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.[215] Russia had chopped off one flank--the
province of White Russia[216]; 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 rôle of a "tolerated" population in the
royal barracks of Frederick II., who would fain have acquired the Polish
provinces minus their Jewish inhabitants. A third portion came under 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
province of Little Russia.
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 enactments of the Permanent Council or by the reforms
of the Quadrennial Diet (1788-1791).[217] In connection with the general
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 information concerning the
number of Jews in the reduced kingdom 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 committee, the
well-known historian Thaddeus Chatzki, who made a special study of the
Jewish problem.
Officially the number of Jews residing in Poland and Lithuania about the
year 1788 was computed at 617,032. 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 mounted up to at least 900,000 souls of both
sexes. This computation agrees substantially with the authoritative
statement 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, multiplied rapidly, owing to the custom of early marriages
then in vogue. The same custom, on the other hand, was responsible for
increased mortality among Jewish children and for an ever-growing
physical deterioration of the adolescent generation. 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 frequent 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,
carpenters, 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 generations within the same family, owing to
frequent bankruptcy 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.
To these deductions, based on 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 innkeeping. 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 corporal punishment for it.
When the pan engaged in one of his frequent orgies, the first victims of
his 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[218] 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 instructed 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 the 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 number 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 maintenance. 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.
The same burghers and business men were also the predominating 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 commerce 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 originators
of the parliamentary Constitution, 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 promulgated after the
first partition of Poland, and instituted a supreme administrative body,
the Permanent Council, increased 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 performing the marriage service for the
Jews who were not engaged in one of the legitimate occupations, such as
handicrafts, 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 "privileged" towns. One of
these forbidden places was the capital, Warsaw.[219] The Jews had long
been refused the right of permanent 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 necessity 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, however, 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 visiting Jews, each
ticket costing a silver groschen, which granted the right of a five
days' sojourn in the capital. Without 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 Warsaw raised a terrible outcry demanding the literal application of
the law which barred the Jews from settling permanently in the capital.
Thereupon Lubomirski adopted stringent measures against the Jews,
notwithstanding the protests of the highly-placed house-owners and
regardless even of the intervention 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
short term of the parliamentary sessions. In the course of time the
former evasion of the law came into vogue again. In 1784 the
administration, appealed to by the magistracy, once more undertook to
clear the capital of Jews. The situation was modified somewhat towards
the end of 1788, when the Quadrennial Diet began its sessions. The Jews
were inclined to assume that, 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.
In this manner law and life were constantly at odds, life turning law
into fiction whenever in opposition to its demands, and law retaliating
by dealing occasional blows at life.
The million Jews pressed their way into the eight millions of the native
population like a wedge, which, once having entered, could not be
displaced. For by occupying the originally 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 compact population of different birth and
creed, with an autonomous communal life, with a separate language, and
with customs and manners of its own, was scattered all over the realm
and interwoven with all branches of economic endeavor. This secluded
population, which Polish legislation no less than the arrogance of the
nobility and 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 down 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 "compulsory enlightenment" pursued by the
Austrian Emperor Joseph II. The former found its expression in the
parliamentary 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 celebrated
ex-Chancellor [Andreas Zamoiski] drafted this law more for the purpose
of getting rid of the Jews than of bringing 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 separate
streets, away from the Christians. Every Jewish adult is to present
himself before the local administration and produce a certificate to the
effect that he is either a tradesman owning 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 in the Lands of the Polish Crown." The
writer, who disguises his identity under the pseudonym "A Nameless
Citizen," is opposed to retrogressive measures, and favors legislation
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 "harmful 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
agriculture 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 Christian fellow-citizens.
It is not difficult to discern in this project the influence of Joseph
II.'s policy, which similarly sought to effect the "improvement" 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 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 extracted 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.[220]
As for the inner life of this Jewish mass of one million souls, it
displays the same saddening spectacle of disintegration. 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, Volhynia, 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 hostile factions, the Hasidim and Mithnagdim,
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
Russia,--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. Nevertheless the Kahal organization was infected
by the general process of degeneration, 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
rabbinate, like the Polish clergy, catered to the rich. The secular and
the ecclesiastic oligarchy, which controlled the Kahal, victimized the
community by a shockingly disproportionate 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 prohibition to appeal to
the "law courts of the Gentiles," frequently sought to obtain redress
from the Christian administration against these Jewish satraps. In 1782
representatives of the lower classes, principally artisans, of the
Jewish population of Minsk, lodged a complaint with the Lithuanian
Financial Tribunal against the local Kahal administration, which "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 pilloried 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
twenty years there was a conflict between the Rabbi, a certain Samuel
Vigdorovich (son of Avigdor), and the Kahal, or, more correctly, between
the rabbinical party and the Kahal party. The Rabbi had been convicted
of corruption, drunkenness, biased legal decisions, perjury, and so on.
The litigation between the Rabbi and the Kahal had, at an earlier stage,
been submitted to a court of arbitration as well as to a conference of
Lithuanian 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 the 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 Volfovich (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
communal organization of the 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 common people shook to its foundations
the social organization of the Jews of Lithuania shortly before the
incorporation of this country into the Russian Empire.
A somber picture of the conduct of the communal oligarchy 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 elements of secular culture was
entirely out of the question. The Jewish school bore a purely rabbinical
character. True, Talmudic 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 concerned, it
was powerless to create anything new. The religious and national
sentiments of Polish Jewry had undergone a profound transformation at
the 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 consternation in both
camps. To be a "Berliner" was synonymous with being an apostate. A
Solomon Maimon 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 Revolution coincided with the first year of
Polish reform. In Paris the _états généraux_ were transformed, under the
pressure of the revolutionary movement, from a parliament of classes
into a national assembly 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-revolutionary 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 consisted in equalizing the burghers with the Shlakhta in their
civil, though not in their political, prerogatives.
Two other questions affecting the inner life of Poland claimed the
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 landowners. 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 commission, 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 Russia, and Russia was
averse to the inner regeneration of the country, which, having undergone
one partition, was expected 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 Russia, which was personified by her
Resident in Warsaw, and had for its main purpose the preparation of the
country for the inevitable struggle with her powerful neighbor. 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 the walls of the Chamber the current of public opinion was
whirling and foaming. Side by side with the legislative assembly, a
literary parliament was holding its deliberations, the famous pamphlet
"literature of the Quadrennial Diet," reflecting the liberal currents of
the eighteenth century. The "Kollontay smithy"[221] alone, which was,
so to speak, the publishing house of the reformers, flooded the country
with pamphlets and leaflets touching upon all the questions connected
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 parliamentary debates.
The impulse to the literary discussion of the Jewish question came from
a pamphlet previously referred to, which had been published by
Butrymovich, 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 Citizen," which had been circulated in two editions.[222]
Butrymovich supplied the pamphlet with a new title ("A Means whereby 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
detrimental 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 pursuits among the Jews, such as agriculture and
handicrafts, and to remove them from the obnoxious liquor traffic; to
combat their separateness by curtailing their Kahal autonomy; 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 service 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 "Reflections Concerning the Jewish Reform
Proposed by Butrymovich" (December, 1798). The writer of the
"Reflections" concedes a certain amount of "political common sense" in
the project, but criticizes its author, because, "in his great zeal to
preserve the rights of man, he shows too much indulgence towards the
defects of the Jews." The anonymous 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 necessary 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
environment in which idleness is fostered could this "host of parasites"
find shelter, entirely forgetting that these "parasites" had created
the commerce of the country riven between nobles and serfs.
The majority of these vilifiers agreed in one point, that the defects of
the Jews could 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 pattern. 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 (Kollontay); others would merely confine it to definite
functions, 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 Talmud, 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 provide for
his family and to his compliance with certain standards of general
education, appealed to all the reformers. Several writers injected into
the discussion of the Jewish question the specific problem of the
Neo-Christians, the converts from 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 Jewish
society. The majority of Polish writers endorsed the contemptuous
attitude of Polish society towards these converts, who in point of fact
fostered their old sectarian leanings, traveled abroad to do homage to
Frank, and supplied him with money.
In the babel of voices condemning the entire Jewish population 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
Rabbi expresses his amazement that even cultured men indulge in a
wholesale 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 respects. 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 assimilation "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 off from the Christians.
At that time Warsaw evidently did not yet possess the type of cultured
Mendelssohnians--they appeared in that city shortly thereafter, under
the Prussian _régime_--who might have been in a position to engage in a
literary discussion of the proposed reforms from the Jewish point of
view. "Enlightenment" 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 Hirschovich (son of Hirsch), has been
preserved in the archives. 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 marriages. With regard to
the change in dress, he advises beginning 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. Rabbis, 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 office 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 differences of opinion,
"cannot institute reasonable rules of conduct for themselves." The whole
plan reflects the spirit of flunkeyism, ever obsequiously willing to
yield to the powers that be in the matter "of eradicating the prejudices
and misconceptions of an erring people."
During the year 1789 and the first half of 1790 the Jewish 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
proposed Jewish reform. Neither did the heated literary discussions
centering on the Jewish question prompt the popular representatives to
take it up more speedily. But at this juncture 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 disuse. 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 this 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 artisans, among
them a particularly large number of tailors and furriers, surrounded
the town 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
demonstration 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, the artisans declared that the newly-arrived
Jews made life intolerable by wresting the last earnings from the
Christian tailors and furriers. The deputies promised to look into the
matter. Accordingly, 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 anew, 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 Jewish 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 managed to
escape. The shouts of Fox attracted a crowd of Christian 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 the mob. They looted private residences as well
as stores and warehouses belonging to Jews, carrying off whatever was
valuable, and throwing the rest into wells. The municipal guards, which
came rushing along, were met by 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 phrases about the
necessity of attracting the Jews to handicrafts 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 22, 1790, the Diet appointed a
"Commission for Jewish Reform," which was composed of the deputies
Butrymovich, Yezierski, the Castellan of Lukov,[223] 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
colleagues to a just estimate of the economic aspect of the Jewish
problem. In opposition to the current formula of "transforming the Jews
into useful citizens," he declared in the Diet that 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 abroad the products of the country and thus
enriching 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
number of reform projects submitted 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 and publicist Thaddeus Chatzki, the guiding spirit of the
finance committee of the Quadrennial Diet.[224]
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, completely absorbed in arranging for the promulgation
of the Constitution 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
juncture there arose another member of the Jewish Commission, by the
name of Kholonyevski, a deputy from Bratzlav in Podolia, and announced
that he considered the project of the Commission, with its extension of
the commercial rights of the Jews, prejudicial 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 consideration of this vexatious problem. Soon afterwards, in June,
the Diet was adjourned, and it did not reassemble until September,
1791.
In this way the _magna charta_ of Polish liberty--the Constitution 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 Republic 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 the 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 Butrymovich had the courage to remind the Diet once again
of the necessity of extending the protection of the Government to "the
unfortunate nationality which is not in a position to effect its own
rescue, and is not even aware of the direction in which the betterment
of its lot may be found." He demanded that the Commission revise the
project formerly elaborated by it, with a view to submitting it anew to
the House, with such amendments 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 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 conclusion:
In order to improve the status of the Jewish population, it is
necessary to regulate its mode of life. Such regulation is
impossible 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.[225]
The Commission accordingly felt that, before taking up the projected
reforms, the 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
committee 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 was
liquidated.
Having been passed over by the Constitution of May 3, the Jews, if we
are to believe the accounts of several contemporaries, made an attempt
to influence the Government and the Diet through the instrumentality of
King Stanislav Augustus, approaching 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 Royal
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
communal 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 Kollontay, a radical, were
initiated into the secret. The King, according to this report,
endeavored to push the Jewish reform project 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 exhausting 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 opponents of the May
Constitution among the conservative elements of the country joined hands
with the Russian Government, which in its own sphere of influence had
always been a baneful stumbling-block in the path of progress. The
result was the formation of the Confederacy of Targovitza[226] 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 hundred uniforms 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
deputation of the local merchants which went to meet Joseph Poniatovski,
the commander-in-chief of the Polish army, and presented him with new
instruments for the regimental music bands. On many an occasion the
Jewish communities of Volhynia 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 Russian army in July,
1792.
The year 1793 saw the second partition of Poland, between Russia and
Prussia. Russia annexed Volhynia, with a part of the province of Kiev,
Podolia, and the region of Minsk. Prussia, in turn, acquired the other
part of Great Poland (Kalish, Plotzk,[227] etc.), with Dantzic and
Thorn. Once more an enormous 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 Revolution of 1794 took its course.
At the head of the uprising stood Kosciuszko.[228] Having been reared in
the atmosphere of two great revolutions--the American and the French--he
had a loftier conception of civic and political liberty than the
liberalizing host of the Polish 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 occasionally 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 prolonged 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
fight for the country. At the head of this patriotic group stood Berek
Yoselovich.[229]
Born about 1765 in the little town of Kretingen,[230] 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 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, especially to Paris, and always 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 Revolution.
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 atmosphere 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
Kosciuszko 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 Kosciuszko, the commander-in-chief,
for permission to form a special regiment of light cavalry consisting of
Jewish volunteers. Kosciuszko immediately complied with their request,
and announced it joyfully in a special army order, dated September 17,
extolling the patriotic zeal of the originators of the plan, "who
remember 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 calling 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,
though 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 promised 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 naïve, 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 Jews
was far from being secured by the liberty of the nobles, among whom men
with the humanitarian tendencies of a Kosciuszko were few and far
between.[231] 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 sentiments 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 voluntary 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-sacrificing spirit on that fatal November fourth, the day of the
terrible onslaught upon Praga by the Russian 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 Yoselovich. The bulk of the regiment met its
fate at the fortifications, being killed by Russian shells or bayonets.
Berek himself survived, and fled abroad with General Zayonchek,
Kosciuszko's comrade in arms, Kosciuszko himself having been made a
Russian prisoner somewhat earlier. Berek was at 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
Russia 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,[232] as well as
the region of Bialystok. 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 "tricolored"
appearance--Austro-Prusso-Russian.
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 I., 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 rule of
the Saxon King Frederick Augustus III., a grandson of Augustus II., 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 Austria, he tore off a section of her
Polish dominions, and joined them to the Duchy of Warsaw.
4. THE DUCHY OF WARSAW 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 Napoleon. 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 Parliament" 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) coincided 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 for 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 undergone, and even now
were not able to reconcile themselves to the idea of granting equality
to the unloved tribe.
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 Napoleon'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 unproductive occupations. The Council 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 promulgated 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 concerning the professors of the
Mosaic religion.
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 granted 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 humiliating
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 merchants, 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 Warsaw already
possessed a goodly number of "advanced" Jews, who 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 representations to the Minister of
Justice in January, 1809, to the effect that, "having endeavored for a
long time, by their moral conduct 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 under the cloak of
liberalism--retorted 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 fatherland? 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
undertone of indignation could be discerned.
Thousands of _members of the Polish nation of the Mosaic
persuasion_, who, by virtue of having dwelt in this country for
many centuries, have acquired the same right to consider it
their fatherland 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."
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, doing 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 enjoyment of the rights and liberties with
which Napoleon the Great has endowed the inhabitants of this
country, and which our beloved 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 presenting 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 Quadrennial Diet and the Parisian
Synhedrion. But all these committees 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 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 enlisted
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 forgotten 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
Yoselovich, at the head of his regiment, rushed against the enemy's
cavalry near the town of Kotzk.[233] 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 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 up 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 person. 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 military
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 found 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
augmentation of the territory of the Duchy and the restoration of Old
Poland, where strict economic measures were necessary to keep the
returning Jewish population in bounds. But the confidence reposed in the
power of Napoleon was not justified. The idol was overthrown. The Duchy
of Warsaw, the pale specter of an independent Poland, vanished into air,
and the fate of 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[215] [On this expression see p. 88, n. 1.]
[216] [It consisted of the present Governments of Moghilev and Vitebsk.]
[217] [After the first partition of Poland the Government of the country
was placed in the hands of a Permanent Council consisting of thirty-six
members, who were to be elected by the Diets, and were to take charge of
the five departments of the administration: 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 1788 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 intervention of
Russia.]
[218] [Popular Polish form of the Jewish name _Hirsch_.]
[219] [See p. 85.]
[220] See p. 280.
[221] [Kollontay (in Polish, _Kollontaj_) was a radical member of the
Polish Chamber. See p. 291.]
[222] See p. 272 and p. 273.
[223] [Lukov (in Polish, _Lukow_) is a district town in the province of
Shedletz, not far from Warsaw. Castellan is the Polish title for the
head of a district.]
[224] Chatzki's project is reproduced in his famous book _Rozprawa o
Zydach_, "Inquiry Concerning the Jews" (edition of 1860), pp. 119-134.
[225] The Jewish communities of Poland were burdened with enormous
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.
[226] [In Polish, _Targowica_, a town in the Ukraina.]
[227] [See p. 243, n. 1.]
[228] [More exactly, _Kościuszko_, pronounced _Koshchushko_.]
[229] [_Berek_, or _Berko_, popular Polish form of the Jewish name
_Baer_.--Yoselovich, in Polish _Joselowicz_, son of Yosel, or Joseph.]
[230] In the province of Zhmud [or Samogitia, corresponding practically
to the present Government of Kovno.]
[231] That the habits of the Shlakhta were but little changed by the
revolution may be gauged from the fact that in 1794 the revolutionary
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.
[232] [See p. 85, n. 1.]
[233] [In Polish, _Kock_, near Warsaw.]