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 s.e.xes. 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 n.o.ble 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 compet.i.tors for pursuing commerce or handicrafts. The clause in the Polish parliamentary Const.i.tution 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, const.i.tutionally guaranteed privileges, they be forced to conduct themselves according to the agreements entered into with the munic.i.p.alities, 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 compet.i.tion. In this manner the originators of the parliamentary Const.i.tution, the landed proprietors and townspeople, were those who forced the Jews out of the cities, and drove them into land-leasing and liquor-dealing.
The parliamentary Const.i.tution of 1775, which was promulgated after the first part.i.tion of Poland, and inst.i.tuted 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 Const.i.tution 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 compet.i.tion. 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 a.s.sume 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 bipart.i.te nation of n.o.bles and serfs. Now a new wedge, the Christian middle cla.s.s, 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 part.i.tions.
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 n.o.bility 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 cla.s.s, 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 n.o.bility 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 munic.i.p.alities, 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 t.i.tle, "On the Necessity of Jewish Reforms in the Lands of the Polish Crown." The writer, who disguises his ident.i.ty 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 ma.s.s 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 part.i.tion period. The Jewish plutocracy followed the example of the Polish pans in exploiting the poor laboring ma.s.ses. 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 a.s.sessment of state and communal taxes, throwing the main burden on the impecunious cla.s.ses, 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 ma.s.ses, 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 cla.s.ses, princ.i.p.ally 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 ma.s.ses 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 a.s.sess 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 dest.i.tute 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 n.o.blest 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 n.o.ble and view his treasures.
The rabbi complains in particular that the well-to-do cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sing 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 _etats generaux_ were transformed, under the pressure of the revolutionary movement, from a parliament of cla.s.ses into a national a.s.sembly 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 cla.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al 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 part.i.tion, 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 a.s.sembled" 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 a.s.sembly, 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 pa.s.sion, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 t.i.tle ("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 a.s.sumption 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.similation, 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 Stas.h.i.tz, 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 n.o.bles 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 subst.i.tute 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 cla.s.s, were yet treated by them as strangers, and stood aloof equally from Christian and Jewish society. The majority of Polish writers endorsed the contemptuous att.i.tude 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.