los mundos chocando / worlds colliding (JDC Entwine & Brody Jewish Center in Argentina)

This past week was a special one for me as I got to welcome a JDC Entwine Insider Trip from the University of Virginia´s Brody Jewish Center to Argentina. Since I am a proud alum of UVa and an even prouder alum and friend of UVa´s Hillel, the Brody Jewish Center, I had a very special week where I felt my two worlds colliding. The idea of the trip was for the Hillel students to get to know Argentina's Jewish community, engage in meaningful service, and learn about the needs and strengths of our global Jewish community. We spent the week divided between Rosario, Argentina (4 hour drive from Buenos Aires) and Buenos Aires, Argentina. We visited Jewish schools, played with lots of cute kids, learned about the needs of Argentine's Jewish community, painted houses of vulnerable Jewish families in Rosario, spent time with the lovely residents of Lador Vador eldery home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, got to meet Argentine peers, toured around Rosario and Buenos Aires, and had intense discussions about community, responsibility, and how to bring the experience home. 

 We also got to celebrate Shabbat with a beautiful rainbow and Purim complete with masks and delicious hamantaschen.  

 Above I used the words: worlds colliding. I felt this multiple times throughout the week. I was spending time with people I had spent my past four years with at the University of Virginia but sharing my experience, my work, and my live in Argentina with them. It was the Brody Jewish Center that introduced me to JDC back in 2010 when I went on a similar short-term trip to Israel and it was my experiences at the Brody Jewish Center that made me want to spend this year in Buenos Aires with the JDC. 

I feel so lucky and thankful that I got to share this experience with the twenty students from UVa this past week. I hope the trip opened their eyes to our responsibility to Jews around the world as mine were opened back in Israel in 2010. Maybe this experience even inspired some of them to take a next step with connecting with our global Jewish community, whether back in Charlottesville or among another Jewish diaspora community around the world. Only time will tell...

Thank you JDC Entwine and Brody Jewish Center for letting me share this experience with this wonderful group!