The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II, by S.M. Dubnow This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander III. (1825-1894) Author: S.M. Dubnow Translator: I. Friedlaender Release Date: April 30, 2005 [EBook #15729] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE JEWS *** Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Bonny Fafard and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY BY S.M. DUBNOW TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY I. FRIEDLAENDER VOLUME II FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I. UNTIL THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER III. (1825-1894) PHILADELPHIA THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA 5706--1946 Copyright 1918 by THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE It was originally proposed to give the history of Russian Jewry after 1825--the year with which the first volume concludes--in a single volume. This, however, would have resulted in producing a volume of unwieldy dimensions, entirely out of proportion to the one preceding it. It has, therefore, become imperative to divide Dubnow's work into three, instead of into two, volumes. The second volume, which is herewith offered to the public, treats of the history of Russian Jewry from the death of Alexander I. (1825) until the death of Alexander III. (1894). The third and concluding volume will deal with the reign of Nicholas II., the last of the Romanovs, and will also contain the bibliographical apparatus, the maps, the index, and other supplementary material. This division will undoubtedly recommend itself to the reader. The next volume is partly in type, and will follow as soon as circumstances permit. Of the three reigns described in the present volume, that of Alexander III., though by far the briefest, is treated at considerably greater length than the others. The reason for it is not far to seek. The events which occurred during the fourteen years of his reign laid their indelible impress upon Russian Jewry, and they have had a determining influence upon the growth and development of American Israel. The account of Alexander III.'s reign is introduced in the Russian original by a general characterization of the anti-Jewish policies of Russian Tzardom. Owing to the rearrangement of the material, to which reference was made in the preface to the first volume, this introduction, which would have interrupted the flow of the narrative, had to be omitted. But a few passages from it, written in the characteristic style of Mr. Dubnow, may find a place here: Russian Tzardom began its consistent role as a persecutor of the Eternal People when it received, by way of bequest, the vast Jewish population of disintegrated Poland. At the end of the eighteenth century, when Western Europe had just begun the emancipation of the Jews, the latter were subjected in the East of Europe to every possible medieval experiment.... The reign of Alexander II., who slightly relieved the civil disfranchisement of the Jews by permitting certain categories among them to live outside the Pale and by a few other measures, forms a brief interlude in the Russian policy of oppression. His tragic death in 1881 marks the beginning of a new terrible reaction which has superimposed the system of wholesale street pogroms upon the policy of disfranchisement, and has again thrown millions of Jews into the dismal abyss of medievalism. Russia created a lurid antithesis to Jewish emancipation at a time when the latter was consummated not only in Western Europe, but also in the semi-civilized Balkan States.... True, the rise of Russian Judaeophobia--the Russian technical term for Jew-hatred--was paralleled by the appearance of German anti-Semitism in which it found a congenial companion. Yet, the anti-Semitism of the West was after all only a weak aftermath of the infantile disease of Europe--the medieval Jew-hatred--whereas culturally retrograde Russia was still suffering from the same infection in its acute, "childish" form. The social and cultural anti-Semitism of the West did not undermine the modern foundations of Jewish civil equality. But Russian Judaeophobia, more governmental than social, being fully in accord with the entire regime of absolutism, produced a system aiming not only at the disfranchisement, but also at the direct physical annihilation of the Jewish people. The policy of the extermination of Judaism was stamped upon the forehead of Russian reaction, receiving various colors at various periods, assuming the hue now of economic, now of national and religious, now of bureaucratic oppression. The year 1881 marks the starting-point of this systematic war against the Jews, which has continued until our own days, and is bound to reach a crisis upon the termination of the great world struggle. Concerning the transcription of Slavonic names, the reader is referred to the explanations given in the preface to the first volume. The foot-notes added by the translator have been placed in square brackets. The poetic quotations by the author have been reproduced in English verse, the translation following both in content and form the original languages of the quotations as closely as possible. As in the case of the first volume, a number of editorial changes have become necessary. The material has been re-arranged and the headings have been supplied in accordance with the general plan of the work. A number of pages have been added, dealing with the attitude of the American people and Government toward the anti-Jewish persecutions in Russia. These additions will be found on pp. 292-296, pp. 394-396, and pp. 408-410. I am indebted to Dr. Cyrus Adler for his kindness in reading the proof of this part of the work. The dates given in this volume are those of the Russian calendar, except for the cases in which the facts relate to happenings outside of Russia. As in the first volume, the translator has been greatly assisted by the Hon. Mayer Sulzberger, who has read the proofs with his usual care and discrimination, and by Professor Alexander Marx, who has offered a number of valuable suggestions. I.F. NEW YORK, February 25, 1918. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIII. THE MILITARY DESPOTISM OF NICHOLAS I. 1. Military Service as a Means of De-Judaization 13 2. The Recruiting Ukase of 1827 and Juvenile Conscription 18 3. Military Martyrdom 22 4. The Policy of Expulsions 30 5. The Codification of Jewish Disabilities 34 6. The Russian Censorship and Conversionist Endeavors 41 XIV. COMPULSORY ENLIGHTENMENT AND INCREASED OPPRESSION. 1. Enlightenment as a Means of Assimilation 46 2. Uvarov and Lilienthal 50 3. The Abolition of Jewish Autonomy and Renewed Persecutions 59 4. Intercession of Western European Jewry 66 5. The Economic Plight of Russian Jewry and Agricultural Experiments 69 6. The Ritual Murder Trial of Velizh 72 7. The Mstislavl Affair 84 XV. THE JEWS IN THE KINGDOM OF POLAND. 1. Plans of Jewish Emancipation 88 2. Political Reaction and Literary Anti-Semitism 94 3. Assimilationist Tendencies Among the Jews of Poland 100 4. The Jews and the Polish Insurrection of 1831 105 XVI. THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD OF MILITARY DESPOTISM. 1. The Uncompromising Attitude of Rabbinism 111 2. The Stagnation of Hasidism 116 3. The Russian Mendelssohn (Isaac Baer Levinsohn) 125 4. The Rise of Neo-Hebraic Culture 132 5. The Jews and the Russian People 138 XVII. THE LAST YEARS OF NICHOLAS I. 1. The "Assortment" of the Jews 140 2. Compulsory Assimilation 143 3. New Conscription Horrors 145 4. The Ritual Murder Trial of Saratov 150 XVIII. THE ERA OF REFORMS UNDER ALEXANDER II. 1. The Abolition of Juvenile Conscription 154 2. "Homeopathic" Emancipation and the Policy of "Fusion" 157 3. The Extension of the Right of Residence 161 4. Further Alleviations and Attempts at Russification 172 5. The Jews and the Polish Insurrection of 1863 177 XIX. THE REACTION UNDER ALEXANDER II. 1. Change of Attitude Toward the Jewish Problem 184 2. The Informer Jacob Brafman 187 3. The Fight Against Jewish "Separatism" 190 4. The Drift Toward Oppression 198 XX. THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER II. 1. The Russification of the Jewish Intelligenzia 206 2. The Society for the Diffusion of Enlightenment 214 3. The Jewish Press 216 4. The Jews and the Revolutionary Movement 221 5. The Neo-Hebraic Renaissance 224 6. The Harbinger of Jewish Nationalism (Perez Smolenskin) 233 7. Jewish Literature in the Russian Language 238 XXI. THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER III. AND THE INAUGURATION OF POGROMS. 1. The Triumph of Autocracy 243 2. The Initiation of the Pogrom Policy 247 3. The Pogrom at Kiev 251 4. Further Outbreaks in South Russia 256 XXII. THE ANTI-JEWISH POLICIES OF IGNATYEV. 1. The Vacillating Attitude of the Authorities 259 2. The Pogrom Panic and the Beginning of the Exodus 265 3. The Gubernatorial Commissions 269 4. The Spread of Anti-Semitism 276 5. The Pogrom at Warsaw 280 XXIII. NEW MEASURES OF OPPRESSION AND PUBLIC PROTESTS. 1. The Despair of Russian Jewry 284 2. The Voice of England and America 287 3. The Problem of Emigration and the Pogrom at Balta 297 4. The Conference of Jewish Notables at St. Petersburg 304 XXIV. LEGISLATIVE POGROMS. 1. The "Temporary Rules" of May 3, 1882 309 2. Abandonment of the Pogrom Policy 312 3. Disabilities and Emigration 318 XXV. INNER UPHEAVALS. 1. Disillusionment of the Intelligenzia and the National Revival 324 2. Pinsker's "Autoemancipation" 330 3. Miscarried Religious Reforms 333 XXVI. INCREASED JEWISH DISABILITIES. 1. The Pahlen Commission and New Schemes of Oppression 336 2. Jewish Disabilities Outside the Pale 342 3. Restrictions in Education and in the Legal Profession 348 4. Discrimination in Military Service 354 XXVII. RUSSIAN REACTION AND JEWISH EMIGRATION. 1. Aftermath of the Pogrom Policy 358 2. The Conclusions of the Pahlen Commission 362 3. The Triumph of Reaction 369 4. American and Palestinian Emigration 373 XXVIII. JUDAEOPHOBIA TRIUMPHANT. 1. Intensified Reaction 378 2. Continued Harassing 382 3. The Guildhall Meeting in London 388 4. The Protest of America 394 XXIX. THE EXPULSION FROM MOSCOW. 1. Preparing the Blow 399 2. The Horrors of Expulsion 401 3. Effect of Protests 407 4. Pogrom Interludes 411 XXX. BARON HIRSCH'S EMIGRATION SCHEME AND UNRELIEVED SUFFERING. 1. Negotiations with the Russian Government 434 2. The Jewish Colonisation Association and Collapse of the Argentinian Scheme 419 3. Continued Humiliations and Death of Alexander III. 423 CHAPTER XIII THE MILITARY DESPOTISM OF NICHOLAS I. 1. MILITARY SERVICE AS A MEANS OF DE-JUDAIZATION The era of Nicholas I. was typically inaugurated by the bloody suppression of the Decembrists and their constitutional demands, [1] proving as it subsequently did one continuous triumph of military despotism over the liberal movements of the age. As for the emancipation of the Jews, it was entirely unthinkable in an empire which had become Europe's bulwark against the inroads of revolutionary or even moderately liberal tendencies. The new despotic regime, overflowing with aggressive energy, was bound to create, after its likeness, a novel method of dealing with the Jewish problem. Such a method was contrived by the iron will of the Russian autocrat. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 410, n. 1.] Nicholas I., who was originally intended for a military career, was placed on the Russian throne by a whim of fate.[1] Prior to his accession, Nicholas had shown no interest in the Jewish problem. The Jewish masses had flitted across his vision but once--in 1816--when, still a young man, he traveled through Russia for his education. The impression produced upon him by this strange people is recorded by the then grand duke in his diary in a manner fully coincident with the official views of the Government: [Footnote 1: After the death of Alexander I. the Russian crown fell to his eldest brother Constantine, military commander of Poland. Accordingly, Constantine was proclaimed emperor, and was recognized as such by Nicholas. Constantine, however, who had secretly abdicated some time previously, insisted on resigning, and Nicholas became Tzar.] The ruin of the peasants of these provinces [1] are the Zhyds. [2] As property-holders they are here second in importance to the landed nobility. By their commercial pursuits they drain the strength of the hapless White Russian people.... They are everything here: merchants, contractors, saloon-keepers, mill-owners, ferry-holders, artisans.... They are regular leeches, and suck these unfortunate governments [3] to the point of exhaustion. It is a matter of surprise that in 1812 they displayed exemplary loyalty to us and assisted us wherever they could at the risk of their lives. [Footnote 1: Nicholas is speaking of White Russia. Compare Vol. I, pp. 329 and 406.] [Footnote 2: See on this term Vol. I, p. 320, n. 2.] [Footnote 3: See on this term Vol. I, p. 308, n. 1.] The characterization of merchants, artisans, mill-owners, and ferry-holders as "leeches" could only spring from a conception which looked upon the Jews as transient foreigners, who, by pursuing any line of endeavor, could only do so at the expense of the natives and thus abused the hospitality offered to them. No wonder then that the future Tzar was puzzled by the display of patriotic sentiments on the part of the Jewish population at the fatal juncture in the history of Russia. This inimical view of the Jewish people was retained by Nicholas when he became the master of Russian-Jewish destinies. He regarded the Jews as an "injurious element," which had no place in a Slavonic Greek-Orthodox monarchy, and which therefore ought to be combated. The Jews must be rendered innocuous, must be "corrected" and curbed by such energetic military methods as are in keeping with a form of government based upon the principles of stern tutelage and discipline. As a result of these considerations, a singular scheme was gradually maturing in the mind of the Tzar: to detach the Jews from Judaism by impressing them into a military service of a wholly exceptional character. The plan of introducing personal military service, instead of the hitherto customary exemption tax, [1] had engaged the attention of the Russian Government towards the end of Alexander I's reign, and had caused a great deal of alarm among the Jewish communities. Nicholas I. was now resolved to carry this plan into effect. Not satisfied with imposing a civil obligation upon a people deprived of civil rights, the Tzar desired to use the Russian military service, a service marked by most extraordinary features, as an educational and disciplinary agency for his Jewish subjects: the barrack was to serve as a school, or rather as a factory, for producing a new generation of de-Judaized Jews, who were completely Russified, and, if possible, Christianized. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 318.] The extension of the term of military service, marked by the ferocious discipline of that age, to a period of twenty-five years, the enrolment of immature lads or practically boys, their prolonged separation from a Jewish environment, and finally the employment of such methods as were likely to produce an immediate effect upon the recruits in the desired direction--all this was deemed an infallible means of dissolving Russian Jewry within the dominant nation, nay, within the dominant Church. It was a direct and simplified scheme which seemed to lead in a straight line to the goal. But had the ruling spheres of St. Petersburg known the history of the Jewish people, they might have realized that the annihilation of Judaism had in past ages been attempted more than once by other, no less forcible, means and that the attempt had always proved a failure. In the very first year of the new reign, the plan of transforming the Jews by "military" methods was firmly settled in the emperor's mind. In 1826 Nichola instructed his ministers to draft a special statute of military service for the Jews, departing in some respects from the general law. In view of the fact that the new military reform was intended to include the Western region [1], which was under the military command of the Tzar's brother. Grand Duke Constantine [2], the draft was sent to him to Warsaw for further suggestions and approval, and was in turn transmitted by the grand duke to Senator Nicholas Novosiltzev, his co-regent [3], for investigation and report. As an experienced statesman, who had familiarized himself during his administrative activity with the Jewish conditions obtaining in the Western region, Novosiltzev realized the grave risks involved in the imperial scheme. In a memorandum submitted by him to the grand duke, he argued convincingly that the sudden imposition of military service upon the Jews was bound to cause an undesirable agitation among them, and that they should, on the contrary, be slowly "prepared for such a radical transformation." [Footnote 1: The official designation for the territories of Western Russia which were formerly a part of the Polish Empire.] [Footnote 2: Constantine was appointed by his brother Alexander I, Commander-in-chief of the Polish army after the restoration of Poland in 1815. He remained in this post until his death in 1831. See also above, p. 13, n. 2.] [Footnote 3: He was the imperial Russian Commissary in Warsaw, and was practically in control of the affairs in Poland. See below, p. 92 et seq.] Novosiltzev was evidently well informed about the state of mind of the Jewish masses. No sooner had the rumor of the proposed ukase reached the Pale of Settlement than the Jews were seized by a tremendous excitement. It must be borne in mind that the Jewish population of Western Russia had but recently been incorporated into the Russian Empire. Clinging with patriarchal devotion to their religion, estranged from the Russian people, and kept, moreover, in a state of civil rightlessness, the Jews of that region could not be reasonably expected to gloat over the prospect of a military service of twenty-five years' duration, which was bound to alienate their sons from their ancestral faith, detach them from their native tongue, their habits and customs of life, and throw them into a strange, and often hostile, environment. The ultimate aim of the project, which, imbedded in the mind of its originators, seemed safely hidden from the eye of publicity, was quickly sensed by the delicate national instinct, and the soul of the people was stirred to its depths. Public-minded Jews strained every nerve to avert the calamity. Jewish representatives journeyed to St. Petersburg and Warsaw to plead the cause of their brethren. Negotiations were entered into with dignitaries of high rank and with men of influence in the world of officialdom. Rumor had it that immense bribes had been offered to Novosiltzev and several high officials in St. Petersburg for the purpose of receiving their co-operation. But even the intercession of leading dignitaries was powerless to change the will of the Tzar. He chafed under the red-tape formalities which obstructed the realization of his favorite scheme. Without waiting for the transmission of Novosiltzev's memorandum, the Tzar directed the Minister of the Interior and the Chief of the General Staff to submit to him for signature an ukase imposing military service upon the Jews. The fatal enactment was signed on August 26, 1827. 2. The Recruiting Ukase of 1827 and Juvenile Conscription The ukase announces the desire of the Government "to equalize military duty for all estates," without, be it noted, equalizing them in their rights. It further expresses the conviction that "the training and accomplishments, acquired by the Jews during their military service, will, on their return home after the completion of the number of years fixed by law (fully a quarter of a century!), be communicated to their families and make for greater usefulness and higher efficiency in their economic life and in the management of their affairs." However, the "Statute of Conscription and Military Service," subjoined to the ukase, was a lurid illustration of a tendency utterly at variance with the desire "to equalize military duty." Had the Russian Government been genuinely desirous of rendering military duty uniform for all estates, there would have been no need of issuing separately for the Jews a huge enactment of ninety-five clauses, with supplementary "instructions," consisting of sixty-two clauses, for the guidance of the civil and military authorities. All that was necessary was to declare that the general military statute applied also to the Jews. Instead, the reverse stipulation is made: "The general laws and institutions are not valid in the case of the Jews" when at variance with the special statute (Clause 3). The discriminating character of Jewish conscription looms particularly large in the central portion of the statute. Jewish families were stricken with terror on reading the eighth clause of the statute prescribing that "the Jewish conscripts presented by the [Jewish] communes shall be between the ages of twelve and twenty-five." This provision was supplemented by Clause 74: "Jewish minors, i.e., below the age of eighteen, shall be placed in preparatory establishments for military training." True, the institution of minor recruits, called _cantonists_, [1] existed also for Christians. But in their case it was confined to the children of soldiers in active service, by virtue of the principle laid down by Arakcheyev [2] that children born of soldiers were the property of the Military Department, whereas the conscription of Jewish minors was to be absolute and to apply to all Jewish families without discrimination. To make things worse, the law demanded that the years of preparatory training should not be included in the term of active service, the latter to start only with the age of eighteen (Clause 90); in other words, the Jewish cantonists were compelled to serve an additional term of six years over and above the obligatory twenty-five years. Moreover, at the examination of Jewish conscripts, all that was demanded for their enlistment was "that they be free from any disease or defect incompatible with military service, but the other qualifications required by the general rules shall be left out of consideration" (Clause 10). [Footnote 1: From _Canton_, a word applied in Prussia in the eighteenth century to a recruiting district. In Russia, beginning with 1805, the term "cantonists" is applied to children born of soldiers and therefore liable to conscription.] [Footnote 2: See Vol. I, p. 395, n. 1.] The duty of enlisting the recruits was imposed upon the Jewish communes, or Kahals, which were to elect for that purpose between three and six executive officers, or "trustees," in every city. The community as such was held responsible for the supply of a given number of recruits from its own midst. It was authorized to draft into military service any Jew guilty "of irregularity in the payment of taxes, of vagrancy, and other misdemeanors." In case the required number of recruits was not forthcoming within a given term, the authorities were empowered to obtain them from the derelict community "by way of execution." [1] Any irregularity on the part of the recruiting "trustees" was to be punished by the imposition of fines or even by sending them into the army. [Footnote 1: The term "execution" (_ekzekutzia_) is used in Russian to designate a writ empowering an officer to carry a judgment into effect, in other words, to resort to forcible seizure.] The following categories of Jews were exempted from military duty: merchants holding membership in guilds, artisans affiliated with trade-unions, mechanics in factories, agricultural colonists, rabbis, and the Jews, few and far between at that time, who had graduated from a Russian educational institution. Those exempted from military service in kind were required to pay "recruiting money," one thousand rubles for each recruit. The general law providing that a regular recruit could offer as his substitute a "volunteer" was extended to the Jews, with the proviso that the volunteer must also be a Jew. The "Instructions" to the civil authorities, appended to the statute, specify the formalities to be followed both at the recruiting stations and in administering the oath of allegiance to the conscripts in the synagogues. The latter ceremony was to be marked by gloomy solemnity. The recruit was to be arrayed in his prayer-shawl (Tallith) and shroud (Kittel). With his philacteries wound around his arm, he should be placed before the Ark and, amidst burning candles and to the accompaniment of shofar blasts, made to recite a lengthy awe-inspiring oath. The "Instructions" to the military authorities accompanying the statute prescribe that every batch of Jewish conscripts "shall be entrusted to a special officer to be watched over, prior to their departure for their places of destination, and shall be kept apart from the other recruits." Both in the places of conscription and on the journey the Jewish recruits were to be quartered exclusively in the homes of Christian residents. The promulgated "military constitution" surpassed the very worst apprehension of the Jews. All were staggered by this sudden blow, which descended crushingly upon the mode of life, the time-honored traditions, and the religious ideals of the Jewish people. The Jewish family nests became astir, trembling for their fledglings. Barely a month after the publication of the military statute, the central Government in St. Petersburg was startled by the report that the Volhynian town of Old-Constantine had been the scene of "mutiny and disorders among the Jews" on the occasion of the promulgation of the ukase. Benckendorff, the Chief of the Gendarmerie, [1] conveyed this information to the Tzar, who thereupon gave orders that "in all similar cases the culprits be court-martialed". Evidently, the St. Petersburg authorities apprehended a whole series of Jewish mutinies, as a result of the dreadful ukase, and they were ready with extraordinary measures for the emergency. [Footnote 1: Since 1827 the Gendarmerie served as the executive organ of the political police, or of the so-called Third Section, dreaded throughout Russia on account of its relentless cruelty in suppressing the slightest manifestation of liberal thought. The Third Section was nominally abolished in 1880.] However, their apprehensions were unfounded. Apart from the incident referred to, there were no cases of open rebellion against the authorities. As a matter of fact, even in Old-Constantine, the "mutiny" was of a nature little calculated to be dealt with by a court-martial. According to the local tradition, the Jewish residents, Hasidim almost to a man, were so profoundly stirred by the imperial ukase that they assembled in the synagogues, fasting and praying, and finally resolved to adopt "energetic" measures. A petition reciting their grievances against the Tzar was framed in due form and placed in the hands of a member of the community who had just died, with the request that the deceased present it to the Almighty, the God of Israel. This childlike appeal to the heavenly King from the action of an earthly sovereign and the emotional scenes accompanying it were interpreted by the Russian authorities as "mutiny." Under the patriarchal conditions of Jewish life prevailing at that time a political protest was a matter of impossibility. The only medium through which the Jews could give vent to their burning national sorrow was a religious demonstration within the walls of the synagogue. 3. MILITARY MARTYRDOM The ways and means by which the provisions of the military statute were carried into effect during the reign of Nicholas I. we do not learn from official documents, which seem to have drawn a veil over this dismal strip of the past. Our information is derived from sources far more communicative and nearer to truth--the traditions current among the people. Owing to the fact that every Jewish community, at the mutual responsibility of all its members, was compelled by law to supply a definite number of recruits, and that no one was willing to become a soldier of his own volition, the Kahal administration and the recruiting "trustees," who had to answer to the authorities for any shortage in recruits, were practically forced to become a sort of police agents, whose function it was to "capture" the necessary quota of recruits. Prior to every military conscription, the victims marked for prey, the young men and boys of the burgher class, [1] very generally took to flight, hiding in distant cities, outside the zone of their Kahals, or in forests and ravines. A popular song in Yiddish refers to these conditions in the following words; [Footnote 1: Compare on the status of the burgher in Russian law Vol. I, p. 308, n. 2. Nearly all the higher estates were exempt.] _Der Ukas is arobgekumen auf judische Selner, Seinen mir sich zulofen in die puste Waelder..... In alle puste Waelder seinen mir zulofen, In puste Gruber seinen mir verlofen_..... Oi weih, oi weih!_....[1] [Footnote 1: When the ukase came down about Jewish soldiers, We all dispersed over the lonesome forests; Over the lonesome forests did we disperse, In lonesome pits did we hide ourselves.... Woe me, Woe!] The recruiting agents hired by the Kahal or its "trustees," who received the nickname "hunters" or "captors," [1] hunted down the fugitives, trailing them everywhere and capturing them for the purpose of making up the shortage. In default of a sufficient number of adults, little children, who were easier "catch," were seized, often enough in violation of the provision of the law. Even boys under the required age of twelve, sometimes no more than eight years old, were caught and offered as conscripts at the recruiting stations, their age being misstated. [2] The agents perpetrated incredible cruelties. Houses were raided during the night, and children were torn from the arms of their mothers, or lured away and kidnapped. [Footnote 1: More literally "catchers"; in Yiddish _Khappers_.] [Footnote 2: This was the more easy, as regular birth-registers were not yet in existence.] After being captured, the Jewish conscripts were sent into the recruiting jail where they were kept in confinement until their examination at the recruiting station. The enlisted minors were turned over to a special officer to be dispatched to their places of destination, mostly in the Eastern provinces including Siberia. For it must be noted that the cantonists were stationed almost to a man in the outlying Russian governments, where they could be brought up at a safe distance from all Jewish influences. The unfortunate victims who were drafted into the army and deported to these far-off regions were mourned by their relatives as dead. During the autumnal season, when the recruits were drafted and deported, the streets of the Jewish towns resounded with moans. The juvenile cantonists were packed into wagons like so many sheep and carried off in batches under a military convoy. When they took leave of their dear ones it was for a quarter of a century; in the case of children it was for a longer term, too often it was good-bye for life. How these unfortunate youngsters were driven to their places of destination we learn from the description of Alexander Hertzen, [1] who chanced to meet a batch of Jewish cantonists on his involuntary journey through Vyatka, in 1835. At one of the post stations in some God-forsaken village of the Vyatka government he met the escorting officer. The following dialogue ensued between the two: [Footnote 1: Hertzen, a famous Russian writer (d. 1870), was exiled to the government of Vyatka for propagating liberal doctrines.] "Whom do you carry and to what place?" "Well, sir, you see, they got together a bunch of these accursed Jewish youngsters between the age of eight and nine. I suppose they are meant for the fleet, but how should I know? At first the command was to drive them to Perm. Now there is a change. We are told to drive them to Kazan. I have had them on my hands for a hundred versts or thereabouts. The officer that turned them over to me told me they were an awful nuisance. A third of them remained on the road (at this the officer pointed with his finger to the ground). Half of them will not get to their destination," he added. "Epidemics, I suppose?", I inquired, stirred to the very core. "No, not exactly epidemics; but they just fall like flies. Well, you know, these Jewish boys are so puny and delicate. They can't stand mixing dirt for ten hours, with dry biscuits to live on. Again everywhere strange folks, no father, no mother, no caresses. Well then, you just hear a cough and the youngster is dead. Hello, corporal, get out the small fry!" The little ones were assembled and arrayed in a military line. It was one of the most terrible spectacles I have ever witnessed. Poor, poor children! The boys of twelve or thirteen managed somehow to stand up, but the little ones of eight and ten.... No brush, however black, could convey the terror of this scene on the canvas. Pale, worn out, with scared looks, this is the way they stood in their uncomfortable, rough soldier uniforms, with their starched, turned-up collars, fixing an inexpressibly helpless and pitiful gaze upon the garrisoned soldiers, who were handling them rudely. White lips, blue lines under the eyes betokened either fever or cold. And these poor children, without care, without a caress, exposed to the wind which blows unhindered from the Arctic Ocean, were marching to their death. I seized the officer's hand, and, with the words: "Take good care of them! ", threw myself into my carriage. I felt like sobbing, and I knew I could not master myself.... The great Russian writer saw the Jewish cantonists on the road, but he knew nothing of what happened to them later on, in the recesses of the barracks into which they were driven. This terrible secret was revealed to the world at a later period by the few survivors among these martyred Jewish children. Having arrived at their destination, the juvenile conscripts were put into the cantonist battalions. The "preparation for military service" began with their religious re-education at the hands of sergeants and corporals. No means was, neglected so long as it bade fair to bring the children to the baptismal font. The authorities refrained from giving formal instructions, leaving everything to the zeal of the officers who knew the wishes of their superiors. The children were first sent for spiritual admonition to the local Greek-Orthodox priests, whose efforts, however, proved fruitless in nearly every case. They were then taken in hand by the sergeants and corporals who adopted military methods of persuasion. These brutal soldiers invented all kinds of tortures. A favorite procedure was to make the cantonists get down on their knees in the evening after all had gone to bed and to keep the sleepy children in that position for hours. Those who agreed to be baptized were sent to bed, those who refused were kept up the whole night till they dropped from exhaustion. The children who continued to hold their own were flogged and, under the guise of gymnastic exercises, subjected to all kinds of tortures. Those that refused to eat pork or the customary cabbage soup prepared with lard were beaten and left to starve. Others were fed on salted fish and then forbidden to drink, until the little ones, tormented by thirst, agreed to embrace Christianity. The majority of these children, unable to endure the tortures inflicted on them, saved themselves by baptism. But many cantonists, particularly those of a maturer age (between fifteen and eighteen), bore their martyrdom with heroic patience. Beaten almost into senselessness, their bodies striped by lashes, tormented to the point of exhaustion by hunger, thirst, and sleeplessness, the lads declared again and again that they would not betray the faith of their fathers. Most of these obstinate youths were carried from the barracks into the military hospitals to be released by a kind death. Only a few remained alive. Alongside of this passive heroism there were cases of demonstrative martyrdom. One such incident has survived in the popular memory. The story goes that during a military parade [1] in the city of Kazan the battalion chief drew up all the Jewish cantonists on the banks of the river, where the Greek-Orthodox priests were standing in their vestments, and all was ready for the baptismal ceremony. At the command to jump into the water, the boys answered in military fashion "Aye, aye!" Whereupon they dived under and disappeared. When they were dragged out, they were dead. In most cases, however, these little martyrs suffered and died noiselessly, in the gloom of the guard-houses, barracks, and military hospitals. They strewed with their tiny bodies the roads that led into the outlying regions of the Empire, and those that managed to get there were fading away slowly in the barracks which had been turned into inquisitorial dungeons. This martyrdom of children, set in a military environment, represents a singular phenomenon even in the extensive annals of Jewish martyrology. [Footnote 1: A variant of the legend speaks of a review by the Tzar himself.] Such was the lot of the juvenile cantonists. As for the adult recruits, who were drafted into the army at the normal age of conscription (18-25), their conversion to Christianity was not pursued by the same direct methods, but their fate was not a whit less tragic from the moment of their capture till the end of their grievous twenty-five years' service. Youths, who had no knowledge of the Russian language, were torn away from the heder or yeshibah, often from wife and children. In consequence of the early marriages then in vogue, most youths at the age of eighteen were married. The impending separation for a quarter of a century, added to the danger of the soldier's apostasy or death in far-off regions, often disrupted the family ties. Many recruits, before entering upon their military career, gave their wives a divorce so as not to doom them to perpetual widowhood. At the end of 1834 rumors began to spread among the Jewish masses concerning a law which was about to be issued forbidding early marriages but exempting from conscription those married prior to the promulgation of the law. A panic ensued. Everywhere feverish haste was displayed in marrying off boys from ten to fifteen years old to girls of an equally tender age. Within a few months there appeared in every city hundreds and thousands of such couples, whose marital relations were often confined to playing with nuts or bones. The misunderstanding which had caused this senseless matrimonial panic or _beholoh,_[1] as it was afterwards popularly called, was cleared up by the publication, on April 13, 1835, of the new "Statute on the Jews." To be sure, the new law contained a clause forbidding marriages before the age of eighteen, but it offered no privileges for those already married, so that the only result of the _beholoh_ was to increase the number of families robbed by conscription of their heads and supporters. [Footnote 1: A Hebrew word, also used in Yiddish, meaning _fright, panic_.] The years of military service were spent by the grown-up Jewish soldiers amidst extraordinary hardships. They were beaten and ridiculed because of their inability to express themselves in Russian, their refusal to eat _trefa_, and their general lack of adaptation to the strange environment and to the military mode of life. And even when this process of adaptation was finally accomplished, the Jewish soldier was never promoted beyond the position of a non-commissioned under-officer, baptism being the inevitable stepping-stone to a higher rank. True, the Statute on Military Service promised those Jewish soldiers who had completed their term in the army with distinction admission to the civil service, but the promise remained on paper so long as the candidates were loyal to Judaism. On the contrary, the Jews who had completed their military service and had in most cases become invalids were not even allowed to spend the rest of their lives in the localities outside the Pale, in which they had been stationed as soldiers. Only at a later period, during the reign of Alexander II., was this right accorded to the "Nicholas soldiers" [1] and their descendants. [Footnote 1: In Russian, _Nikolayevskiye soldaty_, i.e., those that had served in the army during the reign of Nicholas I.] The full weight of conscription fell upon the poorest classes of the Jewish population, the so-called burgher estate, [1] consisting of petty artisans and those impoverished tradesmen who could not afford to enrol in the mercantile guilds, though there are cases on record where poor Jews begged from door to door to collect a sufficient sum of money for a guild certificate in order to save their children from military service. The more or less well-to-do were exempted from conscription either by virtue of their mercantile status or because of their connections with the Kahal leaders who had the power of selecting the victims. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 23, n. 1.] 4. THE POLICY OF EXPULSIONS In all lands of Western Europe the introduction of personal military service for the Jews was either accompanied or preceded by their emancipation. At all events, it was followed by some mitigation of their disabilities, serving, so to speak, as an earnest of the grant of equal rights. Even in clerical Austria, the imposition of military duty upon the Jews was preceded by the _Toleranz Patent_, this would-be Act of Emancipation. [1] [Footnote 1: Military service was imposed upon the Jews of Austria by the law of 1787. Several years previously, on January 2, 1782, Emperor Joseph II. had issued his famous Toleration Act, removing a number of Jewish disabilities and opening the way to their assimilation with the environment. Nevertheless, most of the former restrictions remained in force.] In Russia the very reverse took place. The introduction of military conscription of a most aggravating kind and the unspeakable cruelties attending its practical execution were followed, in the case of the Jews, by an unprecedented recrudescence of legislative discrimination and a monstrous increase of their disabilities. The Jews were lashed with a double knout, a military and a civil. In the same ill-fated year which saw the promulgation of the conscription statute, barely three months after it had received the imperial sanction, while the moans of the Jews, fasting and praying to God to deliver them from the calamity, were still echoing in the synagogues, two new ukases were issued, both signed on December 2, 1827--the one decreeing the transfer of the Jews from all villages and village inns in the government of Grodno into the towns and townlets, the other ordering the banishment of all Jewish residents from the city of Kiev. The expulsion from the Grodno villages was the continuation of the policy of the _rural_ liquidation of Jewry, inaugurated in 1823 in White Russia. [1] The Grodno province was merely meant to serve as a starting point. Grand Duke Constantine, [2] who had brought up the question, was ordered "_at first_ to carry out the expulsion in the government of Grodno alone," and to postpone for a later occasion the application of the same measure to the other "governments entrusted to his command." Simultaneously considerable foresight was displayed in instructing the grand duke to wait with the expulsion of the Jews "until the conclusion of the military conscription going on at present." Evidently there was some fear of disorders and complications. It was thought wiser to seize the children for the army first and then to expel the parents--to get hold of the young birds and then to destroy the nest. [Footnote 1: It may be remarked here that the principal enactments of that period, down to 1835, were, drafted in their preliminary stage by the "Jewish Committee" established in 1823. See Vol. I, p. 407 _et seq._] [Footnote 2: Commander-in-Chief of the former Polish provinces. See p. 16, n. 2.] The expulsion from Kiev was of a different order. It marked the beginning of a new system, the narrowing down of the _urban_ area allotted to the Jews within the Pale of Settlement. Since 1794 [1] the Jews had been allowed to settle in Kiev freely. They had formed there, with official sanction, an important community and had vastly developed commerce and industry. Suddenly, however, the Government discovered that "their presence is detrimental to the industry of this city and to the exchequer in general, and is, moreover, at variance with the rights and privileges conferred at different periods upon the city of Kiev." The discovery was followed by a grim rescript from St. Petersburg, forbidding not only the further settlement of Jews in Kiev but also prescribing that even those settled there long ago should leave the city within one year, those owning immovable property within two years. Henceforward only the temporary sojourn of Jews, for a period not exceeding six months, was to be permitted and to be limited, moreover, to merchants of the first two guilds who arrive "in connection with contracts and fairs" or to attend to public bids and deliveries. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 317.] In 1829 the whip of expulsion cracked over the backs of the Jews dwelling on the shores of the Baltic and the Black Sea. In Courland and Livonia measures were taken "looking to the reduction of the number of Jews" which had been considerably swelled by the influx of "newcomers"--of Jews not born in those provinces and therefore having no right to settle there. The Tzar endorsed the proposal of the "Jewish Committee" to transfer from Courland all Jews not born there into the cities in which their birth was registered. Those not yet registered in a municipality outside the province were granted a half-year's respite for that purpose. If within the prescribed term they failed to attend to their registration, they were to be sent to the army, or, in case of unfitness for military service, deported to Siberia. In the same year an imperial ukase declared that "the residence of civilian Jews in the cities of Sevastopol and Nicholayev was inconvenient and injurious," in view of the military and naval importance of these places, and therefore decreed the expulsion of their Jewish residents: those owning real property within two years, the others within one year. By a new ukase issued in 1830 the Jews were expelled from the villages and hamlets of the government of Kiev. Thus were human beings hurled about from village to town, from city to city, from province to province, with no more concern than might be displayed in the transportation of cattle. This process of "mobilization" had reached its climax when the Polish insurrection of 1830-1831 broke out, affecting the whole Western region. [1] Fearing lest the persecuted Jews might be driven into the arms of the Poles, the Government decided on a strategic retreat. In February, 1831, in consequence of the representations of the local military commander, who urged the Government "to take into consideration the present political circumstances, in which they (the Jews) may occasionally prove useful," the final expulsion of the Jews from Kiev was postponed for three years. At the end of the three years, the governor of Kiev made similar representations to St. Petersburg, emphasizing the desirability of allowing the Jews to remain in the city, even though it might become necessary to segregate them in a special quarter, "this (i.e., their remaining in the city) being found useful also in this respect that, on account of their temperate and simple habits of life, they are in a position to sell their goods considerably cheaper, whereas in the case of their expulsion many articles and manufactures will rise in price." Nicholas I. rejected this plea, and only agreed to postpone the expulsion until February, 1835, for the reason that the new "Statute Concerning the Jews," then in preparation, which was to define the general legal status of Russian Jewry, was expected to be ready by that time. Similar short reprieves were granted to the Jews about to be exiled from Nicholayev, from the villages of the government of Kiev, and from other places. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 16, n. 1.] 5. THE CODIFICATION OF JEWISH DISABILITIES No sooner had the conscription ukase been issued than the bureaucrats of St. Petersburg began to apply themselves in the hidden recesses of their chancelleries to a new civil code for the Jews, which was to supersede the antiquated Statute of 1804. The work passed through a number of departments. The projected enactment was framed by the "Jewish Committee," which had been established in 1823 for the purpose of bringing about "a reduction of the number of Jews in the monarchy," and consisted of cabinet ministers and the chiefs of departments. [1] Originally the department chiefs had elaborated a draft covering 1230 clauses, a gigantic code of disabilities; evidently founded on the principle that in the case of Jews everything is forbidden which, is not permitted by special legislation. The dimensions of the draft were such that even the Government was appalled and decided to turn it over to the ministerial members of the Committee. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 407 et seq.] Modified in shape and reduced in size, the code was submitted in 1834 to the Department of Laws forming part of the Council of State, and after careful discussion by the Department of Laws was brought up at the plenary sessions of the Council. The "ministerial" draft, though smaller in bulk, was marked by such severity that the Department of Laws found it necessary to tone it down. The ministers, with the exception of the Minister of Finance, had proposed to transfer all Jews, within a period of three years, from the villages to the towns and townlets. The Department of Laws considered this measure too risky, pointing to the White Russian expulsion of 1823, which had failed to produce the expected results, and, "while it has ruined the Jews, it does not in the least seem to have improved the condition of the villagers." [1] The plenum of the Council agreed with the Department of Laws that "the proposed expulsion of the Jews (from the villages), being extremely difficult of execution and being of problematic benefit, should be eliminated from the Statute and should be stopped even there where it had been decreed but not carried into effect." [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 407.] The report was laid before the Tzar, who attached to it the following "resolution": [1] "Where this measure (of expulsion) has been started, it is inconvenient to repeal it; but it shall be postponed for the time being in the governments in which no steps towards it have as yet been made." For a number of years this "resolution" hung like the sword of Damocles over the heads of rural Jewry. [Footnote 1: See on the meaning of the term "resolution" Vol. I, p. 253, n. 1.] Less yielding was the Tzar's attitude on the question of the partial enlargement of the Pale of Settlement. The Department of Laws had suggested to grant the merchants of the first guild the right of residence in the Russian interior in the interest of the exchequer and big business. At the general meeting of the Council of State only a minority (thirteen) voted for the proposal. The majority (twenty-two) argued that they had no right to violate the time-honored tradition, "dating from the time of Peter the Great," which bars the Jews from the Russian interior; that to admit them "would produce a very unpleasant impression upon our people, which, on account of its religious notions and its general estimate of the moral peculiarities of the Jews, has become accustomed to keep aloof from them and to despise them;" that the countries of Western Europe, which had accorded fall citizenship to the Jews, "cannot serve as an example for Russia, partly because of the incomparably larger number of Jews living here, partly because our Government and people, with all their well-known tolerance, are yet far from that indifference with which certain other nations look upon religious matters." After marking his approval of the last words by the marginal exclamation "Thank God!", the Tzar disposed of the whole matter in the following brief resolution: "This question has been determined by Peter the Great. I dare not change it; I completely share the opinion of the twenty-two members." While on this occasion the Tzar endorsed the opinion of the Council as represented by its majority, in cases in which it proved favorable to the Jews he did not hesitate to set it aside. Thus the Department of Laws, as part of the Council of State, and, following in its wake, the Council itself had timidly suggested to Nicholas to comply in part with the plea of the Jews for a mitigation of the rigors of conscription, [1] but the imperial verdict read: "To be left as heretofore." Nicholas remained equally firm on the question of the expulsions from Kiev. The Department of Laws, guided by the previously-mentioned representations of the local governor, favored the postponement of the expulsion, and fourteen members of the plenary Council agreed with the suggestion of the Department, and resolved to recommend it to the "benevolent consideration of his Majesty," in other words to request the Tzar to revoke the baneful ukase. But fifteen, members rejected all such propositions on the ground that, as far as that question was concerned, the imperial will was unmistakable, the Tzar having decided the matter in a sense unfavorable to the Jews. In a similar manner, numerous other decisions of the Council of State were dictated not so much by inner conviction as by fear of the clearly manifested imperial will, which no one dared to cross. [Footnote 1: The Kahal of Vilna, in a memorandum submitted in 1835, pleaded for the abolition of the dreadful institution of cantonists, and begged that the age limit of Jewish recruits be raised from 12-15 to 20-35.] Under these circumstances, the entire draft of the statute passed through the Council of State. In its session of March 28, 1835, the Council voted to submit it to the emperor for his signature. On this occasion a solitary and belated voice was raised in defence of the Jews, without evoking an echo. A member of the Council, Admiral Greig, who was brave enough to swim against the current, submitted a "special opinion" on the proposed statute, in which he advocated a number of alleviations in the intolerable legal status of the Jews. Greig put the whole issue in a nut-shell: "Are the Jews to be suffered in the country, or not?" If they are, then we must abandon the system "of hampering them in their actions and in their religious customs" and grant them at least "equal liberty of commerce with the others," for in this case "we may anticipate more good from their gratitude than from their hatred." Should, however, the conclusion be reached that the Jews ought not to be tolerated in Russia, then the only thing to be done is "to banish them all without exception from the country into foreign lands." This might be "more useful than to allow this estate to remain in the country and to keep it in a position which is bound to arouse in them continual dissatisfaction and resentment." It need scarcely be added that the voice of the "queer" admiral found no hearing. Nor did the Jewish people manage to get a hearing. Stunned by the uninterrupted succession of blows and moved by the spirit of martyrdom, Russian Jewry kept its peace during those dismal years. Yet, when the news of an impending general regulation of the Jewish legal status began to leak out, a section of Russian Jewry became astir. For to anticipate a blow is more excruciating than to receive one, and it was quite natural that an attempt should be made to stay the hand which was lifted to strike. Towards the end of 1833 the Council of State received, as part of the material bearing on the Jewish question, two memoranda, one from the Kahal of Vilna, signed by six elders, and another from Litman Feigin of Chernigov, well known in administrative circles as merchant and public contractor. The Kahal of Vilna declared that the repressive policy, pursued during the last few years by the "Jewish Committee," had thrown a large part of the Jewish people "into utmost disorder," and had made the Jews "shiver and shudder at the thought that a general Jewish statute had been drafted by the same Committee and had now been submitted to the Council of State for revision." The petitioners go on to say that, weighed down by a succession of cruel discriminations affecting not only their rights but also their mode of discharging military service, the Jews would succumb to utter despair, did they not repose their hopes in the benevolence of the Tzar, who, on his recent trip through the Western provinces, had expressed to the deputies of the Jewish communes his imperial satisfaction with the loyalty to the throne displayed by the Jews during the Polish insurrection of 1831. The Kahal of Vilna, therefore, implored the Council of State "to turn its attention to this unfortunate and maligned people" and to stop all further persecutions. A more emphatic note of protest is sounded in the memorandum of Feigin. By a string of references to the latest Government measures he demonstrates the fact that "the Jewish people is hunted down, not because of its moral qualities but because of its faith." The Jews, faced by the new statute, have lost all hope for a better lot, inasmuch as the Government has embarked upon this measure without having solicited the explanations or justifications of this people, whereas, according to common legal procedure, even an individual may not be condemned without having been called upon to justify himself. The rebuke had no effect. The Government preferred to render its verdict _in absentia_, without listening to counsel for the defence and without any safeguards of fair play. In line with this attitude, it also denied the petition of the Vilna Kahal to be allowed "to send at least four deputies to the capital as spokesmen of the entire Jewish people for the purpose of submitting to the Government their explanations and propositions concerning the reorganization of the Jews, after having been presented with a draft of the statute." The final verdict was pronounced in the spring of 1835, and in April the new "Statute concerning the Jews" received the signature of the Tzar. This "Charter of Disabilities," which was destined to operate for many decades, represents a combination of the Russian "ground laws" concerning the Jews and the restrictive by-laws issued after 1804. The Pale of Settlement was now accurately defined: it consisted of Lithuania [1] and the South-western provinces, [2] without any territorial restrictions, White Russia [3] minus the Villages, Little Russia [4] minus the crown hamlets, New Russia [5] minus Nicholayev and Sevastopol, the government of Kiev minus the city of Kiev, the Baltic provinces for the old settlers only, while the rural settlements on the entire fifty-verst zone along the Western frontier were to be closed to newcomers. As for the interior provinces, only temporary "furloughs" (limited to six weeks and to be certified by gubernatorial passports) were to be granted for the execution of judicial and commercial affairs, with the proviso that the travellers should wear Russian instead of Jewish dress. The merchants affiliated with the first and second guilds were allowed, in addition, to visit the two capitals, [6] the sea-ports, as well as the fairs of Nizhni-Novgorod, Kharkov, and other big fairs for wholesale buying or selling. [7] [Footnote 1: The present governments of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, and Minsk.] [Footnote 2: The governments of Volhynia and Podolia.] [Footnote 3: The governments of Vitebsk and Moghilev.] [Footnote 4: The governments of Chernigov and Poltava.] [Footnote 5: The governments of Kherson, Yekaterinoslav, Tavrida, and Bessarabia.] [Footnote 6: St. Petersburg and Moscow.] [Footnote 7: The time-limit was six months for the merchants of the first guild and three months for those of the second.] The Jews were further forbidden to employ Christian domestics for permanent employment. They could hire Christians for occasional services only, on condition that the latter live in separate quarters. Marriages at an earlier age than eighteen for the bridegroom and sixteen for the bride were forbidden under the pain of imprisonment--a prohibition which the defective registration of births and marriages then in vogue made it easy to evade. The language to be employed by the Jews in their public documents was to be Russian or any other local dialect, but "under no circumstances the Hebrew language." The function of the Kahal, according to the Statute, is to see to it that the "instructions of the authorities" are carried out precisely and that the state taxes and communal assessments are "correctly remitted." The Kahal elders are to be elected by the community every three years from among persons who can read and write Russian, subject to their being ratified by the gubernatorial administration. At the same time the Jews are entitled to participation in the municipal elections; those who can read and write Russian are eligible as members of the town councils and magistracies--the supplementary law of 1836 fixed the rate at one-third, [1] excepting the city of Vilna where the Jews were entirely excluded from municipal self-government. [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 368.] Synagogues may not be built in the vicinity of churches. The Russian schools of all grades are to be open to Jewish children, who "are not compelled to change their religion" (Clause 106)--a welcome provision in view of the compulsory methods which had then become habitual. The coercive baptism of Jewish children was provided for in a separate enactment, the Statute on Conscription, which is declared "to remain in force." In this way the Statute of 1835 reduces itself to a codification of the whole mass of the preceding anti-Jewish legislation. Its only positive feature was that it put a stop to the expulsion from the villages which had ruined the Jewish population during the years 1804-1830. 6. THE RUSSIAN CENSORSHIP AND CONVERSIONIST ENDEAVORS With all its discriminations, the promulgation of this general statute was far from checking the feverish activity of the Government. With indefatigable zeal, its hands went on turning the legislative wheel and squeezing ever tighter the already unbearable vise of Jewish life. The slightest attempt to escape from its pressure was punished ruthlessly. In 1838 the police of St. Petersburg discovered a group of Jews in the capital "with expired passports," these Jews having extended their stay there a little beyond the term fixed for Jewish travellers, and the Tzar curtly decreed: "to be sent to serve in the penal companies of Kronstadt." [1] In 1840 heavy fines were imposed upon the landed proprietors in the Great Russian governments for "keeping over" Jews on their estates. [Footnote 1: A fortress in the vicinity of St Petersburg.] Considerable attention was bestowed by the Government on placing the spiritual life of the Jews under police supervision. In 1836 a censorship campaign was launched against Hebrew literature. Hebrew books, which were then almost exclusively of a religious nature, such as prayer-books, Bible and Talmud editions, rabbinic, cabalistic, and hasidic writings, were then issuing from the printing presses of Vilna, Slavuta, [1] and other places, and were subject to a rigorous censorship exercised by Christians or by Jewish converts. Practically every Jewish home-library consisted of religious works of this type. The suspicions of the Government were aroused by certain Jewish converts who had insinuated that the foreign editions of these works and those that had appeared in Russia itself prior to the establishment of a censorship were of an "injurious" character. As a result, all Jewish home-libraries were subjected to a search. Orders were given to deliver into the hands of the local police, in the course of that year, all foreign Hebrew prints as well as the uncensored editions, published at any previous time in Russia, and to entrust their revision to "dependable" rabbis. These rabbis were instructed to put their stamp on the books approved by them and return the books not approved by them to the police for transmission to the Ministry of the Interior. The regulation involved the entire ancient Hebrew literature printed during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, prior to the establishment of the Russian censorship. In order to "facilitate the supervision" over new publications or reprints from older editions, all Jewish printing presses which existed at that time in various cities and towns were ordered closed, and only those of Vilna and Kiev, [2] to which special censors were attached, were allowed to remain. [Footnote 1: A town in Volhynia.] [Footnote 2: The printing-press of Kiev was subsequently transferred to Zhitomir.] As the Hebrew authors of antiquity or the Middle Ages did not fully anticipate the requirements of the Russian censors, many classic works were found to contain passages which were thought to be "at variance with imperial enactments." By the ukase of 1836 all books of this kind, circulating in tens of thousands of copies, had to be transported to St. Petersburg under a police escort to await their final verdict. The procedure, however, proved too cumbersome, and, in 1837, the emperor, complying with the petitions of the governors, was graciously pleased to command that all these books be "delivered to the flames on the spot." This _auto-da-fe_ was to be witnessed by a member of the gubernatorial administration and a special "dependable" official dispatched by the governor for the sole purpose of making a report to the central Government on every literary conflagration of this kind and forwarding to the Ministry of the Interior one copy of each "annihilated" book. But even this was not enough to satisfy the lust of the Russian censorship. It was now suspected that even the "dependable" rabbis might pass many a book as "harmless," though its contents were subversive of the public weal. As a result, a new ukase was issued in 1841, placing the rabbinical censors themselves under Government control. All uncensored books, including those already passed as "harmless," were ordered to be taken away from the private libraries and forwarded to the censorship committees in Vilna and Kiev. The latter were instructed to attach their seals to the approved books and "deliver to the flames" the books condemned by them. Endless wagonloads of these confiscated books could be seen moving towards Vilna and Kiev, and for many years afterwards the literature of the "People of the Book," covering a period of three milleniums, was still languishing in the gaol of censorship, waiting to be saved from or to be sentenced to a fiery death by a Russian official. It is almost unnecessary to add that the primitive method of solving the Jewish problem by means of conversion, was still the guiding principle of the Government. The Russian legislation of that period teems with regulations concerning apostasy. The surrender of the Synagogue to the Church seemed merely a question of time. In reality, however, the Government itself believed but half-heartedly in the sincerity of the converted Jews. In 1827 the Tzar put down in his own handwriting the following resolution: "It is to be strictly observed that the baptismal ceremony shall take place unconditionally on a Sunday, and with all possible publicity, so as to remove all suspicion of a pretended adoption of Christianity." Subsequently, this watchfulness had to be relaxed in the case of those "who avoid publicity in adopting Christianity," more especially in the case of the cantonists, "who have declared their willingness to embrace the orthodox faith"--under the effect, we may add, of the tortures in the barracks. Sincerity under these circumstances was out of the question, and, in 1831, the battalion chaplains were authorized to baptize these helpless creatures, even "without applying for permission to the ecclesiastical authorities." The barrack missionaries were frequently successful among these unfortunate military prisoners. In the imperial rescripts of that period the characteristic expression "privates from among the Jews _remaining in the above faith_" figures as a standing designation for that group of refractory and incorrigible soldiers who disturbed the officially pre-established harmony of epidemic conversions by remaining loyal to Judaism. But among the "civilian" Jews, who had not been detached from their Jewish environment, apostasy was extraordinarily rare, and law after law was promulgated in vain, offering privileges to converts or leniency to criminals who were ready to embrace the orthodox creed. [1] [Footnote 1: Under Clause 157 of the Russian Penal Code of 1845, the penalty of the law was softened, not only in degree but also in kind, for those criminals who had embraced the Greek-Orthodox faith during the investigation or trial.] CHAPTER XIV COMPULSORY ENLIGHTENMENT AND INCREASED OPPRESSION 1. ENLIGHTENMENT AS A MEANS OF ASSIMILATION There was a brief moment of respite when, in the phrase of the Russian poet, "the fighter's hand was tired of killing." The Russian Government suddenly felt the need of passing over from the medieval forms of patronage to more enlightened and perfected methods. Among the leading statesmen of Russia were men, such as the Minister of Public Instruction, Sergius Uvarov, who were well acquainted with Western European ways and fully aware of the fact that the reactionary governments of Austria and Prussia had invented several contrivances for handling the Jewish problem which might be usefully applied in their own country. Though anxious to avoid all contact with the "rotten West," and being in constant fear of European political movements, the Russian Government was nevertheless ready to seize upon the relics of "enlightened absolutism" which were still stalking about, particularly in Austria, in the early decades of the nineteenth century. As far as Prussia was concerned, the abundance of assimilated and converted Jews in that country and their attempts at religious reform, which to a missionary's imagination were identical with a change of front in favor of Christianity, had a fascination of its own for the Russian dignitaries. No wonder then that the Government yielded to the temptation to use some of the contrivances of Western European reaction, while holding in reserve the police knout of genuine Russian manufacture. In 1840 the Council of State was again busy discussing the Jewish question, this time from a theoretic point of view. The reports of the provincial administrators, in particular that of Bibikov, governor-general of Kiev, dwelled on the fact that even the "Statute" of 1835 had not succeeded in "correcting" the Jews. The root of the evil lay rather in their "religious fanaticism and separatism," which could only be removed by changing their inner life. The Ministers of Public Instruction and of the Interior, Uvarov and Stroganov, took occasion to expound the principles of their new system of correction before the Council of State. The discussions culminated in a remarkable memorandum submitted by the Council to Nicholas I. In this document the Government confesses its impotence in grappling with the "defects" of the Jewish masses, such as "the absence of useful labor, their harmful pursuit of petty trading, vagrancy, and obstinate aloofness from general civic life." Its failure the Government ascribes to the fact that the evil of Jewish exclusiveness has hitherto not been attacked at its root, the latter being imbedded in the religious and communal organization of the Jews. The fountain-head of all misfortunes is the Talmud, which "fosters in the Jews utmost contempt towards the nations of other faiths," and implants in them the desire "to rule over the rest of the world." As a result of the obnoxious teachings of the Talmud, "the Jews cannot but regard their presence in any other land except Palestine as a sojourn in captivity," and "they are held to obey their own authorities rather than a strange government." This explains "the omnipotence of the Kahals," which, contrary to the law of the state, employ secret means to uphold their autonomous authority both in communal and judicial matters, using for this purpose the uncontrolled sums of the special Jewish revenue, the meat tax. The education of the Jewish youth is entrusted to melammeds, "a class of domestic teachers immersed in profoundest ignorance and superstition," and, "under the influence of these fanatics, the children imbibe pernicious notions of intolerance towards other nations." Finally, the special dress worn by the Jews helps to keep them apart from the surrounding Christian population. The Russian Government "had adopted a series of protective measures against the Jews," without producing any marked effect. Even the Conscription Statute "had succeeded to a limited extent only in altering the habits of the Jews." Mere promotion of agriculture and of Russian schooling had been found inadequate. The expulsions from the villages had proved equally fruitless; "the Jews, to be sure, have been ruined, but the condition of the rustics has shown no improvement." It is evident, therefore--the Council declares--that restrictions which go only half way or are externally imposed by the police are not sufficient to direct this huge mass of people towards useful occupations. With the patience of martyrs the Jews of Western Europe had endured the most atrocious persecutions, and had yet succeeded in keeping their national type intact until the governments took the trouble to inquire more deeply into the causes separating the Jews from general civic life, so as to be able to attack the causes themselves. After blurting out the truth that the Government's ultimate aim was the obliteration of the Jewish individuality, and modestly yielding the palm in inflicting "the most atrocious persecutions" upon the Jews to Western Europe, where after all they were receding into the past, while in Russia they were still the order of the day, the Council of State proceeds to consider "the example set by foreign countries," and lingers with particular affection over the Prussian Regulation of 1797 issued by that country for its recently occupied Polish provinces--the Prussian Emancipation Edict of 1812 the memorandum very shrewdly passes over in silence--and on the system of compulsory schooling adopted by Austria. Taking its clue from the West, the Council delineates three ways of bringing about "a radical transformation of this people": 1: _Cultural reforms_, such as the establishment of special secular schools for the Jewish youth, the fight against the old-fashioned heders and melammeds, the transformation of the rabbinate, and the prohibition of Jewish dress. 2. _Abolition of Jewish autonomy_, consisting in the dissolution of the Kahals and the modification of the system of special Jewish taxation. 3. _Increase of Jewish disabilities_, by segregating from their midst all those who have no established domicile and are without a definite financial status, with a view of subjecting them to disciplinary correction through expulsions, legal restrictions, intensified conscription, and similar police measures. In this manner--the memorandum concludes--it may be hoped that by co-ordinating all the particulars of this proposition with the fundamental idea of reforming the Jewish people, and _by taking compulsory measures to aid_, the goal of the Government will be attained. As a result of this _expose_ of the Council of State, an imperial rescript was issued on December 27, 1840, calling for the establishment of a "Committee for Defining Measures looking to the Radical Transformation of the Jews of Russia." Count Kiselev, Minister of the Crown Domains, was appointed chairman. The other members included the Ministers of Public Instruction and the Interior, the Assistant-Minister of Finance, the Director of the Second Section of the imperial chancellery, and the Chief of the Political Police, or the dreaded "Third Section." [1] The latter was entrusted with the special task "to keep a watchful eye on the intrigues and actions which may be resorted to by the Jews during the execution of this matter." [Footnote 1: See p. 21, n. 1.] Moreover, the _expose_ of the Council of State, which was to serve as the program of the new Committee, was sent out to the governors-general of the Western region [1] "confidentially_, for personal information and consideration." The reformatory campaign against the Jews was thus started without any formal declaration of war, under the guise of secrecy and surrounded by police precautions. The procedure to be followed by the Committee was to consider the project in the order indicated in the memorandum: first "enlightenment," then abolition of autonomy, and finally disabilities. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 16, n. 1.] 2. UVAROV AND LILIENTHAL An elaborate _expose_ on the question of enlightenment was composed and laid before the Committee by the Minister of Public Instruction, Sergius Uvarov. Having acquired the _bon ton_ of Western Europe, Uvarov prefaces his statement by the remark that the European governments have abandoned the method of "persecution and compulsion" in solving the Jewish question and that "this period has also arrived for us." "Nations," observes Uvarov, "are not exterminated, least of all the nation which stood at the foot of Calvary." From what follows, it seems evident that the Minister is still in hopes that the gentle measures of enlightenment may attract the Jews towards the religion which derives its origin from Calvary. The best among the Jews--he states--are conscious of the fact that one of the principal causes of their humiliation lies in the perverted interpretation of their religious traditions, that ... the Talmud demoralized and continues to demoralize their co-religionists. But nowhere is the influence of the Talmud so potent as among us (in Russia) and in the Kingdom of Poland. [1] This influence can be counteracted only by enlightenment, and the Government can do no better than to act in the spirit that animates the handful of the best among them.... The re-education of the learned section among the Jews involves at the same time the purification of their religious conceptions. [Footnote 1: See on the meaning of the latter term Vol. I, p. 390, n. 1.] What "purification" the author of the memorandum has in mind may be gathered from his casual remark that the Jews, who maintain their separatism, are rightly afraid of reforms: "for is not the religion of the Cross the purest symbol of universal citizenship?" This, however, Uvarov cautiously adds, should not be made public, for "it would have no other effect except that of arousing from the very beginning the opposition of the majority of the Jews against the (projected) schools." Officially the reform must confine itself to the opening in all the cities of the Jewish Pale of elementary and secondary schools in which Jewish children should be taught the Russian language, secular sciences, Hebrew, and "religion, according to the Holy Writ." The instruction should be given in Russian, though, owing to the shortage in teachers familiar with this language, the use of German is to be admitted temporarily. The teachers in the low-grade schools shall provisionally be recruited from among melammeds who "can be depended upon"; those in the higher-grade schools shall be chosen from among the modernized Jews of Russia and Germany. The Committee endorsed Uvarov's scheme in its principal features, and urgently recommended that, in order to prepare the Jewish masses for the impending reform, a special propagandist be sent into the Pale of Settlement for the purpose of acquainting this obstreperous nation with "the benevolent intentions of the Government." Such a propagandist was soon found in the person of a young German Jew, Dr. Max Lilienthal, a resident of Riga. Lilienthal; who was a native of Bavaria (he was born in Munich in 1815) and a German university graduate, was a typical representative of the German Jewish intellectuals of that period, a champion of assimilation and of moderate religious reform. Lilienthal had scarcely completed his university course, when he was offered by a group of educated Jews in Riga the post of preacher and director of the new local Jewish school, one of the three modern Jewish schools then in existence in Russia.[1] In a short time Lilienthal managed to raise the instruction in secular and Jewish subjects to such a high standard of modernity that he elicited a glowing tribute from Uvarov. The Minister was struck by the idea that the Riga school might serve as a model for the net of schools with which he was about to cover the whole Pale of Settlement, and Lilienthal seemed the logical man for carrying out the planned reforms. [Footnote 1: The other two schools were located in Odessa and in Kishinev.] In February, 1841, Lilienthal was summoned to St. Petersburg, where he had a prolonged conversation with Uvarov. According to the testimony of the official Russian sources, he tried to persuade the Minister to abolish all "private schools," the heders, and to forbid all private teachers, the melammeds, to teach even temporarily in the projected new schools, and to import, instead, the whole teaching staff from Germany. Lilienthal himself tells us in his Memoirs that he made bold to remind the Minister that all obstacles in the path of the desired re-education of the Russian Jews would disappear, were the Tzar to grant them complete emancipation. To this the Minister retorted that the initiative must come from the Jews themselves who first must try to "deserve the favor of the Sovereign." At any rate, Lilienthal accepted the proffered task. He was commissioned to tour the Pale of Settlement, to organize there the few isolated progressive Jews, "the lovers of enlightenment," or Maskilim, as they styled themselves, and to propagate the idea of a school-reform among the orthodox Jewish masses. While setting out on his journey, Lilienthal himself did not fully realize the difficulties of the task he had undertaken. He was to instill confidence in the "benevolent intentions of the Government" into the hearts of a people which by an uninterrupted series of persecutions and cruel restrictions had been reduced to the level of pariahs. He was to make them believe that the Government was a well-wisher of Jewish children, those same children, who at that very time were hunted like wild beasts by the "captors" in the streets of the Pale, who were turned by the thousands into soldiers, deported into outlying provinces, and belabored in such a manner that scarcely half of them remained alive and barely a tenth remained within the Jewish fold. Guided by an infallible instinct, the plain Jewish people formulated their own simplified theory to account for the step taken by the Government: up to the present their children had been baptized through the barracks, in the future they would be baptized through the additional medium of the school. Lilienthal arrived in Vilna in the beginning of 1842, and, calling a meeting of the Jewish Community, explained the plan conceived by the Government and by Uvarov, "the friend of the Jews." He was listened to with unveiled distrust. The elders--Lilienthal tells us in his Memoirs [1]--sat there absorbed in deep contemplation. Some of them, leaning on their silver-adorned staffs or smoothing their long beards, seemed as if agitated by earnest thoughts and justifiable suspicions; others were engaging in a lively but quiet discussion on the principles involved; such put to me the ominous question: "Doctor, are you fully acquainted with the leading principles of our government? You are a stranger; do you know what you are undertaking? The course pursued against all denominations but the Greek proves clearly that the Government intends to have but one Church in the whole Empire; that it has in view only its own future strength and greatness and not our own future prosperity. We are sorry to state that we put no confidence in the new measures proposed by the ministerial council, and that we look with gloomy foreboding into the future." [Footnote 1: I quote from _Max Lilienthal, American Rabbi, Life and Writings_, by David Philipson, New York, 1915, p, 264.] In his reply Lilienthal advanced an impressive array of arguments: What will you gain by your resistance to the new measures? It will only irritate the Government, and will determine it to pursue its system of repression, while at present you are offered an opportunity to prove that the Jews are not enemies of culture and deserve a better lot. When questioned as to whether the Jewish community had any guarantee that the Government plan was not a veiled attempt to undermine the Jewish religion, Lilienthal, by way of reply, solemnly pledged himself to throw up his mission the moment he would find that the Government associated with it secret intentions against Judaism. [1] The circle of "enlightened" Jews in Vilna pledged its support to Lilienthal, and he left full of faith in the success of his enterprise. [Footnote 1: Op. Cit. p. 266.] A cruel disappointment awaited him in Minsk. Here the arguments which the opponents advanced in a passionate debate at a public meeting were of a utilitarian rather than of an idealistic nature. So long as the Government does not accord equal rights to the Jew, general culture will only he his misfortune. The plain uneducated Jew does not balk at the low occupation of factor [1] or peddler, for, drawing comfort and joy from his religion, he is reconciled to his miserable lot. But the Jew who is educated and enlightened, and yet has no means of occupying an honorable position in the country, will be moved by a feeling of discontent to renounce his religion, and no honest father will think of giving an education to his children which may lead to such an issue. [2] [Footnote 1: The Polish name for agent. See Vol. I, p. 170, n. 1.] [Footnote 2: Quoted from Lilienthal's own account in _Die Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums_, 1842, No. 41, p. 605b.] The opponents of official enlightenment in Minsk were not content with advancing arguments that appealed to reason. Both at the meeting and in the street, Lilienthal was the target of insulting remarks from the crowd. On his return to St. Petersburg, Lilienthal presented Uvarov with a report which convinced the Minister that the execution of the school-reform was a difficult but not a hopeless task. On June 22, 1842, an imperial rescript was issued, placing all Jewish schools, including the heders and yeshibahs, under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Instruction. Simultaneously it was announced that the Government had summoned a Commission of four Rabbis to meet in St. Petersburg for the purpose of "supporting the efforts of the Government" in the realization of the school-reform. This Committee was to serve Russian Jewry as a security that the school-reforms would not be directed against the Jewish religion. At the same time Lilienthal was ordered to proceed again to the Pale of Settlement. He was directed to tour principally through the South-western and New-Russian governments and exert his influence upon the Jewish masses in accordance with the instructions received from the ministry. Before setting out on his journey, Lilienthal published a Hebrew pamphlet under the title _Maggid Yeshu'ah_ ("Herald of Salvation") which called upon the Jewish communities to comply readily with the wishes of the Government. In his private letters, addressed to prominent Jews, Lilienthal expressed the assurance that the school ukase was merely the forerunner of a series of measures for the betterment of the civic status of the Jews. This time Lilienthal met with a greater measure of success than on his first journey. In several large centers, such as Berdychev, Odessa, Kishinev, he was accorded, a friendly welcome and assured of the co-operation of the communities in making the new school system a success. Filled with fresh hopes, Lilienthal returned in 1843 to St. Petersburg to participate in the work of the "Rabbinical Commission" which had been convoked by the Government and was now holding its sessions in the capital from May till August. The make-up of the Rabbinical Commission did not fully justify its appellation. Only two "ecclesiastics" were on it, the president of the Talmudic Academy of Volozhin, [1] Rabbi Itzhok (Isaac) Itzhaki, and the leader of the White Russian Hasidim, Rabbi Mendel Shneorsohn, [2] while the South-western region and New Russia had sent two laymen: the banker Halperin of Berdychev, and the director of the Jewish school in Odessa, Bezalel Stern. The two representatives of the "clergy" put up a warm defence for the traditional Jewish school, the heder, endeavoring to save it from the ministerial "supervision," which aimed at its annihilation. Finally a compromise was effected: the traditional heder was to be left intact for the time being, but the proposed Crown school was to be given full scope in competing with it. The Commission even went so far as to work out a program of Jewish studies for the new type of school. [Footnote 1: In the government of Vilna. See Vol I, p. 380, et seq.] [Footnote 2: The grandson of Rabbi Shneor Zalman, the founder of that faction. See Vol. I, p. 372.] The labors of the Rabbinical Commission were submitted to the Jewish Committee, under the chairmanship of Kiselev, and discussed by it in connection with the general plan of a Russian school-reform. It was necessary to find the resultant between two opposing forces: between the desire of the Government to substitute the Russian Crown school for the old-fashioned Jewish school and the determination of Russian Jewry to preserve its own school as a bulwark against the official institutions foisted upon it. The Government was bent on carrying out its policy, and found itself compelled to resort to diplomatic contrivances. On November 13, 1844, Nicholas signed two enactments, the one a public ukase relating to "the Education of the Jewish Youth." the other a confidential rescript addressed to the Minister of Public Instruction. The public enactment called for the establishment of Jewish schools of two grades, corresponding to the courses of instruction in the parochial and county schools, and ordered the opening of two rabbinical institutes for the training of rabbis and teachers. The teaching staff in the Jewish Crown schools was to consist both of Jews and Christians. The graduates of these schools were granted a reduction in the term of military service. The execution of the school reforms in the respective localities was placed in the hands of "School Boards," composed of Jews and Christians, which were to be appointed provisionally for that purpose. In the secret rescript the tone was altogether different. There it was stated that "the aim pursued, in the training of the Jews is that of bringing them nearer to the Christian population and eradicating the prejudices fostered in them by the study of the Talmud"; that with the opening of the new schools the old ones were to be gradually closed or reorganized, and that as soon as the Crown schools have been established in sufficient numbers, attendance at them would become obligatory; that the superintendents of the new schools should only be chosen from among Christians; that every possible effort should be made "to put obstacles in the way of granting teaching licenses" to the melammeds who lacked a secular education; that after the lapse of twenty years no one should hold the position of teacher or rabbi without having obtained his degree from one of the official rabbinical schools. It was not long, however, before the secret came out. The Russian Jews were terror-stricken at the thought of being robbed of their ancient school autonomy, and decided to adopt the well-tried tactics of passive resistance to all Government measures. The school-reform was making slow progress. The opening of the elementary schools and of the two rabbinical institutes in Vilna and Zhitomir did not begin until 1847, and for the first few years they dragged on a miserable existence. Lilienthal himself disappeared from the scene, without waiting for the consummation of the reform plan. In 1845 he suddenly abandoned his post at the Ministry of Public Instruction, and left Russia for ever. A more intimate acquaintance with the intentions of the leading Government circles had made Lilienthal realize that the apprehensions voiced in his presence by the old men of the Vilna community were well-founded, and he thought it his duty to fulfill the pledge given by him publicly. From the land of serfdom, where, to use Lilienthal's own words, the only way for the Jew to make peace with the Government was "by bowing down before the Greek cross," he went to the land of freedom, the United States of America. There he occupied important pulpits in New York and Cincinnati where he died in 1882. 3. THE ABOLITION OF JEWISH AUTONOMY AND RENEWED PERSECUTIONS No sooner had the school reform, which was tantamount to the abrogation of Jewish school autonomy, been publicly announced than the Government took steps to realize the second article of its program, the annihilation of the remnants of Jewish communal autonomy. An ukase published on December 19, 1844, ordered "the placing of the Jews in the cities and countries under the jurisdiction of the general (i.e., Russian) administration, with the abolition of the Kahals." By this ukase all the administrative functions of the Kahals were turned over to the police departments, and those of an economic and fiscal character to the municipalities and town councils; the old elective Kahal administration was to pass out of existence. Carried to its logical conclusions, this "reform" would necessarily have led, as it actually did lead in Western Europe, to the abolition of the Jewish community, outside the narrow limits of a synagogue parish, had the Jews of Russia been placed at the same time on a footing of equality in regard to _taxation_. But such European consistency was beyond the mental range of Russian autocracy. It was neither willing to abandon the special, and for the Jews doubly burdensome, method of conscription, nor to forego the extra levies imposed upon the Jews, over and above the general state taxes, for needs which, properly speaking, should have been met by the exchequer. Thus it came about that for the sake of maintaining Jewish disabilities in the matter of conscription and taxation, the Government itself was obliged to mitigate the blow at Jewish autonomy by allowing the institutions of Jewish "conscription trustees" and tax-collectors, elected by the Jewish communes "from among the most dependable men," to remain in force. The Government, moreover, found it necessary to establish a special department for Jewish affairs at each municipality and town council. In this way the law managed to destroy the self-government of the Kahal and yet preserve its rudimentary function as an autonomous fiscal agency which was to be continued under the auspices of the municipality. In point of fact, the Kahal, which, through its "trustees" and "captors," had acted the part of a Government tool in carrying out the dreadful military conscription, had long become thoroughly demoralized and had lost its former prestige as a great Jewish institution. Its transformation into a purely fiscal agency was merely the formal ratification of a sad fact. Having disposed of the Kahal as a vehicle of Jewish "separatism," the Government next attacked the special Jewish "system of taxation," not to abolish it, of course, but rather to place it under a more rigorous control for the purpose of preventing it from serving in the hands of the Jews as an instrument for the attainment of specific Jewish ends. It is significant that on the same day on which the Kahal ukase was made public was also issued the new "Regulation Concerning the Basket Tax." [1] The revenue from this tax which had for a long time been imposed upon Kosher meat was originally placed at the free disposal of the Kahals, though subject, since 1839, to the combined control of the administration and municipality. According to the new enactment, the proceeds from the meat tax which was to be let to the highest bidder were to be left entirely in the hands of the gubernatorial administration. The latter was instructed to see to it that the income from the tax should first be applied to cover the fiscal arrears of the Jews, then to provide for the maintenance of the Crown schools and the official promotion of agriculture among Jews, and only as a last item to be spent on the local charities. [Footnote 1: The tax is called in Russian _korobochny sbor_, or, for short, _korobka_, a word related to German _Korb_. It was partly in use already under the Polish regime.] In addition to the general basket tax, imposed upon all Jews who use Kosher meat, an "auxiliary basket tax" was instituted to be levied on immovable property as well as on business pursuits and bequests. Moreover, following the Austrian model, the Government instituted, or rather reinstituted, the "candle tax," a toll on Sabbath candles. The proceeds from this impost on a religions ceremony were to go specifically towards the organization of the Jewish Crown schools, and were placed entirely at the disposal of the Ministry of Public Instruction. Thus in exact proportion to the curtailment of communal autonomy, voluntary self-taxation was gradually supplanted by compulsory Government taxation, a circumstance which not only increased the financial burden of the Jewish masses, but also tended to aggravate it from a moral point of view. The "tax," as the meat tax was called for short, became in the course of time one of the scourges of Jewish communal life, that same life which the "measures" of the Government had merely succeeded in disorganizing. Anxious as the Government was to act diplomatically and, for fear of intensifying the distrust of Russian Jewry towards the new scheme, to stem the flood of restrictions during the execution of the school reform, it could not long restrain itself. The third plank in the platform of the Jewish Committee, the increase of Jewish disabilities, which had hitherto been kept in reserve, was now pressing forward, and issued forth from the recesses of the chancelleries somewhat earlier than tactical considerations might have dictated. On April 20, 1843, while the "enlightenment" propaganda was in full swing, there suddenly appeared, in the form of a resolution appended by the Tzar's own hand to the report of the Council of Ministers, the following curt ukase: All Jews living within the fifty verst zone along the Prussian and Austrian frontier are to be transferred into the interior of the (border) governments. Those possessing their own houses are to be granted a term of two years within which to sell them. _To be carried out without any excuses._ On the receipt of this grim command, the Senate was at first puzzled as to whether the imperial order was a mere repetition of the former law concerning the expulsion of the Jews from the villages and hamlets on the frontier,[1] or whether it was a new law involving the expulsion of all Jews on the border, without discrimination, including those in the cities and towns. Swayed by the harsh and emphatic tone of the imperial resolution, the Senate decided to interpret the new order in the sense of a complete and absolute expulsion. This interpretation received the Tzar's approbation, except that the time-limit for the expulsion of real estate owners was extended for two years more and the ruined exiles were promised temporary relief from taxation. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 40.] The new catastrophe which descended upon tens of thousands of families, particularly in the government of Kovno, caused a cry of horror, not only throughout the border-zone but also abroad. When the Jews doomed to expulsion were ordered by the police to state the places whither they intended to emigrate, nineteen communities refused to comply with this demand, and declared that they would not abandon their hearths and the graves of their forefathers and would only yield to force. Public opinion in Western Europe was running high with indignation. The French, German, and English papers condemned in no uncertain terms the policy of "New Spain." Many Jewish communities in Germany petitioned the Russian Government to revoke the terrible expulsion decree. There was even an attempt at diplomatic intervention. During his stay in England, Nicholas I. was approached on behalf of the Jews by personages of high rank. Yet the Government would scarcely have yielded to public protests, had it not become patent that it was impossible to carry out the decree without laying waste entire cities and thereby affecting injuriously the interests of the exchequer. The fatal ukase was not officially repealed, but the Government did not insist on its execution. In the meantime the "Jewish Committee" kept up a correspondence with the governors-general in regard to the ways and means of carrying into effect the third article of its program, the "assortment," or "classification" of the Jews. The plan called for the division of all Russian Jews into two categories, into useful and useless ones. The former category was to consist of merchants affiliated with guilds, artisans belonging to trade-unions, agriculturists, and those of the burgher class who owned immovable property with a definite income. All other burghers who could not claim such a financial status and had no definite income, in other words, the large mass of petty tradesmen and paupers, were to be labelled as "useless" or "detrimental," and subjected to increased disabilities. The inquiry of the Ministry of the Interior regarding the feasibility of such an "assortment" met with a strongly-worded rebuttal from the governor-general of New Russia, Vorontzov. While on a leave of absence in London, this Russian dignitary, who had evidently been affected by English ideas, prepared a memorandum and sent it, in October, 1843, to St. Petersburg with the request to have it submitted to the Tzar. I venture to think--quoth Vorontzov with reference to the projected segregation of the "useless" Jews--that the application of the term "useless" to several hundred thousand people who by the will of the Almighty have lived In this Empire from ancient times is in itself both cruel and unjust. The project labels as "useless" all those numerous Jews who are engaged either in the retail purchase of goods from their original manufacturers for delivery to wholesale merchants, or in the useful distribution among the consumers of the merchandise obtained from the wholesalers. Judging impartially, one cannot help wondering how these numerous tradesmen can be regarded as useless and consequently as detrimental, if one bears in mind that by their petty and frequently maligned pursuits they promote not only rural but also commercial life. The atrocious scheme of "assorting" the Jews is nailed down by Vorontzov as "a bloody operation over a whole class of people," which is threatened "not only with hardships, but also with annihilation through poverty." I venture to think--with these words Vorontzov concludes his memorandum--that this measure is both harmful, and cruel. On the one side, hundreds of thousands of hands which assist petty industry in the provinces will be turned aside, when there is no possibility, and for a long time there will be none, of replacing them. On the other side, the cries and moans of such an enormous number of unfortunates will serve as a reproach to our Government not only in our own country but also beyond the confines of Russia. Since the time of Speranski and the like-minded members of the "Jewish Committee" of 1803 and 1812[1] the leading spheres of St. Petersburg had had no chance to hear such courageous and truthful words. Vorontzov's objections implied a crushing criticism of the whole fallacious economic policy of the Government in branding the petty tradesmen and middlemen as an injurious element and building thereon a whole system of anti-Jewish persecutions and cruelties. But St. Petersburg was not amenable to reason. The only concession wrested from the "Jewish Committee" consisted in replacing the term "useless" as applied to small tradesmen by the designation "not engaged in productive labor." [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 340.] The cruel project continued to engage the attention of the "Jewish Committee" for a long time. In April, 1815, the chairman of the Committee, Kiselev, addressed a circular to the governors-general in which he pointed out that after the promulgation of the laws concerning the establishment of Crown schools and the abolition of the Kahals--laws-which were aimed at "the weakening of the influence of the Talmud" and the destruction of all institutions "fostering the separate individuality of the Jews"--the turn had come for carrying into effect, by means of the proposed classification, the measures directed towards "the transfer of the Jews to useful labor." Of the regulations tending to affect the Jews "culturally" the circular emphasizes the prohibition of Jewish dress to take effect after the lapse of five years. All the regulations alluded to--Kiselev writes--have been issued and will be issued separately, _in order to conceal their interrelation and common aim from the fanaticism, of the Jews_. For this reason his Imperial Majesty has been graciously pleased to command me to communicate all the said plans to the Governors-General _confidentially_. It would seem, however, that the Russian authorities had grossly underestimated the political sense of the Jews. They were not aware of the fact that St. Petersburg's conspiracy against Judaism had long been exposed in the Pale of Settlement, if only for the reason that the conspirators were not clever enough to hide even for a time the chastising knout beneath the cloak of "cultural" reforms. 4. INTERCESSION OF WESTERN EUROPEAN JEWRY The mask of the Russian Government was soon torn down also before the yes of Western Europe. In the initial stage of Lilienthal's campaign, public-minded Jews of Western Europe were inclined to believe that a happy era was dawning upon their coreligionists in Russia. At the instance of Uvarov, Lilienthal had entered into correspondence with Philippson, Geiger, Cremieux, Montefiore, and other leaders of West-European Jewry, bespeaking their moral support on behalf of the school-reform and going so far as to invite them to participate in the proceedings of the Rabbinical Commission convened at St. Petersburg. The replies from these prominent Jews were full of complimentary references to Uvarov's endeavors. The _Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums_,[1] in the beginning of the forties, voiced the general belief that the era of persecutions in Russia had come to an end. [Footnote 1: A weekly founded by Dr. Ludwig Philippson in 1837. It still appears in Berlin.] The frontier expulsions of 1843 acted like a cold douche on these enthusiasts. They realized that the pitiless banishment of thousands of families from home and hearth was not altogether compatible with "benevolent intentions." A sensational piece of news made its rounds through Germany: the well-known painter Oppenheim of Frankfurt-on-the-Main had given up working at the large picture ordered by the leaders of several Jewish communities for presentation to the Tzar. The painting had been intended as an allegory, picturing a sunrise in a dark realm, but the happy anticipations proved a will o' the wisp, and the plan had to be given up. Instead, Western Europe was resounding with moans from Russia, betokening new persecutions and even more atrocious schemes of restrictions. The sufferings of the Russian Jews suggested the thought that it was the duty of the influential Jews of the West to intercede on behalf of their persecuted brethren before the emperor of Russia. The choice fell on the famous Jewish philanthropist in London, Sir Moses Montefiore, who stood in close relations to the court of Queen Victoria. Having established his fame by championing the Jewish cause in Turkey during the ritual murder trial of Damascus in 1840, Montefiore resolved to make a similar attempt in the land of the Tzar. In the beginning of 1846 he set out for Russia, ostensibly in the capacity of a traveler desirous of familiarizing himself with the condition of his coreligionists. Montefiore, who was the bearer of a personal recommendation from Queen Victoria to the Russian emperor, was received in St. Petersburg with great honors. During an audience granted to Montefiore in March, 1846, the Tzar expressed his willingness to receive from him, through the medium of the "Jewish Committee," suggestions bearing on the condition of the Russian Jews, based on the information to be gathered by him on his travels. Montefiore's journey through the Pale of Settlement, including a visit to Vilna, Warsaw, and other cities, was marked by great solemnity. He was courteously received by the highest local officials, who acted according to instructions from St. Petersburg, and he met everywhere with an enthusiastic welcome from the Jewish masses, who expected great results from his intercession before the Tzar. Needless to say, these expectations were not realized. On his return to London, Montefiore addressed various petitions to Kiselev, the chairman of the Jewish Committee, to Minister Uvarov and to Paskevich, the then viceroy of Poland. Everywhere he pleaded for a mitigation of the harsh laws which were pressing upon his unfortunate brethren, for the restoration of the recently abolished communal autonomy, for the harmonization of the school-reform with the religious traditions of the Jewish masses. The Tzar was informed of the contents of these petitions, but it was all of no avail. In the same year another influential foreigner made an unsuccessful attempt to improve the condition of the Russian Jews by emigration. A rich Jewish merchant of Marseille, named Isaac Altaras, came to Russia with a proposal to transplant a certain number of Jews to Algiers, which had recently passed under French rule. Fortified by letters of recommendation from Premier Guizot and other high officials in France, Altaras entered into negotiations with the Ministers Nesselrode and Perovski in St. Petersburg and with Viceroy Paskevich in Warsaw, for the purpose of obtaining permission for a certain number of Jews to emigrate from Russia.[1] He gave the assurance that the French Government was ready to admit into Algiers, as full-fledged citizens, thousands of destitute Russian Jews, and that the means for transferring them would be provided by Rothschild's banking house in Paris. At first, while in St. Petersburg, Altaras was informed that permission to leave Russia would be granted only on condition that a fixed ransom be paid for every emigrant. In Warsaw, however, which city he visited later, in October, 1846, he was notified that the Tzar had decided to waive the ransom. For some unexplained reason Altaras left Russia suddenly, and the scheme of a Jewish mass emigration fell through. [Footnote 1: A law on the Russian statute books forbids the emigration of Russian citizens abroad. See later, p. 285, n. 1.] 5. THE ECONOMIC PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN JEWRY AND AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS The attempt at thinning the Jewish population by emigration having failed, the congested Jewish masses continued to gasp for air in their Pale of Settlement. The slightest effort to penetrate beyond the Pale into the interior was treated as a criminal offence. In December, 1847, the Council of State engaged in a protracted and earnest discussion about the geographical point up to which the Jewish coachmen of Polotzk should be allowed, to drive the inmates of the local school of cadets on their annual trips to the Russian capital. The discussion arose out of the fact that the road leading from Polotzk to St. Petersburg is crossed by the line separating the Pale from the prohibited interior. A proposal had been made to permit the coachmen to drive their passengers as far as Pskov. But when the report was submitted to the Tzar, he appended the following resolution: "Agreeable; though not to Pskov, but to Ostrov"--the town nearest to the Pale. Of this trivial kind were Russia's methods in curtailing Jewish rights three months before the great upheaval which in adjoining Germany and Austria dealt the death-blow to absolutism and inaugurated the era of the "Second Emancipation." As for the economic life of the Jews, it had been completely undermined by the system of ruthless tutelage, which the Government had employed for a quarter of a century in the hope of "reconstructing" it. All these drumhead methods, such as the hurling of masses of living beings from villages into towns and from the border-zone into the interior, the prohibition of certain occupations and the artificial promotion of others, could not but result in economic ruin, instead of leading to economic reform. Nor was the governmental system of encouraging agriculture among Jews attended by greater success. In consequence of the expulsion of tens of thousands of Jews from the villages of White Busier in 1823, some two thousand refugees had drifted into the agricultural colonies of New Russia, but all they did was to replace the human wastage from increased mortality, which, owing to the change of climate and the unaccustomed conditions of rural life, had decimated the original settlers. During the reign of Nicholas, efforts were again made to promote agricultural colonization by offering the prospective immigrants subsidies and alleviations in taxation. Even more valuable was the privilege relieving the colonists from military service for a term of twenty-five to fifty years from the time of settlement. Yet only a few tried to escape conscription by taking refuge in the colonies. For the military regime gradually penetrated into these colonies as well. The Jewish colonist was subject to the grim tutelage of Russian "curators" and "superintendents," retired army men, who watched his every step and punished the slightest carelessness by conscription or expulsion. In 1836 the Government conceived the idea of enlarging the area of Jewish agricultural colonization. By an imperial rescript certain lands in Siberia, situated in the government of Tobolsk and in the territory of Omsk, were set aside for this purpose. Within a short time 1317 Jews declared their readiness to settle on the new lands; many had actually started on their way in batches. But in January, 1837, the Tzar quite unexpectedly changed his mind. After reading the report of the Council of Ministers on the first results of the immigration, he put down the resolution: "The transplantation of Jews to Siberia is to be stopped." A few months later orders were issued to intercept those Jews who were on their way to Siberia and transfer them to the Jewish colonies in the government of Kherson. The unfortunate emigrants were seized on the way and conveyed, like criminals, under a military escort into places in which they were not in the least interested. Legislative whims of this kind, coupled with an uncouth system of tutelage, were quite sufficient to crush in many Jews the desire of turning to the soil. Nevertheless, the colonization made slow progress, gradually spreading from the government of Kherson to the neighboring governments of Yekaterinoslav and Bessarabia. Stray Jewish agricultural settlements also appeared in Lithuania and White Russia. But a comparative handful of some ten thousand "Jewish peasants" could not affect the general economic make-up of millions of Jews. In spite of all shocks, the economic structure of Russian Jewry remained essentially the same. As before, the central place in this structure was occupied by the liquor traffic, though modified in a certain measure by the introduction of a more extensive system of public leases. Above the rank and file of tavern keepers, both rural and urban, there had arisen a class of wealthy tax-farmers, who kept a monopoly on the sale of liquor or the collection of excise in various governments of the Pale. They functioned as the financial agents of the exchequer, while the Jewish employees in their mills, store-houses, and offices acted as their sub-agents, forming a class of "officials" of their own. The place next in importance to the liquor traffic was occupied by retail and wholesale commerce. The crafts and the spiritual professions came last. Pauperism was the inevitable companion of this economic organization, and "people without definite occupations" were counted by the hundreds of thousands. 6. THE RITUAL MURDER TRIAL OF VELIZH The "ordinary" persecutions under which the Jews in Russia were groaning were accompanied by afflictions of an extraordinary kind. The severest among these were the ritual murder trials which became of frequent occurrence, tending to deepen the medieval gloom of that period. True, ritual murder cases had occurred during the reign of Alexander I., but it was only under Nicholas that they assumed a malign and dangerous form. In the year 1816, shortly before Passover, a dead body was found in the vicinity of Grodno and identified as that of the four year old daughter of a Grodno resident, Mary Adamovich. Rumors were spread among the superstitious Christian populace to the effect that the girl had been killed for ritual purposes, and the police, swayed by these rumors, set about to find the culprit among the Jews. Suspicion fell on a member of the Grodno Kahal, Shalom Lapin, whose house adjoined that of the Adamovich family. The only "evidence" against him were a hammer and a pike found in his house. A sergeant, named Savitzki, a converted Jew, appeared as a material witness before the Commission of Inquiry, and delivered himself of a statement full of ignorant trash, which was intended to show that "Christian blood is exactly what is needed according to the Jewish religion"--here the witness referred to the Bible story of the Exodus and to two mythical authorities, "the philosopher Rossie and the prophet Azariah." He further deposed that "every rabbi is obliged to satisfy the whole Kahal under his jurisdiction by smearing with same (with Christian blood) the lintels of every house on the first day of the feast of Passover." Prompted by greed and by the desire to distinguish himself, the sergeant declared himself ready to substantiate his testimony from Jewish literature, "if the chief Government will grant him the necessary assistance." The results of this "secret investigation" were laid before the governor of Grodno and reported by him to St. Petersburg. In reply, Alexander I. issued a rescript in February, 1817, ordering that the "secret investigation be cut short and the murderer be found out" intimating thereby that search be made for the criminal and not for the tenets of the Jewish religion. However, all efforts to discover the culprit failed, and the case was dismissed. This favorable issue was in no small measure due to the endeavors of the "Deputies of the Jewish People," [1] in particular to Sonnenberg, the deputy from Grodno. These deputies, who were present in St. Petersburg at that time, addressed themselves to Golitzin, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, protesting against the ritual murder libel. The trial at Grodno and the ritual murder accusations which simultaneously cropped up in the Kingdom of Poland made the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs realize that there was in the Western region a dangerous tendency of making the Jews the scapegoats for every mysterious murder case and of fabricating lawsuits of the medieval variety by bringing popular superstition into play. Golitzin, a Christian pietist, who was nevertheless profoundly averse to narrow ecclesiastic fanaticism, decided to strike at the root of this superstitious legend which was disgracing Poland in her period of decay and was about to fall as a dark stain upon Russia. He succeeded in impressing this conviction upon his like-minded sovereign Alexander I. In the same month in which the ukase concerning "the Society of Israelitish Christians" was published [2] Golitzin sent out the following circular to the governors, dated March 6, 1817: [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 394.] [Footnote 2: Compare Vol. I, p. 396.] In view of the fact that in several of the provinces acquired from Poland, cases still occur in which the Jews are falsely accused of murdering Christian children for the alleged purpose of obtaining blood, his Imperial Majesty, taking into consideration that similar accusations have on previous numerous occasions been refuted by impartial investigations and royal charters, has been graciously pleased to convey to those at the head of the governments his Sovereign will: that henceforward the Jews shall not be charged with murdering Christian children, without any evidence and purely as a result of the superstitious belief that they are in need of Christian blood. One might have thought that this emphatic rescript would suffice to put a stop to the efforts of ignorant adventurers to resuscitate the bloody myth. And, for several years, indeed, the sinister agitation kept quiet. But towards the end of Alexander's reign it came to life again, and gave rise to the monstrous Velizh case. In the year 1823, on the first day of the Christian Passover, a boy of three years, Theodore Yemelyanov, the son of a Russian soldier, disappeared in the city of Velizh, in the government of Vitebsk. Ten days later the child's body was found in a swamp beyond the town, stabbed all over and covered with wounds. The medical examination and the preliminary investigation were influenced by the popular belief that the child had been tortured to death by the Jews. This belief was fostered by two Christian fortune-tellers, a prostitute beggar-woman, called Mary Terentyeva, and a half-witted old maid, by the name of Yeremyeyeva, who by way of divination made the parents of the child believe that its death was due to the Jews. At the judicial inquiry, Terentyeva implicated two of the most prominent Jews of Velizh, the merchant Shmerka [1] Berlin, and Yevzik [2] Zetlin, a member of the local town council. [Footnote 1: A popular form of the name Shemariah.] [Footnote 2: The Russian form of _Yozel_, a variant of the name Joseph.] Protracted investigations failed to substantiate the fabrications of Terentyeva, and in the autumn of 1884 the Supreme Court of the government of Vitebsk rendered the following verdict: To leave the accidental death of the soldier boy to the will of God; to declare all the Jews, against whom the charge of murder has been brought on mere surmises, free from all suspicion; to turn over the soldier woman Terentyeva, for her profligate conduct, to a priest for repentance. However, in view of the exceptional gravity of the crime, the Court recommended to the gubernatorial administration to continue its investigations. Despite the verdict of the court, the dark forces among the local population, prompted by hatred of the Jews, bent all their efforts on putting the investigation on the wrong track. The low, mercenary Terentyeva became their ready tool. When in September, 1825, Alexander I. was passing through Velizh, she submitted a petition to him, complaining about the failure of the authorities to discover the murderer of little Theodore, whom she unblushingly designated as her own child and declared to have been tortured to death by the Jews. The Tzar, entirely oblivious of his ukase of 1817,[1] instructed the White-Russian governor-general, Khovanski, to start a new rigorous inquiry. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 74.] The imperial order gave the governor-general, who was a Jew-hater and a believer in the hideous libel, unrestricted scope for his anti-Semitic instincts. He entrusted the conduct of the new investigation to a subaltern, by the name of Strakhov, a man of the same ilk, conferring upon him the widest possible powers. On his arrival in Velizh, Strakhov first of all arrested Terentyeva, and subjected her to a series of cross-examinations during which he endeavored to put her on what he considered the desirable track. Stimulated by the prosecutor, the prostitute managed to concoct a regular criminal romance. She deposed that she herself had participated in the crime, having lured little Theodore into the homes of Zetlin and Berlin. In Berlin's house, and later on in the synagogue, a crowd of Jews of both sexes had subjected the child to the most horrible tortures. The boy had been stabbed and butchered and rolled about in a barrel. The blood squeezed out of him had been distributed on the spot among those present, who thereupon proceeded to soak pieces of linen in it and to pour it out in bottles.[1] All these tortures had been perpetrated in her own presence, and with the active participation both of herself and the Christian servant-girls of the two families. [Footnote 1: According to her testimony, the Jews are in the habit of using Christian blood to smear the eyes of their new-born babies, since "the Jews are always born blind," also to mix it with the flour in preparing the unleavened bread for Passover.] It may be added that Terentyeva did not make these statements at one time, but at different intervals, inventing fresh details at each new examination and often getting muddled in her story. The implicated servant-girls at first denied their share in the crime, but, yielding to external pressure--like Terentyeva, they, too, were sent for frequent "admonition" to a local priest, called Tarashkevich, a ferocious anti-Semite--they were gradually led to endorse the depositions of the principal material witness. On the strength of these indictments Strakhov placed the implicated Jews under arrest, at first two highly esteemed ladies, Slava Berlin and Hannah Zetlin, later on their husbands and relatives, and finally a number of other Jewish residents of Velizh. In all forty-two people were seized, put in chains, and thrown into jail. The prisoners were examined "with a vengeance"; they were subjected to the old-fashioned judicial procedure which approached closely the methods of medieval torture. The prisoners denied their guilt with indignation, and, when confronted with Terentyeva, denounced her vehemently as a liar. The excruciating cross-examinations brought some of the prisoners to the verge of madness. But as far as Strakhov was concerned, the hysterical fits of the women, the angry speeches of the men, the remarks of some of the accused, such as: "I shall tell everything, but only to the Tzar," served in his eyes as evidence of the Jews' guilt. In his reports he assured his superior, Khovanski, that he had got on the track of a monstrous crime perpetrated by a whole Kahal, with the assistance of several Christian women who had been led astray by the Jews. In communicating his findings to St. Petersburg, the White Russian governor-general presented the case as a crime committed on religious grounds. In reply he received the fatal resolution of Emperor Nicholas, dated August 16, 1828, to the following effect: Whereas the above occurrence demonstrates that the Zhyds[1] make wicked use of the religious tolerance accorded to them, therefore, as a warning and as an example to others, let the Jewish schools (the synagogues) of Velizh be sealed up until farther orders, and let services be forbidden, whether in them or near them. [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p, 320, n. 2.] The imperial resolution was couched in the fierce language of the new reign which had begun in the meantime. It rose in the bloody mist of the Velizh affair. The fatal consequences of this synchronism were not limited to the Jews of Velizh. Judging by the contents and the harsh wording of the resolution, Nicholas I. was convinced at that time of the truth of the ritual murder libel. The mysterious and unloved tribe rose before the vision of the new Tzar as a band of cannibals and evil-doers. This sinister notion can be traced in the conscription statute which was then in the course of preparation in St. Petersburg and was soon afterwards to stir Russian Jewry to its depths, dooming their little ones to martyrdom. While punishment was to be meted out to the entire Jewish population of Russia, the fate of the Velizh community was particularly tragic. It was subjected to the terrors of a unique state of siege. The whole community was placed under suspicion. All the synagogues were shut up as if they were dens of thieves, and the hapless Jews could not even assemble in prayer to pour out their hearts before God. All business was at a standstill; the shops were closed, and gloomy faces flitted shyly across the streets of the doomed city. The stern command from St. Petersburg ordering that the case be "positively probed to the bottom" and that the culprits be apprehended gladdened only the heart of Strakhov, the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry, who was now free to do as he pleased. He spread out the net of inquiry in ever wider circles. Terentyeva and the other female witnesses, who were fed well while in prison, and expected not only amnesty but also remuneration for their services, gave more and more vent to their imagination. They "recollected" and revealed before the Commission of Inquiry a score of religious crimes which they alleged had been perpetrated by the Jews prior to the Velizh affair, such as the murder of children in suburban inns, the desecration of church utensils and similar misdeeds. The Commission was not slow in communicating the new revelations to the Tzar who followed vigilantly the developments in the case. But the Commission had evidently overreached itself. The Tzar began to suspect that there was something wrong in this endlessly growing tangle of crimes. In October, 1827, he attached to the report of the Commission the following resolution: "It is absolutely necessary to find out who those unfortunate children were; this ought to be easy if the whole thing is not a miserable lie." His belief in the guilt of the Jews had evidently been shaken. In its endeavors to make up for the lack of substantial evidence, the commission, personified by Khovanski, put itself in communication with the governors of the Pale, directing them to obtain information concerning all local ritual murder cases in past years. The effect of these inquiries was to revive the Grodno affair of 1818 which had been "left to oblivion." A certain convert by the name of Gradlnski from the townlet of Bobovnya, in the government of Minsk, declared before the Commission of Inquiry that he was ready to point out the description of the ritual murder ceremony in a "secret" Hebrew work. When the book was produced and the incriminated passage translated, it was found that it referred to the Jewish rite of slaughtering animals. The apostate, thus caught red-handed, confessed that he had turned informer in the hope of making money, and was by imperial command sent into the army. The confidence of St. Petersburg in the activity of the Velizh Commission of Inquiry vanished more and more. Khovanski was notified that "his Majesty the Emperor, having observed that the Commission bases its deductions mostly on surmises, by attaching significance to the fits and gestures of the incriminated during the examinations, is full of apprehension lest the Commission, carried away by zeal and anti-Jewish prejudice, act with a certain amount of bias and protract the case to no purpose." Soon afterwards, in 1830, the case was taken out of the hands of the Commission which had become entangled in a mesh of lies--Strakhov had died in the meantime--, and was turned over to the Senate. Weighed down by the nightmare proportions of the material, which the Velizh Commission had managed to pile up, the members of the Fifth Department of the Senate which was charged with the case were inclined to announce a verdict of guilty and to sentence the convicted Jews to deportation to Siberia, with the application of the knout and whip (1831). In the higher court, the plenary session of the Senate, there was a disagreement, the majority voting guilty, while three senators, referring to the ukase of 1817, were in favor of setting the prisoners at liberty, but keeping them at the same time under police surveillance. In 1834 the case reached the highest court of the Empire, the Council of State, and here for the first time the real facts came to light. Truth found its champion in the person of the aged statesman, Mordvinov, who owned some estates near Velizh, and, being well-acquainted with the Jews of the town, was roused to indignation by the false charges concocted against them. In his capacity as president of the Department of Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs of the Council of State, Mordvinov, after sifting the evidence carefully, succeeded in a number of sessions to demolish completely the Babel tower of lies erected by Strakhov and Khovanski and to adduce proofs that the governor-general, blinded by anti-Jewish prejudice, had misled the Government by his communications. The Department of Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs was convinced by the arguments of Mordvinov and other champions of the truth, and handed down a decision that the accused Jews be set at liberty and rewarded for their innocent sufferings, and that the Christian women informers he deported to Siberia. The plenary meeting of the Council of State concurred in the decision of the Department, rejecting only the clause providing for the reward of the sufferers. The verdict of the Council of State was submitted to the Tzar and received his endorsement on January 18, 1835. It read as follows: The Council of State, having carefully considered all the circumstances of this complex and involved case, finds that the depositions of the material female witnesses, Terentyeva, Maximova, and Koslovska, containing as they do numerous contradictions and absurdities and lacking all positive evidence and indubitable conclusions, cannot be admitted as legal proof to convict the Jews of the grave crimes imputed to them, and, therefore, renders the following decision: 1. The Jews accused of having killed the soldier boy Yemelyanov and of other similar deeds, which are implied in the Velizh trial, no indictment whatsoever having been found against them, shall be freed from further judgment and inquiry. 2. The material witnesses, the peasant woman Terentyeva, the soldier woman Maximova, and the Shiakhta woman[1] Kozlovsta, having been convicted of uttering libels, which they have not in the least been able to corroborate, shall be exiled to Siberia for permanent residence. 3. The peasant maid Yeremyeyeva, having posed among the common people as a soothsayer, shall be turned over to a priest for admonition. [Footnote 1: i.e., a member of the Polish nobility; comp. Vol. I, p. 58, n. 1.] After attaching his signature to this verdict. Nicholas I. added in his own handwriting the following characteristic resolution, which was not to be made public: While sharing the view of the Council of State that in this case, owing to the vagueness of the legal deductions, no other decision than the one embodied in the opinion confirmed by me could have been reached, I deem it, however, necessary to add that I do not have, and, indeed, cannot have, the inner conviction that the murder has not been committed by the Jews. Numerous examples of similar murders.... go to show that among the Jews there probably exist fanatics or sectarians who consider Christian blood necessary for their rites. This appears the more possible, since unfortunately even among us Christians there sometimes exist such sects which are no less horrible and incomprehensible. In a word, I do not for a moment think that this custom is common to all Jews, but I do not deny the possibility that there may be among them fanatics just as horrible as among us Christians. Having taken this idea into his head, Nicholas I. refused to sign the second decision of the Council of State, which was closely allied with the verdict: that all governors be instructed to be guided in the future by the ukase of 1817, forbidding to stir up ritual murder cases "from prejudice only." While rejecting this prejudice in its full-fledged shape, the Tzar acknowledged it in part, in a somewhat attenuated form. Towards the end of January of 1835 an imperial ukase reached the city of Velizh, ordering the liberation of the exculpated Jews, the reopening of the synagogues, which had been sealed since 1826, and the handing back to the Jews of the holy scrolls which had been confiscated by the police. The dungeon was now ready to give up its inmates, whose strength had been sapped by the long confinement, while several of them had died during the imprisonment. The synagogues, which had not been allowed to resound with the moans of the martyrs, were now opened for the prayers of the liberated. The state of siege which for nine long years had been throttling the city was at last taken off; the terror which had haunted the ostracized community came to an end. A new leaf was added to the annals of Jewish martyrdom, one of the gloomiest, in spite of its "happy" finale. 7. THE MSTISLAVL AFFAIR The ritual murder trials did not exhaust the "extraordinary" afflictions of Nicholas' reign. There were cases of wholesale chastisements inflicted on more tangible grounds, when misdeeds of a few individuals were puffed up into communal crimes and visited cruelly upon entire communities. The conscription horrors of that period, when the Kahals were degraded to police agencies for "capturing" recruits, had bred the "informing" disease among the Jewish communities. They produced the type of professional informer, or _moser_[1], who blackmailed the Kahal authorities of his town by threatening to disclose their "abuses," the absconding of candidates for the army and various irregularities in carrying out the conscription, and in this way extorted "silence money" from them. These scoundrels made life intolerable, and there were occasions when the people took the law into their own hands and secretly dispatched the most objectionable among them. [Footnote 1: The Hebrew and Yiddish equivalent for "informer."] A case of this kind came to light in the government of Podolia in 1836. In the town Novaya Ushitza two _mosers_, named Oxman and Schwartz, who had terrorized the Jews of the whole province, were found dead. Rumor had it that the one was killed in the synagogue and the other on the road to the town. The Russian authorities regarded the crime as the collective work of the local Jewish community, or rather of several neighboring Jewish communities, "which had perpetrated this wicked deed by the verdict of their own tribunal." About eighty Kahal elders and other prominent Jews of Ushitza and adjacent towns, including two rabbis, were put on trial. The case was submitted to a court-martial which resolved "to subject the guilty to an exemplary punishment." Twenty Jews were sentenced to hard labor and to penal military service, with a preliminary "punishment by _Spiessruten_ through five hundred men." [1] A like number were sentenced to be deported to Siberia; the rest were either acquitted or had fled from justice. Many of those who ran the gauntlet died under the strokes, and are remembered by the Jewish people in Russia as martyrs. [Footnote 1: Both the word and the penalty were introduced by Peter the Great from Germany. The culprit was made to run between two lines of soldiers who whipped his bare shoulders with rods. The penalty was abolished in 1863.] The scourge of informers was also responsible for the Mstislavl affair. In 1844, a Jewish crowd in the market-place of Mstislavl, a town in the government of Moghilev, came into conflict with a detachment of soldiers who were searching for contraband goods in a Jewish warehouse. The results of the fray were a few bruised Jews and several broken rifles. The local police and military authorities seized this opportunity to ingratiate themselves with their superiors, and reported to the governor of Moghilev and the commander of the garrison that the Jews had organized a "mutiny." The local informer, Arye Briskin, a converted Jew, found this incident an equally convenient occasion to wreak vengeance on his former coreligionists for the contempt in which he was held by them, and allowed himself to be taken into tow by the official Jew-baiters. In January, 1844, alarming communications concerning a "Jewish mutiny" reached St. Petersburg. The matter was reported to the Tzar, and a swift and curt resolution followed: "To court-martial the principal culprits implicated in this incident, and, in the meantime, as a punishment for the turbulent demeanor of the Jews of that city, to take from them one recruit for every ten men." Once more the principles of that period were applied: one for all; first punishment, then trial. The ukase arrived in Mstislavl on the eve of Purim, and threw the Jews into consternation. During the Fast of Esther the synagogues resounded with wailing. The city was in a state of terror: the most prominent leaders of the community were thrown into jail, and had to submit to disfigurement by having half of their heads and beards shaved off. The penal recruits were hunted down, without any regard to age, since, according to the Tzar's resolution, a tenth of the population had to be impressed into military service. Pending the termination of the trial, no Jew was allowed to leave the city, while natives from Mstislavl in other places were captured and conveyed to their native town. A large Jewish community was threatened with complete annihilation. The Jews of Mstislavl, through their spokesmen, petitioned St. Petersburg to wait with the penal conscription until the conclusion of the trial, and endeavored to convince the central Government that the local administration had misrepresented the character of the incident. To save his brethren, the popular champion of the interests of his people, the merchant Isaac Zelikin, of Monastyrchina, [1] called affectionately Rabbi Itzele, journeyed to the capital. He managed to get the ear of the Chief of the "Third Section" [2] and to acquaint him with the horrors which were being perpetrated by the authorities in Mstislavl. [Footnote 1: A townlet in the neighborhood of Mstislavl.] [Footnote 2: See above, p. 21, n. 1.] As a result, two commissioners were dispatched from St. Petersburg in quick succession. On investigating the matter on the spot, they discovered the machinations of the over-zealous officials and apostasized informers who had represented a street quarrel as an organized uprising. The new commission of inquiry, of which one of the St. Petersburg commissioners, Count Trubetzkoy, was member, disclosed the fact that the Jewish community as such had had nothing whatsoever to do with what had occurred. The findings of the commission resulted in an "Imperial Act of Grace": the imprisoned Jews were set at liberty, the penal conscripts were returned from service, several local officials were put on trial, and the governor of Moghilev was severely censured. This took place in November, 1844, after the Mstislavl community had for nine long months tasted the horrors of a state of siege. The synagogues were filled with Jews praising God for the relief granted to them. The community decreed to commemorate annually the day before Purim, on which the ukase inflicting severe punishment on the Jews of Mstislavl was promulgated, as a day of fasting and to celebrate the third day of the month of Kislev, on which the cruel ukase was revoked, as a day of rejoicing. Had all the disasters of that era been perpetuated in the same manner, the Jewish calendar would consist entirely of these commemorations of national misfortunes, whether in the form of "ordinary" persecutions or "extraordinary" afflictions. CHAPTER XV THE JEWS IN THE KINGDOM OF POLAND 1. PLANS OF JEWISH EMANCIPATION Special mention must be made of the position occupied by the Jews in the vast province which had be n formed in 1815 out of the territory of the former duchy of Warsaw and annexed by Russia under the name of "Kingdom of Poland." [1] This province which from 1815 to 1830 enjoyed full autonomy, with a local government in Warsaw and a parliamentary constitution, handled the affairs of its large Jewish population, numbering between three hundred to four hundred thousand souls, independently and without regard to the legislation of the Russian Empire, Even after the insurrection of 1830, when subdued Poland was linked more closely with the Empire, the Jews continued to be subject to a separate provincial legislation. The Jews of the Kingdom remained under the tutelage of local guardians who were assiduously engaged in solving the Jewish problem during the first part of this period. [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 390, n. 1.] The initial years of autonomous Poland were a time of storm and stress. After having experienced the vicissitudes of the period of partitions and the hopes and disappointments of the Napoleonic era, the Polish people clutched eagerly at the shreds of political freedom which were left to it by Alexander I. in the shape of the "Constitutional Regulation" of 1815.[1] The Poles brought to bear upon the upbuilding of the new kingdom all the ardor of their national soul and all their enthusiasm for political regeneration. The feverish organizing activity between 1815 and 1820 was attended by a violent outburst of national sentiment, and such moments of enthusiasm were always accompanied in Poland by an intolerant and unfriendly attitude towards the Jews. With a few shining exceptions, the Polish statesmen were far removed from the idea of Jewish emancipation. They favored either "correctional" or punitive methods, though modelled after the pattern of Western European rather than of primitive Russian anti-Semitism. [Footnote 1: The author refers to the Constitution granted by Alexander I., on November 15, 1815, to the Polish territories ceded to him by the Congress of Vienna. The Constitution vouchsafed to Poland an autonomous development under Russian auspices. It was withdrawn after the insurrection of 1830.] In 1815 the Provisional Government in Warsaw appointed a special committee, under the chairmanship of Count Adam Chartoryski, to consider the agrarian and the Jewish problem. The Committee drew up a general plan of Jewish reorganization which was marked by the spirit of enlightened patronage. In theory the Committee was ready to concede to the Jews human and civil rights, even to the point of considering the necessity of their final emancipation. But "in view of the ignorance, the prejudices and the moral corruption to be observed among the lower classes of the Jewish and the Polish people"--the patrician members of the Committee in charge of the agrarian and Jewish problem accorded an equal share of compliments to the Jews and the Polish peasants--immediate emancipation was, in their opinion, bound to prove harmful, since it would confer upon the Jews freedom of action to the detriment of the country. It was, therefore, necessary to demand, as a prerequisite for Jewish emancipation, the improvement of the Jewish masses which was to be effected by removal from the injurious liquor trade and inducement to engage in agriculture, by abolishing the Kahals, i.e., their communal autonomy, and by changing the Jewish school system to meet the civic requirements. In order to gain the confidence of the Jews for the proposed reforms, the Committee suggested that the Government should invite the "enlightened" representatives of the Jewish people to participate in the discussion of the projected measures of reform. Turning their eyes towards the West, where Jewish assimilation had already begun its course, the Polish Committee decided to approach the Jewish reformer David Frielaender, of Berlin, who was, so to speak, the official philosopher of Jewish emancipation, and to solicit his opinion concerning the ways and means of bringing about a reorganization of Jewish life in Poland. The bishop of Kuyavia,[1] Malchevski, addressed himself in the name of the Polish Government to Friedlaender, calling upon him, as a pupil of Mendelssohn, the educator of Jewry, to state his views on the proposed Jewish reforms in Poland. Flattered by this invitation, Friedlaender hastened to compose an elaborate "Opinion on the Improvement of the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland." [2] [Footnote 1: A former Polish province, compare Vol. I, p. 75, n. 2.] [Footnote 2: It was written in February, 1816, and published later in 1819.] According to Friedlaender, the Polish Jews had in point of culture remained far behind their Western coreligionists, because their progress had been hampered by their talmudic training, the pernicious doctrine of Hasidism, and the self-government of their Kahals. All these influences ought, therefore, to be combated. The Jewish school should be brought into closer contact with the Polish school, the Hebrew language should be replaced by the language of the country, and altogether assimilation and religious reform should be encouraged. While promoting religious and cultural reforms, the Government, in the opinion of Friedlaender, ought to confirm the Jews in the belief that they would "receive in time civil rights if they were to endeavor to perfect themselves in the spirit of the regulations issued for them." This flunkeyish notion of the necessity of _deserving_ civil rights coincided with the views of the official Polish Committee in Warsaw. Soon afterwards a memorandum, prepared by the Committee, was submitted through its Chairman, Count Chartoryski, to the Polish viceroy Zayonchek. [1] Formerly a comrade of Koszciuszko, Zayonchek later turned from a revolutionary into a reactionary, who was anxious to curry favor with the supreme commander of the province, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich. [2] No wonder, therefore, that the plan of the Committee, conservative though it was, seemed too liberal for his liking. In his report to Emperor Alexander I., dated March 8, 1816, he wrote as follows: [Footnote 1: He was appointed viceroy in 1815, after the formation of the Kingdom of Poland, and continued in this office until his death in 1826.] [Footnote 2: He was the military commander of the province. See above, p. 13, n. 2.] The growth of the Jewish population in your Kingdom of Poland is becoming a menace. In 1790 they formed here a thirteenth part of the whole population; to-day they form no less than an eighth. Sober and resourceful, they are satisfied with little; they earn their livelihood by cheating, and, owing to early marriages, multiply beyond measure. Shunning hard labor, they produce nothing themselves, and live only at the expense of the working classes which they help to ruin. Their peculiar institutions keep them apart within the state, marking them as a foreign nationality, and, as a result, they are unable in their present condition to furnish the state either with good citizens or with capable soldiers. Unless means are adopted to utilize for the common weal the useful qualities of the Jews, they will soon exhaust all the sources of the national wealth and will threaten to surpass and suppress the Christian population. In the same year, 1816, a scheme looking to the solution of the Jewish question was proposed by the Russian statesman Nicholas Novosiltzev, the imperial commissioner attached to the Provincial Government in Warsaw.[1] Novosiltzev, who was not sympathetic to the Poles, showed himself in his project to be a friend of the Jews. Instead of the principle laid down by the official Committee: "correction first, and civil rights last," he suggests another more liberal procedure: the immediate bestowal of civil and in part even political rights upon the Jews, to be accompanied by a reorganization, of Jewish life along the lines of European progress and a modernized scheme of autonomy. All communal and cultural affairs shall be put in charge of "directorates," one central directorate in Warsaw and local ones in every province of the Kingdom, after the pattern of the Jewish consistories of France. These directorates shall be composed of rabbis, elders of the community, and a commissioner representing the Government; in the central directorate this commissioner shall be replaced by a "procurator" to be appointed directly by the king. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 16.] This whole organization shall be placed under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Public Instruction, who shall also exercise the right of confirming the rabbis nominated by the directorates. The functions of the directorates shall include the registration of the Jewish population, the management of the communal finances, the dispensation of charity, and the opening of secular schools for Jewish children. A certificate of graduation from such a school shall be required from every young man who applies for a marriage license or for a permit to engage in a craft or to acquire property. "All Jews fulfilling the obligations imposed by the present statute shall be accorded full citizenship," while those who distinguish themselves in science an art may even be deemed worthy of political rights, not excluding membership in the Polish Diet. For the immediate future Novosiltzev advises to refrain from economic restrictions, such as the prohibition of the liquor traffic, though he concedes the advisability of checking its growth, and advocates the adoption of a system of economic reforms by stimulating crafts and agriculture among the Jews. In the beginning of 1817 Novosiltzev's project was laid before the Polish Council of State. It was opposed with great stubbornness by Chartoryski, the Polish viceroy Zayonchek, Stashitz, and other Polish dignitaries, whose hostility was directed not so much against the pro-Jewish plan as against its Russian author. The Council of State appointed a special committee which, after examining Novosiltzev's project, arrived at the following conclusions: 1. It is impossible to carry out a reorganization of Jewish life through the Jews themselves. 2. The establishment of a separate cultural organization for the Jews will only stimulate their national aloofness. 3. The complete civil and political emancipation of the Jews is at variance with the Polish Constitution which vouchsafes special privileges to the professors of the dominant religion. In the plenary session of the Polish Council of State the debate about Novosiltzev's project was exceedingly stormy. The Polish members of the Council scented in the project "political aims in opposition to the national element of the country." They emphasized the danger which the immediate emancipation of the Jews would entail for Poland. "Let the Jews first become real Poles," exclaimed the referee Kozhmyan, "then will it be possible to look upon them as citizens." When the same gentleman declared that it was impossible to accord citizenship to hordes of people who first had to be accustomed to cleanliness and cured from "leprosy and similar diseases," Zayonchek burst out laughing and shouted: "Hear, hear! These sluts won't get rid of their scab so easily." After such elevating "criticism," Novosiltzev's project was voted down. The Council inclined to the belief that "the psychological moment" for bringing about a radical reorganization of the inner life of the Jews had not yet arrived, and, therefore, resolved to limit itself to isolated measures, principally of a "correctional" and repressive character. 2. POLITICAL REACTION AND LITERARY ANTI-SEMITISM Such "measures" were not long in coming. The only restriction the Government of Warsaw failed to carry through was the enforcement of the law of 1812 forbidding the Jews to deal in liquor. This drastic measure was vetoed by Alexander I., owing to the representations of the Jewish deputies in St. Petersburg, and in 1816 the Polish viceroy was compelled to announce the suspension of this cruel law which had hung like the sword of Damocles over the heads of hundreds of thousands of Jews. On the other hand, the Polish Government managed in the course of a few years (1816-1823) to put into operation a number of other restrictive laws. Several cities which boasted of the ancient right _de non tolerandis Judaeis_[1] secured the confirmation of this shameful privilege, with the result that the Jews who had settled there during the existence of the duchy of Warsaw were either expelled or confined to separate districts. In Warsaw a number of streets were closed to Jewish residents, and all Jewish visitors to the capital were forced to pay a heavy tax for their right of sojourn, the so-called "ticket impost," amounting to fifteen kopecks (71/2c) a day. Finally the Jews were forbidden to settle within twenty-one versts of the Austrian and Prussian frontiers. [2] [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, pp. 85 and 95.] [Footnote 2: The law in question was passed by the Polish Government on January 31, 1823, barring the Jews from nearly one hundred towns. It was repealed by Alexander II. in 1862. See below, p. 181.] At the same time, the Polish legislators were fair-minded enough to refrain from forcing the Jews, these disfranchised pariahs, into military service. In 1817 an announcement was made to the effect that, so long as the Jews were barred from the enjoyment of civil rights, they would be released from personal military service in Poland, in lieu whereof they were to pay a fixed conscription tax. About the same time, during the third decade of the nineteenth century, was also realized the old-time policy of curtailing the Jewish Kahal autonomy, though, as will be seen later, this "reform" did not proceed from the Government spheres, but was rather the product of contemporary social movements among the Poles and the Jews. The political literature of Poland manifested at that time a tendency similar to the one which had prevailed during the Quadrennial Diet.[1] Scores of pamphlets and magazine articles discussed with polemical ardor the Jewish problem, the burning question of the day. The old Jew-baiter Stashitz, a member of the Warsaw Government who served on the Commission of Public Instruction and Religious Denominations, resumed his attacks on Judaism. In 1816 he published an article under the title "Concerning the Causes of the Obnoxiousness of the Jews," in which he asserted that the Jews were responsible for Poland's decline. They multiplied with incredible rapidity, forming now no less than an eighth of the population. Should this process continue, the Kingdom of Poland would be turned into a "Jewish country" and become "the laughing-stock of the whole of Europe." The Jewish religion is antagonistic to Catholicism: we call them "Old Testament believers," [2] while they brand us as "pagans." It being impossible to expel the Jews from Poland, they ought to be isolated like carriers of disease. They should be concentrated in separate quarters in the cities to facilitate the supervision over them. Only well-deserving merchants and craftsmen, who have plied their trade honestly for five or ten years, should be allowed to reside outside the ghetto. The same category of Jews, in addition to those married to Christian women, should also be granted the right of acquiring landed property. The ghetto on the one end of the line, and baptism on the other--this medieval policy did not in the least abash the patriotic reformers of the type of Stashitz. [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 279 et seq.] [Footnote 2: Referring to the term _Starozakonni_, the Polish designation for Jews.] Stashitz's point of view was supported by certain publicists and opposed by others, but all were agreed on the necessity of a system of correction for the Jews. The discussion became particularly heated in 1818, after the convocation and during the sessions of the first [1] Polish Diet in Warsaw. Three different tendencies asserted themselves: a moderate, an anti-Jewish, and a pro-Jewish tendency. The first was represented by General Vincent Krasinski, a member of the Diet. In his "Observations on the Jews of Poland," he proceeds from the following twofold premise: "The voice of the whole nation is raised against the Jews, and it demands their transformation." This titled publicist declares himself an opponent of the Jews as they are at present. He shares the popular dread of their multiplication, the fear of a "Jewish Poland," and is somewhat sceptical about their being corrigible. Nevertheless he proposes liberal methods of correction, such as the encouragement of big Jewish capital, the promotion of agriculture and handicrafts among the Jewish masses, and the bestowal of the rights of citizenship upon those worthy of it. [Footnote 1: i.e., the first to be convoked after the reconstitution of Poland in 1815.] Krasinski was attacked by an anonymous writer in an anti-Semitic pamphlet entitled "A Remedy against the Jews." Proceeding from the conviction that no reforms, however well conceived, could have any effect on the Jews, the writer puts the question in a simplified form: "Shall we sacrifice the welfare of three million Poles to that of 300,000 Jews, or _vice versa?_" His answer is just as simple: the Jews should be forced to leave Poland. Emperor Alexander I., "the benefactor of Poland," ought to be petitioned to rid the country of the Jews by transferring them to the uninhabited steppes in the South of Russia or even "on the borders of Great Tartary." The 300,000 Jews might be divided into 300 parties and settled there in the course of one year. The means for expelling and settling the Jews should be furnished by the Jews themselves. This barbarous project aroused the ire of a noble-minded Polish army officer, Valerian Lukasinski, a radical in politics, who subsequently landed in the dungeon of the Schlueselburg fortress. [1] In his "Reflections of an Army Officer Concerning the Need of Organizing the Jews," published in 1818, Lukasinski advances the thought that the oppression and disfranchisement of the Jews are alone responsible for their demoralized condition. They were useful citizens in the golden age of Casimir the Great and Sigismund the Old [2] when they were treated with kindness. The author lashes the hypocrisy of the Shlakhta who hold the Jews to account for ruining the peasants by selling them alcohol in those very taverns which are leased to them by the noble pans. Lukasinski contends that the Jews will become good citizens once they will be allowed to participate in the civil life of Poland, when that life will be founded on democratic principles. [Footnote 1: In the government of St. Petersburg.] [Footnote 2: i.e., Sigismund I. (1506-1548). See on his attitude towards the Jews Vol. I, p. 71 et seq.] The choir of Polish voices was but faintly disturbed by the opinions expressed by the Jews. An otherwise unknown rabbi, who calls himself Moses ben Abraham, echoes in his pamphlet "The Voice of the People of Israel" the sentiments of Jewish orthodoxy. He begs the Poles not to meddle in the inner affairs of Judaism: "You refuse to recognize us as brothers; then at least respect us as fathers! Look at your genealogical tree with the branches of the New Testament, a d you will find the roots in us." Polish culture cannot be foisted upon the Jews. Barbarous as may appear the plan of expelling the Jews from Poland, the persecuted tribe will rather submit to this alternative than renounce its faith and its ancestral customs. The views of the progressive Jews of Poland were voiced by a young pedagogue in Warsaw, subsequently the well-known champion of assimilation, Jacob Tugenhold. In a treatise entitled "Jerubbaal, or a Word Concerning the Jews," Tugenhold contends that the Jews have already begun to assimilate themselves to Polish culture. It was now within the power of the Government to strengthen this movement by admitting "distinguished Jews to civil service." While this literary feud concerning the problem of Judaism was raging, an unhealthy movement against the Jews started among the dregs of the Polish population. In several localities of the Kingdom there suddenly appeared "victims of ritual murder" in the shape of dead bodies of children, the discovery of which was followed by a series of legal trials against the Jews (1815-1816). Innocent people were thrown into prison, where they languished for years, and were subjected to cross-examinations, though without the inquisitorial apparatus of ancient Poland. It is impossible to say whither this orgy of superstition might have led, had it not been stopped by a word of command from St. Petersburg. In 1817, as a result of the energetic representations of "the Deputies of the Jewish People," [1] Sonnenberg and his fellow-workers, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs, Golitzin, gave orders that the ukase which had just been issued by him, forbidding the arbitrary injection of a ritual element into criminal cases, be strictly enforced in the Kingdom of Poland. This action saved the lives of scores of prisoners, and put a stop to the obscure agitation which endeavored to revive the medieval spectre. [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 394, and above, p. 74.] The Polish Diet of 1818 reflected the same state of mind which had previously found expression in political literature: an unmistakable preponderance of the anti-Jewish element. Some of the deputies appealed to Alexander I. in their speeches and openly called upon him to give orders to lay before the next session of the Diet "a project of Jewish reform, with a view to saving Poland from the excessive growth of the Hebrew tribe, which now forms a seventh of all the inhabitants, and in a few years will surpass in numbers the Christian population of the country." For the immediate future the deputies recommend the enforcement of the suspended law barring the Jews from the liquor traffic [1] and their subjection to military conscription. [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 304, and above, p. 94.] One might have thought that the Diet had no need of extra measures to "curb" the Jews. It was quite enough that it tacitly sanctioned the prolongation of the ten years term of Jewish rightlessness which had been fixed by the Government of the Varsovian duchy in 1808. [1] This term ended in 1818, while the first Diet of the Kingdom of Poland was holding its sessions, but neither the Polish Diet nor the Polish Council of State gave any serious thought to the question whether the Government of the province had a right to prolong the disfranchisement of the Jews. This right was taken for granted by the Polish legislators who were planning even harsher restrictions for the unloved tribe of Hebrews. [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 299.] 3. ASSIMILATIONIST TENDENCIES AMONG THE JEWS OF POLAND In the beginning of the third decade of the nineteenth century the noise caused by the Jewish question had begun to subside both in Polish political circles and in Polish literature. Instead, the agitation within the Jewish ranks became more vigorous. That group of Jews already assimilated or thirsting for assimilation, which on an earlier occasion, during the existence of the Varsovian duchy, had segregated itself from the rest of Jewry, assuming the label of "Old Testament believers," [1] occupied a very influential position within the Jewish community of the Polish capital. It was made up of wealthy bankers and merchants and boasted of a few men with a European education. The members of this group were hankering after German models and were anxious to renounce the national separatism of the Jews which was a standing rebuke in the mouths of their enemies. To these "Old Testament believers" the abolition of the Kahal and the limitation of communal self-government to the narrow range of synagogue interests appeared the surest remedy against anti-Semitism. Behind the abrogation of communal autonomy they saw the smiling vision of a Jewish school-reform, leading to the Polonization of Jewish education, while in the far-off distance they could discern the promised land of equal citizenship. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 96, n. 1.] The efforts of the Jewish reformers of Warsaw were now systematically directed towards this goal. In 1820 there appeared an anonymous pamphlet under the title "The Petition, or Self-defence, of the Members of the Old Testament Persuasion in the Kingdom of Poland." The main purpose of this publication is to show that the root of the evil lies in the Kahal organization, in the elders, rabbis, and burial societies, who expend enormous sums of taxation money without any control--i.e., without the control of the Polish municipality--who oppress the people by their _herems_ (excommunications), and altogether abuse their power. It is, therefore, necessary to abolish this power of the Kahals and transfer it to the Polish municipalities, or even, police authorities; only then will order be established in the Jewish communities, and the Jews will be transformed into "useful citizens." The Government spheres of Poland were greatly pleased by these utterances of the "Old Testament believers" of Warsaw. They had long contemplated the curtailment of the autonomy of the Kahals, and now "the very Jews" clamored for it. In consequence, there appeared in 1821 a series of edicts by the viceroy and various rescripts by the Commission of Public Instruction and Religious Denominations, resulting in the demolition of the ancient communal scheme, in which certain forms of self-government, but by no means its underlying fundamental principles, had become obsolete. These measures were sanctioned by an imperial ukase dated December 20, 1821, [1] decreeing the abolition of the Kahals and their substitution by "Congregational Boards," whose scope of activity was strictly limited to religious matters, while all civil and fiscal affairs were placed under the jurisdiction of the local Polish administration. The Congregational Boards were to consist of the rabbi, his assistant or substitute, and three trustees or supervisors. [Footnote 1: Corresponding to January 1, 1822, of the West-European calendar.] At first, the majority of Jewish communities in Poland were indignant at this curtailment of their autonomy, and adopted a hostile attitude towards the new communal organization. The "supervisors" elected on the Congregational Boards often refused to serve, and the authorities were compelled to appoint them. But in the course of time the communities became reconciled to the new scheme of congregations, or _Gminas,_[1] whose range of activity was gradually widened. In 1830 the suffrage of the Polish Jews within the Jewish communities was restricted by a new law to persons possessed of a certain amount of property. The result was particularly noticeable in Warsaw where the new state of things helped to strengthen the influence of the group of the "Old Testament believers" and enabled them to gain control of the affairs of the metropolitan community. The leaders of Warsaw Jewry managed soon to establish intimate relations with the Polish Government, and co-operated with it in bringing about the "cultural reforms" of the Jews of Poland. [Footnote 1: _Gmina_ is the Polish word for community, derived from the German _Gemeinde_.] In 1825 the Polish Government appointed a special body to deal with Jewish affairs. It was called "Committee of Old Testament Believers," though composed in the main of Polish officials. It was supplemented by an advisory council consisting of five public-spirited Jews and their alternates. Among the members of the Committee, which included several prominent Jewish merchants of Warsaw, such as Jacob Bergson, M. Kavski, Solomon Posner, T. Teplitz, was also the well-known mathematician Abraham Stern, one of the few cultured Jews of that period who remained a steadfast upholder of Jewish tradition. The "Committee of Old Testament Believers" embarked upon the huge task of civilizing the Jews of Poland and purging the Jewish religion of its superstitious excrescences. The first step taken by the Committee was the establishment of a Rabbinical Seminary in Warsaw for the training of modernized rabbis, teachers, and communal workers. The program of the school was arranged with a view to the Polonization of its pupils. The language of instruction was Polish, and the teachers of many secular subjects were Christians. No wonder then that when the Seminary was opened in 1826, Stern refused to accept the post of director which had been offered to him, and yielded his place to Anton Eisenbaum, a radical assimilator. The tendency of the school may be gauged from the fact that the department of Hebrew and Bible was entrusted to Abraham Buchner, who had gained notoriety by a German pamphlet entitled _Die Nicktigkeit des Talmuds_, "The Worthlessness of the Talmud." [1] [Footnote 1: He was also the author of a Jewish catechism in Hebrew, entitled _Yesode ha-Dat_, "The Fundamental Principles of the Jewish Religion."] Characteristically enough, Buchner had been recommended by the ferocious Jew-baitor Abbe Chiarini, a member of the "Committee of Old Testament Believers," which, one might almost suspect, was charged with the supervision of Jewish education for no other reason, than that to spite the Jews. Chiarini was professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Warsaw. As such he considered himself an expert in Hebrew literature, and cherished the plan of translating the Talmud into French to unveil the secrets of Judaism before the Christian world. In 1828 Chiarini suggested to the "Committee of Old Testament Believers" to arrange a course in Hebrew Archaeology at the Warsaw University for the purpose of acquainting Christian students with rabbinic literature and thus equipping prospective Polish officials with a knowledge of things Jewish. The plan having been approved by the Government, Chiarini began to deliver a course of lectures on Judaism. The fruit of these lectures was a French publication, issued in 1829 under the title _Theorie du Judaisme_. It was an ignorant libel upon the Talmud and rabbinism, a worthy counterpart of Eisenmenger's "Judaism Exposed." [1] Chiarini did not even shrink from repeating the hideous lie about the use of Christian blood by the Jews. He was taken to task by Jacob Tugenhold in Warsaw and by Jost and Zunz in Germany. Yet the evil seed had sunk into the soil. Polish society, which had long harbored unfriendly sentiments against the Jews, became more and more permeated with anti-Semitic bias, and this bias found tangible expression during the insurrection of 1830-1831. [Footnote 1: The book of a famous anti-Semitic writer who lived in Germany in the seventeenth century. _Entdecktes Judentum_, the book referred to in the text, appeared in 1700.] 4. THE JEWS AND THE POLISH INSURRECTION OF 1831 When, under the effect of the July revolution in Paris, the "November insurrection" of 1830 broke out in Warsaw, it put on its mettle that section of Polish Jewry who hoped to improve the Jewish lot by their patriotic ardor. In the month of December one of the "Old Testament believers," Stanislav Hernish, [1] addressed himself to the Polish dictator, Khlopitzki, in the name of a group of Jewish youths, assuring him of their eagerness to form a special detachment of volunteers to help in the common task of liberating their fatherland. The dictator replied that, inasmuch as the Jews had no civil rights, they could not be permitted to serve in the army. The Minister of War Moravski delivered himself on this occasion of the following characteristic utterance: "We cannot allow that Jewish blood should mingle with the noble blood of the Poles. What will Europe say when she learns that in fighting for our liberty we have not been able to get along without Jewish help?" [Footnote 1: Polish patriot and publicist. He subsequently fled to France. See later, p. 109.] The insulting refusal did not cool the ardor of the Jewish patriots. Joseph Berkovich, the son of Berek Yoselovitch, who had laid down his life for the Polish cause, decided to repeat his father's experiment [1] and issued a proclamation to the Jews, calling upon them to join the ranks of the fighters for Polish independence. The "National Government" in Warsaw could not resist this patriotic pressure. It addressed itself to the "Congregational Board" of Warsaw, inquiring about the attitude of the Jewish community towards the projected formation of a separate regiment of Jewish volunteers. The Board replied that the community had already given proofs of its patriotism by contributing 40,000 Gulden towards the revolutionary funds, and by collecting further contributions towards the equipment of volunteers. The formation of a _special_ Jewish regiment the Board did not consider advisable, inasmuch as such action was not in keeping with the task of uniting all citizens in the defence of the fatherland. Instead, the Board favored the distribution of the Jewish volunteers over the whole army. [Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 293 et seq.] From now on the Jews were admitted to military service, but more into the militia than into the regular army. The commander of the National Guard in Warsaw, Anton Ostrovski, one of the few rebel leaders who were not swayed by the anti-Semitic prejudices of the Polish nobility, admitted into his militia many Jewish volunteers on condition that they shave off their beards. Owing to the religious scruples of many Jewish soldiers, the latter condition had to be abandoned, and a special "bearded" detachment of the metropolitan guard was formed, comprising 850 Jews. The Jewish militia acquitted itself nobly of its duty in the grave task of protecting the city of Warsaw against the onrush of the Russian troops. The sons of wealthy families fought shoulder to shoulder with children of the proletariat. The sight of these step-children of Poland fighting for their fatherland stirred the heart of Ostrovski, and he subsequently wrote: "This spectacle could not fail to make your heart ache. Our conscience bade us to attend to the betterment of this most down-trodden part of our population at the earliest possible moment." It is worthy of note that the wave of Polish-Jewish patriotism did not spread beyond Warsaw. In the provincial towns the inhabitants of the ghetto were, as a rule, unwilling to serve in the army on the ground that the Jewish religion forbade the shedding of human blood. This indifference aroused the ire of the Polish population, which threatened to wreak vengeance upon the Jews, suspecting them of pro-Russian sympathies. Ostrovski's remark with reference to this situation deserves to be quoted: "True," he said, "the Jews of the provinces may possibly be guilty of indifference towards the revolutionary cause, but can we expect any other attitude from those we oppress?" [1] It may be added that soon afterwards the question of military service as affecting the Jews was solved by the Diet. By the law of May 30, 1831, the Jews were released from conscription on the payment of a tax which was four times as large as the one paid by them in former years. [Footnote 1: In the Western provinces outside the Kingdom of Poland, in Lithuania, Volhynia, and Podolia, the Jewish population held itself aloof from the insurrectionary movement. Here and there the Jews even sympathized with the Russian Government, despite the fact that the latter threw the Polish rulers into the shade by the extent of its Jewish persecutions. In some places the Polish insurgents made the Jews pay with their lives for their pro-Russian sympathies.] When the "aristocratic revolution," having failed to obtain the support of the disinherited masses, had met with disaster, the revolutionary leaders, who saved themselves by fleeing abroad, indulged in remorseful reflections. The Polish historian Lelevel, who lived in Paris as a refugee, issued in 1832 a "Manifesto to the Israelitish Nation," calling upon the Jews to forget the insults inflicted upon them by present-day Poland for the sake of the sweet reminiscences of the Polish Republic in days gone by and of the hopes inspired by a free Poland in days to come. He compares the flourishing condition of the Jews in the ancient Polish commonwealth with their present status on the same territory, under the yoke of "the Viennese Pharaohs," [1] or in the land "dominated by the Northern Nebuchadnezzar," [2] where the terror of conscription reigns supreme, where "little children, wrenched from the embraces of their mothers, are hurled into the ranks of a debased soldiery," "doomed to become traitors to their religion and nation." [Footnote 1: Referring to Galicia.] [Footnote 2: Nicholas I.] The reign of nations--exclaims Lelevel--is drawing nigh. All peoples will be merged into one, acknowledging the one God Adonai. The rulers have fed the Jews on false promises; the nations will grant them liberty. Soon Poland will rise from the dust. Let then the Jews living on her soil go hand in hand with their brother-Poles. The Jews will then be sure to obtain their rights. Should they insist on returning to Palestine, the Poles will assist them in realizing this consummation. Similar utterances could be heard a little later in the mystic circle of Tovyanski and Mitzkevitch in Paris, [1] in which the historic destiny of the two martyr nations, the Poles and the Jews, and their universal Messianic calling were favorite topics of discussion. But alongside of these flights of "imprisoned thought" one could frequently catch in the very same circle the sounds of the old anti-Semitic slogans. The Parisian organ of the Polish refugees, _Nowa Polska_, "New Poland," occasionally indulged in anti-Semitic sallies, calling forth a passionate rebuttal from Hernish, [2] an exiled journalist, who reminded his fellow-journalists that it was mean to hunt down people who were the "slaves of slaves." Two other Polish-Jewish revolutionaries, Lubliner and Hollaenderski, shared all the miseries of the refugees and, while in exile, indulged in reflections concerning the destiny of their brethren at home. [3] [Footnote 1: Andreas Tovyanski (In Polish _Towianski_, 1799-1878), a Christian mystic, founded in Paris a separate community which fostered the belief in the restoration of the Polish and the Jewish people. The community counted among its members several Jews. The famous Polish poet Adam Mitzkevich (in Polish _Mickiewicz_, 1798-1855) joined Tovyanski in his endeavors, and on one occasion even appeared in a Paris synagogue on the Ninth of Ab to make an appeal to the Jews.] [Footnote 2: See above, p. 105.] [Footnote 3: Lubliner published _Des Juifs en Pologne_, Brussels, 1839; Hollaenderski wrote _Les Israelites en Pologne_, Paris, 1846.] In pacified Poland, which, deprived of her former autonomous constitution, was now ruled by the iron hand of the Russian viceroy, Paskevich, the Jews at first experienced no palpable changes. Their civil status was regulated, as heretofore, by the former Polish legislation, not by that of the Empire. It was only in 1843 that the Polish Jews were in one respect equalized with their Russian brethren. Instead of the old recruiting tax, they were now forced to discharge military service in person. However, the imperial ukase extending the operation of the Conscription Statute of 1827 to the Jews of the Kingdom contained several alleviations. Above all, its most cruel provision, the conscription of juveniles or cantonists, was set aside. The age of conscription was fixed at twenty to twenty-five, while boys between the age of twelve and eighteen were to be drafted only when the parents themselves wished to offer them as substitutes for their elder sons who were of military age. Nevertheless, to the Polish Jews, who had never known of conscription, military service lasting a quarter of a century, to be discharged in a strange Russian environment, seemed a terrible sacrifice. The "Congregational Board" of Warsaw, having learned of the ukase, sent a deputation to St. Petersburg with a petition to grant the Jews of the Kingdom equal rights with the Christians, referring to the law of 1817 which distinctly stated that the Jews were to be released from personal military service so long as they were denied equal civil rights. The petition of course proved of no avail; the very term "equal rights" was still missing in the Russian vocabulary. Only in point of disabilities were the Jews of Poland gradually placed on an equal footing with their Russian brethren. In 1845 the Russian law imposing a tax on the traditional Jewish attire [1] was extended in its operation to the Polish Jews, descending with the force of a real calamity upon the hasidic masses of Poland. Fortunately for the Jews of Poland, the other experiments, in which St. Petersburg was revelling during that period, left them unscathed. The crises connected with the problems of Jewish autonomy and the Jewish school, which threatened to disrupt Russian Jewry in the forties, had been passed by the Jews of Poland some twenty years earlier. Moreover, the Polish Jews had the advantage over their Russian brethren in that the abrogated Kahal had after all been replaced by another communal organization, however curtailed it was, and that the secular school was not forced upon them in the same brutal manner in which the Russian Crown schools had been imposed upon the Jews of the Empire. Taken as a whole, the lot of the Polish Jews, sad though it was, might yet be pronounced enviable when compared with the condition of their brethren in the Pale of Settlement, where the rightlessness of the Jews during that period bordered frequently on martyrdom. [Footnote 1: A law to that effect had been passed on February 1, 1843. It was preparatory to the entire prohibition of Jewish dress. See below, p. 143 et seq.] CHAPTER XVI THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE PERIOD OF MILITARY DESPOTISM 1. THE UNCOMPROMISING ATTITUDE OF RABBINISM The Russian Government had left nothing undone to shatter the old Jewish mode of life. Despotic Tzardom, whose ignorance of Jewish life was only equalled by its hostility to it, lifted its hand to strike not merely at the obsolete forms but also at the sound historic foundations of Judaism. The system of conscription which annually wrenched thousands of youths and lads from the bosom of their families, the barracks which served as mission houses, the method of stimulating and even forcing the conversion of recruits, the establishment of Crown schools for the same covert purpose, the abolition of communal autonomy, civil disfranchisement, persecution and oppression, all were set in motion against the citadel of Judaism. And the ancient citadel, which had held out for thousands of years, stood firm again, while the defenders within her walls, in their endeavor to ward off the enemies' blows, had not only succeeded in covering up the breaches, but also in barring the entrance of fresh air from without. If it be true that, in pursuing its system of tutelage and oppression, the Russian Government was genuinely actuated by the desire to graft the modicum of European culture, to which the Russia of Nicholas I. could lay claim, upon the Jews, it certainly achieved the reverse of what it aimed at. The hand which dealt out blows could not disseminate enlightenment; the hammer which was lifted to shatter Jewish separatism had only the effect of hardening it. The persecuted Jews clutched eagerly at their old mode of life, the target of their enemies' attacks; they clung not only to its permanent foundations but also to its obsolete superstructure. The despotism of extermination from without was counterbalanced by a despotism of conservation from within, by that rigid discipline of conduct to which the masses submitted without a murmur, though its yoke must have weighed heavily upon the few, the stray harbingers of a new order of things. The Government had managed to disrupt the Jewish communal organization and rob the Kahal of all its authority by degrading it to a kind of posse for the capture of recruits and extortion of taxes. But while the Jewish masses hated the Kahal elders, they retained their faith in their spiritual leaders, the rabbis and Tzaddiks. [1] Heeding the command of these leaders, they closed their ranks, and offered stubborn resistance to the dangerous cultural influences threatening them from without. Life was dominated by rigidly conservative principles. The old scheme of family life, with all its patriarchal survivals, remained in force. In spite of the law, embodied in the Statute of 1835, which fixed the minimum age of the bridegroom at eighteen (and that of the bride at sixteen), the practice of early marriages continued as theretofore. Parents arranged marriages between children of thirteen and fifteen. Boys of school age often became husbands and fathers, and continued to attend heder or yeshibah after their marriage, weighed down by the triple tutelage of father, father-in-law, and teacher. The growing generation knew not the sweetness of being young. Their youth withered under the weight of family chains, the pressure of want or material dependence. The spirit of protest, the striving for rejuvenation, which asserted itself in some youthful souls, was crushed in the vise of a time-honored discipline, the product of long ages. The slightest deviation from a custom, a rite, or old habits of thought met with severe punishment. A short jacket or a trimmed beard was looked upon as a token of dangerous free-thinking. The reading of books written in foreign languages, or even written in Hebrew, when treating of secular subjects, brought upon the culprit untold hardships. The scholastic education resulted in producing men entirely unfit for the battle of life, so that in many families energetic women took charge of the business and became the wage earners, [2] while their husbands were losing themselves in the mazes of speculation, somewhere in the recesses of the rabbinic _Betha-Midrash_ or the hasidic _Klaus_. [Footnote 1: See on the latter term, Vol. I, p. 227.] [Footnote 2: This type of Jewish woman, current in Russia until recent times, was called _Eshet Hayil_, "a woman of valour," with allusion to Prov. 31.10.] In Lithuania the whole mental energy of the Jewish youth was absorbed by Talmudism. The synagogue served as a "house of study" outside the hours fixed for prayers. There the local rabbi or a private scholar gave lectures on the Talmud which were listened to by hosts of _yeshibah bahurs_. [1] The great yeshibahs of Volozhin, Mir, [2] and other towns sent forth thousands of rabbis and Talmudists. Mentality, erudition, dialectic subtlety were valued here above all else. Yet, as soon as the mind, whetted by talmudic dialectics, would point its edge against the existing order of things, or turn in the direction of living knowledge, of "extraneous sciences," [3] it was checked by threats of excommunication and persecution. Many were the victims of this petrified milieu, whose protests against the old order of things and whose strivings for a newer life were nipped in the bud. [Footnote 1: On the _bahur_ or Talmud student see Vol. I, p. 116 et seq.] [Footnote 2: On the yeshibah in Volozhin, in the government of Vilna, see Vol. I, p. 380 et seq. Mir is a townlet in the government of Minsk.] [Footnote 3: An old Hebrew expression for secular learning.] Instructive in this respect is the fate of one of the most remarkable Talmudists of his time, Rabbi Menashe Ilyer. Ilyer spent most of his life in the townlets of Smorgoni and Ilya (whence his surname), in the government of Vilna, and died of the cholera, in 1831. While keeping strictly within the bounds of rabbinical orthodoxy, whose adepts respected him for his enormous erudition and strict piety, Menashe assiduously endeavored to widen their range of thought and render them more amenable to moderate freedom of research and a more sober outlook on life. But his path was strewn with thorns. When on one occasion he expounded before his pupils the conclusion, which he had reached after a profound scientific investigation, that the text of the Mishnah had in many cases been wrongly interpreted by the Gemara,[1] he was taken to task by a conference of Lithuanian rabbis and barely escaped excommunication. [Footnote 1: The Mishnah is a code of laws edited about 200 C.E. by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi. The Gemara consists largely of the comments of the talmudic authorities, who lived after that date, on the text of this code.] Having conceived a liking for mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, Menashe decided to go to Berlin to devote himself to these studies, but on his way to the German capital, while temporarily sojourning in Koenigsberg, he was halted by his countrymen, who visited Prussia on business, and was cowed by all kinds of threats into returning home. By persistent private study, this native of a Russian out-of-the-way townlet managed to acquire a fair amount of general culture, which, with all its limitations, yielded a rich literary harvest. In 1807 he made his _debut_ with the treatise _Pesher Dabar_ ("The Solution of the Problem"), [1] in which he gave vent to his grief over the fact that the spiritual leaders of the Jewish people kept aloof from concrete reality and living knowledge. While the book was passing through the press in Vilna, Lithuanian fanatics threatened the author with severe reprisals. Their threats failed to intimidate him. When the book appeared, many rabbis threw it into the flames, and made every possible effort to arrest its circulation, with the result that the voice of the "heretic" was stifled. [Footnote 1: Literally, "The Interpretation of a Thing," from Eccl. 8.1.] Ten years later, while residing temporarily in Volhynia, the hot-bed of hasidism, Menashe began to print his religio-philosophic treatise _Alfe Menassheh_ ("The Teachings of Manasseh"). [1] But the first proof-sheets sufficed to impress the printer with the "heretical" character of the book, and he threw them together with the whole manuscript into the fire. The hapless author managed with difficulty to restore the text of his "executed" work, and published it at Vilna in 1822. Here the rabbinical censorship pounced upon him. The book had not yet left the press, when the rabbi of Vilna, Saul Katzenellenbogen, learned that in one passage the writer deduced from a verse in Deuteronomy (17.9) the right of the "judges" or spiritual leaders of each generation to modify many religious laws and customs in accordance with the requirements of the time. The rabbi gave our author fair warning that, unless this heretical argument was withdrawn, he would have the book burned publicly in the synagogue yard. Menashe was forced to submit, and, contrary to his conviction, weakened his heterodox argument by a number of circumlocutions. [Footnote 1: With a clever allusion to the Hebrew text of Deut. 33.17.] These persecutions, however, did not smother the fire of protest in the breast of the excommunicated rural philosopher. In the last years of his life he published two pamphlets, [1] in which he severely lashed the shortcomings of Jewish life, the early marriages, the one-sided school training, the repugnance to living knowledge and physical labor. However, the champions of orthodoxy took good care to prevent these books from reaching the masses. Exhausted by his fruitless struggle, Menashe died, unappreciated and almost unnoticed by his contemporaries. [Footnote 1: One of these, entitled _Samme de-Hayye_ ("Elixir of Life"), was written in Yiddish, being designed by the author for the lower classes.] 2. THE STAGNATION OF HASIDISM A critical attitude toward the existing order of things could on occasions assert itself in the environment of Rabbinism, where the mind, though forced into the mould of scholasticism, was yet working at high speed. But such "heretical" thinking was utterly inconceivable in the dominant circles of Hasidism, where the intellect was rocked to sleep by mystical lullabies and fascinating stories of the miraculous exploits of the Tzsaddiks. The era of political and civil disfranchisement was a time of luxuriant growth for Hasidism, not in its creative, but rather in its stationary, not to say stagnant, phase. The old struggle between Hasidism and Rabbinism had long been fought out, and the Tzaddiks rested on their laurels as teachers and miracle-workers. The Tzaddik dynasties were now firmly entrenched. In White Russia the sceptre lay in the hands of the Shneorsohn dynasty, the successors of the "Old Rabbi," Shneor Zalman, the progenitor of the Northern Hasidim. [1] The son of the "Old Rabbi," Baer, nicknamed "the Middle Rabbi" (1813-1828), and the latter's son-in-law Mendel Lubavicher [2] (1828-1866) succeeded one another on the hasidic "throne" during this period, with a change in their place of residence. Under Rabbi Zalman the townlets of Lozno and Ladi served as "capitals"; under his successors, they were Ladi and Lubavichi. The three localities are all situated on the border-line of the governments of Vitebsk and Moghilev, in which the Hasidim of the _Habad_ persuasion [3] formed either a majority, as was the case in the former government, or a substantial minority, as was the case in the latter. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 372.] [Footnote 2: From the townlet Lubavichi. See later in the text.] [Footnote 3: Compare Vol. I, p. 234, n. 2.] Rabbi Baer, the son and successor of the "Old Rabbi," did not inherit the creative genius of his father. He published many books, made up mostly of his Sabbath discourses, but they lack originality. His method is that of the talmudic _pilpul_, [1] transplanted upon the soil of Cabala and Hasidism, or it consists in expatiating upon the ideas contained in the _Tanyo_. [2] The last years of Rabbi Baer were darkened by the White Russian catastrophes, the expulsion from the villages in 1823, and the ominous turn in the ritual murder trial of Velizh. On his death-bed he spoke to those around him about the burning topic of the day, the conscription ukase of 1827. [Footnote 1: i.e., Dialectics. Comp. Vol. I, p. 122.] [Footnote 2: The title of the philosophic treatise of Rabbi Shneor Zalman. See Vol. I, p. 372, n. 1.] His successor Rabbi Mendel Lubavicher proved an energetic organizer of the hasidic masses. He was highly esteemed not only as a learned Talmudist--he wrote rabbinical _novellae and response--and as a preacher of Hasidism, but also as a man of great practical wisdom, whose advice was sought by thousands of people in family matters no less than in communal and commercial affairs. This did not present him from being a decided opponent of the new enlightenment. In the course of Lilienthal's educational propaganda in 1843, Rabbi Mendel was summoned by the Government to participate in the deliberations of the Rabbinical Committee at St. Petersburg. There he found himself in a tragic situation. He was compelled to give his sanction to the Crown schools, although he firmly believed that they were subversive of Judaism, not only because they were originated by Russian officials, but also because they were intended to impart secular knowledge. The hasidic legend narrates that the Tzaddik pleaded before the Committee passionately, and often with tears in his eyes, not only to retain in the new schools the traditional methods of Bible and Talmud instruction, but also to make room in their curriculum for the teaching of the Cabala. Nevertheless, Rabbi Mendel was compelled to endorse against his will the "godless" plan of a school reform, and a little later to prefix his approbation to a Russian edition of Mendelssohn's German Bible translation. His attitude toward contemporary pedagogic methods may be gauged from the epistle addressed by him in 1848 to Leon Mandelstamm, Lilienthal's successor in the task of organizing the Jewish Crown schools. In this epistle Rabbi Mendel categorically rejects all innovations in the training of the young. In reply to a question concerning the edition of an abbreviated Bible text for children, he trenchantly quotes the famous medieval aphorism: The Pentateuch was written by Moses at the dictation of God. Hence every word in it is sacred. There is no difference whatsoever between the verse "And Timna was the concubine" (Gen. 36. 12) and "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one" (Deut 6. 4). [1] [Footnote 1: See Maimonides' exposition of the dogma of the divine origin of the Torah in his Mishnah Commentary, _Sanhedrin_, chapter X.] Withal, the leaders of the Northern Hasidim were, comparatively speaking, "men of the world," and were ready here and there to make concessions to the demands of the age. Quite different were the Tzaddiks of the South-west. They were horrified by the mere thought of such concessions. They were surrounded by immense throngs of Hasidim, unenlightened, ecstatic, worshipping saints during their lifetime. The most honored among these hasidic dynasties was that of Chernobyl. [1] It was founded in the Ukraina toward the end of the eighteenth century by an itinerant preacher, or Maggid, called Nahum. [2] His son Mordecai, known under the endearing name "Rabbi Motele" (died in 1837), attracted to Chernobyl enormous numbers of pilgrims who brought with them ransom money, or _pidyons_. [3] Mordecai's "Empire" fell asunder after his death. His eight sons divided among themselves the whole territory of the Kiev and Volhynia province. [Footnote 1: A townlet in the government of Kiev.] [Footnote 2: See Vol. I, p. 382.] [Footnote 3: The term is used in the Bible to denote a sum of money which "redeems" or "ransoms" a man from death, as in the case of a person guilty of manslaughter (Ex. 22. 30) or that of the first-born son (Ex. 13. 13; 34. 20). The Hasidim designate by this term the contributions made to the Tzaddik, in the belief that such contributions have the power of averting from the contributor impending death or misfortune.] Aside from the original center in Chernobyl, seats of Tzaddiks were established in the townlets of Korostyshev, Cherkassy, Makarov, Turisk, Talno, Skvir and Rakhmistrovka. This resulted in a disgraceful rivalry among the brothers, and still more so among their hasidic adherents. Every Hasid was convinced that reverence was due only to his own "Rebbe," [1] and he brushed aside the claims of the other Tzaddiks. Whenever the adherents of the various Tzaddiks met, they invariably engaged in passionate "party" quarrels, which on occasions, especially after the customary hasidic drinking bouts, ended in physical violence. [Footnote 1: Popular pronunciation of the word "rabbi," A hasidic Tzaddik is designated as "Rebbe," in distinction from the rabbi proper, or the _Rav_ (in Russia generally pronounced _Rov_), who discharges the rabbinical functions within the community.] The whole Chernobyl dynasty found a dangerous rival in the person of the Tzaddik Israel Ruzhiner (of Ruzhin), the great-grandson of Rabbi Baer, the apostle of Hasidism, known as the "Mezhiricher Maggid." [1] Rabbi Israel settled in Ruzhin, a townlet in the government of Kiev, about 1815, and rapidly gained fame as a saint and miracle-worker. His magnificent "court" at Ruzhin was always crowded with throngs of Hasidim. Their onrush was checked by special "gentlemen in waiting," the so-called _gabba'im,_ who were very fastidious in admitting the people into the presence of the Tzaddik--dependent upon the size of the proffered gifts. Israel drove out in a gorgeous carriage, surrounded by a guard of honor. The gubernatorial administration of Kiev, presided over by the ferocious Governor-General Bibikov, received intimations to the effect "that the Tzaddik of Ruzhin wielded almost the power of a Tzar" among his adherents, who did not stir with out his advice. The police began to watch the Tzaddik, and at length found an occasion for a "frame-up." [Footnote 1: On Rabbi Baer see Vol. I, p. 229 et seq.] When, in 1838, the Kahal of Ushitza, in the government of Podolia, was implicated in the murder of an informer, [1] Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin was arrested on the charge of abetting the murder. The hasidic "Tzar" languished in prison for twenty-two months. He was finally set free and placed under police surveillance. But he soon escaped to Austria, and settled in 1841 in the Bukovina, in the townlet of Sadagora, near Chernovitz, where he established his new "court." Many Hasidim in Russia now made their pilgrimage abroad to their beloved Tzaddik; in addition, new partisans were won among the hasidic masses of Galicia and the Bukovina. Rabbi Israel died in 1850, but the "Sadagora dynasty" branched out rapidly, and proved a serious handicap to modern progress during the stormy epoch of emancipation which followed in Austria soon afterwards. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 84 et seq.] Another hot-bed of the Tzaddik cult was Podolia, the cradle of Hasidism. In the old residence of Besht, [1] in Medzhibozh, the sceptre was held by Rabbi Joshua Heshel Apter, who succeeded Besht's grandson, Rabbi Borukh of Tulchyn. [2] For a number of years, between 1810 and 1830, the aged Joshua Heshel was revered as the nestor of Tzaddikism, the haughty Israel of Ruzhin being the only one who refused to acknowledge his supremacy. Heshel's successor was Rabbi Moyshe Savranski, who established a regular hasidic "court," after the pattern of Chernobyl and Ruzhin. [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 222 et seq.] [Footnote 2: See Vol. I, p. 384.] The only Tzaddik to whom it was not given to be the founder of a dynasty was the somewhat eccentric Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav, [1] a great-grandson of Besht. After his death, the Bratzlav Hasidim, who followed the lead of his disciple Rabbi Nathan, suffered cruel persecutions at the hands of the other hasidic factions. The "Bratzlavers" adopted the custom of visiting once a year, during the High Holidays, the grave of their founder in the city of Uman, in the government of Kiev, and subsequently erected a house of prayer near his tomb. During these pilgrimages they were often the target of the local Hasidim who reviled and often maltreated them. The "Bratzlavers" were the Cinderella among the Hasidim, lacking the powerful patronage of a living Tzaddik. Their heavenly patron, Rabbi Nahman, could not hold his own against his living rivals, the earthly Tzaddiks--all too earthly perhaps, in spite of their saintliness. [Footnote 1: A town in Podolia. See Vol. I, p. 382 et seq.] The Tzaddik cult was equally diffused in the Kingdom of Poland. The place of Rabbi Israel of Kozhenitz and Rabbi Jacob-Isaac of Lublin, who together marshalled the hasidic forces during the time of the Varsovian duchy, was taken by founders and representatives of new Tzaddik dynasties. The most popular among these were the dynasty of Kotzk, [1] established by Rabbi Mendel Kotzker (1827-1859), and that of Goora Kalvaria, [2] or Gher, [3] founded by Rabbi Isaac Meier Alter [4] (about 1830-1866). The former reigned supreme in the provinces, the latter in the capital of Poland, in Warsaw, which down to this day has remained loyal to the Gher dynasty. [Footnote 1: A town not far from Warsaw. Comp. Vol. I, p. 303, n. 1.] [Footnote 2: In Polish, _Gora Kalwarya_, a town on the left bank of the Vistula, not far from Warsaw.] [Footnote 3: This form of the name is used by the Jews.] [Footnote 4: Called popularly in Poland _Reb Itche Meier_, a name still frequently found among the Jews of Warsaw, who to a large extent are adherents of the "Gher dynasty."] The Polish "Rebbes" [1] resembled by the character of their activity the type of the Northern, or _Habad_, Tzaddiks rather than those of the Ukraina. They did not keep luxurious "courts," did not hanker so greedily after donations, and laid greater emphasis on talmudic scholarship. [Footnote 1: See p. 120, n. 1.] Hasidism produced not only leaders but also martyrs, victims of the Russian police regime. About the time when the Tzaddik of Ruzhin fell under suspicion, the Russian Government began to watch the Jewish printing-press in the Volhynian townlet of Slavuta. The owners of the press were two brothers, Samuel-Abba and Phinehas Shapiro, grandsons of Besht's companion, Rabbi Phinehas of Koretz. The two brothers were denounced to the authorities as persons issuing dangerous mystical books from their press, without the permission of the censor. This denunciation was linked up with a criminal case, the discovery in the house of prayer, which was attached to the printing-press, of the body of one of the compositors who, it was alleged, had intended to lay bare the activities of the "criminal" press before the Government. After a protracted imprisonment of the two Slavuta printers in Kiev, their case was submitted to Nicholas I. who sentenced them to _Spiessruten_ [1] and deportation to Siberia. During the procedure of running the gauntlet, while passing through the lines of whipping soldiers, one of the brothers had his cap knocked off his head. Unconcerned by the hail of lashes from which he was bleeding, he stopped to pick up his cap so as to avoid going bare-headed, [2] and then resumed his march between the two rows of executioners. The unfortunate brothers were released from their Siberian exile during the reign of Alexander II. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 85, n. 1.] [Footnote 2: According to an ancient Jewish notion, which is current throughout the Orient, baring the head is a sign of frivolity and disrespect towards God.] Hasidic life exhibited no doubt many examples of lofty idealism and moral purity. But hand in hand with it went an impenetrable spiritual gloom, boundless credulity, a passion for deifying men of a mediocre and even inferior type, and the unwholesome hypnotizing influence of the Tzaddiks. Spiritual self-intoxication was accompanied by physical. The hasidic rank and file, particularly in the South-west, began to develop an ugly passion for alcohol. Originally tolerated as a means of producing cheerfulness and religious ecstasy, drinking gradually became the standing feature of every hasidic gathering. It was in vogue at the court of the Tzaddik during the rush of pilgrims; it was indulged in after prayers in the hasidic "Shtiblach," [1] or houses of prayer, and was accompanied by dancing and by the ecstatic narration of the miraculous exploits of the "Rebbe." [2] Many Hasidim lost themselves completely in this idle revelry and neglected their business affairs and their starving families, looking forward in their blind fatalism to the blessings which were to be showered upon them through the intercession of the Tzaddik. [Footnote 1: The word, which is a diminutive of German _Stube_, "room," denotes, like the word _Klaus_, the room, or set of rooms, in which the Hasidim assemble for prayer, study, and recreation.] [Footnote 2: See above, p, 120, n. 1.] It would be manifestly unjust to view the hasidic indulgence in alcohol in the same light as the senseless drunkenness of the Russian peasant, transforming man into a beast. The Hasid drank, and in moderate doses at that, "for the soul," "to banish the grief which blunteth the heart," to arouse religious exultation and enliven his social intercourse with his fellow believers. Yet the consequences were equally sad. For the habit resulted in drowsiness of thought, idleness and economic ruin, insensibility to the outside world and to the social movements of the age, as well as in stolid opposition to cultural progress in general. It must be borne in mind that during the era of external oppression and military inquisition the reactionary force of Hasidism acted as the only antidote against the reactionary force from the outside. Hasidism and Tzaddikism were, so to speak, a sleeping draught which dulled the pain of the blows dealt out to the unfortunate Jewish populace by the Russian Government. But in the long run the popular organism was injuriously affected by this mystic opium. The poison rendered its consumers insensible to every progressive movement, and planted them firmly at the extreme pole of obscurantism, at a time when the Russian ghetto resounded with the first appeals calling its inmates toward the light, toward the regeneration and the uplift of inner Jewish life. 3. THE RUSSIAN MENDELSSOHN (ISAAC BAER LEVINSOHN) It was in the hot-bed of the most fanatical species of Hasidism that the first blossoms of Haskalah [1] timidly raised their heads. Isaac Baer Levinsohn, from Kremenetz in Podolia (1788-1860), had associated in his younger days with the champions of enlightenment in adjacent Galicia, such as Joseph Perl, [2] Nahman Krochmal, [3] and their followers. When he came back to his native land, it was with the firm resolve to devote his energies to the task of civilizing the secluded masses of Russian Jewry. In lonesome quietude, carefully guarding his designs from the outside world which was exclusively hasidic, he worked at his book _Te'udah, be-Israel_ ("Instruction in Israel"), which after many difficulties he managed to publish in Vilna in 1828. In this book our author endeavored, without trespassing the boundaries of orthodox religious tradition, to demonstrate the following elementary truths by citing examples from Jewish history and sayings of great Jewish authorities: [Footnote 1: A Hebrew term meaning "enlightenment." It is a translation of the German _Aufklaerung_, and was first applied to the endeavors made in the time of Moses Mendelssohn (died 1886) to introduce European culture among the Jews of the ghetto.] [Footnote 2: Died 1839. He became famous through his anti-hasidic parody _Megalle Temirin_, "Revealing Hidden Things," written in the form of letters in imitation of the hasidic style. Peri's book has been frequently compared with the medieval _Epistolae obscurorum vivorum_, which are ascribed to Ulrich von Hutten (d. 1523). See P. 127.] [Footnote 3: Died 1840. Famous as the author of _More Nebuke ha-Zeman_, "Guide of the Perplexed of (Our) Time," a profound treatise, dealing with Jewish theological and historical problems.] 1. The Jew is obliged to study the Bible as well as Hebrew grammar and to interpret the biblical text in accordance with the plain grammatical sense. 2. The Jewish religion does not condemn the knowledge of foreign languages and literatures, especially of the language of the country, such knowledge being required both in the personal interest of the individual Jew and in the common interest of the Jewish people. 3. The study of secular sciences is not attended by any danger for Judaism, men of the type of Maimonides having remained loyal Jews, in spite of their extensive general culture. 4. It is necessary from the economic point of view to strengthen productive labor, such as handicrafts and agriculture, at the expense of commerce and brokerage, also to discourage early marriages between persons who are unprovided for and have no definite occupation. These commonplaces sounded to that generation like epoch-making revelations. They were condemned as rank heresies by the all-powerful obscurantists and hailed as a gospel of the approaching renaissance by that handful of progressives who dreamt of a new Jewish life and, cowed by the fear of persecution, hid these thoughts deep down in their breasts. A similar fear compelled Levinsohn to exercise the utmost reserve and caution in criticizing the existing order of things. The same consideration forced him to shield himself behind a pseudonym in publishing his anti-hasidic satire _Dibre Tzaddikim_, "The Words of the Tzaddiks," [1] (Vienna, 1830), a rather feeble imitation of _Megalle Temirin_, the Hebrew counterpart of the "Epistles of Obscure Men," by Joseph Perl. [2] His principal work, entitled _Bet Yehudah_, "The House of Judah," a semi-philosophic, semi-publicistic review of the history of Judaism, remained for a long time in manuscript. Levinsohn was unable to publish it for the reason that even the printing-press of Vilna, the only one to issue publications of a non-religious character, was afraid of bringing out a book which had failed to receive the approbation of the local rabbis. Several years later, in 1839, the volume finally came out, clothed in the form of a reply to inquiries addressed to the author by a high Russian official. [Footnote 1: Literally, "The Words of the Righteous," with reference to Ex. 23. 8:] [Footnote 2: See the preceding page, n. 1.] From the point of view of Jewish learning, _Bet Yehudah_ can claim but scanty merits. It lacks that depth of philosophic-historic insight which distinguishes so brilliantly the "Guide of the Perplexed of Our Time" of the Galician thinker Krochmal. [1] The writer's principal task is to prove from history his rather trite doctrine that Judaism had at no time shunned secular culture and philosophy. [Footnote 1: See the preceding page, n. 2.] For the rest, the author fights shy of the difficult problems of religious philosophy, and is always on the lookout for compromises. Even with reference to the Cabala, with which Levinsohn has but little sympathy, he says timidly: "It is not for us to judge these lofty matters" (Chapter 135). Fear of the orthodox environment compels him to observe almost complete silence with reference to Hasidism, although, in his private correspondence and in his anonymous writings he denounces it severely. Levinsohn concludes his historic review of Judaism with a eulogy upon the Russian Government for its kindness toward the Jews (Ch. 151) and with the following plan of reform suggested to it for execution (Ch. 146): To open elementary schools for the teaching of Hebrew and the tenets of the Jewish religion as well as of Russian and arithmetic, and to establish institutions of higher rabbinical learning in the larger cities; to Institute the office of Chief Rabbi, with a supreme council under him, which should be in charge of Jewish spiritual and communal affairs in Russia; to allot to a third of the Russian-Jewish population parcels of land for agricultural purposes; to prohibit luxury in dress and furniture in which even the impecunious classes are prone to indulge. Levinsohn was not satisfied to propagate his ideas by purely literary means. He anticipated meagre results from a literary propaganda among the broad Jewish masses, in which the mere reading of such "licentious" books was considered a criminal offence. He had greater faith in his ability to carry out the regeneration of Jewish life with the powerful help of the Government. As a matter of fact, Levinsohn had long before this begun to knock at the doors of the Russian Government offices. Far back in 1823 he had presented to the heir-apparent Constantine Pavlovich [1] a memorandum concerning Jewish sects and a project looking to the establishment of a system of Jewish schools and seminaries. Moreover, before publishing his first work _Te'udah_, he had submitted the manuscript to Shishkov, the reactionary Minister of Public Instruction, applying for a Government subsidy towards the publication of a work which demonstrates the usefulness of enlightenment and agriculture, "instills love for the Tzar as well as for the people with which we share our life, and recounts the innumerable favors which they have bestowed upon us." [Footnote 1: Being the eldest brother of Alexander I., Constantine was the legitimate heir to the Russian throne. He resigned in favor of his younger brother Nicholas. See above, p. 13, n. 2.] These words were penned on December 2, 1827, three months after the promulgation of the baneful conscription ukase ordering the compulsory enlistment of under-aged cantonists! The request was complied with. A year later the humble Volhynian litterateur received by imperial command an "award" of 1000 rubles ($500) "for a work having for its object the moral transformation of the Jews." This "award" came when the volume had already appeared in print, in the terrible year 1828 which was marked by the first conscription of Jewish recruits, the ominous turn in the ritual murder trial of Velizh and the constant tightening of the knot of disabilities. But these events failed to cure the political _naivete_ of Levinsohn. In 1831 he laid before Lieven, the new Minister of Public Instruction, a memorandum advocating the necessity of modifications in Jewish religious life. Again in 1833 he came forward with the dangerous proposal to close all Jewish printing-presses, except those situated in towns in which there was a censorship. The project was accompanied by a "list of ancient and modern Hebrew books, indicating those that may be considered useful and those that are harmful"--the hasidic works were declared to belong to the latter category. Levinsohn's project was partly instrumental in prompting the grievous law of 1836, which raised a cry of despair in the Pale of Settlement, ordering a revision of the entire Hebrew literature by Russian censors. [1] [Footnote 1: See above, p. 42 et seq.] Levinsohn's action would have been ignoble had it not been naive. The recluse of Kremenetz, passionately devoted to his people but wanting in political foresight, was calling Russian officialdom to aid in his fight against the bigotry of the Jewish masses, in the childish conviction that the Russian authorities had the welfare of the Jews truly at heart, and that compulsory measures would do away with the hostility of the Jewish populace toward enlightenment. He failed to perceive, as did also some of his like-minded contemporaries, that the culture which the Russian Government of his time was trying to foist upon the Jews was only apt to accentuate their distrust, that, so long as they were the target of persecution, the Jews could not possibly accept the gift of enlightenment from the hands of those who lured them to the baptismal font, pushed their children on the path of religious treason, and were ruthless in breaking and disfiguring their whole mode of life. In his literary works Levinsohn was fond of emphasizing his relations with high Government officials. This probably saved him from a great deal of unpleasantness on the part of the fanatic Hasidim, but it also had the effect of increasing his unpopularity among the orthodox. The only merit the latter were willing to concede to Levinsohn was that of an apologist who defended Judaism against the attacks of non-Jews. During the epidemic of ritual murder trials, the rabbis of Lithuania and Volhynia addressed a request to Levinsohn to write a book against this horrid libel. At their suggestion he published his work _Efes Damim_, "No Blood!" (Vilna, 1837), [1] in the form of a dialogue between a Jewish sage and a Greek-Orthodox patriarch in Jerusalem. [Footnote 1: With a clever allusion to the geographic name Ephes-dammim, I Sam. 17. 1.] Somewhat later Levinsohn wrote other apologetic treatises, defending the Talmud against the attacks contained in the book _Netibot 'Olam_ [1] published in 1839 by the London missionary M'Caul. Levinsohn's great apologetic work _Zerubbabel_, which appeared several years after his death, was equally dedicated to the defence of the Talmud. It has, moreover, considerable scientific merit, being one of the first research works in the domain of talmudic theology. A number of other publications by Levinsohn deal with Hebrew philology and lexicography. All these efforts support Levinsohn's claim to the title of Founder of a modern Jewish Science in Russia, though his scholarly achievements cannot be classed with those of his German and Galician fellow-writers, such as Rapoport, Zunz, Jost and Geiger. [Footnote 1: "Old Paths," with reference to Jer. 6. 16.] Levinsohn stood entirely aloof from the propaganda of bureaucratic enlightenment which was carried on by Lilienthal in the name of Uvarov. The Volhynian hermit was completely overshadowed by the energetic young German. Even when Lilienthal, after realizing that a union between Jewish culture and Russian officialdom was altogether unnatural, had disappeared from the stage, Levinsohn still persisted in cultivating his relations with the Government. But by that time the bureaucrats of St. Petersburg had no more use for the Jewish friends of enlightenment. Broken in health, chained to his bed for half a lifetime, without means of subsistence, lonely amidst a hostile orthodox environment, Levinsohn time and again addressed to St. Petersburg humiliating appeals for monetary assistance, occasionally receiving small pittances, which were booked under the heading "Relief in Distress," accepted subventions from various Jewish Maecenases, and remained a pauper till the end of his life. The pioneer of modern culture among Russian Jews, the founder of Neo-Hebraic literature, spent his life in the midst of a realm of darkness, shunned like an outcast, appreciated by a mere handful of sympathizers. It was only after his death that he was crowned with laurels, when the intellectuals of Russian Jewry were beginning to press forward in close formation. 4. THE RISE OF NEO-HEBRAIC CULTURE The Volhynian soil proved unfavorable for the seeds of enlightenment. The Haskalah pioneers were looked upon as dangerous enemies in this hot-bed of Tzaddikism. They were held in disgrace and were often the victims of cruel persecutions, from which some saved themselves by conversion. A more favorable soil for cultural endeavors was found in the extreme south of the Pale of Settlement as well as in its northern section: Odessa, the youthful capital of New Russia, and Vilna, the old capital of Lithuania, both became centers of the Haskalah movement. As far as Odessa was concerned, the seeds of enlightenment had been carried hither from neighboring Galicia by the Jews of Brody, who formed a wealthy merchant colony in that city. As early as 1826 Odessa saw the opening of the first Jewish school for secular education, which was managed at first by Sittenfeld and later on by the well-known public worker Bezalel Stern. Among the teachers of the new school was Simha Pinsker, who subsequently became the historian of Karaism. This school, the only educational establishment of its kind during that period, served in Odessa as a center for the "Friends of Enlightenment." Being a new city, unfettered by traditions, and at the same time a large sea-port, with a checkered international population, Odessa outran other Jewish centers in the process of modernization, though it must be confessed that it never went beyond the externalities of civilization. As far as the period under discussion is concerned, the Jewish center of the South can claim no share in the production of new Jewish values. While yielding to Odessa in point of external civilization, Vilna surpassed the capital of the South by her store of mental energy. The circle of the Vilna Maskilim, which came into being during the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, gave rise to the two founders of the Neo-Hebraic literary style: the prose writer Mordecai Aaron Ginzburg (1796-1846) and the poet Abraham Baer Lebensohn (1794-1878). Ginzburg, born in the townlet Salant, in the Zhmud region, [1] lived for some time in Courland, and finally settled in Vilna. He managed to familiarize himself with German literature, and was so fascinated by it that he started his literary career by translating and adapting German works into Hebrew. His translation of Campe's "Discovery of America" and Politz' Universal History, as well as his own history of the Franco-Russian War of 1812, compiled from various sources, were, as far as Russia is concerned, the first specimens of secular literature in pure Hebrew, which boldly claimed their place side by side with rabbinic and hasidic writings. In that juvenile stage of the Hebrew renaissance, when the mere treatment of language and style was considered an achievement, even the appearance of such elementary books was hailed as epoch-making. [Footnote 1: Zhmud, or Samogitia, is part of the present government of Kovno. Compare Vol. I, p. 293, n. 1.] The profoundest influence on the formation of the Neo-Hebraic style must be ascribed to two other works by the same author, _Kiriai Sefer_, [1] an epistolary manual containing specimens of personal, commercial, and other forms of correspondence (Vilna, 1835, and many later editions), and _Debir_, [2] a miscellaneous collection of essays, consisting for the most part of translations and compilations (Vilna, 1844). Ginzburg's premature death in 1846 was mourned by the Vilna Maskilim as the loss of a leader in the struggle for the Neo-Hebraic renaissance, and they gave expression to these sentiments in verse and prose. Ginzburg's autobiography _(Abi-'ezer,_ 1863) and his letters _(Debir,_ Vol. II., 1861) portray the milieu in which our author grew up and developed. [Footnote 1: See next note.] [Footnote 2: Both titles are derived from the message in Josh. 15. 15, according to which _Debir_, a city in the territory of the tribe of Judah, was originally called _Kiriat Sefer_, "Book City."] Abraham Baer Lebensohn, [1] a native of Vilna, awakened the dormant Hebrew lyre by the sonorous rhymes of his "Songs in the Sacred Tongue" (_Shire Sefat Kodesh_, Vol. I., Leipsic, 1842). In this volume solemn odes celebrating events of all kinds alternate with lyrical poems of a philosophical content. The unaccustomed ear of the Jew of that period was struck by these powerful sounds of rhymed biblical speech which exhibited greater elegance and harmony than the Mosaid of Wessely, the Jewish Klopstock. [2] His compositions, which are marked by thought rather than by feeling, suited to perfection the taste of the contemporary Jewish reader, who was ever on the lookout for "intellectuality," even where poetry was concerned. Philosophic and moralizing lyrics are a characteristic feature of Lebensohn's pen. The general human sorrow, common to all individuals, stirs him more deeply than national grief. His only composition of a nationalistic character, "The Wailing of the Daughter of Judah," seems strangely out of harmony with the accompanying odes which celebrate the coronation of Nicholas I. and similar patriotic occasions, although the "Wailing" is shrewdly prefaced by a note, evidently meant for the censor, to the effect that the poem refers to the Middle Ages. At any rate, the principal merit of the "Songs in the Sacred Tongue" is not to be sought in their poetry but rather in their style, for it was this style which became the basis of Neo-Hebraic poetic diction, perfected more and more by the poets of the succeeding generations. [Footnote 1: He assumed the pen-name "Adam," the initials of Abraham Dob (Hebrew equivalent for Baer) Mikhailishker (from the town of Mikhailishok, in the government of Vilna, where he resided for a number of years). See later, p. 226.] [Footnote 2: The author refers to Naphtali Hirz Wessely (d. 1805), an associate of Mendelssohn in his cultural endeavors. He wrote _Shire Tif'eret_, "Songs of Glory," an epic in five parts dealing with the Exodus. The poem was patterned after the epic _Der Messias_ of his famous German contemporary Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock, who, in turn, was influenced by Milton.] Ginzburg and Lebensohn were the central pillars of the Vilna Maskilim circle, which also included men of the type of Samuel Joseph Fuenn, the historian, Mattathiah Strashun, the Talmudist, the censor Tugendhold, the bibliographer Ben-jacob, N. Rosenthal, in a word, the "radicals" of that era--for the mere striving for the restoration of biblical Hebrew and for elementary secular education was looked upon as bold radicalism. The same circle made an attempt to create a scientific periodical after the pattern of similar publications in Galicia and Germany, In 1841 and 1843 two issues of the magazine _Pirhe Tzafon_, "Flowers of the North," appeared in Vilna, under Fuenn's editorship. The volumes contained scientific and publicistic articles as well as poems, contributed by the feeble literary talents which were then active in the Hebrew literary and educational revival in Russia--all of them efforts of not very high merit. But even these poor hot-house flowers were fated to be nipped in the Northern chill. The ruthless Russian censorship scented in the unassuming magazine of the Vilna Maskilim a criminal attempt to publish a Hebrew periodical. Such an undertaking required an official license from the central Government in St. Petersburg, and the latter was not in the habit of granting licenses for such purposes. In Vilna, as in Odessa, the coterie of local Maskilim formed the mainstay of Lilienthal, the apostle of enlightenment, in, his struggle with the orthodox. In the year 1840, prior to Lilienthal's arrival, when the first intimation of Uvarov's plans reached the city of Vilna, the local Maskilim responded to the call of the Government in a circular letter, in which the following four cardinal reforms were emphasized: 1. The transformation of the Rabbinate through the establishment of rabbinical seminaries, the appointment of graduates from German universities as rabbis, and the formation of consistories after the pattern of Western Europe. 2. The reform of school education through the opening of secular schools after the model of Odessa and Riga and the training of new teachers from among the Maskilim. 3. The struggle with the fiends of obscurantism, who stifle every endeavor for popular enlightenment. 4. The improvement of Jewish economic life by intensifying agricultural colonization, the establishment of technical and arts and crafts schools, and similar measures. Several years later the authors of this circular had reason to share Lilienthal's disillusionment over the "benevolent intentions" of the Government. This, however, was not strong enough to uproot the original sin of the Haskalah: its constant readiness to lean for support upon "enlightened absolutism." The despotism of the orthodox and the intolerance of the unenlightened masses forced the handful of Maskilim to fall back upon those who in the eyes of the Jewish populace were the source of its sorrow and tears. There was a profound tragedy in this incongruity. The culture movement in Russia of the second quarter of the nineteenth century corresponds in its complexion to the early stage of the Mendelssohnian enlightenment in Germany, the period of the _Me'assefim_. [1] But there were also essential differences between the two. The beginning of German enlightenment was accompanied by a strong drift toward assimilation which led to the elimination of the national language from literature. In Russia the initial period of Haskalah was not marked by any sudden social and cultural upheavals. [Footnote 1: So named after the Hebrew periodical _ha-Me'assef_ "The Collector," which was founded in Berlin in 1784. Compare Vol. I, p. 386, n. 3.] On the contrary, it laid the foundations for a national literary renaissance which in the following period was destined to become an important social factor. 5. THE JEWS AND THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE As for the Russian people, an impenetrable wall continued as theretofore to keep it apart from the Jewish population. To the inhabitants of the two Russian capitals and of the interior of the Empire the Pale of Settlement seemed as distant as China, while among the Russians living within the Pale the sparks of former historic conflagrations, the prejudices of the ages and the unenlightened notions of days gone by were still glimmering beneath the ashes. The ignorance of some and the vicious prejudices of others could not very well manifest themselves in periodical literature, for the simple reason that in pre-reformatory Russia, throtled by the hand of the censorship, none was in existence. Only in Russian fiction one might see the shadow of the Jew moving across. In the imagination of the great Russian poet Pushkin this shadow wavered between the "despised Jew" of the street (in the "Black Shawl," 1820) and the figure of the venerable "old man reading the Bible under the shelter of the night" (in the "Beginning of a Novel," 1832). On the other hand, in Gogol's "Taras Bulba" (1835-1842) the Jew bears the well-defined features of an inhuman fiend. In the delineation of the hideous figure of "Zhyd Yankel," a mercenary, soulless, dastardly creature, Gogol, the descendant of the haidamacks, [1] gave vent to his inherited hatred of the Jew, the victim of Khmelnitzki [2] and the haidamacks. In these dismal historic tragedies, in the figures of the Jewish martyrs of old Ukraina, Gogol can only discern "miserable, terror-stricken creatures." Thus one of the principal founders of Russian fiction set up in its very center the repelling scarecrow of a Jew, an abomination of desolation, which poured the poison of hatred into the hearts of the Russian readers and determined to a certain extent the literary types of later writers. [Footnote 1: Name of the Ukrainian rebels who rose in the seventeenth century against the tyranny of their Polish masters. Compare Vol. I, p. 182, n. 3.] [Footnote 2: Compare Vol. I, p. 144 et seq.] In the back-yards of Russian literature, which were then most of all patronized by the reading public, the literary slanderer Thaddeus Bulgarin delineated in his novel "Ivan Vyzhigin" (1829) the type of a Lithuanian Jew by the name of Movsha (Moses), who appears as the embodiment of all mortal sins. The product of an untalented and tainted pen, Bulgarin's novel was soon forgotten. Yet it contributed its share toward instilling Jew-hatred into the minds of the Russian people. CHAPTER XVII THE LAST YEARS OF NICHOLAS I. 1. THE "ASSORTMENT" OF THE JEWS The beginning of the "Second Emancipation" of 1848 in Western Europe synchronized with the last phase of the era of oppression in Russia. That phase, representing the concluding seven years of pre-reformatory Russia, was a dark patch in the life of the country at large, doubly dark in the life of the Jews. The power of absolutism, banished by the March revolution from the European West, asserted itself with intensified fury in the land of the North, which had about that time earned the unenviable reputation of the "gendarme of Europe." Thrown back on its last stronghold, absolutism concentrated its energy upon the suppression of all kinds of revolutionary movements. In default of such a movement in Russia itself, this energy broke through the frontier line and found an outlet in the punitive expedition sent to support the Austrians in the pacification of mutinous Hungary. The triumphant passwords of political freedom which were given out on the other side of the Western frontier only intensified the reactionary rage on this side. Since it was impossible to punish action--for under the vigilant eye of the terrible "Third Section" [1] revolutionary endeavors were a matter of impossibility--word and thought were subject to punishment. Censorship ran riot in the subdued literature of Russia, tearing out by the roots anything that did not fit into the mould of the bureaucratic way of thinking. The quiet precincts of the Russian _intelligenzia_, who, in the retirement of their homes, ventured to dream of a better political and social order, were invaded by political detectives who snatched thence numerous victims for the scaffold, the galleys, and conscription. Such were the contrivances employed during the last years of pre-reformatory Russia to hold together the old order of things in the land of officialdom and serfdom, in that Russia which the poet Khomyakov, though patriot and Slavophile, branded thus: [Footnote 1: Compare above, p. 21, n. 1.] Blackened in court with falsehood's blackness, And stained by the yoke of slavery, Full of godless flattery, of vicious lying, And ev'ry possible knavery. But the full weight of "the yoke of slavery" and "falsehood's blackness," by which pre-reformatory Russia was marked, fell upon the shoulders of the most hapless section of Russian subjects, the Jews. The tragic gloom of the end of Nicholas' reign finds its only parallel in Jewish annals in the beginning of the same reign. The would-be "reforms" proposed in the interval, in the beginning of the forties, did not deceive the popular instinct. The Jews of the Pale saw not only the hand which was holding forth the charter of enlightenment but also the other hand which hid a stone in the form of new cruel restrictions. Soon the Government threw off the mask of enlightenment, and set out to realize its reserve program, that of "correcting" the Jews by police methods. It will be remembered that the principal item in this program was "the assortment of the Jews," i.e., the segregation from among them of all persons without a certain status as to property or without definite occupations, for the purpose of proceeding against them as criminal members of society. As far back as 1846 the Government forewarned the Jews of the imminent "bloody operation over a whole class," against which Governor-General Vorontzov had vainly protested. [1] All Jews were ordered to register at the earliest possible moment among the guilds and estates assigned to them, "with the understanding that in case this measure should fail, the Government would of itself carry out the assortment," to wit: "it will set apart the Jews who are not engaged in productive labor, and will subject them, as burdensome to society, to various restrictions." The threat fell flat, for it was rather too much to expect that fully a half of the Jewish population, doomed by civil disabilities and general economic conditions to a life of want and distress, could obtain at a stroke the necessary "property status" or "definite occupations." [Footnote 1: See above, p. 64 et seq.] Accordingly, on November 23, 1851, the Tzar gave his sanction to the "Temporary Rules Concerning the Assortment of the Jews." All Jews were divided into five categories: merchants, agriculturists, artisans, settled burghers, and unsettled burghers. The first three categories were to be made up of those who were enrolled among the corresponding guilds and estates. "Settled burghers" were to be those engaged in "burgher trade" [1] with business licenses, also the clergy and the learned class. The remaining huge mass of the proletariat was placed in the category of "unsettled burghers," who were liable to increased military conscription and to harsher legal restrictions as compared with the first four tolerated classes of Jews. This hapless proletariat, either out of work or only occasionally at work, was to bear a double measure of oppression and persecution, and was to be branded as despised pariahs. [Footnote 1: i.e., petty trade, as distinguished from the more comprehensive business carried on by the merchants who were enrolled in the mercantile guilds.] By April 1, 1852, the Jews belonging to the four tolerated categories were required to produce their certificates of enrolment before the local authorities. Those who had failed to do so were to be entered in the fifth category, the criminal class of "unsettled burghers." Within the brief space allotted to them the Jews found themselves unable to obtain the necessary documents, and, thanks to the representations of the governors-general of the Western governments, the term was extended till the autumn of 1852, but even then the "assortment" had not yet been accomplished. The Government was fully prepared to launch a series of Draconian laws against the "parasites," including police inspection and compulsory labor. But while engaged in these charitable projects, the law-givers were taken aback by the Crimean War, which, with its disastrous consequences for Russia, diverted their attention from their war against the Jews. Yet for a successive number of years the law concerning the "assortment," or _razryaden_, as it was popularly styled by the Jews, hung like the sword of Damocles over the heads of hundreds of thousands of Jews, and the anxiety of the suffering masses was poured out in sad popular ditties: _Ach, a tzore, a gzeire mit die razryaden!_ [1] [Footnote 1: "Alas! What misfortune and persecution there is in the assortment!"] 2. COMPULSORY ASSIMILATION As for the measures of compulsory assimilation long ago foreshadowed by the Government, such as the substitution of the Russian or German style of dress for the traditional Jewish attire, the long coats of the men, they were without any effect on Jewish life, and merely resulted in confusion and consternation. A curt imperial ukase issued on May 1, 1850, prohibited "all over (the Empire) the use of a distinct Jewish form of dress, beginning with January 1, 1851," though the governors-general were given the right of permitting aged Jews to wear out their old garments on the payment of a definite tax. The prohibition extended to the earlocks, or _peies_, of the men. A year later, in April, 1851, the Government made a further step in advance and proceeded to deal with the female attire. "His Imperial Majesty was graciously pleased to command that Jewish women be forbidden to shave their heads upon entering into marriage." [1] In October, 1852, this ukase was supplemented by the regulation that a married Jewess guilty of shaving her head was liable to a fine of five rubles ($2.50), and the rabbi abetting the crime was to be prosecuted. Since neither the Jews nor the Jewesses were willing to submit to imperial orders, the former from habit, the latter from religious scruples, the provincial authorities entered upon a regular warfare against these "rebels." Both the governors-general and the governors subordinate to them displayed extraordinary enthusiasm in this direction. The officials tracked with utmost zeal not only the women culprits but also their accomplices the rabbis who attended the wedding ceremony, even including the barbers who were called in to shave the heads of the Jewish ladies. Jewish women were examined at the police stations to find out whether they still wore their own hair beneath their kerchiefs or wigs. Frequently the struggle manifested itself in tragic-comic and even repulsive forms. In some places the police adopted the practice of cutting the _peies_ or shortening the long coats of the Jews by force. [Footnote 1: In accordance with orthodox Jewish practice, married women are not allowed to expose their own hair. Apart from the wearing of a wig, or _Sheitel_, it was also customary for women to cut or shave their hair before their wedding and cover their heads with a kerchief.] The opposition to the authorities was particularly vigorous in the Kingdom of Poland where the rank and file of Hasidim were ready to suffer martyrdom for any Jewish custom, however obsolete. The fight was drawn out for a long time and even reached into the following reign, but the victory remained with the obstreperous masses. Though at a later period, as the result of general cultural tendencies, the traditional Jewish costume made way in certain sections of Jewry for the European form of dress, it was not in obedience to police measures, but in spite of them. Compulsory assimilation was as little successful now as had been compulsory isolation in the Middle Ages. The medieval rulers had imposed upon the Jews a distinct form of garment and a "yellow badge" to keep them apart from the Christians. Nicholas I. employed forcible means to make the Jews by their style of dress appear similar to the Christians. The violence resorted to in both cases, though different in form, sprang from the same motive. 3. NEW CONSCRIPTION HORRORS There was yet one domain in which the squeezing and pressing power of Tzardom could fully employ its destructive energy. We refer to military conscription. This genuine creation of the imperial brain became more and more intolerable, serving in Jewish life as a penal and correctional agency, with its "capture" of old and young, its inquisitorial regime of cantonists, its deportation for a quarter of a century and longer into far-off regions. Even the Russian peasants were stricken with terror at the thought of Nicholas' conscription, which in the reminiscences of the portrayers of that period is pictured as life-long deportation, and they frequently shirked military duty by fleeing from the land-owners and hiding themselves in the woods. How much more terrible must then conscription have been for the Jew, whose family was robbed both of a young father and a tender son. No means was left unused to evade this atrocious obligation. The reports of the governors refer to the "immeasurable difficulties in carrying out the conscription among the Jews." Apart from innumerable cases of self-mutilation--to quote the words of one of these reports written in 1850--the disappearance, without exception, of all able-bodied Jews has become so general that in some communities, outside of those unfit for military service because of age or physical defects, not a single person can be found during conscription who might be drafted into the army. Some flee abroad, whilst others hide in adjacent governments. Those in hiding were hunted down like wild beasts. Their life, as a contemporary witness testifies, was worse than that of galley slaves, for the slightest indiscretion brought ruin upon them. Many resorted to self-mutilation to render themselves unfit for military service. They chopped off their fingers or toes, damaged their eyesight, and perpetrated every possible form of maiming to evade a military service which was in effect penal servitude. "The most tender-hearted mother," to quote a contemporary, "would place the finger of her beloved son under the kitchen knife of a home-bred quack surgeon." This evasion resulted in immense shortages which pressed heavily upon the Jewish communities, since the latter were held collectively responsible for supplying the full quota of recruits. The reports about the unsatisfactory conscription results among the Jews filled the Government in St. Petersburg with rage. The persistent reluctance of human beings to be parted almost for life from those near and dear to them, or to see their little ones carried off to an early grave or to the baptismal font, was regarded as a manifestation of criminal self-will. Accordingly, the former measures of "cutting short" and "curbing" this self-will were improved upon by new ones. In December, 1850, the Tzar gave orders that for every missing Jewish recruit in a given community three men of the minimum age of twenty from the same community and one more recruit for every two thousand rubles ($1000) of tax arrears should be impressed into service. A year later the following atrocious measures were issued for the purpose "of cutting short the concealment of Jews from military service": the fugitives were to be captured, flogged, and drafted into the army over and above the required quota of recruits. The communities in which they were hidden were to be fined. The relatives of a recruit who failed to present himself in proper time were to be taken in his stead, even if these relatives happened to be heads of families. The official representatives of the communities were equally liable to being sent into the army if found convicted of any inaccuracy in carrying out the conscription. A reign of terror followed in the Jewish communities upon the promulgation of these laws. The Kahal elders--it will be remembered that they continued to exist after the abrogation of the Kahals, acting as the fiscal agents of the Government [1]--now faced a terrible alternative: to become, in the words of a contemporary, "either murderers of martyrs," i.e., either to capture and send into the army any youth or boy, without discrimination, or themselves to don the gray uniform and be impressed into military services as "penal" recruits. In consequence, a fiendish hunt after human beings was set afoot in the Pale of Settlement. Adults were seized and, regardless of their being the only mainstay of their families, were taken captive, and children of eight were captured and presented to the recruiting authorities as being of the obligatory age of twelve. But despite all this hunting, many communities were not able to furnish their quota of soldiers, and the number of "penal" recruits from among the Kahal elders was very considerable. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 60.] Weeping and moaning resounded in the neighborhood of the recruiting stations in the Jewish towns where parents and relatives took leave from their dear ones who were doomed to a perpetual barrack life. And yet the fury of the Government was not satisfied. In 1853 new "temporary rules" were issued, "by way of experiment," whereby not only communities but also individuals among Jews were granted the right of offering as their substitutes any fellow-Jew from another city than his own who was caught without a passport. Any Jew who happened to absent himself from his place of residence without a passport could be seized and drafted into service as a substitute for a regular recruit due from the family of the captor. The "captive," regardless of age, was made a soldier, and the captor was given a receipt for one recruit. A new ferocious hunt began. The official "captors" employed by the Kahals were no longer the only ones to prowl after living prey. The chase was now taken up by every private individual who wished to find a substitute for a member of his family, or who simply wanted to turn a penny by selling his recruiting receipt. Hordes of Jewish bandits sprang up who infested the roads and the inns, and by trickery or force made the travellers part with their passports and then dragged them to the recruiting stations as "captives" to be sent into the army. Never before had the Jewish masses, yielding to pressure from above, sunk to such depths of degradation. The Jew became a beast of prey to his fellow-Jew. Jews were afraid of budging an inch from their native cities. Every passer-by was suspected of being a captor or a bandit. The recruiting inquisition of Nicholas inflicted upon the Jews the utmost limit of martyrdom. It set Jew against Jew, called forth "a war of all against all," threw the tortured and the torturers into one heap, and sullied the Jewish soul. All this took place while the Crimean War was going on. The Russian army, on the altar of which so many human sacrifices had been offered in the course of thirty years, marched to save "the honor of Russia," in truth, to save the old regime. Squadron upon squadron issued from the inner recesses of Russia, and marched towards the battlefields of the South, marched to the slaughter, into the mouths of the cannons of the English and French, who knew how to conquer without penal conscriptions and without inflicting tortures upon tender-aged cantonists. The "gendarme of Europe," who, armed to his teeth, had contemptuously threatened to "finish the enemy with his soldier caps," could not hold out against the army of the "rotten West." Hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers fell beneath the walls of Sevastopol, upon the heights of Inkerman. Thousands of Jewish soldiers were laid among them in "brotherly graves." The Jews, enslaved by pre-reformatory Russia, died for a fatherland which treated them as pariahs, which had bestowed upon them a monstrous conscription, the unexampled institutions of cantonists, penal recruits, and "captives." However, it soon became clear that those who had fallen under the walls of Sevastopol had sealed by their death not the honor but the dishonor of the old regime of blood and iron. Beneath the rotting corpse of an obsolete statecraft, built upon serfdom and maintained by soldiery and police, the germ of a new and better Russia began to stir. 4. THE RITUAL MURDER TRIAL OF SARATOV One more detail was lacking to complete the dismal picture and to bring out the full symmetry between the end of Nicholas' reign and its ominous beginning: a medieval ritual murder trial after the pattern of the Velizh case. And a trial of this nature did not fail to come. In December, 1852, and in January, 1853, two Russian boys from among the lower classes disappeared in the city of Saratov, in central Russia. Their bodies were found two or three months later in the Volga, covered with wounds and bearing the traces of circumcision. The latter circumstance led the coroners to believe that the crime had been perpetrated by Jews. Saratov, a city situated outside the Pale of Settlement, harbored at that time a small Jewish settlement consisting of some forty soldiers of the local garrison and several civilian Jewish tradesmen and artisans who lived in the prohibited Volga town by the grace of the police. There were also a few converts. The vigilant eyes of the coroners were riveted on this settlement. An official by the name of Durnovo, who had been dispatched from St. Petersburg to take charge of the case, began at once to direct the inquiry into the channel of a ritual murder case. Needless to say there were soon found material witnesses from among the ignorant or criminal class who were under the hypnotic influence of the ritual murder myth. A private, called Bogdanov, who had been convicted of vagrancy, and an intoxicated gubernatorial official by the name of Krueger testified that they were present at the time when the Jews squeezed out the blood from the bodies of the murdered boys. They also mentioned by name the principal perpetrators of the murder, the "circumcision expert" in the local Jewish settlement, a soldier called Shlieferman, and a furrier named Yankel Yushkevicher, a devout Jew. The incriminated Jews were thrown into prison, but, despite excruciating cross-examinations, they and the other defendants indignantly denied not only their complicity in the murder but also the ritual murder accusation as a whole. The investigation became more and more involved, drawing into its net a constantly growing number of persons, until in July, 1854, a special "Judicial Commission" was appointed by order of Nicholas I. for the purpose of disclosing not only the particular crime committed at Saratov but also "of investigating the dogmas of the religious fanaticism of the Jews." The latter task, being of a theoretic nature, was entrusted, in 1855, to a special commission under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior. Among the theologians and Hebraists who were members of that Commission was also the baptized professor Daniel Chwolson who had scientifically disproved the ritual legend. In 1856, after a protracted inquiry of two years, the judicial commission, having failed to discover evidence against the accused, decided to set them at liberty, but "to leave them under strong suspicion." In the meantime, Alexander II. had ascended the throne of the Tzars, and the dawn of Russian renascence began to disperse the nightmares of the past era. Yet so deeply ingrained were the old prejudices in many bureaucratic minds that when the conclusion reached by the judicial commission was submitted to the Senate the votes were divided. The case was transferred to the Council of State, and there the high dignitaries managed to effect a compromise between their medieval prejudices and their involuntary concessions to the spirit of the age. They refused to enter into a discussion of "the still unsolved question as to the use of Christian blood by the Jews," but they "unhesitatingly recognized the existence of the crime itself," which had been perpetrated at Saratov--this in spite of the fact that the only ground on which the crime was ascribed to alleged fanatical practices and laid at the door of the Jews were the traces of circumcision on the dead bodies. Ignoring this inner contradiction and setting aside the weighty objections of the liberal Minister of Justice Zamyatin, the Council of State brought in a verdict of guilty against the impeached Jews, the soldier Shlieferman and the two Yushkevichers, senior and junior, sentencing them to penal servitude. The sentence was confirmed by Alexander II. in May, 1860. The representatives of the St. Petersburg community, Baron Joseph Guenzburg and others, petitioned the Tzar to postpone the verdict until the scholarly commission of experts should have rendered its decision with regard to the compatibility of ritual murder with the teachings of Judaism. But the president of the Council of State, Count Orlov, presented the matter to the Tzar in a different light, asserting that all that the Jews intended by their petition was "to keep off for an indefinite period the decision on a case in which their coreligionists are involved." He, therefore, insisted on the immediate execution of the sentence, and the Tzar yielded. After eight long years of incarceration, in the course of which two of the impeached Jews committed suicide, the principal "perpetrators" were found to be physical wrecks and no longer able to discharge their penal servitude. The innocent sufferer, old Yushkevicher, languished in prison for seven more years, and was finally liberated in 1867 by order of Alexander II., who had been petitioned by Adolph Cremieux, the president of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, to pardon the unhappy man. In this way the heritage of the dark past protruded into the increasing brightness of the new Russia, which in the beginning of the sixties was passing through the era of "Great Reforms." CHAPTER XVIII THE ERA OF REFORMS UNDER ALEXANDER II. 1. THE ABOLITION OF JUVENILE CONSCRIPTION When after the Crimean War, which had exposed the rottenness of the old order of things, a fresh current of air swept through the atmosphere of Russia, and the liberation of the peasantry and other great reforms were coming to fruition, the Jewish problem, too, was in line of being placed in the forefront of these reforms. For, after having done away with the institution of serfdom, the State was consistently bound to liberate its three million of Jewish serfs who had been ruthlessly oppressed and persecuted during the old regime. Unfortunately the Jewish question, which was nothing more nor less than the question of equal citizenship for the Jews, was not placed in the line of the great reforms, but was pushed to the rear and solved fragmentarily--on the instalment plan, as it were--and within narrowly circumscribed limits. Like all the other officially inspired reforms of that period, which proceeded up to a certain point and halted before the prohibited zone of constitutional and political liberties, so, too, the solution of the Jewish problem was not allowed to pass beyond the border-line. For the crossing of that line would have rendered the whole question null and void by the simple recognition of the equality of all citizens. The regenerated Russia of Alexander II., stubborn in its refusal of political freedom and civil equality, could only choose the path of half-measures. Nevertheless, the transition from the pre-reformatory order of things to the new state of affairs signified a radical departure both in the life of Russia in general and in Jewish life in particular. It did so not because the new conditions were perfect, but because the old ones were so inexpressibly ugly and unbearable, and the mere loosening of the chains of servitude was hailed as a pledge of complete liberation. Far more intense than in the political life of Russia was the crisis in its social life. While a chilling wind was still blowing from the wintry heights of Russian officialdom, while a grim censorship was still holding down the flight of the printed word, the released social energy was whirling and swirling in all classes of Russian society, sometimes breaking the fetters of police restraint. The outbursts of young Russia ran far ahead of the slow progress of the reforms inspired from above. It blazed the path for political freedom which the West of Europe had long traversed, and which was to prove in Russia tortuous and thorny. The phase of Jewish life which claimed the first thought of Alexander II.'s Government was the military conscription. Prior to the conclusion of the Crimean War, the Committee on Jewish Affairs [1] called the Tzar's attention to the necessity of modifying the method of Jewish conscription, with its fiendish contrivances of seizing juvenile cantonists and enlisting "penal" and "captive" recruits. Nevertheless the removal of this crying evil was postponed for a year, until the promulgation of the Coronation Manifesto [2] of August 26, 1856, when it was granted as an act of grace. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 49.] [Footnote 2: On the meaning of Manifesto see later, p. 246, n. 1.] Prompted by the desire--the Manifesto reads--of making it easier for the Jews to discharge their military duty and of averting the inconveniences attached thereto, we command as follows: 1. Recruits from among the Jews are to be drafted in the same way as from among the other estates, primarily from among those unsettled and not engaged in productive labor. [1] Only in default of able-bodied men among these, the shortage is to be made up from among the category of Jews who by reason of their engaging in productive labor are recognized as useful. 2. The drafting of recruits from among other estates and of those under age is to be repealed. 3. In regard to the making up of the shortage of recruits, the general laws are to be applied, and the exaction of recruits from Jewish communities as a penalty for arrears is to be repealed. 4. The temporary rules, enacted by way of experiment in 1853, granting Jewish communities and Jewish individuals the right of presenting as recruits in their own stead coreligionists seized without passports [2] are to be repealed. [Footnote 1: See on these designations pp. 64 and 142.] [Footnote 2: See above, p. 148 et seq.] The abolition of juvenile conscription followed automatically upon the annulment, by virtue of the same Coronation Manifesto, of the general Russian institution of "cantonists" and "soldier children," who were now ordered to be returned to their parents and relatives. Only in the case of the Jews a rider was attached to the effect that those Jewish children who had embraced Christianity during their term of military service should not be allowed to go back to their parents and relatives, if the latter remained in their old faith, and should be placed exclusively in Christian families. The Coronation Manifesto of 1856 marks the end of the recruiting inquisition, which had lasted for nearly thirty years, adding a unique page to the annals of Jewish martyrdom. In the matter of conscription, at least, the Jews were, in a certain measure, granted equal rights. The operation of the general statute concerning military service was extended to them, with a few limitations which were the heritage of the past. The old plan of the "assortment of the Jews" is reflected in the clause of the Manifesto, providing for increased conscription from among "those unsettled and not engaged in productive labor," i.e., of the mass of the proletariat, as distinct from the more or less well-to-do classes. Nor was the old historic crime made good: the Jewish cantonists who had been forcibly converted to the Greek-Orthodox faith were not allowed to return to their kindred. As heretofore, baptism remained a _conditio sine qua non_ for the advancement of a Jewish soldier, and only in 1861 was permission given to promote a Jewish private to the rank of a sergeant for general merit, without special distinction on the battlefield which had been formerly required. Beyond this rank no Jew could hope to advance. 2. "HOMEOPATHIC" EMANCIPATION AND THE POLICY OF "FUSION" Following upon the removal of the "black stain" of conscription came the question of lightening the "yoke of slavery," that heavy burden of rightlessness which pressed so grievously upon the outcasts of the Jewish Pale. Already in March, 1856, Count Kiselev, a semi-liberal official and formerly the president of the "Jewish Committee" which had been appointed in 1840 [1] and which was composed of the heads of the various ministries, submitted a memorandum to Alexander II. in which he took occasion to point out that "the attainment of the goal indicated in the imperial ukase of 1840, that of bringing about the fusion of the Jews with the general population, is hampered by various provisionally enacted restrictions which, when taken in conjunction with the general laws, contain contradictions and engender confusion." [Footnote 1: See above, p. 49 et seq.] The result was an imperial order, dated March 31, 1856, "to revise all existing regulations affecting the Jews so as to bring them into harmony with the general policy of fusing this people with the original inhabitants, as far as the moral status of the Jews may render it possible." The same ministers who had taken part in the labors of the Jewish Committee were instructed to draft a plan looking to the modification of the laws affecting the Jews and to submit their suggestions to the Tzar. In this way the inception of the new reign was marked by a characteristic slogan: the fusion of the Jews with the Russian people, to be promoted by alleviations in their legal status. The way leading to this "fusion" was, in the judgment of Russian officialdom, blocked by the historic unity of the Jewish nation, a unity which in governmental phraseology was styled "Jewish separatism" and interpreted as the effect of the inferior "moral status" of the Jews. At the same time it was implied that Jews with better "morals," i.e., those who have shown a leaning toward Russification, might be accorded special legal advantages over their retrograde coreligionists. From that moment the bureaucratic circles of St. Petersburg became obsessed with the idea of picking out special groups from among the Jewish population, distinguished by financial or educational qualifications, for the purpose of bestowing upon them certain rights and privileges. It was the old coin--Nicholas' idea of the "assortment" of the Jews--with a new legend stamped upon it. Formerly it had been intended to penalize the "useless" or "unsettled burghers" by intensifying their rightlessness; now this plan gave way to the policy of rewarding the "useful" elements by enlarging their rights or reducing their rightlessness. The objectionable principle upon which this whole system was founded, the division of a people into categories of favorites and outcasts, remained in full force. There was only a difference in degree: the threat of legal restrictions for the disobedient was replaced by holding out promises of legal alleviations for the obedient. A small group of influential Jewish merchants in St. Petersburg, which stood in close relations to the highest official spheres, the purveyor and banker Baron Joseph Yozel Guenzburg [1] and others, seized eagerly upon this idea which bade fair to shower privileges upon the well-to-do classes. In June, 1856, this group addressed a petition to Alexander II., complaining about the disabilities which weighed so heavily upon all Jews, "from the artisan to the first guild merchant, from the private soldier to the Master of Arts, and forced them down to the level of a degraded, suspected, untolerated tribe." At the same time they assured the Tzar that, were the Government to give a certain amount of encouragement to the Jews, the latter would gladly meet it half-way and help in the realization of its policy to draw the Jews nearer to the original inhabitants and turn them in the direction of productive labor. [Footnote 1: Popularly known by his middle name as _Yozel_.] Were--the petitioners declare--the new generation which has been brought up in the spirit and under the control of the Government, were the higher mercantile class which for many years has diffused life, activity, and wealth in the land, were the conscientious artisans who earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, to receive from the Government, as a mark of distinction, larger rights than those who have done nothing to attest their well-meaningness, usefulness, and industry, then the whole Jewish people, seeing that these few favored ones are the object of the Government's righteousness and benevolence and models of what it desires the Jews to become, would joyfully hasten to attain the goal marked out by the Government. Our present petition, therefore, is to the effect that our gracious sovereign may bestow his kindness upon us, and, by distinguishing the grain from the chaff, may be pleased to accord a few moderate privileges to the most educated among us, to wit: 1. "Equal rights with the other (Russian) subjects or with the Karaite Jews [1] to the educated and well-deserving Jews who possess the title of Honorary Citizens, to the merchants affiliated for a number of years with the first or second guild and distinguished by their business integrity, to the soldiers who have served irreproachably in the army." 2. The right of residence outside the Pale of Settlement "to the best among the artisans" who possess laudatory certificates from the trade-unions. The privileges thus accorded to "the best among us" will help to realize the consummation of the Government "that the sharply marked traits which distinguish the Jews from the native Russians should be levelled, and that the Jews should in their way of thinking and acting become akin to the latter." Once placed outside their secluded "Pale," the Jews "will succeed in adopting from the genuine Russians the praise-worthy qualities, by which they are distinguished, and the striving for culture and useful endeavor will become universal." [Footnote 1: On the emancipation of the Karaites see Vol. I, p. 318.] The petition reflects the humiliating attitude of men who were standing on the boundary line between slavery and freedom, whose cast of mind had been formed under the regime of oppression and caprice. Pointing to the example of the West where the bestowal of equal rights had contributed to the success of Jewish assimilation, the St. Petersburg petitioners were not even courageous enough to demand equal rights as the price of assimilation, and professed, perhaps from diplomatic considerations, to content themselves with miserable crumbs of rights and privileges for "the best among us." They failed to realize the meanness of their suggestion to divide a nation into best and worst, into those worthy of a human existence and those unworthy of it. 3. THE EXTENSION OF THE RIGHT OF RESIDENCE After some wavering, the Government decided to adopt the method of "picking" the best. The intention of the authorities was to apply the gradual relaxation of Jewish rightlessness not to groups of restrictions, but to groups of persons. The Government entered upon the scheme of abolishing or alleviating certain restrictions not for the whole Jewish population but merely for a few "useful" sections within it. Three such sections were marked off from the rest: merchants of the first guild, university graduates, and incorporated artisans. The resuscitated "Committee for the Amelioration of the Jews" [1] displayed an intense activity during that period (1856-1863). For fully two years (1857-1859) the question of granting the right of permanent residence in the interior governments to merchants of the first guild occupied the attention of that Committee and of the Council of State. The Committee had originally proposed to restrict this privilege by imposing a series of exceedingly onerous conditions. Thus, the merchants intending to settle in the Russian interior were to be required to have belonged to the first guild within the Pale for ten years previously, and they were to be allowed to leave the Pale only after securing in each case a permit from the Ministers of the Interior and of Finance. But the Council of State found that, circumscribed in this manner, the privilege would benefit only a negligible fraction of the Jewish merchant class--there were altogether one hundred and eight Jewish first-guild merchants within the Pale--and, therefore, considered it necessary to reduce the requirements for settling in the interior. [Footnote 1: Compare above, p. 49.] A long succession of meetings of this august body was taken up with the perplexing problem how to attract big Jewish capital into the central governments and at the same time safeguard the latter against the excessive influx of Jews, who, for the sake of settling there, would register in the first guild and, under the disguise of relatives, would bring with them, as one of the members of the Council put it, "the whole tribe of Israel." After protracted discussions, a resolution was adopted which was in substance as follows: The Jewish merchants who have belonged to the first guild for not less than two years prior to the issuance of the present law shall be permitted to settle permanently in the interior governments, accompanied by their families and a limited number of servants and clerks. These merchants shall be entitled to live and trade on equal terms with the Russian merchants, with the proviso that, after the settlement, they shall continue their membership in the first guild as well as their payment of the appertaining membership dues for no less than ten years, failing which they shall be sent back into the Pale. Big Jewish merchants and bankers from abroad, "noted for their social position," shall be allowed to trade in Russia under a special permit to be secured in each case from the Ministers of the Interior and of Finance. The resolution of the Council of State was sanctioned by the Tzar on March 16, 1859, and thus became law. In this manner the way was opened for big Jewish capital to enter the two Russian capitals and the tabooed interior. The advent of the big capitalists was followed by the influx of their less fortunate brethren, who, driven by material want from the Pale, were forced to seek new domiciles, and in the shape of first guild dues paid for many years a heavy toll for their right of residence and commerce. The position of these merchants offers numerous points of contact with the status of the "tolerated" Jewish merchants in Vienna and Lower Austria prior to 1848. Toleration having been granted to the Jews with a proper financial status, the Government proceeded to extend the same treatment to persons with educational qualifications. The latter class was the subject of protracted debates in the Jewish Committee as well as in the Ministries and in the Council of State. As early as in 1857 the Minister of Public Instruction Norov had submitted a memorandum to the Jewish Committee in which he argued that "religious fanaticism and prejudice among the Jews" could only be exterminated by inducing the Jewish youth to enter the general educational establishments, "which end can only be obtained by enlarging their civil rights and by offering them material advantages." Accordingly, Norov suggested that the right of residence in the whole Russian Empire should be granted to the graduates of the higher and secondary educational institutions. [1] Those Jews who should have failed to attend school were to be restricted in their right of entering the mercantile guilds. The Jewish Committee refused to limit the rights of those who did not attend the general schools, and proposed, instead, as a bait for the Jews who shunned secular education, to confer special privileges in the discharge of military service upon those Jews who had attended the _gymnazia_ [2] or even the Russian district schools, [3] or the Jewish Crown schools, [4] more exactly, to grant them the right of buying themselves off from conscription by the payment of one hundred to two hundred rubles (1859). But the Military Department vetoed this proposal on the ground that education would thus bestow privileges upon Jews which were denied even to Christians. The suggestion, relating to military privileges was therefore abandoned, and the promotion of education among Jews reduced itself to an extension of the right of residence. [Footnote 1: The latter category comprises primarily the _gymnazia_ (see next note) in which the classic languages are taught, and the so-called _real gymnazia_ in which emphasis is laid on science. The higher educational institutions, or the institutions of higher learning, are the universities and the professional schools, on which see next page, n. 4.] [Footnote 2: The name applies on the European continent to secondary schools. A Russian _gymnazia_ (and similarly a German _gymnazium_) has an eight years' course. Its curriculum corresponds roughly to a combined high school and college course in America.] [Footnote 3: _i.e._, schools found in the capitals of districts (or counties), preparatory to the _gymnazia._] [Footnote 4: See above, p.58 and below, p.174.] In this connection the Jewish Committee warmly debated the question as to whether the right of residence outside the Pale should be accorded to graduates of the higher and secondary educational institutions, or only to those of the higher. The Ministers of the Interior and Public Instruction (Lanskoy and Kovalevski) advocated the former more liberal interpretation. But the majority of the Committee members, acting "in the interests of a graduated emancipation," rejected the idea of bestowing the universal right of residence upon the graduates of _gymnazia_, and _lyceums_ and even upon those of universities and other institutions of higher learning, [1] with the exception of those who had received a learned degree, Doctor, Magister, or Candidate. [2] The Committee was willing, on the other hand, to permit the possessors of a learned degree not only to settle in the interior but also to enter the civil service. The Jewish university graduate was thus expected to submit a scholarly paper or even a doctor dissertation for two purposes, for procuring the right of residence in some Siberian locality and for the right of serving the State. Particular "circumspection" was recommended by the Committee with reference to Jewish medical men: a Jewish physician, without the degree of M.D., was not to be permitted to pass beyond the Pale. [Footnote 1: Such as technological, veterinary, dental, and other professional schools, which are independent of the universities.] [Footnote 2: _Magister_ in Russia corresponds roughly to the same title in England and America. It is inferior to the doctor degree and precedes it. _Candidate_ is a title, now mostly abolished, given to the best university students who have completed their course and have presented a scholarly paper, without having passed the full examination.] In this shape the question was submitted to the Council of State in 1861. Here opinions were evenly divided. Twenty members advocated the necessity of "bestowing" the right of residence not only on graduates of universities but also of _gymnazia_, advancing the argument that even in the case of a Jewish _gymnazist_ [1] "it is in all likelihood to be presumed that the gross superstitions and prejudices which hinder the association of the Jews with the original population of the Empire will be, if not entirely eradicated, at least considerably weakened, and a further sojourn among Christians will contribute toward the ultimate extermination of these sinister prejudices which stand in the way of every moral improvement." [Footnote 1: _i.e._, the pupil of a _gymnazium_.] Such was the opinion of the "liberal" half of the Council of State. The conservative half argued differently. Only those Jews deserve the right of residence who have received "an education such as may serve as a pledge of their having renounced the errors of fanaticism. "The wise measures adopted" as a precaution against the influx of Jews into the interior governments" would lose their efficacy, "were permission to settle all over Russia to be granted suddenly to all Jews who have for a short term attended a _gymnazium_ in the Western and South-western region, for no other purpose, to be sure, than that of pursuing on a larger scale their illicit trades and other harmful occupations." Hence only Jews with a "reliable education," i.e., the graduates of higher educational institutions, who have obtained a learned degree, should be permitted to pass the boundary of the Pale. Alexander II. endorsed the opinion of the conservative members of the Council of State. The law, promulgated on November 37, 1861, reads as follows: Jews possessing certificates of the learned degree of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery, or Doctor of Medicine, and likewise of Doctor, Magister, or Candidate of other university faculties, are admitted to serve In all Government offices, without their being confined to the Pale established for the residence of Jews. They are also permitted to settle permanently in all the provinces of the Empire for the pursuit of commerce and Industry. In addition, the law specifies that, apart from the members of their families, these Jews shall be permitted to keep, as a maximum, "two domestic servants from among their coreligionists." The promulgation of this law brought about a curious state of affairs, the upshot of the genuinely Russian homoeopathic system of emancipation, A handful of Jews who had obtained learned degrees from universities were permitted not only to reside in the interior of t e Empire, but were also admitted here and there to Government service, in the capacity of civil and military physicians. Yet both of these rights were denied to all other persons with the same university education, "Physicians and Active Students," [1] who had not obtained learned degrees. On one occasion the Minister of Public Instruction put before the Council of State the following legal puzzle: A Jewish student, while attending the university of the Russian capital, enjoys the right of residence there. But when he has successfully finished his course and has obtained the customary certificate, without the learned degree, he forfeits this right and must return to the Pale. [Footnote 1: Both titles are given at the conclusion of the prescribed university course; the former to medical students, the latter to students of other faculties.] Yet the Government in its stubbornness refused to make concessions, and when it was forced to make them, it did so rather in its own interest than in that of the Jews. Owing to the scarcity of medical help in the army and in the interior, ukases issued in 1865 and 1867 declared Jewish physicians, even without the title of Doctor of Medicine, to be admissible to the medical corps and later on to civil service in all places of the Empire, except the capitals St. Petersburg and Moscow. Nevertheless, the extension of the plain right of domicile, without admission to civil service, remained for a long time dependent on a learned degree. It was only after two decades of hesitation that the law of January 19, 1879, conferred the right of universal residence on _all_ categories of persons with a higher education, regardless of the nature of the diploma, and also including pharmacists, dentists, _feldshers_, [1] and midwives. [Footnote 1: From the German _Feldscherer_, a sort of combination of leech, first-aid, and barber, who frequently gave medical advice.] The privileges bestowed upon the big merchants and "titled" intellectuals affected but a few small groups of the Jewish population. The authorities now turned their attention to the mass of the people, and, in accordance with its rules of political homoeopathy, commenced to pick from it a handful of persons for better treatment. The question of admitting Jewish artisans into the Russian interior occupied the Government for a long time. In 1856 Lanskoy, the Minister of the Interior, entered into an official correspondence concerning this matter with the governors-general and governors of the Western provinces. Most of the replies were favorable to the idea of conferring upon Jewish artisans the right of universal residence. Of the three governors-general whose opinion had been invited the governor-general of Vilna was the only one who thought that the present situation needed no change. His colleague of Kiev, Count Vasilchikov, was, on the contrary, of the opinion that it would be a rational measure to transfer the surplus of Jewish artisans who were cooped up within the Pale and had been pauperized by excessive competition to the interior governments where there was a scarcity of skilled labor. [1] [Footnote 1: The official statistics of that time (about the year 1860) brought out the fact that the number of Jews in the fifteen governments of the Pale of Settlement, exclusive of the Kingdom of Poland, but Inclusive of the Baltic region, amounted to 1,430,800, forming 8% of the total population of that territory. The number of artisans in the "Jewish" governments was far greater than in the Russian interior. Thus in the government of Kiev there were to be found 2.06 artisans to every thousand inhabitants, against 0.8 in the near-by government of Kursk, i.e., 2% times more. In reality, the number of Jews in the Western region, without the Kingdom of Poland, exceeded considerably 1 and one-half millions, there being no regular registration at that time.] A surprisingly liberal pronouncement came from, the governor-general of New Russia, Count Stroganov. In the world of Russian officialdom professing the dogma of "gradation" and "caution" in the question of Jewish rights he was the only one who had the courage to raise his voice on behalf of complete Jewish emancipation. He wrote: The existence in our times of restrictions in the rights of the Jews as compared with the Christian population in any shape or form is neither in accord with the spirit and tendency of the age nor with the policy of the Government looking towards the amalgamation of the Jews with the original population of the Empire. The count therefore concluded that it was necessary "to permit the Jews to live in all the places of the Empire and engage without any restrictions and on equal terms with all Russian subjects in such crafts and industries as they themselves may choose, in accordance with their habits and abilities." It is scarcely necessary to add that the bold voice of the Russian dignitary, who in a lucid interval spoke up in a manner reminiscent of the civilized West, was not listened to by the bureaucrats of St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, as far as the specific question of Jewish artisans was concerned, the favorable replies were bound to have a decisive effect. However, red-tape sluggishness managed to retard the decision for several years. In 1863 the question was referred back to the Jewish Committee, only a short time before the dissolution of that body, which for a quarter of a century had perpetrated every conceivable experiment over the "amelioration of the Jews." Thence the matter was transferred to the Committee of Ministers and finally to the Council of State. In the ministerial body, Valuyev, Minister of the Interior, favored the idea of granting the right of settling outside the Pale to Jewish artisans and mechanics, dependent on certain conditions, "by practising caution and endeavoring to avert the rapid influx into the midst of the population of the interior governments of an element hitherto foreign to it." In reply to Baron Korff, who had advocated the admission of the Jewish artisans beyond the Pale not only with their families but also with Jewish domestics, Valuyev argued that this privilege "will enable Jewish business men of all kinds to reside in the interior governments, under the guise of employes of their coreligionists." "The Jews," according to Valuyev, "will endeavor to transfer their activity to a field economically more favorable to them, and it goes without saying that they will not fail to seize the first best opportunity of exploiting the places of the Empire hitherto inaccessible to them." The Council of State passed the law in the formulation of the Ministry of the Interior, adding the necessary precautions against the entirely legitimate endeavor of Jewish business men "to transfer their activity to a field economically more favorable to them." After nine years of preparation, on June 28, 1865, Alexander II. finally gave his sanction to the law permitting Jewish artisans, mechanics and distillers, including apprentices, to reside all over the Empire. Both in the wording of the law and in its subsequent application the privilege was hedged about by numerous safeguards. Thus, the artisan who wished to settle outside the Pale had to produce not only a certificate from his trade-union testifying to his professional ability but also a testimony from the police that he was not under trial. At stated intervals he had to procure a passport from his native town in the Pale, since outside the Pale his status was that of a temporary resident. In his new place of residence he was permitted to deal only in the wares of his own workmanship. If he happened to be out of work, he was to be sent back to the Pale. While opening a valve in the suffocating Pale, the Government took good care to prevent the artificially pent-up Jewish energy from rushing through it. However, heaving cooped up for so long, the Jews began to press through the opening. In the wake of the artisans, who, on account of the indicated restrictions of the law or because of the lack of travelling expenses, emigrated in comparatively small numbers, followed the commercial proletariat, using the criminal disguise of artisans, in order to transfer their energies to a "field economically more favorable to them." The position of these people was tragic. The fictitious artisans became the tributaries of the local police, depending entirely on its favor or disfavor. The detection of such "criminals" outside the Pale was followed by their expulsion and the confiscation of their merchandise. As a matter of fact, the Russian Government did everything in its power to stem the influx of Jews into the interior. Only with the greatest reluctance did it widen the range of the "privileged" Jewish groups. The Tzar himself, held in the throes of the old Muscovite tradition, frequently put his veto upon the proposals to enlarge the area of Jewish residence. A striking illustration of this attitude may be found in the case of the retired Jewish soldiers, who, after discharging their galley-like army service of a quarter of a century, were expelled from the places where they had been stationed and sent back into the Pale. To the report submitted in 1858 by the Jewish Committee, pointing out the necessity of granting the right of universal residence to these soldiers, the Tzar attached the resolution: "I decidedly refuse to grant it." When petitions to the same effect became more insistent, all he did was to permit in 1860, "by way of exemption," a group of retired soldiers who had served in St. Petersburg in the body-guard to remain in the capital. Ultimately, however, he was obliged to yield, and in 1867 he revoked the law prohibiting retired Jewish soldiers to live outside the Pale. Thus after long wavering the right of domicile was finally bestowed upon the so-called "Nicholas soldiers" and their offspring--a rather niggardly reward for having served the fatherland under the terrible hardships of the old form of conscription. 4. FURTHER ALLEVIATIONS AND ATTEMPTS AT RUSSIFICATION Nevertheless, the liberal spirit of the age did its work slowly but surely, and partial legal alleviations were granted by the Government or wrested from it by the force of circumstances. The barriers which had been erected for the Jews within the Pale itself were done away with. Thus the right of residence was extended to the cities of Nicholayev and Sevastopol, which, though geographically situated within the Pale, had been legally placed outside of it. The obstructions in the way of temporary visits to the holy city of Kiev were mitigated. The disgraceful old-time privilege of several cities, such as Zhitomir and Vilna, entitling them to exclude the Jews from certain streets, [1] was revoked. Moreover, by the law of 1862, the Jews were permitted to acquire land in the rural districts on those manorial estates in which after the liberation of the peasants the binding relation of the peasants to the landed proprietors had been completely discontinued. Unfortunately, what the Jews thus gained through the liberation of the peasants, they lost to a large extent soon afterwards through the Polish insurrection of 1863, forfeiting the right of acquiring immovable property outside the cities in the greater part of the Pale. For in 1864, after quelling the Polish insurrection, the Government undertook to Russify the Western region, and both Poles and Jews were strictly barred from acquiring estates in the nine governments forming the jurisdiction of the governors-general of Vilna and Kiev. [Footnote 1: On the medieval privilege _de non tolerandis Judaeis_ see Vol. I, pp. 85 and 95.] The two other great reforms, that of rural self-government and the judiciary, were not stained by the ignominious label _kromye Yevreyev_, "excepting the Jews," so characteristic of Russian legislation. The "Statute concerning Zemstvo Organizations," [1] issued in 1864, makes no exceptions for Jews, and those among them with the necessary agrarian or commercial qualifications are granted the right of active and passive suffrage within the scheme of provincial self-government. In fact, in the Southern governments the Jews began soon afterwards to participate in the rural assemblies, and were occasionally appointed to rural offices. Nor did the liberally conceived Judicial Regulations of 1864 [2] contain any important discriminations against Jews. Within a short time Jewish lawyers attained to prominence as members of the Russian bar, although their admission to the bench was limited to a few isolated cases. [Footnote 1: A system of local self-government carried on by means of elective assemblies and its executive organs. There is an assembly for each district (or county) and another for each government.] [Footnote 2: Among other reforms they instituted the Russian bar as a separate organization.] Little by little, another dismal spectre of the past, the missionary activity of the Government, began to fade away. In the beginning of Alexander's reign, the conversion of Jews was still encouraged by the grant of monetary assistance to converts. The law of 1859 extended these stipends to persons embracing any other Christian persuasion outside of Greek Orthodoxy. But in 1864 the Government came to the conclusion that it was not worth its while to reward deserters and began a new policy by discontinuing its allowances to converts serving in the army. A little later it repealed the law providing for a mitigation of sentence for criminal offenders who embrace Christianity during the inquiry or trial. [1] [Footnote 1: See above, p. 45.] In encouraging "the fusion of the Jews with the original population," the Government of Alexander II. had in mind civil and cultural fusion rather than religious assimilation, which even the inquisitorial contrivances of Nicholas' conscription scheme had failed to accomplish. But as far as the cultural fusion or, for short, the Russification of the Jews was concerned, the Government even now occasionally indulged in practices which were borrowed from the antiquated system of enlightened absolutism. The official enlightenment, which had been introduced during the forties, was slow in taking root. The year 1848 was the first scholastic year in the two enlightenment nurseries, the rabbinical schools of Vilna and Zhitomir. Beginning with that year a number of elementary Crown schools for Jewish children were opened in various cities of the Pale. The cruel persecutions of the outgoing regime affected the development of the schools in a twofold manner. On the one hand, the Jewish population could not help turning away with disgust from the gift of enlightenment which its persecutors held out to it. On the other hand, the horrors of conscription induced many a Jewish youth, to seek refuge in the new rabbinical schools which saved their inmates from the soldier's uniform. Many a parent who regarded both the barracks and the Crown schools as training grounds for converts preferred to send his children to the latter, where, at least, they were spared the martyrdom of the barracks. The pupils of the rabbinical schools came from the poorest classes, those that carried on their shoulders the whole weight of conscription. True, the distrustful attitude towards the official schools was gradually weakening as the new Government of Alexander II. was passing from the former policy of oppression to that of reforms. By and by, the compulsory attendance at these schools became a voluntary one, prompted by the desire for general culture or for a special training as rabbi or teacher. Nevertheless the expectation of the Russian Government under Nicholas I. that the new schools would take the place of the time-honored educational Jewish institutions, the heder and yeshibah, remained unfulfilled. Only an insignificant percentage of Jewish children went to the Crown schools, and even these children did so only after having received their training at the heder or yeshibah. Realizing this, the Government decided to combat the traditional school as the rival of the new. Immediately upon his accession to the throne, Alexander confirmed the following resolution adopted by the Jewish Committee on May 3, 1855: "After the lapse of twenty years no one shall be appointed rabbi or teacher of Jewish subjects, except graduates of the rabbinical schools [1] or of the general educational establishments of a higher or secondary grade." [Footnote 1: i.e., the Government training schools for rabbis provided by the ukase of 1844. See the preceding page.] Having fixed a term of twenty years for abolishing the institution of melammeds and religious leaders, the product of thousands of years of development, the Government frequently brandished this Damocles sword over their heads. In 1856 a strict supervision was established over heders and melammeds. A year later the Jewish communities were instructed to elect henceforward as "official rabbis" [1] only graduates of the rabbinical Crown schools or of secular educational establishments, and, in default of such, to invite educated Jews from Germany. But all these regulations proved of no avail, and in 1859 a new ukase became necessary, which loosened the official grip over the heders, but made it at the same time obligatory upon the children of Jewish merchants to attend the general Russian schools or the Jewish Crown schools. [Footnote 1: Crown (In Russian _kazyonny_) rabbis in Russia are those that discharge the civil functions connected with their office, in distinction from the "spiritual" or ecclesiastic rabbis who are in charge of the purely religious affairs of the community. This division has survived in Russia until to-day.] The enforcement of school attendance would scarcely have produced the desired effect--the orthodox managed somehow to give the slip to "Russian learning"--were it not for the fact that under the influence of the inner cultural transformation of Russian Jewry the general Russian school became during that period more and more popular among the advanced classes of the Jewish population, and gymnazium and university took their place alongside of heder and yeshibah. Yet the hundreds of pupils in the new schools faded into insignificance when compared with the hundreds of thousands who were educated exclusively in the old schools. The fatal year 1875, the last of the twenty years of respite granted to the melammeds for their self-annihilation, arrived. But the huge melammed army was not willing to pass out of Jewish life, in which they exercised a definite function, with no substitute to take its place. The Government was forced to yield. After several brief postponements the melammeds were left in peace, and by an ukase issued in 1879 the idea of abolishing the heders was dropped. Towards the end of this period the Government abandoned altogether its attempts to reform the Jewish schools, and decided to liquidate its former activity in this direction. By an ukase issued in 1873 the two rabbinical schools and all Jewish Crown schools were closed. On the ruins of the vast educational network, originally projected for the transformation of Judaism, only about a hundred "elementary schools" and two modest "Teachers Institutes," [1] which were to supply teachers for these schools, were established by the Government. The authorities were now inclined to look upon the general Russian schools as the most effective agencies of "fusion," and put their greatest trust in the elemental process of Russification which had begun to sweep over the upper layers of Jewry. [Footnote 1: In Vilna and Zhitomir. The latter was closed in 1885. The former is still in existence.] 5. THE JEWS AND THE POLISH INSURRECTION OF 1863 While the official world of St. Petersburg was obsessed with the idea of the Russification of Jewry, in Warsaw the tendency of Polonization, as applied to the Jews of the Western region, cropped up in the wake of the revolutionary Polish movement in the beginning of the sixties. At the inception of Alexander's reign the Russian Government set out to equalize the legal status of the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland with that of the Empire, and to abolish the surviving special restrictions, such as the prohibition of residing in certain towns, or in certain parts of towns, disabilities in acquiring property, and others. But the highest Polish administration in Warsaw was obstructing in every possible way the liberal attempts of the Russian Government. Prior to the insurrection of 1863, the attitude of Polish society towards the Jews was one of habitual animosity, and this notwithstanding the fact that by that time Warsaw harbored already a group of Jewish intellectuals who were eager to assimilate with the Poles and were imbued with Polish patriotism. When, in 1859, the _Warsaw Gazette_ published an anti-Semitic article in which the Jews were branded as foreigners, the Polish-Jewish patriots, including the banker Kronenberg, a convert, were stung to the quick, and they came forward with violent protests. This led to passionate debates in the Polish press, generally unfriendly to the Jews. The radical Polish organs, published abroad by political exiles, took occasion to denounce bitterly the anti-Semitic trend of Polish society. The veteran historian Lelevel, who had not yet forgotten Poland's historic injustice of 1831, [1] issued a pamphlet in Brussels, calling upon the Poles to live in harmony with the race with which it had existed side by side for eight hundred years. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 105.] Lelevel's kindly words would scarcely have brought the anti-Semites to reason, had not the Poles at that moment embarked upon an enterprise for the success of which they sorely needed the sympathy and co-operation of their Jewish neighbors. The revolutionary movement which engulfed Russian Poland in 1860-1863 required the utmost exertion of effort on the part of the entire population, in which the half-million Jews played no small part. All of a sudden Polish society opened its arms to those whom it had but recently branded as foreigners, and out of the ranks of Warsaw Jewry came a hearty response, expressing itself not only in patriotic manifestations but also in sacrifices and achievements for the sake of the common fatherland. At the head of the Warsaw community during this stormy period stood a man who combined Polish patriotism with rabbinic orthodoxy. Formerly rabbi in Cracow, Berush [1] Meisels had as far back as 1848 been sent as deputy to the parliament at Kremsier, [2] and stood in the forefront of the Polish patriots of Galicia. In 1856 he accepted the post of rabbi in Warsaw. When the revolutionary movement had broken out, Meisels endeavored to instruct his flock in the spirit of Polish patriotism. Revered by the Jewish masses for his piety, and by the intellectuals for his political trend of mind, this spiritual leader of Polish Jewry played in the revolutionary Polish movement a role equal in importance to that of the leading ecclesiastics of Poland. The harmonious co-operation of the orthodox Chief Rabbi Meisels, the reform preacher Marcus Jastrow, [3] and the lay representatives of the community lent unity and organization to the part played by the Jews in preparing the rebellion. [Footnote 1: A variant of the name _Baer_.] [Footnote 2: A town in Moravia, where, after the rising of 1848, the Austrian parliament met provisionally till March, 1849.] [Footnote 3: After the suppression of the Polish insurrection, Jastrow went to the United States, and became a leading rabbi in Philadelphia. He died in 1903.] The Jews of Warsaw participated in all street manifestations and political processions which took place during the year 1860-1861. Among those pierced by Cossack bullets during the manifestation of February 27, 1861, were several Jews. The indignation which this shooting down of defenceless people aroused in Warsaw is generally regarded as the immediate cause of the mutiny. Rabbi Meisels was a member of the deputation which went to Viceroy Gorchakov to demand satisfaction for the blood that had been spilled. In the demonstrative funeral procession which followed the coffins of the victims the Jewish clergy, headed by Meisels, marched alongside of the Catholic priesthood. Many Jews attended the memorial services in the Catholic churches at which fiery patriotic speeches were delivered. Similar demonstrations of mourning were held in the synagogues. An appeal sent out broadcast by the circle of patriotic Jewish Poles reminded the Jews of the anti-Jewish hatred of the Russian bureaucracy, and called upon them "to clasp joyfully the brotherly hand held forth by them (the Poles), to place themselves under the banner of the nation whose ministers of religion have in all churches spoken of us in words of love and brotherhood." The whole year 1861 stood, at least as far as the Polish capital was concerned, under the sign of Polish-Jewish "brotherhood." At the synagogue service held in memory of the historian Lelevel Jastrow preached a patriotic sermon. On the day of the Jewish New Year prayers were offered up in the synagogues for the success of the Polish cause, accompanied by the singing of the national Polish hymn _Boze cos Polske_. [1] When, as a protest against the invasion of the churches by the Russian soldiery, the Catholic clergy closed all churches in Warsaw, the rabbis and communal elders followed suit, and ordered the closing of the synagogues. This action aroused the ire of Lieders, the new viceroy. Rabbi Meisels, the preachers Jastrow and Kramshtyk as well as the president of the "Congregational Board" were placed under arrest. The prisoners were kept in the citadel of Warsaw for three months, but were then released. [Footnote 1: Pronounce, _Bozhe, tzosh Polske_, "O Lord, Thou that hast for so many ages guarded Poland with the shining shield of Thy protection!"--the first words of the hymn.] In the meantime Marquis Vyelepolski, acting as mediator between the Russian Government and the Polish people, had prepared his plan of reforms as a means of warding off the mutiny. Among these reforms, which aimed at the partial restoration of Polish autonomy and the improvement of the status of the peasantry, was included a law providing for the "legal equality of the Jews." Wielding considerable influence, first as director of the Polish Commission of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction, and later as the head of the whole civil administration of the Kingdom, Vyelepolski was able to secure St. Petersburg's assent to his project. On May 24, 1862, Alexander II. signed an ukase revoking the suspensory decree of 180 1808, [1] which had entailed numerous disabilities for the Jews incompatible with the new tendencies in the political and agrarian life of the Kingdom. This ukase conferred the following rights upon the Jews: [Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 299.] 1. To acquire immovable property on all manorial estates on which the peasants had passed from the state of serfs into that of tenants. 2. To settle freely in the formerly prohibited cities and city districts, [1] not excluding those situated within the twenty-one verst zone along the Prussian and Austrian frontier. [2] 3. To appear as witnesses in court on an equal footing with Christians in all legal proceedings and to take an oath in a new, less humiliating form. [Footnote 1: See above, pp. 172 and 178.] [Footnote 2: See above, p. 95.] Bestowing these privileges upon the Polish Jews in the hope of bringing about their amalgamation with the local Christian population, the Tzar forbids in the same ukase the further use of Hebrew and Yiddish in all civil affairs and legal documents, such as contracts, wills, obligations, also in commercial ledgers and even in business correspondence. In conclusion, the ukase directs the Administrative Council of the Kingdom of Poland to revise and eventually to repeal all the other laws which hamper the Jews in their pursuit of crafts and industries by imposing special taxes upon them. This ukase of Alexander II., though revoking only part of the insulting restrictions in the elementary civil rights of the Jews, was given the high-sounding title of an "Act of Emancipation." The secluded hasidic mass of Poland was glad to accept the legal alleviations offered to it, without thinking of any linguistic or other kind of assimilation. On the other hand, the assimilated Jewish _intelligentzia_, which had joined the ranks of the Polish insurgents, was dreaming of complete emancipation, and confidently hoped to attain it upon the successful termination of the revolutionary enterprise. In the meantime the revolution was assuming ever larger proportions. The year 1863 arrived. The demonstrations on the streets of Warsaw were succeeded by bloody skirmishes between the Polish insurgents and the Russian troops in the woods of Poland and Lithuania. The Jews took no active part in this phase of the rebellion. As far as Poland proper was concerned, their participation was limited to the secret revolutionary propaganda. In Lithuania again neither the Jewish masses nor the newly arisen class of intellectuals sympathized with the Polish cause. In that part of the country the systematic Jew-baiting of the Polish pans, or noble landowners, was still fresh in the minds, and the Jews, moreover, were pinning all their faith to the emancipation to be bestowed by St. Petersburg. The will o' the wisp of Russification had already begun to lure the Jewish professional class. In many Lithuanian localities the Jews who failed to show their sympathy with the Polish revolutionaries ran the risk of being dealt with severely. Here and there, as had been the case in 1831, the rebels were as good as their word, and hanged or shot the Jews suspected of pro-Russian sympathies. The reserved attitude of the Lithuanian Jews throughout the mutiny proved their salvation after the suppression of the rebellion, when the ferocious Muravyov, the governor-general of Vilna, took up his bloody work of retribution. As for the Kingdom of Poland, neither the revolution nor its suppression entailed any serious consequences for them. True, the fraternization of the Warsaw Jews with the Poles during the revolutionary years weakened for a little while the hereditary Jew-hatred of the Polish people, and helped to intensify the fever of Polonization which had seized the Jewish upper classes. But indirectly the effects of the Polish rebellion were detrimental to the Jews of the rest of the Empire. The insurrection was not only followed by a general wave of political reaction, but it also gave strong impetus to the policy of Russification which was now applied with particular vigor to the Western provinces, and was damaging to the Jews both from the civil and the cultural point of view. CHAPTER XIX THE REACTION UNDER ALEXANDER II. 1. CHANGE OF ATTITUDE TOWARD THE JEWISH PROBLEM The decided drift toward political reaction in the second part of Alexander's reign affected also the specific Jewish problem, which the homoeopathic reforms, designed to "ameliorate" a fraction of the Jewish people, had tried to solve in vain. The general reaction showed itself in the fact that, after having carried out the first great reforms, such as the liberation of the peasantry, the introduction of rural self-government and the reorganization of the administration of the law, the Government considered the task of Russian regeneration to be completed, and stubbornly refused, to use the expression current at the time, "to crown the edifice" by the one great political reform, the grant of a constitution and political liberty. This refusal widened the breach between the Government and the progressive element of the Russian people, whose hopes were riveted on the ultimate goal of political reorganization. The striving for liberty, driven under ground by police and censorship, assumed among the Russian youth the character of a revolutionary movement. And when the murderous hand of the "Third Section" [1] descended heavily upon the champions of liberty, the youthful revolutionaries retorted with political terrorism which darkened the last days of Alexander II. and led to his assassination. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 21, n. 1.] The complete emancipation of the Jews was out of place in this atmosphere of growing official reaction. The same bureaucracy which halted the march of the "great reforms" for the country at large was not inclined to allow even minor reforms when affecting the Jews only. Even the former desire for a "graded" and partial amelioration of the position of the Jews had vanished. Instead, the center of the stage was again occupied by the old red-tape activities, by discussions about the Jewish question--endless no less than fruitless--in the recesses of bureaucratic committees and sub-committees, by oracular animadversions of governors and governors-general upon the conduct of the Jews, and so on. Theory-mongering of the reactionary variety was again at a premium. Once more the authorities debated the question whether the Jews were to be regarded as useful or harmful to the State, instead of putting the diametrically opposite question of simple justice: whether the State which is called upon to serve the Jews as part of the civic organism of Russia is useful to them to an extent which may be lawfully claimed by them. Under Nicholas I. the Government chancelleries had been busy inventing new remedies against the "separatism" of the Jews and their "harmful pursuits." During the first liberal years of Alexander's reign commerce ceased to be branded as "a harmful pursuit." Yet as soon as the Jewish merchants, stimulated by the partial extension of their right of residence and occupation, displayed a wider economic activity and became successful competitors of the "original" Russian business men, they were met with shouts of protest demanding that this Jewish "exploitation" be effectively "curbed." In this connection it must be pointed out that the economic advancement of the Jews was not altogether due to the privileges accorded to them by the Russian legislation, but was rather the effect of general economic conditions. The great progress in industrial life during "the era of reforms," more particularly the expansion of railroad enterprises during the sixties and seventies, opened up a wide field for the energies of Jewish capitalists. Moreover, the abolition, in 1861, of the old system of farming out the sale of liquor transferred a part of the big Jewish capital from the liquor traffic into railroad building. The Jewish "excise farmers" [1] were converted into railroad men, as shareholders, supply merchants, or contractors. A new Jewish plutocracy came into being, and its growth excited jealousy and fear among the Russian mercantile class. The Government, filled with enthusiasm for the cultivation of large industries, was not as yet prepared to discriminate against the Jews whenever big capital was concerned. But it lent an attentive ear to the "original" Russian merchants whenever they complained about Jewish competition in petty trade, on which the lower Jewish classes depended for their livelihood. The Government, which had not yet emancipated itself from the habit of "assorting" its citizens and dividing them into a protected and a tolerated class, set out to elaborate measures for "curbing" the Jews belonging to the latter category. [Footnote 1: i.e., those that leased from the Government the collection of excise on liquor. They were designated as _aktzizniks_, from _aktziz_, the Russian word for "excise."] The question which confronted the Government next was this: to what extent have the hopes for a fusion of the Jews with the original population been justified by the events? Here, too, the reply was unsatisfactory. The naive expectation that a few gratuities offered to the Jews in the shape of privileges would fill them with the eager desire to "fuse" with the Russians did not come true. Strong as was the trend towards Russification in the new Jewish _intelligenzia_ of the sixties, the broad masses of Jewry knew nothing of such a tendency. The authorities became suspicious: what if these crafty Hebrews should fool us again and refuse to pay for the donated rights by fusing with the Christians? Russian officialdom received new food for reflection which was to last it for years, nay, for decades. 2. THE INFORMER JACOB BRAFMAN Several occurrences were instrumental in determining the Government to embark upon a new policy, that of investigating assiduously the inner life of the Jews. At the end of the sixties a man appeared in Vilna who offered his services to the authorities as a detective and spy among the Jews. Jacob Brafman, a native of the government of Minsk, had deserted his race and religion in the last years of Nicholas' conscription, hoping thereby to escape the nets of the vigilant Kahal "captors" who wished to draft him into the army. Embittered against the Kahal agents who had become mere police tools, Brafman desired to wreak vengeance upon the Kahal as a whole, nay, upon the very idea of a Jewish communal organization. When the "fusion," or assimilation, of the Jews became the watchword of the highest official circles, the astute convert found that he could make his way by exposing the influences which in his opinion checked the endeavors of the Government. A memorandum presented by him to Alexander II., when the latter was passing through Minsk in 1858, opened to him the doors of the Holy Synod. He was appointed instructor of Hebrew at a Greek-Orthodox seminary and entrusted with the task of finding ways to remove the difficulties placed by the Jews in the path of their coreligionists intending to go over to Christianity. 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. In a word, Judaism as a communal organization should pass out of existence altogether. [Footnote 1: Michael Muravyov (see above, p. 183) was appointed in 1863 military governor of the governments of Vilna, Kovno, Grodno, Vitebsk, Minsk, and Moghilev, which he endeavored to Russify with relentless cruelty. He died in 1866.] [Footnote 2: See p. 58 et seq.] [Footnote 3: More exactly, the acquisition of property by continued and undisturbed possession for a period of time. This right of acquisition was formerly granted by the Kahal on the payment of a certain tax; see Vol. I, p. 190.] The heads of the Russian administration in Lithuania listened eagerly to the sinister revelations of the new Pfefferkorn. [1] In 1866 Governor-General Kauffmann appointed a commission, which also included a few Jewish experts, to look into the material compiled by Brafman. This material consisted of the minutes of the Kahal of Minsk from the first half of the nineteenth century, recording the entirely legitimate enactments which the communal administration had passed by virtue of the autonomous rights granted to it by the Government. Brafman published his material in a series of articles in the official organ of the province, the _Vilenski Vyestnik_, "The Vilna Herald"; the articles were later republished in a separate volume, under the title _Kniga Kahala_, "The Book of the Kahal." [2] The data collected by Brafman were embellished with the customary anti-Semitic quotations from talmudic and rabbinic literature, and put in such a light that the Government was placed on the horns of a dilemma: either to destroy with one stroke the entire Jewish communal organization and all the cultural agencies attached to it, or to run the risk of seeing Russia captured by the "Universal Kahal." It may be added that the _Alliance Israelite Universelle_, which had shortly before been founded in Paris for the purpose of assisting Jews in various countries, figured in Brafman's indictment as a constituent society of the universal Jewish Kahal organization. [Footnote 1: A medieval convert (died ab. 1521) who wrote against Judaism, especially the Talmud.] [Footnote 2: The first edition appeared in 1869, the second in 1871.] The "Book of the Kahal" was printed at public expense and sent out to all Government offices to serve as a guide for Russian officials and enable them to fight the "Inner enemy." It was in vain that Brafman's ignorance of rabbinic lore and his entire distortion of the role played by the Kahal in days gone-by was exposed by Jewish writers in articles and monographs; it was in vain that the Jewish members of the commission appointed by the governor-general of Vilna protested against the barbarous proposals of the informer. The authorities of St. Petersburg seized upon Brafman's discoveries as incontrovertible evidence of the existence of Jewish separatism and as a justification for the method of "cautiousness" which they saw fit to apply to the solution of the Jewish problem. 3. THE FIGHT AGAINST JEWISH "SEPARATISM" Another incident which took place about the same time served in the eyes of the leading Government circles as an additional illustration of Jewish separatism. In 1870 Alexander II. was on a visit to the Kingdom of Poland, and there beheld the sight of dense masses of Hasidim with their long earlocks and flowing coats. The Tzar, repelled by this spectacle, enjoined upon the Polish governors strictly to enforce in their domains the old Russian law prohibiting the Jewish form of dress. [1] Thereupon the administration of the Kingdom threw itself with special zest upon the important task of eradicating "the ugly costumes and earlocks" of the Hasidim. [Footnote 1: See above p. 144.] Shortly afterwards the question of Jewish separatism was the subject of discussion before the Council of State. Under the unmistakable influence of the recent revelations of Brafman, the Council of State arrived at the conclusion that "the prohibition of external differences in dress is yet far from leading to the goal pursued by the Government, _viz_., to destroy the exclusiveness of the Jews and the almost hostile attitude of the Jewish communities towards Christians, these communities forming in our land a secluded religious and civil caste or, one might say, a state in a state." Hence the Council proposed to entrust a special commission with the task "of considering ways and means to weaken as far as possible the communal cohesion among the Jews" (December, 1870). As a result, a commission of the kind suggested by the Council was established in 1871, consisting of the representatives of the various ministries and presided over by the Assistant-Minister of the Interior, Lobanov-Rostovski. The Commission received the name "Commission for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews." [1] [Footnote 1: Compare above, pp. 161 and 169.] While the Government was again engaged in one of its numerous experiments over the problem of Jewish separatism, an event, unusual in those days, took place: the Odessa pogrom [1] of 1871. In this granary of the South, which owed its flourishing commerce to Jews and Greeks, an unfriendly feeling had sprung up between these two nationalities, which competed with one another in the corn trade and in the grocery business. This competition, though of great benefit to the consumers, was a thorn in the flesh of the Greek merchants. Time and again the Greeks would scare the Jews during the Christian Passover by their barbarous custom of discharging pistols in front of their church, which was situated in the heart of the Jewish district. But in 1871, with the approach of the Christian Passover, the Greeks proceeded to organize a regular pogrom. [Footnote 1: _Pogrom_, with the accent on the last syllable, signifies _ruin_, _devastation_, and was originally applied to the ravages of an invading army.] To arouse the mob the Greeks spread the rumor that the Jews had stolen a cross from the church fence and had thrown stones at the church building. The pogrom began on Palm Sunday (March 28). The Jews were maltreated, and their houses and shops were sacked and looted. Having started in the immediate vicinity of the church, the riot spread to the neighboring streets and finally engulfed the whole city. For three days hordes of Greeks and Russians gave free vent to their mob instincts, demolishing, burning, and robbing Jewish property, desecrating synagogues and beating Jews to senselessness in all parts of the city, undisturbed by the presence of police and troops who did nothing to stop the atrocities. The appeal of representative Odessa Jews to Governor-General Kotzebue was met by the retort that the Jews themselves were to blame, "having started first," and that the necessary measures for restoring order had been adopted. The latter assertion proved to be false, for on the following day the pogrom was renewed with even greater vigor. Only on the fourth day, when thousands of houses and shops had already been destroyed, and the rioters, intoxicated with their success, threatened to start a regular massacre, the authorities decided to step in and to "pacify" the riff-raff by a rather quaint method. Soldiers were posted on the market place with wagon-loads of rods, and the rioters, caught red-handed, were given a public whipping on the spot. The "fatherly" punishment inflicted by the local authorities upon their "naughty" children sufficed to put a stop to the pogrom. As for the central Government in St. Petersburg, the only thing it wanted to know was whether the pogrom had any connection with the secret revolutionary propaganda which, beginning with the Jews, might next set the mob against the nobility and Russian bourgeoisie. Since the official inquiry failed to reveal any political motives behind the Odessa riots, the St. Petersburg authorities were set at ease, and were only too glad to take the word of the satraps of the Pale who reported that the anti-Jewish movement had started as "a crude protest of the masses against the failure to solve the Jewish question"--_viz_., to solve it in a reactionary spirit--and as a manifestation, of the popular resentment against Jewish exploitation. The old charge of separatism against the Jews thus found a companion in a new accusation: their economic "exploitation" of the Christian population of the Pale. The Committee appointed at the recommendation of the Council of State was enjoined to conduct a strict inquiry into both these "charges." Concretely the work of the Committee reduced itself to a consideration of two questions, one relating to the Kahal, or "the amelioration of the spiritual life of the Jews," and the other referring to the feasibility of thinning out the Pale of Settlement with the end in view of weakening the economic competition of the Jews. The material bearing on these questions included, apart from Brafman's "standard work," a "Memorandum concerning the more important Administrative Problems in the South-west," which had been submitted in 1871 by the governor-general of Kiev, Dondukov-Korsakov, to the Tzar. The author of the memorandum voices his conviction that "the principal endeavors of the Government must be concentrated upon the Jewish question." The Jews are becoming a great economic power in the South-western provinces. They purchase or mortgage estates, and obtain control of the factories and mills as well as of the grain, timber, and liquor trade, thereby arousing the bitter resentment of the Christian population, particularly in the rural districts. [1] Moreover, the Jewish masses, refusing to follow the lead of the handful of Russified Jewish intellectuals, live entirely apart and remain in the throes of talmudic fanaticism and hasidie obscurantism. They "possess complete self-government in their Kahals, their own system of finance in the basket tax, their separate charitable institutions," their own traditional school in the heders, of which there are in the South-west no less than six thousand. In addition, the Jews possess an international organization, the "World Kahal," represented by the _Alliance Israelite "Universelle_ in Paris, whose president, Adolph Cremieux, had had the audacity to protest to the Russian Government against acts of violence perpetrated upon the Jews. For all these reasons the governor-general is of the opinion that "the revision of the whole legislation affecting the Jews has become an imperative necessity." [Footnote 1: According to the official figures, quoted in the memorandum, the number of Jews in the three South-western governments, i.e., Volhynia, Podolia, and the Kiev province, amounted to 721,080. Of these, 14 per cent lived in rural districts and 86 per cent in cities and towns. They owned 27 sugar refineries out of 105; 619 distilleries out of 712; 5700 mills out of 6353; and so forth. The production of the industrial establishments in the hands of the Jews reached the sum of seventy million rubles.] A similar tone was adopted in the other official documents which came into the hands of the "Committee for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews." The communications of the governors and the reports of the members of the Committee were all animated by the same spirit, the spirit that spoke through Brafman's "Book of the Kahal." This was but natural. The officials, to whom this book had been sent by the central Government "for guidance," drew from it their whole political wisdom in things Jewish, and in their replies endeavored to fall in with the instructions of the Council of State, conveyed to them by the Committee, _viz_., "to consider ways and means to weaken the communal cohesion among the Jews." In the Kingdom of Poland the governors complained similarly in their reports that the Jews of the province, though accorded equal rights by Vyelepolski, [1] had not complied with the conditions attached to that act, to wit, "to abandon the use of their own language and script, in exchange for the favors bestowed upon them." Outside of a handful of assimilated "Poles of the Mosaic Persuasion," who were imbued with Polish chauvinism, [2] the hasidic rank and file was permeated by extreme separatism, fostered by "the Kahal through its various agencies, the Congregational Boards, the rabbinate, the heders, and a host of special institutions." [Footnote 1: See above, p. 181.] [Footnote 2: And hence objectionable from the Russian point of view.] These and similar communications formed the groundwork of the reports, or more correctly, the bills of indictment in which the members of the Committee charged the Jews with the terrible crime of constituting "a religio-political caste," in other words, a nationality. Following the lead of Brafman, the members of the Committee laid particular emphasis in their reports on the obnoxiousness of the Talmud and the danger of Jewish separatism. Needless to say, the conclusions offered by them were of the kind anticipated in the instructions of the Council of State: the necessity of wiping out the last vestiges of Jewish self-government, such as the Jewish community, the school, the mutual relief societies, in a word, everything that tends to foster "the communal cohesion among the Jews." The barbarism of these proposals was covered by the fig-leaf of enlightenment. When the benighted Jewish masses will have fused with the highly cultured populance of Russia. In other words, when the Jews will have ceased to be Jews, then will the Jewish question find its solution. In the meantime, however, the Jews are to be curbed by the bridle of disabilities. The referee of the Committee on the question of the Pale of Settlement, Grigoryev, frankly stated: "What is important in this question is not whether the Jews will fare better when granted the right of residence all over the Empire, but rather the effect of this measure on the economic well-being of an enormous part of the Russian people." From this point of view the referee finds that it would be dangerous to let the Jews pass beyond the Pale, since "the plague, which has thus far been restricted to the Western provinces, will then spread over the whole Empire." For a long time the Committee was at a deadlock, held down by bureaucratic reaction. It was only toward the end of its existence that the voice from another world, the posthumous voice of dead and buried liberalism, resounded in its midst. In 1880 the Committee was presented with a memorandum by two of its members, Nekhludov and Karpov, in which the bold attempt was made to champion the heretic point of view of complete Jewish emancipation. The language of the memorandum was one which the Russian Government had not heard for a long time. In the name of "morality and justice" the authors of the memorandum call upon the Government to abandon its grossly utilitarian attitude towards the Jews who are to be denied civil rights so long as they do not prove useful to the "original" population. They expose the selfish motive underlying the bits of emancipation which had been doled out to the Jews during the preceding spell of liberalism: the desire, not to help the Jews, but to exploit their services. First-guild merchants, physicians, lawyers, artisans were admitted into the interior for the sole purpose of developing business in those places and filling the palpable shortage in artisans and professional men. "As soon as this or that category of Jews was found to be serviceable to the Russian people, it was relieved, and relieved only in part, from the pressure of exceptional laws, and received into the dominant population of the Empire." But the millions of plain Jews, abandoned by the upper classes, have continued to languish in the suffocating Pale. [1] The Jewish population is denied the elementary rights guaranteeing liberty of pursuit, freedom of movement and land ownership, such as only a criminal may be deprived of by a verdict of the courts. As it is, discontent is rife among these disinherited masses. "The rising generation of Jews has already begun to participate in the revolutionary movement to which they had hitherto been strangers." The system of oppression must be set aside. All the Jewish defects, their separatism and one-sided economic activity, are merely the fruits of this oppression. Where the law has no confidence in the population, there inevitably the population has no confidence in the law, and it naturally becomes an enemy of the existing order of things, "Human reason does not admit of any considerations which might justify the placing of many millions of the Jewish population, on a level with criminal offenders." The first step in the direction of complete emancipation ought to be the immediate grant of the right of domicile all over the Empire. [Footnote 1: The narrow utilitarianism of the governmental policy in the Jewish question may also be illustrated by the official attitude towards the promotion of agriculture among the Jews. Under Alexander I. and Nicholas I. Jewish agricultural colonization in the South of Russia was encouraged by the grant of special privileges, though the Jewish settlers were subjected to the stern tutelage of bureaucratic inspectors. But under Alexander II., when Southern Russia was no longer in need of artificial colonization, the Government discontinued its policy of promoting Jewish colonization, and an ukase issued in 1866 stopped the settlement of Jews in agricultural colonies altogether. A little later the Jewish colonies in the South-west were deprived of a large part of their lands, which were distributed among the peasants.] These bold words which turned the Jews from defendants into plaintiffs ran counter to the fundamental task of the Committee, which, according to the original instructions received by it, was expected to draft its plans in a spirit of reaction. At any rate, these words were uttered too late. A new era was approaching which in solving the Jewish question resorted to methods such as would have horrified even the conservative statesmen of the seventies: the era of pogroms and cruel disabilities. 4. THE DRIFT TOWARD OPPRESSION During the last decade of Alexander's reign, the machinery of Jewish legislation was working at a slow rate, pending the full "revision" of Jewish rights. Yet the steps of the approaching reaction could well be discerned. Thus in 1870, during the discussion of the draft of the new Municipal Statute by a special committee of the Ministry of the Interior, which included as "experts" the burgomasters of the most important Russian cities, the question arose whether the former limitation of the number of Jewish aldermen in the municipal councils to one-third of the whole number of aldermen [1] should be upheld or not. The cities involved were those of the Pale where the Jews formed the majority of the population, and the committee was searching for ways and means to weaken "the excessive influence" of this majority upon the city administration and to subordinate it to the Christian minority. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 41.] One solitary member, Novoselski, the burgomaster of Odessa, advocated the repeal of the old restriction, with the one proviso that the Jewish aldermen should be required to possess certain educational qualifications, inasmuch as educated Jews were "not quite as harmful" as uneducated ones. A minority of the members of the Committee favored the limitation of the number of Jewish aldermen to one-half, but the majority staunchly defended the old norm, which was one-third. The representatives of the majority, in particular Count Cherkaski, the burgomaster of Moscow, argued that the Jews constituted not only a religious but also a national entity, that they were still widely removed from assimilation or Russification, that education, far from transforming the Jews into Russians, made them only more successful in the struggle for existence, that it was inadvisable for this reason "to subject the whole Russian element (of the population) to the risk of falling under the domination of Judaism." The curious principle of municipal justice by virtue of which the majority of house owners and tax-payers were to be ruled by the representatives of the minority carried the day. The new Municipal Statute sanctioned the norm of one-third for "non-Christians," and reaffirmed the ineligibility of Jews to the post of burgomaster. The law of 1874, establishing general military service and abolishing the former method of conscription, proved the first legal enactment which imposed upon the Jews equal obligations with their fellow-citizens, prior to bestowing upon them equal rights. To be sure, the new regulation brought considerable relief to the Jews, inasmuch as the heavy burden of military duty which had formerly been borne entirely by the poor burgher class, [1] was now distributed over all estates, while the burden itself was lightened by the reduction of the term of service. Moreover, the former collective responsibility of the community for the supply of recruits, which had given rise to the institution of "captors" and many other evils, was replaced by the personal responsibility of every individual conscript. All this, however, was not sufficient to change suddenly the attitude of the Jewish populace towards military service. [Footnote 1: On the "burghers" see Vol. I, p. 308, n. 2. Concerning the military duty imposed on them see above, p. 23.] The formerly privileged merchantile class could not reconcile itself easily to the idea of sending their children to the army. The horrors of the old conscription were still fresh in their minds, and even in its new setting military service was still suggestive of the hideous horrors of the past. Those who but yesterday had been dragged like criminals to the recruiting stations could not well be expected to change their sentiments over night and appear there of their own free will. The result was that a considerable number of Jews of military age (21) failed to obey the summons of the first conscription. Immediately the cry went up that the Jews evaded their military duty, and that the Christians were forced to make up the shortage. The official pens in St. Petersburg and in the provincial chancelleries became busy scribbling. The Ministry of War demanded the adoption of Draconian measures to stop this "evasion," As a result, the whole Jewish youth of conscription age was registered in 1875. At the recruiting stations the age of the young Jews was determined by their external appearance, without regard to their birth certificates. Finally, in the course of 1876-1878, a number of special provisions were enacted, by way of exception from the general military statute, for the purpose "of insuring the regular discharge of their military duty by the Jews." According to the new legal provisions, the Jews who had been rejected as unfit for military service were to be replaced by other Jews and under no circumstances by Christians. For this purpose, the Jewish conscripts were to be segregated from the Christians after the drawing of lots, the first stage in the recruiting process. [1] Moreover, in the case of Jews a lower stature and a narrower chest were required than in that of non-Jews. In the case of a shortage of "unprivileged" recruits, permission was given to draft not only Jews enjoying, by their family status, the third and second class privileges, but also those of the first class, i.e., to deprive Jewish parents of their only sons. [2] [Footnote 1: Since the number of men of military age greatly exceeds the required number of recruits, the Russian law provides that lots be drawn by the conscripts to determine the order in which they are to present themselves for examination to the recruiting officers. When the quota is completed, the remaining conscripts, i.e., those who, having drawn a high number, have not yet been examined, are declared exempt from military service.] [Footnote 2: "According to Russian law, the following three categories of recruits are exempt from military service: 1) the only sons; 2) the only wage-earning sons, though there be other sons in the family; 3) those who have an elder brother or brothers in the army. The first category is exempt under all circumstances; the last two on condition that the required number of recruits be secured out of the "unprivileged" conscripts. Only in the case of the Jews is the first category drawn upon in the case of a shortage.] In this manner the Government sought to "insure" with ruthless vigor the discharge of this most onerous duty on the part of the Jews, without making any attempt to insure at the same time the rights of this population of three millions which was made to spill its blood for the fatherland. In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, many Jewish soldiers fought for Russia, and a goodly number of them were killed or wounded on the battlefield. Yet in the Russian military headquarters--the post of commander-in-chief was occupied by the crown prince, the future Tzar Alexander III.--no attention was paid to the thousands of Jewish victims, but rather to the fact that the "Jewish" firm of army purveyors, Greger, Horvitz & Kohan [1] was found to have had a share in the commissariat scandals. When at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 a resolution was introduced calling upon the Governments of Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria to accord equal rights to the Jews in their respective dominions, and was warmly supported by all plenipotentiaries, such as Waddington, Beaconsfield, Bismarck, and others, the only one to oppose the emancipation of the Jews on principle was the Russian chancellor Gorchakov, In his desire to save the prestige of Russia, which herself had failed to grant equal rights to the Jews, the chancellor could not refrain from an anti Semitic sally, remarking during the debate that "one ought not to confound the Jews of Berlin, Paris, London, and Vienna, who cannot be denied civil and political rights, with the Jews of Servia, Roumania, and several Russian provinces, where they are a regular scourge to the native population." [Footnote 1: Greger was a Greek, and Horvitz a converted Jew. See later, p. 244.] Altogether the growth of anti-Semitism in the Government circles and in certain layers of Russian society, towards the close of the seventies, became clearly pronounced. The laurels of Brafman, whose "exposure" of Judaism had netted him many personal benefits and profitable connections in the world of officialdom, were apt to stimulate all sorts of adventurers. In 1876 a new "exposer" of Judaism appeared on the scene, a man with a stained past, Hippolyte Lutostanski. He was originally a Roman Catholic priest in the government of Kovno. Having been unfrocked by the Catholic Consistory "on account of incredible acts of lawlessness and immoral conduct," including libel, embezzlement, rape committed upon a Jewess, and similar heroic exploits, he joined the Greek-Orthodox church, entered the famous Troitza Monastery near Moscow as a monk, and was admitted as a student to the Ecclesiastical Academy of the same city. As a subject for his dissertation for the degree of Candidate [1] the ignorant monk chose a sensational topic: "Concerning the Use of Christian Blood by the Jews." It was an unlettered and scurrilous pamphlet, in which the author, without indicating his sources, incorporated the contents of an official memorandum on the ritual murder legend from the time of Nicholas I., supplementing it by distorted quotations from talmudie and rabbinic literature, without the slightest knowledge of that literature or the Hebrew language. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 165, n. 1.] The monastic adventurer, finding himself in financial straits, brought his manuscript to Rabbi Minor of Moscow, declaring his willingness to forego the publication of his brochure, which no doubt would cause great harm to the Jews, for a consideration of 500 rubles ($250). His blackmail offer was rejected Lutostanski thereupon published his hideous book in 1876, and travelled with it to St. Petersburg where he managed to present it to the crown prince, subsequently Alexander III., and to secure from him a grateful acknowledgement. The book also found the approval of the Chief of Gendarmerie, [1] who acquired a large number of copies and distributed them among the secret police all over Russia. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 21, n. 1.] Encouraged by his success, Lutostanski issued a few years later, in 1879, another libellous work in two volumes, under the title "The Talmud and the Jews," which exhibits the same crudeness in style and content as his previous achievement--a typical specimen of a degraded back-yard literature. The editor of the Hebrew journal _ha-Melitz_, Alexander Zederbaum, demonstrated clearly that Lutostanski had forged his quotations, and summoned him to a public disputation, which offer was wisely declined. Nevertheless, the agitation of this shameless impostor had a considerable effect on the highest official spheres in which an ever stronger drift toward anti-Semitism was clearly noticeable. In 1878 this anti-Semitic trend gave rise to a new ritual murder trial. The discovery in the government of Kutais, in the Caucasus, of the body of a little Gruzinian girl, named Sarra Modebadze, who had disappeared on the eve of Passover, was deemed a sufficient reason by the judicial authorities to enter a charge of murder against ten local Jews, although the ritual character of the murder was not put forward openly in the indictment. The case was tried before the District Court of Kutais, and the counsel for the defence succeeded by their brilliant speeches not only to demolish completely the whole structure of incriminating evidence but also to deal a death-blow to the sinister ritual legend. The case ended in 1879 with the acquittal of all the accused. Withal, the "ritual" agitation left a nasty sediment in the Russian press. When in 1879 the famous Orientalist Daniel Chwolson, a convert to Christianity and professor at the Greek-Orthodox Ecclesiastical Seminary of St. Petersburg, who had written a learned apologetic treatise "Concerning the Medieval Accusations against the Jews," published a refutation of the ritual myth under the title "Do the Jews use Christian Blood?," he was attacked in the _Novoye Vremya_ by the liberal historian Kostomarov who attempted to disprove the conclusions of the defender of Judaism. The paper itself, hitherto liberal in its tendency, changed front about that time, and, steering its course by the prevailing moods in the leading Government circles, launched a systematic campaign against the Jews. The anti-Semitic bacilli were floating in the social atmosphere of Russia and preparing the way for the pogrom epidemic of the following decade. CHAPTER XX THE INNER LIFE OF RUSSIAN JEWRY DURING THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER II. 1. THE RUSSIFICATION OF THE JEWISH INTELLIGENZIA In the inner, cultural life of Russian Jewry a radical break took place during this period. True, the change did not affect the rank and file of Russian Jewry, being rather confined to its upper layers, to Jewish "society," or the so-called _intelligenzia._ But as far as the latter circles are concerned, the rapidity and intensity of their spiritual transformation may well be compared with the stormy eve of Jewish emancipation in Germany. This wild rush for spiritual regeneration was out of all proportion to the snail-like tardiness and piecemeal character of civil emancipation in Russia. However, the modern history of Western Europe has shown more than once that such pre-emancipation periods, including those that evidently prove abortive, offer the most favorable conditions for all kinds of mental and cultural revolutions. Liberty as a hope invariably arouses greater enthusiasm for self-rejuvenation, than liberty as a fact, when the romanticism of the unknown has vanished. Hurled into the abyss of despair by the last events of Nicholas' regime, the Russian Jews suddenly received what may be called an earnest of civil emancipation. The Jewish "Pale" knew but vaguely what was taking place in the recesses of the St. Petersburg chancelleries during the decade of reforms, but that a striking change in the attitude of the Government had taken place was seen and felt by all. Freedom had been granted to the victims of the military inquisition, the cantonists. The gates of the Russian interior had been opened to Jews possessing certain qualifications with regard to property, education, or labor. The educated Jews, in particular, were smiled upon benevolently "from above": they were regarded by the Government as a factor making for assimilation and as a connecting link with the lower Jewish classes. The vernal sun of Russian liberty, which flooded with its rays the social life of the whole country, just then emerging from serfdom, shone also for the hapless Jewish people, and filled their hearts with cheer and hope. The blasts of the reveille which had been sounded in the best circles of Russian society by such humanitarians as Pirogov, [1] and such champions of liberty as Hertzen, [2] Chernyshevski, [3] and Dobrolubov, [4] were carried through the air into the huge Jewish ghetto of Russia. True, the Jewish question received, during the decade of reforms, but scanty attention in the Russian press, but the little that was said about it was permeated by a friendly spirit. The former habit of making sport of the Zhyd was energetically repudiated. [Footnote 1: Nicholas Pirogov (1810-1881), famous as pedagogue and administrator. He was a staunch friend of the Jews, and was deeply interested in their cultural aspirations.] [Footnote 2: See above, p. 24, n. 1.] [Footnote 3: Famous publicist and author, died 1889.] [Footnote 4: A famous literary critic, died 1861.] This change of attitude may well be illustrated by the following incident. In 1858 the magazine _Illustratzia_ ("Illustration") of St. Petersburg published an anti-Semitic article on "the Zhyds of the Russian West." The article was answered by two cultured Jews, Chatzkin and Horvitz, in the influential periodicals _Russki Vyestnik_ ("The Russian Herald") and _Atyeney_ ("Athenaeum"). In reply to this refutation, the _Illustratzia_ showered a torrent of abuse upon the two authors who were contemptuously styled "Reb Chatzkin" and "Reb Horvitz," and whose pro-Jewish attitude was explained by motives of avarice. The action of the anti-Semitic journal aroused a storm of indignation in the literary circles of both capitals. The conduct of the _Illustratzia_ was condemned in a public protest which bore the signatures of 140 writers, including some of the most illustrious names in the Russian literary world. The protest declared that "in the persons of Horvitz and Chatzkin an insult has been offered to the entire (Russian) people, to all Russian literature," which has no right to let "naked slander" pass under the disguise of polemics. Though the protesting writers were wholly actuated by the desire to protect the moral purity of Russian literature and did not at all touch upon the Jewish question, the Jewish public workers were nevertheless enchanted by this declaration of literary Russia, and were deeply gratified by the implied assumption that the Jews of Russia formed part of the Russian people. Several sympathetic articles in influential periodicals, advocating the necessity of Jewish emancipation, seemed to complete the happiness of the progressive section of Russian Jewry. Even the Slavophile publicist Ivan Aksakov, who subsequently joined the ranks of Jew-baiters, recognized at that time, in 1862, the need of a certain measure of emancipation for the Jews. The only thing that worried him was the danger that the admission of the Jews to the Russian civil service "in all departments," might result "in filling with Jews" the Senate and Council of State, not excluding the possibility of a Jew occupying the post of Procurator-General of the Holy Synod. Unshakable in his friendship for the Jews was the physician and humanitarian N. Pirogov, [1] who, in his capacity of superintendent of the Odessa School District, was largely instrumental in encouraging the Jewish youth in their pursuit of general culture and in creating a Russian Jewish press. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 207, n. 1.] The most efficient factor of cultural regeneration was the secular school, both the general Russian and the Jewish Crown school. A flood of young men, lured by the rosy prospects of a free human existence in the midst of a free Russian people, rushed from the farthermost nooks and corners of the Pale into the _gymnazia_ and universities whose doors were kept wide open for the Jews. Many children of the ghetto rapidly enlisted under the banner of the Russian youth, and became intoxicated with the luxuriant growth of Russian literature which carried to them the intellectual gifts of the contemporary European writers. The masters of thought in that generation, Chernyshevski, Dobrolubov, Pisaryev, Buckle, Darwin, Spencer, became also the idols of the Jewish youth. The heads which had but recently been bending over the Talmud folios in the stuffy atmosphere of the heders and yeshibahs were now crammed with the ideas of positivism, evolution, and socialism. Sharp and sudden was the transition from rabbinic scholasticism and soporific hasidic mysticism to this new world of ideas, flooded with the light of science, to these new revelations announcing the glad tidings of the freedom of thought, of the demolition of all traditional fetters, of the annihilation of all religious and national barriers, of the brotherhood of all mankind. The Jewish youth began to shatter the old idols, disregarding the outcry of the masses that had bowed down before them. A tragic war ensued between "fathers and children," [1] a war of annihilation, for the belligerent parties were extreme obscurantism and fanaticism, on the one hand, and the negation of all historic forms of Judaism, both religious and national, on the other. [Footnote 1: The title of a famous novel by Turgenieff, written in 1862, depicting the break between the old and the new generation.] In the middle between these two extremes stood the men of the transitional period, the adepts of Haskalah, those "lovers of enlightenment" who had in younger years suffered for their convictions at the hands of fanatics and now came forward to make peace between religion and culture. Encouraged by the success of the new ideas, the Maskilim became more aggressive in their struggle with obscurantism. They ventured to expose the Tzaddiks who scattered the seeds of superstition, to ridicule the ignorance and credulity of the masses, and occasionally went so far as to complain of the burdensome ceremonial discipline, hinting at the need of moderate religious reforms. Their principal task, however, was the cultivation of the Neo-Hebraic literary style and the rejuvenation of the content of that literature. They were willing to pursue the road of the emancipated Jewry of Western Europe, but only to a certain limit, refusing to cut themselves adrift from the national language or the religious and national ideals. On the other hand, that section of the young generation which had passed through a Russian school refused to recognize any such barriers, and rushed with elemental force on the road of self-annihilation. _Russification_ became the war cry of these Jewish circles, as it had long been the watchword of the Government. The one side was anxious to Russify, the other was equally anxious to be Russified, and the natural result was an _entente cordiale_ between the new Jewish _intelligenzia_ and the Government. The ideal of Russification was marked by different stages, beginning with the harmless acquisition of the Russian language, and culminating in a complete identification with Russian culture and Russian national ideals, involving the renunciation of the religious and national traditions of Judaism. The advocates of moderate Russification did not foresee that the latter was bound, by the force of circumstances, to assume a radical form, while the champions of extreme Russification saw no harm for Jewry in following the example of complete assimilation set by Western Europe. To the former all that Russification implied was the removal of the obnoxious excrescences of Judaism but not the demolition of the national organism itself. Progressive Jewry was rightly incensed against the obsolete forms of Jewish life which obstructed all healthy development; against the fierce superstition of the hasidic environment, against the charlatanism of degenerating Tzaddikism, against the impenetrable religious fanaticism which was throttling the noblest strivings of the Jewish mind. But this struggle for freedom of thought should have been fought out within the confines of Judaism, by means of a thorough-going cultural self-improvement, and not on the soil of assimilation, nor in alliance with the powers that be, which were aiming not at the rejuvenation but at the obliteration of Judaism, in accordance with the official program of "fusion." At any rate, the league between the new Jewish _intelligenzia_ and the Government was an undeniable fact. The "Crown rabbis" [1] and school teachers from among the graduates of the rabbinical schools of Vilna and Zhitomir played the role of Government agents who were apt to resort to police force in their fight against orthodoxy. Feeling secure beneath the protecting wings of the Russian authorities, they often went out of their way to hurt the susceptibilities of the masses by their ostentatious disregard of the Jewish religious ceremonies. When the communities refused to appoint rabbis of this class, the latter obtained their posts either by direct appointment from the Government or by bringing the pressure of the provincial administration to bear upon the electors. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 176, n. 1.] Needless to say, the "enlightenment" propagated by these Government underlings did not win the confidence of the orthodox masses who remembered vividly how official enlightenment was disseminated by the Government of Nicholas I. during the era of juvenile conscription. The new Jewish _intelligenzia_ showed utter indifference to the sentiments of the Jewish masses, and did not hesitate to induce the Government to interfere in the affairs of inner Jewish life. Thus by a regulation issued in 1864 all hasidic books were subjected to a most rigorous censorship, and Jewish printing-presses were placed under a more vigilant supervision than theretofore. The Tzaddiks were barred from visiting their parishes for the purpose of "working miracles" and "collecting tribute," a measure which only served to surround the hasidic chieftains with a halo of martyrdom and resulted in the pilgrimage of vast numbers of Hasidim to the "holy places," the "capitals" of the Tzaddiks. All this only went to intensify the distrust of the masses toward the college-bred, officially hall-marked Jewish intellectuals and to lower their moral prestige, to the detriment of the cause of enlightenment of which they professed to be the missionaries. A peculiar variety of assimilationist tendencies sprang up among the upper class of Jews in the Kingdom of Poland, more especially in Warsaw. It was a most repellent variety of assimilation, exhibiting more flunkeyism than pursuit of culture. The "Poles of the Mosaic Persuasion," as these assimilationists styled themselves, had long been begging for admission into Polish society, though rudely repulsed by it. During the insurrection of 1861-1863, when they were graciously received as useful allies, they were indefatigable in parading their Polish patriotism. In the Polish Jewish weekly, _Jutrzenka_, [1] "The Dawn," the organ of these assimilationists, the trite West-European theory, which looks upon Judaism as a religious sect and not as a national community, was repeated _ad nauseam_. One of the most prominent contributors to that journal, Ludwig Gumplovich, the author of a monograph on the history of the Jews in Poland, who subsequently made a name for himself as a sociologist, and, after his conversion to Christianity, received a professorship at an Austrian university, opened his series of articles on Polish-Jewish history with the following observation: "The fact that the Jews had a history was their misfortune in Europe.... For their history inevitably presupposes an isolated life severed from that of the other nations. It is just this which constitutes the misfortune alluded to." [Footnote 1: Pronounce _Yutzhenka_.] After the insurrection, the Polonization of the Jewish population assumed menacing proportions. The upper layer of Polish Jewry consisted exclusively of "Poles of the Mosaic Persuasion" who rejected all elements of Jewish culture, while the broad masses, following blindly the mandates of their Tzaddiks, rejected fanatically even the most indispensable elements of European civilization. Riven between such monstrous extremes, Polish Jewry was unable to attain even to a semblance of normal development. 2. THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF ENLIGHTENMENT Though intensely engaged in this cultural movement, Russian Jewry did not yet command sufficient resources for carrying on a well-ordered and well-systematized activity. The only modern Jewish organization of that period was the "Society for the Diffusion of Enlightenment amongst the Jews," which had been founded in 1867 by a small coterie of Jewish financiers and intellectuals of St. Petersburg. It would seem that the Jewish colony of the Russian metropolis, consisting of big merchants and university graduates, who, by virtue of the laws of 1859 and 1861, enjoyed the right of residence outside the Pale, did not yet contain a sufficient number of competent public workers. For during the first decade of the Society its Executive Committee included, apart from its Jewish founders--Baron Guenzburg, Leon Rosenthal, Rabbi Neuman--, two apostates, Professor Daniel Chwolson and the court physician, I. Berthenson. The purpose of the Society was explained by one of the founders, Leon Rosenthal, in the following unsophisticated manner: We constantly hear men in high positions, with whom we come in contact, complain about the separatism and fanaticism of the Jews and about their aloofness from everything Russian, and we have received assurances on all hands that, with, the removal of these peculiarities, the condition of our brethren in Russia will be improved, and we shall all become full-fledged citizens of this country. Actuated by this motive, we have organized a league of educated men for the purpose of eradicating our above-mentioned shortcomings by disseminating among the Jews the knowledge of the Russian language and other useful subjects. What the Society evidently aimed at was to place itself at the head of the Russian-Jewish _intelligenzia_, which had undertaken to act as negotiators between the Government and the Jews in the cause of Russification. In reality, the mission of the Society was carried out within exceedingly narrow limits. "Education for the sake of Emancipation" became the watchword of the Society. It promoted higher education by granting monetary assistance to Jewish students, but it did nothing either for the upbuilding of a normal Jewish school or for the improvement of the heders and yeshibahs. The dissemination of the knowledge of "useful subjects" reduced itself to the grant of a few subsidies to Jewish writers for translating a few books on history and natural science into Hebrew. Even more circumscribed and utilitarian was the point of view adopted by the Odessa branch of the Society. This branch, founded in 1867, adopted as its slogan "the enlightenment of the Jews through the Russian language and _in the Russian spirit_." The Russification of the Jews was to be promoted by translating the Bible and the prayer-book into the Russian language, "which must become the national tongue of the Jews." However, the headlong rush for assimilation was soon halted by the sinister spectacle of the Odessa pogrom of 1871. The moving spirits of the local branch could not help, to use the language of its president, "losing heart and becoming rather doubtful as to whether the goal pursued by them is in reality a good one, seeing that all the endeavors of our brethren to draw nearer to the Russians are of no avail so long as the Russian masses remain in their present unenlightened condition and harbor hostile sentiments towards the Jews." The pogrom put a temporary stop to the activity of the Odessa branch. As for the central Committee in St. Petersburg, its experience was not less disappointing. For, despite all the endeavors of the Society to adapt itself to the official point of view, it was regarded with suspicion by the powers that be, having been included by the informer Brafman among the constituent organizations of the dreadful and mysterious "Jewish Kahal." The Russian assimilators, now branded as separatists, found themselves in a tragic conflict. Moreover, the work of the Society in promoting general culture among the Jews was gradually losing its _raison d'etre_, since, without any effort on its part, the Jews began to flock to the _gymnazia_ and universities. The former practical stimulus to general culture--the acquisition of a diploma for the sake of equal rights--was intensified by the promulgation of the military statute of 1874 which conferred a number of privileges in the discharge of military duty on those possessing a higher education. These privileges induced many parents, particularly among the merchant class which was then drafted into the army for the first time, to send their children to the middle and higher educational institutions. As a result, the role of the Society in the dissemination of enlightenment reduced itself to a mere dispensation of charity, and the great crisis of the eighties found this organization standing irresolute at the cross-roads. 3. THE JEWISH PRESS In the absence of a comprehensive net-work of social agencies, the driving force in this cultural upheaval came from the periodical Jewish press. The creation of several press organs in Hebrew and Russian in the beginning of the sixties was a sign of the times. Though different in their linguistic medium, the two groups of publications were equally engaged in the task of the regeneration of Judaism, each adapting itself to its particular circle of readers. The Hebrew periodicals, and partly also those in Yiddish which addressed themselves to the masses, preached _Haskalah_ in the narrower sense. They advocated the necessity of a Russian elementary education and of secular culture in general; they emphasized the uselessness of the traditional Jewish school training, and exposed superstition and obscurantism. The Russian publications, again, which were intended for the Jewish and the Russian _intelligenzia_, pursued in the main a political goal, the fight for equal rights and the defence of Judaism against its numerous detractors. In both groups one can discern the gradual ripening of the social Jewish consciousness, the advance from elementary and often naive notions to more complex ideas. The two Hebrew weeklies founded in 1860, _ha-Karmel_, "The Carmel," in Vilna, and _ha-Melitz_, "The Interpreter," in Odessa, the former edited by Fuenn and the latter by Zederbaum, [1] were at first adapted to the mental level of grown-up children, expatiating upon the benefits of secular education and the "favors" of the Government consequent upon it. _Ha-Karmel_ expired in 1870, while yet in its infancy, though it continued to appear at irregular intervals in the form of booklets dealing with scientific and literary subjects. _Ha-Melitz_ was more successful. It soon grew to be a live and courageous organ which hurled its shafts at Hasidism and Tzaddikism, and occasionally even ventured to raise its hand against rabbinical Judaism. The Yiddish weekly _Kol Mebasser_, [2] which was published during 1862-1871 as a supplement to _ha-Melitz_ and spoke directly to the masses in their own language, attacked the dark sides of the old order of things in publicistic essays and humoristic stories. [Footnote 1: Before that time, the only weekly in Hebrew was _ha-Maggid_, "The Herald," a paper of no particular literary distinction, published since 1856 in the Prussian border-town Lyck, though addressing itself primarily to the Jews of Russia.] [Footnote 2: "A voice Announcing Good Tidings."] Another step forward was the publication of the Hebrew monthly _ha-Shahar_, "The Dawn," which was founded by Perez Smolenskin in 1869. This periodical, which appeared in Vienna but was read principally in Russia, pursued a two-fold aim: to fight against the fanaticism of the benighted masses, on the one hand, and combat the indifference to Judaism of the intellectuals, on the other. _Ha-Shahar_ exerted a tremendous influence upon the mental development of the young generation which had been trained in the heders and yeshibahs. Here they found a response to the thoughts that agitated them; here they learned to think logically and critically and to distinguish between the essential elements in Judaism and its mere accretions. _Ha-Shahar_ was the staff of life for the generation of that period of transition, which stood on the border-line dividing the old Judaism from the new. The various stages in the Russification of the Jewish _intelligenzia_ are marked by the changing tendencies of the Jewish periodical press in the Russian language. In point of literary form, it approached the European models more closely than the contemporary Hebrew press. The contributors to the three Russian-Jewish weeklies, all of them issued in Odessa, [1] had the advantage of having before them patterns of Western Europe. Jewish publicists of the type of Riesser and Philippson [2] served as living examples. They had blazed the way for Jewish journalism, and had shown it how to fight for civil emancipation, to ward off anti-Semitic attacks, and strive at the same time for the advancement of inner Jewish life. [Footnote 1: _Razswyet_, "The Dawn," 1860, _Sion_, "Zion," 1861, _Dyen_, "The Day," 1869-1871.] [Footnote 2: Gabriel Riesser (died 1863), the famous champion of Jewish emancipation in Germany, established the periodical _Der Jude_ in 1832. Ludwig Philippson (died 1889) founded in 1837 _Die Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums_, which still appears in Berlin.] However, as soon as the Russian Riessers applied themselves to their task, they met with insurmountable difficulties. When the _Razswyet_, which was edited by Osip (Joseph) Rabinovich, attempted to lay bare the inner wounds of Jewish life, it encountered the concerted opposition of all prominent Jews, who were of the opinion that an organ employing the language of the country should not, on tactical grounds, busy itself with self-revelations, but should rather limit itself to the fight for equal rights. The latter function again was hampered by the "other side," the Russian censorship. Despite the moderate tone adopted by the _Razswyet_ in its articles on Jewish emancipation, the Russian censorship found them incompatible with the interests of the State. One circular sent out by the Government went even so far as to prohibit "to to discuss the question of granting the Jews equal rights with those of the other (Russian) subjects." On one occasion the editor of the _Razswyet_, _, in appealing to the authorities of St. Petersburg against the prohibition of a certain article by the Odessa censor, had to resort to the sham argument that the incriminated article referred merely to the necessity of granting the Jews equality in the right of residence but not in other rights. But even this stratagem failed of its object. After a year of bitter struggle against the interference of the censor and against financial difficulties--the number of Russian readers among Jews was still very small at that time--the _Razswyet_ passed out of existence. Its successor _Sion_ ("Zion"), edited by Solovaychik and Leon Pinsker, who subsequently bec me the exponent of pre-Herzlian Zionism,[1] attempted a different policy: to prove the case of the Jews by arraigning the anti-Semites and acquainting the Russian public with the history of Judaism. _Sion_, too, like its predecessors, had to give up the fight in less than a year. [Footnote 1: See later, p. 330 et seq.] After an interval of seven years a new attempt was made in the same city. The _Dyen_ ("The Day") [1] was able to muster a larger number of contributors from among the increased ranks of the "titled" _intelligenzia_ than its predecessors. The new periodical was bolder in unfurling the banner of emancipation, but it also went much further than its predecessors in its championship of Russification and assimilation. The motto of the _Dyen_ was "complete fusion of the interests of the Jewish population with those of the other citizens." The editors looked upon the Jewish problem "not as a national but as a social and economic" issue, which in their opinion could be solved simply by bestowing upon this "section of the Russian people" the same rights which were enjoyed by the rest. The Odessa pogrom of 1871 might have taught the writers of the _Dyen_ to judge more soberly the prospects of "a fusion of interests," had not a meddlesome censorship forced this periodical to discontinue its publication after a short time. [Footnote 1: The name was meant to symbolize the approaching day of freedom. It was a weekly publication.] The next few years were a period of silence in the Russian-Jewish press. [1] The rank and file of the Russian Jewish intellectuals, who formed the backbone of the reading public of this press, became indifferent to it. Living up conscientiously to the principle of a "fusion of interests," they failed to recognize the special interests of their own people, whose only duty they thought was to be Russified, i.e., obliterated and put out of existence. The better elements among the _intelligenzia_, however, looked with consternation upon this growing indifference to everything Jewish among the college-bred Jewish youth. As a result, a new attempt was made toward the very end of this period to restore the Russian-Jewish press. Three weeklies, the _Russki Yevrey_ ("The Russian Jew"), the _Razswyet_ ("The Dawn"), and later on the _Voskhod_ ("The Sunrise"), were started in St. Petersburg, all endeavoring to gain the hearts of the Russian Jewish _intelligenzia_. In the midst of this work they were overwhelmed by the terrific cataclysm of 1881, which decided the further destinies of Jewish journalism in Russia. [Footnote 1: We disregard the colorless _Vyestnik Russkikh "Yevreyev"_ ("The Herald of Russian Jews"), published by Zederbaum in the beginning of the seventies in St. Petersburg, and the volumes of the _Yevreyskaya Bibliotyeka_ ("The Jewish Library"), issued at irregular intervals by Adolph Landau.] 4. THE JEWS AND THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT The Russian school and literature pushed the Jewish college youth head over heels into the intellectual currents of progressive Russian society. Naturally enough a portion of the Jewish youth was also drawn into the revolutionary movement of the seventies, a movement which, in spite of the theoretic "materialism" of its adepts, was of an essentially idealistic tendency. In joining the ranks of the revolutionaries, the young Jews were less actuated by resentment against the continued, though somewhat mitigated, rightlessness of their own people than by discontent with the general political reaction in Russia, that discontent which found expression in the movement of "Populism," [1] of "Going to the People," [2] and similar currents then in vogue. Jewish students, attending the rabbinical and teachers' institutes of the Government, or autodidacts from among former heder and yeshibah pupils, also began to "go to the people"--the Russian people, to be sure, not the Jewish. They carried on a revolutionary propaganda, both by direct and indirect means, among the Russian peasants and workingmen, known to them only from books. It was taken for granted at that time that the realization of the ideals of Russian democracy would carry with it the solution of the Jewish as well as of all other sectional problems of Russian life, so that these problems might for the moment be safely set aside. [Footnote 1: In Russian, _narodnichestvo_, from _narod_, "People," a democratic movement In favor of the down-trodden masses, particularly the Russian peasantry.] [Footnote 2: Under the influence of the democratic movement many Russians of higher birth and culture settled among the peasantry, to which they dedicated their lives. The name of Leo Tolstoi readily suggests itself in this connection.] As far as the Jewish youth was concerned, the whole movement was doubly academic, for the only points of contact of that youth with younger Russia was not living reality but the book, problems of the intellect, the search for new ways, the attempt to work out a _Weltanschauung_. The fundamental article of faith of the Jewish socialists was cosmopolitanism, and they failed to discern in Russian "Populism" the underlying elements of a Russian national movement. Jewry was not believed to be a nation, and as a religious entity it was looked upon as a relic of the past, which was doomed to disappearance. One attempt of coupling socialism with Judaism ought not to be passed over in silence. In the beginning of the seventies there existed in Vilna a Jewish revolutionary circle made up principally of the pupils of the rabbinical school and of the teachers' institute of the same city. In 1875, the police tracked the members of the circle. Some were arrested, others escaped. One of the refugees, A. Lieberman, managed to reach London where he associated with the circle of Lavrov and the editors of the revolutionary journal _Vperyod_ ("Forwards"). In the following year, Lieberman founded in London the "League of Jewish Socialists" for the purpose of carrying on a propaganda among the Jewish masses. It was a small society of students and workingmen which busied itself with arranging lectures and debates, and penning Hebrew appeals on the need of organizing the proletariat. The society was soon dissolved, and Lieberman emigrated to Vienna, where, under the name of Freeman, he started in 1877 a socialistic magazine in Hebrew under the name _ha-Emet_ ("The Truth"). The first two issues of _ha-Emet_ were admitted into Russia, but the third was confiscated by the censor. The magazine had to be discontinued. It yielded its place to a paper called _Asefat Hakamim_ ("The Assembly of Wise Men"), published in Koenigsberg in 1878 by M. Winchevski as a supplement to the paper _ha-Kol_ ("The Voice"), which was issued there by Rodkinson. Soon this whole species of socialistic literature was put out of existence. In 1879, Lieberman in Vienna and his comrades in Berlin and Koenigsberg were arrested and expelled from the borders of Austria and Prussia. They emigrated to England and America, and lost touch with Russia. In Russia itself the Jewish revolutionaries were heart and soul devoted to the cause. The children of the ghetto displayed considerable heroism and self-sacrifice in the revolutionary upheaval of the seventies. Jews figured in all important political trials and public manifestations; they languished in the gaols, and suffered as exiles in Siberia. But this idealistic fight for general freedom lacked a Jewish note, the endeavor to free their own nation which lived in greater thraldom than any other. And no one at that time ever dreamt that after all these sacrifices the Jews of Russia would be visited by still greater misfortunes, by pogroms and increased disabilities. 5. THE NEO-HEBRAIC RENAISSANCE With all deflections from the course of normal development, such as are unavoidable in times of violent mental disturbances, the main line of the whole cultural movement, the resultant of the various forces within it, was headed towards the healthy progress of Judaism. The most substantial product of this movement was the Neo-Hebraic literary renaissance which had already appeared in faint outlines on the sombre background of external oppression and internal obscurantism during the preceding period. The Haskalah, formerly anathematized, was now able to unfold all its creative powers. What in the time of Isaac Baer Levinsohn had been accomplished stealthily by a few isolated conspirators of enlightenment in some petty society in Vilna or in some out-of-the-way town like Kamenetz-Podolsk was now done in the full light of the day. Instead of a few stray writers, the harbingers of the new literature, there now appeared this literature itself, new both in form and content. The restoration of the Hebrew language to its biblical purity and the removal of the linguistic excrescences of the later rabbinic idiom became for some writers an end in itself, for others a weapon in the fight for enlightenment. _Melitzah_, a conventionalized style, which, moving strictly within the confines of the biblical diction, endeavored to adapt the form of an ancient language to the content of a modern life, became the fashion of the day. In point of content rejuvenated Hebrew literature was of necessity elementary. Mental restlessness and naiveness of thought were not conducive to the development of that "science of Judaism" which had attained to such luxurious growth in Germany. The Hebrew writers of Russia during that period had no means of propagating their ideas, except through the medium of poetry, fiction, or journalism. The results of historic research were squeezed into the mould of a poem or novel, or it furnished the material for a press article, in which the Jewish past was considered from the point of view of the present. Objective scientific investigation could find no place, and the little that was accomplished in that direction did not bear the character of a living account of the past, but was rather in the nature of crude archaeological material. At the same time, as the crest of the social progress was rising, the border-line between poetry and fiction, on the one hand, and topical journalism, on the other, was gradually obliterated. The poet or novelist was often turned into a fighter, who attacked the old order of things and defended the new. Even before the first blush of dawn, when every one in Russia was yet groaning under the strokes of an autocratic tyranny, which the presentiment of its speedy end had driven into madness, the bewitching strains of the new Hebrew lyre resounded through Lithuania. They came from Micah Joseph Lebensohn, the son of "Adam" Lebensohn, author of high-flown Hebrew odes [1]--a contemplative Jewish youth, suffering from tuberculosis and _Weltschmerz_. He began his poetic career in 1840 by a Hebrew adaptation of the second book of Virgil's _Aeneid_ [2] but soon turned to Jewish _motifs_. In the musical rhymes of the "Songs of the Daughter of Zion" (_Shire bat Zion_, Vilna, 1851), the author poured forth the anguish of his suffering soul, which was torn between faith and science, weighed down by the oppression from without and stirred to its depth by the tragedy of his homeless nation. [3] A cruel disease cut short the poet's life in 1852, at the age of twenty-four. A small collection of lyrical poems, published after his death under the title _Kinnor bat Zion_ ("The Harp of the Daughter of Zion"), exhibited even more brilliantly the wealth of creative energy which was hidden in the soul of this prematurely cut-off youth, who on the brink of the grave sang so touchingly of love, beauty, and the pure joys of life. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 134 et seq.] [Footnote 2: It was made from the German translation of Schiller] [Footnote 3: See the poems "Solomon and Koheleth," "Jael and Sisera," and "Judah ha-Levi."] A year after the death of our poet, in 1853, there appeared in the same capital of Lithuania the historic novel _Ahabat Zion_ ("Love of Zion"). Its author, Abraham Mapu of Kovno (1808-1867), was a poor melammed who had by his own endeavors and without the help of a teacher raised himself to the level of a modern Hebrew pedagogue. He lived in two worlds, in the valley of tears, such as the ghetto presented during the reign of Nicholas, and in the radiant recollections of the far-off biblical past. The inspired dreamer, while strolling on the banks of the Niemen, among the hills which skirt the city of Kovno, was picturing to himself the luminous dawn of the Jewish nation. He published these radiant descriptions of ancient Judaea in the dismal year of the "captured recruits." [1] The youths of the ghetto, who had been poring over talmudic folios, fell eagerly upon this little book which breathed the perfumes of Sharon and Carmel. They read it in secret--to read a novel openly was not a safe thing in those days--, and their hearts expanded with rapture over the enchanting idyls of the time of King Hezekiah, the portrayal of tumultuous Jerusalem and peaceful Beth-lehem. They sighed over the fate of the lovers Amnon and Tamar, and in their flight of imagination were carried far away from painful reality. The naive literary construction of the plot was of no consequence to the reader who tasted a novel for the first time in his life. The _naivete_ of the plot was in keeping with the naive, artificially reproduced language of the prophet Isaiah and the biblical annals, which intensified the illusion of antiquity. [Footnote 1: See on this expression above, p. 148 et seq.] Several years after the publication of his "Love of Zion," when social currents had begun to stir Russian Jewry, Mapu began his five volume novel of contemporary life, under the title _'Ayit Tzabua'_, "The Speckled Bird," or "The Hypocrite" (1857-1869). In his naive diction, which is curiously out of harmony with the complex plot in sensational French style, the author pictures the life of an obscure Lithuanian townlet: the Kahal bosses who hide their misdeeds beneath the cloak of piety; the fanatical rabbis, the Tartuffes of the Pale of Settlement, who persecute the champions of enlightenment. As an offset against these shadows of the past, Mapu lovingly paints the barely visible shoots of the new life, the _Maskil_, who strives to reconcile religion and science, the misty figure of the Jewish youth who goes to the Russian school in the hope of serving his people, the profiles of the Russian Jewish intellectuals, and the captains of industry from among the rising Jewish plutocracy. Toward the end of his life Mapu returned to the historical novel, and in the "Transgression of Samaria" (_Ashmat Shomron_, 1865) he attempted to draw a picture of ancient Hebrew life during the declining years of the Northern Kingdom. But this novel, appearing as it did at the height of the cultural movement, failed to produce the powerful effect of his _Ahabat Zion_, although its charming biblical diction enraptured the lovers of _Melitzah_. [1] [Footnote 1: An imitation of the biblical Hebrew diction. Compare p. 225.] The noise of the new Jewish life, with its constantly growing problems, invaded the precincts of literature, and even the poets were impelled to take sides in the burning questions of the day. The most important poet of that era, Judah Leib Gordon (1830-1892), who began by composing biblical epics and moralistic fables, soon entered the field of "intellectual poetry," and became the champion of enlightenment and a trenchant critic of old-fashioned Jewish life. As far back as 1863, while active as a teacher at a Crown school [1] in Lithuania, he composed his "Marseillaise of Enlightenment" (_Hakitzah 'ammi_, "Awake, My People"). In it he sang of the sun shedding its rays over the "Land of Eden," where the neck of the enslaved was freed from the yoke and where the modern Jew was welcomed with a brotherly embrace. The poet calls upon his people to join the ranks of their fellow-countrymen, the hosts of cultured Russian citizens who speak the language of the land, and offers his Jewish contemporaries the brief formula: "Be a man on the street and a Jew in the house," [2] i.e., be a Russian in public and a Jew in private life. [Footnote 1: See on the Crown schools pp. 74 and 77.] [Footnote 2: _Heye adam be-tzeteka, wihudi be-oholeka._] Gordon himself defined his function in the work of Jewish regeneration to be that of exposing the inner ills of the people, of fighting rabbinical orthodoxy and the tyranny of ceremonialism. This carping tendency, which implies a condemnation of the whole historic structure of Judaism, manifested itself as early as 1868 in his "Songs of Judah" (_Shire Yehudah_), in strophes radiant with the beauty of their Hebrew diction: To live by soulless rites hast thou been taught, To swim against life, and the lifeless letter to keep; To be dead upon earth, and in heaven alive, To dream while awake, and to speak while asleep. During the seventies, Gordon joined the ranks of the official agents of enlightenment. He removed to St. Petersburg, and became secretary of the Society for the Diffusion of Enlightenment. The new Hebrew periodical _ha-Shahar_ [1] published several of his "contemporary epics" in which he vented his wrath against petrified Rabbinism. He portrays the misery of a Jewish woman who is condemned to enter married life at the bidding of the marriage-broker, without love and without happiness, or he describes the tragedy of another woman whose future is wrecked by a "Dot over the _i_." [2] He lashes furiously the orthodox spiders, the official leaders of the community, who catch the young pioneers of enlightenment in the meshes of Kabal authority, backed by police force. Climbing higher upon the ladder of history, the poet registers his protest against the predominance of the spiritual over the worldly element in the whole evolution of Judaism. He assails the prophet Jeremiah who in beleaguered Jerusalem preaches submission to the Babylonians and strict obedience to the Law: the prophet, dressed up in the garb of a contemporary orthodox rabbi, was to be exhibited as a terrifying incarnation of the soulless formula "Law above Life." [3] [Footnote 1: See p. 218.] [Footnote 2: The title of a famous poem by Gordon, _Kotzo shel Yod_, literally "the tittle of the Yod" the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. The poem in question pictures the tragedy of a woman who remained unhappy the rest of her life because the Hebrew bill of divorce which she had obtained from her husband was declared void on account of a trifling error in spelling.] [Footnote 3: The author alludes to Gordon's poem "_Tzidkiyyahu be-bet hapekuddot_" ("Zedekiah in Prison"), in which the defeated and blinded Judean ruler (see Jer. 52. 11) bitterly complains of the evil effects of the prophetic doctrine.] The implication is obvious: the power of orthodoxy must be broken and Jewish life must be secularized. But while unmasking the old, Gordon could not fail to perceive the sore spots in the new, "enlightened" generation. He saw the flight of the educated youth from the Jewish camp, its ever-growing estrangement from the national tongue in which the poet uttered his songs, and a cry of anguish burst from his lips: "For Whom Do I Labor?" [1] It seemed to him that the rising generation, detached from the fountain-head of Jewish culture, would no more be able to read the "Songs of Zion," and that the poet's rhymes were limited in their appeal to the last handful of the worshippers of the Hebrew Muse: [Footnote 1: Title of a poem by Gordon, _Lemi ani 'amel!_] Who knows, but I am the last singer of Zion, And you are the last who my songs understand. These lines were penned on the threshold of the new era of the eighties. The exponent of Jewish self-criticism lived to see not only the horrors of the pogroms but also the misty dawn of the national movement, and he could comfort himself with the conviction that he was destined to be the singer for more than one generation. The question "For whom do I labor?" was approached and solved in a different way by another writer, whose genius expanded with the increasing years of his long life. During the first years of his activity, Shalom Jacob Abramovich (born in 1836) tried his strength in various fields. He wrote Hebrew essays on literary criticism (_Mishpat Shalom_ [1] 1859), adapted books on natural science written in modern languages (_Toldot ha-teba'_, "Natural History," 1862, ff.), composed a social _Tendenzroman_ under the title "Fathers and Children" (_Ha-abot we-ha-banim_, 1868 [2]); but all this left him dissatisfied. Pondering over the question "For whom do I labor?," he came to the conclusion that his labors belonged to the people at large, to the down-trodden masses, instead of being limited to the educated classes who understood the national tongue. A profound observer of Jewish conditions in the Pale, he realized that the concrete life of the masses should be portrayed in their living daily speech, in the Yiddish vernacular, which was treated with contempt by nearly all the Maskilim of that period. [Footnote 1: "The Judgment of Shalom," with reference to the author's first name and with a clever allusion to the Hebrew text of Zech. 8.16.] [Footnote 2: Written under the influence of Turgenyev's famous novel which bears the same title. See above, p. 210, n. 1.] Accordingly, Abramovich began to write in the dialect of the people, under the assumed pen-name of _Mendele Mokher Sforim_ (Mendele the Bookseller). Choosing his subjects from the life of the lower classes, he portrayed the pariahs of Jewish society and their oppressors (_Dos kleine Menshele_, "A Humble Man"), the life of Jewish beggars and vagrants (_Fishke der Krummer_, "Fishke the Cripple"), and the immense cobweb which had been spun around the destitute masses by the contractors of the meat tax and their accomplices, the alleged benefactors of the community (_Die Taxe, oder die Bande Stodt Bale Toyvos_, "The Meat Tax, or the Gang of Town Benefactors"). His trenchant satire on the "tax" hit the mark, and the author had reason to fear the ire of those who were hurt to the quick by his literary shafts. He had to leave the town of Berdychev in which he resided at the time, and removed to Zhitomir. Here he wrote in 1873 one of his ripest works, "The Mare, or Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" (_Die Klache_). In his allegorical narrative he depicts a homeless mare, the personification of the Jewish masses, which is pursued by the "bosses of the town" who do not allow her to graze on the common pasture-lands with the "town cattle," and who set street loafers and dogs at her heels. "The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" (the Government) cannot make up its mind whether the mare should be granted equal rights with the native horses, or should be left unprotected, and the matter is submitted to a special commission. In the meantime, certain horsemen from among the "communal benefactors" jump upon the back of the unfortunate mare, beat and torment her well-nigh to death, and drive her for their pleasure, until she collapses. Leaving the field of polemical allegory, Abramovich published the humorous description of the "Travels of Benjamin the Third" (_Masse'ot Benyamin ha-Shelishi_, 1878), [1] portraying a Jewish Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, who make an oversea journey to the mythical river Sambation--on the way from Berdychev to Kiev. A subtle observation of existing conditions combined with a profound analysis of the problems of Jewish life, artistic power matched with publicistic skill--such are the salient features of the first phase of Abramovich's literary activity. [Footnote 1: A famous Jewish traveller by the name of Benjamin lived in the twelfth century. Another modern Jewish traveller by the name of Joseph Israel, who died in 1864, adopted the name Benjamin II. Abramovich humorously designates his fictitious travelling hero as Benjamin III.] In the following period, beginning with the eighties, his literary creations exhibit greater artistic harmony in their content. As far as their linguistic garb is concerned, they combine the Yiddish vernacular with the Hebrew national tongue, which are employed side by side by our author as the vehicles of his thought, and reach at his hands an equally high state of perfection. 6. THE HARBINGER OF JEWISH NATIONALISM (PEREZ SMOLENSKIN) The artistic portrayer of life was, however, a rare exception in the literature of the Haskalah. Riven by social and cultural strife, the period of enlightenment called rather for theories than for art, and the novelist no less than the publicist was called upon to supply the want. This theoretic element was paramount in the novels of Perez Smolenskin. (1842-1885), the editor of the popular Hebrew magazine _ha-Shahar_. [1] The pupil of a White Russian yeshibah, he afterwards drifted into frivolous Odessa and still later to Vienna, suffering painfully from the shock of the contrast. Personally he had emerged unscathed from this conflict of ideas. But round about him he witnessed "the dead bodies of enlightenment, which are just as numerous as the victims of ignorance." He saw the Jewish youth fleeing from its people and forgetting its national language. He saw Reform Judaism of Western Europe which had retained nothing of Jewish culture except the modernized superficialities of the synagogue. Repelled by this spectacle, Smolenskin decided from the very beginning to fight on two fronts: against the fanatics of orthodoxy in the name of European progress, and against the champions of assimilation in the name of national Jewish culture, and more particularly of the Hebrew language. "You say," Smolenskin exclaims, addressing himself to the assimilators, "let us be like the other nations. Well and good. Let us, indeed, be like the other nations: cultured men and women, free from superstition, loyal citizens of the country. But let us also remember, as the other nations do, that we have no right to be ashamed of our origin, that it is our duty to hold dear our national language and our national dignity." [Footnote 1: See above, p. 218.] In his first great novel "A Rover on Life's Paths" (_Ha-to-'eh bedarke ha-hayyim_, 1869-1876), Smolenskin carries his hero through all the stages of cultural development, leading from an obscure White Russian hamlet to the centers of European civilization in London and Paris. But at the end of his "rovings" the hero ultimately attains to a synthesis of Jewish nationalism and European progress, and ends by sacrificing his life while defending his brethren during the Odessa pogrom of 1871. The other _Tendenz_-novels of Smolenskin reflect the same double-fronted struggle: against the stagnation of the orthodox, particularly the Hasidim, and against the disloyalty of the "enlightened." Smolenskin's theory of Judaism is formulated in two publicistic works: "The Eternal People" (_'Am 'olam_, [1] 1872) and "There is a Time to Plant" (_'Et la-ta'at_ [2], 1875-1877). As a counterbalance to the artificial religious reforms of the West, he sets up the far-reaching principle of Jewish evolution, of a gradual amalgamation of the national and humanitarian element within Judaism. The Messianic dogma, which the Jews of the West had completely abandoned because of its alleged incompatibility with Jewish citizenship in the Diaspora, is warmly defended by Smolenskin as one of the symbols of national unity. In the very center of his system stands the cult of Hebrew as a national language, "without which there is no Judaism." In order the more successfully to demolish the idea of assimilation, Smolenskin bombards its substructure, the theory of enlightenment as formulated by Moses Mendelssohn, with its definition of the Jews as a religious community, and not as a nation, though in his polemical ardor he often goes too far, and does occasional violence to historic truth. [Footnote 1: From Isa. 44. 7.] [Footnote 2: From Eccles. 3. 2.] In both works one may discern, though in vague outlines only, the theory of a "spiritual nation." [1] However, Smolenskin did not succeed in developing and consolidating his theory. The pogroms of 1881 and the beginning of the Jewish exodus from Russia upset his equilibrium once more. He laid aside the question of the national development of Jewry in the Diaspora, and became an enthusiastic preacher of the restoration of the Jewish people in Palestine. In the midst of this propaganda the life of the talented publicist was cut short by a premature death. [Footnote 1: The conception of a "spiritual nation" as applied to Judaism has been formulated and expounded by the author of the present volume in a number of works. See his "Jewish History" (Jewish Publication Society, 1903) p. 29 et seq., and the translator's essay "Dubnow's Theory of Jewish Nationalism" (reprinted from the Maccabaean, 1905). More about this theory will be found in Vol. III.] The same conviction was finally reached, after a prolonged inner struggle, by Moses Leib Lilienblum (1843-1910), who might well be called a "martyr of enlightenment." However, during the period under consideration he moved entirely within the boundaries of the Haskalah, of which he was a most radical exponent. Persecuted for his harmless liberalism by the fanatics of his native town of Vilkomir, [1] Lilienblum began to ponder over the question of Jewish religious reforms. In advocating the reform of Judaism, he was not actuated, as were so many in Western Europe, by the desire of adapting Judaism to the non-Jewish environment, but rather by the profound and painful conviction that dominant Rabbinism in its medieval phase did not represent the true essence of Judaism. Reform of Judaism, as interpreted by Lilienblum, does not mean a revolution, but an evolution of Judaism. Just as the Talmud had once reformed Judaism in accordance with the requirements of its time, so must Judaism be reformed by us in accordance with the demands of our own times. When the youthful writer embodied these views in a series of articles, published in the _ha-Melitz_ under the title _Orhot ha-Talmud_ ("The Ways of the Talmud," 1868-1869), his orthodox townsmen were so thoroughly aroused that his further stay in Vilkomir was not free from danger, and he was compelled to remove to Odessa. Here he published in 1870 his rhymed satire _Kehal refa'im_, [2] in which the dark shadows of a Jewish town, the Kahal elders, the rabbis, the Tzaddiks, and other worthies, move weirdly about in the gloom of the nether-world. [Footnote 1: In the government of Kovno.] [Footnote 2: "The Congregation of the Dead," with allusion to Prov. 21.16.] In Odessa Lilienblum joined the ranks of the Russified college youth, and became imbued with the radical ideas of Chernyshevski and Pisaryev, gaining the reputation of a "nihilist." His theory of Jewish reform, superannuated by his new materialistic world view, was thrown aside, and a gaping void opened in the soul of the writer. This frame of mind is reflected in Lilienblum's self-revelation, "The Sins of Youth" (_Hattot ne'urim_, 1876), this agonizing cry of one of the many victims of the mental cataclysm of the sixties. The book made a tremendous impression, for the mental tortures depicted in it were typical of the whole age of transition. However, the final note of the confession, the shriek of a wasted soul, which, having overthrown the old idols, has failed to find a new God, did not express the general trend of that period, which was far from despair. As for our author, his tempestuous soul was soon set at rest. The events which filled the minds of progressive Jewry with agitation, the horrors of the pogroms and the political oppression of the beginning of the eighties, brought peace to the aching heart of Lilienblum. He found the solution of the Jewish problems in the "Love of Zion," of which he became the philosophic exponent. At a later stage he became an ardent champion of political Zionism. 7. JEWISH LITERATURE IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE The left wing of "enlightenment" was represented during this period by Jewish literature in the Russian language, which had several noteworthy exponents. It is interesting to observe that, whereas all the prominent writers in Hebrew were children of profoundly nationalistic Lithuania, those that wrote in Russian, with the sole exception of Levanda, were natives of South Russia, where the two extremes, stagnant Hasidism and radical Russification, fought for supremacy. The founder of this branch of Jewish literature was Osip (Joseph) Rabinovich (1817-1869), a Southerner, a native of Poltava and a resident of Odessa. [1] Alongside of journalistic articles he wrote protracted novels. His touching "Pictures of the Past," his stories "The Penal Recruit" and "The Inherited Candlestick" (1859-1860) called up before the generation living at the dawn of the new era of reforms the shadows of the passing night: the tortures of Nicholas' conscription and the degrading forms of Jewish rightlessness. [Footnote 1: See above, p, 219.] The fight against this rightlessness was the goal of his journalistic activity which, prior to the publication of the _Razswyet_, he had carried on in the columns of the liberal Russian press. The problems of inner Jewish life had but little attraction for him. Like Riesser, he looked upon civil emancipation as a panacea for all Jewish ailments. He was snatched away by death before he could be cured of this illusion. Rabinovich's work was continued by a talented youth, the journalist Ilya (Elias) Orshanski of Yekaterinoslav (1846-1875), who was the main contributor to the _Dyen_ of Odessa and to the _Yevreyskaya Bibliotyeka_. [1] To fight for Jewish rights, not to offer humble apologies, to demand emancipation, not to beg for it, this attitude lends a charm of its own to Orshanski's writings. His brilliant analysis of "Russian Legislation concerning the Jews" [2] offers a complete anatomy of Jewish disfranchisement in Russia, beginning with Catherine II. and ending with Alexander II. [Footnote 1: Compare above, p. 220 et seq.] [Footnote 2: The title of his work on the same subject which appeared in St. Petersburg in 1877.] Nevertheless, being a child of his age, he preached its formula. While a passionate Jew at heart, he championed the cause of Russification, though not in the extreme form of spiritual self-effacement. The Odessa pogrom of 1871 staggered his impressionable soul. He was tossing about restlessly, seeking an outlet for his resentment, but everywhere he knocked his head against the barriers of censorship and police. Had he been granted longer life, he might, like Smolenskin, have chosen the road of a nationalistic-progressive synthesis, but the white plague carried him off in his twenty-ninth year. The literary work of Lev (Leon) Levanda (1835-1888) was of a more complicated character. A graduate of one of the official rabbinical schools, he was first active as teacher in a Jewish Crown school in Minsk, and afterwards occupied the post of a "learned Jew" [1] under Muravyov, the governor-general of Vilna. He thus moved in the hot-bed of "official enlightenment" and in the headquarters of the policy of Russification as represented by Muravyov, a circumstance which left its impress upon all the products of his pen. In his first novel, "The Grocery Store" (1860), of little merit from the artistic point of view, he still appears as the naive bard of that shallow "enlightenment," the champion of which is sufficiently characterized by wearing a European costume, calling himself by a well-sounding German or Russian name (in the novel under discussion the hero goes by the name of Arnold), cultivating friendly relations with noble-minded Christians and making a love match unassisted by the marriage-broker. [Footnote 1: In Russian, _Uchony Yevrey_, an expert in Jewish matters, attached, according to the Russian law of 1844, to the superintendents of school districts and to the governors-general within the Pale.] During this stage of his career, Levanda was convinced that "no educated Jew could help being a cosmopolitan." But a little later his cosmopolitanism displayed a distinct propensity toward Russification. In his novel "A Hot Time" (1871-1872), Levanda renounces his former Polish sympathies, and, through the mouth of his hero Sarin, preaches the gospel of the approaching cultural fusion between the Jews and the Russians which is to mark a new epoch in the history of the Jewish people. Old-fashioned Jewish life is cleverly ridiculed in his "Sketches of the Past" ("The Earlocks of my Mellammed," "Schoolophobia," etc., 1870-1875). His peace of mind was not even disturbed by the manifestation, towards the end of the sixties, of the anti-Semitic reaction in those very official circles in which the "learned Jew" moved and in which Brafman was looked up to as an authority in matters appertaining to Judaism. [1] But the catastrophe of 1881 dealt a staggering blow to Levanda's soul, and forced him to overthrow his former idol of assimilation. With his mind not yet fully settled on the new theory of nationalism, he joined the Palestine movement towards the end of his life, and went down to his grave with a clouded soul. [Footnote 1: Levanda sat side by side with this renegade and informer in the Commission on the Jewish Question which had been appointed by the governor-general of Vilna. (See p. 189.)] One who stuck fast in his denial of Judaism was Grigory Bogrov (1825-1885). The descendant of a family of rabbis in Poltava, he passed "from darkness to light" by way of the curious educational institution of Nicholas' brand, the office of an excise farmer in which he was employed for a number of years. The enlightened _Aktziznik_ [1] became conscious of his literary talent late in life. His protracted "Memoirs of a Jew," largely made up of autobiographic material, were published in a Russian magazine as late as 1871-1873. [2] They contain an acrimonious description of Jewish life in the time of Nicholas I. No Jewish artist had ever yet dipped his brush in colors so dismal and had displayed so ferocious a hatred as did Bogrov in painting the old Jewish mode of life within the Pale, with its poverty and darkness, its hunters and victims, its demoralized Kahal rule of the days of conscription. Bogrov's account of his childhood and youth is not relieved by a single cheerful reminiscence, except that of a young _Russian_ girl. The whole patriarchal life of a Jewish townlet of that period is transformed into a sort of inferno teeming with criminals or idiots. [Footnote 1: See p. 186, n. 1.] [Footnote 2: Shortly afterwards the "Memoirs" were supplemented by another autobiographic novel, "The Captured Recruit."] To the mind of Bogrov, only two ways promised an escape from this hell: the way of cosmopolitanism and rationalism, opening up into humanity at large, or the way leading into the midst of the Russian nation. Bogrov himself stood irresolute on this fateful border-line. In 1878 he wrote to Levanda that as "an emancipated cosmopolitan he would long ago have crossed over to the opposite shore," where "other sympathies and ideals smiled upon him," were he not kept within the Jewish fold "by four million people innocently suffering from systematic persecutions." Bogrov's hatred of the persecutors of the Jewish people was poured forth in his historic novel "A Jewish Manuscript" (1876), the plot of which is based on events of the time of Khmelnitzki. [1] But even here, while describing, as he himself puts it, the history of the struggle between the spider and the fly, he finds in the life of the fly nothing worthy of sympathy except its sufferings. In 1879 Bogrov began a new novel, "The Scum of the Age," picturing the life of the modern Jewish youth who were engulfed in the Russian revolutionary propaganda. But the hand which knew how to portray the horrors of the old conscription was powerless to reproduce, except in very crude outlines, the world of political passions which was foreign to the author, and the novel remained unfinished. [Footnote 1: See on that period Vol. I, p. 144 et seq.] The reaction of the eighties produced no change in Bogrov's attitude. He breathed his last in a distant Russian village, and was buried in a Russian cemetery, having embraced Christianity shortly before his death, as a result of a sad concatenation of family circumstances. Before the young generation which entered upon active life in the eighties lay the broken tablets of Russian Jewish literature. New tablets were needed, partly to restore the commandments of the preceding period of enlightenment, partly to correct its mistakes. CHAPTER XXI THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER III. AND THE INAUGURATION OF POGROMS 1. THE TRIUMPH OF AUTOCRACY On March 1, 1881, Alexander II. met his death on one of the principal thoroughfares of St. Petersburg, smitten by dynamite bombs hurled at him by a group of terrorists. The Tzar, who had freed the Russian peasantry from personal slavery, paid with his life for refusing to free the Russian people from political slavery and police tyranny. The red terrorism of the revolutionaries was the counterpart of the white terrorism of the Russian authorities, who for many years had suppressed the faintest striving for liberty, and had sent to gaol and prison, or deported to Siberia, the champions of a constitutional form of government and the spokesmen of social reforms. Forced by the persecutions of the police to hide beneath the surface, the revolutionary societies of underground Russia found themselves compelled to resort to methods of terrorism. This terrorism found its expression during the last years of Alexander II. in various attempts on the life of that ruler, and culminated in the catastrophe of March 1. Among the members of these revolutionary societies were also some representatives from among the young Jewish _intelligenzia._ They were in large part college students, who had been carried away by the ideals of their Russian comrades. But few of them were counted among the active terrorists. The group which prepared the murder of the Tzar comprised but one Jewish member, a woman by the name of Hesia Helfman, who, moreover, played but a secondary role in the conspiracy, by keeping a secret residence for toe revolutionaries. Nevertheless, in the official circles, which were anxious to justify their oppression of the Jews, it became customary to refer to the "important role" played by the Jews in the Russian revolution. It was with preconceived notions of this kind that Alexander III. ascended the throne of Russia, a sovereign with unlimited power but with a very limited political horizon. Being a Russian of the old-fashioned type and a zealous champion of the Greek-Orthodox Church, he shared the anti-Jewish prejudices of his environment. Already as crown prince he ordered that a monetary reward be given to the notorious Lutostanski, who had presented him with his libellous pamphlet "Concerning the Use of Christian Blood by the Jews." [1] During the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, when as heir-apparent he was in command of one of the Balkan armies, he allowed himself to be persuaded that the abuses in the Russian commissariat were due to the "Jewish" purveyors who supplied the army. [2] This was all that was known about Judaism in the circles from which the ruler of five million Jews derived his information. [Footnote 1: See p. 203.] [Footnote 2: The business firm in question was that of Greger, Horvitz, and Kohan, of whom the first was a Greek, and the second a converted Jew. See above, p. 202, n. 1.] In March and April, 1881, the destinies of Russia were being decided at secret conferences, which were held between the Tzar and the highest dignitaries of state in the palace of the quiet little town of Gatchina, whither Alexander III. had withdrawn after the death of his father. Two parties and two programs were struggling for mastery at these conferences. The party of the liberal Minister Loris-Melikov, championing a program of moderate reforms, pleaded primarily for the establishment of an advisory commission to be composed of the deputies deputies of the rural and urban administrations for the purpose of considering all legal projects prior to their submission to the Council of State. This plan of a paltry popular representation, which had obtained the approval of Alexander II. during the last days of his life, assumed in the eyes of the reactionary party the proportions of a dangerous "constitution," and was execrated by it as an encroachment upon the sacred prerogatives of autocracy. The head of this party was the procurator-general of the Holy Synod, Constantine Petrovich Pobyedonostzev, a former professor at the University of Moscow, who had been Alexander III.'s tutor in the political sciences when the latter was crown prince. As the exponent of an ecclesiastical police state, Pobyedonostzev contended that enlightenment and political freedom were harmful to Russia, that the people must be held in a state of patriarchal submission to the authority of the Church and of the temporal powers, and that the Greek-Orthodox masses must be shielded against the influence of alien religions and races, which should accordingly occupy in the Russian monarchy a position subordinate to that of the dominant nation. The ideas of this fanatic reactionary, who was dubbed "The Grand Inquisitor" and whose name was popularly changed into _Byedonostzev_ [1] carried the day at the Gatchina conferences. The deliberations culminated in the decision to refrain from making any concessions to the revolutionary element by granting reforms, however however modest in character, and to maintain at all cost the regime of a police state as a counterbalance to the idea of a legal state prevalent in the "rotten West." [Footnote 1: _Byedonostzev_ means in Russian "Misfortune-bearer," a play on the name _Pobyedonostzev_ which signifies "Victory-bearer."] Accordingly, the imperial manifesto [1] promulgated on April 29, 1881, proclaimed to the people that "the Voice of God hath commanded us to take up vigorously the reins of government, inspiring us with the belief in the strength and truth of autocratic power, which we are called upon to establish and safeguard." The manifesto "calls upon all faithful subjects to eradicate the hideous sedition and to establish faith and morality." The methods whereby faith and morality were to be established were soon made known, in the "Police Constitution" which was bestowed upon Russia in August, 1881, under the name of "The Statute concerning Enforced Public Safety." [Footnote 1: A manifesto is a pronouncement issued by the Tzar on solemn occasions, such as accession to the throne, events in the imperial family, declaration of war, conclusion of peace, etc., accompanied, as a rule, by acts of grace, such as conferring privileges, granting pardons, and so on. Compare also above, p. 115.] This statute confers upon the Russian satraps of the capitals (St. Petersburg and Moscow) and of many provincial centers--the governors-general and the governors--the power of issuing special enactments and thereby setting aside the normal laws as well as of placing under arrest and deporting to Siberia, without the due process of law, all citizens suspected of "political unsafety." This travesty of a _habeas corpus_ Act, insuring the inviolability of police and gendarmerie, and practically involving the suspension of the current legislation in a large part of the monarchy, has ever since been annually renewed by special imperial enactments, and has remained in force until our own days. The genuine "Police Constitution" of 1881 has survived the civil sham Constitution of 1905, figuring as a symbol of legalized lawlessness. 2. THE INITIATION OF THE POGROM POLICY The catastrophe of March 1 had the natural effect of pushing not only the Government but also a large part of the Russian people, who had been scared by the spectre of anarchy, in the direction of reactionary politics. This retrograde tendency was bound to affect the Jewish question. The bacillus of Judaeophobia [1] became astir in the politically immature minds which had been unhinged by the acts of terrorism. The influential press organs, which maintained more or less close relations with the leading Government spheres, adopted more and more a hostile attitude towards the Jews. The metropolitan newspaper _Novoye Vremya_ ("The New Time") [2] which at that time embarked upon its infamous career as the semi-official organ of the Russian reaction, and a number of provincial newspapers subsidized by the Government suddenly began to speak of the Jews in a tone which suggested that they were in the possession of some terrible secret. [Footnote 1: The term used in Russia for anti-Semitism.] [Footnote 2: See above, p. 205.] Almost on the day following the attempt on the life of the Tzar, the papers of this ilk began to insinuate that the Jews had a hand in it, and shortly thereafter the South-Russian press published alarming rumors about proposed organized attacks upon the Jews of that region. These rumors were based on facts. A sinister agitation was rife among the lowest elements of the Russian population, while invisible hands from above seemed to push it on toward the commission of a gigantic crime. In the same month of March, mysterious emissaries from St. Petersburg made their appearance in the large cities of South Russia, such as Yelisavetgrad (Elizabethgrad), Kiev, and Odessa, and entered into secret negotiations with the highest police officials concerning a possible "outburst of popular indignation against the Jews" which they expected to take place as part of the economic conflict, intimating the undesirability of obstructing the will of the Russian populace by police force. Figures of Great-Russian tradesmen and laborers, or _Katzaps,_ as the Great Russians are designated in the Little-Russian South, began to make their appearance in the railroad cars and at the railroad stations, and spoke to the common people of the summary punishment soon to be inflicted upon the Jews or read to them anti-Semitic newspaper articles. They further assured them that an imperial ukase had been issued, calling upon the Christians to attack the Jews during the days of the approaching Greek-Orthodox Easter. Although many years have passed since these events, it has not yet been possible to determine the particular agency which carried on this pogrom agitation among the Russian masses. Nor has it been possible to find out to what extent the secret society of high officials, which had been formed in March, 1881, under the name of "The Sacred League," with the object of defending the person of the Tzar and engaging in a terroristic struggle with the "enemies of the public order," [1] was implicated in the movement. But the fact itself that, the pogroms were carefully prepared and engineered is beyond doubt: it may be inferred from the circumstance that they broke out almost simultaneously in many places of the Russian South, and that everywhere they followed the same routine, characterized by the well-organized "activity" of the mob and the deliberate inactivity of the authorities. [Footnote 1: The League existed until the autumn of 1882. Among its members were Pobyedonostzev and the anti-Jewish Minister Ignatyev.] The first outbreak of the storm took place in Yelisavetgrad (Elizabethgrad), a large city in New Russia, [1] with a Jewish population of fifteen thousand souls. On the eve of the Greek-Orthodox Easter, the local Christians, meeting on the streets and in the stores, spoke to one another of the fact that "the Zhyds are about to be beaten." The Jews became alarmed. The police, prepared to maintain public order during the first days of the Passover, called out a small detachment of soldiers. In consequence, the first days of the festival passed quietly, and on the fourth day, [2] on April 15, the troops were removed from the streets. [Footnote 1: On the term New Russia see p. 40, n. 3.] [Footnote 2: The Greek-Orthodox Passover lasts officially three days, but an additional day is celebrated by the populace.] At that moment the pogrom began. The organizers of the riots sent a drunken Russian into a saloon kept by a Jew, where he began to make himself obnoxious. When the saloon-keeper pushed the trouble maker out into the street, the crowd, which was waiting outside, began to shout: "The Zhyds are beating our people," and threw themselves upon the Jews who happened to pass by. This evidently was the prearranged signal for the pogrom. The Jewish stores in the market-place were attacked and demolished, and the goods looted or destroyed. At first, the police, assisted by the troops, managed somehow to disperse the rioters. But on the second day the pogrom was renewed with greater energy and better leadership, amidst the suspicious inactivity both of the military and police authorities. The following description of the events is taken from the records of the official investigation which were not meant for publication and are therefore free from the bureaucratic prevarications characteristic of Russian public documents: During the night from the 15th to the 16th of April, an attack was made upon Jewish houses, primarily upon liquor stores, on the outskirts of the town, on which occasion one Jew was killed. About seven o'clock in the morning, on April 16, the excesses were renewed, spreading with extraordinary violence all over the city. Clerks, saloon and hotel waiters, artisans, drivers, flunkeys, day laborers in the employ of the Government, and soldiers on furlough--all of these joined the movement. The city presented an extraordinary sight: streets covered with feathers and obstructed with broken furniture which had been thrown out of the residences; houses with broken doors and windows; a raging mob, running about yelling and whistling in all directions and continuing its work of destruction without let or hindrance, and, as a finishing touch to this picture, complete indifference displayed by the local non-Jewish inhabitants to the havoc wrought before their eyes. The troops which had been summoned to restore order were without definite instructions, and, at each attack of the mob on another house, would wait for orders of the military or police authorities, without knowing what to do. As a result of this attitude of the military, the turbulent mob, which was demolishing the houses and stores of the Jews before the eyes of the troops, without being checked by them, was bound to arrive at the conclusion that the excesses in which it indulged were not an illegal undertaking but rather a work which had the approval of the Government. Toward evening the disorders increased in intensity, owing to the arrival of a large number of peasants from the adjacent villages, who were anxious to secure part of the Jewish loot. There was no one to check these crowds; the troops and police were helpless. They had all lost heart, and were convinced that it was Impossible to suppress the disorders with the means at hand. At eight o'clock at night a rain came down accompanied by a cold wind which helped in a large measure to disperse the crowd. At eleven o'clock fresh troops arrived on the spot. On the morning of April 17 a new battalion of infantry came, and from that day on public order was no longer violated in Yelisavetgrad. The news of the "victory" so easily won over the Jews of Yelisavetgrad aroused the dormant pogrom energy in the unenlightened Russian masses. In the latter part of April riots took place in many villages of the Yelisavetgrad district and in several towns and townlets in the adjoining government of Kherson. In the villages, the work of destruction was limited to the inns kept by Jews--many peasants believing that they were acting in accordance with imperial orders. In the towns and townlets, all Jewish houses and stores were demolished and their goods looted. In the town of Ananyev, in the government of Kherson, the people were incited by a resident named Lashchenko, who assured his townsmen that the central Government had given orders to massacre the Jews because they had murdered the Tzar, and that these orders were purposely kept back by the local administration. The instigator was seized by the police, but was wrested from it by the crowd which thereupon threw itself upon the Jews. The riots resulted in some two hundred ruined houses and stores in the outskirts of the town, where the Jewish proletariat was cooped up. The central part of the town, where the more well-to-do Jews had their residences, was guarded by the police and by a military detachment, and therefore remained intact. 3. THE POGROM AT KIEV The movement gained constantly in momentum, and the instincts of the mob became more and more unbridled. The "Mother of Russian cities," ancient Kiev, where at the dawn of Russian history the Jews, together with the Khazars, had been the banner-bearers of civilization, became the scene of the lawless fury of savage hordes. Here the pogrom was carefully prepared by a secret organization which spread the rumor that the new Tzar had given orders to exterminate the Jews, who had murdered his father, and that the civil and military authorities would render assistance to the people, whilst those who would fail to comply with the will of the Tzar would meet with punishment. The local authorities, with Governor-General Drenteln at their head, who was a reactionary and a fierce Jew-hater, were aware not only of the imminence of the pogrom, but also of the day selected for it, Sunday, April 26. As early as April 23 a street fight took place which was accompanied by assaults on Jewish passers-by--a prelude to the pogrom. On the day before the fateful Sunday, the Jews were warned by the police not to leave their houses, nor to open their stores on the morrow. The Jews were nonplussed. They failed to understand why in the capital of the governor-general, with its numerous troops, which, at a hint from their commander, were able to nip in the bud disorders of any kind, peaceful citizens should be told to hide themselves from an impending attack, instead of taking measures to forestall the attack itself. Nevertheless, the advice of the police was heeded, and on the fateful day no Jews were to be found on the streets. This, however, did not prevent the numerous bands of rioters from assembling on the streets and embarking upon their criminal activities. The pogrom started in Podol, a part of the town densely populated by Jews. The following is the description of an eye-witness: At twelve o'clock at noon, the air saddenly resounded with, wild shouts, whistling, jeering, hooting, and laughing. An immense crowd of young boys, artisans, and laborers was on the march. The whole city was obstructed by the "bare-footed brigade." [1] The destruction of Jewish houses began. Window-panes, and doors began to fly about, and shortly thereafter the mob, having gained access to the houses and stores, began to throw upon the streets absolutely everything that fell into their hands. Clouds of feathers began to whirl in the air. The din of broken window-panes and frames, the crying, shouting, and despair on the one hand, and the terrible yelling and jeering on the other, completed the picture which reminded many of those who had participated in the last Russo-Turkish war of the manner in which the Bashi-buzuks [2] had attacked Bulgarian villages. Soon afterwards the mob threw itself upon the Jewish synagogue, which, despite its strong bars, locks and shutters, was wrecked in a moment. One should have seen the fury with which the riff-raff fell upon the [Torah] scrolls, of which there were many in the synagogue. The scrolls were torn to shreds, trampled in the dirt, and destroyed with incredible passion. The streets were soon crammed with the trophies of destruction. Everywhere fragments of dishes, furniture, household utensils, and other articles lay scattered about. Barely two hours after the beginning of the pogrom, the majority of the "bare-footed brigade" were transformed into well-dressed gentlemen, many of them having grown excessively stout in the meantime. The reason for this sudden change was simple enough. Those that had looted the stores of ready-made clothes put on three or four suits, and, not yet satisfied, took under their arms all they could lay their hands on. Others drove off in vehicles, carrying with them bags filled with loot.... The Christian population saved itself from the ruinous operations of the crowd by placing holy ikons in their windows and painting crosses on the gates of their houses. [Footnote 1: The Russian nickname for a crowd of tramps.] [Footnote 2: Name of the Turkish irregular troops noted for their ferocity.] While the pogrom was going on, troops were marching up and down on the streets of the Podol district, Cossaks were riding about on their horses, and patrols on foot and horse-back were moving to and fro. Here and there army officers would pass through, among them generals and high civil officials. The cavalry would hasten to a place whence the noise came. Having arrived there, it would surround the mob and order it to disperse, but the mob would only move to another place. Thus, the work of destruction proceeded undisturbed until three o'clock in the morning. Drums were beaten, words of command were shouted, the crowd was encircled by the troops and ordered to disperse, while the mob continued its attacks with ever-increasing fury and savagery. While some of the robber bands were "busy" in Podol, others were active in the principal thoroughfares of the city. In each case, the savage and drunken mob--"not a single sober person could be found among them," is the testimony of an eye-witness--did its hideous work in the presence of soldiers and policemen, who in a few instances drove off the rioters, but, more often, accompanied them from place to place, forming, as it were, an honorary escort. Occasionally, Governor-General Drenteln himself would appear on the streets, surrounded by a magnificent military suite, including the governor and chief of police. These representatives of State authority "admonished the people," and the latter, "preserving a funereal silence, drew back," only to resume their criminal task after the departure of the authorities. In some places there were neither troops nor police on the spot, and the rioters were able to give full vent to their beastly instincts. Demiovka, a suburb of Kiev, was invaded by a horde of rioters during the night. They first destroyed the saloons, filling themselves with alcohol, and then proceeded to lay fire to the Jewish houses. Under the cover of night indescribable horrors were perpetrated, numerous Jews were beaten to death or thrown into the flames, and many women were violated. A private investigation carried on subsequently brought out more than twenty cases of rape committed on Jewish girls and married women. Only two of the sufferers confessed their misfortune to the public prosecutor. The others admitted their disgrace in private or concealed it altogether, for fear of ruining their reputation. It was only on April 27--when the pogrom broke out afresh--that the authorities resolved to put a stop to it. Wherever a disorderly band made its appearance, it was immediately surrounded by soldiers and Cossaks and driven off with the butt ends of their rifles. Here and there it became necessary to shoot at these human beasts, and some of them were wounded or killed. The rapidity with which the pogrom was suppressed on the second day showed incontrovertibly that if the authorities had only been so minded the excesses might have been suppressed on the first day and the crime nipped in the bud. The indifference of the authorities was responsible for the demolition of about a thousand Jewish houses and business places, involving a monetary loss of several millions of rubles, not to speak of the scores of killed and wounded Jews and a goodly number of violated women. In the official reports these orgies of destruction were politely designated as "disorders," and _The Imperial Messenger_ limited its account of the horrors perpetrated at Kiev to the following truth-perverting dispatch: On April 26, disorders broke out in Kiev which were directed against the Jews. Several Jews received blows, and their stores and warehouses were plundered. On the morning of the following day the disorders were checked with the help of the troops, and five hundred men from among the rioters were arrested. The later laconic reports are nearer to the facts. They set the figure of arrested rioters at no less than fourteen hundred, and make mention of a number of persons who had been wounded during the suppression of the excesses, including one gymnazium and one university student. Yet even these later dispatches contain no reference to Jewish victims. 4. FURTHER OUTBREAKS IN SOUTH RUSSIA The barbarism displayed in the metropolis of the south-west communicated itself with the force of an infectious disease to the whole region. During the following days, from April to May, some fifty villages and a number of townlets in the government of Kiev and the adjacent governments of Volhynia and Podolia were swept by the pogrom epidemic. The Jewish population of the town of Smyela [1] and the surrounding villages, amounting to some ten thousand souls, experienced, on a smaller scale, all the horrors perpetrated at Kiev. It was not until the second day, May 4, that the troops proceeded to put an end to the violence and pillage which had been going on in the town and which resulted in a number of killed and wounded. In a near-by village a Jewish woman of thirty was attacked and tortured to death, while the seven year old son of another woman, who had saved herself by flight, was killed in beastly fashion for his refusal to make the sign of the cross. [Footnote 1: In the government of Kiev.] In many cases the pogroms had been instigated by the newly arrived Great-Russian "bare-footed brigade" who having accomplished their "work," vanished without a trace. A similar horde of tramps arrived at the railway station of Berdychev. But in this populous Jewish center they were met at the station by a large Jewish guard who, armed with clubs, did not allow the visiting "performers" to leave the railway cars, with the result that they had to turn back. This rare instance of self-defence was only made possible by the indulgence of the local police commissioner, or _Ispravnik_, who, for a large consideration, blinked at the endeavor of the Jews to defend themselves against the rioters. In other places, similar attempts at self-defence were frustrated by the police; occasionally they made things worse. Such was the case in the town of Konotop, in the government of Chernigov, where, as a result of the self-defence of the Jews, the mob passed from plunder to murder. In the villages the ignorant peasants scrupulously discharged their "pogrom duty," in the conviction that it had been imposed upon them by the Tzar. In one village in the government of Chernigov, the following characteristic episode took place. The peasants of the village had assembled for their work of destruction. When the rural chief, or Elder, [1] called upon the peasants to disperse, the latter demanded a written guarantee that they would not be held to account for their failure to comply with the imperial "orders" to beat the Jews. This guarantee was given to them. However, the sceptical rustics were not yet convinced, and, to make assurance doubly sure, destroyed six Jewish houses. In various villages the priests found it exceedingly difficult to convince the peasants that no "order" had been issued to attack the Jews. [Footnote 1: The president of the village assembly.] The series of spring pogroms was capped by a three days' riot in the capital of the South, in Odessa (May 3-5), which harbored a Jewish population of 100,000. In view of the immense riff-raff, which is generally found in a port of entry of this size, the excesses of the mob might have assumed terrifying dimensions, had not the authorities remembered that the task entrusted to them was not exactly that of forming an honorary escort for the rioters, as had actually been the case in Kiev. The police and military forces of Odessa attacked the rioting hordes which had spread all over the city, and, in most cases, succeeded in driving them off. The Jewish self-defence, organized and led by Jewish students of the University of Odessa, managed in a number of cases to beat off the bloodthirsty crowds from the gates of Jewish homes. However, when the police began to make arrests among the street mob, they drew no line between the defenders and the assailants, with the result that among the eight hundred arrested persons there were one hundred and fifty Jews, who were locked up on the charge of carrying fire-arms. In point of fact, the "arms" of the Jews consisted of clubs and iron rods, with the exception of a very few who were provided with pistols. Those arrested were loaded on three barges which were towed out to sea, and for several days were kept in that swimming jail. The Odessa pogrom, which had resulted in the destruction of several city districts populated by poor Jews, did not satisfy the appetites of the savage crowd, whose imagination had been fired by stories of the "successes" attained at Kiev. The mob threatened the Jews with a new riot and even with a massacre. The panic resulting from this threat induced many Jews to flee to more peaceful places, or to leave Russia altogether. The same lack of completeness marked the pogroms which took place simultaneously in several other cities within the jurisdiction of the governor-general of New Russia. In the beginning of May the destructive energy characterizing the first pogrom period began to ebb. A lull ensued in the "military operations" of the Russian barbarians which continued until the month of July of the same year. CHAPTER XXII THE ANTI-JEWISH POLICIES OF IGNATYEV 1. THE VACILLATING ATTITUDE OF THE AUTHORITIES In the beginning of May, 1881, the well-known diplomatist Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatyev was called by the Tzar to the post of Minister of the Interior. At one time ambassador in Constantinople and at all times a militant Pan-Slavist, Ignatyev introduced the system of diplomatic intrigues into the inner politics of Russia, earning thereby the unenviable nickname of "Father of Lies." A programmatic circular, issued by him on May 6, declared that the principal task of the Government consisted in the "extirpation of sedition," i.e., in carrying on a struggle not only against the revolutionary movement but also against the spirit of liberalism in general. In this connection, Ignatyev took occasion to characterize the anti-Jewish excesses in the following typical sentences: The movement against the Jews which has come to light during the last few days in the South is a sad example, showing how men, otherwise devoted to Throne and Fatherland, yet yielding to the instigations of ill-minded agitators who fan the evil passions of the popular masses, give way to self-will and mob rule and, without being aware of it, act in accordance with the designs of the anarchists. Such violation of the public order must not only be put down vigorously, but must also be carefully forestalled, for it is the first duty of the Government to safeguard the population against all violence and savage mob rule. These lines reflect the theory concerning the origin of the pogroms, which was originally held in the highest Government spheres of St. Petersburg. This theory assumed that the anti-Jewish campaign had been entirely engineered by revolutionary agitators and that the latter had made deliberate endeavors to focus the resentment of the popular masses upon the Jews, as a pre-eminently mercantile class, for the purpose of subsequently widening the anti-Jewish campaign into a movement directed against the Russian mercantile class, land-owners and capitalists in general. [1] Be this as it may, there can be no question that the Government was actually afraid lest the revolutionary propaganda attach itself to the agitation of those "devoted to Throne and Fatherland" for the purpose of giving the movement a more general scope, "in accordance with the d signs of the anarchists." As a matter of fact, even outside of Government circles, the apprehension was voiced that the anti-Jewish movement would of itself, without any external stimulus, assume the form of a mob movement, directed not only against the well-to-do classes but also against the Government officials. On May 4, 1881, Baron Horace Guenzburg, a leading representative of the Jewish community of St. Petersburg, waited upon Grand Duke Vladimir, a brother of the Tzar, who expressed the opinion that the anti-Jewish "disorders, as has now been ascertained by the Government, are not to be exclusively traced to the resentment against the Jews, but are rather due to the endeavor to disturb the peace in general." [Footnote 1: John W. Poster, United States Minister to Russia, in reporting to the Secretary of State, on May 24, 1881, about the recent excesses, which "are more worthy of the dark ages than of the present century," makes a similar observation: "It is asserted also that the Nihilist societies have profited by the situation to incite and encourage the peasants and lower classes of the towns and cities in order to increase the embarrassments of the Government, but the charge is probably conjectural and not based on very tangible facts." See _House of Representatives, 51st Congress, 1st Session. Executive Document No. 470, p. 53_] A week after this visit, the deputies of Russian Jewry had occasion to hear the same opinion expressed by the Tzar himself. The Jewish deputation, consisting of Baron Guenzburg, the banker Sack, the lawyers Passover and Bank, and the learned Hebraist Berlin, was awaiting this audience with, considerable trepidation, anticipating an authoritative imperial verdict regarding the catastrophe that had befallen the Jews. On May 11, the audience took place in the palace at Gatchina. Baron Guenzburg voiced the sentiments of "boundless gratitude for the measures adopted to safeguard the Jewish population at this sad moment," and added: "One more imperial word, and the disturbances will disappear." In reply to the euphemistic utterances concerning "the measures adopted," the Tzar stated in the same tone that all Russian subjects were equal before him, and expressed the assurance "that in the criminal disorders in the South of Russia the Jews merely serve as a pretext, and that it is the work of anarchists." This pacifying portion of the Tzar's answer was published in the press. What the public was not allowed to learn was the other portion of the answer, in which the Tzar gave utterance to the view that the source of the hatred against the Jews lay in their economic "domination" and "exploitation" of the Russian population. In reply to the arguments of the talented lawyer Passover and the other deputies, the Tzar declared: "State all this in a special memorandum." Such a memorandum was subsequently prepared. But it was not submitted to the Tzar. For only a few months later the official attitude towards the Jewish question took a turn for the worse. The Government decided to abandon its former view on the Jewish pogroms and to adopt, instead, the theory of Jewish "exploitation," using it as a means of justifying not only the pogroms which had already been perpetrated upon the Jews but also the repressive measures which were being contemplated against them. Under these circumstances, Ignatyev did not see his way clear to allow the memorandum in defence of Jewry to receive the attention of the Tzar. It is not impossible that the pacifying portion of the imperial reply which had been given at the audience of May 11 was also prompted by the desire to appease the public opinion of Western Europe, for at that time European opinion still carried some weight with the bureaucratic circles of Russia. Several days before the audience at Gatchina, [1] the English Parliament discussed the question of Jewish persecutions in Russia. In the House of Commons the Jewish members, Baron Henry de Worms and Sir H.D. Wolff, calling attention to the case of an English Jew who had been expelled from St. Petersburg, interpellated the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir Charles Dilke, "whether Her Majesty's Government have made any representations to the Government at St. Petersburg, with regard to the atrocious outrages committed on the Jewish population in Southern Russia," Dilke replied that the English Government was not sure whether such a protest "would be likely to be efficacious." [2] [Footnote 1: On May 16 and 19=May 4 and 7, according to the Russian Calendar.] [Footnote 2: The Russian original has been amended in a few places in accordance with the report of the parliamentary proceedings published in the _Jewish Chronicle_ of May 20, 1881.] A similar reply was given by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Granville, to a joint deputation of the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Board of Deputies, two leading Anglo-Jewish bodies, which waited upon him on May 13, [1] two days after the Gatchina audience. After expressing his warm sympathy with the objects of the deputation, the Secretary pointed out the inexpediency of any interference on the part of England at a moment when the Russian Government itself was adopting measures against the pogroms, referring to "the cordial reception lately given by the emperor to a deputation of Jews" [Footnote 1: May 25, according to the European Calendar. From the issue of the _Jewish Chronicle_ of May 27, 1881, p. 12b, it would appear that the deputation was received on Tuesday, May 24.] Subsequent events soon made it clear that the Government, represented by Ignatyev, was far from harboring any sympathy for the victims of the pogroms. The public did not fail to notice the fact that the Russian Government, which was in the habit of rendering financial help to the population in the case of elemental catastrophes, such as conflagrations or inundations, had refrained from granting the slightest monetary assistance to the Jewish sufferers from the pogroms. Apart from its material usefulness, such assistance would have had an enormous moral effect, inasmuch as it would have stood forth in the public eye as an official condemnation of the violent acts perpetrated against the Jews--particularly if the Tzar himself had made a large donation for that purpose, as he was wont to do in other cases of this kind. As it was, the authorities not only neglected to take such a step, but they even went so far as to forbid the Jews of St. Petersburg to start a public collection for the relief of the pogrom victims. Nay, the governor-general of Odessa refused to accept a large sum of money offered to him by well-to-do Jews for the benefit of the sufferers. Nor was this the worst. The local authorities did everything in their power to manifest their solidarity with the enemies of Judaism. The street pogroms were followed by administrative pogroms _sui generis_. Already in the month of May, the police of Kiev began to track all the Jews residing "illegally" in that city [1] and to expel these "criminals" by the thousands. Similar wholesale expulsions took place in Moscow, Oryol, and other places outside the Pale of Settlement. These persecutions constituted evidently an object-lesson in religious toleration, and the Russian masses which had but recently shown to what extent they respected the inviolability of Jewish life and property took the lesson to heart. [Footnote 1: It will be remembered that the right of residence in Kiev was restricted in the case of the Jews to a few categories: first-guild merchants, graduates from institutions of higher learning, and artisans.] One hope was still left to the Jews. The law courts, at least, being the organs of the public conscience of Russia, were bound to condemn severely the sinister pogrom heroes. But this hope, too, proved illusory. In the majority of cases the judges treated act of open pillage and of violence committed against life and limb as petty street brawls, as "disturbances of the public peace," and imposed upon their perpetrators ridiculously slight penalties, such as three months' imprisonment--penalties, moreover, which were simultaneously inflicted upon the Jews who, as in the case of Odessa, had resorted to self-defence. When the terrible Kiev pogrom was tried in the local Military Circuit Court, the public prosecutor Strelnikov, a well-known reactionary who subsequently met his fate at the hands of the revolutionaries, delivered himself on May 18 of a speech which was rather an indictment against the Jews than against the rioters. He argued that these disorders had been called forth entirely by the "exploitation of the Jews," who had seized the principal economic positions in the province, and he conducted his cross-examination of the Jewish witnesses in the same hostile spirit. When one of the witnesses retorted that the aggravation of the economic struggle was due to the artificial congestion of the Jews in the pent-up Pale of Settlement, the prosecutor shouted: "If the Eastern frontier is closed to the Jews, the Western frontier is open to them; why don't they take advantage of it?" This summons to leave the country, doubly revolting in the mouth of a guardian of the law, addressed to those who under the influence of the pogrom panic had already made up their minds to flee from the land of slavery, produced a staggering effect upon the Jewish public. The last ray of hope, the hope for legal justice, vanished. The courts of law had become a weapon in the hands of the anti-Jewish leaders. 2. THE POGROM PANIC AND THE BEGINNING OF THE EXODUS The feeling of safety, which had been restored by the published portion of the imperial reply at the audience of May 11, was rapidly evaporating. The Jews were again filled with alarm, while the instigators of the pogroms took courage and decided that the time had arrived to finish their interrupted street performance. The early days of July marked the inauguration of the second series of riots, the so-called summer pogroms. The new conflagration started in the city of Pereyaslav, in the government of Poltava, which had not yet discarded its anti-Jewish Cossack traditions. [1] Pereyaslav at that time harbored many fugitives from Kiev, who had escaped from the spring pogroms in that city. The increase in the Jewish population of Pereyaslav was evidently displeasing to the local Christian inhabitants. Four hundred and twenty Christian burghers of Pereyaslav, avowed believers in the Gospels which enjoin Christians to love those that suffer, passed a resolution calling for the expulsion of the Jews from their city, and, in anticipation of this legalized violence, they decided to teach the Jews a "lesson" on their own responsibility. On June 30 and July 1, Pereyaslav was the scene of a pogrom, marked by all the paraphernalia of the Russian ritual, though unaccompanied this time by human sacrifices. The epilogue to the pogrom was marked by an originality of its own. A committee consisting of representatives of the municipal administration, four Christians and three Jews, was appointed to inquire into the causes of the disorders. This committee was presented by the local Christian burghers with a set of demands, some of which were in substance as follows: [Footnote 1: Comp. Vol. I, p. 145.] That the Jewish aldermen of the Town Council, as well as the Jewish members of the other municipal bodies, shall voluntarily resign from these honorary posts, "as men deprived of civic honesty" [1]; that the Jewish women shall not dress themselves in silk, velvet, and gold; that the Jews shall refrain from keeping Christian domestics, who are "corrupted" in the Jewish homes religiously and morally; that all Jewish strangers, who have sought refuge in Pereyaslav, shall be immediately banished; that the Jews shall be forbidden to buy provisions in the surrounding villages for reselling them; also, to carry on business on Sundays and Russian festivals, to keep saloons, and so on. [Footnote 1: This insolent demand of the unenlightened Russian burghers met with the following dignified rebuttal from the Jewish office-holders: "What bitter mockery! The Jews are accused of a lack of honesty by the representatives of those very people who, with clubs and hatchets in their hands, fell in murderous hordes upon their peaceful neighbors and plundered their property." The replies to the other demands of the burghers were coached in similar terms.] Thus, in addition to being ruined, the Jews were presented with an ultimatum, implying the threat of further "military operations." As in previous cases, the example of the city of Pereysslav was followed by the townlets and villages in the surrounding region. The unruliness of the crowd, which had been trained to destroy and plunder with impunity, knew no bounds. In the neighboring town of Borispol a crowd of rioters, stimulated by alcohol, threatened to pass from pillage to murder. When checked by the police and Cossacks, they threw themselves with fury upon these untoward defenders of the Jewish population, and began to maltreat them, until a few rifle shots put them to flight. The same was the case in Nyezhin, [1] where a pogrom was enacted on July 20 and 22. After several vain attempts to stop the riots, the military was forced to shoot at the infuriated crowd, killing and wounding some of them. This was followed by the cry: "Christian blood is flowing--beat the Jews!"--and the pogrom was renewed with redoubled vigor. It was stopped only on the third day. [Footnote 1: In the government of Chernigov.] The energy of the July pogroms had evidently spent itself in these last ferocious attempts. The murderous hordes realized that the police and military were fully in earnest, and this was enough to sober them from their pogrom intoxication. Towards the end of July, the epidemic of vandalism came to a stop, though it was followed in many cities by a large number of conflagrations. The cowardly rioters, deprived of the opportunity of plundering the Jews with impunity, began to set fire to Jewish neighborhoods. This was particularly the case in the north-western provinces, in Lithuania and White Russia, where the authorities had from the very beginning set their faces firmly against all organized violence. The series of pogroms perpetrated during the spring and summer of that year had inflicted its sufferings on more than one hundred localities populated by Jews, primarily in the South of Russia. Yet the misery engendered by the panic, by the horrible apprehension of unbridled violence, was far more extensive, for the entire Jewish population of Russia proved its victim. Just as in the bygone Middle Ages whenever Jewish suffering had reached a sad climax, so now too the persecuted nation found itself face to face with the problem of emigration. And as if history had been anxious to link up the end of the nineteenth century with that of the fifteenth, the Jewish afflictions in Russia found an echo in that very country, which in 1492 had herself banished the Jews from her borders: the Spanish Government announced its readiness to receive and shelter the fugitives from Russia. Ancient Catholic Spain held forth a welcoming hand to the victims of modern Greek-Orthodox Spain. However, the Spanish offer was immediately recognized as having but little practical value. In the forefront of Jewish interest stood the question as to the land toward which the emigration movement should be directed: toward the United States of America, which held out the prospect of bread and liberty, or toward Palestine, which offered a shelter to the wounded national soul. While the Jewish writers were busy debating the question, life itself decided the direction of the emigration movement. Nearly all fugitives from the South of Russia had left for America by way of the Western European centers. The movement proceeded with elemental force, and entirely unorganized, with the result that in the autumn of that year some ten thousand destitute Jewish wanderers found themselves huddled together at the first halting-place, the city of Brody, which is situated on the Russo-Austrian frontier. They had been attracted hither by the rumor that the agents of the French _Alliance Israelite Universette_ would supply them with the necessary means for continuing their journey across the Atlantic. The central committee of the _Alliance_, caught unprepared for such a huge emigration, was at its wit's end. It sent out appeals, warning the Jews against wholesale emigration to America by way of Brody, but it was powerless to stem the tide. When the representatives of the French _Alliance_, the well-known Charles Netter and others, arrived in Brody, they beheld a terrible spectacle. The streets of the city were filled with thousands of Jews and Jewesses, who were exhausted from material want, with hungry children in their arms. "From early morning until late at night, the French delegates were surrounded by a crowd clamoring for help. Their way was obstructed by mothers who threw their little ones under their feet, begging to rescue them from starvation." The delegates did all they could, but the number of fugitives was constantly swelling, while the process of dispatching them to America went on at a snail's pace. The exodus of the Jews from Russia was due not only to the pogroms and the panic resulting from them, but also to the new blows which were falling upon them from all sides, dealt out by the liberal hand of Ignatyev. 3. THE GUBERNATORIAL COMMISSIONS After wavering for some time, the anti-Semitic Government of Ignatyev finally made up its mind as to the attitude it was henceforth to adopt towards the Jewish problem. Taken aback at the beginning of the pogrom movement, the leading spheres of Russia were first inclined to ascribe it to the effects of the revolutionary propaganda, but they afterwards came to the conclusion that, in the interest of the reactionary policies pursued by them and as a means of justifying the disgraceful anti-Jewish excesses before the eyes of Europe, it was more convenient to throw the blame upon the Jews themselves. With this end in view, a new theory was put forward by the Russian Government, the quasi-economic doctrine of "the exploitation of the original population by the Jews." This doctrine consisted of two parts, which, properly speaking, were mutually exclusive: _First_, the Jews, as a pre-eminently mercantile class, engage in "unproductive" labor, and thereby "exploit" the productive classes of the Christian population, the peasantry in particular. _Second_, the Jews, having "captured" commerce and industry--here the large participation of the Jews in industrial life, represented by handicrafts and manufactures, is tacitly admitted--compete with the Christian urban estates, in other words, interfere with them in their own "exploitation" of the population. The first part of this strange theory is based upon, primitive economic notions, such as are in vogue during periods of transition, when natural economic production gives way to capitalism, and when all complicated forms of mediation are regarded as unproductive and harmful. The thought expressed in the second part of the thesis is implied in the make-up of a police state, which looks upon the occupation of certain economic positions by a given national group as an illegitimate "capture" and regards it as its function to check this competition for the sole purpose of insuring the success of the dominant nationality. The Russian Government was disturbed neither by the primitive character of this theory nor by the resort to brutal police force implied in it--the idea of supporting the "exploitation" practised by the Russians at the expense of that carried on by the Jews; nor was it abashed by its inner logical contradictions. What the Government needed was some means whereby it could throw off the responsibility for the pogroms and prove to the world that they were a "popular judgment," the vengeance wreaked upon the Jews either by the peasants, the victims of exploitation, or by the Russian burghers, the unsuccessful candidates for the role of exploiters. This point of view was reflected in the report of Count Kutaysov, who had been sent by the Tzar to South Russia to inquire into the causes of the "disorders." [1] [Footnote 1: It may be added that Kutaysov recognized that the Russian masses were equally the victims of the commercial exploitation of the Russian "bosses," but was at a loss to find a reason for the pogroms perpetrated in the Jewish agricultural colonies, i.e., against those who, according to this theory, were themselves the victims of exploitation.] Ignatyev seized upon this flimsy theory, and embodied it in a more elaborate form in his report to the Tzar of August 22. In this report he endeavored to prove the futility of the policy hitherto pursued by the Russian Government which "for the last twenty years [during the reign of Alexander II.] had made efforts to bring about the fusion of the Jews with the remaining population and had nearly equalized the rights of the Jews with those of the original inhabitants." In the opinion of the Minister, the recent pogroms had shown that "the injurious influence" of the Jews could not be suppressed by such liberal measures. The principal source of this movement [the pogroms], which is so incompatible with the temper of the Russian people, lies--according to Ignatyev--in circumstances which are of an exclusively economic nature. For the last twenty years the Jews have gradually managed to capture not only commerce and industry but they have also succeeded in acquiring, by means of purchase and lease, a large amount of landed property. Owing to their clannishness and solidarity, they have, with few exceptions, directed their efforts not towards the increase of the productive forces [of the country] but towards the exploitation of the original inhabitants, primarily of the poorest classes of the population, with the result that they have called forth a protest from this population, manifesting itself in deplorable forms--In violence.... Having taken energetic means to suppress the previous disorders and mob rule and to shield the Jews against violence, the Government recognizes that it is justified in adopting, without delay, no less energetic measures to remove the present abnormal relations that exist between the original inhabitants and the Jews, and to shield the Russian population against this harmful Jewish activity, which, according to local information, was responsible for the disturbances. Alexander III. hastened to express his agreement with these views of his Minister, who assured him that the Government had taken "energetic measures" to suppress the pogroms--which was only true in two or three recent cases. At the same time he authorized Ignatyev to adopt "energetic measures" of genuine Russian manufacture against those who had but recently been ruined by these pogroms. The imperial ukase published on August 22, 1831, dwells on "the abnormal relations subsisting between the original population of several governments and the Jews." To meet this situation it provides that in those governments which harbor a considerable Jewish population special commissions should be appointed consisting of representatives of the local estates and communes, to be presided over by the governors. These commissions were charged with the task of finding out "which aspects of the economic activity of the Jews in general have exerted _an injurious influence_ upon the life of the original population, and what measures, both legislative and administrative, should be adopted" for the purpose of weakening that influence. In this way, the ukase, in calling for the appointment of the commissions, indicated at once the goal towards which their activity was to be directed: to determine the "injurious influence" of the Jews upon Russian economic life. The same thought was expressed even more directly by Ignatyev, who in his circular to the governors-general, dated August 25, reproduced his report to the Tzar, and firmly established the dogma of "the harmful consequences of the economic activity of the Jews for the Christian population, their racial separatism, and religious fanaticism." We are thus made the witnesses of a singular spectacle: the ruined and plundered Jewish population, which had a right to impeach the Government for having failed, to protect it from violence, was itself put on trial. The judges in this legal action were none other than the agents of the ruling powers--the governors, some of whom had been guilty of connivance at the pogroms--on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the representatives of the Christian estates, urban and rural, who were mostly the appointees of these governors. In addition, every commission was allotted two Jewish representatives, who were to act in the capacity of experts but without voting power; they were placed in the position of defendants, and were made to listen to continuous accusations against the Jews, which the; were constantly forced to deny. Altogether there were sixteen such commissions: one in each of the fifteen governments of the Pale of Settlement--exclusive of the Kingdom of Poland--and one in the government of Kharkov. The commissions were granted a term of two months within which to complete their labors and present the results to the Minister. The sessions of all these "gubernatorial commissions" [1] took place simultaneously during the months of September and October. [Footnote 1: In Russian, _Gubernskiya Kommissit_, literally, "Government Commissions," using "Government" in the sense of "Province."] The prisoner at the bar was the Jewish people which was tried on the charges contained in the official bill of indictment--the imperial ukase as supplemented and interpreted in the ministerial circular. A well-informed contemporary gives the following description of these sessions in an official memorandum: The first session of each commission began with the reading of the ministerial circular of August 25. The reading invariably produced a strong effect in two different directions: on the members from among the peasantry and on those from among the Jews. The former became convinced of the hostile attitude of the Government towards the Jewish population and of their leniency towards the instigators of the disorders, which, according to an assertion made in Ignatyev's circular, were due exclusively to the Jewish exploitation of the original inhabitants. Needless to say, the peasants did not fail to communicate this conviction, which was strengthened at the subsequent sessions by the failure to put any restraint upon the wholesale attacks on the Jews on the part of the anti-Semitic members, to their rural communes. As for the Jewish members (of the commissions), the effect of the ministerial circular upon them was staggering. In their own persons they beheld the three millions of Russian Jewry placed at the prisoner's bar: one section of the population put on trial before another. And who were the judges? Not the representatives of the people, duly elected by all the estates of the population, such as the rural assemblies, but the agents of the administration, bureaucratic office-holders, who were more or less subordinate to the Government. The court proceedings themselves were carried on in secret, without a sufficient number of counsel for the defendants who in reality were convicted beforehand. The attitude adopted by the presiding governors, the speeches delivered by the anti-Semitic members, who were In an overwhelming majority, and characterized by attacks, derisive remarks, and subtle affronts, subjected the Jewish members to moral torture and made them lose all hope that they could be of any assistance in attempting a dispassionate, impartial, and comprehensive consideration of the question. In the majority of the commissions, their voice was suppressed and silenced. In these circumstances the Jewish members were forced, as a last resort, to defend the interests of their coreligionists in writing, by submitting memoranda and separate opinions. However, the instances were rare in which these memoranda and protests were dignified by being read during the sessions. This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that the commissions brought in their "verdicts" in the spirit of the indictment framed by the authorities. The anti-Semitic officials exhibited their "learning" in ignorant criticisms of the "spirit of Judaism," of the Talmud and the national separatism of the Jews, and they proposed to extirpate all these influences by means of cultural repression, such as the destruction of the autonomy of the Jewish communities, the closing up of all special Jewish schools, and the placing of all phases of the inner life of the Jews under Government control. The representatives of the Russian burghers and peasants, many of whom had but recently co-operated or, at least, sympathized with the perpetrators of the pogroms, endeavored to prove the economic "injuriousness" of the Jews, and demanded that they should be restricted in their urban and rural pursuits, as well as in their right of residence outside the cities. Notwithstanding the prevailing spirit, five commissions voiced the opinion, which, from the point of view of the Russian Government, seemed rank heresy, that it was necessary to grant the Jews the right of domicile all over the empire so as to relieve the excessive congestion of the Jewish population in the Pale of Settlement. 4. THE SPREAD OF ANTI-SEMITISM While the gubernatorial commissions--gubernatorial in the literal sense of the word, because entirely dominated by the governors--were holding their sessions, the satraps-in-chief of the Pale of Settlement, the governors-general, were busy sending their expressions of opinion to St. Petersburg. The governor-general of Kiev, Drenteln, who himself was liable to prosecution for allowing a two days' pogrom in his own residential city, condemned the entire Jewish people in emphatic terms, and demanded the adoption of measures calculated "to shield the Christian population against so arrogant a tribe as the Jews, who refuse on religions grounds to have close contact with the Christians." It was necessary, in his opinion, to resort to legal repression in order to counteract "the intellectual superiority of the Jews," which enables them to emerge victorious in the straggle for existence. Similar condemnations of Judaism came from the governors-general of Odessa, Vilna, and Kharkov, although they disagreed as to the dimensions which this repression should assume. Totleben, the master of the Vilna province, who had refused to countenance the perpetration of pogroms in Lithuania, nevertheless agreed that the Jews should henceforth be forbidden to settle in the villages, though he was generous enough to add that he found it somewhat inconvenient "to rob the whole Jewish nation of the possibility of earning a livelihood by its labor." The impression prevailed that militant Judaeophobia was determined to deprive the Jews even of the right of securing a piece of bread. The Government was well aware beforehand that the labors of the gubernatorial commissions would yield results satisfactory to it. It, therefore, found it unnecessary to wait for their reports and resolutions, and proceeded to establish in St. Petersburg, on October 19, "a Central Committee for the Revision of the Jewish Question." The committee was attached to the Ministry of the Interior, and consisted of several officials, under the chairmanship of Assistant-Minister Gotovtzev. The officials were soon busy framing "temporary measures" in the spirit of their patron Ignatyev, and, as the resolutions of the gubernatorial commissions were coming in, they were endeavoring to strengthen the foundations for the projected enactment. In January, 1882, the machinery for the manufacture of Jewish disabilities was in full swing. This organized campaign of the enemies of Judaism, who were preparing administrative pogroms as a sequel to the street pogroms, met with no organized resistance on the part of Russian Jewry. The small conference of Jewish notables in St. Petersburg, which met in September in secret session, presented a sorry spectacle. The guests from the provinces, who had been invited by Baron Guenzburg, engaged in discussions about the problem of emigration, the struggle with the anti-Semitic press, and similar questions. After being presented to Ignatyev, who assured them in diplomatic fashion of the "benevolent intentions of the Government," they returned to their homes, without having achieved anything. The only social factor in Jewish life was the press, particularly the three periodicals published in Russian, the _Razsvyet_ ("the Dawn"), the _Russki Yevrey_ ("the Russian Jew"), and the _Voskhod_ ("the Sunrise"), [1] but even they revealed the lack of a well-defined policy. [Footnote 1: See on these papers, p. 219 et seq.] The political movements in Russian Jewry were yet in an embryonic stage, and their rise and development were reserved for a later period. True, the Russian-Jewish press applied itself assiduously to the task of defending the rights of the Jews, but its voice remained unheard in those circles of Russia in which the poisonous waters of Judaeophobia gushed forth in a broad current from the columns of the semi-official _Novoye Vremya_, the pan-Slavic _Russ_, and many of their anti-Semitic contemporaries. While the summer pogroms were in full swing, the _Novoye Vremya_, reflecting the views of the official spheres, seriously formulated the Jewish question in the paraphrase of Hamlet: "to beat or not to beat." Its conclusion was that it was necessary to "beat" the Jews, but, in view of the fact that Russia was a monarchical state with conservative tendencies, this function ought not to be discharged by the people but by the Government, which by its method of legal repression could beat the Jews much more effectively than the crowds on the streets. The editor of the Moscow newspaper _Russ_, Ivan Aksakov, [1] attacked the Russian liberal press for expressing its sympathy with the Jewish pogrom victims, contending that the Russian people demolished the Jewish houses under the effect of a "righteous indignation," though he failed to explain why that indignation also took the form of plundering and stealing Jewish property, or violating Jewish women. Throwing into one heap the arguments of the medieval Church and those of modern German anti-Semitism, Aksakov maintained that Judaism was opposed to "Christian civilization," and that the Jewish people were striving for "world domination" which they hoped to attain through their financial power. [Footnote 1: Compare above, p. 208.] The bacillus of German anti-Semitism had penetrated even into the circles of the Russian radical _intelligenzia_. Among the "Populists," [1] who were wont to idealize the Russian peasantry, it became the fashion to look upon the Jew as an economic exploiter, with this distinction, however, that they bracketed him with the host of Russian exploiters from among the bourgeois class. This resulted in a most unfortunate misunderstanding. A faction of South Russian revolutionaries from among the party known as "The People's Freedom" [2] conceived the idea that the same peasants and laborers who had attacked the Jews as the representatives of the non-Russian bourgeoisie might easily be directed against the representatives of the ruling classes in general. During the spring and summer pogroms, several attempts were made by mysterious persons, through written appeals and oral propaganda, to turn the pogrom movement also against the Russian nobles and officials. [3] Towards the end of August, 1881, the Executive Committee of "The People's Freedom" issued an appeal in which it voiced the thought that the Tzar had enslaved the free Ukrainian people and had distributed the lands rightfully belonging to the peasants among the pans [4] and officials, who extended their protection to the Jews and shared the profits with them. Therefore, the people should march against the Jews, the landlords, and the Tzar. "Assist us, therefore," the appeal continues, "arise, laborers, avenge yourselves on the landlords, plunder the Jews, and slay the officials!" [Footnote 1: See above, p. 222.] [Footnote 2: In Russian, _Narodnaya Vola_. It was organized in 1879, and was responsible for the assassination of Alexander II.] [Footnote 3: These endeavors were evidently the reason why the Russian Government was originally inclined to ascribe the anti-Jewish movement to revolutionary tactics.] [Footnote 4: The Polish noble landowners. See Vol. I, p. 93, n. 2.] True, the appeal was the work of only a part of the Revolutionary Executive Committee, which at that time had its headquarters in Moscow. It failed to obtain the approval of the other members of the Committee and of the party as a whole, and, being a document that might compromise the revolutionary movement, was withdrawn and destroyed after a number of copies had been circulated. Nevertheless, the champions of "The People's Freedom" continued for some time to justify theoretically the utilization of the anti-Jewish movement for the aims of the general social revolution. Only at a later stage did this section of the revolutionary party realize that these tactics were not only mistaken but also criminal. For events soon made it clear that the anti-Jewish movement served as an unfailing device in the hands of the black reactionaries to divert the popular wrath from the source of all evil--the rule of despotism--and direct it towards the most unfortunate victims of that despotism. 5. THE POGROM AT WARSAW When the July pogroms were over, it seemed as if the pogrom epidemic had died out, and no one expected that it would soon break out afresh. The greater was the surprise when, in December, 1881, the news spread that a pogrom, lasting three days, had taken, place in the capital of the Kingdom of Poland, in Warsaw. Least of all was this pogrom expected in Warsaw itself, where the relations between the Poles and the Jews were not yet marked by the animosity they assumed subsequently. But the organizers of the pogrom who received their orders from above managed to adapt themselves to local conditions, and the unexpected came to pass. On the Catholic Christmas day, when the Church of the Holy Cross in the center of the town was crowded with worshippers, somebody suddenly shouted "Fire!" The people rushed to the doors, and in the terrible panic that ensued twenty-nine persons were crushed to death, and many others were maimed. The alarm proved a false one. There was no trace of a fire in the church, and nobody doubted but that the alarm had been given by pick-pockets--there were a goodly number of them in Warsaw--who had resorted to this well-known trick to rob the public during the panic. But right there, among the crowd which was assembled in front of the church, gazing in horror at the bodies of the victims, some unknown persons spread the rumor--which, it may be parenthetically remarked, proved subsequently unfounded--that two Jewish pickpockets had been caught in the church. At that moment whistles were suddenly heard--nobody knew whence they came--which served as the signal for a pogrom. The street mob began to assault the Jews who happened to pass by, and then started, according to the established procedure, to attack the Jewish stores, saloons, and residences in the streets adjoining the church. The hordes were under the command of thieves, well known to the police, and of some unknown strangers who from time to time gave signals by whistling, and directed the mob into this or that street. As in all other cases in which the danger did not threaten the authorities directly, there were but few policemen and soldiers on hand--which circumstance stimulated the rioters in their further activity. On the following day the rioters were "busy" on many other streets, both in the center of the town and in its outskirts, except for the streets which were densely populated by Jews, where they were afraid of meeting with serious resistance. [1] [Footnote 1: In some places the Jews defended themselves energetically, and in the ensuing fight there were wounded on both sides.] The police and the troops arrested many rioters, and carried them off to the police stations. But for some unknown reason they did not summon enough courage to disperse the crowd, so that the mob frequently engaged in its criminal work in the very presence of the guardians of public safety. In accordance with the well-known pogrom routine, the authorities remembered only on the third day that it was time to suppress the riots, the "lesson" being over. On December 15, the governor-general of Warsaw, Albedinski, issued an order dividing the town into four districts and placing every district under the command of a regimental chief. Troops were stationed in the streets and ordered to check all crowds, with the result that on the same day the disorders were stopped. This, however, came too late. For in the meantime some fifteen hundred Jewish residences, business places, and houses of prayer had been demolished and pillaged, and twenty-four Jews had been wounded, while the monetary loss amounted to several million rubles. Over three thousand rioters were arrested--among them a large number of under-aged youths. On the whole, the rioters were recruited from the dregs of the Polish population, but there were also found among them a number of unknown persons that spoke Russian. The _Novoye Vremya_, in commenting upon the pogrom, made special reference to the friendly attitude of the Polish hooligans to the Russians in general and to the officers and soldiers in particular--a rather suspicious attitude, considering the inveterate hatred of the Poles towards the Russians, especially towards the military and official class. Here and there the soldiers themselves got drunk in the demolished saloons, and took part in looting Jewish property. The Polish patriots from among the higher classes were shocked by this attempt to engineer a barbarous Russian pogrom in Warsaw. In an appeal which the representatives of the Polish intellectuals addressed to the people not later than on the second day of the pogrom they protested emphatically against the hideous scenes which had been disgracing the capital of Poland. The archbishop of Warsaw acted similarly, and the Catholic priests frequently marched through the streets with crosses in their hands, admonishing the crowds to disperse. It is interesting to note that, while the pogrom was going on, the governor-general of Warsaw refused to comply with the request of a number of Poles, who applied for permission to organize a civil guard, pledging themselves to restore order in the city in one day. It would seem as if the official pogrom ritual did not allow of the slightest modification. The disorders had to proceed in accordance with the established routine, so as not to violate the humane commandment: "Two days shalt thou plunder, and on the third day shalt thou rest." Evidently some one had an interest in having the capital of Poland repeat the experiment of Kiev and Odessa, and in seeing to it that the "cultured Poles" should not fall behind the Russian barbarians in order to convince Europe that the pogrom was not exclusively a Russian manufacture. As a matter of fact, the opposite result was attained. The revolting events at Warsaw, which completed the pogrom cycle of 1881, made a much stronger impression upon Europe and America than all the preceding pogroms, for the reason that Warsaw stood in close commercial relations with the West, and the havoc wrought there had an immediate effect upon the European market. CHAPTER XXIII NEW MEASURES OF OPPRESSION AND PUBLIC PROTESTS 1. THE DESPAIR OF RUSSIAN JEWRY The civil New Year of 1882 found the Jews of Russia in a depressed state of mind: they were under the fresh impression of the excesses at Warsaw and were harassed by rumors of new measures of oppression. The sufferings of the Jewish people, far from stilling the anti-Jewish fury of the Government, had merely helped to fan it. "You are maltreated, _ergo_ you are guilty"--such was the logic of the ruling spheres of Russia. The official historian of that period is honest enough to confess that "the enforced role of a defender of the Jews against the Russian population [by suppressing the riots] weighed heavily upon the the Government." Upon reading the report of the governor-general of Warsaw for the year 1882, in which reference was made to the suppression of the anti-Jewish excesses by military force, Alexander III. appended the following marginal note: "This is the sad thing in all these Jewish disorders." Those among Russian Jewry who could look further ahead were not slow in realizing the consequences which were bound to result from this hostile attitude of the ruling classes. Those of a less sensitive frame of mind found it necessary to inquire of the Government itself concerning the Jewish future, and received unequivocal replies. Thus, in January, 1882, Dr. Orshanski, a brother of the well-known publicist, [1] approached Count Ignatyev on the subject, and was authorized to publish the following statement: [Footnote 1: See above, p. 238 et seq.] The Western frontier is open for the Jews. The Jews have already taken ample advantage of this right, and their emigration has in no way been hampered. [1] As regards your question concerning the transplantation of Jews into the Russian interior, the Government will, of course, avoid everything that may further complicate the relations between the Jews and the original population. For this reason, though keeping the Pale of Jewish Settlement intact, I have already suggested to the Jewish Committee [attached to the Ministry] [2] to indicate those localities which, being thinly populated and in need of colonization, might admit of the settlement of the Jewish element ... without injury to the original population. [Footnote 1: According to an old Russian law which had come into disuse, departure from the country without a special Government permit is punishable as a criminal offence.] [Footnote 2: See p. 277.] This reply of the all-powerful Minister, which was published as a special supplement to the Jewish weekly _Razsvyet_, increased the panic among the Jews of Russia. The Jews were publicly told that the Government wished to get rid of them, and that the only "right" they were to be granted was the right to depart; that no enlargement of the Pale of Settlement could possibly be hoped for, and that only as an extreme necessity would the Government allow groups of Jews to colonize the uninhabitable steppes of central Asia or the swamps of Siberia. Well-informed people were in possession of much more serious information: they knew that the Jewish Committee attached to the Ministry of the Interior was preparing a monstrous plan of reducing the territory of the Pale of Settlement itself by expelling the Jews from the villages and driving them into the over-crowded cities. The soul of the Jewish people was filled with sorrow, and yet there was no way of protesting publicly in the land of political slavery. The Jews had to resort to the old medieval form of a national protest by pouring forth their feelings in the synagogue. Many Jewish communities seemed to have come to an understanding to appoint the 18th of January as a day of mourning to be observed by fasting and by holding religious services in the synagogues. This public mourning ceremony proved particularly impressive in St. Petersburg. On the appointed day the whole Jewish population of the Russian capital, with its numerous Jewish professionals, assembled in the principal synagogue and in the other houses of prayer, reciting the hymns of perpetual Jewish martyrdom, the _Selihot_. In the principal synagogue the rabbi delivered a discourse dealing with the Jewish persecutions. When the preacher--an eye-witness narrates--began to picture in a broken voice the present position of Jewry, one long moan, coming, as it were, from one breast, suddenly burst forth and filled the synagogue. Everybody wept, the old, the young, the long-robed paupers, the elegant dandies dressed in latest fashion, the men in Government service, the physicians, the students, not to speak of the women. For two or three minutes did these heart-rending moans resound--this cry of common sorrow which had issued from the Jewish heart. The rabbi was unable to continue. He stood upon the pulpit, covered his face with his hands, and wept like a child. Similar political demonstrations in the presence of the Almighty were held during those days in many other cities. In some places the Jews observed a three days' fast. Everywhere the college youth, otherwise estranged from Judaism, took part in the national mourning, full of the presentiment that it, too, was destined to endure decades of sorrows and tears. 2. THE VOICE OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA The political protest, which could not be uttered in Russia, was soon to be heard in England. During the very days on which the Russian Jews were weeping in their synagogues, their English coreligionists, in conjunction with prominent English political leaders, organized indignation meetings to protest against the horrors of Russian Judaeophobia. Already at an earlier date, shortly after the pogrom of Warsaw, the London _Times_ had published a series of articles under the heading "The Persecutions of the Jews in Russia," containing a heartrending description of the pogroms of 1881 and an account of the anti-Semitic policy of the Russian rulers. [1] The articles produced a sensation. Reprinted in the form of a special publication, which in a short time went through three editions, they spread far beyond the confines of England. Numerous voices were soon to be heard demanding diplomatic intercession in favor of the oppressed Jews and calling for the organization of material relief for the victims of the pogroms. [Footnote 1: The author of these articles was Joseph Jacobs who afterwards settled in New York, where he died in 1916.] Russian diplomacy was greatly disconcerted by the growth of this anti-Russian agitation in a country, whose Government, headed at that time by Gladstone, endeavored to maintain friendly relations with Russia. The organ of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the _Journal de St. Petersbourg_, published two articles, attempting to refute the most revolting facts contained in the articles of the _Times_; it denied that there had been cases of rape, and asserted that "murders were exceedingly rare." [1] The official organ further stated that "the Government has already begun, to consider new legislative measures concerning the Jews," without mentioning, however, that these "measures" were of a repressive character. The mouthpiece of Russian diplomacy asked In an irritated tone whether the pro-Jewish agitators wished "to sow discord between the Russian and the English people" and spoil the friendly relations between these two Powers which Gladstone's Government had established, reversing the contrary policy of Beaconsfield. [Footnote 1: It is true that the account in the _Times_ contained a few exaggerations as far as the number of victims and the dimensions of the catastrophe in general are concerned, but the picture as a whole was entirely in keeping with the facts, and the cases of murder and rape, as, for instance, in Kiev, were, on the whole, stated correctly.] However, these diplomatic polemics were unable to restrain the English political leaders from proceeding with the arrangements for the projected demonstrations. After a whole series of protest meetings in various cities of England, a large mass meeting was called at the Mansion House in London, [1] under the chairmanship of the Lord Mayor. The elite of England was represented at the meeting, including Members of Parliament, dignitaries of the Church, the titled aristocracy, and men of learning, A number of prominent persons who were unable to be present sent letters expressing their warm sympathy with the aims of the gathering; among them were Tennyson, Sir John Lubbock, and others. [Footnote 1: On February 1, 1882.] The first speaker, the Earl of Shaftesbury, pointed out that the English people did not wish to meddle in the inner affairs of Russia, but desired to influence it by "moral weapons," in the name of the principle of the "solidarity of nations." The official denials of the atrocities he brushed aside with the remark that, if but a tenth part of the reports were true, "it is sufficient to draw down the indignation of the world." It was necessary, in the opinion of Shaftesbury, to appeal directly to the Tzar and ask him "to be a Cyrus to the Jews, and not an Antiochus Epiphanes." The Bishop of London, speaking in the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of the Anglican Church, reminded his audience that only several years previously England had been horrified by the outrages perpetrated by the Turkish Bashi-buzuks[1] upon the Bulgars, who were then defended by Russia, and it had now a right to protest against Christian Russia as it had formerly done against Mohammedan Turkey. [Footnote 1: See above, p. 253, n. 2.] The most powerful speech was delivered by Cardinal Manning, the great Catholic divine. He pointed to the fact that the Russian Jews were not only the object of temporary pogroms but that they constantly groaned under the yoke of a degrading legislation which says to the Jew: "You may not pass beyond that boundary; you must not go within eighteen miles of that frontier; you must not dwell in that town; you must live only in that province." He caused laughter in the audience by quoting from Ignatyev's famous circular concerning the appointment of the gubernatorial commissions, in which, commenting upon the terrible atrocities recently perpetrated upon the _Jews_, the Minister lamented "the sad condition of the _Christian_ inhabitants o