TY - JOUR
T1 - The Beginnings of Polish Jewry
T2 - Reevaluating the Evidence for the Eleventh to Fourteenth Centuries
AU - Kulik, Alexander
AU - Kalik, Judith
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Authors. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This article reexamines the evidence of Jewish presence in Poland from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries in connection with problems of origins, periodization, and localization of Jewish settlement in Poland. It deals inter alia with questions regarding the balance between Jewish and Christian evidence, as well as with reports of Jewish presence from neighboring areas of Eastern Europe such as Kievan Rus'. The reevaluation of evidence on medieval Polish Jews helps to illuminate the origins of eastern Ashkenazi Jewry, as well as to clarify diverse aspects of the history of early Eastern Europe. Thus, for example, among the most important general conclusions is the lack of continuity across three waves of Jewish migration and settlement in Poland. Since most Polish Jews were descendants of the third wave of Jewish migration into Poland, there is little doubt that the vast majority of them came from Germany and Bohemia, mostly via Silesia. We can also reliably conjecture that the Jewish population of southwestern Rus'-whatever its origins (possibly also at least partially Ashkenazi) and size (possibly reduced by the Mongol conquest)-came to be integrated with immigrants from the west due to the eastward expansion of Lithuania and Poland during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thus, most modern Ashkenazi Jewry must go back to the melding of these two communities.
AB - This article reexamines the evidence of Jewish presence in Poland from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries in connection with problems of origins, periodization, and localization of Jewish settlement in Poland. It deals inter alia with questions regarding the balance between Jewish and Christian evidence, as well as with reports of Jewish presence from neighboring areas of Eastern Europe such as Kievan Rus'. The reevaluation of evidence on medieval Polish Jews helps to illuminate the origins of eastern Ashkenazi Jewry, as well as to clarify diverse aspects of the history of early Eastern Europe. Thus, for example, among the most important general conclusions is the lack of continuity across three waves of Jewish migration and settlement in Poland. Since most Polish Jews were descendants of the third wave of Jewish migration into Poland, there is little doubt that the vast majority of them came from Germany and Bohemia, mostly via Silesia. We can also reliably conjecture that the Jewish population of southwestern Rus'-whatever its origins (possibly also at least partially Ashkenazi) and size (possibly reduced by the Mongol conquest)-came to be integrated with immigrants from the west due to the eastward expansion of Lithuania and Poland during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Thus, most modern Ashkenazi Jewry must go back to the melding of these two communities.
KW - Ashkenazi
KW - Eastern Europe
KW - Jews
KW - Poland
KW - migration
KW - origins
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85151011368&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.25627/202170210924
DO - 10.25627/202170210924
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AN - SCOPUS:85151011368
SN - 0948-8294
VL - 70
SP - 139
EP - 185
JO - Zeitschrift fur Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung
JF - Zeitschrift fur Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung
IS - 2
ER -