MOTL reaches out to young adults
MARCH of the Living (MOTL) Australia is planning to send its first young adult contingent next year, inviting 20-30-year-olds to take part in the well-established educational program which visits Poland and Israel.
MARCH of the Living (MOTL) Australia is planning to send its first young adult contingent next year, inviting 20-30-year-olds to take part in the well-established educational program which visits Poland and Israel.
MOTL Australia president Cedric Geffen said there is a need to cater for this age group, as many young Jewish adults may not have had the opportunity to go on MOTL in year 11, or take part in a gap-year program which visited Poland.
“It’s something that has been on the cards for a while,” Geffen told The AJN.
“[It’s] an experience where [the participants] can go back to their roots and understand their place as Jews, their place as people in the big wide world,” he said.
He explained that while the young adult experience will have the same fundamental elements as the student experience, it has been adjusted to better suit the demographic, with more freedom and flexibility.
The Australian group will join the Canadian and American contingent who have been running a young adult program for the past seven years. Geffen enthused that the opportunity to interact with young adults from North America will add “a whole new dimension” to the experience.
MOTL will take place in April, with participants in Poland for a week over Yom Hashoah, and in Israel for a week encompassing Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut – though young adult participants can opt to only participate in the Poland leg.
Geffen noted that the time spent in Poland not only offers an opportunity to visit some of the sites of the atrocities of the Holocaust, but there is also significant focus on the rich Jewish life and heritage which existed prior to the war. “The essence of understanding what existed before and what was lost intensifies the experience.” .
There will be an information session in Melbourne at the Jewish Holocaust Centre, 13 Selwyn Street, Elsternwick, on Sunday, September 8 at 7.30pm. Sessions in Sydney and Perth are yet to be advised. For more information, contact Cedric Geffen on 0451 150 239.
PHOEBE ROTH
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