Day One Poland
How do I sum up the first day of this delegation to Poland?
This is my sixth time here, and every time I arrive I struggle to find the right words. Poland has a way of doing that it confronts you with history, memory, loss, and hope all at once. Normally I write an oped at the end and try sum up everything at once, time I surrender to the truth: Poland cannot be summed up in a moment. It has to be lived, day by day.
Today Sharaka welcomed an extraordinary group of Muslim leaders from six different countries from the Abraham Accords and beyond. Each one came here taking a personal risk. Each one chose courage. In a world that often feels overwhelmed by darkness, they showed up as bright lights. To me, they represent the very essence of tikkun olam the responsibility we all share to repair the world.
Today we danced in a synagogue.
We learned about the vibrant Jewish life that once filled these streets.
We met the leaders who are nurturing and rebuilding the Jewish community here today.
And then we walked together.
Something shifted as we walked. I found myself breathing a little lighter, imagining maybe even glimpsing at a better world. People around us stopped, stared, and asked questions.
Some looked surprised. But again and again we heard the same words:
“Thank you.”
Thank you for coming together.
Moments like this remind me why I keep returning.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once taught that the cure for hatred is not argument but encounter.
When people meet face to face when they share stories, meals, prayers, and even a dance the walls between them begin to crack.
Today felt like one of those cracks.
And on a personal level, it reminded me why I do this work. Walking through Poland today with Muslim leaders beside me, inside spaces once emptied of Jewish life, felt like a quiet act of defiance against the forces that try to divide us.
Day one is complete.
And tonight, I’m going to sleep believing just a little more than yesterday that a better world is possible.
The writer is manager of the Holocaust Education Program of Sharaka, a nonprofit, nongovernmental initiative based in Israel, Bahrain, and Morocco that works to build people-to-people peace and engagement. She runs the Instagram page @mymissiontoremember.
She is a Reichman University and Argov fellow Alumna