Open access edition supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Originally published as Johns Hopkins Press in 1992

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-226) and index.

Numbers -- The Town and the Jewish Community before 1700 -- Jews and Other Poles -- Jews in the Economy -- Jewish Society -- The Jewish Community -- Authority in the Jewish Community -- Power and the Jewish Community -- Afterword -- Appendix: The Privilege of the Jewish Community of Opatow -- Appendix 2: Measures, Weights, and Money

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In the eighteenth century, more than half of the world's Jewish population lived in Polish private villages and towns owned by magnate-aristocrats. Furthermore, roughly half of Poland's entire urban population was Jewish. Thus, the study of Jews in private Polish towns is central to both Jewish history and to the history of Poland-Lithuania. This study seeks to investigate the social, economic, and political history of Jews in Opatow, a private Polish town, in the context of an increasing power and influence of private towns at the expense of the Polish crown and gentry in the eighteenth century. Hundert recovers an important community from historical obscurity by providing a balanced perspective on the Jewish experience in the Polish Commonwealth and by describing the special dimensions of Jewish life in a private town.

Description based on print version record.