At first, the Polish forces often did not take the rebels seriously. In many cases, Jews took an active role in defending these cities. In the areas first affected, Jews-along with Poles and others-headed toward cities and the protection promised by strong fortresses. When the fighting began in 1648, Jews in Ukraine were not very concerned. In this case, as in many others, the image was more influential than reality. One is to know what actually took place, and the other is to know what Jews-at that time and later-thought had taken place. To understand the significance of the Khmel’nyts’kyi uprising for the history of Jews in Eastern Europe, it is necessary to consider two very different topics. According to the Jewish calendar, this took place in 5408–5409 and the acronym of these years (referring to the Hebrew letters that correspond to the numbers 408 and 409) is “Takh vetat”-hence the term gzeyres takh vetat. In the course of the fighting, there were many Jewish casualties, and many Jewish communities were destroyed. At the height of the uprising, the “rebel” forces, led by Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi, reached Lithuania and were poised to enter more central regions of Poland. However, in the years 1648–1649 a large-scale uprising of Cossack and Ukrainian peasants swept through much of what is today Ukraine and was then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. There were a number of such uprisings before 1648, but they were put down relatively quickly. Given the political, economic, and religious conditions in Ukraine, it is quite understandable that peasant revolts were not a novelty in the region. At the same time, Jews were not formal allies of the nobles and were not automatically under the protection of Polish forces. The peasants regarded Jews, who made a living by serving the nobility, as part of the oppressive governing system. Many of them made a living by providing services, including tax collecting, to Polish nobles who had huge estates in the region. This factor only inflamed an already tense situation.Ī significant percentage (perhaps one-third) of Polish Jewry in the mid-seventeenth century lived in Ukrainian lands. The Poles also tried to repress the independent Orthodox church and to support the Uniate church that combined Orthodox traditions with loyalty to the pope. Tensions between nobles and peasants were compounded by religious differences. Peasants were heavily taxed, repressed, and mistreated on occasion, they revolted. Polish nobility contributed to this development but also tried to maximize the return on their investments. Ukrainian territories experienced rapid population growth and economic expansion during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In the course of time, the Polish crown began to employ the autonomous Cossacks for the defense of the region. The Crimean Tatars often attacked the Slavic peasants in the north, taking booty and slaves, and in return, the Cossacks did the same to the Tatars. They were not farmers but maintained themselves sometimes by hunting and fishing, and largely by warfare and the spoils of war. They were Orthodox Christians and mainly-but not exclusively-of Slavic origin. In the southern parts of Ukraine were groups known as Cossacks. The urban centers were home to a mixture of Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, and members of other groups. Most of the land in Ukraine was owned by Catholic Polish magnates and nobles, while the peasants were mainly Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians. To the south, Crimea-a region bordering the Black Sea-was part of the Ottoman Empire and was populated largely by Muslim Tatars. Acronym referring to the “ Decrees of 1648–1649.” The Ukrainian lands were part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the first half of the seventeenth century.
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