Jacob Goldberg, editor. Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth. Charters of Rights Granted to Jewish Communities in Poland-Lithuania in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Critical Edition of Original Latin and Polish Documents with English Introductions and Notes. Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. 1985. Pp. xxvi, 477.

Abstract

This chapter reviews Jewish Privileges in the Polish Commonwealth (1985), which was edited by Jacob Goldberg. Publication of this work is cause for celebration in the scholarly community because a great wealth of rich and hitherto unknown primary source material is now available to students of the history of the Jews in early modern Poland–Lithuania. The original texts of sixty-three privileges granted to Jewish communities in the 16th to 18th centuries are published here on the basis of manuscript sources, most of them for the first time. Each privilege is presented in its original language, carefully edited, and introduced with a brief summary in English of its contents. Twenty-four of the privileges concern private towns and were issued by the hereditary owners, while thirty-nine privileges concern royal cities and are signed by the monarch or by royal officials. The geographical distribution of the towns represented in the collection is also quite balanced as reflected in the excellent map included in the volume.