Eastern Europe

Lead: One of the most powerful outbreaks of Jewish messianic fervor occurred in the 1660s not too long after one of the most terrible outbreaks of Jewish persecution in history, the Chmielnicki pogrom.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The 1500s and 1600s were times of Polish political and military ascendancy in Eastern Europe. Large swaths of Western Russia and the Ukraine came under Polish control, particularly the steppe or grasslands, vast open spaces of rich farmland. Along with the Poles came Jews to settle the lands themselves and also often to administer the estates of absentee Polish nobility. In the mind of many Ukranian peasants, however, Jews became synonymous with foreign Polish oppression. This hatred stoked up already well-established anti-semitism. It did not take much to set this sentiment on fire.