From skinhead to skullcap
- Author: Ami Eden
- Filed under: Shoah
Feb 26,2008
Anshel Pfeffer has a story in Ha’aretz about Pinchads Zlotosvsky, 32, a Polish skinhead who became a fervently Orthodox Jew after learning of his Jewish roots.
The transition in Zlotosvsky’s life occurred after his mother told him she comes from a Jewish family. Her parents, she said, sent her to a monastery when she was a small child so that she would survive the Holocaust.
All her relatives were murdered, as far as Pinchas Zlotosvsky knows.
“I realized I was Jewish according to Judaism. I couldn’t look myself in the mirror for a whole week after I found out,” he recalls. After he recovered from the shock, he spent the past few years rediscovering his Jewish roots. He has also become very active with the Jewish community.
Ha’aretz caught up with Zlotosvsky at an annual conference for hidden Jews in Lodz. The newspaper reports that official figures put the number of Jews living in Poland at 4,000 — but the number of people who are Jewish according to Halacha.
The discrepancy stems from the fact that thousands of Jews who survived the war preferred not to reveal their Jewish identity for fear of anti-Semitic persecution by the local population. … Another significant portion of the hidden Jewish population consists of people like Pinchas Zlotosvsky’s mother, whose parents sent them to monasteries to be raised as Christians. Despite efforts by international Jewish organizations to locate these people, not all have been found, and many are assumed to have remained Christian.
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5 Responses for "From skinhead to skullcap"
Funny a man can be a rabid Jew Hater, find out he is Jewish then come to put a kippah on, while most of us know and support our own Jewishness but are embarrassed to wear a kippah.
Rather than only be active in the Jewish community, he should be active in the anti-Semitic community to help educate them against hate!
One possible reason for Jew hatred is ENVY. Many an anti semite would want to become Jewish, an impossible aspiration, as the hurdles to conversion are too high.
Utter nonsense. What hurdles are too high for someone who wants to be Jewish. Watch or read “The Believer” about a young man who was Jewish (ethnically and halakhically) and turned on that to become a Jew hating skinhead. In my own small life I have known several ethnic but non-halakhic Jews who became skinheads or neo-nazis…if they had wanted to become halakhic Jews it would have been easy for them to do so…and at least one of them I have learned is now in the process of converting. Even knowing his past the Rabbi is still teaching him showing that in the eyes of actual experts, Jewish teachers, there is no hurdle too high.
In promoting this idea you not only grossly oversimplify complex situations, you denigrate all converts by assuming they are motivated not by desire to serve G-d but by covetousness, and you play right into anti-Semitic stereotypes….why?…because if any WASP said that many a black-nation of Islam-Muslim would want to become white if skin bleaching were an option they would be called (quite rightly) a racist to assume such a thing and same if a Nation of Islam spokesperson claimed the slave trade was caused by envy over skin colour. Anti-Semites are quite happy to quote people like yourself who thoughtlessly and unselfconsciously make remarks like this…it proves to them that Jews are hypocritical, condeming others for beliefs they hold themselves. Unfortunately, innocent Jews suffer for your thoughtless remarks…all Israel are responsible for each other and you are making Judaism look bad in the eyes of the nations..a hilul haShem.
The fact is if you sat down and studied Judaism, rather than just basking in the reflected glow of the covenant you would know that any person, regardless or race or background can become a Jew if they study and work hard at it…can you name any people who became neo-Nazis because a Beth Din turned them down? No, because these people don’t want to be Jewish…they believe the best person in the world to be is a white northern European…that is why they are called white supremists. All through the Exile brave people have endured great danger to become Jews even though in the periods where Jews were in anything but an enviable position. Indeed, the first thing Rabbis asked was “Don’t you know that the Jewish people are despised and persecuted..?”
The greater danger is that this man has not truly overcome his need to be better than other people but has merely switched camps and will become a Jewish supremist instead. I sincerely hope he is motivated by t’shuvah instead and will not listen to any more racist nonsense no matter who is whispering it in his ear.
Jews should follow the actions of German pope Benedict XVI more closely. April 19, 2005 the Vatican elected this guy on the eve of Hitler’s birthday. (April 20, 1889 Hitler was born) Benedict XVI wants to make pope Pius XII a saint for letting 6,000,000 Jews die in the holocaust. Archbishop Tomasi now moves against Freedom of Speech as the Vatican sets the rules for another holocaust.
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