So, some of the recent comments here got me thinking about the Cantonist Decrees in Russia.

I have barely looked into this subject before, although Rebbe Nachman spoke a great deal about these decrees, which were first mooted by Tsar Alexander I in 1803.

Alexander I is a very interesting character.

He was complicit in the murder of his own father, Tzar Paul, who is the guy who had the Alter Rebbe arrested twice. The second time, the Alter Rebbe was released from prison because Paul was murdered in a palace coup, and then Alexander I – an ‘enlightened freemason’ – came to the throne. As Chabad tells the story, he took a liking to the Alter Rebbe, pardoned him fully, honoured him tremendously – and then the Alter Rebbe ‘repaid the favour’ by putting his vast network of chossids at the service of the Tzar and his secret police, in the subsequent war against Napoleon.

Or to put this into plain English, the ‘Badd went to work as spies for the Russian deep state, that was seeking to ‘de-judaize’ and convert its Jews.

Go HERE to see the ‘Badd site that tells this story of the spy Moshe Meisels.

In the meantime, while the Alter Rebbe was sucking up to Alexander I, the Tzar himself got disillusioned with freemasonry, Napoleon-style, and then had an ‘evangelical conversion experience’ that had him reading his bible with Prince Galitzin, and working with English missionaries like Lewis Way, and seperately the Quakers to a) mass convert his Russian Jews ahead of b) ‘restoring’ the Jews to Eretz Yisrael.

The British evangelical missionaries were hailing Alexander I as the ‘Cyrus’ who was going to mass convert the Jews ahead of leading them back to their ancestral homeland, that was the ‘plan’.

But then, Alexander got soured on the evangelicals too, after their agents fomented the Greek war of independence in 1821, which was meant to bring Russia into conflict with Turkey – and wrest Eretz Yisrael from the grasp of the Ottoman empire, ready for Jewish resettlement and ‘the second coming’.

Long story short: Alexander I was sickened by war at this point, and refused to play ball.

He kept Russia out of the Greek war, much to the upset of the Evangelicals in Britain and Europe, and then decided to ‘fake his own death’ a few years later, so he could go and live as a Russian Orthodox monk.

This is the guy that the Alter Rebbe of ‘Badd got very close to, and spied for, and I am still trying to unpick what all this actually means, tachlis.

So now, it was Alexander I’s plan, when he was still an ‘enlightened freemason’ of the Napoleon type, to force the Jews into the Russian army, in order to de-judaize them.

(Does this sound familiar?)

That plan was put forward in 1803 – and that’s when Rabbenu, Rebbe Nachman, started warning very loudly about what was going on, and made a huge effort, spiritually, to get the Cantonist Decree cancelled.

Let’s pick up what R Natan tells us, in Tzaddik, the BRI translation of Chayei Moharan, #127:

(R’ Natan is giving the background to lesson I:5 in Likutey Moharan, which Rabbenu gave over on Rosh Hashana, 5563 (1802):)

At the time there were rumours about the decrees being mooted against the Jews – which have now materialised – namely to draft Jews into the Russian army.

There was talk of starting this then. Indeed, the possibility had been raised even in the time of Polish rule, prior to the conquest of our region [the Ukraine, White Russia and Lithuania – the Jewish Pale of Settlement 1793-1795] by the Czar.

In the initial period of Russian rule the matter was laid to rest for a while, but afterwards it was revived, and there were no reports that they wanted to impose the so-called punkten.

==

It was then that the Rebbe gave this teaching, beginning with how each person must say that the world was only created for his sake, and how every person must endeavour to make up the deficiencies of the world, praying on its behalf – i.e. before the decree. This is an allusion to the decrees then being mooted….

==

[T]he Rebbe worked very much that year to sweeten the harsh judgement and his prayers were successful in deferring the decree. It did not come into effect until sixteen years after his death [i.e. in 1826].

Now, let’s pick a bit more info up, from Tzaddik #398:

It was during Rabbi Nachman’s lifetime that the decrees the Russian government was later to impose against the Jews first came under consideration. I heard that once the Rebbe referred to the rumours and said he might have been able to find some means of annulling the decrees, but what could he do, since there were others who would not agree with him… [he could not succeed] “because he lacked support.”

Over in His Wisdom, the BRI translation of Sichot HaRan, #131, we learn a little more:

The lesson begins by stating that when there are decrees against the Jews, they can be mitigated by dancing and clapping.

In footnote #217 on that page, we got more real, historical information, about what ‘decrees’ Rabbenu was referring to, specifically:

This was the Ukase issued by Alexander I on October 9, 1902, to draft a set of regulations called ‘Enactments Concerning Jews.” In Yiddish, these enactments were called ‘Punkten’.

They included outlines of the future compulsory conscription laws that would decimate many Jewish communities, as well as regulations regarding compulsory secular education.

The Rebbe considered the latter section the worst possible decree, saying it would destroy future generations of Jews.

Ad kan, from Breslov teachings, where we learn that Alexander I issued the ukase for this back in 1802, already, and that Rabbenu was warning about it, but couldn’t get others to support him to cancel the decree entirely, so he only managed to push it off for 25 years, instead of totally uprooting it.

Who are these ‘others’, Rabbenu is referring to?

While you are pondering that, let’s get back to understanding what was really going on, when the Cantonist Decree was finally implemented, when Tzar Nicholas I, Alexander’s brother, ascended the throne in 1826.

There is a very good write-up HERE, on the Jewishhistory.org site, I highly advise taking a moment to read it all.

For those short on time, here are the main ideas, and a few snippets:

Each Jewish community had to fill a ‘quota’ of Jewish children for the Russian Army.
The rich Jews bribed the Russian officials to leave their kids alone – and most of those ‘rich Jews’ were the religious establishment, i.e. the rabbis and community leaders.
The poor Jews had no defense, and no-one helping them to avoid the draft.
Jewish kids were literally snatched off the streets – but NOT by Russians.
An underclass of Jews called ‘chappers’ emerged, who were working for the Russian government, kidnapping Jewish children off the streets and informing on their whereabouts to the Russian deep state.

Snippet:

Now, most of the establishment people were religiously observant.

Therefore, the poor families whose children were taken away developed hatred toward the people who ran the community, and eventually a hatred of the religion itself. Many great rabbis resigned their positions and left town because they could not bear to watch what was happening. Many great rabbis were driven from their towns because they spoke up against the injustices being done. And many just remained quiet.

Among other terrible outcomes, this created a Jewish underworld. The chappers were Jews. Many times they were also killed by other Jews.

What was the Mitteler Rebbe doing, when all this was going on?

That’s a great question.

The answer is: nothing, because he died on 16 November 1827.

A couple of years before that, the Mitteler Rebbe launched trade schools, to help ‘re-educate’ the Jews in the Pale of Settlement, and make them good, productive Russian citizens, in line with the wishes of the Tzars.

(Snippet from his Wiki page, HERE🙂

In 1815, with government permission and sponsorship, he set up Jewish agricultural colonies.

Bold emphasis is mine.

Those colonies were in Kherson. Another time, I’ll bring you some contemporary quotes about what was happening there, but basically, the mortality rate in these ‘agricultural colonies’ was so bad, the Tzar himself called off the experiment, because so many Jews died and became terminally ill there, the Russian authorities feared that an outbreak of plague would spread to the non-Jews in the area.

You won’t hear a word about that from Badd sources, of course, who like to stress how much help and financial support the Mitteler Rebbe was giving these ‘Jewish agricultural colonies’.

The point for this post, is that we have clear evidence, once again, that the Mitteler Rebbe was working directly for the Russian Tzar, still Alexander I in 1815, to try and ‘re-educate’ Jews, and get them ready for being shipped out to the Holy Land, as per the evangelical plan.

Let’s get back to the Cantonist Decrees, that begin in 1826.

The Mitteler Rebbe dies in 1827, so he can be forgiven for not doing more to help the Russian Jews.

Just at this crucial point – there is apparently NO Chabad leader, or leadership, organised to help the Russian Jews, for the next four years. Snippet from the Tzemach Tzedek‘s Wiki page:

After his father-in-law/uncle’s death, and a three-year interregnum during which he tried to persuade the Hasidim to accept his brother-in-law Menachem-Nachum Schneuri or his uncle Chaim-Avraham as their leader,^[1] he assumed the leadership of Lubavitch on the eve of Shavuot 5591 (May 5, 1831, OS)

Once this is put back into historical context, we start to understand a bit more why there was such reluctance to ‘take over’ as leader of the ‘Badd movement, dafka, at this point.

The Cantonist Decrees were in full swing, and the ‘leaders of the Jewish community’ were more concerned with saving their owns skins, and their own families, than trying to help their fellow Jews.

On his Wiki page, it says that this, about the Tzemach Tzedek’s ‘help’ for the Jews affected by the Cantonist decrees:

His close friendship with Professor J Berstenson, the Czar‘s court physician, often helped the delicate negotiations relating to the welfare of the community.^[1] He set up an organisation called Hevras Techiyas Hameisim to assist Jewish boy-soldiers who were being recruited and converted to Christianity by the Russian army. These soldiers known as Cantonists were taken away from the Jewish community to other villages. Schneersohn arranged for his students to pay them regular visits to keep up their spirits and discourage them from converting.^[1]

As usual with Chabad ‘history’, I can find absolutely no trace of this ‘Professor J. Berstenson’ who is meant to be the Czar’s court physician.

If the guy existed at all, in reality, that wasn’t his real name. I am very happy for someone to send me real details of this guy, who surely should have left a trace in history, even under a different name, as the ‘Czar’s court physician’.

In the meantime, if we can’t find him – we can’t accept the rest of the story as based on reality.

(Even if we CAN find him, stop for a moment and consider just how much pull this court physician would actually have, with antisemitic Russian monarchs and their even more antisemitic nobles, who believed it was a religious duty to get the Jews either converted, or totally out of Russia. Does this story sound credible to you, that the Tzar would give ‘badd schluchim permission to visit his army camps, to keep his ‘Jewish soldiers’ from converting, when that was the whole point?!)

I went searching for more evidence of the ‘help’ the Tzemach Tzedek was meant to be giving the Cantonist Jews on the main ‘Badd site, and got to this very interesting letter, HERE.

It’s meant to be clear evidence of the Tzemach Tzedek’s huge underground network to ‘help the Jews’ in Russia – but actually, it’s just a fundraising letter.

UPDATE: Now I’ve gone through the letter in detail, it has no obvious connection, at all, with the Cantonist decrees, other than the Rebbe Rayatz telling us that, with no external proof at all.

The Rebbe Rayatz re-wrote most of the ‘Badd history, to make ‘Badd sound like they were fighting the Russian government the whole time, in secret, whilst being given honorary citizenship, financial sponsorship and tracts of land.

You tell me: how does this really go together?

Would any totalitarian government intent on converting and crushing its Jewish population give it’s leading rabbis and ‘freedom fighters’ all these honours and privileges?

Unless those rabbis and ‘freedom fighters’ were actually working for the deep State, as some sort of ‘puppet leaders’ to keep tabs on the Jews and mislead them into doing all sorts of things that the State actually wanted?

(Does this sound familiar?)

Bottom line: the Tzemach Tzedek did bubkiss for the Cantonists, despite all the ‘badd bubbe meises that are basically fairy tales that have no historical basis, when you try to stand them up, even a little bit.

The most we can say is that he sent people to fundraise the money for bribes, to try to free some of the Jewish kids.

But, from that article above, we already know that:

Wealthy Jews of the towns, even if their children were taken, would bribe the Russian officials to have their children released.

That is all this letter from the Tzemach Tzedek actually demonstrates, in reality.

One of the Rabbis who DID take active steps against the informers at this time, was the SAVRANER REBBE (main persecutor of R Natan, and very possibly one and the same as Israel of Ruzhin).

He got thrown into a Russian jail for a couple of years, and in the Savran version of the story, he died in jail.

(In the Ruzhin version of the story, he got smuggled out of prison after paying massive bribes, and went to live in Moldova with the new identity of ‘R Israel of Ruzhin..)

Only the ‘Badd rebbes ever ‘skated’ out of Russian jails – and then, got given honours, privileges and tracts of land.

Why do you think that was?

OK, let’s sum up what we learned in this post:

The Alter Rebbe was working for Alexander I, using his chossidim to spy for the Tzar, Alexander I, and did nothing to oppose the punkten decrees, spiritually or otherwise.
After his death, his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, also went to work for that same Tzar, Alexander I, and recieved Russian state sponsorship to ‘encourage’ Jews to resettle in agricultural colonies in Kherson, beginning 1815, where most of the Jewish settlers died from plague and starvation, in really horrible circumstances.
The Mitteler Rebbe died in 1827, and no new ‘rebbe’ was appointed for four years, because no-one wanted to be in the frame for taking responsibility for the Jewish community at a time when the Jewish leaders were having their families deported to Siberia, if they didn’t help the Russians implement the Cantonist decrees.
When the Tzemach Tzedek finally took over in 1831, he kept a low profile and did absolutely nothing to ‘resist’ the Tzar’s decrees – except, perhaps, fundraise for wealthy members of the Jewish community to bribe Russian officials to not take their kids, as described above.

The next question to answer, is was the Tzemach Tzedek also secretly working for the Russian deep state?

BH, we will come back to that topic again.

In the meantime, please send me any details you find of the Jewish physician called ‘Professor J. Berstenson’, even if that was not his real name.

Tzar Nicholas I ruled between 1826-1855.

He was followed by his son, Alexander II, from 1855-1881.

The Tzemach Tzedek died in 1866.

That’s our time frame, to try and find any trace of ‘Professor J. Berstenson’, the Tzar’s Jewish physician.

TBC

The Cantonist Decrees: betrayed from within