7 - Comparative Perspectives on Economy and Society: The Jews of the Polish Commonwealth - A Comment

Summary

With these remarks I hope to provide a frame of reference for the comparison of some economic and social aspects of Jewish life in German lands with the situation of the more numerous Jewish community in the Polish Commonwealth. By the end of the seventeenth century, Polish-Lithuanian Jews probably numbered between 300,000 and 350,000; in German lands at the same time there were certainly no more than 60,000 Jews. Any list of the outstanding cultural figures of the period would show that most spent their lives in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The remainder, with only a very few exceptions, were at least educated there. The single most important center of Jewish cultural activity west of Poland was Prague. But the outstanding figures in the Bohemian capital also had strong connections with Poland.

The distinctiveness of Polish-Lithuanian Jewry when compared with German Jewry was considerable. In the Polish Commonwealth, about 6 percent of the total population and almost half of the urban population was Jewish. The number of Jews living in rural areas increased during the eighteenth century but probably never exceeded one-third of the total Jewish population. The Jewish villagers tended to be widely dispersed, averaging one family per village, and to be found in the central and especially the eastern regions. In the villages, as is well known, the most common occupations were related to the production and sale of alcoholic beverages.