Name 

linguonyms and ethnonyms
endonyms   

• Loshn ashkenaz זנּכשא-ןושל (literally "language of Ashkenaz", a term used in written Hebrew-Aramaic sources),
• Tajcz שטַײט (literally"German", then, via metonymy changed to "translation"),
• Ivrit teutsch שטַײט-ירבע  (literally "Hebrew-German"),
• Yiddish-teutsch שטַײטשידיי  (literally "Jewish German"),
• Polnishe-teutsch -שטַײטשיליוּפ  (literally "Polish-German"),
• Yiddish שידיי  (literally "Jewish", in Yiddish written sources beginning from the 20th century).

egzonyms

• Polish: język żydowski ("Jewish language"), żargon ("jargon"; a term introduced by the followers of Haskalah[2], in the beginning the name had no negative connotations in Slavic languages),
• jidysz (Eng. Yiddish < yid. jidish < Ger. jüdisch 'Jewish' < Hebr.  yehudit  'Jewish' < Hebr. Judah 'one of the 12 tribes of Israel',

endoetnonyms

• jid דיי  (Pl. jidn) "Jew",
• ben Isroel נב לארשי  (literally 'son of Israel'), often used in its plural form bnej Isroel לארשי ינב ("sons of Israel"),
• Isroel לארשי  (Israel),
• yidishe tokhter עשידיי רעטכָאט (only referring to women, literally 'Jewish daughter'), yidish kind שידיי (only referring to women, literally 'Jewish child').

egzoetnonyms

• Polish: Żyd ("Jew"), Izraelita ("Israeli")

History and geopolitics

At the time of the partitions of Poland (I Rzeczpospolita)

Jewish population proportionally in towns of I Rzeczpospolita  (map ed.: Jacek Cieślewicz)

Interwar period (II Rzeczpospolita)

Jewish population proportionally in provinces of II Rzeczpospolita (data for the year 1921, and 1931 the Silesian province; map ed.: Jacek Cieślewicz)

Modern times (III Rzeczpospolita)

Number of persons declaring Jewish nationality according to the 2002 National Census (map ed.: Jacek Cieślewicz)

Where is the language spoken?

 A list of countries in which Yiddish is spoken (by number of speakers): USA, UK, Israel, Belgium, Russia, Argentina, Ukraine, Romania, Belarus, Lithuania, Australia, Moldova, Panama, Puerto Rico, Republic of South Africa, Uruguay.

History

A brief history of Jews in Poland

Regardless of the exact theory of origin of the Yiddish language, it comes as a fact that it began to be used on Polish soil with the influx of Ashkenazi Jews emigrating from the West. Ashkenaz is a Biblical term which Jews used to name the territory of medieval Germany, one of the many endpoints of their exodus.
First signs of Jewish settlement in Poland date back to the end of the 11th century in Przemyśl. Later on, being forced to escape from the First Crusade (1096-1099), they emigrated to Polish territories.The main emigration wave, however, began around the 13th century. One of the factors that facilitated it was the declaration of the Statute of Kalisz by Bolesław the Pious in 1264, and its further extension throughout the whole territory of the Kingdom of Poland by Casimir III The Great in 1334. Such legislation arose from the economic needs of the Crown which strived to develop its towns through the immigration of Jewish (and German) people. Jews were offered not only legal protection guaranteed by the prince but also the potentiality to establish their own Jewish districts, qahals, which were distinguished by their relative administrative autonomy. In many cases the privileged status of Jewish craftsmen and merchants triggered the opposition of (Christian) guilds, their economic rivals. The Catholic clergy also objected to the status of Jews and called to remove them from holding official positions within the Kingdom. Jewish people were, also, called to wear distinctive robes. There were, however, no regulations in Poland that forced the Jewish populace to wear the so-called badges of shame which distinguished them from the rest of the society Despite the fair level of tolerance which dominated many centuries of Polish history, the Jewish people experienced many anti-Semitic disturbances. Nonetheless, the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland in the 14th century was a home they did not find elsewhere in Europe. In the beginning of the 16th century king Sigismund I the Old introduced additional privileges for Jews and, also, fines for towns which would go against its Jewish population. Poland under the reigns of Sigismund I the Old and Sigismund II Augustus was known as being a "Jewish paradise" (paradis Judaeorum). It proved to be a paradise not only for the Jewish merchant and craftsman but also for the learned and the clergy. Renowned throughout all of Europe were the Talmudists who lived and studied in yeshivas in Poland. It was also in Cracow that the first Jewish printing house was established, producing books both in Hebrew and in Yiddish. In 1579 the king Stephen Báthory set up the Council of Four Lands (Va'ad Arba' Aratzot תוצרא עברא דעו) which was active between 1581 and 1764, and was the central body of authority of all the Jews living on the territory of the Commonwealth of Both Nations. The so called Jewish parliament was a precedent unheard of in the rest of Europe. It regulated virtually every aspect of life of the Jewish communities.


The Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva was formed in 1930 by Rabbi Meir Shapiro. It was a centre of Torah study and bore witness to Jewish culture, education and autonomy spanning across centuries in Poland. It was in Lublin that the Council of Four Lands was in session once a year (the second time in Jarosław) between 1581 and 1764.

The symbolic end of the golden age of Polish Jews can be ascribed to the Cossack uprisings of Bohdan Khmelnitsky which broke out in 1648. It is estimated that as a result of the Cossack uprising, several Russian incursions into Polish territory and the Swedish Deluge (1655-1660) a total of 120 thousand of Jews were killed, and Khmelnitsky's uprising is often considered in Jewish historiography as one of the most traumatic events in Jewish history. The country, racked and ruined, slowly restored itself, and so did the Jewish communities. During this period a number of new religious movements emerged from Judaism: Sabbatarianism and Frankism. By far the most important movement of that time is Hasidism, a movement which has lasted to present times.
In 1764, the same year Stanislaw August Poniatowski was elected, the convocation Sejm (parliament) dissolved the Council of Four Lands and increased the poll tax charged on Jewish yeshivas. Feelings of anti-Semitism within the Polish society led the Sejm to introduce special legislature that regulated which posts and jobs Jews would be permitted to take, depending on their agreements with their respective towns.
After the three Partitions of Poland, the Jewish populace became divided among the three partitioner governments. Their fates in each case were quite different.
The Prussian reign opted for the assimilation of Jews with the German society. As a result of the top-down decree of 1779, every Jewish was granted a German sounding name. They were freed from some of their legal limitations but, on the other hand, they were also deprived of their own judiciary. The Prussian authorities divided Jews into two categories: the "protected" and the "tolerated". The first group enjoyed a full range of civil liberties - as long as they possessed a fluent knowledge of German and a suitable material status. The "tolerated" often constituted the lower classes of Jewish communities.
Russia also engaged in similar assimilation practices. The most pivotal directive issued by Catherine II The Great equalled the legal status of Jews with that of the rest of society. However, cultivating and preserving one's Jewish heritage might have led to prosecution by the local population. The assimilation policy was also partially responsible for the attitudes towards the Jewish people that some of the Polish citizens held. They began to equate Jews with the partitioner which, ultimately, led to an increase in anti-Semitic feelings. A failed assassination attempt of the tsar Alexander II of Russia carried out by a Jewish woman Gesya Gelfman resulted in casting the blame to the whole of the Russian Jewish society. The entire Russian Empire answered this with a number of pogroms in many of its towns and cities. With poverty deepening and prosecutions intensifying the Jewish society formed socialist and Zionist movements; many Jewish emigrated. It was not until the February and October revolutions that the situation of Jews in Russia had changed. They were epitomized by the new communist authorities as victims of the old tsarist regime.
In Austria the Jewish people perhaps suffered the most. At the turn of the 17-18th centuries Galicia was where most of the Jews of the ex-Commonwealth of Both Nations lived. A poor economy of this territory forced its population to try to make ends meet in abject poverty. Additionally, the Austrian authorities also attempted to assimilate its Jewish population with the rest of society. The hardship of life and intense anti-Semitic feelings led to the emergence of numerous nationalistic and Zionist movements. Often did the Jewish people also choose emigration - to Berlin, France and to the USA.
With the end of the First World War an independent II Republic of Poland was born. Jews constituted a 9% of its total population. Due to this fact, Poland saw the creation of many Jewish political parties which reflected the popularity of a number of Jewish ideological movements: Zionist, socialist, religious and, also, 'folkist' movements (which strived to preserve the cultural autonomy of the Jewish people). At the same time Polish nationalistic parties openly propagated anti-Semitic messages which provoked pogroms and unrest in the inter-war period. The position of Jews was improved only after Józef Piłsudski's coup (1926) which brought about the rule of the Sanation political movement. After Piłsudski's death, the Sanation was forced to reach an agreement with the right-winged camp which, in turn, led to an intensification of oppression by the end of the 1930's. One example is the introduction of bench Ghettos in universities which separated Jewish students from non-Jews.


Refurbished grocer's shop in Lviv, Ukraine. The signs are written in Polish, German and Yiddish (photo by Michael Hornsby 2012).
 
During the brief period of the Second World War most of the European Jews were murdered. Out of the 3.5 million of Jews that once lived in Poland only about 200-300 thousand survived. Nearly half of them emigrated from Poland in the first years following the war. The establishment of the State of Israel furthered emigration. The communist authorities for a long time did not grant departure visas and it was not until 1956 that a new wave of emigrants left Poland following the liberalisation of emigration laws. The last wave was prompted by the happenings of March 1968. Student protests against censorship and freedom restrictions were then hailed by the communist regime as the actions of the "Zionist Fifth Column". This beset a witch hunt against Jews living in Poland - many were fired from their jobs and expelled from the Communist Party. During this period 20 thousand Jews were forced to leave the country . Presently, according to the last National Census (2012) there are about 7 thousand Jews living in Poland.

Mythology

It was pragmatics that was the main drive for Jews to settle in Poland. The socio-political situation of 13th and 14th century Poland was advantageous for Jews and, indeed, facilitated their settlement there. And so the hopes and dreams of the Jewish people often rested on Poland and they were expressed in a number of legends and tales. These tales do not only justify the right of Jews to live in Poland but they also tell the story of the friendship that the Jewish and the Polish have shared throughout the ages, so exemplified by the legend of Esther, Casimir III The Great's lover or Saul Wahl, the Jewish King of Poland for one night.
There is a number of legends treating on the very beginnings of Jewish settlement in Poland.
According to one, the Israeli people were tarnished by misfortune, persecuted with zest, tormented by hate and forced to move from place to place. So great was their suffering that they decided to set forth on yet another journey. They were seeking a place of refuge which would provide them with peace and happiness. However, the did not know where to go - until a piece of paper fell from the sky. The following was written: "Go to Poland!". And so they went to Poland and offered its king a pile of gold. He welcomed them warmly and with many thanks. Yet another legend depicts Poland as a place which the Jewish inhabited since past times unknown. Upon leaving the Frankish Kingdom they came across the Kawęczyński Forest near Lublin. On each tree they could see a piece of paper with a passage from the Talmud. The third legend, also being the most popular one, derives Poland's name directly from Hebrew. When the Jewish people arrived on Polish soil, they heard a voice from the sky telling them in Hebrew: po-lin (Hebr. ןיל-הפ), which means "rest here". Polin in Hebrew (Hebr. ןילופ) is a homonym to Poland (Agnon 1916: 3-8Agnon 1916: 3-8 / komentarz/comment/r /
Agnon, Szmuel Josef 1916. "Polen.  Die Legende von der Ankunft", w: Das Buch von den polnischen Juden, Berlin.

).

Hebrew	transliteration	transliteration
פה-לין	po-lin	'rest here'
פולין	Polin	'Poland'

Casimir III The Great was the king who extended Jewish privileges to every area in his domain and who was favourable to the Jewish plight throughout his rule. Some see the root cause of his sympathy in the legend of Esther. Esther is said to have been the lover or third wife of Caismir III The Great, after Christina Rokiczanka and Adelaide of Hesse. Esther was of extraordinary beauty and intelligence, she bore two daughters and two sons. While the daughters were brought up Jewish with the king's consent, the two sons, Niemierza and Pełek, received and accepted Christian upbringing. Esther is often compared to Esther from the Bible who married a powerful, pagan king Ahasuerus and interceded for her people with her husband, thus saving them from certain death. It is suggested that it was thanks to Esther that the Polish Jews were in the king's favour  (Shmeruk 2000: 8-10Shmeruk 2000: 8-10 / komentarz/comment/r /
Shmeruk, Chone 2000. Legenda o Esterce w literaturze jidysz i polskiej. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa.

).
The next legend concerns Saul Wahl, or more appropriately, Saul Katzenellenbogen. He was factor to the kings Stephen Báthory and Sigismund III Vasa, a personal banker to the noble House of Radziwiłł and a son to Samuel Katzenellenbogen of Padua. According to the legend, Mikołaj Krzysztof "Orphan"-Radziwiłl made a pilgrimage to atone for his sins. At its end, penniless, he arrived to Padua. He was denied help and any mention of his royal lineage was simply ridiculed. Samuel Katzenellenbogen, however, did offer him support and provided him with the means to return to Poland. Once he was back, Mikołaj Radziwiłł sought out the son of Samuel, Saul, who was studying then in a Yeshiva in Brześć Litewski. Being amazed by Saul's intellectual capacity and great knowledge Radziwiłł took Saul back to his family's court. Katzenellenbogen became their banker and tax collector. It was not long until Saul managed to accrue vast riches and even quicker it took king Stephen Báthory to appreciate his talents and hire him as his own banker. After Báthory's death in 1586, the indecision of the gentry led to the election of two candidates for the title of king: Maximilian III of Austria and Sigismund III Vasa. It was, thus, necessary to elect a temporary king. The natural choice was Mikołaj Krzysztof "The Orphan" Radziwiłł - he declined, however, arguing that only a person disinterested in the game of thrones and someone of great wisdom should be elected. He proposed Saul Wahl. Saul accepted this honour and, according to legend, he ruled Poland for one night. During his reign he introduced many new laws, among them - privileges for the Jewish people.