[Polish, gmina; Yiddish, kahal; Hebrew, kehila]

A form of organization in Jewish communities. The term has two meanings: it refers to a group of Jews having their own internal organization, including self-government and authorities; it also means the body of authorities governing this group. 

Jewish law and tradition, along with government legislation, were the two main factors that determined the form of these Jewish Communities. The model of Community organization developed in Western Europe and was then transferred to Poland, where it underwent further change. All aspects of Jewish life in these groups were regulated by Judaic religious laws, formulated in the Torah and Talmud, and by privileges issued by the Polish authorities. By the sixteenth century, they were also governed by voivodship regulations and legislation passed by the Jewish Sejm. The privileges issued by the mayor or owner of the town determined the Jews' degree of autonomy, while the Jewish Community statutes outlined the structure of the Community's own government and operation.

Communities had varying degrees of freedom. There were large differences between Communities in private cities, where owners determined the extent of Jewish autonomy--something that depended on how much they intervened in the Jewish Community's internal affairs. Wealthier Communities had a separate building serving as the Community's equivalent of "town hall". In Polish sources this was actually called just that, the "Jewish town hall" (zydowski ratusz).

The Community government's overall structure was hierarchical, having several levels. The highest was comprised of the seniors, who had administrative, judicial and ceremonial functions. The "jurors" [Hebrew, tovim - "the good [people]"] had similar functions. The rabbi, hired by the Community's government, played an important role that was not limited exclusively to religious matters. Members of the Community government also headed committees dealing with particular administrative tasks. These included supervisory, charity, tax, guild, and many other committees. Each Community hired many paid officials, such as the chazan, shames, bath attendant, and cheder teacher. The doctor, midwive, guards, representatives to [the Jewish] diets, and others were all paid from Community funds. Only the large Communities had such well-developed self-government institutions. Smaller communities' needs were much more modest. Administrative and legal changes introduced by the partitioning powers limited the Communities' functions and role (synagogue caretaker, toleration patent), and religious Communities were created. The institution of the religious Community persisted in interwar Poland, which the Jews informally continued to call the kahal.

Hebrew: kehila, kehila kedosha – the holy community, Yiddish: kahal) – the principal organisational unit of the Jews religious self-government; from the ancient times, the religious community served as the basic social unit which, to a large extent, allowed Jews living in diaspora to preserve their religious, ethnic and national bonds. From the Hellenistic period, the term kehila was used to describe a “Jewish town”, a ghetto that was isolated from pagan (and, subsequently, Christian or Muslim) surroundings. From the very beginning, the term denoted two social phenomena – the local Jewish community and its internal organisation which featured a highly specific structure necessary to preserve the links between the individual members of the community as well as to maintain contacts with the political institutions in the given territory. Another factor which served as a guarantee of the internal autonomy of Jewish communes from the ancient times had been the privileges conferred upon them by the monarchs.

The legal traditions upon which the oldest Jewish communities were based have been codified in the Talmud. According to these laws, a religious community may not exist without a court, a synagogue, a cemetery, a ritual bathhouse, a school, a hospital/almshouse and charitable institutions. According to rabbi Akiva, judicial authority was to be exercised by “three sons of the synagogue”; a “council of five” was to take care of the issues of charity, while the administration of secular matters was to be entrusted to “seven leaders of the community”. All officials should be elected, although their term of office should last for their lifetime.

In the Middle Ages, Jewish communities had to adjust their internal regulations to the applicable feudal laws. The immunity privilege issued by the highest lord of the given domain in which Jews have taken up residence formed the basis of the autonomy of Jewish communities. The ruler – the monarch, prince or bishop – would confer numerous privileges upon his servi camerae – the servants of the treasury – including the right to maintain their own religious institutions (a synagogue, a mikvah, a cemetery and a slaughterhouse), the right to elect a rabbi and community council as well as to exercise judicial powers with respect to civil law disputes between Jews in accordance with the provisions of Talmudic law; in civil disputes in which one of the parties – the defendant – was a Jew and the other (the plaintiff) was a Christian, jurisdiction was exercised by a mixed ducal court, with a jury composed of the delegates of the Jewish commune. The community council (the kahal) enjoyed extensive fiscal and administrative rights under such privileges. In the 11th century, communities in Speyer and Worms already held privileges “to conduct internal affairs according to Jewish law and through their own superiors”. Smaller cities and towns both within the Holy Roman Empire and beyond would adapt the solutions applied in the two largest centres referred to above.

The regulations of Talmudic law began to grow more and more similar to local customs in the medieval Jewish communities in Germany; this process was accelerated significantly during the period when independent municipal law was taking shape. In the 14th-century Rhineland and Franconia, regular synods of community rabbis as well as meetings of kahal representatives were held during which the matters concerning Jews in the entire province were being discussed.

The Jewish settlers who came to Poland in large numbers during the 14th century have brought along well-established organisational principles which governed the functioning of their communities. These were sanctioned by the privileges granted by Polish monarchs, beginning with Bolesław the Pious, who granted a privilege to the Jews of Kalisz in 1264. It was subsequently extended to further territories of Poland and Lithuania by Casimir the Great (1334, 1364-1367) and duke Vytautas (1399) respectively. The autonomy of individual Jewish communes, based on extensive immunities, formed the starting point for the system of the nationwide Jewish self-government which came into being over the course of the next two centuries and which remained responsible not only for the collection of taxes payable to the state and the monarch, but also for most of the events taking place inside the community. This autonomous, pyramid-like structure composed of communities (kahals), higher administrative division units known as the zemstvos and the Council of Four Lands (the Vaad) remained in use during the period between 1580 and 1764.

The Jewish local government was based upon the territorial structure of the kahals. Each commune maintained its basic religious institutions – synagogues, the mikveh, the cemetery, the kosher slaughterhouse as well as a number of officials – the rabbi, the judges (the dayanim and the parnasim), which guaranteed the efficient operation of a legally sanctioned system of mutual links which bound the members of each kahal to the territorial political authorities and served to reinforce the integrity of the group. To each religious Jew, being a member of the kahal was entirely obvious and natural, yet no Jew could ever consider himself a prisoner of his own community. As long as he complied with the duties which stemmed from his membership of the kahal – the obligations vis-a-vis the state and his brethren, he could freely engage in professional activities, even if that entailed the need to frequently travel beyond the region or even the country. Apart from satisfying the needs of a religious nature, the membership of the kahal also conferred upon its members a feeling of security, since one could always count on other people who were members of the same kahal and who traveled beyond its boundaries just as often as one did. Obviously, one was also free to move from one kahal to another, but this entailed the severance of all the associated ties. The kahal was an institution that was perfectly matched to the feudal system, separating Jews from other estates and subjecting them to the direct supervision of political authorities.

The kahals, however, also had their opponents. During the Middle Ages, they faced staunch opposition from the municipal counties in royal towns, fiercely guarding the economic interests of their Christian inhabitants. Between the 15th and the 18th centuries, many towns and cities were granted a de non tolerandis Judaeis privilege, while in others the freedom of Jewish trade and crafts was limited, inter alia, through the establishment of ghettos. However, the attempts to banish the Jews from private districts owned by the nobility (known as jurydykas) and from the settlements beyond the walls of royal towns have resulted in an utter failure. Following the ravages of war during the 17th century, an increasing number of deputies began to voice their opposition towards the kahals during the sessions of the national parliament (the Sejm) and the local assemblies (the Sejmiks) alike.

A hundred years later, in the era of the Four-Year Sejm, the kahals were commonly referred to as “a state within a state” and the main cause of the failure of Jews to integrate with the rest of the community. In his work entitled Przestrogi dla Polski (Forewarnings for Poland), Stanisław Staszic made an appeal for the abolishment of the Jewish self-government, “for every such spirit of exclusion is the most harmful and persistent obstacle to the progress of civilisation”. However, the nobility has ultimately failed to solve this problem in a manner that would prove beneficial to the Jews themselves. The draft bill known as the “Constitution of the Jewish people within the Polish nation”, submitted on May 29, 1792 but never enacted, provided that the Jews shall be allowed to settle in towns and cities on condition that appropriate agreements are concluded with the relevant municipal councils; in such case, Jews would remain under the jurisdiction of the municipal authorities in both judicial and administrative matters, although special taxation and dedicated Jewish self-government institutions with wide-ranging fiscal competences would be retained.

Following the Partition of Poland, the partitioning powers took over the supervision of the kahals as well. For the enlightened absolutist monarchies of Austria and Prussia, both of them exhibiting a substantial degree of centralisation of power, the autonomous Jewish self-government was hardly convenient, especially given that it has become rather inefficient at that point and was now facing enormous debts. The new authorities wished to subject their Jewish taxpayers to direct, more efficient fiscal pressure. Nevertheless, the kahals have survived, even though their functions were now significantly limited and even their names have been changed. The institution of the kahal has survived due to the fact that its internal functions which it exercised vis-à-vis the members of the local community were far more important than its external functions, i.e. compliance with the financial obligations vis-à-vis the state. However, the deprivation of the kahal of its judicial and financial powers brought about a significant change. The kahal now became an organisation that functioned solely within the Jewish community, and whereas the authorities no longer had any need for it and sometimes found it downright inconvenient, for Jews themselves it remained absolutely essential since it still provided a structure on the basis of which individual communities were able to function. Retaining their traditional internal structure made it possible to maintain the order, based on the adherence to religious customs protected by the authority of the rabbi as well as on the general sense of community.

Many issues pertaining to the change of the position of Jews discussed by the learned reformers and the nobility during the Four-Year Sejm were finally resolved by the Habsburg monarchy. From the first partition in 1772, approximately one million Jews now lived under Habsburg rule, with the Jews of Galicia accounting for a half of the entire Jewish population. It was here that Maria Theresa and then Joseph II were implementing the ideological tenets of enlightened absolutism with ruthless consistency. The first change introduced was that the Jewish population was now under the complete control of state administration. Attempts were made to assimilate and Germanise the more affluent social strata, with a quick conversion to Christianity being the preferred option; all those who did convert were given municipal citizenship free of charge. The authorities have also dealt a blow to the local Jewish self-government; in 1776, the General Directorate was appointed, consisting of the land rabbi and 12 elders and reporting to the gubernium (an administrative division unit in the Austrian monarchy) of Galicia; the competences of the General Directorate extended to tax and judicial matters. This institution was subsequently abolished in 1785, when the kahals came under the supervision of the official known as the Landrat (or starosta in Polish).

In 1789, under the Edict of Tolerance of emperor Joseph II, the powers of the kahals were reduced even further, with the number of kahals decreased to 141; as a result, the kahals were stripped of all their competences save for educational and religious matters.

In the Free City of Cracow, the senate enacted the Constitutional Edict for Jews in 1816; the Edict provided for the abolishment of the kahals and the replacement thereof with the Jewish Committee, which consisted of a Christian chairman, a rabbi and two other members. The Committee was responsible for the adoption of the annual budget of religious expense which was then approved by the senate; financial issues were handled by the municipal treasury, while the documentation of the Committee was prepared by the secretary; a good command of the Polish language was a necessary prerequisite for candidates for this position. All expenditures related to religious issues were made from the funds obtained through the collection of the so-called kosher tax, while the upkeep of the school in Kazimierz (from 1830) was ensured by another type of tax – the coronation tax (also known as “szpilkowe”).

The legal position of the Jewish population in the Prussian partition has changed very rapidly. The General Statute of 1797, issued for the southern provinces and for the New East Prussia considered Jews to be a separate corporation and the division of the population into “tolerated Jews” (geduldete Juden) and “protected Jews” (Schutz-Juden) was incorporated into the provisions of applicable laws. The community authorities were stripped of their judicial powers, the supervision of the school system and the right to pronounce a curse (herem). The kahals continued to collect separate taxes – the kosher tax, the tolerance tax, the ticket tax; however, collective responsibility for the non-payment of taxes by the members has been abolished.

Under the influence of the events taking place in France, in 1812 an important emancipation edict for the Prussian Jews was finally issued in 1812, resulting in their legal status becoming similar to that of the rest of the bourgeoisie. This was certainly a good sign for the Jewish inhabitants of the Duchy of Warsaw, who came under Prussian rule in 1815. In the newly established Grand Duchy of Poznań, however, approximately 60 thousand Jews were forced to wait for a notable improvement of their living conditions for as long as 1833, when they were granted the same rights as the other Jewish inhabitants of the Prussian monarchy under the new Judenordnung (Jewish Order). The local Jewish community was deemed to be a public law corporation with compulsory membership; its authorities would now have the right to impose taxes for religious purposes. From 1847 onwards, the Jewish communities had to have their own articles of association which had to be approved by the political authorities.

The situation of Jews in the Russian Empire was much less favourable. In the territories that were annexed by the Russians following the first partition there was a mere 27 thousand Jews; for this reason, the authorities decided to leave the existing system of kahals intact. The reforms of Catherine the Great (1775) made it possible for the upper stratum of the local Jewry to be admitted to the merchants’ guild, while the other Jews were considered to form part of the burgeoisie. No additional taxes were imposed on Jews. However, subsequent partitions brought about a series of changes, since, all of a sudden, Russia found itself with more than half a million Jewish citizens, most of whom lived in urban areas. Jews played important roles as commercial agents, which meant that they competed against the Russian and the German bourgeoisie.

The legal status of Jews in russia was settled for a long time under the 1804 Statute on the Position of Jews, under which Jews became members of the four classes of urban citizens, depending on their profession and their financial position. It was at that point that the rights of the kahals with respect to taxation issues were restricted; the jurisdiction of rabbinical courts in civil matters was abolished, so that Jews would now enjoy the same rights as the Christian members of the given social class, with the exception that they could not become candidates to the municipal authorities of Kiev, Vilnius and Grodno. In all other towns and cities, Jews could not hold more than one-third of seats in the Council and were not allowed to run for the office of president (mayor). Tsar Alexander I had plans for further reforms pertaining to the status of the Jewish population; however, the implementation of all his ideas and visions ground to a bitter halt in the Committee for the Status of Jews, established in 1802, whose members spent literally dozens of years trying to arrive at a conclusion on how should Jews be “civilised” so that they could later be granted rights equal to those of other citizens.

In the Jewish department of the Ministry of Education and Religious Matters, a “delegate of the kahals” served as an advisor.

In 1827, under the ukaz on military service, Jewish community authorities were placed under an obligation to provide the armed forces with recruits; in some cases, people were drafted into the army for old debts owed to the kahals. From 1835 onwards, the kosher tax (the korobka) became mandatory. The vestigial Jewish self-government was finally liquidated in 1844, when Jewish communities were deprived of legal personality and the religious institutions of various sorts became the property of associations (a number of councils tasked with the management of synagogues were established, while the chevra kadisha association took over the management of cemeteries) or natural persons. The communities, however, remained jointly and severally liable for the payment of special taxes and the obligation to provide recruits for the army, with the kosher and candle taxes being collected by the “representatives of wealthy Jews who had permanent residence in the area”. The task of keeping population registers was allocated to the government rabbi.

The authorities of the Duchy of Warsaw did nothing for the Jewish population. Despite the audacious claims contained in the constitution, they were deprived of all political and civic rights in 1808 due to the fact that they were not entered into the municipal registers. From 1809, the community rabbis were placed under an obligation to create separate records for Jews, as was required by the Napoleonic Code. In 1825, this obligation was transferred to the mayors, who in turn appointed special officials for that purpose. However, the rabbi was still to maintain separate birth, death and marriage records (the obligation was officially introduced in 1830) and notify the appropriate registry officials of the entries made. Supervisory authorities were tasked with ensuring that this duty was duly complied with.

The society of the Kingdom of Poland remained stratified, which meant that all power continued to rest in the hands of the monarch and a number of wealthy landowners. The constitution provided that only Christians were to enjoy public rights; similar rules were also contained in the Organic Statutes enacted in years 1815 and 1832. Jews remained a class of citizens that were merely tolerated, as if they remained suspended in a void, beyond the nationwide social structures. In 1821, synagogue supervision was introduced with the aim to replace the kahals; the competences of this body was restricted solely to religious matters. Their composition included the rabbi and the three so-called Jewish parish supervisors (in 1826, they were granted the privilege of “entering their names in the book of honours”). A year later, the “holy brotherhoods” which cared for cemeteries and engaged in charitable activities were disbanded.

From that year onwards, Jews were only allowed to reside in Jewish quarters; when leaving these ghettos, Jews had to pay the so-called “ticket fees” (this obligation remained in force until 1851). In 1830, the Administrative Council of the Kingdom of Poland issued a final regulation on the division of the country into synagogue precincts, each of which had to have a designated precinct rabbi. Members of synagogue supervision were to be chosen by “family fathers” who were members of one of the four higher taxation classes. In Warsaw in 1871, only those members of the community who paid the community contribution (community tax) in the amount of at least 15 rubles were allowed to vote.

Following the establishment of synagogue supervision in the Kingdom of Poland, autonomous kahal structure ceased to exist within the Polish territory; the new religious communities had very limited functions which included the management and care of institutions linked with religious cult, the supervision of religious education in public and private schools as well as the pursuit of charitable activities. The financial policy pursued by the community councils was placed under intense scrutiny of the state administration which also had the right to decide on the source from which such funds were to be provided. The administrative authorities also decided upon the rules for the selection of both rabbis and the secular representatives of Jewish communities.

In Galicia, the status of the religious communities (Kultusgenossenschaften) remained almost unchanged from the issuance of the Edict of Tolerance of emperor Joseph II until the end of the 19th century. The sole competences of religious communities involved religious matters and charity. The communities, placed under intense scrutiny of state administration, managed funds derived from special taxes imposed on Jews; after these taxes were abolished during the Springtime of the Peoples, the funds were provided by means of direct contributions of community members as well as by way of kosher fees. These amounts were used to provide remuneration for the rabbis and other community officials as well as to ensure the upkeep of religious institutions, hospitals, almshouses and community schools. Until 1868, the rabbis of Galicia also kept the registers of births, deaths and marriages. Following the entry into force in 1866 of the act on political communes, the Jewish communities were placed under an obligation to enact their own articles of association which were then to be approved by the Governorship in Lviv. The council of each community was then elected on the basis of the said articles. The Cracow community was the first to elect its new members, doing so in January 1870.

In 1890, the Austrian authorities enacted the Act on external relations of Jewish communities which governed their internal structure. The electoral system, based on the so-called curiae (groups of voters) was retained, while the right to vote was still dependent on the payment of community taxes. The powers of the board (and the Religious Council, which was elected in larger communities) was limited solely to religious matters, charity and the supervision of the teaching of religion in public schools. The community schools were brought under the control of educational supervision authorities of Galicia in the early 1870s; the act did not provide for any central authority that would have the power to control individual religious communities.

World War I had a detrimental effect on the finances of large portions of the Jewish population. Each year, more and more people were forced to rely on the support of their wealthier brethren. It was expected that the material aid schemes would be ran by the community, which, after all, was formally empowered to do so. In Warsaw, the Jewish Sanitary Committee – an organisation independent of the Polish Civic Committee – was established at the initiative of community activists as early as in 1915. However, its powers were limited at best, and its activists had to take the will of the majority into account. The arrival of the Germans, who, according to their official announcements, could be seen as friendly towards Jews, was welcomed with great hopes. However, the new occupying power was reluctant to interfere with the existing relations between the Poles and the Jews. The regulation of November 1, 1916 on the establishment of the Jewish Religious Association reaffirmed the provisions of the earlier laws which provided that communities only had competences in religious matters. The community was made up of all persons of Mosaic faith who lived in the given political commune, even though the authorities also had the power to merge or split individual religious communities.  The body in charge of the community was the Administrative Board composed of members who were either appointed by the authorities or elected (in communes of more than 5 thousand, the members of the Board were chosen by two curiae – the intelligentsia and the general curia by direct secret ballot). The rabbi was chosen by all Jews who had the right to vote (i.e. were at least 25 years old, had at least two years of residence in the given community and have paid the necessary contributions); the community could be divided into a number of rabbinical districts. The elections of rabbis were subsequently approved by the Supreme Jewish Council consisting of 14 secular members and 7 members of the clergy. The powers of the community authorities did not extend beyond the scope of powers that had been allocated to the synagogue supervision. Under the decree referred to above, elections to 218 communities were held, with the exception of the two largest ones – the Warsaw community and the Łódź community.

The legal status of Jews determined in 1916 has survived until February 7, 1919, when the Chief of State, Józef Piłsudski, extended the scope of application of the decree issued by the German occupying power to the entire territory of the Kingdom of Poland, with slight modifications. Article 2 of the new decree provided that: “Jews (...) form a public-law religious association. The Religious Association shall consist of communities. It is led by the Religious Council of Jewish Communities. [...]”. The objectives of the activities of the communities were designated as follows: to ensure the upkeep of the rabbis, synagogues, mikvaot and cemeteries, to supervise the religious education of young Jews, to ensure the supply of kosher meat to the population, to manage the properties of the community and the foundations established for the benefit of the community as well as to grant support to the poor through institutions established for that purpose.

All men aged 25 or higher had the right to elect the community board for a period of four years in a direct, proportionate, equal and secret ballot. As before, the voters had to pay the community fees and to prove that they had lived in the given community for a period of at least one year; persons who received welfare allowances as well as those accused of publicly speaking against the Judaic faith were not allowed to vote. The Religious Council was appointed by the Minister of Religious Affairs and Public Education. The Council was supposed to consist of the Minister’s delegated and representatives of community councils; however, in the end, the Council was never appointed. The February decree was extended to the former Russian Partition between 1925 and 1927; in 1927, it became applicable to the former Austrian Partition, while a year later it was also extended to the former Prussian Partition. In Silesia, which enjoyed a degree of autonomy, the Prussian and Austrian regulations remained in force. The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education completed the legislative process by issuing three important implementing regulations in years 1927-1931. It was at that point that new religious community districts were designated; electoral rules for religious community councils and boards as well as for the elections of rabbis were adopted (and also included regulations concerning the Polish language exams for candidates for the office of the rabbi); in addition, the rules concerning the finances of religious communities were also laid down.

According to the legislation referred to above, both the communities and the Religious Association were public law corporations. “Religious societies” were allowed to operate within individual communities and to have their own synagogues, although they had no legal personality. The funds required for the community to perform its basic functions were sourced from religious taxes the amounts of which were determined in a manner similar to that applied in case of income taxes, as well as additional proceeds from activities conducted by the community, such as ritual slaughter, cemetery fees etc. Donations formed another source of funding. The budgets of smaller communities were approved by the local authorities of first instance, while those of larger communities required the approval of the province governor (the voivode). The selection of rabbis was to be approved by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education. In years 1924-1927, elections were held in a total of 313 communities, with Zionists and Orthodox Jewish groups receiving 26% and 44% of all votes respectively. In the 1930s, the position of Orthodox groups was still on the rise despite the fact that the Bund has now joined the rivalry, achieving a few spectacular successes in a number of larger communities.

The Polish legislation pertaining to religious communities was only deemed satisfactory by Orthodox Jewish circles. Both Zionists and left-wing parties hoped that communities would become the basis of exterritorial national autonomy or at least far-reaching cultural autonomy. A factor which encouraged such conclusion was the obligatory nature of the corporations, as one could only leave the community by converting to a different religion or by declaring him- or herself an atheist. It should be noted that this compulsory nature of membership of religious communities was inconsistent with the provisions of the  Constitution of 17 March 1921. The Constitution merely provided for the equal right of “Polish citizens belonging to national, religious or linguistic minorities” to establish their own charitable, religious and social institutions, to conduct religious services, to hold property jointly as well as “to enact their own legislation, which the state authorities shall not deny unless they contain any provisions which are inconsistent with the applicable laws” (Article 110, 113 and 115). The mandatory nature of community membership gave the Jewish communities a greater significance. It also appeared that both charitable functions and the right to exercise supervision over educational matters may be extended. However, the government staunchly opposed these plans, and the state administration did everything in its power to hamper autonomous initiatives, removing all items pertaining to education or works preparing for the emigration to Palestine from preliminary budgets. The activists of the Agudah and the followers of various Hasidic dynasties were more than willing to cooperate with the government, removing any inconvenient candidates from the lists for “religious reasons”. In response, the members of progressive factions would often prevent the appointment of Orthodox community rabbis. Sometimes – in Warsaw, for example – the authorities appointed temporary boards which they found easier to cooperate with. Nevertheless, some of their actions were such as to discourage even the most ardent sympathisers of the government from backing its policies.

The comprehensive evaluation of the activities of the Jewish communities during the interwar period is no easy task due to the immense differences between the individual communities. The Warsaw community employed between 500 and 600 individuals, with the office of the rabbi itself consisting of 21 persons. The staff employed by the Jewish community in Łódź was only slightly less numerous. Agudah followers dominated both of the largest communities; in Łódź, Lakub Leib Mincberg was elected for the position of chairman; in 1931, the position of chairman was taken by Eliasz Mazur. Both of these activists focused entirely on religious affairs. The situation in the capital changed in 1936, when the province governor of Warsaw (who also performed the function of Government Commissioner for the City of Warsaw) entrusted the leadership of the Jewish community to a special administration led by Maurycy Mayzel. It was then that numerous eateries for the poor began to spring up and the Interest-Free Credit Bank was established. The publication of the official newspaper of the community – “Głos Gminy Żydowskiej” (“The Voice of the Jewish Community”) from 1937 onwards had also been an important initiative. As an entity, the Warsaw community was truly immense; it managed a dozen-odd schools, four kindergartens and three crèches and maintained the Mathias Bersohn Museum of Jewish Art. It also served as the patron of a number of medical institutions; the Linas Hatzedek (a Jewish charity) alone had 12 clinics for the poor, in which over 400 medical practitioners were employed, In the second half of the 1930s, the Jewish community in Łódź allocated more than 100 thousand PLN per annum (i.e. about 8% of its budget) for the aid to a dozen-odd charities as well as for the co-financing of the Poznański hospital and the tuberculosis sanatorium in Otwock. Smaller communities could obviously not claim achievements of this magnitude, yet they were no less important for the local populations.

The beginning of World War II put an end to the existence of Jewish communities in Poland. The Judenräte, established by the Nazi German occupying forces from the autumn of 1939 onwards bore no resemblance to the pre-war community boards. Governor-general Hans Frank stated that “the Jewish council is under an obligation to accept orders from the German authorities, which shall be given either to the chairman or to his deputy. The council shall be solely responsible for the proper implementation of the orders given. All Jews and Jewesses shall abide by the instructions given by the council for the purposes of implementation of German orders.” The Judenräte performed some of the functions of the former municipal or district boards. Nevertheless, to some extent they remained autonomous institutions, even though in larger towns their activities were being controlled by dedicated German authorities. In practical terms, their scope of competences also included the duties which had been carried out by the pre-war religious communities, i.e. organisational measures pertaining to religious life and education as well as the supervision of charitable organisations. However, these tasks formed but a fraction of all their responsibilities. The administrative structures which remained under the control of the Warsaw or Łódź Judenräte consisted of approximately 20 thousand people each. Yet even those who worked at the Judenrat would not be immune from persecution; even the members of the Judenrat of Łódź, which was known for its obedience, ultimately met the same fate as nearly all of the inhabitants of the ghetto.

Following the end of the war, the government of the People’s Republic of Poland did not decide to commence the restoration of Jewish religious communities. There was simply too few survivors who were scattered all around the country, and besides nobody was sure what to do with the property which once belonged to Jewish communities. Most of the former Jewish property was nationalised due to the fact that it was considered as “abandoned”. The Jewish Committee which began its operations in Lublin in 1944 made efforts to ensure that the freedom of religious practice for Jews was preserved; the Committee applied to the Polish authorities to appoint Safrin Feldszuh as the chief rabbi. In Februaru 1945, the Ministry of Public Administration established Jewish Religious Associations, in which the activists of the Mizrachi movement were given the dominant position; the Agudah – a pre-war Jewish Orthodox party – was not allowed to resume operations legally. One year later, the associations were renamed as congregations.  They were entrusted the task of the upkeep of synagogues and cemeteries (including the exhumation of Jews murdered during the war). All rabbis appointed by the congregations had to be approved by the Ministry of Public Administration.

The congregations were also allowed to conduct charitable and educational activities, which resulted in the establishment of separate religious orphanages and almshouses, kosher eateries, Talmud Torah schools and yeshivas. 80% of the funds for the functioning thereof were provided by the Joint. The Congregations reported to an Organisational Committee which in turn would seek advice of the Main Religious Council (composed of three rabbis, the Council was chaired by the chief rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces and a Mizrachi representative, lieutenant colonel David Kahane, until 1949); the Council, in turn, could seek advice of the Council of Rabbis, which comprised nine members in total. The overall number of Jewish congregations is unknown, although it is certain that they must have been quite numerous, for even in 1949 the Organisational Committee believed that there were approximately 50 thousand religious Jews in Poland at that time. In addition, there was also an army rabbinate which comprised three persons in total.  According to the circular of the Ministry of Public Administration of February 1945, the congregations had the right to take over any properties of the pre-war Jewish communities and religious associations; however, government administration bodies were not particularly eager to provide any support to the congregations in this regard.

On the other hand, the authorities were trying to coerce the Organisational Committee to join the Central Committee of Polish Jews, which it finally did in June 1948. A year later (during the congress which took place on August 9-10 1949), the Jewish congregations joined together to form the Religious Association of Jews in Poland, led by rabbi Szulim Treistman. In the 1950s, the Association’s activities were gradually winding down, mostly due to the dwindling number of religious Jews in Poland. At that point, the Association maintained a mere eight synagogues and one matzo bakery.

Over the course of the following decades, this process was gaining in intensity, with the wave of anti-Semitism inspired by one of the fractions of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) which swept through Poland from 1967 onwards serving to exacerbate the situation. As a result of emigration, the number of members of the Association dropped to approximately 2 thousand at that time; in 1994, the Association had only 1220 members. In 1986, there were 16 congregations in total which maintained 23 prayer houses and employed 11 secular employees. After 1989, however, the situation has started to improve slightly due to the gradual rebirth of religious life, especially among the young. One of the signs of this phenomenon has been the resumption of religious services – the bar mitzvah and the bat mitzvah, religious weddings etc. In 1997, the new act was passed which reestablished Jewish religious communities.

Bibliography

• Gminy Wyznaniowe Żydowskie w województwie pomorskim w okresie międzywojennym (1920-1939) [Jewish Religious Communities in Pomeranian province during the interwar period (1920-1939)]. A collection of essays edited by J. Szilling, Toruń 1995.
• Grabski A., Współczesne życie religijne Żydów w Polsce (Contemporary Religious Life of Jews in Poland) [in:] A. Grabski, M. Pisarski, A. Stankowski, Studia z dziejów i kultury Żydów w Polsce po 1945 roku (Studies of History and Culture of Jews in Poland after 1945), Warsaw 1997.
• Żydowskie gminy wyznaniowe (Jewish Religious Communities), Wrocław 1995. Studia z dziejów l kultury Żydowskiej w Polsce (Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Poland), J. Woronczak (ed.) vol. I.

Andrzej Żbikowski

Quoted after: Tomaszewski J., Żbikowski A., Żydzi w Polsce. Dzieje i kultura. Leksykon. [Jews in Poland – Their History and Culture. A Lexicon.], , Warsaw 2001.