Surprises Begin at the Airport

Sunday night, at JFK.  Walking toward my gate, I notice several groups of teens.  Looking closer, I see that they're all wearing name tags with the word NFTY on it.  I approach a group sitting together, one boy strumming a guitar.  I introduce myself as a Reform rabbi and former NFTYite, and we strike up a conversation.  Turns out they are part of a NFTY summer experience taking them to Prague, Terezin, Krakow, Auschwitz, Warsaw and Israel.  This is the same North American Federation of Temple Youth that gives all of our b'nei mitzvah kids $250 toward travel.  These 47 kids are all using their gift certificates!   And their chaperone?  Ira Wise, the educator from B'nei Israel in Bridgeport, the congregation which joins TBA on the annual 10th grade trip to Washington.  It's a very small Jewish world!  I'm going to see them for Shabbat in Krakow.
A short time later.  Sitting at the gate, I see another group, all wearing identical T-shirts, saying "RAJE".  Of course I have to ask.  RAJE stands for Russian American Jewish Experience.  A group of 40 teens and young adults whose families are from the FSU are traveling back to Eastern Europe looking for their Jewish roots.  It seems that at least a third of the passengers on this flight are Jewish!  A hundred years ago, Jews were leaving Poland in droves for the "Goldene Medina."  Now they are returning, if only for a visit.  I wonder what my great grandparents, every one a Pole, would think about that?