Dov Minc, the 86-year-old blind man who led the Jewish community of Lodz, Poland, for several years, dies Oct. 27.
He was buried at the Lodz Jewish cemetery, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation here reported.
Minc was known for his devoted service to the Jewish community in Lodz, Poland’s second-largest city.
Although Minc had become totally blind in his later years, he was able to supervise various religious and cultural activities of the Jewish community.
Today’s Jewish community in Lodz is officially put at a few hundred, but “it is clear that a real number is much higher,” said Rabbi Chaskel Besser, who directs the Lauder Foundation’s program in Poland.
Prior to the Holocaust, the city of Lodz was home to more than 202,000 Jews, many of them engaged in manufacturing. More than 378,000 Jews lived in the greater Lodz area.
Lodz’s only remaining synagogue burned down in 1985 under unknown circumstances. Minc obtained funds from the Lauder Foundation to rebuild the shul.
Prospects for a new communal leader are good, Besser reported. Lodz opened a Jewish youth club in August, and some activists in the Jewish community are emerging, Besser said.
He said two men are being considered for Minc’s position.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
