A Brief Jewish History
Jews settled in Poland in the 9th century, coming from Russia, Germany and Bohemia. The Kalisz Statutes of 1264, granted by Duke Boleslaw the Pious, were a charter of Jewish rights. Casmir the Great, the last Polish King of the Piast dynasty was a protector of the Jews and was, according to legend, married secretly to a Jewess.

There was persecution under the first Jagiellon kings and anti Jewish decrees were issued by the church in 1420. The granting of rights and privileges (resulting in era of Jewish freedom and prosperity) alternated in Polish history with the withdrawal of such rights and consequent periods of persecution and sometimes expulsion.

Jewish learning flourished from the 16th century onwards. Mystic Chasidim, based on the Kabala, had its 'wonder rabbis'. Famous Talmudic scholars and other eminent men were produced by Polish Jewry.

Of the 3 500 000 Jews in Poland in 1939, about three million were exterminated by Hitler. Many put up a heroic fight, like those of the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Fewer than half a million fled to the West and the Soviet Union.

After World War II, there were several waves of emigration, the last of which was in 1968. Today's aging Jewish population numbers an estimated 6 000.