Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich of Poland, together with the heads of the Jewish communities in the country, signed a harsh letter Monday against a statement made on Sunday by Acting Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz in which he asked, "How did Yitzhak Shamir put it, [about] those who murdered his father? 'Poles suckle anti-Semitism from their mother’s milk.'"
The letter said that "the words of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, quoted by Minister Yisrael Katz, were inappropriate when they were originally said in 1989, when relations between Poland and Israel began to be rebuilt after the Communist period. The words are even worse today, 30 years later, when so much is being done by both sides, who understand the mutual difficulty, but share history...."