Baruch Steinberg

Baruch or Boruch Steinberg (17 December 1897 – after 9 April 1940) was a Polish rabbi and military officer.

During the First World War his family moved to Vienna; there in 1916 he was elected a rabbi, passing the required examinations in the following year and returning to Przemyślany.

[1][2] His applications for full service were rejected, the reasons cited were his lack of formal education (he did not finish secondary school) and opposition from the Orthodox Jewish faction, as Steinberg was seen as a member of a zionist camp.

[1] A few years later he would be promoted to senior rabbi, second class (starszy rabin drugiej klasy - equivalent of a major rank).

[4][5] In Starobilsk, Steinberg was arrested by NKVD together with Polish priests and chaplains during Christmas of 1939[6] and transported to a prison in Moscow.

[8] On 11 November 2018 he was awarded the highest state decoration of Poland: the Order of the White Eagle.

[5] b ^ PSB does not give a date of his death, but states he was shipped from Kozelsk on 9 April and murdered afterwards.

Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army, Baruch Steinberg before 1939.
Rabbi Baruch Steinberg speaking in front of the Great Synagogue during the appeal of the fallen, organized by the Union of Jewish fighters for the Polish independence.
Major Baruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army, with Polish Army officers, presumably Jewish, at the Postępowa [Progressive] Synagogue, Kraków, on 5 September 1935. In the photo he is holding what looks like a memorial tablet. Jewish Polish Army veterans of the War of Independence met in Kraków on 5 September 1935 to offer a collective prayer for Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, who died in May.