en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland_before_the_18th_century
Władysław I the Elbow-high, who ascended the Polish throne in 1320, endeavored to establish a uniform legal code throughout the land. With the general laws he assured the Jews safety and freedom and placed them on equality with the Christians. They dressed like the Christians, wearing garments similar to those of the nobility, and, like the latter, also wore gold chains and carried swords. The king likewise framed laws for the lending of money to Christians.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Jewish-Polish_history
1500 Some of the Jews expelled from Spain, Portugal and many German cities move to Poland. By the mid sixteenth century, some eighty percent of the world’s Jews lives in Poland,[2] a figure that held steady for centuries.
1525 The first Jew is promoted to knighthood by king Sigismund I of Poland, without being forced to leave Judaism.
1547 The first Hebrew Jewish printing house is founded in Lublin.
1567 The first yeshiva is founded in Poland.
1606 Poland first described as "Paradisus Iudaeorum".
1632 King Władysław IV Vasa forbids Anti-Semitic books and printings.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradisus_Judaeorum
"Paradise for the Jews" (Latin: Paradisus Judaeorum) is a phrase pertaining to the Golden Age of Jews in Poland.
The phrase derives from a 1606 satirical Latin epigram about the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that has been described as "critical of everything in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—foreigners, immigrants, “heretics,” peasants, burgers [townspeople], and servants, and also Jews."[2] The epigram—"Heaven for the nobles, Purgatory for the townspeople, Hell for the peasants, and Paradise for the Jews" (Latin original: "Clarum regnum Polonorum est [The illustrious kingdom of the Poles is] coelum nobiliorum, paradisus Judaeorum, purgatorium plebeiorum et infernus rusticorum")—satirizes the sociopolitical system of "Golden Liberty", or Nobles' Commonwealth: a system viewed in the epigram as favoring the nobility (szlachta), less so the townspeople (mieszczaństwo or burghers), and much less so the enserfed peasants.[3]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland
The Jewish dress resembled that of their Polish neighbor. "Reports of romances, of drinking together in taverns, and of intellectual conversations are quite abundant." Wealthy Jews had Polish noblemen at their table, and served meals on silver plates.[52]
During the time from the rule of Sigismund I the Old until the Nazi Holocaust, Poland would be at the center of Jewish religious life. Many agreed with Rabbi David ben Shemu’el ha-Levi (Taz) that Poland was a place where "most of the time the gentiles do no harm; on the contrary they do right by Israel" (Divre David; 1689).[55]
By the time World War II began, Poland had the largest concentration of Jews in Europe
According to the 1931 National Census there were 3,130,581 Polish Jews measured by the declaration of their religion. Estimating the population increase and the emigration from Poland between 1931 and 1939, there were probably 3,474,000 Jews in Poland as of 1 September 1939 (approximately 10% of the total population) primarily centered in large and smaller cities: 77% lived in cities and 23% in the villages. They made up about 50%, and in some cases even 70% of the population of smaller towns, especially in Eastern Poland.[84] Prior to World War II, the Jewish population of Łódź numbered about 233,000, roughly one-third of the city’s population.[85] The city of Lwów (now in Ukraine) had the third largest Jewish population in Poland, numbering 110,000 in 1939 (42%). Wilno (now in Lithuania) had a Jewish community of nearly 100,000, about 45% of the city's total.[86] In 1938, Kraków's Jewish population numbered over 60,000, or about 25% of the city's total population.[87] In 1939 there were 375,000 Jews in Warsaw or one third of the city's population. Only New York City had more Jewish residents than Warsaw.
