The Council of Four Lands

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth held the largest Jewish community in the world. It suited the crown to collect the poll tax from the Jews collectively rather than individually, and this handed the communities an unusually powerful instrument of self-government. From about 1580 the Council of Four Lands took shape: Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Red Ruthenia and Volhynia.

It met twice a year — in winter at Lublin, in summer at the Jaroslaw fair. Its delegates were rabbis and elected communal heads. The Council apportioned the tax among the kehillot, appointed judges, supervised printing, settled disputes between towns, forbade recourse to gentile courts, and capped wedding expenditure so the poor would not ruin themselves imitating the rich. It also conducted policy, maintaining intercessors at the Warsaw Sejm, fighting blood libels and securing charters of protection.

After the Chmielnicki massacres the Council organised the ransom of captives and the resettlement of refugees, and declared the 20th of Sivan a fast for the martyrs of Nemirov. In 1764 the Sejm abolished it in order to tax Jews directly, and Polish Jewish self-government ended a few years before the partitions of Poland.