History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6)
Heinrich Graetz
Heinrich Graetz
History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6)
CHAPTER I.
CHMIELNICKI AND THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS OF POLAND BY THE COSSACKS
Condition of the Jews in Poland before the Outbreak of Persecution – Influence of the Jesuits – Characteristics of Poles and Jews – The Home of the Cossacks – Repression of the Cossacks by the Government – Jews appointed as Tax Farmers – Jurisdiction of the Synods – The Study of the Talmud in Poland – Hebrew Literature in that Country becomes entirely Rabbinical – Character of Polish Judaism – Jews and Cossacks – Chmielnicki – Sufferings of the Jews in consequence of his Successes – The Tartar Haidamaks – Fearful Massacres in Nemirov, Tulczyn, and Homel – Prince Vishnioviecki – Massacres at Polonnoie, Lemberg, Narol, and in other Towns – John Casimir – Lipmann Heller and Sabbataï Cohen – Renewal of the War between Cossacks and Poles – Russians join Cossacks in attacking the Jews – Charles X of Sweden – The Polish Fugitives – "Polonization" of Judaism.
1648–1656 C. E
Poland ceased to be a haven for the sons of Judah, when its short-sighted kings summoned the Jesuits to supervise the training of the young nobles and the clergy and crush the spirit of the Polish dissidents. These originators of disunion, to whom the frequent partition of Poland must be attributed, sought to undermine the unobtrusive power which the Jews, through their money and prudence, exercised over the nobles, and they combined with their other foes, German workmen and trades-people, members of the guilds, to restrict and oppress them. After that time there were repeated persecutions of Jews in Poland; sometimes the German guild members, sometimes the disciples of the Jesuits, raised a hue and cry against them. Still, in the calamities of the Thirty Years' War, fugitive Jews sought Poland, because the canonical laws against Jews were not applied there with strictness. The high nobility continued to be dependent on Jews, who in a measure counterbalanced the national defects. Polish flightiness, levity, unsteadiness, extravagance, and recklessness were compensated for by Jewish prudence, sagacity, economy, and cautiousness. The Jew was more than a financier to the Polish nobleman; he was his help in embarrassment, his prudent adviser, his all-in-all. Especially did the nobility make use of Jews in developing recently established colonies, for which they had neither the necessary perseverance nor the ability. Colonies had gradually been formed on the lower Dnieper and the northern shore of the Black Sea, by runaway Polish serfs, criminals, adventurers from every province, peasants, and nobles, who felt themselves cramped and endangered in their homes. These outcasts formed the root of the Cossack race at the waterfalls of the Dnieper (Za-Porogi), whence the Cossacks obtained the name of Zaporogians. To maintain themselves, they took to plundering the neighboring Tartars. They became inured to war, and with every success their courage and independent spirit increased.
The kings, who needed the Cossacks in military undertakings and to ward off the inroads of Tartars and Turks, granted them some independence in the Ukraine and Little Russia, and appointed a chieftain over them from their own midst, an Attaman, or Hetman, with special marks of dignity. But the bigoted temper of King Sigismund III and the Jesuits made the Cossacks, who might have become an element of strength for Poland, the source of endless discontent and rebellion. The Zaporogians for the most part were adherents of the Greek Church, the Greek Catholic confession being predominant in southern Poland. After the popes by means of the Jesuits had weakened and oppressed the Polish dissidents, they labored to unite the Greek Catholics with the Romish Church or to extirpate them. With the warlike spirit of the Cossacks this change was not easy; hence a regular system of enslavement was employed against them. Three noble houses, the Koniecpolski, Vishnioviecki,