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MARCH 18, 2021 | The Jewish Home MARCH 18, 2021 | The Jewish Home
The Wandering
Jew
Gdansk By Hershel Lieber
I
know Michal Samet from the many times we were together at the Lauder Summer Retreats in Poland. We also met at times in Warsaw. Michal is the leader of the small Jewish community in Gdansk, Poland. Whatever is related to Jewish life in that historic city and the neighboring towns of Gdynia and Sopot is due to the efforts of Michal. There are between 100 and 150 Jews in that area and the one synagogue that functions rarely has a minyan, but there are constant activities or-
ganized around holiday themes and occasional lectures about Judaism. The budget is supported by the Union of Jewish Religious Communities of Poland with the active involvement of Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich. Michal had asked me many times to come for a few days including a Shabbos to Gdansk. He wanted me to give lectures and lead the Shabbos davening and meals for the community which rarely has a chance to meet and interact with religious Jews. The opportunity presented itself
in May of 2009. There was a planned unveiling across the railway station of a multi-figured sculpture depicting the Kinder-transport which allowed 124 children from the city to leave in the summer of 1939 to England, thereby saving them from the Holocaust. I was invited to the unveiling ceremony and was asked to sing the “E-l Moleh” during the service. This occasion would be perfect time to spend a few days with that lonely kehillah. A little history is now in order. The city’s history is complex, with
periods of Polish, Prussian and German control. The city was multi-ethnic, and between the wars, its status was an independent city state under the League of Nations largely under Polish control. Gdansk, which was called Danzig in German, had majority of Germans and a very small minority of Poles. The Nazi regime created a lot of tension to force the return of control of Danzig to Germany. In fact, the first German attack in September 1939 was on the Polish army positions in Wester-
