Polish Jewish leaders meet senior ruling politician

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that leaders of Polish Jewry said they raised what they termed the rising intolerance in the country during a meeting with a ruling party politician, but the party denied the subject was broached.

Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich and Leslaw Piszewski, the president of the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland, met Friday with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a founder of the Law and Justice Party, to discuss various topics, including the “issue of growing intolerance towards various minorities, including the Jews,” Schudrich told JTA Monday.

But in an interview with the PAP news agency, Kaczynski denied this issue ever came up.

“We talked about the safety of Jewish communities and objects, but there was absolutely no mention of any growing climate of intolerance in Poland,” he was quoted as saying. He added the two communal leaders said Poland was safer for Jews than many other countries in Europe with large Muslim populations.