1 The Old Polish Period (Fifteenth–Eighteenth
1. DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURE The Jews of Poland
Jews appeared in Poland in the country’s formative years. They required a permit to settle there; the first such permit appeared in a statute issued in Kalisz by Duke Bolesław the Pious in 1264.13 The statute determined the basis of further legislation related to the Jews and was approved as the law in force by Casimir III the Great (1334) and subsequently by Casimir IV Jagiellon (1453). The Jewish population became the coun-try’s urban financial elite and, by the sixteenth century, enjoyed general provincial privileges. Even so, Jews were excluded from the official social structure, their activity largely confined to dealing with money. Evidence of Jewish coin-makers or leaseholders in the duchy’s mints in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries confirms the significant role played by Jews in the Polish treasury, occasioned by their knowledge of laws regulating the money market and credit. At this time, the ruler granted Jews special protection and treated transgressions against them as offenses against the treasury.14
Casimir III the Great guaranteed Jews the right to move freely from place to place within Poland’s borders, the right of residence in Poland, freedom of trade including freedom to grant loans, the right to personal safety, and permission to carry out religious practices. Exempted from town jurisdiction, Jews, like nobles, were subject only to provincial and royal courts.15 Casimir IV Jagiellon expanded these privileges, adding, among others, the right to issue promissory notes on real estate and for debt obli-gations. In 1505, the text of the privilege granted by Bolesław the Pious was inserted into the Polish legal code in what became known as Statute of Kalisz.16 By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, these privileges allowed Jews to become owners of real estate in both villages and towns.
In the Middle Ages, the largest concentrations of Jews in Poland were in Silesia. By the mid-fourteenth century, Jewish communities could be found in at least thirty-three towns there. In the course of the German colonization that took place at this time, groups of Jews also appeared in other districts, such as Greater Poland (Poznań, Pyzdry, Kopaszewo, Kościan, Sieradz, and Łęczyca), Kuyavia (Brześć and Inowrocław), Lesser Poland (Kraków, Kazimierz, and Sandomierz), and Masovia (Warsaw).
Fifty-four Jewish settlements appear on a list of crown taxpayers in 1507.17 The Jewish population of Poland increased primarily due to the persecu-tion of Jews in Western and Central Europe and the welcoming policies of the Polish kings and dukes. Jews settled mostly in royal and private towns, where the decree of de non tolerandis Iudaeis was observed in the breach.
Town owners usually encouraged financiers, merchants, and craftsmen to reside in their towns—not necessarily to alleviate their towns’ misery but to improve the value of the owners’ property. In the fifteenth century, Mosze Ben Izaak Minc, one of the most eminent rabbis of the day, stated that Poland “… has long been a shelter for the expelled children of Israel.”18
Jewish migration to Greater Poland accelerated considerably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A survey in 1565 found fifty-four Jewish-owned buildings and a synagogue in the city of Poznań. At the time, there were approximately 1600 buildings exclusive of those owned by nobility, religious orders, and Jews. By the early seventeenth century, 10% of the city’s populace was Jewish. In the mid-sixteenth century, the city of Gniezno boasted twenty-two Jewish-owned buildings, five rented
ones, a shkolnik’s (synagogue sexton’s) residence, and a synagogue; in the first half of the seventeenth century, twenty-six Jewish-owned houses were identified, and Jews made up 10%–15% of the city’s population.
Other relatively large concentrations of Jews in Greater Poland formed in the towns of Łęczyca and Inowrocław. In the sixteenth century, there were sixteen Jewish-owned houses, two rented ones, and a shkolnik’s residence in the former, and twenty-seven Jewish-owned houses and four vacant lots, a shkolnik’s house, and a synagogue in the latter. In the first half of the seventeenth century, there were as many as fifty Jewish-owned buildings in Łęczyca.19 In the period of 1564–1579, Jews in eighteen towns remitted poll taxes in Kalisz Province, which boasted the largest congregation of Jews in its captial, Kalisz. In the early sixteenth century, Jews were allowed to own only seven houses there; for every additional house the commu-nity had to remit one grzywna (a medieval monetary unit) to the town’s treasury.20 By 1565, there were eighteen Jewish-owned houses, a shkolnik’s abode, and a synagogue;21 by 1629, there were twenty-three Jewish-owned houses in town.22 In Pyzdry, in 1565, Jews owned four houses and a shkol-nik’s dwelling.23 In 1579, they paid 30 złoty in poll tax,24 and in 1628 there were seven houses with eight Jewish tenants. Despite the small number of Jewish-owned residences, the citizens of Pyzdry complained: “… There are a lot of Jewish houses in town—more than allowed by law or than are essential (modo obligatorio)—and Jews do not want to pay the property taxes to the town for the surplus houses, causing losses for the city (in summum civitatis detrimentum). [The Jews] use the excuse that they are in constant compliance with the law (modo perpetua resignationis) and were not allowed to build more than seven houses.”25
The Jews of Kleczew
Kleczew is one of the towns where Jews probably first appeared in the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, the sources yield little information about their advent. The first mention of the existence of a Jewish commu-nity in Kleczew is found in a register of Jewish settlements of 1507,26 in which the information is based on a coronation tax imposed on the Jews of Kleczew.27 Regrettably, until 1695, when Piotr Cieśla with his wife Regina sold their house to the “infidel Jews” Jachim and Jick for 120 złoty, there is
no information from any available source regarding the presence of Jews in Kleczew.28 Why did this void occur? It may have been the result of the Swedish wars that took place in the seventeenth century. The “Swedish deluge” of the time took a grave toll on the area’s Jewish population;
pogroms by Czarniecki’s army in 1656 did the same in Greater Poland in locations such as Kalisz Province, Gniezno, Kalisz, Kcynia, Krotoszyn, Łabiszyn, Łobzenica, Nakło, Września, and Złotów, to name only a few.
Many Jews died of starvation and plague.29 For these reasons, not a single Jewish household survived in some towns, including Nakło and Pyzdry.30 After the wars, townsmen tried to expel Jews from their homes. At the behest of residents of Nakło, the town auditors made a decision:
(In quantum) In so far as those successful … [Jews] in that town are willing to settle down, we order them not to settle on the street where they previously owned their houses and residences before the town fire, but for the most just and reverent reasons […] to relocate to another area of town in accordance with their previous situations.31
Something similar may have happened in Kleczew, although there is no explicit source confirming this.
Despite these attempts by the bourgeoisie to eradicate Jewish communities or limit their populations, the estate owners confirmed and expanded the existing Jewish privileges to accelerate the reconstruction of Jewish districts. This occurred in Grodzisk Wielkopolski, and Rawicz, among other places.32 Thus, in 1674–1676, 4,183 Jewish taxpayers paid poll tax in the towns of Kalisz Province (Table 2) and 5,128 did so in Poznań Province.33 The registers from 1674 and 1676 mention thirty-three loca-tions in Kalisz Province where Jews paid the tax; unfortunately, Kleczew and several other municipalities are not cited among them.34
Of the thirty-three residents of Kleczew who were liable to poll tax and hearth tax (a form of property tax) in 1703, two were Jewish. They are referred to as Zabelik and Łazarek, and they paid 25 tynfs (the popular name of the złoty) each (Table 3). These men were moderately wealthy by the town’s standards. (Paweł Lukas paid the highest tax, at 50 timpfs;
Table 2 Jews in towns of Kalisz Province who paid poll tax, 1674 and 1676
Town 1674 1676
Christians Jews Percent of Jews Jews
Borek 210 21 9.1 14
Chodzież 407 29 6.7 20
Gniezno 220 24 9.8 16
Jarocin 297 37 11.1
-Jutrosin 285 19 6.2 6
Kalisz 1,293 751 36.7 353
Kazimierz 80 26 24.5 21
Krotoszyn 865 213 19.8 82
Łabiszyn 140 32 18.6 16
Łękno 86 8 8.5 9
Łobżenica 958 127 11.7 97
Margonin 135 13 8.8 10
Miłosław 273 5 1.8 4
Nakło 146 4 2.7 2
Nowe Miasto 122 18 12.9 13
Pobiedziska 145 9 5.8
-Pyzdry 337 63 15.7 56
Raszków 143 30 17.3 16
Sępólno Krajeńskie 152 45 22.9 27
Skoki 261 8 3.0 9
Source: Z.Guldon, J.Wijaczka, Ludność żydowska, pp. 30-31.
Table 3 Kleczew residents liable to poll tax and hearth tax, 1703
No. Taxpayer’s first name and surname Value of tax paid (in timpfs)
1. Stanisław Mycka 40
2. Tomasz Olszakiewicz (after Bednarka) 12
3. Wojciech Narożny 30
Source: APP, Kleczew town records, classification number I/6, cards 70-71.
only 9 citizens paid over 35 timpfs; and 18–33 inhabitants paid merely 10 timpfs).35 It must be remembered that there is no comprehensive list of other denizens of Kleczew at that time, and therefore we do not have a full demographic picture of the town.
The first detailed information about the number of Jews in Kleczew dates to 1765. Table 4, comparing seven municipalities in which the number of Jews is known because their taxation was based on a per-capita tariff, finds 262 Jews in Kleczew in 1765.36 By 1776, this number had grown to 305.37 The Kleczew kehilla (meaning organized Jewish community, pl.
kehillot) was one of the largest in Konin County, sharing this honor with Koło. Other towns in this county that had kehillot or subordinated kehillot are not mentioned. The main synagogue congregations in Greater Poland were in Krotoszyn, Złotów, Kalisz, Leszno, Swarzędz, and Poznań. Konin County had the smallest number of Jewish residents,38 as demonstrated in Table 4.
The first documentation of Jewish names and the size of Jewish fami-lies in Kleczew (Table 5) is based on a census taken in 1778 that enumer-ated people who had lived in the town for at least six months. The list includes names of heads of Jewish households and the number of chil-dren and servants in each home. At this time, 257 Jews were living in Kleczew. As for the structure of their households, most taxpaying house-holds (58.7%) that year had children: nineteen had one, fourteen had two,
Table 4 Jewish population of selected towns in Greater Poland, 1765, by per-capita tariff
Location Jewish population
Golin 142
Kleczew 262
Koło 256
Konin 133
Rachwał 102
Rusocice 57
Wilczyn 39
Source: Liczba głów żydowskich w Koronie z taryfy 1765, ed. J.Kleczyński, F. Kulczyński, Kraków 1898, p. 7.
Table 5 Census of Jewish heads in Kleczew, 1778 (six months)
No. First name and surname Number
Persons in total Parents Children Servants
1. Salamon Leszczyński 2 3 1 6
2. Marek Aranowicz 2 3 1 6
22. Jakub Jelenkiewicz 2 1 - 3
23. Jakub Olejnik 2 2 1 5
30. Lewek Intrologator 2 2 - 4
31. Bazyli Krawiec 2 2 - 4
No. First name and surname Number Persons in total Parents Children Servants
42. Lewek Szmuklerczyk 2 - - 2
43. Marek Cyrulik 2 1 - 3
49. Hersz Jelinkiewicz 2 3 1 6
50. Samson Złotnik 2 1 1 4
51. Trejma Jelenkiewicz 2 2 1 5
52. Salomon Jelenkiewicz 2 - - 2
53. Hersz Layzerowicz 2 2 1 5
54. Michał Layzerowicz 2 3 1 6
55. Layzer Daniel 2 - - 2
61. Joachim Salamończyk 2 1 - 3
62. Joachim Symso 2 4 - 6
73. Jakub Herszowicz 2 2 1 5
Sub-Total 257
Source: APP, Court Ledger, Kalisz 432, cards 213-214.
Table 5 cont.
and eleven had three or more. As many as eighteen households (24%) employed servants. Mosiek Smaklerz was the only Jew in Kleczew who employed three servants; the other households had only one each.
A statistical estimation of Kleczew’s composition was completed in 1793, when Prussia occupied the town. According to the data assem-bled, the population of Kleczew was 1,348 at that time. Nearly half of this population was Jewish (616 individuals, 45.7%); only one person was Lutheran.39
Townsmen’s obligations included paying taxes. The size of this liability depended on the craft or service performed by the individual, income, property owned, and household size. The most accurate data about taxes remitted by residents of Kleczew pertain to 1770–1772 and include rents from Catholics, Jews, and those of other confessions as well as information about taxes on production of oil (tłoczkowe), taxes paid by the community administration (the kahal or kachalskie), and taxes on trading in the market (jarmarczne). Catholic residents remitted 802 złoty, 919 złoty, and 1,334.26 złoty in the respective years; Jews paid an estimated 278 złoty, 258 złoty, and 290.10 złoty. The amount of further taxes paid by the kahal depended on the number of synagogue members.
The tax called tłoczkowy yielded 230 złoty and 215 złoty in that period;
kachalski generated 1,200 złoty in revenue; and jarmarczny, the trade tax, steadily increased from 50 złoty to 51.14 złoty and then to 109.04 złoty.40
The Jewish population was not isolated from the rest of society.
Jews lived next to Catholics on almost every street. Despite attempts in some towns in Greater Poland to remove Jews, the general population of Kleczew seems to have adopted a friendly attitude toward their Jewish neighbors and relations were basically sound. This is substantiated by records of property sales between non-Jews and Jews in Kleczew. Another example of the peaceful coexistence between Catholics and Jews is the use of the services of Jewish barber-surgeons by local inhabitants. In January 1772, the Jewish barber-surgeon Maśkowicz, together with town officials Grzegorz Molendski and Bartłomiej Pomianowski, performed an autopsy on Walenty Dobosiewicz.41 In September of that year, two Jewish barber-surgeons, Chersz Aleksandrowicz and Boruch, examined the severely beaten steward of Kleczew estate owner Great Crown Writer.42
Statements by owners of houses and plots in Kleczew in 1783 which were used to calculate szarwarki (public works) assessments have been preserved. According to these records, seventy-five of the 203 houses in Kleczew (34%) belonged to Jews. Most often, citizens, including Jews, had to contribute three days of labor per year and pay a five-złoty tax. There were two exceptions: the townsmen Psiupsin and Piszczyk had to work four days a year and pay 6.20 złoty, presumably due to their wealth.
Also preserved is a list of Jewish townspeople. It includes residents at the market square: Fraiem Jelenkiewicz, Salomon the goldsmith, Icek, Chersz Zielenkiewicz, Icek Malarek, Lewek Jelenkiewicz, Bok, Izrael Wolf, Alexanderka, Mosiek Leszczyński, Salomon Leszczyński, Marek Aranowicz, Litman Leszczyński, Boruch Cerulik, and Usier Dawidziak;
and residents of houses along the streets: Chersz Layzerowicz, Michał Layzerowicz, Jakub Bakalarz, Jachym Gośliński, Gębicki (a tailor), Salma Kuśnierz, Jachym Lachmańczyk, Eliasz Krawiec, Malarkowski, Jeżowa (a dressmaker), Abraham Gośliński, Aleksander Bałecki, Mosiek Markiewicz, Leymusiak (a furrier), Kuśnierka (a widow), Mosiek Fraiemowicz, Marek Cerulik, Mazur Stary, Salomon Lachman, Lewek Leymusiak, Światowa (a merchant’s wife), young Mazur, Marek Koźmiński, Kałme the butcher, Chersz (a furrier), Jóźwiak (a tailor), Szkolnik (a tailor), Bakalarz, (a tailor in Dorynatów, a taxpayer from Wolf’s house, Musiek Szmuchlerz, Abram the butcher, Iung Oleynik, Jakub Zielenkiewicz, Maskowa Leszczyńska, Izrael Kotlarz, Jakub Cerulik, and Holibaba.43