The Jews in Lublin - Biblioteka Multimedialna Teatrnn.pl - Brama ...

them to trade on the days of the Christian holidays, gave the privileges to communities
including the Krakow community. King Mykhailo Vyshnevetskyy (1669-1673) confirmed
the privileges of the general statute of the Polish Jews at the Royal Sejm, and 17
additional articles adopted by Kings in the 16th to 17th Centuries, according to which
a murderer of a Jew was sentenced to death with confiscation of his property, and in
the case of anti-Jew riots, the municipality was to pay a fine. The Jews were given equal
economical rights with the Christians citizens. Yan Sobeskyy III (1674-1696) confirmed
the earlier privileges of the Jews and gave new ones to some communities 16 .
During the North War, in the reign of August II of the Saxon dynasty, Lviv in
1704 was occupied by Swedish troops. They ransacked the city and made the community
pay 60,000 tallers of ransom.
The decrees of the first half of the 18th Century banned trade for the Jews, limiting
it again to four types of goods according to the decrees of the 16th Century, and closed
down the breweries and the taverns in the suburbs and stipulated some other decisive
steps thus benefiting the city. However, these decrees were not carried out in practice
due to the influence of the Jewish community among the nobility and magnates 17 .
In 1722 a decree on eviction of Jews from all the city streets except the ghetto
territory was adopted but it never come into force 18 . In the second half of the 18th
Century Lviv faced an economical decline caused not only by numerous wars and
persistent attacks but also by the repressions against the Jews.
After the next conflict between the bourgeois and Jews, King August III
(1735-1763) took the side of the bourgeois which in general resulted in the material
decline of the Jewish communities in Poland and Ukraine. Even the nobility which
supported the Jews during reign of previous Kings was against them now. In this context
Majer Balaban writes about the massacre of 1759, which was the most serious for
the previous 50 years 19 .
At this time many people move to city suburbs built by Polish magnates because
of the over population of Lviv. Lviv Jews moved do Zhovkva, Svyrzh, Buchach and
Brody 20 .
The decrees of December 12th 1793 and December 12th 1795 allowed the city
Jews to live in Jewish, Zarvanska and Ruska streets, whereas the suburban Jews were
to live in the Krakivskyy suburb and in Zholkevska street. They were to leave other
streets and districts with the exception of Jews with large private property, their own
estate or who sold Austrian goods. These decrees were confirmed and repeated in 1804
16 Cf. Kratkaya Jewriejskaja Encikłopiedija, t. 4. Ijerusalim 1988, pp. 629-630.
17 Cf. Prywileji nacionalnych gromad mista Lwiwa (XIV-XVJII st.), p. 31.
18 Cf. MEŁAMED W.: Jewrej wo Lwowie, p. 92.
19 Cf. ibid, p. 93
20 Cf. ibidem, p. 42.
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