In 1815 the Provisional Government in Warsaw appointed a special committee, under the chairmanship of Count Adam Chartoryski, to consider the agrarian and the Jewish problem.  The Committee drew up a general plan of Jewish reorganization which was marked by the spirit of enlightened patronage.  In theory the Committee was ready to concede to the Jews human and civil rights, even to the point of considering the necessity of their final emancipation.  But “in view of the ignorance, the prejudices and the moral corruption to be observed among the lower classes of the Jewish and the Polish people”—­the patrician members of the Committee in charge of the agrarian and Jewish problem accorded an equal share of compliments to the Jews and the Polish peasants—­immediate emancipation was, in their opinion, bound to prove harmful, since it would confer upon the Jews freedom of action to the detriment of the country.  It was, therefore, necessary to demand, as a prerequisite for Jewish emancipation, the improvement of the Jewish masses which was to be effected by removal from the injurious liquor trade and inducement to engage in agriculture, by abolishing the Kahals, i.e., their communal autonomy, and by changing the Jewish school system to meet the civic requirements.  In order to gain the confidence of the Jews for the proposed reforms, the Committee suggested that the Government should invite the “enlightened” representatives of the Jewish people to participate in the discussion of the projected measures of reform.

Turning their eyes towards the West, where Jewish assimilation had already begun its course, the Polish Committee decided to approach the Jewish reformer David Frielaender, of Berlin, who was, so to speak, the official philosopher of Jewish emancipation, and to solicit his opinion concerning the ways and means of bringing about a reorganization of Jewish life in Poland.  The bishop of Kuyavia,[1] Malchevski, addressed himself in the name of the Polish Government to Friedlaender, calling upon him, as a pupil of Mendelssohn, the educator of Jewry, to state his views on the proposed Jewish reforms in Poland.  Flattered by this invitation, Friedlaender hastened to compose an elaborate “Opinion on the Improvement of the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland.” [2]

[Footnote 1:  A former Polish province, compare Vol.  I, p. 75, n. 2.]

[Footnote 2:  It was written in February, 1816, and published later in 1819.]

According to Friedlaender, the Polish Jews had in point of culture remained far behind their Western coreligionists, because their progress had been hampered by their talmudic training, the pernicious doctrine of Hasidism, and the self-government of their Kahals.  All these influences ought, therefore, to be combated.  The Jewish school should be brought into closer contact with the Polish school, the Hebrew language should be replaced by the language of the country, and altogether assimilation and religious reform should be encouraged.  While promoting religious and cultural reforms, the Government, in the opinion of Friedlaender, ought to confirm the Jews in the belief that they would “receive in time civil rights if they were to endeavor to perfect themselves in the spirit of the regulations issued for them.”