From Anti-Semite to Hassidic Jew
Pawel Bromson grew up in Poland where he habitually engaged in anti-Semitic activities and, like many of his countrymen, blamed the Jews for the country’s woes.
As a pastime, he and his friends even boarded a train to Auschwitz and vandalized the former concentration camp, where they shouted at staff members that “the genocide should have been bigger,” The National Post reported on Tuesday.
“I wasn’t just anti-Semitic, I was anti-everyone,” Bromson said.
However, Bromson’s story is not that of an anti-Semite prototype.
Fourteen years ago he discovered that his grandparents were Jewish. “I thought my life was finished. It was a catastrophe,” he said.
Like many Jewish families who had survived the Holocaust in Poland, Bromson’s parents hid their religion from their children in order to protect them from persecution, noted the Post.
Over time, Bromson not only accepted the truth regarding his Jewish identity, but also took steps in converting to Judaism, eventually becoming a Hassidic Jew.
He currently lectures about his journey from anti-Semite to observant Jew, and is scheduled to speak at a fundraising event, on Tuesday night, at the Chabad of Westmount, Montreal.
When asked about his past, he responds, “Please, don’t ask me. I try to forget, but I can’t.”
He says that while he does still feel comfortable walking around Poland, his long beard and black hat sometimes cast him as an outsider and draw the attention of his fellow Poles.
Deborah Shanowitz, program director at the Chabad of Westmount, said the centre decided to bring Bromson to Montreal because he has a very unusual story.
“He was a neo-Nazi who hated Jews and all minorities,” she noted. “After embarking on a path of finding out what it is to be Jewish, he decided to go back and be like his great-grandfather.”
B H
This proves that when someone has the “fire” inside, the passion, it can be directed to good, opposed to being cold and apathetic.
Have Kovod for the Tzaddikim and higher
BS”D
EVERYONE HAS THE ABILITY TO BE GOOD!
He is now a Tzaddik Yesod Oilam!
Do you know how Holy this man is?
You should be kissing his hands for Brachos!
wow
he looks like noam wagner!
Yanover
I spent shabbos with him in Poland hes very special.
Not Clear
I don’t get it. So was he Jewish, or just his grandparents? And if he was Jewish why would he have to convert?
BH
incredible. BH for him, and its a zechus to have him with Am Yisroel. IY”H he should help other yidden come closer!
article is incorrect
the Gazette got it wrong- He never converted both his mother and father were Jewish…
hate is jealousy
So hatred for Jews is really just jealousy, but when he found out he was one, he changed his tune. The whole world really wishes they have what we have. Hate is a form of jealousy.
Not Converted
The reporter in the story was not Jewish. Upon hearing that his mother was a practicing Catholic (although she was Jewish by birth) she assumed that he “converted” and put it in the story.
The reality is that he, of course, was Jewish and did not convert, though he had a bris milah, since his parents did not give him one.
number 3
that’s EXACTLY what I was thinking!