ENOn 24 Heshvan 5561 (11 November 1800), the parnasim, or communal elders, of the Minskkahalvoted to send a delegation to Vitebsk ‘to see how things are done there’.¹ At first, this may appear a curious decision. What could the Jews of Minsk, a large and respected community, learn from their ‘little brothers’ in Vitebsk? The answer has to do with chronology: since 1772 Vitebsk had been under the power of Russia, serving as a laboratory for the implementation of policies designed to regulate a newly acquired Jewish minority for whom there were no existing legal provisions. Russian policy.