Jewish Delegates at the Noble Sejm and Sejmiki between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract

This chapter explores the influence of the parliaments (sejms) and local assemblies of the nobility (sejmiki) on the situation of Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, deciding, above all, policy on Jewish settlement and economic activity and establishing the level of taxation to be paid by the Jewish population. The resolutions proposed by the sejm and the sejmiki had both a normative and an aspirational character and thus illustrate both the Jews' true position in the commonwealth and the nobility's attitude towards Jewish issues. Resolutions often dealt simultaneously with a large range of topics, and, in them, legal provisions, arguments both rational and religious, and stereotypical views of Jews were randomly intermingled. Among the issues affecting Jews, fiscal matters, especially the assessment and collection of the Jewish poll tax, were most discussed by the nobility in the sejm and sejmiki. A second group of resolutions dealt with Jewish economic activity. Yet a third dealt with religious matters and contact between Jews and Christians. The chapter shows how the resolutions of the sejm and sejmiki reveal that noble opinion was in no way consistent and that the nobles were primarily motivated by economic considerations.