On eve of Yom HaShoah, young Poles with Jewish roots gather for weekend seminar near Auschwitz
Two participants enjoying our most recent seminar in Lodz
Every year on Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, which this year begins on the evening of April 7, 2013, thousands of Jewish teens, adults and survivors from around the world participate in the March of the Living, a two week trip to Poland, which culminates in a 3-kilometer silent march from the Auschwitz to Birkenau concentration camps. Participants learn about the horrors of the Holocaust and the Jewish community that once flourished in Europe. The imparted meaning is one of remembrance; of gaining some insight into the tragedies that befell the Jewish people, particularly in Poland.
That’s not a message that necessarily resonates with the estimated 4,000 Jews who are registered as living in Poland today (experts suggest there may be tens of thousands of others in the country who to this day are either hiding their identities or are unaware of their family heritage). Rather, today’s Polish Jewish community is looking forward, striving to build fully Jewish lives infused with joy, renewed Jewish culture and deep study. It’s a community that is largely overlooked by the world which wrongly assumes that, following World War II and subsequent Communist oppression no Jews remain in Poland.
To emphasize the new Polish Jewish community’s place in a country it steadfastly calls home, Shavei Israel is holding a weekend seminar for these “Hidden” Jews of Poland, from April 5-7 in Oscwiecim, the town adjacent to the Auschwitz death camp. The Shavei Israel “Shabbaton” will take place just two days before the March of the Living participants descend on the very same place. At the Shavei seminar, though, the focus will be on “identity” and how participants can maintain a Jewish life; classes and lectures will touch on such issues as keeping kosher and observing the Sabbath and holidays in an environment in which people around you do not. And while there will also be a tour of the Auschwitz death camp, it is optional. Close to 50 Polish Jews are expected to attend the Shabbaton.
Poland has changed since the end of World War II, says Shavei Israel’s emissary to the region, Rabbi Boaz Pash. “The country is not anti-Semitic anymore. Poland has a long history with the Jewish people, and most of it is good history. Yes, Auschwitz is something that presents the darkest side of Poland. But the Jews here today feel very Polish, very much part of the country. We are trying to help them also feel more connected to the Jewish world.”
Rabbi Pash explains why the Shavei Israel seminar will be so practical. “Polish Jews have had enough of ‘philosophy’; people are tired of that. This is an opportunity for participants to enrich their knowledge of Judaism and Jewish law. And, most important, to meet other Jews. Many of them live in very small places where there is no Jewish community at all. They just want to know how to live a ‘normal’ Jewish life…in Poland.”
As a result, on one level, the seminar in Oscwiecim is just another in Shavei Israel’s series of weekends for Polish Jews – the last was in Lodz (see our coverage here). “This is not a seminar for visitors from abroad,” Rabbi Pash says. “It’s for us.” At the same time, choosing to hold it in Oscwiecim, just as the March of the Living group arrives, is clearly not coincidental. It sends a message to the world that “we are truly an eternal nation,” adds Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund. “I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate that the Jewish people still live than by celebrating Shabbat with young Polish Jews in the shadow of the valley of death known as Auschwitz.”
At the conclusion of Shabbat, as at all of Shavei Israel’s seminars for the Hidden Jews of Poland, there will be a musical melave malka. Because of the Shabbaton’s location, a special emphasis will be made on “connecting the sadness with the happiness,” says Rabbi Pash. “We will mix traditional ‘sad’ music that comes from the local Jewish community with happy music composed, for example, by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.” A band consisting of piano, violin and guitar will perform – the latter will be played by Moshe Kusminsky, husband of Shavei Israel’s Coordinator for the Hidden Jews of Poland, Tzivia Kusminsky; the couple will both attend the Shabbaton.
During the weekend, participants will pray, study, eat and see local Jewish sights – and there are many. Oscwiecim was a predominantly Jewish village, with a Jewish presence going all the back to the 16th century. On the eve of the Holocaust, it was home to a dozen synagogues and several yeshivot. Of its population then of 14,000, some 8,200 were Jews (more than half the city’s population). “On every street and every building you can see something Jewish,” Rabbi Pash says. Today there is one synagogue still functioning, Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot, although there is no known Jewish population in the town, which has a population of 45,000 today.
As throughout Poland, however, that may not actually be the case. “This is all part of our effort to find more of the Hidden Jews of Poland,” Rabbi Pash says. “By holding the seminar here, perhaps some in Oscwiecim will come too. They will say, yes, we still live here but we have been hidden all these years.”
We’ll have pictures and videos from the seminar next week. In the meantime, here’s a link to the photo gallery from our previous Shabbaton in Lodz.