The
early modern period was one of considerable transition in European Jewry, with forced expulsions and religious persecution in many Christian kingdoms, but there were significant political and cultural changes that saw more favorable conditions for Jewish populations. One in particular, the Protestant
Dutch Republic was founded with
religious tolerance as a core value, such that Jews could practice their religion openly and generally without restriction and there were opportunities for Jewish merchants to compete on an equal basis in a burgeoning world economy. Culturally, there were changes seen in the way that Jews were depicted in art, particularly in the 17th century. Pejorative tropes of Jews in the medieval period did not entirely disappear, but there were now straightforward scenes of Jewish religious worship and everyday life, indicating more tolerant attitudes by larger Western European society. At the close of period, the
French Revolution abolished restrictions against Jews and made them full citizens.
Catholic Spain and Portugal sent
Kemal Reis to save the
Arabs and
Sephardic Jews of
Spain from the
Spanish Inquisition in 1492, and granted them permission to settle in the
Ottoman Empire The fall of
Kingdom of Granada the last Muslim kingdom in Iberia in 1492 to the conquering
Catholic Monarchs initiated period of religious change in Spain. There had already been considerable pressure for Jews to convert to Christianity and to monitor that their conversions were sincere and orthodox, the Holy Office of the
Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 by
Ferdinand and
Isabella to maintain
Catholic orthodoxy. It was not definitively abolished until 1834, during the reign of
Isabel II. The
Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal, had jurisdiction only over baptized
Christians. Christian converts (
conversos or
Marranos) came under scrutiny. The
Alhambra Decree of 1492 forced Jews to decide whether to stay and be baptized Christians or to leave immediately, often forfeited considerable economic resources along with severing connections to their relatives who stayed. Some left for the
Ottoman Empire, where they could continue under Muslim authority and with particular rights that they had exercised in Muslim Iberia. Many more Spanish Jews left for the adjoining
Kingdom of Portugal, where there was also a large resident Jewish population. However, in 1496–97, Jews in Portugal were forced to convert to Christianity, but unlike Spain, there was no
Portuguese Inquisition and one was not established until 1536.
Amsterdam as the "Dutch Jerusalem" , Amsterdam in 1695 by
Romeyn de Hooghe When the Protestant
Dutch Republic revolted against Catholic Spain in what became the
Eighty Years' War, Portuguese and Spanish Jews forced to convert to Catholicism (
conversos or
Marranos) began migrating to the northern provinces of the Netherlands.
Religious tolerance, the freedom of conscience to practice one's religion without impediment, was a core Dutch Protestant value. These
Sephardic migrants established a thriving community in Amsterdam, which became known as the
"Dutch Jerusalem" Three Sephardic congregations merged and built a huge synagogue, the
Portuguese Synagogue, opening in 1675. Prosperous Jewish merchants built opulent houses among successful non-Jewish merchants, since there was no restriction of Jews to particular residential quarters. The Iberian Jews strongly identified both as Jews and as ethnically Portuguese, calling themselves "Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation". Amsterdam's Portuguese Jewish merchants created a huge trade network in the Americas, with Portuguese Jews emigrating to the Caribbean and to Brazil. Ashkenazi Jews settled in Amsterdam as well but were generally poorer than the Sephardim and dependent of their charity. However, Amsterdam's prosperity faltered in the late seventeenth century, as did the fortunes and number of Sephardic Jews, while the Ashkenazi Jews' numbers continued to rise and have dominated the Netherlands ever since.
England re-opens to Jewish Settlement England expelled its small Jewish population (ca. 2,000) in 1290, but in the seventeenth century, prominent Portuguese Jewish rabbi
Menasseh ben Israel petition
Oliver Cromwell to permit Jews to live and work in England. The modern Jewish presence in England dates from 1656. In the 16th century some merchants were
New Christians (converted Jews), but only in the 17th c. were the English receptive to the idea of Jewish resettlement. Those who migrated to England were from the
Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam, where they lived openly as Jews in the
religiously tolerant Dutch Republic, where merchants prospered in as international trade of the
Atlantic world.
Poland as a center of the Jewish community The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, as well as expulsion from
Austria,
Hungary and
Germany, stimulated a widespread Jewish migration to the much more tolerant Poland. Indeed, with the expulsion of the
Jews from Spain, Poland became the recognized haven for exiles from the rest of Europe; and the resulting accession to the ranks of
Polish Jewry made it a cultural and spiritual center of the
Jewish people in Europe. The most prosperous period for Polish Jews began following this new influx of Jews with the reign of
Sigismund I the Old (r. 1506–1548), who protected the Jews in his realm. His son,
Sigismund II Augustus (r. 1548–1572), mainly followed the tolerant policy of his father and also granted autonomy to the Jews in the matter of communal administration, laying the foundation for the power of the
Qahal, or autonomous Jewish community. This period led to the creation of a proverb about Poland being a "heaven for the Jews". According to some sources, about three-quarters of all the Jews in Europe lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century. In the middle of the 16th century, Poland welcomed Jewish newcomers from
Italy and
Turkey, mostly of
Sephardi origin; while some of the immigrants from the
Ottoman Empire claimed to be
Mizrahim. Jewish religious life thrived in many Polish communities. In 1503, the Polish monarchy appointed Rabbi Jacob Polak, the official Rabbi of Poland, marking the emergence of the Chief Rabbinate. Around 1550, many Sephardi Jews travelled across Europe to find a haven in Poland. Therefore, the Polish Jews are said to be of many ethnic origins including Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Mizrahi. During the 16th and 17th century Poland had the largest Jewish population in the whole of Europe. By 1551, Polish Jews were given permission to choose their own Chief Rabbi. The Chief Rabbinate held power over law and finance, appointing judges and other officials. Other powers were shared with local councils. The Polish government permitted the Rabbinate to grow in power and used it for tax collection purposes. Only 30% of the money raised by the Rabbinate went to the Jewish communities. The rest went to the Crown for protection. In this period Poland-Lithuania became the main center for Ashkenazi Jewry, and its
yeshivot achieved fame from the early 16th century.
Moses Isserles (1520–1572), an eminent
Talmudist of the 16th century, established his
yeshiva in
Kraków. In addition to being a renowned Talmudic and
legal scholar, Isserles was also learned in
Kabbalah, and studied history, astronomy, and philosophy. The culture and intellectual output of the Jewish community in Poland had a profound impact on Judaism as a whole. Some Jewish historians have recounted that the word Poland is pronounced as
Polania or
Polin in
Hebrew, and as
transliterated into Hebrew. These names for Poland were interpreted as "good omens" because
Polania can be broken down into three Hebrew words:
po ("here"),
lan ("dwells"),
ya ("
God"), and
Polin into two words of:
po ("here")
lin ("[you should] dwell"). The "message" was that Poland was meant to be a good place for the Jews. During the time from the rule of
Sigismund I the Old until the
Holocaust, Poland would be at the center of Jewish religious life.
Yeshivot were established, under the direction of the rabbis, in the more prominent communities. Such schools were officially known as
gymnasiums, and their rabbi principals as
rectors. Important
yeshivot existed in Kraków, Poznań, and other cities. Jewish printing establishments came into existence in the first quarter of the 16th century. In 1530, a
Hebrew Pentateuch (
Torah) was printed in Kraków; and at the end of the 16th century the Jewish printing houses of that city and
Lublin issued a large number of Jewish books, mainly of a religious character. The growth of
Talmudic scholarship in Poland was coincident with the greater prosperity of the Polish Jews; and because of their communal autonomy educational development was wholly one-sided and along Talmudic lines. Exceptions are recorded, however, where Jewish youth sought secular instruction in the European universities. The learned rabbis became not merely expounders of the Law, but also spiritual advisers, teachers, judges, and legislators; and their authority compelled the communal leaders to make themselves familiar with the abstruse questions of
Jewish law. Polish Jewry found its views of life shaped by the spirit of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, whose influence was felt in the home, in school, and in the synagogue. , Poland (1610–1620) In the first half of the 16th century the seeds of Talmudic learning had been transplanted to Poland from
Bohemia, particularly from the school of
Jacob Pollak, the creator of
Pilpul ("sharp reasoning").
Shalom Shachna (c. 1500 – 1558), a pupil of Pollak, is counted among the pioneers of Talmudic learning in Poland. He lived and died in
Lublin, where he was the head of the
yeshivah which produced the rabbinical celebrities of the following century. Shachna's son Israel became rabbi of Lublin on the death of his father, and Shachna's pupil
Moses Isserles (known as the
ReMA) (1520–1572) achieved an international reputation among the Jews as the author of the
Mappah, which adapted the
Shulkhan Arukh to meet the needs of the Ashkenazi community. His contemporary and correspondent
Solomon Luria (1510–1573) of Lublin also enjoyed widespread popularity among his co-religionists; and the authority of both was recognized by the Jews throughout Europe. Heated religious disputations were common, and Jewish scholars participated in them. At the same time, the
Kabbalah had become entrenched under the protection of
Rabbinism; and such scholars as
Mordecai Jaffe and
Yoel Sirkis devoted themselves to its study. This period of great Rabbinical scholarship was interrupted by the
Khmelnytsky Uprising and the
Swedish Deluge.
Growth of Hasidism The decade from the
Cossacks' uprising until after the
Deluge period (1648–1658) left a deep and lasting impression not only on the social life of the Polish-Lithuanian Jews, but on their spiritual life as well. The intellectual output of the Jews of Poland was reduced. The Talmudic learning which up to that period had been the common possession of the majority of the people became accessible to a limited number of students only. What religious study there was became overly formalized, some rabbis busied themselves with quibbles concerning religious laws; others wrote commentaries on different parts of the Talmud in which hair-splitting arguments were raised and discussed; and at times these arguments dealt with matters which were of no practical importance. At the same time, many miracle workers made their appearance among the Jews of Poland, culminating in a series of false "Messianic" movements, most famously
Sabbateanism and
Frankism. Into this time of
mysticism and overly formal rabbinism came the teachings of
Israel ben Eliezer, known as the
Baal Shem Tov, or
BeShT, (1698–1760), which had a profound effect on the Jews of
Central Europe and Poland in particular. His disciples taught and encouraged a new fervent brand of
Judaism based on
Kabbalah known as
Hasidism. The rise of Hasidic Judaism within Poland's borders and beyond had a great influence on the rise of
Haredi Judaism all over the world, with a continuous influence through its many
Hasidic dynasties including those of
Chabad-Lubavitch,
Aleksander,
Bobov,
Ger, and
Nadvorna. More recent
rebbes of Polish origin include Rabbi
Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn (1880–1950), the sixth head of the
Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement, who lived in Warsaw until 1940 when he moved
Lubavitch from Warsaw to the United States. ==Modern era, 1750 to 1930==