Leon Reich

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Leon Reich (1879–1929) was a Polish Jewish Zionist leader, lawyer and politician. He was born on July 11, 1879, in Drohobych, in Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary, to wealthy Orthodox Jewish parents. He studied in Sambor, earned a law degree in Lviv, and continued his studies in Paris. As a student he founded Jewish student groups and became a noted Zionist organizer.

From 1907 to 1914 he edited Voskhod, the main Galician Zionist newspaper. In 1913 he represented Eastern Galician Zionists on the Zionist Organization’s executive committee and took part in Zionist Congresses as a leader of the General Zionists. He also edited a Polish Zionist publication in 1910 and ran unsuccessfully for the Imperial Council in 1911.

During World War I Reich served in the Austro-Hungarian Army’s legal department. After the war he helped organize the Jewish National Council of East Galicia. When the Polish–Ukrainian War started, he was interned by Polish authorities but was released after interventions by Józef Piłsudski, Nahum Sokolow and other leaders.

At the Paris Peace Conference he served as vice-president of the Jewish Delegations Committee and helped publish a book on Jewish national rights in Eastern Europe in 1919. He later wrote memoirs about that period. Reich practiced law in Lviv and became chairman of the Zionist Organization of Eastern Galicia in 1920.

In 1922 he was elected to the Polish Sejm (the parliament) and was re-elected in 1928. In 1924 he chaired the Jewish Club in the Sejm and Senate and helped negotiate Ugoda, an agreement with the government that offered some concessions to Jews in exchange for political support. The plan faced strong opposition and ended after the May Coup; Reich resigned as chairman but remained influential, especially in eastern Galicia.

Reich also contributed to several newspapers and founded a short-lived Polish-language Zionist daily in Warsaw. He died from complications after an appendectomy on December 1, 1929. His funeral in Lviv drew about 35,000 mourners and many dignitaries. In 1934 his body was moved to Palestine and buried in the Old Cemetery in Tel Aviv, after a large ceremony.