Despite the tragedy, Jews returned to Ukraine a few years later. If they were hoping for some long-term peace and quiet, they would discover that, unfortunately, there was more trouble ahead in the new century.
Beyond Irony
Jews had been barred from entering the Russian Empire since the early 1500s due to the fears of the Russian Orthodox Church that Jews would try to convert Christians to the Jewish faith. But when Russia acquired the right bank of Ukraine in the 1670s – Poland remained in control of the left, or east, bank of the Dnieper River – those Jews who were already living there were allowed to stay.
However, the threat of expulsion remained. The accusation of Judaizing did, too. The two came together during the last year of the reign of Peter the Great when a tax agent named Baruch Leibov decided to build a shul for the Jews of Zverovich. The local priest was furious when he heard about Leibov’s plans – he was certain that gullible peasants would forsake their own faith and rush to the shul instead – and he and other villagers bombarded the Russian government with their fears about this new “plot.”
By this time Peter’s widow, Catherine I, had ascended the throne. In March of 1727, she issued an edict that Leibov and his associates should be removed from their positions and deported from Russia. A month later, in Iyar, the edict of expulsion was expanded to include any Jew living in Little Russia and the border provinces.
Ironically, the one ethnic group that protested the exile of the Jews was the Cossacks. One of their leaders, Hetman Daniel Apostol, petitioned the Russian government to at least let Jewish merchants enter Ukraine for the large fairs. The commercial usefulness of the Jews was too great to be denied and in 1728 Russia’s new emperor, Peter II, issued a new edict, which allowed Jewish traveling merchants to enter Little Russia and do wholesale business at the fairs. However, Jews were still barred from settling within the boundaries of the Russian Empire.
The following decade some of the restrictions were relaxed. But then there occurred an incident that re-ignited the flames of hatred. Baruch Leibov had continued to enter Little Russia, despite his deportation, and he became friendly with a Christian named Alexander Voznitzin, a retired captain of the navy. The two learned Chumash together, and Voznitzin decided to convert to Judaism. When that act was discovered, both Voznitzin and Leibov were arrested and tortured, until they admitted to their “crimes.” They were sentenced to death by burning at the stake. The auto-da-fe took place on July 15, 1738.
The incident also brought to light the fact that the expulsion edict of 1727 had been more honored in the breach than in the observance. Jews were still being employed in Little Russia as estate agents and innkeepers. Jewish merchants with just a temporary entry visa were remaining in Little Russia after the fairs. In 1740, there was yet another edict of expulsion, which affected some 570 Jewish souls.
In 1741, Russia got yet another ruler, Elizabeth Petrovana, who was a rabid anti-Semite. Taking the expulsion decree of 1727 as her model, she worked furiously to rid Little Russia and the outlying lands of every single Jew – whether it was through expulsion or forced conversion. The Christian residents complained that the expulsion would ruin them economically, but their protests fell on deaf ears. Unlike the edicts that had preceded hers, Elizabeth Petrovana’s edict of 1744 was treated with extreme seriousness, and about 35,000 Jews were expelled from Little Russia.
