Note (return) — Chapter V

As often before in Jewish history, the Jews helped not a little to aggravate the untoward conditions. At the instigation of a number of students of the Yeshibah Tree of Life, the doors of that noble institution were closed (1879), to open again after two years of untiring efforts on the part of its self-sacrificing dean, the renowned Naphtali Zebi Judah Berlin. But at the worst this was the result of mistaken zeal for the cause of Haskalah. What was more detrimental was the disgrace brought upon the Jewish name by several converts to Christianity. A certain Jacob Brafmann, having proved a failure in all he undertook, tried at the last the business of Christianity, and succeeded therein. He was appointed professor of Hebrew in the seminary of Minsk, and the Holy Synod charged him with the duty of devising means to promulgate Christianity among the Jews. Finding the times auspicious, he devoted himself to writing libellous articles about his former coreligionists, and wound up with a Book on the Kahal (Kniga Kahala, Vilna, 1869), in which he quoted forged "transactions," to the effect that Judaism tolerates and even recommends illegality and immorality among its adherents. In a conference of Jews and Gentiles convoked by Governor-General Kaufman (1871), Barit proved the falsity and forgery of Brafmann's documents. But, as usual, the defence was forgotten, the charges remained.24 A certain Lutostansky poisoned the public mind by caricaturing the Jews, and aroused an anti-Semitic agitation among his countrymen. The consequence was that even the liberals began to be suspicious, and the prospect of better days was blighted by the hatred which broke out in fiendish fury, in lightnings and thunders which astounded the world under Alexander III.