Posted on 08/30/2007 11:08:52 AM PDT by OESY
They spent their childhoods in the rich, layered Jewish life of prewar Poland, then survived Hitler's mission to wipe out European Jewry in the ghettos and gas chambers of occupied Europe.
Now, men such as Tad Taube, Sigmund Rolat and Severyn Ashkenazy have returned to Poland as philanthropists — after making fortunes in the United States — to nurture a grass-roots revival of Jewish life in their homeland.
And while some Jews in America and elsewhere cannot comprehend why the philanthropists choose to return to a land where their ancestors suffered such pain and loss, members of Poland's Jewish community praise the help as crucial to the small renaissance now under way.
"What the philanthropists have done — along with the importance of the material donation — is also empowered us, encouraged us, let us know we're not alone," said Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, an Orthodox leader from New York. "And that cannot be underestimated."
Following Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, about 3 million Polish Jews were murdered in Nazi-run death camps in occupied Poland. Of those who survived, many later fled in reaction to anti-Semitic violence or repression under communism, which eventually fell in 1989.
Of those who remained, many suppressed their identities and intermarried with the Roman Catholic majority, making it difficult to say how many Jews live in this country of 38 million today. However, some estimates put the numbers of people with some Jewish ancestry at between 10,000 and 30,000.
Taube, Rolat and Ashkenazy say Polish Jews, who are often struggling economically, need help in rebuilding a community that hopes to reclaim its place in a country where Jews lived and prospered for a thousand years....
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
ping
after making fortunes in the United States... Hollywood?
Ashkenazy made his in hotels. I don't know about the others.
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