As for the Russian Jews, their attitude towards the belligerent parties was of a more complicated character. The recent persecutions of the rural Jews were apt, on the one hand, to set their hearts against the Russian Government, and, had these persecutions continued, the French would have been hailed by the oppressed Jews as their saviors. But the expulsions from the villages had been stopped three years before the war, and the Jews anticipated the complete repeal of the cruel law, which had been so severely condemned in the official report of the Committee laid before the Tzar in the beginning of 1812. Moreover, the deputies of the Kahals, who had been summoned twice to share in the work of the Government (in 1803 and 1807), had an opportunity to convince themselves that Alexander I.'s Government was on the whole favorably disposed towards the Jews, and its mistakes were merely the outcome of the wrong system of state patronage, of the desire of the Government to make the Jews happy, according to its own lights, by employing compulsory and "correctional" measures.

On the other hand, Napoleon's halo had been considerably dimmed even in the eyes of the Jews of Western Europe, now that the results of his "Jewish Parliaments" had come to light. The Jews of Russia, who were all Orthodox, regarded Napoleon's reform schemes as fraught with danger, and looked upon the substitution of Kahal autonomy by a consistorial organization as subversive of Judaism. The Hasidic party, again, which was the most conservative, felt indebted to Alexander I., who, in a clause of the Statute of 1804, bearing on Jewish sects, had bestowed upon the Hasidim the right of segregating themselves in separate synagogues within the communities. The leader of the White Russian Hasidim, Rabbi Shneor Zalman, who at first had suffered from the suspiciousness of the Russian Government, but was afterwards declared to be politically "dependable," voiced the sentiments of the influential Jewish circles towards the two belligerent sovereigns in the following prediction:

Should Bonaparte win, the wealth of the Jews will be increased, and their [civic] position will be raised. At the same time their hearts will be estranged from our Heavenly Father. Should however our Tzar Alexander win, the Jewish hearts will draw nearer to our Heavenly Father, though the poverty of Israel may become greater and his position lower.

This was tantamount to saying that civic rightlessness was preferable to civic equality, inasmuch as the former bade fair to guarantee the inviolability of the religious life, while the latter threatened to bring about its disintegration.

All these circumstances, coupled with the unconscious resentment of the masses against the invading enemy, brought about the result that the Jews of the Northwest everywhere gave tokens of their devotion to the interests of Russia, and frequently rendered substantial services to the Russian army in its commissary and reconnoitring branches. The well-known Russian partisan[252] Davidov relates that

the frame of mind of the Polish inhabitants of Grodno was very unfavorable to us. The Jews living in Poland were, on the other hand, all so devoted to us that they refused to serve the enemy as scouts, and often gave us most valuable information concerning him.

As Polish officials could not be relied upon, it became necessary to intrust the whole police department of Grodno to the Jewish Kahal. The Governor of Vilna testified that "the Jewish people had shown particular devotion to the Russian Government during the presence of the enemy."

The Poles were irritated by this pro-Russian attitude of the Jews. There were rumors afloat that the Poles had made ready to massacre all Jews and Russians in the Governments of Vilna and Minsk and in the province of Bialystok. There were numerous instances of self-sacrifice. It happened more than once that Jews who had sheltered Russian couriers with dispatches in their houses, or had escorted them to the Russian headquarters, or who had furnished information to the Russian commanders as to the position of the enemy's army, were caught by the French, and shot or hanged. Alexander I. was aware of these deeds. While on a visit to Kalish, he granted an audience to the members of the Kahal, and engaged in a lengthy conversation with them. Among the Jews of the district appeals written in the Jewish vernacular were circulated, in which the Jews were called upon to offer up prayers for the success of Alexander I., who would release the Jewish people from bondage. Altogether the wave of patriotism which swept over Russia engulfed the Jewish masses to a considerable extent.

The headquarters of the Russian army, which was now marching towards the West, harbored, during the years 1812-1813, two Jewish deputies, Sundel Sonnenberg of Grodno and Leyser (Eliezer) Dillon of Neswizh. On the one hand they maintained connections with the leading Government officials, and conveyed to them the wishes of the Jewish communities. On the other hand they kept up relations with the Kahals, which they informed regularly of the intentions of the Government. Presumably these two public-spirited men played a twofold rôle at headquarters: that of large purveyors, who received orders directly from the Russian commissariat, and forwarded them to their local agents, and that of representatives of the Kahals, whose needs they communicated to the Tzar and the highest dignitaries of the crown. In those uneasy times the Government found it to its advantage to keep at its headquarters representatives of the Jewish population, who might sway the minds of their coreligionists, in accordance with the character of the political instructions issued by it. In June, 1814, during his stay abroad in Bruchsal (Germany), Alexander requested these deputies to assure "the Jewish Kahals of his most gracious favor," and promised to issue shortly "an ordinance concerning their wishes and requests for the immediate amelioration of their present condition." It seems that Alexander I., who was still under the spell of the accounts of Jewish patriotism, was inclined at that moment to improve their lot. But the general reaction which, after the Vienna Congress of 1815, fell like a blight upon Europe and Russia proved fatal also to the Russian Jews.

5. Economic and Agricultural Experiments