Poland Apologizes to Rabbi after Attack
Excerpts;
Poland’s president expressed solidarity Monday with the country’s chief rabbi, who was attacked over the weekend, assuring the Jewish leader he would do everything in his power to oppose anti-Semitism.
President Lech Kaczynski invited Rabbi Michael Schudrich to his palace, where he expressed regret over the attack and said Poland will not tolerate anti-Semitism, said the presidential undersecretary of state, Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka.
Schudrich was punched in the chest and doused with what appeared to be pepper spray on a Warsaw street Saturday by a young man who yelled “Poland for Poles” – an old anti-Semitic slogan implying Jews are unwelcome in Poland.
Schudrich, who was not injured, said he was “very moved” by Kaczynski’s invitation and words of solidarity.
A JPost Talkback response to the report said the following;
The Moral Difference between Kaczynski and Katsav Immediately after the attack on Poland’s Chief Rabbi, the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski invited him to his palace and expressed his personal concern and his apologies on behalf of Poland. That’s class. Contrast this with the behavior of one Moshe Katsav, President of Israel and ostensibly Likud Party member who got bent out of shape when an Israeli Army Corporal, a good soldier whose home was destroyed by his own comrades, refused to shake hands with the mastermind of Gush Katif, Dan Halutz. Instead of expressing sympathy and understanding, Katsav, hack that he is, echoed the anger of Ehud Olmert, the architect of
“disengagement” aka appeasement and castigated the soldier. That’s pathetic. A Polish Catholic President behaving like a gentleman. An Israeli Jewish President, who really should know better, behaving like a jerk.