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Religion & Law

: Religion Clause

Poland's President Visits Synagogue Service For First Time In History

By Howard M. Friedman

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a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lech_Kaczy%C5%84ski"Lech Kaczynski/a, president of Poland, yesterday lit a candle in a ceremony marking the beginning of Hanukkah in a Warsaw synagogue. The Hanukkah service also included a prayer for the Polish nation written for the occasion. After the service, the president joined the congregation in sampling potato emlatkes/em-- a food that is a symbol of the holiday. a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1048617.html"Haaretz/a reports that this is the first time a Polish president has ever attended a religious service at a synagogue in Poland. The only other presidential visit came in the 1920's when Ignacy Moscicki visited a synagogue, but not for a religious service. Even as mayor of Warsaw, Kaczynski befriended the Jewish community, and for the past two years he has hosted a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony at the presidential palace. Kaczynski's example has created a spirit of tolerance that has spread to other officials in a country whose Jewish population was largely destroyed in the Holocaust. Meanwhile, current Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz yesterday joined a candle-lighting Hanukkah ceremony in front of the Palace of Culture.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on December 22, 2008 (boomark / email).