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 t.i.tle "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 a.s.similate the Jews with the Poles, which a.s.similation "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 _regime_--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 a.s.sessments. 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 inst.i.tute 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 pa.s.sionate 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 compet.i.tion.
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 cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.s, 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 surrept.i.tiously 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 munic.i.p.al 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 const.i.tuted 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 a.s.siduously. 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 Const.i.tution of the third of May, was not in a position to busy itself with the Jewish question. Only after the Const.i.tution 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 rea.s.semble until September, 1791.
In this way the _magna charta_ of Polish liberty--the Const.i.tution of May 3, 1791--was promulgated without modifying in the slightest degree the status of the Jews. True, the new Const.i.tution did not in any way alter the former caste system of the Polish Republic itself--the feudalism of the n.o.bility, the servitude of the peasantry, and the privileges of the gentry. Nevertheless it conferred civil equality on the burgher cla.s.s, and placed the representative inst.i.tutions 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 Const.i.tution 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 circ.u.mstances." 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed over by the Const.i.tution 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 a.s.sembled 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 PARt.i.tIONS AND BEREK YOSELOVICH
The death struggle of Poland was approaching. The opponents of the May Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution. 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 part.i.tion 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 cla.s.ses 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 th.o.r.n.y 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 n.o.ble, 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 n.o.bility 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 G.o.d 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 n.o.bles, 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 nave, and so is his political reasoning.
While calling upon the Jews to join "the mighty n.o.bles" 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 n.o.bles, 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 part.i.tion of Poland, which took place in 1795, transferred to Russia the backbone of the former Jewry of Poland, the dense ma.s.ses 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 part.i.tion 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 part.i.tion, Napoleon I., in juggling with the political map of Europe and calling mushroom states into being, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 Const.i.tution, 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 cla.s.s 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 emanc.i.p.ation. 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 pet.i.tion 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 Const.i.tution 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 att.i.tude 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 Const.i.tution 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 pet.i.tion the Minister of Justice, Lubenski--one of the "const.i.tutional" ministers who managed to promote the interests of despotism under the cloak of liberalism--retorted with coa.r.s.e sophistry, that const.i.tutional 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 pet.i.tioners go on complaining--the Jews are denied civil rights, have no one to defend them in the Diet or the Senate, and sorrowfully antic.i.p.ate 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 G.o.d 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.