There has been very little reflection on the relationship of Jews and Mennonites in the suburb of Schottland (or Alt-Schottland or Stare Szkoty) where Mennonites first settled in the mid-1500s. Here Mennonites and Jews lived in the small community together for two centuries, quite literally on the margins outside the gates of the city of Danzig.
Many historic maps that include Alt Schottland have become
available in recent years (note 1; pic). H.G. Mannhardt’s book on the Danzig
Mennonite church community plus some archival membership lists are our best
sources for the Mennonite experience, while illustrations from the day bring
many of those episodes of prosperity, repressions, war, plague, emigration,
flooding etc. in an urban environment to life (note 2). Peter J. Klassen’s writings
on Mennonites in Poland and Prussia also present newer research on Mennonite
life in and around Danzig in helpful ways (note 3).
There is one small sentence in Klassen’s larger volume that
suggests an angle for further study: “The king’s ordinance also imposed
restrictions and prohibitions on Jews” (note 4). In this connection “The Lehn
Family Diary” notes during the 1709 Danzig plague that "94 Jews from
Schottland were buried here,” and in and around the city of Danzig “it is said
to be 24,533” (note 5).
Some of the literature on Jews around the city identifies
Schottland as one of the “Jewish surburbs” of Danzig. A 1764/65 census records 504
Jews in Alt-Schottland (including Hoppenbruch), and another 230 in Langfuhr,
where Mennonites also lived in larger numbers (note 6; see map pic). In the
comprehensive 1772 census, there are 584 Jews living in Alt-Schottland--which
is higher than the Mennonites with 41 families (notes 7 and 2).
Two descriptive essays of Jewish life in Schottland offer
many and multiple parallels to the Mennonite experience in the same village;
both minority group were barred from citizenship, property ownership, commerce
and worship within the city gates of Danzig (note 8).
Jews in Schottland shared with Mennonite--as immediate
neighbours—plagues and pestilence, war and flooding, the razing of their
houses, and multiple, recurring threats of expulsion. Like Mennonites, Jews had
to pay large sums (including regular bribes and protection money) for the right
to live and do commerce and pursue their trades and religious life adjacent to
but outside the city. Jewish history of Alt-Schottland writes about this as if
it happened exclusively to Jews; Mennonites have largely done the same in our
own storytelling.
Both Jewish and Mennonites in Alt-Schottland were
prosperous, separated communities but living together, with their own places of
worship, their own customs and dress. Both had their own poorhouses /hospices,
and both shared similar strategies for survival on the margins. Both had strong
ties to their respective co-religionists in western Europe and hosted many
guests. By all accounts members of both religious communities in Alt-Schottland
thrived financially—that is, until a war or some strong edict was directed
against them.
The history of both groups would benefit from the attempt to
craft a common story and narrative of life in the suburb of Alt-Schottland.
That has not yet been done, but it appears to be increasingly possible and
necessary especially post-Holocaust.
---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast
---Notes---
Note 1: See previous post (forthcoming).
Note 2: Cf. Hermann G. Mannhardt, Die Danziger
Mennonitengemeinde. Ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569–1919 (Danzig,
1919), https://archive.org/details/diedanzigermenno00mannuoft. There are 41
Mennonite families in Alt-Schottland in the 1772 census, when the areas around
Danzig come under control of Prussia: https://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/prussia/1776MasterV7byVillage.pdf;
see other sources: https://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/prussia/.
Note 3: Peter J. Klassen, A Homeland for Strangers. An
Introduction to Mennonites in Poland and Prussia, rev’d ed. (Fresno, CA: Centre
for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1989), 11-15, https://archive.org/details/ahomeland-for-strangers-an-introduction-to-mennonites-in-poland-and-prussia-revised-ocr;
idem, Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2009), 48-62.
Note 4: Klassen, Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and
Prussia, 58.
Note 5: Waldemar Henry Lehn, editor and translator, “Lehn
Diary,” 2010. From Mennonite Historical Archives, Winnipeg, MB.
Note 6: Judith Kalik, Scepter of Judah: The Jewish Autonomy
in the Eighteenth-century Crown Poland (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 51, https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Scepter_of_Judah/1fGQfpMdp84C?hl.
Note 7: Zenon Nowak, “A Brief History of the Jews in Royal
Prussia,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 7: Jewish Life in
Nazi-Occupied Warsaw, edited by Antony Polonsky, 3-11 (Oxford: Littman Library
of Jewish Civilization, 2008), 8, https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Polin_Studies_in_Polish_Jewry_Volume_7/Hm1vEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=szkoty&pg=PA8&printsec=frontcover.
Note 8: See especially Slawomir Koscielak, "The Issue of Synagoge at Stare Szkoty near Gdansk of the year 1701: Situation of the Jews in Royal Prussia before the arrival of the Evangelical Missionaries from Halle," Jewish History Quarterly 44, no. 4 (2006), 586-591, https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/1040939/101/; AND Samuel Echt, Die Geschichte der Juden in Danzig (Leer/Ostfriesland: Rautenberg, 1972), 16-34, https://archive.org/details/diegeschichteder0000echt/page/16/mode/2up. Also: Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/danzig-gda-324-sk-poland-jewish-history-tour.
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