These few presidents....

I emailed my professor of my antisemitism class on Sunday about my book review. He responded with a weird cryptic message about Terezin and President Peres. I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought he was canceling class because he was going to a ceremony with the president. Later in the day I get a text from Jarka (the RD for the Jewish Studies program, shes cool). The text said something like, Monday instead of class we are leaving at 2:50 to go to Terezin to be a part in a ceremony with the Czech President and Israeli President.

Crazy. Oh, and we had to dress up. Good thing I brought those black suit pants...

Around 2:50, a group of maybe 13 of us gather downstairs. Jarka led us to a minibus that she rented just for this occasion. We took the hour drive to Terezin. After going through a bit of a fiasco trying to find kippas for all the guys, we walked to where the ceremony would take place. There was a podium, maybe 20 chairs, and a huge wreath, all set up behind the cremetorium (not the bad kind like Auschwitz, just the one for people who lived in the ghetto). It was in the cemetery in the ghetto part of Terezin, there was a different ceremony at the little fortress on the other side.

Finally after standing around for several minutes, a huge motorcade pulls into the cemetery. The presidents went into the cremetorium. Then come out and speak to about the 50 of us who were there. The Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, spoke in Czech (which was translated into English), and vice versa. Peres is 85, but he spoke surprisingly well. Klaus was pretty bland. He isnt very well liked anyways, he doesnt believe in global warming...

Peres said some weird stuff. Some stuff I don't agree with, but whatever. It was all bull. They then walked over to the huge menorah. Some guy prayed, some Czech chick sang, then they each put a stone on the huge menorah. It was cool. See the photos below. Youtube links soon to follow...

I think you can tell who is who. Old man with stache is Klaus, tan dude with kippa is Peres. As you can tell, we were about 15 feet away. I have a video of them walking directly in front of me. When I say directly, I mean two feet away...