B’nai mitzvah students at Oakland’s Conservative Temple Beth Abraham went inside a simulated gas chamber, ate kosher pizza and rode Space Mountain on a recent three-day trip to Los Angeles with their rabbi, Mark Diamond.
Diamond, who has chaperoned b’nai mitzvah trips to Los Angeles for the past eight years, believes that although the Bay Area has a vibrant Jewish community, Los Angeles offers an “intense, concentrated form of Jewish life,” that his students might not otherwise see.
Along with a day at Disneyland, the students toured Pico-Robertson, a traditional Jewish neighborhood. There, they saw synagogues, kosher butcher shops and stores selling Jewish books and music. Eating lunch in a kosher restaurant gave Diamond an opportunity to do a little teaching, explaining what makes a restaurant kosher.
“It was interesting how the kosher restaurants were good,” said Adam Liss, a seventh-grader at Piedmont Middle School who described the trip as “fun” and “tiring.” Liss will celebrate his bar mitzvah in October.
The 13 students and five chaperones stayed at the University of Judaism, where they toured the mikvah, or ritual bath. “We learned all the things they have to do to make it a mikvah, not just a pool,” Liss said.
Helene Moore, a chaperone who attended with her son, Jake, called the mikvah tour a highlight of the trip.
“The guide really gave us a good understanding of all the different reasons someone would go to a mikvah,” said Moore, a graphic designer and Piedmont resident.
At the university, the group attended a student-led Shacharit, or morning prayer service.
When it ended, Moore recalled one b’nai mitzvah student remarking, “You know, that was really different. It was like they really meant it.
“Our b’nai mitzvah kids could see that these young adults were doing it because they wanted to, not because their parents were making them go to services,” Moore added.
Across the freeway from the University of Judaism is the Skirball Cultural Center, where Diamond’s troop got a guided tour through Jewish history, from Torah to contemporary personalities.
John Rego, who went on the trip with his son, Josh, said the museum tour was rich with history — “the history of Judaism, the history of the chanukiah, the history of Jewish cultures from all over the planet.”
At the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, the group learned about the Holocaust in the context of other struggles, such as the civil rights movement and the 1992 riots that followed the beating by police of an African-American motorist.
“You learn about what the Holocaust was and how bad it actually was,” Liss said.
Liss was especially moved by the simulated gas chamber, where he listened to videotaped stories of real-life survivors.
He also was drawn to an interactive exhibit that used a drunk driving incident to raise questions about moral responsibility. What it showed, he said, is that “no one wants to take the blame. It’s kind of interesting how that’s true.”
Rego, a Piedmont physician, observed that it wasn’t just Jews learning about the Shoah at the Museum of Tolerance.
“There are all sorts of kids from different backgrounds and cultures going through this museum,” he said. “I found that very hopeful.”
Diamond said the relaxed atmosphere of the trip is key to its success.
It “enhances my relationship with kids as well as their relationships with one another,” he said. “They see me dressed in jeans half the time, going on rides with them. It’s not the classroom experience. It’s not synagogue services. It’s a different kind of environment.”