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The data collected by Brafman were embellished with the customary anti-Semitic quotations from talmudic and rabbinic literature, and put in such a light that the Government was placed on the horns of a dilemma: either to destroy with one stroke the entire Jewish communal organization and all the cultural agencies attached to it, or to run the risk of seeing Russia captured by the "Universal Kahal."
Following the lead of Brafman, the members of the Committee laid particular emphasis in their reports on the obnoxiousness of the Talmud and the danger of Jewish separatism.
In the opinion of Brafman, the only way to eradicate this "secret Jewish government," was to destroy the last vestiges of Jewish communal autonomy by closing all religious and charitable societies and fraternities. The Jewish community itself ought to share the same fate, and the Jews forming part of it should be included among the Christian estates in the cities and villages.
But a little later his cosmopolitanism displayed a distinct propensity toward Russification. His peace of mind was not even disturbed by the manifestation, towards the end of the sixties, of the anti-Semitic reaction in those very official circles in which the "learned Jew" moved and in which Brafman was looked up to as an authority in matters appertaining to Judaism.
Brafman hastened to the hot-bed of reactionary chauvinism, the city of Vilna, which was firmly held in the iron grip of Muravyov, and there began "to expose the separatism of the inner life of the Jews" before the highest administration of the province.
Under the unmistakable influence of the recent revelations of Brafman, the Council of State arrived at the conclusion that "the prohibition of external differences in dress is yet far from leading to the goal pursued by the Government, viz., to destroy the exclusiveness of the Jews and the almost hostile attitude of the Jewish communities towards Christians, these communities forming in our land a secluded religious and civil caste or, one might say, a state in a state."
Embittered against the Kahal agents who had become mere police tools, Brafman desired to wreak vengeance upon the Kahal as a whole, nay, upon the very idea of a Jewish communal organization.
Jacob Brafman, a native of the government of Minsk, had deserted his race and religion in the last years of Nicholas' conscription, hoping thereby to escape the nets of the vigilant Kahal "captors" who wished to draft him into the army.
For, despite all the endeavors of the Society to adapt itself to the official point of view, it was regarded with suspicion by the powers that be, having been included by the informer Brafman among the constituent organizations of the dreadful and mysterious "Jewish Kahal." The Russian assimilators, now branded as separatists, found themselves in a tragic conflict.
Altogether the growth of anti-Semitism in the Government circles and in certain layers of Russian society, towards the close of the seventies, became clearly pronounced. The laurels of Brafman, whose "exposure" of Judaism had netted him many personal benefits and profitable connections in the world of officialdom, were apt to stimulate all sorts of adventurers.
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