The one lone Jew elected last week to Poland’s Sejm (Parliament), 67-year-old Shimon Szurmiej, was the first since 1950 whose Jewish background was mentioned during the campaign, this reporter learned during a short visit to Warsaw this month.
Szurmiej is the director of the Warsaw Yiddish State Theatre and head of the Cultural Association of the Jews in Poland — the representative body of Polish Jewry. He has visited Israel twice.
Three Jews represented the Jewish community officially in the pre-war Sejm. After Poland came under Communist control, there were several Jewish party members in the 460-member Sejm, but their Jewish background was never mentioned.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
