Re-Entwining: From Latvia to Lisbon

posted July 24, 2025 by Molly Kazan

Seven years ago, I graduated college and moved to Riga, Latvia to serve as a JDC Entwine Global Jewish Service Corps (JSC) Fellow. That experience was profound in many ways personally and professionally. 

My time in Latvia catapulted me across the world, far away from my friends and family. It gave me meaningful relationships I still hold today. It taught me about my inner strength and resilience. It also sparked something lasting in me— a connection to global Jewish peoplehood and a deeper understanding of the diversity and responsibility within it. 

This summer I was fortunate to reconnect significantly with JDC Entwine for the first time since I left Latvia in 2019. I joined Inside Jewish Portugal & Spain, one of JDC Entwine’s signature week-long immersive travel opportunities for Jewish young adults. Twenty-nine participants from across the US embarked on a journey through Sefarad, the Iberian Peninsula and a major home of Sephardic Jewry. 

We learned about Jews forced to convert to Christianity, expelled, or killed throughout Portuguese & Spanish history. One Lisbon monument built in 2000 had the audacity to call the forced conversion of Jews “sad luck.” We walked through the streets of Toledo and Segovia, places where Jewish life once flourished. Now, the only reminders are titles scattered through the streets of the Jewish quarter that say “chai,” Hebrew for life— ironic in a place where Jewish life no longer exists.

Amid so much darkness in our people’s past and in the world today, the trip also offered a beacon of light. Ester Neves Carneiro, proud Jewish community board member in Lisbon, told us about her interfaith group where she is one of thirteen religions represented. I couldn’t help but notice the yellow hostage ribbon pin, the same one I wear, fastened onto her purse.

We ate buttery fish with young adults living in Lisbon, a small but tight knit Jewish community. We welcomed Shabbat alongside congregants at one of the synagogues in Madrid. Most of us didn’t recognize their Kabbalat Shabbat melodies, but our ears perked up when a familiar tune started for Lecha Dodi.

As an Ashkenazi and American Jew, I grew up with a particular historical lens. But listening to the stories of Sephardic communities, told by Sephardic people, stories of expulsion, survival, silence, and reawakening— was humbling and deeply moving. 

To me, bearing witness to this history is not only about broadening my understanding; it’s about embracing the truth that kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh, all of Israel is responsible for one another.

The Jewish people are more diverse and more global than most realize. At a time when the world seems to respond best to binary thinking, where Jews are either oppressed or oppressors, this trip provided a powerful reminder Jews come from everywhere. We are a tapestry of languages, customs, histories, and homes, threaded together by shared values, collective memory, and a fierce commitment to the future.

That future feels more fragile these days. On my flight home from Madrid at the end of the trip, I turned on my Wi-Fi to news that The Butcherie, a Kosher market back home in Boston that I love and my favorite place to stock up on hummus and chicken soup, had been vandalized with a brick thrown through the window. It was a painful reminder that even in places that feel safe, hatred persists. 

I thought of a song we used to sing at my Jewish summer camp: “wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish.” Another version could easily be “wherever you go, there’s always someone who hates Jews.”

And yet, the trip reminded me that Jewish resilience runs deep. That rebuilding can happen centuries after destruction. That joy and grief only exist because of each other. That telling our stories, in Cascais, Segovia, or Boston, is a form of resistance and of healing.

I’m grateful to Entwine for creating space to witness, connect, and carry stories of Jewish strength forward. 

If you’re a Jewish young adult from anywhere in the world and looking for a meaningful and communal travel opportunity: consider this your sign to travel through Entwine.