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HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND

CHAPTER V: THE AUTONOMOUS CENTER IN POLAND DURING ITS DECLINE (1648-1772)

1. ECONOMIC AND NATIONAL ANTAGONISM IN THE UKRAINA

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 peaceful
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 bodiesof martyrs, that
had been traversed by their Western European brethren in the
Middle Ages. The factors underlying this crisis werethree: an
acute economicclass 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
Russia.
In the central provinces of Poland the position of the Jews,
as was pointed out previously, was determined by the interaction
of class and economic forces on the one hand, and
religious and political interests on the other, changing in accordance
with the different combinations of the opposing factions.
While the kings and the great nobles, prompted by
fiscaland agrarian considerations, in most casesencouragedthe
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 concerned,
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-government,
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 struggle
was vastly complicated in the southeastern border provinces
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 principally
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 Russian
peasants, were here in the hands of wealthy Polish landlords,
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 Catholics,
particularly in those of the clergy, the Greek Orthodox
faith was a" religion of khlops," and they endeavored to eradi-
[' 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 1 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, unmitigated
by the feeling of common nationality and religion, was
bound to assume acute forms. Apart from the oppressive agricultural
labor, which the peasants had to give regularly and
gratuitously to the landlord, they were burdened with a multitude
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 Russian
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 u~der the prevailing conditions of serfdom
these profits could be extracted only by a relentless
exploitation of the peasants. Moreover, the contemptuous attitude
of the Shlakhta and the Catholic clergy towards the
t( 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 socalled
Uniat Church, which follows the rites and traditions of the
Greek Orthodox faith, but submits at the same time to the jurisdiction
of the Roman See. The Uniat Church is still largely repr&-
sented in Eastern Galicia among the Ruthenians.)
142 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
economic antagonism. The oppressed peasantry reacted to
this treatment with ominous murmurings and agrarian disturbances
in several places. The enslaved South Russian
muzhik hated the Polish pan in his capacity as landlord, Catholic,
and Lakh.1 No less intensely did he hate the Jewish arendar,
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 classes, 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 South Russian population, though politically and agriculturally
dependent upon the Poles, was far from being that
patient "beast of burden" into which the rule of serfdom
tried to transform it. Many circumstances combined to foster
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 inhabitants
of the Ukraina to organize themselves into warlike companies,
or Cossacks: to fight off the invaders. The Polish Government,
acting through its local governors or starostas, en-
[1 A contemptuous nickname for Pole.]
P The word U Cossack," in Russian, Kazak (with the accent on
the last syllable), is derived from the Tataric. U Cossackdom"-
says hostomarov, in his Russian standard work on the Cossack uprising
(Bogdan Khmelnitzki, 1. p. 5)_U is undoubtedly of Tataric
origin, and so is the 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 K1U!zak, U adventurer;' U 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 Cossackdom,
a semi-military, semi-agricultural caste, came into being,
with an autonomous organization and its own hetman 1 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 syech: beyond the Falls of the
Dnieper attracted many khlops from the Ukraina, who preferred
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 Russian
origin, though, by the way, with a considerable admixture
of Mongolian blood. The Ukrainian and Zaporozhian Cossacks
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.]
["From the Russian word Za porogi, meaning "beyond the
Falls" (scil. of the Dnieper).J
[a 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, and would stain with blood many
pages of their history, serving as a terrible omen 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
o} the Jews of Eastern Europe the era of pogroms, which
Southern Russia bequeathed to future generations down to the
beginning of the twentieth century.

2. THE POGROMS AND MASSACRES 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, Bogdan
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: Khmelnitzki
began to incite the Ukrainian Cossacks to armed resistance.
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.
1According to legend, the chief of the district had pillaged
Khmelnitzki's tent, carried off his wife, and dogged hiB Bon to
death.

THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 141)
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 Russian peasants
and town dwellers left their homes, and, organizing themselves
into bands, devastated the estates of the pans, slaying
their owners as well as the stewards and Jewish arendars. In
the towns 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 voluntarily
as prisoners of war. They knew that the Tatars refrained
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 political
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 oy
Khmelnitzki's accomplices, savage Zaporozhian Cossacks, dispersed
in all directions, and~began to exterminate Poles and
Jews. To quote a Russian historian:
Killing was accompanied by barbarous tortures; the victims
were flayed alive, split asunder, clubbed to death. roasted on coals,
146 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
or scalded with boiling water. Even 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 lookedupon as treason. Scrolls of
the Law were taken out of the synagogues by the Cossacks,who
danced on them while drinking whiskey. Atter this Jews werelaid-
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 intoxicated
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 20=June 10, 1648).
The Cossacks, in conjunction with the local Russian inhabitants,
fell upon the Jews and massacred them; the women and
girls were violated. The Rabbi and Rosh-Yeshibah of Niemirov,
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 141
death. There he was seized by one of the rioters, a shoemaker,
who began to club him. His aged mother begged the murderer
to kill 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 taking
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 discharged
his gun, and the girl fell down, mortally wounded, yet
happy in the knowledge that she was saved .from a worse fate.
Another Jewish girl, whom a Cossack was 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. 'l'he 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 aiming
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 treacherous intention,
they immediately resolved to dispose of the Poles, whom they
excelled in numbers. But the Rosh-Yeshibah of Tulchyn,
Rabbi Aaron, implored them not to touch the pans, on the
ground that such action might 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 fifteen hundred victims were murdered in a most
barbarous fashion. Nor did the perfidious Poles escape their
fate. Another detachment of Cossacks,which entered Tulchyn
later, slew all the Catholics, among them Count Chetvertinski.
Treachery avenged treachery.
From Podolia the rebel bands penetrated into Volhynia.
Here the massacres continued in the course of the whole summer
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 fellowTHE
CENTER DURINGITS DECLINE 149
Jews who followed him, put on their funeral garments, the
shrouds and prayer shawls, and offered up fervent prayers in
the synagogu~, awaiting death in the sacred place, where the
murderers subsequently killed them one by one. Similar massacres
took place in Zaslav, Ostrog, Constantinov, Narol, Kremenetz,
Bar, and many other cities. The Ukraina as well as Volhynia
and Podolia were turned into one big slaughter-house.
The Polish troops, particularly those under the brave command
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 displayed
towards the Poles and the Jews. The Jews fled to these
troops for their safety, and they were welcomed by Vishniovetzki,
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 commanders-
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 lilf rebellious peasants, or haidamacks,
penetrated into the nearest towns of White Russia
and Lithuania. From Chernigov and Starodub, where the
Jewish inhabitants had heen exterminated, the murderers
moved towards the city of Homel (July or August). A contrmporary
gives the following description of the Homel massacre:
160 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 [Yevanim, 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 Lithuania perished at our hands." Thereupon Rabbi
Eliezer, our teacher, the president of the [rabbinical] court, exclaimed:
••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-
Yeshibah 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, 1648, Khmelnitzki himself, marching at the
head of a Cossack army, and accompanied by his Tatar allies,
approached the walls of Lemberg, and began to besiege the capital
of Red Russia, or Galicia. The Cossacks succeeded in
storming and pillaging the suburbs, but they failed to penetrate
to the fortified center of the town. Khmelnitzki prop
In Polish, Pok'Ucie, 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,promising
in this case to raise the siege. The magistracy replied
that the Jews were under the jurisdiction of the king, and j the town authorities had no right to dispose of them. Khmelnitzki
thereupon agreed to withdraw, having obtained from the
city an enormous ransom, the bulk of which had been contributed
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 hetman
Khmelnitzki. But owing to the excessive demands of the Cossacks
the negotiations were broken off, and as a result, in the
spring of 1649, the flame of civil war flared up anew, accompanied
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 forbidding 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 suffering 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 re152
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 Cossackrebellion. 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 ofZborov, which was unsatisfactory
to the Polish Government,wasnot 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 September,
1651, many claims of the Cossackswere rejected, and
the right of the Jews to live in the Greek Orthodox portion
of the Ukraina was restored:
As a result, the Cossacksand Greek Orthodox Ukrainians
rose again. Bogdan Khmelnitzki entered into negotiations
with the Russian Tzar Alexis Michaelovich, looking to the
incorporation, with the rights of an autonomous province, of
1The 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 incorporation
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
Muscovy, 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. It was now the turn of the inhabitants
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 1surrendered to Russian
arms, Tzar Alexis Michaelovich 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 garrison
in Moghilev, Colonel Poklonski, learned of the approach
6f a Polish army under the command of Radziwill. Prompted
by the fear that the Jewish residents might join the approaching
enemy, Poklonski ordered the Jews to leave the boundaries
[' See p. 98, n. 2.]
154 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
of the city, and, on the .ground of their being Polish subjects,
promised to have them transferred to the camp of Radziwill.
Scarcely had the Jews, accompanied by their 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, fell upon them 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
s9ldiers 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 occupation
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 Hee 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 Radzieyevski 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 Calvinists,
who looked for their rescue to the northern Protestant
power in the same way in which the Cossacks expected their
salvation from Orthodox Russia.
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, who
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" Heeth
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 bandt! of Polish
irregulars, which had been organized in 1656, under the command
of General Charnetzki, to save the country from the
invader, vented their fury upon the Jews in all the 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,
PAllusion to Amos v. 19.]
156 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
eight years previously, had been perpetrated in 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 fatherland.
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 concessions
to Russia and Sweden was Poland able to restore its
political order, which had been shaken to its foundation during
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 remains
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 Tate-s into Turkey, or had emigrated
to Lithuania, the central J; ovinces of Poland, or the
countries of Western Europe. A I. over Europe and Asia
Jewish refugees or prisoners of wal 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 woesof their compatriots and of the
martyrdom of hundreds of Jewish communities.
An echoof all these horrors resounds in contemporary chronicles
and mournful synagogue liturgies. One of the eye-witnesses
of the Ukraina massacres, Nathan Hannover, from
Zaslav,givesa striking description of it in his historical chronicle
Yeven Metzula 1 (1653). Sabbatai Kohen, the famous
scholar of Vilna: brought this catastrophe to the notice of the
Jewish world through a circular letter, entitled Meghillath Eta: which was accompanied by prayers in memory of the
[' ••Mire of the Deep," from Ps. lxix. 3.-The Hebrew word
Yeven is a play on Yavan, ••Greek," a term generally applied to
the Greek Orthodox.]
I See p. 130.
[" ••Scroll of Darkness" (comp. Amos iv. 13), with a clever allusion
to the similarly sounding words in Zech. T. 1.]
158 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
Polish martyrs. In heartrending liturgies many contemporary
rabbis and writers, such as Lipman Heller, Rabbi of Cracow,
Sheftel Horovitz, Rabbi of Posen, the scholars Meir of Shchebreshin
1 (Tzok ha-tlttim: 1650) and Gabriel Shussberg
(Petak Teshuba: 1653), lament the destruction of Polish
Jewry. All these writings are pervaded with the bitter consciousness
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 circumscribed
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 BOonerhad peace
been restored in Poland than they began to return to their demolished
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 compensate
his Jewish subjects, though it be only in part, for tlle
sufferings inflicted upon them and to assist them in recuperating
from material ruin. This declaration the King made in the
[' In Polish 8zczebrze8zyn, a town in the region of Lublin.]
[••• Troublous Times," allusion to Dan. Ix. 26.]
[" ••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 Jewish communities which had
suffered m "t from the horrors of the Cossacks and the invasions
of the It •..'lans 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 Russia (the region
of Poltava, Chernigov, and part of the district of Kiev, including
the city of the same name), was ceded to Muscovy. However,
in consequence of the party dissensions which divided the
ranks of the Cossacks, and made their various hetmans gravitate
now towards the one, now towards the other, of the sovereign
powers, the Ukraina continued for a long time to be
an apple of discord between Poland, Russia, and Turkey. This
agitation handicapped alike the agricultural pursuits of the
peasants and the commercial activities of the Jews. In Little
Russia the Jews had almost disappeared, while in the Polish
Ukraina they had become greatly impoverished. The southwestern
region, where the Jews had once upon a time lived so
comfortably, sank economically lower and lower, and gradually
yielded its supremacy to the northwest, to Lithuania and
White Russia, which had suffered comparatively little during
11
160 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLANn
the years of unrest. The transfer of the cultural ct,..ter of
Judaism from the south to the north forms one of the characteristic
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 binister years of the Cossack mutiny. At
the Coronation Diet 1 Vishniovetzki ratified the fundamental
privileges of the Polish and Lithuanian Jews, " as far as these
privileges are not in contradiction with the general laws and
customs." This ratification had been obtained through an
application of the" general syndic of the Jews," Moses Markovich:
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 li~ited the
financial operations of Jewish capitalists by fixing a maximum
rate of interest (20% ) "-this would have been perfectly legitimate-
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 motivation
(" 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. e. son of Mark, or Mordecai. On" syndics" see p. 111, n. 2.]
["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 metier 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 recrudescence,
during that period, of the ugly street attacks upon
the Jews by the students of the Christian colleges, the so-called
Schulergeliiuf. These scholastic excessesnow became an everyday
occurrence in the cities of Poland. The riotous scholars
not only caused public scandals by insulting Jewish passersby
on the street, but frequently invaded the Jewish quarters,
where they instituted regular pogroms. Most of these disorders
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 them~elves
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 furious
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 hundred
Jewish dead, a large number of demolished houses, several
desecrated synagogues, were the result of the barbarous amusement
of the disciples of the militant Church (1664).
Of the medieval trials of that period two cases, one in Lithuania
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 Ea.ster 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
Rabbi Tobias. A dirge commemorating this event, composed
by a son of one of the martyrs, contains a heartrending description
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 years 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 complete
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 glitteri~ 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 execution,
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, saying:
"We have sinned before the Lord. Let us sanctify His name
like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azarlah," They turned to the executioner,
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 exclaimed:
"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, 0 Israel,
the Lord our God, the Lord is one," Thereupon the executioner
stretched forth his hand to take the sword, and the costly veBBel
was shattered. When the holy Rabbi Tobias saw this loss, he
exclaimed: "Blessed art thou, 0 Rabbi Israel, who hast passed
'FrOIr. 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
VOBkhod, July, 1903, p. 19, n. 1.]
• The corresponding word in Hebrew ( C'O,"~), which Is marked
with dots In the original, represents the year of the event: [6]420
aera mundi, which equals 1669 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 JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
I
first into the Realm of Light. I follow thee." He too exclaimed:
••Hear, 0 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 rook place in Cracow, in 1663. 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 disputation
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 Immaculate
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 Royal Castle cross-examined the defendant
under torture, without being able to obtain a confession. Witnesses
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 Ca.lahora 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 tribunal
confirmed the verdict of the lower court, ordering that
P See p. 91, n. 1.]
(I See p. 96, n. 1.]
THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 165
the sentence be executed in the 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 the bo~ 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 Rome,
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 accusations,
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 requests
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 extencred efficient protection to the
Jews against the classes and parties hostile to them, was
John III. Sobieski (1674-1696), who 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, protecting
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 tradeunions
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 college
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 humaneness
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 7cozubales, the scholastic tax
which had been agreed upon between the Jews and the Christian
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 "constitutions"
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 I
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 tlMlt
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 recuperated
from the terrible ravages of the previous epoch.
Under his successors its position became more and more unfavorable.

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 parliament.]
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 circumstances
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 influence
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 watchfulness
of the supreme powers of the state and on their readiness
to defend these rights against the encroachmellts 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
ShIakhta 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? "_u The taxes
are imposed by the nob1l1ty, and they are paid by the peasant, the
burghe~~ and the Jew,"
THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 169
of the head-tax from the Rahals. 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 extortion.
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 representative,
and the Kahal was sure to pay the demanded
sum. Occasionally this well-calculated exploitation was relieved
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. The same Starosta allowed
himself the following" entertainment": he would order
JewIsh women to climb an apple-tree and call like cuckoos. He
[' See above, p. 46, n. 1, and p. 60, n. I.]
170 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
would next bombard them with small shot, and watch the unfortunate
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, ~icense-Ioving 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 proceedings.
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 transferming, the rural
Jews into serfs was rejected solely because the Government
refused to forego the income 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" 1 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 synagogues
and houses, and engaging, by way of amusement, in all
[' More exactlY.laktor. Polish designation for broker, agent, and
general utility man.]
THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 171
kinds of "excesses." The Diet of 1717 held in Warsaw protested
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 merchants
and tradesmen found an enthusiastic ally in the Catholic
clergy. The seed sown by the Jesuits yielded a rich harvest.
Religious intolerance, hypocrisy, and superstition had taken
deep root in the Polish people. Religious persecution, directed
against all "infidels," be they Christian dissidents or Jews
"who stubbornly cling to irreligion," was one of the mainsprings
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. "'he Synod of Lovich 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 Christian
country is that they might serve as a "reminder of the
tortures of Christ and, by their enslaved and miserable position,
8S an example of the just chastisement inflicted by God upon
the infidels."

172 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND

6. A FRENZY OF BLOOD ACCUSATIONS

The end of the seventeenth century is marked by the frequency
of religious trials, the J~ws being charged with ritual
murder and the desecration of Ohurch sacraments. These
charges were the indigenous product of the superstition and
ignorance of the Oatholic 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 similar
contrivances. Such propaganda often resulted in the adoption
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 Ohurch, 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
Ohristian 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 Step~en
Zhukhovski, who brought two additional charges of ritual muJ'.
der against the Jews of Sandomir, and published, on this occasion,
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.]
THE CENTER DURING IT.S DECLINE 173
ceeded in bringing about a new 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 1712, the expulsion of all Jews from Sandomir and the
conversion of the synagogue 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 Serafinovich,
who posed as a former Rabbi of Brest, and had testified
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 newlymarried
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 witchcraft.
To convict Serafinovich publicly of lying, the Jews challenged
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
1The last order was subsequently repealed.
174 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
Jewish and Ohristian participants had arrived, but Serafinovich
failed to appear at the meeting, where his trickery and ignorance
would have been exposed. The refusal of the informer to
attend the disputation was attested in an officialaffidavit. 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 inveterate
hostility of the local Ohristian population. Towards the
end of the seventeenth century the Oarmelite order in Posen
contrived a curious lawsuit against the Jews, alleging that
following upon the desecration of the hosts in 13991 the Jews
had, by way of penance for their sacrilege, obligated themselves
to accompany the Ohristian 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 Oarmelites 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 Ohurch was on the lookout for new
victims, and it manifested itself in 1736 in another ritual murder
trial, which lasted for four years. Everything was prearranged
in accordance with the "rites" of the Ohurch fanatics.
The dead body of a Ohristianchild was found in the
neighborhood of the city. There was also found a Polish beggar-
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 darshan, Arie-Leib
P See p. 66.]
THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 175
Calahora, a descendant of the martyr Mattathiah Calahora,'
an elder (parnas, or syndic) of the Jewish community, by
the name of Jacob Pinkasevich (son of Phineas), and several
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 J acob and the number of the fourth part (or quarter) of
Israel? Llt 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 surrounding
him with the following words: "At the hour of my
death I shall not have around me ten Jews for prayer (minyan).
Therefore recite with me for the last time the prayer Borkhu
(' 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 autumu 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 wrest a confession
from the innocent Jewish prisoners. Nevertheless, being convinced
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, the 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 Augustus
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 conduct"
after the medieval pattern: not to pass too frequently
beyond the boundaries of their ghetto (which had been preserved
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 representatives
were able to arouse the public opinion of Western Europe
and secure the intervention 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 town 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
functionaries of the Zaslav synagogue assembled in a neighboring
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 Bernardine monks of Zaslav that the celebration
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 mohel (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, POSf'-
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
embtace Christianity in order to escape death, but afterwards
repented.
178 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
the gallows. 'I'he memorial prayer for these martyrs concludes
with the Biblical words: "0 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, which
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 1 (1748), Pa volochi • and Zhytomil'
(1753), Yampoll (1756), Stupnitza, near Pshemyshl
(1759), and Voislavitza 4 (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 intensify
the hatred against the Jews. In Voislavitza, 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. rrhe spiritual leaders and elders of
the Jewish community were brought to court. One of the
[' In Podolia.]
[" In the province of Kiev.]
[I In Volhynia.l
[4 Near Lublin.]
THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 179
accused, the rabbi, committed suicide while in jail. rfhe
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 communities
of Poland decided, in 1758, to send Jacob Zelig (or
Selek)' to Rome as their spokesman, to obtain from Pope Benedict
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 ~ntolerable, 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 superstitious
purposes." The application was turned over to Cardinal
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 memorandum,
in which, as a result of his investigation of the whole history
of the question, he demonstrated the falsehood of the
ritual murder charges made against tpe Jews, which had been
condemned by the popes in the Middle Ages, particularly by
the bull of Innocent IV. of the year 1247: In the judgment
1Another variant of the name is Jelek. [The latter form is de·
clared to be incorrect by A. Berliner, Gutachten Ganganelli's
(Berlin, 1888), p. 41.]
2 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 IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
of Ganganelli all the recent Polish trials were devoid of any
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 instrllctcd his nuncio
in Warsaw to extend his protection to Zelig, the spokesman
of the Jews, on his return to Poland. Subsequently the nuwio
informed the Polish Prime Minister BrUhl, that "the Holy
See, having investigated all the foundations of this aberration,
according to which the Jews need .uman 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 predecessors,
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 contamination.
The contempora.ry 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 tbe 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 fa.naticism 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 politics
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 exploiting
them as much as possible foJ' the benefit of the exchequer.
The Diet of 1764, which was held in Warsaw prior to
the election of the King, and discussed the question of i.nternal
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,
apportioned 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, waRto 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 livelihood
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 obligation
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 h.editary competitors 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 Russian 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 disintegrating
body politic of Poland. Fugitive Greek Orthodox
peasants from among the serfs of the pans, itinerant Zapotozhians:
and Cossacks from the Russian 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 assumed
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
[1 See p. 78.]
[. See p. 143, n. 2.]
[a A word 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, slaying
and robbing many pans and Jews.
The haidamack movement of 1768 was particularly furious.
'fhe 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 Orthodox
subjects of the country, be granted not only complete
religious liberty, but also political equality. A considerable
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 defense
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 Confederates,
dissatisfaction was brewing among the Greek Orthodox
peasants of the Polish Ukraina. 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 Zaporozhian
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, murdering
the pans and the Jews and devastating towns and
estates. 'l'he 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.]
184 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
" Lakb: 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 'l'etyev, 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 or thousands or Poles and Jews had fled ror
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 or the Voyevoda of Kiev, a member of the ramous
Pototzki family, and was commanded by a governor called
Mladanovich. Mladanovich had at his disposal a Cossack detachment
or the court guard under the command or Colonel
Gonta. Despite the ract that Gonta had long been suspected or
sympathizing with the haidamacks, Mladanovich saw fit to
dispatch him with a regiment of these court Cossacks against
Zheleznyak, who was approaching the city. As was to be
expected, Gonta went over to Zheleznyak, and on June 18,
1768, both commanders turned around and, at the head or their
armies, marched upon Uman.
During the first day the city was derended by the Polish
pans and the Jews, who worked shoulder to shoulder Oil the
city wall, fighting off the besiegers with cannon and rifles.
But not all Poles were genuinely resolved to derend the city.
Many or them merely thought or 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. 1.42. n. l.J
[' See p. 320, n. 2.J
[" Pronounced Ooman, with a sott sound at he end. In Polish the
name is spelled Human.J
THE CENTER DURING ITS DECLINE 185
with making short work of the Jews. When the haidamacks,
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
do~n 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 syna,gogue. When the haidamacks approached
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 haidamacks placed a cannon at the entrance
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 swimming
in pools of blood.
Having disposed of the Jews, the haidamacks 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 " Uman massacre."
Simultaneously smaller detachments of haidamacks and
mutinous peasants were busy exterminating the Shlakhta and
the Jews in other parts of the provinces of Kiev and Podolia.
Where formerly the hord.es of Bogdan Khmelnitzki had raged,
.rewish blood was again flowing in streams, and the cries of
186 THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
Jewish martyrs werc agaiu hearJ. But this time the catastrophe
did not assume the same gigantic proportions as in
1648. Both the Polish and Russian 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 Krechetuikov. Gonta with his
detachment was turned over to the Polish Government, and
sentenced to be flayed alive and quartered. The other haidamack
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 the
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 1772, 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 187
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. '1'he annexed provinces constituted
nearly a third of Polish territory, with a population of three
millions, comprising a quarter of a million Jews.' '1'he 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
RUtlsia.

_______________

Notes:

I According to the Polish census of 1764-1766 the number of
Jews in Poland and Lithuania amounted during thoBe years, on tile
eve of the partitions, to 621,000 souls.

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