The “Book of the Kahal” was printed at public expense and sent out to all Government offices to serve as a guide for Russian officials and enable them to fight the “Inner enemy.”  It was in vain that Brafman’s ignorance of rabbinic lore and his entire distortion of the role played by the Kahal in days gone-by was exposed by Jewish writers in articles and monographs; it was in vain that the Jewish members of the commission appointed by the governor-general of Vilna protested against the barbarous proposals of the informer.  The authorities of St. Petersburg seized upon Brafman’s discoveries as incontrovertible evidence of the existence of Jewish separatism and as a justification for the method of “cautiousness” which they saw fit to apply to the solution of the Jewish problem.

3.  THE FIGHT AGAINST JEWISH “SEPARATISM”

Another incident which took place about the same time served in the eyes of the leading Government circles as an additional illustration of Jewish separatism.  In 1870 Alexander II. was on a visit to the Kingdom of Poland, and there beheld the sight of dense masses of Hasidim with their long earlocks and flowing coats.  The Tzar, repelled by this spectacle, enjoined upon the Polish governors strictly to enforce in their domains the old Russian law prohibiting the Jewish form of dress. [1] Thereupon the administration of the Kingdom threw itself with special zest upon the important task of eradicating “the ugly costumes and earlocks” of the Hasidim.

[Footnote 1:  See above p. 144.]

Shortly afterwards the question of Jewish separatism was the subject of discussion before the Council of State.  Under the unmistakable influence of the recent revelations of Brafman, the Council of State arrived at the conclusion that “the prohibition of external differences in dress is yet far from leading to the goal pursued by the Government, viz., to destroy the exclusiveness of the Jews and the almost hostile attitude of the Jewish communities towards Christians, these communities forming in our land a secluded religious and civil caste or, one might say, a state in a state.”  Hence the Council proposed to entrust a special commission with the task “of considering ways and means to weaken as far as possible the communal cohesion among the Jews” (December, 1870).  As a result, a commission of the kind suggested by the Council was established in 1871, consisting of the representatives of the various ministries and presided over by the Assistant-Minister of the Interior, Lobanov-Rostovski.  The Commission received the name “Commission for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews.” [1]

[Footnote 1:  Compare above, pp. 161 and 169.]