Welcome to Zimbabwe! Arrival & Transfer Upon landing at Bulawayo Airport, you will be met by your driver for a seamless transfer to your hotel. Evening Program • Welcome Dinner: Enjoy an evening with members of Bulawayo’s remaining Jewish community. This is a unique opportunity to connect with a historic group that today numbers just 32 people. Accommodation • Stay: Travellers Guest House • Duration: 2 Nights • Basis: Bed & Breakfast

Bulawayo Jewish Heritage Tour Morning • Visit the Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation, the city’s active synagogue. This building originally belonged to the Bulawayo Progressive Congregation, while the larger Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation synagogue burned down in 2003. After the fire, the community sold the damaged property and amalgamated into the Progressive building, which now serves as Bulawayo’s only functioning synagogue. • Drive through Khumalo, formerly the primary Jewish neighborhood of Bulawayo, where many members of the community once lived. • Visit the Bulawayo Jewish Cemetery, which reflects the vibrancy of a community that numbered approximately 3,000 people in the early 1970s. The cemetery contains the graves of many of the city’s early pioneers, including several Jewish mayors. Community member Arnold Roth will guide the visit and explain the role Jews played in the city’s development. Afternoon • Visit Carmel School, founded in 1958, and still operating today as Bulawayo’s Jewish school. Although the school continues to observe Jewish holidays and holds a weekly Shabbat assembly, it no longer has a single Jewish student or teacher. The decision to maintain the school’s Jewish identity has been made by the parents of the predominantly non-Jewish student body. • Visit the former site of the Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation and Youth and Education Center. The original synagogue was built in 1910 and rebuilt in 1962, alongside a large youth center attached to the synagogue complex. After the devastating 2003 fire, the synagogue was sold to a church, though the building still contains the original mikvah. The youth center remains owned by the Jewish community but is currently rented to a school. Across the street, the Guild Hall, which once housed a Jewish library, was sold. Together these buildings illustrate the scale of Jewish communal infrastructure that existed in Bulawayo until the early-2000s. Evening • Dinner at The Smokehouse, owned by a Bulawayo Jewish family.

Bulawayo to Harare: History & Landscapes Morning • Visit the historic Bulawayo Club, one of the city’s most iconic colonial institutions. Founded in 1895, shortly after the establishment of the town by the British South Africa Company, it began as a private gentlemen’s club for European settlers, and quickly became the social and political center of early Bulawayo. • The club’s history also reflects the discrimination faced by Jews during the colonial period. For many years, the club maintained a notorious sign reading “No Jews, Africans, or Dogs.” Even after restrictions on Jewish membership were eventually lifted, the Jewish community largely boycotted the club. Midday and Afternoon: Matobo National Park • Excursion to Matobo National Park (often called the Matopos), located about 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of Bulawayo. • This UNESCO World Heritage landscape is famous for its dramatic granite hills and surreal balancing rock formations. Visitors typically stop at World’s View, where Cecil Rhodes is buried atop a sweeping granite hilltop overlooking the surrounding landscape. • The park is also home to caves containing ancient San rock art thousands of years old, as well as both white and black rhinoceros, which are sometimes tracked on foot with park rangers. • The combination of striking scenery, deep history, and wildlife makes the Matopos one of the most distinctive landscapes in southern Africa. Matobo National Park https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZixFR7EdESg Evening • 6:20pm flight to Harare. • Arrival, hotel check in, and welcome dinner. • Stay: Highlands House • Basis: Bed & Breakfast • Duration: 3 Nights

Shabbat in Harare: Heritage & Community Morning • Morning Shabbat services at the Sharon School, Harare’s only Jewish school. The school was established in 1960 and moved to its current campus in 1964. As the Jewish population declined, so too did the number of Jewish students. Today the school has more than 200 non-Jewish students between the ages of 4 and 12, and only two Jewish students remain. Despite this, the school continues to operate as a fully Jewish institution, observing Jewish holidays and traditions. • Tea with Gwynneth and Yossi Kabri, who will speak about the transformation of the Harare Jewish community and the role Sharon School continues to play. • Visit the Harare Hebrew Congregation, founded in 1892, just two years after the establishment of Salisbury (now Harare). The first permanent synagogue was built in 1910, and the congregation moved to its current synagogue building in 1957. Its grandeur is a reminder of how established and confident the community once was. • Visit the Jewish Cemetery in Warren Hills, first used in 1968. It replaced the earlier Pioneer Street Jewish Cemetery in central Harare, which had served the community during its earlier decades. The cemetery reflects both the size of the former community and its unusual composition, which historically included both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. Evening • Havdalah and Shabbat dinner at the Kabri family home.

Shabbat in Harare: Rhodesli Heritage Morning • Shabbat services at the Harare Sephardi Hebrew Congregation, built in 1934 by Jews whose families came from the island of Rhodes in present-day Greece. At one point, almost all of Rhodesia’s approximately 2,000 Jews were of Rhodesli origin. Today, descendants of Rhodes Jews make up about half of Harare’s remaining Jewish population of 52 people. Afternoon • Optional lunch at Sam Levy’s Village, one of Harare’s most well-known shopping and leisure centers. Built in the mid-1990s by Jewish entrepreneur Sam Levy, it demonstrates how Jews played a role not only in religious life, but also in the economic development and urban growth of modern Harare. Many visitors are surprised to learn that one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks was created by a member of the Jewish community. • Free time. Evening • Group dinner.

Today marks the end of your trip, you will have a transfer to Harare International Airport (HRE) for your onward journey.