y 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 Abbe 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 abbe deemed it advisable to write a
preliminary dissertation, presenting his aim and views. This he did in
his _Theory of Judaism_ (_Theorie 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
accusation. When early death cut short the abbe's effort (1832), the
Government, still persisting in its plans, engaged the services of
Ephraim Moses Pinner of Posen, who published specimens of his intended
translation in his _Compendium_ (Berlin, 1831). But the fickle or
restless emperor seems to have tired of the plan, or perhaps he found
Pinner too Jewish for his purposes. Of the twenty-eight volumes planned,
only one, which was dedicated to Nicholas, appeared during the decade
following Chiarini's death, and the work was abandoned entirely.[39]

The crusade against the Talmud, thus headed and backed by the
Governm