History
Jewish community before 1989 – Polska / wielkopolskie
According to legend, a group of Jewish envoys from Germany came to Gniezno to visit Lesko IV, duke of Poland as early as in 893. The members are said to have asked the duke’s permission to settle in his country. Physical remains of the Jewish population in Gniezno originate from the 13th century. As research on the minting of Polish coins shows, denars with Hebrew inscriptions were struck in Kalisz in the 12th and 13th centuries, probably in Gniezno in the 13th century and in Krakow in the 12th and 13th centuries. However, the first written note about Gniezno Jews comes from 1458. In 1478, some of the inhabitants left Gniezno and settled in Warsaw. The population in Gniezno must have developed dynamically as in 1507 the local Jews paid 50 zlotys for coronation tax. Only the Jews in Poznań paid more – 200 zlotys, in Kazimierz and Lwów – 300 zlotys each and in Lublin – 75 zlotys. Charters from 1497 and 1519 were advantageous for the development of the town. In 1565, the Jews lived in 22 tenements and their own houses, five were rented from the Christians. Moreover, they had a school house and a synagogue. They paid at that time 98 zlotys of poll-tax. In 1579, 110 Jews who paid of 100 zlotys of poll-tax were registered. In 1582, rabbi Eliezer Aszkenazy consecrated a new synagogue. At the end of the 16th century, there was a meeting in Gniezno of leaders of the largest Jewish communities from Poland and Germany in order to condemn slanders contained in an anti-Jewish satire ‘Nodler’[1.1].
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[1.1] Zenon Guldon, Skupiska żydowskie w miastach polskich XV-XVI wieku, [in:] Żydzi i judaizm we współczesnych badaniach polskich, v. 2 edited by Krzysztof Pilarczyk and Stefan Gąsiorowski, Kraków 2000, pp. 15, 19, 22-25; Adolf Warschauer, Geschichte der Stadt Gnesen, Posen 1918, pp. 29-31, 130-132.
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