The Commandment of Buying out Jewish Captives in 17th Century Poland

In 17th-century Poland, the capture and enslavement of people did not just occur during hostilities alone. The Tartars in particular specialized in such taking of prisoners and the population losses attributed to their incursion were quite high (with the estimates running as high as 10,000 persons a year). For the Jews, the developments in Ukraine during the Khmelnitsky uprising were particularly painful, with many Jews enslaved and deported by the Tartars. Jewish communities collected funds and embarked on efforts to buy out the captives, with the outcome of these efforts largely depending on the involvement of Crimean and Turkish Jews in the slave trade. The buying out of the captives was seen as an act of a broader spiritual dimension. Money to be used to this end was called in the whole diaspora, both in Ashkenazi and Sephardic communes. This Jewish solidarity was often emphasized by authors of anti-Jewish works. The buyout also applied to Jews who got imprisoned by their noblemen lenders. The problem of serfdom for debts also hit the families of the debtors and was the result of entries in lease contract regarding the creditor's right to imprison the debtor and his wife and children. Such provisions were common practice, despite being forbidden by Jewish assemblies. The buyout of the prisoners met with ambivalent assessments: on the one hand, the victims lost their liberty due to their own actions, but on the other they were fellow faithful, who were exposed to various dangers, and as such they should be helped.