It's been almost 13 years since Rabbi Yehoshua Ellis was appointed to serve as the emissary for Shavei Israel in Katowice, Poland, and he, and his wife, Raissa, made the move there from Jerusalem. After 5 years in Katowice and 8 in Warsaw, working side...
[caption id="attachment_29388" align="alignleft" width="169"] Eliza with friends in Krakow[/caption] Ever since I was a child I knew I was Jewish; I also knew I could never reveal my Jewish identity. It’s hard to believe that in the 21st century a Jew still has to hide their Jewishness,...
Daniel grew up with just his mother in Lublin, Poland. When he was a teenager, his mother revealed to Daniel that his father was Jewish. “But the subject was a taboo,” Daniel says, and so he never discussed it further nor pursued his Jewish roots...
It has been nearly two years since Batya Wieczorek made aliyah, but regardless of whom she meets, her interlocutor’s initial reaction upon learning that she is from Poland inevitably follows a similar pattern. It starts off with a healthy dose of surprise, peppered by disbelief,...
When Miriam and Rabbi Dawid Szychowski agreed to move back to Poland, where Dawid was hired to take on the job of Shavei Israel’s newest emissary to Lodz, Miriam had one major concern: where would her three young children go to school? Miriam’s answer: she...
Agnieszka Z was on her way to Israel for the first time. That's because only two years ago, when she was 19, her grandmother invited her to her home for a chat and said the words she heard would change her life forever: “My child,...
Three remarkable young Jewish women from Poland recently visited Israel on a trip sponsored by Shavei Israel. Kinga’s mother had the unusual custom of saying "Gut Shabbos" every Friday night, but she had no idea what the phrase meant. Olga didn't know she was Jewish...
It’s an increasingly common story among the Jews of Poland: a grandparent, lying on his or her deathbed, reveals to the grandchild a shocking secret – that the grandparent and, as a result, his or her family, is actually Jewish. The phenomenon has occurred so...
Slowly and somewhat hesitantly, Karol began to recite the blessing before the reading of the Torah. With his parents and siblings looking on in evident pride, and the congregation enveloping him in warmth and joy, Karol underwent this sublime rite of passage into manhood, just...
The signs were all around him, but it took 51 years for Mariusz Opałko to learn the truth about his Jewish heritage. Despite being surrounded by the mostly Jewish friends of his parents growing up, and even having a relative who was a famous klezmer...
