Figure 1.--. |
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Poland had a long history of openess to Jews in a still Catholic Europe seething with anti-semitism.
It is unclear when the first Jews arrived in Poland. It appears that some Jews had reached Poland (10th century). The earliest Jews appear to have been merchants rather thn settlers. The first known account comes from Spanish scholars. Spain at the time was the most culturlly advanced, not unrelated to the relatively tolerant atmosphere. Ibrahim ibn Jakub was a Jewish merchant and diplomat from Tortosa,Spain. He writes about a journey east which includes a description of Krakow. It is at this time that a Polish state was beginning to form. Ibrahim's account mentions the first Duke of Poland--Mieszko I (965). Ibrahim was surely not the first Jew to visit Poland, but he was the first to write about it. He does not describe any ill-feeling toward Jews. Presumably other Jews at this time were traveling and tradeing in Piast Poland. Surely some hd begun gto settle in Poland at this time. They would have primarily been involved with commerce and crafts. With the onset of the Crusades in Europe, the Christian West became increasingly hostile toward the Jews in their midst. Country after country banished Jews. Many of these Jews sought refuge in the east, especially Poland.
Poland from the 11th century onwards accepted Jews fleeing persecultion in from Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, and Turkey. In many countries the Jews were persecuted, restricted to ghettos, and often robbed, brutalized, and killed. Several countries including England, Spain, and Portugal expelled them entirely. The Holy Office of the Inquisition was tasked with ensuring that converted Jews ("conversos") were not secretly practing their faith. The Jews in Poland were permitted freedom of religious worship, the right to live in their own communities by King Casimir the Great in the 14th century a dispensation that was reaffirmed by later kings of Poland.
Poland had a long history of openess to Jews in a still Catholic Europe seething with anti-semitism.
It is unclear when the first Jews arrived in Poland. It appears that some Jews had reached Poland (10th century). The earliest Jews appear to have been merchants rather thn settlers. The first known account comes from Spanish scholars. Spain at the time was the most culturlly advanced, not unrelated to the relatively tolerant atmosphere. Ibrahim ibn Jakub was a Jewish merchant and diplomat from Tortosa,Spain. He writes about a journey east which includes a description of Krakow.
It is at this time that a Polish state was beginning to form. Ibrahim's account mentions the first Duke of Poland--Mieszko I (965). Poland was one of the great powers of Meieval Europe. Poland played a major role in stopping the expanion of the Ottoman Turks into Christian Europe. At its peak, Poland was a kingdom dominating Eastern Europe. It included Lithuania and included the basins of the importantrivers of Eastern Europe (Warta, Vistula, Dwina, Dnieper and upper Dniester). Ir included not only the Poles but the Balic Slavs, the Lithuanians, the White Russians and the Little Russians or Ruthenians. Very little real historical date exists about Poland before the 10th century. The origins of the Poles may have been a people living along the Danube that were driven north by the expanding Roman Empire, settling in the forrests of the upper Oder and the Vistula. These people were the Lechici named for the mythical patriarch, Lech. Here they lived for centuries, in loosely associated tribal communities. A more centralized stated finally coaleased for protection from aggressive neighbors. This was the kingdom of the Piasts, named after its founder Piast. Virtually nothing is known about the kingdom. Prince Ziemovit, the great-grandfather of Mieszko (Mieczyslaw) I (962-992) is known to have expanded the kingdom at the expense of the weakening Moravian Empire when he seized the province of Chrobacyja (extending from the Carpathians to the Bug). Although Poland was to become perhaps the most Catholic country in Europe, Christianity did not appear until the 10th century and it was Greek Orthodox missionary monks who first arrived. Mieszko was eventually converted by Jordan, the chaplain of his Bohemian wife, Dobrawa or Bona. Jordan was made the first bishop of Posen. The subjects of King Mieszko appeared to have followed the choice of their monarch and Catholicism became estblished in the kingdom. Mieszko's decission appears to have involved power politics. The newly Christinized Germans were pressing eastward and accepting Christianity helped legitimize the Polishing kingdom in the eye of the Church and Christian Europe. Mieszko's son Boleslaus I (992-1025) made the church at Gnesen in Great Poland a national shrine. Boleslaus who added additional territiry to the Polish state was the first Polish prince to have been conformed as a king. The tile was conferred by Emperor Otto III in 1000.
Ibrahim was surely not the first Jew to visit Poland, but he was the first to write about it. He does not describe any ill-feeling toward Jews. Presumably other Jews at this time were traveling and tradeing in Piast Poland. Surely some hd begun gto settle in Poland at this time. They would have primarily been involved with commerce and crafts. The accounts from Poland attracted Jews from Western Europe. And the first small communities facilitated the process of emigration. They were essentially staging points for Jewish emmigration. The medieval era is a long historical period, lasting about a millenium. After Christianity emerged as the state religion of the Empire, other religions were supressed. This is why Christianity was the only other religion in most of medeval Europe. Few written records exist to document Jewish life in early medieval Europe.
More is known about Jewish life by the mid-medieval era. Gradually the toleration for Jews deckined in Western Europe. The Church promoted increasngly vitriolic anti-semitism. A major turning point was the Crusades. Entire Jewish communities were murdered by the Crusaders and local populations whipped up in a frency of relgious zeal (beginning 11th century). These attacks on Jews coninued for cebturies until Jews were virtually wiped out in Western Europe. Most of Poland's Jews were Ashkenazi (western or German) Jews. Most Wesrern Jews could not escape the violence and nayhem in the West. Many German Jews, however did escape, As a result, the largest numberof Jews who reached Poland cane from Germany. European Jews migrated to Poland in three great waves after the conversion of Poland to Christianity (10th century). The waves were: 1) the Crusades (11th and 12th centuries), 2) the Black Death plague (mid-14th century), and 3) the Spanish and Portuguese expulsion (Late-15th centuty). [Wandycz, p. 25.] First, With the onset of the Crusades in Europe, the Christian West became increasingly hostile toward the Jews in their midst. There were terrible pogroms. Country after country banished Jews. Many of these Jews sought refuge in the east. Poland was the primary destination, but Jews also found refuge in Hungary and what is now Czechoslovakia.
Poland from the 11th century onwards accepted Jews fleeing persecultion from Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, and Turkey. In many countries the Jews were persecuted, restricted to ghettos, and often robbed, brutalized, and killed. Several countries including England and France drove out the Jews, Several did it more than once. Second, the Black Death struck Europe (mid-14th century). Beginning in Sicily it relentlessly traveled north. It devestated comminities throughout Europe. Europeans had no idea what caused the Plague, but many blamed Jews. Large vnumbers of Jews were driven out, many were killed or died as a result. Third, Spain, and Portugal expelled their Jews unless they converted. Isabella and Ferdinand ordered the Jews to conveet or leave after completing the Reconquista (1492). Portugal followed suit soon after. The Holy Office of the Inquisition was tasked with ensuring that converted Jews ("conversos") were not secretly practing their faith. Each of these three waves substantially shifted Europe's population eastward. And Poland became one of the major places of refuge.
The Jews of central Europe shared many different experiences. All of the central European people lived and interacted with German and Jewish minorities. By far the most important minority was the Germans with their larger numbers and cinnections with German states to the west. The Jews while smaller in number also played a role during the medieval period. The Jews were destinct in that unlike the Germans they did not operaste entirely within the existing society. They were separated by religion, language, and custom. The Jews in the region steadily increased after Western Europe became increasingly hostile to Jews at the time of the Crusades and plagues. Most of the Jews . The greatest number of Jews migrated to Poland, but others settled in what is now Hungary and Czechoslovakia. And while conditions varied, Eastern Rurope proved much more hospitable that Western Europe. [Wandycz, pp. 9-10.]
The Piasts were the first Polish royal dynasty. Polish dukes and kings generally looked with favor on Jews because of their learning and productivity which helped stimulare economic growth. Boleslaw Pobozny (1221-79) and Kazimierz Wielki (1310-70) granted them privileges and established conditions aloowing them to live in peace and security, free from forced conversions. Boleslaw Pobozny issued the Charter of Kalisz (1264) guaranteeing Jews security for Jews and protecting their communities, and property.
Western Jews sought refuge in many Eastern provinces. Jews settled in Bohemia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and other places. It should be remembered that Polans for a time include a huhe area of what is now the Ukraine. And while consitins in Eastern Europe were generallt better than in Western urope, the Poles were partocularly welcoming. The legal status of the Jews carield. In many places they became serfs of the soverign or local noble. The status in Poland
was that of free mem. They did not have to wear identifying clothing or live in certain areas. The Jews in Poland were permitted freedom of religious worship, the right to live in their own communities by King Casimir the Great in the 14th century a dispensation that was reaffirmed by later kings of Poland. There were some problems. Some communities banned Jews. And as the Jews settled in towns they were often resented by German burgherss who had also settled in early Polish towns. [Wandycz, p. 25.]
The origins of Polish Jews are diverse. The European origins is probably best lnown, but Polish Jewery is actually much more diverse. The relative importance of the different groups is difficult to assess. The largest community seems to have been Ashkenazi Jews primarily from Germany.
The Rhodans or Jews from the Rhone River valley in Switzerland and France appeared to have migrated to Poland in large numbers. Jewish merchants traveling to Eastern Europe brought back accounts of tolerant Poland. Some remained in Poland and attracted Jews from their former homes. many occupied themselves with commerce and crafts.
The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people. The name 'Khazar' may have been derived from a Turkic verb meaning "wandering". The Kahazars founded an independent Khaganate in the Caucasus along the northern shore of the Caspian Sea (7th century). This was at a time before the Islamic conversionof the Turks.
Many Khazars as a result of the contact with Jewish merchants converted to Judaism which eventually became a state religion. The Khazar became a major power in eastern Europe and the most extensive and powerful Jewish state in history. The came to control directly or through tributary states large areas of what is now southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, the eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, much of the Caucasus, as well as the Crimea. The Khazar hearland was the areas of souther Russia between the Don and Volga. They allied themselves with the Byzantine Empire against the Sassanid Empire and later the Islanic Caliphate, the Pechenegs, and the Rus. Gradually the Byzantines, fearing the growth of Khazar power, switched alliances to the Rus and Pechenegs. Sviatoslav I of Kiev defeated the Khazars, destroying their once mighty empire (965-69).
They became subject to the Kievan Rus. Over time they were disappeared, being subjected to invasions by the Rus, the Kipchaks, and later the Mongol Golden Horde. While the Khazars largely disappeared from history, some migrated into Poland.
Another group of Polish Jews had their origins in the Near East.
The extent of early Jewish migration is difficult to assess because of the derth of historical records. It appears that the great bulk of Jewish immigration occurred as the hostility of the Catholic Church increased. Attacks on Jews flowing from both the Crusades and Inquisition increased (12th-15th centuries). Persecution intensified and there are reports of large-scale massacres. The Rhineland Jews were masacered by Crusaders. Jews driven from their homes wanderd east and found asylum in Poland. This was a country that was poorly developed compared to Western Europe and the Jews were thus welcomed. Jewish merchants and craftsmen were thus able to play a role in building Poland.
The shtetl over 800 years of Jewish life in Eastern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, and Russia) became the economic foundation. Shtetls began appearing first in Poland (11th century). The "Shtetl" was a small Jewish market town. Shetle is the Yiddish diminutive of shtot or stadt, the Yiddish and German words for "town." The typical shtetl was a town of from 1,000 to 20,000 people. Shtetls began appearing as Jewish fleeing increasing opression in Western Europe began fleeing East. Some of the first Jews were from Germany and Bohemia. There were also Mideastern Jews as well. There were eventually thousands of shtetlekh and they served as trading centers for the surrounding rural areas. The great majority of Eastern Eurioean Jews lived in the various Shtetls which became the primary institution of Jewish cultural life. The shtetls were populated almost entirely by Jews. There were also middle-sized towns where Jews constituted an important part of the population, The Jewish communities traditionally governed themselves according to halakha. They were controlled by the privileges granted them by local rulers. Jews in the shtetl were thus not assimilated into the larger eastern European societies.
Poland's openess to the Jews over time attracted large numbers of immigrants. And Jewish communities prospered under the security of Piast Poland. As a result, Polish Jews gradually became the largest Jewish comminity in Europe, in fact the largest Polish community in the world.
Wandycz, Piotr. The Price of Freedom: A History of East Central Europefrom the Middle Ages to the Present (Routledge: New York, 1994), 330p.
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