A Useful Jew on the Land? Jewish Strategies Towards Government Agricultural Settlement Projects in the Kingdom of Poland (1815–1864)

This article examines Jewish responses to state-sponsored agrarianisation projects in the Kingdom of Poland (1815–1864), a modernising programme intended to “reform” Jews through productivisation by redirecting livelihoods towards farming. Moving the focus from legislation to social practice, it reconstructs a repertoire of strategies, which included selective, instrumental participation in a few cases, but the overwhelming majority of which were non-participatory. Based on archival records and legal-administrative materials, it argues that agrarianisation remained marginal not only because of weak implementation and largely declarative incentives, but also because Jewish actors assessed costs, risks, and the credibility of state commitments and often chose refusal. By foregrounding agency under unequal citizenship, the article shows how outcomes of modernisation by regulation were decisively shaped from below.