Pale of Settlement

The Pale of Settlement (Russian: Черта́ осе́длости, chertá osédlosti, Yiddish: דער תּחום-המושבֿ‎, der tkhum-ha-moyshəv, Hebrew: תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב‎‎, tẖum hammosháv) was a western region of Imperial Russia with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited. However, Jews were excluded from residency in a number of cities within the Pale, and a limited number of categories of Jews—those ennobled, with university educations or at university, members of the most affluent of the merchant guilds and particular artisans, some military personnel and some services associated with them, as well as the families, and sometimes the servants of these—were allowed to live outside it. The archaic English term pale is derived from the Latin word , a stake, extended to mean the area enclosed by a fence or boundary.

The Pale of Settlement included much of present-day Latvia and Lithuania (Baltic states); Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Poland (East-Central Europe); and parts of western Russia. It extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and with Austria-Hungary. Furthermore, it comprised about 20% of the territory of European Russia and largely corresponded to historical borders of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Crimean Khanate.

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