His mission to facilitate apostasy among the Jews proved a failure, and his services as detective were not yet appreciated during the liberal years of Alexander's reign.
However, with the reactionary turn in Russian politics, in the middle of the sixties, these services were once more in demand.

Brafman hastened to the hot-bed of reactionary chauvinism, the city of Vilna, which was firmly held in the iron grip of Muravyov, [1] and there began "to expose the separatism of the inner life of the Jews" before the highest administration of the province.

He contended that the Kahal, though officially abolished in 1844, [2] continued in reality to exist and to maintain a widely ramified judiciary (_Bet Din_), that it constituted a secret, uncanny sort of organization which wielded despotic power over the communities by employing such weapons as the _herem_ (excommunication) and _hazakah_ (the Jewish legal practice of securing property rights), [3] that it incited the Jewish masses against the State, the Government, and the Christian religion, and fostered in these masses fanaticism and dangerous national separatism.

In the opinion of Brafman, the only way to eradicate this "secret Jewish government," was to destroy the last vestiges of Jewish communal autonomy by closing all religious and charitable societies and fraternities.

The Jewish community itself ought to share the same fate, and the Jews forming part of it should be included among the Christian estates in the cities and villages.