A Reexamination of How Ashkenazi Jews got to Eastern Europe

The Jews of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth seem to have come from Bohemia, Moravia and other nearby lands. They did not come in large waves though there were earlier and later arrivals. Most of the early Jewish settlers were involved in small scale trade and they later expanded into trade and tavern keeping/arenda. Up until 1500 the communities were very small and the total Jewish population was apparently much less than 10,000. After this date, communities grew, cultural life advanced and the Jewish populations in the various regions split off from each other.