Indeed, one frequently observes in life how great and even monumental consequences product of minute causes. A peasant sows wheat; miller mills some of it into flour; rest finds its way to distillery where it is made into vodka; portion of both is delivered to Gittel tavernkeeper; she adds bit of yeast and water to flour, kneads it, and rolls it into knishes; in her pantry, thanks to Phoenicians, who invented art of glassmaking thousands of years ago, some glasses; and when vodka is poured into them, and hot knishes put on platters, and these set before band of hungry and thirsty Jews, there is no telling what may happen . . .S.Y. Abramowitsh, The Brief Travels of Benjamin ThirdThe Jews, according to Polish noble and social reformer Antoni Ostrowski, are always sober, and this virtue should be conceded: drunks rare among Jews.1 This seemed to be consensus among Polish elites during nineteenth century, era of partitions. Only Jews, it was believed, were immune from current epidemic of drunkenness that had depleted Polish nation's strength at time when strength was most desperately needed. Even prominent Catholic clergy admonished parishioners to learn from temperance of countiy's Jews. Although he supports himself by dealing in drinks, Father Karol Mikoszewski observed, referring to Kingdom of Poland's thousands of Jewish tavern keepers, a Jewish drunk is hard to find.2It was not always meant as compliment. According to many Polish social reformers, Jewish tavern keepers only stayed sober in order to more effectively exploit their naive peasant customers, seeing to it that they ran up their tabs and became drunk enough to swindle.3 A peasant memoirist named Jan Slomka similarly described his neighbors spending hours in taverns making themselves at home, taking their dnnk: while [Jews] got more out of them, exploiting their weaknesses.4 A peasant proverb warned ominously that the peasant drinks at inn and Jew does him in.5 Government officials used these suspicions about Jewish sobriety to justify their efforts to penalize, restrict, and ban Jewish participation in lucrative liquor trade.6But positive side to stereotype probably outweighed negative. The Polish nobles who actually owned majority of taverns and distilleries were so convinced of Jewish sobriety that they all but refused to lease them to anyone else. Only Jews, they were conditioned to believe, could restrain themselves from drinking up product. As result, when Russian, Prussian, and Austrian regimes that ruled formerly Polish lands tried, in turn, to drive out of liquor trade, most nobles instructed their Jewish tavern keepers to prop up Christian bartenders as fronts and cariy on business as usual. Over course of nineteenth centuiy, officials and social reformers alike grumbled rather helplessly that Jews everywhere continually evaded Jewishspecific concessions and bans by hiring Christians to sell their liquor.7From Jewish perspective, maintaining an image of sobriety was thus critical for continual awarding of tavern leases.8 In addition to this obvious economic advantage, however, sobriety stereotype helped East European sustain an internal sense of cultural superiority. No matter how marginalized or excluded, could still compare themselves favorably to daily spectacle of drunken gentile clientele presented in their taverns. Who can forget pungent descriptions in some of classics of Hebrew and Yiddish literature - H. N. Bialik's father's customers, who sated themselves amid vomit, monstrous faces corrupted and tongues flowing with invectives as Bialik imbibed whispered words of Torah from his father's lips; or S. Y. Abramovitch's whole groups of country folk, some of them tottering on their legs, or already fallen; others keeping their feet, though by now on their fourth or fifth round, in contrast to lively Jewish matron seated behind bar keeping track of everyone's accounts. …