A Polish Priest’s Dream of Aliyah
Adopted To Survive Shoah, Jewish-Born Catholic Struggles
By Donald Snyder
When Romuald Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel applied to immigrate to Israel as a Jew under the Law of Return last October, Israeli authorities delayed responding to his request for months.
Perhaps it was the priest’s white-band collar around his neck that had something to do with this.
Yet ultimately, Israel’s Interior Ministry did issue the 66-year-old Polish cleric, scholar and professor at Catholic University of Lublin a two-year residency visa. It was, it seems, an imperfect compromise with a priest who insists: “I am Jewish. And my mother and father were Jewish. I feel Jewish.”
Speaking through an interpreter during a phone interview, he said, “Going to Israel would be the return of the Jewish child who took the long way home.”
Born in 1943 in Nazi-occupied Poland, Weksler-Waszkinel did not know that he was Jewish until he was 35 years old, 12 years after he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. Nor did he know that his birth parents, both ardent Zionists, were murdered by the Nazis after entrusting his care to a Polish Catholic family to save his life. It took him 14 years after he learned he was Jewish to find his real name and the names of his parents. “So in a way, it took me 14 years to be born,” the priest said.
“My mother’s dreams went up in the flames of Sobibor,” he explained, referring to the death camp in Poland where some 260,000 Jews were murdered.
Weksler-Waszkinel is not the only one who grapples with a dual identity. Mark Shraberman, chief archivist at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum and research institute, said in an interview in Jerusalem that he receives many letters from Poles who are discovering that they are of Jewish origin. “They find out the truth when one of their parents is dying,” Shraberman said. He added that he recently received a letter from another Polish priest in a small town who just found out that he is Jewish.
But Weksler-Waszkinel, in seeking to rediscover his lost identity by immigrating to Israel, is taking his search for that identity further than most. Though he sought originally to become recognized by the government as a Jew under the Law of Return — the law that grants any Jew immediate Israeli citizenship — he pronounced himself “very satisfied” with his two-year visa.
Weksler-Waszkinel says that he plans to immerse himself in Jewish life. “I don’t know what that means; after all, I am a Catholic priest. But I will find out,” he said. “I thought, perhaps, I could be a volunteer at Yad Vashem as someone who survived the Shoah and who participates in the Christian-Jewish dialogue, which is so important.” He says that the first thing he will do is learn Hebrew.
Weksler-Waszkinel was born in the town of Stare Swjeciary — which was then in Poland but is now known as Svencionys in Lithuania — four years after the Nazi invasion of Poland started World War II. His mother, Batia Weksler, gave him as an infant to a Christian woman to save his life.
Emilia Waszkinel, his Christian mother, initially hesitated to take him because she and her husband, Piotr, risked death for hiding a Jew. Emilia was reportedly convinced to accept the baby in response to his Jewish mother’s plea: “Save my child, a Jewish child, and in the name of the Jesus that you believe in, he will grow up to become a priest.”
The couple raised the boy as their own child in Eastern Poland, where they lived after the war, without telling him that he was Jewish. The boy attended secular schools.
Perhaps because of this, his parents were shocked when, at the age of 17, Weksler-Waszkinel told them he planned to become a priest. His father tried to discourage him, saying he should instead become a doctor, and cried uncontrollably when visiting his son at the seminary. Weksler-Waszkinel felt enormous guilt when his father died shortly after this visit. Briefly, he considered ending his studies.
Even before discovering his Jewish background, Weksler-Waszkinel had harbored doubts about his true identity. The young man had been aware of the fact that he did not have the pronounced Slavic features of his parents. He had been called “a Jew bastard” by town drunks, so he asked his mother if he was Jewish. She assured him that he was Catholic. When he was 35, long after his ordination, he again inquired about his identity, and Emilia, weeping, told him about his Jewish mother.
Emilia told Weksler-Waszkinel that he had wonderful parents who were murdered by the Germans in the Holocaust and that she had saved his life.
“My head spun, and I asked her why she hid this from me,” the shocked priest wrote in a 1994 essay. “My heart was pounding as I thought that I had become a priest, something my mother said I would become.”
The priest had fulfilled the prophecy of his Jewish mother, a woman he had never known.
He felt he needed to confide in someone, so he wrote to Karol Wojtyla, who by then was Pope John Paul II but who had been Weksler-Waszkinel’s professor in Lublin. The pontiff responded, “My beloved brother, I pray so that you can rediscover your roots.”
Weksler-Waszkinel eventually traveled to Israel. There he met his Jewish father’s brother, who showed him a photograph of his parents. He realized that he resembled them. “My mother’s eyes are in me, my father’s mouth and the fears and tears of my brother,” he wrote in the 1994 essay.
Weksler-Waskinel’s uncle embraced him as a long-lost relative, but said that he could not understand how his nephew could be a priest and represent the church that has persecuted Jews for 2,000 years. The priest responded: “To really belong to Jesus means to love Jews. Jesus never betrayed me, and I will not betray him.”
Nevertheless, Weksler-Waskinel grapples with his tangled identity.
“His double identity is a problem for him that he struggles with all the time,” said Zbigniew Nosowski, a friend of the priest and editor of Weiz, a Polish-Catholic intellectual magazine in Krakow.
According to Michael Schudrich, chief rabbi of Poland, “Father Waskinel is incredibly honest in saying that he is Jewish, and he is also honest in not wanting to turn his back on the church.”
Some close friends grasp the enormity of the priest’s conflict. “He has an impossible task to find a place for himself,” said Stanislaw Krajewski who is a friend of the priest and teaches mathematics at the University of Warsaw. Krajewski said the 66-year-old priest has been “an uncomfortable presence” to some Jews and Christians because of his dual religious identity.
“He is very Jewish and very Christian,” said Hanna Krall, a prominent Polish journalist and novelist.
Weksler-Waszkinel says Poland will always be his fatherland and Israel will be his homeland.
The priest has devoted most of his academic life to writing about Jewish-Christian relations. He praises the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council, calling them “a radical change, a revolution.”
He is working to further improve ties between Christians and Jews, inspired by Pope John Paul II’s call for greater Catholic respect and understanding for Jews. When asked how Weksler-Waszkinel promotes ecumenism, Schudrich said, “When he gets up in the morning and breathes… his life’s message is that strong.”
According to a number of Polish intellectuals, Weksler-Waszkinel’s story brings Jews and Christians closer. “When he tells his personal story, he has tears in his eyes,” Krajewski said. “And audiences cry with him. It is a very sad story.”
Weksler-Waszkinel’s speeches to churchgoers and lay people point to the Jewish roots of Christianity and the enormous gap dividing the two faiths. He often criticizes the Catholic Church for not closing the gap between Jews and Christians. In our interview, he told me that Pope John Paul once said, “The New Testament finds its roots in the Old Testament,” and that what is significant is the word “finds.” Weksler-Waszkinel added, “Those roots have always been there, according to Pope John Paul, but for 19 centuries they were forgotten, and a Jew was considered the worst enemy.”
Weksler-Waszkinel’s application to go to Israel as a Jew under the Law of Return is clearly heartfelt. It also has a practical aspect. He said that getting Israeli citizenship would entitle him to benefits he needs to supplement his small pension of $900 a month. Under the two-year visa arrangement he has now accepted, those benefits will not be available. The priest is determined to immigrate, nevertheless, even with little money and just a two-year visa.
Experts doubt that the Ministry of the Interior, controlled by the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, would have granted Weksler-Waszkinel citizenship under the Law of Return.
In 1962, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in a 4-1 decision against Jewish-born Oswald Rufeisen, a Carmelite monk known as Brother Daniel, who sought Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return. This was the first narrowing of the statute, which was basic to Israel’s identity from its founding in the wake of the Holocaust. Judge Haim Cohen, the single dissenter, noted that the Nazis sought to kill all those born Jewish, irrespective of their conversion from or rejection of Judaism. But the court ruled that the Law of Return did not apply to Jews who had embraced another religion.
Weksler-Waszkinel’s case for automatic Israeli citizenship seems to be stronger than that of Rufeisen in one respect: He could argue that he never did, in fact, “embrace” another religion. Unlike the Polish-born Carmelite monk, who converted as an adult to Catholicism after finding shelter from the Nazis in a convent, Weksler-Waszkinel never consciously chose to leave Judaism for another faith. He argues that he considers himself a Jew who was raised from infancy as a Catholic without being informed of his true identity.
“The court fight would be lengthy and complicated, and he decided to avoid it,” said Schudrich, who is helping the priest relocate to Israel.
“He wants to be in a place where he can see a full, rich Jewish life,” Schudrich said of Weksler-Waszkinel’s need to fulfill his dream to live in Israel. “He has this inner longing to be in a place that is surrounded by the culture of his ancestors.”
Contact Donald Snyder at feedback@forward.com.
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is there a way to financially donate to Father Romauld Jakub Wksler-Wasznikel? If so, I would like an address or contact if possible. Thank you.
It has always been my understanding that if you are the child of a Jewish mother, you Jewish nonetheless. On the other hand if you the child of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, you are not Jewish. I'm not sure that this is right, but that is the way it is. This priest should have been recognized by Israel and allowed to become an Israeli citizen. The Israelis have always been a little "stiff-necked," and should welcome this man, instead of allowing him to come to Israel for only two years.
Stephen, being Jewish is a religion, so it's not enough to have a Jewish Mamme, you need to be free of invalidations. It is even sufficient to be brought up of different faith, to not be counted as a "living" Jew. So at the moment, Father Waszkinel would not be counted towards a minyan. And if he had a baby boy, say, one wouldn't be allowed to circumcise that boy, even if his father wanted. On the other hand, if he renounced his current faith, he would become a completely normal Jew, who would then be able to get Israeli citizenship.
This priest is a Jew and moreover a survivor of the Shoa. There is a simple answer-please let us all agree that this man must be given citizenship if that is what he wants. His citizenship will only highlight Jewish compassion;his citizenship will harm no one With so many wanting to destroy Israel,including,unfortunately some so called religious Jews(a few ultra Orthodox),let alone some non religious Jews,a simple act of compassion e.g. giving the Father citizenship would do more for the collective Jewish people than any other course. Michael Kaplan,Portland,Oregon
What a moving story! It is ironic that a Catholic family took the child in to save his life and that his own people now refuse to welcome him as a citizen. It also says something important about Father Waszkinel's sincerity and equanimity that he is happy to have the two year visa and is not going to court to argue for more. It's too bad that the Ministry of the Interior does share the ideal that "home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you on."
Isn't it ironic that there are so many Jews who have a good, solid background in Jewish life - and yet aliyah is not an option for them? They support the aliyah of others. Romuald Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel has no background at all in Jewish community life. He didn't even know that he was a hidden Jewish child until his adulthood - and he is the one who wishes to live in Israel! Well, I imagine that he will find the way to stay here despite his present-day bureaucratic obstacles. His story is the tragic story of the Jewish people, and it's good that he's with us.
Yet, I find it sad and disappointing that the ideal of aliyah is not regarded as an ideal for oneself; rather, it remains an ideal for other Jews. "Lo ha-midrash 'iqqar, ella ha-ma'aseh", so it is written in Pirqei Avot (one's actions are the important thing, not one's interpretations).
If he wants to go to Israel, first should give up idel worshiping.
I was born of a Jewish mother I was circumcised, raised as a jew I was Bar-mitzvad and believed so strongly, I still do. I ask why is it that when as a child most all the conservitive jews would not accept me as a jew not even my eldest uncle Berny, I was not even let into his childrens homes and told to leave my girlfriends house when they found out my father was a protistant. This tuning on our own people has got to change. I feel for this Christian raised Jew. His mother was a Jew that by lachaz makes him a jew. Let My People Go. Mark Hall
I was born of a Jewish mother I was circumcised, raised as a jew I was Bar-mitzvad and believed so strongly, I still do. I ask why is it that when as a child most all the conservitive jews would not accept me as a jew not even my eldest uncle Berny, I was not even let into his childrens homes and told to leave my girlfriends house when they found out my father was a protistant. This tuning on our own people has got to change. I feel for this Christian raised Jew. His mother was a Jew that by lachaz makes him a jew. Let My People Go. Mark Hall
To Mark Hall, You are a Jew if your mother was a bonafide Jewess when you were born, as provable by the proper documentation or by valid testimony, and if anyone says different tell them that according to HA'LACHA (not "lachaz?") you are a Jew, and also remind them that King David's great, great grandmoher Ruth was a Moabite. Now, if a Jew get baptized, or formally enters another faith, then they have left the tribe voluntarily or involuntarily. This priest, if he genuinely wants to make aliyah, and is cognizant of what that means, including going to the army and all the other responsibilities and difficulties that aliyah entails, must then convert back to Judaisim in accordance to orthodox rabbinical halacha. Usually they will make it a little bit easier for those who were originally born a Jew. There will always be ignorant and spiteful people,but if his heart is in the right place and is determined, he will overcome. But only a Jew has the RIGHT to return and live in Israel. All others must go through a different immigration procedure which is usually far less accepting of non-Jewish immigration.
Being a survivor of the Holocaust doesn't mean anything. My mother who was a true Jewess and "eishes chayal" was a Holocaust survivor, but when I emigrated to Israel and wanted to get married, I had to prove to the Rabbinate that I was a Jew. I had to get documentation as to my mother's being a Jewess. I had a document of divorcement (a "Get") from my previous marriage that was from an orthodox rabbi in New York that was found acceptable as well. You can't just SAY you're a Jew and think you can get away with it. You have to PROVE it to the Rabbinate, and then they pass it on to the Ministry of Interior that issues the Israeli ID card. The Rabbinate decides "Who is a Jew" in ISrael, and the State accepts what the Rabbinate rules. But in addition, the Israeli Law of Return also allows those a few others as well to immigrate. It allows the spouses and children of Jews to come as well, to keep nuclear families together. IN addition to that, it may allow those whom the Nazi Nuremberg laws racially defined as Jews to come as well if they are in danger of persecution because of so-called "Jewish blood." Jewish law has no concept of race or "racial purity." Those are foreign concepts. Many Germans considered to be "Jews" by Hitler's laws and expelled or otherwise persecuted, even though they may have had more "Aryan blood" than Jewish DNA, were still permitted to come to Palestine when it was still open to free immigration in the 1930s. I suspect that may be why some many of them are conflicted, as there's a war going on in their DNA.
To Stephen Folksom,
It's not a question of ISrael being "stiffnecked" or flexible. It's a question of TRIBAL LAW and who decides who belongs to the tribe. If I wanted to become a member of the Navajo tribe, to live on Navajo land, I would have to accede to the laws of the Navajo people. I don't know anything about their tribal customs, laws or traditions - or religion for that matter. I'm sure that I would have to learn A LOT. And if they were willing to consider my application to their tribe, I'm certain they would put me through a lot of learning and difficulties before they would accept me. In the Jewish tribe, the orthodox Rabbis are our tribal "shamans." They often quibble among themselves, but they are the interpreters of our Mosaic Law. It's not the secular state of ISrael with its elected secular officials that can decide who is or isn't a Jew. They can only decide who can immigrate and who cannot. But the law of the state rules that nny one whom the rabbinate accepts as being a Jew has that right to return. BTW, it was no only Israeli state law that created the Law of Return, but actually it was the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 that enshrined the provisions of the Mandate that Jews may freely immigrate and settle in Palestine. So it was international law even before the modern State of Israel was created.
To Stephen Folksom,
It's not a question of ISrael being "stiffnecked" or flexible. It's a question of TRIBAL LAW and who decides who belongs to the tribe. If I wanted to become a member of the Navajo tribe, to live on Navajo land, I would have to accede to the laws of the Navajo people. I don't know anything about their tribal customs, laws or traditions - or religion for that matter. I'm sure that I would have to learn A LOT. And if they were willing to consider my application to their tribe, I'm certain they would put me through a lot of learning and difficulties before they would accept me. In the Jewish tribe, the orthodox Rabbis are our tribal "shamans." They often quibble among themselves, but they are the interpreters of our Mosaic Law. It's not the secular state of ISrael with its elected secular officials that can decide who is or isn't a Jew. They can only decide who can immigrate and who cannot. But the law of the state rules that nny one whom the rabbinate accepts as being a Jew has that right to return. BTW, it was no only Israeli state law that created the Law of Return, but actually it was the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 that enshrined the provisions of the Mandate that Jews may freely immigrate and settle in Palestine. So it was international law even before the modern State of Israel was created.
To Stephen Folksom,
It's not a question of ISrael being "stiffnecked" or flexible. It's a question of TRIBAL LAW and who decides who belongs to the tribe. If I wanted to become a member of the Navajo tribe, to live on Navajo land, I would have to accede to the laws of the Navajo people. I don't know anything about their tribal customs, laws or traditions - or religion for that matter. I'm sure that I would have to learn A LOT. And if they were willing to consider my application to their tribe, I'm certain they would put me through a lot of learning and difficulties before they would accept me. In the Jewish tribe, the orthodox Rabbis are our tribal "shamans." They often quibble among themselves, but they are the interpreters of our Mosaic Law. It's not the secular state of ISrael with its elected secular officials that can decide who is or isn't a Jew. They can only decide who can immigrate and who cannot. But the law of the state rules that nny one whom the rabbinate accepts as being a Jew has that right to return. BTW, it was no only Israeli state law that created the Law of Return, but actually it was the Council of the League of Nations in 1922 that enshrined the provisions of the Mandate that Jews may freely immigrate and settle in Palestine. So it was international law even before the modern State of Israel was created.
Another example. Who is "Irish?" Is it someone born in Ireland? Let's say ancient Celtic law going back to the Druids said that someone born of an Irish mother will be considered Irish. If that were ancient Irish law, then president Obama would be considered Irish. Someone in Ireland born of a Jewish mother and an Irish father would not be considered Irish. Actually, Ireland too has a Right of Return law, but what their criterion for being considered Irish is, I do not know. Do you have to look like a Leprechaun or be a good jig dancer? I guess I would have to defer to Druid law.
Another example. Who is "Irish?" Is it someone born in Ireland? Let's say ancient Celtic law going back to the Druids said that someone born of an Irish mother will be considered Irish. If that were ancient Irish law, then president Obama would be considered Irish. Someone in Ireland born of a Jewish mother and an Irish father would not be considered Irish. Actually, Ireland too has a Right of Return law, but what their criterion for being considered Irish is, I do not know. Do you have to look like a Leprechaun or be a good jig dancer? I guess I would have to defer to Druid law.
To jgarbuz:
Ireland does not have a Law of Return, although that idea of allowing anyone of Irish ancestry to claim Irish citizenship was discussed in the Dail (the Irish parliament) in 1956. What emerged in that year was rather a law allowing anyone with at least one Irish born grandparent to register as an Irish citizen.
the holocaust caused so many tragedies...after all millions were murdered....
At least this man lives- He saddens his dead parents.
No normal Polish Jew would have wanted their child to be a Catholic priest....
I pray that Jakub Wksler understands better his people... and, while respecting Christianity, he will decide to adopt the faith & beliefs of the Jewish people.
That is the only thing he can do, if he wishes to face who he is... He cannot continue as a Catholic priest... It is not the truth for him- however much he may have gratitude to those who saved him...
This is a spiritual truth as to his soul's belonging... I think he's beginning to feel this- the very fact that he wishes to come to Israel shows his search.... He will only find this truth for him in recognising his Jewish faith & understanding that Jews died for this... and that Christianity is something else... not for him...
Whatever rights he had as a Jew, he chose to surrender when he decided to convert. He is no more Jewish now than Jews for Jesus who run around the US once a year claiming to be Jewish believers in Jesus. No. Jews believe in particular characteristics of the Messiah, and Jesus doesn't fit. Those that change/intepret the rules to make him fit are called Christians. Those who are born Jewish and believe Jesus is the Messiah are Christians who happened to be born Jewish.
That this guy's response to his parents being murdered for being Jewish was to abandon their religion is, for me, just a sad commentary on him. A tragic story, of course. Were those who sheltered him heroes? Yes. Is he today a Jewish man? No.
I wish commenters would actually READ this article before commenting!
Believe me I've read it, and I'll say again that this guy has no business talking about how he is Jewish. I don't care if he visits Israel or Mars, he shouldn't be saying he is Jewish. Further, I don't really understand why the Jewish press pays so much attention to stories of Jewish converts to Christianity.
Jgarbuz It's actually incorrect that he'll have to undergo a difficult conversion to become a Jew. Actually, his current status is that of a "Dead Jew". He isn't a Gentile, where conversion would take ages. So in case his conscience stirs him to accept Halacha and renounce Xtianity - he would become a fully entitled Jew again. This is also why the Spanish Inquisition was so adamant in persecuting Marranos - because the inquisitors knew many Marranos could become Jews again, in a split second, by renouncing Xtianity.
The point is Wasznikel doesn't want to do that. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't. And as such, he is like that person in the Talmud who goes into a Mikva but holds onto a Sheretz in his or her hand (Nedarim 75b). Why go into so much trouble of going into a Mikva, and then hold onto a Sheretz? Such a person would never be able to convert...
I'm appalled by some of the comments about this article. This man is a survivor of the Shoah. He is Jewish by halakha, therefore regardless of his current personal religious status, the Orthodox Rabbinate should accept him as Jewish. Of course, with the usual hypocrisy that makes me hesitant about aliyah, they won't abide by their own standards.
To the person who said "That this guy's response to his parents being murdered for being Jewish was to abandon their religion" is a "sad commentary" on him: you clearly did not read this article very carefully. He became a priest years before he learned about his origins. He is clearly very interested in his Jewishness and is trying his best to make meaning out of a difficult situation (which is not in the least his fault) and to reconcile his dual identities.
Consider how earth shattering it would be to discover as a grown person that everything you believe about who you are is not true. If someone today told you that you were not Jewish, even though you had been raised Jewish, were b'nai mitzvah, and davened every week, would you suddenly just stop believing in Judaism? I don't think so.
Have some compassion. I am proud to call this man my brother. Am yisrael chai!
I happen to have been the Consul General of Poland in York. When Don Snyder was about to leave (June 2008) for Poland on a study tour - research and interviews on the late Irena Sendler - I mentioned the name of Father Weksler-Waszkinel to him and suggested that he should reach out to this unbelievable life narration. Year later Mr. Snyder published this incredibly incredible story of the Human contained within unique personal drama of his double spirituality against which he can only show his innocence. I wish all commenters of this forum would demonstrate their sensitivity to Father Weksler-Waszkinel unsolvable drama and pain. His in pain, that's obvious. But his pain is "beautiful" because it proves how we meander as humans, what is the Unexpected on our way through time and space. I'll try to invite and bring Father Weksler-Waszkinel to New York. Not for the demo of spiritual and mental exhibitionism but in order to set up the moment of healing to all who will attend and embrace his experience, to all who wish to comprehend how tough life can be, how cruel and challenging choices and sentences are excercised on us. The depth of Shoah and its stigmas is bottomless.
Once again,I beg of the audience reading about our brother who happens to be a priest as well as a Jewish survivor of the Shoah,please think of the harm toward this man as well as the harm against Judaism when you speak inhumane comments such as some of the previous comments.Remember what is written:"if one saves a single life,it is if an entire universe is saved."The Shoah is not just history to me as I grew up with survivors in my own family. Again,I beg of all people writing to embrace modesty,humility and compassion.There is no absolute "right" or "wrong"here,there is only another human being.
Michael Kaplan,Portland,Oregon
Israel should be the homeland of a people (the Israelites or Hebrews), not a religion (Judaism). Israelites have historically been Essenes, Sadduccees, Pharisees, Samaritans and yes Christ-believers. All should be welcome as the seed of Abraham, including the converted Judeans who embraced the religion of Ishmael (Palestinians).
Dear Brenda and everyone that is interested to help Romuald- please contact me and I will put you in touch. Thank you, tyszkah@gmail.com
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