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If Governor Pomeroff abandoned his original plan of Christianizing the Jews, he did not relinquish his friendship for Mendel. The Rabbi was frequently summoned to appear before him, professedly for the purpose of giving an account of this or that good work which he had undertaken, but in reality to entertain the Governor by his brilliant conversation. So frequent had these visits become that the guards about the palace were no longer surprised at the strange companionship and the term "Jew," with which they were wont to designate Mendel, gave place to the more respectful appellation of "The Rabbi."
As Mendel became better acquainted with his powerful friend, his appreciation of his noble qualities steadily increased and they became warmly attached to each other.
"Would that all the Jews were like you," Pomeroff occasionally remarked, to which Mendel would reply: "How fortunate would be our lot if all Christians possessed your nobility of character."
Then came the glorious year 1861, the year in which Russia freed millions of serfs and removed the shackles of slavery from a debased people.
While much praise should be accorded to the liberality and humanity of Alexander, the main cause of the emancipation act was the unprofitableness of serf labor. Public opinion, too, had demanded the change. What "Uncle Tom's Cabin" accomplished in this country Gogol's "Dead Souls" and Tourgenieff's "Recollections of a Sportsman" did for the Russian slaves. The disasters of the Crimean War were attributed to the corrupt condition of all classes, caused, it was claimed, by this pernicious institution of serfdom. By the edict of 1861, in the same year in which our own struggle for the emancipation of our Southern slaves began, the peasants were made free and were granted the right to pur chase the lands occupied by them at the time. "Enfranchisement was effected in Russia in a manner far more skilful than in our own country, where it was accomplished through the terrible agency of a civil war. Yet the Russian people have been, perhaps, less satisfied with its results. Since then the serfs have been compelled to work harder than ever to pay for the land they had always cultivated and regarded as their own. The complete ignorance of the moujiks has laid them open to greater vices than serfdom possessed and drunkenness has greatly increased since the emancipation." [13]
At the time of which we speak, however, there was nought but rejoicing in Russia. Freedom had unfurled her banner, and the sanguine prophets foresaw in the near future a complete cessation of despotism and a constitutional government such as the people had demanded since the beginning of Nicholas' reign in 1825. Amidst the general joy, the Governor of Kief found an opportunity for materially improving the condition of the Jews of his province.
Mendel would have been less than human had he not endeavored to turn this condition of affairs and Pomeroff's friendship to practical account. For himself he desired nothing. When the Governor, in order to have him constantly at his side, tendered him an honorable office in the palace, Mendel gently but firmly declined the proffered honor. All his energies were directed towards ameliorating the lot of his co-religionists.
He one day induced the Governor to stroll with him through the Jewish quarter, and with tact and eloquence called his attention to the crowded condition of the houses and streets, explaining how difficult it was to preserve health where the hygienic laws were of necessity utterly disregarded. He showed how the streets, at first ample for all requirements, had in the course of years become overcrowded; how hut had been built against hut and story erected upon story, until the lack of room deprived many a dwelling of light and air. He led the surprised Governor through the squalid lanes near the river and demonstrated how difficult it would be to master an epidemic when once it had taken root there, and how the welfare of the entire town of Kief depended upon the sanitary condition of each of its parts.
With the financial acumen of his race, he appealed to the economic aspect of the case, demonstrated how many houses, large and small, were standing idle in the city proper, bringing neither rent to their owners nor taxes to the province, and depicted the benefits that would be gained by granting the Jews the privilege of occupying such dwellings.
The Governor, who had never before visited the haunts of poverty, felt a positive repugnance to the system, or rather lack of system, that could countenance such a condition of affairs. He hurried away from the uninviting neighborhood, and, having again reached a spot where the air was fit to breathe, he promised to exert his influence with the Czar to have the boundaries of the Jewish quarter extended.
Nobly did he keep his word. He journeyed to St. Petersburg and sought an audience with Alexander. What happened at the interview the Jews of Kief never discovered, but the result was extremely gratifying. At the end of a fortnight there came a ukase extending indefinitely the limits of the Jewish quarters of all large cities, granting permission to all Jewish merchants who had been established in some branch of trade for twenty-five years or over, and to all rabbis and teachers, to reside in the city proper, in such streets as they might select, and permitting merchants of ten years' standing to dwell on certain streets carefully specified in the proclamation. It also made it lawful for Jews and Christians to live in the same building, a privilege hitherto withheld.
Many were the Jews who availed themselves of their new privileges. Bensef was among the first. His house, since the arrival of Mendel's parents, had been too small for comfort and the wealthy man desired a dwelling befitting his means. Haim Goldheim, the banker, found that there was not enough room in his house for the works of art it contained. He took a house in the fashionable Vladimir quarter, where, to the intense disgust of the aristocrats, he established himself in princely magnificence. A hundred families, at least, followed the example thus set, leaving the crowded streets, in order to breathe the purer air of the more select quarters of Kief. To their credit be it said, however, few went far from their old homes; the synagogue still formed the rallying centre of their community. About it revolved their daily thoughts and actions and the greatest recommendation a new home could have was that it was near the schul .
Upon Mendel, who had brought about this change, the greatest honors were showered. His congregation almost worshipped him. There were envious detractors, however, who contended that it did not behoove a Jew to become so intimate with a goy , and a Governor at that. They claimed that the Rabbi labored only to promote his own private ends; but, as these malcontents were among the first to seize the opportunity of bettering their condition, Mendel could afford to shrug his shoulders and smile at their insinuations.
The principal class to benefit by the new order of things were the poor, who now found abundant room and greedily availed themselves of it. To them Mendel was a saviour in the practical sense of the word, and many a grateful woman whose hovel had been exchanged for a more commodious dwelling would kiss the Rabbi's hand as he passed through the quarter on his errands of mercy.
But the young Rabbi's zeal did not end here. He convinced the Governor that the taxes exacted from the Jews were not only excessive, but disproportionate, and, as a result, they were lowered to a level with those paid by the gentiles.
Hitherto the Jews had been forbidden to cultivate land on their own account. Mendel, in presenting this subject to the Governor, laid stress upon the fact that vast tracts were lying fallow for want of agriculturists, and that the crown was thereby losing much revenue which could easily be raised by a judicious distribution of these fields among the thrifty and industrious Hebrews. Pomeroff saw the justice of the argument and a proclamation resulted, removing the restrictions placed upon the cultivation of land by the Jews.
The Jews of Kief and the surrounding provinces felt that a day of prosperity and happiness had dawned for them. In a measure they enjoyed the same liberty and privileges as did the lower classes of Russians. They were free to come and go, to live where they pleased and to engage in a score of occupations which had hitherto been forbidden, and Mendel was justly honored as the author of these changes. His fame spread at home and was heralded abroad. During his frequent visits to the Governor he came in contact with many of the great and brilliant men of the Empire. Dignitaries who at first met the Jew with a feeling of repugnance gradually yielded to the charm of his personal influence and vied with each other in honoring him, and through him Judaism was honored and respected. His character, his benevolence, his patriotism and his great mental gifts did more to convince those gentiles of what the Jew could be than the keenest arguments could have done.
A great general one day asked him:
"Why are you so different from the Jews one usually meets?"
"Your excellency is in error," Mendel replied. "I am not unlike my fellow-men. In disposition and feeling I am the same, but I have had an opportunity for mental improvement of which most of my brethren have been deprived. Give them the privilege of attending your universities, open to them the avenues of knowledge and you will create for Russia an intellectual element which will eventually place her in the front ranks of the nations."
The general shrugged his shoulders and smiled. The idea seemed preposterous.
"You have certainly an exalted opinion of your co-religionists," he said.
"I have, your excellency, and it is borne out by history. Your excellency has doubtless read of the intellectual supremacy of Spain when the Jews were in the ascendant."
His excellency had not read of it. In fighting but not in reading lay his strength and, not wishing to display his ignorance, he wisely changed the subject.
As might have been expected, violent objections were raised by the gentiles to the enlarged privileges granted the Jews. The priests were particularly virulent in their denunciation of the new liberties conferred, in which they saw but the beginning of the gradual emancipation of the Hebrews. Attacks were made against them from press and from pulpit, and all of these Mendel answered calmly and convincingly. His logic finally silenced the ravings of the unlettered and fanatical Jew-haters and the privileges once accorded were not repealed.
Had Mendel's zeal ended here he would have avoided much subsequent difficulty, but he was well aware that the Jews had not attained to the ideal he had formed, that much ignorance, fanaticism and superstition still prevailed. He desired to imitate the example of his great prototype, Moses Mendelssohn, and spread the light of learning throughout the Jewish world. He did not lose sight of the vastness of the undertaking, of the dangers he was incurring, or of the animosity he was inviting, for the Jews of Russia still regarded all learning not found in the folios of the Talmud as sacrilegious and unholy. To overcome this antagonism to secular knowledge now became Mendel's self-imposed task.
Consulting no one but his friend the Governor, and armed with a letter of introduction from this powerful ally, Mendel set out for St. Petersburg, to visit the Czar in person. It was an unheard-of experiment on the part of a Jew, but Mendel felt the inspiration of right and undertook his new mission fearlessly. What nothing else could accomplish was done by the Governor's letter of recommendation. After a little delay he was admitted into the august presence of the Czar Alexander and presented his petition.
Alexander was not a little surprised at the temerity of a Jew in thus appearing before him, but the very strangeness of the proceeding enlisted the ruler's interest in the demands of the Rabbi. After a long conference, during which Mendel eloquently pleaded his cause, he was dismissed with the assurance that the educational disabilities of the Hebrews would be in a measure removed, and shortly after his return to Kief a proclamation was issued admitting Jewish youth into the Russian schools upon terms of equality with the gentiles.
Then arose a storm of indignation among the pious Israelites. Those who had antagonized Mendel from the first, now were furious at his attempt to force intelligence upon them. They prophesied that these were but the stepping-stones to more radical changes and stubbornly refused to yield an inch, lest the proverbial ell might be seized.
"Never," they cried, "shall our children be taught the wisdom of the goyim . The Law and the Talmud are sufficient for our needs. Instruction in the public schools will force rabbinical studies into the background and will gradually estrange our children from the religion of their fathers. We want no new-fangled education. We are Jews and we will remain Jews."
So hostile was the greater part of the community to the idea of extending educational facilities, that the friends of Mendel, and there were many of them, advised him to make an effort to have the obnoxious privileges repealed.
This Mendel positively refused to do.
"It is but a privilege," he answered, "and not at all obligatory. You can do as you like about sending your children to the public schools. As for myself, however, I shall never cease to uphold the necessity of education in order to obtain the rights that belong to our race."
The battle thus commenced raged fiercely. Hirsch Bensef was one of the ablest supporters of the young Rabbi. Haim Goldheim was another; his wealth had procured him the friendship of several aristocratic but impoverished families in the neighborhood of his new home, and he never forgot that the blessings he now enjoyed were due to Mendel's past labors.
The young men were all on Mendel's side. They chafed under the restraint that had been put upon them and yearned for instruction in keeping with the enlarged sphere of activity now opened to them.
Thus a schism arose in Kief. The progressive Israelites siding with Mendel founded a congregation of their own, leaving the more conservative to work out their salvation in their old accustomed way. It must not be supposed that Mendel observed this break in the ranks of Judaism without a pang. He spent many a sleepless night in planning how to avert further differences and to appease existing animosities. Balzac truly says: "Every great man has paid heavily for his greatness. Genius waters all its work with its own tears. He who would raise himself above the average level of humanity, must prepare himself for long struggles, for trying difficulties. A great thinker is a self-devoted martyr to immortality."
In spite of the anathemas of the narrow-minded, in spite of the cry that the Messiah could never come as long as such sacrilege was tolerated in the household of Israel, the good work went steadily forward, to the manifest advantage of the entire body of Jews.
[13] Foulke.