History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Vol. 1-3). Dubnow Simon

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ houses during the Church processions. In these Diet regulations, particularly in their tone and motivation ("in order that the perfidy and self-will of the Jews should not gain the upper hand," etc.), one cannot fail to perceive the venom of the Catholic clergy, which once more engaged in its old métier of slandering the Jews, charging them with hostility to the Christians and with the desecration of Church sacraments.

      The influence of these Church fanatics upon the Polish schools, coupled with the general deterioration of morals as a result of the protracted wars, was responsible for the recrudescence, during that period, of the ugly street attacks upon the Jews by the students of the Christian colleges, the so-called Schülergeläuf. These scholastic excesses now became an everyday occurrence in the cities of Poland. The riotous scholars not only caused public scandals by insulting Jewish passers-by on the street, but frequently invaded the Jewish quarters, where they instituted regular pogroms. Most of these disorders were engineered by the pupils of the Academy of Cracow and the Jesuit schools in Posen, Lemberg, Vilna, and Brest.

      The local authorities were passive onlookers of these savage pranks of the future citizens of Poland, which occasionally assumed very dangerous forms. In order to protect themselves from such attacks many Jewish communities paid an annual tax to the rectors of the local Catholic schools, and this tax, which was called kozubales, was officially recognized by the "common law" then in use. However, even the ransom agreed upon could not save the Jews of Lemberg from a bloody pogrom. The pupils of the Cathedral school and the Jesuit Academy of that city were preparing to storm the Jewish quarter. Having learned of the intentions of the rioters, the Jewish youth of Lemberg organized an armed self-defense, and courageously awaited the enemy. But the attack of the Christian students, who were assisted by the mob, was so furious that the Jewish guard was unable to hold its own. The resistance of the Jews only resulted in exasperating the rioters, and the disorders took the form of a massacre. About a hundred Jewish dead, a large number of demolished houses, several desecrated synagogues, were the result of the barbarous amusement of the disciples of the militant Church (1664).

Of the medieval trials of that period two cases, one in Lithuania and the other in the Crown, stand out with particular prominence. The former took place in the little town of Ruzhany, in the province of Grodno, in 1657. The local Christians, who on their Easter festival had placed a dead child's body in the yard of a Jew, thereupon charged the whole community with having committed a ritual murder. The trial lasted nearly three years, and ended in the execution of two representatives of the Jewish community, Rabbi Israel and Rabbi Tobias. A dirge commemorating this event, composed by a son of one of the martyrs, contains a heartrending description of the tragedy.141

My enemies have arisen against me, and have spread their nets in the shape of a false accusation in order to destroy my possessions. They took dead bodies, slashed them, and spoke with furious cunning: Behold, the ill-fated Jews drink and suck the blood of the murdered, and feed on the children of the Gentiles. Three years did the horrible slander last, and we thought our liberation was near, but, alas, terrible darkness has engulfed us. Our sworn enemies dragged us before their hostile court. The evil-doers assembled in the week before the New Year, and turned justice into wormwood. A wily and wicked Gentile judged only by the sight of his eyes, without witnesses; he judged innocent and sinless people in order to shed pure blood. The horde of evil-doers pronounced a perverted verdict, saying: "Choose ye [for execution] two Jews, such as may please you." A beautiful pair fell into their nets: Rabbi Israel and Rabbi Tobias, the holy ones, were singled out from among the community.142 These men saw the glittering blade of the sword, but no fear fell upon them. They clasped each other's hands and swore to share the same fate. "Let us take courage, and let us prepare with a light heart to sacrifice ourselves. Let us become the lambs for the slaughter; we shall surely find protection under the wings of God." On the sixth day these holy men were led out to execution, and an altar was erected. The wrath of the Lord burst forth in the year of "Recompense,"143 on the festival of Commemoration [New Year]. The bitterness of death was awaiting [the martyrs] in the midst of the market-place. They confessed their sins, saying: "We have sinned before the Lord. Let us sanctify His name like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah." They turned to the executioner, saying: "Grant us one hour of respite, that we may render praise unto the Lord." The lips of the impure, the false lips of those who pursue the wind and worship corrupt images, came to tempt them with strange beliefs,144 but the holy men exclaimed: "Away, ye impure! Shall we renounce the living God, and wander after trees?"145 The holy Rabbi Israel stretched forth his neck, and shouted with all his might: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Thereupon the executioner stretched forth his hand to take the sword, and the costly vessel was shattered. When the holy Rabbi Tobias saw this loss, he exclaimed: "Blessed art thou, O Rabbi Israel, who hast passed first into the Realm of Light. I follow thee." He too exclaimed: "Hear, O Israel, who art guarded [by God] like the apple of the eye." And he went forth to die in the name of the Lord, and [the executioner] slew him as he had slain the first.

Another tragedy took place in Cracow, in 1663. The educated Jewish apothecary Mattathiah Calahora, a native of Italy who had settled in Cracow, committed the blunder of arguing with a local priest, a member of the Dominican order, about religious topics. The priest invited Calahora to a disputation in the cloister, but the Jew declined, promising to expound his views in writing. A few days later the priest found on his chair in the church a statement written in German and containing a violent arraignment of the cult of the Immaculate Virgin. It is not impossible that the statement was composed and placed in the church by an adherent of the Reformation or the Arian heresy,146 both of which were then the object of persecution in Poland. However, the Dominican decided that Calahora was the author, and brought the charge of blasphemy against him.

The Court of the Royal Castle cross-examined the defendant under torture, without being able to obtain a confession. Witnesses testified that Calahora was not even able to write German. Being a native of Italy, he used the Italian language in his conversations with the Dominican. In spite of all this evidence, the unfortunate Calahora was sentenced to be burned at the stake. The alarmed Jewish community raised a protest, and the case was accordingly transferred to the highest court in Piotrkov.147 The accused was sent in chains to Piotrkov, together with the plaintiff and the witnesses. But the arch-Catholic tribunal confirmed the verdict of the lower court, ordering that the sentence be executed in the following barbarous sequence: first the lips of the "blasphemer" to be cut off; next his hand that had held the fateful statement to be burned; then the tongue, which had spoken against the Christian religion, to be excised; finally the body to be burned at the stake, and the ashes of the victim to be loaded into a cannon and discharged into the air. This cannibal ceremonial was faithfully carried out on December 13, 1663, on the market-place of Piotrkov. For two centuries the Jews of Cracow followed the custom of reciting, on the fourteenth of Kislev, in the old synagogue of that city, a memorial prayer for the soul of the martyr Calahora.

      There is evidently some connection between this event and the epistle sent by the General of the Dominican Order in Rome, Marini, to the head of the order in Cracow, dated February 9, 1664. Marini states that the "unfortunate Jews" of Poland had complained to him about the "wicked slanders" and accusations, the "sole purpose" of which was to influence the Diet soon to assemble at Warsaw, and demonstrate to it that "the Polish people hate the Jews unconditionally." He requests his colleagues in Cracow and the latter's subordinates "to defend the hapless people against every calumny invented against them." Subsequent history shows that the epistle was sent in vain.

      The last Polish king who extended efficient protection to the Jews against the classes and parties hostile to them, was John III. Sobieski (1674–1696), who by his military exploits СКАЧАТЬ