Poland Ordains Its First Rabbis Since WWII

From the IHT:

WARSAW: The first rabbis ordained in Poland since World War Two received their diplomas from Warsaw's Rabbinical College on Sunday, PAP news agency said.

Nine students from the United States and Israel were granted rabbinical rights at a ceremony presided over by Poland's chief rabbi, U.S.-born Michael Schudrich, and attended by Jewish clergy from Poland, Israel and Britain.

"This was a ceremony of historic proportions," said Rabbi Szalom Ber Stambler, who heads the college.

"For centuries, Poland had been a world centre of Jewish studies laying down the code of proper Jewish conduct."

Most of Poland's 3.5 million Jews were killed by the Nazi Germans in ghettos and extermination camps during World War Two.