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Jews and the Urban Question in Late Eighteenth Century Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Daniel Stone
Daniel Stone*
Affiliation:
University of Winnipeg
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Extract

Two hundred years ago, the Polish government was preparing another biennial meeting of the sejm, their parliament, by organizing a confederation to raise troops to fight with Russia against the Turks. In a startling switch of political alignments, the opposition to King Stanistaw August Poniatowski seized control of the parliament, threw off the Russian alliance, and undertook a major governmental reform that culminated, after the reconciliation of the king with progressive members of the opposition, in the enactment of the Constitution of 3 May 1791. The major import of Polish reform was to increase the size of the ludicrously small Polish army and to regain full independence from supervision by the partition powers, particularly Russia.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , Fall 1991 , pp. 531 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1991

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References

1. William Coxe, Travels into Poland (1785; rep. New York: Arno and New York Times, 1971), 125, 150.

2. Jerzy Kowecki in Polska w epoce Oswiecenia (Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna, 1971), 128-137.

3. Ibid. Precise figures are lacking but Tadeusz Korzon estimated the general urban population of Poland in about 1791 as 360, 000 (60, 000 in Lithuania). Since a substantial minority of the crown city residents and a strong majority of the Lithuanian city residents were Jewish, the number of Christian burghers in incorporated cities could have been little more than 250, 000 or half of the generally accepted figure for burghers. Korzon, Tadeusz, Wewnetrzne dzieje Polski za panowania Stanisiawa Augusta, 6 vols. (Warsaw: Paprocki, 1897-1898) 1: 274–277 Google Scholar.

4. Hundert, Gershon David, “Jews in Polish Private Towns. The Jewish Community in Opatow and the Town's Owners in the Eighteenth Century,” Studies on Polish Jewry. Paul Glikson Memorial Volume (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 1987), xvii–xxxviiiGoogle Scholar, and Opas, Tomasz, “Sytuacja ludnosci zydowskiej w miastach szlacheckich wojewodztwa lubelskiego w XVIII wieku,” Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 67 (1988): 3–37 Google Scholar.

5. LeSnodorski, Buguslaw, Dzieio Sejmu Czteroletniego (Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1951 Google Scholar; Smolefiski, Wladyslaw, Mieszczanstwo Warszawskie w koncu wieku XVIII, 2nd ed. (Warsaw: PIW, 1976 Google Scholar; Zienkowska, Krystyna, Jan Dekert (Warsaw: PWN, 1982 Google Scholar; Zienkowska, Krystyna, Siawetni i urodzeni. Ruch polityczny mieszczanstwa w dobie sejmu czteroletniego (Warsaw: PWN, 1976 Google Scholar; Materiaiy do Dziejdw Sejmu Czteroletniego, 6 vols. (Warsaw: Ossolineum, 1960-1964) [hereafter cited as MDSC], esp. vol. 3-5.

6. Konstytucja3 maja, ed. Jerzy Kowecki (Warsaw: PWN, 1981), 113.

7. Eisenbach, Artur, Z dziejdw ludnosci zydowskiej w XVIII i XIX wieku (Warsaw: PIW, 1983), 93 Google Scholar; Zahorski, Andrzej, Warszawa w latach 1526-1795 (Warsaw: PWN, 1984), 281 Google Scholar. Jacob Goldberg admirably brings out the complexities in “Poles and Jews in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Rejection or Acceptance,” Jahrbiicherfur Geschichte Osteuropas, n. F. 22 (1974): 268-279.

8. Krystyna Zienkowska, “Sp6r o Nowa Jerozolimg,” 351-376. See Katz, Jacob, Out of the Ghetto (New York: Schocken, 1973), 80–102 Google Scholar, and Hertzberg, Arthur, The French Enlightenment and the Jews: The Origins of Modern Anti-Semitism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 7–11 Google Scholar.

9. Maria Bogucka and Henryk Samsonowicz only devote six pages and scattered references to Jews in their major study, Dzieje miast i mieszczanstwa w Polsce przedrozbiorowej (Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1986), 469-475. Kowecki perceptively discusses both aspects in his brief sketch in Polska w epoce Oiwiecenia (128-137) but accepts the separation of the two issues. Zierikowska similarly excludes consideration of the Jewish question from her book on the burgher political movement during the Four Year Diet, Siawetni i Urodzeni, 8-9. The standard accounts are Wladystaw Smolenski, Stan isprawaZyddww XVIII w. (Warsaw: Ksiegarnia Celsa Lewckiego, 1876), and Eisenbach, Z dziejow ludnoi zydowskiej.

10. See Wiktor Weintraub, “Tolerance and Intolerance in Old Poland,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 13 (Spring 1971): 25-44.

11. Szaykowski, Zosa, Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848 (New York: Ktav, 1970), 578 Google Scholar; see especially “Jewish Autonomy Debated and Attacked during the French Revolution,” 576-591; also Hertzberg, French Enlightenment and the Jews, esp. 314-368; Paul P. Bernard, “Joseph II and the Jews: The Origins of the Toleration Patent of 1782,” Austrian History Yearbook 4-5 (1968-1969): 101-119.

12. Information on Jewish employment and businesses is from Mahler, Raphael, A History of Modern Jewry, 1780-1815 (New York: Schocken, 1971), 299–303 Google Scholar; Schiper, Ignacy, Dzieje handlu zydowslaego na ziemiach polskich (Warsaw: Centralia Zwiazku Kupcow, 1937), 288–333 Google Scholar; Ringelblum, Emanuel, Zydzi w Powstaniu Kozciuszkowskim (Warsaw: Ksiegarnia Popularna, [1938]), 9Google Scholar.

13. Mahler, History of Modern Jewry, 299-303; Schiper, Dzieje handlu zydowslaego na ziemiach polskich, 211-231; Eisenbach, Artur, “Dokwestii walki klasowej w spoleczenstwie zydowskim w Polsce w drugiej polowie XVIII w.,” Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 17-18 (1956): 129–170Google Scholar. See Weinryb, Bernard, The Jews of Poland (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973 Google Scholar.

14. Wladystaw Smoleriski, MieszczaAstwo warszawskie, 43-14; Hundert, Gershon, “An Advantage to Peculiarity?,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 6 (1981): 21–38 Google Scholar, explores the similarities of such groups in the commonwealth.

15. MDSC 5: 321-328ff, and 6: 27-42, 191-206; Smolenski, Mieszczanstwo warszawskie, 156-161; Eisenbach, Zdziejow ludnoici zydowskiej, 87-89. See Zienkowska, “Spor o Nowa Jerozolime,” 357.

16. See Murray Jay Rosman, “The Polish Magnates and the Jews: Jews in the Sieniawski-Czartoryski Territories, 1686-1731” (Ph.D. diss., Jewish Theological Seminary, 1982), forthcoming in print. Artur Eisenbach, “Zydzi warszawscy i sprawa zydowska w XVIII wieku,” Warszawa XVIH Wieku. 3 vols., zeszyt 3 (Warsaw: PWN, 1975), 236.

17. MDSC 6: 78-92; see also 118-128; “Mateusz Butrymowicz,” Polski Slownik Biograficzny 3: 153-154.

18. MDSC 1: 315-317, 325-330.

19. Smoleiiski, Stan i sprawa Zyddw, 76-77; Zienkowska, Krystyna, Jacek Jezierski, Kasztelan Lukowski, 1772-1805 (Warsaw: PWN, 1963), 191–192 Google Scholar.

20. MDSC6: 215-227.

21. MDSC 6: 295-343, 350-355; Zierikowska, Slawetni i urodzeni, 166-176.

22. MDSC 6: 135-141, 408-409; for Switkowski's earlier discussion of Polish Jews, see Ringelblum, Emanuel, “Zydzi w swietle prasy warszawskiej wieku XVIII-go,” Miesiecznik Zydowski, Year 2 (1931) 1: 498–499Google Scholar.

23. Ringelblum, Zydzi w Powstaniu Kosciuszkowskim, 16; Stanislaw Staszic, Pisma filozoficzne i spoieczne, 2 vols. (Warsaw: PWN, 1954) 1: 298-303.

24. MDSC 6: 206-212, 483-486.

25. HugoKoHataj, Listy anonima iprawopolityczne narodupolskiego, 2 vols. (Warsaw: PWN, 1954) 2: 328-333; Smolenksi, Stan i sprawaZydow, 63-65.

26. MDSC 5: 321—328ff, and 6: 314-315; Eisenbach's moderate interpretation of KoHataj in his Emancypacja Zyddw: Cztery lata nadzieji. Uniwersytet Slaski; Baiaban, 2 vols. Izraelicka Gmina Wyznaniowa (Warsaw: PIW, n.d.), 83-84, contrasts with the sharper interpretation by Mirostaw Brariczyk, “Hugo KoHjitaj wobec kwestii zydowskiej w okresie Sejmu Cztroletniego,” Cztery lata nadzieji, ed. Henryk Kocoj (Katowice, 1988), 173-184. Kottataj's intervention on behalf of Krakow Jews in 1783 and Warsaw Jews in 1791 supports Eisenbach's position; Majer Balaban, Historja Zydow w Krakowie i na Kazimierzu 1304-1868, 2 vols. (Krakow: Izraelicka Gmina Wyznaniowa, 1936) 2: 199; MDSC 6: 324-325, 339.

27. MDSC 6: 491-517.

28. Ibid. 6: 310, 328, 333, 335, 338; Eisenbach, 89.

29. MDSC 6: 141-153.

30. Ibid. 6: 113-118, 409-431; see “Mendel Lefin Satanower ve'hatzaotav le'tikkun orah haim shel yehudei Polin,” Abraham Weiss Jubilee Volume, 2 vols. (New York: Hotsa'at Da'ad Sefer has Yovel, 1964), 271-305.

31. Wladyslaw Smolenski and Emanuel Ringelblum overstate the “low state of culture” and the lack of enlightenment among Polish Jews in the eighteenth century. Ringelblum, Zydzi w Powstaniu Koiciuszkowskim, 19-20; Smolenski, Stan i sprawa Zydow, 89-90. Greater interaction of Poles and Jews is suggested by Hundert, Gershon and Ciechanowiecki, Andrzej in The Jews in Poland, ed. Chimen Abramsky et al. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 55–69 Google Scholar. Coxe, Travels in Poland, 201; Polska Stanislawowska w oczach cudzoziemcow, ed. Wactaw Zawadzki, 2 vols. (Krakow: PIW, 1963) 1: 332, 694; 2: 23, 108, 189.

32. Salomon Maimon, Autobiography, ed. Moses Hadas (New York: Schocken, 1947), 34-36.

33. The Memoirs of Ber of Bolechow (1723-1805). ed. M. Vishnitzer (1922; rep. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 141-142; see also 65-75, 79-80, 90-91.

34. Fishman, David E., “A Polish Rabbi Meets the Berlin Haskalah: The Case of R. Barukh Schick,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 12 (Spring 1987): 95–121Google Scholar; Raisin, Jacob S., The Haskalah Movement in Russia (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1913), 78–109 Google Scholar. See Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Dubno, Solomon,” “Elijah ben Solomon Zalman,” “Hurwitz, Judah ben Mordechai Ha-Levi,” “Israel ben Moses Halevi Zamosc,” “Levin, Menahem Mendel,” “Maimon, Solomon,” “Notkin, Nata,” “Satanower, Isaac,” “Schick, Baruch,” “Zeitlin, Joshua. “

35. The Memoirs of Ber of Bolechow, 165-168.

36. Eisenbach, Z dziejdw ludnosci zydowskiej, 57-59.

37. Shulvass, Moses A., From East to West (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1971), 91, 92Google Scholar; Lastig, Salomon, Z dziejdw Oswiecenia zydowskiego (Warsaw: PIW, 1961), 92–93 Google Scholar; Eisenbach, Z dziejdw ludnosci zydowskiej, 59-60.

38. Lastig, Z dziejow Oswiecenia zydowskiejo, 90-99; s.v. “Menahem Mendel Levin,” Encyclopedia Judaica; MDSC 6: 409-421; s.v. “Satanower, Isaac,” Encyclopedia Judaica.

39. MDSC 6: 350-355.

40. Ibid. 6: 377-395; Korzon, Wewnetrzne dzieje Polski za panowania Stanisiawa Augusta 3: 272-274.

41. MDSC 6: 310, 328, 333-334, 394, 486-491, 310, 328, 333, 335, 338; Eisenbach, Z dziejow ludnosci zydowskiej, 89.

42. See Hertzberg, French Enlightenment and the Jews and Talmon, J. L., The Origins of Modern Totalitarianism (New York: Praeger, n.d.).Google Scholar