87. Origins of the Jews of Poland and Eastern Europe (Jewish History Lab) 

Really enjoyed this interesting lecture! New subscriber here. My family were German Evangelicals in East Prussia and I read the Lutherans, Catholics and Jews lived harmoniously together for many years and many had mixed German, Slavic and Jewish ancestry. Look forward to more of your lectures on our common homeland. My family weren’t Jewish, yet I feel honored to be part of a nation that welcomed these people.

I'm just starting my genealogy and I am fascinated by my families southern polish Jewish ancestors. I adore your humor by the way ! Thank you so much

Depth of knowledge, easiness of delivery and warm jokes, love it.

Thank you. As a non Jew, I found this informative and learned a lot!

Thanks Henry for that instructive lecture. As a Polish judeophile, I am well aware of our bonds, mental and material, and all the more sad, because of modern history.

I just discovered your videos this evening and have already listened to two. I just love that there is a wealth of knowledge here for me to immerse myself in!

Thank you so much Dr. Abramson, it is such a pleasure to listen to your lectures. Your vast knowledge of Jewish history, your sense of humor, and your pleasant demeanour are the reasons I look make forward to watching your videos.

I'm always glad to see the knowledge of our shared history being spreaded. Greetings from Poland!

Thank you for such an unostentatious, stimulating and informative overview based on useful factual information. Fascinating.

Thanks for your history lesson and free education. My father taught me a very small piece of this, from there we ended up in bohemia (czechoslovakia )and All fled in 1946 almost every member of our family

Considering that Ukraine as a place plays an especially significant part in Jewish history, people in the media and elsewhere seem to not treat as noteworthy that Ukraine's current president, Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish. The man got 73% of Ukraine's vote in his election. All of this, in its historical perspective, deserves much more attention it would seem.

I find Jewish history fascinating! Thank you for making these videos. Greatly appreciated. God bless you and your beautiful family.

Thank you for posting this great explanation. I was wondering why we have so many Lithuanian/Polish/Belarusian jews with German surnames! The Yiddish thing makes sense now too.

Thank you so much and God bless you for these history lessons. Please keep them coming in is very important.

Thank you, dr. Abramson. I learned something about the country where I was born.

Incredible listen. Very casual and informative style, thank you professor!

Thank you. Great presentation and highly informative. Keep up the good work!

04:38 min. mark: Worthwhile detail on the emergence of design, workmanship and the foundation of the complete production of royal coinage generated in Poland, very early on. Great episode, Dr. Abramson. Cheers! 😃

Dr. Abramson, I appreciate and enjoy your warm and informative lectures a lot. I deeply considered conversion to Judaism for many years. It has fascinated and felt almost like a calling to me since childhood. It was recently broken to me that I am just not going to be able, due to being happily married to and in love with a Catholic and other factors. That said I can’t pull my head out of Jewish history and philosophy- very little else interests me as much- and I’ve been binging your videos along with Michael Skobac’s and Simon Jacobson’s for months now. It’s astounding how much world history you learn on the way, and how many blank spaces in my imagination of these historical spaces actually have bricks in them that I just couldn’t see. Take care and thank you.

thank you for posting these, these are very educational!

Wow, factual, obviously well versed, easy to listen to. I like Profe’s humor. Thank you, can’t wait to watch more, and I’m not a Jewish person.

Thank you; this is very interesting to me-- All my grandparents came from the Ukraine, towns near the Russian-Polish border, and the family name (Liebersohn)--shows German orgins before that (I think--perhaps descendants of a Rabbi Lieber.) They came to the USA in the early part of the last century. My parents were born in the US, their brothers and sisters in Europe. Yiddish was the language spoken at home, although my grandfather spoke 5 languages. I left America to live in Israel 50 years ago. Here, of course, is an amazing mixture of Jews from so many countries; my own family is now mixed Askanazi/Sphardi. I'm very glad to find your site! Looking forward to more of your lectures.

Wow: how mind blowing to see those coins! This is not only Jewish history but Polish & Lithuanian history as well. Thank you Dr. Abramson.

I loved the calorie joke in the beginning lol. Great video Rabbi, thanks for sharing.

Thank you very much for this. I'm not particularly interested in Jewish history, but I am interested in medieval and early medieval European history and find your presentation style (including your jokes) so good I am drawn to pay attention to your lectures.

Outstanding Professor!

Very well made video of you, Henry. You know, what you talk about. I will follow you now.

I'm a Southern French and northern Italian Catholic, but i'm very fascinated by the history of Eastern jewry. . And do my researches on the topic since months...as a Medditerrean, and even in the ancestors family, i feel deep links and interest with the whole History of Mediterrean lands and people, whatever the religions. Thank you so much for the Masterclass!

Excellent wideo! Such videos are very needed because folks know nothing about history of Jews in Poland. All they know is only Holocasut, and "antisemitism". They don't know how Jews got to Poland and why there was so many Jews in Poland. If all you know about history of Polish Jews is Holocaust and antisemitism, then you know nothing about history of Polish Jews. Especially congatulations go for the Council of Four Lands. A very obscure fact I think. Greetings from Poland.

Thank you very much for this informative video. Well done.

Ok,Thanks rabbi. My mom's parents were from Poland and Ukraine and I was raised Catholic, in an Irish-German parrish. I always felt since being a child, this strong attraction to Judaism as a philosophy. But growing up there were no Jewish kids in my neighborhood so I didn't get to interact with Jews my own age, just older "authority figure" jewish people, e.i, our pediatrician, my dad's business associate, and the "bubbie" down the block. That was until we moved and I changed high schools. There I finally met my people! At 16, I met people who who looked like me, talked like me and held the same values. Mostly jewish students of Polish and Russian heritage. Well, there were German Jews too but that's another story. It came to no surprise to my dad when I told him I was only interested in going out with Jewish women and having Jewish friends. My mom's reaction, well that was another story too. I think she embraced the church because here parents, for all practical purposes, were atheists. But I also feel my ancestry somehow inclined me to my jewish-phile. I converted a year after my marriage, had my bar-mitzvah when my oldest daughter had her bat-m. Our family is crazy in love with our faith and yiddishkeit. And my mom, she got used to the idea and loved her grandchildren.

The fact that zero words or terms from the Khazar language were incorporated in "Yiddish" that is, the lingua franca of Eastern European Jews, completely disproves the antisemitic canard that they come from gentile Khazars. Exactly as Dr. Abramson stated, Eastern European Jews came from Germany, Yiddish is German. Here is a quote from the world renown linguist (of Slavic and Turkic languages), Prof. Victor Friedman, U of C. “I agree wholeheartedly that Yiddish-speaking Jews in East Europe came from Germanic territory, just as surely as Ladino-speaking Jews came to the Balkans from Spain in 1492… However, it is absolutely true that we know that Khazar was a Turkic language belonging to the l/r-branch (like Hunnic, Bulgar, and Avar, but unlike all the living Turkic languages [which belong to the s/z branch] except Chuvash, cf. Chuvash təxər = Turkish dokuz ‘nine’) and indeed there is not a trace of Khazar in Yiddish that any serious linguist has identified."

Thank you, I enjoyed your history. It's good to know about other cultures.

Many thanks for such rich lecture. The coinage is very interesting for me, with Hebrew letters all over. My suggestion is that you develop it further by mentioning, if possible, its metal content and geographical circulation. Possibly, if such money was only for trade among Jewish communities. For example, the golden florin lasted of 300 years and most of its 3.5 grams. Looking forward for your clear explanations. Mazeltov. 👏🏽

Great history details 👌 👏 👍 🙌 😀...thank you so much...!!!

Very informative presentation. Thank you.

Another informative and engaging lecture. How much of this material is covered in tour dissertation and other publications ?

I have for a long time enjoyed your teachings. Was wondering do you have a top ten of your jokes video?

Very interesting! Thank you!

Hi Dr Abramson, I'm not Jewish but am fascinated by your lectures. I'm from Northern Ireland, would it be possible to do a lecture on Jewish culture /Judaism in Ireland? I know we don't have much of a Jewish community, but there must be some history there

Do you have a video on the topic of R' Shaul Wahl of the Katzenelenbogen family, the legendary King of Poland for a day? I'm not sure of the scale of events you're discussing in this lecture merits his mention, but I'm hoping you discuss the story somewhere.

Fantastic lecture profesor!

Excellent history lesson!!!!! As an Am with roots in all three main “Polish” cultures: Polish/German/Jewish, it always bothers me that, unlike in “melting pot” Am, these three amazing cultures are very vehemently and decidedly distinct in Poland. This is very advantageous to maintaining originally authentic “cultural attributes/markers”, but also creates many misunderstandings and resentments because there is always a persisting degree/atmosphere/undertone of “mutual non-empathy”. Ergo, we cannot remotely-to-fully understand others unless we genuinely imagine “walking in their moccasins”. Cultures/nations shouldn’t play the “Win/Lose game” with each other, but hopefully mainly respect each other where possible. 🙏🏻

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I love the Jewish people, they have been a great blessing to the world and mankind. I love and support Israel. Shalom

Very good. I am a retired professor of sociology, and very familiar with Jewish migration. Thank you. Susan Stein Mills

I really love Poland ❤ super interesting country. Beautiful culture. And for the ignorants among us Jews, they saved the most Jews during ww2 and gave us a shelter after the pogrom of the black plague.

I'm Polish. I recently found out that I have Jewish ancestry.

Hello, I'm doing family genealogical research. Is there a link for the maps in this clip? Was Bessarabia part of the Ukraine in the mid-late 1800's? I'm also trying to reconcile family origins from both Belarus and Warsaw. Was there movement between these places?

Very informative.

Our family migrated from Spain and France into Holland and then Poland-at least that’s the family story on my mom’s side.

subscribed, thumb up... very good history overview.

Knowledge is the faith i live by.

Very interesting/informative. Thank you for taking time to educate, sir. I'm sorry you were being disrespected in chat😔 Class isn't what it used to be, sadly.

An interesting question which I am eager to learn more about, but the author's story essentially begins rather abruptly in the tenth century Rheinland, with a dash of the Byzantines and Kahzars. Shouldn't we start in the first century and the Levant and go from there?

Dr. Abramson, thank you for another wonderful lecture. I appreciate your cheezy jokes. I can't believe that you have already done 87 of these lectures!

....I studied this for years, years ago....I was amazed...Then my ant told me, my grand parents spoke Polish and Yiddish...My mom said they were Galiziana....Today that's western Ukraine... My father's side came from Hungary and Slovakia...This area was the Austrian Hungarian empire, at one time as well... The more I study this, the more I want to learn.....The council of four lands was interesting to learn of, in the Poland Lithuanian Empire.... I was saddened to learn, when it ended... Thanks for sharing....

Thank you I love my Jewish roots you are making it fun and understanding for me thank you

What does the rest of the coin's inscription read?

Great Job 🤗 easy to understand !!!

Thank you very much for this video, subscribed! Even as a Gentile I find Jewish history fascinating!

Very interesting stuff!

Why no mention of the Sephardic Jewry in Poland?

Hello Rabbi, I loved the explanation, I practice messianism and we are with joy studying the Torah and the origins of the wonderful Jewish people ... thank you

Shalom from Tokyo thank you very much for video, dziękuję bardzo I pozdrawiam serdecznie,

Thank you Henry or the video

In the light of developments at present, I find this lecture very instructive and enlightening as to why there are so many Jews in Ukraine (and also other eastern European countries). Thank you

Thank you Professor and also all the best to you! Stay inquisitive and keep fit - and concerning the calories: may your diet be as well balanced as your lectures😀

Great lectures

Were coins minted w yiddish letters also to make counter fitting more difficult?

Thanks for an interesting lesson

Shalom from Be'er Sheva Israel! I have enjoyed your videos for years. I have noticed that you have covered the length and breadth of the Jewish World from the Ashkenazi Jews to the Sephardic Jews even to the Ethiopian Jews. As a Yemenite Jew as far as I can see you haven't yet covered the history of the Yemenite Jews except in passing with the history of the Jews of Arabia. I would love it if you can make a video on the history of the Yemenite Jews I would really appreciate it. As an aside we Yemenite Jews do not consider ourselves to be Sepharadi nor Mizrahi. The early Yemenite Jewish settlers in Israel in the late 19th century fought and won the right to have their own Beit Din after initialy being forced to accept the authority of the Sepharadi Beit Din. Our Hebrew pronunciation is uninteligible to Sepharadim and our Baladi Nusach is seperate and distinct. Though we have a Shami Sepharadi influenced nusach accepted largely because of the lack of a printing press in Yemen and the destruction by the Muslims of our handwritten Siddurim and Sefarim in the 17th century.

Thank you that was interesting ✌🏻.

This is super interesting

Gracias...

I love the lectures, thank you very much.

Enjoyed so far and looking forward for next installment.

Thank you!

I'm really proud of the good elements of Polish - Jewish affairs. I am Polish just to clarify.

I love you Henry. Amazing insightful lectures. Please do kindly keep them up. I hope we can meet someday.

Wonderful, sir, and I shall watch more. French-Catholic family (my mother's side) from San Francisco are of Jewish ancestry, I find out after mother passes in 2016. She was w/USSS 22 yrs and, I see, could keep a secret. Her ancestors from Pau, of the "Segals" (iterated to Segalas), in an area once "the land of the Segals" I saw in a documentary years ago. Had reason to study since 15. The abuses in that Catholic School in Japan (I was the only nonreligious child) would lead me to study the Bible (5X) & Quran (3X). Had no intent to write books, and I don't sell them anymore since the Publ Co closed. I don't see how there shall ever be an end to the anti-Jew, racism, holy wars, oppressions until the meaning of the 1st Law of Moses is taught, along with what the Jew, Gentile, Circumcision (of the heart) & "dead letter" means. It's all there in Scripture, but remains silenced. I was raised in Yokohama for over 5 years, leaving in 1969. Father was #2 Seniority Pilot with JAL until he retired. Wasn't till moving back to The States that I started hearing this vile blaming of "The Jews." Why? Our dearest friends in Japan (and after we returned the US) were Jewish. My folks also had wonderful Catholic & Protestant friends. They didn't hate our family because we were nonreligious. We all know that Life is about your Good Character. The rest is hoopla if it's not serving Law #1 and actually building the Wisdom & Integrity of Character that keeps the holy land holy. The land is only as holy as the character of those upon it. Thank you, kindly. Love, from Reno NV.

Thanks. Bobbi (from TCS... ) I'm curious on how Mtn Jews/Mizrachi Persian on MyHeritage classifications mixed into so many "Eastern European Jewish" families. It's a constant strain in some femilies genetically who ended up in Plunge Lithuania as well as Belarus. We've been trying to track it down but beyond possibly Georgian Jewish areas, no one in the related families can track down the demographics of where and when they would have migrated into European Jewish families connected to various Rebbes. I know the Silk Road families had many connections to some Persian families. When you get around to it, it would be interesting. If you have, please point me in that direction. Thanks, love your lectures. Be well and have a good year.

Exciting! What was the role of jews after the 11. century between "germany" and poland means east from Elbe to Wisla and in the "Lübsches Recht" in the baltic sea? I want to write about that subjects. Thanks Rabbi. (I m thin thou eating a lot) 😃

Thank you Henry Thank you for your enlightening videos. I have been very surprised to learn that jews from Poland came from western Europe. So the missing link is how did they get there after the destruction of the second temple ? Thank you

Which Mieszko you are talking about. The most famous one was a prince and not a king. He ruled in the 10th century?

Thank you rabbi. Having "Groseltren" who were born in Obertyn Galicia with an Austrian last name, this enlightenment is appreciated...

Always wondered how Israelites migrated to Europe. Thanks for the infor , just love history. 🇵🇬🇵🇬🇵🇬🇵🇬🇵🇬🇵🇬👍👍👍

Greetings from Puerto Rico.Great lecture.

Fascinating history. Khazar history is mysterious.

I didn't notice any mention of the mysterious, ancient, pre-Ashkenazic Jewish language known as Judeo-Slavic or Knaanic/Cnaanic that was spoken by Jews in Eastern Europe before the huge Ashkenazic tide. Perhaps speakers of that language were the same ones who had migrated to Eastern Europe directly from the Byzantine Empire and/or Khazaria!

I miss your jokes. I find it amazing that “Poland” goes from being the largest nation in Europe to disappearing into its neighbors. A wonderful lecture. Thank you.

3:00= That's "Pale of settlement"

Thank you.

11:52 Little oral typo: Jewish Karczma (karchma not krechma) 😀 Greetings from Poland!

Awesome history.

Hello I am looking for a link that would indicate the Jewish population of Poland between the 1100's and 1300's

My real last name is Pollack, but my father’s family was from Lithuania, so I look forward to hearing this. My late father always said his father’s side’s lineage goes back to the exile from Spain during the Inquisition.

Thanks!

My mother's side of the family from Poland and Czechoslovakia that fought in the Resistance against the Nazis.

Love listening to your talk's professor. Could you tell me if dna shows up Jewish ancestors if you have eastern European ,Belarus etc.dna I would love to know.

Excellent lecture!