No longer hidden – Polish-born Daniela Malec reclaims her Jewish roots in Israel
No longer hidden – Polish-born Daniela Malec reclaims her Jewish roots in Israel
Daniela Malec didn’t find out she was a Jew until she was a teenager. Her experience is not atypical for the “Hidden” Jews of Poland, whose parents or grandparents survived the Holocaust – and then sought to pass themselves off as Catholics to escape further persecution.
“I thought everyone in Poland was Catholic,” the now 32-year-old Daniela says. “When I first found out I was Jewish, it was a shock. But I also found the news very exciting. I felt like I had a very rich sea to swim in and I wanted to find out more.”
That “more” has led to a remarkable journey for Daniela – from a pre-teen in Poland with no Jewish knowledge and little way to research it (“we didn’t have Google back then”), to a leadership role in the Jewish community of Krakow, to her eventual immigration to Israel, where she now lives in Tel Aviv working as a consultant for an international organization, as a Polish translator, and as a Jewish genealogical consultant.
Daniela’s family grew up in Belarus and were fortunate to escape the war in the far eastern part of Russia, safe from the Nazis. When they returned, they chose to settle in Warsaw. Daniela’s mother married a Catholic man and set up a home that was essentially “not religious,” Daniela explains. “I knew we were different but I didn’t know how.”
Daniela’s parents (her father knew her mother was Jewish) hid the family’s Jewish background “out of fear,” Daniela says. “Although I don’t think my mother experienced any anti-Semitism after the war, she didn’t feel it was safe to say openly that you’re a Jew in Poland.”
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, however, Daniela’s mother decided to test the waters. When she saw that nothing happened even though they were publicly identified as Jewish, her mother began attending Jewish events in the community. “She reads the chumash (the five books of Moses that comprise the Torah) translated into Polish,” Daniela says proudly.
Meanwhile, Daniela moved to Krakow to attend university. Her first interaction with the Jewish community there was not positive, she says. “There were mainly Holocaust survivors, so there were no activities for younger people.”
In response, Daniela became the president of the Jewish student organization in Krakow and began leading the Passover Seder and organizing Jewish holidays. She also participated in one of the annual seminars in Israel that Shavei runs for young Polish Jews.
After several years, she met Rabbi Boaz Pash, who was sent by Shavei Israel to serve as its emissary in Krakow. There was an immediate click. “I really liked his style of teaching,” she says. “He was the first rabbi to inspire me to get more into it.”
Life for Jews in Poland today is relatively comfortable. Daniela remembers only one disturbing interaction with non-Jewish Poles. “Some members of my Jewish group were walking in the Jewish district of Krakow, taking pictures of old prayer houses and shteibelech (small neighborhood synagogues),” she says. “At one place, there were some youngsters standing behind us and they heard us saying some Yiddish words. They started to throw stones at us. We were OK but it was scary. And it felt strange. This was our area.”
A year and a half ago, Daniela secured a scholarship from the Masa organization to study in Israel. She moved to Jerusalem where she studied Hebrew as well as Judaism at the Pardes Institute. She fell in love with the country and decided to formally make aliyah (immigration to Israel).
While Jewish life in Poland is much more active than it was even ten years ago, “people are very mobile, they leave Krakow each year to study or for a job,” Daniela says. “So the rabbi is always having to start over – he can’t teach to a more advanced level. I wanted to see what it was like to live in a fully Jewish community with an active intellectual life.”
Today she lives in Tel Aviv where she works for Shavei, translating the weekly Torah portion into Polish, which is then sent out via email to her former community in Poland and other Jewish centers. She has also translated Shavei’s publications on the Jewish holidays. “I just completed the books for holiday of Shavuot,” she says.
Daniela also works with individual Polish Jews in Israel to rebuild their family trees from the old country. Many of the people she helps are the descendants of Holocaust survivors who don’t speak Polish. “They were born in Israel after the war,” she explains. “Now they want to know where they came from but their grandparents aren’t around.”
Ironically, Daniela has found it harder to trace her own roots. Her family is from Belarus “and I don’t speak Russian,” she says.
What do her siblings and parents think about her direction? “They are all very proud” to be Jewish, she says, “although they’re not as involved as I am.” Two of her sisters have come to visit – one on the Birthright program – and her younger brother is studying some Hebrew back in Poland. “He’s only 17 but he wants to come too.” Her mother is “very happy I came back to the roots of our family,” Daniela adds.
Daniela is similarly pleased with her choices, especially her decision to move to Israel. “I really think that Israel is the best place for Jews to live,” she says. “I care for the country very much.”