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Oswald Rufeisen

Oswald Rufeisen was a Polish-born Jew who became a Carmelite friar and whose request for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return led to a 1962 Supreme Court ruling.

1922 to 1998The 1962 Law of Return caseAiding Jews of the Mir GhettoCarmelite friar Brother Daniel

Born: 29 January 1922, Żywiec
Died: 30 July 1998, Haifa
Occupation: interpreter, regular priest

Oswald Rufeisen was born in 1922 in Żywiec

Rufeisen was born in 1922 in Poland to a Jewish family. As a youth he was a member of Akiva, a Zionist youth movement.

After the invasion of Poland in 1939 he fled to Lwów and then to Vilnius. Using the identity of a German, he worked as an interpreter for the German police in Mir, Belarus, warned Jews of planned killings and smuggled weapons to the ghetto underground. A group of young Jews escaped to the forests, and when his activity was exposed he fled and joined the partisans.

He hid in a convent, where he converted to Christianity. After the war he joined the Carmelite Order as Brother Daniel and later became a Catholic priest.

After moving to Israel he applied for citizenship under the Law of Return, saying he was Christian by religion but Jewish by nationality. The government refused, and in 1962 the Supreme Court rejected his petition by 4 to 1.

He lived as a friar at the Stella Maris Monastery in Haifa and received citizenship through naturalization. He died in 1998.

Oswald Rufeisen's life in 5 milestones

1922
Born in Poland to a Jewish family.
1939
Fled east after the invasion of Poland.
1941
Worked as an interpreter for the German police in Mir and aided the ghetto's Jews.
1962
The Supreme Court rejected his petition under the Law of Return.
1998
Died in Haifa.