Essex shul plans a ‘first-of-its-kind’ Shabbat revival trip to eastern Poland

An Essex synagogue has heralded its forthcoming heritage trip to Poland as “the first of its kind”, as members prepare to hold a Shabbat service in a synagogue not used since the Holocaust.

Loughton Synagogue said it was “proud to be involved in a revival trip to a long-lost community” in the town of Kazimierz Dolny in eastern Poland, whose 1,400-strong local Jewish community was wiped out during the Second World War.

A haven of Jewish life for hundreds of years before the Nazi genocide, many synagogues still stand, but as empty relics of the past.

Organiser Paul Joseph, who has been working with Jewish heritage charity JRoots, said: “The trip is the first of its kind, we believe. Our aim is to pay respect to those we lost whilst connecting with the local Jewish community current and future.”

Rabbi Yanky Abrams, who took the reins at Loughton in 2019, said: “To honour those dear souls we lost, we are inspired to hold a Shabbaton, undertaking a Jewish service for the first time since the Shoah.”

He added that it would be “a remarkable journey, as we pay respect to the past whilst connecting with the Jewish communities of today and tomorrow”.

JRoots is an educational organisation that facilitates educational Jewish journeys to places with historic significance to the Jewish people, such as central and eastern Europe, Israel, and north Africa, for Jews from all over the world.