History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume 1 [of 3]: From the Beginning until the Death of Alexander I (1825)Dubnow, Simon
History
History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Volume 1 [of 3]: From the Beginning until the Death of Alexander I (1825)
Dubnow, Simon
Jews -- Poland -- History; Jews -- Russia -- History; Poland -- History; Russia -- History
At first the King refused to yield, but the march of events favored the
anti-Jewish forces. Poland was at war with the Teutonic Order.[39] The
first defeat sustained by the Polish troops in this war (September,
1454) gave the clergy an opportunity of proclaiming that the Lord was
chastising the country for the King's disregard of Church interests and
for his protection of the Jews. At last the King was forced to listen to
the demands of the united clergy and nobility. In November, 1454, the
Statute of Nyeshava[40] was promulgated, and by one of its clauses all
former Jewish privileges were rescinded as "being equally opposed to
Divine right and earthly laws." The reasons for the enactment, which
were evidently dictated by Oleshnitzki, were formulated as follows: "For
it is not meet that infidels should enjoy greater advantages than the
worshipers of our Lord Christ, and slaves should have no right to occupy
a better position than sons." The Varta Statutes of 1423 and the former
canonical laws were declared in force again. Clericalism had scored a
triumph.
This anti-Jewish tendency communicated itself to the people at large. In
several towns the Jews were attacked. In 1463 detachments of Polish
volunteers who were preparing for a crusade against the Turks passed
through Lemberg and Cracow on their way to Hungary. The disorderly
crowd, consisting of monks, students, peasants, and impoverished
noblemen, threw itself on the Jews of Cracow on the third day of Easter,
looted their houses, and killed about thirty people. When Casimir IV.
learned what had happened, he imposed a fine on the magistracy for
having failed to forestall the riots. Similar disorders were taking
place about the same time in Lemberg, Posen, and other cities.
As far as Casimir IV. was concerned, the clerical policy, artificially
foisted upon him, did not alter his personal readiness to shield the
Jews. But under his sons, the Polish King John Albrecht and the
Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander Yaghello, the anti-Jewish policy gained
the upper hand. The former ratified, at the Piotrkov Diet of 1496, the
Nyeshava Statute with its anti-Jewish restrictions. John Albrecht is
also credited with the establishment of the first ghetto in Poland. In
1494 a large part of the Polish capital of Cracow was destroyed by fire,
and the mob, taking advantage of the prevailing panic, plundered the
property of the Jews. As a result, the Jews, who at that time were
scattered over various parts of the city, were ordered by the King to
move to Kazimiezh,[41] a suburb of Cracow, and to live there apart from
the Christians. Kazimiezh became, in consequence, a wholly Jewish town,
leading throughout the centuries a life of its own, and connected with
the outside world by mere threads of economic relationship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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