Polish president makes historic synagogue visit for Hanukka

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Poland's president has celebrated the start of Hanukkah by visiting Warsaw's main synagogue, a gesture the city's Jewish community greeted as a historic step in its revival. Lech Kaczynski's visit Sunday marked the first time the head of state has attended a religious service at a synagogue in Poland, whose Jewish population was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust and later suffered from communist-era repression. The visit "means we're in a normal country ... a country that treasures that it has citizens of different religions and of different backgrounds," said Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich. As Kaczynski entered Warsaw's century-old Nozyk synagogue just after sundown, the congregation rose and a group of Jewish children sang "Shalom Aleichem" - "peace be upon you."