Polish Bank Gives Immigrants a Taste of Old Country in Tel Aviv

A Polish bank run from Warsaw is still operating quietly in Tel Aviv’s business district 17 years after Israel and Poland broke off diplomatic relations.

Polska Kasa Opievi does not offer its 2,000 Israeli clients bank cards or cash-dispensing machines. Its gray stone exterior and equally drab interior have none of the chrome glitter of Israeli banks.

The commercial bank, founded in Poland in 1929, gives elderly Polish-speaking customers a taste of the old country in the Middle East. They can cash their checks at the “kasa,” or cashier, and purchase shares on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange at the “papiery wartosciowe” counter.

Aside from the Romanian Embassy and airline, the Polish bank is the only non-religious Eastern European foothold in Israel.

In 1933, during the British mandate of Palestine, the bank opened its branch on tree-lined Allenby Street, aiming to attract business from Polish immigrants, said Wlodzimierz Menes, 72, assistant manager of the bank’s Tel Aviv branch.

The bank maintains only two other overseas branches, in Paris and Buenos Aires, where large Polish emigre communities have developed.

Warsaw followed Moscow and other Eastern European governments in pulling its embassy out of Israel when the 1967 Middle East war broke out. The bank stayed.

“The way I understand it, Poland believed things would return to normal,” Menes said. “If there is a resumption of ties, we have connections . . . and a list of people ready to do business with Poland. All it will take is a green light and we can begin in earnest tomorrow.”

Israel has called for renewed ties with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union but there is no sign relations will be resumed.

The Polish bank has turned to the local market, offering a full line of commercial services that include dollar-linked shekel accounts, providing protection from Israel’s 800% annual inflation.

The bank once did a booming business with left-wing Israeli kibbutzim, or collective farming settlements, but the the kibbutzim have since moved their accounts to larger Israeli banks.

About 156,000 Jews came to Israel from Poland after World War II. As only a handful of the country’s three-million-strong Jewish community survived, most Polish-born Israelis no longer have relatives there--but some funds are still sent to Poland from the Jewish state.