Klincz. Debata polsko - żydowska.

Tym razem jest to nietypowa notka. Przeczytałem ostatnio, w sumie dobrych parę miesięcy temu, książkę Gabriela Kayzera "Klincz? Debata polsko- żydowska". Bardzo mnie ona zaciekawiła i tak od przeczytania nie minęło dużo czasu, aż przyszedł mi do głowy pomysł przetłumaczenia jej na angielski. Chciałem ją przetłumaczyć ze względu też na to, że mało takich polskich prac dostępnych jest po angielsku, a jednostronnych i błędnych (kłamliwych?) publikacji żydowskich jest na pęczki. Jako, że jest to duża książka (ponad 600 stron), pewnie dużo czasu zajmie mi jej całe jej przetłumaczenie. Całość tekstu jest traktowana jako integralna całość, można ją cytować, ale zgodnie z prawem z podaniem źródła tzn. autora książki i jej tytułu, osoby udzielające wywiadu, no i tłumacza amatora:). Tłumaczenie jest moje, dlatego jest pewnie w nim dużo błędów:), pro publico bono, całkowicie bez wynagrodzenia.

Jako, że są to wywiady z różnymi ludźmi, to i można je czytać w różnej kolejności, na sam początek idzie rozdział drugi.

„For me Holy Land is a fifth Gospel”
With Stella Zylbersztajn

Gabriel Kayzer: How did you become a Christian?
My father was a communist and My mother was a believer. She ran away from home, when she was 10 years old. She couldn’t understand, why the great God needed, that the Jews must fulfill so many small commandments. If she found an idea, she would sacrifice herself. However she didn’t find proper idea. She married my father and in the same time she believed, that I would find an idea worth to sacrificing my life. If I knew that many good Jews, who are here in Haifa, for sure I wouldn’t seek any God in Christianity. In Poland, however, people who represents the Judaism were so terrible, that I knew, that there wasn’t place to look for God.
God, in whom they believed, couldn’t be my Lord. Christians were very good to me. Until today I have in my flat picture of a simple cottage, that was used as my hideout. Those simple people in this countryside had good hearts. For me that was clear, that they are in danger ,when they are hiding me. They didn’t have any academic degrees, but they knew how to love.
I was baptized at the end of the Second World War at the age of 18. That was conscious choice and I fully accepted Christianity. As an only child I have always been loved and I didn’t need them to love me. All what I needed was to love and give love. First, I loved my teacher, then my homeland - Poland, because in Poland we felt Poles. It was not enough, also it was necessary to love God and he pulled me to him.

In the Warsaw Ghetto there was something similar to mass conversions to Catholicism. How can it be explain?
One of the priests wrote that from 5,000 to 7,000 Catholics were in the ghetto. Of course, many Jews were baptized to get to the other side and save lives. But I heard from the beginning, that there was a real group of first Christians (they knew that they would be death) who didn’t renounce their faith in Jesus, but they stay with it. This story should be filmed. It’s also worth to remember and talk about the priest, who was present with Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. It had to be a great man.
The daughter of professor Ludwik Hirszfeld died not because of tuberculosis, but because of hunger. She shared her food with other children. Her life and true Christian attitude should be an example for us, how should we live. For me the extermination is not over yet and it is still going on somewhere.

What do you mean by saying that the extermination is not over?
In today’s world children are still dying of hunger. Therefore, at the Second Vatican Council, the sin of omission was added to the confession - leaving good, what is the same evil as killing someone. Situation, when to slice of bread is not given to the hungry, is equal to condemn someone to death. Our whole Christian world should said: “mea culpa”, because if all those, who were baptized were Christians, then there would be no hunger. I am not talking about the wars, that start without our guilt and cooperation, but about the ordinary human hunger, which should be a remorse for us. Probably only few people talk about it during the confession. Many Christians do not even realize it. I always feel guilty because I can’t forget the face of a man, who was starving at the cafe door in Warsaw Ghetto. We all like those people playing in the cafe. It does not matter if a man dies 5 meters away from us or 5,000 km. When I was in the ghetto, I saw the Jewish indifference. Now I see that other peoples are also indifference. I've been wondering, if I'm alive to eat the leftovers or eat the leftovers to live. Never less it was almost clear for me, that I had to save all (money, food, clothes) what I could to help others.  Today this type of thinking is almost absent, is unpopular. The whole East is not interested in poor people in general. Every year, over 6 million girls were killed in India, because only the son and his wife have duty to help the parents of the man, not woman’s parents. For this reason the parents of the woman must give her daughter a big dowry. Two years ago, when I was in Poland, it was said that during the one year 12 million people would die of starvation in Somalia. In Poland, they were collected money on a tray and sent all amount to these people. Although it’s a precious act, we don’t do enough for poor and rejected people.

In 2012, a meeting of communities praying in Hebrew, priest Józef Maj brought a painting depicting a figurine of the Mother of God, once standing in the Warsaw ghetto. It’s very important to you?
Yes, I show Her image for everyone, who comes to visit us. As a rule, we don’t want to have figures or paintings in our chapel, like it’s among the Jews. Our chapel is the House of Prayer. In the synagogue in Safed there is only a table and books for prayer. No decorations are needed for prayer, but this image is only one exception.

Are there any other traditions that differentiate you from other Catholics?
Only Jerusalem and Haifa have introduced Advent. It is a long Advent, which we start immediately after Sukkot - the celebration of tents, after the Jewish New Year. We start with the Flood, Abraham, Moses, David and so on. Father Daniel always regretted, that in the Church the liturgical year begins with exile from paradise. In our weather conditions, the liturgical year begins with the rainy season, from the creation of a beautiful world. A time ago Ethiopians lived in my home and they told me, that in almost all countries in Africa it’s a national holiday - the beginning of the year.

Why did you went to Israel?
I didn’t mean to go to Israel. I wanted to go to India. General of the Carmelite Order didn’t agree with me. He said, that there were enough Carmelites in India and he was right. Despite this, I cut my hair out of anger. In this time the Superior of the Christians Order, priest  Edward Szymanek, return from pilgrimage to the Israel. During half an hour talk, he convinced me that my place was in Israel. In second half hour I got all the permits. In 1969, the visa got within 2 weeks, thanks to this I left Poland for Israel to Haifa. In my case, however, this was not the effect of an anti-Semitic battue. It seemed to me, that I would eradiate love and infect the Jews with Christian faith. That was nothing special and new. I had Jewish neighbors and they were much better, than me in this topic. They could sacrifice themselves for others, more than I did. I was two weeks in the Carmelite monastery in Bethlehem. The Patriarch said he didn’t know anything about it. Then I went to Carmel in Haifa. I wanted to pray in Hebrew, and those old French women couldn’t learn this language anymore. For this reason, among others, after more than twenty years I was removed from Carmel. I was just a guest there and the sisters decided, that I have to go.

Why did you stay in Haifa?
In 1969, in Haifa, Father Daniel gathered Catholics Jews around him. Mostly, however, they were Polish women, who married Jews. I joined this community. I studied in Haifa, and then I worked there. Haifa is my starting point to travel and I always came back to it. Besides that I don’t like Tel Aviv. In the summer there is hot as hell. Jerusalem will always be for me a city, where the prophets are killed. Fanatics from both sides. There are some normal people, but they must be quiet. In Haifa, we live normal as is possible. Jews with Arabs, pious with the impious. You can do, whatever you want and everyone fills good. We go by bus on Saturday. Haifa works, Tel Aviv dances, Jerusalem prays. In the morning in Jerusalem, when you go out into the street, you see how people return from prayer. I have there a friend from Russia - a very educated woman, who recently is more religious. The pious Jews there live and have a very honest life. They have pious stores and reasonable prices. They take care of themselves. However, Haifa is best for me.

Who was father Daniel, that you mentioned?
Father Daniel Rufeisen was a Carmelite, guide, who was paving the way. He had incredibly bold ideas and a vision, what should be here. He once said in the church: "Everyone is against me. And Christians, and Jews, and Poles, and the Patriarch, and I'm happy”. He knew, what he must to do, he knew, what was good and real. Once time, when he was with our Pope, he said everything, that he have in heart. Pope said: "You have to be a Jew to feel in the same way". Daniel replied that Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger was also a Jew. The Pope immediately corrected him: "No, he is French". John Paul II knew perfectly well that Cardinal Lustiger felt like a Frenchman and we feel differently in Israel. Here, moreover, we feel at home, that is ours place. Father Daniel said, that we have here a straight back. Here we are, not only from the dawn of this nation, but also from the beginning of faith in the One.

Many people bother with the question: what it’s like to be Jewish and Catholic at the same time. Maybe this is a trivial question, but how is it?
It’s to be yourself. I think, that the Jew can be the closest to the ideal Catholic. It has been revealed to me not so long ago. During the last twenty years the matter of extermination and the questions, why such a cruel crime committed by the Germans on Jews took place, was troubling me a lot. Then, reading chapter 53 of Isaiah, I understood, that the words of the Messiah tortured refer to the whole Jewish people. In the eyes of God, Christ is one from the beginning. Jesus said that salvation is from the Jews. We, on the other hand, are a continuation of the martyred Messiah, although in practice, among Jews, it’s depends. For a Jew ,who is a believer like me, it is a great happiness to be in the roots. The Catholic Jew have a very important role to play in the Catholic Church - to restore the Church to it’s roots. The church was not born 2 thousand years ago. For me, the Church exists from the God’s creation of the world. The church is Christ, so it has always existed. Jesus creates unity in the Church.

Do you see this return to the roots in the Church?
I think so. The dialogue between Jews and Catholics has been conducted in France for several decades and is very far advanced. The fact that Edith Stein is the patron of Europe is the best joke of our Pope. We must finally tear down 2,000 years of hatred between Christians and Jews. To show, that we do not despise Jews, that we don’t cut off ourselves from them and we don’t want to convert them. Because otherwise they are just afraid us. And you must remember, that Jews are not a missionary nation, you don’t need to convert them. They must see in Christians a pure humanity. You must show them that Christianity is a religion of love, not hatred. It's enough. As for Europe, I do not have much confidence in it anymore. Europe is still not fully baptized. That the king of France gathered the nation and poured out the holy water on him, didn’t make them Christians. For me, for example, the Germans remained the same barbarians, as they were in Roman times.

It’s the same with Poles?
Slavs are quite different. In Hebrew, Polin, means here we will live, rest. Polonia, this is the place where we can live. It means God lives here. (Po-lan-iave). Jews don’t say: Jahve, but it means that God lives in Poland. Throughout my life, I wanted to show Poles how Jewish families look like, and show Jews, how noble Poles looked like. I hope that I did it in small, but good way.
The Germans are trying today to share the blame for killing Jews with other nations, including Poles. What do you think?
Of course, we can always be responsible to some degree. We Jews also, because in 1938 we already knew, what be the end. Even then there were jokes on this subject. We sat however to the end. Only individual units have escaped. Many people didn’t want to leave their old parents and that's why they stayed.
I heard, however, a long time ago that 60 doctoral dissertations were created, that are based on thesis, that there were no Holocaust. That chickens were smoked in the crematoria, etc. Regarding the question, one must be stated: the Germans looking for complicities, can speak and lie as much as they want. And they unable to undermine the fact, that they are responsible for the extermination of the Jews. Only thanks to the precision, typical for this nation, they managed to carry out mass murder on a mass scale and adapt their death machine to Jews, depending on the conditions prevailing in a given country. The nation, that was considered the most cultured in Europe, made the murder on Jews. One should also be remember: Roma and Sinti, whose fate during the Holocaust was one thousand times worse, than the fate of Jews. Now, when the Roma come to Germany and the German state has to pay them social allowances or allowances for children. Germans complain about them very much. For Roma and Sinti such help simply belongs, taking in to account what the Germans did to them.

Do You want to go back to the Poland and live there?
I don’t want it anymore. I am 88 years old. I came to Poland, when it was necessary, but I’m rooted in Israel. I want to die on my balcony, where I feel best. I’m here at home and I feel as a whole being, that this country, where I live, is a fifth Gospel. It is amazing to sit among flowers and birds, and feel that the Lord Jesus was sitting in the same way. I really enjoy to have guests, but I don’t want to move from here. I used to travel a lot. I was ten times in Sinai. I have always been drawn to the East. I was four times in India. They saw, there that I loved them very much and they insisted, that I must stay with them. I was answering, them that I couldn’t stay with them because, they didn’t have that beautiful view, as I have from my balcony in Haifa. I have no need to change anything. I think it's not as good to older people as it is in Israel. I receive 10 hours of help from you for a week. That's enough for me.

Do you see the finger of God in a connection between the Poles and the Jews?
John Paul II was the first Pope, who enter the synagogue; as the first Pope, he prayed at the Weeping Wall; he apologized for anti-Semitism as the first pope. He also established diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel.
Nobody did as much for Jews as he did. However, I think that all is the work of the Holy Spirit. Sixty years ago in Poland, a Pallottin said in a homily, that the world is now divided into two camps: believers and non-believers. There are not such big differences between religions, as there are between materialists, who live from day to day and people who look for God every day.

For many years, you belong to the community of Catholics who pray in Hebrew. How does your formation look like?
Fr. David Neuhaus, a Jesuit priest, is the superior of the Catholic Jewish communities in Israel. If there are any Christian holidays, he is invited by the radio to bless. Father Neuhaus is the helper of the patriarch for Hebrew affairs. Earlier Father Daniel was also invited. In every country today everyone can pray in their language. In Israel we pray in Hebrew. In the community in which I am, it is important to feel Jewish. Three times a year, all communities from Israel gather together for common prayer. We get in to the entire first Testament and in all God's thought, which is the desire to redeem the world and every human being. In the Church, we want to be a link, that unites the past with the future. To show, that God's thought is one and the our Lord wants to save everyone. However, there is no other way than through suffering. Christ's suffering, suffering of Jews during the Holocaust. Suffering people, who were disaster-stricken and their relatives and all their belongings disappear. We can’t understand why, but God for sure has prepared for the suffering a proper payment.

Do you have any difficulties in Israel, that you are Jews who profess Catholicism?
I think that other Jews look at us sometimes as a some backsliders. However, I will quote a story from my life. I have lived in Haifa in the same place for 40 years. 10 years ago, my apartment was completely burned. My Jewish neighbors knew, that rebuilding the house would be very expensive and it's not worth doing. They said, it was better to go somewhere else. But I told them, that I wanted to die on this balcony, from which there is a view of Galilee. I had 100 shekels in my pocket and an empty bank account and they knew about it. However, they got together and built a renovated house for me. Then, when I was 80, I published my autobiography in Hebrew titled "And if it was our child?" with a dedication for my neighbors, who were better than my family. No family would do, what my Jewish neighbors did for me. Each of them knows this book, because I put them to their mailbox. Since then they know everything about me and they still love me.
Jews, when they see, that they are loved, they give love back. It’s not important, what is believed, most important is, what is a human being. I have neighbors, very pious Jews, who often invite me and they don’t want to convert me. I sit with them and we pray together. I never heard a bad word from them. Once a pious neighbor came to me and she was glad, that I was celebrating Kababbat Shabat. Another pious neighbor was very happy, that she saw me in Sajna. My devout neighbors are wonderful, deeply believing people. They believe, how they were taught. As God has given them to understand it and that's enough for them. The Jews are very different. Part of them want to have an almost tangible contact with God. However, they don’t reach Christianity, because God hasn’t yet pulled them out. Yes, as Simon Weiss writes - you can’t pour anything into a full glass. They undergo a certain process. Some become more believers, and some simply fall into hedonism and materialism. They educate them in that way. I think, however, that this is a transitional period. In fact, the true hunger of God exists in Jewish nature.

Do you go sometimes to the synagogue?
Yes, sometimes. If I have some time and I'm not too lazy, then on Saturday morning I go to the nearby synagogue. I come there to make them feel, that I’m with them. It happens, that they ask me why I have not been with them so long. A synagogue is a place, where I feel that I am a Christian. I see that we have taken everything from there. All customs in the Mass. e.t.c.

How do Jews in Israel perceive the Catholic Church?
When Pope John Paul II was here, he changed the attitude of Jews to Christianity by 180° in a few days. He could have been a man everywhere. In Yad Vashem, and in the Palestinian camps, everywhere. Love attracts others. In May Pope Francis came to us. I hope, that the visit of Pope Francis will speed up the connection with the Orthodox, which we have here a lot. I firmly believe in the new outflow of the Holy Spirit in the Church. I like to translatr some of Francis' homilies to Hebrew. At present, in our House of Bread we have young neighbors, Jews. They want to come to us. They ask, they are interested. They are open to getting to know Christianity. In Israel, moreover, we have about 15 thousand. Jews - Messianians, Jews who believe in Jesus. Unfortunately, when they came to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michael Sabah, an Arab, he didn’t want to accept them, because they were unbaptized. He wanted this place to be an Arab state, not a Jewish one. The rejected messianic Jews therefore went away to each other and no longer tried to address the Church. It is a great pity, because these are Jews, who serve in the Israeli army and have all rights. They believe in Jesus. They pray and celebrate the liturgy as much as they can. This is not a Mass, but a substitute for the last supper. They come to us on Fridays. There are even a lot of them. There are, moreover, different varieties of messianic Jews. There are those who keep some Jewish recipes, there are also those who pray in Russian, all don’t accept the Pope.
They say Pope was not present in Jesus time. There was only Jesus. However, if they may belong somewhere, they are closest to the Catholic Church. Someone must, however, reach out to them, because they are reluctant to join the Catholic Church. In Scandinavia, for example, the Dominican friar Antoni Levi does it.

How do you perceive the Palestinian-Jewish conflict? Do you think, that there is a chance to stop it?
I was the first to bring Arabs to our area. I lived with Arab girls and then Arab boys. At the beginning, I was shouted, that there would be stones, bombs. Some time later they came to me and asked, "Stella, do you have an Arab, who wants to rent a flat?". Arabs are the best, quietest neighbors, I think that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could be averted, if it depended only on ordinary people. The decision is made by governments and politicians, who only look after their chairs. Where are two Jews, three synagogues are established. While the Labor Party was in power, it was tolerable, Now that the capitalists are in power and they are guarding their interests and chairs. This is the Promised Land, but people must grow up to accept the promise, that the Lord is, different from the creation of our imagination ...
Interview was published in 2014 in 71th number of the “Fronda LUX”

Being a Christian makes everything simple
During our last conversation, you told me, that there on one day should be a film about Catholic Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. Together with the director Michał Tkaczyński, we decided to describe, among others this topic in the documentary film. As you can see, your wishes meet quickly.
Beautiful, that you will talk about it. It is important for people to know, that the Christians were also in the Warsaw ghetto. Czerniakow's wife, Felicja Czerniaków, who was supposed to be a Christian - I think she was Polish - she mentioned, that to the priests from the church of All Saints, people came to confess and to commune. Most of Jews were baptized before the war. In this church, however, it was also supposed to be true conversions. People found Jesus, even they knew, that they would be killed anyway. They were real Catholics. The first thousand Catholic Jews were sent to Treblinka at the beginning of the liquidation of the ghetto. But God told them, that their souls would not die, and they would live forever. So they went to death as the first Christians on the Roman arenas. I think they were authentic saints.
Janusz Korczak brought his children to the church of All Saints. He knew that he could always count there on a warm welcome. I know from Teresa Dmochowska (translator and writer, who wrote a book about Saint Joseph “The voice of silence”), that her friend Stefania Skwierczyńska, who went to the Warsaw ghetto to teach the catechism, gave the Gospel to Korczak. He would later take this Gospe,l when he went with his children to death.

How do you assess the current attitude of Jews to Catholics?
I don’t know, if we can speak about the attitude of Jews to Catholics, rather about the attitude towards people. They are very good to me. If I have to say something in general, then there is a change in their approach to the Church and Christianity. On December 3, 2015, our rabbis published a statement, in which they expressed their positive attitude towards Christianity. I saw on TV a few years ago, as they said, that the church is not hostile to them. All this slightly reduces the distance between Christianity and Judaism. We also do, what we can, although it is not easy at all. We had many problems to accept us. For two years we had a superior, an abbot who was a Jew from Algiers. When he died, we went under the Patriarch's rule. He wanted to see only Catholics in us, not Catholic Jews. We have customs, that bind us strongly with Judaism. In 2014, Pope Francis visited Israel with a pilgrimage and he visit the Yad Vashem. He was really great. His visit, however, didn’t lead to great changes.
Some time ago I took part in an ecumenical meeting. Our bishop was there as well. A women priest from the Church of Sweden was sitting near him. Our bishop commented, that this is a stream, that can’t be reversed.

Just before the broadcast of the documentary titled “Stella”, in which you presented your fate during the Second World War, President Andrzej Duda thanked you for the great testimony of good. What did you feel when hearing these words from the President of Poland?
It only gives back, what I got from people who helped me once. Now the world is divided into two camps, believers and non-believers. The man, who got faith in God, is so happy, that God exists, so everything becomes secondary to him. Then you can easily share the good you receive. Being a Christian makes everything simple. For example, my neighbor said, that if Jews would then accept Jesus, their Judaism would be much easier. What the orthodox rabbis require from them, makes their lives extremely difficult. One rabbi from America wrote in his book “Kosher Jesus”, that he was sorry, that the Jews didn’t accept Jesus as a wise man and a good kosher Jew, because Christ was a Jew, best of Jews. In fact, most people today, including most Christians, no longer know that for the first 300 years of Christianity was Jewish, and only Emperor Constantine expelled Jews from the church and withdrew Jewish habits from him. For example a holy day is on Sunday and not on Saturday. Many Jews, however, begin to see Jesus. Especially Jews from Russia, who often in Israel, discover, that all prophecies have come true in Jesus. They are open to Christ. Recently, one of the Messianic Jews told me, that they had created two more oases in Israel. So if Christianity does not come to Jews by Catholics, it will come to them through Messianic Jews, who know all the books of Judaism and live on the basis of the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus. For them, Jesus is the true Messiah. It can be seen by them, how they eradiate the love.
March 2016.