Mendel Joskowicz — the lone survivor of his family who had made it through the ghetto, slave work details, Dachau and Auschwitz — never dreamed he would live to see the revival of Polish Jewry. Yet four decades later, he was called upon to lead it. Last week marked the shloshim of Polish Chief Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Joskowicz, the chassid from Jerusalem who stood up to the pope, brushed shoulders with world leaders, and showed the hidden Jews of Poland what it means to walk erect and proud.
Poland’s chief rabbi Rav Pinchas Menachem Joskowicz ztz”l — whose shloshim was marked last week — was reacting to the numerous crosses planted throughout Auschwitz desecrating the sanctified memory of the millions of Jews who had been sent to their deaths in the camp.
In 1979 the pope himself had erected a twenty-six-foot tall cross on the grounds of Auschwitz after reciting mass there for some 500000 Catholics. Several years later Carmelite nuns attempted to move their nearby convent to the Auschwitz grounds and dozens of other “new” crosses were erected much to the chagrin of the international Jewish community. When Rabbi Joskowicz — himself an Auschwitz survivor — met with the Polish-born pope in 1999 the issue of the crosses had become one of the most explosive issues of the papacy.
Shortly before the pope’s arrival the government ordered the removal of hundreds of smaller crosses erected at Auschwitz by Catholic militants. But the pope’s cross meanwhile remained.
Rabbi Joskowicz created a minor scandal when his appeal televised live internationally opened with the remark “I have a favor to ask Mr. Pope” (instead of the more politic “Your Holiness”). But more than that he unabashedly put back on the table a sensitive issue the Polish government and the papacy would have preferred to suppress.
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