Hundreds of Hasidic Jews from across Europe, Israel and North America gathered on Mar. 10 in a small southeastern Polish town to honor a 18th century leader of their mystical branch of Judaism.
The pilgrims — the vast majority men sporting beards, side locks, wide-brimmed or fur hats and other traditional black Hasidic garb — assembled for 24 hours of ceremonies marking the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Elimelech in 1787.
The rabbi died in Lezajsk on the 21st day of Adar in the Jewish calendar, which fell this year on March 11.
PHOTO: AFP
The annual event includes a day of prayer which starts at sunset on Saturday — the Jewish Sabbath — marked by the dancing and singing which is the hallmark of Hasidic Jews, whose maxim is "worship God in joy."
The event brings Hasidic 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.
Lezajsk was once a typical part of a swathe of largely Jewish towns and villages across what today are Belarus, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.
Before World War II, around half of the town's 6,000-strong population were Jews.
Few survived the German occupation, when the Nazis slaughtered six million Jews, around half of whom were from Poland.
After the war, Poland's Jewish population numbered only 280,000.
Like most of the rest of Lezajsk's Jewish cemetery, Rabbi Elimechel's tomb was destroyed during the war.
It was refurbished in the early 1960s thanks to a rabbi from Vienna, though work continued on it into the 1980s.
(AFP)
數百位來自歐洲、以色列與北美的哈西德派猶太人三月十日齊聚在波蘭東南部一個小鎮,紀念這個猶太神秘教派的一名十八世紀領袖。
朝聖者大多為蓄留鬍鬚與邊髮,戴寬緣帽或毛帽,並穿著傳統哈西德派黑衣的男性。他們為了歷時二十四小時的以利米勒拉比逝世紀念齊聚一堂。以利米勒拉比在一七八七年逝世。
這位拉比於猶太曆亞達月二十一日在列札斯克過世,今年國曆是三月十一日。
年度的活動包括猶太安息日(週六)日落時分展開的禱告日,以格言為「歡喜信奉上帝」的哈西德派猶太人之歌舞為特色。
這個活動帶領哈西德派猶太人重回六十多年前,哈西德運動的心靈歸依處所,當時多數教徒在納粹猶太人大屠殺中慘遭殺害。
列札斯克過去是一長串猶太城鎮與村落中的一個典型小鎮,位於現在的白俄羅斯、波蘭、俄羅斯與烏克蘭一帶。
二次大戰前,這個小鎮的六千人口中,半數為猶太人。
極少數猶太人在德國佔領時倖存。當時納粹屠殺了六百萬猶太人,其中半數來自波蘭。
戰後波蘭的猶太人口只有二十八萬人。
如同列札斯克多數猶太墓園一像,以利米勒拉比的墳墓在戰爭中遭到毀壞。
一名來自維也納的拉比在一九六○年代初期將他的墳墓重新翻修,工程持續到一九八○年代才完工。 (法新社╱翻譯︰賴美君)
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