The rare spectacle that took place this week in the Polish town of Izbica, the participants will not forget for many years to come.
Among the hundreds of people who accompanied Yaakov Zvi Griner on his last journey were Jews and Christians alike.
The funeral procession began at a church in Jaffa and ended with a Jewish burial on Polish soil, with rugs of land from Eretz Israel, since the deceased was a Holocaust survivor Jew who most of his life served as a priest in the city of Jaffa.
"It was a particularly exciting and thrilling class, which I will not remember in all my years of activity in Poland," says Meir Bolka, chairman of the Generations organization, which works to preserve the heritage of European Jewry. "Griner's will, word for word, was one of the most exciting in my life."
Griner's will and last request to Hitman as Jews were honored both by church representatives and by Israelis who came from Israel and local Jews, who came to pay their last respects to those who were at the center of a particularly complex and rare cross-religious life story.
Griner was born in Izbica in eastern Poland and was staying at his home when Nazi soldiers invaded the town and also reached his family home.
Miraculously he managed to escape the clutches of the Nazi Germans, and during a wander in the area he was picked up by a Polish woman who took pity on him and actually started growing him.
Apart from his older brother, his parents and the rest of the family of little Yaakov Zvi were murdered.
Over the years, having grown up in the Christian faith, Griner was appointed pastor under the name Gregor Pavlovsky.
However, the knowledge that he was born a Jew bothered him, and after consulting with Pope John Paul II, he decided to immigrate to Israel and take on the role of pastor of the Catholic Church in Jaffa and thus live in both worlds.
About 20 years ago, he purchased a burial ground in the town where he grew up, and in time he asked to be buried next to his parents.
This week, at the age of 91, he passed away, and the funeral procession began according to the rules of the Christian Mass and was led by churchmen in Jaffa.
When his coffin landed in Poland and the burial ceremony began in the town where he grew up, the Jewish representatives from Israel took the lead, and while saying "Hear Israel" and singing "I Believe," they made sure that the elderly Jewish priest was laid to rest according to Jewish burial rules.
Griner's family member, Haim Plesner, made sure to bring land from Jerusalem with him so that his family member would be buried among the rugs of the Land of Israel.
"From the stage of Griner's death," explains Bolka, who was present at the special class, "the church was responsible for the funeral arrangements with all the Christian ceremonies. The Amit Ashdod High Yeshiva, headed by Rabbi Shalom Malul, is not sure that Yaakov Zvi would have been buried according to his instructions. "
He further states that he "does not believe that anyone else will ever be able to stand such an exciting status, a Jewish funeral of a priest. It sounds as absurd as it can be. Those present, who do not know Jewish funerals, shed more than one tear when they see before them the ceremony in which "Griner is buried as a Jew. It is a once-in-a-lifetime play that will not return again."
