Jews in Municipal Services of Towns of Pre-1795 Poland (Historical/Legal Analysis)

The article looks at daily life in Polish towns before the partitioning of the country. The analysis concerns interference in what is termed as the 'physical living environment'. The following specialized areas are reviewed: fire brigades, sewage disposal, drainage and irrigation and care about municipal facilities. The author leaves aside economic considerations, focusing on the municipal nature of the regulations that were to serve all the inhabitants of the town. In the conclusions he points to the cultural determinants of the Jews' participation in the municipal life of a feudal town as a whole. That participation was strongly curtailed by cultural and economic antagonisms, yet diverse forms of cooperation between the kehillah and the city council were indispensable if only because of the very nature of a city as the integral living space of its inhabitants. In this context the author portrays the process of exclusion of Jews from the general urban community as something that was irrational and led to the deterioration of living conditions in the feudal towns.