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Article text: <span id="gezerot-ta-ve-ta"></span> = Gezerot Ta”ḥ ve-Ta”ṭ: = '''Anti-Jewish Violence during the Cossack Uprising of 1648/49''' '''Adam Teller''' The massacres of Jews in Ukraine and [[Term:Red Ruthenia|Red Ruthenia]] during the Cossack rebellion and peasant uprising of 1648 became known as Gezerot Ta”ḥ ve-Ta”ṭ” meaning “The disasters of [the Jewish years] [5]408 and [5]409,” corresponding to summer and autumn 1648. In all, perhaps a third of the Ukrainian Jewish population was killed and a similar number were forced out of their homes. From the time of the annexation of eastern Ukrainian lands by the Polish Crown in 1569, Jews had been deeply engaged in the colonization of the region and the imposition of the Polish feudal system there. Encouraged by the ruling Polish nobility, they not only settled in the newly founded towns of the region but began [[Article:1.4.2|leasing the huge agricultural estates]] from their noble owners and managing them in their stead. This gave them ''de facto'' jurisdiction over the local peasantry, which was a source of much resentment. The main targets of the anger, however, were the Polish nobility and the Catholic Church, both of which were felt to be the chief oppressors of the peasants, who were Ukrainian and Christian Orthodox. The trigger for the uprising was a military rebellion among the [[https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CC%5CO%5CCossacks.htm|Cossack forces]], who were employed to protect Poland’s south-eastern border from the predations of the Crimean Tatars, Muslim forces acting on behalf of the Ottoman Empire. Unhappy with the terms of their employment, the Cossacks, under their leader (Hetman), '''Bohdan Khmelnytskyi''', mounted a violent protest. This protest gained in force by virtue of the alliance that Khmelnytskyi forged with the Tatars against Poland and a joint invasion that began in early spring 1648. Neither the Cossacks nor the Tatars were particularly concerned about the Jews, treating them as just another target. The Tatars, who made their living by capturing slaves and selling them on the Istanbul slave markets, kidnapped thousands of young Jewish women and men for profit and sent them out of the country. The scope and intensity of the revolt changed following the amazing defeat of the Polish army at the battles of Zhovti Vody and Korsuń and the death of the Polish King in May. At that point, the local peasantry rose in support of the Cossacks, turning the limited military rebellion into a huge popular uprising, determined to drive both the Catholic Poles and the Jews from the region.<ref>Frank E. Sysyn, “The Khmel’nyts’kyi Uprising: A Characterization of the Ukrainian Revolt,” ''Jewish History'' 17 (2003), 115-139.</ref> [[Image:1.5.3-Cossack riots-1|1.5.3-Cossack riots-1]] A wave of massacres followed, with grievous consequences for Polish nobles, Catholic clergymen, and Jews. The first major attacks on Jews occurred during May 1648 in '''Pohrebyshche''', '''Zhyvotiv''', and '''Tetiiv''', small towns in central Ukraine. In addition to the killings perpetrated by the Cossack forces, hundreds of Jews were captured by Tatars and sent abroad as slaves. As the forces moved west, a huge and often uncontrollable mass of tens of thousands of peasants went on a vicious rampage. In June, two enormous massacres of Jews were perpetrated in the major local communities of '''Nemyriv''' and '''Tulchyn''', taking many hundred lives. The Jews fled before the mob, looking for a safe refuge, but the towns they reached were powerless to resist the rebellion and though some protected their Jews, many did not. The Jews soon became easy targets. Within about a month, massacres of Jews took place in the communities of '''Vinnytsia, Bar, Polonne, Starokostyantyniv, Izyaslav, Ostroh, '''and''' Dubno'''. The Cossack forces then turned north, attacking the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its Jewish communities.In the fall, Khmelnytskyi led his armies into [[Term:Red Ruthenia|Red Ruthenia]] (today’s western Ukraine and south-eastern Poland), approaching the Crown heartlands. Unable to capture [[Community:Lviv|Lviv]] directly, he besieged the town. In a memorable exchange, the Town Council refused to turn the Jewish community over to him, citing the Jews’ bravery in fighting alongside the Christian townspeople in defense of their homes. In the end, Khmelnytskyi was paid a huge ransom to withdraw, much of which fell to the Jews to pay. A similar situation developed in the nearby town of [[Community:Zhovkva|Zhovkva]]. [[Image:1.5.3-Cossack riots-2|1.5.3-Cossack riots-2]] The Cossack and peasant forces rampaged through [[Term:Red Ruthenia|Red Ruthenia]] in November, committing massacres in the communities of [[Community:Narol|Narol]], '''Tomaszów''', Tarnogród, '''Biłgoraj''', and '''Zamość''', approaching the Vistula River. When news reached Khmelnytskyi that Poland had a new King, John Casimir, he decided to withdraw to Kiev, though several Volhynian Jewish communities were attacked on the way. <ref>Bernard Weinryb, ''The Jews of Poland: A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100-1800'' (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society 1972), 181-205.</ref> Poland under Jan Casimir renewed its campaign against the Cossack armies in 1649, but was defeated again, first at [[Community:Zbarazh|Zbarazh]] and then at [[Community:Zboriv|Zboriv]], where the king was forced to sign a humiliating agreement with the Cossacks. Among other stipulations, Jews were forbidden to live on left-bank Ukraine (the Ukrainian lands to the east of the Dniepr river). Although attacks on Jewish communities continued, they never reached the intensity of the first months of the uprising. [[Image:1.5.3-Cossack riots-4|1.5.3-Cossack riots-4]] The balance of power shifted in 1651, when John Casimir defeated the Cossack forces at the battle of Berestechko. Then, after persuading the Tatars to withdraw, he forced the Cossacks to sign a much less advantageous treaty. The uprising finally ended in 1654, when Khmelnytskyi signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav with the Russian Tsar. In return for making left-bank Ukraine a Russian protectorate, Khmelnytskyi was permitted to establish it as a quasi-independent Hetman state under his own rule. It is almost impossible to determine the number of Jewish losses, but since the total Jewish population of Ukraine in 1648 stood at about 50,000, the huge estimates often quoted of hundreds of thousands of dead cannot be correct. An estimate of a little under 20,000 Jewish losses seems reasonable. Since this was about one third of the population, it was nonetheless a disaster of vast proportions. As far as the Jews of Europe were concerned it was the worst catastrophe since the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and was called simply “the Destruction” (''Ḥurban''). A special fast day on the 20^th of Sivan (the date of the massacre in Nemyriv according to the Jewish calendar) was established to commemorate the dead. [[Image:1.5.3-Cossack riots-5|1.5.3-Cossack riots-5]] In addition to the enormous loss of life, a massive refugee crisis developed. Thousands of Ukrainian Jews who had fled before the armies remained in distant communities, some in Ukraine, others in Poland’s western regions or Lithuania. Though local Jews did all they could to help the refugees, the situation was hard to control and, in [[Community:Kraków|Kraków]] for example, led to an outbreak of plague. As peace returned, many refugees returned home and set about reconstructing their lives with great energy. Those thousands of Jews who had been captured by the Tatars and sent to the slave markets of Istanbul were ransomed there. A huge trans-regional philanthropic effort covering both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities of central and western Europe, as well as Italy, raised money to support the Jews of Istanbul in this effort. Once ransomed, the Eastern European Jews were treated with hospitality by the Mediterranean communities where they found themselves until those who wanted to were able to return home.<ref>Adam Teller, ''Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century'' (Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020), 95-195.</ref> '''Select Bibliography''' Frost, Robert. ''The Northern Wars, 1558-1721''. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000. Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. ''History of Ukraine-Rus, Volume 8: ''The Cossack Age'', edited by Frank Sysyn. Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Study, 2002. Raba, Joel. ''Between Remembrance and Denial: the Fate of the Jews in the Wars of the Polish Commonwealth During the Mid-seventeenth Century as Shown in Contemporary Writings and Historical Research.'' Boulder: East European Monographs, 1995 Stampfer, Shaul. “Jewish Population Losses in the Course of the Khmelnytsky Uprising.” ''Judaica Ukrainica'' 4 (2015), 36-52. Sysyn, Frank. "The Khmel'nyts'kyi Uprising: A Characterization of the Ukrainian Revolt." ''Jewish History'' 17 (2003), 115–139. Teller, Adam. "Hisṭoryah, sifrut ve-zikharon: sefer Yeven metsulah u-mashmaʿuto ha-tarbutit." In Natan Note Hannover, ''Sefer Yeven Metsulah: gezerot Ta”ḥ ve-Ta”ṭ''. Yerushalaim: Karmel, 1925, 5-59. Teller, Adam. ''Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century''. Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2020. Teller, Adam. “'To Take Arms against a Sea of Troubles': Jewish Violence During the Khmelnytsky Uprising and its Historical Significance.” In ''Am ve-Olam: a tribute to Israel Bartal'', edited by Dmitri Shumsky, Jonatan Meir, Gershon David Hundert. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2019, 303-314 [in Hebrew].

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