Krakow Gets First Rabbi Since Holocaust
I found this story on Jewishgen ( http://lyris.jewishgen.org/listmanager). A subsequent story (http://www.forum-znak.org.pl/index-en.php?t=przeglad&id=1471) notes the existence of a rabbi in Krakow from 1997-2004.
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By Associated Press
October 17, 2005, 9:42 PM EDT
WARSAW, Poland -- The first rabbi to serve Krakow full-time since the Holocaust took up his post Monday, a mission that includes guiding a revival of Jewish life and helping people rediscover their Jewish heritage forgotten during the decades of communism.
Rabbi Avraham Flaks, a 38-year-old Russian-born Israeli, has been getting to know members of Krakow's small Jewish community over the past few weeks, but officially took up his duties with an evening prayer service marking the start of the weeklong festival of Sukkot.
Michael Freund, chairman of the Shavei Israel organization sponsoring Flaks' work, said he hopes the new rabbi will be able to "keep the flame of Judaism alive" in a city whose rich, centuries-old Jewish community was nearly wiped out during the Holocaust.
There are about 200 people registered with the community, but an estimated 1,000 Jews are believed to live in Krakow -- most of them people who only recently discovered their Jewish roots following the fall of communism in 1989, Freund told The Associated Press.
There are "quite a number of people who have gone through these experiences, suddenly learning that they were born Jews," Freund said. "Many don't know what to do with that information, what to make of it, what role it should play in their lives."
During the communist era, some Jews hid their religious identities, even from their children, to avoid discrimination. Many fled the country in 1968, following a government-sponsored anti-Semitic campaign.
This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-poland-krakow-rabbi,0,7806208.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines
1 Comments:
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