City now in Belarus; also known in Polish and Russian as Grodno and in Yiddish as Horodno or Grodne. Grodno’s Jewish community, one of the oldest in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, existed as early as the fourteenth century. Its privilege, allegedly obtained in 1389 from Grand Duke Vytautas, was, however, a forgery dating from the early sixteenth century. The first Jews settled mainly in the western part of the town, near the Old Castle; ultimately their quarter expanded eastward and they also settled in districts owned by noblemen, outside municipal jurisdiction. By 1560, an estimated 1,000 Jews lived in Grodno, and by 1765 this population had expanded to 2,418.
