What really happened in the meeting with Polish President Duda?

Jerusalem Post ^ | September 27, 2019 11:31 | Shmuley Boteach

[Zhang Fei]

The conversation continued with the other Jewish leaders and then Edward Mosberg stood up to speak. Mosberg is a well-known holocaust survivor and someone who commands respect as an eloquent witness to the decimation of our people. A man in his 90s, a successful real estate developer in New Jersey, and a survivor of multiple camps and philanthropist, he speaks every year at March of the Living and his fire-and-brimstone speeches rattle the crowd with the depth of the horrors of what the holocaust represents and what he experienced.

He was born in Poland and is close to the Polish government. He was wearing the Order of Merit medal they had given him. He started to speak and mentioned that Katz’s comments had created antisemitism in Poland.

The more he said and the insinuation that Jews are responsible for any Polish antisemitism, the more uncomfortable I began to feel.

Mosberg repeated that the antisemitism in Poland was instigated by the Jews.

Mosberg is special man, a Holocaust survivor. He has witnessed horrors that I can scarcely comprehend. But I could no longer hear someone saying that antisemitism is caused by Jews and I shouted across the room, “Eddie, you’re a hero of the Jewish people. But you’re wrong. We Jews are not responsible for antisemitism. Antisemites are responsible for antisemitism.”

At that point the meeting began to break up. An hour had elapsed. The president needed to leave and the discussion was moving in an unfortunate direction.

The Polish president is correct that Yisrael Katz should apologize and build bridges with Poland. There is a big difference between what Shamir said 30 years ago, knowing his father was killed by Poles, and Katz repeating the remark. This was before Poland became such a strong advocate for Israel in the EU

[Cronos]

Mosberg is correct