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JEWISH CHILDHOOD FRIENDS TO MEET POPE IN HOLY LAND
JERUSALEM (CWNews.com) - A group of Israeli Jews originally from Pope John Paul II's
Polish hometown of Wadowice will meet with the Holy Father during his visit to the Holy Land
next week.
Yosef Bienenstock, 80, on Sunday remembered attending school with the young Karol
Wojtyla.
"We sat on the same bench and I have to thank him today because I was mischievous and when I
didn't want to do my homework I would copy from the Pope, Karolik," he said. He will be among
20 Jews from Wadowice who will meeting the Holy Father at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust
memorial.
"He was a genius in every sense of the word," Bienenstock told Reuters news agency. "In school,
the teachers didn't know what to do with him. When the teacher opened his mouth, he completed
the sentence."
Bienenstock remembered living down the street from Karol and said he plans to reminisce about
their childhood. "I will kiss him, I will speak to him in Polish," Bienenstock said. "Trust me, we
have a common language. From what I understand he has a good memory." He also called the
Pope a friend of the Jews. "I have to say he came from a house where they didn't know what
anti-Semitism was," he recalled |
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