Surprises Begin at the Airport

Sunday night, at JFK.  Walking toward my gate, I notice several groups of teens.  Looking closer, I see that they're all wearing name tags with the word NFTY on it.  I approach a group sitting together, one boy strumming a guitar.  I introduce myself as a Reform rabbi and former NFTYite, and we strike up a conversation.  Turns out they are part of a NFTY summer experience taking them to Prague, Terezin, Krakow, Auschwitz, Warsaw and Israel.  This is the same North American Federation of Temple Youth that gives all of our b'nei mitzvah kids $250 toward travel.  These 47 kids are all using their gift certificates!   And their chaperone?  Ira Wise, the educator from B'nei Israel in Bridgeport, the congregation which joins TBA on the annual 10th grade trip to Washington.  It's a very small Jewish world!  I'm going to see them for Shabbat in Krakow.
A short time later.  Sitting at the gate, I see another group, all wearing identical T-shirts, saying "RAJE".  Of course I have to ask.  RAJE stands for Russian American Jewish Experience.  A group of 40 teens and young adults whose families are from the FSU are traveling back to Eastern Europe looking for their Jewish roots.  It seems that at least a third of the passengers on this flight are Jewish!  A hundred years ago, Jews were leaving Poland in droves for the "Goldene Medina."  Now they are returning, if only for a visit.  I wonder what my great grandparents, every one a Pole, would think about that?

Why I'm Going to Poland

To be honest, it has not been high on my list of must-see places, even though it’s my entire family’s most recent ancestral homeland.  I always thought that I would get there someday, if only to make what I’ve come to think of as an obligatory pilgrimage to Auschwitz, but I hadn’t imagined it quite this soon. So why am I going? Surprisingly, it’s in order to officiate at and celebrate a bar mitzvah in the town of Zamosc (in eastern Poland, four hours from Krakow and not far from Chelm).

An aside. Two years ago I traveled to Budapest as a member of the UJA Rabbinic Cabinet. I was astounded to see and hear about the renaissance – really, the resurrection – of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. It is happening all over, and it has been going on for some time, but in the past few years it has really gained momentum. Young Poles, Hungarians, and others are discovering that they have hidden Jewish roots, and suddenly, incredibly, this is considered positive, even desirable. Poles who want to be Jews. Absolutely amazing, given the history, and also in light of the recent study of the ongoing prevalence of world-wide anti-Semitism.

Back to the bar mitzvah. The Wisnik family have been TBA members for years. Eva was born in Poland. Her father was just a boy during WWII. He missed his bar mitzvah, but he did survive the Holocaust, and he returned to Poland where he eventually married a Polish woman. In 1968, when there was once again difficulty for the Jews in Poland, the family left, eventually coming to the United States.

Over the years, Eva maintained a connection with Poland, and has been thinking about holding Jake’s bar mitzvah there in her ancestral town. Recently she got connected to the Forum for Dialogue among the Nations, a Polish organization actively promoting Polish-Jewish reconciliation. Both she and Bob traveled to Poland with the Forum, and that group is helping to facilitate our trip this summer. Students in Zamosc have been studying the history of the Jewish community there, and they will be attending the bar mitzvah ceremony. Afterwards, they will lead us on a tour of the Jewish sites about which they’ve been studying.

The ceremony itself is taking place in the old Zamosc synagogue, the one in which Jake’s grandfather should have had his bar mitzvah. It was returned to the Jewish community in 2000, and restored in 2009. As far as we can gather, this will be the first bar mitzvah there since 1939. We will be closing a circle that has been open for 75 years. It promises to be a remarkable journey.