Every year best pupil-girls of gymnasium - boarding school #299 are traditionally awarded with trips about memorable places of Jewish history. Our children have already visited Israel, USA, England, Belgium.

This year the best girls embarked on the route Paris-Amsterdam-Antwerp-Brussels. Main selection criterion included not only high school grates but also human qualities of the "luckies" in opinion of their mates and teachers.

On returning the girls were delighted and stupefied by the beauty of Paris: la Tour Eiffel, l'Arc de Triomphe, les Champs Elysees, le Louvre... We can add, pupils had a lucky chance to listen to a lecture by Rabbi Aaron-Leib Shteinman from Israel at a concert hall in Louvre.

The fairy-tale went on in Amsterdam. Families of Mandel and Klein helped girls better discover this wonderful city. Our pupils will never forget canal trips in the center of Amsterdam, visits to one of the oldest synagogues in Europe - Portuguese, Museum of Jewish history, museum "Technopolis". They also attended the museum of Anna Frank whose diary was, is and will remain for the entire mankind an evidence to the Holocaust tragedy.

But, probably, the biggest and most pleasant impression for the girls became a Jewish wedding in Antwerp. Moreover, a bride appeared their friend - madriha Bitya, who had attended last summer the camp "Makhane Shuva". I tend to believe after what they saw they own weddings will also go on under a hupa.

An ancient Brussels struck them by a multitude of places of interest: "Grand Place", "Atom Structure" museum, "House of ships", an ancient synagogue. Far from an affable weather failed to lessen children's exult.

Girls and their parents are grateful to Chief Rabbi of Ukraine and Kiev Yaakov Dov Bleich and his spouse Bashi Bleich whose help made such a wonderful trip possible.