Mitzvah Tank Awakens Priest’s Jewish Spark Hidden For 90 Years

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It started as a regular trip on mivtzoyim in Union Square in Manhattan, but ended with discovering a neshama that had been lost among other nations for nearly a lifetime, but still sought connection to her people.

Rabbi Yosef Kratz, caretaker of 770, and Rabbi Yehuda Pevzner, Crown Heights Mivtza Tank coordinator, parked their Mitzva Tank at a busy intersection and began their usual routine of asking passers-by if they were Jewish and if they would like to do a mitzvah.

Then an elderly man approached, and things started getting interesting.

“The truth is that when we asked him if he was Jewish, we were sort of joking. Why would we ask a priest, dressed in long flowing white robes, with a huge cross dangling across his chest, if he was Jewish?” Rabbi Kratz told Anash.org.

But he replied in the affirmative.

“What do you mean? Was your mother Jewish?”

He answered, “Both my parents were Jews.”

The elderly man explained that as a child, his parents handed him over to a church to survive the Nazi onslaught, and he survived the Holocaust living in the church. Following the war, he began studying to be a pastor r”l. In his school, he was constantly bullied and when he complained to his teacher, a pastor who was also born a Jew, the teacher told him that a Jew will always be persecuted…until he becomes a successful pastor. Which he did. He lived in Pakistan and was a priest there until 15 years ago when he moved to New York.

“Why don’t you come to synagogue?” Rabbi Kratz asked the man.

He wasn’t sure, “Is a priest allowed to come?”

“I work for the Lubavitcher central synagogue in Crown Heights, and I invite you to come.”

He asked for a business card, and said he would keep in touch. Seeing he needed help, the two Lubavitchers helped him get a cab and gave him a chair to sit on until the taxi arrived. After all, the man is an almost 90-year-old Jew…

“I talked to him about speaking to people about the Holocaust. He demurred, saying that we have to pray that it will never happen again. I encouraged him to speak to the young people about it, thus ensuring that it won’t happen again,” Rabbi Kratz said.

Before leaving, the elderly man, who until recently had no visible connection to Yiddishkeit, said he would stay in touch, and try to visit 770. “Make sure to prepare some gefilte fish and kugel for me,” he told them. “Or at least some chopped liver.”

Even after decades of living as a priest in foreign lands, his Jewish spark was not extinguished. It flickered deep inside and a short encounter with a fellow Jew caused it to burst aflame.

{Anash.org}


20 COMMENTS

  1. Absolutely incredible! If something becomes of this and the dies as a Jew, it would be an unbelievable act of Chesed. May they be matzliach.

  2. Make sure to prepare some gefilte fish and kugel for me,” he told them. “Or at least some chopped liver.”

    Excellent. See, kiruv is a cinch. We can all do it. Something tells me that he has been in a Shul or Kosher kitchen food pantry.

  3. what a story! I so wish it for him to take that step and do teshuva. He will go up to shamayim and the malachim will embrace him with the highest of honors returning to his roots. Lets hope he keeps in touch with them. It is definitely a testament to how much these mitzva tanks accomplish. I’m not chabad but I have full full respect. The chabad rebbe was an astounding leader.

    • in NYC these food are everywhere, even non kosher restaurants have jewish-style “NY” foods. By the way if he was born in 1931 or 32 he certainly remembers life before the war.

    • He might remember. If he is 90, בלי עין הרע, he was born in 1931. Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and by than he was around 8 years old, and probably not right away separated from his parents, or he might be from other country that was invaded later.

    • If William Shatner is more than that and just flew into space and came back healthy without a walker then why doesn’t he pass for 90?

  4. @yiddineh
    I’m sure he doesn’t REMEMBER those things. He has never forgotten that he is a Jew. Those are classic Jewish cultural things that will come up for any western type who is paying attention to Jews even “from a distance”. In magazines, in comedy, on TV, on the streets of NY, and even in antisemitism. He’s been living in New York for 15 years. That’s plenty of time for him to have been watching and listening.

    And he’s probably “bageled” people before.

    *”bageling” is a term kiruv people use to describe the phemomenon of a secular, or in this case, a seemingly very non-Jewish person saying something – anything – randomly Jewish, to let an obvious looking Jew know that he’s also “one of us”.
    It happens in supermarket kosher aisles, on airplanes when you get your special kosher meal, on chol hamoed trips, and on NY subways and buses all the time – when you take out a siddur or any Hebrew sefer. I’ve been asked if things are kosher for purim, If the kosher salmon is healthier, or what time sunset is….

    Many people are just amused by it. The truth is, it’s an excellent opportunity to be mekarev someone who has just “opened that door”, by expressing their desire to be one of us. It’s the sound of a Neshama calling out.

    Lubavitch has recognized this all along, and thus goes the extra mile to facilitate such opportunities. Rabbi Meir Schuster used the kosel as such a tool. Every Yid who cares about their yiddishkeit, should be looking for opportunities to spark a fellow yid’s hungry neshama. Project Inspire was started by Aish haTorah affiliates for that exact reason. Don’t leave it to professionals – every one of us can, and should be an ambassador for Hashem and his Torah.

    When we come to our hoped for place near the kisei hakavod, we may be asked why we didn’t care if our own brothers got there as well.

  5. I once heard from one of the Chabad Shiluchim in my area another awesome Jewish priest story as follows. A certain prominent Rav once received an invitation from a certain — either it was a Catholic or Christian organization or it was an inter-faith — organization to attend a symposium they were having. So, he contacted the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Menachem Mendel Schneerson, ZT’L, to ask him what should he do about this invitation. So, surprisingly, the Rebbe instructed him that he SHOULD GO to the symposium. The Rebbe further instructed him that when he would be asked to speak, he should speak and should talk about the topic of charity, which is obviously a subject that all religions have interest in.

    So, he went to the program and gave a talk there on the topic of charity. In his speech about charity, he related what we know is the very famous story about the Tosfos Yom Tov, Rav Yom Tov Heller, ZT’L. This incident was that in the town where the Tosfos Yom Tov was the Rav, there was a rich man who appeared to be a very mean miser; whenever destitute people would try to go to him to ask for assistance, he would callously throw them out. After his death though, it was soon realized that each time he threw a beggar out, afterwards, behind the scenes, in a way that the beggar would not know that he was the one doing it, he would make sure that, that beggar continually had whatever he needed.

    For example, the local grocery store would tell the beggar that there was a “special,” that, that week’s groceries were “on the house,” as, beforehand, the rich man had SECRETLY paid the store for those groceries.

    Furthermore, the rich man’s will was soon discovered, which stated that his entire estate was to be donated to the community.

    Since initially everyone had thought that the rich man was a bad miser guy, he had been buried in the bad section of the cemetery. Now though, that it was discovered that he was really a true Tzadik — a Tzadik Nistar, a Hidden Saint — instead of moving his grave, the Tosfos Yom Tov issued instructions that he wished to be buried (out in the bad section) right next to this rich man’s grave!

  6. After the Rav had completed his speech with this amazing remarkable story, and there was a period for people to ask questions, one of the priests came up to him and asked him several questions about the story. He wanted to know exact details: The exact name of the Tosfos Yom Tov, the name of the city, the location of the cemetery, etc.

    A number of years later, this Rav was in Eretz Yisroel; when he was at the Kosel plaza, a man came over to him and said to him: “You probably do not remember me, but I was that priest at that symposium who asked you all those questions about your story.” He proceeded to tell him that his family is Jewish, but was excessively far away from practicing Judaism. Thus, at one point when he had some interest in Christianity, he followed it and eventually became a Catholic priest.

    Despite his family’s non-connection with Judaism though, his mother once mentioneed to him that he had a great-great- . . . . -great-grandfather who was buried next to an extremely great rabbi. When many years later, he heard the Rav say the story about the Tosfos Yom Tov being buried next to the rich man, he wondered if it had any connection with his ancestor. So he asked the Rav for details and then went back to his mother and checked it out with her; I think he also further researched related historical sources. He thus discovered that, yes, that rich man WAS his great-great- . . . . -great-grandfather!

    Boruch Hashem, being, of course, quite intrigued by learning of the story behind his ancestor being buried next to the big rabbi, he was further intrigued by his Jewish background and decided to look into it. He did that, eventually becoming a full Baal T’shuva and learning Torah in a Yeshiva in Yerushalaiyim!

  7. One of the greatest success stories of Chabad. This mans quest for kugel and Gefilte fish is more a request from his neshama .

    • That’s only if he ever comes back. If not, this is a non-story. Many have said, oh yeh I want to come back/return and never do. That’s not teshuva. That’s cheap worthless talk.

  8. “A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!” It (good food) is a great opening & opportunity to get to bottom of this mystery. Time will soon tell if he’s authentic Jew or not.

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