Jews and Mennonites Together in Danzig's Suburbs

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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