CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | THE JEWISH DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE | |
| 1. | The Jewish Settlements on the Shores of the Black Sea | [13] |
| 2. | The Kingdom of the Khazars | [19] |
| 3. | The Jews in the Early Russian Principalities and in the Tataric Khanate of the Crimea | [29] |
| II. | THE JEWISH COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA | |
| 1. | The Immigration from Western Europe during the Period of the Crusades | [39] |
| 2. | The Charter of Prince Boleslav and the Canons of the Church | [43] |
| 3. | Rise of Polish Jewry under Casimir the Great | [50] |
| 4. | Polish Jewry during the Reign of Yaghello | [54] |
| 5. | The Jews of Lithuania during the Reign of Vitovt | [58] |
| 6. | The Conflict between Royalty and Clergy under Casimir IV. and His Sons | [61] |
| III. | THE AUTONOMOUS CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH (1501-1648) | |
| 1. | Social and Economic Conditions | [66] |
| 2. | The Liberal Régime of Sigismund I. | [70] |
| 3. | Liberalism and Reaction in the Reigns of Sigismund Augustus and Stephen Batory | [83] |
| 4. | Shlakhta and Royalty in the Reigns of Sigismund III. and Vladislav IV. | [91] |
| IV. | THE INNER LIFE OF POLISH JEWRY AT ITS ZENITH | |
| 1. | Kahal Autonomy and the Jewish Diets | [103] |
| 2. | The Instruction of the Young | [114] |
| 3. | The High-Water Mark of Rabbinic Learning | [121] |
| 4. | Secular Sciences, Philosophy, Cabala, and Apologetics | [131] |
| V. | THE AUTONOMOUS CENTER IN POLAND DURING ITS DECLINE (1648-1772) | |
| 1. | Economic and National Antagonism in the Ukraina | [139] |
| 2. | The Pogroms and Massacres of 1648-1649 | [144] |
| 3. | The Russian and Swedish Invasions (1654-1658) | [153] |
| 4. | The Restoration (1658-1697) | [158] |
| 5. | Social and Political Dissolution | [167] |
| 6. | A Frenzy of Blood Accusations | [172] |
| 7. | The Massacre of Uman and the First Partition of Poland | [180] |
| VI. | THE INNER LIFE OF POLISH JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD OF DECLINE | |
| 1. | Jewish Self-Government | [188] |
| 2. | Rabbinical and Mystical Literature | [198] |
| 3. | The Sabbatian Movement | [204] |
| 4. | The Frankist Sect | [211] |
| 5. | The Rise of Hasidism and Israel Baal-Shem-Tob | [220] |
| 6. | The Hasidic Propaganda and the Growth of Tzaddikism | [229] |
| 7. | Rabbinism, Hasidism, and the Forerunners of Enlightenment 235 | |
| VII. | THE RUSSIAN QUARANTINE AGAINST JEWS (TILL 1772) | |
| 1. | The Anti-Jewish Attitude of Muscovy during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries | [242] |
| 2. | The Jews under Peter I. and His Successors | [246] |
| 3. | Elizabeth Petrovna and the First Years of Catherine II. | [254] |
| VIII. | POLISH JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD OF THE PARTITIONS | |
| 1. | The Jews of Poland after the First Partition | [262] |
| 2. | The Period of the Quadrennial Diet (1788-1791) | [278] |
| 3. | The Last Two Partitions and Berek Yoselo | [291] |
| 4. | The Duchy of Warsaw and the Reaction under Napoleon | [298] |
| IX. | THE BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN RÉGIME | |
| 1. | The Jewish Policy of Catherine II. (1772-1796) | [306] |
| 2. | Jewish Legislative Schemes during the Reign of Paul I. | [321] |
| 3. | Dyerzhavin's "Opinion" on the Jewish Problem | [328] |
| X. | THE "ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM" OF ALEXANDER I. | |
| 1. | "The Committee for the Amelioration of the Jews" | [335] |
| 2. | The "Jewish Constitution" of 1804 | [342] |
| 3. | The Projected Expulsion from the Villages | [345] |
| 4. | The Patriotic Attitude of Russian Jewry during the War of 1812 | [355] |
| 5. | Economic and Agricultural Experiments | [359] |
| XI. | THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD | |
| OF "ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM" | ||
| 1. | Kahal Autonomy and City Government | [366] |
| 2. | The Hasidic Schism and the Intervention of the Government 371 | |
| 3. | Rabbinism, Hasidism, and Enlightened "Berlinerdom" | [379] |
| XII. | THE LAST YEARS OF ALEXANDER I. | |
| 1. | "The Deputation of the Jewish People" | [390] |
| 2. | Christianizing Endeavors | [396] |
| 3. | "Judaizing" Sects in Russia | [401] |
| 4. | Recrudescence of Anti-Jewish Legislation | [403] |
| 6. | The Russian Revolutionaries and the Jews | [409] |
CHAPTER I
THE JEWISH DIASPORA IN EASTERN EUROPE
1. The Jewish Settlements on the Shores of the Black Sea
From the point of view of antiquity the Jewish Diaspora in the east of Europe is the equal of that in the west, though vastly its inferior in geographic expansion and spiritual development. It is even possible that the settlement of Jews in the east of Europe antedates their settlement in the west. For Eastern Europe, beginning with Alexander the Great, received its immigrants from the ancient lands of Hellenized Asia, while the immigration into Western Europe proceeded in the main from the Roman Empire, the heir to the Hellenic dominion of the East.
Among the ancient Jewish settlements in Eastern Europe the colonies situated on the northern shores of the Black Sea, now forming a part of the Russian Empire, occupy a prominent place.
Far back in antiquity the Greeks of Asia Minor and the Ionian Islands gravitated towards the northern shores of the Pontus Euxinus, the fertile lands of Tauris—the present Crimea.[2] Beginning with the sixth century B.C.E., they established their colonies in those parts, whence they exported corn to their homeland, Greece. When, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, Judea became a part of the Hellenistic Orient, and sent forth the "great Diaspora" into all the dominions of the Seleucids and Ptolemies, one of the branches of this Diaspora must have reached as far as distant Tauris. Following in the wake of the Greeks, the Jews wandered thither from Asia Minor, that conglomerate of countries and cities—Cilicia, Galatia, Miletus, Ephesus, Sardis, Tarsus—which harbored, at the beginning of the Christian era, important Jewish communities, the earliest nurseries of Christianity. In the first century of the Christian era, which marks the consolidation of the Roman power over the Hellenized East, we meet in the Greek colonies of Tauris with fully organized Jewish communities, which undoubtedly represent offshoots of a much older colonization.