Mazel Tov Rabbi Mati Kos
From the many thousands of young Jews that reclaimed their heritage, Mati is the first one that achieved this mark. Mati—we wish you great success, and Hashem's blessings. You are an inspiration for Jews the world over. Thank you!
By: Shmuel Ben Eliezer
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Mazal Tov, Rabbi Mattisyahu Kos
Chag Hasmicha is a celebration honoring newly ordained rabbis. This past week saw a number of yeshivas celebrating the event, including Yeshiva University with 180 new rabbis. While every new ordination is worthy of note, one Chag Hasmicha in a small yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y., stands out.Rabbi Mattisyahu Kos has a special calling to the rabbinate. He comes from a place most people think of as being empty of Jews, or, if any are there, a place they have no business living.
Rabbi Mattisyahu Kos was born in post-Holocaust Poland under the Communist regime, at a time when religious practice was looked down upon and Judaism was a culture more then a religion. Most Jews hid or even denied their religion for fear of anti-Semitism.
In 1989, with the fall of communism in Poland, the small Jewish community started to rebound. It hired Rabbi Pinchas Joskowitch, a Gerer chasid from Jerusalem and a survivor of Auschwitz, as the first chief rabbi of Poland since the war. He was active until his retirement, when Rabbi Michael Schudrich took over.
While Rabbi Joskowitch worked with the aging community, Rabbi Schudrich worked in developing the younger generation’s religious connection through kiruv, reaching out to the Jews born after the Shoah who did not know what it was to be Jewish. One of his early students was Matti Kos, whose first encounter with Torah Judaism was through the Lauder Foundation educational programs led by Rabbi Schudrich.
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Matti became an integral part of the fledging community, and he was honored by being the first one to celebrate a bar mitzvah in post-Shoah Poland.
He continued to be active in the community and eventually started working with the Lauder Foundation in setting up the summer learning retreats and other educational programs alongside his mentors, Rabbi Yonah Bookstein and Rabbi Joseph Kanofsky. Read more