Item Description:

The Council of Four Lands or as it was known in Hebrew as the ? Va'ad Arba' Aratzot was formed in Lublin, Poland and was the central body of Jewish authority in Poland from the second half of the 16th century to 1764. Seventy delegates from local kehillot met to discuss taxation and other issues important to the Jewish community. The "four lands" were Greater Poland, Little Poland, Galicia (with Podolia) and Volhynia. This council was appointed by the government of Polish as a means of letting the Jews deal with issues that had to do with their community. This council had to contend with many important changes to the Jewish world at the time. Learning about this council and the street for which it was named will open a window into the life of the Polish Jew of the time and the changes from within and without that would affect the Jewish world then and, in some ways, still reverberate until today.