Steven Gilburne - Reading 204-214

Questions:

1. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became a major center of Ashkenazic Jewish life from the Middle Ages onward. What drew Jews into the commonwealth during the period of expulsion of Jews from western Europe?

The Jews were drawn into the commonwealth during the period of the expulsion of the Jews from Western Europe because many of the Jews were seeking refuge in Germany and other places in Western Europe. This is because the political conditions were changing and the Jews that began to return to the land marked the growth of the Jewish communities in the west. This trend was set as a result of the “massive influx of the Ashkenazi Jews from the Germanic Lands”. Poland-Lithuania became a relatively tolerant legal environment and economic opportunities that grew parallel to the Polish-Lithuanian expansion to the east sustained the community.

2. What economic functions did Jews play in the Commonwealth, especially on the estates of nobles?

            The Jews role that they played in the Commonwealth was that they worked as intermediaries to oversee the thousands of peasants working for them. They watched over the agricultural produce, administered the vast estates, oversaw the lumber and cattle, as well as provided all kinds of goods to the population in the many villages. These Jews established themselves in large numbers, managing Polish nobles estates, leasing a variety of economic monopolies, and “becoming a dominant part of the local urban bourgeoisie in the newly colonies territories in the east”.

-- Steven Gilburne