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Beggars and Begging

Concept · http://data.judaicalink.org/data/ep/2315869

In Poland–Lithuania, the emergence of Jewish beggars as a large group with its own subculture can be traced to the Khmel’nyts’kyi massacres of 1648, which destroyed much of the Jewish communal wealth and infrastructure. It has been estimated that up to 20 percent of the Jewish population belonged to the class of beggars at the end of the seventeenth century. East European governments regularly harassed the Jewish poor. In March 1773, Habsburg authorities ordered the expulsion of Betteljuden, Jewish beggars, from Galicia. At the same time, Poland closed its borders to impoverished Jewish refugees. Residents of Oświęcim, a town close to the border of Poland and Prussia, witnessed “caravans of beggars” who were expelled from Galicia but were not admitted to Poland. In 1898, a total of 35 percent of Russian Jews depended on charity institutions to maintain their existence.

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