into 300 parties and settled there in the course of one year.
The means for expelling and settling the Jews should be furnished by the
Jews themselves.

This barbarous project aroused the ire of a noble-minded Polish army
officer, Valerian Lukasinski, a radical in politics, who subsequently
landed in the dungeon of the Schlueselburg fortress. [1] In his
"Reflections of an Army Officer Concerning the Need of Organizing the
Jews," published in 1818, Lukasinski advances the thought that the
oppression and disfranchisement of the Jews are alone responsible for
their demoralized condition. They were useful citizens in the golden age
of Casimir the Great and Sigismund the Old [2] when they were treated
with kindness. The author lashes the hypocrisy of the Shlakhta who hold
the Jews to account for ruining the peasants by selling them alcohol in
those very taverns which are leased to them by the noble pans.
Lukasinski contends that the Jews will become good citizens once they
will be allowed to participate in the civil life of Poland, when that
life will be founded on democratic principles.

[Footnote 1: In the government of St. Petersburg.]

[Footnote 2: i.e., Sigismund I. (1506-1548). See on his attitude towards
the Jews Vol. I, p. 71 et seq.]

The choir of Polish voices was but faintly disturbed by the opinions
expressed by the Jews. An otherwise unknown rabbi, who calls himself
Moses ben Abraham, echoes in his pamphlet "The Voice of the People of
Israel" the sentiments of Jewish orthodoxy. He begs the Poles not to
meddle in the inner affairs of Judaism: "You refuse to recognize us as
brothers; then at least respect us as fathers! Look at your genealogical
tree with the branches of the New Testament, a d you will find the roots
in us." Polish culture cannot be foisted upon the Jews. Barbarous as may
appear the plan of expelling the Jews from Poland, the persecuted tribe
will rather submit to this alternative than renounce its faith and its
ancestral customs.

The views of the progressive Jews of Poland were voiced by a young
pedagogue in Warsaw, subsequently the well-known champion of
assimilation, Jacob Tugenhold. In a treatise entitled "Jerubbaal, or a
Word Concerning the Jews," Tugenhold contends that the Jews have already
begun to assimilate themselves to Polish culture. It was now within the
power of the Government to strengthen this movement by admitting
"distinguished Jews to civil service."

While this litera