This barbarous project aroused the ire of a noble-minded Polish army officer, Valerian Lukasinski, a radical in politics, who subsequently landed in the dungeon of the Schlueselburg fortress. [1] In his “Reflections of an Army Officer Concerning the Need of Organizing the Jews,” published in 1818, Lukasinski advances the thought that the oppression and disfranchisement of the Jews are alone responsible for their demoralized condition.  They were useful citizens in the golden age of Casimir the Great and Sigismund the Old [2] when they were treated with kindness.  The author lashes the hypocrisy of the Shlakhta who hold the Jews to account for ruining the peasants by selling them alcohol in those very taverns which are leased to them by the noble pans.  Lukasinski contends that the Jews will become good citizens once they will be allowed to participate in the civil life of Poland, when that life will be founded on democratic principles.

[Footnote 1:  In the government of St. Petersburg.]

[Footnote 2:  i.e., Sigismund I. (1506-1548).  See on his attitude towards the Jews Vol.  I, p. 71 et seq.]

The choir of Polish voices was but faintly disturbed by the opinions expressed by the Jews.  An otherwise unknown rabbi, who calls himself Moses ben Abraham, echoes in his pamphlet “The Voice of the People of Israel” the sentiments of Jewish orthodoxy.  He begs the Poles not to meddle in the inner affairs of Judaism:  “You refuse to recognize us as brothers; then at least respect us as fathers!  Look at your genealogical tree with the branches of the New Testament, a d you will find the roots in us.”  Polish culture cannot be foisted upon the Jews.  Barbarous as may appear the plan of expelling the Jews from Poland, the persecuted tribe will rather submit to this alternative than renounce its faith and its ancestral customs.

The views of the progressive Jews of Poland were voiced by a young pedagogue in Warsaw, subsequently the well-known champion of assimilation, Jacob Tugenhold.  In a treatise entitled “Jerubbaal, or a Word Concerning the Jews,” Tugenhold contends that the Jews have already begun to assimilate themselves to Polish culture.  It was now within the power of the Government to strengthen this movement by admitting “distinguished Jews to civil service.”

While this literary feud concerning the problem of Judaism was raging, an unhealthy movement against the Jews started among the dregs of the Polish population.  In several localities of the Kingdom there suddenly appeared “victims of ritual murder” in the shape of dead bodies of children, the discovery of which was followed by a series of legal trials against the Jews (1815-1816).  Innocent people were thrown into prison, where they languished for years, and were subjected to cross-examinations, though without the inquisitorial apparatus of ancient Poland.  It is impossible to say whither this orgy of superstition might have led, had it not been stopped by a word of