The Jews in a Polish Private Town Hundert, Gershon David
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The Jews in a Polish Private Town Hundert, Gershon David Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Hundert, Gershon David. The Jews in a Polish Private Town: The Case of Opatów in the Eighteenth Century. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/book.71395. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/71395 [ Access provided at 1 Oct 2021 04:32 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. HOPKINS OPEN PUBLISHING ENCORE EDITIONS Gershon David Hundert The Jews in a Polish Private Town The Case of Opatów in the Eighteenth Century Open access edition supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. © 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press Published 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. CC BY-NC-ND ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3628-9 (open access) ISBN-10: 1-4214-3628-0 (open access) ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3626-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-4214-3626-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-1-4214-3627-2 (electronic) ISBN-10: 1-4214-3627-2 (electronic) This page supersedes the copyright page included in the original publication of this work. The Jews in a Polish Private Town JOHNS HOPKINS JEWISH STUDIES Sander Gilman and Steven T. Katz, Series Editors The Jews in a Polish Private Town The Case ofOpat6w in the Eighteenth- Century Gershon David Hundert The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London © 1992 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United Scates of America The Johns Hopkins University Press 701 West 40th Street Baltimore, Maryland 21211-2190 The Johns Hopkins Press Ltd., London The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirments of American National Stan dard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dara Hunderc, Gershon David, 1946- The Jews in a Polish private town : the case of Opatow in the eighteenth century/ Gershon David Hundert. p. cm.-(Johns Hopkins Jewish Studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8018-427 3-5 I. Jews-Poland-Opacow (Tarnobrzeg)-Hisrory-18th century. 2. Oparow (Tarnobrzeg, Poland)-Echnic relations. I. Title. II. Series. DSl35.P620624 1992 943' .84-dc20 91-26572 For Ruch Contents Figure, Maps, Tables 1x Introduction x1 Chapter 1 Numbers 1 Chapter 2 The Town and the Jewish Community before 1700 13 Chapter 3 Jews and Other Poles 36 Chapter4 Jews in the Economy 46 Chapter 5 Jewish Society 69 Chapter 6 The Jewish Community 85 Chapter 7 Authority in the Jewish Community 116 Chapter 8 Power and the Jewish Community 134 Afterword 156 Appendix 1: The Privilege of the Jewish Community of Op at6w 159 Appendix2: Me asures, Weights, and Money 163 Notes 165 Works Cited 209 Acknowledgments 227 Index 230 VII Figure, Maps, Tables FIGURE 1 The Landau Family 119 MAPS 1 Towns Where Opat6w Jewish Merchants Traded 55 2 The Region of Cracow-Sandomierz 111 TABLES 1. 1 Population Estimates for Opat6w Christians and Jews, 1721-1806 2 1. 2 Houses Listed in the Christian and Jewish Towns, Opat6w, 1713-1727 5 1. 3 Jewish Houses in Opat6w, by Number of Families Occupying Them, 1721-1788 5 1.4 Jewish Taxpayers on the Community Tax Rolls, 1728-1794 8 1. 5 Opat6w Jews in Warsaw, 1778 11 2. 1 Privilege Granted to Jews, Opat6w, 1670 17 4.1 Jewish Artisans, by Sector, 1721-1788 49 IX X Figure, Maps, Tables 4. 2 Occupational Distribution of Opat6w Jews and Non- Jews, 1721-1788 50 4. 3 Occupational Distribution of Opat6w Jews and Non- Jews, by Sector, 1721-1788 51 4.4 The Value of Selected Arenda Contracts in Opat6w, 1724-1789 66 6.1 Salaries Paid by the Kahal, 1728-1789 90 6.2 Sources of Kahal Income, 1728-1784 97 6. 3 Kahal Expenditures, 1728-1784 99 6.4 Kahal Expenditures after External Taxes, 1728, 1752, 1769 100 6.5 Kahal Debts, 1715-1790 105 6.6 Church Creditors of the Kahal, 1758-1788 106 6.7 Church and Szlachta Creditors of the Kahal, 1770 and 1772 107 6.8 Kahal Income and Expenditures, 1721-1787 109 Introduction More than half of the Jews in the world lived in Poland-Lithuania in the eighteenth century, and roughly three-quarters of Polish Jewry lived in private holdings-villages and towns owned by powerful magnate-aristocrats. About two-thirds of the Jews in the Polish Commonwealth lived in towns. This means, then, that in the eighteenth century about one-quarter of the Jews in the world lived in Polish private towns like Opat6w. The towns in which Jews lived tended to be small. However, it should be stressed that the characteristic form of urban settlement in Poland was the small town. Even at the end of the eighteenth century, not more chan twelve Polish cities had populations of more than 10,000, while there were more than a thousand towns of 2,000 or fewer inhabitants. In 1700, almost two-thirds (64 percent) of these were pri vate towns. And, in the eighteenth century, roughly half of the entire urban population of Poland was Jewish. 1 Clearly, the study of Jews in Polish towns, and private towns in particular, is central both to Jewish history and the history of Poland-Lithuania. And the topic of Jews in private towns opens che crucial issue of che relations between Jews and the great magnate-aristocrats. In che Polish Commonwealth there were three centers of power: the gentry (szlachta), the monarch, and the magnate-aristocrats. 2 The gentry was a large heterogeneous group comprising between 8 and 10 percent of the population and muse nor be seen as a social class. Nevertheless, in theory, all members of the szlachta were equal, and they considered themselves to be, collectively, the only true Poles. The great magnate-aristocrats, belonging to a fluctuating group of about twenty fami lies in each generation, not only held positions of power in the state but controlled vast estates and private armies. During ac least the first three quarters of the eighteenth century, the relative power and influence of the magnates increased at the expense of the crown and the szlachta. In these XI XII Introduction conditions, the nature of rhe association between Jews and rhe magnates be comes viral to an understanding of rhe period. THE JEWS OF POLAND In an elegiac essay, first published in rhe early years of the Second World War, Benzion Dinur characterized the Polish Jewish community as having taken a form approaching national statehood, with rhe Torah as irs consrirurion. Pol ish Jews saw their autonomous insrirurions as the source of "a Iirrle redemp tion and a bit of honour." 3 Indeed, although originating in medieval Ashken azic forms, chose insrirurions achieved in Poland a unique degree of ramification, elaboration, and durability. Each Jewish community (qehilla) was led by a governing body called the kahal (qahal). The kahal's authority extended also to Jews living in the villages surrounding the town. There were < regional councils (va adei gali/) and these, in rum, were associated with rhe Council of rhe Lands, often called the Council of Four Lands, which included representatives from all over Poland. 4 While rhe local kahal was more or less analogous to a municipal government, rhe regional and national councils were concerned mainly with rhe apportionment and collection of rhe taxes Jews paid to the Polish government. These bodies, however, also functioned as appellate courts and adopted rulings regarding a variety of ocher matters of importance to the Jewish collectivity, ranging from the economic to rhe po litical, spiritual, educational, and charitable. The complex development of Jewish communal and intercommunal insri rurions can be arrribured in part to the large number of Jews living in the Polish Commonwealth (reaching 750,000 by 1765) and in part ro their oc cupational diversity. Jews engaged in a great variety of crafts and trades. They were prominent in commerce, in rhe various aspects of rhe rexrile industry, and in rhe manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. In many towns, as rhe economic downturn of the early decades of rhe eighteenth century worsened and more and more Christian residents turned to agriculture, Jews came ro be virtually the only economically active element of the population. In chis context, despite rhe small size of the serrlemenrs in which they lived, Jews were nevertheless an urban element of the population. For the most pare, Jews construed their reality in accordance with concepts mediated in their own languages and by their own culture and traditions. Bur char culture was hardly monolithic or rigid. There were my stics and there were rationalises; there were chose who believed in the potency of demons and hobgoblins and chose who did nor; there were chose who studied the Talmud and chose who did nor. The eighteenth century saw the persistence of the belief char Shabberai Sevi was the messiah and the spread of kabbalisric ideas; the emergence of a vase movement of religious revival called (Beshrian) Has- Introduction XIII idism in the middle decades; and the beginnings of the percolation into Polish lands of ideas originating in the Enlightenment. Indeed, Jewish cultural iso lation should not be exaggerated. Although Jews spoke Yiddish among them selves, knowledge of Polish and other European languages was not rare.