THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 HISTORY OF THE JEWS 
 IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES 
 UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY
 
 mSTORY OF THE JEWS 
 IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES 
 UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY 
 
 S. M. DUBNOW 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN 
 BY 
 
 I. FRIEDLAENDER 
 VOLUME I 
 
 FROM THE BEGINNING UNTIL THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I 
 
 (1825) 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 The Jewish Publication Society of America 
 
 1916
 
 ^■1 
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 The Jewish Publication Society or America
 
 TBANSLATOE'S PEEFACE 
 
 Jt is not my intention to expatiate in these prefatory 
 remarks on the present work and its author. A history of the 
 Jews in Eussia and Poland from the pen of S. M. Dubnow 
 needs neither justification nor recommendation. The want of 
 a work of this kind has long been keenly felt by those interested 
 in Jewdsh life or Jewish letters, never more keenly than to-day 
 when the flare of the world conflagration has thrown into 
 ghastly relief the tragic plight of the largest Jewry of the 
 Diaspora. As for the author, his power of grasping and pre- 
 senting the broad aspects of general Jewish history and his 
 lifelong, painstaking labors in the particular field of Eussian- 
 .lewish histor}' fit him in singular measure to cope with the 
 task to which this work is dedicated. 
 
 In what follows I merely wish to render account of the 
 English translation and of the form of the original which it 
 has endeavored to reproduce. 
 
 The translation is based upon a work in Eussian which was 
 especially prepared by Mr. Dubnow for The Jewish Publica- 
 tion Society of America. Those acquainted with modern 
 Jewish literature in the Eussian language know that the 
 author of our book has treated the same subject in his general 
 history of the Jewish people, in three volumes, and in a num- 
 ber of special studies published by him in the periodical 
 Yevreyskaya Starina ("Jewish Antiquity"). Upon this
 
 4 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 material Mr. Dubnow has freely drawn for the present work, 
 after subjecting it to a careful revision, and so supplementing 
 and co-ordinating it that to all intents and purposes the book 
 issued herewith is a new and independent publication. More- 
 over, the history of Eussian Jewry after 1881, comprising the 
 gruesome era of pogroms and expulsions, has been written by 
 Mr. Dubnow entirely anew, and will appear for the first time 
 as part of this work. The present publication may thus 
 properly claim to give the first comprehensive and systematic 
 account of the history of Eusso-Polish Jewry. 
 
 The work is divided into two volumes. The first volume, 
 now offered to the public, contains the history of the Jews of 
 Eussia and Poland from its beginnings until the death of 
 Alexander I., in 1825. The second volume will continue the 
 historic narrative up to the very threshold of the present. The 
 book was originally scheduled to appear at a later date. The 
 great events of our time, which have made the question of 
 Eussian Jewry a part of the world problem, suggested the 
 importance of earlier publication. In order that there might 
 be as little delay as possible in giving the book to the public, 
 the maps and the bibliographical apparatus were reserved for 
 the second volume. The same volume, which, it is hoped, will 
 appear in the course of this year, will contain also the index 
 to the whole work. 
 
 My task as translator has been considerably facilitated by 
 the self-abnegation of the author, who gave me permission to 
 act as editor and to adapt the original to the requirements of 
 an English version. I have made frequent use of the privilege 
 accorded to me, and have endeavored throughout to bridge the 
 wide gap which stretches between the Eussian and American 
 reading public in matters of literary taste. This editorial 
 activity includes a number of changes in the framework of the
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 5 
 
 book, which was originally divided into sections of dispropor- 
 tionate length, and has now been arranged in a more uniform 
 manner. In the course of this rearrangement, it became 
 necessar}' to change the wording of some of the headings so as 
 to bring them into greater conformity with English literary 
 usage. It should be pointed out, however, that the changes 
 made are of a stylistic nature, or relate only to the skeleton 
 of the book. With the exception of a few passages, they leave 
 the contents untouched, and the responsibility for the latter 
 rests entirely with the author. 
 
 As translator I had resolved to keep myself in the back- 
 ground and act solely as the interpreter of the author. Much 
 to my regret I found myself unable to maintain this attitude 
 uniformly. The text was already in type when it was borne 
 in upon me that the subject of the book, dealing as it does 
 with the lands of Eastern Europe, was a terra incognita to the 
 average American reader, and that many things in it must 
 perforce be wholly or partly unintelligible to him if left with- 
 out an explanation. There was nothing for me to do but to 
 step into the breach and supply the deficiency. I did so by 
 adding a number of footnotes, which, in distinction from those 
 of the author, are placed in brackets. With very few excep- 
 tions these notes are not of a supplementary, but of an explana- 
 tory, nature. They are confined to such information as the 
 reader may need to grasp the full bearing of the text. I trust 
 that in some small measure these detached notes may serve 
 instead of a systematic account of the general development of 
 Eastern Europe, which, it was originally hoped, might be sup- 
 plied by the authoritative pen of ]\Ir. Dubnow himself, as a 
 background for the history of Russo-Polish Jewry. An attempt 
 in this direction, within a narrow compass and with no pretense
 
 6 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 to completeness, has been undertaken by the present writer in 
 a recent publication of his own/ 
 
 A word must be said concerning the spelling of foreign 
 names and terms, which are naturally numerous in a work 
 like the present. After considerable deliberation I decided 
 on the phonetic method, as being the most convenient from 
 the point of view of the reader. I have consequently endeav- 
 ored to reproduce, as far as possible, the original sounds of all 
 foreign words in English characters. In conformity with this 
 principle, I have adopted the spelling Tzar, instead of Czar. 
 As far as I am aware, the only exception is the Russian word 
 ukase, which reflects in its spelling the effect of French trans- 
 mission, and is to be pronounced ookaz, with the accent on the 
 last syllable. Needless to say I have had to resort to artificial 
 contrivances to indicate those sounds which are unknown in 
 English, but I have reduced these contrivances to a minimum. 
 They are as follows: zh represents the Slavic sound which 
 corresponds to French ;'; Ich stands for the sound which is 
 to be pronounced like hard German ch (as in lachen, not as 
 in hrechen) ; tz is the equivalent of a Slavic letter which is to 
 
 ^ " The Jews of Russia and Poland. A Bird's-Eye View of Their 
 History and Culture" (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1915). To avoid any 
 misconception on the part of the reader, I desire to point out that 
 the aim and scope of my little volume are totally different from 
 those of Mr. Dubnow's work. As indicated in the title of my 
 sketch, and as stated in the preface to it, my purpose was none 
 other than to present a " bird's-eye view " of the subject, to point 
 cut the large bearings of the problem, with no intention on my 
 part " to offer new and independent results of investigation." 
 The publication is based on a course of lectures delivered by me 
 before the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in 
 Philadelphia in March, 1915. My natural reluctance to anticipate 
 Mr. Dubnow's large work was overcome by the encouragement 
 of several friends, among them Mr. Dubnow himself, who, from 
 their knowledge of public affairs, thought that a succinct, popular 
 presentation of the destinies of the Jews in the Eastern war area 
 was a word in due season.
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 7 
 
 be pronounced like German z. To avoid mispronunciation, 
 ^ in all foreign words has been spelled gh before e and i. U in 
 these words is to be pronounced like oo, and a like French and 
 short German a. With every desire for uniformity, I have 
 yet little doubt that inconsistencies will be foimd, particularly 
 in the transliteration of Hebrew, which, as a Semitic idiom, 
 is more difficult of phonetic reproduction than are even the 
 Slavic languages. I hope that these inconsistencies are not 
 numerous enough to be offensive. 
 
 The method of transliteration referred to in the foregoing 
 presents a special difficulty in the case of Polish names, in 
 view of the fact that the Polish language uses the general 
 European alphabet, and that the Polish spelling of such names 
 has found access to other languages. In some instances even 
 the question of identity may arise. Thus, to quote but one 
 example out of many, the name ChmielnicTci, written in this 
 form in Polish, differs considerably from the phonetic spelling 
 Khmelnitzki, adopted in this volume. To meet this difficulty, 
 the index to this work will give all Polish names and expres- 
 sions both in their transliterated English forms and in their 
 original Polish spelling. 
 
 In conclusion, it is my pleasant dutj^ to record my appre- 
 ciation of the help rendered me in my task. I am indebted 
 to the Honorable Mayer Sulzberger for his great kindness in 
 reading the proofs of this volume and in giving me the benefit 
 of his subtle literar}' judgment. Professor Alexander Marx 
 has assisted me by reading the proofs and making a number 
 of suggestions. My thanks are finally due to Miss Henrietta 
 Szold for her indefatigable and most valuable co-operation. 
 
 I. F. 
 
 New Yobk, May 19, 1916.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I. The Jewish Diaspora in Eastern Europe 
 
 1. The Jewish Settlements on the Shores of the 
 
 Black Sea 13 
 
 2. The Kingdom of the Khazars 19 
 
 3. The Jews in the Early Russian Principalities 
 
 and in the Tataric Khanate of the Crimea. . . 29 
 
 II. The Jewish Colonies in Poland and Lithuania 
 
 1. The Immigration from Western Europe during 
 
 the Period of the Crusades 39 
 
 2. The Charter of Prince Boleslav and the Canons 
 
 of the Church 43 
 
 3. Rise of Polish Jewry under Casimir the Great. . . 50 
 
 4. Polish Jewry during the Reign of Yaghello 54 
 
 5. The Jews of Lithuania during the Reign of 
 
 Vitovt •. 58 
 
 6. The Conflict between Royalty and Clergy under 
 
 Casimir IV. and His Sons 61 
 
 III. The Autonomous Center in Poland at Its Zenith 
 
 (1501-1648) 
 
 1. Social and Economic Conditions 66 
 
 2. The Liberal Regime of Sigismund 1 70 
 
 3. Liberalism and Reaction in the Reigns of Sigis- 
 
 mund Augustus and Stephen Batory 83 
 
 4. Shlakhta and Royalty in the Reigns of Sigis- 
 
 mund III. and Vladislav IV 91 
 
 IV. The Inner Life of Polish Jewry at Its Zenith 
 
 1. Kahal Autonomy and the Jewish Diets 103 
 
 2. The Instruction of the Young 114 
 
 3. The High-Water Mark of Rabbinic Learning 121 
 
 4. Secular Sciences, Philosophy, Cabala, and Apolo- 
 
 getics 131
 
 10 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 V. The Autonomous Center in Poland dubinq Its De- 
 cline (1648-1772) 
 
 1. Economic and National Antagonism in the 
 
 Ukraina 139 
 
 2. The Pogroms and Massacres of 1648-1649 144 
 
 3. The Russian and Swedish Invasions (1654-1658) . 153 
 
 4. The Restoration (1658-1697) 158 
 
 5. Social and Political Dissolution 167 
 
 6. A Frenzy of Blood Accusations 172 
 
 7. The Massacre of Uman and the First Partition of 
 
 Poland 180 
 
 VI. The Inner Life of Polish Jewry during the Period 
 OF Decline 
 
 1. Jewish Self-Government 188 
 
 2. Rabbinical and Mystical Literature 198 
 
 3. The Sabbatian Movement 204 
 
 4. The Frankist Sect 211 
 
 5. The Rise of Hasidism and Israel Baal-Shem-Tob. 220 
 
 6. The Hasidic Propaganda and the Growth of Tzad- 
 
 dikism 229 
 
 7. Rabbinism, Hasidism, and the Forerunners of 
 
 Enlightenment 235 
 
 VII. The Russian Quarantine against Jews (till 1772) 
 
 1. The Anti-Jewish Attitude of Muscovy during the 
 
 Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 242 
 
 2. The Jews under Peter I. and His Successors 246 
 
 3. Elizabeth Petrovna and the First Years of 
 
 Catherine II 254 
 
 VIII. Polish Jewry during the Period of the Partitions 
 
 1. The Jews of Poland after the First Partition 262 
 
 2. The Period of the Quadrennial Diet (1788-1791) . 278 
 
 3. The Last Two Partitions and Berek Yoselovich . . 291 
 
 4. The Duchy of Warsaw and the Reaction under 
 
 Napoleon ^98
 
 CONTENTS 11 
 
 OHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 IX. The Beginnings of the Russian Regime 
 
 1. The Jewish Policy of Catherine II. (1772-1796; . . 306 
 
 2. Jewish Legislative Schemes during the Reign of 
 
 Paul 1 321 
 
 3. Dyerzhavin's " Opinion " on the Jewish Problem. 328 
 
 X. The "Enlightened Absolutism" of Alexander 1. 
 
 1. " The Committee for the Amelioration of the 
 
 Jews " 335 
 
 2. The " Jewish Constitution " of 1804 342 
 
 3. The Projected Expulsion from the Villages 345 
 
 4. The Patriotic Attitude of Russian Jewry during 
 
 the War of 1812 355 
 
 5. Economic and Agricultural Experiments 359 
 
 XI. The Inneb Life of Russian Jewry during the Period 
 OF " Enlightened Absolutism " 
 
 1. Kahal Autonomy and City Government 366 
 
 2. The Hasidic Schism and the Intervention of the 
 
 Government 371 
 
 3. Rabbinism, Hasidism, and Enlightened " Berlin- 
 
 erdom " 379 
 
 XII. The Last Years of Alexander I. 
 
 1. " The Deputation of the Jewish People " 390 
 
 2. Christianizing Endeavors 396 
 
 3. " Judaizing " Sects in Russia 401 
 
 4. Recrudescence of Anti-Jewish Legislation 403 
 
 5. The Russian Revolutionaries and the Jews 409
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE JEWISH DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 
 
 1. The Jewish Settle3iients ox the Shores of the 
 Black Sea 
 
 From the point of view of antiquity the Jewish Diaspora in 
 the east of Europe is the equal of that in the west, though 
 vastly its inferior in geographic expansion and spiritual devel- 
 opment. It is even possible that the settlement of Jews in 
 the east of Europe antedates their settlement in the west. For 
 Eastern Europe, beginning with Alexander the Great, received 
 its immigrants from the ancient lands of Hellenized Asia, 
 while the immigration into Western Europe proceeded in the 
 main from the Roman Empire, the heir to the Hellenic 
 dominion of the East. 
 
 Among the ancient Jewish settlements in Eastern Europe 
 the colonies situated on the northern shores of the Black Sea, 
 now forming a part of the Russian Empire, occupy a prominent 
 place. 
 
 Far back in antiquity the Greeks of Asia Minor and the 
 Ionian Islands gravitated towards the northern shores of the 
 Pontus Euxinus, the fertile lands of Tauris — ^the present 
 Crimea.^ Beginning with the sixth century b. c. e., they estab- 
 
 [' Later on the author differentiates between Tauris and the 
 Crimea, using the former term to designate the northern coast of 
 the Black Sea in general, with the Crimea as a part of it. The 
 modern Russian Government of Tavrida is similarly made up of 
 two sections: the larger northern part consists of the mainland, 
 the smaller southern part is identical with the Crimean Peninsula, 
 connected with the mainland by the Isthmus of Perekop. In 
 antiquity the name Tauri, or Taurians, was restricted to the 
 inhabitants of the mountainous south coast of the Crimea.]
 
 14 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 lished their colonies in those parts, whence they exported corn 
 to their homeland, Greece. When, after the conquests of Alex- 
 ander the Great, Judea became a part of the Hellenistic Orient, 
 and sent forth the " great Diaspora " into all the dominions of 
 the Seleucids and Ptolemies, one of the branches of this Dias- 
 pora must have reached as far as distant Tauris. Following in 
 the wake of the Greeks, the Jews wandered thither from Asia 
 Minor, that conglomerate of countries and cities — Cilicia, 
 Galatia, Miletus, Ephesus, Sardis, Tarsus — which harbored, 
 at the beginning of the Christian era, important Jewish com- 
 munities, the earliest nurseries of Christianity. In the first 
 century of the Christian era, which marks the consolidation of 
 the Eoman power over the Hellenized East, we meet in the 
 Greek colonies of Tauris with fully organized Jewish communi- 
 ties, which undoubtedly represent offshoots of a much older 
 colonization. 
 
 During the same period there flourished in the Crimea and 
 on the adjacent shores of the Black and Azov Seas, called by 
 the Greeks Pontus and Maeotis, in the lands of the Scythians, 
 Sarmatians, and Taurians, a number of diminutive Greek city- 
 republics — Cimmerian Bosporus, or Panticapaeum (at present 
 Kerch), Phanagoria (the Taman Peninsula), Olbia, Gorgippia 
 (now Anapa), and others. The most active of these colonies 
 was Bosporus-Panticapaeum, which was situated at the con- 
 fluence of the Black and Azov Seas. The kings, or archonts, 
 of Bosporus, of the Greek dynasty of the Ehescuporides, ac- 
 knowledged the sovereignty of Rome. They styled themselves, 
 in accordance with the customary formula, " friends of the 
 Caesars and the Romans," and frequently added to their title 
 the Roman dynastic appellation " Tiberius-Julius." The 
 Jewish historian Josephus Flavins, in depicting the irresistible
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 15 
 
 sway of the Roman world-power in his time, refers to this 
 colony in the following terms : '' Why need I speak of the 
 Heniochi and Colchians and the nation of the Tauri, and those 
 who inhabit the Bosporus and the nations about Pontus and 
 Maeotis .... who are now subject to three thousand armed 
 men, and where forty long ships keep in peace the sea which 
 before was unnavigable, and is very tempestuous?'' (Bell. 
 Jud. II. xvi. 4.) These words were written shortly after the 
 downfall of Judea, about the year 80 of the Christian era. 
 
 Now from practically the same year (80-81) date the Greek 
 inscriptions which were discovered on the soil of ancient Bos- 
 porus in Tauris, testifying to the existence there of a well- 
 organized Jewish community, with a house of prayer. The 
 following is the text of one of these inscriptions, engraved on a 
 marble tablet which is kept in the Hermitage of Petrograd : 
 
 In the reign of King Tiberius Julius Rhescuporides, the pious 
 friend of the Caesars and the Romans, in the year 377/ on the 
 twelfth day of the month of Peritios, I, Chresta, formerly the wife 
 of Drusus, declare in the house of prayer (Trpotrei-xi?) that my foster- 
 son Heracles is free once [for all], in accordance with my vow, so 
 that he may not be captured or annoyed by my heirs, and may move 
 about wherever he chooses, without let or hindrance, except for [the 
 obligation of visiting] the house of prayer for worship and constant 
 attendance. [Done] with the approval of my heirs Iphicleides 
 and Heliconias, and with the participation of the Synagogue of the 
 Jews in the guardianship {ffweirirpoirevoviTrjs Se »cot rijs ffvvayoy^s tuv 
 loi'Satwc) . 
 
 This inscription, paralleled by a similar document of the 
 same period, was evidently meant to certify the act of liber- 
 ating a slave, which, according to custom, was performed 
 
 ' The date is that of the " Bosporan era," and corresponds to the 
 year 80-Sl of the common era. 
 2
 
 16 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 publicly, in the " house of prayer," with the participation of 
 the representatives of the Jewish community/ 
 
 The contents of the inscriptions enable us to draw the fol- 
 lowing conclusions bearing on the history of the Jews during 
 that period : 
 
 1. The Jewish community in Taurian Bosporus was made up 
 of Hellenized Jews, who employed the Greek language in their 
 religious and civil documents, and called themselves by Greek 
 names (Chresta, Drusus, Heracles, Artemisia, etc.), 2. While 
 assimilated to the Greeks in point of language, they were firmly 
 united among themselves by the bond of religion, as is shown 
 by the obligation, imposed even on the freedman, the libertinus, 
 to visit the house of prayer for worship. 3. The Jewish community 
 enjoyed a certain amount of civil autonomy, as shown in the case 
 cited above, in which the community appears in the role of a jurid- 
 ical person, acting as the guardian of the liberated slaves. 
 
 It is to be assumed that similar communities of Hellenized 
 Jews were found in the other Greek colonies of Tauris, their 
 population being constantly swelled by the influx of immi- 
 grants from Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, particularly from 
 Judeo-Hellenistic Alexandria. Since these communities of the 
 first Christian century appear to have been well-organized and 
 to have possessed their own institutions, we are safe in assuming 
 that they were preceded by a more primitive phase of com- 
 munal Jewish life, in the shape of petty settlements and trad- 
 ing stations, which must have arisen in earlier centuries. 
 
 From the first centuries of the Christian era date a number 
 of tombstones bearing representations of the holy candlestick, 
 the Menorah. The religious influence of Judaism in Tauris 
 and in the Azov region is attested by various other indications. 
 The inscriptions contain several references to "those who 
 
 * In the Greek documents of that period Synagogue signifies, 
 not a house of worship, but a religious community.
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 17 
 
 fear God the Most High" ( ae^o/xevoi ^eov I'l/rto-Tov) , a phrase 
 applied in the Greco-Eoman world to pagans who stand half- 
 way between polytheism on the one hand and Judaism or 
 primitive Christianity on the other. 
 
 The Judeo-Hellenistic Diaspora in Tauris, on the northern 
 shores of the Black Sea, was, like its parent stock in Asia 
 Minor, the center of a Christian propaganda. Towards the 
 end of the third century we find in Chersonesus, near Sevas- 
 topol, Christian bishops wielding considerable power. The 
 exercise of this power was evidently responsible for the 
 pagan rebellion of which we read in the lives of the Christian 
 martyrs Basil and Capiton. On the sixth of December of 
 the year 300 the pagan inhabitants rose in revolt against these 
 two bishops and their fellow-missionaries, and were joined by 
 the Jews, whom, it would seem, the zealots of the new faith 
 had endeavored equally to drag into the bosom of the Church. 
 The existence of a Jewish settlement in the Bosporan king- 
 dom was also known to St. Jerome, the famous Church father, 
 who lived at the end of the fourth century in far-off Palestine. 
 On the authority of his Jewish teacher he applied verse 20 
 in Obadiah, " and the captivity of Jerusalem which is in 
 Sepharad," to the Taurian Bosporus, the remotest corner of the 
 Jewish Diaspora.* 
 
 With the division of the Roman Empire into two halves 
 the Greco-Judean colonies on the Black Sea were naturally 
 drawn into the sphere of influence of the eastern part, the 
 Empire of Byzantium, tlie capital of which, Constantinople, 
 was situated on the opposite coast of the Black Sea. Corn- 
 er It is possible that the identification was suggested by the simi- 
 larity in sound between Bosporus and M-Spharad, the Hebrew for 
 " in Sepharad."]
 
 18 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 mercial relations brought the Tauriau colony inio ever closer 
 contact with the metropolis of Byzantium, and the Jews vied 
 with the Greeks in the promotion of trade. The persecutions 
 of the militant Church of Byzantium under the Emperors 
 Theodosius II., Zeno, and Justinian, during the fifth and sixth 
 centuries, drove the Jews from the ancient provinces of the 
 Empire into the Taurian colonies. In the eighth century the 
 Jewish population of these colonies was so numerous that the 
 Byzantine chronicler Theophanes places the Jews in the fore- 
 front of the various groups of the population. " In Phanagoria 
 and the neighboring region," says Theophanes, " the Jews who 
 live there are surrounded by many other tribes." 
 
 These colonies were frequently visited by Christian mission- 
 aries, who endeavored to convert the native population to their 
 faith, and incidentally also to win over the Jews. The Pa- 
 triarchs of Constantinople were then hopeful of drawing the 
 people of the Old Testament into th5 fold of the New. The 
 Patriarch Photius, of the ninth century, writes thus to the 
 Bishop of Bosporus (Kerch) : " Wert thou also to capture the 
 Judeans there, securing their obedience unto Christ, I should 
 welcome with my whole soul the fruits of such beautiful hopes." 
 The " Judeans," however, not only did not take the bait of the 
 missionaries, but even managed to spoil their propaganda 
 among the pagans. The most illustrious of all Byzantine mis- 
 sionaries, Cyril and Methodius, had frequent occasion to quar- 
 rel with " the Judeans, who blaspheme the Christian faith," 
 and the boastful ecclesiastic legend asserts that the holy broth- 
 ers "by prayer and eloquence defeated the Judeans [in dis- 
 putes] and put them to shame " (about 860) . 
 
 The struggle between the Christian missionaries and the 
 Jews during that period had for its object the Khazar nation, 
 part of whom had embraced Judaism.
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 19 
 
 2. TlLii Kl.NUDOJil OF THE KhAZAKS 
 
 While Byzantium was pressing on the Euxine colonies from 
 the west, endeavoring to draw them, together with the adjoin- 
 ing lands of the Slavs, into the sphere of Christian civilization, 
 a new power from the east, from the Caucasus and the Caspian 
 region, came rushing along in the same direction. We refer to 
 the Khazars, or Kazars/ Forming originally a conglomerate 
 of Finno-Turkisli tribes, the warlike Khazars appeared in 
 the Caucasus during the " migration of nations," and be- 
 gan to make inroads into the Persian Empire of the Sassanids, 
 often acting as the tools of Persia's rival, Byzantium. The 
 great Arabic conquests of the seventh century and the rise 
 of the powerful Eastern Caliphate checked the movement of the 
 Khazars towards the East, and turned it westward, to the 
 shores of the Caspian Sea, the mouths of the Volga and the 
 Don, the Byzantine colonies on the Black and Azov Seas, and, 
 in particular, the flourishing region of Tauris. At the mouth 
 of the Volga, where the mighty river joins the Caspian 
 Sea, near the present city of Astrakhan, arose the kingdom of 
 the Khazars with its capital Ityl, the name originally desig- 
 nating the river Volga, From there the bellicose Khazars 
 made constant raids upon the Slavonian tribes far and near, 
 to the very gates of Kiev, forcing them to become their 
 tributaries. 
 
 Another Khazar center was established in the Crimea, 
 among Byzantine Greeks and Jews. From the Crimea 
 
 [* The Arabic and other medieval authors write the name with a 
 kh (= hard German ch), hence the frequent spelling Chazars. In 
 Hebrew sources the word is written with a. k ( D ) , except in a 
 recently discovered document (see Schechter, Jew. Quart. Review, 
 new series, iii. 184), where it is spelled with a fc ( p ). Besides 
 Khazar and Kazar, the name is also found in the form Kozar, or 
 Kuzar.'i
 
 20 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the Khazars pressed forward in the direction of Byzantium 
 and the Balkan Peninsula, constituting a serious menace to the 
 Eoman Empire of the East. As a rule, the Byzantine emperors 
 concluded alliances with the kings, or khagans, of the Khazars, 
 checking their unbridled energy by means of concessions and 
 the payment of tribute. In Constantinople the illusion was 
 fostered that the Church, and with it Byzantine diplomacy, 
 were in the end bound to triumph over all the Khazars — by 
 converting them to Christianity. With this purpose in view, 
 missionaries were dispatched from Byzantium, while the local 
 bishops of Tauris were working zealously to the same end. 
 But the task proved extremely difficult, for the Greek Church 
 found itself face to face with a powerful rival in Judaism, 
 which succeeded in establishing its hold on a part of the 
 Khazar nation. 
 
 While yet in their pagan state, the Khazars were exposed 
 at one and the same time to the influences of three religions : 
 Mohammedanism, which pursued its triumphant march from 
 the Arabic Caliphate; Christianity, which was spreading in 
 Byzantium, and Judaism, which, headed by the Exilarchs and 
 Gaons of Babylonia, was centered in the Caliphate, while its 
 ramifications spread all over the Empire of Byzantium and its 
 colonies on the Black Sea. The Arabs and the Byzantines 
 succeeded in converting several groups of the Khazar popula- 
 tion to Islam and Christianity, but the lion's share fell to 
 Judaism, for it managed to get hold of the royal dynasty and 
 the ruling classes. 
 
 The conversion of the Khazars to Judaism, which took place 
 about 740, is described circumstantially in the traditions pre- 
 eerved among the Jews and in the accounts of the medieval 
 Arabic travelers:
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 21 
 
 The King, or Khagan, of the Khazars, by the name of Bulan, 
 had resolved to abandon paganism, but was undecided as to the 
 religion he should adopt instead. Messengers sent by the Caliph 
 persuaded him to accept Islam, envoys from Byzantium endeavored 
 to win him over to Christianity, and representatives of Judaism 
 championed their own faith. As a result, Bulan arranged a dis- 
 putation between the advocates of the three religions, to be 
 held in his presence, but he failed to carry away any definite 
 conviction from their arguments and mutual refutations. There- 
 upon the King invited first the Christian and then the Mohamme- 
 dan, and questioned them separately. On asking the former 
 which religion he thought was the better of the two, Judaism or 
 Mohammedanism, he received the reply: Judaism, since it is the 
 older of the two, and the basis of all religions.* On asking 
 the Mohammedan, which religion he preferred, Judaism or Chris- 
 tianity, he received the same reply in favor of Judaism, with 
 the same motivation. " If that be the case," Bulan argued in 
 consequence, " if both the Mohammedan and the Christian acknowl- 
 edge the superiority of Judaism to the religion of their antagonist, 
 I too prefer to adopt the Jewish religion." Bulan accordingly em- 
 braced Judaism, and many of the Khazar nobles followed his 
 example. 
 
 According to the Jewish sources, one of Bulan's descendants, 
 the Khagan Obadiah, Avas a particularly zealous adherent of 
 Judaism. He invited — possibly from Babylonia — many Jew- 
 ish sages to his couutry, to instruct the converted Khazars in 
 Bible and Talmud, and he founded synagogues, and established 
 Divine services. 
 
 ' According to another version of the same story, quoted by 
 the Arabic geographer al-Bekri (d. 1094), the Bishop who was 
 championing the cause of Christianity said in reply to the King's 
 inquiry: " I believe that Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, is the 
 Word, and that he revealed the mysteries of the great and exalted 
 God." A Jew who lived at the royal court and was present at 
 the disputation interrupted him with the remark: "He [the 
 Bishop] believes in things which are unintelligible to me."
 
 22 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 In the ninth and tenth centuries, the kingdom of the 
 Kliazars, governed by rulers professing the Jewish faith, at- 
 tained to outward power and inner prosperity. The accounts 
 of the Arabic writers of that period throw an interesting light 
 on the inner life of the Khazars, which was marked by religious 
 tolerance. The king of the Khazars and the governing classes 
 professed the Jewish religion. Among the lower classes the 
 three monotheistic religions were all represented, and in addi- 
 tion a considerable number of pagans still survived. In spite 
 of the fact that royalty and nobility professed Judaism, the 
 principle of religious equality was never violated. The khagan 
 had under him seven (according to another version, nine) 
 judges: two for the followers of the Jewish religion, two each 
 for the Christians and Mohammedans, and one for the pagans 
 — the Slavs, the Russians, and other races. Only occasionally 
 did the Khazar king show signs of intolerance, particularly 
 when rumors concerning Jewish persecutions in other coun- 
 tries came to his ears. Thus, on one occasion, about 921, on 
 being informed that the Mohammedans had destroyed a syna- 
 gogue somewhere in the land of Babunj, the Khagan gave 
 orders to destroy the tower (minaret) of a certain mosque and 
 to kill the muezzins (the heralds M'ho call to prayer), explain- 
 ing his attitude in these words : " I should have destroyed the 
 mosque itself, had I not feared that not a single synagogue 
 would be left standing in the lands of the Mohammedans.'* 
 
 In the kingdom of the Khazars, favorably situated as it was 
 between the Caliphate of Bagdad and the Byzantine Empire, 
 the Jews evidently played an important economic role. During 
 the ninth and tenth centuries the territory of the Khazars was 
 traversed by one of the great trade routes which connected the 
 three parts of the Old World. According to the testimony of
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 23 
 
 Ibn Elliordadbeh, au Arabic geographer of the ninth century, 
 Jewish merchants, who were able to speak the principal Asi- 
 atic and European languages, " traveled from West to East and 
 from East to West, on sea and by land." The land route led 
 from Persia and the Caucasus " through the country of the 
 Slavs, near the capital of the Khazars " (the mouth of the 
 Volga), by crossing the Sea of Jorjan (the Caspian Sea). 
 Another Arabic writer, named Ibn Fakih,' who wrote shortly 
 after 900, testifies that on the route of the " Slav merchants," 
 who were trading between the Sea of the Khazars (the Cas- 
 pian Sea) and that of Eum (the Byzantine or Black Sea), was 
 found the Jewish city of Samkers, on the Taman Peninsula, 
 near the Crimea." 
 
 During this period of prosperity the kingdom of the Khazars 
 received a considerable JcAvish influx from Byzantium, where 
 the Jews were persecuted by Emperor Basil the Macedonian 
 (867-886), being forcibly converted to Christianity, while 
 hundreds of Jewish communities were devastated. The Jew- 
 ish emigrants from Byzantium were naturally attracted 
 towards a land in which Judaism was the religion of the Gov- 
 ernment and the Court, though equal toleration was accorded to 
 all other religions. The well-known Arabic writer ^Masudi 
 refers to this Jewish immigration in the following passage: 
 
 [* The author, evidently relying on the authority of Harkavy, 
 writes Ibn ^harzi. The writer referred to by Harkavy is All Ibn 
 Ja'far ash-Shaizari (wrongly called Ibn Sharzi), who made an 
 extract from Ibn Fakih's " Book of Countries " about 1022. This 
 extract has since been published by de Goeje in his Bibliotheca 
 Oeographicorum Arabicorum, vol. v. Our reference is found 
 there on p. 271. I have put Ibn Fakih's name in the text, as there 
 is no reason to doubt that our passage was found in the original 
 work, which was written more than a hundred years earlier.] 
 
 [^ See on the name of this city de Goeje's remarks in his edition of 
 Ibn Fakih, p. 271, note o.]
 
 24 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 The population of the Khazar capital consists of Moslems, 
 Christians, Jews, and pagans. The king, his court, and all mem- 
 bers of the Khazar tribe profess the Jewish religion, which has 
 been the dominant faith of the country since the time of the 
 Caliph Harun ar-Rashid. Many Jews who settled among the 
 Khazars came from all the cities of the Moslems and the lands 
 of Rum (Byzantium), the reason being that the king of Rum 
 persecuted the Jews of his empire in order to force them to adopt 
 
 Christianity In this way a large number of Jews left the 
 
 land of Rum in order to depart to the Khazars. 
 
 This testimony dates from the year 954. Contemporaneous 
 M'ith it is the extremely interesting correspondence between 
 Joseph, the Khagan of the Khazars, and Hasdai Ibn Shaprut, 
 the Jewish statesman of the Cordova Caliphate in Spain. 
 Being a high official at the court of Abderrahman III., 
 Hasdai maintained diplomatic relations with the emperors of 
 Byzantium and other rulers of Asia and Europe, and in this 
 way came to learn of the Khazar kingdom, through the 
 Persian and Byzantine ambassadors. The news of the exis- 
 tence of a land somewhere beyond the seas where a Jew sat 
 on the throne, and Judaism was the religion of the state, filled 
 Hasdai with joy. Firmly convinced that he had found the clue 
 to the lost Jewish kingdom of which popular Jewish tradition 
 had so much to tell, the Jewish statesman at the Moslem court 
 felt the burning need of getting in touch with the rulers of 
 Khazaria, and, in case the rumors should prove correct, of 
 transferring his abode thither and devoting his powers of 
 statesmanship to his fellow-Jews. Prolonged inquiries elicited 
 the information that the land of the Khazars lay fifteen days 
 by sea from Constantinople, that it stood in commercial rela- 
 tions with Byzantium, that the name of its present ruler was 
 Joseph, and that the safest means of communicating with him
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 25 
 
 was by way of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Kussia. After several 
 vain attempts to get in touch with the ruler of the Khazars 
 Hasdai finally succeeded in having an elaborate Hebrew epistle 
 delivered into the hands of King Joseph (about 955), 
 
 In his epistle Hasdai first gives an account of himself and 
 his position at the court of Cordova, and then proceeds to beg 
 the King of the Khazars to inform him in detail of the rise and 
 present status of " the Jewish kingdom," being anxious to find 
 out " whether there is anywhere a soil and a kingdom where 
 scattered Israel is not subject and subordinate to others." 
 
 Were I to know — Hasdai continues — that this is true, I should 
 renounce my place of honor, abandon my lofty rank, forsake my 
 family, and wander over mountains and hills, by sea and on 
 land, until I reached the dwelling-place of my lord and sover- 
 eign, there to behold his greatness and splendor, the seats of 
 his subjects, the position of his servants, and the tranquillity of 
 
 the remnant of Israel Having been cast down from our 
 
 former glory, and now living in exile, we are powerless to answer 
 those who constantly say unto us: " Every nation hath its own 
 kingdom, while you have no trace [of a kingdom] on earth." 
 But when we received the news about our lord and sovereign, 
 about the power of his kingdom and the multitude of his hosts, 
 we were filled with astonishment. We lifted our heads, our 
 spirit revived, and our hands were strengthened, the kingdom of 
 my lord serving us as an answer. Would that this rumor might 
 increase in strength [i. e. be verified], for thereby will our great- 
 ness be enhanced! 
 
 After long and painful waiting Hasdai received the King^s 
 reply. In it the ruler of the Khazars gives an account of the 
 heterogeneous composition of his people and the various 
 religions professed by it. He describes how King Bulan and 
 his princes embraced the Jewish faith after testing the various 
 rival creeds, and how zealously it was upheld by the Kings
 
 36 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Obadiah, Hezekiah, Mauasseh, Hanukkah, Isaac, Zebulun, 
 Moses (or Manasseh 11.)? Nissi, Aaron, Menahem, Benjamin, 
 Aaron (II.)> the last being the father of the writer, King 
 Joseph. The King continues : 
 
 I reside [i. e. my residence is situated] at the mouth of the 
 river Ityl [Volga] ; at the end of the river is found the Sea of 
 Jorjan [the Caspian Sea]. The beginning of the river is towards 
 the east, at a distance of a four months' journey. Along the banks 
 of the river there are many nations living in towns and villages, 
 in open as well as fortified places. These are their names: Burtas, 
 Bulgar, Suvar, Arisu, Tzarmis, Venentit, Sever, Slaviun. ^ Each 
 of these nations is very numerous, and all of them are tributary 
 to me. From there the boundary turns towards Buarezm [prob- 
 ably Khwarism], up to Jorjan, and all the inhabitants of the sea- 
 shore, for a distance of one month's journey, are tributary to me. 
 To the south are found Semender, Bak-Tadlud, up to the gates of 
 Bab al-Abwab, which are situated on the coast.- .... To the 
 west there are Sarkel, Samkrtz, Kertz, Sugdai, Alus, Lambat, 
 Bartnit, Alubika, Kut, Mankup, Budak, Alma, and Gruzin.^ All 
 these localities are situated on the shores of the Sea of Kostantinia* 
 towards the west .... They are all tributary to me. Their dwell- 
 ings and camping-places are scattered over a distance of a four 
 months' journey. 
 
 Know and take notice that I live at the mouth of the river 
 [Volga], and with the help of the Almighty I guard the entrance 
 to this river, and prevent the Russians, who arrive in ves- 
 sels, from passing into the Caspian Sea for the purpose of making 
 their way to the Ishmaelites [Mohammedans]. In the same 
 manner I keep the enemies on land from approaching the gates 
 of Bab al-Abwab. Because of this I am at war with them, and 
 were I to let them pass but once, they would destroy the whole 
 land of the Ishmaelites as far as Bagdad .... Our eyes are 
 
 * A group of Slav nations. 
 
 * A group of Caucasian cities (Semender = Tarku, near Shamir- 
 Khan-Shur; Bab al-Abwab = Derbent). 
 
 * A group of Crimean cities (Kerch, Sudak, Mangup, and others). 
 [*7. e. Sea of Constantinople, another name for the Black Sea.]
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 27 
 
 [turned] to God and to the wise men of Israel who preside 
 over the academies of Jerusalem and Babylon. We are far away 
 from Zion, but it has come to our ears that, on account of our 
 sins, the calculations [concerning the coming of the Messiah] 
 have become confused, so that we know nothing. May it please 
 the Lord to act for the sake of His great Name. May the destruc- 
 tion of His temple, and the cutting off of the holy service, and the 
 misfortunes that have befallen us, not appear small in His sight. 
 May the words of the prophet be fulfilled: " And the Lord, whom 
 ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple " (Mai. iii. 1). We have 
 nothing in our possession [concerning the coming of the Messiah] 
 except the prophecy of Daniel. May the God of Israel hasten our 
 redemption and gather together all our exiled and scattered 
 [brethren] in my lifetime, in thy lifetime, and in the lifetime 
 of the whole house of Israel, who love His name. 
 
 The concluding phrases cast a shadow of doubt on the 
 authenticity of this epistle or, more correctly, of some parts 
 of both epistles, which more probably reflect the mournful Mes- 
 sianic temper of the sixteenth century, when this corre- 
 spondence was brought to light by Spanish exiles who had made 
 their way to Constantinople, than the state of mind of a 
 Spanish dignitary or a Khazar king of the tenth century. 
 However, the essential data contained in Joseph's epistle 
 are so completely in accord with the reports of contemporan- 
 eous Arabic writers that the substance of this correspondence 
 may be safely declared to be authentic/ 
 
 Joseph's epistle must have arrived in Spain about 960. 
 Only a few years later events occurred which made this King 
 the last ruler of the Khazars. The apprehensions, voiced in 
 
 * This supposition is confirmed by a recently discovered Genizah 
 fragment containing a portion of another Khazar epistle, which 
 supplements and modifies the epistle of King Joseph. See Schech- 
 ter, " An Unknown Khazar Document," Jewish Quarterly Review, 
 new series, iii. 181 ff.
 
 28 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 his letter, concerning the Russians, with whom the King was 
 at war, and who were ready to " destroy the whole land of the 
 Ishmaelites as far as Bagdad," were speedily realized. A few 
 years later the Slavonian tribes, who had in the meantime been 
 united imder the leadership of Russian princes, not only threw 
 off the yoke of the Khazars, whose vassals they were, but also 
 succeeded in invading and finally destroying their center at the 
 mouth of the Volga. Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev devastated 
 the Khazar territories on the Ityl, and, penetrating to the 
 heart of the country, dislodged the Khazars from the Caspian 
 region (966-969). The Khazars withdrew to their posses- 
 sions on the Black Sea, and established themselves in particu- 
 lar on the Crimean Peninsula, which for a long time retained 
 the name of Kliazaria. 
 
 The greatly reduced Khazar kingdom in Tauris, the survival 
 of a mighty empire, was able to hold its own for nearly half a 
 century, until in the eleventh century it fell a prey to the Rus- 
 sians and Byzantines (1016). The relatives of the last khagan 
 fled, according to tradition, to their coreligionists in Spain. 
 The Khazar nation was scattered, and was subsequently lost 
 among the other nations. The remnants of the Khazars in the 
 Crimea who professed Judaism were in all likelihood merged 
 with the native Jews, consisting partly of Rabbanites and 
 partly of Karaites. 
 
 In this way the ancient Jewish settlements on the Crimean 
 Peninsula suddenly received a large increase. At the same 
 time the influx of Jewish immigrants, who, together with the 
 Greeks, moved from Byzantium towards the northern shores of 
 the Black Sea, continued as theretofore, the greater part of 
 these immigrants consisting of Karaites, who were found in 
 large numbers in the Byzantine Empire. Even the subsequent
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 29 
 
 dominion of the Pechenegs and Polovtzis, who ruled over the 
 Tauris region after the downfall of the Khazars, failed to 
 uproot the ancient traditions, and as late as the twelfth cen- 
 tury the name Khazaria meets us in contemporary documents. 
 About the year 1175 the traveler Pethahiah of Ratisbon visited 
 " the land of the Kedars and that of the Khazars, which are 
 separated from each other by a sea tongue," meaning the con- 
 tinental part of Tauris, where the nomadic Polovtzis (Kedars) 
 were roaming about, and the Crimean Peninsula, between 
 which two regions lie the Gulf of Perekop and the isthmus of 
 the same name. In the land of the Kedars Pethahiah did not 
 find genuine Jews, but minim, heretics or sectarians, who 
 " do not believe in the traditions of the sages, eat their Sab- 
 bath meal in the dark, are ignorant of the Talmudic forms of 
 the benedictions and prayers, and have not even heard of the 
 Talmud." It is evident that the author is describing the 
 Karaites. 
 
 3. The Jews in the Early Russian Principalities and in 
 THE Tataric Khanate of the Crimea ^ 
 
 With the growth of the Russian Principality of Kiev, which 
 received its ecclesiastic organization from the hands of Byzan- 
 tine monks, it gradually became another objective of Jewish 
 immigration. The Jews came thither not only from Kha- 
 
 [* During the early centuries of its existence Russia was made up 
 of a number of independent principalities, over whicli the Princi- 
 pality of Kiev, " the mother of Russian cities," exercised, or rather 
 claimed, the right of overlordship. From 1238 to 1462 the Russian 
 lands were subject to the dominion of the Tatars. During the four- 
 teenth century, while yet under Tatar rule, the Principality of Mos- 
 cow gained the ascendancy over the other Russian states. The 
 absorption of the latter and the creation of the autocratic Tzardom 
 of Muscovy was the work of Ivan III. (1462-1505), his son Basil 
 (1605-1633), and his grandson Ivan IV. the Terrible (1533-1584).]
 
 30 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 zaria, or the Crimea, but also, following in the wake of the 
 Greeks, from the Empire of Byzantium, developing the com- 
 mercial life of the principality and connecting that primitive 
 region with the centers of human civilization. The popular 
 legend, which is reproduced in the ancient Eussian chronicles, 
 and is no doubt tinged with the spirit of Byzantine clericalism, 
 makes the Jews participate in the competition of religions for 
 the conquest of pagan Russia, in that famous spectacle of the 
 " test of creeds " which took place in 986 in the presence of 
 Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, 
 
 The church legend narrates that when Vladimir had announced 
 his intention to abandon idolatry, he received a visit from Kha- 
 zarian Jews, who said to him: " We liave heard that the Christiana 
 have come to preach their faith, but they believe in one who was 
 crucified by us, while we believe in the one God, the God of Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob." Vladimir asked the Jews: "What does 
 your law prescribe?" To this they replied: "To be circumcised, 
 not to eat pork or game, and to keep the Sabbath." " Where is your 
 country? " inquired the Prince. " In Jerusalem," replied the Jews, 
 "But do you live there?" he asked. "We do not," answered the 
 Jews, " for the Lord was wroth with our forefathers, and scattered 
 us all over the earth for our sins, while our land was given away to 
 the Christians." Thereupon Vladimir exclaimed: "How then 
 dare you teach others when you yourselves are rejected by God 
 and scattered? If God loved you, you would not be dispersed in 
 strange lands. Do you intend to inflict the same misfortune 
 on me?" 
 
 This popular tradition is historically true only insofar as it 
 reflects the ecclesiastic and political struggle of the time. It was 
 in Taurian Chersonesus, the ancient scene of Jewish and 
 Byzantine rivalry, that the threads were woven which subse- 
 quently tied pagan Eussia to Byzantium. The attempts of 
 the Taurian, or Khazarian, Jews to assert their claims in the
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 31 
 
 religious competition at Kiev were bound to prove a failure. 
 For community of political and economic interests was forcing 
 Byzantium and the Principality' of Kiev into an alliance, which 
 was finally consummated at the end of the tenth century by 
 the conversion of Russia to Greek Orthodox Christianity. The 
 alliance resulted in the downfall of their common enemy, the 
 Khazars, who, for several centuries, had been struggling with 
 the Byzantines on the shores of the Black Sea, and at the 
 same time had lield in subjection the tribes of the Slavs. In 
 consequence of the defeat of the Khazars, a part of the Jewish- 
 Khazarian center in Tauris was transferred to the Principality 
 of Kiev. 
 
 The coincidence of the settlement of Jews in Kiev with 
 the conversion of Eussia to the Greek Orthodox faith fore- 
 shadows the course of history. The very earliest phase of Rus- 
 sian cultural life is stamped by the Byzantine spirit of intol- 
 erance in relation to the Jews. The Abbot of the famous 
 Peehera monastery, Theodosius (1057-1074), taught the Kio- 
 vians to live at peace with friends and foes, " but with their 
 own foes, not with those of God." God's foes, however, are 
 Jews and heretics, " who hold a crooked religion." In the 
 Life of Theodosius wTitten by the celebrated Russian chronic- 
 ler Nestor we are told that this austere monk was in the habit 
 of getting up in the night and secretly going to the Jews to 
 argue with them about Christ. He would scold them, brand- 
 ing them as wicked and godless, and would purposely irritate 
 them, in the hope of being killed " for the profession of 
 Christ " and thus attaining to martyrdom, though it would 
 seem that the Jews consistently refused to grant him this 
 pleasure. Hatred against Jews and Judaism was equally 
 preached by Theodosius' contemporaries Illarion and John, 
 Metropolitans of Kiev (about 1050 and 1080). 
 8
 
 32 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 This propaganda of religious intolerance did not remain 
 without effect. In the beginning of the twelfth century the 
 Jewish colony of Kiev experienced the first pogrom. Under 
 Grand Duke Svyatopolk II. (1093-1113) the Jews of Kiev 
 had enjoyed complete liberty of trade and commerce. The 
 Prince had protected his Jewish subjects, and had intrusted 
 some of them with the collection of the customs and other ducal 
 imposts. But during the interregnum following the death of 
 Svyatopolk (1113) they had to pay dearly for the liberty 
 enjoyed by them. The Kiovians had offered the throne of 
 the principality to Vladimir Monomakh, but he was slow about 
 entering the capital. As a result, riots broke out. The Kiev 
 mob revolted, and, after looting the residences of several high 
 officials, threw itself upon the Jews and plundered their prop- 
 erty. The well-intentioned among the inhabitants of Kiev 
 dispatched a second delegation to Monomakh, warning him 
 that, if he tarried longer, the riots would assume formidable 
 dimensions. Thereupon Monomakh arrived and restored order 
 in the capital. 
 
 Nevertheless the Jews continued to reside in Kiev. In 1124 
 they suffered severely from a fire which destroyed a considerable 
 portion of the city. In the chronicles of that period (1146- 
 1151) mention is frequently made of the "Jewish gate" in 
 Kiev. Jewish merchants were attracted towards this city, a 
 growing commercial center serving as the connecting link 
 between Western Europe on the one hand and the Black Sea 
 provinces and the Asiatic continent on the other. Keference 
 to Kiev is made by the Jewish travelers of the time, Benjamin 
 of Tudela and Pethahiah of Ratisbon (1160-1190). The 
 former speaks of " the kingdom of Eussia, stretching from the 
 gates of Prague to the gates of Kiev, a large city on the border
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 33 
 
 of the kingdom," The latter, Pethahiah, informs us that, on 
 leaving his home in Katisbon, he proceeded to Prague, the 
 capital of Bohemia ; from Prague he went to Poland, and from 
 there " to Kiev, which is in Russia," whereupon he traveled 
 for six days, until he reached the Dnieper, and, having crossed 
 it, finally arrived on the coast of the Black Sea and in the 
 Crimea. 
 
 After the Crusades, when considerable settlements of Jew- 
 ish immigrants from Germany began to spring up in Poland, 
 part of these immigrants found their way into the Principality 
 of Kiev. The German rabbis of the twelfth century occa- 
 sionally refer in their writings to the journeys of German Jews 
 traveling with their merchandise to " Russ " and " Sclavonia " 
 {= Slavonia, Slav countries). The Jews of Russia, who lacked 
 rabbinical authorities of their own, addressed their inquiries to 
 the Jewish scholars of Germany, or sent their studious young 
 men to the West to obtain a Talmudic education. Hebrew 
 sources of the twelfth century make mention of the names of 
 Rabbi Isaac of Chernigov and Rabbi Moses of Kiev, The 
 latter is quoted as having addressed an inquiry to the well- 
 known Gaon of Bagdad, Samuel ben Ali. 
 
 The conquest of the Crimea by the Tatar khans in the 
 thirteenth century and the gradual extension of their sover- 
 eignty to the Principalities of Kiev and Moscow brought the 
 old center of Judaism in the Tauris region in close contact 
 with its offshoots in various parts of Russia. Kiev enters into 
 regular commercial intercourse with Kaffa (Theodosia) on the 
 Crimean sea-shore. Kaffa becomes during that period an inter- 
 national emporium, owing to the Genoese, who had obtained 
 from the Tatar khans concessions for Kaffa and the surround- 
 ing countrj', and had founded there a commercial colony of the
 
 31 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Genoese Eepublic. The Crimean Peninsula was joined to the 
 world commerce of Italy, and merchantmen were constantly 
 ploughing the seas between Genoa and Kaffa, passing through 
 the Byzantine Dardanelles. Italians, Greeks, Jews, and Arme- 
 nians flocked to Kaffa and the adjacent localities on the south- 
 em coast of the Crimea. The Government of the Genoese 
 Eepublic time and again instructed its consuls who were 
 charged with the administration of the Crimean colony to 
 observe the principles of religious toleration in their attitude 
 towards this heterogeneous population. If the testimony of 
 the traveler Schiltberger, who visited the Crimea between 
 1394 and 1427, may be relied upon, there were in Kaffa Jews 
 " of two kinds," evidently Rabbanites and Karaites, who had 
 two synagogues and four thousand houses, an imposing popula- 
 tion to judge by its numbers. 
 
 The great crisis in the history of Byzantium — the capture of 
 Constantinople by the Turks — affected also the Genoese colony 
 in the Crimea. The Turks began to hamper the Genoese in 
 their navigation through the straits. In 1455 the Genoese 
 Government ceded its Kaffa possessions to the Bank of St. 
 George in Genoa. The new administration set out to restore 
 order in the colony and establish normal relations between the 
 various races inhabiting it; but the days of this cultural oasis 
 on the Black Sea were numbered. In 1475 Kaffa was taken 
 by the Turks, and the whole peninsula fell under Turco-Tataric 
 dominion. 
 
 Important Jewish communities were to be found during that 
 period also in the older Tataric possessions of the Crimea. Two 
 Jewish communities, one consisting of Rabbanites and the 
 other of Karaites, flourished, during the thirteenth century, 
 in the ancient capital of the Tatar khans, named Solkhat (now
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 35 
 
 Eski-Krym). Beginning with 1428, the old Karaite com- 
 munity of Chufut-Kale ("the Eock of the Jews"), situated 
 near the new Tatar capital, Bakhchi-Sarai, grows in numbers 
 and influence. The memory of this community is perpetuated 
 by a huge number of tombstones, ranging from the thirteenth 
 to the eighteenth century. Crimea, now peopled with Jews, 
 sends forth settlers to Lithuania, where, at the end of the 
 fourteenth century, Grand Duke Vitovt * takes them under his 
 protection. Crimean colonies spring up in the Lithuanian 
 towns of Troki and Lutzk, which, as will be seen later, are 
 granted extensive privileges by the ruler of the land. 
 
 The establishment of Turkish sovereignty over the Crimea 
 (1475-1783) resulted in a closer commercial relationship be- 
 tween the Jewish center on the Peninsula and the Principality 
 of Moscow, which at that time fenced herself off from the out- 
 side world by a Chinese wall, and, with few exceptions, barred 
 from her dominions all foreigners and infidels, or " Basur- 
 mans." ' In the second half of the fifteenth century the Grand 
 Duke of Muscovy, Ivan III., was constrained to seek the help 
 of sevei-al Crimean Jews in his diplomatic negotiations with 
 the Khan of the Crimea, Mengli-Guiray. One of the agents of 
 the Muscovite Prince was an influential Jew of Kaffa, by the 
 name of Khoza Kokos, who was instrumental in bringing about 
 a military alliance between the Grand Duke and the Khan 
 (1472-1475). It is curious to note that Kokos wrote his 
 letters to Ivan III. in Hebrew, so that the Muscovite ruler, 
 who evidently could find no one in Moscow familiar with that 
 language, had to request his agent to correspond with him in 
 
 [^ Also written Witowt. Another form of the name is Witold.] 
 [' Basurman, or Busurman, mutilated from Mussulman, is an 
 archaic and contemptuous designation for Mohammedans and In 
 general for all who do not profess the Greek Orthodox faith.]
 
 36 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Eussiau or " in the Basurman language " (Tataric or per- 
 haps Italian) . Another agent of Ivan III., Zechariah Guizolfi, 
 was an Italian Jew, who had previously occupied an important 
 post in the Genoese colony in the Crimea, and was the owner of 
 the Taman Peninsula (" the Prince of Taraan ") . He stood in 
 close relations to Khan Mengli-Guiray, and in this capacity 
 carried on a diplomatic correspondence with the Prince of 
 Muscovy (1484-1500). Later on Zechariah was on the point 
 of taking up his abode in Moscow in order to participate more 
 directly in the foreign affairs of Russia, but circumstances 
 interfered with the execution of the plan. 
 
 During the same period there arose in Moscow, as the result 
 of a secret propaganda of Judaism, a religious movement 
 known under the name of the " Judaizing heresy." According 
 to the Russian chroniclers, tlie originator of this heresy was the 
 learned Jew Skharia (Zechariah), who had emigrated with a 
 number of coreligionists from Kiev to the ancient Russian city 
 of Novgorod. Profiting by the religious unrest rife at that 
 time in Novgorod — a new sect, called the Strigolniki,* had 
 arisen in the city, which abrogated the Church rites, and went 
 to the point of denying the divinity of Christ — Zechariah got 
 in touch with several representatives of the Orthodox clergy, 
 and succeeded in converting them to Judaism. The leaders of 
 the Novgorod apostates, the priests Denis and Alexius, went to 
 Moscow in 1480, and converted a number of the Greek Ortho- 
 dox there, some of the new converts even submitting to the rite 
 of circumcision. The " Judaizing heresy '* was soon in- 
 trenched among the nobility of Moscow and in the court circles. 
 Among its s}Tnpathizers was the daughter-in-law of the Grand 
 Duke, Helena. 
 
 V The name is derived from their founder, Carp Strigolnik.]
 
 THE DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE 37 
 
 The Archbishop of Novgorod, Hennadius, called attention 
 to the dangerous propagation of the " Judaizing heresy," and 
 made valiant efforts to uproot it in his diocese. In Moscow the 
 fight against the new doctrine proved extremely difficult. But 
 here too it was finally checked, owing to the vigorous endeavors 
 of Hennadius and other Orthodox zealots. By the decision of 
 the Church Council of 1504, supported by the orders of Ivan 
 III., the principal apostates were burned at the stake, while 
 the others were cast into prison or exiled to monasteries. As 
 a result, the " Judaizing heresy " ceased to exist.* 
 
 Another tragic occurrence in the same period affords a lurid 
 illustration of Muscovite superstition. At the court of Grand 
 Duke Ivan III. the post of physician was occupied by a learned 
 Jew, Master Leon, who had been invited from Venice. In the 
 beginning of 1490 the eldest son of the Grand Duke fell dan- 
 gerously ill. Master Leon tried to cure his patient by means 
 of hot cupping-glasses and various medicaments. Questioned 
 by the Grand Duke whether his son had any chances of recov- 
 ery, the physician, in an unguarded moment, replied : " I shall 
 not fail to cure your son ; otherwise you may put me to death ! " 
 On March 15, 1490, the patient died. When the forty days of 
 mourning were over, Ivan III. gave orders to cut off the head 
 of the Jewish physician for his failure to effect a cure. The 
 execution was carried out publicly, on one of the squares of 
 Moscow. 
 
 In the eyes of the Muscovites both the learned theologian 
 Skharia and the physician Leon were adepts of the "black 
 art," or magicians. The " Judaizing heresy " instilled in them 
 a superstitious fear of the Jews, of whom they only knew 
 
 [* For later " Judaizing " tendencies in Russia, see pp. 251 et seq. 
 and 401 et seq.]
 
 38 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND PbLAND 
 
 by hearsay. As loug as such ideas and manners prevailed, 
 the Jews could scarcely expect to be hospitably received in the 
 land of the Muscovites. No wonder then that for a long time 
 the Jews appear there, not in the capacity of permanent resi- 
 dents, but as itinerant merchants, who in a few cases — and 
 with extreme reluctance at that — are accorded the right of 
 temporary sojourn in " holy Russia."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE JEWISH COLONIES IN POLAND AND 
 LITHUANIA 
 
 I. The Immigration from Western Europe during the 
 Period of the Crusades 
 
 Wliile the Jewish colonies on the shores of the Black Sea 
 and on the territory of modern South Eussia were due to im- 
 migration from the lands of the Greco-Byzantine and Moham- 
 medan East, the Jewish settlements in Poland were founded 
 by new-comers from Western Europe, from the lands of 
 German culture and " the Latin faith." * This division was a 
 natural product of the historic development that made Sla- 
 vonian Eussia gravitate towards the East, and Slavonian 
 Poland turn towards the West. Even prior to her joining 
 the ecclesiastic organization of the West, Poland had at- 
 tained to prominence as a commercial colony of Germany. The 
 Slav lands on the banks of the Varta and Vistula, being near- 
 est to Western Europe, were bound to attract the Jews, at a very 
 early period, in their capacity as international traders. There 
 is reason to believe that, as far back as the ninth century, Jews 
 living in the German provinces of Charlemagne's Empire car- 
 ried on commerce with the neighboring Slav countries, and 
 visited Poland with their merchandise. These ephemeral visits 
 frequently led to tlieir permanent settlement in those strange 
 lands. 
 
 * It need scarcely be pointed out that, In speaking of the Jewish 
 immigration into Poland, we have in mind the predominating ele- 
 ment, which came from the West. It is quite possible that there 
 was an admixture of settlers from the Khazar kingdom, from the 
 Crimea, and from the Orient in general, who were afterwards 
 merged with the western element.
 
 40 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Information concerning the Jews of pre-Christian Poland 
 has come down to us in the shape of hazy legends. One of 
 these legends narrates that, after the death of Prince Popiel, 
 about the middle of the ninth century, the Poles assembled in 
 Krushvitza, their ancient capital, to choose a successor to the 
 dead sovereign. After prolonged disputes concerning the 
 person to be elected, it was finally agreed that the first man 
 found entering the town the following morning should be 
 chosen as the ruler. It so happened that on the following 
 morning the first to enter the town was the Jew Abraham 
 Prokhovnik.' He was seized and proclaimed prince, but he 
 declined the honor, urging that it be accorded to a wise Pole 
 by the name of Piast, who thus became the progenitor of the 
 Piast dynasty. 
 
 Another legend has it that at the end of the ninth century 
 a Jewish delegation from Germany waited upon the Polish 
 Prince Leshek, to plead for the admission of Jews into Poland. 
 Leshek subjected the delegates to a protracted cross-examina- 
 tion concerning the principles of the Jewish religion and Jew- 
 ish morality, and finally complied with their request. There- 
 upon large numbers of German Jews began to arrive in Poland, 
 and, in 905, they obtained special written privileges, which, 
 according to the same legend, were subsequently lost. These 
 obscure tales, though lacking all foundation in fact, and 
 undoubtedly invented in much later times, contain a grain 
 of historic truth, in that they indicate the existence of Jewish 
 settlements in pagan Poland, and point to their German origin. 
 
 The propagation of Latin Christianity in Poland (beginning 
 with 966), which placed the country under the control not only 
 
 * The word signifies " the powder merchant " — five hundred years 
 before the invention of powder!
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 41 
 
 of the emperors of Germany but also of its bishops as the 
 representatives of the Roman See, was bound to stimulate the 
 intercourse between the two countries and result in an in- 
 creased influx of Jewish merchants and settlers. However, 
 this slow commercial colonization would scarcely have assumed 
 any considerable dimensions, had not exceptional circum- 
 stances forced a large number of Jews to seek refuge in Poland. 
 A compulsory immigration of this kind began after the first 
 Crusade, in 1096. It started in near-by Slavonian Bohemia, 
 where the Crusaders attacked the Jews of Prague, and con- 
 verted them forcibly to Christianity. The Bohemian Jews 
 made up their minds to flee to neighboring Poland, which 
 had not yet been reached by the devastating Christian hosts. 
 The Bohemian Prince Vratislav robbed the immigrants on the 
 way, but even this could not prevent many of them from leav- 
 ing the country in which both people and Government were hos- 
 tile to them (1098). 
 
 Beginning with this period there was a steady flow of Jews 
 from the Rhine and Danube provinces into Poland, increasing 
 in volume as a result of the Crusades (1146-1147 and 1196) 
 and the severe Jewish persecutions in Germany. The accentu- 
 ation of Jewish suffering in Germany during the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries, when the royal power was incapable of 
 shielding its K amm eric ne elite against the fury of the fanatical 
 mob or the degrading canons of the Church, drove vast num- 
 bers of Jews into Poland. Here the refugees sought shelter in 
 the provinces nearest to the Austro-German border, Cracow, 
 Posen, Kalish, and Silesia. 
 
 The first signs of discord between Christians and Jews are 
 to be noticed in the second half of the tweKth century, when 
 Poland fell asunder into several feudal Principalities, or
 
 42 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 " Appanages." * The Prince of Great Poland, Mechislav III., 
 the Old, in his desire to enforce law and order, found it neces- 
 sary to issue, in 1173, strict injunctions forbidding all kinds of 
 violence against the Jews and in particular the attacks upon 
 them by Christian " scholars," the pupils of the ecclesiastic 
 and monastic colleges. Those found guilty of such attacks were 
 to be heavily fined. On the whole, the rulers were willing to 
 take the Jews under their protection. Under Mechislav the 
 Old, Casimir the Just, and Leshek the Whit«, who reigned 
 at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, the Jews farmed and administered the mint of Great 
 and of Little Poland. On the coins struck by these Jews, many 
 of which have come down to us, the names of the ruling princes 
 are marked in Hebrew characters/ At the very beginning of 
 the thirteenth century (1203-1207) we hear of Jews owning 
 lands and estates in Polish Silesia. 
 
 Such was the rise and growth of the Jewish colonies in 
 Poland. As time went on, the commercial intercourse between 
 these colonies and the West led to a spiritual relationship be- 
 tween them and the centers of Jewish culture in Europe. A 
 
 [' The most important of these were: Great Poland, in the north- 
 west, with the leading cities of Posen and Kalish; Little Poland, in 
 the southwest, with Cracow and Lublin; and Red Russia, in the 
 south, on which see p. 53, n. 2. In 1319 Great Poland and Little 
 Poland were united by Vladislav Lokietek (see p. 50), who assumed 
 the royal title. His son Casimir the Great annexed Red Russia. 
 Thenceforward Great Poland, Little Poland, and Red Russia formed 
 part of the Polish Kingdom, with Cracow as capital, though they 
 were administered as separate Provinces. On the Principality of 
 Mazovia, see p. 85, n. 1.] 
 
 ^ Some coins bear the inscription 'pD^^i) ^"lp Npt^O, " Meshko 
 (= Mechislav) Kr61 Polski," " Meshko, king of Poland," or nD")3 
 KpK'D. " Benediction [on] Meshko." Other coins give the names 
 of the Jewish minters, such as Abraham, son of Isaac Nagid, 
 Joseph Kalish, etc.
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 43 
 
 contemporary Bohemian scholar of the Tosafist school, Rabbi 
 Eliezer, informs us that the Jews of Poland, Russia, and Hun- 
 gary, having no scholars of their own, invited their spiritual 
 leaders from other countries, probably from Germany. These 
 foreign scholars occupied the posts of rabbis, cantors, and 
 school teachers among them, and were remunerated for their 
 services. At the same time studious Polish Jews were in the 
 habit of going abroad to perfect themselves in the sciences, as 
 was also the case with the Jewish settlers in Russia. From the 
 German mother country the Polish Jews received not only 
 their language, a German dialect, which subsequently devel- 
 oped into the Polish- Jewish jargon, or Yiddish, but also their 
 religious culture and their communal organization. All this, 
 however, was in an embryonic stage, and only gradually un- 
 folded in the following period, 
 
 2. The Charter of Prince Boleslav and the Canons of 
 THE Chuech 
 
 The importance of Jewish immigration for the economic 
 development of Poland was first realized by the feudal 
 Polish princes of the thirteenth century. Prompted by the 
 desire of cultivating industrial activities in their dominions, 
 these princes gladly welcomed settlers from Germany, with- 
 out making a distinction between Jews and Christians. Nor 
 did the native Slav population suffer inconvenience from 
 this immigration, which, on the contrary, brought the first 
 elements of a higher civilization into the country. In a land 
 which had not yet emerged from the primitive stage of agri- 
 cultural economy, and possessed only two fixed classes, owners 
 of the soil and tillers of the soil, the Jews naturally repre- 
 sented the " third estate," acting as the pioneers of trade and
 
 44 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 finance. They put their capital in circulation, by launch- 
 ing industrial undertakings, by leasing estates, and farming 
 various articles of revenue (salt mines, customs duties), and 
 by engaging in money-lending. The native population, which 
 medieval culture, with its religious intolerance and class preju- 
 dice, had not yet had time to " train " properly, lived at 
 peace with the Jews. 
 
 The influence of the Church, on the one hand, and that of 
 adjacent Christian Germany, on the other, slowly undermined 
 this patriarchal order of things. The popes dispatched their 
 legates to Poland to see to it that the well-known canonical 
 statutes, which were permeated with implacable hatred against 
 the adherents of Judaism, did not remain a dead letter, but 
 were carried out in practice. During the same period the 
 Polish princes, in particular Boleslav the Shy (1247-1279), 
 endeavored to draw German emigrants into Poland, by be- 
 stowing upon them considerable privileges and the right of 
 self-government, the so-called " IMagdeburg Law," or ius teu- 
 tonicum.^ The Germans, while settling in the Polish cities as 
 merchants and tradesmen,' and thus becoming the competitors 
 of the Jews, imported from their native land into the new 
 environment the spirit of economic class strife and denomina- 
 tional antagonism. The best of the Polish rulers were forced 
 
 V Das Magdeburger Recht, a collection of laws based on the 
 famous Sachsenspiegel, which was composed early in the thirteenth 
 century in Saxony. Owing to the fame of the court of aldermen 
 (Schoppenstuhl) at Magdeburg, the Magdeburg Law was adopted 
 in many parts of Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and particularly of 
 Poland. One of its main provisions was the administrative and 
 judicial independence of the municipalities.] 
 
 [' They were organized in mercantile guilds and trade-unions 
 and formed the estate of burghers, called in Polish mieszczanie — 
 pronounced myeshchanye — and in Latin oppidani, " town-dwel- 
 lers," thus standing midway between the nobility, or Shlakhta 
 (see p. 58, n. 1), and the serfs, or khlops.]
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 45 
 
 to combat the effects of this foreign importation, and found it 
 necessary to encourage the economic activity of the Jews for 
 the benefit of the country and to shield them against the insults 
 of their Christian neighbors. 
 
 Boleslav of Kalish, surnamed the Pious, who ruled over the 
 territory of Great Poland, was a prince of this kind. In 1264, 
 with the consent of the highest dignitaries of the state, he pro- 
 mulgated a statute defining the rights of the Jews within his 
 dominions. This charter of privileges, closely resembling in 
 its contents the statutes of Frederick of Austria and Ottocar of 
 Bohemia, became the corner-stone of Polish-Jewish legislation. 
 Boleslav^s charter consists of thirty-seven paragraphs, and 
 begins with these words : 
 
 The deeds of man, when unconfirmed by the voice of witnesses 
 or by written documents, are bound to pass away swiftly and dis- 
 appear from memory. Because of this, we, Boleslav, Prince of 
 Great Poland, make it known to our contemporaries as well as to 
 our descendants, to whom this writing shall come down, that the 
 Jews, who have established themselves over the length and breadth 
 of our country, have received from us the following statutes and 
 privileges. 
 
 The first clause of the charter prescribes that, when civil and 
 criminal cases are tried in court, the testimony of a Christian 
 against a Jew is to be accepted only if confirmed by the depo- 
 sition of a Jewish witness. The following clauses (§§2-7) 
 determine the process of law in litigation between Christians 
 and Jews, involving primarily pawnbroking; the rules pre- 
 scribed there protect equally the interests of the Jewish cred- 
 itor and the Christian debtor. Lawsuits between Jew and Jew 
 do not fall within the jurisdiction of the general municipal 
 courts, but are tried either by the prince himself or by his lord
 
 46 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 lieutenant, the voyevoda/ or the special judge appointed by the 
 latter (§8). The Christian who has murdered or wounded 
 a Jew answers for his crime before the princely court: in 
 the former ease the culprit incurs " due punisliment," and his 
 property is forfeit to the prince; in the latter case he has 
 to satisfy the plaintiff, and must in addition pay a tine into the 
 princely exchequer (§§9-10). 
 
 This is followed by a set of paragraphs which guarantee to 
 the Jew the inviolability of his person and property. They 
 forbid annoying Jewish merchants on the road, exacting from 
 them higher customs duties than from Christians, demolishing 
 Jewish cemeteries, and attacking synagogues or " schools " 
 (§§12-15). In case of a nocturnal assault upon the home 
 of a Jew, the Christian neighbors are obliged to come to his 
 rescue as soon as they hear his cries; those who fail to respond 
 are subject to a fine (§36). 
 
 The rights and functions of the "Jewish judge,"* who is 
 appointed to try cases between Jew and Jew, sitting " in the 
 neighborhood of the synagogue or in some other place," are set 
 forth elaborately ( §§16-23 ) . The kidnaping of Jewish children 
 
 [' The word, spelled in Polish icojewoda, signifies, like the cor- 
 responding German Herzog, military commander. The voyevoda 
 was originally the leader of the army in war and the representa- 
 tive of the king in times of peace. After the unification of Poland, 
 in 1319, the voyevodas became the administrators of the various 
 Polish provinces (or voyevodstvos) on behalf of the king. Later 
 on their duties were encroached upon by the starostas (see below, 
 p. 60, n. 1). With the growth of the influence of the nobility, 
 which resented the authority of the royal officials, their functions 
 were limited to the calling of the militia in the case cf war and 
 the exercise of jurisdiction over the Jews of their province. They 
 were members of the Royal Council, and as such wielded con- 
 siderable influence. Their Latin title was palatinus.] 
 
 V Judex Judaeorum. He was a Christian official, generally of 
 noble rank. See p. 52.]
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 47 
 
 with the view of baptizing them is severely punished (§27). 
 The charter further prohibits charging the Jews with the use of 
 Christian blood for ritual purposes, in view of the fact that 
 the groundlessness of such charges had been demonstrated 
 b}' papal bulls. Should nevertheless such charges be raised, they 
 must be corroborated by six witnesses, three Christians and 
 three Jews. If the charges are substantiated, the guilty Jew 
 loses his life; otherwise the same fate overtakes the Christian 
 informer (§32). All these legal safeguards were, in the words 
 of the charter, to remain in force " for all time." 
 
 The Polish lawgiver was evidently anxious to secure for the 
 Jews such conditions of life as might enable them to benefit the 
 country by their commercial activity, while enjoying liberty of 
 conscience and living in harmony with the non-Jewish popu- 
 lation. Boleslav's enactment expresses, not the individual will 
 of the ruler, but the collective decision of the highest dig- 
 nitaries and the representatives of the estates, who, as is pointed 
 out in the document, had been previously consulted. 
 
 Thus the temporal powers of the state, guided by the eco- 
 nomic needs of the country, endeavored to establish Jewish 
 life in Poland on more or less rational civic foundations. The 
 ecclesiastic authorities, however, inspired rather by the cos- 
 mopolitan ideals of the Eoman Church than by love of their 
 native land, strained all their energies to detach the Jews from 
 the general life of the country. They segregated them from 
 the Christian population because of their alleged injuriousness 
 to the Catholic faith, and reduced them to the position of a 
 despised caste. The well-known Church Council of Breslau, 
 convened in 1266 by the Papal Legate Guido, had the special 
 mission of introducing in the oldest Polish diocese, that of 
 Gnesen, the canonical laws, including those applying to the 
 4
 
 48 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Jews. The motives by which this legislation was prompted 
 are frankly stated in the preamble to the section of the Breslau 
 " constitution " which deals with the Jews : 
 
 In view of the fact — runs clause 12 — that Poland is a new planta- 
 tion on the soil of Christianity (quum adhuc terra Polonica sit in 
 corpore Christianitatis nova plantatio), there is reason to fear 
 that her Christian population will fall an easy prey to the in- 
 fluence of the superstitions and evil habits of the Jews living 
 among them, the more so as the Christian religion took root 
 in the hearts of the faithful of these countries at a later date 
 and in a more feeble manner. For this reason we most strictly 
 enjoin that the Jews residing in the diocese of Gnesen shall 
 not live side by side with the Christians, but shall live apart, 
 in houses adjoining each other or connected with one another, 
 in some section of the city or village. The section inhabited by 
 Jews shall be separated from the general dwelling-place of the 
 Christians by a hedge, wall, or ditch. 
 
 The Jews owning houses in the Christian quarter shall be 
 compelled to sell them within the shortest term possible. 
 
 Further injunctions prescribe that the Jews shall lock them- 
 selves up in their houses while church processions are marching 
 through the streets ; that in each city they shall possess no more 
 than one synagogue ; that, " in order to be marked off from the 
 Christians," they shall wear a peculiarly shaped hat, with a 
 horn-like shield {cornutum pileum), and that any Jew showing 
 himself on the street without this headgear shall be subject 
 to punishment, in accordance with the custom of the country. 
 
 The Christians are forbidden, under penalty of excommuni- 
 cation, to invite Jews to a meal, or to eat and drink with them, 
 or dance and make merry with them at weddings and other 
 celebrations. The Christians are barred from buying meat 
 and other eatables from Jews, since the sellers might treacher- 
 ously put poison in them.
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 49 
 
 These prohibitions are followed by the ancient canonical 
 enactments forbidding the Jews to keep Christian servants, 
 nursery-maids, and wet-nurses, and barring them from collect- 
 ing customs duties and exercising any other public function. A 
 Jew living unlawfully with a Christian woman is liable to im- 
 prisonment and fine, while the woman is subject to a public 
 whipping and to banishment from the town for all time. 
 
 The Church Coimcil which held its sessions in Buda (Ofen), 
 in Hungary, in 1279, was attended by the highest ecclesiastic 
 dignitaries of Poland. This Council ratified the clause con- 
 cerning the " Jewish sign," supplementing it by the follow- 
 ing details: The Jews of both sexes shall be obliged to 
 wear a ring of red cloth sewed on to their upper garment, 
 on the left side of the chest. The Jew appearing on the 
 street without this sign shall be accounted a vagrant, and no 
 Christian shall have the right to do business with him. A 
 similar sign, only of saffron color, is prescribed for " Saracens 
 and Ishmaelites," t. e. for Mohammedans. The law barring 
 Jews from the collection of customs and the discharge of other 
 public fimctions is extended by the Synod of Buda to the 
 " sectarians," to the Christians of the Greek Orthodox per- 
 suasion. 
 
 In this manner the condition of the Jews of Poland in the 
 thirteenth century was determined by two factors operating 
 in different directions: the temporal powers, actuated by 
 economic considerations, accorded the Jews the elementary 
 rights of citizenship, while the ecclesiastic powers, prompted by 
 religious intolerance, endeavored to exclude the Jews from 
 civil life. As long as patriarchal conditions of life pre- 
 vailed, and Catholicism in Poland had not yet assujncd com- 
 plete control over the country, the policy of the Church was
 
 50 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 powerless to inflict serious damage upon the Jews. They 
 lived in safety, under the protection of the Polish princes, and, 
 except for the German immigrants, managed to get along 
 peaceably with the Christian population. But the clerical 
 party was looking out for the future, taking assiduous care that 
 " the new plantation on the soil of Christianity " should de- 
 velop along the lines of the older plantations, and was scatter- 
 ing the seeds of religious hatred in the patient expectation of a 
 plentiful harvest. 
 
 3. IJisE OF Polish Jewry under Casimir the Great 
 
 The Jewish emigration from Western Europe assumed es- 
 pecially large proportions in the first part of the fourteenth 
 century. The butcheries perpetrated by the hordes of Rind- 
 fleisch and Armleder, and the massacres accompanying the 
 Black Death, forced a large number of German Jews to seek 
 shelter in Poland, which was then undergoing the process of 
 unification and rejuvenation. In 1319, King Vladislav* 
 Lokietek ' laid the foundation for the political unity of Poland 
 by abolisliing the former feudal divisions, and his famous son 
 Casimir the Great (1333-1370) was indefatigable in his en- 
 deavors to raise the level of civil and economic life in his 
 united realm. Casimir the Great founded new cities and 
 fortified old ones, promoted commerce and industry, and pro- 
 tected, with equal solicitude, the interests of all classes, not 
 excluding those of the peasants. He was styled the " peasant 
 king," and the popular commendation of his efforts in the 
 upbuilding of the cities was crystallized in the saying that 
 
 [* In Polish, "Wladyslaw. The name is also found in the forms 
 Wladislaus and Ladislaus.] 
 
 l^I. e. " Span-long," so called because of his diminutive stature.]
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 51 
 
 Casimir the Great "found a Poland of wood and left behind 
 him a Poland of stone." 
 
 A ruler of this type could not but welcome the useful indus- 
 trial activity of the Jews with the liveliest satisfaction. He was 
 anxious to bring them in close contact with the Christian 
 population on the common ground of peaceful labor and 
 mutual helpfulness. He was equally quick to appreciate the 
 advantages which the none too flourishing royal exchequer 
 might derive from the experience of Jewish capitalists. Such 
 must have been the motives Avhich actuated Casimir when, in 
 the second year of his reign (1344), he ratified, in Cracow, 
 the charter which Boleslav of Kalish had granted to the Jews of 
 Great Poland, and which he now" extended in its operation to 
 all the provinces of the kingdom. 
 
 On later occasions (1346-1370) Casimir amplified the char- 
 ter of Boleslav by adding new enactments. In view of the hos- 
 tility of the municipalities and the clergy towards the Jews, 
 the King found it necessary to insist in particular on placing 
 Jewish legal cases under his own jurisdiction, and taking them 
 out of the hands of the municipal and ecclesiastic authorities. 
 The Jews were granted the following privileges: the right of 
 free transit through the whole country, of residing in the 
 cities, towns, and villages, of renting and mortgaging the 
 estates of the nobility, and lending money at a fixed rate of 
 interest, the last pursuit being closed to Christians by virtue 
 of canonical restrictions, and therefore left entirely in the 
 hands of the Jews. The Polish lawgiver was equally solicitous 
 about enforcing respect for the Jew as a human being and 
 drawing him nearer to the Christian in private life, in violent 
 contradiction with the tendency of the Church to isolate the 
 infidels from the " flock of the faithful." " If the Jew," runs
 
 / 
 
 52 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 one of the clauses of Casimir's charter, " enters the house of 
 a Christian, no one has a right to cause him any injury or un- 
 pleasantness. Every Jew is allowed to visit the municipal 
 baths in safety, in the same way as the Christians,* and pay 
 the same fee as the Christians/' 
 
 Casimir was equally interested in ordering the inner life of 
 the Jews. The " Jewish judge," a Christian official appointed 
 by the king to try Jewish cases, was enjoined to dispense jus- 
 tice in the synagogue or some other place, in accordance with 
 the wishes of the representatives of the Jewish community. The 
 role of process-server was assigned to the " schoolman," i. e. 
 the synagogue beadle. This was the germ of the future system 
 of Kahal autonomy. 
 
 It seems that in the fateful year of the Black Death (1348- 
 1349 ) the Polish Jews too were in great danger. On the wings 
 of the plague, which penetrated from Germany to Poland, 
 came the hideous rumor charging the Jews with having 
 poisoned the wells. If we are to trust the testimony of an 
 Italian chronicler, Matteo Villani, some ten thousand Jews 
 in the Polish cities bordering on Germany met their fate in 
 1348 at the hands of Christian mobs, even the King being 
 powerless to shield the unfortunates against the fury of the 
 people. A vague account in an old Polish chronicle relates 
 that in the year 1349 the Jews were exterminated " in nearly 
 the whole of Poland." It is possible that attacks on the Jews 
 took place in the border towns, but, judging by the fact that 
 the Jewish chroniclers, in describing the ravages of the Black 
 Death, make no mention of Poland, these attacks cannot have 
 been extensive. Be this as it may, there can be no doubt that, 
 threatened with massacres in Germany, large numbers of Jews 
 
 * A privilege denied to them by the canons of the Church.
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 53 
 
 fled to the neighboring towns of Poland, and subsequently 
 settled there. 
 
 It may be mentioned in this connection that from about the 
 same time dates the origin of the Jewish community of Lvov 
 (Lemberg)/ the capital of Eed Russia, or Galicia, which had 
 been added to his dominions by Casimir the Great.' In 1356 
 Casimir, in granting the Magdeburg LaAv to the city of Lem- 
 berg, bestowed upon the local Jews the right " of being judged 
 according to their own laws, i. e. autonomy in their communal 
 affairs, a privilege accorded at the same time to the Rutheni- 
 ans, Armenians, and Tatars. 
 
 Casimir the Great's attitude towards the Jevs was thus a 
 part of his general policy with reference to foreign settlers, 
 whom he believed to be useful for the development of the 
 country. This, however, did not prevent certain evil-minded 
 persons, both then and in later ages, from seeing in these acts 
 of rational statesmanship the manifestation of the King's per- 
 sonal predilections and attachments. Rumor had it that Casi- 
 mir was favorably disposed towards the Jews because of his in- 
 fatuation with the beautiful Jewess Estherka. This Jewish 
 belle, the daughter of a tailor, is supposed to have captured the 
 heart of the King so completely that in 1356 he abandoned a 
 former favorite for her sake. Estherka lived in the royal palace 
 of Lobzovo, near Cracow. She bore the King two daughters, 
 
 [* Lvov, written in Polish Lwow, is used by the Poles and Rus- 
 sians; Lemberg is used by the Germans.] 
 
 [* Before Casimir the Great Red Russia formed an independent 
 Principality (see p. 42, n. 1). The identity of Red Russia with 
 Galicia has been assumed in the text for the sake of convenience. 
 In reality Red Russia corresponds to present-day Eastern Galicia, 
 in which the predominating population is Little Russian or Ruthen- 
 ian, while Western Galicia, with Cracow, formed part of Little 
 Poland- In addition Red Russia included a part of the present 
 Russian Government of Podolia.]
 
 54 THE JEWS TN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 who were brought up by their motiier in the Jewish religion, 
 and two sons, who were educated as Christians, and who sub- 
 sequently became the progenitors of several noble families. 
 Estherka was killed during the persecution to which the Jews 
 were subjected by Casimir's successor, Louis of Hungary. The 
 whole romantic episode presents a mixture of fact and fiction 
 in which it is difficult to make out the truth. 
 
 Similarly blurred reports have come down to us concerning 
 the persecutions by the new ruler, Louis of Hungary (1370- 
 1382). During the reign of this King, when, as the Polish 
 historians put it, justice had vanished, the law kept silent, and 
 the people complained bitterly about the despotism of the 
 judges and officials, an attempt was made to rob the Jews 
 of the protection of the law. Xursed as he was in the Catholic 
 traditions of Western Europe, Louis persecuted the Jews 
 from religious motives, threatening with expulsion those 
 among them who had refused to embrace the Christian faith. 
 Fortunately for the Jews his reign in Poland was too ephemeral 
 and unpopular to undo the work of his famous predecessor, the 
 last king of the Piast dynasty. Only at a later date, during the 
 protracted reign of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Yaghello, 
 who acquired the Polish crown by marrying, in 1386, Louis' 
 daughter Yadviga, did the Church obtain poAver over the 
 affairs of the state, gradually undermining the civil status of 
 the Jews of Poland. 
 
 4. Polish Jewry during the Eeign of Yaghello 
 
 With the outgoing fourteenth century, Poland was drawn 
 more and more into the whirlpool of European politics. Cathol- 
 icism served as the connecting link between this Slav country 
 and Western Europe. Hence the influence of the West mani-
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 55 
 
 fested itself primarily in the enhancement of ecclesiastic 
 authority, which, being cosmopolitan in character, endeavored 
 to obliterate all national and cultural distinctions. The 
 Polish king Vladislav Yaghello (1386-1434), having been 
 converted from paganism to Catholicism, and having forced 
 his Lithuanian subjects to follow his example, adhered to the 
 new faith with the ardor of a convert, and frequently yielded 
 to the influence of the clergy. It was during his reign that the 
 Jews of Poland suffered their first religious persecution in that 
 country. 
 
 The Jews of Posen were charged with having bribed a poor 
 Christian Avoman into stealing from the local Dominican 
 church three hosts, which supposedly were stabbed and 
 thrown into a pit. From the pierced hosts, so the super- 
 stitious rumor had it, blood spurted forth, in confirmation 
 of the Eucharist dogma. Nor was this the only miracle which 
 popular imagination ascribed to the three bits of holy bread. 
 The Archbishop of Posen, having learned of the alleged blas- 
 phemy, instituted proceedings against the Jews. The Eabbi 
 of Posen, thirteen elders of the Jewish community, and the 
 woman charged with the theft of the holy wafers, became the 
 victims of popular superstition ; after prolonged tortures they 
 were all tied to pillars, and roasted alive on a slow fire (1399). 
 Moreover, the Jews of Posen were punished by the imposition 
 of an " eternal " fine, which they had to pay annually in favor 
 of the Dominican church. This fine was rigorously exacted 
 down to the eighteenth century, as long as the legend of the 
 three hosts lingered in the memory of pious Catholics. 
 
 As in the West, religious motives in such cases merely served 
 as a disguise to cover up motives of an economic nature — 
 envy on the part of the Christian city-dwellers of the pros-
 
 56 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 perity of the Jews, who had managed to obtain a foothold in 
 certain branches of commerce, and eagerness to dispose in one 
 way or another of inconvenient rivals. Similar motives, 
 coupled with religious intolerance, were responsible for the 
 anti-Jewish riots in Cracow in 1407. In that ancient capital 
 of Poland the Jews had increased in numbers in the begin- 
 ning of the fourteenth century, and, by their commercial enter- 
 prise, had attained to prosperity. The Cracow burghers were 
 jealous of them, and the clergy found it improper that the 
 doomed sons of the Synagogue should live so tranquilly under 
 the shelter of the benevolent Church. A silent but stubborn 
 agitation was carried on against the Jews, their enemies merely 
 waiting for a convenient opportunity to square accounts with 
 them. 
 
 On one occasion, on the third day of Easter, the priest 
 Budek, who had gained the reputation of an implacable Jew- 
 baiter, delivered a sermon in the Church of St. Barbara. As 
 he was about to leave the pulpit, he suddenly announced to 
 the worshipers that he had found a notice on the pulpit to this 
 effect : " The Jews living in Cracow killed a Christian boy 
 last night, and made sport over his blood ; moreover, they threw 
 stones at a priest who was going to visit a sick man, and was 
 carrying a crucifix in his hands," No sooner had these words 
 been uttered than the people rushed into the Jewish street, and 
 began to loot the houses of " Christ's enemies." The royal 
 authorities hastened to the rescue of the Jews, and by armed 
 force put an end to the riots. But several hours later, when 
 the bells of the town hall began to ring, summoning the 
 members of the magistracy to a meeting, for the purpose 
 of punishing the instigators of the disorders, some one in the 
 crowd shouted that the magistracy was inviting the Chris-
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 57 
 
 tians to another attack upon the Jews. Thereupon the 
 rabble came running from all parts of the city and began to 
 slay and plunder the Jews, setting fire to their houses. Some 
 Jews sought refuge in the Tower of St. Anne, but the mob set 
 fire to the tower, and the unfortunate Jews had to surrender. 
 A number of them, to save their lives, adopted Christianity, 
 while the children of the slain were all baptized. Many 
 Christians, according to the testimony of the Polish historian 
 Dlugosh,^ grew rich on the money plundered from the Jews. 
 
 One cannot fail to perceive in all these catastrophes the 
 influence of neighboring Germany.* It was from Germany 
 that the clerical reaction which followed upon the struggle of 
 the Church with the reformatory Huss movement penetrated 
 to Poland. The Synod of Constance, which condemned Huss, 
 was attended by the Archbishop of Gnesen, Nicholas Tromba, 
 who appeared at the head of a Polish delegation. On his 
 return, this leading dignitary of the Polish Church presided 
 over the proceedings of the Synod of Kalish (1420), which 
 had also been convened in connection with the Huss movement. 
 
 At the suggestion of this Archbishop, the Council of Kalish 
 solemnly ratified all the anti-Jewish enactments which had 
 been passed by the Councils of Breslau and Buda (Ofen),^ but 
 had seldom been carried out in practice. These laws, as will 
 be remembered, forbade all intercourse between Jew and 
 Christian, and ordered the Jews to live in separate quarters, to 
 wear a distinctive mark on the upper garment, and so forth. 
 At the same time the Jews were required to pay a tax in favor 
 
 'Jan Dlugosz, called in Latin Johannes Longinus [author of 
 Historia Polonica. He died in 1480]. 
 
 ^ The recently published records of the court proceedings in the 
 Cracow pogrom of 1407 show that its principal instigators were 
 German artisans and merchants who resided in that city. 
 
 • See p. 47 and p. 49.
 
 58 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 of the churches of those diocesan districts " where they now 
 live, and where by right Christians ought to live," this tax 
 to correspond to " the losses inflicted by them upon the Chris- 
 tians." These injunctions were issued as special instructions 
 to the members of the clergy in all the dioceses. 
 
 The ecclesiastic tendencies gradually forced their way into 
 secular legislation. The fanatics of the Church exerted their 
 influence not only on the King but also on the landed nobility, 
 the ShlakMa^ which at that time began to take a more active 
 interest in the affairs of the state. At the convention of the 
 Shlakhta in Varta" (1423) King Vladislav Yaghello sanc- 
 tioned a law forbidding the Jews to lend money against written 
 securities, only loans against pledges being permitted. The 
 ecclesiastic origin of this enactment is betrayed in the ugly 
 manner in which the law is justified in the preamble : " Where- 
 as Jewish cunning is always directed against the Christians 
 and aims rather at the property of the Christian than at his 
 creed or person ..." 
 
 5. The Jews of Lithuania during the Eeign of Vitovt 
 
 An entirely different picture is presented at that time by 
 Lithuania, which, in spite of its dynastic alliance with Poland, 
 retained complete autonomy of administration. The patriar- 
 ch Written in Polish Szlachta, probably derived from the old Ger- 
 man slahta, in modern German Oeschlecht, meaning tribe, caste. 
 The Polish Shlakhta was in complete control of the Diet, or sejm 
 (pronounced saym), from which the other estates, the peasants and 
 burghers, were excluded almost entirely. In the course of time, the 
 Shlakhta succeeded also in wresting the power from the king, who 
 became a mere figurehead.] 
 
 [^ In Polish, Warta, a town in the province of Kalish. These 
 conventions of the nobility assumed, in the fifteenth century, the 
 character of a national parliament for the whole of Poland.]
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 59 
 
 chal order of things, which was nearing its end in Poland, 
 was still firmly intrenched in the Duchy of Lithuania, but 
 recently emerged from the stage of primitive paganism. 
 Medieval culture had not yet taken hold of the inhabitants of 
 the wooded banks of the Niemen, and the Jews were able to 
 settle there without having to face violence and persecution. 
 
 It is difficult to determine the exact date of the first Jewish 
 settlements in Lithuania. So much is certain, however, that by 
 the end of the fourteenth century a number of important com- 
 munities were in existence, such as those of Brest, Grodno, 
 Troki, Lutzk, and Vladimir, the last two in Volhynia, which, 
 prior to the Polish-Lithuanian Union of 1579, formed part of 
 the Duchy. The first one to legalize the existence of these 
 commimities was the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vitovt, who 
 ruled over Lithuania from 1388 to 1430, partly as an inde- 
 pendent sovereign, partly in the name of his cousin, the Polish 
 King Yaghello. In 1388 the Jews of Brest and other Lithua- 
 nian communities obtained from Vitovt a charter similar in 
 content to the statutes of Boleslav of Kalish and Casimir the 
 Great, and in 1389 even more extensive privileges were be- 
 stowed by him on the Jews of Grodno. 
 
 In these enactments the Lithuanian ruler exhibits, like 
 Casimir, an enlightened solicitude for a peaceful relationship 
 between Jews and Christians and for the inner welfare of the 
 Jewish communities. Under the laws enacted by Vitovt the 
 Jews of Lithuania formed a class of free citizens, standing 
 under the immediate protection of the Grand Duke and 
 his local administration. They lived in independent com- 
 munities, enjoying autonomy in their internal affairs as far 
 as religion and property are concerned, while in criminal
 
 60 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 affairs they were liable to the court of the local starosta ' or sub- 
 starosta, and, in particularly important cases, to the court of 
 the Grand Duke himself. The law guaranteed to the Jews in- 
 violability of person and property, liberty of religion, the right 
 of free transit, the free pursuit of commerce and trade, on 
 equal terms with the Christians. The Lithuanian Jews carried 
 on business on the market-places or in shops, they plied all 
 kinds of trades, and occasionally engaged in agriculture. Men 
 of wealth lent money on interest, leased from the Grand Duke 
 the customs duties, the revenues on spirits, and other taxes. 
 They held estates either in their own right or in the form of 
 land leases. The taxes which they paid into the exchequer 
 were adapted to the character of their occupations, and on the 
 whole were not burdensome. Aside from the Rabbanite Jews 
 there existed in Lithuania Karaites, who had immigrated from 
 the Crimea, and had established themselves in the regions of 
 Troki and Lutzk. 
 
 Accordingly the position of the Jews was more favorable in 
 Lithuania than in Poland. Jewish immigrants, on their way 
 from Germany to Poland, frequently went as far as Lithu- 
 ania and settled there permanently. Lithuania formed the 
 extreme boundary in the eastward movement of the Jews, Rus- 
 sia and Muscovy being almost entirely closed to them. 
 
 [^ Lithuania was administered by starostas as Poland was by 
 voyevodas (see p. 46, n. 1). The starostas — literally "elders" — 
 were originally nobles holding an estate of the crown, which was 
 given to them by the king for special services rendered to him. 
 In the course of time they became, both in Lithuania and In Poland 
 proper, governors of whole regions, taking over many of the 
 functions of the voyevodas. The relationship between the two 
 oflScers underwent many changes. On the effect of this change upon 
 the jurisdiction of the Jews compare Bloch, Die General-Privi- 
 legien der polnischen Judenschaft, p. 35.]
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 61 
 
 6. The Conflict between Royalty and Clergy under 
 Casimir IV. AND His Sons 
 
 The conflict of tendencies in the Polish legislation concern- 
 ing the Jews manifested itself with particular violence in the 
 reign of Casimir IV., the third king of the Yaghello dynasty. 
 The attitude of Casimir IV. (1447-1493), who was imbued 
 with the ideas of the humanistic movement then in vogue, was 
 at first that of a wise ruler, the guardian of the common inter- 
 ests of his subjects. As Grand Duke of Lithuania he had fol- 
 lowed the liberal Jewish policies of his predecessor Vitovt. He 
 protected the personal and communal rights of both the Rab- 
 banite and Karaite Jews — to the latter he granted, in 1441, 
 the Magdeburg Law — and he frequently availed himself of 
 the services of enterprising Jewish financiers and tax-farmers 
 to increase the revenues of the state. 
 
 Having accepted the Polish crown, Casimir was resolved to 
 rule independently and to disregard the designs of the all- 
 powerful clergy. Shortly after his coronation, in August, 1447, 
 while the King was on a visit to Posen, the city was devastated 
 by a terrible fire. During the conflagration the ancient original 
 of the charter which Casimir the Great had bestowed upon the 
 Jews was lost. A Jewish delegation from the communities of 
 Posen, Kalish, and other cities petitioned the King to restore 
 and ratify the old Jewish privileges, on the basis of copies of 
 the charter which had been spared. Casimir readily granted 
 the request of the deputies. " We desire " — he announces in 
 his new charter — " that the Jews, whom we wish to protect in 
 our own interest as well as in the interest of the royal ex- 
 chequer, should feel comforted in our beneficent reign." Cor- 
 roborating as it did all the rights and privileges previously 
 conferred upon the Jews — liberty of residence and commerce.
 
 63 
 
 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 communal and judicial autonomy, inviolability of life and 
 liberty, protection against groundless charges and attacks — 
 the charter of Casimir IV. was a direct protest against the 
 canonical laws only recently reissued for Poland by the Council 
 of Kalish, and for the whole Catholic world by the great Council 
 at Basle, In opposition to the main trend of the Council reso- 
 lutions, the royal charter permitted the Jews to associate with 
 Christians, and exempted them from the jurisdiction of the 
 ecclesiastic law courts (1453). 
 
 The King's liberalism aroused the resentment of the Catholic 
 clergy. The leader of the clerical party was the energetic 
 Archbishop of Cracow, Cardinal Zbignyev Oleshnitzki, who 
 openly headed the forces arrayed in opposition to the King. 
 He denounced Casimir bitterly for granting protection to the 
 Jews, " to the injury and insult of the holy faith." 
 
 Do not imagine — Oleshnitzki writes to the King in May, 1454 — 
 that in matters touching the Christian religion you are at liberty 
 to pass any law you please. No one is great and strong enough 
 to put down all opposition to himself when the interests of the 
 faith are at stake. I therefore beg and implore your Royal 
 Majesty to revoke the aforementioned privileges and liberties. 
 Prove that you are a Catholic sovereign, and remove all occasion 
 for disgracing your name and for worse offenses that are likely to 
 follow. 
 
 In his letter Oleshnitzki refers to the well-known agitator 
 and Jew-baiter, the Papal Legate Capistrano, who had come to 
 Poland from Germany in the fall of 1453. With this " scourge 
 of the Jews " as his ally Oleshnitzki started a campaign against 
 Jews and heretics (or Hussites). On his arrival in Cracow 
 Capistrano delivered on the market-place incendiary speeches 
 against the Jews, and demanded of the King persistently to 
 revoke the " godless " Jewish privileges, threatening him, in
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 63 
 
 case of disobedience, with the tortures of hell and terrible mis- 
 fortunes for the country. 
 
 At first the King refused to yield, but the march of events 
 favored the anti-Jewish forces. Poland was at war with the 
 Teutonic Order.' The first defeat sustained by the Polish 
 troops in this war (September, 1454) gave the clergy an oppor- 
 tunity of proclaiming that the Lord was chastising the country 
 for the King's disregard of Church interests and for his protec- 
 tion of the. Jews. At last the King was forced to listen to the 
 demands of the united clergy and nobility. In November, 1454, 
 the Statute of Nyeshava " was promulgated, and by one of its 
 clauses all former Jewish privileges were rescinded as " being 
 equally opposed to Divine right and earthly laws." The rea- 
 sons for the enactment, which were evidently dictated by 
 Oleshnitzki, were formulated as follows : " For it is not meet 
 that infidels should enjoy greater advantages than the wor- 
 shipers of our Lord Christ, and slaves should have no right 
 to occupy a better position than sons." The Varta Statutes 
 of 1423 and the former canonical laws were declared in force 
 again. Clericalism had scored a triumph. 
 
 This anti-Jewish tendency communicated itself to the people 
 at large. In several towns the Jews were attacked. In 1463 
 detachments of Polish volunteers who were preparing for a 
 crusade against the Turks passed through Lemberg and Cracow 
 on their way to Hungary. The disorderly crowd, consisting 
 of monks, students, peasants, and impoverished noblemen, 
 threw itself on the Jews of Cracow on the third day of Easter, 
 
 [^A semi-ecclesiastic, semi-military organization of German 
 knights, which originated in Palestine during the Crusades, and 
 was afterwards transferred to Europe to propagate Christianity 
 on the eastern confines of Germany. The Order developed into a 
 powerful state, which became a great menace to Poland.] 
 
 [^ In Polish Nieszawa, the meeting-place of the Diet of that year.] 
 5
 
 ^4 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 looted their houses, and killed about thirty people. When 
 Casimir IV. learned what had happened, he imposed a fine 
 on the magistracy for having failed to forestall the riots. Sim- 
 ilar disorders were taking place about the same time in Lem- 
 berg, Posen, and other cities. 
 
 As far as Casimir IV. was concerned, the clerical policy, arti- 
 ficially foisted upon him, did not alter his personal readiness 
 to shield the Jews. But under his sons, the Polish King John 
 Albrecht and the Lithuanian Grand Duke Alexander Yaghello, 
 the an ti- Jewish policy gained the upper hand. The former 
 ratified, at the Piotrkov Diet of 1496, the Nyeshava Statute 
 with its anti- Jewish restrictions. Jolin Albrecht is also 
 credited with the establishment of the first ghetto in Poland. 
 In 1194 a large part of the Polish capital of Cracow was de- 
 stroyed by fire, and tlie mob, taking advantage of the prevailing 
 panic, jjlundered the property of tlie Jews. As a result, the 
 Jews, who at that time were scattered over various parts of the 
 city, were ordered by . the King to move to Kazimiezh,* a 
 suburb of Cracow, and to live there apart from the Christians. 
 Kazimiezh became, in consequence, a wholly Jewish town, 
 leading throughout the centuries a life of its own, and con- 
 nected with the outside world by mere threads of economic 
 relationship. 
 
 While the throne of Poland was occupied by John All)recht, 
 his brother Alexander ruled over Lithuania as grand duke. 
 At first Alexander's attitude towards the Jews was rather 
 favorable. In 1492 he complied with the petition of the 
 Karaites of Troki, and confirmed the charter of Casimir IV,, 
 bestowing upon them the Magdeburg Law, and even supple- 
 
 [Mvlore exactly Kazimierz, the Polish form for Casimir (the 
 Great), after whom the town was named.]
 
 COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA 65 
 
 menting it by a few addiiiunal privileges. Various items of 
 public revenue, especially the customs duties, were as thereto- 
 fore let to the Jews. Alexander also paid the Jewish capital- 
 ists part of the money advanced by them to his father. In 14:95, 
 however, the Grand Duke suddenly issued a . decree order- 
 ing the expulsion of all the Jews from Lithuania. It is not 
 I<nown whether this cruel action was due to the influence of the 
 anti-Jewish clerical party, and was stimulated by the news of 
 the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, or whether it M'as 
 prompted by the financial dependence of the ruler on his Jew- 
 ish creditors, or by the general desire to enrich himself at the 
 expense of the exiles. As a matter of fact Alexander confis- 
 cated the immovable property of the expelled Jews in the dis- 
 tricts of Grodno, Brest, Lutzk, and Troki, and a large part 
 thereof was distributed by him among the local Christian 
 residents. The banished Jews emigrated partly to the Crimea 
 ( Kafia ) , but the majority settled, with the permission of King 
 John Albrecht, in the neighboring Polish cities. However, 
 when a few years later, after the death of his brother, Alexander 
 accepted, in addition, the crown of Poland (1501), he allowed 
 the Jews to return to Lithuania and settle in their former 
 places of residence. On this occasion tliey received back, 
 though not in all cases, the houses, estates, synagogues, and 
 cemeteries previously owned by them (1503). 
 
 By the beginning of the fourteenth century Polish Jewry 
 had become a big ecomonic and social factor with which t!ie 
 state was bound to reckon. It was now destined to become 
 also an independent spiritual entity, having stood for four 
 hundred years under the tutelage of the Jewish center in 
 Germany. The further development of this new factor forms 
 one of the most prominent features of the next period.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE AUTONOMOUS CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS 
 ZENITH (1501-1648) 
 
 1. Social and Economic Conditions 
 
 In the same age in which the Jewish refugees from Spain 
 and Portugal were wending their steps towards the Turkish 
 p]ast, bands of Jewish emigrants, fleeing from the stuffy ghet- 
 tos of Germany and Austria, could be seen wandering towards 
 the Slavonian East, towards Poland and Lithuania, where, 
 during the period of the Reformation, a large autonomous 
 Diaspora center sprang into life. The transmigration of Jew- 
 ish centers, which is so prominent a feature of the sixteenth 
 century, found its expression in two parallel movements: the 
 demolished or impoverished centers of Western Europe were 
 transplanted to the countries of Eastern Europe on the one 
 hand, and to the lands of contiguous Western Asia on the 
 other. Yet the destinies of the two Eastern centers — Turkey 
 and Poland — were not identical. The Sephardim of Turkey 
 were approaching the end of their brilliant historic career, and 
 were gradually lapsing into Asiatic stupor, while the Ash- 
 kenazim of Poland, with a supply of fresh strength and the 
 promise of an original culture, were starting out on their broad 
 historic development. The mission of the Sephardim was a 
 memory of the past; that of the Ashkenazim was a hope for 
 the future. After medieval Babylonia and Spain, no coun- 
 try presented so intense a concentration of Jewish energy and so 
 vast a field for the development of a Jewish autonomous life 
 as Poland in the sixteenth and the following centuries,* 
 
 ^ According to approximate computations, the number of Jews 
 in Poland during tliat period (between 1501 and 1648) grew from 
 50,000 to 500,000.
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 67 
 
 The uninterrupted colonization of Slavonian lands by Jew- 
 ish emigrants from Germany, which had been going on during 
 the Middle Ages, prepared the soil for the historic process which 
 converted Poland from a colony into a center of Judaism. The 
 large Jewish population settled in the towns and villages of 
 Poland and Lithuania formed, not a downtrodden caste, nor a 
 homogeneous economic class, as in Germany, but an important 
 social entity, unfolding its energy in many departments of 
 social-economic life. It was not tied down to two exclusive 
 occupations, money-lending and petty trade, but it participated 
 in all branches of industrial endeavor, in production and manu- 
 facture, not excluding rural avocations, such as land tenure 
 and farming. The men of wealth among the Jews farmed 
 the tolls (transit and customs duties) and the excise (state 
 taxes collected on wine* and other articles of consumption), 
 and frequently attained to prominence as the financial agents of 
 the kings. When, at a later date, the Jews were hampered in 
 the business of tax-farming, their capital found a new outlet in 
 the lease of crown and Shlakhta estates, with the right of 
 " propination," ^ or liquor traflfic, attached to it, as well as in 
 working the salt mines, in timbering forests, and opening up 
 the other resources of the soil. The big merchants were busy 
 exporting agrarian products from Poland into Austria, Mol- 
 
 [* " Wine " is used here, as it is in the original, to designate alco- 
 holic drinks in general.] 
 
 ['"' Propination," in Polish, propinacja (pronounced propi- 
 natzya), from Latin and Greek propino, "to drink one's health," 
 signifies in Polish law the right of distilling and selling spirituous 
 liquors. This right was granted to the noble landowners by King 
 John Albrecht in 1496, and became one of their most important 
 sources of revenue. After the partition of Poland this right was 
 confirmed for the former Polish territories by the Russian Govern- 
 ment The right of i>ropination, exercised mostly by Jews on behalf 
 of the nobles, proved a decisive factor in the economic and partly 
 in the social life of Russo-Polish Jewry.]
 
 e8 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 davo-Wallachia, and Turkey. The lower classes engaged in 
 retail trade, handicrai'ts, farming, vegetable-growing, garden- 
 ing, and, in some places, particularly in Lithuania, even in 
 corn-growing. 
 
 The economic activity of the Jews, entwined with the ma- 
 terial life of the country by numerous threads, was bound to 
 produce a similar variety of form also in their legal condition. 
 Considering the peculiar caste structure of the Polish state and 
 the relative political freedom enjoyed in that semi-constitu- 
 tional country by the ''governing classes" — the landed 
 nobility, the clergy, and partly the Inirghers — the legal posi- 
 tion of the Jews was of necessity determined by the conflict of 
 political and class interests. Bridled by an oligarchic con- 
 stitution, the royal power was bound to clash with the vast 
 privileges of the landed magnates, the big Shlakhta. The 
 latter, in turn, on the one hand fought the claims of the petty 
 rural Shlakhta, and on the other resisted the advance of the 
 Christinii urban estates, the business men, and craftsmen, who 
 were a powerful factor, owing to their municipal autonomy 
 and their well-organized guilds. The fight was carried on in 
 the Diets, municipalities, and law courts. Within this conflict 
 of economic interests the clergy of the dominant Catholic 
 Church pursued its own line of attack. Having been weak- 
 ened during the Reformation, it now renewed its strength in 
 consequence of the Catholic reaction and the arduous endeavors 
 of the Jesuits. 
 
 These estates differed in their relation to the Jews, each in 
 accordance with its own interests. Medieval ideas had already 
 taken such deep root in the Polish people that, despite the 
 constitutional character of the country, a humane and law- 
 ful attitude towards the Jews was out of the question. They
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 69 
 
 were appiaised aecordiug to the advautages they could bestow 
 upon this or that class, and since in many cases what was ad- 
 vantageous to one class was disadvantageous to another, a con- 
 flict of interests was unavoidable, with the result that the Jews 
 were the objects of protection on the one side and the targets 
 of persecution on the other. 
 
 The Jews of Poland were favored by two powers within the 
 state, by royalty and in part by the big Shlakhta. They were 
 opposed by two others, the clergy and the burghers. Aside 
 from the interests of the exchequer, which was swelled by 
 regular and irregular imposts upon the Jews, the kings derived 
 personal benefits from their commercial activities. They 
 valued the financial services of the Jewish tax-farmers, who 
 paid large sums in advance for the lease of customs duties 
 and state revenues or for the tenure of the royal domains. 
 These contractors and tenants became, as a rule, financial 
 agents of the kings, owing to their ability to advance large 
 sums of money, and were incidentally in a position to exert 
 their influence upon the court in the interest of their core- 
 ligionists. The high nobility in turn appreciated the usefulness 
 of the Jewish farmers and tenants to their estates, which they 
 themselves, with their aristocratic indifl^erence and indolence, 
 knew only how to mismanage. The protection which this class 
 accorded the Jews, principally at the Diets controlled l)y them, 
 was in exact proportion to the services rendered by the Jews as 
 midtllemen between them and the peasants. The magnates 
 accordingly were entirely inditt'erent to the welfare of the 
 rest of Jewry, the toiling masses of the Jewish population. 
 
 Uncompromising hostility to the Jews marked the attitude 
 of the urban estates, the merchants and artisans of the burgher 
 class, with a considerable sprinkling of German settlers, whose
 
 70 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 influence was clearly noticeable. These organized tradesmen 
 and handicraftsmen looked upon the Jews as their direct com- 
 petitors. The magistracies, acting as the organs of municipal 
 self-government, placed severe restrictions upon the Jews in 
 the acquisition of real estate and in the pursuit of business and 
 handicrafts, while the trade-unions occasionally set the riotous 
 mobs at their heels. Still more resolute was the agitation of the 
 Catholic clergy, which frequently succeeded in influencmg 
 legislation in the spirit of ecclesiastic intolerance. 
 
 The interaction of all these forces shaped the legal and social 
 status of the Polish-Lithuanian Jews in the course of the six- 
 teenth and in the beginning of the seventeenth century, at a 
 time when Poland was passing through the zenith of her politi- 
 cal prosperity. The vacillations and upheavals in the position 
 of the Jews were conditioned by the shifting of forces in the 
 direction of the one or the other above-mentioned factors in the 
 course of history. 
 
 2. The Liberal Regime of Sigismund I. 
 
 The opening years of the sixteenth century found the Jews 
 fully restored to the rights of which their enemies had attempted 
 to rob them at the end of the preceding century. Alexander 
 Yaghello, the very same Lithuanian Grand Duke who, from 
 some obscure motive, had banished the Jews from his dominions 
 in 1495,* found it necessary to call them back as soon as he 
 ascended the throne of Poland, after the demise of his brother. 
 In 1503, "having consulted the lords of the realm," King 
 Alexander announced his decision to the effect that the Jews 
 exiled from Grodno and other cities of Lithuania should be 
 
 ' See p. 65.
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 71 
 
 allowed to return and settle "near the castles and in the 
 localities in which they had lived formerly," and should be 
 given back the houses, synagogues, cemeteries, farms, and 
 fields, which had previously been in their possession. The 
 reasons for this change of front may easily be traced to the 
 vast economic importance of the Jews of the Polish Kingdom, 
 which had shortly before, in 1501, entered into a closer union 
 with Lithuania, and to the invaluable services of the Jewish 
 tax-farmers, on whom the royal budget to a large extent 
 depended. 
 
 One of these " royal financiers " was the wealthy Yosko,' who 
 farmed the customs and tolls in nearly half of Poland. To 
 stimulate the endeavors of his financier. King Alexander 
 exempted Yosko and his employees from the authority of the 
 local administration, placing him, after the manner of court 
 dignitaries, under the jurisdiction of the royal court. But, 
 taken as a whole, the King was even now far from friendly to 
 the Jews. In 1505 he permitted the inclusion of the ancient 
 charter of Boleslav of Kalish, the magna charta of Jewish 
 liberties, in the code of organic Polish laws, which was then 
 being edited by the chancellor John Laski. But he was careful 
 to point out that he did not thereby intend to ratify Boleslav's 
 charter anew, but allowed its reproduction " for the purpose 
 of safeguarding [the Christian population] against the Jews " 
 (ad cautelam defensionis contra Judaeos). 
 
 Alexander's successor, Sigismund I. Yaghello (1506-1548), 
 King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, favored a more 
 liberal policy towards his Jewish subjects. Though a staunch 
 Catholic, Sigismund was free from the spirit of anti-Jewish 
 clericalism, and he endeavored to the best of his ability to live 
 
 [^ Popular Polish form of the Jewish name Joseph.]
 
 72 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 lip to the primtiple proclaimed In liim, that " equal justice 
 should be meted out to the rich and mighty lords and to the 
 meanest pauper." This lofty principle, so little compatible 
 with the policy of class discrimination, could, however inade- 
 quately, be applied only there where the power of royalty was 
 not handicapped by the mighty Shlakhta and the other estates. 
 The only part of the Polish Empire where such a condition still 
 existed in the time of Sigismund I. was Lithuania, the patri- 
 mony of the Yaghellos. There the royal, or rather the grand 
 ducal, authority was more extensive and its form of manifesta- 
 tion more patriarchal than in the provinces of the Crown, or 
 Poland proper. By intrusting a large part of the public tax 
 contracts and land leases to the Jewish capitalists, the King 
 could feel easy in his mind as to the integrity of his budget. 
 The general contractor of the customs and other state revenues 
 in Lithuania, ^[ichael Yosefovich (son of Joseph), a Jew from 
 Brest-Litovsk, exercised occasionally also the functions of 
 grand ducal treasurer, being commissioned to pay out of the 
 collected imposts the salaries of the local officials as well as the 
 debts of his royal master. 
 
 Prompted by the desire of rewarding the services of his 
 financier and at the same time putting the communal affairs 
 of his Jewish subjects in better order, Sigismund appointed 
 ^[ichael Yosefovich to serve as the elder, or, to use the official 
 term, the "senior," of all Lithuanian Jews (1514). The 
 "senior" was invested with far-reaching powers: he had the 
 right of conferring directly with the king in all important 
 Jewish affairs, dispensing justice to his coreligionists in accord- 
 ance with their own laws, and collecting from them the taxes 
 imposed by the state. He was to be assisted by a rabbi or 
 " doctor," an expert in Jewish law. Whether the Lithuanian
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 73 
 
 Jews acknowledged Michael Yosefovich as their supreme au- 
 thority is open to doubt. The wealth}^ contractor, whom the 
 will of the King had placed at the head of the Jews, could not 
 in point of fact preside over their autonomous organization and 
 their judiciary and rabbinate, since what was required was not 
 officials, but men with special knowledge and training. All 
 Michael could do was to act as the official go-between, repre- 
 senting the Jewish communities before the King and defending 
 their rights and privileges as well as their commercial and 
 fiscal interests. In any event Michael was more useful to his 
 coreligionists than his brother Abraham Yosefovich, who, like- 
 wise a tax-farmer, sacrificed his Judaism for the sake of a 
 successful career. King Alexander conferred upon Abraham 
 the rank of Starosta of Smolensk, while Sigismund raised him 
 to the exalted position of Chancellor of the Lithuanian Exche- 
 quer. Abraham and his offspring were soon lost in the ranks of 
 the higher Polish nobility. 
 
 In agricultural Lithuania with its patriarchal conditions 
 of life the antagonism between the classes was in its infancy, 
 and as a result the right of the Jews to freedom of transit and 
 occupation was but rarely contested. They lived in the towns 
 and villages, and were not yet so sharply marked off, in 
 language and mode of life, from the Christian population as 
 they became afterwards. The Jewish communities of Brest, 
 Grodno, Pinsk, and Troki. the last consisting principally of 
 Karaites, who had a municipality of their own, were important 
 Jewish centers in the Duchy, and enjoyed considerable autono- 
 my. The rabbi of Brest, Mendel Frank, received from the 
 King extensive administrative and judicial powers, including 
 the right of imposing the hcrem and other penalties upon the 
 recalcitrant members of the community (1531).
 
 74 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 In the large cities of Poland proper the position of the Jews 
 was not nearly so favorable. Here commercial life had attained 
 a higher stage of development than in Lithuania, and in 
 many lines of business the Jews competed with the Chris- 
 tians. Taking advantage of the autonomy granted to the 
 estates in the shape of the Magdeburg Law, the Christian 
 business men and handicraftsmen, represented by their magis- 
 tracies and trade-unions, were constantly endeavoring to re- 
 strict their rivals in their commercial pursuits. This was 
 particularly the case in Posen, Cracow, and Lemberg, the lead- 
 ing centers respectively of the three provinces of Great Poland. 
 Little Poland, and Ked Russia (Calicia). In Posen the Jews 
 were hampered by the burgomaster and the aldermen in carrying 
 on their business or in displaying their goods in stores outside 
 the Jewish quarter. When the Jews protested to the King, 
 he warned the authorities of Posen not to subject their rivals 
 to any hardships or to violate their privileges (1517). The 
 Christian merchants retorted that the Jews occupied the best 
 shops, not only in the center of the town, but also on the 
 market-place, wliere formerly only " prominent Christian mer- 
 chants, both native and foreign [German], had been doing 
 business," and where, in view of the concentration of large 
 masses of Christians, the presence of Jews might lead to 
 " great temptations," and even to seduction from the path of 
 the " true faith." The reference to religion, used as a cloak 
 for commercial greed, did not fail to impress the devout 
 Sigismund, and he forbade the Jews to keep stores on the 
 market-place (1530). The professors of Christian love in 
 Posen similarly forbade their Jewish fellow-citizens to buy 
 foodstuffs and other articles in the market until the Christian 
 residents had completed their purchases. A little later the
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 75 
 
 King, in consequence of the influx of Jews into Posen, gave 
 orders that no new Jewish settlers be admitted into the city, and 
 that no houses o^vned by Christians be sold to them, without the 
 permission of the Kahal elders. The Jews were to be restricted 
 to definite quarters and to be denied the right of building their 
 houses among those belonging to Christians (1523). 
 
 The same was the case in Lemberg. Yielding to the com- 
 plaints of the magistracy about the competition of the Jews, the 
 King restricted their freedom of commerce in several particu- 
 lars, barring them from selling cloth in the whole of [Red] 
 Russia and Podolia, except at the fairs, and limiting their sale 
 of horned cattle to two thousand head per year (1515). The 
 Piotrkov Diet of 1521 passed a law confining the trade of the 
 Lemberg Jews to four articles, wax, furs, cloth, and horned 
 cattle. These restrictions were the result of the widespread 
 agitation which the pious Christian merchants had been con- 
 ducting against their business rivals of other faiths. The 
 magistracies of the three cities of Posen, Lemberg, and Cracow, 
 attempted to form a coalition for the purpose of carrying on a 
 joint economic fight against Jewry. In Cracow and its suburb 
 Kazimiezh ' the Jews had to endure even harsher restrictions 
 in business than in the other two metropolitan centers of 
 Poland. 
 
 Competition in business occasionally resulted in physical 
 violence and street riots. Anti- Jewish attacks were taking 
 place in Posen and in Brest-Kuyavsk," and outbreaks were 
 anticipated in Cracow. Representatives of the last Jewish 
 community made their apprehensions known to the King. 
 
 [^See p. 64, n. 1.] 
 
 [' /. e. Brest of Kuyavia, a former Polish province on the left 
 bank of the Vistula. It is to be distinguished from the well-known 
 Brest-Litovsk, Brest of Lithuania.]
 
 76 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Sigisiimiid issued a decree in 1330 deiiouueing in vehciiient 
 terms the insolence of the rioters, who were hoping for im- 
 munity, and rigorously forbidding all acts of violence, under 
 penalty of death and confiscation of property. To allay the 
 fears of the Jews he ordered the burghers of Cracow to deposit 
 the sum of ten thousand gulden with the exchequer as security 
 for the maintenance of peace and safety in the city. The 
 burgomasters, aldermen, and trade-unions Avere warned by the 
 King that in all their differences with Jews " they should 
 proceed in a legal manner, and not by violence, by resorting 
 to force of arms and inciting disorders." 
 
 The King was powerless, however, to shield the Jews against 
 other unpleasant manifestations of the Polish class regime, 
 such as the extortions of the officials. The highest dignitaries 
 of the court no less than the local administration were ever 
 ready to fish in the troubled waters of the conflict of classes. 
 The second wife of Sigismund, Queen Bona Sforza, an avari- 
 cious Italian princess, sold the offices of the state to the highest 
 bidder, while the courtiers and voyevodas were just as venal 
 on their own behalf. The queen's favorite, Peter Kmita, 
 Voyevoda of Cracow and ^larslial of the Crown, managed to 
 accept bribes simultaneously from the Jewish and the Chris- 
 tian merchants, who lodged complaints against each other, by 
 promising both sides to defend their interests before the Diet 
 or the King. 
 
 During tlie fourth decade of the sixteenth century the 
 Jewish question became the object of violent disputes at the 
 Polish Diets, the deputies of several regions having received 
 anti-Jewish instructions.^ Now the controlling factor in the 
 
 L' The parliamentary order of Poland was somewhat complicated. 
 Each region or voyevoclslvo (see above, p. 46, n. 1), of which there 
 were about sixty in Poland, had its own local assembly, or sejmik
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 7; 
 
 Polish Diets was the Shlakhta, whoiie attitude towards the 
 Jews was not uniform. The big Shlakhta, the magnates, the 
 owners of huge estates and whole towns, were favorably dis- 
 posed towards the Jews who lived in their domains, and added 
 to their wealth as farmers and tax-pa3'ers. But the petty 
 Shlakhta, the struggling squires, who were looking for places 
 in the civil and state service, arrayed themselves ou the 
 side of the burgher class, which had always been hostile to the 
 Jews. This petty Shlakhta bitterly resented the fact that the 
 royal revenues had been turned over to Jewish contractors, 
 who, as collectors of customs and taxes, attained to official 
 dignity, and gradually forced their way into the ranks of the 
 nobility. The income from the collection of the revenues and 
 the influence connected with it this Shlakhta regarded as 
 its inalienable prerogative. The clergy again saw in this 
 enhancement of Jewish influence a serious menace to the 
 Catholic faith, while the urban estates had a vital interest 
 in limiting the commercial rights of the Jev.'s. 
 
 At the Piotrkov Diet of 1638 the anti-Jewish agitation was 
 carried on with considerable success. It resulted in the adop- 
 tion of a statute, or a " constitution," containing a separate 
 Jewish section, in which the old canonical laws cropped out: 
 
 We hereby prescribe and decree — it is stated in that section — 
 that from now on and for all future time all those who manage 
 
 (pronounced suyniik), i. e. little Diet, or Dietine. Deputies of these 
 Dietines met at the respective sejms (pronounced saym), or Diets, 
 of one of the three large provinces of Poland: Great Poland, Little 
 Poland, and Red Russia. The national sejm. representing the 
 whole of Poland, came into being towards the end of the fifteenth 
 century. Beginning with 1573 It met regularly every two years 
 for six weeks in Warsaw or in Grodno. Before the convocation 
 of this national all-Polish Parliament, all local Dietines assembled 
 on one and the same day to give instructions to the deputies elected 
 to it.]
 
 78 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 our revenues must unconditionally be members of the landed 
 nobility, and persons professing the Christian faith. . . . We or- 
 dain for inviolable observance that no Jews shall be intrusted [in 
 the capacity of contractors] with the collection of revenues of any 
 kind. For it is unworthy and contrary to divine right that persons 
 of this description should be admitted to any kind of honors or 
 to the discharge of public functions among Christian people. 
 
 It is further decreed that the Jews have no right of un- 
 restricted commerce, and can do no business in any locality, 
 except witli the special permission of the king or by agree- 
 ment with the magistracies; in the villages they are forbidden 
 to trade altogether. Pawnbroking and money-lending on the 
 part of Jews are hedged about by a series of oppressive regu- 
 lations. The capstone of the Piotrkov " constitution " is the 
 following clause : 
 
 Whereas the Jews, disregarding the ancient regulations, have 
 thrown off the marks by which they were distinguishable from 
 the Christians, and have arrogated to themselves a form of dress 
 which closely resembles that of the Christians, so that it is im- 
 possible to recognize them, be it resolved for permanent observ- 
 ance: that the Jews of our realm, all and sundry, in whatever 
 place they happen to be found, shall wear special marks, to wit, a 
 barret, or hat, or some other headgear of yellow cloth. Exception 
 is to be made in favor of travelers, who, while on the road, shall 
 be permitted to discard or conceal marks of this kind. 
 
 The fine for violating this regulation is fixed at one gulden. 
 The only articles of the " constitution " of 1538 which 
 had serious consequences for the Jews of the Crown — the 
 Jews of Lithuania were not affected by these regulation.s — 
 were those barring them from tax-farming and subjecting 
 them to commercial restrictions. The canonical law concern- 
 ing a distinctive headgear was more in the nature of a demon- 
 stration than a serious legal enactment, since compliance with
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 79 
 
 it, owing to the high state of culture among the Polish Jews 
 and their important role in the economic life of the country, 
 was a matter of impossibility. Behind this regulation lurks 
 the hand of the Catholic clergy, which was alarmed at that 
 time by the initial successes of the Eeformation in Poland, 
 and was in fear that the influence of Judaism might enhance 
 the progress of the heresy. The excited imagination of the 
 clerical fanatics perceived signs of a " Jewish propaganda " in 
 the rationalistic doctrine of " Anti-Trinitarianism," which was 
 then making its appearance, denying the dogma of the Holy 
 Trinity. The specter of a rising sect of " Judaizers " haunted 
 the guardians of the Church. One occurrence in particular 
 engendered tremendous excitement among the inhabitants of 
 Cracow. A Catholic woman of that city, Catherine Zaleshovska 
 by name, the wife of an alderman, and four score years of 
 age, was convicted of denying the fundamental dogmas of 
 Christianity and adhering secretly to Jewish doctrines. The 
 Bishop of Cracow, Peter Gamrat, having made futile endeavors 
 to bring Catherine back into the fold of the Church, condemned 
 her to death. The unfortunate woman was burned at the stake 
 on the market-place of Cracow in 1539. 
 
 The following description of this event was penned by an 
 eye-witness, the Polish writer Lucas Gurnitzki : 
 
 The priest Gamrat, Bishop of Cracow, assembled all canons 
 and collegiates in order to examine her [Catherine Zaleshovska, 
 who had been accused of " Judaizing "] as to her principles of 
 faith. When, in accordance with our creed, she was asked whether 
 she believed in Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth, 
 she replied: " I believe in God, who created all that we see and 
 do not see, who cannot be comprehended by the human reason, 
 who poureth forth His bounty over man and over all things in the 
 universe." " Do you believe in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, 
 
 6
 
 80 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 who was conceived by the Holy Gliost? " she was asked. She 
 answered: "The Lord God has neither wife nor son, nor does 
 He need them. For sons are needed by those who die, but God 
 is eternal, and since He was not born, it is impossible that He 
 should die. It is we whom He considers His sons, and His sons 
 are those who walk in His paths." Here the collegiates shouted: 
 " Thou utterest evil, thou miserable one! Bethink thyself! Surely 
 there are prophecies that the Lord would send His Son into the 
 world to be crucified for our sins, in order that we, having been dis- 
 obedient from the days of our ancestor Adam, may be reconciled 
 to God the Father? " A great deal more was said by the learned 
 men to the apostate woman, but the more they spoke, the more 
 stubborn was she in her contention that God was not and could 
 not be born as a human being. When it was found impossible to 
 detach her from her Jewish beliefs, it was decided to convict her 
 of blasphemy. She was taken to the city jail, and a few days later 
 she was burned. She went to lier death without the slightest fear. 
 
 The well-known eonlcnipurary chronicler Bielski expresses 
 himself similarly : " She went to her death as if it were a 
 wedding." 
 
 During the same time there wore rumors afloat to the effect 
 that in various places in Poland, particularly in the province 
 of Cracow, many Christians were embracing Judaism, and, 
 after undergoing circumcision, were fleeing for greater safety 
 to Lithuania, where they were sheltered by the local Jews. 
 When the rumor reached the King, he dispatched two commis- 
 sioners to Lithuania to direct a strict investigation. The 
 officers of the King proceeded with excessive ardor; they 
 raided Jewish homes, and stopped travelers on the road, mak- 
 ing arrests and holding cross-examinations. The inquiry 
 failed to reveal the presence of Judaizing sectarians in Lithu- 
 ania, though it caused the Jews considerable trouble and alarm 
 (1539).
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 81 
 
 Scarcely had this investigation been closed when the Lithu- 
 anian Jews were faced by another charge. Many of them Avere 
 said to be on the point of leaving the country, and, acting with 
 the knowledge and co-operation of the Sultan, intended to 
 oniigrate to Turkey, accompanied by the Christians who had 
 been converted to Jiulaism. It was even rumored that the 
 Jews had already succeeded in dispatching a party of circum- 
 cised Christian children and adults across the Moldavian fron- 
 tier. The King gave orders for a new investigation, which 
 was marked, like the preceding one, by acts of lawlessness and 
 violence. The Jews were in fear that the King might lend an 
 ear to these accusations and withdraw his protection from 
 them. Accordingly Jews of Brest, Grodno, and other Lithu- 
 anian cities, hastened to send a deputation to King Sigis- 
 mund, which solemnly assured him that all the rumors and 
 accusations concerning them were mere slander, that the 
 Lithuanian Jews were faithfully devoted to their country, 
 that they had no intention to emigrate to Turkey, and, finally, 
 that they had never tried to convert Christians to their faith. 
 At the same time they made complaints about the insults and 
 brutalities which had been inflicted upon them, pointing to 
 the detrimental effect of the investigation on the trade of the 
 country. The assertions of the deputation were borne out 
 by the official inquiry, and Sigismund, returning his favor 
 to the Jews, cleared them of all suspicion, and promised hence- 
 forward not to trouble them on wholesale charges unsupported 
 by evidence. This pledge was embodied in a special charter, 
 a sort of habeas corpus, granted by the King to the Jews of 
 Lithuania in 1540. 
 
 All this, however, did not discourage the Catholic clergy, 
 who, under the leadership of Bishop Gamrat, continued their
 
 82 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 agitation against the hated Jews. They incited pul)lic opinion 
 against them by means of slanderous books, written in medieval 
 style {De stupendis errorihus Judaeorum, 1541; De Sanctis 
 interfedis a Judaeis, 1543). The Church Synod of 1542 
 assembled in Piotrkov issued the following " constitution " : 
 
 The Synod, taking into consideration the many dangers that 
 confront the Christians and the Church from the large number of 
 Jews who, having been driven from the neighboring countries, 
 have been admitted into Poland, and unscrupulously combine holi- 
 ness with ungodliness, has passed the following resolution: Lest 
 the great concentration of Jews in the country lead, as must be 
 apprehended, to even worse consequences, his Majesty the King be 
 petitioned as follows: 1. That in the diocese of Gnesen and particu- 
 larly in the city of Cracow ' the number of Jews be reduced to a 
 fixed norm, such as the district set aside for them can accommodate. 
 2. That in all other places where the Jews did not reside in 
 former times they be denied the right of settlement, and be for- 
 bidden to buy houses from Christians, those already bought to be 
 returned to their former owners. 3. That the new synagogues, even 
 those erected by them in the city of Cracow, be ordered to be 
 demolished. 4. Whereas the Church suffers the Jews for the sole 
 purpose of recalling to our minds the tortures of our Saviour, 
 their number shall in no circumstances increase. Moreover, ac- 
 cording to the regulations of the holy canons, they shall be per- 
 mitted only to repair their old synagogues but not erect new ones. 
 
 This is followed by seven more clauses containing various 
 restrictions. The Jews are forbidden to keep Christian servants 
 in their houses, particularly nursery-maids, to act as stewards 
 of estates belonging to nobles ("lest those w^ho ought to be 
 the slaves of Christians should thereby acquire dominion and 
 jurisdiction over them"), to work and to trade on Catholic 
 holidays, and to offer their goods publicly for sale even on week- 
 
 [' Gnesen as seat of the Primate; Cracow as capital.]
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 83 
 
 days. It goes without saying that the rule prescribing a dis- 
 tinguishing Jewish dress is not neglected. 
 
 This whole anti-Jewish fabric of laws, which the members of 
 the Synod decided to submit to the King, failed to receive 
 legal sanction. Still the Catholic clergy was for a long time 
 guided by it in its policy towards the Jews, a policy, needless 
 to say, of intolerance and gross prejudices. These restrictions 
 were the pia desideria of priests and monks, some of which were 
 realized during the subsequent Catholic reaction. 
 
 3. LiBEEALISM AND REACTION IN THE EeIGNS OF SiGlSMUND 
 
 Augustus and Stephen Batoey 
 
 Sigismund I.'s successor, the cultured and to some extent 
 liberal-minded Sigismund II. Augustus (1548-1572), followed 
 in his relations with the Jews the same principles of toleration 
 and non-interference by which he was generally guided in his 
 attitude towards the non-Christian and non-Catholic citizens 
 of Poland. In the first year of his reign Sigismund II., com- 
 plying with the request of the Jews of Great Poland, ratified, 
 at the general Polish Diet held at Piotrkov, the old liberal 
 statute of Casimir IV. In the preamble of this enactment the 
 King declares that he confirms the rights and privileges of the 
 Jews on the same grounds as the special privileges of the other 
 estates, in other words, by virtue of his oath to uphold the 
 constitution. Sigismund Augustus considerably amplified 
 and solidified the self-government of the Jewish communities. 
 He bestowed large administrative and judicial powers upon the 
 rabbis and Kahal elders, sanctioning the application of " Jew- 
 ish law " (i. e. of Biblical and Talmudical law) in civil 
 and partly even criminal cases between Jews (1551). In the 
 general voyevoda courts, in which cases between Jews and
 
 ^^ THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Christians were tried, the presence of Jewish " seniors," i. e. 
 of duly elected Kahal elders, was required (1556). This lia- 
 bility of the Jews to the royal or voyevoda courts had long 
 constituted one of their important privileges, since it exempted 
 them from the municipal, or ma <^ist rates' courts, which were 
 just as hostile to them as the magistracies themselves. 
 
 This prerogative — the guarantee of greater impartiality on 
 the part of the royal court — was limited to the Jews residing 
 in the royal cities and villages, and did not extend to those 
 living on the estates of the nobles or in the townships owned 
 by them. Sigismund I. had decreed that " the nobles hav- 
 ing Jews in their towns and villages may enjoy all the 
 advantages to be derived from them, but must also try their 
 cases. For we [the King], not deriving any advantages from 
 such Jews, are not obliged to secure justice for them " (1539). 
 Sigismund Augustus now enacted similarly that the Jews 
 living on hereditary Shlakhta estates should be liable to the 
 jurisdiction of the " hereditary owner," not to that of the 
 royal representatives, the voyevoda and sub-voyevoda. As for 
 the other royal privileges, they were extended to the Jews of 
 this category only on condition of their paying the special 
 Jewish head-tax to the King (1549). The split between 
 royalty and Shlakhta, which became conspicuous in the reign 
 of Sigismund Augustus, had already begun to undermine the 
 system of royal patronage, more and more weakened as time 
 went on. 
 
 The relations between the Jews and the " third estate," the 
 burghers, did not improve in the reign of Sigismund Augustus, 
 but they assumed a more definite shape. The two competing 
 agencies, the magistracies and the Kahals, regulated their 
 mutual relations by means of compacts and agreements. In
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 85 
 
 some cities, such as Cracow and Posen, these compacts were 
 designed to safeguard the boundaries of the ghetto, outside 
 of which the Jews had no right to live ; in Posen the Jews were 
 even forbidden to increase the number of Jewish houses over 
 and above a fixed norm (49), with the result that they were 
 obliged to build tall houses, with several stories. In other 
 cities, among wliich was included the city of Warsaw/ the 
 magistracies managed to obtain the so-called privilege de non 
 iolerandis Judaeis, i. e. the right of either not admitting the 
 Jews to settle anew, and confining those already settled to 
 special sections of the city, away from the principal streets, or 
 keeping the Jews away from the city altogether, allowing 
 only the merchants to come on business and stay there for a 
 few days. However, in the majority of Polish cities the pro- 
 tection of the King secured for the Jews equal rights with the 
 other townspeople. For, as one of the royal edicts puts it, " in- 
 asmuch as the Jews carry all burdens in the same way as the 
 burghers, their positions must be alike in everything, except 
 in religion and jurisdiction.'' In some places the King even 
 went so far as to forbid the liokling of the weekly market-day 
 on Saturday, to safeguard the commercial interests of the 
 Jews, who refused to do business on their day of rest. 
 
 With all the estates of Poland the Jews managed reasonably 
 to agTee save only with the Catholic clergy. This implacable 
 foe of Judaism doubled his efforts as soon as the signal from 
 Pome was given to start a reaction against the growing heresy 
 01 Protestantism and to combat all other forms of non-Catholic 
 
 [1 Warsaw was originally the capital of the independent Princi- 
 pality of Mazovia. After" the incorporation of Mazovia into the 
 Polish Empire, in 1526, Warsaw emerged from its obscurity and 
 in the latter part of the sixteenth century became the capital of 
 united Poland and Lithuania, taking the place of Cracow and 
 Vilna.]
 
 86 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 belief. The policy of Paul IV., the inquisitor on the throne 
 of St. Peter, found an echo in Poland. The Papal Nuncio 
 Lippomano, having arrived from Rome, conceived the idea of 
 firing the religious zeal of the Catholics by one of those bloody 
 spectacles which the inquisitorial Church was wont to arrange 
 occasionally ad maiorem Dei gloriam. A rumor was set afloat 
 that a poor woman in Sokhachev, Dorothy Lazhentzka by 
 name, had sold to the Jews of the town the holy wafer re- 
 ceived by her during communion, and that the wafer was 
 stabbed by the "infidels"' until it began to bleed. By order 
 of the Bishop of Khelm three Jews who were charged with 
 this sacrilege and their accomplice Dorothy Lazhentzka were 
 thrown into prison, ]mt on the rack, and finally sentenced to 
 death. On learning of these happenings, the King sent orders 
 to the Starosta of Sokhachev to stop the execution of the 
 death sentence, but the clergy hastened to carry out the 
 verdict,' and the alleged blasphemers were burned at the stake 
 (1556). Before their death the martyred Jews made the fol- 
 lowing declaration : 
 
 We have never stabbed the host, because we do not believe that 
 the host is the Divine body (nos enim nequaquam credimus 
 hostiae inesse Dei corpus), knowing that God has no body nor 
 blood. We believe, as did our forefathers, that the Messiah is 
 not God, but His messenger. We also know from experience that 
 there can be no blood in flour. 
 
 These protestations of a monotheistic faith were silenced 
 by the executioner, who stopped " the mouths of the criminals 
 with burning torches." 
 
 Sigismund Augustus was shocked by these revolting proceed- 
 ings, which had been engineered by the Nuncio Lippomano. He 
 
 1 According to another version, they forged the contents of the 
 royal warrant.
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 87 
 
 was quick to grasp that at the bottom of the absurd rumor 
 concerning the " wounded " host lay a " pious fraud," the 
 desire to demonstrate the truth of the Eucharist dogma in its 
 Catholic formulation (the bread of communion as the actual 
 body of Christ), which was rejected by the Calvinists and the 
 extreme wing of the Eeformation. " I am shocked by this 
 hideous villainy," the King exclaimed in a fit of religious skep- 
 ticism, " nor am I sufficiently devoid of common sense to be- 
 lieve that there could be any blood in the host." Lippomano's 
 conduct aroused in particular the indignation of the Polish 
 Protestants, who on dogmatic grounds could not give credence 
 to the medieval fable concerning miracle-working hosts. 
 All this did not prevent the enemies of the Jews from ex- 
 ploiting the Sokhachev case in the interest of an anti-Jewish 
 agitation. It was in all likelihood due to this agitation that 
 the anti-Jewish " constitution " adopted by the Diet of 1538 
 was, at the insistence of numerous deputies, confirmed by the 
 Diets of 1563 and 1565. 
 
 The articles of this anti-Semitic " constitution " were also 
 embodied in the " Lithuanian Statute " promulgated in 1566. 
 This " statute " interdicts the Jews from wearing the same 
 style of clothes as the Christians and altogether from dressing 
 smartly, from owning serfs or keeping domestics of the Chris- 
 tian faith, and from holding office among Christians, the 
 last two restrictions being extended to the Tatars and other 
 " infidels." The medieval libels found a favorable soil even 
 in Lithuania. In 1564 a Jew was executed in Bielsk, on the 
 charge of having killed a Christian girl, though the \mfortu- 
 nate victim loudly proclaimed his innocence from the steps 
 of the scafl^old. Nor were attempts wanting to manufacture 
 similar trials in other Lithuanian localities. To put an end to
 
 ^8 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the agitation fostered by fanatics and obscurantists, the King 
 issued two decrees, in 15G4 and 1506, in which the local 
 authorities were strictly enjoined not to institute proceedings 
 against Jews on the charge of ritual murder or desecration of 
 hosts. Sigisniund Augustus declares that experience and papal 
 pronouncements liad proved the groundlessness of such 
 charges; that, in accordance with ancient Jewish privileges, 
 all such charges must be substantiated by the testimony of 
 four Christian and three Jewish witnesses, and that, finally, 
 the jurisdiction in all such cases belongs to the King himself 
 and his Council at the General Diet. 
 
 Soon afterwards, in 1569, the agreement known as the 
 " Union of Lublin " was concluded between Lithuania and the 
 Crown, or Poland proper, providing for closer administrative 
 and legislative co-operation between the two countries. This 
 resulted in the co-ordination of the constitutional legislation 
 for both parts of the " Republic V which, in turn, affected 
 injuriously the status of the Jews of Lithuania. The latter 
 country was gradually drawn into the general current of 
 Polish politics, and hence drifted away from the patriaichal 
 order of things, which had built up the prosperity of the Jews 
 in the days of Vitovt. 
 
 Sigismund Augustus died in 1572, three years after the con- 
 clusion of the Union of Lublin. The Jews had good reason 
 to mourn the loss of this King, who had been their principal 
 protector. His death marks the extinction of the Yaghello 
 
 [' With the gradual weakening of the royal power, which, after 
 the extinction of the Yaghello dynasty, in 1572, was transformed 
 into an elective office, the favorite designation for the Polish Em- 
 pire came to be Rzccz (pronounced Zhech) Pospolita, a literal ren- 
 dering of the Latin Res Ptiblica. The term comprises Poland as 
 well as Lithuania, which, in 15(59, had been united in one Empire]
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH y9 
 
 dynasty, aud a new cliapter betjins in the history of Poland, 
 " the elective period," when the kings are chosen by vote. After 
 a protracted interregnum, the Shlakhta elected the French 
 prince Henry of Valois (1574). one of the instigators of the 
 Massacre of St. Bartholomew. This election greatly alarmed 
 the Jews and the liberal-minded Poles, who anticipated a recru- 
 descence of clericalism; but their fears were soon allayed. 
 After a few months' stay in Poland, Henry fled to his native 
 land to accept the French crown, on the death of his brother 
 Charles IX. The throne of Poland fell, by popular vote, 
 to Stephen Batory (1576-1586), the valorous and enlightened 
 Hungarian duke. His brief reign, which marks the end of 
 the " golden age *' of Polish history, was signalized by several 
 acts of justice in relation to the Jews. In 1576 Stephen 
 Batory issued two edicts, strictly forbidding the impeachment 
 of Jews on the charge of ritual murder or sacrilege, in view of 
 the recognized falsity of these accusations ' and the popular 
 disturbances accompanying them. 
 
 Stephen Batory even went one step further in pursuing the 
 principle, that the Jews, because of their usefulness to the 
 country on account of their commercial activity, had a claim to 
 the same treatment as the corresponding Christian estates. In 
 ratifying the old charters, he added a number of privileges, 
 bearing in particular on the freedom of commerce. The King 
 directed the voyevodas to protect the legitimate interests of the 
 JeW'S against the encroachments of the magistracies and trade- 
 unions, who hampered them in every possible manner in their 
 pursuit of trades and handicrafts. 
 
 Stephen Batory intervened on behalf of the Jews of Posen, 
 who had long been oppressed by a hostile magistracy. Setting 
 
 * They are referred to in his edicts as calumniae.
 
 90 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 aside the draconian regulations of the city fathers, the commer- 
 cial rivals of the Jews, he permitted the latter to hire business 
 premises in all parts of the city and ply their trade even on the 
 days of the Christian festivals. Anticipating the possibility 
 of retaliator}' measures on the part of the townspeople, the 
 King impressed upon the magistracy the duty of safeguarding 
 the inviolability of life and property in the city, at the risk of 
 incurring the severest penalties in the case of neglect (15TT). 
 All these warnings, however, were powerless to avert a catas- 
 trophe. Three months after the promulgation of the royal 
 edict the Jewish quarter in Poscn was attacked by the mob, 
 which looted Jewish propert}' and killed a number of Jews. 
 Ostensibly the riot was started because of the refusal of the 
 Jews to allow one of their coreligionists, who was on the point 
 of accepting baptism, to meet his wife. In reality this was 
 nothing but a pretext. The attack had been prepared by the 
 Christian merchants, who could not reconcile themselves to 
 the extension of the commercial rights of their competitors. 
 Batory imposed a heavy fine on the Posen magistracy for 
 having failed to stop the disorders. Only when the members 
 of the magistracy declared under oath that they had been 
 entirely ignorant of the plot was the fine revoked. 
 
 As far as the Jews are concerned, Stephen Batory remained 
 loyal to the traditions of a more liberal age, at a time when 
 the Polish populace was already inoculated with the ideas of 
 the " Catholic reaction " imported from Western Europe — 
 ideas which in other respects the King himself was unable to 
 resist. It was during his reign that the Jesuits, Peter Skarga 
 a nd otliers, made their appearance as an active, organized 
 body. Batory extended his patronage to them, and intrusted 
 them with the management of the academy established by him
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 91 
 
 at Vilna. Was it possible for the King to foresee all the evil, 
 darkness, and intolerance which these Jesuit schools would 
 spread all over Poland ? Could it have occurred to him that in 
 these seats of learning, which soon monopolized the education 
 of the ruling as well as the middle classes, one of the chief 
 subjects of instruction would be a systematic course in Jew- 
 baiting ? 
 
 4. Shlakhta and Eoyalty in the Keigns of 
 sigismund iii. and vladislav iv. 
 
 The results of the upheaval which accompanied the extinc- 
 tion of the Yaghello dynasty assumed definite shape under the 
 first two kings of the Swedish Vasa dynasty, Sigismund III. 
 (1588-1632) and Vladislav IV. (1632-1648). The elective 
 character of royalty made the latter dependent on the Shlakhta, 
 which practically ruled the country, subordinating parliamen- 
 tary legislation to the aristocratic and agricultural interests 
 of their estate, and almost monopolizing the posts of voyevodas, 
 starostas, and other important officials. At the same time the 
 activity of the Jesuits strengthened the influence of clerical- 
 ism in all departments of life. To eradicate Protestantism, to 
 oppress the Greek Orthodox " peasant Church,'* and to reduce 
 the Jews to the level of an ostracized caste of outlaws — such 
 was the program of the Catholic reaction in Poland. 
 
 To attain these endsdraconian measures were adopted against 
 the Evangelists and Arians.* The members of the Greek Ortho- 
 
 [^ The Arian heresy, as modified and preached by Faustus Socinus 
 (1539-1604), an Italian who settled in Poland, became a powerful 
 factor in the Polish intellectual life of that period. Because of its 
 liberal tendency, this doctrine appealed in particular to the edu- 
 cated classes, and its adherents, called Socinians, were largely 
 recruited from the ranks of the Shlakhta. Under Sigismund III. a 
 strong reaction set in, culminating in the law passed by the Diet of 
 1658, according to which all " Arians " were to leave the country 
 within two years.]
 
 [)•) THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 (lox Church were rorced a^rainst their will into a union with the 
 Catholics, and the rights of the " dissidents," or non-conform- 
 ists, were constantly curtailed. The Jesuits, who managed to 
 obtain control over the education of the growing generation, 
 inoculated the Polish people with the virus of clericalism. 
 Tile less the zealots of the Church had reason to expect the 
 conversion of the Jews, the more did they despise and humili- 
 ate them. And if they did not altogether succeed in restoring 
 the medieval order of things, it was no doubt due to the 
 fact that the structure of the Polish state, with its irrepress- 
 ible conflict of class interests, did not allow any kind of 
 system to take firm root. " Poland subsists on disorders," 
 was the boast of the political leaders of the age. The " golden 
 liberty " of the Shlakhta degenerated more and more. It 
 became a weapon in the hands of tiie higher classes to oppress 
 the middle and the lower classes. It led to anarchy, it under- 
 mined the authority of the Diet, in wliich a single member 
 could impose his veto on the decision of the whole assembly 
 (the so-called liberum veto), and resulted in endless dissensions 
 between the estates. On the other hand, one must not forget 
 that, while this division of power was disastrous for Poland, 
 the absolute concentration of power after the pattern of 
 Western Europe, in the circumstances then prevailing, might 
 have proved even more disastrous. Under a system of mon- 
 archic absolutism, Poland might have become, during the 
 period of the Catholic reaction, another Spain of Philip II. 
 Disorder and class strife saved the Polish people from the 
 " order " of the Inquisition and the consistency of autocratic 
 hangmen. 
 
 The championship of Jewish interests passed by degrees from 
 the hands of royalty into those of the wealthy parliamentary
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 93 
 
 Shlakhta. Though more and more permeated by clerical ten- 
 dencies, the fruit of Jesuit schooling, the nobility in most cases 
 held its protecting hand over the Jews, to whom it was tied by 
 the community of economic interests. The Jewish tax-collector 
 in the towns and townlets, which were privately owned by the 
 nobles, the Jewish arendar^ in the village, who procured an 
 income for the pan ' from dairying, milling, distilling, liquor- 
 selling and other enterprises — they were indispensable to 
 the easy-going magnate, who was wont to let his estates take 
 care of themselves, and while away his time in the capital, at 
 the court, in merry amusements, or at the tumultuous sessions 
 of the national and provincial assemblies, where politics 
 were looked upon as a form of entertainment rather than a 
 serious pursuit. This Polish aristocracy put a check on the 
 anti-Semitic endeavors of the clergy, and confined the oppres- 
 sion of the Jews within certain limits. Even the devout Sigis- 
 mund III., who was subject to Jesuit influence, continued 
 the traditional role of Jewish protector. In 1588, shortly 
 after his accession to the throne, he confirmed, at the request of 
 the Jews, their right of trading in the cities, though not 
 without certain restrictions which the demands of the Chris- 
 tian merchants had forced upon him. 
 
 Nevertheless the economic struggle in the cities continues 
 with ever-increasing fury, manifesting itself more and more 
 in the shape of malign religious fanaticism. In many cities 
 the municipalities arrogate to themselves judicial authority 
 
 [* Arendar, also arendator. from medieval Latin arrendare, " to 
 rent," signifies in Polish and Russian a lessee, originally of a farm, 
 subsequently of the tavern and, as is seen in the text, other 
 sources of revenue on the estate. These arendars being mostly 
 Jews, the name, abbreviated in Yiddish to randar, came prac- 
 tically to mean " village Jew."] 
 
 [-Literally, lord: the lord of the manor, noble landowner.]
 
 94 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 over the Jews — the authority of the wolves over the sheep — 
 contrary to the fuudainent<il Polish law, which places all litiga- 
 tion hetween Jews and Christians under the jurisdiction of 
 the royal officials, the voyevodas and starostas. The king, 
 appealed to by the injured, has frequent occasion to remind 
 the magistracies that the Jews are not to be judged by the 
 Magdeburg Law, but by common Polish law, in addition to 
 their own rabbinical courts for internal disputes. A pro- 
 nouncement of this nature was issued, among others, by King 
 Sigismund ITI., when the Jews of Brest appealed to him 
 against the local municipality (1592). Their appeal was sup- 
 ported by the head of the Jewish community, Saul Yudich 
 (son of Judah), contractor of customs and other state reven- 
 ues in Lithuania, who wielded considerable influence at 
 the Polish court. He bore the title of " servant of the king," 
 and was frequently in a position to render important services 
 to his coreligionists.' But where the Jewish masses were not 
 fortunate enough to possess such powerful advocates in the 
 persons of the big tax-farmers and " servants of the king,'' 
 their legitimate interests were frequently trampled upon. The 
 burghers of Vilna, in their desire to dislodge their Jewish com- 
 petitors from the city, did not stop at open violence. They 
 demolished the synagogue, and sacked the Jewish residences 
 in the houses owned by the Shlakhta (1592). In Kiev, where 
 the Jews had been settled in the Old Russian period,' the 
 
 ' There is reason to believe that he is the hero of the legendary 
 story according to which an influential Polish Jew by the name 
 of Saul Wahl, a favorite of Prince Radziwill, was, during an 
 interregnum, proclaimed Polish king by the Shlakhta, and reigned 
 for one night. 
 
 [- See pp. 29 et seq. Kiev was captured by the Lithuanians in 
 1320, and remained, through the union of Lithuania and Poland, 
 a part of the Polish Empire until 1654, when, together with the 
 province of Little Russia, it was ceded to Muscovy.]
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 95 
 
 burghers were endeavoring to secure from the King the privi- 
 lege de noil tolerandis Judaeis (1619). 
 
 The hostility of the burgher class, which was made up of 
 Germans to a considerable extent, manifested itself with par- 
 ticular intensity in the old hotbed of anti-Semitism, in Posen. 
 Attacks on the Jewish quarter on the part of the street mob and 
 " lawful " persecutions on the part of the magistracy and trade- 
 unions were a regular feature in the life of that city. In the 
 case of several trades, as, for instance, in the needle trade, the 
 Jewish artisans were restricted to Jewish customers. In 1618 
 a painter employed to paint the walls of the Posen town hall 
 drew all kinds of figures which were extremely offensive to the 
 Jews, and subjected them to the ridicule of an idle street mob. 
 Two years later the local clergy spread the rumor, that the 
 table on which the famous three hosts had been pierced by the 
 Jews in 1399 ^ had been accidentally discovered in the house of 
 a Jew. The fictitious relic was transferred to the Church of 
 the Carmelites in a solemn procession, headed by the Bishop 
 and the whole local priesthood. This demonstration helped to 
 inflame the populace against the Jews. The crowd, fed on 
 such spectacles, lost the last sparks of humanity. The scholars 
 of the Jesuit colleges frequently invaded the Jewish quarter, 
 making sport of the Jews and committing all kinds of ex- 
 cesses, in strange contradiction to the precept of the Gospels, 
 to love their enemies, which they were taught in their schools. 
 
 Based on malicious fabrications, ritual murder trials become 
 endemic during this period, and assume an ominous, inquisito- 
 rial character. Cases of tliis nature are given great prominence, 
 and are tried by the highest Polish law court, the Crown 
 
 * See p. 55. 
 7
 
 96 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Tribunal,' without any of the safeguards of impartiality which 
 had been provided for such cases by the ancient charters of the 
 Polish kings, and had been more recently reaffirmed by Stephen 
 Batory. In 1598 the Trihunal of Lublin sentenced three 
 Jews to death on the charge of having slain a Christian boy, 
 whose body had been found in a swjim}) in a near-by village. To 
 force a confession from the accused the whole inquisitorial tor- 
 ture apparatus was set in motion, and execution by quarter- 
 ing was carried out with special solemnity in I^uhlin. The body 
 of the youngster, the involuntary cause of the death of inno- 
 cent victims, was transferred by the Jesuits to one of the local 
 churches, where it became the object of superstitious veneration. 
 Trials of this kind, with an occasional change of scene, were 
 enacted in many other localities of Poland and Lithuania. 
 
 Simultaneously a literary agitation against the Jews was set 
 on foot by the clerical party. Father Moyetzki published in 
 3598 in Cracow his ferociously anti-Jewish book entitled 
 '' Jewish Bestiality " {Okrucienstwo Zydoiuskie), enumerating 
 all ritual murder trials which had ever taken place in Europe 
 and particularly in Poland, and adding others which were 
 invented for this purpose by the author.' 
 
 A Polish physician, named Shleshkovski, accused the Jewish 
 physicians, his professional rivals, of systematically poisoning 
 and delivering to death good Catholics, and declared the pest, 
 raging at that time, to be a token of the Divine displeasure 
 at the protection granted to the Jews in Poland (Jasny dowod 
 doktorach zydowskich, " A Clear Argument Concerning Jew- 
 ish Physicians," 1623). 
 
 ['Stephen Batory instituted two supreme courts for the realm: 
 one for the Crown, i. e. for Poland proper, and another for 
 Lithuania. The former held its sessions in Lublin for Little Poland 
 and in Piotrkov for Great Poland (see p. 164).] 
 
 ' A second edition of the book appeared in 1636.
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 97 
 
 But the palm undoubtedly belongs to Sebastian Michinski, 
 of Cracow, the frenzied author of the "Mirror of the Polish 
 Crown" (Zwierciadlo korony Polshiej, 1618). As a docile 
 pupil of the Jesuits, Michinski collected everything that super- 
 stition and malice had ever invented against the Jews. He 
 charged the Jews with every mortal sin — with political treach- 
 ery, robbery, swindling, witchcraft, murder, sacrilege. In this 
 scurrilous pamphlet he calls upon the deputies of the Polish 
 Diet to deal with the Jews as they had been dealt with in Spain, 
 France, England, and other countries — to expel them. In 
 particular, the book is full of libels against the rich Jews of 
 Cracow, with the result that the sentiment against the Jewish 
 population of that city rapidly drifted towards a riot. To fore- 
 stall the possibility of excesses the King ordered the confiscation 
 of the book. The incendiary attacks of Michinski also led to 
 stormy debates at the Diet of 1618. While some deputies eulo- 
 gized him as a champion of truth, others denounced him as a 
 demagogue and a menace to the public welfare. The Diet 
 showed enough common sense to refuse to follow the lead 
 of a writer crazed with Jew-hatred; yet the opinions voiced 
 by him gradually took hold of the Polish people, and prepared 
 the soil for sinister conflicts. 
 
 Sigismund III.'s successor, Vladislav IV., was not so zealous 
 in his Catholicism and in his devotion to the Jesuits as his 
 father. He exhibited a certain amount of tolerance towards 
 the professors of other creeds, endeavored to uphold the ancient 
 Jewish privileges, and made it, in general, his business to 
 reconcile the warring estates with one another. However, the 
 strife between the religious and social groups had already eaten 
 so deeply into the vitals of Poland that even a far more ener- 
 getic king than Vladislav IV. would scarcely have been able to
 
 98 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 put an end to it. Instead of harmonizing the conflicting 
 interests, the King sided now with one, now with another, party. 
 In 1633 Vladislav IV. confirmed, at the Coronation Diet,* the 
 basic privileges of the Jews, granting them full freedom in their 
 export trade, fixing the limits of their judicial autonomy, and 
 instructing the municipalities to take measures for shielding 
 them against popular outbreaks. But at the same time he 
 forbade the Jewish communities to erect new synagogues or 
 establish new cemeteries, without obtaining in each case a royal 
 license. This restriction, by the way, may be considered 
 a privilege, inasmuch as an attempt had been made by Sigis- 
 mund III. to make the right of erecting synagogues dependent 
 on the consent of the clergy. 
 
 Though on the whole desirous of respecting the rights of 
 the Jews, nevertheless, in individual cases, the King acted 
 favorably on the petitions of various cities to restrict these 
 rights, and occasionally revoked his own orders. Thus in June, 
 1643. he permitted the Jews of Cracow to engage freely in 
 export trade, but two months later he withdrew his permission, 
 the. Christian merchants of Cracow having complained to him 
 about the effectiveness of Jewish competition. Complying with 
 the application of the burghers of Moghilev on the Dnieper,' 
 he confirmed, in 1633, his father's orders concerning the trans- 
 fer of the Jews from the center of the city to its outskirts, and 
 subsequently, in 1646, sanctioned the decision of the magistracy 
 
 V In addition to the regular Diets, which assembled every two 
 years (see above, p. 76, n. 1), there were held also Election Diets 
 and Coronation Diets, in connection with the election and the 
 coronation of the new king. The former met on a field near War- 
 saw; the latter were held in Cracow.) 
 
 [^ Moghilev on the Dnieper, in White Russia, is to be distin- 
 guished from Moghilev on the Dniester, a town in the present 
 Government of Podolia.]
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH 99 
 
 prohibiting the letting of houses to them in a Christian neigh- 
 borhood. The law forbidding Jews to engage in petty trade 
 on the market-place effected in some cities a substantial rise 
 in the prices of necessaries, and the Shlakhta petitioned the 
 King to repeal this prohibition for the city of Vilna. Vladis- 
 lav complied with the petition, but, to please the Vilna muni- 
 cipality, he imposed at the same time a number of severe 
 restrictions on the local Jews, making them liable to the 
 municipal courts in monetary litigation with Christians, con- 
 fining their area of residence to the boundaries of the " Jewish 
 street," and barring them from plying those trades which were 
 pursued by the Christian trade-unions (1633). The same 
 policy was responsible for the anti-Jewish riots which took 
 place about the same time in Vilna, Brest, and other cities. 
 
 Nothing did more to accentuate these conflicts than the pre- 
 posterous economic policy of the Polish Government. The 
 Warsaw Diet of 1643, in endeavoring to determine the prices 
 of various articles of merchandise, passed a law compelling all 
 merchants to limit themselves by a public oath to a definite 
 rate of profit, which was fixed at seven per cent in the case of the 
 native Christian (incola), five per cent in the case of the 
 foreigner (advena), and only three per cent in the case of the 
 Jew (infidelis). It is obvious that, being under the compul- 
 sion of selling his goods at a cheaper price, the Jew on the 
 one hand was forced to lower the quality of his merchandise, 
 and on the other hand was bound to undermine Christian 
 trade, and thereby draw upon himself the wrath of his com- 
 petitors. 
 
 As for the Polish clergy, true to its old policy it fostered 
 in its flock the vulgar religious prejudices against the Jews. 
 This applies, in particular, to the Jesuits, though, to a lesser
 
 100 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 degree, it holds good also in the case of the other Catholic 
 orders of Poland. A frequent contrivance to raise tlie prestige 
 of the Church was to engineer impressive demonstrations. In 
 the spring of 1636, when a Christian child happened to dis- 
 appear in Lublin, suspicion was cast upon the Jews, that they 
 had tortured the child to death. The Crown Tribunal, which 
 tried tiie case, and failed to find any evidence, acquitted the 
 innocent Jews. Thereupon the local clergy, dissatisfied with 
 the judjLcment of the court, manufactured a new case, this 
 time with the necessary " evidence.'' A Carmelite monk by 
 the name of Peter asserted that the Jews, having lured him 
 into a house, told a German surgeon to bleed him, and that his 
 blood was squeezed out and poured into a vessel, while the Jews 
 murmured mysterious incantations over it. The Tribunal gave 
 credit to this hideous charge, and, after going through the 
 regular legal proceedings, including the medieval " cross- 
 examinations " and the rack, sentenced one Jew named Mark 
 (Mordecai) to death. The Carmelite monks liastened to ad- 
 vertise the case for the purpose of planting the terrible preju- 
 dice more firmly in the hearts of the people. 
 
 Another trial of a similar nature took place in 1639. Two 
 elders of the Jewish community of Lenchitza were sentenced to 
 death by the Crown Tribunal on the charge of having murdered 
 a Christian boy from a neighboring village. Xeither the pro- 
 testation of the Starosta of Lenchitza, that the case did not 
 come within the jurisdiction of his court, nor the fact that the 
 accused, though put upon the rack, refused to make a confes- 
 sion, were able to avert the death sentence. The bodies of the 
 executed Jews were cut into pieces and hung on poles at the 
 cross-roads. The Bernardine monks of Lenchitza turned the
 
 THE CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH IQl 
 
 incident to good account by placing the remains of the sup- 
 posedly martyred boy in their church and putting up a picture 
 representing all the details of the murder. The superstitious 
 Catholic masses flocked to the church to worship at the shrine 
 of the juvenile saint, swelling the revenues of the Bernardine 
 church — which was exactly what the devout monks were after. 
 While the Church was engineering the ritual murder trials 
 for the sake of " business," the municipal agencies, representing 
 the Christian merchant class, acted similarly for the purpose 
 of ridding themselves of the Jews and getting trade under 
 their absolute control. This policy is luridly illustrated by a 
 tragic occurrence, which, in the years 1635 to 1637, stirred the 
 city of Cracow to its depths. A Pole by the name of Peter 
 Yurkevich was convicted of having stolen some church 
 vessels. At the cross-examination, having been put upon the 
 rack, he testified that a Jewish tailor, named Jacob Gzheslik, 
 had persuaded him to steal a host. Since the Jew had disap- 
 peared and could nowhere be found, Yurkevich was the only 
 one to bear the death penalty. But before the execution, in 
 making his confession to the priest, he stated — and he repeated 
 the statement afterwards before an official committee of in- 
 vestigation — the following facts : 
 
 I have stolen no sacraments from any church, and have never 
 made my God an object of barter. I merely stole a few silver and 
 other church dishes. My former depositions were- made at the 
 advice of the gentlemen of the magistracy. The first time I was 
 conducted into the court room Judge Belza spoke to me as follows : 
 " Depose that you have stolen the sacraments and sold them to the 
 Jews. You will suffer no harm from it, while Ave shall have a 
 weapon wherewith to expel the Jews from Cracow." I had hoped 
 that this deposition would obtain freedom for me, and I did as I 
 had been told.
 
 102 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 But Yurkevich's statement had no effect. He was con- 
 victed on the strength of his original affidavit, though it had 
 been squeezed out of him by trickery and torture, and he 
 was burned at the stake. As for the Jews of Cracow, they had 
 to bear the penalty in the shape of a riot, the mob attacking 
 the Jewish ghetto and seizing forty Jews, who were carried off 
 to be thrown into the river. Seven men were drowned, while 
 the others saved themselves by promising to embrace Chris- 
 tianity (May, 1637).
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE INNER LIFE OF POLISH JEWRY AT ITS 
 ZENITH 
 
 1. Kahal Autonomy and the Jewish Diets 
 
 The peculiar position occupied by the Jews in Poland made 
 their social autonomy both necessary and possible. Consti- 
 tuting an historical nationality, with an inner life of its own, 
 the Jews were segregated by the Government as a separate 
 estate, an independent social body. Though forming an in- 
 tegral part of the urban population, the Jews were not officially 
 included in any one of the general urban estates, whose affairs 
 were administered by the magistracy or the trade-unions. 
 Nor were they subjected to the jurisdiction of Christian law 
 courts as far as their internal affairs were concerned. They 
 formed an entirely independent class of citizens, and as such 
 were in need of independent agencies of self-government and 
 jurisdiction. The Jewish community constituted not only a 
 national and cultural, but also a civil, entity. It formed a 
 Jewish city within a Christian city, with its separate forms of 
 life, its own religious, administrative, judicial, and charitable 
 institutions. The Government of a country with sharply 
 divided estates could not but legalize the autonomy of the 
 Jewish Kahal, after having legalized the Magdeburg Law of 
 the Christian urban estates, in which the Germans constituted 
 the predominating element. As for the kings, in their capacity 
 as the official " guardians " of the Jews, they were especially 
 concerned in having the Kahals properly organized, since the 
 regular payment of the Jewish taxes was thereby assured. 
 Moreover, the Government found it more to its convenience to
 
 104 THE JEJWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 deal with a well-defined body of representatives than with the 
 unorganized masses. 
 
 As early as the period of royal " paternalism," during the 
 reign of Sigisniund I., the king endeavored to extend his 
 fatherly protection to the Jewish system of communal self- 
 government. The appointment of Michael Yosefovich a^ the 
 "senior" of the Lithuanian Jews, with a rabbi as expert 
 adviser *, was designed to safeguard the interests of the exche- 
 quer by concentrating the power in the hands of a federa- 
 tion of Kahals in Lithuania. On more than one occasion 
 Sigismund L confirmed the "spiritual judges," or rabbis 
 (judices spiritrtalcs, doclorcs legis), elected by the Jews in 
 different parts of Poland, in their oiHee. In 1518 he ratified, 
 at the request of the Jews of Posen, their election of two lead- 
 ing rabbis, Moses and Mendel, to the posts of provincial judges 
 for all the communities of Great Poland, bestowing upon the 
 newly-elected ofheials the right of instructing and judging 
 their coreligionists in accordance with the Jewish law. In 
 Cracow, where the Jews were divided into two separate com- 
 mimities — one of native Polish Jews and another of immi- 
 grants from Bohemia, — the King empowered each of them to 
 elect its own rabbi. The choice fell upon Rabbi Asher for the 
 former, and upon Rabbi Peretz for the latter, community, and 
 when a dispute arose between the two communities as to the 
 ownership of the old synagogue, the King again intervened, and 
 decided the case in favor of the native community (1519). 
 In 1531 Mendel Frank, the rabbi of Brest, complained to the 
 King that the Jews did not always respect his decisions, and 
 brought their cases before the royal starostas. Accordingly 
 Sigismund I. thought it necessary to warn the Jews to submit 
 
 • See pp. 72 and 73.
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 105 
 
 to the jurisdiction of their own " doctors/' or rabbis, who dis- 
 pensed justice according to the " Jewish law," and were given 
 the right of imposing the " oath " {herem,, excommunication) 
 and all kinds of other penalties upon insubordinates. In the 
 following year the King appointed as " senior/' or chief rabbi, 
 of Cracow the well-kno^vu scholar Moses Fishel — who, it may 
 be added parenthetically, had taken the degree of Doctor of 
 Medicine in Padua — to succeed Eabbi Asher, referred to previ- 
 ously. Pursuing the same policy of centralization, the King. 
 a few years later, in 1541, confirmed in their office as chief 
 rabbis (seniores) of the whole province of Little Poland two 
 men " learned in the Jewish law," the same Eabbi Moses 
 Fishel of Cracow, and the famous progenitor of Polish Tal- 
 mudism, Eabbi Shalom Shakhna of Lublin. 
 
 In the same measure, however, in which the communal or- 
 ganization of the Jews gained in strength, and the functions 
 of the rabbis and Kahal elders became more clearly defined, 
 the Government gradually receded from its attitude of paternal 
 interference. The magna charta of Jewish autonomy may be 
 said to be represented by the charter of Sigismund Augustus, 
 issued on August 13, 1551, which embodies the fundamental 
 principles of self-government for the Jewish communities of 
 Great Poland. 
 
 According to this charter, the Jews are entitled to elect, by 
 general agreement,^ their own rabbis and " lawful judges " to 
 take charge of their spiritual and social affairs. The rabbis 
 and judges, elected in this manner, are authorized to expound 
 all questions of the religious ritual, to perform marriages and 
 grant divorces, to execute the transfer of property and other 
 
 [* JJnanimi voto et consensu are the exact words of the document. 
 See Bersohn, Dyplomatariusz (Collection of ancient Polish enact- 
 ments relating to Jews), p. 51.]
 
 106 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 acts of a civil character, and to settle disputes between Jews in 
 accordance with the " Mosaic law " (iiixta rifum et morem 
 legis illorum Mosaicae) and tlie supplementary Jewish legisla- 
 tion. In conjunction with the Kahal elders they are em- 
 powered to subject offenders against the law to excommunica- 
 tion and other punishments, such as the Jewish customs may 
 prescribe. In case the person punished in this manner does not 
 recant within a month, the matter is to be brought to the 
 knowledge of the king, who may sentence the incorrigible male- 
 factor to death and confiscate his property. The local officers 
 of the king are enjoined to lend their assistance in carrying 
 out the orders of the rabbis and elders. 
 
 This enactment, coupled with a number of similar charters, 
 which were subsequently promulgated for various provinces of 
 Poland, conferred upon the elective representatives of the Jew- 
 ish communities extensive autonomy in economic and admin- 
 istrative as well as judicial affairs, at the same time insuring 
 its practical realization by placing at its disposal the power of 
 the royal administration. 
 
 The firm consolidation of the regime of the self-governing 
 community, the Kahal, dates from that period. In this appel- 
 lation two concepts were merged : the " community," the 
 aggregate of the local Jews, on the one hand, and, on the other, 
 the " communal administration/' representing the totality of 
 all the Jewish institutions of a given locality, including the 
 rabbinate. The activity of the Kahals assumed particularly 
 large proportions beginning with the latter half of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 All cities and towns with a Jewish population had their 
 separate Kahal boards. Their size corresponded roughly to 
 that of the given community. In large centers the member-
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 107 
 
 ship of the Kahal board amounted to forty; in smaller towns 
 it was limited to ten. The members of the Kahal were elected 
 annually during the intermediate days of Passover. As a rule 
 the election proceeded according to a double-graded system. 
 Several electors (borerim), their number varying from nine 
 to five, were appointed by lot from among the members of all 
 synagogues, and these electors, after taking a solemn oath, chose 
 the Kahal elders. The elders were divided into groups. 
 Two of these, the rashim and tuhim (the " heads " and 
 " optimates"), stood at the head of the administration, and 
 were in charge of the general affairs of the community. They 
 were followed by the daijyanim, or judges, and the gabhaim, or 
 directors, who managed the synagogues as well as the educa- 
 tional and charitable institutions. The rashim and tuhim 
 formed the nucleus of the Kahal, seven of them making a 
 quorum; in the smaller communities they were practically 
 identical with the Kahal board. 
 
 The sphere of the Kahal's activity was very large. With- 
 in the area allotted to it the Kahal collected and turned over 
 to the exchequer the state taxes, arranged the assessment 
 of imposts, both of a general and a special character, took charge 
 of the synagogues, the Talmudic academies, the cemeteries, 
 and other communal institutions. The Kahal executed title- 
 deeds on real estate, regulated the instruction of the young, 
 organized the affairs appertaining to charity and to commerce 
 and handicrafts, and with the help of the dayyanim and the 
 rabbi settled disputes between the members of the community. 
 As for the rabbi, while exercising unrestricted authority in 
 religious affairs, he was in all else dependent on the Kahal 
 board, which invited him to his post for a definite term. Only 
 great authorities, far-famed on account of their Talmudic
 
 108 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 erudition, wore able to assert their iufluenee in all departments 
 of communal life. 
 
 The Kahal of each city extended its authority to the adjacent 
 settlements and villages which did not possess autonomous 
 organizations of their own. Moreover, the Kahals of the large 
 centers kept under their jurisdiction the minor Kahals, or 
 prikahalki/ as they were officially called, of the towns and 
 townlets of their district, as far as the apportionment of taxes 
 and the judicial authority were concerned. This gave rise to 
 the "Kahal boroughs," or ghcliloih (singular, galil). Often 
 disputes arose between the Kahal boroughs as to the boundaries 
 of their districts, the contested minor communities submitting 
 now to this, now to the other, " belligerent." On the whole, 
 however, the moderate centralization of self-government bene- 
 fited the Jewish population, since it introduced order and dis- 
 cipline into the Kahal hierarchy, and enabled it to defend the 
 civil and national interests of Judaism more effectively. 
 
 The capstone of this Kahal organization were the so-called 
 Waads* the conferences or assemblies of rabbis and Kahal 
 leaders. These conferences received their original impetus from 
 the rabbis and judges. The rabbinical law court^s, oflticially 
 endowed with extensive powers, were guided in their decisions 
 by the legislation embodied in the Bible and the Talmud, which 
 made full provision for all questions of religious, civil, and 
 domestic life as well as for all possible infractions of the law. 
 Yet it was but natural that even in this extensive system of law 
 disputed points should arise for which the competency of a 
 single rabbi did not suffice. Moreover there were cases in 
 which the litigants appealed from the decision of one rabbinical 
 
 ['Literally, By-Kahals.] 
 
 [' a = short German a. In Hebrew '\i}'\ .]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 109 
 
 court to another, more authoritative, court. Finally lawsuits 
 would occasionally arise between groups of the population, be- 
 tween one community and another, or between a private person 
 and a Kahal board. For such emergencies conferences of rabbis 
 and elders would be called from time to time as the highest 
 court of appeal. 
 
 Beginning with the middle of the sixteenth century these 
 conferences met at the time of the great fairs, when large 
 numbers of people congregated from various places, and liti- 
 gants arrived in connection with their business affairs. The 
 chief meeting-place was the Lublin fair, owing to the fact that 
 Lublin was the residence of the father of Polish rabbinism, 
 the above-mentioned Eabbi Shalom Shakhna, who was officially 
 recognized as the " senior rabbi " of Little Poland. As far 
 back as in the reign of Sigismund I. the " Jewish doctors," or 
 rabbis, met there for the purpose of settling civil disputes 
 " according to their law." In the latter part of the sixteenth 
 century these conferences of rabbis and communal leaders, 
 assembling in connection with the Lublm fairs, became more 
 frequent, and led in a short time to the organization of regular, 
 periodic conventions, which were attended by representatives 
 from the principal Jewish communities of the whole of Poland. 
 
 The activity of these conferences, or conventions, passed, 
 by gradual expansion, from the judicial sphere into that of 
 administration and legislation. At these conventions laws were 
 adopted determining the order of Kahal elections, fixing the 
 competency of the rabbis and judges, granting permits for 
 publishing books, and so forth. Occasionally these assemblies 
 of Jewish notables endorsed by their authority the enact- 
 ments of the Polish Government. Thus, in 1580, the repre- 
 sentatives of the Polish-Jewish communities, who assembled in
 
 110 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Lublin, gave their solemn sanction to the well-known Polish 
 law barring the Jews of the Crown, of Poland proper, from 
 farming state taxes and other public revenues, in view of 
 the fact that " certain people, thirsting for gain and wealth, to 
 be obtiiiued from extensive leases, might tiiereby expose the 
 community to great danger." 
 
 Towards the end of the sixteenth century the fair conferences 
 received a firmer organization. Tliey were attended by the 
 rabbis and Kahal representatives of the following provinces: 
 Great Poland (the leading community being that of Posen), 
 Little Poland (Cracow and Lublin), Red Russia (Lem- 
 berg), Volhynia (Ostrog and Kremenetz), and Lithuania 
 (Brest and Grodno). Originally the name of the assembly 
 varied with tiie number of provinces represented in it, and it 
 was designated as the Council of the Three, or the Four, or 
 the Five, Ijands. Subsequently, when Lithuania withdrew 
 from the Polish Kahal organization, establishing a federation 
 of its own, and the four provinces of the Crown ^ began to send 
 their delegates regularly to these conferences, the name of the 
 assembly was ultimately fixed as " the Council of the Four 
 Lands " ( Waad Arha Aratzoth). 
 
 The " Council '' was made up of several leading rabbis of 
 Poland,^ and of one delegate for each of the principal Kahals 
 selected from among their elders — the number of the con- 
 ferees altogether amounting to about thirty. They met 
 periodically, once or twice a year, in Lublin and Yaroslav 
 (Galicia) alternately. As a rule, the Council assembled in 
 Lublin in early spring, between Purim and Passover, and in 
 Yaroslav at the end of the summer, before the high holidays. 
 
 [* Great Poland, Little Poland, Red Russia, and Volhynia. Vol- 
 hynia at first formed part of the Lithuanian Duchy, but was ceded 
 to the Crown, in 1569, by the Union of Lublin.] 
 
 * In the middle of the seventeenth century their number was six.
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH HI 
 
 The representatives of the Four Lands — says a well-known 
 annalist of the first half of the seventeenth century ^ — reminded 
 one of the Sanhedrin, which in ancient days assembled in the 
 Chamber of Hewn Stones {lishkath ha-gazith) of the temple. They 
 dispensed justice to all the Jews of the Polish realm, issued pre- 
 ventive measures and obligatory enactments (takkanoth) , and 
 imposed penalties as they saw fit. All the difficult cases were 
 brought before their court. To facilitate matters the delegates of 
 the Four Lands appointed [a special commission of] so-called 
 "provincial judges" {dayyane medinoth) to settle disputes con- 
 cerning property, while they themselves [in plenary session] exam- 
 ined criminal cases, matters appertaining to 'hazaka (priority of 
 possession) and other difficult points of law. 
 
 The Council of the Four Lands was the guardian of Jewish 
 civil interests in Poland. It sent its shtadlans^ to the resi- 
 dential city of Warsaw ' and other meeting-places of the Polish 
 Diets for the purpose of securing from the king and his dig- 
 nitaries the ratification of the ancient Jewish privileges, which 
 had been violated by the local authorities, or of forestalling 
 contemplated restrictive laws and increased fiscal burdens for 
 the Jewish population. 
 
 But the main energy of the Waad was directed towards the 
 regulation of the inner life of the Jews. The statute of 1607, 
 framed, at the instance of the Waad, by Joshua Falk Cohen, 
 
 ^Nathan Hannover, in his Yeven Metzula [see p. 157, n. 1], ed. 
 Venice, 1653, p. 12. 
 
 \'- A HebreT"/ te"in desiTn^.tinf public-'^'^iri^p'' Je^'s who defend 
 the interests of their coreligionists before the Government. In 
 Polish official documents they are referred to as " General Syndics." 
 In Poland the shtadlans were regular officials maintained by the 
 Jewish community. Comp. the article by L. Lewin, Der Schtadlan 
 im Posener Ghetto, in Festschrift published in honor of Dr. Wolf 
 Feilchenfeld (1907), pp. 31 et seq.] 
 
 ^ Towards the end of the sixteenth century Warsaw, instead of 
 Cracow, became the residence of the Polish kings. The Jews had 
 no right of domicile in Warsaw, and were permitted only to visit 
 it temporarily. [See p. 85.] 
 
 8
 
 112 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Rabbi of Lublin, is typital of this solicitude. The following 
 rules are prescribed for the purpose of fostering piety and com- 
 mercial integrity among the Jewish people : to pay special 
 attention to the observance of the dietary laws, to refrain from 
 adopting the Christian form of dress; not to drink wine with 
 Christians in the pot-houses, in order not to be classed among 
 the disreputable members of the community; to watch over 
 the chastity of Jewish women, particularly in the villages 
 where the Jewish arcndars' with their families wore isolated 
 in the midst of the Christian population. In the same statute 
 rules arc also laid down tending to restrain the activities of 
 Jewish usurers and to regulate money credit in general. 
 
 In 1623 the Kahals of Lithuania withdrew from the federa- 
 tion of the Four Lands, and established a provincial organiza- 
 tion of their own, which was centralized in the convention of 
 delegates from the three principal Kahals of Brest, Grodno, and 
 Pinsk. Subsequently, in 1652 and 1691, the Kahals of Vilna 
 and Slutzk were added. The Lithuanian assembly w^as gener- 
 ally designated as the " Council of the Principal Communitiea 
 of the Province of Lithuania" (Waad Kehilloth Rashioth di- 
 Medinaih Liia). The organic statute, framed by the first 
 Council, comprises many aspects of the social and spiritual life 
 of the Jews. It lays down rules concerning the mutual relation- 
 ship of the communities, the methods of apportioning the taxes 
 among them, the relations with the outside world (such as tlie 
 Polish Diets, the local authorities, the landed nobility, and the 
 urban estates), the elections of the Kahals, and the question of 
 popular education. The Lithuanian Waad met every three 
 years in various cities of Lithuania, but in cases of emergency 
 extraordinary conventions were called. During the first years 
 
 t' See p. 93, n. l.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 113 
 
 of its cxJsteuee tlie Lithuanian Council was evidently subor- 
 dinate to that of Poland, but nt a later date this dependence 
 ceased. 
 
 hi lhi,> way botli llie ( ruwn, or Poland proper, and Lithu- 
 ania had their connnunal federations with central administra- 
 tive agencies. As was pointed out previously, the Polish feder- 
 ation was composed of four provinces. The individual Kahals, 
 whi(;h were the component parts of each of these four provinces, 
 held their own provincial assemblies, which stood in the same 
 relation to the Waad as the '" Dietines," or provincial Diets, 
 of Poland, to the national Diet of the whole country.* Thus 
 the communities of (jireat Poland had their own Great-Polish 
 " Dietine," those of Volhynia their own Volhynian " Dietine," 
 and so forth. The provincial Kahal eonventions met for the 
 purpose of allotting the taxes to the individual communities 
 of a given provijice, in proportion to the size of its population, 
 or of eJeiting delegates to the federated Council. These Jewish 
 1 )ietines acted as the intermediate agencies of self-government, 
 standing half-way between the individual Ivahals on the one 
 iiand and the general Waads of the Crown and of Lithuania 
 un the other. 
 
 This lirmly-knit organization of communal self-government 
 could not but foster among the Jews of Poland a spirit of dis- 
 cipline and obedience to the law. It had an educational effect 
 on the Jewish populace, which was left by the Government to 
 itself, and had no share in the common life of the country. It 
 provided the stateless nation with a substitute for national and 
 political self-expression, keeping public spirit and civic virtue 
 alive in it, and upliolding and unfolding its genuine culture. 
 
 ['See p. 76, n. l.|
 
 114 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 2. The Instruction of the Young 
 
 One of the mainstays of this genuine culture was the autono- 
 mous school. The instruction of the rising generation was the 
 object of constant solicitude on the part of the Kahals and the 
 rabbis as well as the conventions and Councils. Elementary 
 and secondary education was centered in the heelers, while 
 higher education was fostered in the ycshihalis. Attendance 
 at the heder was compulsory for all children of school age, ap- 
 proximately from six to thirteen. The subjects of instruction 
 at these schools were the Bible in the original, accompanied by 
 a translation into the Judeo-German vernacular,' and the 
 easier treatises of the Talmud with commentaries. In some 
 heders the study of Hebrew grammar and the four fundamental 
 operations of arithmetic were also admitted into the curricu- 
 lum. The establishment of these heders was left to private 
 initiative, every melammed, or Jewish elementary teacher, be- 
 ing allowed to open a heder for boys and to receive compensa- 
 tion for his labors from their parents. Only the heders for poor 
 children or for orphans, the so-called Talmud Torahs, were 
 maintained by the community from public funds. Yet the 
 supervision of the Kahal extended not only to the public, but 
 also to the private, elementary schools. The Kahal prescribed 
 the curriculum of the heders, arranged examinations for the 
 scholars, fixed the remuneration of the teachers, determined the 
 
 f The ?,o-Q.?i\\QA Jiidisch-Beutsch, which was by the Jews brought 
 from Germany to Poland and Lithuania. It was only in the 
 latter part of the seventeenth century that the dialect of Polish- 
 Lithuanian Jewry began to depart from the Jiidisch-Deutsch as 
 spoken by the German Jews, thus laying the foundation for 
 modern Yiddish. See Dubnow's article " On the Spoken Dialect 
 and the Popular Literature of the Polish and Lithuanian Jews in 
 the Sixteenth and the First Half of the Seventeenth Century," in 
 the periodical Yevreyskaya Starina, i. (1909), pp. 1 et seq.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 115 
 
 hours of instruction (wliicli were generally from eight to 
 twelve a day), and took charge of the whole school work, in 
 some places even appointing a sort of school board {Hevrah 
 Talmud Torah) from among its own members. 
 
 The higher Talmudic school or college, the yeshibah, was 
 entirely under the care of the Kahal and the rabbis. This 
 school, which provided a complete religious and juridical edu- 
 cation based on the Talmud and the rabbinical codes of law, 
 received the sanction of the Polish Government. King Sigis- 
 mund Augustus granted the Jewish community of Lublin 
 permission to open a yeshibah, or " gymnazium " {gymnazium 
 ad instiiuendos homines illorum reUgionis) , with a synagogue 
 attached to it, bestowing upon its president, a learned rabbi, 
 not only the title of " rector," but also extensive powers over 
 the affairs of the community (1567). Four years later the 
 same King granted an even larger license to " the learned Solo- 
 mon of Lemberg, whom the Jewish community of Lemberg and 
 the whole land of Russia ^ have chosen for their ' senior doctor ' 
 {ah-hetli-din, or rosli-yesldhah) ," conferring upon him the 
 right to open schools in various cities, " to train the students 
 in the sciences," to keep them under his control, and to inure 
 them to a strict discipline. 
 
 In the course of time Talmudic yeshibahs sprang up in all the 
 cities of Poland and Lithuania. The functions of rector, or 
 rosh-yeshibah, were performed either by the local rabbi or by 
 a man especially selected for this post on account of his learn- 
 ing. It seems that the combination of the two offices of rabbi 
 and college president in one person was limited to those com- 
 munities in which the duties of the spiritual guide of the com- 
 munity were not complex, and admitted of the simultaneous 
 
 [*/. e. Red Russia, or Galicia.]
 
 110 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 discharge of peda^o<i^ie functions. In the large centers, liow- 
 ever, where the pul)lic responsibilities were regularly divided, 
 the rosh-yeshibah was an independent dignitary, who was 
 clothed with consideral)le authority. Similar to the contem- 
 porary rectors of Jesuit colleges, the rosh-yeshibah was abso- 
 lute master within the school walls; he exercised unrestricted 
 control over his pupils, subjecting them to a well-estal»lished 
 discipline and dispensing justice among them. 
 
 The contemporary chronicler quoted above, Kabbi Nathan 
 Hannover, of Zaslav, in ^'olhynia, portrays in vivid colors the 
 Jewish school life of Poland and Lithuania in the first half 
 of the seventeenth century. 
 
 In no country — quoth Rabbi Nathan ' — was the study of the 
 Torah so widespread among the Jews as in the Kingdom of Poland. 
 Every Jewish community maintained a yeshibah, paying its presi- 
 dent a large salary, so as to enable him to conduct the institution 
 without worry and to devote himself entirely to the pursuit of 
 learning. . . . Moreover, every Jewish community supported col- 
 lege students (bahurs), giving them a certain amount of money 
 per week, so that they might study under the direction of the 
 president. Every one of these bahurs was made to instruct at 
 least two boys, for the purpose of deepening his own studies and 
 gaining some experience in Talmudic discussions. The [poor] 
 boys obtained tlieir food either from the charity fund or from the 
 public kitchen. A community of fifty Jewish families would sup- 
 port no less than thirty of these young men and boys, one family 
 supplying board for one college student and his two pupils, the 
 
 former sitting at the family table like one of the sons There 
 
 was scarcely a house in the whole Kingdom of Poland where the 
 Torah was not studied, and where either the head of the family 
 or his son or his son-in-law, or the yeshibah student boarding v.ith 
 him, was not an expert in Jewish learning; frequently all of these 
 
 ^Yeven Metzula [see p. 157, n. 1], towards the end.
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 117 
 
 could be found under one roof. For this reason every community 
 contained a large number of scholars, a community of fifty fami- 
 lies having as many as twenty learned men, who were styled 
 morenu ' or haber.^ They were all excelled by the rosh-yeshibah, 
 all the scholars submitting to his authority and studying under 
 him at the yeshibah. 
 
 The program of study in Poland was as follows: The scholastic 
 term during which the young men and the boys were obliged to 
 study under the rosh-yeshibah lasted from the beginning of the 
 month of lyyar until the middle of Ab [approximately from April 
 until July] in the summer and from the first of the month of 
 Heshvan until the fifteenth of Shebat [October-June] in the winter. 
 Outside of these terms the young men and the boys were free to 
 choose their own place of study. From the beginning of the sum- 
 mer term until Shabuoth and from the beginning of the winter 
 term until Hanukkah all the students of the yeshibah studied with 
 great intensity the Gemara [the Babylonian Talmud] and the com- 
 mentaries of Rashi ' and the Tosafists.'' 
 
 The scholars and young students of the community as well 
 as all interested in the study of the Law assembled daily at the 
 yeshibah, where the president alone occupied a chair, while 
 the scholars and college students stood around him. Before 
 the appearance of the rosh-yeshibah they would discuss ques- 
 tions of Jewish law, and when he arriA-^ed every one laid his diffi- 
 culties before him, and received an explanation. Thereupon silence 
 was restored, and the rosh-yeshibah delivered his lecture, pre- 
 senting the new results of his study. At the conclusion of the 
 
 [* Literally, " our teacher," a title bestowed since the Middle Ages 
 on every ordained rabbi.] 
 
 [- Literally, " companion," " colleague," a title conferred upon 
 men who, without being ordained, have attained a high degree of 
 scholarship.] 
 
 [^ Abbreviation for Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac (d. 1105), a famous 
 French rabbi, whose commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud 
 are marked by wonderful lucidity.] 
 
 [* A school of Talmudic authorities, mostly of French origin, who, 
 in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, wrote Tosafoth (literally, 
 "Additions"), critical and exegetical annotations, distinguished 
 for their ingenuity.]
 
 118 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 lecture he arranged a scientific argumentation (hilluk) , proceeding 
 in tlie following way: Various contradictions in the Talmud and 
 the commentaries were pointed out, and solutions were proposed. 
 These solutions were, in turn, shown to be contradictory, and other 
 solutions were offered, this process being continued until the sub- 
 ject of discussion was completely elucidated. These exercises 
 continued in summer at least until midday. From the middle of 
 the two scholastic terms until their conclusion the rosh-yeshibah 
 paid less attention to these argumentations, and read instead the 
 religious codes, studying with the mature scholars the Turim * 
 with commentaries, and with the [younger] students the compen- 
 dium of Alfasi.' .... Several weeks before the close of the term 
 the rosh-yeshibah would honor the members of his college, both the 
 scholars and the students, by inviting them to conduct the scien- 
 tific disputations on his behalf, though he himself would partici- 
 pate in the discussion in order to exercise the mental faculties of 
 all those attending the yeshibah. 
 
 Attached to the president of the yeshibah was an inspector, who 
 had the duty of visiting the elementary schools, or heders, daily, 
 and seeing to it that all boys, whether poor or rich, applied them- 
 selves to study and did not loiter in the streets. On Thursdays 
 the pupils had to present themselves before the trustee {gabbai) 
 of the Talmud Torah, who examined them in what they had covered 
 during the week. The boy who knew nothing or who did not 
 answer adequately was by order of the trustee turned over to 
 the inspector, who subjected him, in the presence of his fel- 
 low-pupils, to severe physical punishment and other painful 
 degradations, that he might firmly resolve to improve in his studies 
 during the following week. On Fridays the heder pupils presented 
 themselves in a body before the rosh-yeshibah himself, to undergo 
 
 [* Hebrew for " Rows," with reference to the four rows of 
 precious stones in the garment of the high priest (Ex. xxviii., 17) — 
 title of a code of laws composed by Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (died at 
 Toledo ab. 1340). It is divided into four parts, dealing respectively 
 with ritual, dietary, domestic, and civil laws. The Turim was the 
 forerunner of the Shulhan Arukh. for w-hich it served as a model.] 
 
 ['Isaac ben Jacob r-l-Fasi (f. e. from Fez in North Africa) (died 
 1103), author of a famous Talmudic compendium.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 119 
 
 a similar examination. Tliis had a strong deterrent effect upon the 
 boys, and they devoted themselves energetically to their studies. 
 .... The scholars, seeing this [the honors showered upon the 
 rosh-j'eshibah], coveted the same distinction, that of becoming a 
 rosh-yeshibah in some community. They studied assiduously in 
 consequence. Prompted originally by self-interest, they gradually 
 came to devote themselves to the Torah from pure, unselfish 
 motives. 
 
 By way of contrast to this panegyric upon Polish-Jewish 
 school life, it is only fair that we should quote another con- 
 temporary, who severely criticizes the methods of instruction 
 then in vogue at the yeshibahs. 
 
 The whole instruction at the yeshibah — writes the well-known 
 preacher Solomon Ephraim of Lenchitza (d. 1619)^ — reduces itself 
 to mental equilibristics and empty argumentations called hilluk. 
 It is dreadful to contemplate that some venerable rabbi, presiding 
 over a yeshibah, in his anxiety to discover and communicate to 
 others some new interpretation, should offer a perverted explana- 
 tion of the Talmud, though he himself and every one else be fully 
 aware that the true meaning is different. Can it be God's will 
 that we sharpen our minds by fallacies and sophistries, spending 
 our time in vain and teaching the listeners to do likewise? And 
 all this for the mere ambition of passing for a great scholar! . . . 
 I myself have more than once argued with the Talmudic celebrities 
 of our time, showing the need for abolishing the method of pilpul 
 and hilluk, without being able to convince them. This attitude can 
 only be explained by the eagerness of these scholars for honors and 
 rosh-yeshibah posts. These empty quibbles have a particularly 
 pernicious effect on our bahurs, for the reason that the bahur who 
 does not shine in the discussion is looked down upon as incapable, 
 and is practically forced to lay aside his studies, though he might 
 prove to be one of the best, if Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, and the 
 Codes were studied in a regular fashion. I myself have known 
 
 * B'K' nior. ed. Lemberg, 1865, pp. 18b, 61b.
 
 120 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 capable young men who, not having distinguished themselves in 
 pllpul. forfeited the respect of their fellow-students, and stopped 
 studying altogether after their marriage. 
 
 Secular studies were uot included in the curriculum of the 
 yeshibahs, Tlie religious codes composed during that period 
 allow the study of "the otiier sciences" only "on occasion," 
 and only to those who have completely mastered Talmudic and 
 rabbinic literature. Needless to say, no yeshibah student 
 could lay claim to such mastery until the completion of the 
 college course. ^loreover, the secular sciences had to be 
 excluded from the yeshibah, for the external reason that 
 the latter was generally located in a sacred place, near the 
 synagogue, where the mere presence of a secular book was 
 regarded as a profanation. Yet it occasionally happened that 
 young men strayed away from the path of the Talmud, and 
 secretly indulged in the study of secular sciences and of Aristo- 
 telian philosophy. This fact is attested by the great rabbinical 
 authority of the sixteenth century. Rabbi Solomon Luria. " I 
 myself " — he writes indignantly — " have seen the prayer of 
 Aristotle copied in the prayer-books of the haliurs." This 
 vsomcwhat veiled expression indicates, in all likelihood, that 
 among the books of the yeshibah students " contraband " was 
 occasionally discovered, in the shape of manuscripts of philo- 
 sophic content. Unfortunately we hear nothing more definite 
 as to the way in which the Jewish youth of that period became 
 infatuated with anathematized philosophy. We have reason to 
 assume, however, that such deviations from the rigorous dis- 
 cipline of rabbinical scholarship were few and far between. 
 
 The yeshibahs, providing as they did an academic training, 
 were the nurseries of that intellectual aristocracy which subse- 
 quently became so powerful a factor in the life of Polish-Lithu-
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 121 
 
 aniau Jewry. This numerically considerable class of scholars 
 looked down upon the uneducated multitude. Yet the level of 
 literacy even among the latter was comparatively high. All 
 boys, without exception, attended the heder, where they studied 
 the Hebrew language and the Bible, while many devoted them- 
 selves to the Talmud. A different attitude is observable towards 
 female education. Girls remained outside the school, their in- 
 struction not being considered obligatory according to the 
 Jewish law. No heders for girls are mentioned in any of the 
 documents of the time. Nor did a single woman attain to liter- 
 ary fame among the Jews of Poland and Lithuania. The girls 
 were taught at home to read the prayers, but they were seldom 
 instructed in the Hebrew language, so that the majority of 
 women had but a very imperfect notion of the meaning of the 
 prayers in the original. In consequence, the women began at 
 that time to use the translations of the prayers in the Jewish 
 vernacular, the so-called Jiidisch-Deufsch. 
 
 3. The High-Water Mark of Eabbixic Learnijjg 
 
 The high intellectual level of the Polish Jews was the result 
 of their relative economic prosperity. As for the character of 
 their mental productivity, it was the direct outcome of their 
 social autonomy. The vast system of Kahal self-government 
 enhanced not only the authority of the rabbi, but also that of 
 the learned Talmudist and of every layman familiar with Jew- 
 ish law. The rabbi discharged, within the limits of his com- 
 munity, the functions of spiritual guide, liead of the yeshibah, 
 and inspector of elementary schools, as well as those of legis- 
 lator and judge. An acquaintance with the vast and compli- 
 cated Talmudic law was to a certain extent necessary even for 
 the layman who occupied the office of an elder {parnas, or
 
 123 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 rosh-ha-Kahal) , or was in some way connected with the scheme 
 of Jewish self-government. For the enactments of the Talmud 
 regulated the inner life of the Polish Jews in the same way as 
 they had done formerly in Babylonia, in the time of the autono- 
 mous Exilarchs and Gaons. But it must be remembered that, 
 since the times of the Gaons, Jewish law had been consider- 
 ably amplified. Rabbinic Judaism having been superimposed 
 upon Talmudic Judaism. This mass of religious lore, which 
 had been accumulating for centuries, now monopolized the 
 minds of all educated Jews in the empire of Poland, which 
 thus became a second Babylonia. It reigned supreme in the 
 synagogues, the yeshibahs, and the elementary schools. It 
 gave tone to social and domestic life. It spoke through the 
 mouth of the judge, the administrator, and the communal 
 leader. Lastly it determined the content of Jewish literary 
 productivity. Polish- Jewish literature was almost exclusively 
 consecrated to rabbinic law. 
 
 The beginnings of Talmudic learning in Poland can be 
 traced back to the first half of the sixteenth century. It had 
 been carried thither from neighboring Bohemia, primarily from 
 the school of the originator of the pilpul method, Jacob Pol- 
 lack.' A pupil of the latter. Rabbi Shalom Shakhna (ab, 
 1500-1558), is regarded as one of the pioneers of Polish Tal- 
 mudism. All we know about his fortunes is that he lived and 
 died in Lublin, that in 1541 he was confirmed by a decree of 
 King Sigismund I. in the office of chief rabbi of Little Poland, 
 and that he stood at the head of the yeshibah which sent forth 
 
 ^ It has been conjectured that the same scholar occupied, some 
 time between 1503 and 1520, the post of rector in Poland itself, 
 being at the head of the yeshibah in Cracow.
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 123 
 
 the rabbinical celebrities of the following generation.* It is 
 quite probable that the rabbinical conferences of Lublin, which 
 afterwards led to the formation of the " Council of the Four 
 Lands/' owe their inception to the initiative of Eabbi Shakhna. 
 After his death his son Israel succeeded to the post of chief 
 rabbi in Lublin. But it was a pupil of Shakhna, Moses Isserles, 
 known in literature by the abbreviated name of EeMO (1520- 
 1572),' who became famous throughout the entire Jewish 
 world. 
 
 Moses Isserles, the son of a well-to-do Kahal elder in Cra- 
 cow, became prominent in the rabbinical world early in life. 
 He occupied the post of a member of the Jewish communal 
 court in his native city, and stood at the head of the yeshibah. 
 This combination of scholarly and practical activities prompted 
 him to delve deep in the existing rabbinical codes, and he 
 found, as a result of his investigation, that they were not 
 exhaustive, and were in need of amplification. 
 
 Isserles was not even satisfied with the thoroughgoing elabo- 
 ration of Jewish law which had been undertaken by his Pales- 
 tinian contemporary' Joseph Caro. When, in the middle of the 
 sixteenth century, Caro's comprehensive commentary on the 
 Code Turim^ entitled Beth-Yoseph ("House of Joseph"), 
 appeared, Isserles composed a commentary on the same code 
 under the name Darkhe Moslie {'' Ways of Moses ''),in which 
 he considerably enlarged the legal material collected there, 
 drawing from sources which Caro had left out of con- 
 sideration. 
 
 [^ Two of his Responsa were published in Cracow, ab. 1540. See 
 Zedner, Catalogue British Museum, p. 695. A new edition appeared 
 in Husiatyn, in 1904, together with Hiddushe Aaron Halevi-i 
 
 ''■ 5<"D-|[ initials of T^-'bbi Moses /(n = o)sserlesJ. 
 
 [' See p. 118, n. 1.]
 
 124 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 When, a few 3'ears later, the latter published his owu code, 
 under the name of Shulhan Arul-k (''The Dressed Table"), 
 Isserles called attention to the fact that its author, being a 
 Sephardic Jew, had tailed in many cases to utilize the investi- 
 gations of the rabbinic authorities among the Ashkenazim, 
 and had left out of consideration the local religious customs, or 
 minhagim, which were current among various groups oL" 
 German-Polish Jewry. These omissions were carefully noted 
 and supplied by Isserles. He supplemented the text of the 
 Shulhan Arukh by a large number of new laws, which he had 
 fraiiied on the basis of the above-mentioned popular customs 
 or of the religious and legal practice of the Ashkeuazic rabbis. 
 Caro's code having been named by the author " The Dressed 
 Table," Isserles gave his supplements thereto the title " Table- 
 cloth " (Mappa).' In this supplemented form tiie Shulhan 
 .Arukh was introduced, as a code of Jewish rabbinic law, into 
 the religious and everyday life of the Polish Jews. The first 
 edition of this combined code of Caro and Isserles appeared in 
 Cracow in 1578, followed by numerous reprints, which testify 
 to the extraordinary popularity of the work. 
 
 The Shulhan Arukh became the substructure for the further 
 development of Polish rabbinism. Only very few scholars of 
 consequence had the courage to challenge the authority of this 
 generally acknowledged code of laws. One of these courageous 
 men was the contemporary and correspondent of Isserles, Solo- 
 mon Luria, known by the abbreviated name of ReSHaL'' 
 (ab. 1510-1573). Solomon Luria was a native of Posen, 
 whither his grandfather had immigrated from Germany. En- 
 dowed with a subtle, analytic mind, Luria was a determined 
 
 ^ Popularly, however, Isserles' supplements are called Haggahoth 
 (" Annotations"). 
 ' S"B'"|[ initials of Kabbi -S//elomo Luria].
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 125 
 
 opponent of the new school dialectics (pilpul), taking for his 
 model the old casuistic method of the Tosafists/ which con- 
 sisted in a detailed criticism and an ingenious analysis of the 
 Talmudic texts. In this spirit he began to compose his re- 
 markable commentary on the Talmud (Yam ah el Shelomo, 
 "Sea of Solomon"'), but succeederl in interpreting only a 
 few tractates. 
 
 In all his investigations Luria manifested boldness of 
 thought and independence of judgment, without sparing the 
 authorities whenever he believed them to be in the wrong. 
 Of the Shulhan Arukh and its author Luria spoke slightingly, 
 claiming that Joseph Caro had used his sources without the 
 necessary discrimination, and had decided many moot points of 
 law arbitrarily. In consequence of this independence of judg- 
 ment, Solomon Luria had many enemies in the scholarly world, 
 but he had, on the other hand, many enthusiastic admirers and 
 devoted disciples. In the middle of the sixteenth century he 
 occupied the post of rabbi in the city of Ostrog, in Volhynia. 
 By his Talmudic lectures, which attracted students from the 
 whole region, he made this city the intellectual center of Vol- 
 hynian and Lithuanian Jewry. The last years of his life he 
 spent in Lublin, where to this day there exists a synagogue 
 which bears his name. 
 
 Luria and Isserles were looked upon as the pillars of Polish 
 rabbinism. Questions of Jewish ritual and law wore submitted 
 to them for decision, not only from various parts of their own 
 country but also from Western Europe, from Italy, Germany, 
 and Bohemia. Their replies to these inquiries, or " Responsa " 
 (Shaaloth u-Teshuhoth), have been gathered in special col- 
 lections. 
 
 [»See p. 117, n. 4.1 
 
 [^Allusion to I Kings vlL. 23-26.1
 
 126 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 These two rabbis also carried on a scientific correspondence 
 with each other. As a result of their divergent character and 
 trend of mind, heated discussions frequently took place between 
 them. Thus Luria, in spite of all his sobriety of intellect, 
 gravitated towards tlie Cabala, while Isserles, with all his rab- 
 binic conservatism, devoted part of his leisure to philosophy. 
 The two scholars rebuked each other for their resj)ective 
 " weaknesses." Luria maintained that the wisdom of the 
 " uncircumcised Aristotle " could be of no benefit, while 
 Isserles tried to prove that many views of the Cabala were not 
 in accord with the ideas of the Talmud, and that mysticism was 
 more dangerous to faith than a moderate philosophy. 
 
 Isserles was right. The philusuphy witii which he occupied 
 himself could scarcely be destructive of Orthodoxy. This is 
 shown by his large work Tonifh ha-'Olah (" The Law of tiie 
 Burnt-Oll'ering," 15T0),' which represents a weird mixture of 
 religious and philosophic discussions on themes borrowed from 
 Maimonides' "Guide of the Perplexed," interspersed with 
 speculations about the various classes of angels or the architec- 
 ture of tlie Jerusalem temple, its vessels and order of sacrifices. 
 The author professes to detect in all the details of the temple 
 service a profound symbolism. Notwithstanding the strange 
 plan of the book there are many chapters in it that show the 
 intimate familiarity of Isserles with the philosophic literature 
 of the Sephardim, a remarkable record for an Ashkenazic 
 rabbi of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The intimate connection between rabbinic learning and Jew- 
 ish life stood out in bold relief from the moment the " Council 
 of the Four Lands " began to discharge its regular functions. 
 The Council had frequent occasion to decide, for practical 
 purposes, complicated questions appertaining to domestic, 
 
 [* Allusion to Lev. vi. 2.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 137 
 
 civil, and criminal law, or relating to legal procedure and 
 religious practice, and the rabbis who participated in these 
 conferences as legal experts were forced to accomplish a 
 large amount of concrete, tangible work for themselves and 
 their colleagues. Questions of law and ritual were every- 
 where assiduously investigated and elaborated, with that subtle 
 analysis peculiar to the Jewish mind, which pursues every 
 idea to its remotest consequences and its most trifling details. 
 
 The subject as well as the method of investigation depended, 
 as a rule, on the social position of the investigator. The rabbis 
 of higher rank, who took an active part in the Kahal adminis- 
 tration, and participated in the meetings of the Councils, either 
 of the Crown or of Lithuania, paid particular attention to the 
 practical application of Talmudic law. One of the oldest 
 scholars of this category during the period under discussion 
 was Mordecai Jaffe (died 1613), a native of Bohemia, who 
 occupied the post of rabbi successively in Grodno, Lublin, 
 Kremenetz, Prague, and Posen. Towards the end of the six- 
 teenth century he presided a number of times over the confer- 
 ences of the " Council of the Four Lands." Though a pupil 
 of Moses Isserles, Jaffe did not consider the ShuUian Arukh 
 as supplemented by his teacher the last word in codification. 
 He objected to the fact that its juridical conclusions were 
 formulated dogmatically, without sufficient motivation. 
 
 For this reason he undertook the composition of a new and 
 more elaborate code of laws, arranged in the accepted order of 
 the four books of the Turim/ wdiich is known as Lebushim, or 
 " Raiments." ' The method of Mordecai Jaffe differs from 
 
 ['See p. 118, n. 1.] 
 
 t* The titles of the various parts of his work are all composed of 
 the word Lebush ("Raiment") and some additional epithet, bor- 
 rowed, with reference to the author's name, from the description of 
 Mordecai's garments, in Esther viii. 15.] 
 9
 
 128 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 that of Joseph Caro and Isserles in the wealth oi' the scientific 
 discussions which accompany every legal clause. At first 
 Jaffe's code created a split in the rabbinical world, and 
 threatened to weaken the authority of the Shulhan AruJch. 
 In the end, however, the latter prevailed, and was acknowledged 
 as the only authoritative guide for the religious and juridical 
 practice of Judaism. Apart from his code, Mordecai Jaffe 
 wrote, under the same general title Lebushim, five more 
 volumes, containing Bible commentaries, synagogue sermons, 
 and annotations to Maimonides' " Guide," as well as Cabalistic 
 speculations. 
 
 Jaffe's successor as leading rabbi and president of the 
 " Council of the Four Lands " was, in all likelihood, Joshua 
 Falk Cohen (died 1616), Rabbi of Lublin and subsequently 
 rector of the Talmudic yeshibah in Lemberg. He attained to 
 fame through his commentary to the Hoshen Mishpat, the part 
 of Caro's code dealing with civil law,' which he called Sepher 
 Me'irath 'Endim, " A Book of the Enlightenment of the Eyes " ^ 
 (abbreviated to SeM'A). He also framed, at the instance of 
 tlie Waad, a large part of the above-mentioned regulations of 
 1607,' which were issued for the purpose of establishing piety 
 and good morals more firmly among the Jews of Poland. 
 
 A more scholastic and less practical tendency is noticeable 
 in the labors of Joshua Falk's contemporary, Meir of Lublin 
 (1554-1616), known by the abbreviated name of MaHaEaM.* 
 
 [' The Shulhan Arukh, following the arrangement of the Turim 
 (see above, p. 118, n. 1), is divided into four parts, the fourth 
 of which, dealing with civil law, is called Hoshen Mishpat, " Breast- 
 plate of Judgment,' with reference to Ex. xxviii. 15.] 
 
 [^Allusion to Ps. xix. 9.1 
 
 ^ See pp. Ill and 112. 
 
 * D"nnD [initials of Aforenu (see p. 117, n. 1) Fa-rab (the 
 rabbi) R&bhi ilfeir.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 129 
 
 He was active as rabbi in Cracow, Lemberg, and Lublin, deliv- 
 ered Talniudic discourses before large audiences, wrote ingen- 
 ious, casuistic commentaries to the most important treatises 
 of the Talmud (entitled Meir 'Ene Hahamim, " Enlightening 
 the Eyes of the Wise "), and was busy replying to the numerous 
 inquiries addressed to him by scholars from all parts (Shaaloth 
 u-Teshuhotli Maharam). Laying particular stress on subtle 
 analysis, Rabbi Meir of Lublin looked down upon the codifiers 
 and systematic writers of the class to which Isserles and 
 Jaffe belonged. The trifling minuteness of his invesi?iga- 
 tions may be illustrated by the fact that he considered it 
 necessary to write a special "opinion" about the question 
 whether a woman is guilty of conjugal infidelity, if she is 
 convicted of having had relations with the devil, the latter 
 having visited her first in the shape of her husband and after- 
 Avards in the disguise of a Polish nobleman. 
 
 In the domain of dialectics Eabbi Meir found a successful 
 rival in the person of Samuel Edels, known by the abbreviated 
 name of MaHaRSHO ' (died 1631), who occupied the post 
 of rabbi in Posen, Lublin, and Ostrog. In his comprehensive 
 expositions to all the sections of the Talmudic Halakha (Hid- 
 dushe Halalchoth, "Novel Expositions of the Halakha"), he 
 endeavored principally to exercise the thinking faculties and 
 the memory of his students by an ingenious comparison of 
 texts and by other scholastic intricacies. The dialectic com- 
 mentary of Edels became one of the most important hand- 
 books for the study of the Talmud in the heders and yeshibahs, 
 and is frequently used there in our own days. His commentary 
 on the Talmudic Haggada is strewn over with Cabalistic and 
 
 ^ N"B''^rHD [initials of Morenu Ha-rah Raibhi SHemnel 
 Eia =o)dels. Comp. the preceding note].
 
 130 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 religio-pliilosophic ideas of the couservative Jewish thinkers of 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 In the middle of the seventeenth century the authority of the 
 Shullian Arukh, as edited by Isserles, had been so firmly estab- 
 lished in Poland that this code was studied and expounded with 
 even greater zeal than the Talmud. Joel Sirkis (died 1640) 
 delivered lectures on Jewish Law on the basis of the Turim 
 and the Shulhan Arukh. He wrote a commentary to the 
 former under the name of Beth Hadash (" New House," ab- 
 breviated to BaH), and published a large number of opinions on 
 questions of religious law. He held the Cabala in esteem, while 
 condemning philosophy violently. His younger contempor- 
 aries devoted themselves exclusively to the exposition of the 
 Shulhan Arukh, particularly to the section called Yore De'a,^ 
 dealing with the Jewish ritual, such as the religious customs of 
 the home, the dietary laws, etc. Two elaborate commentaries 
 to the Yore De'a appeared in 1G4G, the one composed by David 
 Halevi, rabbi in Lemberg and Ostrog, under the title Ture 
 Zahah," and the other written by the famous Vilna scholar 
 Sabbatai Kohen, under the name Sifthe Kohen (" Lips of 
 the Priest").* These two commentaries, known by their 
 abbreviated titles of TaZ and ShaK, have since that time been 
 published together with the text of the Shulhan Arukh. 
 
 This literary productivity was largely stimulated by the 
 rapid growth of Jewish typography in Poland. The first Jew- 
 
 [' Literally, " Teaching Knowledge " (from Isaiah xxviii. 9), the 
 title of the second part of the Shulhan Arukh. See above, p. 128, 
 n. 1.] 
 
 [2 "Rows of Gold," allusion to the Turim (see above, p. 118, n. 
 1), with a clever play on the similarly sounding words in Cant. 
 1. 11. — Subsequently David Halevi extended his commentary to the 
 other parts of the Shulhan Arukh.] 
 
 [' Allusion to Mai. ii. 7. — Later Sabbatai extended his com- 
 mentary to the civil section of the Shulhan Arukh, called Hoshen 
 Mishpat (see p. 128, n. 1).]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 131 
 
 ish book printed iu that eouiitry is the Pentateuch (Cracow, 
 1530). In the second half of the sixteenth century two 
 large printing-presses, those of Cracow and Lublin, were active 
 in publishing a vast number of old and new books from the 
 domain of Talmudic, Rabbinic, and popular-didactic literature. 
 In 1566 King Sigismund Augustus granted Benedict Levita, 
 of Cracow, the monopoly of importing into Poland Jewish 
 books from abroad. Again, in 1578, Stephen Batory bestowed 
 on a certain Kalman the right of printing Jewish books in Lub- 
 lin, owing to the difficulty of importing them from abroad. 
 One of the causes of this intensified typographic activity in 
 Poland was the papal censorship of the Talmud, which was 
 established in Italy in 1564;. From that time the printing- 
 offices of Cracow and Lublin competed successfully with the 
 technically perfected printing-presses of Venice and Prague, 
 and the Polish book-market, as a result, was more and more 
 dominated by local editions. 
 
 4. Seculak Sciences, Philosophy, Cabala, and 
 Apologetics 
 
 The Talmudic and Rabbinic science of law, absorbing as it 
 did the best mental energies of Polish Jewry, left but little 
 room for the other branches of literary endeavor. Among the 
 daring " swimmers in the Talmudic ocean," contending for 
 mastery in erudition and dialectic skill, there were but few 
 with deeper spiritual longings who evinced an interest in 
 questions of philosophy and natural science. The only excep- 
 tions were the physicians, who, on account of their profession, 
 received a secular education at the universities of that period. 
 
 Originally the Jewish physicians of Poland were natives 
 either of Spain, whence they had been expelled in 1493, or of
 
 132 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Italy, being in llic latter catjc graduates of the Catholic 
 University of Padua. Several of these foreign medical men 
 became the body-physicians of Polish kings, such as Isaac 
 Hispanus under John Albrecht and Alexander; Solomon Aah- 
 kenazi (who subsequently was physician and diplomat at 
 the court of the Turkish Sultan Selim II.) under King Sigis- 
 mund Augustus; Soiduion C'alahora under Steplien Batory, 
 and others. But as early as the first part of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury these foreigners were rivaled by native Jewish physicians, 
 who traveled from Poland to I'adua lor the special purpose of 
 receiving a medical training. Such was, for example, the case 
 in 1530 with Moses Fishel, of Cracow, who was at once rabbi 
 and physician. These trips to Italy became very frequent 
 in the second part of the sixteenth century, and the number of 
 Polish Jewish students in Padua was on the increase down 
 to the eighteenth century. It is characteristic that the Chris- 
 tian Poles studying in Padua refused to enter their Jewish 
 compatriots upon their " national register," in order, as is 
 stated in their statutes, " not to mar the memory of so many 
 celebrated men by the name of an infidel" (1654). In the 
 university registers the Jewish students appeared as Hehraei 
 Poloni. 
 
 As for religious philosophy, which was then on the wane in 
 Western Europe, it formed in Poland merely the object of 
 amateurish exercises on the part of several representatives of 
 Eabbinic learning. Moses Isserles and Mordecai Jaffe com- 
 mented, as was pointed out above, on the " Guide " of Maimon- 
 ides in a superficial manner, fighting shy of its inconvenient 
 rationalistic deductions. The favorite book of the theologians 
 of that period was Ikkarim ("Principles"), the system of 
 dogmatic Judaism formulated by the conservative Sephardic
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 133 
 
 thinker Joseph Albo. Commentaries to this book were written 
 by Jacob Koppelman, of Brest-Kuyavsk ^ {Ohel Ya'koh, " Tent 
 of Jacob," ^ Cracow, 1599), and Gedaliah Lifshitz, of Lublin 
 {Etz Shathul, " Planted Tree,"' 1618). The former, a lover 
 of mathematics, loaded his commentary with geometrical and 
 astronomical arguments, being of the opinion that it was poss- 
 ible in this way to prove scientifically the existence of God and 
 the correlation of all phenomena. The latter was more inclined 
 towards metaphysics and morals. How far this commentator 
 was from grasping the true meaning of the original may 
 be seen from his annotations to the introductory theses of 
 the book. Commenting on the passage in which Albo states 
 that " the happiness of man depends on the perfection of his 
 thought and conduct," Lifshitz makes the following observa- 
 tion: " By human happiness is understood the life beyond the 
 grave, for the goal of man in this world consists only in the 
 attainment of eternal bliss after death." 
 
 In this way the Polish rabbis fashioned philosophy after their 
 own pattern, and thereby rendered it " harmless." Free re- 
 search was impossible, and perhaps not unattended by danger 
 in an environment where tradition reigned supreme. The 
 Chief Eabbi of Cracow, the above-mentioned Joel Sirkis, ex- 
 pressed the view that philosophy was the mother of all heresies, 
 and that it was the " harlot " of which the wise king had said, 
 "None that go unto her return again" (Proverbs ii. 19). 
 He who becomes infatuated with philosophy and neglects the 
 secret wisdom of the Cabala is liable, in Sirkis' opinion, to 
 excommunication, and has no place among the faithful. The 
 well-known mathematician and philosopher Joseph Solomon 
 
 [^See p. 75, n. 2.1 
 ['Allusion to Gen. xxv. 27.] 
 ['Allusion to Ps. i. 3.]
 
 134 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Delmedigo (called in abbreviated form " YaSHaR of Can- 
 dia "'), who spent nearly four years in Poland and Lithuania 
 (1620-1624), arraigns the Polish Jews for their opposition to 
 the secular sciences : 
 
 Behold — he says in Biblical phraseology ^ — darkness covereth the 
 earth, and the ignorant are numerous. For the breadth of thy 
 land is full of yeshibahs and houses of Talmud study. . . . [The 
 
 Jews of Poland] are opposed to the sciences saying, The Lord 
 
 hath no delight in the sharpened arrows of the grammarians, poets, 
 and logicians, nor in the measurements of the mathematicians and 
 the calculations of the astronomers. 
 
 The Cabala, which might be designated as an Orthodox 
 counter-philosophy, made constant progress in Poland. The 
 founder of the Polish Cabala was Mattathiah Delacruta, a 
 native of Italy, who lived in Cracow. In 1594 he published in 
 that city the system of Theoretic Cabala, entitled " Gates of 
 Light " (Shaare Ora), by a Sephardic writer of the fourteenth 
 century, Joseph Gicatilla, accompanying it by an elaborate 
 commentary of his own. Delacruta was, as far as the subject of 
 the " hidden science " was concerned, the teacher of the versa- 
 tile Rabbi Mordecai Jaffe, who, in turn, wrote a supercom- 
 mentary to the mystical Bible commentary by the Italian 
 Mcnahom Recanati. 
 
 Beginning with the seventeenth century, the old Theoretic 
 Cabala is gradually superseded in Poland by the Practical 
 Cabala,' taught by the new school of ARI * and Vital.* The 
 
 * Kn:p!OTiy* [initials of Yosef SHelomo Rote (physician)]. 
 
 [* In his book Mwyan Gannim (" Fountain of Gardens," allusion 
 to Cant. iv. 15), Introduction.] 
 
 [^Kabbalah ma'asith, a phase of the Cabala which endeavors to 
 influence the course of nature by Cabalistic practices, in other 
 words, by performing miracles.] 
 
 ['Initials of Ashkenazi i?abbi /saac [Luria] ; he died at Safed 
 in Palestine in 1572.] 
 
 [* Hayyim Vital, also of Safed, died 1620.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 135 
 
 Cabalist Isaiah Horowitz, author of the famous work on 
 ascetic morals called SHeLoH/ had been trained in the yeshi- 
 bahs of Cracow and Lemberg, and for several years (1600- 
 1606) occupied the post of rabbi in Volhynia. His son, Sheftel 
 Horowitz, who was rabbi in Posen ( 1641-1658 )j published the 
 mystical work of his father, adding from his own pen a moralist 
 treatise under the title Vave ha-'Avnidim.^ Nathan Spira, 
 preacher and rector of the Talmudic academy in Cracow (1585- 
 1633), made a specialty of the Practical Cabala. His more 
 ingenious than thoughtful book, " Discovering Deep Things " ' 
 (Megalle 'Amukotli, Cracow, 1637), contains an exposition in 
 two hundred and fifty-two different M-ays of Moses' plea before 
 God for permission to enter the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 
 iii. 23). It consists of an endless chain of Cabalistic word- 
 combinations and obscure symbolic allusions, yielding some 
 inconceivable deductions, such as that Moses prayed to God 
 concerning the appearance of the two Messiahs of the house 
 of Joseph and David, or that Moses endeavored to elim- 
 inate the power of evil and to expiate in advance all the sins 
 that would ever be committed by the Jewish people. Nathan 
 Spira applied to the Cabala the method of the Eabbinical 
 pilpul, and created a new variety of dialectic mysticism, which 
 was just as far removed from sound theology as the scholastic 
 speculations of the pilpulists were from scientific thinking. 
 More wholesome and more closely related to life was the 
 trend of the Jewish apologetic literature which sprang up in 
 Poland in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. The 
 religious unrest which had been engendered by the Eefor- 
 
 [' Abbreviation of SHne Luhoth ffa-brith, " The Two Tables of 
 the Covenant" (Deut. ix. 15).] 
 
 f'" Hooks of the Pillars," allusion to Ex. xxvii. 11. J 
 ["Allusion to Job xii. 22.]
 
 136 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 mation gave rise to several rationalistic sects with radical, 
 anti-ecclesiastic tendencies. Nearest of all to the tenets of 
 Judaism was the sect of the Anti-Trinitarians (called Unita- 
 rians, Arians, or Socinians^), who denied the dogma of the 
 Trinity and the divine nature of Jesus, but recognized the 
 religious and moral teachings of the Gospels. Among the Anti- 
 Trinitarian leaders were the theologian Simon Budny, of 
 Vilna, and Martin Chekhovich, of Lublin. Stung by the fact 
 that the Catholic clergy applied to them the contemptuous ap- 
 pellation of " Judaizers," or semi-Jews, the sectarians were 
 anxious to demonstrate to the world that their doctrine had 
 nothing in common with Judaism. For this purpose they 
 carried on oral disputes with the rabbis, and tried to expose 
 the " Jewish falsehoods " in their works. 
 
 Martin Chekhovich was particularly zealous in holding theo- 
 logical disputations, both in Lublin and in other cities, " with 
 genuine as well as pseudo-Jews," The results of these disputa- 
 tions are embodied in several chapters of his books entitled 
 "Christian Dialogues" (1575) and "Catechism" (1580). 
 One of his Jewish opponents, Jacob (ISTahman) of Belzhytz," 
 found it necessary to answer him in public in a little book writ- 
 ten in the Polish language (Odpis na dyalogi Czechowicza, 
 "Retort to the Dialogues of Chekhovich," 1581). Jacob of 
 Belzhytz defends the simple dogmas of Judaism, and accuses 
 his antagonists of desiring to arouse hostility to the Jewish 
 people. The following observation of Jacob is interesting as 
 showing the methods of disputation then in vogue : 
 
 [' See above, p. 91, n. 1. There were, however, considerable 
 differences of opinion among the various factions.] 
 
 [' A town in the province of Lublin. Jacob became subsequently 
 court physician cf Sigismund III.; see Kraushar, History ja Zydow 
 to Polsce, ii. 268, n. 1. On his name, see Geiger's Nachgelassene 
 Schriften, iii. 213.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE AT ITS ZENITH 137 
 
 It often happens that a Christian puts a question to me from 
 Holy Writ, to which I reply also from Holy Writ, and I try to 
 argue it properly. But suddenly he will pick out another passage 
 [from the Bible], saying: " How do you understand this? " and 
 thus he does not finish the first question, on which it would be 
 necessary to dwell longer. This is exactly what happens when 
 the hunter's dogs are hounding the rabbit which flees from the 
 road into a by-path, and, while the dogs are trying to catch it, 
 slips away into the bushes. For this reason the Jew too has to 
 interrupt the Christian in the midst of his speech, lest the latter 
 escape like the rabbit as soon as he has finished speaking. 
 
 Chekhovich rejalied to Jacob's pamphlet in print in the same 
 year. While defending his " Dialogues," he criticized the 
 errors of the Talmud, and made sport of several Jewish 
 customs, such as the use of tefilUn, mezuza, and tzitzith. 
 
 A serious retort to the Christian theologians came from Isaac 
 Troki, a cultured Karaite,^ who died in 1594. He argued 
 with Catholics, Lutherans, and Arians in Poland, not as a 
 dilettante, but as a profound student of the Gospels and of 
 Christian theology. About 1593 he wrote his remarkable 
 apologetic treatise under the title Hizzuk Eniuna (" Fortifica- 
 tion of the Faith "). In the first part of his book, the author 
 defends Judaism against the attacks of the Christian theo- 
 logians, while in the second he takes the olfensive and criticizes 
 the teachings of the Church. He detects a whole series of con- 
 tradictions in the texts of the Synoptic Gospels, pointing out 
 the radical deviations of the New Testament from the Old and 
 the departure of the later dogmatism of the Church from the 
 New Testament itself. With calmness and assurance he proves 
 the logical and historical impossibility of the interpretations of 
 the well-known Biblical prophecies which serve as the sub- 
 structure of the Christian dogma. 
 
 ^ Some deny that he was a Karaite.
 
 138 THE JEWS TN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 For a long time no one was bold onoiigli to })i-int tliis " dread- 
 ful treatise," and it was circnlated in manuscript both in the 
 Hebrew original and in a Spanish and German version. The 
 Hebrew original, accompanied by a Latin translation, was 
 printed for the first time from a defective copy by the German 
 scholar Wagenseil, Professor of Law in Bavaria. Wagenseil 
 published the treatise Hizzitk Emvna in his collection of anti- 
 Christian writings, to wliicli he gave the awe-inspiring title 
 "The Fiery Arrows of Satan" (Tela Ignea Satanae, 1681), 
 and which were publislicd for missionary purposes, " in order 
 that the Christians may refute this book, which may otherwise 
 fortify the Jews in their errors." The pious German professor 
 could not foresee that his edition would be subsequently em- 
 ployed by men of the type of Voltaire and the French ency- 
 clopedists of the eighteenth century as a weapon to attack 
 the doctrine of the Church. Voltaire commented on the book 
 of Isaac Troki in these words : " Not even the most decided 
 opponents of religion have brought forward any arguments 
 which could not be found in the ' Fortification of the Faith ' 
 by Kabbi Isaac." In modern times the HizzuJc Emuna has 
 been reprinted from more accurate copies, and has been trans- 
 lated into several European languages.* 
 
 [• An English translation by Moses Mocatta appeared in London 
 in 1851 under the title " Faith Strengthened."]
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE AUTONOMOUS CENTEE IN POLAND DUEING 
 ITS DECLINE (1648-1778) 
 
 1. Economic and National Antagonism in the Ukeaina 
 
 The Jewish center in Poland, marked by compactness of 
 numbers and a widespread autonomous organization, seemed, 
 down to the end of the seventeenth century, to be the only 
 secure nest of the Jewish people and the legitimate seat of its 
 national hegemony, which was slipping out of the hands 
 of German Jewry. But in 1648 this comparatively peace- 
 ful nest was visited by a storm, which made the Jews of 
 Eastern Europe speedily realize that they would have to tread 
 the same sorrowful path, strewn with the bodies of martyrs, that 
 had been traversed by their Western European brethren in the 
 Middle Ages. The factors underlying this crisis were three : an 
 acute economic class struggle, racial and religious antagonism, 
 and the appearance upon the horizon of Jewish history of a new 
 power of darkness — the semi-barbarous masses of Southern 
 Eussia. 
 
 In the central provinces of Poland the position of the Jews, 
 as was pointed out previously, was determined by the inter- 
 action of class and economic forces on the one hand, and 
 religious and political interests on the other, changing in ac- 
 cordance with the different combinations of the opposing fac- 
 tions. While the kings and the great nobles, prompted by 
 fiscal and agrarian considerations, in most cases encouraged the 
 commercial activities of the Jews, the urban estates, the trade 
 and merchant guilds, from motives of competition, tried to
 
 140 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 hinder them. As for the Catholic clergy, it was on general 
 principles ever on the alert to oppress the " infidels." 
 
 As far as economic rivalry and social oppression are con- 
 cerned, the Jews were able to resist them, either by influencing 
 the Polish governing circles, or by combining their own forces 
 and uniting them in a firmly-organized scheme of self-govern- 
 ment, which had been conceded to them in so large a measure. 
 At any rate, it was a cultural struggle between two elements : 
 the Polish and the Jewish population, the Christian and the 
 Jewish estates, or the Church and the Synagogue. This strug- 
 gle was vastly complicated in the southeastern border prov- 
 inces of Poland, the so-called Ukraina,' by the presence of a 
 third element, which was foreign to the Poles no less than to 
 the Jews — the local native population which was Russian by 
 race and Greek Orthodox in religion, and was engaged prin- 
 cipally in agriculture. 
 
 The vast region around the southern basin of the Dnieper, 
 the whole territory comprising the provinces of Kiev, Poltava, 
 and Chernigov, and including parts of Podolia and Volhynia, 
 was subject to the political power of the Polish kings and the 
 economic dominion of the Polish magnates. Enormous estates, 
 comprising a large number of villages populated by Eussian 
 peasants, were here in the hands of wealthy Polish land- 
 lords, who enjoyed all the rights of feudal owners. The 
 enthralled peasants, or khlops, as they were contemptuously 
 nicknamed by the Polish nobles, were strange to their masters 
 in point of religion and nationality. In the eyes of the Catho- 
 lics, particularly in those of the clergy, the Greek Orthodox 
 faith was a " religion of khlops," and they endeavored to cradl- 
 es Pronounced Ookraina. The spelling " Ukraine " is less correct. 
 The meaning of the word is " border," " frontier."]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 141 
 
 cate it by forcing upon it compulsory church unions * or by 
 persecuting the " dissidents." The Poles looked upon the 
 Russian populace as an inferior race, which belonged more to 
 Asia than to Europe. In these circumstances, the economic 
 struggle between the feudal landlord and his serfs, unmiti- 
 gated by the feeling of common nationality and religion, was 
 bound to assume acute forms. Apart from the oppressive agri- 
 cultural labor, which the peasants had to give regularly and 
 gratuitously to the landlord, they were burdened with a multi- 
 tude of minor imposts and taxes, levied on pastures, mills, 
 hives, etc. The Polish magnates lived, as a rule, far away from 
 their Ukrainian possessions, leaving the management of the 
 latter in the hands of stewards and arendars. 
 
 Among these rural arendars there were many Jews, who 
 principally leased from the pans the right of " propination,'"' 
 or the sale of spirituous liquors. These leases had the effect of 
 transferring to the Jews some of the powers over the Pius- 
 sian serfs which were wielded by the noble landowners. The 
 Jewish arendar endeavored to derive as much profit from the 
 nobleman's estate as the owner himself would have derived 
 had he lived there. But under the prevailing conditions of serf- 
 dom these profits could be extracted only by a relentless 
 exploitation of the peasants. Moreover, the contemptuous atti- 
 tude of the Shlakhta and the Catholic clergy towards the 
 *' religion of khlops," and their endeavors to force the Greek 
 Orthodox serfs into Catholicism, by Imposing upon them an 
 ecclesiastic union, gave a sharp religious coloring to this 
 
 [' The author refers to the compulsory establishment of the so- 
 called Uniat Church, which follows the rites and traditions of the 
 Greek Orthodox faith, but submits at the same time to the juris- 
 diction of the Roman See. The Uniat Church is still largely repre- 
 sented in Eastern Galicla among the Ruthenians.]
 
 142 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLANI> 
 
 economic antagonism. The oppressed peasantry reacted to 
 this treatment with ominous murmurings and agrarian dis- 
 turbances in several places. The enslaved South Russian 
 muzhik hated the Polish pan in his capacity as landlord, Catho- 
 lic, and Lakh.' No less intensely did he hate the Jewish aren- 
 dar, with whom he came in daily contact, and whom he regarded 
 both as a steward of the pan and an " infidel," entirely 
 foreign to him on account of his religious customs and habits 
 of life. Thus the Ukrainian Jew found himself between 
 hammer and anvil : between the pan and the khlop, between the 
 Catholic and the Greek Orthodox, between the Pole and the 
 Russian. Three claSvSes, three religions, and three nationalities, 
 clashed on a soil which contained in its bowels terrible volcanic 
 forces — and a catastrophe was bound to follow. 
 
 The Soutli Russian population, though politically and agri- 
 culturally dependent upon the Poles, was far from being that 
 patient " beast of burden " into which the rule of serfdom 
 tried to transform it. ^fany circumstances combined to fos- 
 ter a warlike spirit in this population. The proximity of the 
 New Russian steppes and the Khanate of the Crimea, whence 
 hordes of Tatars often burst forth to swoop down like birds of 
 prey upon the eastern provinces of Poland, compelled the inhab- 
 itants of the Ukraina to organize themselves into warlike com- 
 panies, or Cossacks,' to fight off the invaders. The Polish Gov- 
 ernment, acting through its local governors or starostas, en- 
 
 [' A contemptuous nickname for Pole. ] 
 
 [= The word "Cossack," in Russian, Eazak (with the accent on 
 the last syllable), is derived from the Tataric. " Cossackdom " — 
 says Kostomarov, in his Russian standard work on the Cossack up- 
 rising {Bogdan Khyiielnitzki. i. p. 5) — " is undoubtedly of Tataric 
 origin, and so is tlie very name Kozak. which in Tataric means 
 ' vagrant," ' free warrior.' ' rider.' " Peter Kropotkin (Encyclopedia 
 Britannica, 11th edition, vii. 218) similarly derives the word from 
 Turki KuzzCik, "adventurer," "freebooter.'"]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 143 
 
 couraged the formation of these companies for the defense of 
 the borders of the Empire. In this way Ukrainian Cossack- 
 dom, a semi-military, semi-agricultural caste, came into being, 
 with an autonomous organization and its own hetman ' at 
 the head. 
 
 Apart from the Ukrainian Cossacks, who were subject to the 
 Polish Government, there were also the so-called Zaporozhian * 
 Cossacks, a completely independent military organization 
 which lived beyond the Falls of the Dnieper, in the steppes of 
 so-called New Russia, the present Governments of Yeka- 
 terinoslav and Kherson, and indulged in frequent raids upon 
 the Turks and in constant warfare with the Tatars of the 
 Crimea. This military camp, or syechf beyond the Falls of the 
 Dnieper attracted many khlops from the Ukraina, who pre- 
 ferred a free, unrestricted military life to the dreary existence 
 of laboring slaves. The syech represented a primitive military 
 republic, where daring, pluck, and knightly exploits were 
 valued above all. It was a semi-barbarous Tatar horde, except 
 that it professed the Greek Orthodox faith, and was of Rus- 
 sian origin, though, by the way, with a considerable admixture 
 of Mongolian blood. The Ukrainian and Zaporozhian Cos- 
 sacks were in constant relations with each other. The peasants 
 of the Ukraina looked up with pride and hope to this their 
 national guard, which sooner or later was bound to free them 
 from the rule of the Poles and Jews. The Polish Government 
 failed to perceive that on the eastern borders of the Empire 
 a mass of explosives was constantly accumulating, which 
 threatened to wreck the whole Polish Republic. 
 
 [* Derived from the German word Hauptmann.] 
 
 P From the Russian word Za porogi, meaning " beyond the 
 
 Falls" (scil. of the Dnieper).] 
 
 [' Literally, " cutting," i. e. the cutting of a forest. Originally 
 
 the Cossacks entered those regions as colonists and pioneers.] 
 10
 
 144 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Nor could the Jews foresee that this terrible force would be 
 directed against them, aud would stain with blood many 
 pages of their history, serving as a terrible onion for the 
 future. The first warning was sounded in 1637, when the 
 Cossack leader Pavluk suddenly appeared from beyond the 
 Falls in the province of Poltava, inciting the peasants to rise 
 against the pans and the Jews. The rebels demolished several 
 synagogues in the town of Lubny and in neighboring places, 
 and killed about two hundred Jews. The real catastrophe, 
 however, came ten years later. The mutiny of the Cossacks 
 and the Ukrainian peasants in 1648 inaugurates in the history 
 of the Jews of Eastern Europe tlie era of pogroms, which 
 Southern Russia bequeathed to future generations down to the 
 beginning of the twentieth century. 
 
 2. The Pogroms and Massacues of 1648-1649 
 
 In the spring of 1648, while King Vladislav IV. still sat on 
 the throne of Poland, one of the popular Cossack leaders, Bog- 
 dan Khmelnitzki, from the town of Chigirin, in the province 
 of Kiev, unfurled the banner of rebellion in the Ukraina and 
 in the region beyond the Dnieper Falls. Infuriated by the 
 conduct of the Polish authorities of his native place,' Khmel- 
 nitzki began to incite the Ukrainian Cossacks to armed resist- 
 ance. They elected him secretly their hetman, and empowered 
 him to conduct negotiations with the Zaporozhians. Having 
 arrived in the region beyond the Dnieper Falls, he organized 
 military companies, and concluded an alliance with the Khan 
 of the Crimea, who entered into a compact to send large troops 
 of Tatars to the aid of the rebels. 
 
 * According to legend, the chief of the district had pillaged 
 Khmelnitzki's tent, carried off his wife, and flogged his son to 
 
 death.
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 145 
 
 In April, 1648, the combined hosts of the Cossacks and Ta- 
 tars moved from beyond the Falls of the Dnieper to the borders 
 of the Ukraina. In the neighborhood of the Yellow Waters and 
 Korsun they inflicted a severe defeat on the Polish army under 
 the command of Pototzki and Kalinovski (May 6-15), and this 
 defeat served as a signal for the whole region on the eastern 
 banks of the Dnieper to rise in rebellion. The Eussian peas- 
 ants and town dwellers left their homes, and, organizing them- 
 selves into bands, devastated the estates of the pans, slaying 
 their owners as well as the stewards and Jewish arendars. In 
 the to^Tis of Pereyaslav, Piryatin, Lokhvitz, Lubny, and the 
 surrounding country, thousands of Jews were barbarously 
 killed, and their property was either destroyed or pillaged. 
 The rebels allowed only those to survive who embraced the 
 Greek Orthodox faith. The Jews of several cities of the Kiev 
 region, in order to escape from the hands of the Cossacks, fled 
 into the camp of the Tatars, and gave themselves up volun- 
 tarily as prisoners of war. They knew that the Tatars re- 
 frained as a rule from killing them, and transported them 
 instead into Turkey, where they were sold as slaves, and had a 
 chance of being ransomed by their Turkish coreligionists. 
 
 At that juncture, in the month of May, King Vladislav IV. 
 died, and an interregnum ensued, which, marked by poli- 
 tical unrest, lasted six months. The flame of rebellion seized 
 the whole of the Ukraina, as well as Volhynia and Podolia. 
 Bands composed of Cossacks and Russian peasants led by 
 Khmelnitzki's accomplices, savage Zaporozhian Cossacks, dis- 
 persed in all directions, and began to exterminate Poles and 
 Jews. To quote a Russian historian : 
 
 Killing was accompanied by barbarous tortures; the victims 
 were fiayed alive, split asunder, clubbed to death, roasted on coals,
 
 146 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 or scalded with boiling water. Eveu infants at the breast were not 
 spared. The most terrible cruelty, however, was shown towards 
 the Jews. They were destined to utter annihilation, and the 
 slightest pity shown to them was looked upon as treason. Scrolls of 
 the Law were taken out of the synagogues by the Cossacks, who 
 danced on them while drinking whiskey. After this Jews were 
 laid down upon them, and butchered without mercy. Thousands 
 of Jewish infants were thrown into wells, or buried alive. 
 
 Contemporary Jewish chroniclers add that these human 
 beasts purposely refrained from finishing their victims, so as to 
 be able to torture them longer. They cut off their hands and 
 feet, split the children asunder, " fish-like," or roasted them on 
 fire. They opened the bowels of women, inserted live cats, and 
 then sewed up the wounds. The unbridled bestiality of in- 
 toxicated savages found expression in these frightful tortures, 
 of which even the Tatars were incapable. 
 
 Particularly tragic was the fate of those Jews who, in the 
 hope of greater safety, had fled from the villages and townlets 
 to the fortified cities. Having learned that several thousand 
 Jews had taken refuge in the town of Niemirov in Podolia, 
 Khmelnitzki dispatched thither a detachment of Cossacks 
 under the command of the Zaporozhian Gania. Finding it 
 difficult to take the city by storm, the Cossacks resorted to a 
 trick. They drew nigh to Niemirov, carrying aloft the Polish 
 banners and requesting admission into the city. The Jews, 
 fooled into believing that it was a Polish army that had come 
 to their rescue, opened the gates (Sivan 30= June 10, 1648). 
 The Cossacks, in conjunction with the local Russian inhabit- 
 ants, fell upon the Jews and massacred them ; the women and 
 girls were violated. The Rabbi and Rosh-Yeshibah of Niemi- 
 rov, Jehiel Michael ben Eliezer, hid himself in the cemetery 
 with his mother, hoping in this wise at least to be buried after
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 147 
 
 death. There he was seized by oue of the rioters, a shoemaker, 
 who began to club him. His aged mother begged the murderer 
 to Icill her instead of her son, but the inhuman shoemaker 
 killed first the rabbi and then the aged woman. 
 
 The young Jewish women were frequently allowed to live, 
 the Cossacks and peasants forcing them into baptism and tak- 
 ing them for wives. One beautiful Jewish girl who had been 
 kidnaped for this purpose by a Cossack managed to convince 
 him that she was able to throw a spell over bullets. She asked 
 him to shoot at her, so as to prove to him that the bullet would 
 glide off without causing her any injury. The Cossack dis- 
 charged his gun, and the girl fell down, mortally wounded, yet 
 happy in the knoAvledge that she was saved from a worse fate. 
 Another Jewish girl, whom a Cossack w^as on the point of 
 marrying, threw herself from the bridge into the water, 
 while the wedding procession was marching to the church. 
 Altogether about six thousand Jews perished in the city of 
 Niemirov. 
 
 Those who escaped death fled to the fortified Podolian 
 town of Tulchyn. Here an even more terrible tragedy was 
 enacted. A large horde of Cossacks and peasants laid siege 
 to the fortress, which contained several hundred Poles and 
 some fifteen hundred Jews. The Poles and Jews took an oath 
 not to betray one another and to defend the city to their last 
 breath. The Jews, stationed on the walls of the fortress, shot 
 at the besiegers, keeping them off from the city. After a long 
 and unsuccessful siege the Cossacks conceived a treacherous 
 plan. They informed the Poles of Tulchyn that they were aim- 
 ing solely at the Jews, and, as soon as the latter were delivered 
 into their hands, they would leave the Poles in peace. The 
 Polish pans, headed by Count Chetvertinski, forgot their oath.
 
 148 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 and decided to sacrifice their Jewish allies to secure their own 
 safety. When the Jews discovered this treaclierous intention, 
 they immediately resolved to dispose of the Poles, whom they 
 excelled in numbers. But the Rosh-Yeshibah of TulchjTi, 
 Habbi Aaron, implored them not to touch the pans, on the 
 ground that such action mij^lit draw upon the Jews all over the 
 Empire the hatred of the Polish population. " Let us rather 
 perish," he exclaimed, "as did our brethren in Niemirov. and 
 let us not endanger the lives of our brethren in all the places of 
 their dispersion." The Jews yielded. They turned over all 
 their property to Chetvertinski, asking him to offer it to the 
 Cossacks as a ransom for their lives. 
 
 After entering the city, the Cossacks first took possession of 
 the property of the Jews, and then drove them together into a 
 garden, where they put up a banner and declared, " Let those 
 who are willing to accept baptism station themselves under this 
 banner, and we will spare their lives." The rabbis exhorted 
 the people to accept martyrdom for the sake of their religion 
 and their people. Not a single Jew was willing to become a 
 traitor, and fil'teen hundred victims were murdered in a most 
 barbarous fashion. Nor did the perfidious Poles escape their 
 fate. Another detachment of Cossacks, which entered Tulch}Ti 
 later, slew all the Catholics, among them Count Chetvertinski. 
 Treachery avenged treachery. 
 
 From Podolia the rebel bands penetrated into Volhynia. 
 ?Iere the massacres continued in the course of the whole sum- 
 mer and autumn of 1648. In the town of Polonnoye ten 
 thousand Jews met their death at the hands of the Cossacks, 
 or were taken captive by the Tatars. Among the victims 
 was the Cabalist Samson of Ostropol, who was greatly revered 
 by the people. This Cabalist, and three hundred pious fellow-
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 149 
 
 Jews who followed him, put on their funeral garments, the 
 shrouds and prayer shawls, and offered up fervent prayers in 
 the synagogue, awaiting death in the sacred place, where the 
 murderers subsequently killed them one by one. Similar massa- 
 cres took place in Zaslav, Ostrog, Constantinov, Narol, Kreihe- 
 netz. Bar, and many other cities. The Ukraina as well as Vol- 
 hynia and Podolia were turned into one big slaughter-house. 
 
 The Polish troops, particularly those under the brave com- 
 mand of Count Jeremiah Vishniovetzki, succeeded in subduing 
 the Cossacks and peasants in several places, annihilating some 
 of their bands with the same cruelty that the Cossacks had dis- 
 played towards the Poles and the Jews. The Jews fled to these 
 troops for their safety, and they were welcomed by Vishnio- 
 vetzki, who admitted the unfortunates into the baggage train, 
 and, to use the expression of a Jewish chronicler, took care of 
 them " as a father of his children." After the catastrophe of 
 Niemirov he entered the city with his army, and executed the 
 local rioters who had participated in the murder of the Jewish 
 inhabitants. However, standing all alone, he was unable to 
 extinguish the flame of the Cossack rebellion. For the com- 
 manders-in-chief of the Polish army did not display the proper 
 energy at this critical moment, and Khmelnitzki was right in 
 dubbing them contemptuously " featherbeds," "youngsters," 
 and " Latins "• (" bookworms ") . 
 
 From the Ukraina bands of rebellious peasants, or haida- 
 machs, penetrated into the nearest towns of White Eussia 
 and Lithuania. From Chernigov and Starodub, where the 
 Jewish inhabitants had been exterminated, the murderers 
 moved towards the city of Homel (July or August). A con- 
 trmporary gives the following description of the Homel mas- 
 iiaere :
 
 150 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 The rebels managed to bribe the head of the city, who delivered 
 the Jews into their hands. The Greeks [Ycvanim, i. e. the Greek 
 Orthodox Russians] surrounded them with drawn swords, and with 
 daggers and spears, exclaiming: "Why do you believe in your 
 God, who has no pity on His suffering people, and does not save 
 It from our hands? Reject your God, and you shall be masters! 
 But if you will cling to the faith of your fathers, you shall all 
 perish in the same way as your brethren in the Ukraina, in 
 Pokutye,' and Litliuania perished at our hands." Thereupon Rabbi 
 Eliezer, our teacher, the president of the [rabbinical] court, ex- 
 claimed: " Brethren, remember the death of our fellow-Jews, who 
 perished to sanctify the name of our God! Let us too stretch 
 forth our necks to the sword of the enemy; look at me and act 
 as I do! " Immediately thousands of Jews renounced their lives, 
 despised this world, and hallowed the name of God. The Rosh- 
 Veshibah was the first to offer up his body as a burnt-offering. 
 Young and old, boys and girls saw the tortures, sufferings, and 
 wounds of the teacher, who did not cease exhorting them to 
 accept martyrdom in the name of Him who had called into being 
 the generations of mortals. As one man they all exclaimed: 
 " Let us forgive one another our mutual insults. Let us offer 
 up our souls to God and our bodies to the wild waves, to our 
 enemies, the offspring of the Greeks!" When our enemies heard 
 these words, they started a terrible butchery, killing their victims 
 with spears in order that they might die slowly. Husbands, wives, 
 and children fell in heaps. They did not even attain to burial, 
 dogs and swine feeding on their dead bodies. 
 
 In September, 1G48, Khmelnitzki himself, marching at thr; 
 head of a Cossack army, and accompanied by his Tatar allie?, 
 approached the -walls of Lemberg, and began to besiege the capi- 
 tal of Red Russia, or Galicia. The Cossacks succeeded in 
 storming and pillaging the suburbs, but they failed to pene- 
 trate to the fortified center of the toMTi. Khmelnitzki pro- 
 
 [' In Polish, Pokucie. name of a region in the southeast of the 
 Polish Empire, between Hungary and the Bukowina. Its capital 
 was the Galician city Kolomea.]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 151 
 
 posed to the magistracy of Lemberg, that it deliver all the 
 Jews and their property into the hands of the Cossacks, prom- 
 ising in this case to raise the siege. The magistracy replied 
 that the Jews were imder the jurisdiction of the king, and 
 the town authorities had no right to dispose of them. Khmel- 
 nitzki thereupon agreed to withdraw, having obtained from the 
 city an enormous ransom, the bulk of which had been con- 
 tributed by the Jews. 
 
 From Lemberg Khmelnitzki proceeded with his troops in the 
 direction of Warsaw, where at that time the election of a new 
 king was taking place. The choice fell upon John Casimir, 
 a brother of Vladislav IV., who had been Primate of 
 Gnesen and a Cardinal (1648-1668). The new King entered 
 into peace negotiations with the leader of the rebels, the hetmau 
 Khmelnitzki. But owing to the excessive demands of the Cos- 
 sacks the negotiations were broken off, and as a result, in the 
 spring of 1649, the flame of civil war flared up anew, accom- 
 panied by the destruction of many more Jewish communities. 
 After a succession of battles in which the Poles were defeated, 
 a treaty of peace was concluded between John Casimir and 
 Khmelnitzki, in the town of Zborov. In this treaty, which was 
 favorable to the Cossacks, a clause was included forlndding the 
 residence of Jews in the portion of the Ukraina inhabited by the 
 Cossacks, the regions of Chernigov, Poltava, Kiev, and partly 
 Podolia (August, 1649). 
 
 At last the Jews, after a year and a half of sufl'ering and 
 tortures, could heave a sigh of relief. Those of them who, 
 at the point of death, had embraced the Greek Orthodox 
 faith, were permitted by King John Casimir to return to their 
 old creed. The Jewish women who had been forcibly baptized 
 fled in large numbers from their Cossack husbands, and re-
 
 152 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 turned to their families. The Council of the Four Lands, 
 which met in Lublin in the winter of 1650, framed a set of 
 regulations looking to the restoration of normal conditions 
 in the domestic and communal life of the Jews. The day of 
 the Niemirov massacre (Sivan 20), which coincided with an 
 old fast day in memory of the martyrs of the Crusades, was 
 appointed a day of mourning, to commemorate the victims 
 of the Cossack rebellion. Leading rabbis of the time composed 
 a number of soul-stirring dirges and prayers, which were 
 recited in the synagogues on the fateful anniversary of the 
 twentieth of Sivan. 
 
 But the respite granted to the Jews after these terrible events 
 did not last long. The Treaty of Zborov, which was unsatisfac- 
 tory to the Polish Government, was not adhered to by it. Mutual 
 resentment gave rise to new collisions, and civil war broke out 
 again, in 1651. The Polish Government called together the 
 national militia, which included a Jewish detachment of one 
 thousand men. This time the people's army got the upper 
 hand against the troops of Khmelnitzki, with the result that a 
 treaty of peace was concluded which was advantageous to the 
 Poles. In the Treaty of Byelaya Tzerkov, concluded in Sep- 
 tember, 1651, many claims of the Cossacks were rejected, and 
 the right of the Jews to live in the Greek Orthodox portion 
 of the Ukraina was restored.* 
 
 As a result, the Cossacks and Greek Orthodox Ukrainians 
 rose again. Bogdan Klmaelnitzki entered into negotiations 
 with the Russian Tzar Alexis Michaelovich, looking to the 
 incorporation, with the rights of an autonomous province, of 
 
 'The clause in question runs as follows: "The Jews, even as 
 they formerly were residents and arendars on the estates of his 
 Royal Majesty, as well as on the estates of the Shlakhta, shall 
 equally be so in the future."
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 153 
 
 the Greek Orthodox portion of the Ukraina, under the name of 
 Little Russia, into the Muscovite Empire. In 1654 this incor- 
 poration took place, and in the same year the Russian army 
 marched upon White Russia and Lithuania to wage war on 
 Poland. Now came the turn of the Jews of the northwestern 
 region to endure their share of suffering, 
 
 3. The Russian and Swedish Invasions (1654-1658) 
 
 The alliance of their enemies, the Cossacks, with the rulers of 
 ]\Iuscovy, a country which had always felt a superstitious dread 
 of the people of other lands and religions, was fraught with 
 untold misery for the Jews. If was now the turn of the in- 
 habitants of White Russia and Lithuania to face the hordes of 
 southern and northern Scythians, who invaded the regions 
 hitherto spared by them, devastating them uninterruptedly for 
 two years (1654-1656). The capture of the principal Polish 
 cities by the combined hosts of the Muscovites and Cossacks 
 was accompanied by the extermination or expulsion of the 
 Jews. When Moghilev on the Dnieper ^ surrendered to Russian 
 arms. Tzar Alexis ]\Iichaelovich complied with the request 
 of the local Russian inhabitants, and gave orders to expel the 
 Jews and divide their houses between the magistracy and the 
 Russian authorities (1654). The Jews, however, who were 
 hoping for a speedy termination of hostilities, failed to leave 
 the city at once, and had to pay severely for it. Towards the 
 end of the summer of 1655 the commander of the Russian gar- 
 rison in Moghilev, Colonel Poklonski, learned of the approach 
 of a Polish army under the command of Radziwill. Prompted 
 by the fear that the Jewish residents might join the approach- 
 ing enemy, Poklonski ordered the Jews to leave the boundaries 
 
 [»See p. 98, n. 2.]
 
 ]5i THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 of the city, and, on the giound of their being Polish subjeets, 
 promised to have them transferred to tlie camp of Radziwill. 
 Scarcely had the Jews, accompanied by tlu-ir wives and 
 children, and carrying with them their property, left the town 
 behind them when the Russian soldiers, at the command of the 
 same Poklonski, foil upon tiiem and killed nearly all of them, 
 plundering their property at the same time. 
 
 In Vitebsk the Jews took an active part in defending the 
 town against the besieging Russian army. They dug trenches 
 around the fortified castle, strengthened the walls, supplied the 
 soldiers with arms, powder, and horses, and acted as scouts. 
 When the city was finally taken by the Russians, the Jews were 
 completely robbed by the Zaporozhian Cossacks, while many 
 of them were taken captive, forcibly baptized, or exiled to 
 Pskov, Novgorod, and Kazan. 
 
 The Jews suffered no less heavily from the riot which 
 took place in Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, after its occupa- 
 tion by the combined army of Muscovites and Cossacks in 
 August, 1655. A large part of the Vilna community fled for its 
 life. Those who remained behind were either killed or banished 
 from the town at the command of Tzar Alexis Michaelovich, 
 who was anxious to comply with the request of the local Russian 
 townspeople, to rid them of their Jewish competitors. 
 
 Shortly thereafter a similar fate overtook the central Polish 
 provinces on the Vistula and the San River, which had hitherto 
 been spared the horrors of the Cossacks and Muscovites. The 
 invasion of Sweden, the third enemy of Poland (1655-1658), 
 carried bloodshed into the very heart of the country. The 
 Swedish King, Charles Gustav, reduced one city after the other, 
 both the old and the new capital, Cracow and Warsaw, speedily 
 surrendering to him. A large part of Great and Little Poland
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 155 
 
 fell into the hands of the Swedes, and the Polish King, John 
 Casimir, was compelled to flee to Silesia. 
 
 The easy victories of the Swedes were the result of the 
 anarchy and political demoralization which had taken deep root 
 in Poland. It was the treachery of the former Polish sub- 
 Chancellor Eadzieyevski that brought the Swedes into Poland, 
 and the cowardice of the Shlakhta hastily surrendered the cities 
 of Posen, Kalish, Cracow, and Vilna, to the enemy. Moreover 
 the Swedes were welcomed by the Polish Protestants and Cal- 
 vinists, who looked for their rescue to the northern Protestant 
 power in the same way in which the Cossacks expected their 
 salvation from Orthodox Eussia. 
 
 The Jews were the only ones who had no political advantage 
 in betraying their country, and their friendly attitude towards 
 the Swedes no more than corresponded to the conduct of the 
 Swedes towards them. At any rate, their patriotism was no 
 more open to suspicion than that of the Poles themselves, wlio 
 joined the power of Sweden to get rid of the yoke of Muscovy. 
 Nevertheless, the Jews had to pay a terrible price for this lack 
 of patriotism. They found themselves, in the words of a 
 contemporary chronicler, in the position of a man who " fleet h 
 from a lion, and is met by a bear." * The Jews who had been 
 spared by the Swedes were now annihilated by the patriotic 
 Poles, who charged them with disloyalty. The bands of Polish 
 irregulars, which had been organized in 1656, under the com- 
 mand of General Charnetzki, to save the country from the 
 invader, vented their fury upon the Jews in all thv^ localities 
 which they wrested from the Swedes. 
 
 The massacre of Jews began in Great and Little Poland, 
 without yielding in point of barbarism to the butcheries which, 
 
 [* Allusion to Amos v. 19.]
 
 156 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 eight years previously, had been perpetrated iu the Ukraina. 
 The Polish hosts of Charnetzki had learned from the Cossacks 
 the art of exterminating the Jews. Nearly all the Jewish 
 communities in the province of Posen, excepting the city of 
 Posen, and those in the provinces of Kalish, Cracow, and 
 Piotrkov, were destroyed by the saviors of the Polish father- 
 land. The brutal and wicked Charnetzki, to use the epithets 
 applied to him by the Jewish annalists, or, to be more exact, 
 the Polish mob marching behind him, committed atrocities 
 which were truly worthy of the Cossacks. They tortured 
 and murdered the rabbis, violated the women, killed the Jews 
 by the hundreds, sparing only those who were willing to become 
 Catholics. These atrocities were as a rule committed in the 
 wake of the retreating Swedes, who had behaved like human 
 beings towards the Jewish population. The humaneness shown 
 by the Swedes to the Jews was avenged by the inhumanity of 
 the Poles. 
 
 While the bands of Charnetzki were attacking the Jews in 
 Western Poland, the Muscovites and Cossacks continued to 
 disport themselves in the eastern districts and in Lithuania. 
 Not until 1658 did the horrors of warfare begin gradually to 
 subside, and only after terrible losses and humiliating conces- 
 sions to IJussia and Sweden was Poland able to restore its 
 political order, which had been shaken to its foundation dur- 
 ing the preceding years. 
 
 The losses inflicted upon the Jews of Poland during the 
 fatal decade of 1648-1658 were appalling. In the reports of 
 the chroniclers the number of Jewish victims varies between 
 one hundred thousand and five hundred thousand. But even 
 if we accept the lower figure, the number of victims still re- 
 mains colossal, excelling the catastrophes of the Crusades and
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 157 
 
 the Black Death in Western Europe. Some seven hundred 
 Jewish communities in Poland had suffered massacre and 
 pillage. In the Ukrainian cities situated on the left banks of 
 the Dnieper, the region populated by Cossacks, in the present 
 Governments of Chernigov, Poltava, and part of Kiev, the 
 Jewish communities had disappeared almost completely. In 
 the localities on the right shore of the Dnieper or in the Polish 
 part of the Ukraina as well as in those of Volhynia and 
 Podolia, wherever the Cossacks had made their appearance, 
 only about one-tenth of the Jewish population survived. The 
 others had either perished during the rebellion of Khmelnitzki, 
 or had been carried off by the Tatars into Turkey, or had emi- 
 grated to Lithuania, the central provinces of Poland, or the 
 countries of Western Europe. All over Europe and Asia 
 Jewish refugees or prisoners of war could be met with, who 
 had fled from Poland, or had been carried off by the Tatars, 
 and ransomed by their brethren. Everywhere the wanderers 
 told a terrible tale of the woes of their compatriots and of the 
 martyrdom of hundreds of Jewish communities. 
 
 An echo of all these horrors resounds in contemporary chron- 
 icles and mournful synagogue liturgies. One of the eye-wit- 
 nesses of the Ukraina massacres, Nathan Hannover, from 
 Zaslav, gives a striking description of it in his historical chron- 
 icle Yeven Metzula"^ (1653). Sabbatai Kohen, the famous 
 scholar of Vilna," brought this catastrophe to the notice of the 
 Jewish world through a circular letter, entitled Meghillath 
 Efa' which was accompanied by prayers in memory of the 
 
 [' " Mire of the Deep," from Ps. Ixix. 3.— The Hebrew word 
 Yeven is a play on Yavan, " Greek," a term generally applied to 
 the Greek Orthodox.] 
 
 ■■' See p. 130. 
 
 [» " Scroll of Darkness " (comp. Amos iv. 13), with a clever allu- 
 sion to the similarly sounding words in Zech. v. 1.]
 
 158 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND I>OLAND 
 
 Polish martyrs. In heartrending liturgies many contemporary 
 rabbis and writers, such as Lipman Heller, Rabbi of Cracow, 
 Sheftel Horovitz, Eabbi of Posen, the scholars Meir of Shche- 
 breshin ' (Tzok ha-'lttim* 1650) and Gabriel Shussberg 
 (Petah Teshuha* 1653), lament the destruction of Polish 
 Jewry. All these writings are pervaded with the bitter con- 
 sciousness that Polish Jewry would never recuperate from the 
 blows it had received, and that the peaceful nest in which the 
 persecuted nation had found a refuge was destroyed forever. 
 
 4. The Restoration (1658-1697) 
 
 Fortunately these apprehensions proved to be exaggerated. 
 Though decimated and impoverished, the Jewish population of 
 Poland exceeded in numbers the Jewish settlements of Western 
 Europe. The chief center of Judaism remained in Poland as 
 theretofore, though it became the center of a more circum- 
 scribed and secluded section of Jewry. The extraordinary 
 vitality of the " eternal people " was again demonstrated by the 
 fact that the Polish Jews were able, in a comparatively short 
 time, to recover from their terrible losses. No sooner had peace 
 been restored in Poland than they began to return to their de- 
 molished nests and to re-establish their economic position and 
 communal self-government, which had been so violently 
 shaken. King John Casimir, having resumed the reins of 
 government, declared that it was his inmost desire to com- 
 pensate his Jewish subjects, though it be only in part, for the 
 sufferings inflicted upon them and to assist them in recuperat- 
 ing from material ruin. This declaration the King made in the 
 
 [' In Polish Szczebrzeszyn, a town in the region ol, Lublin.] 
 [*" Troublous Times," allusion to Dan. Ix. 25.] 
 [• " Door of Repentance."'
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 159 
 
 *form of a charter bestowing the right of free commerce upon 
 the Jews of Cracow (1661). Various privileges, as well as 
 temporary alleviations in the payment of taxes, were conferred 
 by him upon numerous other JeAvish communities which had 
 suffered most from the horrors of the Cossacks and the inva- 
 sions of the Eussians and Swedes. 
 
 It goes without saying that all this could only soften the 
 consequences of the terrible economic crisis, but could not 
 avert them. The crisis left its sad impress particularly upon 
 the South, which had been the scene of the Cossack rebellion. 
 As far as the Ukraina was concerned, peace was not completely 
 restored for a long time. By the Treaty of Andrusovo, of 1667, 
 Poland and Muscovy divided the province between them : the 
 portion situated on the right bank of the Dnieper (Volhynia 
 and Podolia) remained with Poland, while the section on the 
 left bank of the same river, called Little Eussia (the region 
 of Poltava, Chernigov, and part of the district of Kiev, includ- 
 ing the city of the same name), was ceded to Muscovy. How- 
 ever, in consequence of the party dissensions which divided the 
 ranks of the Cossacks, and made their various hetmans gravi- 
 tate now towards the one, now towards the other, of the sov- 
 ereign powers, the Ukraina continued for a long time to be 
 an apple of discord between Poland, Eussia, and Turkey. This 
 agitation handicapped alike the agricultural pursuits of the 
 peasants and the commercial activities of the Jews. In Little 
 Eussia the Jews had almost disappeared, while in the Polish 
 Ukraina they had become greatly impoverished. The south- 
 western region, where the Jews had once upon a time lived so 
 comfortably, sank economically lower and lower, and grad- 
 ually yielded its supremacy to the northwest, to Lithuania and 
 White Eussia, which had suffered comparatively little during 
 11
 
 lf;0 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the years of unrest. The transfer ol' the cultural center of 
 Judaism from the south to the north forms one of the charac- 
 teristic features of the period. 
 
 Michael Vishniovetzki (1669-1673), who was elected King 
 after John Casimir, extended his protection to the Jews by 
 virtue of family traditions, being a son of the hero Jeremiah 
 Vishniovetzki, who had saved many a .Jewish community of the 
 Ukraina during the sinister years of the Cossack mutiny. At 
 the Coronation Diet* Vishniovetzki ratified the fundamental 
 privileges of the Polish and l.ithuanian Jews, "as far as those 
 privileges are not in contradiction witli the general laws and 
 customs." This ratification had been obtained tlirough an 
 application of the " general syndic of the Jews," Moses Marko- 
 vieh,* who evidently acted as the spokesman of all the Kahals 
 of the ancient provinces of Poland. The benevolent intentions 
 of the King were counteracted by the Diets, which, controlled 
 by the clergy and Shlakhta, issued restrictive laws against the 
 Jews. The Diet of Warsaw held in 1670 not only limited the 
 financial operations of Jewish capitalists by fixing a maximum 
 rate of interest (20%)* — this would have been perfectly legiti- 
 mate — but also thought it necessary to restore the old canonical 
 regulations forbidding the Jews to keep Christian domestics 
 or to leave their houses during the Church processions. In 
 these Diet regulations, particularly in their tone and motiva- 
 tion (" in order that the perfidy and self-will of the Jews 
 should not gain the upper hand," etc.), one cannot fail to 
 perceive the venom of the Catholic clergy, which once more 
 
 [• See p. 98, n. 1.] 
 
 [* I. €. son of Mark, or Mordecai. On " syndics " see p. Ill, n. 2.1 
 
 [* Twenty per cent was the legalized rate of interest in Italy at 
 
 the end of the fifteenth century. See Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life 
 
 in the Middle Ages, p. 242.]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 161 
 
 engaged in its old metur of slandering the Jews, charging 
 them with hostility to the Christians and with the desecration 
 of Church sacraments. 
 
 The influence of these Church fanatics upon the Polish 
 schools, coupled with the general deterioration of morals as 
 a result of the protracted wars, was responsible for the recru- 
 descence, during that period, of the ugly street attacks upon 
 the Jews by the students of the Christian colleges, the so-called 
 S chiller gelduf. These scholastic excesses now became an every- 
 day occurrence in the cities of Poland. The riotous scholars 
 not only caused public scandals by insulting Jewish passei-s- 
 by on the street, but frequently invaded the Jewish quarters, 
 where they instituted regular pogroms. Most of these dis- 
 orders were engineered by the pupils of the Academy of 
 Cracow and the Jesuit schools in Posen, Lemberg, Vilna, and 
 Brest. 
 
 The local authorities were passive onlookers of these savage 
 pranks of the future citizens of Poland, which occasionally 
 assumed very dangerous forms. In order to protect themselves 
 from such attacks many Jewish communities paid an annual 
 tax to the rectors of the local Catholic schools, and this tax, 
 which was called kozubales, was officially recognized by the 
 " common law " then in use. However, even the ransom 
 agreed upon could not save the Jews of Lemberg from a bloody 
 pogrom. The pupils of the Cathedral school and the Jesuit 
 Academy of that city were preparing to storm the Jewish 
 quarter. Having learned of the intentions of the rioters, the 
 Jewish youth of Lemberg organized an armed self-defense, 
 and courageously awaited the enemy. But the attack of the 
 Christian students, who were assisted by the mob, was so fur- 
 ious that the Jewish guard was unable to hold its own. The
 
 162 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 resistance of the Jews only resulted in exasperating the rioters, 
 and the disorders took the form of a massacre. About a hun- 
 dred Jewish dead, a large number of demolished houses, several 
 desecrated synagogues, were the result of the barbarous amuse- 
 ment of the disciples of the militant Church (1664) . 
 
 Of the medieval trials of that period two cases, one in Lith- 
 uania and the other in the Crown, stand out with particular 
 prominence. The former took place in the little town of 
 Ruzhany, in the province of Grodno, in 1657. The local 
 Christians, who on their Easter festival had placed a dead 
 child's body in the yard of a Jew, thereupon charged the whole 
 community with having committed a ritual murder. The trial 
 lasted nearly three years, and ended in the execution of two 
 representatives of the Jewish community. Rabbi Israel and 
 Eabbi Tobias. A dirge commemorating this event, composed 
 by a son of one of the martyrs, contains a lieartrending descrip- 
 tion of the tragedy.* 
 
 My enemies have arisen against me, and have spread their nets 
 in the shape of a false accusation in order to destroy my posses- 
 sions. They took dead bodies, slashed them, and spoke with 
 furious cunning: Behold, the ill-fated Jews drink and suck the 
 blood of the murdered, and feed on the children of the Gentiles. 
 Three j'ears did the horrible slander last, and we thought our 
 liberation was near, but, alas, terrible darkness has engulfed us. 
 Our sworn enemies dragged us before their hostile court. The 
 evil-doers assembled in the week before the New Year, and turned 
 justice into wormwood. A wily and wicked Gentile judged only 
 by the sight of his eyes, without witnesses; he judged innocent 
 and sinless people in order to shed pure blood. The horde of 
 evil-doers pronounced a perverted verdict, saying: "Choose ye 
 
 ' We quote the following in abbreviated form. [For the com- 
 plete text see the article cited in the next note.]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 163 
 
 [for execution] two Jews, such as may please you." A beautiful 
 pair fell into their nets: Rabbi Israel and Rabbi Tobias, the 
 holy ones, were singled out from among the community.* These 
 men saw the glittering blade of the sword, but no fear fell upon 
 them. They clasped each other's hands and swore to share the 
 same fate. " Let us take courage, and let us prepare with a light 
 heart to sacrifice ourselves. Let us become the lambs for the 
 slaughter; we shall surely find protection under the wings of 
 God." On the sixth day these holy men were led out to execu- 
 tion, and an altar was erected. The wrath of the Lord burst forth 
 in the year of " Recompense," - on the festival of Commemoration 
 [New Year]. The bitterness of death was awaiting [the martyrs] 
 in the midst of the market-place. They confessed their sins, say- 
 ing: " We have sinned before the Lord. Let us sanctify His name 
 like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah." They turned to the execu- 
 tioner, saying: "Grant us one hour of respite, that we may 
 render praise unto the Lord." The lips of the impure, the false 
 lips of those who pursue the wind and worship corrupt images, 
 came to tempt them with strange beliefs,' but the holy men ex- 
 claimed: "Away, ye impure! Shall we renounce the living 
 God, and wander after trees? "^ The holy Rabbi Israel stretched 
 forth his neck, and shouted with all his might: "Hear, O Israel, 
 the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Thereupon the executioner 
 stretched forth his hand to take the sword, and the costly vessel 
 was shattered. When the holy Rabbi Tobias saw this loss, he 
 exclaimed: "Blessed art thou, O Rabbi Israel, who hast passed 
 
 • From the Hebrew text it is not clear whether they offered 
 themselves voluntarily as victims, or whether they were picked 
 out by others. According to the local tradition in Ruzhany, the 
 former was the case. [See Dubnow in the Russian Jewish monthly 
 Voskhod, July, 1903, p. 19, n. 1.] 
 
 - The corresponding word in Hebrew ( D^DIT'EJ' ), which is marked 
 with dots in the original, represents the year of the event: [51420 
 aera mundi, which equals 1659 c. e. 
 
 '■' I. e. they tried to convert the martyrs to Catholicism. 
 
 [* Allusion to Judces ix. 9, where the English version translates 
 differently. The Hebrew word for " tree " also signifies " wood," 
 and is used in polemic literature for "cross."]
 
 164 THE JENYS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 first into the Realm of Light. I follow thee." He too exclaimed: 
 "Hear, O Israel, who art guarded [by God] like the apple of the 
 eye." And he went forth to die in the name of the Lord, and [the 
 executioner] slew him as he had slain the first. 
 
 Another tragedy took place in Cracow, in 1G63. The 
 educated Jewish apothecary Mattathiah Calahora, a native of 
 Italy who had settled in Cracow, committed the blunder of 
 arguing with a local priest, a member of the Dominican order, 
 about religious topics. The priest invited Calahora to a dis- 
 putation in the cloister, but the Jew declined, promising to 
 expound his views in writing. A few days later the priest found 
 on his chair in the church a statement written in German 
 and containing a violent arraignment of the cult of the Ira- 
 maculate Virgin. It is not impossible that the statement was 
 composed and placed in the church by an adherent of the 
 Reformation or the Arian heresy,* both of which were then 
 the object of persecution in Poland. However, the Dominican 
 decided that Calahora was the author, and brought the charge 
 of blasphemy against him. 
 
 The Court of the Eoyal Castle cross-examined the defendant 
 under torture, without being able to obtain a confession. Wit- 
 nesses testified that Calahora was not even able to write German. 
 Being a native of Italy, he used the Italian language in his 
 conversations with the Dominican. In spite of all this evidence, 
 the unfortunate Calahora was sentenced to be burned at the 
 stake. The alarmed Jewish community raised a protest, and 
 the case was accordingly transferred to the highest court in 
 Piotrkov.' The accused was sent in chains to Piotrkov, together 
 with the plaintiff and the witnesses. But the arch-Catholic tri- 
 bunal confirmed the verdict of the lower court, ordering that 
 
 ['See p. 91, n. 1.] 
 V See p. 96, n. 1.]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 166 
 
 the sentence be executed in tlie following barbarous sequence: 
 first the lips of the " blasphemer " to be cut off ; next his hand 
 that had held the fateful statement to be burned; then the 
 tongue, which had spoken against the Christian religion, to be 
 excised ; finally tlie body to be burned at the stake, and the ashes 
 of the victim to be loaded into a cannon and discharged into the 
 air. This cannibal ceremonial was faithfully carried out on 
 December 13, 1663, on the market-place of Piotrkov. For two 
 centuries the Jews of Cracow followed the custom of reciting, 
 on the fourteenth of Kislev, in the old synagogue of that city, a 
 memorial prayer for the soul of the martyr Calahora. 
 
 There is evidently some connection between this event and 
 the epistle sent by the General of the Dominican Order in Eome, 
 Marini, to the head of the order in Cracow, dated February 9, 
 1664. Marini states that the " unfortunate Jews " of Poland 
 had complained to him about the " wicked slanders " and accu- 
 sations, the " sole purpose " of which was to influence the 
 Diet soon to assemble at Warsaw, and demonstrate to it that 
 " the Polish people hate the Jews unconditionally." He re- 
 quests his colleagues in Cracow and the latter's subordinates 
 " to defend the hapless people against every calumny invented 
 against them." Subsequent history shows that the epistle was 
 sent in vain. 
 
 The last Polish king who extenc^ed efficient protection to the 
 Jews against the classes and parties hostile to them, was 
 John III. Sobieski (1674-1696), Avho by his military exploits 
 succeeded in restoring the political prestige of Poland. This 
 King had frequent occasion to fight the growing anti-Semitic 
 tendencies of the Shlakhta, the municipalities, and the clergy. 
 He granted safe-conducts to various Jewish communities, pro- 
 tecting their " liberties and privileges," enlarged their sphere
 
 166 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 of self-government, and freed them from the jurisdiction of 
 the local municipal authorities. In 1682 he complied with the 
 request of the Jews of Vilna, who begged to be released from the 
 municipal census. The application was prompted by the fact 
 that a year previously they had been induced by the magistracy 
 of Vilna, which assured them of complete safety, to go outside 
 the town where the census of the Jews and the Christian trade- 
 unions was taken. But no sooner had the Jews left the confines 
 of the city than the members of the trade-unions and other 
 Christian inhabitants of Vilna began to shoot at them and rob 
 them of their clothes and valuables. The Jews would have been 
 entirely annihilated, had not the pupils of the local Jesuit col- 
 lege taken pity on them, and rescued them from the fury of the 
 mob. While the riot was in progress, the magistracy of Vilna 
 not only failed to defend the Jews, but even looked on at the 
 proceedings " with great satisfaction." 
 
 It is necessary to point out that such manifestation of hu- 
 maneness on the part of the Polish college youth was a rare 
 phenomenon, indeed. As a rule, the students themselves were 
 the initiators of the " tumults " or disorders in the Jewish 
 quarter, and the scholastic riots referred to previously did not 
 cease even under John Sobieski. The pupils of the Catholic 
 academy in Cracow made an attack upon the Jews because of 
 their refusal to pay the so-called Jiozuhahs, the scholastic tax 
 which had been agreed upon between the Jews and the Chris- 
 tian colleges (1681-1682). In 1687 the tumultuous scholars, 
 this time in Posen, were joined by the street mob, and for three 
 consecutive days the Jews had to defend themselves against the 
 rioters with weapons in their hands. The national Polish Diets 
 condemned these forms of violence, and in their " constitu- 
 tions " guaranteed to the Jews inviolability of person and
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 167 
 
 property, particularly when they found it necessary to raise the 
 head-tax or impose special levies upon the Jews. 
 
 In reality the only defender of the Jews was the King. At his 
 court appeared the "general syndics," or spokesmen of the 
 Jewish communities, and presented various applications, which 
 John Sobieski was ready to grant as far as lay in his power. 
 This humane attitude towards the " infidels " was on more than 
 one occasion held up against him at the sessions of the Senate * 
 and the Diets. At the Diet held in Grodno in 1693 the enemies 
 of the court brought charges against the Jew Bezalel, a favorite 
 of the King and a royal tax-farmer, accusing him of desecrating 
 the Christian religion, embezzling state funds, and other 
 crimes. After passionate debates, John Sobieski insisted that 
 Bezalel be allowed to clear himself by oath of the charge of 
 blasphemy, while the other accusations were disposed of by the 
 chancellor of the exchequer. 
 
 During the reign of John Sobieski Polish Jewry fully re- 
 cuperated from the terrible ravages of the previous epoch. 
 Under his successors its position became more and more un- 
 favorable. 
 
 5. Social and Political Dissolution 
 
 The process of disintegration which had seized the feudal and 
 clerical structure of the Polish body politic assumed appalling 
 proportions under the kings of the Saxon dynasty, Augustus II. 
 and Augustus III. (1697-1763) . The political anarchy, which, 
 coupled with the failures in the Swedish war at the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century, surrendered Poland into the 
 
 [' The Senate formed the upper chamber of the Polish parlia- 
 ment.]
 
 168 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 hands of rejuvenated Russia under Peter the Great, was only 
 the external manifestation of the inner decay of the country, 
 springing from its social order, which was founded on the 
 arbitrariness of the higher and the servitude of the lower 
 estates.' In a land in which every class had regard only for its 
 own selfish interests, in which the Diets could be broken up by 
 the whim of a single deputy (the so-called liberum veto), the 
 Government did not concern itself with the common weal, but 
 pursued its narrow bureaucratic interests. In these circum- 
 stances the Jews, being oppressed by all the Polish estates, were 
 gradually deprived of their principal support, the authority 
 of the king, which had formerly exercised a moderating in- 
 fluence upon the antagonism of the classes. True, at the 
 Coronation Diets of Augustus II. and Augustus III. the old 
 Jewish privileges were officially ratified, but, in consequence 
 of the prevailing chaos and disorder, the rights, confirmed in 
 this manner, remained a scrap of paper. Limited as these 
 rights were, their execution depended on the constant watch- 
 fulness of the supreme powers of the state and on their readi- 
 ness to defend these rights against the encroachments of hostile 
 elements. As a matter of fact, the heedless " Saxon kings," 
 being neglectful of the general interests of the country, had no 
 special reason to pay attention to the interests of the Jews. 
 The only concern of the Government was the regular collection 
 
 ' In the "Political Catechism of the Polish Republic," published 
 in 1735, we read the following: "Who is it in this vast country 
 that engages in commerce, in handicrafts, in keeping inns and 
 taverns?" — " The Jews." . , . " What may be the reason for it? " — 
 •' Because all commerce and handicrafts are prohibited to the 
 Shlakhta on account of the Importance of this estate, just as sins 
 are prohibited by the commandments of God and by the law of 
 nature." — " Who imposes and who pays the taxes? " — " The taxes 
 are imposed by the nobility, and they are paid by the peasant, the 
 burgher, and the Jew."
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 169 
 
 of the head-tax from the Kahals. This question of taxation 
 was discussed with considerable zeal at the " pacific " Diet of 
 1717, which had been convened in Warsaw for the purpose of 
 restoring law and order in the country, sorely shaken by the 
 protracted war with the Swedish king Charles XII. and the 
 inner anarchy accompanying it. Despite the fact that the 
 Jews had been practically ruined during that period of unrest, 
 the amount of the head-tax was considerably increased. 
 
 The local representatives of the Government, the voyevodas 
 and starostas,* whose function was to defend the Jews, fre- 
 quently became the most relentless oppressors of the people 
 under their charge. These provincial satraps looked upon the 
 Jewish population merely as the object of unscrupulous extor- 
 tion. Whenever in need of money, the starostas resorted to 
 a simple contrivance to fill their pockets : they demanded a 
 fixed sum from the local Kahal, and threatened, in case of 
 refusal, imprisonment and other forms of violence. All they 
 had to do was to send to jail some member of the Jewish 
 community, preferably a Kahal elder or an influential repre- 
 sentative, and the Kahal was sure to pay the demanded 
 sum. Occasionally this well-calculated exploitation was re- 
 lieved by the aimless mockery of these despots, who were unable 
 to restrain their savage instincts. Thus the Starosta of Kaniev, 
 in the Polish Ukraina, desiring to compensate a neighboring 
 landowner for the murder of his Jewish arendar, gave orders 
 to load a number of Jews upon a wagon, who were thereupon 
 carried to the gates of his injured neighbor and thrown down 
 there like so many bags of potatoes. Tlie same Starosta al- 
 lowed himself the following " entertainment " : lie would order 
 Jewish women to climb an apple-tree and call like cuckoos. He 
 
 [^ See above, p. 46, n. 1, and p. 60, n. 1.]
 
 170 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 would next bombard them with small shot, and watch the un- 
 fortunate women fall wounded from the tree, whereupon, 
 laughing merrily, he would throw gold coins among them. 
 
 The most powerful estate in the country, the liberty-loving, 
 or, more correctly, license-loving Shlakhta, protected the Jews 
 only when in need of their services. Claiming for himself, in 
 his capacity as slaveholder, the toil of his peasants, the pan laid 
 equal claim to the toil of the Jewish business man and arendar 
 who turned the rural products of his master and the right of 
 " propination," or liquor-selling, into sources of income for the 
 latter. At one time the Polish landowners even made the 
 attempt to enslave the Jews on their estates by legal proceed- 
 ings. At the Diet of 1740 the deputies of the nobility brought 
 in a resolution, that the Jews living on Shlakhta estates be 
 recognized as the " hereditary subjects " of the owners of those 
 estates. This monstrous attempt at transforming the rural 
 Jews into serfs was rejected solely because the Government 
 refused to forego the mcome from Jewish taxation, which 
 in this case would flow into the pockets of the landowners. 
 
 Nevertheless the rural Jew was to all intents and purposes 
 the serf of his pan. The latter exercised full jurisdiction over 
 his Jewish arendar and " factor " * as well as over the residents 
 on his estates in general. During the savage inroads, frequent 
 during this period, of one pan upon the estate of another, the 
 Jewish arendars were the principal sufferers. The meetings of 
 the local Diets (or Dietines) and the conferences of the 
 Shlakhta or the sessions of the court tribunals became fixed 
 occasions for attacking the local Jews, for invading their syna- 
 gogues and houses, and engaging, by way of amusement, in all 
 
 [* More exactly, faktor, Polish designation for broker, agent, and 
 general utility man.]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 1^1 
 
 kinds of " excesses." The Diet of 1717 held in Warsaw pro- 
 tested against these wild orgies, and threatened the rioters and 
 the violators of public safety with severe fines. The " custom " 
 nevertheless remained in vogue. 
 
 As far as the cities are concerned, the Jews were engulfed 
 in endless litigation with the Christian merchant guilds and 
 trade-unions, which wielded a most powerful weapon in their 
 hands by controlling the city government or the magistracy. 
 Competition in business and trade was deliberately disguised 
 beneath the cloak of religion, for the purpose of inciting the 
 passions of the mob against the Jews. The Christian mer- 
 chants and tradesmen found an enthusiastic ally in the Catholic 
 clergy. The seed sown by the Jesuits yielded a rich harvest. 
 Eeligious intolerance, hypocrisy, and superstition had taken 
 deep root in the Polish people. Eeligious persecution, directed 
 against all " infidels," be they Christian dissidents or Jews 
 " who stubbornly cling to irreligion," was one of the main- 
 springs of the inner politics of Poland during its period of 
 decay. 
 
 The enactments of the Catholic synods are permeated by 
 malign hatred of the Jews, savoring of the spirit of the Middle 
 Ages. The Synod of Lovicli held in 1720 passed a resolution 
 " that the Jews should nowhere dare build new synagogues 
 or repair old ones," so that the Jewish houses of worship might 
 disappear in the course of time, either from decay or through 
 fire. The Synod of 1733 held in Plotzk repeats the medieval 
 maxim, that the only reason for tolerating the Jews in a Chris- 
 tian country is that they might serve as a " reminder of the 
 tortures of Christ and, by their enslaved and miserable position, 
 as an example of the just chastisement inflicted by God upon 
 the infidels."
 
 173 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 6. A Frenzy of Blood Accusations 
 
 The end of the seventeenth century is marked by the fre- 
 quency of religious trials, the Jews being charged with ritual 
 murder and the desecration of Church sacraments. These 
 charges were the indigenous product of the superstition and 
 ignorance of the Catholic masses, but they were also used for 
 propaganda purposes by the clerical party, which sometimes 
 even took a direct hand in arranging the setting of the crime, 
 by throwing dead bodies into the yards of Jews, and other simi- 
 lar contrivances. Such propaganda often resulted in the adop- 
 tion of violent measures by the authorities or the mob against 
 the alleged culprits, leading to the destruction of synagogues 
 and cemeteries and sometimes culminating in the expulsion of 
 the Jews. 
 
 The cases of ritual murder were tried by the highest court, 
 the Tribunal of Lublin, and, owing to the zeal of the astute 
 champions of the Church, frequently ended in the execution of 
 entirely innocent persons. The most important trials of this 
 kind, those of Sandomir (1698-1710), Posen (1736), and 
 Zaslav (1747), were conducted in inquisitorial fashion. 
 
 The Sandomir case was brought about by the action of a 
 Christian woman who threw the dead body of her illegitimate 
 child into the yard of a Kahal elder, by the name of Berek,' thus 
 giving the clergy a chance to engineer a ritual murder trial. 
 The case passed through all the courts of law. It was greatly 
 complicated by the fanatical agitation of the priest Stephen 
 Zhukhovski, who brought two additional charges of ritual mur- 
 der against the Jews of Sandomir, and published, on this occa- 
 sion, a book full of hideous calumnies. The case having ended 
 in the lower courts favorably for the Jews, Zhukhovski suc- 
 
 [' Popular Polish form of the Jewish name Baer.l
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 173 
 
 ceeded in bringing about a uew trial with the application of 
 tortures and the whole apparatus of the Inquisition. He 
 finally reached his goal. The Tribunal of Lublin sentenced the 
 innocent Jewish elder to death; King Augustus II. ordered, 
 in 1713, the expulsion of all Jews from Sandomir and the 
 conversion of the sj'nagogue into a Catholic chapel,* and the 
 Catholic clergy placed a revolting picture in the local church 
 representing the scene of the ritual murder. 
 
 To justify the miscarriage of justice, Father Zhukhovski and 
 his accomplices induced a converted Jew, by the name of Sera- 
 finovieh, who posed as a former Eabbi of Brest, and had testi- 
 fied at the Sandomir trial against the Jews, to write a book, 
 entitled " Exposure of the Jewish Ceremonies before God and 
 the World'' (1716). The book, a mixture of a lunatic's 
 ravings and an adventurer's unrestrained mendacity, centers 
 around the argument, that the Jews use Christian blood in 
 the discharge of a large number of religious and every- 
 day functions. The Jews are alleged to smear the door of a 
 Christian with such blood, to predispose the latter in favor of 
 the Jews. The same blood put in an egg is given to newly- 
 married couples during the marriage ceremony ; it is mixed in 
 the matza eaten on Passover. It is also used for soaking 
 an incantation formula written by the rabbi, which is then 
 placed under the threshold of a house, to secure success 
 in business for the Jewish inmate. In a word, Christian blood 
 is used by the Jews for every possible form of magic and witch- 
 craft. To convict Serafinovich publicly of lying, the Jews chal- 
 lenged him to attend a disputation in Warsaw in the presence 
 of bishops and rabbis. The disputation had been arranged to 
 be held in the house of the widow of a high official, and both the 
 
 * The last order was subsequently repealed.
 
 174 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Jewish and Christian participants had arrived, but Serafinovich 
 failed to appear at the meeting, where his trickery and ignor- 
 ance would have been exposed. The refusal of the informer to 
 attend the disputation was attested in an official affidavit. This 
 fact did not prevent an anti-Semitic monk of Lemberg, by the 
 name of Pikolski, from republishing Serafinovich's book twice 
 (1758 and 1760) and using it as a tool to conduct a most 
 hideous agitation against the Jews. 
 
 In the large Jewish community of Posen, the slanderous 
 accusations against the Jews were the reflection of the inveter- 
 ate hostility of the local Christian population. Towards the 
 end of the seventeenth century the Carmelite order in Posen 
 contrived a curious lawsuit against the Jews, alleging that 
 following upon the desecration of the hosts in 1399 * the Jews 
 had, by way of penance for their sacrilege, obligated themselves 
 to accompany the Christian processions. The Jews denied the 
 allegation, and the case dragged on for a number of years in 
 various courts of law, with the result that, in 1724, the Jews had 
 to pledge themselves to furnish the Carmelites with two pails 
 of oil annually to supply the lamp burning in front of the 
 three hosts in the church. 
 
 But the fanaticism of the Church was on the lookout for new 
 victims, and it manifested itself in 1736 in another ritual mur- 
 der trial, which lasted for four years. Everything was pre- 
 arranged in accordance with the " rites " of the Church fanat- 
 ics. The dead body of a Christian child was found in the 
 neighborhood of the city. There was also found a Polish beg- 
 gar-woman, who, under torture, confessed that she had sold the 
 child to the elders of the Posen community. Arrests followed. 
 The first victims were the preacher, or darslian, Arie-Leib 
 
 ['See p. 55.]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 175 
 
 Calahora, a descendant of the martyr Mattathiah Calahora/ 
 an elder {parnas, or syndic) of the Jewish commimity, by 
 the name of Jacob Pinkasevich (son of Phineas), and sev- 
 eral other members of the Kahal administration. Further 
 wholesale arrests were imminent, but many Jews fled from 
 Posen, to save themselves from the fury of the inquisitors. 
 
 On the eve of his arrest, Calahora chose for the text of his 
 Sabbath discourse the Biblical verse, " Who can count the dust 
 of Jacob and the number of the fourth part (or quarter) of 
 Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous!" (Numbers 
 xxiii. 10). As if anticipating his end, the preacher explained 
 the text as follows : " Who can count the dust and ashes of 
 those that were burned and quartered for the faith of Israel ? " 
 While being led to jail, he addressed the crowd of Jews sur- 
 rounding him with the following words : " At the hour of my 
 death I shall not have around me ten Jews for prayer {mvnyan). 
 Therefore recite with me for the last time the prayer Borhhu 
 ('Praise the Lord of Praise!')." The forebodings of the 
 preacher were justified. Neither he nor the elder survived the 
 fiendish tortures of the cross-examination. While the preacher 
 was tortured, his bones being broken and his body roasted on 
 fire, the elder was compelled to hold a lamp in his hand to give 
 light to the executioner. Covered with wounds and blood, in 
 the stage of mortal agony, they were carried to their homes, 
 where they died in the autumn of 1736. 
 
 The deputies of the Jewish community of Posen appealed 
 to King Augustus III. against the cruelty and partiality of the 
 municipal court, and succeeded in having the case transferred 
 to a special judicial commission consisting of royal officials. 
 Although the commission resorted equally to tortures during 
 
 [^ See pp. 164 and 165.] 
 12
 
 176 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the cross-examination, it was not able to ^vrest a confession 
 from the innocent Jewish prisoners. Nevertheless, being con- 
 vinced in advance of the correctness of the ritual libel, the 
 judges sentenced them to be burned at the stake, together with 
 the bodies of the preacher and elder, which had to be exhumed 
 for this purpose (1737). 
 
 The sentence had first to be ratified by the King, and the 
 Jewish representatives in Warsaw and Dresden, tlie latter city 
 being the second capital of the King and the residence of the 
 papal nuncio, employed every possible means to bring about 
 a reversal of the judgment. It was difficult to influence Augus- 
 tus III., the dull-witted monarch, who, in addition, was imbued 
 with a goodly dose of anti-Semitism. But the noise caused by 
 the trial at Posen and the pressure upon the King on the part of 
 the Jewish bankers of Vienna, particularly the banking-house 
 of Wertheimer, induced him to yield. After a prolonged 
 interval and a second revision of the case by a royal commission, 
 the King gave orders to free the Jews, who had languished in 
 prison for four years (August, 1740). On this occasion he 
 went out of his way to enjoin the magistracy of Posen not to 
 resort to tortures in similar trials, but he could not refrain 
 at the same time from prescribing to the Jews " rules of con- 
 duct " after the medieval pattern : not to pass too frequently 
 beyond the boundaries of their ghetto (which had been pre- 
 served in Posen), not to associate with Christians, nor caress 
 Christian children, nor keep Christian domestics, nor attend 
 Christian patients, etc. 
 
 The favorable issue of the Posen trial was due to the fact that 
 it took place in a large Jewish community, whose representa- 
 tives were able to arouse the public opinion of Western Europe 
 and secure the intei-vention of influential persons. But in the
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 177 
 
 distant corners of Poland, in the obscure Jewish communities 
 of the country, the ritual murder trials were in the nature of 
 ghastly nightmares. Such was the trial of Zaslav, a tovm in 
 Volhynia, which originated in 1747 as the result of a fatal 
 concatenation of events. In the springtime, when the snow 
 was melting, the dead body of a Christian was found in a 
 neighboring village, having been buried beneath the snow for a 
 considerable time. It so happened that about the same time the 
 fimctionaries of the Zaslav synagogue assembled in a neighbor- 
 ing Jewish inn, to celebrate the circumcision of the new-born 
 son of the innkeeper. A peasant who chanced to pass by the 
 inn informed the authorities that the Jews had been praying 
 the whole night as well as eating and amusing themselves, and 
 this suggested to the Bemardine monks of Zaslav that the cele- 
 bration had some connection with ritual murder, the victim of 
 which was the discovered dead body. The Jewish innkeeper, 
 the Kahal elder, the hazan (cantor), the moJiel (surgeon), and 
 the beadle of the Zaslav synagogue, were indicted. The accused, 
 in spite of dreadful tortures, reiterated that they had assembled 
 to celebrate a circumcision. Only the youthful beadle Moyshe, 
 crazed by the tortures, began to murmur something, repeating 
 the words which were dictated to him by the accusers, though 
 he afterwards withdrew the confession thus forced from him.' 
 The accused were all sentenced to a monstrous death, poss- 
 ible only among savages. Some of the accused were placed 
 on an iron pale, which slowly cut into their body, and resulted 
 in a slow, torturous death. The others were treated with 
 equal cannibalism; their skin was torn off in strips, their 
 hearts cut out, their hands and feet amputated and nailed to 
 
 ' According to another version, he expressed his willingness to 
 embrace Christianity in order to escape death, but afterwards 
 repented.
 
 178 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the gallows. The memorial prayer for these martyrs concludes 
 with the Biblical words : " earth, cover not thou their blood, 
 and let their cry have no place, until the Lord shall look down 
 from heaven ! " 
 
 However, the cry of the Zaslav martyrs was drowned by the 
 shouts of the new victims of the ritual murder myth, w!ii( h 
 transformed the Christians who consciously or unconsciously 
 allowed themselves to be infected by its poison into cannibals. 
 
 The Zaslav trial was followed by an uninterrupted succession 
 of ritual murder accusations, which in the course of fifteen 
 years cropped up almost annually. The most revolting among 
 them, from the point of view of the surrounding circumstances, 
 were the trials of Dunaigrod ' (1748), Pavolochi '^ and Zhyto- 
 mir (1753), Yampol' (1756), Stupnitza, near PshemyshI 
 (1759), and Voislavitza * (1760). In the Zhytomir case, 
 twenty-four Jews were accused of having participated in the 
 murder of the peasant boy Studzienski. Exhausted by tortures 
 and prompted by the desire to hasten their end, they confessed 
 to a crime which they had not committed, and were sentenced 
 to death. Eleven were flayed alive, while the others saved 
 themselves from death by accepting baptism. An image of the 
 alleged martyr Studzienski, in the shape of a figure covered 
 with pins, was spread by the clergy all over the region, to inten- 
 sify the hatred against the Jews. In Yoislavitza, near Lublin, 
 the whole Kahal was charged with the murder of a Christian 
 boy for the purpose of squeezing out his blood and mixing it 
 with the unleavened bread. The spiritual leaders and elders of 
 the Jewish community were brought to court. One of the 
 
 V In Podolia.] 
 
 [^ In the province of Kiev.] 
 
 [' In Volhynia.] 
 
 [* Near Lublin.]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 179 
 
 accused, the rabbi, committed suicide while in jail. The 
 remaining four were sentenced to be quartered. Before the 
 execution the priest, holding out the promise of leniency, 
 induced the unfortunate Jews, who had been crazed by their 
 tortures, to embrace Christianity. The leniency consisted in 
 their being beheaded instead of being quartered. 
 
 Terrorized by these inquisitorial trials, the Jewish com- 
 munities of Poland decided, in 1758, to send Jacob Zelig (or 
 Selek)* to Eome as their spokesman, to obtain from Pope Bene- 
 dict XIV. the promulgation of a bull forbidding these false 
 accusations against the Jews. In the application submitted 
 by Zelig it is pointed out that the life of the Jews of Poland 
 had become intolerable, for " as soon as a dead body is found 
 anywhere, at once the Jews of the neighboring localities are 
 brought before the courts on the charge of murder for super- 
 stitious purposes." The application was turned over to Car- 
 dinal Ganganelli, subsequently Pope Clement XIV., who took 
 up the matter very seriously, and suggested that the Papal 
 Nuncio in Warsaw, Visconti, be instructed to submit a report 
 of the recent ritual murder trials in Poland. When the 
 report arrived, Ganganelli composed an elaborate memoran- 
 dum, in which, as a result of his investigation of the whole his- 
 tory of the question, he demonstrated the falsehood of the 
 ritual murder charges made against the Jews, which had been 
 condemned by the popes in the Middle Ages, particularly by 
 the bull of Innocent IV. of the year 1347.'' In the Judgment 
 
 ' Another variant of the name is Jelek. [The latter form is de- 
 clared to be incorrect by A. Berliner, Gutachten OanganellVs 
 (Berlin, 1888), p. 41.] 
 
 ^ Of all the accusations of this kind, the Cardinal recognizes the 
 correctness of only two, the murder of Simon of Trent in 1475 
 and of Andreas of Brixen in 1462, adding, however, that even their 
 death was not caused by the legendary Jewish ritual, but simply 
 by Jewish " hatred against the Christians."
 
 180 THE JEWS TN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 of Ganganelli all the recent Polish trials were devoid of auy 
 basis in fact, and the sentences pronounced by the courts 
 revolting miscarriages of justice. 
 
 Ganganelli's memorandum was examined and approved by 
 the Roman tribunal of the " Holy Inquisition," and submitted 
 to the new Pope Clement XIII. The Pope instnieted his nun- 
 cio in Warsaw to extend his protection to Zelig, the spokesman 
 of the Jews, on his return to Poland. Subsequently the nun<io 
 informed the Polish Prime Minister Briihl, that " the Holy 
 See, having investigated all the foundations of this aber- 
 ration, according to which the Jews need human blood for 
 the preparation of their unleavened bread," had come to the 
 conclusion that " there was no evidence whatsoever testifying 
 to the correctness of that prejudice " (1763). King Augustus 
 III. ratified in the same year the ancient charters of his pre- 
 decessors, promising the Jews the protection of the law in all 
 ritual murder cases. Yet it was not easy to eradicate the 
 prejudices which had been implanted in the minds of the 
 people. Even the educated classes did not escape their con- 
 tamination. The contemporary writer Kitovich, in describing 
 Polish life during the reign of Augustus III., indulges in the 
 following remark : " Just as the liberty of the Shlakhta is 
 impossible without the liberum veto, so is the Jewish matza 
 impossible without Christian blood.'' 
 
 7. The Massacre of Uman and the First Partition 
 OF Poland 
 
 Undermined by social and denominational strife, the once 
 flourishing country was hastening to its ruin. From the 
 election of Stanislav Augustus Poniatovski to the throne of 
 Poland in 1764, Poland was to all intents and purposes under
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 181 
 
 the protectorate of Russia. Certain elements of Polish society 
 began to realize that only by radical reforms could the country 
 be saved from its impending doom. But it seemed as if the 
 regime of social and religious fanaticism was too decrepit to 
 pass its own death-sentence, and awaited its fate from another 
 hand. 
 
 In the first years of Stanislav Augustus' reign Polish poli- 
 tics ran in their accustomed groove. Instead of endeavoring 
 to effect a radical improvement in the condition of Polish 
 Jewry as one of the most important elements of the urban 
 population, the new Polish Government thought only of ex- 
 ploiting them as much as possible for the benefit of the ex- 
 chequer. The Diet of 1764, which was held in Warsaw prior to 
 the election of the King, and discussed the question of internal 
 reforms, did not consider it necessary to introduce any changes 
 in the status of the Jews, except to alter the system of Jewish 
 taxation. Formerly the head-tax had been levied upon all 
 Polish and Lithuanian Jews annually in a round sum, which 
 the central Jewish agencies, the Waads, or Jewish Councils, 
 ap}5ortioned among the separate Kahals, and the latter, in 
 turn, allotted to the individual members of the communities. 
 According to the new " constitution," however, the head-tax, 
 to the extent of two gulden, was to be imposed on every Jewish 
 soul, and each Kahal was to be held responsible for the accurate 
 collection from its members. The only effect of this reform 
 was to swell the total amount of the head-tax, which as it was 
 weighed heavily upon the Jews, since many sources of liveli- 
 hood were closed to them at the same time. 
 
 The Shlakhta in turn zealously watched over its class 
 interests, and in electing the king imposed upon him the obli- 
 gation of barring the Jews from the stewardship of crown
 
 182 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 domains, state taxes, and other financial revenues. To gratify 
 the hereditary compotitors of the Jews — the Christian burghers 
 and merchants — the Diet of 1768 restored the clause of the 
 ancient parliamentary Constitution of 1538,^ by virtue of which 
 the Jews of those cities where they had not obtained special 
 privileges were allowed to engage in commerce only with 
 the consent of the magistracies, and the magistracies were 
 made up of those same Christian merchants and burghers. 
 
 In the meantime, among the Bussian population of that 
 portion of the Ukraina which was situated on the right bank 
 of the Dnieper, and was still under the sovereignty of Poland, 
 a popular movement arose, which was directed simultaneously 
 against the Poles and the Jews. It emanated from the lowest 
 elements of the population, the enslaved village khlops, 
 who had not yet forgotten the times of Bogdan Khmelnitzki. 
 The memory of those days when the despised khlops waded 
 in the blood of the proud Polish pans and the Jews was still 
 fresh in the minds of the Ukrainians, and made itself felt in 
 moments of political unrest, not infrequent in the disinte- 
 grating body politic of Poland. Fugitive Greek Orthodox 
 peasants from among the serfs of the pans, itinerant Zaporo- 
 zhians,' and Cossacks from the Eussian part of the Ukraina, 
 often organized themselves in independent detachments of 
 haidamacks," and indulged in looting the estates of the nobles 
 or plundering the Jewish towns. These incursions assimaed 
 the character of regular insurrections during the interregnums 
 and on other occasions of political unrest. Thus, in 1734 
 and in 1750, detachments of haidamacks, fully organized 
 and led by Cossack commanders, devastated many towns and 
 
 [•See p. 78.] 
 t'See D. 143, n. 2.] 
 
 P A v/ord of uncertain origin meaning " rebel " or " rioter." 
 See p. 149.]
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 183 
 
 villages in the provinces of Kiev, Volhynia, and Podolia, slay- 
 ing and robbing many pans and Jews. 
 
 The haidamack movement of 1768 was particularly furious. 
 The Russian Government, which, beginning with the reign of 
 Stanislav Poniatovski, was practically in control of the affairs 
 of Poland, demanded that the " dissidents," the Greek Ortho- 
 dox subjects of the country, be granted not only complete 
 religious liberty, but also political equality. A consider- 
 able part of the Polish Shlakhta and clergy objected to these 
 demands, and, seceding from the pro-Russian Government of 
 Poland, formed the famous Confederacy of Bar,^ for the de- 
 fense of the ancient religious and political order of things 
 against the encroachments of the foreigners. While the united 
 royal and Russian troops were fighting against the Confeder- 
 ates, dissatisfaction was brewing among the Greek Orthodox 
 peasants of the Polish TJkraina. Agitators from among the 
 Orthodox clergy and the Zaporozhians instigated the peasants 
 to rise for their faith against the Poles, who had formed the 
 Confederacy of Bar for the annihilation of Greek Orthodoxy. 
 A fictitious decree of the Russian Empress Catherine II., known 
 as " the golden Charter,'' circulated among the people from 
 hand to hand, giving orders " to exterminate the Poles and 
 the Jews, the desecrators of our holy religion," in the Ukraina. 
 
 The new haidamack movement was headed by the Zapo- 
 rozhian Cossack Zheleznyak. Beginning with the month of 
 April of 1768, the rebellious hordes of Zheleznyak raged 
 within the borders of the present Government of Kiev, mur- 
 dering the pans and the Jews and devastating towns and 
 estates. The haidamacks were wont to hang a Pole, a Jew, and 
 a dog, on one tree, and to place upon the tree the inscription : 
 
 [*A town in Podolia.]
 
 134 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 " Lakh/ Zhyd/ and hound — all to the same faith bound." A 
 terrible massacre of Jews was perpetrated by the haidamacks in 
 the towns of Lysyanka and Tetyev, in the province of Kiev. 
 
 From there Zheleznyak's hordes moved towards Uman/ an 
 important fortified town, whither, at the first rumor of the 
 rebellion, tens of thousands of Poles and Jews had fled for 
 their lives. The place was crowded with refugees to such an 
 extent that the newly-arrived could find no room in the town 
 itself, and had to camp in tents outside. Uman belonged to 
 the estate of the Voyevoda of Kiev, a member of the famous 
 Pototzki family, and was commanded by a "overnor called 
 Mladanovich. Mladanovich had at his disposal a Cossack de- 
 tachment of the court guard under the command of Colonel 
 Gonta. Despite the fact that Gonta had long been suspected of 
 sympathizing with the haidamacks, Mladanovich saw fit to 
 dispatch him with a regiment of the.se court Cossacks against 
 Zheleznyak, who was approaching the city. As was to be 
 expected, Gonta went over to Zheleznyak, and on June 18, 
 1768, botli commanders turned aroimd and, at the head of their 
 armies, marched upon Uman. 
 
 During the first day the city was defended by the Polish 
 pans and the Jews, who worked shoulder to shoulder on the 
 city wall, fighting off the besiegers with cannon and rifles. 
 But not all Poles were genuinely resolved to defend the city. 
 Many of them merely thought of saving their lives. Governor 
 Mladanovich himself conducted peace negotiations with the 
 haidamacks, and was reconciled by their assurances that they 
 would not lay hands on the pans, but would be satisfied 
 
 [» See p. i42, n. 1.1 
 [' See p. 320, n. 2.] 
 
 [' Pronounced Oomaii. with a soft sound at he end. In Polish the 
 name is spelled Human.'i
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 185 
 
 with making short work of the Jews. When the haidamaeks, 
 headed by Gonta and Zheleznyak, had penetrated into the 
 town, they threw themselves, in accordance with their promise, 
 upon the Jews, who, crazed with terror, were running to and 
 fro in the streets. They were murdered in beastlike fashion, 
 being trampled under the hoofs of the horses, or hurled 
 down from the roofs of the houses, while children were impaled 
 on bayonets, and women were violated. A crowd of Jews to the 
 number of some three thousand sought refuge behind the 
 walls of the great synagogue. When the haidamaeks ap- 
 proached the sacred edifice, several Jews, maddened with fury, 
 hurled themselves with daggers and knives upon the front 
 ranks of the enemy and killed a few men. The remaining Jews 
 did nothing but pray to the Lord for salvation. To finish with 
 the Jews quickly, the haidamaeks placed a cannon at the en- 
 trance of the synagogue and blew up the doors, whereupon the 
 murderers rushed inside, turning the house of prayer into a 
 slaughter-house. Hundreds of dead bodies were soon swim- 
 ming in pools of blood. 
 
 Having disposed of the Jews, the haidamaeks now proceeded 
 to deal with the Poles. Many of them were slaughtered in 
 their church. Mladanovich and all other pans suffered the 
 same fate. The streets of the city were strewn with corpses or 
 with mutilated, half-dead bodies. About twenty thousand 
 Poles and Jews perished during this memorable " Umau mas- 
 sacre." 
 
 Simultaneously smaller detachments of haidamaeks and 
 mutinous peasants were busy exterminating the Shlakhta and 
 the Jews in other parts of the provinces of Kiev and Podolia. 
 Where formerly the hordes of Bogdan Khmelnitzki had raged, 
 Jewish blood was again flowing in streams, and the cries of
 
 186 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Jewish martyrs were again heard. But this time the catas- 
 trophe did not assume the same gigantic proportions as in 
 1648. Both the Polish and Eussian troops co-operated in 
 suppressing the haidamack insurrection. Shortly after the 
 massacre of Uman, Zheleznyak and Gonta were captured by 
 order of the Russian General Krechetnikov. Gonta with his 
 detachment was turned over to the Polish Government, and 
 sentenced to be flayed alive and quartered. The other haida- 
 mack detachments were either annihilated or taken prisoner 
 by the Polish commanders. 
 
 In this way the Jews of the Ukraina became a second time 
 the victims of typical Russian pogroms, the outgrowth of 
 national and caste antagonism, which was rending Poland 
 in twain. The year 1768 was a miniature copy of the year 1648. 
 A commonwealth in which for many centuries the relationship 
 between the various groups of citizens was determined by 
 mutual hatred, could not expect to survive as an independent 
 political organism. A country in which the nobility despised 
 the gentry, and both looked down with contempt upon tlie 
 calling of the merchant and the burgher, and enslaved the 
 peasant, in which the Catholic clergy was imbued with hatred 
 against the professors of all other creeds, in which the urban 
 population persecuted the Jews as business rivals, and the 
 peasants were filled with bitterness against both the higher 
 and the lower orders — such a country was bound to perish. 
 And Poland did perish. 
 
 The first partition of Poland took place in 1773, transferring 
 the Polish border provinces into the hands of the three 
 neighboring countries, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Russia 
 received the southwestern border province: the larger part 
 of White Russia, the present Governments of Vitebsk and
 
 THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE igy 
 
 Moghilev. Austria took the southwestern region : a part of 
 present-day Galicia, with a strip of Podolia. Prussia seized 
 Pomerania and a part of Great Poland, constituting the 
 present province of Posen. The annexed provinces constituted 
 nearly a third of Polish territory, with a population of three 
 millions, comprising a quarter of a million Jews/ The great 
 Jewish center in Poland enters into the chaotic " partitional 
 period" (1772-1815). Out of this chaos there gradually 
 emerges a new Jewish center of the Diaspora — that of 
 Eussia. 
 
 * According to the Polish census of 1764-1766 the number of 
 Jews in Poland and Lithuania amounted during those years, on the 
 eve of the partitions, to 621,000 souls.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE INNER LIFE OF POLISH JEWRY DURING THE 
 PERIOD OF DECLINE 
 
 1. Jewish S elf-Government 
 
 The fact that the Jews of Poland, despite the general dis- 
 integration of the country, where right was supplanted by 
 privilege and liberty by license, were yet able to hold their own 
 as an organized social unit, was principally due to that vast 
 scheme of communal self-government which had become an 
 integral part of Polish- Jewish life during the preceding period. 
 Surrounded by enemies, ostracized by all other estates and 
 social groups?, Polish Jewry, guided by the instinct of self- 
 preservation, endeavored to close its ranks and gather sufficient 
 inner strength to offer effective resistance to the hostile non- 
 Jewish world. One of the appeals issued in 1676 by the central 
 organ of Polish Jewry, the " Council of the Four Lands," 
 begins with these characteristic words : 
 
 Gravely have we sinned before the Lord. The unrest grows 
 from day to day. It becomes more and more difficult to live. 
 Our people has no standing whatsoever among the nations. In- 
 deed, it is a miracle that in spite of all misfortunes we are still 
 alive. The only thing left for us to do is to unite ourselves In one 
 league, held together by the spirit of strict obedience to the com- 
 mandments of God and to the precepts of our pious teachers and 
 leaders. 
 
 These sentences are followed by a set of paragraphs call- 
 ing upon the Jews of Poland to obey without murmuring 
 the mandates of their Kahals, to refrain from farming state 
 taxes, from accepting the stewardship of Shlakhta estates.
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 189 
 
 and entering into business partnership with non-Jews without 
 the permission of the Kahals, for the reason that such enter- 
 prises are bound to result in conflicts with the Christian popu- 
 lation and in complaints on their part about the Jews. The 
 Council also forbids " intrusting Jewish goods to strange 
 hands," resorting to the intervention of the Polish authorities 
 for purposes injurious to the interests of the community, gen- 
 erating schisms and party strife among Jews, and similar 
 actions. 
 
 The rabbinical Kahal administration endeavored to impose 
 its will upon every single member of the community by regu- 
 lating his economic and spiritual life, and to prevent as far as 
 possible his coming in contact with the outside world. The 
 greatest assistance in this endeavor came from the Polish Gov- 
 ernment. Attaching great value to the Kahal as a convenient 
 tool for the collection of Jewish taxes, the Government bestowed 
 upon it vast administrative and judicial powers. The Govern- 
 ment found it to its interest to deal with the Jewish com- 
 munities rather than with individual Jews. The Kahal was 
 held responsible by the Government for the action of every one 
 of its members or for any inaccuracy of the latter in the pay- 
 ment of taxes. The Kahal extended its influence in pro- 
 portion to its responsibility. This tutelage of the Kahal 
 resulted in strengthening the social organization of the Jews, 
 while it curbed at the same time the personal liberty of its 
 members to a greater extent than was demanded even by the 
 strictest social discipline. 
 
 As far as the Polish Government was concerned, the Kahal 
 was particularly valued as a responsible collecting agency 
 among the Jews on behalf of the exchequer. At the sessions of 
 the Waads, the wholesale amount of the Jewish head-tax (desig-
 
 190 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 nated as gulgohth in the Jewish sources) was periodically 
 fixed and apportioned among the Kahal districts. Within these 
 Kahal districts as well as in the individual communities the 
 apportionment of the taxes was the function of the local Kahal 
 elders, who were in charge of the tax collection, and were held 
 responsible for its being accurately remitted to the exchequer. 
 In 1672 the King bestowed upon the Kahal elders of Lithuania 
 the right of excluding from the community or of punishing 
 by other measures those recalcitrant members of their Kahals 
 who by their acts were likely to arouse the resentment of the 
 Christian population against the Jews. Ten years later the 
 Starosta of Brest issued a rescript forbidding the pans to lend 
 money to private persons among the Jews without the knowl- 
 edge of the Kahal elders. This was done in compliance with the 
 request of these elders themselves, since they were held respon- 
 sible for the insolvent debtors of their respective districts. On 
 a previous occasion, at a conference of the representatives of the 
 Lithuanian communities held in 1670, it was decided to prose- 
 cute every Jew who borrowed meney from the pans or priests 
 without the knowledge of their Kahal. The Voyevoda of Lem- 
 berg in 1693 forbade letting the collection of various state 
 imposts, such as the excise on distilleries and retail sale of 
 spirits, to Jews unless they produced a certificate of the Kahal 
 elders testifying to their good conduct. The right of owning 
 real estate or exploiting articles of revenue (leases and land- 
 rent) was granted to private persons only with the permission 
 of the Kahal (hazaTca). Without this license and the pay- 
 ment of a special tax {hezkath yishuh) no Jew was allowed 
 to settle in a given locality or to enroll his name in the 
 community.
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 191 
 
 The limits of Jewish communal autonomy were not pre- 
 cisely laid down by the law of the state. They were enlarged 
 or contracted in accordance with the will of the provincial 
 administration, the voyevodas and starostas/ and the agree- 
 ments between these officials and the Kahals concerning their 
 respective spheres of influence. The model of a free communal 
 constitution may be found in the statute granted by the 
 Voyevoda of Eed Russia (Galicia) in 1G93 to the central Kahal 
 of Lemberg. This statute authorizes the Jewish community 
 to hold periodic elections^ to choose its elders " in accord- 
 ance with its customs and rights," without the slightest 
 interference on the part of the local administration. The 
 chosen elders are recognized as the lawful officials and judges 
 of their coreligionists in a given locality. Disputes and litiga- 
 tion between Jew and Jew are in the first instance to be settled 
 exclusively by the Kahal court (heth-din) , consisting of rabbis 
 and elders, the latter acting as a jury. Cases between Jews 
 and non-Jews as well as appeals from the decisions of the 
 Beth-Din are to be tried by the voyevoda court and the special 
 "Jewish judge" attached to it, the latter being a Christian 
 official especially appointed for such cases. This judge is to be 
 selected by the voyevoda from two candidates nominated by the 
 Jewish elders. His function is to settle disputes and com- 
 plaints "in a definite place near the synagogue" (in the 
 "Kahal chamber"), in the presence of the Kahal elders. In 
 his verdicts the " Jewish judge " is to be guided not only by the 
 general law^s of the sta,te, but also by the Jewish common law. 
 The regular sessions of the court are to take place twice a week. 
 In special cases extra sessions may be arranged for on any day 
 with the exception of the Jewish holidays. Subpoenas are 
 
 [' See p. 46, n. 1, and p. 60, n. 1.] 
 13
 
 192 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 issued through tlie synagogue beadle, or sliamash.'^ TJie 
 protocols of the court are to be kept iu the Kahal chamber near 
 the synagogue. The appeals from the judgments of this court 
 are to be submitted to the voyevoda himself. 
 
 The elections of the various grades of Kahal elders ' were 
 held, as in former years, annually during the intermediate 
 days of Passover. This custom had legal sanction, and was 
 enforced by the local authorities. When, in 1719, the elders 
 of the Kahal of Brest, prompted by personal consider- 
 ations, were, in spite of the approach of Passover, delaying the 
 holding of new elections, the Lithuanian hetman ' sent an order 
 from Vilna branding the act of the Kahal of Brest as illegal, 
 on the ground that, " though obliged by law and custom to hold 
 new elections of elders every Passover, they have not done so, 
 delaying the elections for their own personal benefit." 
 
 The elections were indirect, taking place through a limited 
 number of electors, and only persons of fairly high financial 
 standing, such as house-owners or large tax-payers, were 
 allowed to be candidates. As a matter of fact, intellectual 
 qualifications were no less valued than financial standing, 
 scholars occupying an honorable i)lace in the communal 
 council. 
 
 The Kahal administration was thus oligarchic in character. 
 The lower and poorer classes had no representation in it, and, 
 as a result, tlieir interests frequently sufi^ered. In the eigh- 
 teenth century complaints, coming from the Jewish rank and 
 file, are constantly heard about the oppression of the Kahal 
 
 [* Generally pronounced shammes.] 
 »Seep. r7. 
 
 [" /. e. military conmander. Originally the title is found among 
 the Cossacks; see p. 143, n. 1.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 193 
 
 " bosses," about the inequitable apportionment of taxes, and 
 similar abuses. 
 
 During the same period litigation between individual Kahals 
 frequently arose concerning the boundaries of their respective 
 districts. This litigation was due to the fact that the Jewish 
 residents of the townlets and villages were subject to the juris- 
 diction of the nearest Kahal. whose income they helped to 
 swell. Since, however, the Kahal districts had never been 
 officially delimited, several Kahals would occasionally lay 
 claim to the control of the neighboring townlets and settle- 
 ments (called in Hebrew sehiboth and yisliubim, and in the 
 official language priJcahalki ') . Cases of this kind were brougbt 
 either before the conferences of the District Kahals or the 
 two central parliamentary institutions of Polish Jewry, the 
 " Council of the Four Lands " and the " Council of the Prin- 
 cipal Communities of Lithuania."' 
 
 The centralization of Jewish self-government in these two 
 Councils — that of the Crown and of Lithuania — was one of the 
 main factors in stabilizing Jewish autonomy during that 
 period of instability and disintegration. The meetings or 
 Diets of these Councils, which were attended by the representa- 
 tives of the Kahals and the rabbinate, afforded a regular op- 
 portunity for discussing the questions affecting the general 
 welfare of the Polish Jews and for establishing well-defined 
 relations with the Government and the Diets of the country. 
 Attached to the Waads were special advocates {shtadlans, 
 designated as "general syndics" in the Polish documents), 
 who went to Warsaw during the sessions of the Polish Chamber 
 for the purpose of submitting the necessary applications in 
 defense of Jewish rights or of presenting the taxation lists of 
 
 ['See p. 108, n. 1.]
 
 194 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the Jewish communities. The Waad of the Crown continued 
 to meet periodically in Lublin, and Yaroslav (in Galicia), and 
 occasionally in other places, while the Lithuanian Council 
 assembled in different towns in Lithuania. 
 
 The activity of these central agencies of self-government 
 was particularly intensified in the latter part of the seven- 
 teenth century, when the state of communal affairs, sorely 
 shaken during the preceding period of unrest, had to be 
 restored. The Government upheld the authority of the Waads 
 in the eyes of the Jewish population, finding it more convenient 
 to maintain relations with one or two central organizations 
 than to deal with a large number of local agencies. In 1687 the 
 "Jewish Elders of the Crown" (of Poland proper), acting 
 on behalf of the Council at Yaroslav, lodged a complaint with 
 King Sobieski, declaring themselves unable to assume the 
 responsibility for the collection of the Jewish head-tax to the 
 amount fixed by the preceding Polish Diet, owing to the fact 
 that many Jews in the cities and villages, benefiting by the pro- 
 tection of the pans and even the royal officials, refused to 
 acknowledge the jurisdiction of the " Elders of the Crown " 
 and shirked their duty as tax-payers. In view of this, the King 
 issued a decree condemning in strong terms " such interference 
 and disorder," and enjoining the individual Kahals to submit 
 to the apportionment of taxes by the Elders of the Crown, and 
 altogether to acknowledge their jurisdiction in general Jewish 
 affairs, under the pain of severe fines for the disobedient. 
 
 The gradual deterioration of social and economic conditions 
 in Poland rendered the activities of the Waads more com- 
 plicated. The Waads were now called upon to regulate also the 
 inner affairs of the communities as well as their relations to the 
 Government and the urban estates, the magistracies and gTiilds.
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 195 
 
 It caunot be said that the Waads exhibited on all occasions an 
 adequate understanding of the political situation, or that they 
 did full Justice to the far-reatliing demands of a truly popular 
 representation. They were too little democratic in their com- 
 position to accomplish so large a task. The delegates to the 
 Waads were not elected by the communities with this end in 
 view, but were recmited from among the rabbis and elders of 
 the principal communities, the notables and " influential men.'* 
 However, in spite of their inadequate, oligarchic organization, 
 the Waads were largely instrumental in unifying communal 
 Jewish life and in enhancing discipline in Polish-Lithuanian 
 Jewry. 
 
 One of the most important duties of the Waads was the 
 maintenance of Jewish public schools, the Talmud Torahs and 
 yeshibahs, which at communal expense imparted religious 
 instruction primarily to poor children and youths. From 
 the minutes of the Lithuanian Waad which have come down 
 to us we learn of the fact that ever}- one of its conferences 
 placed at the head of its enactments a number of clauses pro- 
 viding for the obligatory instruction of the young in yeshibahs 
 throughout the countrv^, for the maintenance of the students^ 
 by the various communities in cash and in kind, and for the 
 formulation of the curricula and the statutes of all these insti- 
 tutions of learning. No wonder that the endeavors of the Waad 
 were crowned with success, and that the intellectual level of the 
 Jews of Lithuania was very high. It must be owned, however, 
 that their mental horizon was not large, inasmuch as the whole 
 course of study, even in the highest schools, was limited to the 
 Talmud and rabbinic literature. 
 
 Furthermore, the Council of the Four Lands established a 
 control over the books issued by the printing-presses of Cracow
 
 190 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 aucl Lublin, or imported from abroad. Only such books were 
 allowed to circulate as were supplied with a printed approba- 
 tion, or hasTcama, of the Waad or some authoritative rabbis. 
 Very frequently the Waad also intervened in the struggle of 
 parties and sects which, as will be seen later,^ followed the rise 
 of the Sabbatian movement. 
 
 Many public fimctions which lay outside the sphere of 
 activity of the central Waads were discharged by the local 
 District conventions, or " Dietines " (waade medinah, or waade 
 galil), the latter acting as the agencies of the Kahal federations 
 of the given region. In official language these District federa- 
 tions were often designated as " synagogues." Especially 
 prominent during this period were the " Volhynian Syna- 
 gogue," i. e. the federation of the Kahals of Volhynia, and 
 the "Wliite Eussian Synagogue," composed of the federated 
 communities of the present Government of Moghilev. The 
 former sent its representatives to the Council of the Four 
 Lands, while the latter was affiliated with the Waad of Lithu- 
 ania. The periodic conventions of these two " synagogues " 
 not only decided the allotment of taxes within the Kahal dis- 
 tricts, but also took up questions of a general character, such 
 as the sending of advocates to the general Polish Diet, the 
 instructions to be given to the deputies of the central Waads, 
 the problem of Jewish education, the rabbinate, etc. Less 
 noticeable was the activity of the Kahal federations of the three 
 " Crown provinces " : Little Poland with the central commun- 
 ity of Cracow, Great Poland with Posen, and Red Russia 
 with Lemberg. We know, however, that they too assembled 
 periodically, either at the initiative of the Kahals them- 
 selves or by order of the voyevoda of a given province. These 
 
 ' See pp. 204 et seq.
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 197 
 
 cou^ ontioiis or " Dietiiies "' had their " floor leaders " or " mar- 
 shals," after the pattern of the provincial Polish Diets. At 
 least such was the insistent demand of the voyevodas, who 
 preferred to transact their official business with the responsible 
 leaders of the conferences. The interference of the adminis- 
 tration in the affairs of the Jewish autonomous organization 
 became particularly frequent in the first part of the eighteenth 
 century, when political anarchy in Poland reached its climax. 
 
 The whole Kahal organization received a severe blow at the 
 hands of the Polish Government in 1764, The General Con- 
 federacy which preceded the election of King Stanislav 
 Augustus, having framed a new " constitution," decided to 
 change fundamentally the system of Jewish taxation. Instead 
 of the former procedure of fixing the amount of the head-tax 
 in loto, and leaving its allotment to the Districts and individual 
 communities to the conferences of the elders and Kahals, the 
 Diet passed a resolution imposing a uniform tax of two gulden 
 on every registered Jewish soul of either sex, beginning 
 with the first year after birth. This change was justified on the 
 ground that, in the opinion of the Government, the previous 
 wholesale system of taxation enabled the Kahals to collect from 
 the tax-payers a much larger sum than originally determined 
 upon. Moreover, simultaneously with the head-tax other im- 
 posts were levied by the Kahals. This resulted in burdening 
 the Jewish population and in hiding its true tax-paying capac- 
 ity from the Government, while according to the new system 
 the exchequer was likely to receive a much larger revenue. 
 
 To secure the accurate collection of the head-tax, a general 
 registration of the Jewish population in the whole country 
 was ordered. The taxes of each community were to be remitted 
 by its Kahal ciders to the nearest state treasury. In eon-
 
 198 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 sequence, the functions of the Kahals, as far as the apportion- 
 ment of the taxes was concerned, were officially discontinued, 
 and the Kahal elders became mere go-betweens, who handed 
 over the tax revenues to the exchequer. The Government ceased 
 to recognize the role of the Kahal as a fiscal agent, which it 
 had formerly valued so greatly, and no more considered it 
 necessary to uphold the authority of this autonomous organi- 
 zation. The whole machinery of Jewish self-government, all 
 these Diets and Dietines, the Waads and District conferences, 
 suddenly became superfluous, if not injurious, in the eyes of 
 the Government. No wonder then that the same Diet of 1764 
 passed a resolution forbidding henceforth the holding of con- 
 ventions of District elders for the fixation or distribution of 
 any tax collections or for any other purpose. 
 
 This limitation of the activities of the Kahals and the entire 
 abolition of tlie central agencies of Jewish autonomy took place 
 on the eve of the abolition of political independence in Poland 
 itself, eight years before its first partition. We shall see later 
 that the subsequent period of unrest, marked by the trans- 
 fer of the greater part of Polish territory to the dominion 
 of Eussia, introduced even greater disorder into the once so 
 firmly consolidated autonomous organization of the Jews, and 
 robbed the Jewish people of one of the mainstays of its 
 national existence. 
 
 2. Rabbinical and Mystical Literature 
 
 The social and economic decline of the Polish Jews, which set 
 in after 1648, was not conducive to widening the Jewish mental 
 horizon, wliich had been sharply defined during the preceding 
 epoch. Even at the time when Polish-Jewish culture was 
 passing through its zenith, Eabbinism reigned supreme in
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 199 
 
 school and literature. Needless to say there was no chance 
 for any hroader intellectual currents to contest this supremacy 
 during the ensuing period of decline. The only rival of Rab- 
 binism, whose attitude was now peaceful and now warlike, 
 was Mysticism, which was nurtured by the mournful disposi- 
 tion of a life-worn people, and grew into maturity in the 
 unwholesome atmosphere of Polish decadence. 
 
 The intensive Talmudic culture, which had been fostered by 
 many generations of rabbis and rosh-yeshibahs was not dis- 
 tributed evenly. In those parts of the country which had suf- 
 fered most from the horrors of the "terrible decade" (1648- 
 1658), in the Polish TJkraina, Podolia, and Volhynia, the intel- 
 lectual level of the Jewish masses sank lower and lower. 
 Talmudic learning, which was formerly widespread among 
 the Jews of those provinces, now became the possession of a 
 narrow circle of scholars, while the lower classes were stagnat- 
 ing in ignorance and superstition. A firmer position was still 
 held by Rabbinism in Lithuania and in the original provinces 
 of Poland. But here too the intellectual activity became pettier 
 and poorer, not so much in quantity as in quality. It is still 
 possible to enumerate a large number of names of great Tal- 
 mudists and rabbis, who commanded the respect and admira- 
 tion not only of the Jews of Poland but also of those outside 
 of it. But in the domain of literary productivity these scholars 
 did not leave so profound an impress on posterity as their 
 predecessors, Solomon Luria, Moses Isserles, Mordecai Jaffe, 
 and Meir of Lublin. 
 
 Even within the narrow sphere of the rabbinic literary out- 
 put originality was sadly missing. The "stars " of Rabbinism 
 who were engaged in learned correspondence (Shaaloth 
 u-Teshuboth) with one another were, as a rule, immersed in
 
 200 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 fruitless controversies about complicated and petty cases of 
 religious and legal practice, frequently degenerating into the 
 discussion of questions which do not arise in real life. Others 
 wrote diffuse hair-splitting commentaries and novellae {hid- 
 dushim) on various tractates of the Talmud, including those 
 which had long lost all legal significance. Thus Aaron 
 Samuel Kaidanover, Eabbi of Cracow, who had narrowly 
 escaped the massacres of 1 648, commented on the section deal- 
 ing with the sacrifices and the ancient ritual of the temple in 
 Jerusalem (Birkhath lia-Zehah^). Still others wrote annota- 
 tions and supplements to the Shulhan Ariikh* Lithuania, in 
 particular, excelled by the number of its celebrities in the field 
 of , rabbinic scholasticism, all men who refused to acknowledge 
 any branch of secular and even religious knowledge outside the 
 domain of Talmudic dialectics. 
 
 A rare exception among these scholars was Jehiel Halperin 
 (ab. 1670-1746), rabbi of Minsk, who wrote an extensive his- 
 toric chronicle under the name of Seder ha-Doroth, " The Order 
 of the Generations." Halperin's work, which is divided into 
 three parts, narrates in the first the events of Jewish history 
 from Biblical times down to the year 1696. The second part 
 enumerates, in alphabetical order, the names of all the Tannaim 
 and Amoraim,' and cites the opinions and sayings attributed to 
 each of them in the Talmud. The third part contains a list of 
 authors and books of the post-Talmudic period. The ori- 
 
 [* " Blessing of the Sacrifice," allusion to I Sam. ix. 13.] 
 " Compare Be'er ha-Go1a, " 'Veil of the Exiles," by Moses Rivkes, 
 who fled from Vilna during the massacre of 1655; Magen Abraham, 
 " Shield of Abraham " [allusion to Gen. xv. 1], by At)el Gumbiner, 
 Rosh-Yeshibah in Kalish, whose parents perished during the tirae 
 of unrest, and many others. 
 
 ["Tannaim are the Talmudic authorities before 200 c. e.; 
 Amoraim are those between that date and the conclusion of the 
 Talmud, in 500 c. e.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 20l 
 
 ginal contribution of Ilalpcrin consists in his having sys- 
 tematized the extremely complicated material, and rendered 
 it available for a characterization of the Talmudic rabbis. In 
 all else he merely copied earlier chroniclers, particularly 
 David Gans,^ without any attempt at a critical analysis. He 
 even fails to render account of such important events of his 
 own time as the Messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi. The 
 essence of history to him is identical with the genealogies of 
 scholars, saints, and rabbis ; the only reason for existence which 
 in his judgment historiography may claim is to serve as the 
 handmaid of Eabbinism. Even this outlook upon history, 
 narrow though it be, was entirely foreign to Halperin's con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 Side by side with the scholastic literature of Eabbinism 
 flourished popular ethical literature {musar ') . Its originators 
 were the preachers (darshanim), some of whom occupied per- 
 manent posts attached to synagogues, while others wandered 
 about from town to town. The synagogue sermons of that 
 period, which have come down to us in various collections," con- 
 sist of a long string of Haggadic and Cabalistic quotations, by 
 means of which the Biblical texts are given an entirely per- 
 verted meaning. The preachers were evidently less anxious 
 to instruct their audience than to exhibit their enormous 
 erudition in theological literature. Some of these preachers en- 
 
 [* Died 1613. Author of the Hebrew chronicle Tzemah David, 
 " Branch of David."] 
 
 ['The word originally means " chastisement " (generally by the 
 father). It then signifies instruction, particularly ethical in- 
 struction.] 
 
 "Such as 'Amudeha Shivah ["Her Seven Pillars," allusion to 
 Prov. ix. 1], by Bezalel of Kobrin, 1666; Maor ha-katon ["The 
 Lesser Light," allusion to Gen. i. 16], by Meir of Tarnopol, 1697; 
 Nethib ha-Yashar, " The Right Path," by Naphtali of Minsk, 1712, 
 and many others.
 
 202 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 deavored in particular to foist upon the people the notions 
 of the " Practical Cabala." ' The " secret " writings of 
 Ari ^ and his school were circulated in Poland in manuscript 
 copies, which went from hand to hand. The ideas embodied in 
 the Cabalistic doctrine of Ari were popularized in the shape 
 of " gruesome stories " concerning life after death, the tortures 
 of the sinners in hell, the transmigration of souls, and the 
 exploits of demons. 
 
 The books which endeavored to inculcate piety among the 
 masses by means of these stories became rapidly popular. 
 Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the Cabalist 
 Joseph Dubno wrote a work in this spirit under the title 
 Yesod Yoseph, " Foundation of Joseph." Prior to its publica- 
 tion, Dubno's work was utilized by Hirsch Kaidanover, a son 
 of the above-mentioned rabbi of Cracow, Aaron Samuel 
 Kaidanover,' and issued by him in an improved and amplified 
 version in Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1705, under the name 
 Kah ha-Yashar, " The Just j\rcasure.'' A few years later the 
 book was published also in the Yiddish vernacular, and became 
 a great favorite among the lower classes as well as among 
 women. 
 
 The Kab ha-Yashar breathes a spirit of gloomy asceticism, 
 and is expressive of a funereal frame of mind. " man," — the 
 author exclaims — '' wert thou to know how many demons 
 thirst for thy blood, thou wouldst abandon thyself entirely, 
 with heart and soul, to Almighty God ! " The air, according 
 to the doctrine preached in this book, is filled with the invisible 
 spirits of the dead who can find no rest in the other world, 
 and teems with the wandering shadows of sinners and demons, 
 
 [^See p. 134, a. 3.] 
 ['See p. 134, n. 4.] 
 » See p. 200.
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 203 
 
 who frequently slip iuto living beings and force them to rage 
 like madmen. Scores of "reliable^' stories are quoted, telling 
 of the conflicts between men and demons and of the exploits of 
 miracle-workers who have exorcised the evil spirits by means of 
 incantations. 
 
 Prominent among these stories is an account of the expul- 
 sion of devils from a house in Posen, which produced a great 
 sensation at the time. Evil spirits had been constantly haunt- 
 ing the inhabitants of the house. At first they sought advice 
 of the local Jesuit priests. When the remedy employed 
 by the latter proved of no avail, the inhabitants invited the 
 famous magician and miracle-worker Joel Baal-Shem ^ from 
 Zamoshch.^ The miracle-worker subjected the demons to a 
 regular cross-examination, demanding an explanation why 
 they refused to abandon the ill-fated house. At the cross- 
 examination the demons argued that the house was theirs by 
 inheritance, inasmuch as they were the legitimate children 
 of the former owner of the house, a Jewish artisan who had 
 had relations with a female devil. As a result, a conference of 
 the rabbis of Posen was held in the presence of the above- 
 mentioned miracle-worker, and their verdict was that the 
 demons had no claim to immovable property in places popu- 
 lated by human beings, but were limited in their right of 
 residence to forests and deserts. 
 
 Such was the spiritual pabulum on which the Jewish masses 
 were fed by their leaders. A writer of the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century makes the observation, that " there is no 
 country where the Jews are so much given to mystical fancies, 
 devil hunting, talismans, and exorcism of evil spirits, as they 
 
 [* On the meaning of the name see p. 223, n. 1.] 
 
 [- In Polish, Zamost\ a town in the region of Lublin.]
 
 201 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 are in Poland." The demand biought forth a supply, and 
 even the celebrated rabbis frequently devoted themselves to 
 Cabalistic exercises. One of these was the Eabbi of Ostrog and 
 Posen, Naphtali Cohen (1640-1719), of whom the following 
 curious incident is related. After settling in Frankfort-on- 
 the-Main, he made the people believe that he had discovered a 
 magic formula against fire. As luck would have it, a fire broke 
 out in his own house, and destroyed a considerable part of the 
 Jewish quarter. The ill-fated Cabalist was sent to jail on the 
 charge of careless handling of fire during his pyrotechnic 
 experiments (1711). After his release from prison Naphtali 
 Cohen led the life of a wanderer, entering into suspicious rela- 
 tions with Hayyun, the notorious emissary of the Sabbatian 
 sect, though afterwards, when Hayyun's heresy had been un- 
 masked in Amsterdam, he renounced all connection with the 
 heretic. During the contest which for many years was waged 
 by Emden against Eibeshiitz and his mysterious talismans,* the 
 majority of Polish rabbis sided with Eibeshiitz. Evidently 
 they found nothing objectionable in the attempt to cure dis- 
 eases by means of cabalistically inscribed talismans. 
 
 3. The Sabbatian Movement 
 
 The mystical and sectarian tendencies which were in vogue 
 among the masses of Polish Jewry were the outcome of the 
 Messianic movement, which, originated by Sabbatai Zevi in 
 1648, spread like wildfire throughout the whole Jewish world. 
 The movement made a particularly deep impression in Poland, 
 where the mystical frame of mind of the Polish-JeMdsh 
 masses offered a favorable soil for it. It was more than a 
 
 [* See on this controversy Gratz's History, Englisli translation, v. 
 257 f.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 205 
 
 mere coincidence that one and the same year, 1648, was marked 
 by the wholesale murder of the Jews of the Ukraina and the 
 first public appearance of Sabbatai Zevi in Smyrna. The 
 thousands of Jewish captives, who in the summer of that 
 terrible year had been carried to Turkey by the Tatar allies 
 of Khmelnitzki and ransomed there by their coreligionists, 
 conveyed to the minds of the Oriental Jews an appalling 
 impression of the destruction of the great Jewish center in 
 Poland. There can be no doubt that the descriptions of 
 this catastrophe deeply affected the impressionable mind of 
 Sabbatai, and prepared the soil for the success of the propa- 
 ganda he carried on during his wanderings in Turkey, Pales- 
 tine, and Egypt. 
 
 When, in the year 1666, the whole Jewish world resounded 
 with the fame of Sabbatai Zevi as the Messianic liberator of 
 the Jewish people, the Jews of Poland responded with par- 
 ticularly keen, almost morbid sensitiveness. 
 
 The Jews — says the contemporary Ukrainian writer Galatov- 
 ski — triumphed. Some abandoned their houses and property, re- 
 fusing to do any work and claiming that the Messiah would soon 
 arrive and carry them on a cloud to Jerusalem. Others fasted for 
 days, denying food even to their little ones, and during that severe 
 winter bathed in ice-holes, at the same time reciting a recently- 
 composed prayer. Faint-hearted and destitute Christians, hearing 
 the stories of the miracles performed by the false Messiah and 
 beholding the boundless arrogance of the Jews, began to doubt 
 Christ. 
 
 From the South, the Sabbatian agitation penetrated to tlie 
 North, to distant White Russia. We are informed by a 
 contemporary monastic chronicler, that on the walls of the 
 churches in Moghilev on the Dnieper mysterious inscriptions 
 appeared proclaiming the Jewish Messiah " Sapsai."
 
 206 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 In the course of the eventful year in which the whole Jewish 
 world raved about the coming of the Messiah and deputations 
 arrived from all over the Jewish world at the " Castle of 
 Splendor/' Sabbatai's residence in Abydos, near Constan- 
 tinople, a delegation was also dispatched by the Jews of 
 Poland. In this delegation were included Isaiah, the son of 
 David Halevi, the famous rabbi of Lemberg, author of the 
 Taz,' and the grandson of another celebrity, Joel Sirkis/ The 
 Polish delegates were sent, as it were, on a scouting expedi- 
 tion, being instructed to investigate on the spot the correctness 
 of the rumors concerning the j\Iessianic claims of Sabbatai. 
 
 When, in the summer of 1666, they were presented to Sab- 
 batai at Abydos, they were deeply impressed by the sight of the 
 thousands of enthusiastic admirers who had come from all 
 possible countries to render homage to him. Sabbatai handed 
 the Polish delegates an enigmatic letter, addressed to the Rabbi 
 of ^LfCmberg: 
 
 On the sixth day after the resuscitation of my spirit and light, 
 on the tv/enty-second of Tammuz .... I herewith send a gift to 
 the man of faith, the venerable old man. Rabbi David of the house 
 of Levi, the author of Ture Zahab — may he flourish in his old age 
 in strength and freshness! Soon will I avenge you and comfort 
 you, even as a mother comforteth her son, and recompense you a 
 hundredfold [for the sufferings endured by you]. The day of re- 
 venge is in my heart, and the year of redemption hath arrived. 
 Thus speaketh David, the son of Jesse, the head of all the kings of 
 the earth .... the Messiah of the God of Jacob, the Lion of the 
 mountain recesses, Sabbatai Zevi. 
 
 The gift referred to in the letter consisted of a shirt which 
 Sabbatai handed over to Rabbi David's son, with the instruc- 
 
 [' See p. 130.] 
 V Ibid.}
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 207 
 
 tion to put it on his aged and feeble father and recite at the 
 same time the words, "May thy youth be renewed like that of 
 the eagle ! " 
 
 Having learned from the delegates that a Cabalistic propa- 
 gandist, by the name of Xehemiah Cohen, who predicted the 
 coming of the Messiah, had appeared in Poland, Sabbatai 
 added a postscript to his letter in which he asked that this 
 " prophet," being the forerunner of the Messiah, be sent to 
 him speedily. The omniscient Messiah failed to foresee that 
 this invitation spelled ruin for him. It is generally conceded 
 that the interview between Nehemiah, the Cabalistic fanatic, 
 and Sabbatai was one of the causes that accelerated the down- 
 fall of the Messiah. After a Cabalistic argument with Sab- 
 batai, which lasted three days, Nehemiah refused to acknowl- 
 edge him as the expected Messiah. While in Adrianople he 
 revealed Sabbatai's plans to the Turkish authorities, and this 
 led to the arrest of the pseudo-Messiah and his feigned con- 
 version to Islam. 
 
 The news of the hideous desertion of Judaism by the re- 
 deemer of the Jewish people was slow in reaching the Jews 
 of Poland, and when it did reach them, only a part of his 
 adherents felt it their duty to abandon him. The more 
 credulous rank and file remained steadfast in their loyalty, 
 hoping for further miracles, to be performed by the mysterious 
 savior of Judaism, who had " put on the turban " temporarily 
 in order to gain the confidence of the Sultan and afterwards to 
 dethrone him. When Sabbatai died, Poland witnessed the 
 same transformation of political into mystical Messianism 
 which was taking place at the time in Western Europe. 
 
 The proximity to Turkey and to the city of Saloniki, the 
 headquarters of the Sabbatian sect, lent particular intensity to 
 14
 
 208 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the sectarian nioveuicnt in Poland, fomenting a spiritual agi- 
 tation in the Jewish mavises from the end of the seventeenth 
 down to the end of the eighteenth century. The main center 
 of the movement came to be in Podolia, part of which had been 
 annexed b}' Turkey, after the Polish-Turkish War of 1672, and 
 was returned to Poland only in 1699 by the Peace Treaty of 
 Carlowitz. 
 
 The agitators and originators of these sects were recruited 
 partly from among the obscure masses, partly from among the 
 Cabalists whose minds were befogged. At the end of the 
 seventeenth century, a Lithuanian Jew by the name of Zadok, 
 a plain, ignorant man, who had been an innkeeper, began to 
 prophesy that the Messiah would appear in 1695. About the 
 same time a more serious propagandist of the Messianic idea 
 appeared in the person of the Cabalist Hayyim Malakh. Hav- 
 ing resided in Turkey, where he had been in contact with the 
 Sabbatian circle in Saloniki, Malakh returned to Poland and 
 began to muddle the heads of the Jews. He secretly preached 
 that Sabbatai Zevi was the Messiah, and that, like Moses, 
 who had kept the Israelites in the desert for forty years before 
 bringing them to the borders of the Promised Land, he would 
 rise from the dead and redeem the Jewish people in 1706, forty 
 years after his conversion. 
 
 Malakh's propaganda proved successful, particularly among 
 the ignorant masses of Podolia and Galicia. Malakh was soon 
 joined by another agitator, Judah Hasid, from Shidlovitz or 
 Shedletz,^ Having studied Practical Cabala in Italy, Judah 
 Hasid returned to his native land and began to initiate the 
 
 [Mn Hebrew the two names are not clearly distinguishable. The 
 forme'' town, in Polish, Szydlowiec. is near Radom. The latter, in 
 Polish, Siiedlce. is the capital of the present Russian Government 
 of the same name, not far from Warsaw.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 209 
 
 studious Polish youths into this hiddeu wisdom. The circle of 
 his pupils and adherents grew larger and larger, and became 
 consolidated in a special sect, which called itself " the Pious," 
 or Hasidim. The members of this sect engaged in ascetic exer- 
 cises; in anticipation of the Messiah, they made public con- 
 fession of their sins and inserted mystical prayers in their 
 liturgy. Hayyim Malakh joined the circle of Judah Hasid, 
 and brought over to it his Sabbatian followers. The number 
 of " the Pious " grew so large that the Orthodox rabbis became 
 alarmed and began to persecute them. Under the effect of 
 these persecutions the leaders of the sect started a propaganda 
 for a mass-emigration to Palestine, there to welcome in triumph 
 the approaching Messiah. 
 
 Many Jews were carried away by this propaganda. In the 
 beginning of 1700, a troop of one hundred and twenty pilgrims 
 started on their way, under the joint leadership of Judah 
 Hasid and Hayyim Malakh. The emigrants traveled in 
 groups, by way of Germany, Austria, and Italy, stopping in 
 various cities, where their leaders, dressed, after the manner of 
 penitent sinners, in white shrouds, delivered fiery exhortations, 
 in which they announced the speedy arrival of the Messiah. 
 The lower classes and the women were particularly impressed 
 by the speeches of the rigorously ascetic Judah Hasid, On 
 the road the Polish wanderers were joined by other groups of 
 Jews desirous of visiting the Holy Land, so that the number of 
 the travelers reached 1300 souls. One party of emigrants, led 
 by Hayyim Malakh, was dispatched, with the help of charitable 
 Jews of Vienna, from that city to Constantinople. Another 
 party, headed by Judah Hasid, traveled to Palestine by way 
 ut" Venice.
 
 210 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 After much suffering and many losses on the journey, during 
 which several hundred died or remained behind, one thousand 
 reached Jerusalem. On arriving at their destination the new- 
 comers experienced severe disappointment. One of the leaders, 
 Judah Hasid, died shortly after their arrival in the Holy City. 
 His adherents were cooped up in some courtyard, and depended 
 on the gifts of charitable Jews. The destitute inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem, themselves living on the charity of their European 
 brethren, were not in a position to support the pilgrims, who 
 soon found themselves without means of subsistence. Dis- 
 illusioned and discouraged, the sectarians rapidly dispersed 
 in all directions. Some joined the ranks of the Turkish Sab- 
 batians, who posed as ^[ohammedans. Others returned to 
 Western Europe and Poland, mystifying credulous people with 
 all kinds of wild tales. Still others in their despair let them- 
 selves be persuaded by German missionaries to embrace Chris- 
 tianity. Hayyim Malakh, the second leader of the pilgrims, 
 remained in Jerusalem for some time with a handful of his 
 adherents. In this circle symbolic services, patterned after the 
 ritual of the Sabbatians, were secretly held, and, as rumor had 
 it, the sectarians performed dances before a wooden image of 
 Sabbatai Zevi. Having been forced to leave Jerusalem, the 
 dangerous heretic traveled about in Turkey, where he main- 
 tained relations with sectarian circles. After being banished 
 from Constantinople by the rabbis, Hayyim Malakh returned to 
 his native country, and renewed his propaganda in Podolia and 
 Galicia. He died about 1720. 
 
 The ill success of the " Hasidim " failed to check the spread 
 of sectarianism in Poland. In Galicia and Podolia, the conven- 
 ticles of " Secret Sabbatians," dubbed by the people " Shab- 
 sitzvinnikes " (from the name of Sabbatai Zevi), or, in abbrevi-
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 211 
 
 ated form, " Shebsen/' continued as before. These Sabbatians 
 neglected many ceremonies, among them the fast of the Ninth 
 of Ab, which, because of its being tlie birthday of Sabbatai, 
 had been transformed by them from a day of mourning into a 
 festival. Their cult contained elements both of asceticism and 
 libertinism. While some gave themselves over to repentance, 
 self-torture, and mourning for Zion, others indulged in 
 debaucheries and excesses of all kinds. Alarmed by this dan- 
 gerous heresy, the rabbis at last resorted to energetic measures. 
 In the summer of 1722, a number of rabbis, coming from 
 various communities, assembled in Lemberg, and, with solemn 
 ceremonies, proclaimed the herein (excommunication) against 
 all Sabbatians who should fail to renoimce their errors and 
 return to the path of Orthodoxy within a given time. 
 
 The measure was partly successful. Many sectarians 
 publicly confessed their sins, and submitted to severe penances. 
 In most cases, however, the " Shebsen " clung stubbornly to 
 their heresy, and in 1725 the rabbis were forced to launch a 
 second herem against them. By the new act of excommunica- 
 tion every Orthodox Jew was called upon to report to the rab- 
 binical authorities all the secret sectarians known to him. The 
 act of excommunication was sent out to many communities, and 
 publicly recited in the synagogues. But even these persecu- 
 tions failed to wipe out the heresy. Secret Sabbatianism con- 
 tinued to linger in the nooks and corners of Podolia and 
 Galicia, and finally degenerated into the dangerous movement 
 known as Frankism. 
 
 4. The Frankist Sect 
 
 Jacob Frank was born about 1726 in a town of Podolia. His 
 father Judah Leib belonged to the lower Jewish clergy, among 
 whom all kinds of perverted mystical notions were particularly
 
 212 'I'HE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 in vogue. Judah Jjeib fell under suspicion as an adherent 
 of Sabbatianisni, and was expelled from the community, which 
 he had served as rabbi or preacher. He settled in Wallachia, 
 where little Jacob grew up in an atmosphere filled with mystic 
 and Messianic fancies and marked by superstition and moral 
 laxity. From his early youth he showed repugnance to 
 study, and remained, as he later called himself, an ignor- 
 amus. While living with his parents in Wallachia, he first 
 served as clerk in a shop, and afterwards became a travel- 
 ing salesman, peddling jewelry and notions through the towns 
 and villages. Occasionally young Jacob traveled with his 
 goods to adjoining Turkey, where he lived for some time in 
 Saloniki and Smyrna, the centers of the Sabbatian sect. Here, 
 it seems, Jacob received his nickname Frank, or Frenk, a desig- 
 nation applied in the East to all Europeans. Between 1752 
 and 1755 he lived alternately in Smyrna and Saloniki, and 
 came in contact with the Sabbatians, participating in their 
 symbolic, semi-Mohammedan cult. It was then and there 
 that Jacob Frank was struck by the idea of returning to Poland 
 and playing the role of prophet and leader among the local 
 secret Sabbatians, who were oppressed and disorganized. It 
 was selfish ambition and the spirit of adventure rather tlian 
 mystical enthusiasm that pushed him in that direction. 
 
 In 1755 Frank made his appearance in Podolia and, joining 
 hands with the leaders of the local " Shebsen," began to 
 initiate them into the doctrines he had imported from Turkey. 
 The sectarians arranged secret meetings, at which the religious 
 mysteries centering around the Sabbatian "Trinity" (God, 
 the Messiah, and a female hypostasis of God, the SheJchinah) 
 were enunciated. Frank was evidently regarded as the second 
 person of the Trinity and as a reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi,
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 213 
 
 being designated as S. S., i. e. Santo Senior/ " the Holy Lord." 
 One of these assemblies ended in a scandal, and turned the 
 attention of the rabbis to this new agitation. 
 
 During the fair held in Lantzkorona/ Frank and two score 
 of his followers, consisting of men and women, had assembled 
 in an inn to hold their mystical services. They sang their 
 hymns, exciting themselves to the point of ecstasy by merry- 
 making and dancing. Inquisitive outsiders managed to catch 
 a glimpse of the assembly, and afterwards related that the 
 sectarians danced around a nude woman, who may possibly 
 have represented the Shekhinah, or Matronitha,^ the third 
 person of the Trinity. The Orthodox Jews on the market- 
 place, who were not used to such orgies, were profoundly dis- 
 gusted by the conduct of the sectarians. They informed the 
 local Polish authorities that a Turkish subject was exciting 
 the people and propagating a new religion. The gay company 
 was arrested, Frank, being a foreigner, was banished to Turkey, 
 and his followers were delivered into the hands of the rabbis 
 and the Kahal authorities (1756). 
 
 A conference of rabbis was held in the town of Satanov,^ and 
 scores of men and women, who had formerly belonged to the 
 Sabbatian ^sect, presented themselves to confess their sins and 
 to repent. The sectarians owned to having committed acts 
 which were subversive not only of the Jewish religion but also 
 of the fundamental principles of morality and chastity. The 
 women admitted that they had violated their conjugal fidelity, 
 
 [' The Turkish Sabbatians, from whom this Spanish title was 
 borrowed, spoke the Judeo-Spanish dialect. On the abbreviation 
 S. S., see Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, x ', 379, n. 1.] 
 
 [' In Polish, Lanckorona, a town in Podolia.] 
 
 P Literally, "the Lady," a Cabalistic term for the Divine 
 Presence.] 
 
 [• In Podolia.]
 
 214 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 and told of the sexual excesses in vogue among the sectarians, 
 which were justified by mystical speculations. On the basis of 
 all this evidence, the conference of rabbis in Brody, which 
 met during the sessions of the Council of the Four I.ands, pro- 
 claimed a strict herem against all heretics who had failed to 
 repent, and forbade all contact with them. They also pro- 
 hibited the study of the Zoliar before the age of thirty and of 
 the Cabalistic writings of Ari,' which were circulated during 
 that period in manuscript form, before the age of forty in 
 order to avoid the snares of mystical heterodoxy. 
 
 It was then that the excommunicated and persecuted Podo- 
 lian sectarians, prompted by their leaders, resorted to a counsel 
 of despair. Their representatives appeared in the city of 
 Kamenetz-Podolsk before the Catholic Bishop Dembovski, and 
 declared that the Jewish sect of which they were members 
 rejected the Talmud as a false and harmful work, that they 
 only acknowledged the Zohar, tlie sacred book of the Cabala, 
 and believed that God was one in three persons, of whom the 
 Messianic Eedeemer was one. I'his declaration aroused in 
 Bishop Dembovski the hope of converting the sectarians to 
 Christianity, notwithstanding the fact that by the " Messianic 
 Redeemer " they understood Sabbatai Zcvi, or his reincarna- 
 tion, Jacob Frank. The Bishop ordered the publication of the 
 ambiguous confession of faith of the " Contra-Talmudists " or 
 "^ Zoharists " — as the sectarians designated themselves — and 
 decided to arrange a religious disputation between the Frank- 
 ists and the rabbis. The Podolian rabbis received strict orders 
 from the Bishop to send delegates from their midst to partici- 
 pate in the proposed disputation. Their failure to appear 
 was to be punished by fines and the burning of the Talmud. 
 
 [*See p. 134, n. 4.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 215 
 
 After considerable preparations, the disputation between the 
 leaders of the Contra-Talmudists and a number of rabbis took 
 place in Kamenetz, in the summer of 1757, in the presence of 
 Bishop Dembovski and representatives of the Catholic clergy. 
 The contest lasted seven days. The discussions centered 
 around certain peculiar utterances in the Talmud ic Haggada, 
 which the Frankists cited as evidence of the " blasphemous " 
 character of the Talmud. The rabbis retorted feebl}', ham- 
 pered by their inadequate mastery of the Polish language; 
 moreover, when the dispute turned on the fundamental dogmas 
 of Judaism, they refused to discuss them in the presence of 
 Catholic priests. The Bishop received the impression that the 
 Talmudists had been defeated. In the autumn of 1757 he 
 issued a rescript imposing a fine upon the Talmudists, to be 
 paid out to their opponents, for having insulted them at the 
 fair of Lantzkorona, and ordering that all Talmud copies 
 found in the diocese of Podolia be taken away from their 
 owners and delivered to the tlames. 
 
 The revolting scenes of the time of Louis IX., of France, and 
 Pope Paul IV. were re-enacted. Thousands of Talmud copies 
 were taken away from the Jews and carried to Kamenetz, where 
 they were publicly burned on the market-place. The sectarians 
 witnessed their revenge on their persecutors and triumphed. It 
 is difficult to say how this triumph would have ended, had not 
 Bishop Dembovski suddenly died, in November, 1757. The sec- 
 tarians were deprived of their mainstay, and became again the 
 target of the Kahal authorities. In 1758 they finally succeeded 
 in obtaining a safe-conduct from King Augustus III., but even 
 this could not rescue them from the uncomfortable position 
 peculiar to those who, having forfeited the sympathies of their 
 own, have not yet been able to gain the confidence of strangers.
 
 216 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 At that critical juncture the sectarians decided to recall 
 Jacob Frank, their leader, from Turkey. The latter imme- 
 diately appeared in Podolia with a new plan, which, he hoped, 
 would at once rid him and his adherents of all opponents. 
 In the discourses delivered before his followers Frank dwelt 
 a great deal on his exalted mission and on the divine revela- 
 tions which commanded him to follow in the footsteps of 
 Sabbatai Zevi. Just as Sabbatai had been compelled to em- 
 brace the Mohammedan faith temporarily, so he and his 
 adherents were predestined from above to adopt the Christian 
 religion as a mere disguise and as a stepping-stone to the " faitli 
 of the true Messiah." Filled with thirst for revenge, the 
 sectarians hit upon the fiendish thought of lending the weight 
 of their testimony to the hideous ritual murder accusation, 
 which was agitating the whole of Poland at that time, claim- 
 ing many a victim in the Jewish ranks. 
 
 In 1759 the Frankists were busily engaged in negotiations 
 with the highest representatives of the Polish Church concern- 
 ing their proposed conversion to Christianity. They requested 
 at the same time that they be allowed to hold a public dis- 
 putation with the rabbis, whom they hoped to expose before 
 the non-Jews. The Primate of the Polish Church Lubinski 
 and the Papal Nuncio Serra received the advances of the Frank- 
 ists with considerable skepticism. But the temporary adminis- 
 trator of the diocese of Lemberg, Canon Mikolski, insisted that 
 their request be complied with. A second religious disputa- 
 tion between the Talmudists and the Frankists, presided over 
 by Mikolski, was held in Lemberg, and took up eleven sessions 
 (July- August, 1759). At this disputation the Orthodox Jews 
 were represented by a number of Talmudists, headed by the 
 Kabbi of Lemberg, Hayyim Eapoport, while the cause of the
 
 The inner life during the decline 317 
 
 sectarians was championed by Solomon Shorr and Leib Krysa, 
 the principal associates of Frank, as well as several learned 
 Catholic theologians. 
 
 The sectarians advanced seven theses as a basis for dis- 
 cussion. Six dealt with the Messianic belief and the dogma 
 of the Trinity, the latter having been practically adopted by 
 them in its Christian formulation. The seventh asserted that 
 " the Talmud considers the use of Christian blood obligatory." 
 The discussion about the first six clauses was rather tame and 
 conventional, largely owing to the fact that the rabbis, who 
 were afraid of offending the religious susceptibilities of the 
 Christians, declined in many cases to state their views. Only 
 when it came to the last point, the malicious accusation of 
 ritual murder, were the rabbis energetic in refuting it, protest- 
 ing vehemently against the Frankists, who openly appeared as 
 the enemies of their people. 
 
 When the disputation was over, the sectarians were called 
 upon to prove their devotion to Christianity by immediate 
 action. The conversion of the Frankists began. The baptis- 
 mal ceremony was performed with great solemnity in the 
 churches of Lemberg, members of the Polish nobility acting 
 as sponsors. The neophytes assumed the family names and 
 titles of their godfathers, and in this way received admission 
 into the ranks of the Polish nobility. In Lemberg alone 514 
 men and women, among them Leib Krysa, Solomon Shorr, and 
 the other fellow-workers of Frank, were converted in the 
 course of 1759 and 1760. Frank entered Lemberg with great 
 pomp, riding in a carriage drawn by six horses and surrounded 
 by a large body-guard. Here he submitted to a preliminary 
 baptism, desiring to complete the ceremony with greater 
 solemnity in Warsaw. Having arrived in the Polish capital.
 
 218 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Frank petitioned King Augustus III. to act as his godfather. 
 The King consented, and the conversion of the sectarian chief 
 to Catholicism took place in Xovember, 1759, with extraor- 
 dinary splendor, in the prei^enee of the royal family and the 
 court dignitaries. At his baptism Jacob Frank assumed the 
 name Joseph. 
 
 However, the attitude of the Poliph clergy towards the 
 newly-converted sectarians remained as skeptical as theretofore. 
 Frank's obscure past, his strange manner of living, the rever- 
 ence accorded to him by his followers, who styled him the 
 ** Holy Lord " — all this was bound to arouse the suspicion of 
 the ecclesiastic authorities. The indiscretion of some Frank- 
 ists, or perhaps a secret denunciation, confirmed the clergy in 
 their suspicions. They learned that the conversion of the sec- 
 tarians had been an act of hypocrisy, that Frank continued to 
 pose among them as Messiah and " Holy Lord," and that the 
 Trinity professed by them had very little in common with the 
 corresponding Christian dogma. They decided to investigate 
 the matter, and, in case their suspicion should prove true, to 
 indict the leaders of the sect before the ecclesiastic courts. 
 
 In January, 1760, Frank was arrested in Warsaw by order of 
 the highest Church authorities, and subjected to a searching 
 cross-examination. With all his astuteness, the chief of the 
 Frankists failed to convince the judges of his Christian Ortho- 
 doxy. Many of the depositions made by his disciples or by 
 himself only strengthened the case against him. The ecclesi- 
 astic court, having previously ascertained the attitude of Rome 
 through the Papal Nuncio, sentenced Frank to imprisonment 
 in the citadel of Chenstokhov and to detention in the local 
 monastery, so as to prevent all contact with his followers.
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 219 
 
 Thirteen years (1760-1 772 ) Frank remained in the citadel, 
 but the Catholic clergy failed in its purpose. The Frankists 
 continued their relations with the " Holy Lord," who as a 
 suffering Messiah was now surrounded in their eyes with a new 
 halo. They even managed to penetrate into Chenstokhov 
 itself, and settled in large numbers on the outskirts of the 
 town, which, in accordance with old Messianic notions, they 
 designated as " the gates of Eome." ' They beheld in Frank's 
 fate a repetition of the destiny of Sabbatai Zevi, who had been 
 equally kept prisoner in the castle of Abydos, near the capital 
 of Turkey. They were inspired by Frank's mystical discourses 
 and epistles, the gist of which was that their only salvation lay 
 in the " holy religion of Edom," a term by which he understood 
 a strange medley of Christian and Sabbatian ideas. The new 
 religion was devoid of any truly religious or moral element, and 
 the same applies to the life of Frank, who cynically expressed 
 himself to his followers : " I have come to rid the world of all 
 the laws and statutes which have been in existence hitherto." 
 There was nothing reminding one of an apostle about the con- 
 duct of the " Holy Lord/* based as it was on mystification 
 and on the endeavor to accommodate oneself to the environ- 
 ment. 
 
 The first partition of Poland put an end to Frank's impris- 
 onment in the monastery. He was released by the commander 
 of the Eussian troops which occupied Chenstokhov towards the 
 end of 1773. After a brief stay in Warsaw, where he managed 
 to re-establish direct relations with the sectarians, Frank, 
 accompanied by his family and a large retinue, left the bound- 
 aries of Poland and settled in Briinn, in ]\roravia (1773). 
 
 ^ Tara de-R6mS. the legendary dwelling-place of the Messiah. 
 [Comp. Sanhedrin 98a.]
 
 220 , THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 The further exploits of this adventurer were performed iii a 
 new field, in Western Europe. In Catholic Austria, Frank 
 assumed the role of a Christian missionary among the Jews, 
 and even succeeded in gaining the favor of the Court in Vienna. 
 However, his past soon became known, and he had to leave 
 Austria. Frank settled in Germany, in Offenbach, near Frank- 
 fort-on-the-Main, where he arrogated to himself the title of 
 " Baron of Oifenbach." In his new place of residence, Frank, 
 assisted by his daughter Eve, or the " Holy Lady," stood at the 
 head of a secret circle of sectarians, and, supported by his 
 Polish and Moravian partisans, led a life of ease and luxury. 
 
 After the death of Frank, which occurred in 1791, his sect 
 began to disintegrate, and the flow of gifts for the benefit of 
 the Offenbach Society gradually ceased. After unsuccessful 
 endeavors to attract sectarians, Frank's successor. Eve, found 
 herself entangled in debts, and, pursued by her creditors, died 
 in 1816 in Offenbach. The Frankists who had stayed in 
 Poland, though outwardly Catholics, remained loyal to the 
 " Holy Lord " down to the day of his death. For a long time 
 they intermarried among themselves, and were known in 
 Poland under the name of " Neophytes." But by and by they 
 were merged with the Catholic population, gradually losing 
 the character of a sect, and were at last completely absorbed by 
 their Polish environment. 
 
 5. The Rise of Hasidism and Iseael Baal-Shem-Tob 
 
 Frankism proved the grave of Sabbatianism, by turning its 
 dreamy mysticism into mystification, and its lofty Messianism 
 into the selfish desire to escape Jewish suffering through dis- 
 loyalty to Judaism. It was a grossly negative, materialistic 
 movement, which disregarded the noblest strivings and the
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE O'M 
 
 most genuine longings of the Jewish soul. The need for a 
 deepened religious consciousness, which the formalities of 
 Rahbinism had failed to satisfy, remained as alive as ever 
 among the Jewish masses. This need was bound to give rise 
 to a positive religious movement, which was in harmony with 
 the traditional ideas of the Jewish people. 
 
 In the spiritual life of Polish Jewry the distinction between 
 its two ethnographic groups, the northwestern, the Lithu- 
 anian and White Russian, and tlie southwestern, the Polish 
 and Ukrainian, became more and more accentuated. In the 
 northwest ^abbinic scholasticism reigned supreme, and the 
 caste of scholars, petrified in the ideas of Talmudic Babylonia, 
 was the determining factor in public life. 
 
 Talmudic scholarship — remarks a contemporary Lithuanian 
 Jew, the subsequently famous philosopher Solomon Maimon — 
 constitutes the principal object of education among us. Wealth, 
 physical attractions, or endowments of any kind, though appre- 
 ciated by the people, do not, in its estimation, compare with the 
 dignity of a good Talmudist. The Talmudist has the first claim 
 on all oflRces and honorary posts in the community. Whenever he 
 appears at an assembly, all rise before him, and conduct him to the 
 foremost place. He is the confidant, the counselor, the legislator, 
 and the judge of the plain man. 
 
 Matters, however.^ were different in Podolia, Galicia, Vol- 
 hynia, and in the whole southwestern region in general. Here 
 the Jewish masses were much further removed from the 
 sources of rabbinic learning, having emancipated themselves 
 from the influence of the Talmudic scholar. While in Lithu- 
 ania dry book-learning was inseparable from a godly life, in 
 Podolia and Volhynia it failed to satisfy the religious crav- 
 ings of tlie common man. The latter was in need of beliefs 
 easier of understanding and making an appeal to the heart
 
 222 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 rather than to the mind. lie found these beliefs in the 
 Cabala, in mystic and Messianic doctrines, in Sabbatianism. 
 He even let himself be carried away by teachings which ulti- 
 mately proved heterodox and subversive of the spirit of 
 Judaism. With the downfall of secret Sabbatianism, which 
 had been utterly compromised by the Frankists, disappeared 
 the last will-o'-the-wisp of Messianisra, which had beckoned 
 to the groping Jewish masses. It was necessary to fill tlio 
 mental void thus created, and provide new food for the un- 
 satisfied religious longings. This task was undertaken by 
 the new Ilasidism ("Doctrine of Piety"), originated by 
 Besht, a product of obscure Podolian Jewry. 
 
 Israel Baal-Shem-Tob (in abbreviated form BeSHT) was 
 born about 1700 on the border line of Podolia and Wallachia of 
 a poor Jewish family. Having lost his parents at an early age, 
 he was cared for by some charitable townsmen of his, who sent 
 him to a Jewish school, or heder, to study the Talmud. The 
 heder-learning did not attract the boy, endowed as he was 
 with an impressionable and dreamy disposition. Israel fre- 
 quently played the truant, and was more than once discovered 
 in the neighboring forest lost in thought. The boy was finally 
 given up as a bad case, and expelled from school. At the age 
 of twelve, Israel, confronted by the necessity of earning a 
 livelihood, became a hehelfer, an assistant teacher, and, a 
 little later, obtained the post of a synagogue beadle. In his 
 new dignity, Besht conducted himself rather oddly. In day- 
 time he slept, or pretended to sleep, but at night, when all 
 alone in the synagogue, he prayed fervently, or read soul- 
 saving books. Those around him looked upon him as an eccen- 
 tric or maniac. He nevertheless persisted in his course. He 
 delved more and more deeply in the mysteries of the Prac-
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 223 
 
 tical Cabala, studied the " Ari manuscripts," which were 
 circulated from hand to hand, and acquainted himself with the 
 art of performing miracles by means of Cabalistic incantations. 
 When about twenty years of age, Israel settled in Brody, 
 one of the principal cities of Galicia, and married the sister 
 of the well-known rabbi and Cabalist of the town, Gershon 
 Kutover. Kutover at first tried to interest his brother-in- 
 law in the study of the Talmud, but, finding him entirely 
 indifferent to this kind of mental occupation, the proud rabbi, 
 abashed by his relationship with such an ignoramus, advised 
 Israel to leave Brody. Besht followed the advice, and removed 
 with his wife to a village between the towns of Kuty and Kosovo. 
 He frequently retired to the neighboring Carpathian moun- 
 tains, where in strict solitude he fasted, prayed, and lost 
 himself in religious speculation. He eked out an existence for 
 himself and his wife by digging clay in the mountains, which 
 his wife carried into the city for sale. According to the Hasidic 
 legend, Israel Besht led this kind of life for seven years. It 
 was a period of preparation for his subsequent calling. At 
 the end of his mystical exploits in the Carpathian mountains, 
 Besht lived in the Galician town of Tlusta, where he occupied 
 minor ecclesiastic positions, acting in succession as melammed, 
 shohet, and cantor of a synagogue. He was universally 
 regarded as an ignoramus, no one being aware of his inner- 
 most cravings. 
 
 At last, after reaching the age of thirty-six, Besht decided, 
 — by inspiration from above, as the Hasidim believe, — that the 
 time had come "to reveal himself to the world." He began 
 to practice as a Baal-Shem,^ t. e. as a magician and Cabalist 
 
 [' Literally, " Master of the Name," a man able to perform 
 miracles through the Name of God.] 
 
 15
 
 224 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 and to cure diseases by means of secret incaiitntioiis. aniuleis 
 (kameoth), and medicinal herbs. The figure of a wandering 
 Baal-Shem was not unusual among the Polish Jews of the 
 time, and Besht chose this career, for it subsequently proved 
 a convenient medium for his religious propaganda. He trav- 
 eled about the towns and villages of Volhynia and Podolia, 
 curing with his herbs and incantations not only Jews, but also 
 peasants and even pans, who had great faith in magic remorlies. 
 He won the reputation of a miracle-worker, and was nicknamed 
 the "good Baal-Shem" (in Hebrew, Baal-Shem-Tob). The 
 Jewish masses felt that he was not the ordinary type of con- 
 jurer, but a man of righteousness and saintliness. Bosht was 
 frequently called upon to foretell the future, and, opening at 
 random the Zohar before him, made predictions as suggested 
 by the holy book. In curing the sick, he resorted not only to 
 herbs and incantations, but also to prayer. While praying, he 
 often fell into ecstasy and gesticulated violently. 
 
 Besht became the favorite of the masses. Warm-hearted 
 and simple in disposition, he managed to get close to the 
 people and find out their spiritual wants. Originally a healer 
 of the body, he imperceptibly grew to be a teacher of religion. 
 He taught that ti:a.e_salvation lies npt_ in JCalmudic learning, 
 but in whole-hearted devotion to God, in unsophisticated faith 
 and fervent prayer. - When he encountered men of learning, 
 Besht endeavored to convince them of the correctness of his 
 views by arguments from the Cabala. But he did not recog- 
 nize that ascetic form of Cabala which enjoined upon the Jew 
 to foster a mournful frame of mind, to kill the flesh, and strive 
 after the expiation of sin in order to accelerate the coming of 
 the Messiah. He rather had in mind that Cabala which seeks 
 to establish an intimate communion between man and God,
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 2'2.") 
 
 cheering the human soul by the belief in the goodness of God, 
 encouraging and comforting the poor, the persecuted, and the 
 suffering. Besht preached that the plain man, imbued with 
 naive faith, and able to pray fervently and whole-heartedly, 
 was dearer and nearer to God than the learned formalist spend- 
 ing his whole life in the study of the Talmud. Not to speculate 
 in religious matters, but to believe blindly and devotedly, such 
 was the motto of Besht. This simplified formula of Judaism 
 appealed to the Jewish masses and to those democratically 
 inclined scholars who were satisfied neither with rabbinic 
 scholasticism nor with the ascetic Cabala of the school of Ari. 
 
 About 1740 Besht chose for his permanent residence the 
 small Podolian town of Medzhibozh. The role of sorcerer 
 and miracle-worker gradually moved to the background, and 
 Besht emerged as a full-fledged teacher of religion. He 
 placed himself at the head of his large circle of disciples and 
 followers, who were initiated by him into the mysteries of the 
 new doctrine, not by way of systematic exposition, but rather 
 in the form of sayings and parables. These sayings have been 
 preserved by his nearest disciples, Besht himself having left 
 nothing in writing. 
 
 Two ideas lie at the bottom of the " Doctrine of Piety," or 
 the Hasidism, of Besht: the idea of Pantheism, of the Om- 
 nipresence of God, and the idea of the interaction of the 
 lower and upper worlds. The former may be approximately 
 defined by the following utterances of Besht : 
 
 It is necessary for man constantly to bear in mind that God is 
 with him always and everywhere; that He is, so to speak, the 
 finest kind of matter, which is poured out everywhere; that He is 
 the master of all that happens in the Universe. . . . Let man
 
 326 'I'HE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 realize that when he looks at things material he bchcMs in 
 reality the Divine Countenance, which is present everywhere. 
 Keeping this in mind, man will find it possible to serve the Lord 
 at all times, even in trifles. 
 
 The second fundamental idea is borrowed from the Cabala, 
 and signifies that there is a constant interaction betAA'oen the 
 world of the Divine and the human world, so that not only 
 does the Deity influence human actions, but the latter exert a 
 similar influence on the will and the disposition of the Deity. 
 
 The further elements of the Besht doctrine follow logically 
 from these premises. Communion with God is and must be 
 the principal endeavor of every truly religious man. This 
 communion may be attained by concentrating one's thoughts 
 upon God, and attributing to Him all happenings in life. The 
 essence of faith lies in the emotions, not in the intellect; the 
 more profound the emotions, the nearer man is to God. Prayer 
 is the most important medium through which man can 
 attain communion with God. To render this communion per- 
 fect, prayer must be ecstatic and fervent, so that he who prays 
 may, as it were, throw off his material film. To attain to this 
 ecstatic condition, recourse may be had to mechanical con- 
 trivances, such as violent motions of the body, shouts, shaking, 
 and so on. The study of Jewish religious legislation is of 
 secondary importance, and is useful only when it succeeds in 
 arousing an exalted religious disposition. From this point 
 of view the reading of ethical books is preferable to the study 
 of Talmudic casuistry and rabbinical folios. 
 
 Contrary to the fundamental precept of the Practical Cabala, 
 Besht insists that excessive fasting, the killing of the flesh, 
 and ascetic exercises in general, are injurious and sinful, and 
 that a lively and cheerful disposition is more acceptable to God. 
 What is most important in religion is the frame of mind and
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE v;27 
 
 not the external ceremonies : excessive minuteness of religious 
 observance is harmful. The pious, or Hasid, should serve God 
 not only by observing the established ceremonies, but also in 
 his everyday affairs and even in his thoughts. By means of 
 constant spiritual communion with God, man may attain to 
 the gift of clairvoyance, prophecy, and miracle-working. The 
 Eighteous, or Tzaddik, is he who lives up to the precepts of 
 Hasidism in the highest measure attainable, and is on account 
 of it nearer and dearer to God than any one else. The 
 function of the Tzaddik is to serve as mediator between God 
 and the common people. The Tzaddik enables man to attain 
 to perfect purity of soul and to every earthly and heavenly 
 blessing. The Tzaddik ought to be revered and looked up to 
 as God's messenger and favorite. 
 
 In this way the doctrine preached by Besht undermined not 
 only scholastic and ceremonial Eabbinism, but also the ascetic 
 Cabala, emphasizing in their stead the principle of blind faith 
 in Providence, of fervent and inspiring prayer, and, last but 
 not least, the dogma of attaining salvation through the 
 medium of the miracle-working Tzaddik. The last-men- 
 tioned article of faith was of immense consequence for the 
 further development of Hasidism, and subsequently over- 
 shadowed the cardinal principles of the new movement. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the personality of Besht as the first 
 Tzaddik impressed the people far more than his doctrine, 
 which could be fully grasped only by his nearest associates 
 and disciples. Among these the following were particularly 
 prominent: Jacob Joseph Cohen, who occupied the post of 
 rabbi successively in Shargorod, iSTiemirov, and Polonnoye ; 
 Baer of Mezherich, a Volhynian preacher and Cabalist ; Nah- 
 man of Horodno, Nahman of Kosovo, Phineas of Koretz, all of
 
 228 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 whom frequently visited Besht in MedzhilK)zli. Even the 
 former Rahbi of Brody, Gershon Kutover, who had once' 
 looked down on liis brother-in-law as an Am ha-Aretz, 
 acknowledged his religious mission. 
 
 About 1750, Besht sent to his brother-in-law Kutover, 
 who had in the meantime settled in the Holy Land, a kind of 
 prophetic manifesto, telling of his miraculous vision, or revela- 
 tion. In it Besht asserted that on the day of the Jewish New 
 Year his soul had been lifted up to heaven, where he beheld the 
 Messiah and many souls of the dead. In reply to the petition 
 of Besht, " Let me know, my ^Master, when thou wilt appear 
 on earth,** the Messiah said : 
 
 This shall be a sign unto thee: when thy doctrine shall become 
 known, and the fountains of thy wisdom shall be poured forth, 
 when all other men shall have the power of performing the same 
 mysteries as thyself, then shall disappear all the hosts of impurity, 
 and the time of great favor and salvation shall arrive. 
 
 Revelations of this kind were greatly in vogue at the time, 
 and had a profound effect upon mystically inclined minds. 
 The notion spread that Besht was in contact with the prophet 
 Elijah, and that his " teacher " was the Biblical seer Ahijah 
 of Shilo. As far as the common people are concerned, they be- 
 lieved in Besht as a miracle-worker, and loved him as a re- 
 ligious teacher w^ho made no distinction between the edu- 
 cated and the ordinary Jew. The scholars and Cabalists 
 were fascinated by his wise discourses and parables, in which 
 the most abstract tenets of the Cabala were concretely 
 illustrated, reduced to popular language, and applied to the 
 experiences of everyday life. Besht's circle in Medzhibozh 
 grew constantly in number. Shortly before his death, Besht 
 witnessed the agitation conducted by the Frankists in Podolia
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 229 
 
 and their subsequent wholesale baptism. The Polish rabbis 
 rejoiced in the conversion of the sectarians to Catholicism, 
 since it rid the Jewish people of dangerous heretics. But 
 when Besht learned of the fact, he exclaimed : " I heard the 
 Lord cry and say : As long as the diseased limb is joined to the 
 body, there is hope that it may be cured in time ; but when it 
 has been cut off, it is lost forever." There is reason to believe 
 that Besht was one of the rabbis who had been invited to 
 participate in the Frankist disputation in Lemberg, in 1759. 
 In the spring of the following year, Besht breathed his last, 
 surrounded by his disciples, 
 
 6. The Hasidic Propaganda and the Growth of 
 tzaddikism 
 
 At the time of Besht's death, his doctrine had gained a 
 considerable number of adherents in Podolia, Galicia, and 
 Volhynia, who assumed the name Hasidim. But the systematic 
 propaganda of Hasidism began only after the death of Besht, 
 and was carried on by his successors and apostles. His first 
 successor was the preacher Baer of Mezherich, referred to pre- 
 viously, under whom the little town of Mezherich became the 
 headquarters of Hasidism in Volhynia, just as Medzhibozh 
 had been in Podolia. In poiiit of originality and depth of 
 sentiment Baer was vastly inferior to his master, but he sur- 
 passed him in erudition. His scholarship insured the success 
 of the Hasidic propaganda among the learned class, and also 
 enabled him to become one of the main exponents of the 
 theory of Hasidism.^ In the course of twelve years (1760- 
 
 * An exposition of his doctrines may be found in the book en- 
 titled Maggicl Debarav le-Ya'kob [" Showing His Words unto Jacob " 
 — allusion to Ps. cxlvii. 19], also called Likkiite Amarim, "Collec- 
 tion of Sayings." It was published after his death, in 1784.
 
 230 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 1772) Baer managed to surround himself with a large number 
 of prominent Talmudists, who had become enthusiastic con- 
 verts to Hasidism ; some of tliem came from arch-rabbinical 
 Lithuania and White Russia. Baer developed the doctrine of 
 Besht, laying particular stress upon the principle of Tzad- 
 dikism. He trained a staff of apostles, who eventually became 
 the founders of Tzaddik dynasties in various parts of Poland 
 and Lithuania. Tzaddikism served as a bait for the common 
 people, who, instead of a rational belief in certain religious 
 truths, preferred to put their blind faith in the human ex- 
 ponents of these truths — in the Tzaddiks. 
 
 The same tendency characterized the activity of another 
 apostle of Besht, Jacob Joseph Cohen, who paid for his de- 
 votion to Hasidism by having to endure the persecutions of his 
 rabbinical colleagues. Having lost tlie post of rabbi in Shar- 
 gorod, Cohen, with the aid of Besht, accepted the position of 
 preacher in Xiemirov, and, after the death of his master, 
 acted as preacher in Polonnoye. Everywhere he was zealously 
 engaged in propagating the Hasidic doctrine by means of the 
 spoken and written word. Jacob Joseph Cohen was the first to 
 attempt a literary exposition of the fundamental principles oi 
 Hasidism. In 1780 he published a collection of sermons, 
 under the title Toldoth Ya'koh Yoseph^ reproducing numerou:- 
 sayings which he had heard from the lips of Besht. While 
 exalting the importance of the Tzaddiks, who were solicitous 
 about the salvation of the common people, Jacob Joseph bit- 
 terly assails the arrogant Talmudists, or '* pseudo-scholars,'"' 
 whose whole religion is limited to book-learning, and whose 
 attitude towards the masses is one of contempt. Jacob Joseph's 
 
 [^ " History of Jacob Joseph " — a clever allusion to the Hebrew 
 text of Gen. xxxvii. 2.]
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 33I 
 
 lK)ok laid the foundation of Hasidic literature, which differs 
 both in content and form not only from rabbinical but also 
 from the earlier Cabalistic literature. 
 
 In the last decades of the eighteenth century, Hasidism 
 spread with incredible rapidity among the Jewish masses of 
 Poland and partly even of Lithuania. Numerous communities 
 saw the rise of Hasidic congregations and the establishment of 
 separate houses of prayer, in which services, characterized by 
 boundless ecstasy, violent shouts, and gestures, were held in 
 accordance with Besht's prescriptions. The Hasidim adopted 
 the Cabalistic prayer-book of Ari, which differed from the ac- 
 cepted liturgy by numerous textual alterations and transposi- 
 tions. They neglected the traditional time limit for morning 
 j)rayers, changed the ritual of slaughtering animals, and some 
 of them were in the habit of dressing themselves in white on the 
 Sabbath. They were fond of whiling away their time in noisy 
 assemblies, and frequently indulged in merry drinking bouts, 
 to foster, in accordance with Besht's precept, " a cheerful dis- 
 position." 
 
 The most characteristic trait of the Hasidim, however, was 
 their boundless veneration of the " holy " Tzaddiks. Though 
 logically the outcome of Hasidism, in practice Tzaddikisra 
 was in many cases its forerunner. The appearance of some 
 miracle-working Tzaddik in a certain neighborhood frequently 
 resulted in wholesale conversions to Hasidism. The Tzaddik's 
 home was overrun by crowds of men and women who in their 
 credulity hoped to obtain a cure for diseases or a remedy for 
 the sterility of their women, or who asked for a blessing, for 
 predictions of the future, or sought advice in practical matters. 
 If, in one case out of many, the Tzaddik succeeded in helping 
 one of his clients, or if one of his guesses or predictions proved
 
 232 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 to be correct, his fame as a miracle-worker was firmly estab- 
 lished, and the population of the neighborhood was sure to be 
 won over to Hasidism. 
 
 The number of Hasidic partisans grew in proportion to the 
 number of Tzaddiks, of whom there were a great many in the 
 last two decades of the eighteenth century. The most authori- 
 tative Tzaddiks came from the circle of Baer of Mezherich. 
 Every one of them either laid his own individual impress upon 
 the doctrine preached by him, or endeavored to adapt himself 
 to the habits of the population of his district. As a result, the 
 Hasidic doctrine branched out rapidly, falling into different 
 varieties. The principal branches of Hasidism were two : that 
 of Poland and Ukraina, and that of Lithuania and White 
 Russia. 
 
 The former was represented by Elimelech of Lizno, in 
 Galicia, Levi Itzhok of Berdychev, Nohum of Chernobyl, and 
 Borukh of Tulchyn, a grandson of Besht. Elimelech of Lizno, 
 who died in 1786, carried the doctrine of practical Tzaddikism 
 to its radical conclusions. He preached that the first duty 
 of the Hasid consists in reverence for the Tzaddik. The 
 Tzaddik is " a middleman between Israel and God." Through 
 his intercession God bestows upon the faithful all earthly 
 blessings — "life, children, and sustenance"*; if the Tzaddik 
 wills otherwise, the flow of blessings is stopped. The Hasid is 
 therefore obliged to have blind faith in the Tzaddik, to look 
 upon him as his benefactor, and to give him of his means. The 
 Tzaddik should be supported by donations in cash and in kind, 
 so that he may devote himself wholly to the service of God and 
 thereby prove a blessing to mankind. 
 
 * Hayyc. ione, u-mezone [allusion to a well-known Talmudic 
 dictum; Mo'ed Katan 28"].
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 233 
 
 This commercial theoiy of an exchange of services accom- 
 plished its purpose. The people brought their last pennies 
 to the Tzaddik, and the Tzaddik in turn was indefatigable 
 in bestowing blessings, pouring forth divine favors upon earth, 
 healing the cripples, curing the sterility of women, and so on. 
 The profitable calling of Tzaddik became hereditary, passing 
 from father to son and grandson. Everywhere petty " dynas- 
 ties" of Tzaddiks sprang up, which multiplied rapidly and 
 endeavored to wrest the supremacy from one another. Such 
 was the fate of the cult of the Kighteous taught by Besht, 
 which now assumed gross materialistic forms. 
 
 It is fair to add, however, that not everywhere did Tzaddik- 
 ism sink to such low depths. There were Tzaddiks who were 
 idealists, lovers of mankind, and saintly men, however strange 
 the forms in which these virtues often manifested themselves. 
 One of these men, to quote one instance, was Levi Itzhok of 
 Berdychev, who in his youth had been cruelly persecuted by 
 the Lithuanian rabbis for his devotion to Hasidism. Towards 
 the end of the eighteenth century he settled in Berdychev as 
 Tzaddik, and became tremendously popular in his new calling 
 on account of his saintly life and his fatherly love for the com- 
 mon people. Speaking generally, however, the Ukrainian, 
 Podolian, and Galician Tzaddiks had one tendency in common, 
 that of inculcating in their followers a blind faith in the truths 
 of Hasidism and shunning all " speculation " as injurious to 
 religious sentiment. 
 
 The development of Hasidism in Lithuania and White Eus- 
 sia was altogether different. Whereas in the south Hasidism 
 captured entire communities at one stroke, meeting with feeble 
 resistance from the dry-as-dust representatives of Rabbinism,
 
 234 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 in the north it was forced to engage in a hitler struggle for 
 existence with powerful Babbinism as represented by the Kahal 
 organization. At the same time it received a special coloring 
 there. The Hasidism of Besht, having been carried to the 
 north by the disciples of Baer of ]\Iezherich, Aaron of Karlin, 
 Mendel of Vitebsk, and Zalmau of Ladi, could not help 
 absorbing many elements of the dominant doctrine of Eabbin- 
 ism. The principal exponent of this new teaching in the 
 North, Zalman Shneorsohn ' (died 1813), of Lozno, and later 
 of Ladi, both in the Government of Moghilev, succeeded in 
 creating a remarkable system of thouglit, which may well be 
 designated as " rational Hasidism." He summed up his 
 theory in the words : " Wisdom, Understanding, and Klnowl- 
 edge." ' 
 
 While in the main adopting the doctrine of Besht, Zalman 
 injected into it the method of religious and philosophic investi- 
 gation. " Speculation " in matters of faith — within certain 
 limits, of course — was, in his opinion, not only permissible 
 but even obligatory. He demanded that the Tzaddik be, 
 not a miracle-worker, but a religious teacher. He purged 
 Hasidism of numerous vulgar superstitions, robbing it at the 
 same time of the childlike ndiveU which characterized the 
 original doctrine of Besht. Zalman's ovra theory was adapted 
 to the comparatively high intellectual level of the Jewish popu- 
 lation of the Northwest. In the South it was never able to 
 gain adherents. 
 
 [* His full name was Slineor Zalman, which Is used by the author 
 later on. Subsequently he assumed the family name Shneorsohn.] 
 
 ^ In Hebrew, Hokma, Bina, Da'ath, abbreviated to HaBaD, 
 from which the White Russian Hasidim received the nickname 
 " Habadniks."
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 235 
 
 7. Eabbinism, Hasidism, and the Forerunners of 
 Enlightenment 
 
 Rabbinism had long been scenting a dangerous enemy in 
 Hasidism. The principle proclaimed by Besht, that man is 
 saved by faith and not by religious knowledge, was in violent 
 contradiction with the fundamental dogma of Eabbinism, 
 which measured the religious worth of a man by the extent 
 of his Talmudic learning. The rabbi looked upon the Tzaddik 
 as a dangerous rival, as a new type of popular priest, who, 
 feeding on the superstition of the masses, rapidly gained 
 their confidence. The lower Jewish classes abandoned the 
 uninspiring Talmudist, whose subtleties they failed to compre- 
 hend, and flocked to the miracle-working Tzaddik, who offered 
 them, not only his practical advice, but also his blessing, thus 
 saving soul and body at one and the same time. However, 
 completely defeated by Hasidism in the South, Eabbinism still 
 reigned supreme in the North, and finally declared a war of 
 extermination against its rival. 
 
 During the period under discussion, in the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century, the leader of the Lithuanian rabbis was 
 Elijah of Vilna (1720-1797), who received the ancient, high- 
 sounding title of Gaon.* He was the incarnation of that 
 power of intellect which was the product of subtle Talmudic 
 reasoning. Early in his childhood Elijah displayed phenome- 
 nal ability. At the age of six he managed to read the Talmudic 
 text without the aid of a teacher. At the age of ten he 
 participated in difficult Talmudic discussions, amazing old 
 rabbis by his erudition. His mind rapidly absorbed everything 
 that came within its range. Elijah was familiar with the 
 Cabala, and incidentally picked up enough of mathematics, 
 
 ' N'nan [Hagro. abbreviation of HaGaon Rahhi /:;(;< = o)lia].
 
 236 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 astronomy, and physics, to be able to follow cejtain discussions 
 in the Talmud. He lived in Vilna as a recluse, leading the life 
 of an ascete and burying himself entirely in his books. He took 
 little nourishment, slept two hours a day, rarely conversed 
 about secular affairs, his contact with the outside world being 
 practically limited to the Talmudic lectures which he delivered 
 before his pupils. 
 
 Elijah avoided the method of pilpul, which was meant to 
 exercise the mind by inventing artificial contradictions in the 
 Talmudic text and subsequently removing them. Knowing 
 by heart almost the entire Tahnudic and rabbinic literature, 
 he had no difficulty in solving the most complicated questions 
 of Jewish law, and, guided by subtle ci'itical observations, 
 occasionally allowed himself to emend the text of the Tal- 
 mud. Elijah Gaon wrote commentaries and all sorts of 
 " annotations " to Biblical, Talmudic, and Cabalistic books, 
 but his style was, as a rule, careless, consisting of hints, refer- 
 ences, and abbreviations, intelligible only to the learned reader. 
 In his spare moments he occasionally wrote about Hebrew gram- 
 mar and mathematical sciences. Eabbinical learning was his 
 native element, embodying for him the whole meaning of 
 religion. In questions of religious ceremonialism he was a 
 rigorist, adding here and there new restrictions to the multi- 
 farious injunctions of the Shulhan Arukh. He was the idol 
 of all the learned rabbis of Lithuania and other countries, 
 but the masses understood him as little as he understood them. 
 A spiritual aristocrat, he was bound to condemn severely the 
 " plebeian " doctrine of Hasidism. The latter offended in 
 him equally the learned Talmudist, the rigorous ascete, and 
 the strict guardian of ceremonial Judaism, of which cer- 
 tain minutiae had been modified by the Hasidim after their 
 own fashion.
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 237 
 
 As far back as 1T72, wlieii tlie first na>:i(lic sociotios were 
 secretly organized in Lithuania, and several of their leaders 
 were discovered in Vilna, the rabbinical Kahal court of that, 
 city pronounced, with the permission of Elijah Gaon, the 
 herem against the sectarians. From Vilna circulars were sent 
 out to the rabbis of other communities, calling upon them to 
 wage war against the "godless sect." In many towns of 
 Lithuania tlie Hasidim became the object of persecution. The 
 rabbis of Galicia, having been forewarned from Vilna, fol- 
 lowed suit, and at a meeting held in Brody, during the local 
 fair, issued a most rigorous herem against every Jew following 
 the Hasidic liturgy, dressing in white on Saturdays and 
 holidays/ and in general participating in the conventicles of 
 the Hasidim. 
 
 We have already had occasion ^ to refer to the work of the 
 Hasidic apostle Jacob Joseph Cohen (Toldoth Ya'hoh Yoseph), 
 which for the first time reproduced the sayings of Besht, and, 
 by way of comment, indulged in attacks upon the scholastic 
 "pseudo-wisdom" of the rabbis. Cohen's work, which appeared 
 in 1780, once more stirred the rabbinical w^orld. From Vilna 
 the signal was given for a new campaign against the Hasidim. 
 The rabbis of Lithuania, assembling in 1781 at the fair of 
 Zelva, in the Government of Grodno, issued appeals to all 
 Jewish communities, demanding the severest possible penal- 
 ties for " the dishonorable followers of Besht, the destroyer 
 of Israel." All orthodox Jews were called upon to ostracize the 
 Hasidim socially, to regard them as infidels, to shun all eon- 
 tact and avoid intermarriage with them, and to refrain from 
 
 ' The custom of wearing white garments was adopted, for 
 certain mystical considerations, by the Tzaddiks and the most 
 pious of their followers. 
 
 ' See p. 230.
 
 238 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 burying their dead. The opponents of the Hasidim called 
 themselves Mithnagdim, " Protestants," and persecuted them 
 everywhere as dangerous schismatics. 
 
 The formation of important Hasidic societies in White 
 Russia, under the leadership of Zalman Shneorsohn, increased 
 the agitation of the Mithnagdim, At the rabbinical confer- 
 ences held in Moghilev and Shklov severe measures were 
 adopted against the Hasidim, and their leader was proclaimed 
 a heretic. In vain did Zalman defend himself, and, in his 
 epistles to the rabbis, demonstrate his Orthodoxy. In vain did 
 he travel to Vilna to obtain a personal interview with Elijah 
 Gaon and remove the stain of heresy from himself and his fol- 
 lowers. The stern Gaon refused even to see the exponent of 
 heterodoxy. At the very end of the eighteenth century the 
 strife of parties in Russian Jewry became more and more 
 accentuated, and finally led, as we shall see later,* to the inter- 
 ference of the Russian Government. 
 
 While warring with one another, Rabbinism and Hasidism 
 found a point of contact in their common hatred of the new 
 Enlightenment, which proceeded from the Mendelssohn circle 
 in Berlin. If Rabbinism opposed secular knowledge actively, 
 looking upon it as a competitor who contested its own spiritual 
 monopoly, Hasidism opposed it passively, with its whole being, 
 prompted by an irresistible leaning towards mental drowsi- 
 ness and " pious fraud." Hasidism and its inseparable com- 
 panion Tzaddikism, the products of a mystical outlook on life, 
 were powerless against cold logical reasoning. It stands to 
 reason that the Tzaddiks were even more hostile towards 
 secular learning than the rabbis. True, Rabbinism had im- 
 mersed the Jewish mind in the stagnant waters of scholas- 
 
 ' See pp. 377 et seq.
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 239 
 
 ticism, but Hasidism, in its further development, endeavored 
 altogether to lull rational thinking to sleep, and to cultivate, 
 to an excessive degree, the religious imagination at its expense. 
 The new cultural movement which had arisen among the Jews 
 of Germany had no chance of penetrating into this dark realm, 
 which was guarded on the one hand by scholasticism and on 
 the other by mysticism. The few isolated individuals in Polish 
 Jewry who manifested a leaning towards secular culture were 
 forced to go abroad, primarily to Berlin. 
 
 One of these rare fugitives from tlie realm of darkness was 
 Solomon Maimon (1754-1800). He was born the son of a 
 village arendar in Lithuania, near Xesvizh, in the Govern- 
 ment of Minsk, where he received a Talmudic education, and 
 where, having scarcely reached the age of twelve, he was mar- 
 ried off by his old-fashioned parents. However, unlike thou- 
 sands of other Jewish lads, he managed to escape spiritual death 
 in the mire of everyday life. Endowed with a searching mind, 
 Solomon !Maimon was driven constantly onward in his mental 
 development. From the Talmud he passed to the Cabala, in 
 which at one time he was completely absorbed. From the 
 Cabala he made a sudden leap to the religious philosophy of 
 Maimonides and other medieval Jewish rationalists. His 
 youthful intellect was eager for new impressions, and these his 
 immediate surroundings failed to give him. In 1777 Maimon 
 left home and family, and went to Germany to acquire secular 
 culture. He found himself first in Konigsberg, and then pro- 
 ceeded to Berlin, Posen, Hamburg, and Breslau, enduring all 
 kinds of suffering, and tasting to the full the bitterness of a 
 wanderer's life in a strange land. In Berlin he came in contact 
 with Mendelssohn and his circle, rapidly acquired a knowledge 
 16
 
 240 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 of German literature and science, and made a deep study of 
 philosophy, particularly of the system of Kant. 
 
 The sudden transition from rabbinic scholasticism to the 
 " Critical Philosophy " of Germany, and from the primitive 
 existence of a Lithuanian Jew to the free life of an educated 
 European, destroyed Maimon's mental equilibrium. He fell a 
 prey to skepticism and unbelief, denying the foundations of all 
 religion and morality, and led a disorderly life, which made 
 his best friends turn from him. In his philosophic criticism, 
 Maimon went much further than Kant. In 1790 he published 
 in German " A Tentative Investigation of Transcendental 
 Philosophy," and this book was followed by a number of 
 writings dealing with metaphysics and logic. Kant, on read- 
 ing his first book, made the remark : " Xo one among my 
 opponents has grasped the essence of my system as profoundly 
 as Maimon, nor are there altogether many men endowed 
 with so refined and penetrating a mind in questions so 
 abstract and complex." In 1792 Solomon ]\faimon published 
 his " Autobiography " (Lehensgeschichte) , a remarkable book, 
 in which he vividly describes the conditions of life and the 
 ideas prevalent among Polit^li Lithuanian Jews as well as his 
 own sad Odyssey. The Autobiography made a profound im- 
 pression upon educated Christians, among others on Goethe 
 and Schiller. The last years of his life Maimon spent in 
 Silesia, on the estate of his friend Count Kalkreuth, where 
 he continued his philosophic studies. He died in 1800, and 
 was buried in Glogau. During the last years of his life Maimon 
 was completely estranged from Judaism. He contributed next 
 to nothing to the enlightenment of his fellow-Jews, the only 
 work written by him in Hebrew being an uncompleted com- 
 mentary on Maimouides' " Guide of the Perplexed." Having
 
 THE INNER LIFE DURING THE DECLINE 241 
 
 escaped the realm of darkness, he no more returned thither. 
 Nor perhaps was he able to do so without risking the same fate 
 as Uriel Acosta. 
 
 The time for cultural rejuvenation had not yet arrived for 
 the Jews of Poland and Lithuania. Least of all could such a 
 rejuvenation have been stimulated by the change in their 
 external, political situation : the transfer of the bulk of the 
 Jewish population from the power of disintegrating Poland 
 to that of Russia, a country even less civilized and built upon 
 the foundations of autocracy and serfdom.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 
 (TILL 1772) 
 
 1. The Anti-Jewish Attitude of Muscovy during the 
 Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 
 
 The Empire of Muscovy, shut off from Western Europe by 
 a Chinese — or, more correctly, Byzantine — wall, maintained 
 during the sixteenth century its attitude of utmost prejudice 
 towards the Jews, and refused to admit them into its borders. 
 This prejudice was part of the general disfavor with which the 
 Russian people of that period, imbued as it was with the 
 traditions of Tataric-Byzantine culture, looked upon foreigners 
 or " infidels." But the prejudice against the Jews was fed, 
 in addition, from a specific source. The recollection of the 
 " Judaizing heresy " which had struck terror to the hearts 
 of the pious Muscovites at the end of the fifteenth and the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century ' had not yet died out. The 
 Jews were regarded as dangerous magicians and seducers, 
 superstitious rumors ascribing all possible crimes to them. 
 The ambassador of the Muscovite Grand Duke, Basil III., 
 at Rome, observed in 1526 to the Italian scholar Paolo Giovio : 
 " The Muscovite people dread no one more than the Jews, and 
 do not admit them into their borders." 
 
 Jewish merchants of Poland and Lithuania visited occasion- 
 ally, in connection with their business affairs, the border city 
 Smolensk, but they had no permanent residence there. From 
 time to time they would carry their goods even into the capital, 
 
 * See p. 36 and p. 37.
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 213 
 
 Moscow, although such daring did not always pass unpunished. 
 About 1545 the goods imported by Jewish merchants from 
 Brest-Litovsk to Moscow were burned there, on which occasion 
 the Muscovite ambassador called the attention of the Polish 
 Government to the fact that the Jews had imported forbidden 
 merchandise to Russia, though they had not even the right to 
 travel thither. In 1550 the Polish King Sigismund Augustus 
 addressed a "charter " to Tzar Ivan the Terrible (Ivan IV.), 
 demanding the admission of Lithuanian Jews into Russia for 
 business purposes, by virtue of the former commercial treaties 
 between the two countries. Ivan IV. rejected this demand in 
 resolute terms : 
 
 It is not convenient to allow Jews to come with their goods to 
 Russia, since many evils result from them. For they import 
 poisonous herbs [medicines] into our realm, and lead astray the 
 Russians from Christianity. Therefore he, the [Polish] King, 
 should no more write about these Jews. 
 
 Ivan the Terrible soon had occasion to demonstrate con- 
 cretely that he was not inclined to tolerate Jews in his domains. 
 When, in 1563, the Russian troops occupied the Polish border 
 city Polotzk,' the Tzar gave orders to have all local Jews 
 converted to the Greek Orthodox faith, and those who refused 
 baptism drowned in the Dvina. His attitude towards the Poles 
 was more indulgent. He contented himself in their case 
 with taking them captive and demolishing their churches. 
 Fortunately a few years later, in 1579, Polotzk was restored to 
 Poland through the bravery of Stephen Batory, the protector 
 of the Jews. 
 
 [* In the present Russian Government of Vitebsk, to be distin- 
 guished from Plotzk, in Polish, Plock. the capital of the Govern- 
 ment of the same name in Russian Poland, on the right bank of the 
 Vistula.]
 
 244 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 These primitive forms of denominational politics continued 
 for a long time to prevail in Muscovy. The Jews of Poland 
 and Lithuania managed, though illegally, to visit the capital 
 in the interest of their business. With the influx of Poles into 
 Moscow during the so-called " period of unrest," the interreg- 
 num preceding the establishment of the Eomanov dynasty in 
 1613, a goodly number of Jews penetrated into Eussia. The 
 Muscovites became alarmed, and their apprehensions found 
 expression in IGIO, when the noblemen of Moscow were con- 
 ducting negotiations with Poland looking to tlie election of 
 the Polish Crown Prince Vladislav to the Russian tlirone. 
 An agreement was concluded, consisting of twenty clauses, 
 setting forth the conditions on which the noblemen were will- 
 ing to vote for Vladislav, The fourth clause of this agreement 
 runs as follows : 
 
 No churches or temples of the Latin or any other faith shall 
 be allowed in Russia. No one shall be induced to adopt the 
 Roman or any other religion, and the Jews shall not be allowed 
 to enter the jNIuscovite Empire either on business or in connec- 
 tion with any other affairs. 
 
 In these circumstances the Jews were deprived of all 
 opportunity to develop commercial life in the reactionary 
 Empire. Forty years later this same Empire pushed its way 
 into the territories of Poland and Lithuania, which were 
 populated by Jews, and the policy of Musco\-y was destined to 
 reveal its creative genius in the domain of the Jewish question. 
 
 The first contact of the Muscovite Empire with large Jewish 
 masses took place when the province of Little Russia was 
 annexed by Tzar Alexis Michaelovich in 1654. When the 
 Russian troops, allied with the Cossacks, overran White Rus- 
 sia, Lithuania, and the Ukraina, they were struck by the
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 245 
 
 undreamed-of spectacle of cities in which entire quarters were 
 populated by Jews, a strange people about which the unenlight- 
 ened Muscovites knew nothing except that once upon a time 
 they had crucified Christ, and for this reason were not allowed 
 to enter pious, Greek Orthodox Eussia. Alexis Michaelovich 
 and his military commanders began after their own fashion 
 to play the masters in the temporarily occupied Polish prov- 
 inces. In Vilna and Moghilev the Jews were murdered, and 
 those who survived were expelled. In Vitebsk the Jews were 
 made prisoners of war, while in other cities they were assaulted 
 and plundered.^ 
 
 As a result the Muscovite Empire soon found within its 
 precincts a strangely composed Jewish population, consisting 
 of prisoners of war, who had been carried off principally from 
 the border towns of the Government of Moghilev, and had been 
 deported to the central provinces of Eussia, and in some cases 
 even as far as Siberia. By the Peace of Andrusovo, concluded 
 in 1667 between Eussia and Poland, the prisoners of war of 
 both countries were given their freedom, but the captive Jews 
 were allowed to remain in Muscovy. These Jews formed the 
 nucleus of a small Jewish colony in Moscow, which grew up 
 gradually, and in which occasionally even converts were to be 
 found. It seems that with the aid of these " legal " Jewish 
 residents other " illegal " Jews, from the neighboring regions 
 of Lithuania and White Eussia, managed to penetrate to 
 Moscow. A few Jewish merchants, particularly those trading 
 in cloth, succeeded in obtaining an official permit, the so-called 
 " red ticket," to visit the capital. However, in 1676 the pro- 
 hibition against Jews entering Moscow was renewed. Only jn 
 the portion of the TJkraina which had been annexed by Eussia, 
 
 ' See pp. 153 et seq.
 
 246 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 in the provinces of Chernigov and Poltava, and a part of the 
 province of Kiev, there could still be found small groups of 
 Jews who had survived the Cossack massacres of 1648. More- 
 over, from the Polish section of the Ukraipa, Jews occasionally 
 came on business into these Cossack districts, notwithstanding 
 the fact that, according to Russian law, the Jews were barred 
 from residing within the borders of Little Eussia. 
 
 2. The Jews under Peter I. and His Successors 
 
 This treatment of the Jews did not improve even in the 
 new Russia, in which Peter the Great, the Tzar-Reformer, " had 
 broken through a window into Europe." True, Peter's reforms 
 effected a change for the better in the attitude of the isolated, 
 unenlightened Empire towards foreigners, but this change did 
 not extend to the Jews. We know of no laws enacted during his 
 reign which might illustrate the views of the new Government 
 on the Jewish question. There is reason to believe that the 
 Tzar, in allowing the former enactments against the admission 
 of Jews into Russia to remain in force, took into account the 
 primitive habits and prejudices of his people. A contempo- 
 rary witness narrates that, in 1698, during Peter's stay in 
 Holland, the Jews of Amsterdam requested the burgomaster 
 Witsen to petition the Tzar concerning the admission of their 
 coreligionists into Russia. After listening to the convincing 
 arguments of Witsen, with whom he was on a very friendly 
 footing, Peter replied : 
 
 My dear Witsen, you know the Jews, and you know their char- 
 acter and habits; you also know the Russians. I know both, and 
 believe me, the time has not yet come to unite the two nationalities. 
 Tell the Jews that I am obliged to them for their proposition, and 
 that I realize how advantageous their services would be to me, but
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 247 
 
 that I should have to pity them were they to live in the midst of 
 the Russians. 
 
 Discounting the element of anecdote in this story, we may 
 reasonably assume that Peter did not think it entirely harm- 
 less for the Jewish emigrants to settle among the benighted 
 Russian masses, which had been accustomed to look upon the 
 Jew as some kind of sea-monster, and as an infidel and Christ- 
 killer. It is possible that Peter was prompted by similar con- 
 siderations when he refused to admit the Jews into the central 
 provinces of Russia. 
 
 However, from another source we learn that the " reformer " 
 of Russia was not free from anti-Jewish prejudices, though 
 they were not always of a religious nature. 
 
 While inviting skilful foreigners from all over — says the Rus- 
 sian historian Solovyov — Peter made a permanent exception but 
 for one people — the Jews. " I prefer," he was wont to say, " to see 
 in our midst nations professing Mohammedanism and paganism 
 rather than Jews. They are rogues and cheats. It is my endeavor 
 to eradicate evil and not to multiply it. They shall not be allowed 
 either to live or to trade in Russia, whatever efforts they may 
 make, and however much they may try to bribe those near me." 
 
 Of course, only a goodly dose of anti-Semitic bias could 
 prompt a view which regards in this light the economic activity 
 of the Jews among the Russian merchants, those same mer- 
 chants who had of yore given expression to their commercial 
 principles in the well-known Russian dictum, " If you don't 
 cheat, you don't sell." 
 
 It is possible that Peter was not unfamiliar with anti-Jewish 
 prejudices of a more objectionable kind. In 1702 reports were 
 received in Moscow from Little Russia, that in the town of 
 Gorodnya, near Chernigov, " the Jews had tortured a Christian 
 to death, and had sent his blood to a number of Jews in
 
 248 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Little Russian towns." The descendants of Khmelnitzki had 
 evidently succeeded in importing into Eussia what was at that 
 time a fashionable article in Poland, the charge of ritual mur- 
 der, and these obscure rumors may have affected injuriously 
 the attitude of the Russian Tzar towards the Jews. 
 
 On the other hand, we are informed that, during the Russo- 
 Swedish War, when the Russian army was operating on the 
 Polish border territory, populated by Jews, Peter the Great 
 refrained from repeating the pogrom experiments of his 
 father, Alexis Michaelovich. In August, 1708, shortly before 
 the celebrated battle at Lesnaya, in White Russia, he checked 
 a military riot against the Jews which had been started in 
 Mstislavl. A brief Hebrew entry in the local Kahal journal, 
 or PinJces, runs as follows : 
 
 On the twenty-eighth of Elul, in the year 5468, there came the 
 Csesar, who is called the Tzar of Muscovy, by the name of Peter, 
 the son of Alexis, with his whole suite, an immense, numberless 
 host. Robbers and murderers from among his people fell upon us, 
 without his knowledge, and it almost came to bloodshed. And if 
 the Lord Almighty had not put it into the heart of the Tzar to 
 enter our synagogue in his own person, blood would certainly have 
 been shed. It was only with the help of God that the Tzar saved 
 us, and took revenge for us, by giving orders that thirteen men 
 from among them [the rioters] be immediately hanged, and the 
 land became quiet. 
 
 During the last years of his reign, Peter began to admit 
 Jewish financial agents to his new capital, St. Petersburg. 
 One of the most energetic financial agents at that time was 
 the " court Jew " Lipman Levy, a banker from Courland, who 
 attained to particular prominence under Peter's successors. 
 
 Under the immediate successors of Peter the Great the 
 " defensive " policy towards the Jews gradually became an
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 249 
 
 " offensive " one. The magnates at the Russian court, who 
 dominated Russia under the label of " The Supreme Secret 
 Council," called attention to the unnecessary proximity of the 
 Jewish colony in Smolensk to the center of the Empire. The 
 district of Smolensk bordering on Poland harbored a group 
 of White Russian Jews, who earned a livelihood by a trade 
 profitable at tliat time, the lease of excise and customs duties. 
 One of these big tax-farmers, a certain Borukh Leibov (son of 
 Leib), even had the courage to build a synagogue for the 
 few Jews of the village of Zverovich. This aroused the 
 ire of the local Greek Ortliodox priest, who in his naivete 
 was convinced that the establishment of a synagogue would 
 result in diverting his flock from the Church and con- 
 verting it to Judaism. The inhabitants began to bombard St. 
 Petersburg with their protests, the elders of the Holy Synod 
 became alarmed, the specter of the " Judaizing heresy" once 
 more flitted across their vision, and, as a result, Empress 
 Catherine I. issued, in March, 1727, an ukase ' through the 
 Supreme Secret Council, that Borukh and his associates be 
 removed from their office in connection with the excise and 
 customs duties, and " be deported immediately from Russia 
 beyond the border." 
 
 A month later another even stricter ukase was promulgated 
 by the Empress through the Supreme Secret Council, which af- 
 fected all Jews in the border provinces, particularly those resid- 
 ing in Little Russia. The ukase decreed that " the Jews, both 
 of the male and the female sex, who have settled in the Ukraina 
 and in other Russian cities, be deported immediately from 
 
 [* Pronounced ookaz, with the accent on the last syllable. The 
 original meaning of the word is " indication," " instruction." It is 
 applied to orders issued by the Tzar himself or, in the name of 
 the Tzar, by the Senate.]
 
 250 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 llussia beyond the border, and in no circumstances be admitted 
 into Russia, of which fact they sliall in all places be strictly 
 forewarned." The exiles were forbidden to carry gold and 
 silver coins abroad, into the Polish dominions. They were 
 ordered to exchange them for copper money prior to their 
 expulsion. This ukase was a gross violation not only of the 
 ancient rights of the Jews who had been left in Little Russia 
 after its annexation by Muscovy, but also of the autonomy 
 of the province and its elective authorities, the hetmans, to 
 whom the right of initiative belonged in such cases. 
 
 The arbitrariness of the central Government called forth the 
 protest of the Little Russian Cossacks, who were otherwise far 
 from friendly to the Jews. In the name of " the Zaporozhian 
 army on both sides of the Dnieper " ' Hetman Daniel Apostol 
 addressed a petition to St. Petersburg, pleading for the ad- 
 mission of traveling Jewish salesmen to the Little Russian 
 fairs, in view of their commercial usefulness. A reply to 
 this petition may be found in an ukase which the Supreme 
 Secret Council issued in 1728, in the name of Emperor 
 Peter II., the latter still being a minor. One of its clauses 
 runs thus : 
 
 The Jews are permitted to visit temporarily the fairs of Little 
 Russia for commercial purposes, but they are only allowed to sell 
 their goods wholesale, and not retail, by ells and in pounds. The 
 money taken in from the sale of these goods shall be used to buy 
 other goods. In no circumstances shall they be allowed to carry 
 gold and silver money from Little Russia abroad. . . . The [per- 
 manent] residence of the Jews in Little Russia is forbidden by 
 virtue of the ukase of the previous year, 1727. 
 
 ^ Little Russia possessed at that time its own military organiza- 
 tion, consisting of regiments and " hundreds," under the command 
 of native officers. At the head of the organization stood the 
 commander-in-chief, called hetman fsee p. 143, n. 1].
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 251 
 
 In this way the Jews who had been illegally depoi-ted were 
 now " graciously " granted the right of temporary visits to the 
 fairs. Moreover, even this right was hedged about by severe 
 restrictions, such as the prohibition of retail business, and the 
 compulsion of leaving in the country the money taken in for 
 their goods, for the purpose of equalizing imports and exports. 
 
 In 1731, this act of " grace " was extended to the Govern- 
 ment of Smolensk, and three years later another concession 
 was wrested from the authorities. The representatives of the 
 " Border Province of Sloboda," the present Government of 
 Kharkov, petitioned the Eussian ruler to grant permission to 
 tlie Jews visiting the fairs to sell their goods not only wholesale 
 but also retail, " by ells and in pounds," in view of the fact 
 that "in the Sloboda regiments there are few business men, 
 and their trade is unsatisfactory." Empress Anna complied 
 with the request in 1774. In the same year the privilege con- 
 cerning the retail trade of Jews at the fairs was extended to 
 the whole of Little Eussia, in compliance with a petition of its 
 Christian inhabitants. 
 
 But this avalanche of " favors " and " privileges " — the 
 partial restoration of rights which had been grossly trampled 
 upon — suddenly stopped, and was followed by a series of cruel 
 repressions. The change was prompted by the Muscovite fear 
 of Jews, the traditional dread felt by the Eussian people of the 
 specter of " Jewish seduction." An occurrence had taken 
 place which was enough to strike terror to the hearts of 
 people with old Muscovite notions. The above-mentioned tax- 
 farmer of Smolensk, Borukh Leibov, who, even after his expul- 
 sion, continued to cross the forbidden Polish-Eussian frontier, 
 had occasion, during his stay in Moscow, to come in close 
 contact with Alexander Voznitzin, a retired captain of the
 
 252 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 navy, and "seduced him." Vozuitzin, who was wont to 
 speculate about religious matters, studied the Bible under the 
 guidance of his Jewish friend, and his eyes were opened. He 
 realized that the Biblical doctrine of one God was incompatible 
 with the dogmas of the Greek Church and with the cult of 
 ikons, in which he had been brought up. Voznitzin became 
 convinced of the truth of Judaism, and, having made up his 
 mind to embrace the Jewish religion, he decided to brave the 
 difficulties and dangers which such a step implied. He went to 
 the little town of Dubrovna, in the Government of Moghilev, 
 near Smolensk, where the son of Borukh Leibov resided, to 
 undergo there the ceremony of circumcision and accept the 
 principles and practices of Judaism. Voznitzin's conversion 
 became known, and the Captain, together with his teacher 
 Borukh, were brought to justice. They were conveyed to St. 
 Petersburg, and turned over to the awe-inspiring " Chancellery 
 for Secret Inquisitorial Affairs." 
 
 The accused were put on the rack and confessed their 
 " crimes." Voznitzin admitted having embraced " the Jewish 
 law," and having uttered "blasphemous words against the 
 Holy Church," while Borukh Leibov owned that he had 
 " seduced " Voznitzin from the path of Greek Orthodoxy. In 
 addition, Borukh was accused of having, " together with other 
 Jews," predisposed the common people in Smolensk in favor 
 of the Jewish religion, and of having insulted, by word and 
 deed, the local Russian Pope Abramius, in connection with 
 the establishment of a Jewish synagogue in the village of 
 Zverovich. The latter crimes, however, were not investigated 
 further in view of the fact that the conversion of Voznitzin 
 was sufficient to inflict the death penalty on Borukh. The 
 Inquisitorial Court hastened to announce its verdict, basing
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 053 
 
 it upon the " statute " of Tzar Alexis Michaelovicli. The 
 report of the Senate elicited in 1738 an Imperial resolution,' 
 decreeing that " both of them [Voznitzin and Borukh] shall 
 be executed and burned, in order that other ignorant and 
 godless people, witnessing this, shall not turn away from the 
 Christian law, and such seducers as the above-mentioned Jew 
 Borukh shall not dare to lead them astray from the Christian 
 law and convert them to their own laws." The auto-da-fe 
 took place in St. Petersburg, on a public square, in the presence 
 of a large crowd of spectators, on July 15, 1738. 
 
 This one isolated incident was sufficient to rekindle in the 
 Government circles of St. Petersburg the inveterate Mus- 
 covite hatred against "unbaptized Jews" and to justify 
 further violence against them. It had come to the knowledge 
 of the authorities that, contrary to the ukase of 1727, numer- 
 ous Jews were still residing in Little Eussia, being employed 
 on the estates of the Eussian landowners as arendars and inn- 
 keepers. It had also been ascertained that the Jews who came 
 from the Polish part of the Ukraina to visit the fairs in many 
 cases settled permanently in Little Eussia. The Government 
 found such a state of affairs unendurable. In 1739 the Senate 
 decreed the expulsion of the Jews from Little Eussia, whither 
 in recent years they had penetrated " from the other side of the 
 Dnieper." In reply to this Senatorial rescript, the Military 
 Chancellery of Little Eussia reported that an immediate expul- 
 sion of the Jews was fraught with danger, on account of the 
 war with Turkey, which was going on at that time, " since their 
 present expulsion might be accompanied by spying." The 
 Cabinet of Ministers, acting upon the representation of the 
 
 [^ The term " resolution " (in Russian, resolutzia) is applied to 
 a decision written by the Tzar in his own hand on the margin of 
 the reports submitted to him.]
 
 254 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Senate, passed the resolution, that " the expulsioi. of the Jews 
 shall be postponed until the termination of the present Turk- 
 ish War." When the war was over, Empress Anna issued an 
 ukase, in 1740, ordering the execution of the postponed expul- 
 sion. The number of Jews liable to expulsion was found to be 
 293 of the male sex and 281 of the female sex, who resided 
 on 130 manorial estates, altogether a handful of 573 Jewish 
 souls, who had obtained shelter on the outskirts of Russia. 
 
 3. Elizabeth Petrovna and the First Years of 
 Catherine II. 
 
 The policy of religious intolerance was practiced assiduously 
 during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna (1741-1761) . During 
 the reign of this Empress, who divided her time between 
 church services and court-balls, the persecutions of the adher- 
 ents of other faiths were intensified. By order of the Holy 
 Synod and the Senate, Greek Orthodoxy began to be dissemin- 
 ated among the pagan nationalities of the East, while those of 
 them who, under the influence of the Tatars, had embraced 
 Mohammedanism, were subjected to fines unless they adopted 
 the religion of the state. In the hope of suppressing the 
 Mohammedan propaganda, orders were given to demolish the 
 mosques in many villages of the Governments of Kazan and 
 Astrakhan. The destruction of the mosques was stopped only 
 by the fear of Turkish reprisals, "in order that this rumor 
 shall not reach those countries in which adherents of the 
 Greek Orthodox persuasion live in the midst of Mohammedans, 
 and that the churches existing there shall not suffer oppres- 
 sion." 
 
 The Jews living in the border provinces were subjected to 
 similar treatment: they were expelled with one hand and
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 255 
 
 pushed into the doors of the church with the other. Towards 
 the end of 1741, Elizabeth Petrovna issued a remarkable ukase. 
 Referring to the decree of 1737 concerning the expulsion of 
 Jews, the Empress states that " it has now come to our knowl- 
 edge that some Jews in our Empire, and particularly in 
 Little Russia, continue to live there under all kinds of pre- 
 tence, being engaged in business or in keeping inns and taverns, 
 from which circumstance no benefit of any kind, but, coming 
 from such haters of the name of our Savior Christ, only 
 extreme injury, can accrue to our faithful subjects." Hence 
 the Empress " most graciously " commands that 
 
 from our whole Empire, both from the Great Russian and Little 
 Russian cities, villages, and hamlets, all Jews of the male and 
 female sex, of whatever calling and dignity they may be, shall, at 
 the publication of this our ukase, be immediately deported with all 
 their property abroad, and shall henceforward, under no pretext, 
 be admitted into our Empire for any purpose; unless they shall 
 be willing to accept the Christian religion of the Greek per- 
 suasion. Such [Jews], having been baptized, shall be allowed to 
 live in our Empire, but they shall not be permitted to go outside 
 the country. 
 
 The ukase was to be printed and promulgated in the whole 
 Empire, so as to gain wide circulation among the people and to 
 inculcate in the Russian masses the proper sentiments towards 
 " the haters of the name of our Savior Christ." 
 
 However, the Empress and her exalted prompters calculated 
 wrongly. The cruel expulsion decree did not draw a single 
 Jew into the fold of the Greek Orthodox Church, while the 
 reason given in the ukase for the expulsion, " the extreme 
 injury" inflicted by the enemies of Christ "upon our faithful 
 subjects," failed to carry conviction to the latter. The ukase 
 had been designed in particular to " benefit " the inhabit- 
 17
 
 25G THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 ants of the two border provinces of Little Russia and Livonia 
 by eliminating the Jews from their midst. These inhabitants, 
 however, speaking through their local representatives, declared 
 that such "beneficence" would only result in ruining them. 
 From Little Eussia the Greek contractors of the customs duties 
 complained to the Senate that the repressions against the 
 Jews, which hampered their commercial visits to Poland, had 
 caused great losses to the state revenues by lowering the income 
 from imported goods, that a sudden expulsion of Jews, who 
 were bound up with the Christian merchants by business inter- 
 ests and monetary obligations, would ruin both sides, and that 
 it was therefore necessary to allow the Jews to retain their 
 former right of free admission into Little Russia for business 
 purposes. 
 
 Even more energetic representations were sent to the Senate 
 from the Baltic province of Livonia. The gubernatorial ad- 
 ministration of the province and the magistracy of the city 
 of Riga stated that, in accordance with the promulgated ukase, 
 the Jews living in the suburb of Riga and in the surrounding 
 district had been ordered to leave within six weeks, but that 
 this expulsion was bound to cause great injury to the exchequer 
 and to spell ruin for the whole mercantile class. For the 
 Polish pans and merchants, who had their Jewish brokers in 
 Riga, would stop buying their goods there, and would prefer to 
 import them, with the aid of their expelled Jewish middlemen, 
 from Germany, so that " trade in Riga would fall off, and 
 commerce might be destroyed entirely," the Russian merchants 
 finding themselves unable to secure customers for " the goods 
 imported by sea." The Livonians therefore pleaded to grant 
 the Jews free admission into Riga for carrying on business, 
 though it be only in the capacity of temporary residents.
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 057 
 
 Impressed by these representations, the Senate submitted a 
 report to the Empress, in which it endeavored to convince her 
 that for the sake of " promoting commerce," increasing the 
 revenues of the exchequer, and guarding the interests of the 
 Christian population in the " border localities," it was neces- 
 sary to comply with the petitions of the Ukrainians and 
 Livouians and grant the Jews free admission to both prov- 
 inces and to other localities on the frontier, so that they may 
 carry on temporary business during the time of the fairs, this 
 privilege having been exercised by them in Little Eussia since 
 1738, by virtue of earlier Imperial decrees. Elizabeth Petrovna 
 read these convincing arguments of the Senate, but, blinded by 
 religious fanaticism, refused to pay attention to them. On the 
 reports submitted by the Senate, she put down, in December, 
 1743, the following laconic resolution': "From the enemies 
 of Christ I desire neither gain nor profit." 
 
 The Senate could do nothing but submit to the despotic 
 will of the Empress. A month later, in January, 174-i, an ukase 
 was issued, demanding that immediate steps be taken to detect 
 the Jews in Little Russia, Livonia, and other places, and expel 
 all except those who were willing to be baptized. 
 
 Henceforward — the Senatorial decree runs — the above Jews 
 shall not by any means, under any conditions, and for any purpose 
 whatsoever, be admitted into Russia, though it be for the fairs 
 or for a short time only; nor shall any representations concerning 
 their admission be further addressed to the Senate, and the Senate 
 shall be duly informed when all the above [Jews] shall have been 
 expelled. 
 
 In this manner Elizabeth Petrovna cleared these provinces 
 of their Jewish population, whore — for better or for worse — it 
 
 V See p. 253, n. 1.]
 
 258 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 had lived long before their annexation by Eussia. A con- 
 temporary historian calculates that up to his time (1753) 
 some 35,000 Jews had been banished from Russia. 
 
 The fanatical Empress searched with the vigilance of an 
 inquisitor for the slightest trace of Judaism in her Empire. 
 Since 1731 there had lived in St. Petersburg a learned phy- 
 sician, by the name of Antonio Sanchez, evidently a Sephardic 
 Marano, who professed Judaism in secret. Originally invited 
 from Holland, Sanchez occupied in St. Petersburg the post 
 of body-physician at the courts of Anna Johannovna and her 
 successors, and he was at the same time in charge of the med- 
 ical department of the army. He subsequently became a 
 member of the Academy of Sciences, and wrote a number of 
 medical works, which drew the attention of the scientific 
 world to him. In 1749 Sanchez was suddenly di>;niissed from 
 the Academy of Sciences, and compelled to transfer his abode 
 to Paris. It seems that Empress Elizabeth had foimd out 
 the secret " crime " of her body-physician, which was none 
 other than his loyalty to Judaism. " As far as I am aware " — 
 the president of the Academy, Eazumovski, wrote to Sanchez — 
 " you have not been guilty of any wrong-doing against her 
 Imperial Majesty or against any of her interests. But she 
 finds it contrary to her conscience to tolerate in the Academy 
 a man who has deserted the banner of Christ, and has joined 
 the ranks of those who fight under the banner of Moses and 
 the Old Testament prophets." When the famous mathema- 
 tician Euler heard of Sanchez' expulsion, he wrote : " I doubt 
 whether amazing actions of this kind will contribute towards 
 the reputation of the Russian Academy of Sciences." 
 
 There was no one perhaps in the contemporary Government 
 circles of Russia who was so ready to condemn this malicious
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 259 
 
 policy, inspired by Byzantine clericalism, as that cultured 
 " Westerner," Empress Catherine II. (1762-1796). Neverthe- 
 less in the first years of her reign she found herself unable to 
 change a policy which had already been hallowed by tradi- 
 tion, and was regarded as "national"' and truly Eu.ssian. 
 Catherine II., in endeavoring to justify the dethronement of 
 her husband, the Prussophil Peter III., was bound, in the first 
 years of her reign, to act against her own convictions and 
 pose as a national ruler, anxious to follow in the footsteps of 
 her Orthodox predecessors. We derive our knowledge of 
 this fact from her own memoirs, in which, speaking of herself 
 in the third person, she makes this confession : 
 
 On the fifth or sixth day after her accession to the throne, 
 Catherine II. arrived at the Senate. It happened that on the 
 agenda of that session was the question of the admission of Jews 
 into Russia. The Senators unanimously declared that their admis- 
 sion was useful, but Catherine, in view of the circumstances at the 
 time, found it difficult to give her assent. The Senator Count 
 Odoyevski came to her aid. He rose up and said: " Before mak- 
 ing a decision, perhaps your Imperial Majesty will consent to see 
 the autograph decision which on a similar occasion was rendered 
 by Empress Elizabeth." Catherine ordered the documents to be 
 brought, and she found that Empress Elizabeth, prompted by piety, 
 had written on the margin, " From the enemies of Christ I desire 
 neither gain nor profit." It is necessary to observe that less than 
 a week had passed since Catherine's accession to the throne. She 
 had been placed on it for the defense of the Greek Orthodox faith; 
 she had to deal with a pious people and with a clergy to which its 
 estates had not yet been returned, and which, in consequence of 
 this ill-fitting measure, had nothing to live on. The minds, as is 
 always the case after such a great upheaval [the violent death 
 of Peter III.], were in a state of great excitement. To begin 
 her reign by the admission of Jews would not at all have helped to 
 pacify their minds; to declare it as injurious was also impossible. 
 Catherine acted simply: when the Procurator-General collected
 
 260 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA x\ND POLAND 
 
 the votes and approached her for her decision, she said to him, 
 " I desire that this matter be postponed for another time." Thus 
 it often happens that it is not enough to be enlightened, to have 
 good intentions, and even the power to realize them. 
 
 In this way, in spite of the unanimous opinion of the Senate, 
 that the admission of Jews was heneficial to Russia, and in 
 spite of her own liberal frame of mind, Catherine II. left the 
 Jewish question in its former state, being afraid of arousing 
 against her the resentment of the reactionary element of the 
 Eussian people. In the very same year, on December 4, 1762, 
 the Empress, in issuing a manifesto permitting all foreigners 
 to travel and to settle in Eussia, added the fatal formula, 
 hromye Zhydov ("except the Jews"), 
 
 Two years later, in 1764, Catherine II. received a petition 
 from the Little Eussian nobles and elders, who, together with 
 the hetman, pleaded for the restoration of the autonomous 
 " ancient rights " of Little Eussia, which had been grossly 
 violated by the Eussian Government. Out of the twenty 
 clauses of the document, one refers to the Jews. The repre- 
 sentatives of the Little Eussian people declare that the law 
 barring Jews from entering their province had inflicted great 
 damage on the local trade, because the Jews, " being inhabit- 
 ants of a neighboring state, take a very large part in Little 
 Eussian commerce, buying the goods of Little Eussia at a 
 much larger price, and the foreign goods at a smaller price, as 
 compared with that now prevailing." The petition concludes 
 with these words : 
 
 That the above-mentioned Jews be granted domicile in Little 
 Russia, with this we dare not trouble your Imperial Majesty. All 
 we do is to plead most humbly that, for the sake of promoting 
 Little Rxissian commerce, the Jews be allowed to visit Little 
 Russia for free commercial transactions.
 
 THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS 261 
 
 The petition was not granted, for even Catherine II. " dared 
 not " repeal the inquisitorial resolution of Elizabeth Petrovna 
 against "the enemies of Christ." 
 
 It was amidst conditions such as these that the event which 
 marks a critical juncture in the history of the Jewish people 
 took place. Starting with the year 1772, Eussia began to 
 acquire the inheritance of disintegrating Poland. The coun- 
 try which had stood in fear of a few thousand Jews was now 
 forced to accept them, at one stroke, by the tens of thousands 
 and, shortly afterwards, by the hundreds of thousands. Sub- 
 sequent history will show in what way Eussia endeavored to 
 solve this conflict between her anti- Jewish traditions and the 
 necessity of harboring in her dominions the greatest center of 
 the Jewish Diaspora.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 POLISH JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD OF THE 
 PARTITIONS 
 
 1. The Jews of Poland after the First Partition 
 
 On the eve of the great crisis which overtook the Jews of 
 Western Europe in the wake of the French Revolution, the 
 vast Jewish center in Eastern Europe was in a state of political 
 and social disintegration. We refer to the position of Polish 
 Jewry during the interval between the first partition of Poland 
 and the second (1772-1793). 
 
 The first vivisection had just been performed on the diseased 
 organism of the Polish Republic* Russia had chopped off one 
 flank — the province of White Russia^; Austria had seized 
 Galicia, and Prussia had helped herself to Pomerania and a 
 part of the province of Posen. Correspondingly the compact 
 organism of Polish Jewry was divided among the three Powers. 
 One section of this huge mass, which lived a secluded and 
 thoroughly original life of its own, suddenly became the object 
 of " reformatory " experiments in the laboratory of Joseph II. 
 Another section found itself in the role of a " tolerated " popu- 
 lation in the royal barracks of Frederick II., who would fain 
 have acquired the Polish provinces minus their Jewish inhabit- 
 ants. A third portion came imder the sway of Russia, a 
 country which had not yet become reconciled to the presence 
 of a handful of Jews on the border of her Empire, in the prov- 
 ince of Little Russia. 
 
 [*0n this expression see p. 88, n. 1.] 
 
 [' It consisted of the present Governments of Moghllev and 
 Vitebsk.]
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 263 
 
 What was left of Polish Jewry after the surgical operation 
 of 1772 experienced, after its own fashion, all the pre-mortal 
 agonies of the doomed commonwealth, which was destined to 
 undergo two more partitions. Dying Poland was tossing about 
 restlessly, endeavoring to prolong its existence by the ena<;t- 
 ments of the Permanent Council or by the reforms of the 
 Quadrennial Diet (1788-1791)/ In connection with the gen- 
 eral reforms of the country the need was felt of curing the old 
 specific ailment of Poland, the Jewish Problem. The finance 
 committee of the Quadrennial Diet gathered all available in- 
 formation concerning the number of Jews in the reduced king- 
 dom and their economic and cultural status. 
 
 The following are the results of this official investigation, 
 as embodied in the report of one of the members of the com- 
 mittee, the well-known historian Thaddeus Chatzki, who made 
 a special study of the Jewish problem. 
 
 Officially the number of Jews residing in Poland and Lithu- 
 ania about the year 1788 was computed at 617,033. Chatzki, 
 fortified by an array of additional data, rightly points out 
 that, owing to the fact that fiscal considerations caused the 
 people to evade the official census, the actual number of Jews 
 
 [*After the first partition of Poland the Government of the 
 country was placed in the hands of a Permanent Council con- 
 sisting of thirty-six members, who were to be elected by the Diets, 
 and were to take charge of the five departments of the adminis- 
 tration: foreign affairs, police, war, justice, and finance. The 
 king was to be the president of the Council. The Diet, which 
 assembled on October 6, 1788, abolished this Permanent Council, 
 and set out to elaborate a modern Constitution, which was finally 
 presented on May 3, 1791. While, according to Polish law, the 
 Diets met only once in two years for six weeks (see above, p. 76, 
 n. 1), the Diet of 178S declared itself permanent. It sat for four 
 years — hence its name, the Quadrennial Diet — until the adoption 
 of the new Constitution in 1791 led to civil war and to the inter- 
 vention of Russia.]
 
 264 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 mounted up to at least 900,000 souls of both sexes. This com- 
 putation agrees substantially with the authoritative state- 
 ment of Butrymovich, a member of the " Jewish Commission " 
 appointed by the Quadrennial Diet. For, according to this 
 statement, the Jews of Poland formed an eighth of the whole 
 population, the latter numbering 8,790,000 souls. The Jewish 
 population, thus amounting to practically one million, multi- 
 plied rapidly, owing to the custom of early marriages then 
 in vogue. The same custom, on the other hand, was responsi- 
 ble for increased mortality among Jewish children and for 
 an ever-growing physical deterioration of the adolescent gen- 
 eration. The school training received by Jewish children was 
 limited to the study of the religious literature of Judaism, 
 particularly the Talmud. 
 
 As regards commerce, the Jews figured in it in the following 
 proportions: 75% of the whole export trade of Poland and 
 10^ of the imports lay in their hands. The living expenses 
 of the Jewish business man were half as large as those of his 
 Christian fellow-merchant, which fact enabled the Jew to sell 
 his goods at a much lower figure. Bankruptcy was more fre- 
 quent among Jewish business men than among Christians. In 
 the provinces outside of Great Poland half of all the artisans 
 were Jews. Shoemakers, tailors, furriers, goldsmiths, carpen- 
 ters, stone-cutters, and barbers, were particularly numerous 
 among them. In the whole country only fourteen Jewish 
 families were found to engage in agriculture. Wealth among 
 Jews was but very seldom retained for several successive gen- 
 erations within the same family, owing to frequent bank- 
 ruptcy and to a propensity towards risky speculations. A 
 twelfth part of the Jewish population was made up of " idlers," 
 that is, people without a definite occupation. A sixtieth part 
 consisted of beggars.
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 265 
 
 To these deductions, based ou official findings, as well as on 
 outside observation, the important fact must be added that 
 one of the main pursuits of the Jews at that time was the liquor 
 traffic, that is, the keeping of taverns in the towns and villages. 
 As far as the manorial estates were concerned, the sale of 
 liquors was closely connected with land-leasing and innkeep- 
 ing. In leasing from the noble landowner the various items of 
 agrarian wealth, such as dairies, pastures, timber, etc., the 
 Jew farmed at the same time the " propination," the right of 
 distilling and selling spirits in the taverns and inns. These 
 pursuits often resulted in a clash between the Jew and the 
 peasant, that outlawed serf who was driven to the tavern, 
 not by opulence, but by extreme poverty and suffering, brought 
 upon him by the heavy hand of the aristocratic landlord. 
 The final stage in the economic breakdown of the peasant 
 was reached at the door of the tavern, and the Jewish liquor- 
 dealer was in consequence looked upon as the despoiler of 
 the peasant. This accusation against the Jews was brought 
 forward by the slaveholding magnates, who were the real cause 
 of the impoverishment of their peasant serfs, and pocketed 
 the proceeds of the " propination " which they let out to the 
 Jews. 
 
 As for the Jews themselves, there is no doubt that the traffic 
 in liquor had a demoralizing effect upon them. The position 
 of the Jewish arendar, sandwiched between the spendthrifty 
 and eccentric pan, on the one hand, and the downtrodden 
 khlop, on the other, was far from enviable. In the eyes of 
 the landowner the arendar was nothing but a servant, who 
 received no better treatment at his hands than the khlop. If 
 perchance the roads or bridges on the estate were found in bad 
 condition, the arendar would sometimes be subjected to cor-
 
 266 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 poral punishment for it. When the pan engaged in one of his 
 frequent orgies, the first victims of liis recklessness were the 
 arendar and his family. A good illustration is afforded by an 
 entry in the diary of a Volhynian country squire, from the 
 year 1774: 
 
 The arendar Hershko ' has remained ninety-one thaler in arrears 
 from last term. I was forced to attach his goods. According to 
 the clause of the contract I have the right, in case of non-payment, 
 to keep him with his wife and children in prison as long as I like, 
 until he pays up. I gave orders to have him put in chains and 
 locked up in the pig-sty together with the swine; the wife and the 
 bahurs [young sons] I left in the inn, except for the youngest son 
 Layze [Lazarus]. The latter I took to the manor, and I had him in- 
 structed in the [Catholic] catechism and the prayers. 
 
 The boy in question was forced to make the sign of the cross 
 and to eat pork. Only the arrival of Jews from Berdychev, 
 who remitted tlie debt of the arendar, saved the father from 
 imprisonment and the son from enforced conversion. 
 
 It is interesting to inquire into the causes which drove the 
 Jewish populace into the unenviable pursuits of land-leasing 
 and rural liquor-dealing. Although forming but one-eighth of 
 the population of Poland, the Jews furnished 50% of the whole 
 nvmiber of artisans in the realm and 75;^ of those engaged in the 
 export trade — the export, be it noted, of agricultural products, 
 such as timber, flax, skins, and all kinds of raw material. All 
 these occupations were obviously insufficient for their mainte- 
 nance. In Poland no less than in Western Europe neither the 
 mercantile guilds nor the trade-unions, which to a considerable 
 extent were made up of Germans, admitted Jewish artisans 
 and merchants into their corporations, and as a result the 
 sphere of Jewish activity was extremely limited. 
 
 [* Popular Polish form of the Jewish name Hirsch.]
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 2G7 
 
 The same burghers and business men were also the pre- 
 dominating element in the composition of the magistracies, 
 and in the majority of cities it lay in their power to grant or 
 refuse licenses to their Jewish competitors for pursuing com- 
 merce or handicrafts. The clause in the Polish parliamentary 
 Constitution of 1768, which placed the economic activity of 
 the Jews in the cities under the control of the magistracies, 
 might have been literally dictated by the latter. It ran as 
 follows : 
 
 Whereas the Jews inflict intolerable damage upon the cities and 
 the burghers, and rob them of their means of subsistence. . . . , 
 be it resolved that in all towns and townlets in which the Jews 
 have no special, constitutionally guaranteed privileges, they be 
 forced to conduct themselves according to the agreements entered 
 into with the municipalities, and be forbidden, on pain of severe 
 fines, to arrogate to themselves any further rights. 
 
 It goes without saying that these " agreements " with the 
 Christian business men consisted as a rule in nothing else 
 than the prohibition or limitation of local Jewish competition. 
 In this manner the orgiiiators of the parliamentary Consti- 
 tution, the landed proprietors and townspeople, were those 
 who forced the Jews out of the cities, and drove them into land- 
 leasing and liquor-dealing. 
 
 The parliamentary Constitution of 1775, which was promul- 
 gated after the first partition of Poland, and instituted a 
 supreme administrative body, the Permanent Council, in- 
 creased the Jewish per capita tax from two gulden to three, 
 to be levied on both male and female, and including the new- 
 born. It also made the attempt, though not after the cruel 
 pattern of Western Europe, to place certain restrictions on 
 Jewish marriages. The rabbis were interdicted from per- 
 forming the marriage service for the Jews who were not
 
 268 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 engaged in one of the legitimate occupations, such as handi- 
 crafts, commerce, agriculture, or manual labor, or who were 
 unable to indicate their sources of livelihood. Parenthetically 
 it may be remarked that this law was never applied in practice. 
 
 Ancient Poland never had a " Pale of Settlement," the Jews 
 being merely barred from residing in several so-called " privi- 
 leged " toAvns. One of these forbidden places was the capital, 
 Warsaw.* The Jews had long been refused the right of per- 
 manent settlement in that city. They were only allowed to 
 sojourn there temporarily during the sessions of the various 
 Diets, simultaneously with which the commercial fairs were 
 generally timed to take place. 
 
 The parliamentary Constitution of 1768, in sanctioning this 
 "ancient custom" of admitting the Jews temporarily into 
 Warsaw, gave as its reason " the common welfare and the neces- 
 sity of reducing the high cost of merchandise," this high cost 
 resulting invariably from the absence of Jewish competition. 
 In the capital the following procedure became customary : two 
 weeks prior to the opening of the Diet the Crown Marshal 
 informed the inhabitants of Warsaw by trumpet blasts that 
 visiting Jews were permitted to engage in commerce and 
 handicrafts, and two weeks after the conclusion of the session 
 of the Diet trumpet blasts again heralded the fact that it was 
 time for the Jews to take to their heels. Those who were slow 
 in leaving the city were expelled by the police. As a rule, how- 
 ever, the exiles managed, under all sorts of pretexts, to return 
 the day after their expulsion, in the capacity of new arrivals^ 
 and they continued to reside in the city for several weeks by 
 "persuading" the inspectors of the marshal. As a result. 
 Crown Marshal Lubomirski established a system of tickets for 
 
 ['See p. 85.]
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS ^(jy 
 
 visiting Jews, each ticket costing a silver groschen, which 
 granted the right of a five da3^s' sojourn in the capital. With- 
 out such a ticket no Jew dared show himself on the street. 
 The collection from these tickets netted an annual income of 
 some 200,000 gulden for the marshal's treasury. 
 
 When some of the high Polish dignitaries, who owned entire 
 districts in Warsaw, made the discovery that it was possible to 
 convert Jewish rightlessness into cash, they began, for a definite 
 consideration, to accord permission to the Jews to settle on their 
 estates, which lay beyond the city ramparts. In this way there 
 gradually came into being a settlement known under the 
 name of New Jerusalem. The Christian burghers of War- 
 saw raised a terrible outcry demanding the literal applica- 
 tion of the law which barred the Jews from settling perman- 
 ently in the capital. Thereupon Lubomirski adopted stringent 
 measures against the Jews, notwithstanding the protests of the 
 highly-placed house-oMoiers and regardless even of the inter- 
 vention of the King. On January 22, 1775, the Jews were 
 expelled from Warsaw; their homes in New Jerusalem were 
 demolished, and all their goods were transferred to the armory 
 or the barracks, where they were sold at public auction. 
 
 This was a severe blow to the mercantile Jewish population, 
 which was now cut off from the political and industrial center 
 of the country. The Jews had to content themselves again 
 with temporary visits during the sbort term of the parlia- 
 mentary sessions. In the course of time the former evasion 
 of the law came into vogue again. In 1784 the administra- 
 tion, appealed to by the magistracy, once more undertook to 
 clear the capital of Jews. The situation was modified some- 
 what towards the end of 1788, when the Quadrennial Diet 
 began its sessions. The Jews were inclined to assume that.
 
 5370 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 inasmuch as the Diet was sitting permanently, their right of 
 residence in the capital was no longer subject to a time limit. 
 Accordingly the Jews began to flock to Warsaw, and several 
 thousands of them were soon huddled together in the center of 
 the city. This of course aroused the ire of the burghers and 
 the magistracy against the new-comers, resulting subsequently 
 in a sanguinary conflict. 
 
 Tn tliis manner law and life were constantly at odds, life 
 turning law into fiction wlienever in opposition to its demands, 
 and law retaliating by dealing occasional blows at life. 
 
 The milliou Jews pressed their way into tlie eight millions 
 of the native population like a wedge, which, once having 
 entered, could not be displaced. For by occupying the ori- 
 ginally empty place of the mercantile estate, the Jews had 
 for many centuries served, so to speak, as a tie between the 
 bipartite nation of nobles and serfs. Now a new wedge, the 
 Christian middle class, was endeavoring to displace the Jewish 
 element, but it failed in its efforts. For the Jewish population 
 had become inextricably entwined with the economic organism 
 of Poland, though remaining a stranger to its national and 
 spiritual aspirations. This was the tragic aspect of the Jewish 
 question in Poland in the period of the partitions. 
 
 Deeply stirred by the catastrophe of 1772, Poland fell to 
 making reforms as a means of salvation. She was anxious to 
 expiate her old sins and turn over a new leaf. Here she found 
 herself face to face with the Jewish problem : a huge and com- 
 pact population of dift'erent birth and creed, with an autono- 
 mous communal life, with a separate language, and with cus- 
 toms and manners of its owti, was scattered all over the realm 
 and interwoven with all branches of economic endeavor. This 
 secluded population, which Polish legislation no less than the
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 371 
 
 arrogance of the rxobility aud the intolerance of the Church had 
 estranged from political and civil life, survived as a relic of the 
 old order, which was now tottering to its fall. The ruling class, 
 which had brought about this state of things, was naturally 
 loth to acknowledge its responsibility for the decomposition 
 of Poland, and so the guilt was thrown on the shoulders of the 
 Jews, in spite of the fact that their position was merely the 
 product of the general caste structure of the nation. And 
 when, in a fit of repentance, Poland began to dig do\\ai into 
 her past, she discovered that one of her " sins " was the Jewish 
 question, and she was bent on solving it. 
 
 Two solutions presented themselves at that moment. The 
 one was of a repressive character, permeated with the old spirit 
 of the nobility and clergy. The other was of a comparatively 
 liberal character, and bore the impress of the policy of " com- 
 pulsory enlightenment" pursued by the Austrian Emperor 
 Joseph II. The former found its expression in the parlia- 
 mentary project of Zamoiski (1778-1780) ; the latter was 
 represented by the proposals of Butrymovich and Chatzki, 
 who submitted them to the liberally inclined Quadrennial Diet 
 in 1789. 
 
 One of the Polish historians rightly observes that " the cele- 
 brated ex-Chancellor [Andreas Zamoiski] drafted this law 
 more for the purpose of getting rid of the Jews than of bring- 
 ing about their amalgamation with the national organism [of 
 Poland]." Zamoiski's project is semi-clerical and semi- 
 bureaucratic in character. The Jews are to be granted the right 
 of residence in those towns into which they had been admitted 
 by virtue of former agreements with the municipalities, while 
 other places are to be open to them only for temporary visits, to 
 attend markets and fairs. In the cities the Jews are to settle in 
 18
 
 273 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 separate streets, away from the Christians. Every Jewish adult 
 is to present himself before the local administration and pro- 
 duce a certificate to the effect that he is either a tradesman own- 
 ing property of the minimum value of a thousand gulden, or an 
 artisan, arendar, or agriculturist. Those who cannot prove that 
 they belong to one of these four categories shall be obliged to 
 leave the country within a year. In case they refuse to leave 
 voluntarily, they are to be placed under arrest, and sent to a 
 penitentiary. Moreover, the author of the project, repeating 
 the old ecclesiastic regulations, proposes to bar the Jews from 
 those financial and economic functions, such as the leasing of 
 crown lands, public contracts, and collection of revenues, in 
 which they might exercise some form of control over Christians. 
 For the same reason the Jews are to be interdicted from keeping 
 Christian help, and so forth. Compulsory conversion of Jews 
 is to be discountenanced; yet those already converted are to 
 be removed from their old environment, and not to be allowed 
 even to see their former coreligionists, except in the presence 
 of Christians. 
 
 The Catholic clergy was so well pleased with Zamoiski's 
 project that the Archbishop of Plotzk attached his signature 
 to it. Having fortified himself by ecclesiastical and police 
 safeguards, Zamoiski was at liberty to pay a scant tribute to 
 the spirit of the age by including in his project the principle 
 of the inviolability of the person and property of the Jew. 
 After binding the Jew hand and foot by these draconian 
 regulations there was indeed no necessity for further insulting 
 him. 
 
 An entirely different position is taken by the anonymous 
 author of a Polish pamphlet which appeared in Warsaw in 
 1782 under the title, " On the Necessity of Jewish Reforms
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 273 
 
 in the Lands of the Polish Crown." The writer, who dis- 
 guises his identity under the pseudonym " A Nameless Citi- 
 zen/' is opposed to retrogressive measures, and favors legisla- 
 tion of an utilitarian and enlightened character. As far as the 
 Jewish religion is concerned, he is willing to let the Jews keep 
 their dogmas, but deems it necessary to combat their " harm- 
 ful religious customs," such as the large number of festivals, 
 the dietary laws, and so forth. It is important in his opinion 
 to curtail their communal autonomy by confining it to religious 
 matters, so that the Jews shall not form a state within a state. 
 In order to stimulate the amalgamation of the Jews with the 
 Polish nation, they are to be compelled to adopt the Polish 
 language in their business dealings, to abandon the Yiddish 
 vernacular, and to be interdicted from printing Hebrew 
 books or importing them from abroad. On the economic 
 side the Jews are to be barred from keeping inns and selling 
 liquor in them, only handicrafts, honest business, and agricul- 
 ture being left open to them. In this way the project of the 
 " Nameless Citizen " seeks to render the Jews " innocuous " 
 by compulsory amalgamation, just as the preceding project of 
 Zamoiski endeavored to attain the same end by compulsory 
 isolation. After having been rendered " innocuous," the Jew 
 may be found worthy of receiving equal rights with his Chris- 
 tian fellow-citizens. 
 
 It is not difficult to discern in this project the influence of 
 Joseph II.'s policy, which similarly sought to effect the " im- 
 provement " of the Jew through compulsory enlightenment 
 and his amalgamation with the native population, as a 
 preliminary for his attainment of equal rights. It seems that 
 the project met with a friendly reception in the progressive 
 circles of Polish society, which were animated by the ideas of
 
 2]i THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the eighteenth century. The anonymous pamphlet appeared in 
 a second edition in 1785, and a third edition was published in 
 1789 by Butrymovich, a deputy of the Quadrennial Diet, who 
 added comments of his own. A year later Butrymovich ex- 
 tracted from his edition the project of Jewish reform, and laid 
 it before the committee of the Diet, which was then meeting 
 amidst the uproar of the great French Revolution.^ 
 
 As for the inner life of this Jewish mass of one million 
 souls, it displays the same saddening spectacle of disintegra- 
 tion. The social rottenness of the environment, the poison of 
 the decaying body of Poland, worked its way into Jewish life, 
 and began to undermine its foundations, once so firmly 
 grounded. The communal autonomy, which had been the 
 mainstay of public Jewish life, was unmistakably falling to 
 pieces. In the southwestern region, in Podolia, Volh3Tiia, and 
 Galicia, — the last having been annexed by Austria, — it had 
 been shattered by the great religious split produced by 
 Hasidism. The Kahal organization was tottering to its fall, 
 either because of the division of the community into two hos- 
 tile factions, the Hasidim and ilithnagdim, or because of the 
 inertia of the Hasidic majority, which, blindly obeying the 
 dictates of the Tzaddik, was incapable of social organization. 
 In the northwestern region, in Lithuania and White Eussia, 
 — the latter having become a Russian province — the rabbinical 
 party, going hand in hand with the Kahal authorities, was 
 superior to the forces of Hasidism. Xevertheless the Kahal 
 organization was infected by the general process of degenera- 
 tion, which had seized the country at large in the partition 
 period. The Jewish plutocracy followed the example of the 
 Polish pans in exploiting the poor laboring masses. The 
 
 ' See p. 280.
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 2;5 
 
 rabbinate, like the Polish clergy, catered to the rich. The 
 secular aud the ecclesiastic oligarchy, which controlled the 
 Kahal, victimized the community by a shockingly dispropor- 
 tionate assessment of state and communal taxes, throwing the 
 main burden on the impecunious classes, and thus bringing 
 them to the verge of ruin. The parnasim, or wardens, of the 
 community, as well as the rabbis, were occasionally found 
 guilty of embezzlement, usury, and blackmail. 
 
 The oppression of the Kahal oligarchy went to such lengths 
 that the suffering masses, unmindful of the traditional pro- 
 hibition to appeal to the " law courts of the Gentiles," fre- 
 quently sought to obtain redress from the Christian adminis- 
 tration against these Jewish satraps. In 1783 representatives 
 of the lower classes, principally artisans, of the Jewish popu- 
 lation of Minsk, lodged a complaint with the Lithuanian 
 Financial Tribunal against the local Kahal administration, 
 whicli " was completely ruining the community of Minsk." 
 They alleged that the Kahal leaders embezzled the receipts from 
 taxation, and misappropriated the surplus for their own benefit, 
 that by means of the herem (excommunication) they squeezed 
 all kinds of revenues from the poor and appropriated their 
 hard-earned pennies. The complainants add that for their 
 attempt to lay bare the misdoings of the Kahal before the 
 administration, they had been arrested, imprisoned, and pil- 
 loried in the synagogue by order of the Kahal wardens. 
 
 In Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, celebrated on account 
 of its aristocracy of mind as well as its aristocracy of birth, 
 a split occurred within the ranks of the Kahal oligarchy itself. 
 For nearly twent}' years there was a conflict between the Eabbi, 
 a certain Samuel Vigdorovich (son of Avigdor), and the 
 Kahal, or, more correctly, between the rabbinical party and the
 
 are 'iHE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Kahal party. The Kabbi had been convicted of corruption, 
 drunkenness, biased legal decisions, perjury, and so on. The 
 litigation between the Eabbi and the Kahal had, at an earlier 
 stage, been submitted to a court of arbitration as well as to a 
 conference of Litliuanian rabbis. Since the strife and agitation 
 in the city did not subside, both parties appealed, in 1785, to 
 Radziwill, the Voyevoda of Vilna, who decided in favor of tlie 
 Kahal, and dismissed the Rabbi from office. 
 
 The common people, standing between the two belligerent 
 parties, were particularly bitter towards the Kahal, whose 
 abuses and misdeeds exceeded all measure. A little later, 
 between 1786 and 1788, a champion of the people's cause 
 appeared in the person of Simeon A^'olfovich (son of Wolf), 
 who, acting as the spokesman of the Jewish masses of Vilna, 
 had to struggle and suffer on their behalf. To ward off 
 the persecution by the Kahal, Volfovich managed to obtain an 
 " iron letter " from King Stanislav Augustus, guaranteeing 
 inviolability of person and property to himself and to the 
 whole Jewish commonalty, " which the tyranny of the Kahal 
 had brought to the verge of ruin." This did not prevent the 
 Kahal authorities from subjecting Simeon to the herem and 
 entering his name in the " black book,'' while the Voyevoda, 
 who sided with the Kahal tyrants, sent the mutinous champion 
 of the people to the prison of Neswizh (1788). From there 
 the prisoner addressed his memorandum to the Quadrennial 
 Diet, emphasizing the need of a radical change in the com- 
 munal organization of ths Jews, and urging the abolition of 
 the Kahal power, which pressed so heavily upon the people. 
 This struggle between the Kahal, the rabbinate, and the com- 
 mon people shook to its foundations the social organization of 
 the Jews of Lithuania shortly before the incorporation of this 
 country into the Russian Empire.
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 377 
 
 A somber picture of the conduct of the comiBunal oligai'chy 
 is supplied by one of the few broad-minded rabbis of the 
 period : 
 
 The leaders [rabbis and elders] consume the offerings of the 
 people, and drink wine for the fines imposed by them. Being in 
 full control of the taxes, they assess and excommunicate [their 
 opponents] ; they remunerate themselves for their public activity 
 by every means at their disposal, both openly and in secret. They 
 make no step without accepting bribes, while the destitute carry 
 the burden. . . . The learned cater to the rich, and, as for the 
 rabbis, they have only contempt for one another. The students of 
 the Talmud despise those engaged in mysticism and Cabala, while 
 the common people accept the testimony of both, and conclude that 
 all scholars are a disgrace to their calling. . . . The rich value 
 the favor of the Polish pans above the good opinion of the best and 
 noblest among the Jews. The rich Jew does not appreciate the 
 honor shown to him by a scholar, but boasts of having been 
 allowed to enter the mansion of a Polish noble and view his 
 treasures. 
 
 The rabbi complains in particular that the well-to-do 
 classes are obsessed by a love of show; that the women wear 
 strings of pearls around their necks, and array themselves 
 in many-colored fabrics. 
 
 The education of the young generation in the heders and 
 yeshibahs sank to ever lower depths. Instruction in the ele- 
 ments of secular culture was entirely out of the question. The 
 Jewish school bore a purely rabbinical character. True, Tal- 
 mudic scholasticism succeeded in sharpening the intellect, but, 
 failing to supply concrete information, it often confused the 
 mind. Hasidism had wrested a huge piece of territory from 
 the dominion of Rabbinism, but, as far as education was con- 
 cernerl, it was powerless to create anything new. Tbe religious 
 and national sentiments of Polish Jewry had undergone a
 
 278 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 profound transformation at tlie hands of Hasidism, but the 
 transformation lured the Jews backward, far into the thickets 
 of mystical contemplation and blind faith, both subversive 
 of rational thinking and of any attempt at social reform. 
 
 In the last two decades of the eighteenth century, when the 
 banner of militant enlightenment was floating over German 
 Jewry, a bitter warfare between the Hasidim and Mithnagdim 
 was raging all along the line in Poland and Lithuania, with the 
 result that the consciousness of the political crisis through 
 which Polish Jewry was then passing was dimmed, and the 
 appeal from the West calling to enlightenment and progress 
 was silenced. The specter of German rationalism, which flitted 
 across the horizon of Polish Jewry, produced horror and con- 
 sternation in both camps. To be a "Berliner" was synony- 
 mous with being an apostate. A Solomon ^laimon was forced 
 to flee to Germany in order to gain access to the world of new 
 ideas, which were taboo in Poland. 
 
 2. The Period of the Quadrennial Diet (1788-1791) 
 
 The first year of the French Eevolution coincided with the 
 first year of Polish reform. In Paris the etats generaux 
 were transformed, under the pressure of the revolutionary 
 movement, from a parliament of classes into a national assem- 
 bly representing the nation as a whole. In Warsaw the new 
 reform Diet, styled the Quadrennial, or the Great, though 
 essentially a parliament of the Shlakhta, and remaining 
 strictly within the old frame of class organization, reflected 
 nevertheless the influence of French ideas in their pre-revo- 
 lutionary aspect. The third estate, that of the burghers, was 
 knocking at the doors of the Polish Chamber, demanding equal 
 rights, and one of the principal parliamentary reforms con-
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 379 
 
 sisted in equalizing the burghers with the Shlakhta in tb»ir 
 civil, though not in their political, prerogatives. 
 
 Two other questions affecting the inner life of Poland 
 claimed tlie attention of the legislators touched by the spirit 
 of reform : the agrarian and the Jewish question. The former 
 was discussed and brought to a solution, which could not be 
 other than favorable to the interests of the slaveholding land- 
 owners. As for the Jewish question, it cropped up for a 
 moment at the tumultuous sessions of the Quadrennial Diet, 
 and like an evil spirit was banished into the farthest corner 
 of the Polish Chamber, into a special " deputation," or com- 
 mission, where it stuck forever, without finding a solution. 
 
 It would not be fair to ascribe this failure altogether to the 
 conservative trend of mind of the rejuvenators of Poland. 
 There was an additional factor that stood in the way of radical 
 reforms. Over the head of Poland hung the unsheathed sword 
 of Eussia, and Eussia was averse to the inner regeneration of 
 the country, which, having undergone one partition, was ex- 
 pected to furnish a second and a third dish for the table of the 
 Great Powers. The Quadrennial Diet was a protest against 
 the oppressive patronage of Eussia, which was personified by 
 her Eesident in Warsaw, and had for its main purpose the 
 preparation of the country for the inevitable struggle with her 
 powerful neignbor. The " estates in Parliament assembled " 
 had to think of reorganizing the army and filling the war chest 
 rather than of carrying out internal reforms. 
 
 But outside tlie walls of the Chamber the current of public 
 opinion was whirling and foaming. Side by side with the legis- 
 lative assembly, a literary parliament was holding its delibera- 
 tions, the famous pamphlet " literature of the Quadrennial 
 Diet," reflecting the liberal currents of the eighteenth century.
 
 280 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 The " Kollontay smithy " * alone, which was, so to speak, the 
 publishing house of tlie reformers, flooded the country with 
 pamphlets and leaflets touching upon all the questions con- 
 nected with the social reorganization of the Polish body politic. 
 Scores of pamphlets dealt partly or wholly with the Jewish 
 question. The discussions on the projects of " Jewish reform " 
 were conducted with intense passion, taking the place of parlia- 
 mentary debates. 
 
 The impulse to the literary discussion of the Jewish question 
 came from a pamphlet previously referred to, which had been 
 published by Butrj'movich, a representative of the city of 
 Pinsk in the Diet, who stood out as the principal champion 
 of the renaissance of Polish Jewry. The publication consisted 
 of a reprint of the well-known pamphlet of " A Nameless Citi- 
 zen," which had been circulated in two editions.' Butrj-mo- 
 vich supplied the pamphlet with a new title (" A Means where- 
 by to Transform the Polish Jews into Useful Citizens of the 
 Country"), and garnished it with comments of his own. In 
 this way the popular member of the Diet put the seal of his 
 approval upon the reform project, which was based on the 
 assumption that the Jews in their present state were detri- 
 mental to the country, not because of their intrinsic make-up, 
 but on account of their training and mode of life, and that 
 their political and spiritual regeneration had to precede 
 their association with civil life. The proposed reforms reduced 
 themselves to the following measures : to promote useful pur- 
 suits among the Jews, such as agriculture and handicraft-s, 
 and to remove them from the obnoxious liquor traffic ; to com- 
 bat their separateness by curtailing their Kahal autonomy; 
 
 [* Kollontay (in Polish, KoUontaj) was a radical member of the 
 Polish Chamber. See p. 291. J 
 * See p. 272 and p. 273.
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 281 
 
 to supersede the Yiddish dialect by the Polish language in 
 school and in business ; to prohibit the wearing of a distinctive 
 costume and the importation of Hebrew books from abroad. 
 This reform project was supplemented by Butrymovich in one 
 particular: the Jews were not to be admitted to military ser- 
 vice in person, until enlightenment had transformed them 
 into patriots ready to serve their fatherland. 
 
 Yet even this project, imbued though it was with the spirit 
 of patronage and compulsory assimilation, was deemed far 
 too liberal by many representatives of advanced Polish society. 
 One of the progressive Polish journals published " Keflections 
 Concerning the Jewish Eeform Proposed by Butrymovich " 
 (December, 1798). The writer of the " Eeflections " concedes 
 a certain amount of " political common sense " in the project, 
 but criticizes its author, because, " in his great zeal to pre- 
 serve the rights of man, he shows too much indulgence 
 towards the defects of the Jews." The anon^Tiious journalist 
 in turn demands the complete annihilation of the Kahal and 
 limits the action of the Jewish communities to the exercise of a 
 purely congregational autonomy. He also considers it neces- 
 sary to restrict retail trade among the Jews in the cities, so that, 
 having been dislodged from commerce, they might be induced 
 to engage in handicrafts and agriculture. 
 
 Several magazine writers spoke far more harshly of the 
 Jews, and adopted a tone bordering on anti-Semitism. The 
 famous prelate Stashitz, the author of " A Warning to 
 Poland " (Warsaw, 1790), who enjoyed the reputation of being 
 a democrat, styles the Jews " a summer and winter locust for 
 the country," and voices the conviction that only in an en- 
 vironment in which idleness is fostered could this "host of 
 parasites " find shelter, entirely forgetting that these " para-
 
 382 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 sites " had created the commerce of the country riven between 
 nobles and serfs. 
 
 The majority of these vOifiers agreed in one point, that the 
 defects of the Jews coukl be cured only by " reforming " their 
 life from above. An ancient historic nation, which had for 
 centuries managed its own affairs, was represented as a kind 
 of riffraff, whose life could be easily recut after a new pat- 
 tern. To achieve this end, all that was necessary was to let 
 the Polish language take the place of Yiddish, to substitute 
 the official Polish school for the traditional Jewish school, the 
 magistracy for the Kahal, handicrafts and agriculture for 
 commerce. The authors of the various schemes disagreed 
 merely as to the extent to which the radical and compulsory 
 character of these reforms should be pursued. Some suggested 
 abolishing altogether the communal autonomy of the Jews 
 (Ivollontay) ; others would merely confine it to definite func- 
 tions, and place the Kahal under the supervision of the 
 Government (Butrymovich and others). Still others proposed 
 to shave off the Jews' beards and earlocks, to burn the Tal- 
 mud, and reduce the number of Jewish religious festivals. 
 Others again were content with prohibiting the traditional 
 Jewish costume and shutting down the Jewish printing-presses, 
 proposing at the same time " to encourage the translation of 
 Jewish religious literature into the Polish language." The plan 
 of limiting the number of Jewish marriages after the Austro- 
 Prussian model, by requiring a special permit of the police 
 and a certificate testifying to the ability of the candidate to pro- 
 vide for his family and to his compliance with certain stand- 
 ards of general education, appealed to all the reformers. Sev- 
 eral writers injected into the discussion of the Jewish question 
 the specific problem of the Neo-Christians, the converts from
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 283 
 
 among the Frankist sect, who, having been merged with the 
 Polish gentry and burgher class, were yet treated by them as 
 strangers, and stood aloof equally from Christian and Jew- 
 ish society. The majority of Polish writers endorsed the con- 
 temptuous attitude of Polish society towards these converts, 
 who in point of fact fostered their old sectarian leanings, trav- 
 eled abroad to do homage to Frank, and supplied him with 
 money. 
 
 In the babel of voices condemning the entire Jewish popula- 
 tion of the country and dooming it to a radical " refitting " 
 by means of police measures, only one solitary Jewish voice 
 made itself heard. Hirsch Yosefovich (son of Joseph), a rabbi 
 of Khelm, published a pamphlet in Polish, under the title 
 " Reflections Concerning the Plan of Transforming the Polish 
 Jews into Useful Citizens of the Country." While giving 
 Butrymovich full credit as an enlightened well-wisher of the 
 Jews, the Eabbi expresses his amazement that even cultured 
 men indulge in a Avholesale condemnation of the Jewish people, 
 and charge the misdeeds of certain individuals among them 
 to the account of the whole nation, which is endowed with so 
 many virtues, and is of benefit to the country in so many re- 
 spects. The author emphatically protests against the proposed 
 abolition of the Kahals and against outside interference in the 
 religious affairs of the Jews, in a word, against the projects 
 tending to assimilate the Jews with the Poles, which assimila- 
 tion " was bound to result in the complete destruction of 
 Judaism." As an Orthodox rabbi he refuses to budge an inch, 
 even in the matter of a change in dress, slyly observing that 
 once the Jews are put in the category of malefactors, it 
 seems preferable to allow them to retain their traditional 
 garb, so as to mark them olt from the Christians.
 
 284 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 At tliat time Warsaw evidently did not yet possess the type 
 of cultured Mendelssohnians — they appeared in that city 
 shortly thereafter, under the Prussian regime — who might have 
 been in a position to engage in a literary discussion of the pro- 
 posed reforms from the Jewish point of view. " Enlighten- 
 ment " was then the exclusive privilege of a small number 
 of Jews who, as agents or as purveyors of the Crown, came 
 into contact with the Court or the Government. The project 
 of one of these " advanced " Jews, the royal broker Abraham 
 Ilirschovich (sou of Ilirsch), has been preserved in the ar- 
 chives. In this project, which was submitted to King Stanislav 
 Augustus during the sessions of the Great Diet, the author 
 suggests some of the patent remedies of the Polish reformers : 
 to induce the Jews to engage in handicrafts and agriculture " in 
 the deserted steppes of the Ukraina " and to forbid early mar- 
 riages. With regard to the change in dress, he advises begin- 
 ning with the prohibition of luxurious articles of wear, such as 
 silk, satin, velvet, pearls, and diamonds, the chase after finery 
 having a ruinous effect on men of moderate means. Eabbis, in 
 the opinion of Hirschovich, ought to be appointed only in the 
 large cities, and not in the smaller towns, for the reason that in 
 these towns, which are generally owned by the squires, the 
 rabbis purchase their oflBce from the latter, and then ruin their 
 congregations by all kinds of assessments. The Kahals should 
 be spared, except that the Government ought to maintain order 
 in them, since the Jews themselves, on account of their differ- 
 ences of opinion, " cannot institute reasonable rules of conduct 
 for themselves." The whole plan reflects the spirit of flunkey- 
 ism, ever obsequiously willing to yield to the powers that be in 
 the matter " of eradicating the prejudices and misconceptions 
 of an erring people."
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 285 
 
 During the year 17S9 and the first half of 1790 the Jew- 
 ish question did not come up at the sessions of the Quadrennial 
 Diet. In the midst of the passionate debates raging around the 
 supremely important bills involving the whole future of the 
 body politic, the Diet remained deaf to the repeated reminders 
 of Butrymovich, who demanded the same urgency for the pro- 
 posed Jewish reform. iSTeither did the heated literary dis- 
 cussions centering on the Jewish question prompt the popular 
 representatives to take it up more speedily. But at this junc- 
 ture ominous shouts from the street began to penetrate into the 
 Chamber of Deputies, and the Diet had to bestir itself. 
 
 The metropolitan mob had made up its mind to solve the 
 Jewish question after its own fashion. To the Christian 
 tradesmen and artisans of Warsaw the Jewish question was 
 primarily a matter of professional competition. During the 
 first two years of the Great Diet the old law which confined the 
 Jewish right of residence in Warsaw to temporary visits during 
 the brief sittings of the Diets, had automatically fallen into dis- 
 use. The Diet having prolonged its powers for a number of 
 years, the Jews thought that they too had the right to prolong 
 their term of residence. Accordingly an ever-growing wave 
 of Jewish tradesmen and artisans in search of a livelihood began 
 to flow from the provinces into the busy commercial emporium, 
 and tliis new influx could not fail to affect the Christian middle 
 class, inasmuch as the new-comers diverted purchasers and 
 customers from the native tradesmen and artisans, who were 
 affiliated with the guilds and trade-unions. 
 
 The privileged burghers, who by that time were on the point 
 of being equalized with the Shlakhta in their rights, raised a cry 
 of indignation. In March, 1790, a crowd of incorporated ar- 
 tisans, among them a particularly large number of tailors and
 
 286 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 furriers, surrounded the towu hall, and vowed to murder all 
 Jews, should the magistracy refuse to expel them from Warsaw. 
 John Dekert, a well-known champion of the burgher class, 
 who was mayor at the time, immediately brought this demon- 
 stration to the notice of the Diet, and the latter dispatched two 
 of its members to pacify the crowd. When asked by the 
 deputies about the motive of the gathering, tlie artisans de- 
 clared that the newly-arrived Jews made life intolerable by 
 wresting the last earnings from the Christian tailors and fur- 
 riers. The deputies promised to look into the matter. Ac- 
 cordingly, on the following day, the Jewish artisans and street 
 venders were ordered out of the city, and only the merchants 
 who had stores or warehouses were permitted to remain. 
 
 Penniless and homeless, the exiled Jews could do nothing 
 but return surreptitiously to Warsaw soon afterwards. The 
 agitation among the Christian population commenced auew, 
 and on May 16, 1790, it vented itself in a riot. A certain Fox, 
 a member of the tailors' union, happened that day to meet a 
 J3wish tailor on the street who was carrying a piece of work in 
 his hand. He suddenly attacked him, and began to pull the 
 parcel out of his hands. The Jew tore himself away, and man- 
 aged to escape. The shouts of Fox attracted a crowd of Chris- 
 tian artisans. Some one spread the rumor that the Jews had 
 killed a Christian tailor. At once the cry for vengeance went 
 up, and a riot began. The mob rushed into Tlomatzkie Street, 
 but was beaten off by the Jews, who had taken shelter behind a 
 fence. In the adjacent streets, however, " victory " perched 
 on the banner of tlie mob. They looted private residences as 
 well as stores and warehouses belonging to Jews, carrying off 
 whatever was valu-able, and throwing the rest into wells. The 
 municipal guards, which came rushing along, were met by
 
 THE PERIOD OP THE PARTITIONS 287 
 
 a hail of stones and bricks. Only when a detachment of soldiers 
 on foot and on horse appeared was the crowd dispersed and 
 order restored. 
 
 Stirred by these events, the Diet gave orders to investigate 
 the matter and bring the guilty to justice. Justice in the case 
 of the Christian malefactors amounted to the arrest of Fox and 
 the imprisonment of some of his accomplices. As for the Jews, 
 severe administrative measures were adopted: any peddler 
 or artisan found on the street with goods or orders was to be 
 conveyed to the marshal's guard-chamber, punished with rods, 
 and expelled. In such manner were Jewish artisans dealt with 
 at a time when the projects for reform were full of eloquent 
 l^hrases about the necessity of attracting the Jews to handi- 
 crafts in particular and productive forms of labor in general. 
 
 The agitation in Warsaw led moreover to consequences of 
 a more serious nature. The Diet realized that further delay 
 in considering the Jewish question was impossible now that the 
 street had begun to solve it by its own simplified methods. On 
 June 23, 1790, the Diet appointed a " Commission for Jew- 
 ish Reform," which was composed of the deputies Butrymovich, 
 Yezierski, the Castellan of Lukov,' and others. Yezierski, who 
 soon became the chairman of the Commission, was an advocate 
 of radical reforms, and as such came nearer than any of his col- 
 leagues to a just estimate of the economic aspect of the Jewish 
 problem. In opposition to the current formula of " transform- 
 ing the Jews into useful citizens," he declared in the Diet tliat 
 in his opinion the Jews as it was were useful, because for a 
 long time they had constituted the only mercantile element in 
 Poland, and had rendered valuable services by exporting 
 
 [* Lukov (in Polish, Lukoiv) is a district town in the province 
 of Shedletz, not far from Warsaw. Castellan is the Polish title 
 for the head of a district.] 
 19
 
 288 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 abroad the products of the country aud thus euriching it. 
 Hence the favorable financial position of the Jews would be 
 tantamount to a stronger position of the state finances and 
 an increase by many millions in the circulation of money. The 
 Commission, guided by Yezierski and Butrymovich, labored 
 assiduously. It examined a nimiber of reform projects sub- 
 mitted by Butrymovich, Chatzki, and others. Butrymovich's 
 project was an extract from his own publication referred to 
 previously. Similar in essence was the project of the well- 
 known historian aud publicist Thaddeus Chatzki, the guiding 
 spirit of the finance committee of the Quadrennial Diet.* 
 
 In the beginning of 1791 the Commission of the Diet finished 
 its labors on the Jewish reform project, and submitted it to the 
 Diet for consideration. The project of the Commission, the 
 text of which has not come down to us, was doubtless based on 
 the proposals of Butrymovich and Chatzki. The Diet, com- 
 pletely absorbed in arranging for the promulgation of the Con- 
 stitution of the third of May, was not in a position to busy 
 itself with the Jewish question. Only after the Constitution 
 had been promulgated in the session of May 24 was the Jewish 
 reform project brought up again by Butrymovich, who 
 claimed urgency for it. But at that jimcture there arose 
 another member of the Jewish Commission, by the name of 
 Kiiolonyevski, a deputy from Bratzlav in Podolia, and an- 
 nounced that he considered the project of the Commission, 
 with its extension of the commercial rights of the Jews, preju- 
 dicial to the interests of Little Poland, and therefore moved to 
 recommend his own proposals to the attention of the House. 
 The Diet was glad of an excuse for postponing the considera- 
 
 * Chatzki's project is reproduced in his famous book Rozprawa o 
 Zydach, "Inquiry Concerning tlie Jews" (edition of 1860), pp. 
 119-134.
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 289 
 
 tion of this vexatious problem. Soon afterwards, iu June, the 
 Diet w as adjourned, and it did not reassemble until September, 
 1791. 
 
 In this way the magna charia of Polish liberty — the Con- 
 stitution of May 3, 1791 — was promulgated without modifying 
 in the slightest degree the status of the Jews. True, the new 
 Constitution did not in any way alter the former caste system 
 of the Polish Eepublic itself — the feudalism of the nobility, 
 the servitude of the peasantry, and the privileges of the gentry. 
 Nevertheless it conferred civil equality on the burgher class, 
 and placed tlic representative institutions on a somewhat more 
 democratic basis. Only the Jew, the Cinderella of the realm, 
 was completely cut off in this last will of dying Poland. 
 
 The sessions of the Diet, which were renewed in the fall of 
 1791, were surrounded by a particularly disquieting political 
 atmosphere. The opponents of the new Constitution fomented 
 an agitation in the country. Civil strife and war with Russia 
 were imminent. Nevertheless the indefatigable Butrj-movich 
 had the courage to remind the Diet once again of the necessity 
 of extending the protection of the Government to " the un- 
 fortunate nationality which is not in a position to effect its own 
 rescue, and is not even aware of the direction in which the bet- 
 terment of its lot may be found." He demanded that the Com- 
 mission revise the project formerly elaborated by it, with a 
 view to submitting it anew to the House, with such amend- 
 ments as were " called forth by present-day circumstances." 
 Butrymovich was warmly seconded by Yezierski, who in the 
 same session (December 30) voiced the above-mentioned 
 " radical " idea, that in his opinion the Jews were even now 
 " useful citizens,"' and not merely likely to be *' useful " in the
 
 290 1'HE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 future. The Diet adopted the motion, and the Commission 
 once more resumed its labors. 
 
 The results of these labors were minimal. After protracted 
 deliberations the Commission arrived at the following con- 
 clusion : 
 
 In order to improve the status of the Jewish population, it is 
 necessary to regulate its mode of life. Such regulation is impossi- 
 ble unless that population is relieved from its Kahal indebtedness, 
 which relief cannot be brought about until the finance committee 
 has taken up the question of liquidation.' 
 
 The Commission accordingly felt that, before taking up tlie 
 projected reforms, tlie Government should first point out ways 
 and means of liquidating the Kahal debts. The resolution of 
 the Commission was cheerfully passed in a plenary session of 
 the Diet. A burden had been lifted from its shoulders. There 
 was no more need of bothering about " Jewish reform " and 
 " equality." It was enough to instruct the local courts to fix 
 the extent of the Kahal debts and authorize the finance com- 
 mittee to wipe them off with moneys taken from the available 
 Kahal funds or other special sources. Thus it came about 
 that, under the pretext of liquidating Jewish debts, " Jewish 
 reform " itself Avas liquidated. 
 
 Having been passed over by the Constitution of May 3, the 
 Jews, if we are to believe the accounts of several contempor- 
 aries, made an attempt to influence the Government and the 
 Diet through the instrumentality of King Stanislav Augustus, 
 
 ' The Jewish communities of Poland were burdened with enor- 
 mous debts, representing loans made by them in the course of 
 many years, to pay off their arrears in taxes, to meet extraordinary 
 expenditures, and so on. The creditors of the Jews were the 
 municipal magistracies, the Catholic monasteries, as well as private 
 persons. The question of liquidating these debts cropped up time 
 and again at the sessions of the Polish Diets during the latter half 
 of the eighteenth century.
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 291 
 
 approachiug the latter with the help of their connections at 
 court. Jewish public leaders are said to have assembled in 
 secret and elected three delegates, who were to enter into 
 negotiations with the King looking to the amelioration of the 
 condition of the Jews. The three delegates carried out their 
 mandate, towards the end of 1791 and the beginning of 1792, 
 with the help of the Eoyal Secretary Piatoli as their go-between. 
 Shortly thereafter they were received by the King in special 
 audience, with great solemnity, the King, as the story has it, 
 being seated on his throne during the reception. The Jews 
 pleaded for civil rights as well as for the right of acquiring 
 lands and houses in the cities, the preservation of their com- 
 munal autonomy, and exemption from the jurisdiction of the 
 magistracies. The story goes that the Jewish delegates held 
 out the promise of a gift of twenty million gulden to pay the 
 royal debts. Several leaders of the Diet, among them Kollon- 
 tay, a radical, were initiated into the secret. The King, accord- 
 ing to this report, endeavored to push the Jewish reform pro- 
 ject through the Jewish Commission and the Diet, but failed in 
 his efforts. The problem of ages could not be disposed of at 
 this anxious hour when the angel of death was hovering over 
 Poland, while the unfortunate land was exliausting its strength 
 in a final dash for inner regeneration and outer independence. 
 
 3. The Last Two Partitions and Berek Yoselovich 
 
 The death struggle of Poland was approaching. The op- 
 ponents of the May Constitution among the conservative ele- 
 m.cnts of the country joined hands with the Eussian Govern- 
 ment, which in its own sphere of influence had always been a 
 ])aneful stumbling-block in the path of progress. The result
 
 202 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 was the formation of the Confederacy of Targovitza ' and the 
 outbreak of civil war (summer, 1792). Though severed from 
 political life, the Jews nevertheless showed sympathy here and 
 there with the men that fought for the new Constitution. The 
 Jewish tailors of Vilna undertook to furnish gratis two hmi- 
 dred imiforms for the army of liberty. The communities of 
 Sokhachev and Pulavy contributed their mite towards the 
 patriotic funds. The Jews of Berdychev took part in the depu- 
 tation of the local merchants which went to meet Joseph Ponia- 
 tovski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish army, and pre- 
 sented him with new instruments for the regimental music 
 bands. On many an occasion the Jewish communities of Vol- 
 hynia and Podolia were the victims of enforced requisitions 
 from both belligerent armies. The community of Ostrog had 
 to undergo the bombardment of the city by the Eussian army 
 in July, 1793. 
 
 The year 1793 saw the second partition of Poland, between 
 Pussia and Prussia. Eussia annexed Volhynia, with a part of 
 tJie province of Kiev, Podolia, and the region of Minsk. Prus- 
 sia, in turn, acquired the other part of Great Poland (Kalish, 
 Plotzk,* etc.), with Dantzic and Thorn. Once more an enor- 
 mous territory, with hundreds of thousands of Jews, was cut 
 off from Poland. The unfortunate nation, seized with a 
 paroxysm of pain at this new amputation, burst forth against 
 its torturers. The Eevolution of 1794 took its course. 
 
 At the head of the uprising stood Kosciuszko.^ Having been 
 reared in the atmosphere of two great revolutions — the Amer- 
 ican and the French — he had a loftier conception of civic and 
 political liberty than the liberalizing host of the Polish 
 
 [* In Polish, Targowica, a town in the Ukraina.] 
 
 [* See p. 243, n. 1.] 
 
 ['More exactly, Kosciuszko, pronounced Koshchushko.]
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 293 
 
 Shlakhta. He was aware that no free country could exist 
 without first abolishing the serfdom of the peasants and the 
 inequality of the citizens. Even in the heat of his struggle 
 for the salvation of the fatherland, the Polish leader occa- 
 sionally gave proof of his democratic tendencies, and the 
 oppressed classes could not but feel that this revolution was 
 more than merely an affair of the Shlakhta. 
 
 The enthusiasm for liberty communicated itself to several 
 sections of Polish Jewry. It was manifested during the pro- 
 longed Russo-Prussian siege of Warsaw in the summer and 
 autumn of 1794, when the whole population was called to arms 
 to defend the capital. The very same Jews who but a little 
 while ago had been attacked on the streets of Warsaw by the 
 burghers and artisans, and were mercilessly driven from the 
 city by order of the administration, now, in the moment of 
 danger, fought in the trenches shoulder to shoulder with their 
 persecutors, digging ditches and throwing up earthworks. 
 Frequently at an alarm signal the volunteers would rush out 
 to fight back the besiegers. Amidst the whistling of bullets 
 and bursting of shells they repulsed the enemies' attacks side 
 by side with the other Varsovians, furnishing their quota in 
 wounded and killed, and yet keeping up their courage. Among 
 the Jews defending Warsaw the plan was conceived of forming 
 a separate Jewish legion to iight for the coimtry. At the head 
 of this patriotic group stood Berck Yoselovich.* 
 
 Born about 1765 in the little town of Kretingen,' Berek had 
 traversed the thorny path that led a poor Jewish boy from 
 the Jewish religious school (heder) to the post of a pan's 
 
 [* Berek, or Berko, popular Polish form of the Jewish name 
 Baer. — Yoselovich. in Polish Joseloivicz, son of Yosel, or Joseph.] 
 
 ' In the province of Zhmud [or Samogitia, corresponding practi- 
 cally to the present Government of Kovno.]
 
 294 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 agent. He entered the employ of a high noble, the Bishop of 
 Vilna, by the name of Masalski, and was thereby launched upon 
 his remarkable career. Masalski often went abroad, es- 
 pecially to Paris, and alway3 took his Jewish agent with 
 him. During these travels young Berek early acquired the 
 French language, and observed the life of the Parisian 
 salons in which the master moved. The plain Polish Jew 
 perceived a new world, and he could not help scenting the 
 new tendencies floating about in the air of the world's capital 
 on the eve of the great IJe volution. 
 
 During the years of the Quadrennial Diet Berek, who had 
 given up his position with Masalski, and had married in the 
 meantime, lived in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw. In the atmos- 
 phere of patriotic excitement, the vague impressions which his 
 contact with the Polish nobility and his foreign travels had left 
 upon his mind came to maturity. The heroic figure of Kos- 
 ciuszko and the siege of Warsaw gave these vague sensations a 
 concrete form. He realized that it was his immediate duty to 
 fight for the freedom of the country, for the salvation of the 
 capital, where Poles and Jews were equally shut off and cooped 
 up by the hand of the enemy. Now was the time to prove that 
 even the stepchildren of the nation knew how to fight in the 
 ranks of her sons, and that they deserved a better lot. 
 
 Accordingly, in September, 1794, at the very height of the 
 siege, Berek Yoselovich, conjointly with Joseph Aronovich 
 (son of Aaron), a fellow- Jew of like mind, applied to Kos- 
 ciuszko, the commander-in-chief, for permission to form a 
 special regiment of light cavalry consisting of Jewish volun- 
 teers. Koseiuszko immediately complied with their request, 
 and announced it joyfully in a special army order, dated Sep- 
 tember 17, extolling the patriotic zeal of the originators of the
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 295 
 
 plan, " who rem ember the land in which they were born, and 
 know that its liberation will bestow upon them [the Jews] the 
 same advantages as upon the others." Berek was appointed 
 commander of the Jewish regiment. An appeal was issued call- 
 ing for recruits and for contributions towards their equipment. 
 Berek's appeal to his coreligionists was published in the official 
 "Gazette" of Warsaw on October 1. It was written in 
 Polish, tliough couched in the solemn phraseology of the 
 Bible : 
 
 Listen, ye sons of the tribes of Israel, all ye in whose heart is 
 implanted the image of God Almighty, all that are willing to help 
 
 in the struggle for the fatherland Know ye that now the 
 
 time hath come to consecrate to this all our strength Truly, 
 
 there are many mighty nobles, children of the Shlakhta, and 
 many great minds who are ready to lay down their lives! .... 
 Why then should we who are persecuted not take to arms, seeing 
 that we are the most oppressed people in the world! .... Why 
 should we not labor to obtain our freedom which has been prom- 
 ised us just as firmly and sincerely as it has been to others? But 
 
 first we must show that we are worthy of it I have had the 
 
 happiness of being placed at the head of the regiment by my 
 superiors. Awake then, and help to rescue oppressed Poland. 
 Faithful brethren, let us fight for our country as long as a drop 
 of blood is left in us! Though we ourselves may not live to see 
 this [our freedom], at least our children will live in tranquillity 
 and freedom, and will not roam about like wild beasts. Awake then 
 like lions and leopards! 
 
 Berek's language is crude and naive, and so is his political 
 reasoning. While calling upon the Jews to join " the mighty 
 nobles " in fighting for liberty, he evidently overlooked the fact 
 that the liberty of the JeM^s was far from being secured by 
 the liberty of the nobles, among whom men with the humani-
 
 296 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 tarian tendencies of a Koscinszko were few and far between.' 
 Berek, however, found solace in the hope that the participation 
 of the Jews in the struggle for Polish independence would 
 bring about a change. He lived at a time when the Jews of 
 Western Europe were eager to display their patriotic senti- 
 ments and civic virtues. Before his mind's eye there probably 
 floated the figures of Jews who, since 1789, had served in the 
 garde nationale of Paris. 
 
 Berek^s enthusiasm succeeded in attracting many volunteers. 
 In a short time a regiment of five hundred men was made up. 
 The Jewish legion, which was hastily equipped with the scanty 
 means supplied by the revolutionary Government and by volun- 
 tary contributions, had the checkered appearance of militia. 
 Yet the consciousness of military duty was keen in these men, 
 many of whom carried arms for the first time in their lives. 
 The Jewish regiment displayed its dauntless and self-sacrific- 
 ing spirit on that fatal November fourth, the day of the terrible 
 onslaught upon Praga by the Eussian troops under Suvarov. 
 Among the fifteen thousand Poles who lost their lives in the 
 intrenchments of Praga, in the streets of Warsaw, or in the 
 waves of the Vistula, was also the regiment of Berek Yoselo- 
 vich. The bulk of the regiment met its fate at the fortifica- 
 tions, being killed by Eussian shells or bayonets. Berek him- 
 self survived, and fled abroad with General Zayonchek, Kos- 
 ciuszko's comrade in arms, Kosciuszko himself having been 
 made a Eussian prisoner somewhat earlier, Berek was at 
 
 * That the habits of the Shlakhta were but little changed by the 
 revolution may be gauged from the fact that in 1794 the revolu- 
 tionary Central Council passed a law ordering the sale of crown 
 lands for the purpose of paying the national debt, but limiting this 
 sale to persons of the Christian faith.
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE TARTITIONS 29)- 
 
 first arrested in Austria, but he managed to escape and reach 
 France, where he found himself among the Polish revolutionary- 
 refugees. 
 
 The third partition of Poland, which took place in 1795, 
 transferred to Eussia the backbone of the former Jewry of 
 Poland, the dense masses of Lithuania, the provinces of Vilna 
 and Grodno. Prussia absorbed the remainder of Great Poland, 
 including Warsaw and Mazovia,' as well as the region of Bialy- 
 stok. Austria rounded off her possessions in Little Poland by 
 adding the provinces of Cracow and Lublin. Henceforward 
 the fortunes of the Polish Jews are identical with those of 
 their brethren in these three countries, and exhibit a " tri- 
 colored " appearance — Austro-Prusso-Eussian. 
 
 However, even the third partition of Poland was not final as 
 far as the political distribution of territory is concerned. For 
 a short interval the ghost of a semi-independent Poland dances 
 fitfully about. Twelve years after the third partition. 
 Napoleon L, in juggling with the political map of Europe and 
 calling mushroom states into being, snatched the province of 
 Great Poland from the grasp of Prussia, and turned it into the 
 Duchy of Warsaw, a small Polish commonwealth under the 
 lule of the Saxon King Frederick Augustus IIL, a grandson of 
 Augustus IL, the last Polish King of the Saxon dynasty. This 
 took place in 1807, after the crushing blow which Prussia 
 had received at the hands of Napoleon and after the conclusion 
 of the Peace of Tilsit. Two years later, in 1809, when 
 Napoleon had shattered AustTia, he tore off a section of 
 her Polish dominions, and joined them to the Duchy of 
 Warsaw. 
 
 ['See p. 85, n. 1.]
 
 v-98 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 4. The Duchy of Waiisaw and the Reaction under 
 Napoleon 
 
 Warsaw, having been cleared of the Prussians, once more 
 became, after an interval of twelve years, the capital of a 
 separate Polish state, resuscitated under the patronage of 
 jSTapoleon. The Duchy of Warsaw, which was made up of 
 the ten " departments," or districts, of Great and Little 
 Poland, received from her French master a fairly liberal 
 Constitution, two legislative chambers (the Diet and the 
 Senate), and the "Code of Napoleon,'^ which had just been 
 introduced in France. The fundamental laws proclaimed 
 the equality of all citizens; serfdom was abolished, and all 
 class privileges were abrogated. 
 
 The Jews too cherished hopes for a better future. The 
 nimbus of Napoleon as the originator of the " Jewish Parlia- 
 ment " and the Parisian Synhedrion, had not yet faded from 
 the minds of the Jews, and they cherished the hope that the 
 Emperor would extend his protection to the Polish Jews as 
 well, but they were grievously disappointed. 
 
 The first year of the Duchy of Warsaw (1807-1808) coin- 
 cided with a critical turn in Napoleon's own policy towards the 
 Jews of France. The " Great Synhedrion " was disbanded, 
 and its disbandment was followed by the humiliating Imperial 
 decree of March 17, 1808, which for a decade checked in almost 
 the entire French Empire the operation of the law providing 
 Tor Jewish emancipation. This reactionary step was grist 
 to the mill of those sinister forces in Poland which had learned 
 nothing from the violent upheavals their country had under- 
 gone, and even now were not able to reconcile themselves to the 
 idea of granting equality to the unloved tribe.
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 299 
 
 In the spring of 1808 the Government of the Duchy was 
 forced to pay attention to the Jewish question, in consequence 
 of a petition for civil rights presented by the Jews, and in 
 connection with the impending elections to the Diet. The 
 Council of Ministers, which had already been informed of 
 j^apoleon's decree, clutched at it as an anchor of salvation. 
 A report was submitted to Duke Frederick Augustus, in 
 which it was pointed out that " a somber future would be in 
 store for the Duchy if the Israelitish nation, which is to be 
 found here in vast numbers, were suddenly to be allowed to 
 enjoy civil rights," the reason being that this people " cherishes 
 a national spirit alien to the country," and engages in mi- 
 productive occupations. The Coimcil of Ministers pointed to 
 Napoleon's decree suspending the Jewish question for a time 
 as a convenient means of evading the clause of the Constitution 
 granting equal rights to all citizens. 
 
 To make sure of Napoleon's approval in this matter, the 
 Government of Warsaw conducted negotiations with its agents 
 in France and with the French minister Champagny, who was 
 a Jew-hater. Napoleon's sympathetic attitude towards this 
 anti-Jewish policy having been ascertained, the Duke promul- 
 gated on October 17, 1808, a decree to the following effect : 
 
 The inhabitants of our Varsovian Duchy professing the Mosaic 
 religion shall be barred for ten years from enjoying the political 
 rights they were about to receive, in the hope that during this 
 interval they may eradicate their distinguishing characteristics, 
 which mark them off so strongly from the rest of the population. 
 The foregoing decision, however, will not prevent us from allowing 
 individual members of that persuasion to enjoy political rights 
 even before the expiration of said term, provided they will prove 
 themselves worthy of our high favor, and will comply with the 
 conditions which will be set forth by us in a special edict con- 
 cerning the professors of the Mosaic religion.
 
 300 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 In this way the Government of Warsaw in politely couched 
 terms, phrased after the modern French pattern, managed to 
 rob all the " professors of the Mosaic religion " of the rights 
 of citizenship which the Constitution had gTanted them. It 
 is true that the decree uses the words " political rights," but 
 in reality the Jews were divested by it of their elementary civil 
 rights. In November, 1808, they were forbidden to acquire 
 patrimonial estates belonging to the Shlakhta. The humiliat- 
 ing restrictions attaching to the right of domicile in Warsaw 
 were restored, and were embodied in a decree issued in 1809 
 which ordered the Jews to remove within six months from the 
 main streets of the capital, except a few individuals, such as 
 bankers, large mercliants, physicians, and artists. There was 
 a general tendency to return to the anti-Jewish traditions of 
 the Old Polish and Prussian legislation. 
 
 The Jewish community became alarmed. By that time War- 
 saw already possessed a goodly number of " advanced " Jews, 
 Avho had acquired the new culture of Berlin, and had divested 
 themselves of the distinguishing marks in dress and outward 
 appearance for which the Jews were penalized with the loss of 
 rights. Relying upon the second clause of the ducal decree, 
 which provided for the exceptional treatment of those who 
 shall have " eradicated their distinguishing characteristics," 
 a group of seventeen Jews of this type made representa- 
 tions to the Minister of Justice in January, 1809, to the effect 
 that, " having endeavored for a long time, by their moral con- 
 duct and modern dress, to come into closer touch with the rest 
 of the population, they are now certain that they have ceased to 
 be unworthy of civil rights." To this flunkeyish petition the 
 Minister of Justice, Lubenski — one of the "constitutional" 
 ministers who managed to promote the interests of despotism
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 301 
 
 under the cloak of liberalism — retorUd with coarse sophistry, 
 that constitutional equality before the law did not yet make 
 a man a citizen, for only those could claim to be citizens who 
 were loyal to the sovereign, and looked upon this country as 
 their only fatherland. " Can those " — added Lubenski — " who 
 profess the laws of Moses look upon this country as their father- 
 land ? Do they not wish to return to the land of their fathers ? 
 .... Do they not regard themselves as a separate nation ? . . . . 
 The mere change of dress is not yet sufficient." The Polish 
 minister had, it would seem, made a thorough study of 
 Napoleon's catechism on the Jews. 
 
 Aside from the representatives of this sartorial culture, who 
 looked after their own personal advantage, there were among 
 the Jews of Warsaw followers of the Berlin " enlightenment," 
 who considered it their duty to make a stand for the rights of 
 their people. On March 17, 1809, five representatives of the 
 Jewish community of Warsaw submitted a memorandum to 
 the ducal Senate, in which not only the note of entreaty but 
 also the imdertone of indignation could be discerned. 
 
 Thousands of members of the Polish nation of the Mosaic per- 
 suasion, who, by virtue of having dwelt in this country for many 
 centuries, have acquired the same right to consider it their father- 
 land as the other inhabitants, have hitherto, without any fault of 
 theirs, to the damage of society and as an insult to mankind, for 
 reasons that no one knows, been doomed to humiliation, and are 
 groaning under the load of daily oppressions. 
 
 Contrary to the enlightened spirit of the age and " the 
 wisdom of the laws of Napoleon the Great " — the petitioners go 
 on complaining — the Jews are denied civil rights, have no 
 one to defend them in the Diet or the Senate, and sorrowfully 
 anticipate that even " their children and descendants will not 
 live to see happier times."
 
 303 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 We carry a heavier burden of taxation than the other citizens. 
 We are robbed of the gladsome opportunity of acquiring a piece of 
 land, of building a little house, of founding a household, of erecting 
 a factory, of engaging in commerce unhampered, in a word, do- 
 ing that which God and nature hold out to man. In Warsaw 
 we are even ordered out of the main streets. And what shall we 
 say of those blessed liberties which citizens value most highly — 
 the right of electing their superiors and of being elected by their 
 compatriots, so as not to be as a dead body in the civic life of the 
 nation? Is the land in which our fathers, paying heavily for this 
 privilege, saw the light of the world, always to remain strange to 
 us? Gentlemen of the Senate, we lay before you the tears of the 
 fathers and of the children and of the coming generations. We 
 beg you to hasten the happy day when we may enter upon the en- 
 joyment of the rights and liberties with which Napoleon the Great 
 has endowed the inhabitants of this country, and which our be- 
 loved country recognizes as the possession of her children. 
 
 To this petition of the Jews, who classed themselves as 
 " members of the Polish nation," and were ready to renounce 
 their own national characteristics, the Senate replied by pre- 
 senting the Duke with a heartless report, in which it was 
 pointed out that the Jews had brought upon themselves the 
 " curtailment of their rights " by their " dishonest pursuits " 
 and by " their mode of life, subversive of the welfare of society." 
 It was necessary first to reform the life of the Jews and to 
 appoint a committee to elaborate plans of reform. It may be 
 remarked parenthetically that a committee of this kind had 
 been in existence since the end of 1808, and had worked out a 
 " plan of reform " akin in spirit to the projects of the Quad- 
 rennial Diet and the Parisian Synhedrion. But all these com- 
 mittees were in reality nothing but a decent way of burying 
 the Jewish question. 
 
 At the very time when the Government of the Varsovian 
 Duchy rejected the Jewish appeal for equality, under the
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 303 
 
 pretext that the Jews lacked patriotism, there lived and worked 
 in Warsaw a shining example of Polish patriotism, Berek 
 Yoselovich, the hero of the Revolution of 1794. After roaming 
 about for twelve years in Western Europe, where, having en- 
 listed in the ranks of the " Polish legions " of Domvrovski, he 
 took part in many Napoleonic wars, Berek returned home as 
 soon as the Duchy was established, and received an appointment 
 as commander of a detachment in the regular Polish army. 
 The dream of the old fighter had failed to come true. In vain 
 had his " Jewish regiment " filled the trenches of Praga with 
 their dead bodies. Twelve years later the brethren of those 
 who had sacrificed their lives for their fatherland had to beg 
 for the rights of citizenship. But Berek seems to have for- 
 gotten his former ambition on behalf of his fellow-Jews, having 
 in the meantime become a professional soldier. It was solely 
 Polish patriotism and personal bravery that prompted the last 
 military exploits of his life. When, in the spring of 1809, war 
 broke out between the Duchy and the Austrians, Berek Yoselo- 
 vich, at the head of his regiment, rushed against the enemy's 
 cavalry near the town of Kotzk.' He fell on May 5, after a 
 series of heroic deeds. 
 
 The papers lamented the loss of the hero. A representative 
 of the Polish aristocracy, the proud Stanislav Pototzki, devoted 
 a special discourse to his memory at a meeting of the " Society 
 of the Friends of Science " in Warsaw. 
 
 Thou hast saddened — thus spoke the orator — the land of heroes, 
 thou valiant Colonel Berek, when unmeasured boldness drove thee 
 
 into the midst of the enemy Well doth the fatherland 
 
 remember also thy old wounds and thy former exploits, remember 
 eternally that thou wast the first to give thy people an example, an 
 
 [' In Polish, Kock, near Warsaw.] 
 20
 
 304 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 example of rejuvenated heroism, and that thou hast resuscitated 
 the image of those men of valor over whom in days gone by wept 
 the daughters of Zion. 
 
 The Polish nation remembered, and that for a short time 
 only, the one Berek; but the thousands of his oppressed 
 brethren were forgotten. The only way in which the gratitude 
 of the " fatherland " manifested itself was a special order 
 of the Duke granting permission to Berek's widow, who found 
 it difficult to live and bring vip her children on her scanty 
 pension, to reside in the streets of Warsaw from which the 
 Jews were barred, and " to engage there in the sale of liquor." 
 Other civil privileges the Jews could not hope for, even by 
 way of exception. 
 
 This state of affairs could not very well inspire the Jewish 
 population with a great love for military service, although the 
 Jews had been graciously permitted to discharge it in per- 
 son. With few exceptions, the Jews preferred to pay an 
 additional tax rather than spill their blood for a country 
 which offered them obligations without rights. The decree of 
 January 29, 1812, legalized this substitution of personal mili- 
 tary service by a monetary ransom, the grand total of which 
 amounted to 700,000 gulden a year. 
 
 On the brink of destruction, during the war tempest of 1812, 
 the Duchy of Warsaw still foimd leisure to strike an economic 
 blow at the Jews. At the suggestion of Minister Lubenski, a 
 ducal decree was issued on September 30 forbidding the Jews, 
 after the lapse of two years, to sell liquor and keep taverns, 
 which meant, in other words, that tens of thousands of Jewish 
 families were to be deprived of their livelihood. Secretly the 
 Government justified this measure by the impending augmen- 
 tation of the territory of the Duchy and the restoration of Old
 
 THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS 305 
 
 Poland, where strict ecouomic measures were necessary to keep 
 the returning Jewish population in bounds. But the confi- 
 dence reposed in the power of Xapoleon was not justified. The 
 idol was overthrown. The Duchy of Warsaw, the pale specter 
 of an independent Poland, vanished into air, and the fate 
 oi the country again lay in the hands of the three Powers 
 that had divided it, particularly Russia. The millions of Jews 
 in Russian Poland were well aware of what they had to expect 
 at the hands of their new rulers.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BEGmmNGS OF THE EUSSIAN EEGIME 
 
 1. The Jewish Policy of Catherine II. (1772-1796) 
 
 The quarantine which Eussia, prior to Catherine II., had 
 established for the " enemies of Christ," was broken through 
 in 1772 by the first partition of Poland. At one stroke the 
 number of Eussian subjects was swelled by the huge Jewish 
 masses of White Eussia. The Eussian Empire was augmented 
 by a new province adjoining its central possessions, and to- 
 gether with the new region and its variegated population it 
 acquired himdreds of thousands of subjects of the kind it had 
 hitherto ruthlessly driven beyond its borders. 
 
 What was to be done with the unwelcome heritage be- 
 queathed by Poland? The primitive policy of an Elizabeth 
 Petrovna might have dictated some barbarous measure, 
 such as the wholesale expulsion of the Jews from the newly- 
 acquired territory. But the statesmanlike intellect of a Cath- 
 erine could not, during the formulation of the liberal " Instruc- 
 tions," * admit such barbarism, which moreover would have been 
 incompatible with the new pledges the Eussian Government 
 had found it necessary to give to the heterogeneous population 
 of White Eussia at the time of annexation. In the " Placard " 
 issued on this occasion by Count Chernyshev, the first Gov- 
 ernor-General of White Eussia, all residents, " of what- 
 
 [* In 1766 Catherine convened a Commission, consisting of repre- 
 sentatives of the various estates, for the purpose of elaborating a 
 new Russian code of laws. As a guide for this Commission 
 Catherine wrote her famous "Instructions" (in Russian Nakaz), 
 outlining the principles of government, largely in the spirit of 
 Montesquieu.]
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 307 
 
 ever birth and calling/'' were " solemnly assured by the sacred 
 name and word of the Empress," that their religious liberty 
 as well as their personal rights, and the privileges attaching 
 to property and estate, would remain inviolate. 
 
 This *' assurance " included the Jews, though not without 
 qualification, as is shown by this passage: 
 
 From the aforesaid solemn assurance of the free exercise of 
 religion and the inviolability of property for one and all, it follows 
 of itself that also the Jewish communities residing in the cities 
 and territories now incorporated into the Russian Empire will be 
 left in the enjoyment of all those liberties which they possess at 
 present, in accordance with the [Russian] law and [their own] 
 property. For the humaneness of her Imperial Majesty will not 
 allow her to exclude the Jews alone from the grace vouchsafed to 
 all and from the future prosperity under her beneficent rule, so 
 long as they on their part shall live in due obedience as faithful 
 subjects, and shall limit themselves to the pursuit of genuine trade 
 and commerce according to their callings. 
 
 To be sure, the Jews, in contradistinction to the rest of the 
 population, are promised the high Imperial favor on condition 
 of "due obedience." Yet the inviolability of their former 
 rights was solemnly guaranteed, and Eussian politics had 
 henceforward to be guided by it. 
 
 Immediately on the annexation of the new province a general 
 census was ordered. According to the testimony of a contem- 
 porary, the number of Jews in White Kussia was found to 
 amount to over forty thousand families, about two hun- 
 dred thousand souls. An ukase of 1772 imposed upon them a 
 per capita tax of one rubel (50c.). The annexed territor}^ 
 was divided into two Governments, those of Moghilev and Po- 
 lotzk, or, as it is called at present, Vitebsk. In the interest 
 of the regular collection of taxes, the administration from
 
 308 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the very begiiiDing gave instructions " to have all Jews 
 affiliate with the Kahals and to institute such [Kahals] as the 
 governors may suggest or as necessity for them may arise/' 
 
 The problems connected with the inner organization of the 
 Jews were of a more complicated character. Far-reaching 
 changes were taking place at that time in the provincial and 
 the social organization of the Russian Empire. In 1775 was 
 j)romulgated the " Regulation Concerning the Governments." ' 
 In 1785 was issued the " Act Concerning Municipal Admin- 
 istration,'* * and the authorities were confronted by an alter- 
 native : either to place the Jews under the general laws, accord- 
 ing to the estate to which they belonged (in the cities the 
 mercantile class, the burghers, and the trade-unions), or, in 
 view of their peculiar conditions of life and the Kahal autonomy 
 inherited from Poland, allow them to retain their own institu- 
 tions as part of their communal and spiritual self-government. 
 It was a difficult problem, and Russian legislation at first 
 wavered between these two ways of solving it, with the result 
 that matters became muddled. The interference of the local 
 
 [' This law laid the foundation for the division of the Russian 
 Empire into " Governments," in Russian guhernia (the English 
 term is a reproduction of the French gouvernement) . The chief of 
 a Government is called Governor, in Russian, Gubernator. There 
 are also a few Governors-General, in Russian, Gheneral-Gubernator, 
 placed over several Governments, mostly on the borders of the 
 Empire.] 
 
 [= According to this new law, the city population is divided 
 Into merchants, burghers, and artisans. The burghers — in Rus- 
 sian (also in Polish, see above, p. 44, n. 2), myeshchanye — are 
 placed below the merchants. The former are those possessing less 
 than 500 rubels ($250) ; they have to pay the head-tax and are sub- 
 ject to corporal punishment. The merchants are those who have a 
 larger capital, and are privileged in the two directions indicated. 
 The artisans are organized in their trade-unions. Each estate is 
 registered and administered separately.]
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 309 
 
 administration and the old rivalry among the various estates 
 made confusion worse confounded. 
 
 The ukase issued by the Senate in 1776 sanctioned the 
 existence of the Kahal, regarding it primarily as a fiscal and 
 legislative institution, which the Russian administration found 
 convenient for its purposes. At the instance of Governor- 
 General Chernyshev, the Jews of White Russia were set apart as 
 a separate tax-unit and as an estate of their own. They were 
 to be entered on special registers in the towns, townlets, vil- 
 lages, and hamlets, wherever a census was taken. The instruc- 
 tions read that 
 
 in order that their taxes may be more regularly remitted to the 
 exchequer, Kahals shall be established in which tliey [the Jews] 
 shall all be enrolled, so that every one of the " Zhyds," » whenevei- 
 he shall desire to travel somewhere on business, or to live and 
 settle in one place or another, or to take anything on lease, shall 
 receive a passport from the Kahal. The same Kahal shall pay 
 the head-tax, and turn it over to the provincial exchequer. 
 
 Thus, as regards the payment of taxes, and the rights not 
 only of transit but also of business, every Jew was placed in 
 the same position of dependence on his Kahal as under the old 
 Polish regime. At the same time the Kahal was endowed with 
 certain judicial functions. District and Government Kahals, 
 the latter conceived as courts of appeal, were established for 
 cases between Jews, each of these Kahals being assigned a 
 definite number of elective judges. Only lawsuits between 
 Jews and non-Jews were to be brought before the general 
 magistracy courts. 
 
 But a few years later the Government was shaken in its 
 resolve to uphold the former Kahal organization to its full 
 
 [' See p. 320, n. 2.]
 
 310 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 extent. In 1782 an inquiry was addressed by the Senate to Pas- 
 sek, the new Governor-General of White Eussia, as to the legal- 
 ity of establishing special Jewish law courts. A year later the 
 Government took a decided step in the opposite direction. It 
 recognized the rights of Jews registered in the merchant class 
 to participation in the general city government, to elect and to 
 be elected on equal terms with the Christian members of the 
 magistracies, town councils, and municipal courts. The reali- 
 zation of this reform was greatly hampered by the opposition of 
 the Christian merchants and burghers, who hated the Jews, 
 and could not reconcile themselves to the municipal equality 
 of their competitors. Having accustomed themselves to look 
 down upon the Jews as citizens of an inferior grade, the 
 Christian city officials assumed a hostile attitude towards 
 their Jewish colleagues who had been elected to public posts, 
 and by electioneering methods managed to reduce their num- 
 bers in the city corporations to a minimum. The interests of 
 the Jews were bound to suffer, particularly as far as the 
 administration of justice was concerned. 
 
 On the other hand, the administration itself began to oppress 
 them. The liberal Chernyshev was superseded by the anti- 
 Jewish Passek, who did his utmost to restrict the Jews in 
 their economic activities, to the obvious advantage of their 
 competitors in the ranks of the Shlakhta and the Christian 
 merchants. 
 
 The Jews — a contemporary who had himself been affected by 
 these measures informs us — were driven from their breweries and 
 distilleries, their toll-houses, hostelries, etc., which formed their 
 principal means of livelihood. Thousands of families were reduced 
 to beggary. In addition, new restrictions were introduced affecting 
 business, handicrafts, and so forth.
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 311 
 
 The acuteuess of the economic and social crisis among the 
 Jews of White Russia during that period of transition is 
 evidenced by the petition which their delegates submitted in 
 1784 to Catherine II. 
 
 The petition, consisting of six points, is permeated with a 
 profound feeling of despair. The Jews complain that the 
 administration has deprived them completely of their main 
 sources of income: distilling, brewing, and liquor-selling in 
 the cities. They furthermore point out that Governor-General 
 Passek has forbidden the landed proprietors to lease the inns 
 on their estates to Jews, and that in consequence a large 
 number of families, who depended for their livelihood on some 
 form of liquor-selling and innkeeping, had been brought to the 
 verge of ruin. They also contend that the Jews had not reaped 
 the expected benefits from the equal municipal rights conferred 
 upon them, for where the Jews are in a minority not a single 
 Jewish candidate is admitted to a municipal or judicial office, 
 " so that whenever a Jew goes to law against a Christian, 
 he is liable to become the victim of a partial verdict, because 
 there is no coreligionist to intercede on his behalf in the 
 courts, and he is not familiar with the Russian language." 
 Their further grievances relate to the arbitrariness of the 
 landed proprietors, who " from sheer caprice, contrary to 
 agreement," impose an excessive land rent on the Jews who 
 have erected houses on their property, so that they are forced 
 to abandon their houses. Sometimes houses are requisitioned 
 for Government purposes, or are torn down " to be rebuilt ac- 
 cording to [new ofiicial street] plans," without the slightest 
 compensation to their owners. The magistracies, on the other 
 hand, often compel the Jews who are domiciled in the townlets 
 and villages, but are enrolled among the merchants or burghers
 
 312 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 of some city, to build houses in that city, " whereby the Jews 
 are liable to be reduced to extreme poverty, inasmuch as by 
 spending their capital on building they have no capital where- 
 with to run their business." 
 
 The petition was received by the Empress, who, in forward- 
 ing it, in 1785, to the Senate for consideration, deemed it 
 necessary to indicate her general attitude in the following 
 " resolution " : 
 
 Her Majesty desires to have it pointed out that, Inasmuch as the 
 aforesaid persons of the Jewish religion have been placed by the 
 ordinances of her Majesty in the same position as the others, 
 it is necessary in every case to observe the rule that everyone is 
 entitled to the advantages and rights appertaining to his calling or 
 estate, without distinction of religion or nationality. 
 
 The Senate had to comply with the comprehensive and 
 liberal-minded injunction of the Empress in endeavoring to 
 solve the burning problems affecting Jewish life. The solution 
 finally arrived at was a feeble compromise between the 
 economic, national, and class interests which were contradic- 
 tory to one another. In its ukase of May 7, 1786, the Senate 
 partly fulfilled and partly declined the demands of the White 
 Russian Jews. The right of pursuing freely the liquor trade 
 in the cities was refused, in view of the fact that, according 
 to the new law, liquor-dealing constituted a monopoly of the 
 city administration. On the other hand, the Jews were ac- 
 corded the riglits of participating on equal terms with non- 
 Jews in the public bids for the lease of the pothouses. Pas- 
 self's rescript forbidding the landowners to let out distilleries 
 and inns to the Jews was declared an illegal infringement of 
 the rights of the landowners, and therefore ordered to be 
 countermanded.
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 313 
 
 The complicated question as to the compatibility of muni- 
 cipal self-government with Jewish Kahal autonomy was 
 equally solved by a compromise. With respect to the magis- 
 tracies, town councils, boards of aldermen, and law courts, the 
 Jews were accorded proportionate representation in agree- 
 ment with the general provisions of the new city government. 
 The common municipal courts, in which Jews were to be 
 represented by elective jurymen of their own, were to handle 
 both civil and criminal cases, not only between persons of 
 different denominations, but also betwen Jew and Jew. The 
 District and Government Kahals were to deal with spiritual 
 affairs only. They were also to be charged with the distribution 
 of the state and communal taxes in the various Jewish com- 
 munities. 
 
 As for the complaints of the Jews against the oppres- 
 sion of the administration as well as of the magistracies 
 and the landowners, all the Senate did was to point to the 
 principle by which all the members of a given estate are 
 equally vouchsafed the rights appertaining to it. The Senate 
 even went so far as to bar all references to the former Polish 
 laws with their discriminations against the Jews, " for, inas- 
 much as they [the Jews] are enrolled among the merchants and 
 burghers on the same terms, and pay equal taxes to the exche- 
 quer, they ought in all circumstances to be given the same 
 protection and satisfaction as the other subjects." Yet in 
 tlie very same ukase the Senate refuses to grant the petition 
 of several White Russian Jews who asked to be enrolled in the 
 merchant corporation of Riga, basing its refusal on the absence 
 of a special Imperial permit allowing the Jews to register as 
 merchants outside of White Russian territory.
 
 31-i THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Here we have the fiiyt application of the ignoiuiuiouii prin- 
 ciple of subsequent Russian legislation, that everything is for- 
 bidden to Jews unless permitted by special law. The ukase of 
 1786, with all its liberal phrases about the equality of the mem- 
 bers of all classes irrespective of religion, imperceptibly insti- 
 tuted a Pale of Settlement by attaching the Jews to definite 
 localities, which had been wrested from Poland, and refusing 
 them the right of residence in other parts of Russia. The im- 
 plied criticism of the Senate, directed against " the former 
 Polish laws with their discriminations against the Jews,"' 
 could with far greater justice be leveled in much sharper 
 form against the Russian legislation which subsequently cur- 
 tailed the Jewish right of transit and commerce to an extent 
 undreamt-of even by the fiercest anti-Jewish restrictionists of 
 Poland. 
 
 While in the first two decades after the occupation of White 
 Russia the Russian Government observed a comparatively 
 liberal, at least a well-intentioned, attitude towards the Jewish 
 question, in later years it openly embarked upon a policy of 
 exceptional laws and restrictions. The general reactionary 
 tendency, which was partly the result of the " ominous " suc- 
 cesses of the great French Revolution, and gained the upper 
 hand in Russia towards the end of Catherine's reign, was mir- 
 rored also in the position of the Jews. At that juncture the 
 second and third partitions of Poland (1793, 1795) were 
 effected, and hundreds of thousands of Jews from Lithuania, 
 Volhynia, and Podolia were added to the numbers of Russian 
 subjects. The country, which barely a generation before had 
 not tolerated a single Jew within its borders, now included 
 a territory more densely populated by Jew^s than any other. 
 Some means of reconciliation had to be found between these 
 historic opposites, the traditional anti-Jewish policy of Russia,
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 315 
 
 on the one hand, and the presence of millions of Jews within 
 its dominions, on the other, and such means were found in 
 that system of Jewish rightlessness which since that time has 
 become one of the principal characteristics of the political 
 genius of Russian autocracy. The ancient Muscovite policy 
 peeped out with ever greater boldness from beneath the Euro- 
 pean mask of St. Petersburg. 
 
 On the very eve of the second partition of Poland, when the 
 Russian Government merely anticipated an influx of Jews, it 
 had a fatal gift in store for them : the law of the Pale of Settle- 
 ment, which was to create within the monarchy of peasant 
 serfs a special class of territorially restricted city serfs. It 
 should be added that the impulse towards the creation of this 
 disability did not come from above but from below, from the 
 influential Christian middle class, which, fearing free competi- 
 tion, began to shout for protection. 
 
 The first step in robbing the Jews of Russia of their freedom 
 of movement was made a few years after the occupation of 
 White Russia. The Jewish merchants of the White Russian 
 Governments Moghilev and Polotzk (or, as the latter is called 
 at present, Vitebsk) which border on the Great Russian Gov- 
 ernments of Smolensk and Moscow, began to visit the tAvo cities 
 of the same name and carry on trade, wholesale and retail, in 
 imported dry goods. They did a good business, for the Jewish 
 merchants sold goods of a higher quality at a lower figure than 
 their Christian competitors. This set the merchants of Mos- 
 cow agog, and in February, 1790, they lodged a complaint with 
 the commander-in-chief of Moscow against the Jews who sell 
 " foreign goods by lowering the current prices, and thereby 
 inflict very considerable damage upon the local trade." The 
 complainants point to the ancient tradition of the Muscovite
 
 316 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Empire excluding the Jews i'lom its borders, and a.--ui-e the 
 authorities that Jewish rivalry will throw the trade of Moscow 
 into complete " disorder," and bring the Russian merchants 
 to the verge of ruin. 
 
 The petition, which at bottom was directed not alone against 
 the Jews, but also against the interests of the Russian con- 
 sumer, who was exploited by the " real Russian " trade monop- 
 olists, found a sympathetic echo in Government circles. Ac- 
 cordingly, in the autumn of tlie same year, the Council of Stat^, 
 after considering the counter-petition of the Jews asking to be 
 enrolled in the merchant corporations of Smolensk and Mos- 
 cow, rendered the decision that it did not deem it expedient to 
 grant the Jews the right of free commerce in the inner Rus- 
 sian provinces, because " their admission to it is not found to 
 be of any benefit." A year later this verdict was reaffirmed 
 by an Imperial ukase issued on December 23, 1791, to the effect 
 that " the Jews have no right to enroll in the merchant corpor- 
 ations in the inner Russian cities or ports of entry, and are per- 
 mitted to enjoy only the rights of townsmen and burghers of 
 White Russia." To mitigate the severity of this measure the 
 ukase " deemed it right to extend the said privilege beyond 
 the White Russian Government, to the vice-royalty of Yeka- 
 terinoslav and the region of Tavrida," i. e. the recently annexed 
 territory of New Russia, where the Government was anxious to 
 populate the lonely steppes. 
 
 In this way the first territorial ghetto, that of White Russia, 
 was established by law for the purpose of harboring the Jew- 
 ish population taken over from Poland. When again, two 
 years later, the second partition of Poland took place, the 
 northwestern ghetto was increased by the neighboring Gov- 
 ernment of Minsk and the southwestern region — Volhynia
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 317 
 
 with the greater part of the Kiev province and Podolia. The 
 ukase of June 23, 1794, conferred upon this enlarged Pale 
 of Settlement the sanction of the law. The Jews were granted 
 the right " to engage in the occupations of merchants and 
 burghers in the Governments of Minsk, Izyaslav (subsequently 
 Volhynia), Bratzlav (Podolia), Polotzk (now Vitebsk), 
 Moghilev, Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk, Yekaterinoslav, 
 as well as in the region of Tavrida." The ukase thus enlarges 
 the former pale of Jewish settlement by including Little Eussia, 
 or the portion of the Ukraina which had been wTCsted from 
 Poland as far back as 1654/ — in short, the territory from 
 which the Jews had been assiduously driven " beyond the 
 border " in the reign of the three Empresses preceding Cath- 
 erine. The organic connection of Little Russia with the por- 
 tion of the Ukraina on the right bank of the Dnieper which 
 had just been annexed from Poland, left the Russian Govern- 
 ment no other choice than to allow the Jews who had lived in 
 those parts from time immemorial to remain there. Even the 
 holy city of Kiev opened its gates to the Jews. The Dnieper 
 became thereby the central river of the Jewish Pale of Settle- 
 ment. 
 
 The third partition of Poland, in 1795, added to the Dnieper 
 system that of the Niemen, the territory of Lithuania^ con- 
 sisting of the Governments of Grodno and Vilna.^ This com- 
 pleted the process of formation of the Pale of Settlement, at 
 the end of the eighteenth century. As for Eastern Russia, she 
 was just as vigilantly on her guard against the penetration of 
 
 * It consisted of the Governments of Chernigov and Novgorod- 
 Seversk (subsequently Poltava) and a part of the Grovernment of 
 Kiev. 
 
 [' The present Government oi Kovno was constituted as late as 
 1872. Its territory was up till then included in the Government of 
 Vilna.]
 
 318 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the Jewish element as she had been in the time of the ancient 
 Muscovite Empire. 
 
 The same ukase of 1794, which circumscribed the area of 
 the Jewish right of residence, laid down another fundamental 
 discrimination, that of taxation. The Jews, desirous of en- 
 rolling themselves in the mercantile or burgher class in the 
 cities, were to pay the instituted taxes " doubly in comparison 
 with those imposed on the burghers and merchants of the 
 Christian religion," Those Jews who refused to remain in the 
 cities on these conditions were to leave the Eussian Empire 
 after paying a fine in the form of a double tax for three years. 
 In this way the Government exacted from the Jews, for the 
 privilege of remaining in their former places without the right 
 of free transit in the Empire, taxes twice as large as those of 
 the Christian townspeople enjoying the liberty of transit. This 
 punitive tax did not relieve the Jews from the special military 
 assessment, which, by the ukases of 1794 and 1796, they had 
 to pay, like the Eussian mercantile class in general, in exchange 
 for the personal discharge of military service. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that at the solicitation of Count 
 Zubov, the Governor-General of New Eussia, the Karaites of the 
 Government of Tavrida were released from the double tax. 
 They were also granted permission to own estates, and were 
 in general given equal rights with the Christian population, 
 " on the understanding, however, that the community of Ka- 
 raites should not be entered by the Jews known by the name of 
 Eabins (Eabbanites), concerning whom the laws enacted by us 
 are to be rigidly enforced " (ukase of June 8, 1795). Here the 
 national-religious motive of the anti-Jewish legislation crops 
 out unmistakably. The handful of Karaites, who had for
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 319 
 
 centuries lived a])art from the Jewish nation and its spiritual 
 possessions, were declared to be more desirable citizens of the 
 monarchy than the genuine Jews, who were on the contrary to 
 be cowed by repressive measures. 
 
 A decided bent in favor of such measures is manifested in 
 the ukase of 1795, which prescribes that the Jews living in vil- 
 lages ho registered in the towns, and that " endeavors be made 
 to transfer them to the District towns, so that these people 
 may not wander about, but may rather engage in commerce 
 and promote manufactures and handicrafts, thereby further- 
 ing their own interests as well as the interests of society." 
 'I'he effect of this ukase was to sanction by law the long-estab- 
 lished arbitrary practice of the local authorities, who fre- 
 quently expelled the Jews from the villages, and sent them to 
 the towns under the pretext that Jews could be enrolled only 
 among the toM^nsfolk. The expelled families, deprived of all 
 means of livelihood, were of course completely ruined, as the 
 mere bidding of the authorities did not suffice to enable them 
 " to engage in commerce and promote manufactures and handi- 
 crafts " in the towns in which even the resident merchants and 
 artisans failed to make a living. The system of official tutelage 
 had the effect of fettering instead of developing the economic 
 activity of the Jews. 
 
 Experiments were now made to extend this tutelage to the 
 communal self-government of the Jews. In 1795 the edict was 
 repeated whereby the Government and District Kahals, in view 
 of the right, conferred upon the Jews, of participating in the 
 general city administration, in the magistracies and town coun- 
 cils, were to be deprived of their social and judicial functions, 
 and not to be allowed " to concern themselves with any affairs 
 21
 
 320 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 except the ceremonies of religion and divine service." * As a 
 matter of fact, the active participation of the Jews in the 
 municipalities, owing to the hostile attitude of the Christian 
 burghers, was extremely feeble. Yet, in the interest of the 
 exchequer, the Kahals were preserved for fiscal purposes, and, 
 on account of their financial usefulness, they continued to 
 function as the organs of Jewish communal autonomy, how- 
 ever curtailed and disorganized the latter had now become. 
 
 In this wi^e the restrictive legislation against the Jews ap- 
 pears firmly established towards the end of the reign of 
 Catherine II. A " Muscovite " wall had been raised between 
 the west and east of Russia, and even within the circumscribed 
 area of Jewish settlement the tendency was discernible to mark 
 off a still smaller area and, by forcing the Jews out of the 
 villages, to compress the Jewish masses in the towns and cities. 
 It fell to the lot of the successors of Catherine to consolidate 
 this tendency into law. 
 
 In conclusion, the historian cannot pass over in silence the 
 solitary " reform " of this period. In the legislative enactments 
 of the last decade of Catherine's reign the formerly current 
 contemptuous appellation " Zhyd " gave way to the name " He- 
 brew " (Yevrey).' The Russian Government found it imposs- 
 ible to go beyond this verbal reform. 
 
 ^ This was in direct violation of the pledge given by the Russian 
 Government at the occupation of the Polish provinces. As recently 
 as in January of the same year (1795) the Lithuanian Governor- 
 General Repnin had replied to the application of the Lithuanian 
 Jews, who pleaded for the maintenance of the Kahal tribunal, that 
 the Jews " may retain the same rights they had been enjoying prior 
 to the last [Polish] mutiny [of 1794]." 
 
 [- Zhyd, originally the Slavic form of the Latin Judaeus, has 
 assumed in Russian a derogatory connotation. It is interesting to 
 note that in Polish the same word has no unpleasant meaning, 
 although in polite speech other terms are used.]
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 33I 
 
 2. Jewish Legislative Schemes during the 
 Reign of Paul I. 
 
 The brief reign of Paul I. (1796-1801) added nothing of 
 moment to the Russian legislation concerning the Jews. The 
 law imposing a double tax was confirmed, and also the other 
 restrictions were left in force. The area of Jewish settlement 
 was increased by the newly-acquired Government of Courland, 
 on the outskirts of the Empire. In this Duchy, which was an- 
 nexed in 1795, there were several thousand Jewish inhabitants, 
 wiio had been " tolerated " as foreigners, after the German pat- 
 tern, and had only partly succeeded in forming a communal 
 organization. The question now arose as to the best way of 
 collecting the taxes from the itinerant chapmen who formed 
 the bulk of the Jewish population, and M'ere enrolled neither 
 among the rural nor the urban estates, and were not even 
 alliliated with Jewish communities. The Russian Government 
 solved this question in 1799, by placing the Jews of Courland 
 in the same position as their coreligionists in the other western 
 Governments, and by granting them the right of enrolling 
 themselves among the mercantile or burgher estates, as well 
 as establishing their own Kahals. In this case fiscal considera- 
 tions were responsible for the organization of the Jewish masses 
 in the dominion of the German barons. 
 
 Having confined the Jewish population within the western 
 pale, the Government could not very well hamper its freedom 
 of transit within that pale, at least as far as moving from city 
 to city was concerned. This elementary right of free transit 
 was resorted to by many Jews of impoverished White Russia, 
 who began to emigrate into the Little Russian provinces, par- 
 ticularly into the Government of Novgorod-Seversk, later the 
 Government of Poltava, which were more prosperous, and less
 
 322 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 crowded with Jews. The Government became aware of this 
 internal transmigration, and could not abstain from takmg 
 it under its fatherly protection. Merchants were allowed to 
 move unhampered from White Russia into Little Russia. 
 Burghers, however, were permitted to emigrate only on the 
 conditions applying to all persons of the taxable estates^ 
 they had to obtain certificates of dismissal (December, 1796). 
 
 Poor as was the reign of Paul in the field of concrete legisla- 
 tion concerning the Jews, it was rich in preliminary endeavors 
 leading up to it. For his reign abounds in all kinds of projects 
 looking to the regulation of the status of the Jews on the basis 
 of olTicial " investigations." In the outgoing years of the 
 eighteenth century (1797-1800) the Government ofiices were 
 feverishly busy in this direction. The Government was endeav- 
 oring to familiarize itself with the state of the former Polish 
 provinces and particularly with the condition of the Jewish 
 population. The first step in this pursuit after knowledge 
 consisted in sending out a circular inquiry to the nobles and 
 the higher officials of the region under consideration. The 
 stimulus to this inquiry came in 1797, from a report submitted 
 on account of the famine which had been raging in the Govern- 
 ment of Minsk. Governor Karnyeyev of Minsk received 
 orders from St. Petersburg to gather the opinions of the local 
 Marshals, or leaders of the nobility, and on that basis supply 
 " an elucidation of the causes of the impoverished condition of 
 the peasants,"^ with plans looking to their amelioration. 
 
 The shrewd device of questioning the landed aristocrats as to 
 the causes of the impoverishment of their peasant serfs bore 
 worthy fruit. Needless to say, the Polish magnates who 
 assembled in Minsk at the invitation of the Government did 
 not even for a moment think of reproaching themselves and
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 333 
 
 their owu estate of slaveholders for the misery of the people 
 enthralled by them. Instead they preferred to put the blame 
 partly on external circumstances (" the changes and mutinies 
 in the province," bad crops, poor means of communication, 
 etc.), and partly on the Jews, "whom the owners [of the 
 villages] retain as arendars and tavern-keepers, contrary to the 
 orders of the authorities restricting their domicile to the 
 cities." The Jewish tavern-keepers in the coimtry, so the 
 nobles allege, "lure the peasants into drunkenness," by selling 
 them spirits on trust, and thereby " render them unfit to 
 manage their affairs." In order to save the peasants, the Gov- 
 ernment sliould insist " that the right of distilling be open 
 exclusively to the landowners, and be withheld from the Jews 
 as well as other arendars and tavern-keepers," and that in the 
 rural public houses " permission to sell hot wine [whiskey] 
 be given only to the squires." To put it in other words, the 
 peasants will thrive and be " fit to manage their affairs," if, 
 instead of Jewisli alcohol, they will imbibe the aristocratic 
 alcohol of the landed proprietors. 
 
 One need not be a statesman to discover the underlying 
 motive of this " opinion " of the nobles, who were concerned 
 only about retaining the ancient alcohol monopoly which they 
 had enjoyed under the Polish regime (" the right of propi- 
 nation"). This, however, did not prevent the Governor of 
 Minsk from presenting the report of the nobility to the Tzar, 
 who on July 28, 1797, put down the following " resolution '*: ' 
 " Measures are to be taken, in accordance with the proposals of 
 the marshals of the nobility, to restrict the rights of the Jews 
 who ruin the peasants." At the same time the Senate called the 
 Governor's attention to Catherine's ukase ordering the trans- 
 
 [' See p. 253. n. 1; for " propination " see p. 67, n. 2.]
 
 32i THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 fer of the Jews to the District towns, " so that these people 
 may not wander to and fro to the detriment of society." This 
 was tantamount to giving the authorities carte blanche in 
 expelling the Jews from the villages. 
 
 In 1798 came the turn of the nobility of the Southwest, of 
 Volhynia and Podolia, to state their wishes for the benefit of 
 the fatherland. The marshals of Podolia, who met at Kame- 
 netz, elaborated a much more comprehensive scheme of reform 
 than their compeers in Minsk. After expressing their grati- 
 tude to the Tzar " for his Imperial benevolence in leaving us 
 the franchise of liquor-dealing," the nobles plead that " neither 
 the right of distilling nor that of selling liquor be let to Jews 
 or even to Christians," and that the nobles themselves be 
 granted the " liberty " of employing people in their " public 
 houses at their own discretion." After securing the monopoly 
 of intoxicating the people through their own bartenders, the 
 nobles propose to transform the bulk of the Jews into export 
 agents, to find foreign markets for the agrarian, i. e. manorial, 
 products, " whence commercial profits will accrue both to the 
 tillers of the soil (?!) and to the nobles." As for the other 
 Jews, part of them were to be retained by the landowners in 
 their public houses, and the rest were " to be forced to engage 
 in agriculture and handicrafts." 
 
 This brilliant prospect of becoming the tools of the nobles 
 for the disposal of rural products and the sale of manorial 
 alcohol had evidently little fascination for the Jews themselves. 
 Alarmed by these aristocratic designs, they held a consultation, 
 and even called a conference of delegates. The conference met 
 in Ostrog (Volhynia) in the summer of 1798, and decided to 
 collect a fund and send a deputation to St. Petersburg, to 
 lay before the Tzar the needs and wishes of the Jews of the
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 325 
 
 Southwest, whom the Government had entirely forgotten to ask 
 how they themselves would like to have their affairs arranged. 
 Unfortunately the Governor-General of the Southwest, Count 
 Gudovicli, " got wind " of these preparations. Far-sighted 
 statesman that he w^as, he immediately suspected " that this 
 collection [of money for the deputation] might merely serve 
 as a cover for some wicked Jewish design."' He accordingly 
 confiscated the funds already secured, forbade all further col- 
 lections, and hastened to report his achievement to St. Peters- 
 burg. To his astonishment, the overzealous Governor-General 
 received the chilling reply, that the Tzar found nothing crim- 
 inal in the desire of the Jews to send a deputation to him. 
 At the same time he was instructed to return the con ii seated 
 money and not to interfere with the sending of the deputation 
 (September, 1798). Whether the deputation actually pro- 
 ceeded to the capital, and what it achieved, is imknown. But 
 the occurrence in itself bears witness to the fact that even in 
 that unenlightened epoch and in the secluded Hasidic en- 
 vironment of Volhynia and Podolia, the Jews were not alto- 
 gether insensible of the political and social upheavals which 
 were taking place in Eussia. 
 
 The last to respond to the Governmental inquiry was the 
 nobility of Lithuania. The marshals of the nineteen Lithu- 
 anian districts, who met in 1800, submitted their "opinion," 
 which had been adopted with only three dissenting votes, to 
 Friesel, the Governor of Vilna. The three opposing marshals 
 suggested leaving the Jews in the condition which had pre- 
 vailed under the Polish regime. All the others drafted a plan 
 of Jewish " reform,'' which was even more radical than that 
 of the nobles of Minsk and Podolia. The Jews were to be 
 barred not only from distilling and keeping taverns of their
 
 326 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 own, but also from the sale of spirits iu the uianorial public 
 houses, 'i'he Jewish rural population, which would thus be 
 deprived of all means of subsistence, was to be transferred 
 partly to the cities, partly " to be scattered over the crown 
 and manorial settlements, where they might be allowed to 
 grow corn and to mortgage and farm estates." The economic 
 reform was to be supplemented by one affecting the inner life 
 of the Jews. It was necessary " to abolish the Jewish costume 
 and introduce among the Jews the form of dress customary 
 among the other inhabitants." Altogether the separateness of 
 the Jews was to be broken down, for " they constitute a people 
 by themselves, and as such have their own administration . . . 
 in the form of synagogues and Kahals, which not only arro- 
 gate to themselves spiritual authority, but also meddle in all 
 civil affairs and in matters appertaining to the police." These 
 measures would bring about the amalgamation of the Jews 
 with the surrounding population. 
 
 The " reformatory " ardor of the Lithuanian nobles, who 
 thought it necessary to bracket the problem of Kahal auton- 
 omy with the sale of alcohol, was the effect of outside inter- 
 ference. Friesel, the Governor of Vilna, who was a cultivated 
 German, and as such was acquainted with the state of the 
 Jewish problem in Germany, foimd it necessary to address 
 himself to the Lithuanian marshals twice, their first state- 
 ment ha\ iug been found " unsatisfactory." Only a second 
 revision of the views of the nobles, which included the plan of 
 inner reforms, satisfied Friesel. In April, 1800, Friesel for- 
 warded these recommendations to the Senate, accompanying 
 them by his own comprehensive memorandum, which to a large 
 extent was obviously based on Chatzki's and Butrymovich's
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 397 
 
 projcctii submitted some ten years previously to the " Jewish 
 Jommission " of the Quadrennial Diet. 
 
 Friesel urges the necessity of a " general reform," and 
 professes to take Western Europe as a model, but all he 
 adopted thence was the most objectionable tactics of " en- 
 lightened absolutism." In liis opinion " the education of 
 the Jewish people must begin with their religion." It is 
 necessary " to wipe out all Jewish sects with their super- 
 stitions and to forbid strictly the introduction of any inno- 
 vations whereby impostors might seduce the masses and 
 plunge them into ever greater ignorance," a veiled allusion to 
 tlic Hasidim and in particular to their Tzaddiks, whose strife 
 with the anti-Hasidic rabbis was engaging the attention of the 
 Russian Government at the time. He further recommends 
 that the Jews be forced to send their children to the Govern- 
 ment schools, to conduct all their business in Polish, to wear 
 the customary non-Jewish form of dress, and not to marry 
 l)prore the age of twenty. Finally the Jews are to be classified 
 in three categories, merchants, artisans, and tillers of the soil, 
 these three estates to form part of the general class stratifica- 
 tion of the Empire. In this way the fiscal services of the 
 Kahals could be dispensed with, and the Kahals themselves 
 would pass out of existence automatically. 
 
 The suggestions of the loaders of the nobility as well as the 
 proposals of the governors were turned over in the spring of 
 1800 to the Senate, whose function was to examine and utilize 
 them for a new legal enactment or " statute." Here they hap- 
 pened to fall into the hands of one of the Senators, Gabriel 
 Dyerzhavin, the celebrated Russian poet, who by the whim of 
 fate was soon to blossom forth into a " specialist " in rebus 
 Judaicis.
 
 328 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 3. Dyebzhavin's " Opinion " on the Jewish Prokle:m 
 
 Dyerzhavin was born in one of the remote eastern provinces 
 of Eussia, and spent the greater part of his life in the Govern- 
 ment offices of St. Petersburg. He had never come in con- 
 tact with the Jewish population, until, in 1799, he was dis- 
 patched to the little town of Shklov in White Russia, to 
 look into the case of the owner of the town, a retired general 
 by the name of Zorich, The latter had been one of the 
 favorites of Catherine, and lived the fast and extravagant 
 life of a Eussian country squire in the town which was liis 
 private property. His typically Eussian devil-may-care con- 
 duct was not calculated to spare the large Jewish population 
 of the town. Zorich evidently fancied that the Jews living 
 on his land were just as much his serfs as were the peasants, 
 and he handled them in the way serfs were dealt with in those 
 days. He expelled several of them from the town, and seized 
 their houses. Others he beat with his own hands, and still 
 others he forced to supply him with drink free of charge. The 
 Jews appealed to the Government against this attempt to turn 
 them into serfs, and it was in response to their appeal that 
 Emperor Paul dispatched Senator Dyerzhavin, with in- 
 structions to curb the violence of the boisterous squire. 
 Dyerzhavin, who was imbued with the spirit of serfdom, 
 could not but take a mild view of the high-handed methods 
 of Zorich, and came to the conclusion that the Jews were 
 partly to blame for the disorders that had taken place. The 
 death of Zorich in 1800 put a stop to the case, but theoretically 
 the Senate decided that, according to Eussian law, the Jews, 
 by virtue of their being members of the merchant and burgher 
 class, could not be regarded as serfs even in the towns and set- 
 tlements owned by squires.
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME ^-nj 
 
 A year later Dyerzliavin was again dispatched to White 
 Russia, this time invested with very large powers. The prov- 
 ince was in the throes of a terrible famine, brought about not 
 onl}'' by bad crops but also by the outrageous conduct of the 
 landed proprietors. These gentlemen, instead of supplying 
 their peasants with foodstuffs, preferred to send large quantities 
 of grain either abroad, for sale, or into their distilleries, for 
 the production of whiskey, which, instead of feeding the 
 peasants, poisoned them. In dispatching Dyerzliavin to White 
 Russia, Emperor Paul gave him full power to put a stop to 
 these abuses and to inflict severe penalties on the squires, 
 who, " moved by unexampled greed, leave their peasants 
 without assistance." They were to be dispossessed, and 
 their estates placed under state control (June 16, 1800). In 
 a supplementary instruction added by the Procurator-General 
 of the Senate, Obolanin, the following clause was added : 
 " And whereas, according to information received, the exhaus- 
 tion of the White Russian peasants is to a rather considerable 
 extent caused b}^ the Zhyds, it is his Majesty's wish that your 
 Excellency may give particular attention to their part in it 
 and submit an opinion how to avert the general damage in- 
 flicted by them." This unmistakably anti-Semitic postscript, 
 to which Dyerzliavin was in all likelihood a party, to which 
 at all events he gave his approval, was designed to mitigate the 
 blow aimed at the squires and turn it against the Jews. '^I'he 
 conspiracy of these two bureaucrats, who believed in serfdom 
 and sided with the squires, put an altogether different com- 
 plexion on Dyerzhavin's mission. 
 
 The pacification of White Russia was speedily accomplished. 
 Dyerzliavin placed the estate of one Polish magnate under state 
 control, and personally closed up a Jewish distillery in the
 
 330 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 town of Lozno, the residoiiec of the famous Hasidic Tzaddik, 
 Rabbi Zalman Shnoorsohn. He proceeded with such energy that 
 oue Jewish woman complained of having received blows at his 
 hands. After having " installed order/' Dyerzhavin set out to 
 do what he considered to be his main task — prepare an 
 elaborate memorandum concerning the Jews, under the char- 
 acteristic title, '' Opinion of Senator Dyerzhavin Concerning 
 the Averting of the Want of Foodstuffs in White Russia by 
 Curbing the Avaricious Pursuits of the Jews, also Concerning 
 Their Ee-education, and Other Matters." 
 
 The very title betrays the underlying motive of the writer, 
 to make the Jews the scapegoat for the economic ruin of 
 the province, in which the squires had always been the masters 
 of the situation. But Dyerzhavin did not confine himself to 
 the evaluation of the economic activity of the Jews. He was 
 no less anxious to depict their inner life, their beliefs, their 
 training and education, their communal institutions, their 
 "moral situation." For all these purposes he drew upon a 
 multitude of sources. While writing his memorandum in 
 Vitebsk, in the fall of 1800, he gathered information about 
 the Jews from the local anti- Jewish merchants and burghers, 
 and from the " scientific " instructors at the Jesuit College in 
 the same city, in the court-houses, and — from " the very Cos- 
 sacks themselves." 
 
 It must be added that Dyerzliavin also had in his possession 
 two projects from the pen of " enlightened Jews." The 
 author of one of them, ^ota Shklover by name, a wealthy mer- 
 chant, who had served as purveyor to Potemkin's army, and, 
 living at that time in St. Petersburg, knew the drift of 
 opinion in Government circles, proposed to attract the Jews 
 to manufacturing, which should be introduced, in connection
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 33I 
 
 with agriculture and cattle-breeding, into coloniea set apart 
 for this purpose ** in the neighborhood of the Black Sea ports.'' 
 The originator oi' the second project, a physician from Kres- 
 lavka, in the Government of Vitebsk, by the name of Frank, — 
 evidently a German Jew of the Mendelssohnian type — suggested 
 that the Government through Dyerzhavin focus its attention 
 on the reform of the Jewish religion, which " in its original 
 purity rested on unadulterated Deism and the postulates of 
 pure morality," but in the course of time was distorted by " the 
 absurdities of the Talmud." Frank accordingly proposes to 
 follow the example set by Mendelssohn in Germany, to throw 
 open the Eussian public schools to the Jews, and to teach their 
 children Eussian, German, and Hebrew, implying of course 
 that the Jew thus educated will not fail to prove himself of 
 unquestionable benefit to the country. 
 
 Aside from these projects, Dyerzhavin had before him 
 specimens of several Prussian J uden-Reglements, as well as 
 the recommendations of the marshals and governors of West- 
 ern Eussia referred to above, and similar documents.' This 
 material sufficed for the Eussian official, who had caught no 
 more than a fleeting glimpse of the Jews while passing through 
 White Eussia, to elaborate a most comprehensive " Opinion " 
 demanding a complete transformation of Jewish life. 
 
 The somber picture which Dyerzhavin draws of the life of 
 the Jews suffices to show how superficial was his acquaintance 
 
 ' Dyerzhavin's statement, that he had " borrowed his principal 
 ideas from Prussian institutions," refers in all likelihood to the 
 well-known Prussian Jiiden-Reglement fiir l^did-und-yeuostpreus- 
 se.n of 1797, which was at that time operative in the whole of 
 Prussian Poland. There are numerous points of contact between 
 Dyerzhavin's project and the Prussian enactment. The latter may 
 be found in the work of Ronne and Simon, YerhuUnisse der Juden 
 in den anmintUchrn Landcstheilrn des pieussischen Staates. ed. 
 1843, pp. 281-302.
 
 333 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 with the conditions he describes. The naivete with which he 
 judges and completely distorts many aspects of Jewish life is 
 astounding. The economic pursuits of the Jews, such as trad- 
 ing, leasing of land, innkeeping, brokerage, are nothing but 
 " subtle devices to squeeze out the wealth of their neighbors, 
 under the guise of offering them benefits and favors." The 
 Jewish school is " a hotbed of superstitions." Moral senti- 
 ments are entirely a))seut among Jews : " they have no con- 
 ception of lovingkindness, disinterestedness, and other vir- 
 tues.'" All they do is " to collect riches in order to erect a 
 new temple of Solomon or [to satisfy] their fleshly desires." 
 
 This curious bit of characterization forms the preamble to 
 a vast scheme, consisting of no less than eighty-eight clauses, 
 looking to the " transformation of the Jews." The Jews are to 
 be placed under " Supreme [t. e. Imperial] protection and 
 tutelage " and to be supervised by a special Christian official, 
 a " Protector," who, with the assistance of committees to be 
 appointed by the gubernatorial administrations, shall carry 
 out this work of " transformation," shall take a census of 
 all the Jews, and provide them with family names. There- 
 upon the Jews shall be divided into four categories : mer- 
 chants, urban burghers, rural burghers, and agricultural set- 
 tlers, and every Jew shall be forced to register in one of these 
 categories. All this mass of Jews is to be evenly distributed 
 over the various parts of White Eussia, and the surplus trans- 
 ferred to the other Governments. 
 
 This reform having been accomplished, the Kahals shall be 
 dispensed with. To provide for the management of the spirit- 
 ual affairs of the Jews, " synagogues," with rabbis and 
 " schoolmen," are to be organized in the various Governments.
 
 BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN REGIME 333 
 
 A supreme ecclesiastic tribunal is to be established at St. Peters- 
 burg, under the name " Sendarin," * which shall be presided 
 over by a chief rabbi, or " patriarch/^ after the pattern of the 
 Moliammedan mufti of the Tatars. 
 
 Suggestions of various repressive and compulsory measures 
 supplement these positive proposals. The Jews are to be for- 
 bidden to keep Christian domestics ; they are to be deprived of 
 their right of participating in the city magistracies; they are 
 to be compelled to give up their distinct form of dress and to 
 execute all deeds and business documents in Eussian, Polish, 
 or German. The children shall be allowed to go to the Jewish 
 religious schools only up to the age of twelve, and shall after- 
 wards be transferred to the secular schools of the state. 
 Finally the author proposes that the Government establish a 
 printing-office of its own, to publish Jewish religious books 
 " with philosophic annotations." In this way, Dyerzhavin 
 contends, will " the stubborn and cunning tribe of Hebrews 
 be properly set to rights,'' and Emperor Paul, by carrying out 
 this reform, will earn great fame for having fulfilled the com- 
 mandment of the Gospels, " Love your enemies, bless them 
 that curse you, do good to them that hate you." 
 
 Such is Dyerzhavin's project, a curious mixture of the 
 savage fancies of an old-fashioned Muscovite about an un- 
 familiar bistoric culture on tlio 0110 hand, and notioiis of 
 reform conceived in the contemporary Prussian barrack spirit 
 and various " philosophic " tendencies on the other hand, a 
 medley of hereditary Jew-hatred, vague appreciation of the 
 historic tragedy of Judaism, and the desire to " render the 
 
 ' This is the way Dyerzhavin spells the word Synhedrlon, or San- 
 hedrin, which he evidently had picked up casually.
 
 334 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Jews useful to the state." * And over it all hovers the spirit 
 of official patronage and red-tape regulations, the curious 
 notion that a people with an ancient culture can, at the mere 
 bidding of an outside agency, change its position like figures 
 on a chess-board, that strange faith in the saving power of 
 mechanical reforms which prevailed, though in less naive 
 manifestations, also in Western Europe. 
 
 Dyerzhavin's " Opinion '' was laid before the Senate in 
 December, 1800, and together with the previously submitted 
 recommendations of the West-Russian marshals and governors 
 was to supply the material for an organic legal enactment con- 
 cerning the Jews. 
 
 But the execution of this plan was not destined to take place 
 during the reign of Paul. In March, 1801, the Tzar met his 
 tragic fate, and the cause of " Jewish reform " entered into 
 a new phase, a phase characterized by the struggle between the 
 liberal tendencies prevalent at the beginning of Alexander I.'s 
 reign and the retrograde views held by the champions of Old 
 Poland and Old Russia. 
 
 • The following sentence in Dyerzhavin's " Opinion " is typical 
 of this mixture of medieval notions with the new system of 
 "enlightened patronage": "Inasmuch as Supreme Providence, in 
 order to attain its unknown ends, leaves this people, despite its 
 dangerous characteristics, on the face of the earth, and refrains 
 from destroying it, the Governments under whose scepter it takes 
 refuge must also suffer it to live; assisting the decree of destiny, 
 they are in duty bound to extend their patronage even to the 
 Jews, but in such wise that they [the Jews] may prove useful both 
 to themselves and to the people in whose midst they are settled."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE "ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM " OF 
 ALEXANDER I. 
 
 1 . " The Committee for the Amelioration of the Jews." 
 
 The liberal breeze which began to stir in the first years of 
 Alexander I.'s reign sent a refreshing current of air through 
 the stuffy atmosphere of the St. Petersburg chancelleries, in 
 which Russian bureaucrats, undisturbed by their utter ignor- 
 ance of Judaism, were devising ways and means of turning Jew- 
 ish life upside down. It took some time, however, before the 
 Jewish question was taken up again. In 1801 and 1802 the 
 Government was busy rearranging the whole machinery of 
 the administration. With the formation of the Ministries 
 and of the Council of State the Senate lost its former execu- 
 tive power, and, as a result, the material relating to the Jewish 
 question which had been in its possession had to be transferred 
 to a new official agency. 
 
 Such an agency was called into being in November, 1802. 
 By order of the Tzar a special " Committee for the Ameliora- 
 tion of the Jews " was organized, and the following were ap- 
 pointed its members: Kochubay, Minister of the Interior, 
 Dyerzhavin, the " specialist " on Judaism, at that time 
 Minister of Justice, Count Zubov, and two high officials of 
 Polish birth, Adam Chartoriski, Assistant-Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs, an intimate friend of Alexander I., and 
 Severin Pototzki, a member of the Senate. The Committee 
 was charged with the investigation of all the problems touched 
 upon in Dyerzhavin's " Opinion," concerning the curbing of 
 22
 
 336 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the avaricious pursuits of the Jews in White Eussia, with a 
 view to " extending the amelioration of the Jews also to the 
 other Governments acquired from Poland." 
 
 Rumors to the effect that a special Committee on Jewish 
 affairs had been instituted at St. Petersburg, and that its work 
 was to follow the lines laid do'O'n in the project of Dyerzhavin, 
 caused considerable alarm among the Jews of the Northwest, 
 who knew but too well the anti-Semitic leanings of the former 
 Senator and inspector. The Kahal of Minsk held a special 
 meeting in December, 1802, which passed the following reso- 
 lution : 
 
 Whereas disquieting rumors have reached us from the capital, 
 to the effect that matters involving the Jews as a whole have now 
 been intrusted to the hands of five dignitaries, with power to dis- 
 pose of them as they see lit, be it resolved that it is necessary to 
 proceed to St. Petersburg and petition our sovereign not to allow 
 them [the dignitaries] to Introduce any innovations among us. 
 
 A public appeal was made for funds to provide the expenses 
 of the delegates. Moreover, a fast of three days was imposed 
 on all the members of the community, during which prayers 
 were to be offered up in the synagogues for averting the 
 calamity which the Government threatened to brmg upon the 
 Jews. 
 
 When the Minister of the Interior, Kochubay, learned of the 
 excitement prevailing among the Jews, he sent, in January, 
 1803, a circular to the governors, instructing them to allay the 
 fears of the Jews. The Kahals were to be informed that " in 
 appointing the Committee for the investigation of Jewish 
 matters," there was " no intention whatsoever to impair their 
 status or to curtail any substantial advantage enjoyed by 
 them," but on the contrary it was proposed to "offer them 
 better conditions and greater security."
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 337 
 
 This verbal assurance was not nearly so effective in quiet- 
 ing the minds of the Jews as action taken by the Government 
 at the same time. In the beginning of 1803, the " Jewish 
 Committee " resolved to invite deputies from all the guber- 
 natorial Kahals to St. Petersburg for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining their views as to the needs of the Jewish people, 
 which the Government had planned to " transform " without 
 its own knowledge. This was the first departure from the 
 red-tape routine of St. Petersburg. Towards the end of Jan- 
 uary, 1803, active preparations were set afoot by the Kahals 
 for sending such deputies. During the winter and spring the 
 Russian capital witnessed the arrival of Jewish deputies from 
 the Governments of Minsk, Podolia, Moghilev, and Kiev, no 
 information being available about the other Governments. 
 The deputies soon had occasion to rejoice in Dyerzhavin's 
 retirement from membership in the Jewish Committee, fol- 
 lowing upon his resignation from the post of Minister of 
 Justice. Being a conservative of the " real Russian " type, 
 Dyerzhavin was out of place in a liberal Government such as 
 ruled the destinies of Russia in the early years of Alexander's 
 reign. With his retirement his " Opinion " ceased to serve as 
 an obligatory rule of conduct for the members of the Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 On arriving in St. Petersburg, the deputies from the prov- 
 inces found there a small group of Jews, mostly natives of 
 White Russia, who lived temporarily in the capital, in con- 
 nection with their business affairs. Though denied the right 
 of permanent domicile in the capital of the Empire, this hand- 
 ful of barely tolerated Jews had managed to secure the right 
 of dying there and of burying their dead in their own cemetery. 
 The opening of the cemetery in 1803 marks symbolically
 
 338 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the inception of the Jewish community in St. Petersburg. In 
 the same sign of death the provincial deputies met their metro- 
 politan brethren at a rather strange " celebration " in the sum- 
 mer of 1803 : at the suggestion of the deputies and in their 
 presence the remains of three Jews who had been buried in a 
 Christian cemetery were transferred to the newly-acquired 
 Jewish cemetery. 
 
 Among the Jews of St. Petersburg there were several men 
 at that time who, owing to their connections with high officials 
 and because of their familiarity with bureaucratic ways, were 
 able to be of substantial service to the deputies from the prov- 
 inces. One of these Jews, Nota Shklover, who about that time 
 received the family name Notkin, the same public-spirited 
 merchant who in 1800 had submitted his reform project to 
 Dyerzhavin,' acted, it would seem, as the official adviser of the 
 deputies, having been invited some time previously to partici- 
 pate in the labors of the Jewish Committee. While on the 
 Committee, he continually insisted on his scheme of promoting 
 agriculture and manufactures among the Jews, but he did 
 not live to se^ the triumph of his ideas. He died shortly be- 
 fore the enactment of the law of 1804, in which his pet theory 
 found due recognition. Another St. Petersburg Jew, the 
 wealthy contractor and commercial councilor Abraham Peretz, 
 took no immediate part in Jewish affairs. Yet he too was of 
 some service to the deputies, owing to his business relations 
 with the official world. 
 
 In the meantime the Committee for the Amelioration of 
 the Jews, after scrutinizing the different projects submit- 
 ted to it, had worked out a general plan of reform, and 
 communicated it to the Jewish deputies. After " prolonged 
 
 » See p. 330.
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 339 
 
 indecision '" the Jewisli deputies announced that they were 
 not in a position to submit their conclusions, without previous 
 consultation with the Kahals by which they had been elected. 
 They accordingly asked for a half-year's respite " for the pur- 
 pose of consultation." The official Jewish Committee, on 
 the other hand, could not agree to so protracted a delay in 
 its labors, and resolved to submit, through the medium of tlie 
 Government, the principal clauses of the project to the Kahals, 
 with the imderstanding that the latter, " without making any 
 changes in the aforesaid clauses,"' should confine themselves 
 to suggestions as to the best ways and means of carrying the 
 proposed reforms into effect. 
 
 The epistolary inquiry failed to produce the " desired 
 eifect." Restricted beforehand in their free expression of 
 opinion, and having no right to speak their mind as to the 
 substance of the project, the Kahals in replying limited them- 
 selves to the request that the " correctional measures " be 
 postponed for twenty years, particularly as far as the proposed 
 prohibition of the sale of liquor and land-tenure was con- 
 cerned, which prohibition would undermine the whole eco- 
 nomic structure of Jewish life. The Committee paid no heed 
 to the plea of the Kahals, which was tantamount to a con- 
 demnation of the basic principles of the project, and proceeded 
 to work in the direction originally decided upon. 
 
 Nor was there perfect unanimity within the Committee 
 itself. Two tendencies, it seems, were struggling for mastery : 
 utilitarianism, represented by the champions of " correctional 
 measures " and of a compulsory " transformation of Jewish 
 life," and humanitarianism, advocated by the spokesmen of 
 unconditional emancipation. To the latter class belonged 
 Speranski, the brilliant and enlightened statesman who might
 
 34U 'i'HE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 have succeeded in liberating the Empire of the Tzars a hun- 
 dred years ago, had he not fallen a victim to the fatal con- 
 ditions of Russian life. At the time we are speaking of he 
 served in the IMinistry of the Interior under Kochubay, and 
 was engaged in elaborating plans of reform for the various 
 departments of the civil service. 
 
 Speranski took an active interest in the Committee for the 
 Amelioration of the Jews, and frequently acted as Kochu- 
 bay's substitute. There was a time when his influence in the 
 Committee was predominant. It was evidently under his influ- 
 ence that the remarkable sentences embodied in the minutes of 
 the Committee meeting of September 20, 1803, were penned : 
 
 Reforms brought about by the power of the state are, as a rule, 
 unstable, and are particularly untenable in those cases in which 
 that power has to grapple with the habits of centuries. Hence it 
 seems both better and safer to guide the Jews to perfection by 
 throwing open to them the avenues leading to their own happiness, 
 by observing their movements from a distance, and by removing 
 everything that might turn them away from this path, without 
 using any manner of force, without establishing special agencies 
 for them, without endeavoring to act in their stead, but by merely 
 opening the way for their own activities. As few restrictions as 
 possible, as many liberties as possible — these are the simple ele- 
 ments of every social order. 
 
 Since the Government had begun to dabble in the Jewish 
 question, this was the first rational utterance coming from the 
 ranks of the Eussian bureaucracy. It implied an emphatic con- 
 demnation of the system of state patronage and " correc- 
 tional measures " by means of which Russian officialdom then 
 and thereafter sought to " transform " a whole nation. Here 
 for the first time was voiced the lofty precept of humanitarian- 
 ism : grant the Jews untrammeled possibilities of development,
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 3]i 
 
 give full scope to their energies, and the Jews themselves will 
 in the end choose the way which leads to " perfection " and 
 progress .... But even the liberalizing statesmen of that 
 period could not maintain themselves on that high eminence 
 of political thought. Speranski's conception was too tender 
 a blossom for the rough climate of Russia, even in its springtide. 
 The blossom was bound to wither. As far as the Committee for 
 the Amelioration of the Jews was concerned, the hackneyed 
 political wisdom of the age, the system of patronage and com- 
 pulsory reforms, came to the fore again. The report submitted 
 by the Jewish Committee to Alexander I. in October, 180-1, 
 reveals no trace of that radical liberalism which a year before 
 had come to light in the minutes of the Committee. 
 
 The report begins by determining the approximate size of 
 the Jewish population, computing the number of registered, 
 taxable males at 174,385 — " a figure which represents less 
 than a fifth of the whole Jewish population." In other words, 
 the total number of Jews, in the estimate of the Committee, 
 approached one million. The re])ort proceeds to point out that 
 this entire mass is huddled together in the annexed Polish and 
 Lithuanian provinces and in Little Russia and Courland, 
 and is barred from the Governments of the interior — a state- 
 ment followed by an historical excursus tending to show that 
 '' the Jews have never been allowed to settle in Russia." The 
 Tzar is further informed that the Jews are obliged to pay 
 double taxes, that, notwithstanding the fact that they are 
 liable to the general courts and municipalities, and that their 
 Kahals are subordinate to the gubernatorial police, the Jews 
 still keep aloof from the institutions of the land and manage 
 their affairs through the Kahals. Finally it is ])ointed out that 
 the tale of liquor, the most widespread occu[i<ilion among Jews,
 
 342 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 is a source of abuses, calling forth complaints from the sur- 
 rounding population. Basing its deductions on these prem- 
 ises, the Committee drafted a law which in its principal 
 features was embodied in the " Statute Concerning tlie Or- 
 ganization of the Jews," issued, with the sanction of the Tzar, 
 soon afterwards, on December 9, 1804. 
 
 2. The " Jewish Constitution " of 1804 
 
 The new charter, a mixture of liberties and disabilities, was 
 prompted, as is stated in the preamble, " by solicitude for the 
 true welfare of the Jews," as well as for '' the advantage of 
 the native population of those Governments in which these 
 people are allowed to live." The concluding part of the sen- 
 tence anticipates the way in which the question of the Jewish 
 area of settlement is solved. It remained limited as there- 
 tofore to thirteen Governments: two in Lithuania, two in 
 White Eussia, two in Little Eussia, those of Minsk, Volhynia, 
 Kiev, and Podolia, and finally three in New Eussia. A slightly 
 larger area is conceded by the new statute to the future class of 
 Jewish agriculturists projected in the same statute. They are 
 permitted to settle in addition in two interior Governments, 
 those of z\strakhan and Caucasia. 
 
 Economically the new statute establishes two opposite poles : 
 a negative pole as far as the rural occupations of innkeeping 
 and land-tenure are concerned, which are to be exterminated 
 ruthlessly, and a positive pole, as far as agriculture is in- 
 volved, which on the contrary is to be stimulated and promoted 
 among Jews in every possible manner. Clause 34, the severest 
 provision of the whole act, is directed not only against inn- 
 keeping but against rural occupations in general. It reads as 
 follows :
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 343 
 
 Beginning with January 1, 1807, in tlie Governments of Astra- 
 khan and Caucasia, also in those of Little Russia and New 
 Russia, and, beginning with January 1, 1808, in the other Govern- 
 ments, no one among the Jews in any village or hamlet shall be 
 permitted to hold any leases on land, to keep taverns, saloons, or 
 inns, whether under his own name or under a strange name, or to 
 sell wine in them, or even to live in them under any pretext what- 
 ever, except when passing through. 
 
 With one stroke this clause eliminated from the economic 
 life of the Jews an occupation which, though far from being 
 distinguished, had yet afforded a livelihood to almost one- 
 half of the whole Jewish population of Eussia. Moreover, the 
 none too extensive territory of the Jewish Pale of Settlement 
 was still more limited by excluding from it the enormous area 
 of villages and hamlets. 
 
 The economic and legal blow aimed at the Jews in the 
 Statute of 1804 was to be made good by the privileges held 
 forth to those willing to engage in agriculture. Such Jews 
 were accorded the right of buying unoccupied lands in all 
 the western and in two of the eastern Governments, or of 
 establishing themselves on crown lands. In the latter case 
 the settlers were to be assigned definite parcels of land and, 
 for the first few years, be exempt from state taxes. However, 
 it soon became evident that the proposed remedy was out of 
 jiroportion to the seriousness of the wound that had been 
 inflicted. While hundreds of thousands of Jews were driven 
 from the rural occupations with which their economic life 
 had been bound up for centuries, the new branch of labor 
 opened to the Jews, the pursuit of agriculture, could, for 
 some time to come, attract at the utmost only a few insignifi- 
 cant groups of the Jewish population.
 
 344 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Among the favored occupations, ranging in importance 
 beneath agriculture, the new law includes industry and handi- 
 crafts. Manufacturers and artisans are declared exempt from 
 the double tax imposed on Jews,^ and the foimders of " the most 
 needed factories " are promised, in addition, a Government 
 loan. The Jewish merchants and burghers are placed in the 
 last rank, being merely " tolerated." Manufacturers, artisans, 
 and merchants are given permission to sojourn temporarily for 
 business purposes in " the interior Governments, not excluding 
 the capitals, but not otherwise than with gubernatorial pass- 
 ports," such as are given for going abroad. 
 
 In the chapter entitled " On the Civil Organization of the 
 Jews," the new charter establishes, on the one hand, the lia- 
 bility of the Jews to the authority of the municipalities, the 
 common police, and the common law courts, and grants the 
 JeAvs, on the other hand, the right of electing rabbis and 
 " Kahalmen," who shall be replaced every three years, and shall 
 be ratified by the gubernatorial administration. Special clauses 
 provide that the rabbis are obliged " to look after all the 
 ceremonies of the Jewish faith and decide all disputes bearing 
 on religion," but they are strictly forbidden to resort to 
 "anathemas" and excommunications (the so-called herem). 
 The Kahals in turn are held responsible for the regular pay- 
 ment of the state taxes. The communal autonomy of the Jews 
 was thus calculated to serve two masters, religion and the 
 exchequer, God and mammon, and was expected to adjust 
 its manifold problems to both. 
 
 The " Jewish Constitution " of 1804 is provided as it were 
 with a European label. Its first chapter bears the heading 
 " On Enlightenment." Jewish children are granted free access 
 
 ' See p. 318.
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. :5I5 
 
 to all public schools, gymnasiums, aud uuiversities in the Kus- 
 sian Empire. The Jews are also granted the right of opening 
 their ovn\ schools for secular culture, one of three lan- 
 guages, Eussian, Polish, or German, to be obligatory. One 
 of these languages is also, within a period of two to six years 
 from the promulgation of the law, to become obligatory for all 
 ])ublic documents, promissory notes, commercial ledgers, etc. 
 The Jews elected members of municipalities or chosen as 
 rabbis and Kahal members are obliged, within a definite term 
 ( 1808-1812), to know one of these three languages to the extent 
 of being able to write and speak it. Moreover, the Jewish mem- 
 bers of the municipalities are expected to wear clothes of the 
 Polish, Eussian, or German pattern. 
 
 This " enlightened " program represents the tribute which 
 the Eussian Government felt obliged to render to the spirit 
 of the age, the spirit of enlightened Prussian absolutism rather 
 than that of French emancipation. It was the typical sample 
 of a Prusso-Austrian Reglenient, embodying the very sys- 
 tem of " reforms brought about by the power of the state " 
 against which Speranski had vainly cautioned. In concrete 
 reality this system resulted in nothing else than the violent 
 break-up of a structure built by centuries, relentless coercion 
 on the one hand and suffering of the patronized masses on the 
 other. 
 
 3. The Projected Expulsion feom the Villages 
 
 The legal enactment of 1804 was appraised by the Eussian 
 Jews at its true value : problematic benefits in the future and 
 undeniable hardships for the present. The prospect of future 
 benefits, the attainment of which was conditioned by the 
 weakening of the time-honored foundations of a stalwart Jew-
 
 ;j/j(; 'Illl-; .lli:\VS IN IM'SSIA AND POLAND 
 
 irtli ciilinrul life, ('.\|ii(\ssiii;j; itiscH' in liUif;uHgc, school, and com- 
 niuiuil sclf-i^ovornnicnl, liad no I'lisciiiaiioii for Kussian Jews, 
 who had nut yd hccn loiiclicd hy the intluences of Western 
 I'^ui'opc. Iliil whal th(! Itussian Jews did feel, and feel with 
 Hickcnin;^ pain, was the iinniinence of a terrible ecojioniie catas- 
 lr(»pii(', Ihe expulsion of hundreds of Ihousands of Jews from 
 the vdhii;<'s. It soon heeauie evident that the expulsion would 
 alVeet (iO.OOO Jewisli families, or about half a million Jews. 
 Nee<jless lo say, within llie two or three years of respite whieh 
 remained Ixd'ore tiie i-atastrophe, this hu<;e mass could not poss- 
 ibly ^'ain access to new lields of labor and establish itself in 
 new domiciles, and it was therefore in danger of being starved 
 to death. In consetinence, St. Petersburg was flooded with 
 petitions imploring the authorities to postpone the expulsion 
 for a tunc. Tlu'se petitions came not only from the Kahals but 
 nlst) from t'ountry s(]uires, for whom the removal of the Jewish 
 teiuints and ii\nkeptMs from their estates entailed considerable 
 linant'ial K>sscs. Witli the approach of the year 1808, the time 
 limit set f^>r the expulsion, liie shouts of despair from the 
 provinces Ixuanu^ louder and louder. It is ditficult to say 
 whether tln> U'nssian (unernment would have responded to the 
 terrd)le outcry, had it not been for an event which set all the 
 juditical i-indes of St. Petersburg agog. 
 
 It was m the autumn of 180(). The "Jewish Parliament'* 
 in Paris, whicii had been assembled by Napoleon, was con- 
 cluding its sessions, and was sending out appeals to all the 
 countries of Europe announcing the impending convocation 
 (vf Uie ** Great Synhedrion." This new fad of Napoleon dis- 
 turbed all the Kuropean tunernments which were on terms of 
 euuiity with the French l^mperor, and had reason to fear 
 the discontent of their Jew ish subjects. The Austrian Govern-
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 317 
 
 meut went so far as to forbid the Jews to enter into any rela- 
 tions with " dangerous " Paris. St. Petersburg too became 
 alarmed. Napoleon, who had just shattered Prussia, and had 
 already entered her Polish provinces, was gradually approach- 
 ing the borders of hostile Eussia. The awe inspired by the 
 statesmanlike genius of the French Emperor made the Russian 
 Government suspect that the convocation of a universal Jew- 
 ish Synhedrion in Paris was merely a Napoleonic device to 
 dispose the Jewish inasses of Prussia, Austria, and Eussia in 
 his favor. In these circumstances it seemed likely that the 
 resentment aroused in the Russian Jews by their imminent 
 expulsion from the villages would provide a favorable soil for 
 the wily agitation of Napoleon, and would create a hotbed 
 of anti-Eussian sentiment in the very regions soon to become 
 the theater of war. To avoid such risks it seemed imperative 
 to extinguish the flame of discontent and stop the expulsion. 
 Thus it came about that in the beginning of February, 
 1807, at the very moment when the sessions of the Synhedrion 
 were opened in Paris, the Minister of the Interior, Kochubay, 
 submitted a report to Alexander I., in which he pointed out the 
 necessity " of postponing the transplantation of the Jews from 
 the villages into the towns and townlets, so as to guard this 
 nation in general against the intentions of the French Gov- 
 ernment." The Tzar concurred in this opinion, with the result 
 that a special committee was immediately formed to consider 
 the practical application of the Statute of 1804. Apart from 
 Kochubay and other high officials, the committee included the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs, Budberg, diplomatic considera- 
 tions being involved in the question. On February 15, Sena- 
 tor Alexcyev was directed to inspect the western provinces and 
 find out to what extent " the military circumstances and the
 
 ;348 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 present condition of the border provinces as well as the 
 economic ruin of the Jews, which is inevitable if their expul- 
 sion be enforced," render this expulsion difficult or even im- 
 possible of execution. 
 
 At the same time the Minister of the Interior instructed the 
 administrators of the western Governments to prevent the 
 slightest contact between the Jews of Russia and the Syn- 
 hedrion in Paris, which the French Government was using as 
 a tool to curry political favor with the Jews. The same circu- 
 lar letter to the Governors recommends another rather curious 
 device. It suggests that the Jews be impressed with the idea 
 that the Spihedrion in Paris was endeavoring to modify the 
 Jewish religion, and for this reason did not deserve the 
 sympathy of the Eussian Jews. 
 
 At the same time the Holy Synod was sending out circu- 
 lars instructing the Greek Orthodox clergy to inform the 
 Eussian people that Xapoleon was an enemy of the Church 
 and a friend of the Jews. 
 
 That he might the more effectively put the Church of Christ to 
 shame — so the Holy Synod proclaimed — Napoleon assembled the 
 
 Judean Synagogues in France and established the Great 
 
 Synhedrion of the Jews, that same ungodly assembly which had 
 once dared pass the sentence of crucifixion upon our Lord and 
 Savior Jesus Christ, and he now planneth to unite the Jews, whom 
 the wrath of the Almighty hath scattered over the face of the whole 
 earth, so as to incite them to overthrow the Christian Church and 
 proclaim the pseudo-Messiah in the person of Napoleon. 
 
 By these devices the Government, finding itself at its wits' 
 end in the face of a great war, shrewdly attempted to frighten at 
 once the Jewish people by the specter of an anti-Jewish Na- 
 poleon and the Orthodox Russians by Napoleon's leaning 
 towards Judaism. The former were made to believe that the
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 349 
 
 Synhedrion was directed against tlic Jewish religion, and the 
 latter were told that it was established by the Jewish " pseudo- 
 Messiah " for the overthrow of Christianity. 
 
 In this precarious situation the Government once more 
 decided to ascertain, by means of a circular inquiry, the views 
 of the representatives of the Jewish communities on the best 
 ways of carrying the " reform " into effect. The ukase of 
 February 19, issued by the Tzar on this occasion, is couched in 
 surprisingly mild terms : 
 
 Prompted by the desire to give our subjects of the Jewish 
 nationality another proof of our solicitude about their welfare, we 
 have deemed it right to allow all the Jewish communes in the 
 Governments .... of Vilna, Grodno, Kiev, Minsk, Podolia, Volhy- 
 nia, Vitebsk, and Moghilev, to elect deputies and to suggest, through 
 them, to the gubernatorial administrators the means which they 
 themselves consider best fitted for the most successful execu- 
 tion of the measures laid down in the Statute of 1804. 
 
 The deputies were summoned this time, not to St. Peters- 
 burg, but to tlie provincial capitals in order to present their 
 opinions to the governors. 
 
 The expression of opinion on the part of the Jewish depu- 
 ties, or, as they were officially styled, " the attorneys of the 
 Jewish communes," did not limit itself to the fatal thirty- 
 fourth clause, which all the deputies wished to see repealed 
 or at least postponed for an indefinite period. Serious objec- 
 tions were raised also to the other provisions of the " Jewish 
 Constitution." The deputies advocated the abolition of double 
 taxation for all classes of the Jewish population; they asked 
 for a larger range of authority for the rabbinical tribunals and 
 for a mitigation of the provisions forbidding the use of Hebrew 
 in legal documents, promissory notes, and commercial ledgers. 
 Some of them pleaded for a postponement of the law con-
 
 350 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 cerning Hebrew as being iuconvenient to business, while others 
 suggested permitting the use of Hebrew for promissory notes 
 up to the sum of one hundred rubels.' 
 
 The deputies also called attention to the difficulty, on the 
 part of the rabbis and Jewish members of the magistracies, of 
 acquiring the Russian language within so short a period. They 
 were ready to assent to the change of dress for the magistrates 
 and those living temporarily outside the Pale. But they 
 pointed out at the same time that the prescribed German 
 dress was not becoming to Jews, who on account of religious 
 scruples refused to shave their beards, and that in the case 
 of magistrates and visitors to the Eussian interior they would 
 prefer to adopt the Russian form of dress. As for the laws 
 relating to education, the deputies observed that it would be 
 useless for Jewish children to go to the common Russian 
 schools as long as they did not understand the Russian lan- 
 guage, and that it would for this reason seem more prac- 
 ticable first to have them acquire the Russian language in the 
 Jewish schools, where they are taught the Hebrew language 
 and the " dogmas of the faith." 
 
 By the time the opinions of the deputies were conveyed 
 by the governors to St. Petersburg, the political sentiment 
 there had undergone a change. In July, 1807, the Peace 
 of Tilsit had been concluded. An entente cordiale had been 
 established between N^apoleon and Alexander I., and Russia 
 no more stood in awe of Bonaparte's " intrigues." There 
 was no more reason to fear a secret understanding between 
 
 * The insistence on Hebrew in the latter case is connected with 
 the rabbinical form of promissory note, the so-called Shtar Iska 
 [a form of partnership agreement which was designed to obviate 
 the difficulties arising out of the Biblical prohibition to lend money 
 on interest. A similar legal fiction was introduced by the medieval 
 Church].
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 35I 
 
 the Russian Jews aud tlie Parisian Synhedrion, which had 
 shortly before been prorogued, and the bureaucratic compas- 
 sion for the unfortunate Jews vanished into air. The last 
 term set for the expulsion from the villages, January 1, 1808, 
 was drawing near, and two months before this date, on 
 October 19, 1807, the Tzar addressed an ukase, marked by 
 extraordinary severity, to the Governor-General of the Western 
 region : 
 
 The circumstances connected with the war — the ukase states in 
 pr.rt — were of a nature to complicate and suspend the transplanta- 
 tion of the Jews These complications can now, after the 
 
 cessation of the war, be averted in the future by means of a gradual 
 and most convenient arrangement of the work of transplantation. 
 .... For these reasons we deem it right to lay down an arrange- 
 ment by means of which the transplantation of the Jews, begin- 
 ning with the date referred to above, may be carried into effect, 
 without the slightest delay and mitigation. 
 
 The " arrangement " alluded to consisted in spreading the 
 expulsion from the villages over tliree years: one-third of 
 the Jews were to be expelled in 1808, another third in 1809, 
 and the last third in 1810. Committees were appointed to 
 assist the governors in carrying out the expulsion decree. 
 These committees were instructed to make it incumbent upon 
 the Kahals to render financial assistance to the expelled, to 
 those who were being pitilessly ruined by the Government. . 
 
 The liorrors of the expulsion began. 
 
 Those who did not go willingly were made to leave by force. 
 Many were ejected ruthlessly, under the escort of peasants and 
 soldiers. They were driven like cattle into the townlets and 
 cities, and left there on the public squares in the open air. The 
 way in which the expulsion from the villages was carried out in the 
 Government of Vitebsk was particularly ferocious.' 
 
 'See Nikitin, "The .Jewish Agr.culturists " (in Russian), St. 
 Petersburg, 1887, p. 16.
 
 352 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Scores of exiled Jews petitioned the authorities to have them 
 transferred to New Eussia, to the agricultural colonies, in 
 which several hundred Jewish families had found some kind 
 of shelter. But the sup])ly of arable land and the funds set 
 aside for the transfer were found to be exliausted ; the appeals 
 therefore remained unheeded. The distress of the Jewish 
 masses reached such colossal proportions that the governors 
 themselves, in their reports to the central Government, de- 
 chired that it was impossible to carry out the expulsion decr^'e 
 without subjecting the Jews to complete ruin. Accordingly 
 a new ukase was issued in the last days of December, 1808, 
 to the effect that the Jews be left in their former domiciles, 
 pending special Imperial orders. 
 
 In the beginning of January, 1809, a new Committee 
 (chronologically the third) was appointed in St. Petersburg 
 for the purpose of examining all the phases of the problem of 
 diverting the Jews from the rural liquor traffic to other 
 branches of labor. This time the committee consisted of 
 Senator Alexeyev,' who had made a tour of inspection through 
 the western provinces, Privy-Councilor Popov, Assistant Minis- 
 ter of the Interior Kozodavlev, and others. In his instruc- 
 tions to Popov, who Avas chairman of the Committee, the 
 Tzar admits that the impossibility of removing the Jews from 
 the villages results from the fact that " the Jews themselves, 
 on account of their destitute condition, have no means which 
 would enable them, after leaving their present abodes, to 
 settle and found a home in their new surroundings, while the 
 Government is equally unable to undertake to place them 
 all in new domiciles." It has therefore been found necessary 
 " to seek ways and means whereby the Jews, having been 
 
 [^ See p. 347.]
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OB" ALEXANDER L 353 
 
 reiiioved from their exclusive pursuit of selling wiue in the 
 villages, hamlets, inns, and public houses, may be enabled to 
 earn a livelihood by labor." At the same time the Committee 
 was directed to take into consideration the " opinions " sub- 
 mitted previously by the Jewish deputies. After indulging in 
 cruel viviscctionist experiments on human beings, the Govern- 
 ment finally realized that mere paper orders were powerless to 
 remodel an economic order, which centuries of development 
 had created, and that violent expulsions and restrictions might 
 result in ruining people, but not in effecting their " ameliora- 
 tion." 
 
 The Committee was at work for three years. The results of 
 its labors were embodied in a remarkable report submitted in 
 March, 1812, to Alexander I. Since Speranski's declaration 
 of 1803, reproduced above,' this ofiicial document was the first 
 to utter a word of truth on the Jewish problem. 
 
 It is proposed — the report declares — to remove the Jews from 
 the rural liquor traffic, because the latter is considered harmful 
 to the population. But it is obvious that the root of the drinking 
 evil is not to be found with the saloon-keepers, but in the right of 
 distilling, or " propination," which constitutes the prerogative of 
 the sruires and their main source of income. Let us suppose the 
 sixty thousand Jewish saloon-keepers to be turned out from the 
 villages. The result will be that sixty thousand Russian peasants 
 will take their place, tens of thousands of efficient farm-hands will 
 be lost to the soil, while the Jews cannot be expected to be trans- 
 formed into capable agriculturists at a moment's notice, the less so 
 as the Government has no resources to effect this pudden transfor- 
 mation of saloon-keepers into corn-growers. It is not true that the 
 village Jew enriches himself at the expense of the peasant. On 
 the contrary, he is generally poor, and ekes out a scanty existence 
 from the sale of liquor and by supplying the peasants with the 
 
 » See p. 340.
 
 354 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 goods they need. Moreover, by buying the corn on the spot, the 
 Jew saves the peasant from wasting his time in traveling to the 
 city. Altogether in rural economic life the Jew plays the role of 
 a go-between, who can be spared neither by the squire nor by the 
 peasant. To transfer all village Jews to the cities and convert 
 them into manufacturers, merchants, and artisans, is a matter of 
 impossibility, for even the Jewish population already settled in the 
 cities is scarcely able to make a living, and to create factories and 
 mills artificially would be throwing money into the water, 
 especially as the exchequer has no free millions at its disposal to 
 enable it to grant subsidies to manufacturers. The recent experi- 
 ments of the Government have had no effect. On the contrary, the 
 Jewish people " has not only remained in the same state of 
 poverty, but has even been reduced to greater destitution, as a 
 result of having been forced out of a pursuit which had provided 
 it with a livelihood for several centuries." Hence, " the Commit- 
 tee, realizing this situation of a whole people, and being afraid 
 that the continuation of compulsory measures, in the present 
 political circumstances, may only exasperate this people, already 
 restricted to the utmost, deems it necessary .... to put a resolute 
 stop to the now prevailing methods of interference by allowing 
 the Jews to remain in their former abodes and by setting free the 
 pursuits suspended by Clause 34." 
 
 The Government submitted. In 5'ielding it was moved 
 not so much by the clear and incontrovertible arguments 
 of the Committee, which amounted to a deadly criticism of 
 the current system of state patronage, as by the " political 
 circumstances " alluded to in the concluding sentences of the 
 report. ISTapoleon's army was marching towards the Russian 
 frontier. The war which was to embroil the whole of Eussia 
 and subsequently the whole of Europe had broken out. At 
 such a moment, when the French army was flooding the whole 
 of Western Eussia, it seemed far more dangerous to create 
 groups of persecuted and embittered outcasts than it had been
 
 enli(;iitl:ned absolutism of Alexander l ;;55 
 
 in 1807, when the French invasion was merely a matter of 
 apprehension. In these circumstances the question whether 
 the Jews should be left in the villages and hamlets found a 
 favorable solution of itself, without any special ukase. Stirred 
 to the core, Eussia, in the moment of national danger, had to 
 rely for her salvation upon the strenuous exertions of all her 
 inhabitants, Jews included. 
 
 4. The Pateiotic Attitude of Russian Jewry during 
 THE Wai! of 1812 
 
 The part played by the Jews in the War of 1812 was not 
 so insignificant as historians are generally disposed to assume, 
 being misled by the fact that the Jews of Eussia were not 
 yet drafted into the army. It must be borne in mind that 
 the great war was enacted in western Eussia, more par- 
 ticularly in northwestern Eussia, on territory inhabited 
 by a compact Jewish population scattered all over the cities, 
 townlets, and villages. The sympathy of this population 
 with one or the other of the belligerents frequently decided 
 the success or failure of the detachment situated in that 
 locality. It is a well-known fact that the Poles of the 
 western region were mostly on the side of Napoleon, from 
 whom they expected the restoration of the Polish kingdom. 
 
 As for the Eussian Jews, their attitude towards the bel- 
 ligerent parties was of a more complicated character. The 
 recent persecutions of the rural Jews were apt, on the one 
 hand, to set their hearts against the Eussian Government, 
 and, had these persecutions continued, the French would have 
 been hailed by the oppressed Jews as their saviors. But the ex- 
 pulsions from the villages had been stopped three years before 
 the war, and the Jews anticipated the complete repeal of
 
 356 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the cruel law, whicii had been so severely condemned in the 
 official report of the Committee laid before the Tzar in the 
 beginning of 1812. Moreover, the deputies of the Kahals, 
 who had been summoned twice to share in the work of the 
 Government (in 1803 and 1807), had an opportunity to con- 
 vince themselves that Alexander I.'s Government was on the 
 whole favorably disposed towards the Jews, and its mistakes 
 were merely the outcome of the wrong system of state patron- 
 age, of the desire of the Government to make the Jews happy, 
 according to its own lights, by employing compulsory and " cor- 
 rectional " measures. 
 
 On the other hand, Napoleon's halo had been considerably 
 dimmed even in the eyes of the Jews of Western Europe, now 
 tha^ the results of his " Jewish Parliaments " had come to 
 light. The Jews of Eussia, who were all Orthodox, regarded 
 Xapoleon's reform schemes as fraught with danger, and looked 
 upon the substitution of Kahal autonomy by a consistorial 
 organization as subversive of Judaism. The Hasidic party, 
 again, which was the most conservative, felt indebted to Alex- 
 ander I., who, in a clause of the Statute of 1804, bearing on 
 Jewish sects, had bestowed upon the Hasidim the right of 
 segregating themselves in separate synagogues wuthin the com- 
 munities. The leader of the White Kussian Hasidim, Eabbi 
 Shneor Zalman, who at first had suffered from the suspicious- 
 ness of the Russian Government, but was afterwards declared 
 to be politically " dependable," voiced the sentiments of the in- 
 fjuential Jewish circles towards the two belligerent sovereigns 
 in the following prediction : 
 
 Should Bonaparte win, the wealth of the Jews will be increased, 
 and their [civic] position will be raised. At the same time their 
 hearts will be estranged from our Heavenly Father. Should how-
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 357 
 
 ever our Tzar Alexander win, the Jewish hearts will draw nearer 
 to our Heavenly Father, though the poverty of Israel may become 
 greater and his position lower. 
 
 This was tantamount to saying tliat civic rightlessness was 
 preferable to civic equality, inasmuch as the former bade fair to 
 guarantee the inviolability of the religious life, while the latter 
 threatened to bring about its disintegration. 
 
 All these circumstances, coupled with the unconscious re- 
 sentment of the masses against the invading enemy, brought 
 about the result that the Jews of the Northwest everywhere 
 gave tokens of their devotion to the interests of Eussia, and 
 frequently rendered substantial services to the Russian army 
 in its commissary and reconnoitring branches. The well-known 
 Russian partisan ' Davidov relates that 
 
 the frame of mind of the Polish inhabitants of Grodno was 
 very unfavorable to us. The Jews living in Poland were, on the 
 other hand, all so devoted to us that they refused to serve the 
 enemy as scouts, and often gave us most valuable information 
 concerning him. 
 
 As Polish officials could not be relied upon, it became 
 necessary to intrust the whole police department of Grodno to 
 the Jewish Kahal. The Governor of Vilna testified that " the 
 Jewish people had shown particular devotion to the Russian 
 Government during the presence of the enemy." 
 
 The Poles were irritated by this pro-Russian attitude of the 
 Jews. There were rumors afloat that the Poles had made 
 ready to massacre all Jews and Russians in the Governments 
 of Vilna and Minsk and in the province of Bialystok. There 
 were numerous instances of self-sacrifice. It happened more 
 
 f The word is used here in the sense of leader of partisan, 
 i. e. irregular, troops. Davidov attained to great fame during the 
 War of 1812, in which h.e interfered effectively with the com- 
 munications of the French.]
 
 358 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 than once that Jews who had sheltered Russian couriers witli 
 dispatches in their houses, or had escorted them to tlie Russian 
 headquarters, or who had furnished information to the Rus- 
 sian commanders as to the position of the enemy's army, were 
 caught by the French, and sliot or hanged. Alexander I. was 
 aware of these deeds. While on a visit to Kalish, he granted 
 an audience to the members of the Kahal, and engaged in a 
 lengthy conversation with them. Among the Jews of the dis- 
 trict appeals written in the Jewish vernacular were circulated, 
 in which the Jews were called upon to offer up prayers for tlie 
 success of Alexander I., who would release the Jewish people 
 from bondage. Altogether the wave of patriotism which swept 
 over Russia engulfed the Jewish masses to a considerable 
 extent. 
 
 The headquarters of the Russian army, which was now 
 marching towards the West, harbored, during the years 1812- 
 1813, two Jewish deputies, Sundel Sonnenberg of Grodno and 
 Leyser (Eliezer) Dillon of Neswizh. On the one hand they 
 maintained connections with the leading Government officials, 
 and conveyed to them the wishes of tlie Jewisli communities. 
 On the other hand they kept up relations witli the Kalials, 
 which they informed regularly of the intentions of the Govern- 
 ment. Presumably these two public-spirited men played a 
 twofold role at headquarters: that of large purveyors, who 
 received orders directly from the Russian commissariat, and 
 forwarded them to their local agents, and that of representa- 
 tives of the Kahals, whose needs they communicated to the 
 Tzar and the highest dignitaries of the crown. In those uneasy 
 times the Government found it to its advantage to keep at its 
 headquarters representatives of the Jewish population, who 
 might sway the minds of their coreligionists, in accordance
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 359 
 
 with the character of the political instructions issued by it. 
 In June, 1814, during his stay abroad in Bruchsal (Ger- 
 many) , Alexander requested these deputies to assure " the Jew- 
 isli Kahals of his most gracious favor," and promised to issue 
 shortly " an ordinance concerning their wishes and requests for 
 the immediate amelioration of their present condition." It 
 seems that Alexander I., who was still under the spell of the ac- 
 counts of Jewish patriotism, was inclined at that moment to 
 improve their lot. But the general reaction which, after the 
 Vienna Congress of 1815, fell like a blight upon Europe and 
 Russia proved fatal also to the Russian Jews. 
 
 5. Economic and Ageicultural Experiments 
 
 The political upheavals of the transition period (1789- 
 1815) were bound to react violently on the economic status 
 of Eusso-Polish Jewry. The vast Jewish population of West- 
 ern Eussia was at that time divided into two parts: the 
 larger part resided in the towns and townlets, the smaller 
 lived in the villages. The efforts made by the Eussian Govern- 
 ment during that period, to squeeze the whole Jewish popula- 
 tion into the urban estates and to single out from its midst 
 a new class of agriculturists, failed to produce the desired 
 effect. Instead it succeeded in disturbing the former equili- 
 brium between the urban and the rural occupations of the Jews. 
 
 The urban Jew was either a business man or an artisan or a 
 .-a loon-keeper. In many cities the Jewish mercantile element 
 was numerically superior to the Christian. The increased 
 Jewish activity in the export trade is particularly noticeable. 
 Jewish merchants traveled annually in large numbers to the 
 fairs abroad, particularly to that of Leipsic, to buy merchan- 
 dise, principally dry goods, at the same time exporting the
 
 360 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 products of Poland and Russia, such as furs, skins, etc. The 
 gradual absorption of Polish territory by Eussia opened up 
 a new, immense market, that of the central Eussian provinces, 
 for the goods imported from abroad. It was natural that the 
 Jews began to flock to those provinces. But their way was at 
 once blocked by the local Eussian merchants, who began to 
 clamor against Jewish competition, and forced the Government 
 to recognize the monopoly of native " interests," to the detri- 
 ment of the consumer.' 
 
 True, the monopolists did not succeed altogether in shutting 
 the Eussian interior to foreign cheap goods and finery, which the 
 Jewish merchants still continued to import, under the clause 
 in the Statute of 1804 which granted Jews the right of visiting 
 the interior Governments on special gubernatorial passports. 
 Yet an untrammeled development of Jewish commerce was ren- 
 dered impossible by this artificial barrier between Western 
 and Eastern Eussia. 
 
 The second urban profession, handicrafts, was considered 
 of lower rank than commerce. It was pursued by the poorest 
 class of the population. Artisan labor commanded very low 
 prices. Purely Jewish trade-unions were rare, and when a 
 Jewish artisan summoned enough courage to leave his native 
 townlet and seek employment in a large city, he was sure to 
 encounter the animosity of the organized Christian guilds. 
 We have seen that before the second partition of Poland such 
 an " encounter " assumed the shape of a pogrom in the 
 Polish capital.'' 
 
 By the side of the store and the workshop stood the public 
 house or saloon, which was generally connected with an inn 
 
 ' Compare the prohibition barring Jews from registering in the 
 mercantMe guilds of Moscow and Smolensk, p. 315. 
 - See p. 286 and p. 287.
 
 1::.\L1GHTEXED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER L JGl 
 
 or a liostelry. The sale of liquor in the cities depended 
 primarily on the peasants arriving from the villages on festival 
 and market days. On the whole the liquor traffic occupied 
 a subordinate place in the cities. Its mainstay was in the 
 villages. 
 
 All serious observers of the economic status of the Jews 
 at that time bear witness to the fact that in the majority 
 of cities Jewish labor formed the corner-stone of a civilized 
 economic life, that without the Jew it was impossible to 
 buy, or to sell, or to have any kind of article made. The 
 Jew, who was satisfied with small wages and profits, was 
 thereby able to lower both the cost of production and the price 
 of merchandise. He was content with a pittance, his physical 
 needs being extraordinarily limited. Thanks to the mediation 
 of the ubiquitous Jewish business man, the peasant was able to 
 dispose of his products on the spot, even those which because 
 of their small value would not be worth carrying to the city. 
 In spite of all his indefatigable, feverish labors, the Jew was on 
 the average as poor as the peasant, except that he was free from 
 the vice of drunkenness, one of the sources of the peasant's 
 economic misery. The poverty of the Jew was the artificial 
 result of the fact that the cities and townlets were overcrowded 
 with petty tradesmen and artisans, and this congestion was 
 further aggravated by the systematic removal of the Jews 
 from their age-long rural occupations and the consequent 
 influx of village Jews into the towns. 
 
 It is necessary to point out that when the oflScial records 
 harp on the " liquor traffic " in the villages as the sole occupa- 
 tion of Jews, they fail to appreciate the many-sidedness of the 
 rural pursuits of the Jews, which were connected with the 
 liquor traffic, to be sure, but were by no means identical with it.
 
 3G2 Tl^E JEWS IN PiUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 While leasing from the .squire or (lie ejowii ihu right of dis- 
 tilling, the Jew farmed at the same time other items of rural 
 economy, such as the dairies, the mills, and the fishing ponds. 
 He was furthermore engaged in buying grain from the peas- 
 ants and selling them at the same time such indi.?pensal)le 
 articles as salt, utensils, agricultural tools, etc., imported by him 
 from the town. He often combined in his person the occupa- 
 tions of liquor-dealer, shopkeeper, and produce merchant. Tlie 
 road leading from the village to the city was dotted with 
 Jewish inns or public houses, whicli, before the age of rail- 
 roads, served as halting-places for travelers. This wliole 
 economic structure, which had been built up gradually in the 
 course of centuries, the Russian Government made its business 
 to demolish. As early as the reign of Catherine 11. the gov- 
 ernors frequently drove the Jewish villagers into the cities, 
 acting under the " organic law " which makes it incumbent 
 upon Jews to " register among the merchants or burghers." 
 The ambiguous ukase of 1795, to the effect, that " endeavors 
 be made to transplant the Jews into the District towns, so that 
 these people may not wander about to the detriment of 
 society," gave the zealous bureaucrats a free hand. When the 
 Law of 1804 ordered the expulsion of all Jews from the villages 
 at the end of three years, many squires, without waiting for 
 the time limit to expire, refused their Jewish tenants the right 
 of residence and trade in their villages. The Jews began to 
 rush into the cities, where even the long-settled residents 
 could not manage to make a living. 
 
 True, the Government was luring the persecuted Jews into 
 two new vocations, the establishment of factories and of a<yri- 
 cultural colonies. But the impecunious village Jew had neither 
 the capital nor the capacity for opening factories. Moreover, it
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 363 
 
 was of no conceivable use to call industries artificially into 
 being, without having first secured a market for the manufac- 
 tured products. Several woolen mills had been founded by 
 Jews in Lithuania and Volhynia, but all they could do was to 
 provide work for a few thousand people. It was thus natural 
 that all eyes turned towards agricultural colonization. 
 
 The Statute of 1804 promised to provide impecunious Jews 
 desirous of engaging in agriculture with free land in several 
 (.Tovernments, to grant them loans for their equipment, and 
 exempt them from taxation for a number of years. The 
 exiled village Jews clutched at this promise as an anchor of 
 salvation. In 1806 several Jewish groups in the Government 
 of Moghilev appealed to the governor to transfer them to Xew 
 Russia, there to engage in corn-growing. The delegate of 
 one of these groups, Nahum Finkelstein, even traveled to 
 St. Petersburg to lay the matter before Minister Kocliu- 
 bay, and was dispatched by the latter to the Government of 
 Kherson for the purpose of inspecting and selecting the land. 
 The Minister, acting in agreement with the Governor of Kher- 
 son, Duke Richelieu, decided to set aside separate parcels of 
 land in the steppes of that region and to settle Jews on 
 them under the auspices of the New Russian " Immigration 
 Bureau." Scarcely had the two Moghilev groups completed 
 the arrangements for their emigration, when scores of similar 
 applications began to come in from Jewish groups in other 
 Governments of the Pale. By the end of 1806 the number of 
 applicants mounted up to fifteen hundred families, numbering 
 some seven thousand souls. The Russian authorities found 
 themselves in an awkward position. They were caught unpre- 
 pared for the transfer of so many persons at the expense of the 
 state. In 1807 four colonies of Jewish agriculturists were
 
 364 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 established iu the Goveinineut ol" Kherson, the first among 
 the Jewish colonies oJ: South Russia. The number of settlers 
 amounted to some three hundred families, consisting of two 
 thousand souls. 
 
 The number of applicants desirous of settling on the land 
 continued to increase. In the course of 1808, when the expul- 
 sion from the villages was in full , swing, the White Russian 
 governors bombarded the Minister of the Interior with peti- 
 tions to allow as many Jewish families as jtossiblo to procee<I 
 to N'ew Russia. The Governor of Vitebsk reported that the 
 rural Jews 
 
 have been unseasonably expelled, ruined, and reduced to beg 
 gary. A large part of them is without daily bread and without 
 shelter, and they emigrate in considerable numbers to New 
 Russia. Many Jews, in the expectation of being transplanted to 
 New Russia, have sold all their belongings and beg leave per- 
 sistently to go there, though it be only for a domicile. 
 
 At the same time reports from the Xew Russian Immigra- 
 tion Bureau and from Duke Richelieu were constantly reach- 
 ing St. Petersburg. They emphasized the necessity of stem- 
 ming the tide of emigrants, in view of the fact that even the 
 first parties of colonists had found it ditFicult to establish 
 themselves, while the new ones could not expect to find either 
 huts or any other accommodations. By the beginning of 1808 
 the Immigration Bureau was in charge of about one thousand 
 colonist families, and, in addition, several thousand immi- 
 grants who had arrived " voluntarily " were waiting for their 
 turn to be settled. As a result of the unaccustomed climatic 
 conditions and the lack of housing accommodations and provi- 
 sions, disease began to spread among the new-comers. All 
 these circumstances decided the Government to put a tern-
 
 ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM OF ALEXANDER I. 365 
 
 poiai}' stop to the settliug of Jews in the Xew Eussian colonies 
 (ukase of April 6, 1810). 
 
 Tlie attempt to convert a part of the Jewish population 
 into agriculturists would undoubtedly have met with huge 
 success, had the Government been sufficiently prepared for 
 such a momentous economic transformation. Ten thousand 
 emigrants had already gone to New Russia, and the com- 
 pact starving masses were rushing after them. But the 
 Government was overwhelmed by the difficulties of the task, 
 and brought the whole movement to a standstill. Simul- 
 taneously a stop was put to the expulsion from the villages in 
 the western Governments, which threatened to lead to an 
 unparalleled economic catastrophe. Thus, after many vacilla- 
 tions and upheavals, the economic structure of Jewish life 
 was re-established on its old foundations — commerce, handi- 
 crafts, and rural occupations.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE INNER LIFE OF EUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE 
 PERIOD OF " ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM " 
 
 1. Kahal Autonomy and City Government 
 
 The system of state patronage spread its wings also over tiio 
 belf -government of the Jewish communities. Towards the end 
 of Catherine II.'s reign the Government clearly betrayed its 
 tendency to curtail the extensive communal autonomy which 
 the Jews had been guaranteed earlier, in 177G, when the 
 promise of the Empress, to allow the Jews of annexed White 
 Russia " to retain their former liberties," was still fresh in 
 the official mind. But the Russian Government, not in the 
 habit of tolerating such " licentiousness " among its subjects, 
 looked askance at the large economic, spiritual, and judicial 
 functions granted to the Kahals, in addition to their fiscal 
 duties as the collecting agencies of the state taxes. As a result 
 of this attitude, the ukases of 1786 and 1795 had limited the 
 range of activity of the Kahals to spiritual and fiscal affairs. 
 The " Jewish Constitution " of 1804 went one step further 
 by dividing these two functions between the rabbinate and the 
 Kahals, which had previously formed one whole. The rabbis 
 were given permission " to look after all the ceremonies of the 
 Jewish faith and decide all disputes bearing on religion," 
 while the Kahals were ordered " to see to the regular payment 
 of the state taxes." This was all that was left of the ancient 
 autonomy of the Jewish communities in Poland, with its vast 
 network of institutions and central assemblies, or Waads. 
 
 It is apparent that in real life the power of the communities 
 was larger than on paper. The Jews went on submitting most
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 36T 
 
 of their cases, even those involving monetary disputes, to their 
 own rabbinical tribunals. The prohibition of imposing the 
 herem (excommunication) upon obstreperous members of 
 the community was occasionally disregarded, since the " spir- 
 itual " tribunals had no other means of coercion at their 
 disposal. On the other hand, the Government itself, being in 
 need not only of the fiscal services of the Kahals, but also of 
 a responsible organization to be consulted upon Jewish mat- 
 ters, could not help tolerating the extension of Kahal activi- 
 ties far beyond the range of fiscal interests. When the Govern- 
 ment was desirous of ascertaining the views of the Jewish 
 communities on some of the measures planned by it; it 
 addressed itself, as was the case in 1803, 1803, and 1807,* 
 to the Kahals, and authorized them to send delegates to St. 
 Petersburg or the provincial capitals. 
 
 This extension of Jewish autonomy was a concession wrested 
 from the Government by the force of circumstances, by the 
 power of a compact population living a life of its own and 
 refusing to efface itself to the point of merging with the sur- 
 rounding population and fusing all its public interests with the 
 affairs of the general city administration. Yet it was just this 
 " municipalization " of the Jewish communities that the Eus- 
 sian Government had been aiming at for a long time. From 
 the time of Catherine II. it cherished the thought of " destroy- 
 ing Jewish separateness," by forcing the Jews into the frame- 
 work of the Eussian class organization, particularly into the 
 estates of the merchants and burghers. 
 
 When, shortly after 1780, the Jews were accorded the 
 liitherto unheard-of privilege of participating in the city 
 government with the right of active and passive suffrage for 
 
 * See pp. 337, 339, 349. 
 24
 
 368 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the magistracies and municipal courts, the lawgivers of St. 
 Petersburg were confident that Russian Jewry, in a transport 
 of delight, would throw overboard its old Kahal autonomy, 
 and eagerly coalesce with the Christian urban estates, to form 
 a common municipal organization. But neither the Jews nor 
 the Christians justified these confident expectations. The 
 former, while clinging as heretofore to their time-honored 
 communal organization, were glad to participate in the elec- 
 tions to the magistracies, in which up till then their traditional 
 enemies, the Christian merchants and burghers, had been 
 the masters, and in which they frankly proposed to protect their 
 interests, representing as they did a considerable portion of the 
 urban population. 
 
 But here they encountered furious opposition on the part of 
 their Christian fellow-residents. In the two White Russian 
 Governments of Vitebsk and Moghilev several Jews had been 
 elected to the magistracies as aldermen and members of the 
 law courts. But in the majority of cases the Christians man- 
 aged to obtain an artifical majority and keep the Jews out 
 of the municipal administration. Complaints lodged with the 
 central authorities in St. Petersburg were of no avail, for the 
 Russian, and even more so the Polish, burghers regarded the 
 bestowal of municipal rights upon the Jews as a violation of 
 their own chartered privileges. Yielding to this mood of the 
 Christian population, the administrators of the southwestern 
 Governments established on their own responsibility a restric- 
 tive percentage for the participation of Jews in the magis- 
 tracies, by limiting, even in places with a predominatingly 
 Jewish population, the number of Jewish members to be 
 elected to the magistracies to one-third. The representatives 
 of the Jewish majority of the population in the city adminis-
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 369 
 
 tration were thus iuvariably reduced to a minority, and were 
 not in a position to protect the interests of their coreligionists, 
 cither in the assessment of the municipal taxes or in the cases 
 brought before the municipal law courts. Here, too, the pro- 
 test addressed to St. Petersburg by a delegate acting on behalf 
 of the Podolian Jews did not remedy the situation. 
 
 In the two Lithuanian Governments which had fallen into 
 the hands of Eussia after the third partition of Poland, in 
 1795, the Christian opposition scored even a greater success. 
 For here it became necessary to suspend altogether the opera- 
 tion of the law granting the Jews representation in the magis- 
 tracies. When the Senatorial ukase of 1802, making the 
 Jews eligible for public office, became known in Vilna, the 
 local Christian population raised a cry of indignation. The 
 Philistine arrogance of the old " city fathers," combined with 
 the low motives of religious and class hatred, manifested itself 
 in a petition addressed in February, 1803, by the Christian 
 burgbers of Vilna to Alexander I. 
 
 In this petition the residents of Vilna protest against the 
 violation of their ancient privilege, in pursuance of which 
 " Jews and members of other faiths are forbidden to hold 
 office " in Lithuania. The admission of Jews to the magis- 
 tracies is a misfortune and a disgrace for the capital of Lithu- 
 ania, for 
 
 they [the Jews] have not the slightest conception of morality, 
 while their form of education does not fit them for the calling of 
 a judge, and aPogether this people can only maintain itself by all 
 
 kinds of trickery The Christians will lose all interest in 
 
 accepting public office once the Jews are given the right to 
 dominate them. 
 
 The petitioners point out threateningly that the domination 
 of the Jews, i. e. their participation in the magistracies.
 
 370 
 
 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 though it be limited to one-third of the number of aldermen, 
 will undermine the people's confidence in the municipal ad- 
 ministration and judiciary. " For the obedience of the mob 
 will be turned into defamation when the Christian who enters 
 the sacred place [of justice] beholds a Jew as his superior 
 and judge, submission to whom is unnatural, by reason of 
 class and religion/' 
 
 The Christian population of Kovno resorted, in presenting 
 a similar petition, to another incontrovertible argument against 
 the admission of Jews to municipal offices. deferring to 
 the cross with the "sacred figure" of the cnuilixion. which 
 is placed on the court table for the administration of the oath, 
 the petitioners assert that the Jewish members of the court 
 "will refuse to look upon it, but, by reason of their faith, will 
 think disrespectfully of it, so that, instead of judicial im- 
 partiality, there will be mockery of the Christian law." The 
 Government found these arguments convincing, and in 1805 
 repealed the ukase of the Senate concerning the election of Jews 
 to the magistracies of Lithuania. 
 
 In this way the stolid rancor of the " privileged " burgliers 
 in some places handicapped the activity of the Jews in the 
 city administration, and in others entirely suppressed it. The 
 Jewish communities, backward though they were, displayed 
 sufficient civic courage to send their representatives to the 
 camp of the enemy to work in common with him for the bene- 
 fit of the whole urban population. But the narrow-minded 
 burghers, who were thoroughly saturated with medieval preju- 
 dices, would not recognize the Jews as their fellow-townsmen. 
 The Jews had to reckon with this coarse conservatism of the 
 surrounding population. They were still able to fall back upon 
 their own communal self-government, and, had their social
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 371 
 
 energies been directed towards that end, the old Kahal auton- 
 omy, in spite of all Government restrictions, might to a cer- 
 tain extent have come into its own again. But another factor 
 thwarted this revival — the deep rift in the Russian Jewish 
 community, which began with the rise of Hasidism in the 
 second half of the eighteenth century, and was an accomplished 
 fact at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 
 2. The Hasidic Schism and the Intervention of the 
 Government 
 
 The period of Poland's partitions was also a period of divi- 
 sions within Polish Jewry. The external division was accom- 
 panied by an internal split ; the political partition, by a spirit- 
 ual schism. The body of Polish Jewry was divided among Rus- 
 sia, Austria, and Prussia, and its soul between Rabbinism and 
 Hasidism. There was even a significant coincidence in dates : 
 the first declaration against Hasidism by the rabbinate of 
 Vilna, which started the religious schism, was issued in 1772, 
 in the year of the first Polish partition, and the second em- 
 phatic declaration of the same rabbinate, which completed the 
 schism, followed close upon the third partition of Poland, in 
 1796. 
 
 The interval between these two dates represents one continu- 
 ous stretch of Hasidic triumphs. The Russian Southwest, 
 Volhpiia, the province of Kiev, and Podolia, had by the end of 
 the period, been almost completely conquered by the Hasidim. 
 With the exception of a few cities, they now formed the pre- 
 dominating element in the communities; their ritual was 
 adopted in synagogue worship, and their spiritual rulers, the 
 Tzaddiks, exercised control over the official rabbinate. As far 
 as the Xorthwest is concerned, Hasidism had managed during
 
 373 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 that interval to obtain a foothold in White Kussia, the only 
 Polish province Avliich for over twenty years had been under 
 Russian dominion, and thus politically severed from the rest 
 of curtailed Poland. Under the leadership of the Tzaddik 
 Shneor Zalman of Lozno, a strong Hasidic center had been built 
 up in that part of the Northwest, but there were yet no compact 
 Hasidic communities in that region. In the majority of towns 
 the communities were composed of botli elements, Hasidim and 
 their opponents, the Rabbinists, wlio were nicknamed Mithnag- 
 dim ("Protestants"), the preponderance being now on this 
 side, now on the other, a state of affairs which gave rise to 
 endless dissensions in the Kahals and synagogues. 
 
 In Lithuania alone, the stronghold of Rabbinism, Hasidism 
 failed to take root. Here a few small Hasidic groups were 
 ensconced in a number of cities. They held their services in 
 modest rooms in private residences (minyanim) , which they 
 were often forced to hide from the gaze of the hostile Kahal 
 authorities. In Yilna, the residence of the great zealot of 
 Rabbinism, Elijah Gaon, the Hasidim constituted an " illegal " 
 secret organization. Only in the suburb of Pinsk, in Karlin, 
 the Hasidim succeeded in establishing themselves firmly, and 
 could boast of having their own synagogues and Tzaddiks.* 
 Karlin became the seat of a Hasidic propaganda extending all 
 over Lithuania, where the Hasidim were accordingly nick- 
 named " Karliners." 
 
 The second and third partition of Poland, which united 
 Lithuania and White Russia under the sovereignty of Russia, 
 tended to buoy up the oppressed Lithuanian Hasidim, who 
 
 ^ One of these Tzaddiks, Rabbi Solomon (Shelomo) of Karlin, 
 lost his life, according to Hasidic tradition, during the riots of the 
 Russo-Polish confederate troops in the district of Minsk.
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 3^3 
 
 could now join forces against the common enemy with their 
 brethren all over the northwestern region. The Hasidic propa- 
 ganda took on new courage. To enhance the success of their 
 missionary activity, the Hasidim spread a rumor, that the 
 former anti-Hasidic thunderer, the veteran Eabbi Elijah Gaon, 
 was sorry for all the hostile acts he had committed against the 
 sectarians, and that in consequence the excommunication form- 
 erly hurled by him against them was no longer valid. ^Vhen 
 this clever ruse became known in Vilna, the indignant cham- 
 pions of Rabbinism prompted the aged Gaon to publish an 
 epistle in which he reaffirmed his former attitude towards the 
 " heretics," and declared that all the herems previously issued 
 against them remained in force (May, 1796). The epistle was 
 intrusted to two envoys, who were dispatched from Vilna to a 
 number of cities, for the purpose of stirring up an anti-Hasidic 
 agitation. When the envoys arrived in Minsk, and set about 
 executing their instructions, the Hasidim started a rumor to 
 the effect that the Gaon's signature under the epistle was not 
 genuine. The Kahal of Minsk sent an inquiry to Vilna, and in 
 reply received, in September, 1796, a ncAv energetic appeal of 
 the Gaon addressed to all the gubernatorial Kahals of Lithu- 
 ania, White Eussia, Volhynia, and Podolia. 
 
 Ye mountains of Israel — cried the great zealot — ye spiritual 
 shepherds, and ye lay leaders of every Government, also ye, the 
 heads of the Kahals of Moghilev, Polotzk, Zhitomir, Vinnitza, and 
 Kamenetz-Podolsk, you hold in your hands a hammer wherewith 
 you may shatter the plotters of evil, the enemies of light, the 
 foes of the [Jewish] people. Woe unto this generation! They 
 [the Hasidim] violate the Law, distort our teachings, and set up 
 a new covenant; they lay snares in the house of the Lord, and 
 give a perverted exposition of the tenets of our faith. It be- 
 hooves us to avenge the Law of the Lord, it behooves us to punish
 
 374 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 these madmen before the whole world, for their own improvement. 
 Let none have pity on them and grant them shelter! .... Gird 
 yourselves with zeal in the najae of the Lord! 
 
 In calling to arms against the Hasidim in these fulminant 
 terms, the venerable knight of Rabbinism was moved by the 
 profound conviction that the " new sect," which by that time 
 numbered its adherents by the hundreds of thousands, was 
 leading the Jewish religion and nation to ruin, because it 
 was rending asunder the Jewish camp internally while the 
 political upheavals were severing it externally. He was more- 
 over alarmed by the luxuriant growth of the cult of the 
 Tzaddiks, or miracle-workers, which constituted a menace to 
 the purity of the Jewish doctrine. 
 
 The Gaon's ire was particularly aroused by a work published 
 in the same year as his epistle (179G), by TJabbi Shneor 
 Zalman, the head of the White Russian Hasidim. The work 
 was familiarly called Tanyo^ and contained a bold exposition 
 of the pantheistic doctrine of Hasidism, which the champions 
 of the established dogma were prone to regard as blasphemy 
 and heresy." The Gaon's proclamation hinted at this work, and 
 its author felt painfully hurt by the attack. Shneor Zalman 
 responded in a counter-epistle, in which he tried to prove that 
 the patriarch of Rabbinism had been misinformed about the 
 true essence of Hasidism, and he invited his opponent to a 
 literary dispute for the purpose of elucidating the truth and 
 " restoring peace in Irsael." But the Gaon refused to enter 
 
 [* The title of the work is Likkute Amarim, " Collected Dis- 
 courses." It is called Tanyo ^rom the first word.] 
 
 ^ Among the incriminated ideas was that of the presence of the 
 Deity in all existing things and in all. even sinful, thoughts, and 
 the concomitant mystical theory of " raising the sparks to the 
 source," i. e. extracting good from evil, righteousness from sin- 
 fulness, and pure passion £rom impure impulses.
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 375 
 
 into polemics with a " heretic," In the meantime the Vilna 
 epistle continued to circulate in many communities, and gave 
 rise to severe conflicts between Mithnagdim and Hasidim, the 
 former as a rule taking the offensive. 
 
 Exasperated to the point of madness by these persecutions, 
 the Hasidic association of Yilna was stung into perpetrating 
 an act of gross tactlessness. When, in the fall of 1797, about a 
 year after the publication of his last circular, the aged Gaon 
 closed his eyes, and the whole community of Vilna was plunged 
 into mourning, the local Hasidic society met in a private house 
 and indulged in a gay drinking bout, to celebrate the deliver- 
 ance of the sect from its principal enemy. This ugly demon- 
 stration arranged on the day of the funeral raised a storm of 
 indignation throughout the community. Before leaving the 
 cemetery, the leaders of the community, standing at the Gaon's 
 grave, pledged themselves solemnly to wreak vengeance upon 
 the Hasidim. On the following day the Kahal elders were 
 called to a special meeting, at which a series of repressive 
 measures against the Hasidim was adopted. Apart from the 
 measures to be made public, such as a new bull of excom- 
 munication against the sectarians, the meeting passed several 
 resolutions which were to remain confidential. A special 
 committee of five Kahal members was appointed, and was 
 vested with large powers, for the purpose of grappling with the 
 " heresy." Subsequent events proved that among the contem- 
 plated means of warfare was included the plan of informing 
 against the leaders of the sect to the Russian Government. 
 
 It did not take long for the disgraceful scheme to be put 
 into action. Soon the Prosecutor-General in St. Petersburg, 
 Lopukhin, received a denunciation directing his attention " to 
 the political misdeeds perpetrated by the chief of the Karliner
 
 376 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 [HasidieJ sect, Zalman Borukhovich [son of Boiuklij," and 
 his fellow-workers in Lithuania. Under the influence of this 
 denunciation, Lopukhin, acting in the name of the Tzar, 
 ordered the local guheriiatorial administration, early in the fall 
 of 1798, to arrest Zalman, the head of the sect, in the townlet of 
 Lozno, together with twenty-two of his accomplices who were 
 found in Litluuiuia. Zahnan was apprehended and dispatched 
 post-haste to St. Petersburg, accompanied by " a strong con- 
 voy"; his incriminated followers remained under arrest in 
 Vilna. 
 
 Zalman was arraigned before the so-called " Secret Expe- 
 dition," a department which dealt with crimes of a political 
 nature. A long bill of indictments was read out to him. He 
 was accused of being the founder of a harmful religious sect, 
 which had changed the order of divine service among Jews, 
 of spreading pernicious ideas, and collecting funds for mys- 
 terious purposes in Palestine. The cross-examination clearly 
 implied the charge of political disloyalty. To all questions 
 laid before him, the accused gave an elaborate written reply 
 in Hebrew. Zalman's defense, which was translated from 
 the Hebrew into Russian, produced a favorable impression in 
 Government circles. Acting upon the report submitted to him 
 by the Prosecutor-General respecting " all the circumstances 
 revealed by the investigation," Tzar Paul I. issued an order 
 to liberate Zalman and the other sectarian chiefs who had been 
 placed under arrest, but to keep " a strict watch over them as 
 to whether there exists, or is liable to come into existence, a 
 secret relationship or correspondence between them and those 
 who entertain perverted notions concerning the authorities and 
 the form of Government.'' Towards the end of 1798 Zalman 
 was allowed to return home, and the other prisoners were like- 
 wise set at liberty.
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 377 
 
 Now it was the turn of the Hasidim to retaliate on their 
 persecutors. In view of the fact that the persecutions against 
 them had been instigated by the Kahal elders of Vilna, who 
 had composed the " Committee of Five," the Hasidim made 
 up their mind to depose these elders and put their own par- 
 tisans in their places. With the help of bakhshish the Vilna 
 Hasidim managed to secure the good-will of the gubernatorial 
 administration. In the beginning of 1799 they lodged a com- 
 plaint with the local authorities against the Kahal elders, 
 charging them with having perpetrated all kinds of abuses, 
 including the embezzlement of public funds. This action re- 
 sulted in the removal and imprisonment of several elders. 
 Under oflBcial pressure their places were filled by new elders, 
 who either were themselves Hasidim or had been recom- 
 mended by them. The community of Vilna was rent in twain. 
 One section remained true to the dismissed elders, the other 
 stood up for the newly-elected. The warring factions were 
 busy sending complaints and denunciations directed against 
 each other to the Government in St. Petersburg. The canker 
 of " informing,'^ which, perhaps not accidentally, had de- 
 veloped in the first years of Eussian rule in Lithuania, 
 brought to the front one hideous personality, a rabbi-informer 
 by the name of Avigdor Haimovich (son of Hayyim), of Pinsk. 
 
 Avigdor, formerly rabbi of Pinsk and the surrounding 
 district, had been dismissed from office owing to the intrigues 
 of the Hasidic members of the community, who were his 
 opponents. What Avigdor lamented most was the loss of 
 revenue. For a long time the dethroned shepherd had been 
 dragging his flock through the magistracies and law courts. 
 Having failed in his eflorts, he decided to wreak vengeance 
 upon the leader of the sect responsible for his ruin. In
 
 ;378 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the beginning of 1800 Avigdor addressed an elaborate peti- 
 tion to Tzar Paul I., in which he described the Ilasidic sect 
 as "a pernicious and dangerous organization," which was con- 
 tinuing the work of the former Messianic Sabbatians. By a 
 vast array of distorted quotations from Ilasidic literature the 
 informer endeavored to prove that the teachers of the sect 
 enjoined upon their followers to fear only God and not men, 
 in other words, to disregard the autliorities, including the Tzar. 
 
 The denunciation was allowed to take its course. Early in 
 November of the same year, the Tzaddik Zalman Borukhovich 
 was rearrested in Lozno and dispatched to St. Petersburg 
 under the convoy of two Senatorial couriers. On his arrival 
 in the capital the Tzaddik was incarcerated in the fortress, 
 and after a cross-examination confronted with his accuser 
 Avigdor. Zalman again replied in writing to the indictments 
 against him, which now mounted up to nineteen counts. He 
 repudiated emphatically the charge of not recognizing the 
 authority of the Government, of immorality, of collecting 
 money, and arranging meetings for secret purposes. Towards 
 the end of November Zalman was set at liberty, but was 
 ordered to remain in St. Petersburg pending the examination 
 of his case by the Senate, to which it had now been transferred 
 from the Secret Expedition. While the Senate was preparing 
 to take up the case, the palace revolution of March, 1801, cut 
 short Paul's reign, and placed Alexander I. upon the throne. 
 The political wind veered round, and on March 29, 1801, the 
 new Tzar gave Zalman permission to depart from St. Peters- 
 burg. 
 
 Having satisfied itself that the religious schism in Juda- 
 ism was perfectly harmless from the political point of view, 
 the Government was ready to give it its sanction. One of the
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 379 
 
 clauses of the Statute of 1804 permits the sectarians to estab- 
 lish their o^vti synagogues in every community and to elect 
 their own rabbis, with the sole stipulation that the Kahal 
 administration in each city shall remain one and the same 
 for all sections of the community. As a matter of fact, the 
 law merely recognized what had already become the living 
 practice. The religious split had long been an accomplished 
 fact, and the internecine strife of 1796-1801 was merely its 
 final act. As for the communal organization of the Jews, which 
 had already been undermined by the political changes, the 
 schism proved nothing short of disastrous. The Kahals, weak- 
 ened by inner struggles and demoralized by denunciations and 
 bureaucratic interference, failed to present a united front in the 
 first years of Alexander's reign, when the Government was 
 carrying out its " plan of reform," and invited the Kahal 
 leaders to share in its labors. The communities of the South- 
 west, which were completely under the ban of Hasidic mysti- 
 cism, reacted feebly to the social and economic crisis facing 
 them. The Jewish delegates who presented their views in reply 
 to the official inquiries of 1803 and 1807 * were recruited prin- 
 cipally from the White Eussian and Lithuanian Governments, 
 where the political sense of the Jews had not yet been com- 
 pletely dulled. 
 
 3. Eabbinism, Hasidism, and Enlightened 
 " Berlinerdom " 
 
 While in Western Europe the old forms of Jewish life were 
 breaking up, the cultural development of the Jewish masses 
 of Eastern Europe remained stationary. The two dominating 
 forces in their spiritual life, Eabbinism and Hasidism, watched 
 
 ' See pp. 339, 349,
 
 380 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 with equal zeal over the maintenance oF the old order of things. 
 The traditional form of education remained unchanged. The 
 old school, the heder and yeshibah, with its exclusive Talmudic 
 training, supplied its pupils with a vast amount of mental 
 energy, but failed to prepare them for practical life, and the 
 girls and women remained entirely outside the influence of the 
 school. Just as firmly established was the old-fashioned scheme 
 of family life, with its early marriages, between the years of 
 thirteen and sixteen, with the prolonged maintenance of such 
 married children in the paternal home, with its excessive fer- 
 tility in the midst of habitual poverty, with its reduction of 
 physical wants to the point of exhaustion and degeneration. 
 This patriarchal mass of Jews fought shy of all cultural 
 " novelties," and deprecated the slightest attempt to extend its 
 mental and social horizon. Keligious culture had not yet had a 
 chance to cross swords with secular culture. The war between 
 Hasidism and Kabbinism was fought on purely religious soil. 
 Its sole issue was the type of the believer: the old discipline 
 with its emphasis upon the scholastic and ceremonial aspect of 
 Judaism was fighting against the onrush of ecstatic mysticism 
 and the blind " cult of saints." 
 
 It cannot be said that benumbed Rabbinism revived under 
 the effect of this vehement contest. At the time we are speak- 
 ing of no distinct traces of such a revival are to be seen, and all 
 one can discern are the signs of a purely scholastic renaissance. 
 The method of textual analysis introduced by Elijah Gaon into 
 Talmudic research, which took the place of the hair-splitting 
 casuistry formerly in vogue, gained ever wider currency and 
 an ever firmer foothold in the yeshibahs of Lithuania. 
 
 In the new center of Talmudic learning, the yeshibah of 
 the Lithuanian townlet of Volozhin,' established in 1803. this 
 
 [* In the Government of Vilna.]
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 3SI 
 
 novel method received i^articular attention at the hands of its 
 founder, Eabbi Hayyim Volozhiner, a pupil of the Gaon. The 
 yeshibah of Volozhin raised a whole generation of scholars and 
 rabbis " in the spirit of the Gaon." In these circles one could 
 even detect a certain amount of toleration towards the anathe- 
 matized " secular sciences," though this toleration was limited 
 to the realm of mathematics and partly that of natural history. 
 The Gaon, who had himself engaged in mathematical exercises 
 in his spare moments, permitted his pupil Borukh Shklover 
 to publish a Hebrew translation of Euclid's Geometry (1780). 
 Yet the dread of philosophy was as great as theretofore, 
 and the incompatibility of free research with Judaism was 
 looked upon as an inviolable dogma. The Jewish mind con- 
 tinued to move within the narrow range of " the four ells of the 
 Halakha," and was doomed to sterility. In the course of that 
 whole stormy period, extending over a quarter of a century, 
 Eabbinism, aside from the Gaon, had not put forward a single 
 literary figure of any magnitude, not a single writer of large 
 vision. It seemed as if the spirit of originality had fled from it. 
 Greater productivity was to be found among the Hasidim of 
 the period, although in point of originality it yielded con- 
 siderably to the preceding era of the Besht and his first apostles. 
 Alongside of triumphant practical Tzaddikism, trading in mir- 
 acles and thriving on the credulity of the masses, we observe to 
 a certain degree the continued development of the Hasidic 
 doctrine on the lines laid down by Besht. In the North a new 
 Hasidic theory was spreading, which strove to adapt the 
 emotional pietism of Besht to the " intellectualism " of the 
 Lithuanian schoolmen. The originator of this doctrine, Eabbi 
 Shneor Zalman, the hero of the religious struggle depicted in
 
 382 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 the foregoing chapters, endeavored to rationalize llasidism, 
 which had manifested a decided leaning toward the principle 
 credo quia absurdum sit. In the hands of the author of 
 Tanyo, the ecstasy of feeling is transformed into ecstasy of 
 thinking. Occasionally he speaks of the knowledge of God in 
 terms worthy of a Maimonides. Needless to say, Rabbi Zalman 
 rejects the Tzaddik cult in the vulgar form of miracle-monger- 
 ing, which it had assumed in the South. 
 
 In the South — to speak more exactly, in the Ukraina — 
 llasidism persisted in the beaten track. Its two pillars, Levi 
 Itzhok (Isaac) of Berdychev (died 1809) and Nohum 
 (Nahum) of Chernobyl (died 1799), continued to uphold 
 Besht's traditions. The former, the author of Kedushaih Levi ' 
 (1798), manifests in his work the genuine fervor of Hasidic 
 faith, without its morbid ecstasy. In his private life this leader 
 of Volh}Tiian Hasidism was the embodiment of lovingkindness, 
 extending alike to Jew and non-Jew. j\Iany popular legends 
 tell of his surpassing affection for the humble and suffering. 
 The Tzaddik Nohum of Cliernobyl, who was an itinerant 
 preacher in the Government of Kiev, laid in his sermons special 
 emphasis on the element of the Cabala. Towards the end of 
 his life he was primarily a Tzaddik, of the " practitioner " and 
 " miracle-worker " type, and founded the " Chernobyl Tzad- 
 dik dynasty," which is still widely ramified in the Ukraina. 
 
 Quite apart from the rest stands the figure of the Podolian 
 Tzaddik and dreamer Nahman of Bratzlav (1778-1810), a 
 great-grandson of Besht. Gifted with a profoundly poetical 
 disposition, he spurned the beaten tracks of the professional 
 " Eighteous," and struck out into a path of his own. The goal 
 he aimed at was the return to the childlike simplicity of 
 
 [' " The Holiness of Levi."]
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 383 
 
 Besht's teachings. In 1798-1799 Nahman made a pilgrimage 
 to Palestine, just about the time when Bonaparte's army was 
 marching through the Holy Land, and a gust from tempestuous 
 Europe drifted through the shimbering East, But the Po- 
 dolian youth had an ear only for the whisper from the tombs 
 of the great Cabalist teachers, Eabbi Shimeon ben Yohai and 
 Ari, and for the discourses of the living Tzaddiks who had set- 
 tled in Tiberias. On his return to Europe, ISTahman made his 
 home in Bratzlav, and became the head of a group of Podolian 
 Hasidim. In his intimate circle he was Avont to preach, or 
 rather to muse aloud, on the reign of the spirit, on the com- 
 munion of the Tzaddik with his flock in religious ecstasy. He 
 spoke in epigrams, sometimes clothing his thoughts in the 
 form of folk-tales. He wrote a number of books,* in which he 
 constantly emphasized the need of blind, unsophisticated faith. 
 Philosophy he regarded as destructive to the soul; Maimonides 
 and the rationalists were hateful to him. The unfamiliar 
 Berlin " enlightenment " filled his heart with mysterious awe. 
 Xahman's life was cut short prematurely. Surrounded by 
 his admirers, he died of consumption, in Uman, at the age of 
 thirty-eight. Down to this day his grave serves as a place of 
 pilgrimage for the '■■ Bratzlav Hasidim." 
 
 However, the average Tzaddik of the type which had as- 
 sumed definite shape in that period was equally removed from 
 the complexity of Eabbi Zalman and the simplicity of Eabbi 
 Xahman. On the whole, the Tzaddiks drifted further and 
 further away from their mission of religious teachers, and 
 became more and more " practitioners." Surrounded by a 
 host of enthusiastic worshipers, these " middlemen between 
 
 ^ Likkute Maharan. "Collected Sayings of MaHaRaN " [abbre- 
 viation of Aforenu Ha,-Rah Rabbi JN^ahman], and others. 
 25
 
 3Si THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 God and maiikiud " understood the art of turning the blind 
 faith of the masses to good account. They waxed rich on the 
 gifts and offerings of their admirers, lived in palaces, much 
 after the manner of the Polish magnates and Church dig- 
 nitaries. The "court" of Besht's grandson in Medzhibozh, 
 Borukh Tulchinski (1780-1810), was marked by particular 
 splendor. Borukh even had his court-fool, Herschel Ostro- 
 poler, the well-known hero of popular anecdotes. 
 
 In the original Polish provinces, afterwards incorporated 
 into the Duchy of Warsaw, the commanders-in-chief of the 
 Hasidic army were two Tzaddiks, Rabbi Israel of Kozhenitz 
 and I\abbi Jacob Itzbok (Isaac) of Lublin. Tliese two pupils 
 of the '' apostle " Baer of Mezherich became the pioneers of 
 Hasidism on the banks of the Vistula towards the end of the 
 eighteenth century. At the close of their careers — both djed in 
 1815 — the banner of Hasidism floated over the whole of 
 Poland. 
 
 The breezes of Western culture had hardly a chance to pene- 
 trate to this realm, protected as it was by the double wall of 
 Eabbinism and Hasidism. And yet here and there one may 
 discern on the surface of social life the foam of the wave from 
 the far-off West. From Germany the free-minded " Berliner," 
 the nickname applied to these " new men," was moving to- 
 wards the borders of Russia. He arrayed himself in a short 
 German coat, cut off his earlocks, shaved his beard, neglected 
 the religious observances, spoke German or " the language of 
 the land," and swore by the name of Moses Mendelssohn. The 
 culture of which he was the banner-bearer was a rather shallow 
 enlightenment, which affected exterior and form rather than 
 mind and heart. It was " Berlinerdom," the harbinger of the 
 more complicated Haskala of the following period, which was
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 385 
 
 imported into Warsaw during the decade of Prussian dominion 
 (1796-1806). The contact between the capitals of Poland and 
 Prussia yielded its fruits. The Jewish " dandy " of Berlin 
 appeared on the streets of Warsaw, and not infrequently the 
 long robe of the Polish Hasid made way timidly for the 
 German coat, the symbol of " enlightenment.'' 
 
 Alongside of this external assimilation, attempts were also 
 made to copy the literary models of Prussian Jewry. In 1796 
 a Jewish Mendelssohnian named Jacques Kalmansohn pub- 
 lished a French pamphlet in Warsaw, under the title Essai sur 
 I'etat actuel des Juifs de Pologne et leur perfectibilite, dedi- 
 cating it to the Prussian Minister Hoym, who had carried out 
 Jewish reforms in the Polish provinces of Prussia. The 
 pamphlet contains an account of the status of Polish Jewry 
 of his time and a plan for its amelioration. The account is 
 rather superficial, concocted after the approved Western 
 recipe. In the judgment of the author, the misfortune of the 
 Jews lies in their separation from the surrounding nations, 
 and their happiness in merging with them. The scheme of 
 reform proposed by the Jew Kalmansohn differs but slightly 
 from the Polish projects of Butrymovich and Chatzki. It 
 advocates equally the weakening of rabbinical and Kahal 
 authority, the extermination of Hasidism and Tzaddikism, 
 the introduction of German dress, the shaving of beards, the 
 establishment of German schools, and in general the cultiva- 
 tion of " civism." 
 
 The mould of Berlin fashion was overlaid with a Parisian 
 veneer when soon afterwards (1807-1812), at the bidding of 
 Napoleon, the Duchy of Warsaw sprang into being. Now a 
 new note was sounded. A group of Parisian " dandies " claim 
 equal rights as a compensation for having changed their dress
 
 386 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 and their " moral conduct." * Even respectable representatives 
 of the Warsaw Jewish community designate themselves in their 
 petition to the Senate as " members of the Polish nation of the 
 Mosaic persuasion/* copying the latest Parisian fashion, in 
 vogue at the time of the Napoleonic Synhedrion.' This was 
 the first, though as yet naive and unsophisticated, attempt to 
 secure the " transfer " from the Jewish nation to the Polish, the 
 germ of the future " Poles of the Old Testament persuasion." 
 The torch-bearers of Berlin culture from among the followers 
 of David Fricdlander encouraged this frame of mind in every 
 possible manner, and in their organ ' constantly appealed in 
 this spirit to their Polish brethren. 
 
 How long will you continue — one of these appeals reads — to speak 
 a corrupt German dialect [Yiddish] instead of the language of 
 your country, the Polish? How many misfortunes might have 
 been averted by your forefathers, had they been able to express 
 themselves adequately in the Polish tongue before the magnates 
 and kings! Take a group of a hundred Jews in Germany, and 
 you will find that either all or most of them can speak to the 
 magnates and rulers, but in Poland scarcely five or ten out of a 
 hundred are capable of doing so. 
 
 Some stray seeds of Western " enlightenment " were carried 
 as far as the distant Eussian North. During Dyerzhavin's tour 
 of inspection through White Russia there flitted across his 
 vision the figure of the physician Frank in Kreslavka, an 
 avowed follower of Mendelssohn, calling for religious and edu- 
 cational reforms.* In St. Petersburg, in the house of the 
 Maecenas Abraham Peretz, lived his teacher Judah Leib Nye- 
 
 U See p. 300.] 
 ' See p. 301. 
 
 [" The Hebrew periodical Ha-Me'assef (" The Collector "), which 
 was founded in Berlin in 1784, and appeared until 1811.1 
 * See p. 331.
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 387 
 
 vakhovieh, a native oC Podolia. lu 1803, the same 3'ear in which 
 the Jewish deputies sojourned in St. Petersburg, Nyevakhovich 
 published a pamphlet in Eussian, under the title, " The Wailing 
 of the Daughter of Judah," with a dedication to Kochubay, the 
 Minister of the Interior and Chairman of the " Jewish Commit- 
 tee." The dedication strikes the keynote of the " Wailing " : 
 genuflexion before the greatness of Kussia and mortification 
 at the fate of his coreligionists, who are deprived of their 
 share in the " blessings " of the coimtry. 
 
 " How greatly," exclaims the author, " doth my soul exult 
 over these matters [the victories and might of the Eussian 
 Empire] ; how deeply doth it grieve over my coreligionists, 
 who are removed from the hearts of their compatriots." 
 And throughout the whole of the pamphlet the " Daughter 
 of Judah " bewails the fact that neither the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, " the age of humanity, toleration, and meekness," nor 
 " the smiling spring of the present century, the beginning of 
 which hath been crowned .... by the accession of Alexander 
 the Merciful, has removed the deep-seated Jewish hatred in 
 Russia." " Many minds doom the tribe of Judah to contempt. 
 The name ' Judean ' hath become an object of ridicule, con- 
 tempt, and scorn for children and the feeble-minded." With 
 particular reference to Mendelssohn and Lessing the author 
 exclaims : " You search for the Jew in man. Search for man 
 in the Jew, and you will no doubt find him." 
 
 jSTyevakhovich's pamphlet concludes with a grievous moan: 
 
 While the hearts of all the European nations have drawn nearer 
 to one another, the Jewish people still finds itself despised. I feel 
 the full weight of this torment. I appeal to all who have sympathy 
 and compassion. Why do you sentence my entire people to con- 
 tempt? Thus waileth sadly the daughter of Judah, wiping her 
 tears, sighing ana yet uncomforted.
 
 ;i^S8 '^^^^ JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 The author himself, by the way, subsequently managed to 
 obtain comfort. A few years after the publication of the 
 ' Wailing," still finding himself " removed from the hearts of 
 his compatriots," he discovered the magic key to these obstrep- 
 erous hearts. He embraced Christianity, and, transformed into 
 Lev Alexandrovich Nyevakhovich, began to write moralizing 
 Russian plays, which pleased the unsophisticated taste of the 
 Russian public of the day. Xyevakhovich thus carried his 
 " Berlinerdom '' to that dramatic denouement which was in 
 fashion in Berlin itself, where an epidemic of baptism was rag- 
 ing. His example was followed by his patron Abraham Peretz, 
 who had been ruined in the War of 1812 by military contracts. 
 The descendants of both converts occupied important posts m 
 the Russian civil service. One of the Peretz family was a mem- 
 ber of the Council of State during the reign of Alexander II. 
 
 A faint reflection of the Western literature of enlighten- 
 ment is visible during this period on the somber horizon of 
 Russia. Mendel Lewin, of Satauov ' (1741-1819), who had 
 been privileged to behold in the flesh the Father of Enlight- 
 enment in Berlin, scattered new seeds in his native country. 
 He translated into Hebrew the popular manual of medicine by 
 Tissot, the moral philosophy of Franklin, and the books of 
 travel by Campe. He also made an attempt to render the Book 
 of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes into the vernacular Yiddish. 
 
 The last undertaking drew upon Lewin the wrath of another 
 " enlightened " writer, Tobias Feder of Piotrkov and Berdy- 
 chev (died 1817), who attacked him savagely for " profaning " 
 Holy Writ by turning it into the " language of the street." 
 Feder himself published studies in Hebrew grammar and 
 Biblical exegesis, moralizing treatises, harmless satires, and 
 
 \} In Podolia.]
 
 INNER LIFE UNDER ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM 389 
 
 poetical odes. These publications cannot be said to mark an 
 epoch in the realm of literature, but they undoubtedly symbol- 
 ize a new departure in cultural life. The secular book, of which 
 the mere appearance was apt to arouse a murmur of discontent 
 among the alarmed Orthodox, takes its place side by side with 
 the religious literature of Rabbinism and Hasidism. These 
 literary attempts were the harbingers of the subsequent secu- 
 larization of Hebrew literature.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE LAST YEAES OF ALEXANDEK I. 
 1, " The Deputation of the Jewish People " 
 
 The great reaction of 1815-1848, which kept the whole of 
 Europe in its throes, assumed peculiar forms in liussia. Tzar 
 Alexander I., one of the triumvirs of the Holy Alliance, which 
 had given birtli to this reaction, was eager to atone for the 
 liberal " sins " of his youth, and was cultivating in Russia the 
 principles of " paternal administration " and " Christian 
 government." The last decade of his reign paved the way 
 for the iron-handed absolutism of Nicholas I., which fettered 
 tlie political and social life of Russia for thirty years, and 
 stood like an ominous specter of medievalism before the eyes of 
 Western Europe. 
 
 The destinies of the great monarchy of the East determined 
 those of the greatest Jewish center of the Diaspora. The 
 Vienna Congress of 1815 enlarged the borders of European 
 Russia by including in it almost the entire territory of the 
 former Duchy of Warsaw, which was renamed " Kingdom 
 of Poland." ' About two million Jews were huddled together 
 on the western strip of the Russian monarchy during the 
 period of 1815-1848,' and this immense, sharply marked popu- 
 
 [* In Russian, Tzarstvo Polskoye. The names Congress-Poland 
 and Russian Poland are also frequently used.] 
 
 - The statistics of the period are far from being accurate. They 
 are nevertheless nearer the truth than those of the preceding age. 
 The official " revisions '' of 1816-1819 brought out the fact that a 
 large number of Jews had not been entered on the lists, and the 
 Government took severe measures against those evading the cen- 
 sus. Relying upon official information, Jost (see his Neuere Ge- 
 schicfte (lev Israeliten, ii. 122) computed, in 1845, the total number 
 of Jews in Russia, including those of the Kingdom of Poland, at 
 1,600,000, but he was careful to point out that, in his opinion, 
 the actual number of Jews was considerably larger.
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 391 
 
 lation served as the subject of all possible experiments, which 
 assumed the coloring of the general Eussian politics of the time. 
 The last years of Alexander I. inaugurate the period of patron- 
 age and oppression, which reached its culmination in the 
 following reign. 
 
 The attitude of the Eussian Government towards the Jews 
 during that period reflects three successive tendencies : first, 
 in the last years of Alexander I.'s reign (1815-1825), a mixed 
 tendency of "benevolent paternalism " and severe restrictions ; 
 second, during the first half of Nicholas I.'s reign (1826-1840), 
 a military tendency, that of " correcting " the Jews by sub- 
 jecting their youth, from the age of childhood, to the austere 
 discipline of conscription and barrack training, accompanied 
 by compulsory religious assimilation and by an unprecedented 
 recrudescence of rightlessness and oppression; and third, 
 during the latter part of Nicholas's reign (1840-1855), the 
 "enlightened" tendency of improving the Jews by establish- 
 ing " crowTi schools " and demolishing the autonomous struc- 
 ture of Jewish life, while keeping in force the former cruel 
 disabilities (1840-1855). This endless "correctional" and 
 " educational " experimenting on a whole people, aggravated 
 by the resuscitation of ritual murder trials and wholesale 
 expulsions in approved medieval style, makes the history of 
 Eussian Jews during that period an uninterrupted tragedy. 
 
 The beginning of the period did not seem to portend evil. 
 Kmperor Alexander returned from the Vienna Congress with- 
 out harboring aggressive plans against the Jews. On the con- 
 trary, he remembered the patriotic services rendered by the 
 Jews in 1812 and the promise given by him at Bruchsal " to 
 ameliorate their condition." * As a matter of fact, several 
 
 V See p. 359.]
 
 392 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 steps were taken which *eeinod to point in the direction of 
 improvement. 
 
 The first manifestations of this tendency were certain ad- 
 ministrative changes in the management of Jewish affairs. 
 The ukase of January 18, 181?, ordered the Senate to ^^ubnlit 
 all matters affecting the Jewish communes, with the exception 
 of legal cases, to the General Manager of the Spiritual Affairs 
 of Foreign Denominations, a post occupied by Golitzin, the 
 Tzar's associate in Christian pietism and mystical infatuation. 
 Later in the same year, the combined ^Ministry of Ecclesiastic 
 Affairs and Public Instruction was organized, under the 
 guidance of Golitzin, symbolizing, as it were, the establishment 
 of public instruction upon the foundations of " Christian 
 piety." The charter of the new organization distinctly pro- 
 vides that all " Jewish matters in charge of the Senate and the 
 Ministers " are to be transmitted to the head of the new 
 Ministry. In this manner tlie Jewish question was officially 
 connected with the department of ecclesiastic affairs, which 
 at that time occupied a central place in the administration. 
 
 The departmental change was followed by a more substantial 
 reform. The Government recognized the necessity of establish- 
 ing at the Ministry of Ecclesiastic Affairs a permanent ad- 
 visory council composed of elected Jewish representatives or 
 " deputies of the Jewish conmiunes." The project was sug- 
 gested by the ephemeral and accidental endeavors in the way of 
 popular Jewish representation on the part of the two purveyors, 
 Sonnenberg and Dillon, who were attached to the headquarters 
 of the Russian army during the campaign of 1812. At the 
 audience at which Alexander I. gave these deputies the as- 
 surance that the condition of their coreligionists would be
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 393 
 
 improved/ they were also told to appear in the capital after 
 the conclusion of the M'ar for the purpose of acquainting 
 the Kahals with the plans of the Government. The deputies 
 accordingly appeared in St, Petersburg, and entered upon 
 their duties as Jewish spokesmen, which they exercised during 
 181G and 1817. They realized, however, that they had no right 
 to regard themselves as the accredited representatives of the 
 Jewish communities of Eussia, and therefore appealed to the 
 Government — Sonnenberg was particularly active in this direc- 
 tion — to instruct all the Kahals to elect a complete group of 
 deputies in due form. The Government having agreed to the 
 proposal, a clause was included in the instructions to the newly- 
 established Ministry of Ecclesiastic Affairs, to the effect that 
 *' the [names of the] deputies of the Jewish communes shall 
 after their election be submitted by the Minister to his Majesty 
 for ratification." 
 
 In the autumn of 1815 all the large Kahals received orders 
 from the governors to choose an electoral college, two electors 
 for each Government. In August, 1818, the twenty-two elec- 
 tors chosen from eleven Governments assembled in Vilna to 
 elect from their own midst three deputies and an equal number 
 of substitutes. The choice fell, apart from the former deputies 
 Sonnenberg and Dillon, on Michael Eisenstadt, Benish Lap- 
 kovski, and Marcus Veitelson, all from the Government of 
 A'itebsk, and Samuel Epstein from the Government of Vilna. 
 I'o provide for the expenses of the deputies, who were to live in 
 St. Petersburg, the Vilna conference issued an appeal to all 
 Jewish communities calling upon them to make an " em- 
 broidery collection," i. e. to cut off and convert into cash the 
 
 [» See p. 359.]
 
 394 THE JEWS IN rUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 embroidered collars Avhich well-to-do Jews attat-hed to their 
 " Kittels " (shrouds woru beneath the prayer shawls on the 
 Day of Atonement), though the alternative of donating their 
 value in money was alloAvcd. The Jews, who had been ruined 
 during the war, were evidently not in a position to tax them- 
 selves directly. 
 
 Soon afterwards followed the establishment of a special 
 department, which was placed at the service of " the Deputation 
 of the Jewish People," the name by which this college of depu- 
 ties, presided over by the energetic Sonnen])erg, was frequently 
 designated. The " college," either as a whole or through its 
 individual members, labored for seven years (1818-1825), but 
 its activity was too limited to justify the expectations of 
 Russian Jewry. The hope of the deputies, that they would be 
 consulted about the general problems bearing on the proposed 
 amelioration of Jew^ish conditions, failed to materialize. On 
 the contrary, the Government had in the meantime abandoned 
 all thought of legislative reforms, and a little later even began 
 to contrive ways and means of carrying into effect the restric- 
 tive clauses of the Statute of 1804, which had been suspended 
 in its operation by the War of 1813. 
 
 The deputies, who resided in St. Petersburg and did a great 
 deal of lobbying, frequently managed in their intercourse with 
 the officials to ferret out these " designs " of the authorities 
 and to communicate their findings secretly to the Kahal 
 loaders in the provinces. At the same time they endeavored 
 of theij own accord to avert the danger by personal negotiations 
 with the leading officials. While reporting on the one hand to 
 the Kahals, the deputies on the other hand transmitted to Go- 
 litzin, the Minister of Ecclesiastic Affairs, the petitions of the 
 Kahals and their complaints against the local administration. 
 The deputies w'ere thus reduced, by the force of circumstances.
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I . 395 
 
 to mere go-betweens in Jewish matters. In exercising this 
 function, some of them, Sonnenberg in particular, were inde- 
 fatigable. They tried the patience of the high officials with 
 their petitions and representations, and on one occasion Son- 
 uenberg was even deprived of his post of deputy for " imper- 
 tinent conduct towards the authorities." The bureaucracy of 
 St. Petersburg began to resent these endless solicitations and 
 this constant meddling with their plans. 
 
 Gradually the deputies themselves lost heart, having realized 
 their impotence in grappling with the rising wave of reaction. 
 Some of them left St. Petersburg altogether. The downfall of 
 Golitzin's Ministry of Ecclesiastic Affairs, which had been 
 undermined by the ultra-reactionary Arakcheyev party,* in- 
 volved, as a natural consequence, the downfall of the curious 
 Jewish representation affiliated with it. Golitzin's successor 
 as ^Minister of Public Instruction, the obscurantist Shishkov, 
 made representations to the Tzar concerning the necessity of 
 abolishing the institution of Jewish deputies, " numerous 
 instances having demonstrated that their stay here is not 
 only unnecessary and useless but even very harmful, inasmuch 
 as, under the pretext of working for the public interest, they 
 collect money from the Jews for no purpose, and prematurely 
 advertise the decisions and even the intentions of the Govern- 
 ment." In 1825 the " Deputation of the Jewish People " was 
 abolished. Thus ended an organization beautifully conceived, 
 but mutilated in execution, one that might well have served as a 
 substitute for Jewish communal representation, and might have 
 
 [^Alexis Arakcheyev (b. 1769) had been prominent in Russian 
 military affairs under Paul and Alexander, and had attained to 
 fame on account of his iron discipline. Beginning with 1814, 
 he gradually gained the complete confidence and friendship of 
 Alexander. He died in 1834.]
 
 396 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 softened the regime of caprice and blighting patronage which 
 ate deeper and deeper into the vitals of Russian politics. 
 
 2. Christianizing Endeavors 
 
 It was quite in harmony with the spirit of the new era that 
 the solicitude of the Russian Government for the Jews should 
 have manifested itself in an attempt at saving their souls. 
 Christian pietism was the fashion of the day, and Alexander I, 
 and Golitzin, the j\Iinister of Ecclesiastic Affairs, both of whom 
 were mystically inclined, conceived the idea of becoming the 
 instruments of Divine Providence in converting the Jews to 
 Christianity. Golitzin, who was the president of the Russian 
 Bible Society, and was anxious to make it a faithful copy of 
 its English model, the Missionary Bible Society of London, 
 approached the missionary problem in his own way. On March 
 25, 1817, the Tzar published an ukase calling for the formation 
 of a " Society of Israelitish Christians,'^ for the purpose of 
 assisting Jews already converted or preparing for conversion. 
 
 We have learned — tl-"^ ukase reads — of the difficult situation bi 
 those Jews who, having by Divine Grace perceived the light of 
 Christian truth, have embraced the same, or are making ready to 
 join the flock of the good Shepherd and the Savior of souls. These 
 Jews, whom the Christian religion has severed from their brethren 
 in the flesh, lose every means of contact with them, and not only 
 have forfeited every claim to their assistance, but are also exposed 
 to all kinds of persecutions and oppressions on their part. Nor 
 do they readily find shelter among Christians, their new brethren 
 
 in the faith, to whom they are as yet unknown For this 
 
 reason we, taking to heart the fate of the Jews converted to Chris- 
 tianity, and prompted by reverent obedience to the Voice of Bliss 
 which calleth unto the scattered sheep of Israel to join the faith 
 of Christ, have deemed it right to adopt measures for their welfare.
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 397 
 
 The " welfare '' held out to the converts was of a rather 
 substantial nature. Each of their groups was to be allotted 
 free crown lands in the southern and northern provinces, witli 
 the right of founding all kinds of settlements, townlets, and 
 cities. They were to be granted full civil equality, extensive 
 comniutial self-government, and special alleviations in the pay- 
 ment of taxes. These gToups, or colonies, of Jews, after being 
 converted to the Greek Orthodox, Catholic, or Lutheran faith, 
 were to form part of the '' Society of Israelitish Christians," 
 Mhich was to be managed by a special committee to be ap- 
 pointed in St. Petersburg under the patronage of the Emperor. 
 The solemn phraseology of the Imperial ukase shows unequivo- 
 cally that the Government was not satisfied with the modest 
 task of rendering assistance to occasional neophytes. It was 
 ready to embark upon a vast undertaking, that of encouraging 
 baptism among the Jewish population, and organizing the con- 
 verted masses into separate, privileged communes, to serve as a 
 bait for the Jews still languishing in their old beliefs. The 
 imagination of the Eussian legislators pictured to them the 
 fascinating spectacle of huge masses of Jews marching " to 
 join the faith of Christ," drawn to it not only by heavenly, but 
 also by earthly, " bliss." 
 
 The missionary mood of the heads of the Eussian Govern- 
 ment was speedily utilized by Lewis Way, a representative of the 
 London Bible Society. Way was thoroughly imbued with the 
 apocalyptic belief in the approaching redemption of Israel 
 under the aegis of Christianity. This however did not prevent 
 liim from looking upon present-day unconverted Israel with 
 sciutiments of profound respect, as the banner-bearer of a great 
 Divine mission in the history of mankind, and he was d£cply 
 aroused over tlie civil disabilities to which they were subjecte'd
 
 398 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 in the various countries of Europe. When the moijarclis who 
 had concluded the Holy Alliance assembled, in the autumn of 
 1818, with their ministers and diplomats at the Congress in 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, Way grasped the occasion to submit to Alex- 
 ander I. a " Memorandum Concerning the Condition of the 
 Jews," ' in which he appealed to the Russian Tzar to emancipate 
 the Jews of his dominions and persuade the Prussian and 
 Austrian rulers to do likewise. 
 
 In the course of my protracted travels through the lands of 
 Poland, for the purpose of gathering information about the Jews, 
 I came — says Way — to the conclusion that Providence has not in 
 vain placed so many thousands of Jews under the protection of 
 three Christian sovereigns. Rather has this taken place in fulfil- 
 ment of the promises given to the Patriarchs. 
 
 If the Jews are to join tlie flock of Christ, they ought to be 
 treated like children, and regarded as equal mem])ers of human 
 society. Captive Israel must be set free materially, before it 
 can be liberated spiritually. Way therefore implores the Rus- 
 sian Tzar to set the example, " which will produce its effect 
 upon the whole world." 
 
 The Tzar received Way's memorandum, and turned it over to 
 Nesselrode, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, with instructions 
 to submit it to the Congress for consideration. At a meeting 
 of Ministers-Plenipotentiary, representing Russia, Austria, 
 Prussia, England, and Prance, held on November 21, 1818, 
 Way's memorandum, together with his elaborate, printed pro- 
 ject for a pan-European " reform of the civil and political 
 legislation " affecting the Jews, came up for discussion. The 
 diplomats, who were least of all concerned about the Jewish 
 
 *It was written in French, under the title Menioires (sic!) sur 
 I'etat des Israelites.
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 399 
 
 question, and had no desire to make this " domestic affair " of 
 each Government an object of international negotiations, 
 agreed upon the following resolution : 
 
 Without entering into the merits of the view entertained by the 
 author of the project, the conference recognizes the justice of his 
 general tendency, and takes cognizance of the fact that the pleni- 
 potentiaries of Austria and Prussia [Metternich and Hardenberg] 
 have declared themselves ready to furnish all possible information 
 concerning the Jewish situation in those two monarchies in order 
 to clarify a problem which must claim the attention equally of 
 the statesman and the humanitarian. 
 
 By means of this liollov , liberal-sounding phrase, which did 
 not involve the slightest obligation, the diplomats managed 
 to rid themselves of this vexatious problem, even the perfunc- 
 tory attention given to it at the Congress having been prompted 
 by no other motive than consideration for the Eussian Em- 
 peror. For the rest, every one of the three allied Governments 
 which had distributed Poland among themselves went on to 
 handle " its " Jews according to the requirements of its 
 domestic policy, which was frankly reactionary, and was not 
 even disguised by the fictitious label of humanitarianism. 
 
 The same domestic policy continued in Kussia. The Tzar, 
 who abroad had listened benevolently to Way's appeal for the 
 civil emancipation of the Jews, irrespective of the future sal- 
 \ation of their souls, decided, when at home again, to leave 
 everything untouched, looking for a partial solution of the 
 Jewish problem to the fantastic endeavors of the Society of 
 Israelitish .Christians. Undeterred by the fact that the solemn 
 appeal issued by the Tzar in 1817 had, during the three years 
 since its promulgation, failed to attract a single group of con- 
 verts, for the simple reason that such groups were not in 
 26
 
 400 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 existence, there being only rare isolated instances of baptism, 
 prompted in most cases by questionable motives, the Govern- 
 ment set aside, in 1820, a large tract of land in the Government 
 of Yekaterinoslav for a future settlement of " Israelitish 
 Christians." It even appointed a special official, with the title 
 Curator, to take charge of it. 
 
 But year after year passed by and the empty land was waiting 
 in vain for settlers, while the idle Curator was just as vainly on 
 the lookout for someone to take care of. At last, in 1823, an 
 obscure group of " Israelitish Christians " appeared on the 
 scene. It consisted of thirty-seven families from Odessa, who 
 expressed their willingness to accept the free lands with all the 
 manifold rights and privileges attached to them. Subsequent 
 inquiries from the office of the Governor-General of New Rus- 
 sia revealed the fact, however, that the claimants to the public 
 pie, though confessing the Greek Orthodox faith, did not pos- 
 sess certificates of baptism, and could not even produce pass- 
 ports, with the result that the application of the adventurers 
 was denied. 
 
 At last, realizing the impracticability of the whole mission- 
 ary scheme, Count Golitzin advised Alexander I., in 1824, to 
 dissolve the mythical Society of Israelitish Christians with its 
 Board of Trustees, which by that time carried a whole staff 
 of Government officials on its budget. The Tzar refused to 
 liquidate by official action an undertaking which had been 
 heralded so solemnly, and the society Avithout a membership, 
 administered by trustees without a trust, continued to figure on 
 the lists of Government institutions until 1833, when Nicholas 
 I. issued a curt ukase putting a sudden end to this bureaucratic 
 phantom. The new ruler had in the meantime discovered en- 
 tirely different and by uo means fantastic contrivances for driv-
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 401 
 
 iiig the Jews into the fold of the Orthodox Church. These con 
 trivances were the military barracks and the institution oi 
 Cantonists. 
 
 3. " JuDAiziNG " Sects in Russia 
 
 While the Russian authorities were dreaming of a wholesale 
 conversion of Jews to Christianity, their attention was diverted 
 by the ominous spectacle of huge numbers of Christians em- 
 bracing a doctrine closely akin to Judaism. The Russian 
 officials disclosed the existence of a sect of " Sabbatarians " 
 and " Judaizers " in the Governments of Yoronyezh, Saratov, 
 and Tula, all of them without Jewish residents, who might 
 otherwise have been suspected of a missionary propaganda 
 among the Greek Orthodox. The new " Judaizing " heresy 
 first engaged the attention of the central Government in 1817, 
 when a group of peasants in the region of Voronyezh addressed 
 a petition to the Tzar in which they naively complained of " the 
 oppressions which they had had to undergo at the hands of the 
 local authorities, both ecclesiastic and civil, on account of 
 their confessing the law of Moses." Acting under Imperial 
 instructions, Golitzin gave orders " to examine most rigor- 
 ously " the origin of the " sect," for the purpose of preventing 
 its further spread and bringing back the renegades into tho 
 fold of Orthodoxy. 
 
 The Greek Ortliodox Archbishop of Voronyezh reported, in 
 substance, as follows : 
 
 The sect came into existence about 1796 ' " through natural 
 Jews." It afterwards spread to several settlements in the districts 
 of Bobrov and Pavlovsk. The essence of the sect, without being 
 directly an Old Testament form of Jewish worship, consists of a 
 
 ■ According to subsequent accounts the date was 1806.
 
 402 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 few [Jewish] ceremonies, such as Sabbath observance and cir- 
 cumcision, the arbitrary manner of contracting and dissolving 
 marriages, the way of burying the dead, and prayer assemblies. 
 The number of avowed sectarians amounts to one thousand five 
 liundred souls of both sexes, but the secret ones are in all likeli- 
 hood more numerous. 
 
 To extermiuate the sect, the Archbishop of Voronyezh pro- 
 poses various measures, to be carried out partly by the ecclesi- 
 astic authorities and partly by the police, among them the 
 deportation of the soldier Anton Eogov, the propagandist of 
 the heresy. 
 
 Similar reports from the ecclesiastic authorities of Tula, 
 Orlov, Saratov, and other Great Russian Church districts were 
 soon received by the Synod. The " Judaizing heresy " spread 
 rapidly to the villages and cities, appealing alike to peasants 
 and merchants. Whenever taken to task, the sectarians de- 
 clared that they longed to return to the Old Testament and 
 " maintain the faith of their fathers, the Judeans." 
 
 The central authorities were alarmed, and resorted to 
 extraordinary measures to check the spread of the schism. The 
 Committee of Ministers approved the following draconian 
 project submitted by Count Kochubay in 1823 : 
 
 The chiefs and teachers of the Judaizing sects are to be im- 
 pressed into military service, and those unfit to serve deported to 
 Siberia. All Jews are to be expelled from the districts in which 
 the sect of Sabbatarians or " Judeans " has made its appearance. 
 Intercourse between the Orthodox inhabitants and the sectarians 
 is to be thwarted in every possible manner. Every outward dis- 
 play of the sect, such as the holding of prayer-meetings and the 
 observance of ceremonies which bear no resemblance to those 
 of Christians, is to be forbidden. Finally, to make the sectarians 
 an object of contempt, instructions are to be given to designate
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 40:5 
 
 the Sabbatarians as a Jewish ' sect and to publish far and wide that 
 they are in reality Zhyds, inasmuch as their present designation 
 as Sabbatarians, or adherents of the Mosaic law, does not give 
 the people a proper idea concerning this sect, and does not excite 
 in them that feeling of disgust which must be produced by the 
 realization that what is actually aimed at is to turn them into 
 Zhyds. 
 
 All these police regulations, in addition to a scheme of 
 disciplinary ecclesiastic measures, proposed by tlie Synod for 
 the purpose " of uprooting the Judean sect,'' were sanctioned by 
 Alexander I. (February and September, 1825). The tragic 
 consequences of these reprisals came to light only during the 
 following reign. Entire settlements were laid waste, thousands 
 of sectarians were banished to Siberia and the Caucasus. j\Iany 
 of them, unable to endure the persecution, returned to the Or- 
 thodox faith, but in many cases they did so outwardly, con- 
 tinuing in secret to cling to their sectarian tenets. 
 
 4. Eeceudescence of Anti-Jewish Legislation 
 
 As far as the Jews are concerned, the immediate result of 
 these measures was insignificant. The number of Jews 
 involved in the decree of expulsion from the affected Great 
 Russian Governments was infinitesimal, since, owing to the 
 restriction of the Jewish right of residence, the only Jews 
 occasionally to be found there were a few traveling salesmen 
 or distillers. Yet, indirectly, the Judaizing movement had a 
 harmful effect upon the position of Russian Jewry. The Gov- 
 ernment circles of St. Petersburg, which were religiously at- 
 tuned, were irritated by the fact that so many from the Ortho- 
 
 [* In the original, Zhydovskaya, adjective derived from Zhyd. 
 See p. 320, n. 2.1
 
 404 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 dox fold went over to the camp of the very people ainoug whom 
 the Government had been hunting vainly for proselytes, and 
 while the colonies so hospitably prepared for the Israeli tish 
 Christians were clamoring for inhabitants, many Great Rus- 
 sian villages had to be stripped of their inhabitants, who were 
 deported to Siberia, on account of their Jewish leanings. In 
 the mind of Golitzin, the Minister of Ecclesiastic Affairs, the 
 opinion gained ground that " the Jews are enjoined by their 
 tenets to convert everybody to their religion." These circum- 
 stances produced in Eussian official circles a frame of mind 
 conducive to repressive measures, and helped to provide a 
 moral justification for them. Accordingly, the last years of 
 Alexander I.'s reign were marked by a recrudescence of reli- 
 gious oppression, which at times assumed the dimensions of 
 wholesale persecutions. 
 
 Sentiments of this kind were responsible for the medieval 
 prohibition against keeping Christian domestics. The pro- 
 hibition was suggested by Golitzin, a man otherwise far re- 
 moved from anti-Semitic prejudices, and was officially justified 
 in the Senatorial ukase of April 32, 1820, by the alleged prose- 
 lytism of the Jews. As instances of the latter the Senate quotes 
 the Judaizing movement in the Government of Voronyezh, 
 the communication of the Governor of Kherson concerning 
 certain Christian domestics in Jewish homes, who had adopted 
 Jewish customs and ceremonies, and so forth. 
 
 The same motives, strengthened by the tendency of remov- 
 ing the Jews from the villages, long since pursued by the Gov- 
 ernment, suggested harsher restrictions in letting to Jews 
 manorial estates with the peasant " souls " attached to them. 
 tJkases issued in 1819 and in subsequent years enjoin the local 
 administration to prosecute all so-called " krestentzya " con-
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 405 
 
 tracts, transactions whereby the squire leased the harvest of a 
 given year to a Jew, entitling him to employ the peasants 
 for gathering the grain and hay and for other agricultural 
 labors. Such transactions were looked upon as a criminal en- 
 croachment of the Jews upon the right of owTiing slaves, which 
 was the prerogative of the nobles. Orders were accordingly 
 given, that all such farm leases be taken away from the Jews, 
 in spite of the complete ruin of the Jewish lessees, who were 
 left to settle their accounts wath the squires. 
 
 At the same time the Government set out again to realize its 
 devout consummation — the expulsion of the Jews from the vil- 
 lages and hamlets already provided for by the Statute of 1804, 
 though suspended for a time when the cruelty of the measure 
 spelling ruin to tens of thousands of Jewish families had 
 become apparent. The arguments by means of which the 
 Jewish Committee had endeavored in 1812 to convince, and 
 finally did convince, the Government of the impracticability 
 of such a migration of nations, were blotted out from memory. 
 The local and central authorities were again on the war path 
 against the Jews. To renew the campaign against the rural 
 Jews, the methods which had been tried with success in the 
 time of Dyerzhavin were again resorted to. "When, in 1821, 
 hapless White Eussia was again stricken by a famine, which 
 affected the Jew«? to a considerable extent, the local iiol.'ility 
 was once more on the alert, placing the whole responsibility 
 for the ruin of the peasantry on the Jewish tenants and saloon- 
 keepers. The landlords proposed that the Government expel 
 all the Jews from the province or at least forbid thenj to sell 
 spirits in the rural settlements, since the Jews " lead the 
 peasants into ruin." The local authorities, in reply to an
 
 406 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAf^D 
 
 inquiry of Senator Baranov, who had been dispatched from St. 
 Petersburg to White Eussia, expressed a similar opinion. 
 
 The question was first brought up before the Committee 
 which was charged with the task of giving relief to the 
 Governments of White Eussia, and included several ministers, 
 among them the all-powerful Arakcheyev. The Eelief Com- 
 mittee approved the restrictive project of the nobility, and so, 
 a little later, did tlie Committee of Ministers. The result was a 
 stern ukase of the Tzar, addressed, on April 11, 1823, to the 
 governors of White Eussia, to the followiiig efFeet : 
 
 (1) To forbid the Jews in all the settlements of the Govern- 
 ments of Moghilev and Vitebsk to hold land leases, to keep public 
 houses, saloons, hostelries, posts, and even to live in them 
 [in the villages], whereby all farming contracts of this kind are 
 to become null and void by January 1, 1824. (2) to transplant all 
 the Jews in these two Governments from the settlements into the 
 cities and towns by January 1, 1825. 
 
 I 
 
 In signing this ukase, which spelled sorrow and misery for 
 thousands of families, Alexander I. gave verbal instructions 
 to the Committee of Ministers, to point out to the White Eus- 
 sian Governor- General Khovanski " ways and means of obtain- 
 ing employment and designating sources of livelihood for the 
 local Jews in their new places of abode." But no " ways and 
 means " of any kind could mitigate the misery of people 
 doomed to expulsion from their old nests and reduced to 
 beggary and vagrancy. 
 
 Immediately on the receipt of the ukase the local authorities 
 embarked upon their task with relentless cruelty. By January, 
 1834, over twenty thousand Jews of both sexes had been driven 
 from the villages of both Governments. Hordes of hapless refu- 
 gees, with their wives and children, began to flock into the
 
 THT^ LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 407 
 
 overcrowded towns and townlets. There they could be seen, 
 stripped almost to their shirts, wandering aimlessly in the 
 streets. They lived in frightful congestion, as many as ten 
 of them being squeezed into a single room. They were huddled 
 together in the synagogues, while many of them, unable to find 
 shelter, remained on the streets with their families facing the 
 winter cold. Sickness and increased mortality began to spread 
 among them, particularly in the city of Nevel. Even the anti- 
 Jewish Governor-General Khovanski, who was making a tour 
 of inspection through the stricken district, was stirred by the 
 spectacle, and advised the Committee of Ministers to stop the 
 disastrous expulsions. But the blow had heen dealt. By the 
 beginning of 1825 the majority of rural Jews had been expa- 
 triated, and turned out into the wide world. 
 
 The question naturally arises, whether this human holocaust 
 was required in the interest of the country. The Government 
 itself gave the answer twelve years later — when it was too late. 
 
 As far as White Russia is concerned — quoth the Council of State 
 in 1835 — experience has not justified our anticipations of tlie use- 
 fulness of the indicated measure [the expulsion from the villages]. 
 Twelve years have passed since it was carried into effect, but 
 from the data collected in the Department of Law it is quite 
 manifest, that, while it has ruined the Jews, it does not in the least 
 seem to have improved the condition of the villagers. 
 
 The White Kussian orgy of destruction was merely the pre- 
 lude to a new legislative campaign against the Jews. Almost 
 simultaneously with the ukase ordering the expulsion of the 
 Jews from the villages, another ukase was issued on May 1, 
 1823, calling for the establishment of a new " Committee for 
 the Amelioration of the Jews." The Committee, which in- 
 cluded among its members the Ministers of Interior, Finance,
 
 408 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 Justice, Ecclesiastic Aifairs, and Public Instruction, was in- 
 trusted with a very comprehensive piece of Avork — 
 
 to examine the enactments concerning Jews passed up to date and 
 point out the way in which their presence in the country might be 
 rendered more comfortable and useful, also what obligations they 
 are to assume towards the Government; in a word, to indicate 
 all that may contribute towards the amelioration of the civil 
 status of this people. 
 
 In these soft-spoken terms was couched the public function 
 of the Committee. But its secret function, which later revealed 
 itself in action, is correctly defined in the frank admission 
 of the Committee of Ministers in its report of 1829 : " At the 
 very establishment of the Jewish Committee one of the obliga- 
 tions imposed upon it was to devise ways and means looking 
 generally towards the reduction of the number of Jews in the 
 monarchy." This was evidently what " the amelioration of 
 the civil status " of the Jews amounted to. The new Committee 
 was instructed to finish its work by the beginning of 1824, but 
 its reactionary activity was not fully unfolded until the fol- 
 lowing reign. 
 
 In the meantime the legal machinery did not remain idle. 
 The process of the territorial compression of Jews went on 
 as before. To guard the western frontier of the monarchy 
 against smuggling, it was decided, at the suggestion of the 
 Administrator of the Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duke Con- 
 stantine Pavlovich, to expel the Jews from the border zone. 
 Two ukases were issued in 1825 ordering the removal of all 
 the Jews residing outside the cities within fifty versts from the 
 frontier, with the exception of those owning immovable prop- 
 erty. Once again human beings were hurled from their life- 
 long domiciles, when a rational policy would have been content
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 409 
 
 with instituting a closer watch. To prevent the undesirable 
 " multiplication of Jews " in the border Governments, Jewish 
 emigrants from neighboring countries, particularly from Aus- 
 tria, were forbidden to settle in Russia (1824). 
 
 N'eedless to say, the Governments of the interior, where the 
 Jews could sojourn only temporarih^ and where they had to 
 produce gubernatorial passports, like foreigners, were carefully 
 guarded against the invasion of the residents of the Pale. 
 On his last trip from St. Petersburg to Southern Eussia in 
 September, 1825, Alexander I. espied, in a little village near 
 Luga,' a Jewish family, which was engaged in making tin-plate, 
 and he at once inquired " on what ground " it lived there. 
 The Governor of St. Petersburg was frightened, and gave 
 orders to have the family deported immediately from the 
 district, to censure the local ispravniTc^ and to warn the guber- 
 natorial authorities, " that the rules concerning the Jews must 
 be observed with all possible stringency." 
 
 5. The Russian Revolutioxaries axd the Jews 
 
 Such was the attitude of the Russian Government towards 
 the Jews. But what was the attitude of the Russian people? 
 Considering the character of the age, in which public opinion 
 was not able to express itself even in political literature, an 
 answer to this question would be entirely impossible, had not 
 the revolutionary movement of the Decembrists ' disclosed the 
 frame of mind of the most progressive section of Russian 
 society in its relation to the Jewish question. Taken as a whole 
 it was an unfriendly attitude. It reflects the utter estrange- 
 
 [' A town in the Government of St. Petersburg.] 
 ['Police inspector.] 
 [' See next note.]
 
 410 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 ment in language, in manners, and in culture between Jews and 
 Eussians at that time, an estrangement which breeds suspicion 
 and hostility. The Eussian knew no more of the life of the 
 secluded Jewish populace than ho did of the life of the Chinese. 
 The educated Eussian looked with suspicion upon the exclu- 
 siveness of patriarchal Jewish life, the unintelligible religious 
 ceremonies which surrounded it, the rigorism of the rabbis, 
 the ecstasy of the Tzaddiks, the strange emotionalism of the 
 Hasidic masses. If he turned to books for an explanation 
 of these strange phenomena, he would find it in the current 
 pamphlet literature of Germany or Poland, with its hackneyed 
 phrases about the fanaticism of the " chosen people," a " state 
 in a state," etc. 
 
 The attitude of the Decembrists * towards the Jewish problem 
 reflects the conventional ideas of an age of reaction. The 
 " Eussian Truth " by Pestel contains a chapter entitled " On 
 the Tribes Populating Eussia," in which the Jewish problem is 
 described as an almost indissoluble political tangle. Pestel 
 enumerates the peculiar Jewish characteristics which, in his 
 opinion, render the Jews entirely unfit for membership in a 
 social order. The Jews " foster among themselves incredibly 
 close ties " ; they have " a religion of their own, which instils 
 into them the belief that they are predestined to conquer all 
 nations," and " makes it impossible for them to mix with any 
 
 P In Russian, Dyekahristy, the name by which the revolution- 
 aries of that period are generally designated. They frst organized 
 themselves into a secret league consisting of Russian army officers 
 in the latter part of Alexander I.'s reign. Their open revolt took 
 place in December (hence the name), 1825, immediately after the 
 accession of Nicholas I. The league was divided into a " Northern 
 Society," led by Nikita Muravyov, and a " Southern Society," of 
 which Paul Pestel was the head. The latter wrote " The Russian 
 Truth," a work in which he expounded the revolutionary pro- 
 gram.]
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 41I 
 
 other nation." The rabbis* wield unlimited sway over the 
 masses ; they keep the people in spiritual bondage, " forbid- 
 ding the reading of all books except the Talmud " and other 
 religious writings. The Jews " are waiting for the coming of 
 the Messiali, who is to establish them in their kingdom," and 
 therefore " look upon themselves as temporary residents of tlie 
 land in which they live." Hence their passion for commerce 
 and their neglect of agriculture and handicrafts. Since com- 
 merce alone is unable to provide the huge masses of Jews with 
 a livelihood, cheating and trickery are considered permissible, 
 to the injury of the Christians. Pestel has no eye for the heavy 
 burden of Jewish disabilities, and even considers the Jews 
 a privileged class of the population, since they do not furnish 
 any recruits, have their own rabbinical tribunals, possess 
 "' the right of educating their children in whatever principles 
 they like," and " moreover enjoy all tlie rights of the Christian 
 nations " ( !). 
 
 Such was tlie vein in which a Eussian revolutionary leader 
 wrote, not knowing, or perhaps not caring to know, of the 
 iron vise of the Pale of Settlement, of the pitiless expulsions 
 Avhich were taking place just at that time, ignorant altogether 
 of the whole mesh of legal restrictions which placed the Jews 
 on the lowest rung of Russian rightlessness. 
 
 After presenting this picture of Jewish life, Pestel suggests 
 to the future revolutionary Government (" The Supreme Pro- 
 visional Administration ") two ways of solving the Jewish 
 problem. One consists in breaking up " the influence of the 
 close relationship among the Jews so injurious to the Chris- 
 
 ' Pestel evidently has in mind the Tzaddiks, whom he had occa- 
 sion to observe specifically in Tulchyn, his Podolian place of 
 residence, and more generally in the territory controlled by the 
 " Southern Society."
 
 412 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND 
 
 tians/^ because it keeps them apart from the other citizens. 
 For this purpose he advises convoking " the most learned rabbis 
 and the most intelligent Jews " — Pestel had evidently heard of 
 Napoleon's Synhedrion — "listening to their representations/' 
 and thereupon adopting measures for eradicating Jewish ex- 
 clusiveness, for, " inasmuch as Eussia does not expel the Jews, 
 they ought to be the more careful not to adopt an unfriendly 
 attitude towards the Christians." 
 
 The second way consists in an honorable expulsion of the 
 Jews or, to use his words, " in assisting the Jews to form 
 a separate commonwealth of their own in some portion of Asia 
 Minor." To this end Pestel makes the proposal to choose a 
 rallying-point for the Jewish people and to supply them with 
 some troops so as to reinforce them. For, as Pestel continues, 
 
 were all the Russian and Polish Jews to congregate in one place, 
 they would number over two millions. Such a mass of people, 
 being in search of a fatherland would not find it difficult to over- 
 come all obstacles which the Turks might place i:i their way, and, 
 after traversing the whole of European Turkey, might pass over 
 into Asiatic Turkey, and, having occupied an adequate area, form 
 a separate Jewish State. 
 
 Pestel himself felt more attracted towards the latter alter- 
 native of solving the Jewish problem,^ but, being fully aware 
 that " this gigantic undertaking depends on particular cir- 
 cumstances," he did not formulate it as " a special obligation 
 upon the Supreme Administration." 
 
 ' It has been conjectured that Pestel was influenced by his 
 fellow-Decembrist Gregory Peretz, a son of the converted tax- 
 farmer Abraham Peretz in St. Petersburg (see p. 333 and p. 388). 
 Peretz advocated on numerous occasions the necessity of organ- 
 izing a society for the purpose of liberating the scattered Jews 
 and settling them in the Crimea or in the Orient, " in the shape 
 of a separate nationality."
 
 THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I 413 
 
 Accordingly, if Pestel's first plan had materialized, the Jews 
 of Eussia would have received from the Supreme Provisional 
 Administration, not civil equality, but a stern Reglement of 
 the Austrian or Old Prussian type, made up of a long string of 
 " correctional measures " aiming at compulsory assimilation or 
 Russification, at the demolition of the whole cultural autonomy 
 of Russian Jewry, not excluding " the right of educating their 
 children in whatever principles they like," and finally culminat- 
 ing in the economic " curbing of Jewry," perhaps in the spirit 
 of that very Government against which the Decembrists were 
 fighting. 
 
 Pestel's views on Judaism were shared by many Decembrists, 
 but not by all. The constitution drafted by the leader of 
 the " Northern Society," ISTikita j\Iuravyov, originally proposed 
 to grant political rights to the Jews only within their Pale 
 of Settlement, but in the second draft this limitation was 
 replaced by the principle of perfect equality. 
 
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