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Begun in 1835, at Ozar, near Grodno, an imperial ukase directed the removal of the work to Vilna, the metropolis of Russo-Poland.

I need bring no proof for the statement that nowhere was the study of the Law so universal as in Russo-Poland. In every kahal, many youths, maintained liberally, studied under the guidance of the dean. In turn, they instructed the less advanced, who were also supported by the community. They boarded and lodged in the homes of their patrons, and frequently received pocket-money in addition.

To make the regeneration of Slavonic Judaism complete, the element of estheticism had to be added to emotionalism and reason. The triumvirate was complete. Not that Mendelssohn ever visited or resided in Russo-Poland.

Russo-Poland gradually became the cynosure of the Talmudic world, the "Aksanye shel Torah," the asylum of the Law, whence "enlargement and deliverance" arose for the traditions which the Jews carried with them, through fire and water, during the dreary centuries of their dispersion.

But even the removal of the terrible czar and the dawn of the century of reason and humanitarianism failed to effect a change for the better in the condition of the Slavonic Jews. For a while it appeared as if the Zeitgeist might penetrate even into Russo-Poland, and the Renaissance and the Reformation would not pass over the eastern portion of Europe without beneficent results.

That Russo-Poland should have elected a Jewish king on two occasions, a certain Abraham Prochovnik in 842 and the famous Saul Wahl in the sixteenth century, sounds legendary; but that there was a Jewish queen, called Esterka, is probable, and that some Jews attained to political eminence is beyond reasonable doubt.

The condition of the Jews in Russo-Poland was, if possible, even worse than in Lithuania and Russia proper. Nothing, in fact, but the auto-da-fé was needed to give it the stamp of medieval Spain. As before the division of Poland, the Poles suspected the Jews of disloyalty to Poland, while the Russians suspected them of disloyalty to Russia.

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. 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.

Russo-Poland became the America of the Old World. The Jewish settlers from abroad soon outnumbered the native Jews, and they spread a new language and new customs wherever they established themselves.

While the Jews in Western Europe profited and were encouraged by the example of their Christian neighbors; while, in addition to their innate thirst for learning, they had everywhere else political and civil preferments to look forward to, in Russo-Poland not only were such outside stimuli absent, but the Slavonic Jews had to struggle against obstacles and hindrances at every step.