Study Tours
Take your students on an unforgettable journey. For students, faculty and researchers, there’s nothing like the opportunity to explore your academic field of interest at its source. We create thematic-based study tours for students and faculty that combine site visits, lectures, and workshops with educational and cultural activities. At TJHT we believe the most important ingredient in good student travel programs is variety. On the one hand, students and faculty will visit the great monuments of the Jewish past in Poland and, on the other hand, they will experience the present by visiting local flourishing institutions such as JCCs and Hillels. They will be given an opportunity to interact with their Polish peers, meet with local scholars and discuss with community leaders to ensure a fulfilling educational journey. For the last several years we've been cooperating with several Hillel and university campuses from North America and beyond. Below you will find a standard itinerary for university tours. We will be happy to adjust it to your organization’s needs. We encourage you to emabark on this educational adventure through the richness of Jewish Polish heritage with us! For more details please contact us at tours@taubejewishheritagetours.com
Arrival at the International Warsaw Chopin Airport
Transfer to a hotel and check in
Introductions and orientation
Warsaw, the capital of Poland, has been called the “The Phoenix City”, as it was almost completely destroyed during World War II and rebuilt from the rubble and ruins in a nationwide effort. Divided by the Vistula River, the city’s right and left banks narrate the complex history of the city. Today, Warsaw, Poland’s largest city with more than two and a half million people living in its metropolitan area, is a vibrant political and economic center, reflecting the resurgence of Poland’s economy over the past 25 years as a member of NATO and the EU. The meticulously rebuilt Old Town and the 2016 European Museum of the Year POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews are two of the major cultural cornerstones of this Central European capital. Home to more than 300,000 Jews from across the cultural and religious spectrum prior to the Holocaust, Warsaw is now home to Poland’s largest Jewish community, w
hich hosts a JCC, Hillel, and a day school, aswell as various religiousgious communities.Welcome lunch at a nearby restaurant
Walking tour of Warsaw’s Old Town
The Old Town was established in the 13th century with Jewish roots dating back to the 15th century. It was almost fully destroyed during the WWII, and meticulously rebuilt after the war. Warsaw’s Old Town has been placed on the UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites as “an outstanding example of a near-total reconstruction of a span of history covering the 13th to the 20th century.
Orientation and dinner with representatives of Warsaw’s Jewish Community
Overnight in Warsaw
Breakfast in the hotel
Guided walking tour of the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery
The Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe, was established in 1806. The cemetery, a portal into more than 200 years of Jewish life in Warsaw through the present day, contains over 250,000 graves, as well as mass graves of victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. Recently, 21 gravestones created by Abraham Ostrzega have been restored. Abraham Ostrzega was a well-known Jewish sculptor during the interwar period and was killed in Treblinka in 1942.
Visit to Grzybowski Square and the Nożyk Synagogue
Warsaw’s only synagogue to have survived WWII and endure decades of Communism, the Nozyk is an iconic symbol of Jewish continuity in Warsaw and continues to serve Warsaw’s Jewish community.
Meeting with the Chief Rabbi of Poland
Lunch
Guided tour through the permanent exhibition of the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute “What we were unable to shout out to the world” presenting the documents forming the Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, founded by Emanuel Ringelblum, historian and social activist
Program with students from Hillel Warsaw
Dinner at JCC Warsaw
Overnight in Warsaw
Breakfast in the hotel
Guided walking tour with an introduction to the former Warsaw Ghetto starting from the Umschlagplatz Monument, commemorating the 300,000 Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka in 1942, following the Memorial Route of Martyrdom and Struggle, including the bunker at Mila 18, concluding at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews Plaza.
Guided tour through the POLIN Museum’s Core Exhibition of the 1,000 year history of Jews in Poland
The Museum, situated on the plaza vis-a-vis the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Memorial, creates a dynamic historical complex, which memorializes the past and honors 1,000 years of the Polish Jewish experience. The Museum, with its eight-gallery core exhibition, opened in 2013, has been recognized internationally and draws guests from Poland and around the world.
Lunch
Afternoon fast train to Kraków
Kraków – The historical capital of Poland, miraculously saved from destruction during centuries of wars and turmoil, is replete with numerous medieval, renaissance, and baroque churches, synagogues, and other architectural marvels. Krakow was once an important center of European Jewry, particularly of the Progressive movement, and now is one of the main centers of Jewish renewal in Poland. Visitors and locals alike are attracted to the Old Town of Krakow, the former Jewish district of Kazimierz, and the district of Podgorze where Germans established the ghetto during the war. Krakow, with its seven remaining synagogues and other reminders of Polish Jewish heritage, is both a living memorial and a beacon for the future.
Transfer to the hotel and check in
Welcome to Kraków and dinner with representatives of JCC Kraków
Overnight in Kraków
Breakfast in the hotel
Walking tour through Kazimierz, Kraków’s Jewish district.
Kazimierz is a historical district of Kraków, which for many centuries was the center of Jewish life in the city. With its seven surviving synagogues and vibrant JCC, Kazimierz draws locals and tourists interested in exploring Jewish Krakow, past and present.
Visit to the Galicia Jewish Museum. Guided tour of the exhibition. Conversation with its director.
The Galicia Jewish Museum created in 2004, commemorates the victims of the Holocaust and celebrates the Jewish culture of Polish Galicia. The GJM, located in the heart of Kazimierz, Kraków’s Jewish quarter, is one of Poland’s most visited Jewish museums and cultural centers.
Lunch
Afternoon guided walking tour of Kraków’s Old Town, including visits to the Wawel Royal Castle grounds, a political and cultural heart of Poland through the end of 16-th century; Collegium Maius, the oldest building of the Jagiellonian University, established by King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) in 1364; and Main Market Square, one of the largest medieval town squares in Europe with the beautiful Cloth Hall standing in its center.
Free time
Dinner on your own
Overnight in Kraków
Breakfast in the hotel
Visit to Nowa Huta (by bus)
Kraków’s centrally-planned Socialist district of Nowa Huta, complete with steelworks and houses is built in the Renaissance style of the Soviets. This unique project was meant to be a model Communist city, but later came to be one of the centers of revolution and resistance within Poland.
Walking tour of Nowa Huta
Lunch
Visit to Wieliczka Salt Mine
The Wieliczka Salt Mine is one of the most valuable monuments of material culture in Poland. Each year it is visited by more than one million tourists from all over the world. It is also a world class monument, featuring among twelve objects on the UNESCO’s World Cultural and Natural Heritage List.
Return to Kraków
Evening and dinner in Kraków on your own
Overnight in Kraków
Early breakfast in the hotel
Guided study tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Lunch at the Auschwitz Jewish Center
Auschwitz Jewish Center was opened to honor the former residents of the town and to teach future generations about the destruction caused by the Holocaust. The Center’s facilities include the Jewish Museum, Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue – the only surviving Jewish house of prayer in Oświęcim, the Education Center and Cafe Bergson located in the house of the last Jewish resident od Oświęcim.
Return to Kraków for Shabbat services
Shabbat dinner organized by JCC Krakow for guests from Kraków and around the world
Overnight in Kraków
Breakfast in the hotel
Shabbat morning services
Shabbat lunch at JCC Kraków
Free time to explore Kraków
Dinner and wrap-up session
Overnight in Kraków
Early breakfast in the hotel
Check out
Visit the former shtetl of Chmielnik
Chmielnik is a small town that was a pre-war shtetl of a population of 9000 Jews, which was 80% of city’s inhabitants. The Jewish community was ultimately destroyed during the Holocaust, but the memory of Chmielnik’s Jewish past is kept and can be discovered through a visit to a surviving synagogue, serving now as a museum and cultural center. The glass bimah, unique on a world-wide scale, is the highlight of the synagogue’s interior. The synagogue is also the headquarters of the “Swietokrzyski Sztetl” Centre, which offers a multimedia library and educational workshops about Jewish life before WWII and the Holocaust.
Lunch
Depart for the International Warsaw Chopin Airport for return flight to USA
We meet with Poles, both Jewish and not Jewish, to understand that Poland is no longer part of what we used to quaintly call 'Eastern Europe'; that is a relic of the Cold War. Instead we encounter today's Poland, which is in the center of the European Union -- in fact, one of the most dynamic countries in the EU. An interesting process is going on. Not only are Jews discovering the important place that Poland played in their history, but Poles are discovering they can't understand their own history without thinking about Jews. People are learning about one another and from one another, and they are also learning about their own identities.