunity to participate. It was educational, eye opening, and emotional that I can sum up with the following two thoughts: 1) Sadly, the more things change the more things stay […]

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From the violence of dynamite to the recognition that nonviolence is our only path to peace – Rabbi David Chapman

Posted on March 28, 2024

One of the many travesties of justice we learned about on this trip were the bombings — bombings of homes, of Freedom Rider busses, and of Black churches, including the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963 perpetrated by white supremacists that murdered four little girls. Their names were Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, […]

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On one hand we know it all, but on the other hand we know nothing – Chris Meyers

Posted on March 28, 2024

So I have to say that this trip and the previous CIVIL RIGHTS TRIP that I took with Beth Shalom has sent me back to my late high school and early college days… the civil rights movement encompassed my being and greatly influenced the way I saw life- mine and that of others, especially the […]

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The tension between the physical beauty and the terror – Rabbi David Chapman

Posted on March 28, 2024

As we drive along Route 139 from Selma to Birmingham, I am struck by the tension between the physical beauty of the landscape — rolling green hills, lush woods, quaint country churches — and the terror that I know took place here and in the surrounding areas.   These woods may have offered refuge for […]

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The Importance of Education – Cheryl Braude

Posted on March 28, 2024

Today at the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum we met a group of visitors who were a Black church group from Florida.  I looked at the children in this group and immediately felt saddened by Florida’s efforts to diminish historical reporting of the events about which we were learning.  While there were numerous moving moments […]

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