Historic Polish synagogue rededicated

The historic synagogue in Zamosc was rededicated after a $2.4 million restoration, though the Renaissance town in southeast Poland no longer has a Jewish community.

Ambassadors, Jewish leaders and other dignitaries attended Tuesday's festive ceremony, which was followed by the opening of a conference on Zamosc Jewish history.

Amid prayers and commemorative speeches, Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, affixed a mezuzah to the door of the fortress-like building, which was built originally in the early 17th century.

The restored building will function as a cultural center, including a Jewish museum, and serve as a hub for a tourist "Chasidic Route." Located near the site of the Nazi death camp of Belzec -- now a memorial and museum -- the synagogue also will be available for religious services.

Israel's ambassador to Poland, Zvi Rav-Ner, called the synagogue a "kind of small bridge" and said he hoped it would be "a Jewish place that will serve the city, so that Jews and Poles can meet here, so that in some way the dialogue that we had for 900 years can be continued."

The building is one of the most important synagogues in Poland to have survived the Holocaust and communism; most were destroyed. Most of the town's 12,500 Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

During World War II the German occupiers used the vaulted interior of the elegant building as a stable and carpentry workshop, and after the war it served as the local library. The building was restituted to Jewish ownership in 2005.

The restoration project was overseen by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland and largely funded by grants from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Zamość was founded in 1580. Four years later, the first Jews settled there.

This was in line with the Polish policy of being the Rzczpospolita (Republic) of 4 nations: Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians (ancestors of modern day Belarussians and Ukrainians) and Jews. The republic had freedom of religion for Catholics, Orthodox, Jews, Lutherans (Ewangelico Augusburgo), Reformed, Unitarians and Jews.

This freedom slowly changed after the 1600s "Swedish deluge" when Protestant Sweden swamped and destroyed the country aided to some extent by Orthodox Russia.

This caused a tightening of religion and nationalism, but this was both Jews and Catholics tied together as Poles. That union remained through the partitions of Poland (1793..) and the 127 years as a non-existent nation.

It only showed signs of fracture in the 1920s when Soviet forces pushed forward (read the Miracle on the Vistula for how Poland held back the Soviets from crossing into Western Europe) and the politics of Dmowski tried to show that the leaders of communism (Marx etc. ) were Jews -- the irony is that on the communist side too, the Jews were portrayed as emblems of capitalism (the Rothschilds)

Poland has the largest number of people in the Yad Vesham (hall of righteous Gentiles in Israel) even though in Poland if any family safeguarded a Jew, the entire family was to be shot by the Nazis.

Even today there is a sense of a wound -- you can't have 40% of your population (Jews were 20% of the population and half of the victims of the nazis -- the Poles were the other big chunk and the Gypsies were slaughtered with even more cruelty) disappear without a sense of "what happened"

good point -- most of the Jews who remained in the 60s were die-hard communists. hence the hardening of the (incorrect, but easily understood) stereotype that they were all communists.

This was an action by Kruschev to eliminate all members of Stalin, so "why not blame the J**s for Stalin" -- the standard commie way of finding a scapegoat.

But ordinary Poles did see through this ruse (Poles tend to be cynical about authority!)

Now this I’d call something in the line of conciliation. A bunch of mannequins in caftans at a bistro is a cheap fad. A museum is more where you keep dead things than otherwise. But a synagogue restored at great expense and rededicated is a rejuvenation. It lives. Bardzo dobrze Polskaia pana (half-remembered, half-not-learned, Polish).

I mourn in advance for the doomed civilizations of Europe. But Poland, I think, is not among them. Make many babies. Teach them to love their country and their faith. Get them ready to defend both. We’re down here in the center of the storm, but it’s the same exact storm.

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