The Charter of Boleslav

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• published: 17 Nov 2014
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Blog post: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-dna-match-with-history/ Additional information: The Jews of Poland and the Charter of Boleslaw In 1264, Pious Prince Boleslaw of Kalisz, King of Poland, issued the Charter of Boleslaw, which offered guarantees against Jewish persecution. When the charter was drawn up, signed and sealed by the King of Poland and presented to the leaders of the Jewish communities in the cities of the Rhineland, a steady migration of Jews began from the German-speaking lands of Western Europe into the Kingdom of Poland, a migration that grew in increasing numbers and brought a large population of Yiddish-speaking Jews into Eastern Europe. It was in Poland and its extended imperial domains which stretched from Lithuania to the Black Sea shores of Ukraina that Jewish culture began a remarkable growth and expansion across the vast areas of Eastern Europe where the Yiddish language flourished and achieved its classic heights. For approximately four centuries, from the middle of the 13th to the middle of the 17th century, Jewish life flourished in the lands of Eastern Europe. Some of the achievements of the Jews of the Polish kingdom are remarkable in the historical perspective. Because the original motivation that led the rulers of Poland to invite the Jews to their country was their need for men who were competent to organize commercial activity, to manage financial affairs, and to stimulate a national economy, it follows that Jews were given positions that would advance that objective. Thus, Jews were appointed to be controllers of estates, to manage the economy of individual lords and barons. And Jews were also given positions in the central government. They were authorized by the kings to control the currency and to mint coins of the realm. Many of the kings of Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries had their faces stamped in bas-relief on the "Heads" side, the obverse of the coin. But the inscriptions on the reverse of the coin, the "Tails" side, were usually in Hebrew, with the name of the controller of the currency spelled out. Thus, "Yosef ben Yehudah Ha-Kohen of Kalisz," for example, would be responsible for the intrinsic value of the coinage. Amomg other Jewish names that were stamped on the coins were "Rabbi Abraham Bar Yitzhak Nagid." There are upwards of forty coins of the Polish Kingdom that are stamped with Hebrew inscriptions. But a Jew as controller of the national currency was only a small part of the role played by the Jews in the Polish Kingdom in the four centuries from the date of the Charter of Boleslaw until the Chmelnitzki massacres of the middle of the 17th. - Dr. David Neiman, June 16, 2003 This is an excerpt from Dr. Neiman's unfinished manuscript on Jewish Languages.