Chapter 10 - Northeastern Europe

Summary

Jews in Hungary and Poland arrived from western Europe, especially German lands. They played an important role in trade, money minting and financial life. The traditionally invoked explanation for tolerance, economic necessity in backward countries, has been exaggerated. Rather, Jews played a significant part in the building of royal power. Royal protection and legal systems in societies that incorporated many different groups with their own privileges were the basis of Jewish status. Their comparatively better position, however, should not be mistaken for harmonious coexistence. Indeed, royal protection raised ecclesiastical, noble, and eventually urban resistance; royal privileges and synodal legislation could be in conflict, and towns in the later Middle Ages endeavoured to restrict the sphere of Jewish activities. Violence was not unknown, and from the fourteenth century violence on a mass scale linked to anti-Jewish accusations spread. The community (kehilla) organization took firmer shape in the late Middle Ages. Jews adopted many features of the life of majority society, including architectural devices and names. Sheelot u-teshuvot show that the behaviour of Central European Jews ranged from scrupulous insistence on religious observance to complete disregard for the rules.