Israel and Poland are moving slowly toward the resumption of diplomatic relations broken off by Poland after the 1967 Six-Day War. Each country will be opening an interest section in the other over the next few weeks and Israeli and Polish technical teams have gone to Warsaw and Tel Aviv, respectively, to make the necessary arrangements.
Mordechai Bar-Zur, who holds the personal rank of Ambassador, will go to Warsaw in about a month to head the Israel interest section, but with the official rank only of Second Secretary. His No. 2 man, Alex Ben-Zvi, arrived in the Polish capital earlier this week with his family.
The Israeli technical team in Warsaw is preparing the old Israel Embassy building for reoccupation. It has been vacant for 19 years but kept clean and in good repair under special arrangements with the Polish government.
The Polish Bank on Allenby Road in Tel Aviv will house Poland’s interest section, to be headed by a diplomat, as yet unnamed, of equivalent rank to Bar-Zur. He is expected in Tel Aviv at the same time Bar-Zur goes to Warsaw. The Polish technical team, meanwhile, is readying the bank building for its diplomatic role. The bank was kept open over the last two decades but has done little business.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.