The Jews of Warsaw participated in all street manifestations and political processions which took place during the year 1860-1861.  Among those pierced by Cossack bullets during the manifestation of February 27, 1861, were several Jews.  The indignation which this shooting down of defenceless people aroused in Warsaw is generally regarded as the immediate cause of the mutiny.  Rabbi Meisels was a member of the deputation which went to Viceroy Gorchakov to demand satisfaction for the blood that had been spilled.  In the demonstrative funeral procession which followed the coffins of the victims the Jewish clergy, headed by Meisels, marched alongside of the Catholic priesthood.  Many Jews attended the memorial services in the Catholic churches at which fiery patriotic speeches were delivered.  Similar demonstrations of mourning were held in the synagogues.  An appeal sent out broadcast by the circle of patriotic Jewish Poles reminded the Jews of the anti-Jewish hatred of the Russian bureaucracy, and called upon them “to clasp joyfully the brotherly hand held forth by them (the Poles), to place themselves under the banner of the nation whose ministers of religion have in all churches spoken of us in words of love and brotherhood.”

The whole year 1861 stood, at least as far as the Polish capital was concerned, under the sign of Polish-Jewish “brotherhood.”  At the synagogue service held in memory of the historian Lelevel Jastrow preached a patriotic sermon.  On the day of the Jewish New Year prayers were offered up in the synagogues for the success of the Polish cause, accompanied by the singing of the national Polish hymn Boze cos Polske. [1] When, as a protest against the invasion of the churches by the Russian soldiery, the Catholic clergy closed all churches in Warsaw, the rabbis and communal elders followed suit, and ordered the closing of the synagogues.  This action aroused the ire of Lieders, the new viceroy.  Rabbi Meisels, the preachers Jastrow and Kramshtyk as well as the president of the “Congregational Board” were placed under arrest.  The prisoners were kept in the citadel of Warsaw for three months, but were then released.

[Footnote 1:  Pronounce, Bozhe, tzosh Polske, “O Lord, Thou that hast for so many ages guarded Poland with the shining shield of Thy protection!”—­the first words of the hymn.]

In the meantime Marquis Vyelepolski, acting as mediator between the Russian Government and the Polish people, had prepared his plan of reforms as a means of warding off the mutiny.  Among these reforms, which aimed at the partial restoration of Polish autonomy and the improvement of the status of the peasantry, was included a law providing for the “legal equality of the Jews.”  Wielding considerable influence, first as director of the Polish Commission of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction, and later as the head of the whole civil administration of the Kingdom, Vyelepolski was able to secure St. Petersburg’s assent to his project.  On May 24, 1862, Alexander II. signed an ukase revoking the suspensory decree of 180 1808, [1] which had entailed numerous disabilities for the Jews incompatible with the new tendencies in the political and agrarian life of the Kingdom.  This ukase conferred the following rights upon the Jews: