Oswald Rufeisen

Oswald Rufeisen (1922–1998), religious name Daniel Maria, was a Polish-born Jew who survived the Nazi Germany invasion of his homeland, in the course of which he converted to Christianity, becoming a Catholic and a friar of the Discalced Carmelites.

Shmuel Oswald Rufeisen was born to a Jewish family in Zadziele[1] near the Polish town of Oświęcim, in which Germans installed deat camp Auschwitz.

[3] Throughout the 1950s, Rufeisen made numerous requests to the Carmelite authorities to transfer him to the order's monastery in Haifa, Jerusalem, and to the Polish government to allow him to move to Israel for permanent residence.

[7] In 1962, the Supreme Court upheld the government's decision: any Jew converting to another religion would forfeit their preferential access to Israeli citizenship (Rufeisen v. Minister of the Interior, (1962) 16 PD 2428).

[7] Nevertheless, Rufeisen went on to serve as a Carmelite friar at Stella Maris Monastery in Haifa, Israel, where he spent the rest of his life, and acquired Israeli citizenship through naturalization.