This valuable book edited by a leading Israeli scholar who left Poland in 1968 has three parts: an extensive introduction, 63 privileges granted to Jewish communities in the Polish Commonwealth in the 16th to 18th centuries and three indexes. The introduction, in turn, is divided into short remarks on the evolution of the work and the language of the documents and the sources (pp. vii-xxvi), and a comprehensive introduction (pp. 1- 52). In the introduction the author competently defines the character of the privileges granted to the Jews in old Poland, analyses the 1264 privilege of Bolesław the Pious and the general privileges granted by the Polish kings to the Jewish populace, the special rights accorded to specific groups of the Jewish community and individual Jews, and finally in great detail the privileges of the Jewish communities.

The second and most important part of the work is the alphabetical index by town of the privileges of the Jewish communities. The charters were published mainly in Polish and Latin, and in one case (the privileges for the Jewish community in Lwów) in German. One of the documents - the privilege for the Jews of Wilkowysza - was published in Polish, but with the help of two alphabets: Hebrew and Polish. In all, Goldberg has published 63 privileges granted to 61 Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, of which there are two each for the Jewish inhabitants of Lwów and Zamość. The author has also included several annexes based on documents which were not technically privileges, but formed valuable additions to them.

The main merit of the work is the publication of the privileges in their entirety. This is where the book differs from other collections of Jewish historical sources in old Poland, including the Diariusz published by the Bersohn family 75 years ago, which is obsolete in an editorial sense and contains many mistakes, and also from the Regesty dokumentow i ekscerpty z Metryki Koronnej (Register of documents and excerpts from the Royal Register) which was published in 1984, where due to the character of the work only extensive extracts of privileges granted to the Jewish communities in the Commonwealth are to be found. Goldberg does not include the latter in his bibliography or footnotes.