Jerusalem Post reporter Greer Fay Cashman proclaimed last week's Torah dedication ceremony at Warsaw's Belvedere Presidential Palace to be "one of the most joyful events" associated with the state visit by Israeli President Shimon Peres to the Polish capitol.

Organized by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Stambler, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Poland, the event saw Peres inscribe one of the Torah scroll's last letters before it was rolled up and carried outside by Jewish communal officials.

Despite the pouring rain, a procession started with a "spirited dance through the grounds of the Belvedere Palace" and led the new Torah to the Chabad synagogue.

"In a country in which Jews had lived for a thousand years, but which in the post-Holocaust period had for too long been devoid of real Jewish life," Cashman wrote in her April 16 "Grapevine" column, "it was a celebration of Jewish survival." .