Seniors prepare for departure to Paris, Israel and Poland

This year’s Senior class trip has been restructured with a number of new enhancements, and will include a delegation of 13 students from the Honors French IV class who will travel to Paris before traveling to Israel where they will be joined by their fellow students.

Mr. Charles Fuller, Chair of the High School Modern Language Department, will be leading the trip to Paris, joined by his wife and also staffed by Mrs. Lucia Goodhart. The trip to France was added to enhance the Modern Language curriculum and to, "expand our students' intellectual borders," explained Mrs. Zipora Schorr, Director of Education. The group will spend four days in Paris, where they hope to meet with representatives of the Jewish community, and then go on to Israel.

One of the new features of this year’s trip will be that the class will begin its trip in Israel and will leave for Poland after spending a full week in Israel to bond with their madrichim (counselors) and tour guides, who will accompany them to Poland. They will also be joined in Poland by BT History teacher, Mr. Paul Bolenbaugh, who visited Poland with a delegation of BT faculty members several years ago. Other BT faculty and staff who will be chaperoning the Israel and Poland trip will be Mrs. Cherie Brownstein, Mrs. Barbara Klaff, Mr. David Portnoy and Rabbi Yehuda Oratz. The Poland trip has been carefully restructured and will be staffed by the Jewish Heritage Center, a group of professionals who specialize in student trips to Eastern Europe. It is expected that the Israeli guides and counselors in Poland will add to the meaning and continuity of the trip overall. In addition, the Israeli tour operator will be providing our students with kosher food in Poland. In past years, students have had to bring their own food for the Poland segment of the trip.

In addition to a full schedule of touring, highlights of the trip will be a Purim Megillah Reading in Warsaw, sunrise visit to the Kotel, camping and hiking in the Negev dessert, a bike-a-thon fundraiser, and a number of speakers on a variety of religious and political topics facing Israel and its people.

We look forward to wishing our Seniors farewell at a special all-school Convocation on Wednesday, March 5th.