A tearful rebirth in Krakow

Jewish World Review ^ | 11-17-05 | Michael Freund

[SJackson]

KRAKOW — This past Sabbath, Benjamin Klein had every reason to let the tears flow freely.

The scene was this city's famed Rema synagogue, where the great 16th century scholar Rabbi Moses Isserles once presided. The small sanctuary was filled to capacity, as the melodies of Friday evening hymns and supplications filled the room.

The Rema Synagogue

Hundreds of religious Israeli high-school girls packed the women's section, overflowing into the hall while dutifully reciting the service. The men's section represented a microcosm of world Jewry, ranging from aging Polish Holocaust survivors to a Bnei Brak rabbi to members of a high-powered AIPAC mission from the United States.

It had been 66 years since Klein had last prayed here when, as a Jewish youth growing up in Poland, he was forced to flee in the face of the Nazi onslaught.

At the time, he no doubt thought he might never see his birthplace again, let alone experience a traditional Sabbath service in the synagogue of his childhood.

[Feldkurat_Katz]

In the heart of this blood-soaked land, where Jews had been so ruthlessly hunted down and killed by their former neighbors and friends

But the Germans and their allies murdered 90% of Krakow's Jews

At first, I thought I was going to protest as the author obviously makes defamatory hints at Poles.

But then, on the other hand, the Jewish Police, who performed most of the deportations from the ghettoes to the death camps, can be described as "former neighbors and friends", even "allies".

[Grzegorz 246]

Slobo shouldn't be in one piece anymore.

[stolat]

I am an American of Polish, Slav and Austrian Jewish ancestry(my Great Grandma came from Austria). Not being well-read in the background of world history, can anyone give me a general reason as to why the Jews are hated so? I find it more so in the elitist liberal layer of this country and have not been given the opportunity to ask this question to those who harbor such feelings and wonder if they actually do have a reason for it or is it part of a pathetic desire to belong, having not one experience that would cause this hatred. Please bear with me and my ignorance. Thank you.