Language:
Polish
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
Kwartalnik Historii Żydów
Angaben zur Quelle:
276 (2020) 787-829
Keywords:
Judaism Relations 1500-
;
Christianity
;
Jews Politics and government
;
Jews History 1500-
;
Poland Ethnic relations
;
History
Abstract:
It is not certain when the central organization of the Jews of Poland, known in its mature form as the Sejm of Four Lands (Waad Arba Aracot), was formed. In 1581, it was officially recognized (as an assembly of Jewish elders of Poland and Lithuania) as a state authority responsible for the collection of poll tax from the Jews, with all the prerogatives that go with it. The assemblies of “Jewish elders” were already convened many decades earlier, attending to many vital problems of the Jewish community. The authorities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth authorities knew about it and tolerated it, and would even enter into disputes with them. This shows that they were convinced about their effectiveness if they entrusted them with the collection of taxes, an area in which they themselves were not terribly successful until then. The Sejm (parliament) of the Jews of the Commonwealth was established relatively late by European standard, as it was not noted in the state documents until the late 16th century. There can be no doubt when they were introducing it, Polish Jews followed a pattern they knew from other countries. The Jewish community, which from the late Middle Ages migrated in huge numbers form Western Europe to Polish lands, relied on patterns and inspiration from the West, especially the neighboring German Reich. Only in the European context is it possible to determine which elements of the history of the assembly of Poland’s Jews was typical of all such assemblies in Christian Europe and what was the local ingredient, and consequently decide whether it was rightly (with which I concur) regarded as an exceptional institution in Jewish history. For this reason, we first look at the history of European waads, with special emphasis on the Reich waad, before proceeding to present the history of Jewish self-government bodies in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Available writings paint an almost exclusively apologetic picture of the operation of the Jewish parliament of the Commonwealth. It is regularly portrayed as a developed system of the Jews’ autonomy, defending the Jews as a whole from the Christian environment and laying down internal rules. Indeed, its positive role in defending the interests of the Jewish community cannot be doubted. It has done a lot to strengthen the unity and the identity of the Jews in the Polish Republic, enhanced their sense of their own value, resolved disputes between the kahals, established many autonomous institutions, just to mention the supreme religious court whose sessions coincided with the Sejm’s sessions. On the other hand, the dark chapters in the history of the Jewish Sejm tend to be ignored. Yet in at least three areas the legacy of this Sejm’s activity appears rather dubious. The first dark chapter was certainly the censorship of Jewish publications. The strict preventive censorship introduced by the Jewish Sejm toward the end of the 17th century was the reason why the publishing of Jewish books, which flourished until then in Polish lands, declined. The second such chapter was the suppression of regional Ashkenazi tradition to replace them with the Sephardic system of religious law, codified by Josef Karo in Shulchan Aruch. The third area was the struggle against new religious trends, which particularly after 1666, i.e. from the birth of Sabbataism and its Polish offshoot (Frankism), repeatedly stirred the Polish Jews’ spiritual life. It was no accident that Hasidism was born and became a mass movement when and because of the winding up of the Sejm of Four Lands. These downsides of the activities of the Sejm should also be taken into account when making a comprehensive assessment of the activities of this Sejm.
Note:
With an English summary.
URL:
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