Poland Chief Rabbi Meets Ex-Leader’s Kin
Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, met with the daughter and other descendants of Poland’s iconic interwar leader Marshal Jozef Pilsudski.
During their hourlong conversation Thursday, Jadwiga Jaraczewska, 94, showed Schudrich a famous photograph of Jewish leaders in the town of Deblin greeting her father with bread and salt after the Polish army under his leadership captured the town from the Bolsheviks in August 1920.
Also present at the meeting, which came at the invitation of the family, were Pilsudski’s grandchildren, some of his great-grandchildren and his 2-month-old great-great-granddaughter.
Polish Jews widely supported Pilsudski, who died in 1935, as an opponent of extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism. He served as head of state and prime minister, among other positions, between 1918 and 1935, the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.