Jewish Cossacks
The higher nobility, however, depended largely on some part of Jews to act as their leaseholders-arendators, agents, and financial managers, and this served in a significant measure as a bar to persecution.Piasaczinski replied that the Cossacks were not subjects of the king of Poland, and that he therefore could not be held responsible for the "acts of uncontrollable rovers of the desert that were apostates from all faiths, Poles, Muscovites, Wallachians, Turks, Tatars, Jews, etc., among them".[3] The responsa of Joel Särkes discusses "Berakha the Hero", who fought in the ranks of Petro Sahaidachny's Cossacks and fell in battle against the Muscovites.)[5] In 1594, a Jew known only by his first name Moses served as a deputy to Stanislav Khlopitsky, the Cossack emissary to the court of Emperor Rudolph II.[6] Historian of the Cossacks Yuri Mytsyk describes a case in which, in 1602, a Jew from the town of Berestye converted to Christianity and joined Zaporozhian Host.Borovoy could not return to this subject in the anti-semitic postwar climate in Soviet Union, and the 3rd part of his dissertation was never printed and the typographic sets already assembled were destroyed.Anastasia Markovych, the wife of hetman Ivan Skoropadskyi known for her great influence on Ukrainian politics of the era, was also possibly of Jewish ancestry.[citation needed] Susanna Luber's study of registration books of the Registered Cossacks contain many surnames that indicate Jewish origin.[8] Cossack families of Jewish origin include Hertzyk, Osypov-Perekhrest, Perekhryst, Kryzhanovsky, Markevych/Markovych, Zhydenko, Zhydok, Zhydovynov, Leibenko, Yudin, Yudaev, Khalayev, Nivrochenko, Matsunenko, Shabatny, Zhydchenkov, Shafarevich, Marivchuk, Magerovsky, Zrayitel' and others.[9] In December 1787, Prince Potemkin, Catherine the Great's favourite and minister, founded a regiment of Jewish Cossacks for the purpose of liberating Jerusalem—the culmination of his philo-Semitism."[10] After discussions with Zeitlin and his perambulant rabbis about the fighting prowess of the Biblical Israelites, the Prince decided to arm the Jews.[10] The great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz helped to form another regiment of Jewish Cossacks, "Hussars of Israel", to fight against the Russian Empire, alongside Britain, France and Turkey, in the Crimean War.