infuriated mobs. Even
more shocking, if possible, was the frequent extermination of whole
communities by the brigand bands known as Haidamacks. They added the
"Massacre of Uman" (1768) to the Jewish calendar of misfortunes, the
most terrible slaughter, equalled, perhaps, only by that of Nemirov in
1648.[5]

That all this should have left a marked impression on the mentality and
intellectuality of the Jews, is little to be wondered at. The marvel is
that they should have maintained their superiority over their
surroundings, and continued to be a law-abiding and God-fearing people.
While among the Russians and Poles the nobles who learned to read or
write formed a rare exception, there was hardly one among the Jews, the
very lowliest of them, who could not read Hebrew, and even translate it
into the vernacular. Maimon tells us that in his early youth he became
the family tutor of "a miserable farmer in a still more miserable
village," who yet was ambitious of giving his children an education of
some kind.

Fortunately for the Jews of those times--says a writer--their
civilization was by far superior to that of the Christians. The
rabbi, though in no way inferior to the priest mentally, was
immeasurably above him morally. The students of the yeshibot,
despite their exclusive devotion to the study of the Talmud, yet
were better equipped for intellectual work, were of broader
minds and better manners, than the pupils of the Jesuits. And
the Jewish ba'ale battim, with an education as good as that of
the Gentile shlyakhta, had a more ennobling and elevating object
in life.[6]

It is remarkable how quickly they recuperated from the blows they
received. In 1648 thousands of people were killed, whole communities
exterminated, Volhynia, Podolia, and a great part of Lithuania utterly
ruined. In 1660, in those very places, we hear again of Jewish
settlements, with synagogues and schools and a system of education of
the kind described in the preceding chapter, and we hear of the Council
of Lithuania struggling to re-establish and cement the shattered
foundation of their self-government. Yet all their efforts improved the
demoralized condition of the country but little. As always in national
crises, the individual was sacrificed to the community, and deprived of
the few rights remaining to him. The kehillot became brutally
oppressive. There were no longer men of the stamp of Abraham Rapoport