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The Haskalah Movement in Russia by Jacob S. Raisin
page 32 of 309 (10%)
The storm of persecution that had been brewing in the sixteenth century,
and which burst in all its fury by the middle of the seventeenth
century, was allayed but little by the rivers of blood that streamed
over the length and breadth of the Slavonic land. Half a million Jewish
victims were not sufficient to satisfy the followers of a religion of
love. They only whetted their insatiable appetite. The anarchy among the
Gentiles increased the misery of the Jews. The towns fell into the hands
of the Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, and Tatars successively, and it was
upon the Jews that the hounds of war were let loose at each defeat or
conquest. Determined to exterminate each other, they joined forces in
exterminating the Jews. When Bratzlav, for instance, was destroyed by
the Tatars, in 1479, more than four hundred of its six hundred Jewish
citizens were slain. When the city was attacked by the Cossacks in 1569,
the greater number of the plundered and murdered were Jews. The same
happened when Chmielnicki gained the upper hand in Bratzlav in 1648,
again when the Russians slaughtered all the inhabitants in 1664, and
when the Tatars plotted against their victorious enemy, Peter the
Great.[1] Swedish attacks without and popular uprisings within rendered
the Polish pan (dubbed among Jews poriz, rowdy or ruffian) as reckless
as he was irresponsible. The Jew became for him a sponge to be squeezed
for money, and a clown to contribute to his brutal amusements. The
subtle and baneful influence of the Jesuits succeeded, besides, in
introducing religion into politics and making the Jew the scapegoat for
the evils of both. The _Judaeus infidelis_ was the target of abuse and
persecution. It was only the fear that the Government's exchequer might
suffer that prevented his being turned into a veritable slave. His
condition, indeed, was worse than slavery; his life was worth less than
a beast's. It was frequently taken for the mere fun of it, and with
impunity. An overseer once ordered all Jewish mothers living on the
estate to climb to the tree-tops and leave their little ones below. He
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