Jews in Poland: A Krakow Reflection

Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world before WWII. Poland was the center of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 through to the early years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was the most tolerant country in Europe. As the situation in other parts of Europe heated up, Poland became a unique shelter for persecuted and expelled European Jewish communities and a home to the world's largest Jewish community. The Catholic church wanted everyone either converted to catholicism or gone--either expelled or killed. No exceptions. Aa a result of Poland's long standing religious tolerance, about 1/2 to 3/4 of all Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century.

Why was Poland so tolerant? On the one hand, there was support at the top for these policies. The king wanted it, so it was so. Kings and landowners were supportive of Jewish communities because they were travelers and traders. they knew that business, and with Poland lying on the cusp between Asia and Europe, there was a lot of money to be made in trade, and Jews had that expertise. The other advantage that Jews had over Catholics was they could lend money--Catholics were religiously excluded from that business, while Jews were not, so they held a niche that was valued. Which is not to say there wasn't persecution. There was. It was medieval times, after all, but Poland afforded Jews a life that they could not find elsewhere in Europe for almost 1000 years. Hitler put an end to that thriving sector of Polish life.