life, and to avoid trading of any sort. As time passed, Posner opened
coeducational technical schools for the children and batte midrashim for
adults, and soon the homesteads presented the appearance of progressive
and flourishing farms. Posner's successful effort attracted the
admiration of Prince Pashkevich, and was both a living protest against
the accusation of Nicholas that Jews were unfit to be farmers and an
eloquent plea for the unfortunate victims of a capricious tyrant in
Siberia and Kherson.[38]

In his efforts to curb the stiff-necked Jews by all manner of fiendish
persecution, Nicholas did not neglect to try the efficacy of some of the
plans advocated by Lewis Way. Undismayed by the failure of the Committee
of Guardians for Israelitish Christians, in which Alexander I had put so
much confidence, a "Jewish Committee," all the members of which were
Christians, was organized by imperial decree (May 22, 1825). This
committee established, in 1829, a school at Warsaw where Christian
divinity students were to be instructed in rabbinical literature and in
Judeo-German, in order to be fully equipped for missionary work among
the Jews. It appointed Abbé Luigi Chiarini to translate, or rather
expose, the Babylonian Talmud, to which undertaking the Government
contributed twelve thousand thalers.

To do his work thoroughly, the abbé deemed it advisable to write a
preliminary dissertation, presenting his aim and views. This he did in
his _Theory of Judaism_ (_Théorie du judaisme_, Paris, 1830). He
endeavored to show how worthless, injurious, and immoral were the
teachings of the Talmud. Only by discarding them would the Jews qualify
themselves to enjoy the right of citizenship. He proved, to his own
satisfaction, that ritual murder was enjoined in the Talmud, and this he
did at a time when many a community was harassed by this fiendish