The Haskalah Movement in Russia. Jacob S. Raisin
Judeo-German finally asserted itself as the vernacular, the language in which they wrote and prayed was still the ancient Hebrew, with which every one was familiar, and commercial intercourse with their Gentile neighbors was hardly feasible without at least a smattering of the local Slavonic dialect. "Look at our brethren in Poland," exclaims Wessely many years later in his address to his countrymen. "They converse with their neighbors in good Polish. … What excuse have we for our brogue and jargon?" He might have had still better cause for complaint, had he been aware that the Yiddish of the Russo-Polish Jews, despite its considerable Slavonic admixture, was purer German than that of his contemporaries in Germany, even as the English of our New England colonies was superior to the Grub Street style prevalent in Dr. Johnson's England, and the Spanish of our Mexican annexations to the Castilian spoken at the time of Coronado. But we are here concerned with their knowledge of foreign languages. We shall refer only to the Hebrew-German-Italian-Latin-French dictionary Safah Berurah (Prague, 1660; Amsterdam, 1701) by the eminent Talmudist Nathan Hannover.33
In medicine Jews were pre-eminent in the Slavonic countries, as they were everywhere else. They were in great demand as court physicians, though several had to pay with their lives "for having failed to effect cures." Doctor Leo, who was at the court of Moscow in 1490, was mentioned above. Jacob Isaac, the "nobleman of Jerusalem" (Yerosalimska shlyakhta), was attached to the court of Sigismund, where he was held in high esteem. Prince Radziwill's physician was Itshe Nisanovich, and among those in attendance on John Sobieski were Jonas Casal and Abraham Troki, the latter the author of several works on medicine and natural philosophy.34
Medieval Jewish physicians were prone to travel, and those of Russo-Poland were no exception. We find them in almost every part of the civilized world, and their number increases with the disappearance of prejudice. Some were noted Talmudists, such as Solomon Luria and Samuel ben Mattathias. Abraham Ashkenazi Apotheker was not only a compounder of herbs but a healer of souls, for the edification of which he wrote his Elixir of Life (Sam Hayyim, Prague, 1590). To the same class belong Moses Katzenellenbogen and his son Hayyim, who was styled Gaon. In 1657 Hayyim visited Italy. He was welcomed by the prominent Jews of Mantua, Modena, Venice, and Verona, but he preferred to continue the practice of his profession in his home town Lublin.35 Nor may we omit the names of Stephen von Gaden and Moses Coën, because of their high standing among their colleagues and the honors conferred upon them for their statesmanship. Stephen von Gaden, who with Samuel Collins was physician-in-ordinary to Czar Aleksey Mikhailovich, was instrumental in removing many disabilities from the Jews of Moscow and in the interior of Russia. Moses Coën, in consequence of the Cossack uprising, escaped to Moldavia, and was made court physician by the hospodar Vassile Lupu. But for Coën, Lupu would have been dethroned by those who conspired against him. To his loyalty may probably be attributed the kind treatment Moldavian Jews later enjoyed at the hands of the prince. Coën also exposed the secret alliance between Russia and Sweden against Turkey, and his advice was sought by the doge of Venice.36
The personage who typifies best the enlightened Slavonic Jew of the pre-Haskalah period is Tobias Cohn (1652–1729). He was the son and grandson of physicians, who practiced at Kamenetz-Podolsk and Byelsk, and after 1648 went to Metz. After their father's death, he and his older brother returned to Poland, whence Tobias, in turn, emigrated first to Italy and then to Turkey. In Adrianople he was physician-in-ordinary to five successive sultans. In the history of medicine he is remembered as the discoverer of the plica polonica, and as the publisher of a Materia Medica in three languages. To the student of Haskalah he is interesting, because he marks the close of the old and the beginning of the new era. Like the Maskilim of a century or two centuries later, he compiled and edited an encyclopedia in Hebrew, that "knowledge be increased among his coreligionists." His acquaintance with learned works in several ancient and modern languages of which he was master, enabled him to write his magnum opus, Ma'aseh Tobiah, with tolerable ease. This work is divided into eight parts, devoted respectively to theology, astronomy, pharmacy, hygiene, venereal diseases, botany, cosmography, and chemistry. It is illustrated with several plates, among them the picture of an astrolabe and one of the human body treated as a house. From the numerous editions through which it passed (Venice, 1707, 1715, 1728, 1769), we may conclude that it met with marked success.37
To understand the raison d'Être of the Haskalah movement, it may not be superfluous to cast a glance at the inner social and religious life of the Slavonic Jews during pre-Haskalah times. The labors of the farmer are crowned with success only when nature lends him a helping hand. His soil must be fertile, and blessed with frequent showers. Nor would the Maskilim have accomplished their aim, had the material they found at hand been different from what it was.
The Jews in the land of the Slavonians were fortunate in being regarded as aliens in a country which, as we have seen, they inhabited long before those who claimed to be its possessors by divine right of conquest. If their position was precarious, their sufferings were those of a conquered nation. As the whim and fancy of the reigning prince, knyaz, varied, they were induced one day to settle in the country by the offer of the most flattering privileges, and the next day they were expelled, only to be requested to return again. Now their synagogues and cemeteries were exempt from taxation, now an additional poll-tax or land-tax was levied on every Jew (serebshizna); one day they were allowed to live unhampered by restrictions, then they were prohibited to wear certain garments and ornaments, and commanded to use yellow caps and kerchiefs to distinguish them from the Gentiles (1566).
But all this was the consequence of political subjugation. Judged by the standard of the times, they were veritable freemen, freer than the Huguenots of France and the Puritans of England. They were left unmolested in the administration of their internal affairs, and were permitted to appoint their own judges, enforce their own laws, and support their own institutions. Forming a state within a state, they developed a civilization contrasting strongly with that round about them, and comparing favorably with some of the features of ours of to-day. Slavonic Jewry was divided into four districts, consisting of the more important communities (kahals), to which a number of smaller ones (prikahalki) were subservient. These, known as the Jewish Assemblies (zbori zhidovskiye), met at stated intervals. As in our federal Government, the administrative, executive, and legislative departments were kept distinct, and those who presided over them (roshim) were elected annually by ballot. These roshim, or elders, served by turns for periods of one month each. The rabbi of each community was the chief judge, and was assisted by several inferior judges (dayyanim). For matters of importance there were courts of appeal established in Ostrog and Lemberg, the former having jurisdiction over Volhynia and the Ukraine, the latter over the rest of Jewish Russo-Poland. For inter-kahal litigation, there was a supreme court, the Wa'ad Arba' ha-Arazot (the Synod of the Four Countries), which held its sessions during the Lublin fair in winter and the Yaroslav fair in summer. In cases affecting Jews and Gentiles, a decision was given by the judex Judaeorum, who held his office by official appointment of the grand duke.
So far their system of self-government appears almost a prototype of our own. The same is true of their municipal administration. The rabbi, who had the deciding vote in case of a dead-lock, stood in the same relation to them as the mayor holds to us, only that his term of office, nominally limited to three years, was actually for life or during good behavior. Yet the power vested in him was only delegated power. A number of selectmen, or aldermen, guarded the rights of the community with the utmost jealousy, and tolerated no innovation, unless previously sanctioned by them. There were also several honorary offices, with a one-year tenure, which none could fill who had not had experience in an inferior position. The chief duties attached to these offices were to appraise the amount of taxation, pay the salaries of the rabbi, his dayyanim, and the teachers of the public schools, provide for the poor, and, above all, intercede with the Government.38
Still more interesting and, for our purpose, more important were their public and private institutions of learning. Jews have always been noted for the solicitous care they exercise in the education of the young. The Slavonic Jews surpassed their brethren of other countries in this respect. At times they wrenched the tender bond of parental love in their ardor for knowledge. With a republican form of government they created an aristocracy, not of wealth or of blood, but of