Every year thousands of people from many different countries participate in seminars at Givat Haviva during their short or long term visit to Israel.

The informal education teaching staff is highly experienced in addressing extremely diverse groups of teens, students and older folk attending seminars and regional tours organized by the International Department of Givat Haviva.

Often the educators themselves go home enriched by the personal stories or special experiences shared with some of the seminar participants – now what could be better than that?

A recent visit by a group of Taglit-birthright students from Poland, accompanied by a pretty astounding young Israeli woman who had just spent over 2 years working in Poland as an emissary of the Jewish Agency, was definitely one of those very special two-way educational experiences for this writer.

Tal Altar did not speak any Polish when she went to Warsaw as a schlicha (emissary) but leading the Taglit-birthright students on their 10-day tour of Israel – which included a seminar at Givat Haviva dealing with the Arab citizens of Israel and a tour of the Wadi Ara area – she translated and explained complicated material to her European charges in fluent Polish.

When Tal, who hails from Beersheva, decided to take a break from post-graduate studies and applied to be an emissary she had thoughts of being sent to an English-speaking country but that was not to be.

“I discovered the Jewish community in Poland to be intriguing – no book can describe it.  The history of Polish Jewry is well known but the present is unknown and misunderstood, even ignored,” she had said.

“The people you meet working there are amazing and each one of them holds an incredible story connected to the past.”

Of the few dozen Taglit-birthright Polish students and young professionals Tal was accompanying to Israel almost all had a story of their own journey of discovery to tell but one young lady in particular maybe sums up the depth of emotional struggle faced by those who have suddenly been told of their Jewish connections.

The young lady mentioned – who came from a small village near Krakow - had discovered her Jewish roots a mere 6 months before undertaking the Taglit-birthright trip.  Up until the startling discovery of being born to a family with a well-kept secret, the student had thought she was a regular run-of-the-mill young Polish Christian.

At a family gathering following her grandmother’s death, a letter written by the deceased was read out.

“I am sorry that I kept this from you, but I kept this from everybody most of my life – I am Jewish,” the lady had written.

The deceased’s husband sobbed uncontrollably.  Asked if he had known his wife was Jewish, the dazed man told them that he had lived with her for over 50 years and he had been afraid to tell her that he was Jewish.

“I was too afraid to tell her as she was too afraid to tell me,” the man told his children and grandchildren.

During her shlichut Tal Altar heard and met with many people with such stories.  Invited to a wedding just a short time after arrival in Warsaw gave her a glimpse of what was going to be on that score.

“I was invited to attend a synagogue wedding, not an everyday thing in Warsaw – and realized after a time that two not so small children standing by the couple under the chuppa (wedding canopy) were the children of the couple getting married and asked about them.”

An astonishing story was uncovered.

The bride and groom met at high school when both were members of a local gang of anti-Semitic Skinheads!  When the girl became pregnant they got married and later on another child was born.

Curious to find out why she, her husband and their friends so despised Jews she decided to go to visit a local synagogue and eventually her visits became regular.

During a visit to the parents of her husband one day she told them she couldn’t attend a planned family function because she would be going to synagogue.  Her enraged husband told his parents that he couldn’t explain what had happened to his wife, that she clearly was disturbed and dragged her off home.

Shortly after arriving home the husband received a call from his father demanding that he return to see him immediately.  When he reached the parents home, his father told him to sit down and then told his son that he, the father was Jewish – as was his mother – and therefore so was he.”

“Another astounding fact is that the father of the young mother was also Jewish but had kept it a secret but then told his daughter, who converted to Judaism as did her husband and they decided to have a Jewish wedding with their 10 year-old and 8 year-old children in attendance,” Tal explained, quite a gleam in her eye as she recalled the scene.

Outside of Israel the fastest growing Jewish communities are in Germany and Poland.

“In Germany the growth is due to immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union and in Poland, it is due to brave confused people who have made a decision to find their way back to being part of the Jewish people,” Tal said.

Many more almost unbelievable stories are continuing to be heard and written about the path of discovery of Poland’s ‘secret Jews,’ and with young Israelis the likes of Tal Altar (who has now returned to Beersheva and working with new immigrant students) working amongst them hopefully they will find a comfortable niche from themselves amongst Klal Israel.