In Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, celebrated on account of its aristocracy of mind as well as its aristocracy of birth, a split occurred within the ranks of the Kahal oligarchy itself. For nearly twenty years there was a conflict between the Rabbi, a certain Samuel Vigdorovich (son of Avigdor), and the Kahal, or, more correctly, between the rabbinical party and the Kahal party. The Rabbi had been convicted of corruption, drunkenness, biased legal decisions, perjury, and so on. The litigation between the Rabbi and the Kahal had, at an earlier stage, been submitted to a court of arbitration as well as to a conference of Lithuanian rabbis. Since the strife and agitation in the city did not subside, both parties appealed, in 1785, to Radziwill, the Voyevoda of Vilna, who decided in favor of the Kahal, and dismissed the Rabbi from office.
The common people, standing between the two belligerent parties, were particularly bitter towards the Kahal, whose abuses and misdeeds exceeded all measure. A little later, between 1786 and 1788, a champion of the people's cause appeared in the person of Simeon Volfovich (son of Wolf), who, acting as the spokesman of the Jewish masses of Vilna, had to struggle and suffer on their behalf. To ward off the persecution by the Kahal, Volfovich managed to obtain an "iron letter" from King Stanislav Augustus, guaranteeing inviolability of person and property to himself and to the whole Jewish commonalty, "which the tyranny of the Kahal had brought to the verge of ruin." This did not prevent the Kahal authorities from subjecting Simeon to the herem and entering his name in the "black book," while the Voyevoda, who sided with the Kahal tyrants, sent the mutinous champion of the people to the prison of Neswizh (1788). From there the prisoner addressed his memorandum to the Quadrennial Diet, emphasizing the need of a radical change in the communal organization of the Jews, and urging the abolition of the Kahal power, which pressed so heavily upon the people. This struggle between the Kahal, the rabbinate, and the common people shook to its foundations the social organization of the Jews of Lithuania shortly before the incorporation of this country into the Russian Empire.