Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
The Oxford Handbook of the Jewish Diaspora
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2021) 231-252
Keywords:
Jews History
;
Jews History
;
Poland
Abstract:
One of the hallmarks of modern diaspora studies is the dichotomy of a “homeland” and “hostland” in relation to a diasporic group. The history of Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth complicates these contemporary categories. The multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Commonwealth was a homeland for Polish Jews. They formed an integral part of its social, cultural, and economic fabric, even as they identified and were identified as Jews. In a pre-modern world, with legal structures grounded in distinct estates, identities were also inscribed in law. Jewish judicial and communal autonomy was a product of the Jews’ legal status. In Poland-Lithuania, Jewish autonomy developed mimicking the governing structures of the Commonwealth itself. Polish Jews were, thus, a part of a larger real and imagined Jewish community whose homeland was Poland.
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