Legal History in Poland: Research and Instruction 313 No wonder, therefore, that theJews disposed of their own parliament which was called Vaad. Of course this parliament could not produce nation-wide laws (this could be done only by the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm) but within the framework of their autonomy the Jews could, through their Vaad, regulate a lot of their own internal affairs. The Vaad dealt therefore with the distribution of poll-tax amongst the Jews (since only the lump sum of the tax was negotiated by their representatives with the Minister of Finances), decided on questions of chanty, religious education, measures securing Jewish safety, bankrupey among theJews, etc. In addition, the representatives of theJewish community, present at every level of the Commonwealth’s State agencies, functioned as a strong lobby vis-a-vis even the Commonwealth’s Sejm and the Royal Court. As a lobby these representatives could effectively prevent antiJewish legislation. Legal historian may also be interested in the clause of the Third Lithuanian Statute that provided for the incorporation of every Jew who converted to Christianity into the ranks of the regular nobles. The converted individual was given his coat of arms, nobiliar)- slogan and was accepted by one of the nobiliary families. The individuals who were exposed to that type of temptation were the members of upper strata of theJewish community who, through their style of life and wealth, came quite close to the nobles. They, with their generation-bred enterpreneur spirit, helped the nobles remodel their estates so as to followthe pattern of neoserfdomeconomy prevalent east of the Elba. As a resuit the influx of Jewish blood amongst the members of the nobles was not small,particularly in the second part of the 18^*’ century when the functioning of the Third Lithuanian Statute was coming to a close. Indeed, there is a considerable increse of studies relating to the constitutional aspect of PolishJewish relations in the past and a large proportion of this research is in English to mention only The Je'ii's in Poland by Ch. Abramsky, M. jachimezyk, Antony Polonsky (Blackwell, Oxford 1986) or the respective volumes of Polin published in Oxford.'- In Cracow millieu of historians it was also Andrzej Bryk who wrote an interesting article on the problem; Jewish autonomy in the Polish-Lithuanian Coynmonwealth froryy the to 18^^’ century (Archivum luridicumCracoviense, vol. XXI, 1988).'-'' Polin, AJournal of Polish-Jewish Studies, Basil Blackwell tor the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, Oxford. A large proportion of volumes of the series has hitherto been published. Bryk is also responsible for publishing a series of other remarkable articles dealing with Polish-Jewish relations, see c.g. The hidden complex of the Polish mind: Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust, in: My brother's keeper^ Recent Polish debates on the Holocaust, ed. by A. Polonskc , Routledge, Oxford 1990.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=