Western Wall replica to be built in Jewish cemetery in Poland

Will display the names of Jews who lived in Bilgoraj, including Shmuel Ben-Artzi, Netanyahu’s father-in-law

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — A wall modeled on the Western Wall in Jerusalem will stand at the site of the Jewish cemetery in Bilgoraj, in southeastern Poland.

The wall, which is being funded by the Isaac Bashevis Singer Association of Bilgoraj, will display the names of Jews who lived in the town. The cost of the wall is about $15,000.

Among the names that will be included is Shmuel Ben-Artzi, father-in-law of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ben-Artzi was born in Bilgoraj in 1914 and later studied in the town’s cheder and then at yeshiva in Miedzyrzec, Ukraine. He left Poland in the 1930s.

Ben-Artzi was a writer, poet and educator who devoted several of his poems to Bilgoraj. He died in 2011.