Polish chief rabbi meets descendants of interwar leader

Iconic Jozef Pilsudski, who served as country’s head of state before WWII, was as an opponent of anti-Semitism

Jozef Piłsudski (left) and Gabriel Narutowicz (right), circa 1922 (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons public domain)
Jozef Piłsudski (left) and Gabriel Narutowicz (right), circa 1922 (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons public domain)

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 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.

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