page_title: Council of Four Lands
section_title: Place in Jewish European life
hierarchical_section_title: Council of Four Lands / Place in Jewish European life
caption_attribution_description: English: Page from the minutes-book of the Council of Four Lands, obverse and reverse, formerly in the possession of Simon Dubnow. From the 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, now in the public domain.
context_page_description: The Council of Four Lands in Lublin, Poland was the central body of Jewish authority in Poland from the second half of the 16th century to 1764. The first known regulation for the Council is dated by 1580.. Seventy delegates from local kehillot met to discuss taxation and other issues important to the Jewish community. The "four lands" were Greater Poland, Little Poland, Galicia and Volhynia. The earliest form of the Council was organized in 1514 by Sigismund I the Old and Abraham of Bohemia was put in charge of it.
  In Polish it was referred to as the Jewish Sejm. In Latin it was referred to as the Jewish General Congress.
  The terms "Council of Three Lands" and "Council of Five Lands" and more have also been used for the same body. In 1623 the Jewish communities from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania withdrew from the "Council of Four Lands" and established the "Council of the Land of Lithuania"
context_section_description: The great number of the Jewish population of Poland, its importance in the industrial life of the country, and the peculiarities of the political and class organization of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were the reasons why the Jews of Poland formed a separate class enjoying liberal autonomy within the sphere of their communal and spiritual interests, the outcome of which was their exemplary communal organization. A Jewish community, with its administrative, judicial, religious, and charitable institutions, constituted a unit of self-government. The term "Kahal" denoted both the community (a community was also known as a Kahilah Kadisha or Holy Community) and the autonomous communal administration, the two concepts being identical. The administrative functions: the assessment of state and communal taxes, the supervision of charitable institutions, etc. of the Kahal were performed by elective Kahal elders, while its rabbis ("doctores Judæorum") had charge of religious and judicial affairs.
caption: Page from the minute-book of the Council (obverse and reverse), once in the possession of Simon Dubnow.
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