Scepter of Judah; the Jewish autonomy in the eighteenth-century Crown Poland.

9789004166011

Scepter of Judah; the Jewish autonomy in the eighteenth-century Crown Poland.

Kalik, Yehudit.

BRILL

2009

404 pages

$132.00

Hardcover

Studia judaeoslavica; v.2

DS134

Old Poland was the center of the modern Jewish world but the title's reference to Jewish autonomy in the pre-partition Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth does not signify self-rule in the modern sense. Kalik (history, Hebrew U. of Jerusalem) notes that this contribution to Jewish studies is based on neglected lists of military poll taxes collected from Jews from 1717-1764. While scholars have studied the external relations of the Jewish Council of Four Lands, the author fills in gaps in knowledge about its internal administrative structure and relations between its urban and rural institutions. The volume includes maps and tables relating to this structure. The title's "scepter of Judah" is a sarcastic reference to Jewish "autonomy" in Babylon.

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