The Zaslav trial was followed by an uninterrupted succession of ritual murder accusations, which in the course of fifteen years cropped up almost annually. The most revolting among them, from the point of view of the surrounding circumstances, were the trials of Dunaigrod[157] (1748), Pavolochi[158] and Zhytomir (1753), Yampol[159] (1756), Stupnitza, near Pshemyshl (1759), and Voislavitza[160] (1760). In the Zhytomir case, twenty-four Jews were accused of having participated in the murder of the peasant boy Studzienski. Exhausted by tortures and prompted by the desire to hasten their end, they confessed to a crime which they had not committed, and were sentenced to death. Eleven were flayed alive, while the others saved themselves from death by accepting baptism. An image of the alleged martyr Studzienski, in the shape of a figure covered with pins, was spread by the clergy all over the region, to intensify the hatred against the Jews. In Voislavitza, near Lublin, the whole Kahal was charged with the murder of a Christian boy for the purpose of squeezing out his blood and mixing it with the unleavened bread. The spiritual leaders and elders of the Jewish community were brought to court. One of the accused, the rabbi, committed suicide while in jail. The remaining four were sentenced to be quartered. Before the execution the priest, holding out the promise of leniency, induced the unfortunate Jews, who had been crazed by their tortures, to embrace Christianity. The leniency consisted in their being beheaded instead of being quartered.
Terrorized by these inquisitorial trials, the Jewish communities of Poland decided, in 1758, to send Jacob Zelig (or Selek)[161] to Rome as their spokesman, to obtain from Pope Benedict XIV. the promulgation of a bull forbidding these false accusations against the Jews. In the application submitted by Zelig it is pointed out that the life of the Jews of Poland had become intolerable, for "as soon as a dead body is found anywhere, at once the Jews of the neighboring localities are brought before the courts on the charge of murder for superstitious purposes." The application was turned over to Cardinal Ganganelli, subsequently Pope Clement XIV., who took up the matter very seriously, and suggested that the Papal Nuncio in Warsaw, Visconti, be instructed to submit a report of the recent ritual murder trials in Poland. When the report arrived, Ganganelli composed an elaborate memorandum, in which, as a result of his investigation of the whole history of the question, he demonstrated the falsehood of the ritual murder charges made against the Jews, which had been condemned by the popes in the Middle Ages, particularly by the bull of Innocent IV. of the year 1247.[162] In the judgment of Ganganelli all the recent Polish trials were devoid of any basis in fact, and the sentences pronounced by the courts revolting miscarriages of justice.
Ganganelli's memorandum was examined and approved by the Roman tribunal of the "Holy Inquisition," and submitted to the new Pope Clement XIII. The Pope instructed his nuncio in Warsaw to extend his protection to Zelig, the spokesman of the Jews, on his return to Poland. Subsequently the nuncio informed the Polish Prime Minister Brühl, that "the Holy See, having investigated all the foundations of this aberration, according to which the Jews need human blood for the preparation of their unleavened bread," had come to the conclusion that "there was no evidence whatsoever testifying to the correctness of that prejudice" (1763). King Augustus III. ratified in the same year the ancient charters of his predecessors, promising the Jews the protection of the law in all ritual murder cases. Yet it was not easy to eradicate the prejudices which had been implanted in the minds of the people. Even the educated classes did not escape their contamination. The contemporary writer Kitovich, in describing Polish life during the reign of Augustus III., indulges in the following remark: "Just as the liberty of the Shlakhta is impossible without the liberum veto, so is the Jewish matza impossible without Christian blood."
7. The Massacre of Uman and the First Partition of Poland
Undermined by social and denominational strife, the once flourishing country was hastening to its ruin. From the election of Stanislav Augustus Poniatovski to the throne of Poland in 1764, Poland was to all intents and purposes under the protectorate of Russia. Certain elements of Polish society began to realize that only by radical reforms could the country be saved from its impending doom. But it seemed as if the régime of social and religious fanaticism was too decrepit to pass its own death-sentence, and awaited its fate from another hand.
In the first years of Stanislav Augustus' reign Polish politics ran in their accustomed groove. Instead of endeavoring to effect a radical improvement in the condition of Polish Jewry as one of the most important elements of the urban population, the new Polish Government thought only of exploiting them as much as possible for the benefit of the exchequer. The Diet of 1764, which was held in Warsaw prior to the election of the King, and discussed the question of internal reforms, did not consider it necessary to introduce any changes in the status of the Jews, except to alter the system of Jewish taxation. Formerly the head-tax had been levied upon all Polish and Lithuanian Jews annually in a round sum, which the central Jewish agencies, the Waads, or Jewish Councils, apportioned among the separate Kahals, and the latter, in turn, allotted to the individual members of the communities. According to the new "constitution," however, the head-tax, to the extent of two gulden, was to be imposed on every Jewish soul, and each Kahal was to be held responsible for the accurate collection from its members. The only effect of this reform was to swell the total amount of the head-tax, which as it was weighed heavily upon the Jews, since many sources of livelihood were closed to them at the same time.
The Shlakhta in turn zealously watched over its class interests, and in electing the king imposed upon him the obligation of barring the Jews from the stewardship of crown domains, state taxes, and other financial revenues. To gratify the hereditary competitors of the Jews—the Christian burghers and merchants—the Diet of 1768 restored the clause of the ancient parliamentary Constitution of 1538,[163] by virtue of which the Jews of those cities where they had not obtained special privileges were allowed to engage in commerce only with the consent of the magistracies, and the magistracies were made up of those same Christian merchants and burghers.
In the meantime, among the Russian population of that portion of the Ukraina which was situated on the right bank of the Dnieper, and was still under the sovereignty of Poland, a popular movement arose, which was directed simultaneously against the Poles and the Jews. It emanated from the lowest elements of the population, the enslaved village khlops, who had not yet forgotten the times of Bogdan Khmelnitzki. The memory of those days when the despised khlops waded in the blood of the proud Polish pans and the Jews was still fresh in the minds of the Ukrainians, and made itself felt in moments of political unrest, not infrequent in the disintegrating body politic of Poland. Fugitive Greek Orthodox peasants from among the serfs of the pans, itinerant Zaporozhians,[164] and Cossacks from the Russian part of the Ukraina, often organized themselves in independent detachments of haidamacks,[165] and indulged in looting the estates of the nobles or plundering the Jewish towns. These incursions assumed the character of regular insurrections during the interregnums and on other occasions of political unrest. Thus, in 1734 and in 1750, detachments of haidamacks, fully organized and led by Cossack commanders, devastated many towns and villages in the provinces of Kiev, Volhynia, and Podolia, slaying and robbing many pans and Jews.