Council of Four Lands

The Council of Four Lands (Hebrew: ועד ארבע ארצות, Va'ad Arba' Aratzot) was the central body of Jewish authority in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from the second half of the 16th century to 1764, located in Lublin.

[1] Seventy delegates from local kehillot met to discuss taxation and other issues important to the Jewish community.

[1]) The great number of the Jewish population of Poland, its importance in the industrial life of the country, and the peculiarities of the political and class organization of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were the reasons why the Jews of Poland formed a separate class enjoying liberal autonomy within the sphere of their communal and spiritual interests, the outcome of which was their exemplary communal organization.

Among other matters considered was the famous dispute between the rabbis Jacob Emden and Jonathan Eybeschutz over the Shabbethaian movement, resulting in the latter's acquittal on the charge of heresy in 1753.

I imbibed their words thirstily..."[9] In 1764 the Polish Diet ordered the discontinuation of Jewish general congresses (Vol.

The subsequent partition of Poland among Russia, Austria, and Prussia, changing, as it did, the whole Kahal system, was unfavorable to the existence of such central autonomous bodies as the Council.