Jews feel more secure in Poland than in Western Europe – German media

Many Jews are now moving to Poland, where they feel safer than in Western Europe, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) wrote in a report from Kraków. 

In a website article published on Thursday, FAZ claims that this move is strongly influenced by the war in Ukraine and the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel.

“Today, Jews from the post-Auschwitz generation live in Poland,†the newspaper quoted Rabbi Eliezer Gurary, the chief Rabbi of Kraków, as saying. â€œKraków has become the heart of this new normality. Kraków is unique; it is multicultural,†the rabbi added.

“It’s not like in Germany, where people are searched with a metal detector at the entrance to the synagogue,†he continued. â€œIt’s friendlier here,†he stressed.

Kraków also has a Jewish Community Centre (JCC), inaugurated in 2008 by Britain’s then prince and now King Charles. The JCC offers space to anyone who â€œidentifies as a Jew in any way – whether Orthodox, liberal, religious, or secular.â€

JCC director Jonathan Ornstein, who comes from a Jewish family in New York, also praised the safe environment for Jews in Poland.

“It is now easier and safer to be a Jew in Poland than in any Western European country,†Ornstein said. He added that it continues to be “a great task to convey this fact to the Jewish community, which still perceives Poland from the perspective of the Holocaust.â€

“A process has begun in Poland and it will intensify,†he continued. â€œIsraelis from Western Europe and Jews from Ukraine will settle here… Poland has for some time been a country with good economic growth and, at the same time, a country that ensures safety for Jews,†Ornstein added.

Source: Polish Press Agency