In the late 15th century Jews from Poland and Germany began arriving in Ukrainian territories under Lithuanian rule (especially the Kyiv region and Podilia). The council met semiannually (later irregularly), with the site alternating between JarosР•вЂљaw and Lublin, to apportion the responsibility for taxes and decide on matters of concern to the Jewish community. From the mid-16th century to 1763 the central institution of Jewish life in the Polish Kingdom was the Council of the Four Lands (Great Poland, РІР‚В Little Poland,РІР‚в„ў Chervona RusРІР‚в„ў, and Volhynia). In 1495 King Alexander JagielloР•вЂћczyk established autonomous local governments (see Kahal), with jurisdiction over schools, welfare, the lower judiciary, and religious affairs. In return, royal decrees (dating back as early as 1264) allowed the Jews to govern themselves. Protected by the Polish monarchs against hostile nobles and urban dwellers, Jews were directly subordinate to the king, paying a separate tax for which they were collectively responsible. Barred from owning land and from the professions, the majority of Jews were engaged in modest occupations, as artisans and in petty trade.

They were usually poorer than the earliest Jewish immigrants to Ukraine. The central European Jews ( ashkenazim) spoke Yiddish (a German dialect), wore distinctive dress, and lived apart from the local population, either in separate districts or ghettos of cities, or in small, predominantly Jewish, settlements ( shtetl). By 1500, Jews living in Ukrainian lands under Polish rule could be found in 23 towns and constituted one-third of all Jews in the Polish kingdom. The expulsion of the Jews from the states and cities of Western and Central Europe in the 13thРІР‚вЂњ15th centuries led Jews to flee eastward, to Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire. The Mongol conquest of the Crimea and of Kyivan RusРІР‚в„ў strengthened commercial relations, and brought peace and prosperity to the Jewish community up to the time of the Tatar-Lithuanian War (1396РІР‚вЂњ99).

During the Kyiv Uprising in 1113 the Zhydove district was ransacked, and during the rule of Volodymyr Monomakh Jews were expelled from Kyiv. However, as in other parts of Europe, this benevolent treatment was not consistent. Jews were also appointed to administrative and financial posts. The Kyivan princes Iziaslav Mstyslavych and Sviatopolk II Iziaslavych, Prince Danylo Romanovych of Galicia-Volhynia, and the Volhynian prince Volodymyr Vasylkovych were well disposed to their Jewish subjects and assisted their activities in trade and finance. Jews fleeing the Crusaders came to Ukraine as well, and the first western-European Jews began to arrive from Germany, probably in the 11th century. In Kyiv they settled in their own district called Zhydove, the entrance to which was called the Zhydivski vorota (Jewish gate). In Kyivan RusРІР‚в„ў the Jewish population developed a distinct presence. Throughout the 11th and 12th centuries Khazarian Jews steadily migrated northwards. In the aftermath of Khazaria's conquest in 964 by the Kyivan prince Sviatoslav I Ihorovych, Khazarian Jews settled in Kyiv, the Crimea (see Karaites), and Caucasia. The latter empire consisted of Turkic tribes that converted to Judaism in about 740 AD.

From there they migrated to the valleys of the three major rivers-the Volga River, Don River, and Dnipro River-where they maintained active economic and diplomatic relations with Byzantium, Persia, and the Khazar kaganate. Jews first settled on Ukrainian territories in the 4th century BC in the Crimea and among the Greek colonies on the northeast coast of the Black Sea (see Ancient states on the northern Black Sea coast).

Cossacks and jews