first-guild

Updated: June 22, 2025

First-guild merchants, physicians, lawyers, artisans were admitted into the interior for the sole purpose of developing business in those places and filling the palpable shortage in artisans and professional men.

Simon Dubnow - History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II: From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander: III. (1825-1894)

But the Council of State found that, circumscribed in this manner, the privilege would benefit only a negligible fraction of the Jewish merchant class there were altogether one hundred and eight Jewish first-guild merchants within the Pale and, therefore, considered it necessary to reduce the requirements for settling in the interior.

Simon Dubnow - History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II: From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander: III. (1825-1894)