poritz

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Yiddish פּריץ (porets, “landowner”), from Hebrew פׇּרִיץ (pārīṣ, “bandit”). Compare Polish puryc.

Noun

poritz (plural pritzim)

1. (derogatory, historical) A wealthy landowner who controls a shtetl.
   • 1909, Israel Zangwill, Ghetto Comedies, page 336:

     The Pritzim in their great houses, and the peasants behind their great palings, alike sulked under the burden of debts.

   • 1996, Macy Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, page 234:

     Because the Jew was often compelled to sing and dance to a fixed Mah Yafit melody at the wild orgies of the paritzim (wealthy Polish landowners), many deliberately discontinued singing Mah Yafit, thus causing the text to be removed from numerous Siddurim and songsters in the early 1900s.

   • 2017, Velvel Pasternak, Behind the Music, Stories, Anecdotes, Articles and Reflections, page 124:

     During the Shpoler Zayde's time, the pritzim ruling the villages in old Russia and Ukraine, used to make sport with their Jewish subjects by dressing them in bearskins and forcing them to dance with a Cossack.