Email message from Tom Furstenberg, Jr. to Doron Zeilberger, dated Jan. 10, 2011

I wanted to tell you some exciting news: last June, I visited Poznan again, together with my dad and my best friend Danny. We met there with the local Jewish community! When we visited Poznan in 2002, we didn't know that there was a (small) Jewish community, anything left, and we thought that the synagogue was completely destroyed and that a swimming pool was build on that spot instead. Maybe you know already, but the synagogue-building still remains, only the inside was turned into a swimming pool in 1939 for the wehrmacht. The outside was also changed, but is really recognizable. And it was the big synagogue were our forefather Salomon Benjamin Latz went davvening, together with Rav Eger. And in 2002, we also thought that the Latz-building didn't exsist anymore, but it still does! I took pictures, I will show them to you. And when we visited the Jewish community center, opposite the street of the swimming-pool synagogue, I even lead a synagogue-service in their small-synagogue-room, we even had minyan! And I had a reproduction made of the Latz-portrait, and it's hanging on the wall of their big meeting room, next to a portrait of Rav Eger! We went there because our Jewish congregation is twinning with the Jewish congregation of Poznan! Exciting, isn't it?

And now comes the most astonishing part: last december, I was asked to give a chazzanut-concert in the swimming-pool synagogue! The 16th of January, so this Sunday, and that's because it's the Catholic Day of Judaism, a world-wide day of the Catholic Church as an approach to Judaism. And I'm presented as a desendant of Salomon Benjamin Latz, his name is still famous in Poznan!

I wrote the story on my website (for our Jewish community, because of the twinning/partnership), and there are also very nice pictures. Although it's in Dutch, when you view it with Google Chrome, it will translate it for you in English, probably not perfect, but you will understand most of it, also how I got in contact with the local Jewish community over there and how we started the twinning/partnership. You will also see impressive pictures of the swimming pool synagoge, where they projected the original interior on the walls an the ceiling, that's what they will do next Sunday for the concert! I will stand before the project aron, and there will be 500 chairs, and people also have to stand! Salomon Benjamin Latz would never have believed what happened to his community in the years 1939-1945, but he would also not believe what would happen in 2011 with a descendant from him!

Here is the page on my website. If you have problems with understanding the translation, I will clarify!

Best regards,

Tom Furstenberg jr.


Salomon Benjamin Latz