Hassidim (Archive Photo)
צילום: חיים צח
Poland: Hassidic Jews honor dead rabbi
Some 3,000 pilgrims assembled for religious festivities to mark the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Elimelech in 1787
Several thousand Hassidic Jews from across Europe, Israel and North America gathered Saturday in the small Polish town of Lezajsk to honor an 18th century spiritual leader of their mystical brand of Judaism.
Some 3,000 pilgrims - mostly men sporting beards, side locks, fur hats and other traditional black Hassidic garb - assembled for 24 hours of religious festivities to mark the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Elimelech in 1787.
The rabbi died in Lezajsk, in southeastern Poland, on the 21st day of Adar in the Jewish calendar, which falls this year on March 11.
The annual event, which began on Thursday, was capped by a prayer marathon starting at sunset on Shabbat marked by the dancing and singing which is the hallmark of Hassidic Jews, whose maxim is "worship God in joy."
In a makeshift wooden amphitheatre in a municipal garage, around 600 worshippers swayed in silent prayer before breaking into rhythmic chanting as night fell.
"It's very emotional when we start praying. We are asking that the merits of this great person be reflected on us," Moshe Kahan, a 19-year-old from London, told AFP.
Later, the pilgrims began a mass, hypnotic dance lasting into the early hours of Sunday.
Long-lost community
The event brings Hassidic Jews back to one of the spiritual homes of their movement more than 60 years after most of its members were wiped out during the Holocaust and the survivors were scattered far from home.
Lezajsk was once a typical part of the "shtetl" - a swathe of largely Jewish towns and villages across what today are Belarus, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. Before World War II, half of the town's 6,000-strong population were Jews.
Just a handful survived the German occupation, when the Nazis exterminated six million Jews, around half of them from Poland. After the war, Poland's Jewish population numbered only 280,000.
Many Jews emigrated to the United States or Israel, either immediately following the war or during a wave of anti-Semitism under communist rule in 1968. Poland now counts just 3,500 to 15,000 Jews - out of a total population of 38.2 million - according to estimates by different sources.
Whiskey, cigarettes and Yiddish
Like the rest of Lezajsk's Jewish cemetery, Rabbi Elimechel's tomb was destroyed during the war.
It was rebuilt in the early 1960s thanks to a rabbi from Vienna, and work continued from the late 1980s onwards, led by the Polish-based Nissenbaum Foundation.
On Saturday, worshippers crammed into the small white "ohel", the building housing Rabbi Elimechel's tomb, lighting candles to honor him and dead ancestors.
Outside, a handful of men shared a festive bottle of whisky and smoked cigarettes. They chatted in Yiddish.
Despite its relatively small size, the Jewish community in urban areas of the former eastern bloc has undergone a revival since the fall of communism. However, smaller towns which once had major Jewish populations have been largely left behind.
Lezajsk now has a restored mikva, as well as a prayer house - but they are little-used except during the annual pilgrimage.
Rabbi Elimelech holds particular spiritual significance for Hassidic Jews because he was considered a "tzadik" - a righteous man - and was the author of one of the principal works of Hassidism.
