Address of Yaakov Dov Bleich, Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and All Ukraine, to Pope
The late Grand Rabbi Yisroel Spira, of Plonch and Bluzhev in Poland was a man who survived 5 years in Nazi ghettoes and slave labor camps. He rebuilt his life and continued his teachings in New York after the war, where he was known as the Bluzhever Rebbe, and where he lived until just a few months short of his hundredth birthday. We offer our blessings that G-d enable the Pope to continue inspiring the world for at least as long or until 120 years? which is the blessing we Jews give when we wish someone long life. The Bluzhever Rebbe once made a telling comment about the Pope. People wondered why a Polish bishop was elevated to the papacy for the first time in history. Rabbi Spira said that he knew.
During the war, there were Jewish parents who knew they were doomed to be sent to the death camps. To save their precious children, they left them with their Catholic Polish neighbors. Almost none of those parents were still alive after the war. Jewish leaders and survivors came to Poland and wanted to reclaim those children. In most cases, the children were not returned, but in at least one town, it was a different story. There, the priest was a vigorous young man of deep morality and strong convictions. He said that the orphaned children do not belong to the Church. They belong to the Jewish people and they should be returned. That priest's name was Karol Josef Wojtyla. The Bluzhever Rebbe said that it was because of such courage and integrity that G-d rewarded that parish priest and made him the great and revered Pope John Paul the second, a man whose morality and spiritual leadership are respected around the world. Upon this momentous occasion, when the Pope honors Ukraine with this pilgrimage we turn to him with the same pleas that he heard and honored in post-War Poland. There are still many Jewish People, who as children were saved by righteous Catholics, and are being raised out of the religion of their ancestors, in Ukraine, in Poland, and elsewhere.
The Pope proved after the War that he understands the heartbreak of his "cousins" who long for their lost children. We ask Pope to enable these people to make the choice that they never could, for the future of their lives. Now that he is the leader of many hundreds of millions of faithful, we pray that he will repeat those instructions to his followers. And in the merit of this act of grace, may the judgment of the Bluzhever Rebbe be ratified by the Alm-ghty, in the form of good health and strengthened moral vigor. And may the masters, lords and rulers in all lands heed the Pope's call for morality and respect for the life of the unborn and respect for the living.
24 June, 2001
