Leon Reich

Leon Reich (July 11, 1879 – December 1, 1929) was a Polish Zionist leader, lawyer and politician. Life Reich was born on July 11, 1879, in Drohobych, Galicia, Austria-Hungary. His parents were wealthy merchants and Orthodox Jews. He attended a high school in Sambor. From 1907 to 1914, he edited the Voskhod, the leading organ of Galician Zionism. In 1913, he represented Eastern Galician Zionists on the executive committee of the Zionist Organization. He took part in the Zionist Congresses as a leading delegate of the General Zionists. He edited a Polish Zionist in 1910. In the 1911 election, he unsuccessfully ran for the Imperial Council.

During World War I, Reich served in the legal department of the Austro-Hungarian Army. After the war, he was a main organizer of the Jewish National Council of East Galicia. When the Polish–Ukrainian War broke out, he was interned by Polish authorities at a camp in Baranów. He was released with intervention from Józef Piłsudski, Naḥum Sokolow, and Western European Jewish leaders. During the Paris Peace Conference, he was vice-president of the Comité des Délégations Juives and edited a book on the national rights of Eastern European Jews called Les droits nationaux des Juifs en Europe orientale (The National Rights of Jews in Western Europe) in 1919. He wrote a memoir of that period in 1922 called Żydowska delegacja pokojowa w Paryżu (The Jewish Peace Delegation in Paris). on December 1, 1929. 35,000 Jews attended his funeral in Lviv, along with numerous delegations from all over Poland, the vice-governor of the province, and representatives from the Sejm. The Orthodox Rabbi Isaak Ziff, Dr. Barth and Dr. Emil Schmorack of the Zionist Organization, Mr. Chajes of the Kehillah, Reform Rabbi Lwei Freund, and Mr. Hindes of the Jewish Agency spoke at the graveside. No one from the Jewish Parliamentary Club spoke since none of Reich's supporters wanted Yitzhak Gruenbaum to speak due to newspaper attacks Gruenbaum directed against Reich.

In 1934, Reich's body was exhumed, which was witnessed by a large throng that included Zionist leaders, representatives from general Jewish organizations, and government representatives. The body was then sent to Palestine and reburied in the Old Cemetery in Tel Aviv. The body was transported to the cemetery with the Boy Scouts as a guard of honor and a long procession following it to the cemetery. Nahum Sokolow, Ben-Zion Mossinsohn, Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, Israel Rokach, Ephraim Washitz, and Mr. Spindel delivered eulogies.