lish Council
of State gave any serious thought to the question whether the Government
of the province had a right to prolong the disfranchisement of the Jews.
This right was taken for granted by the Polish legislators who were
planning even harsher restrictions for the unloved tribe of Hebrews.

[Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 299.]

3. ASSIMILATIONIST TENDENCIES AMONG THE JEWS OF
POLAND

In the beginning of the third decade of the nineteenth century the noise
caused by the Jewish question had begun to subside both in Polish
political circles and in Polish literature. Instead, the agitation
within the Jewish ranks became more vigorous. That group of Jews already
assimilated or thirsting for assimilation, which on an earlier occasion,
during the existence of the Varsovian duchy, had segregated itself from
the rest of Jewry, assuming the label of "Old Testament believers," [1]
occupied a very influential position within the Jewish community of the
Polish capital. It was made up of wealthy bankers and merchants and
boasted of a few men with a European education. The members of this
group were hankering after German models and were anxious to renounce
the national separatism of the Jews which was a standing rebuke in the
mouths of their enemies. To these "Old Testament believers" the
abolition of the Kahal and the limitation of communal self-government to
the narrow range of synagogue interests appeared the surest remedy
against anti-Semitism. Behind the abrogation of communal autonomy they
saw the smiling vision of a Jewish school-reform, leading to the
Polonization of Jewish education, while in the far-off distance they
could discern the promised land of equal citizenship.

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 96, n. 1.]

The efforts of the Jewish reformers of Warsaw were now systematically
directed towards this goal. In 1820 there appeared an anonymous pamphlet
under the title "The Petition, or Self-defence, of the Members of the
Old Testament Persuasion in the Kingdom of Poland." The main purpose of
this publication is to show that the root of the evil lies in the Kahal
organization, in the elders, rabbis, and burial societies, who expend
enormous sums of taxation money without any control--i.e., without the
control of the Polish municipality--who oppress the people by their
_herems_ (excommunications), and altogether abuse their power. It is,
therefore, necessary to abolish this power of the Kahals and transfer it
to the