Friends of the Israel Defense Forces is sponsoring a mission to Poland and Israel next month. Fifty IDF officers will accompany supporters of FIDF from the United States and Panama on the 10-day “From Holocaust to Independence” journey, April 8-19.
In Poland, the group will travel to historical sites such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps; the city of Tarnow, which had a thriving Jewish population before the Holocaust; and Zbylitowska Gora forest, where countless Jews were murdered.
Participants will then fly to Israel with the IDF officers via an Israeli Air Force plane and celebrate Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day) in official ceremonies. The group will also spend time on several elite IDF bases with soldiers, meet with top-level government and IDF officials, including the prime minister and the speaker of the Knesset, and attend a reception with President Shimon Peres at his official residence.
Registration for the trip remains open (payment due by March 15). For more information, contact Jerami Shecter, executive director of the Arizona chapter of FIDF, at 602-388-8344 or arizona@fidf.org, or visit www.fidf.org.
