Jewish Self-government Research Articles

Socjotopografia osadnictwa żydowskiego w Warszawie w drugiej połowie XVIII wieku

In the second half of the eighteenth century, there was a rapid influx of Jews to Warsaw, even though at that time the de non tolerandis Iudaeis law was still in force. In 1778, there were over 3,500 Jews in Warsaw, and by 1792 the number increased to 7,000. At that time, they constituted over seven percent of the entire population of the city. Jews lived in different parts of Warsaw, but they began to form enclaves that were centers of both economic and religious life. The activity of the Warsaw Jews was dominated by two fields: trade and crafts. In the 1790s, they accounted for thirty percent of commercial operations. Responding to the needs of the Warsaw market, Jews started producing clothes. About thirty percent of the tailors working in Warsaw were Jewish. Despite numerous restrictions and bans, Jewish self-government institutions began to emerge in Warsaw, and religious life developed. These changes were conducive, if not to legalization, then to the slow acceptance of the Jewish presence in Warsaw. In this way, at the end of the eighteenth century, not only the largest Jewish community in Europe began to emerge in Warsaw, but also an important center of Jewish social, cultural, and religious life.

Was the Lithuanian Va’ad Abolished? Some remarks on the history of Jewish self-government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

ABSTRACT The article draws attention to an issue that has been well discussed in historiography – the abolition of Jewish self-government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Based on the re-interpretation of known sources and the introduction of new historical materials several questions are raised. Is everything so obvious in respect of the liquidation of the Va’ads? The conclusions reached during this research correct the currently, generally recognised date of the ‘abolition’ of the Polish and Lithuanian Va’ads and provide new examples of the functioning of the supra-communal organisation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the end of the eighteenth century.

Sources on Jewish Self-Government in the Polish Lands from Its Inception to the Present, red. François Guesnet, Jerzy Tomaszewski, Brill, Leiden–Boston 2022, ss. XXXI + 694.

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The Bankruptcy of the Vilnius Jewish Community in the Second Half of the 18th Century. The Structure of the Debts and the Process of their Repayment

In the second half of the 18th century, the problem of the indebtedness of the Jewish communities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was identified as one that could not be solved without the intervention of the state, and the resolution of this issue involved accounting the debts incurred by Jewish communities and planning their repayment. The present research is based on primary sources: handwritten accounting documents of Jewish debts in the Treasury Commission of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The focus of the paper is on issues which, although identified in historiography, have not yet been analysed: the structure of the indebtedness of Jewish communities, a social portrait of their lenders, trends in the accounting and administration of the debts, and decisions regarding their speedier repayment. The case of the indebtedness of Vilnius’ Jewish community as an institution is analysed, and shows the extremely complicated situation of the chief-communities of the Lithuanian Vaad (in Hebrew Vaad medinat Lita). The biggest challenge in the research is difficulties separating debts incurred for the needs of the community and debts connected with the chief-community’s position in the Lithuanian Vaad, the main and supreme institution of Jewish self-government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The End of Jewish Self-Government: Jewish National Soviets in Belarus in the Interwar Period

The End of Jewish Self-Government: Jewish National Soviets in Belarus in the Interwar Period

Burying the Dead, Saving the Community: Jewish Burial Societies as Informal Centres of Jewish Self-Government

Burying the Dead, Saving the Community: Jewish Burial Societies as Informal Centres of Jewish Self-Government

Permanent Crisis: The Decline of Jewish Self-Government in Poland in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Permanent Crisis: The Decline of Jewish Self-Government in Poland in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

The Synagogue in the System of Jewish Self-Government in Tsarist Russia

The Synagogue in the System of Jewish Self-Government in Tsarist Russia

The Beginnings of Jewish Self-Government in Poland: A Tangled History

The Beginnings of Jewish Self-Government in Poland: A Tangled History

‘Masters of their own offerings no more’: Jewish Perceptions of the Transformation of Jewish Self-Government in the Kingdom of Poland

‘Masters of their own offerings no more’: Jewish Perceptions of the Transformation of Jewish Self-Government in the Kingdom of Poland

The Struggle in the Polish Parliament for Jewish Autonomy and the Nature of Jewish Self-Government

The Struggle in the Polish Parliament for Jewish Autonomy and the Nature of Jewish Self-Government

Did Jewish Self-Government Exist in the Kingdom of Poland between 1815 and 1915?

Did Jewish Self-Government Exist in the Kingdom of Poland between 1815 and 1915?

Żydowski samorząd ziemski w Koronie (XVII–XVIII wiek). Źródła. Wprowadzenie i opracowanie Adam Kaźmierczyk, Przemysław Zarubin. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2019, stron 679

Jewish Territorial Self-Government in the Crown in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Introduction and edition Adam Kaźmierczyk, Przemysław Zarubin. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2019, 679 Pages The note presents the structure of the volume, including the method of summarizing documents in the form of a short abstract and a more extensive register –in English and Polish. Attention was also paid to the research value of sources concerning the Jewish self-government in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The volume provides valuable material for research in the field of the history of law, for example the legal grounds for judgments.

Paediatrics in Theresienstadt ghetto.

The main objective of this study is to describe the most common childhood diseases occurring in the Theresienstadt ghetto during the Second World War as well as applied anti-epidemic measures. A partial objective is to describe medical and nursing care of sick child prisoners. The data was obtained by the method of synthesis of primary and secondary data with the highest importance after adequate external source criticism using selected monographs, memoirs, survivor diaries, Orders of the day by the Council of the Elders and Reports of the Jewish self-government of the Theresienstadt ghetto from 1941 to 1945, the Archives of the Jewish Museum in Prague, the Ghetto Museum, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Post Bellum online electronic collection of oral historical interviews, and witness accounts. The validity of the presented conclusions is ensured by comparing data from several sources. The most common infections in Theresienstadt children were enteritis, scarlet fever, infectious jaundice, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, black cough, pneumonia, otitis media, and typhoid fever. Most of these infections had entirely atypical symptomatology or complications. Children were hospitalized in children's hospitals, in children's rooms of hospitals for adults and infirmaries in children's homes. Albeit diagnostic methods had a high standard, options of treatment were very limited. The most common treatments included bed rest, diet and cold compress. Occasionally, chemotherapeutic agents (e.g. a sulphonamide drug Prontosil) and Aspirin were available. The anti-epidemic measures in the ghetto focused on hygiene, enhancing children's immunity, vaccination and pest control.

Трансформація принципів єврейського самоврядування в Україні в другій половині ХХ – на початку XXI ст.

Трансформація принципів єврейського самоврядування в Україні в другій половині ХХ – на початку XXI ст.

Front Matter

Introduction François Guesnet (bio) and Antony Polonsky (bio) O ḥevruta o metuta (Without community, there is death) Babylonian Talmud, Ta'anit 23a Since their exile in Babylon in the sixth century bce, Jews have sought to create institutions to organize community life and the practice of Judaism in the diaspora. This volume investigates the nature and functioning of the system of Jewish self-government created in the medieval Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It then examines how this system was partially abolished and transformed under Stanisław August (r. 1764–95), the last king of Poland–Lithuania, and subsequently by the governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia which partitioned Poland at the end of the eighteenth century. Under the influence of the principles of the Enlightenment, all these rulers sought to drastically limit the operation of Jewish self-government, which was held to prevent the desired transformation of the Jews from an autonomous community into citizens or, where the concept of citizenship did not exist, into useful subjects of their respective rulers. The volume reflects on the successes and failures of Jewish communities to safeguard religious, charitable, and other institutions from state interference in the nineteenth century and their participation in organs of municipal self-government which developed first in the partitioning powers and then in independent Poland. Finally, it explores how, with the emergence at the end of the nineteenth century of new political ideas of Jewish autonomy, attempts were made to create a modernized system of self-government. While useful attempts have been made to understand forms of Jewish local organization under conditions of extreme duress, persecution, and mass murder during the German occupation of Poland and eastern Europe in the Second World War and the Holocaust, this volume does not look beyond the fateful year of 1939.1 ________ Few other features have shaped the trajectory of east European Jewish history as much as the extent and continuity of Jewish self-government. Among its most important features is the role it played in implementing the constantly changing interpretation of Jewish legal traditions and how its institutions reflected the embeddedness of the Jewish community in the administrative, political, and economic fabric of early modern states, most notably Poland–Lithuania. The differentiated and complex structure of responsibilities in the individual community—most prominently in the form of the board of governors or kahal—and the sophistication this showed in [End Page 1] shaping relations with the Crown, nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Jews' neighbours, had a long-lasting impact on Jewish political culture. So too did the supracommunity structures of regional councils and the two most prominent national councils, the Council of Lithuania and the Council of Four Lands. The existence of institutions allowing the Jews to govern themselves in western Christendom was partly the result of the fact that medieval and early modern states lacked the resources to administer all aspects of society. Furthermore, Jews were both a pariah group, tolerated in an inferior position, and a corporation with the legal right to govern themselves as did all medieval corporations, whether those of an estate, like the nobility, or of a specific group, like the burghers of a particular town. In this context it should be stressed that freedom in the Middle Ages had a 'local rather than a universal character'.2 The words 'liberty' and 'freedom' generally appeared in the plural form as in the 'rights and liberties' of a town, province, or estate which were granted by the sovereign and carefully recorded in charters. The rights and obligations of an individual were derived from participation in a given community—the abstract idea of 'human rights' was alien to medieval thinking and only emerged in the eighteenth century. The Jews could thus be seen, despite their pariah status, as being in the same position as other groups in society, possessing rights which were guaranteed by charters, whether general or limited to a specific region or town or to the institutions through which Jewish self-government was exercised. In this respect, the Jews clearly emulated the 'institutional and legal patterns developed by the non...

SOCIOETHNIC GROUPS OF LATGALE IN 16-18th CENTURIES ACCORDING TO RĒZEKNE DISTRICT INVENTORY AND SOUL AUDIT DATA

One of the most sustainable constituents of Latgalian culture is historically socioethnic groups. A socioethnic group is a community of residents determined by specific ethnic and historical circumstances and a more or less fixed place in social hierarchy. Until now, few studies have used the written sources dated 1599, 1712, 1738 and 1765 the Rzecpospolita estate Rzezyca (Rēzekne) district country manor inventory, written in Polish, stating the names of the hosts of peasants’ houses which reflects the dynamics of socioethnic group formation. Souls audit legislation written in autumn 1772 in Russian is the oldest source of information related to the relatively wide range of kinds of Latgale population concerning age, place of residence and kinship ties. The inventory by parishes and villages included host names, which made it possible to create an inventory of the names of Latvians living in Latgale, Jewish names, people with Slavic and Old Believers’ specific names, which made it possible to determine the trends of population and ethnic composition. Following a long period of war and political chaos in 1599 Rēzekne district inventory list of seven parishes recorded only 104 farms. The foreign ethnic group indicates the presence of certain non-Latvian peasant family names – Litvil, Hanekenon, Gadpian, which in subsequent documents do not occur. The document recorded seven Latgalian Latvian names of specific locations referred to in later centuries – for example, Kemp in Makašāni (Makaszany) parish, Laizan, Greidan, Stylba, and Spungian. The 1712 inventory recorded 232 village farms. This number after the Great Northern War and pest is considered as relatively high. In the same year, in Krīvāni (Kryvan), Rāzna (Razien) and Osyune (Osyn) parish were listed individuals with Polish surnames – Dukalski, Borkevicz, Lipski, Harasimowicz. For the first time there are some Jewish names listed. 1738 for Latgale is a peaceful and politically stable period. The number of farms has increased to 291. Among these, 34 farms in Krīvāni, Lobuordi (Loborsky), Rāzna and Osyune parishes were inhabited by Poles. Most of them were public service people – the so-called bojary or personally free landowners. There were mentioned only two hosts called moskal – strangers from Russia. It should be noted that in 1712 and 1738 inventories there were mentioned some Latvian landowner families in Nautrani parish: Laizan, Rudborz, and Jurdz. The biggest number of Russian Old Believers was in 1765. In that year, 119 villages with an average of five farms within each already recorded 20 villages inhabited by Russians and Poles. In addition, there were 10 Russian and Latvian mixed populated villages and eight villages populated by Latvians and Poles. Year 1772 souls audit shows that many of the Old Believers have not come from Russia, but from Rzecpospolita territory, modern time Belarus. Souls audit provides information on the crown and 42 private manors. For the first time both sexes and all nationalities are represented in the audit. This source provides a very good opportunity to study the ethnic composition, age and kinship with mathematical methods. Most of the farmers were Latvians. The second largest ethnic group of farmers was Russian Old Believers, the third – the Belarussians. The Russians, the Poles and Latvians inhabited villages and free villages – sloboda. Socially most diverse ethnic group was Poles, among which there were large and small landlords, village residents, farmers, and manor servants. In 34 estates Jews were listed – a socially homogenous and well-organized group. All Jews in Rēzekne district belonged to the Kahal in Kruoslova (Kreslaw), which was a Jewish self-government body with judicial functions. In 3 manors were mentioned Gypsies engaged in agriculture. Social groups in Rēzekne district consisted of three religious and spatially demarcated ethnic groups: Latvians, Russian Old Believers, and Belarussians. All ethnic groups of farmers in year 1772 lived in big families in which three generations lived together – parents, unmarried children and several married children, grandchildren and foster children. The servants mostly were close relatives. Latvian villages were mostly inhabited by one family and the names of these villages were derived from the surname of that family. From 1772 souls audit data it can be inferred that every ethnic group was a closed living space. Latvians, Russians and Belarusians lived in villages and sloboda, Poles – in manors and sloboda, Jews – in manors. Up to the 20th century the living space was maintained as a cultural space. Ethnic group-specific traditions were passed on to future generations. Belonging of a social group to a distinct ethnicity was not a strict criterion. Diversity of ethnic groups is most prominently seen in farmers’ social group.

Jews in the Piazza: Jewish Self-government in the Fifteenth-century Kingdom of Naples

This study intends to make a contribution to the literature on Jewish autonomy in the Late Middle Ages by analyzing Jewish political life in the Kingdom of Naples in the fifteenth century. Contrary to Italian and European scholarship which has interpreted Jewry policy in the Kingdom of Naples in the fifteenth century as a direct emanation of the ‘good heart’ of the Aragonese kings, I argue that Jewish charters must be considered the product of Jewish agency. I suggest that the Jewish ruling elites, not the king nor the municipal governmets sought the administrative and juridical separation of the iudece (Jewish Communities) from the municipal governement of southern cities. Considering that Jewish political action, and the administration of the iudeca mirrored that of cities, I argue that Jewish Communities fit perfectly into the Aragonese administrative puzzle.

Komisje Specjalne przy Komitetach Żydowskich w Polsce – aspekt geograficzny

Artykuł dotyczy Komisji Specjalnej, żydowskiej organizacji paramilitarnej, utworzonej po pogromie w Kielcach (4 lipca 1946 r.) w celu samoobrony ludności żydowskiej. Istniała zaledwie przez niecały rok, ale miała istotny wpływ na stabilizację życia tej społeczności w powojennej Polsce. W założeniu jej oddziały tworzono przy Komitetach Żydowskich, jednak nie zawsze konsekwentnie, w związku z czym wytworzyła własny podział administracyjny, różniący się nieznacznie od stworzonego przez żydowski samorząd zrzeszony w Centralnym Komitecie Żydów w Polsce (CKŻP). W artykule przedstawiono specyfikę geograficznego zasięgu działania Komisji Specjalnych.

Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity (review)

Reviewed by: Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity Piotr Wróbel (bio) Gershon David Hundert . Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of ModernityUniversity of California Press. xvii, 286. US $50.00 Gershon David Hundert, Leanor Segal Professor of Jewish Studies and chair of the Department of Jewish Studies at McGill University, is one of the outstanding specialists on early modern Polish Jewish history worldwide. Each of his publications is an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the history of Polish Jews. Certainly, the same can be said about the marvellous book under review. Hundert advocates 'a revision of the understanding of modernity in Jewish history,' since, as he believes, 'there are fundamental distortions in the way modernity in Jewish history has been described.' He claims that historians devoted too much attention to ideology, put too much emphasis on change, and concentrated too much on regions where few Jews lived and not on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth where about 80 per cent of all the Jews resided in the eighteenth century. Hundert argues that several elements of the experience of East European Jewry 'strengthened and deepened a positive sense of Jewish identity' and, already in the eighteenth century, translated the traditional concept of chosenness into a modern East European Jewish mentalité. Hundert's book is devoted to tracing these transforming elements of the East European Jewish experience. 'The Largest Jewish Community of the World' (chapter 1) is devoted to demography and proves that the term 'minority' is misleading when applied to eighteenth-century Polish Jews, who constituted a community of approximately 750,000 people and formed a majority in many towns of eastern Poland-Lithuania. In chapter 2, 'Economic Integration,' Hundert documents the indispensable role that the Jews played in Poland's economy. He describes the economic symbiosis between the Jews and the nobility. This symbiosis also existed between Jewry and the church (chapter 3, 'The Polish Church and Jews, Polish Jews and the Church'). Simultaneously, the church's onslaught against the Jews nurtured Jewish separatism. Hundert describes Jewish self-government in the Commonwealth (chapter 4, 'The Community') and argues that, contrary to the generally accepted interpretations, there was no deep crisis and no class warfare in Poland's Jewish communities (chapter 5, 'Was There a Communal "Crisis" in the Eighteenth Century?'), even though these communities did go through important changes (chapter 6, 'The Popularization of Kabbalah;' chapter 7, 'Mystic Ascetics and Religious Radicals;' chapter 8, 'The Context of Hasidism;' and chapter 9, 'Hasidism, a New Path'). The book closes with political history. Chapter 10, 'Jews and the Sejm,' depicts the attempts to change Jewish status in Poland in the eighteenth century, particularly at the last Polish parliament of 1788-91. In a short afterword, Hundert recapitulates his arguments: 'no other Jewish [End Page 267] population in the world was comparable, in terms of absolute numbers or proportions, to the Jewish community of Poland-Lithuania in the 18th century'; 'persecution did not contradict but rather confirmed Jewish distinctiveness'; 'Polish Jews were at once insular and integrated into the society in which they lived'; 'Kabbalah became part of the grammar of Jewish culture' and prepared the way for Hasidism; and 'self-affirmation and a feeling of Jewish superiority and solidarity dominated the spectrum of self-evaluation of eastern European Jews.' A great number of books on Jewish history appear every year. Yet, among this multitude, there are usually only a few important publications. Hundert's book is most certainly one of them, and every person interested in Jewish history should study this meticulously researched, well-written, and fascinating work. [End Page 268] Piotr Wróbel Piotr Wrobel, Department of History, University of Toronto Copyright © 2006 University of Toronto Press Incorporated