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A
Gentile's Description of Jewish Merchants
In 15th-17th
cen. Poland, most Jews earned their living as merchants, artisans,
or arendars (lessors of estates and other revenue-producing enterprises).
Jewish merchants played an important role in developing Polish
cities and commerce, and were one of the important constituent
groups of Polish society. This 1618 account by a Christian describes
the depth of Jewish involvement in Polish commerce. Christian
merchants, many of them of German background, competed, sometimes
bitterly, with the Jews for economic opportunity and political
power.
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In
Lvov, in Lublin, in Poznan, and particularly in Cracow,
not to mention Vilna, Mohilev, Slutzk, Brest-Litovsk, Lutsk,
and elsewhere, the Jews have in almost every brick house
five, ten, fifteen, or sixteen shops. These shops are full
of merchandise and all kinds of wares. . . . [The Jews]
go to other countries from which they import sundry goods
to Poland. . . . when goods of any kind reach Poland the
Jews quickly purchase everything. . . . In addition they
export goods . . . to Hungary, to Moravia . . . and to other
places. . . . They trade in spices and all kinds of grain,
in honey and sugar, in milk products and other foodstuffs.
There is scarcely any kind of goods, from the most expensive
to the cheapest, in which the Jews do not trade. . . . They
do not rest satisfied with sitting in shops and doing business.
Some of them actually go round the market, the houses, and
the courtyards peddling their wares. . . . They entice .
. . the buyers . . . and attract them to the Jewish shops
promising them good bargains.
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