On the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Jewish life is thriving in the capital city, reports Rabbi Shalom Ber Stambler, director of Chabad of Poland.
He and his brother, Rabbi Mayer Stambler, arrived in Warsaw as Chabad emissaries, shluchim, in 2005. Less than 18 years later, there are thrice daily prayer services, a morning study group—with what is likely the only Talmud class taught in Polish—and a nightly seminar, which dozens attend.
Dina Stambler, the wife of Shalom Ber and co-director of the Chabad center, teaches a biweekly class for women, and there is also a Sunday religious school, preschool and communal celebrations on Shabbat and holidays.
“When we first came to Poland as the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s emissaries, we found a generation of Jews, who after living through the Holocaust and communism, were unsure of how to practice their religion and interact with Judaism as a whole,” said the rabbi.
Chabad of Poland serves more than 12,000 Jews annually, and thousands join the annual Holocaust education program March of the Living, it stated. It has also helped Ukrainian Jewish refugees settle in Poland.