A Journey Worth Taking: A father-son civil rights experience

When Washington Hebrew Congregation was organizing a Civil Rights Trip to Alabama, the decision came quickly. For Ben Orbach, his wife, Ashley, and their 14-year-old son, Felix, it felt less like a travel opportunity than a rare invitation: a chance to step into history together.

“We were so happy to see the synagogue offer this trip because it’s a center of community for us,” Ben said. “And an opportunity like this helps build bridges to other communities.”

Organized through Tzedek America and co-led by Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin, the trip brought together about 30 parent-child pairs from Washington Hebrew and Westchester (NY) Reform Temple. Over three packed days in Birmingham and Montgomery, participants moved through museums and memorials, listened to firsthand testimony from child “foot soldiers” of the civil rights movement, and confronted a history that felt at once distant and painfully immediate.

Felix, a student at Alice Deal Middle School, arrived with few expectations. “I hadn’t really learned that much about civil rights going into the trip,” he said. “I just kept an open mind to see what was going to happen.” His father, who studied American history in college but had not visited Birmingham or Montgomery before, found himself unexpectedly moved. “Even with that background, I was still blown away by how well the trip was run and hearing all the personal narratives that were presented.”

One of the trip’s deepest impressions came at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, where the scale of the story — and its connection to the present — were impossible to ignore. Ben compared the museum to some of the most powerful Jewish institutions of memory. “It was on par with Yad Vashem or the Holocaust Museum as far as presenting an entire story,” he said. “It was impossible to look at the killing of George Floyd a few years ago, and not see that as the tip of the iceberg of a much larger history.”

For Felix, the trip landed close to home. Fresh off his bar mitzvah, he found himself thinking about family, belonging, and what it means to be torn from both. “There were kids my age [during slavery] who were seeing their parents and their grandparents for the last time and taken away to different places,” he said. “It made me feel closer to my community.” Later, Ben said, Felix carried those reflections to the family’s Passover Seder, drawing a line between the Jewish story of liberation and the histories they had witnessed together in Alabama.

That sense of connection deepened on Shabbat in Birmingham, where an evening at a local synagogue illuminated the Jewish dimension of the civil rights story. Through the stories of seven Jewish community members — their choices, their courage, and, in some cases, their compromises — the past came into sharper focus.

Asked what they would say to someone considering the trip, the Orbach family didn’t hesitate. “There’s so much untold story that you just can’t see in a book,” Felix said. “You actually have to go experience it for yourself.” He pointed to one especially unforgettable encounter: meeting a woman who, as a 12-year-old in Birmingham, marched after the church bombing, was attacked by dogs, and was blasted by fire hoses — yet now tells her story face to face. “Just seeing someone who’s been through all that is worth the trip alone,” Felix said. “She was the same age, a couple years younger than what I am now.”

Importantly, Ben said, the trip refused to leave history in the past. “Some of the Jewish Americans involved in Birmingham, they came out strong in support of the civil rights movement and supporting the Black community,” he said. “Others decided that ‘I can’t afford to risk this. There’s only so far that I can go. If they’re not persecuting the Blacks, then they’re going to persecute me next.’ You really get a sense for the heroism of those who chose to be upstanders and to act and risk their future.”

The Orbachs are still thinking through how best to build on the trip and to continue to support social justice causes here in D.C., but Ben said the trip has already prompted one clear commitment: helping more Washington Hebrew families have experiences like this one. The hope, he said, is to inspire more people to take what they learn and turn it into meaningful action — for Jews in Washington, D.C., and for the broader Washington community.

In the end, what stayed with Ben was far beyond mere knowledge. “From a parent’s perspective, it was an incredible experience to do this with my son, to be able to talk about these issues that are so important with him, and to see his reaction to coming face to face with the details of our history.” For the Orbachs, the trip was more than educational. It was a shared act of witnessing — one that will continue to shape the conversations they have at home and the values they carry into the community.

Washington Hebrew Congregation plans to offer the Civil Rights Trip again. Watch for more information in upcoming e-newsletters and at whctemple.org.