Changing Face in Poland: Skinhead Puts on Skullcap

[cali]

WARSAW — When Pawel looks into the mirror, he can still sometimes see a neo-Nazi skinhead staring back, the man he was before he covered his shaved head with a skullcap, traded his fascist ideology for the Torah and renounced violence and hatred in favor of God.

“I still struggle every day to discard my past ideas,” said Pawel, a 33-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew and former truck driver, noting with little irony that he had to stop hating Jews in order to become one. “When I look at an old picture of myself as a skinhead, I feel ashamed. Every day I try and do teshuvah,” he said, using the Hebrew word for repentance. “Every minute of every day. There is a lot to make up for.”

Pawel, who also uses his Hebrew name Pinchas, asked that his last name not be used for fear that his old neo-Nazi friends could harm him or his family.

Twenty years after the fall of Communism, Pawel is perhaps the most unlikely example of the Jewish revival under way in Poland, of a moment in which Jewish leaders here say the country is finally showing solid signs of shedding the rabid anti-Semitism of the past.

Before 1939, Poland was home to more than three million Jews, more than 90 percent of whom were killed by the Nazis. Most who survived emigrated. Of the fewer than 50,000 who remained in Poland, many abandoned or hid their Judaism during decades of Communist oppression in which political pogroms against Jews persisted.

<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world/europe/28poland.html?em

[xchrom]

1. A thing of beauty. Nt

[aquart]

2. Saul on the road to Damascus.

I'm not the least bit comforted by this.

[Cirque du So-What]

3. He's just traded one form of fanaticism for another

Going from being a pathological Jew-hater to embracing the most fundamentalist, extreme version of Judaism? I suspect he's more attracted to the 'ultra' aspect than the actual theology. He needs a good therapist before latching onto the next shiny 'ultra' thing to catch his attention.

I've noticed this tendency among other extremists who undergo conversion. Consider the former far-leftists who morphed into the philosophical core of the neocon movement. How about Jerry Rubin, who went from co-founder of the yippies to ultra-greedy capitalist? Or Michael (Weiner) Savage: new-age practitioner to foaming-with-rabies right-wing talk-show host? I could probably come up with lots more examples.

[Arugula Latte]

4. That happens so often.

Like the hardcore druggies who become preachy born-again nutbags. Jeez, they would have been better off frying their brains with drugs than with extreme Xtianity.

[Cirque du So-What]

9. 'I used to be fucked-up on drugs'

'now I'm fucked-up on the Lord.'

[mitchum]

6. Exactly! a zealot by any other name is still a zealot.

[Better Today]

13. +1

[Swamp Rat]

5. I hope he finds peace

[proteus_lives]

7. How sad to see negative comments.

A man changes, trades hate for a new path and people still feel the need to piss on him.

General DU-hate for religion I guess.

[Arugula Latte]

11. Religion isn't exactly hate-free. nt

[Political Heretic]

8. What a pleasant story. (Ignore the DU anti-religion evangelicals)

As I look at some of the posts above mine, I want to make some comments:

I don't belong to an organized religion, nor do I have any sort of formalized "beliefs" or doctrines either in support of religion or against religion.

What I can't stand is absolutism, or aggressive evangelism for any point of view.

When some person of faith can't let any secular story go without coming in and making some religious rant, that infuriates me. Likewise, when some person of no faith can't let any spiritual story go without coming in and making some anti-religious rant, that infuriates me as well.

I see very little difference between the religious fundamentalist and the secular fundamentalist - when both attack any and all that disagree with them and miss no opportunity to belittle and mock those of a different point of view.

As long as either the spiritual person or the secular person accept that their beliefs are their own, and that its not their place or job to "evangelize" everyone else to their point of view, I'm happy.

Atheists focused on living their own lives - not judging everyone else's lives - and focused on how to make the most of their experiences are people that I love. Religious persons focused on living their own lives - not judging everyone else's lives - and focused on how to make the most of their own experiences are people that I love.

People more interested in pointing fingers at everyone else, and decreeing how "wrong" they are, are much more difficult for me to take.

[Cirque du So-What]

10. 'People more interested in pointing fingers at everyone else, and decreeing how "wrong" they are'...

'are much more difficult for me to take.'

Tell me about it! :eyes:

[Political Heretic]

12. I'm glad we agree.