The Decline of the Kraków Jewish Community in the Early Modern Period Cover Image

The Decline of the Kraków Jewish Community in the Early Modern Period
The Decline of the Kraków Jewish Community in the Early Modern Period

Author(s): Adam Kaźmierczyk
Subject(s): History, Social Sciences, Cultural history, Jewish studies, Ethnohistory, Local History / Microhistory, Social history, Modern Age, Theology and Religion, 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, Sociology of Religion, History of Religion
Published by: Univerzita Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Košiciach
Keywords: Kraków; Jewish community; Lesser Poland; The Early modern period;

Summary/Abstract: At the end of the16th century Kraków’s Jewish community was the most important cahal in Poland. This situation lasted until the middle of the17th century. Just a century later Kraków’s elders were begging the voivode of Kraków to protect them against claims of smaller communities, such as Wodzisław, which demanded jurisdiction over Jews in villages just by the walls of Kraków’s agglomeration. The lecture will show how the changes in Jewish demography as well as the king’s resignation from jurisdiction over Jews in private estates and other changes in political system of the Polish Commonwealth affected the situation of Kraków’s community and resulted in its loss of power in the state and among the Jewish population in Lesser Poland.

  • Issue Year: 1/2012
  • Issue No: 1-2
  • Page Range: 68-78
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: English