New Polish president has not organised Hanukkah celebration, breaking with tradition

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s recently elected president, Karol Nawrocki, has not organised a ceremony to celebrate the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, which begins tomorrow, breaking a tradition followed by his three predecessors.

In 2006, President Lech Kaczyński, who was aligned with the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, first invited Jewish leaders to light Hanukkah candles in the presidential palace.

The practice was continued by his successors, Bronisław Komorowski, who was associated with the centrist Civic Platform (PO), and PiS-aligned Andrzej Duda, who left office this year.

Nawrocki, who became president in August, was also elected with the support of PiS. But he had now decided not to maintain the tradition, reports Rzeczpospolita, a leading daily.

The newspaper spoke to representatives of the Jewish community in Poland, who confirmed that no invitations have been sent by the presidential palace, despite the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah beginning on Sunday

The website of the president’s chancellery does not list any planned Hanukkah events. When contacted by Rzeczpospolita about the issue, the president’s media office failed to respond.

While on the campaign trail in January this year, Nawrocki declared that, if elected president, he would not continue his predecessor’s tradition of celebrating Hanukkah.

“No,” he told broadcast RMF when asked if he would host a celebration of the Jewish festival in the presidential palace. “I take my attachment to Christian values ​​seriously, so I celebrate holidays that are close to me as a person.”

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During the final, run-off round of the election in June, Nawrocki also sought to win over the voters of eliminated candidate Grzegorz Braun, a far-right leader who infamously attacked a Hanukkah celebration in parliament, putting out the candles with a fire extinguisher.

In response to a set of questions from Braun – including whether he would “reject Jewish claims” against Poland – Nawrocki wrote that he “takes my attachment to Christian values ​​seriously, so I celebrate and promote holidays and the Polish traditions and customs associated with them”.

Subsequently, Braun, who has a long history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, announced that he would vote for Nawrock in the run-off. Exit polling showed that, among voters who had supported Braun in the first round and turned out in the second round, 92.5% voted for Nawrocki.

However, after Nawrocki took office, news website Interia reported, based on inside sources, that some presidential officials still wanted to host a Hanukkah celebration – in particular to remain on good terms with the Trump administration, whose newly appointed ambassador to Poland, Tom Rose, is Jewish.

While it now appears that no Hanukkah celebration will be organised in the presidential palace, one will take place in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, on Monday 15 December.

Parliament is under the control of Poland’s more liberal ruling coalition, which regularly clashes with Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition.

Before the Holocaust, Poland was home to around 3.5 million Jews, roughly 10% of the country’s population and the second-largest Jewish community in the world at the time, behind only the United States. Now, however, the community numbers only around 16,000, according to the most recent census.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Wojciech Bakun/Facebook

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.