merly granted by the Kahal on the payment of a certain tax; see
Vol. I, p. 190.]

The heads of the Russian administration in Lithuania listened eagerly to
the sinister revelations of the new Pfefferkorn. [1] In 1866
Governor-General Kauffmann appointed a commission, which also included a
few Jewish experts, to look into the material compiled by Brafman. This
material consisted of the minutes of the Kahal of Minsk from the first
half of the nineteenth century, recording the entirely legitimate
enactments which the communal administration had passed by virtue of the
autonomous rights granted to it by the Government. Brafman published his
material in a series of articles in the official organ of the province,
the _Vilenski Vyestnik_, "The Vilna Herald"; the articles were later
republished in a separate volume, under the title _Kniga Kahala_, "The
Book of the Kahal." [2] The data collected by Brafman were embellished
with the customary anti-Semitic quotations from talmudic and rabbinic
literature, and put in such a light that the Government was placed on
the horns of a dilemma: either to destroy with one stroke the entire
Jewish communal organization and all the cultural agencies attached to
it, or to run the risk of seeing Russia captured by the "Universal
Kahal." It may be added that the _Alliance Israelite Universelle_, which
had shortly before been founded in Paris for the purpose of assisting
Jews in various countries, figured in Brafman's indictment as a
constituent society of the universal Jewish Kahal organization.

[Footnote 1: A medieval convert (died ab. 1521) who wrote against
Judaism, especially the Talmud.]

[Footnote 2: The first edition appeared in 1869, the second in 1871.]

The "Book of the Kahal" was printed at public expense and sent out to
all Government offices to serve as a guide for Russian officials and
enable them to fight the "Inner enemy." It was in vain that Brafman's
ignorance of rabbinic lore and his entire distortion of the role played
by the Kahal in days gone-by was exposed by Jewish writers in articles
and monographs; it was in vain that the Jewish members of the commission
appointed by the governor-general of Vilna protested against the
barbarous proposals of the informer. The authorities of St. Petersburg
seized upon Brafman's discoveries as incontrovertible evidence of the
existence of Jewish separatism and as a justification for the method of
"cautiousness" which they saw fit to app