On Saturday evening, the rhythm of soccer cleats echoed across Kraków. Midfielder Ben Lederman walked through the very ground where Jutrzenka Kraków once played, now the site of Henryk Reyman’s Stadium.
Focused, he began his warm-up before starting for Wieczysta Kraków against reigning Polish champion Lech Poznań, a match that ended in a 2-1 defeat. Somewhere, almost imperceptibly, the echoes of long-forgotten matches between Jutrzenka Kraków and Makkabi Kraków seemed to linger in the air.
Kraków has the rare ability to look like a museum while behaving like a living organism, constantly rewriting its own biography. That is why Lederman is not simply arriving in Kraków to play for Wieczysta. Whether he realizes it or not, he is stepping into a story that began decades before he was born.
Americans often describe sports as a business. Europeans tend to think of them as tradition. In Kraków, soccer has always been something else entirely – a chronicle of the city itself. Kraków lives through soccer, and soccer lives through Kraków. It is one of the central threads woven into the city’s identity.
Jewish athletes in Poland upheld tradition while remaining loyal citizens
A century ago, Jewish athletes in Kraków believed they could remain faithful to their own traditions while also embracing Galicia, the land they called home. They saw no contradiction in being devoted Jews and loyal citizens of their homeland.
Today, names such as Leon Sperling, Juliusz Ritterman and Henryk Mueckenbrunn mean little to the average sports fan. Yet they were among the great figures of their generation. They represented Poland at the first Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv in 1932. A year later, Polish Jewish athletes triumphed at the Winter Maccabiah Games in Zakopane. Those victories were more than sporting achievements – they reflected a world that believed one could proudly be Jewish, proudly from Kraków and proudly Polish all at once.
Today’s fans associate Kraków primarily with two clubs: Wisła Kraków and Cracovia. Before World War II, however, the city’s soccer landscape was far richer. Makkabi and Jutrzenka were not simply clubs; they helped shape the city’s soccer culture and gave birth to a rivalry that later became famous throughout Poland. The phrase “Holy War” did not originally describe the matches between Wisła and Cracovia. It first referred to the fiercely contested games between Makkabi and Jutrzenka – two Jewish clubs whose encounters were fueled by passion, ambition and neighborhood pride.
History has an ironic sense of humor. The most famous rivalry in Kraków soccer traces its roots to clubs that no longer exist.
That is why Lederman’s arrival carries meaning beyond a simple transfer. Not because he is both Israeli and Polish. Not even because he is a professional soccer player. The significance lies in the place itself. Henryk Reyman’s Stadium stands only a few hundred yards from the grounds where Jutrzenka once played. In Kraków, distance is measured not in miles but in stories.
The 26-year-old Lederman – who was born in Los Angeles to Israeli expatriates of Polish-Jewish descent – will not be the first Israeli player embraced by the city. Wisła supporters still remember Dudu Biton and his 16 league goals. They remember the flashes of brilliance from Alon Turgeman and the pace of Dor Hugi. Above all, they remember the “King of Kraków,” Maor Melikson. His name still appears on jerseys years after his departure – not simply because he scored memorable goals, but because he played with a grace and technical mastery that statistics cannot capture. Watching Melikson felt less like watching an athlete than watching an artist at work.
Now Lederman pulls on the jersey of Wieczysta Kraków, a club that only recently seemed like an ambitious curiosity but has quickly become one of the most fascinating projects in Polish soccer. Its promotion to the Ekstraklasa is more than a sporting achievement. It is proof that, in soccer, the most improbable stories sometimes become reality. In a city deeply rooted in tradition, a new club is writing its own history, and a new player unknowingly becomes part of a much older one.
Lederman's transfer comes after a successful season with Maccabi Tel Aviv
His move also comes after a season with Maccabi Tel Aviv, where he helped the club capture the State Cup. In announcing his permanent transfer, Maccabi thanked Lederman for his professionalism, commitment and dedication, noting that he made 19 appearances in all competitions during the 2025/26 campaign and that his contribution both on and off the field was greatly appreciated. The club wished him success in the next chapter of his career.
Cities, like people, remember selectively. Some memories they preserve; others they bury. Kraków is built upon layers of sporting memory.
When Ben Lederman stepped onto the field on Reymonta Street, he saw only the pitch ahead of him. But above the stadium hovered another story – the story of Makkabi, Jutrzenka and the thousands of people for whom soccer was a language of belonging. Players come and go. Seasons begin and end. Clubs rise and fall. Cities, however, remember far longer than those who inhabit them. Kraków has been doing so for centuries.
That is why this transfer means far more than the league table could ever suggest.
Wojciech Bergier is a Polish attorney, former Consul of Poland in Los Angeles, legal author, and longtime researcher of Galician soccer history.