 Section 1 of History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume 3. From the obsession of Nicholas II until the present day. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by SS Kim. Manipulate by show. Portugal. History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume 3. From the obsession of Nicholas II until the present day. By Szymon Duvnov. Translated by Israel Fritlander. Chapter 31. The Obsession of Nicholas II. Part 1. 1. Continued Policy of Oppression. In the course of the 19th century, every change of throne in Russia was accompanied by a change of policy. Each new reign formed, at least in its beginning, or contrast to the one which had preceded it. The reigns of Alexander I and Alexander II marked the departure in the direction of liberalism. Those of Nicholas I and Alexander III were returned to the ideas of reaction. In accordance with this historic schedule, Alexander III should have been followed by a sovereign of liberal tendencies. But in this case, the optimistic expectations with which the new ruler was welcomed, both by his Russian and his Jewish subjects, were doomed to disappointment. The reign of Nicholas II proved the most gloomy and the most reactionary of all. A man of limited intelligence, he attempted to play the role of an unlimited autocrat, fighting in blind rage against the cause of liberty. This reactionary tendency came to light in the very beginning of the new reign. During the first few months after the obsession of Nicholas II to the throne, between November 1894 and January 1895, the liberal Zemstvo assembly of nine governments in presenting addresses of loyalty to the new tsar were bold enough to voice the hope that he would eventually invite the representatives of these autonomous institutions to participate in the legislative acts of the governments. This first timid request for constitutional rights met with the harsh and clumsy above. In his reply to the deputation representing the nobility, the Zemstvo's and the municipalities which appeared in the Winter Palace on January 17, 1895, to convey to him the greetings of the Russian people, the tsar made the following pronouncement. In several Zemstvo assemblies, they have been heard lately, the voices of men carried away by preposterous delusions concerning the participation of the representatives of the Zemstvo's in the affairs of the inner administration. Let everybody know that I shall guard the principle of autocracy as firmly and uncompromisingly as it was guarded by never to be forgotten deceased parents. This failed threat was enough to intimidate the faint-hearted constitutionalists. It was universally felt that the autocratic regime was still formally entrenched and that the old constitution of enforced safety, this charter of privileges bestowed upon the police to the disadvantage of the people, was still unshaken. The hope of seeing Russia transformed from a state based upon brute force into a body politic resting upon law and order was dashed to the ground. The Jews, too, were quick to realize that the war which had been waged against them by Alexander III for fourteen long years was far from being at an end. True, the addresses of welcome presented in 1895 by the Jewish communities of Russia to the young Tsar on the occasion of his marriage elicited an official expression of thanks which was not marked by any rebukes for harboring preposterous delusions. But this was purely for the reason that these addresses were not tainted by any illusions to the hopes for emancipation entertained by the Jews. There was nothing, indeed, which might have warranted such hopes. The same dignitaries who under Alexander III had stood forth as the champions of savage antisemitic policies remained at the helm of Russian affairs. Porbet Nochev, the head of the Holy Synod, Dronov, the minister of the interior, towards the end of 1895, he made room for Kremlin, who was not a witless reactionary, and Vite, the double-faced minister of finance, who was anxious at the time to fall in line with the reactionary influences then involved. The thoughts which occupied Porbet Nochev's mind at the beginning of the new reign may be gauged from the report submitted by him to the Tsar in 1895, concerning the state of affairs in the Greek Orthodox Church. The Grand Inquisitor was deeply worried by the alleged fact that the Jews were exercising a dangerous influence over the religious life of their Christian domestics. The miners, after living among Jews for several years, proved entirely forgetful of the Greek Orthodox faith. But even the beliefs of the adults are being undermined. The priests, who listened to the confessions of the domestics employed in Jewish homes, are stricken with horror on learning of the abominable blasphemies authored by the Jews against Christianity, the Saviour, the Holy Virgin, which through the domestics are likely to gain currency among the people. These charges, which might have been bodily quoted from the sinister writings of the medieval guardians of the Church, were intended as a means of preparing the young sovereign for a proper understanding of the Jewish problem. They were brought forward by the procreator in chief of the Holy Synod, the same ecclesiastic functionary, who inflicted severe persecutions on the Russian dissidents and soon afterwards forced the Dukovardsy, an evangelistic sect, to leave their native land and to seek refuge in Canada. Having failed to realize his great ambition to clear Russia of its Jewish population with the help of Baron Therese's millions, Provedonoschev resumed his professional duties, which were those of procreator of Jewelry, on behalf of the Holy Synod, the sanctum officium of the militant Greek Orthodox Church. Not content with brandishing his rusty ecclesiastic sword, Provedonoschev resorted to secular weapons in his fight against the hated tribe. When in 1898, the Council of the Jewish Colonization Association in Paris sent a delegation to Saint Petersburg to apply to the government for permission to settle Russian Jews as agricultural farmers in Russia itself. Provedonoschev replied, Nukadrinosunpa Brepovo Reservoir and he went out of his way to explain to the delegates that the Jews were very clever people, intellectually and culturally superior to the Russians and therefore dangerous to them. The Jews are displacing us and this does not suit us. When questioned as to the future of Russian Jewry under the system of uninterrupted persecutions, Provedonoschev on one occasion made the following candidate statement. One third will die out, one third will leave the country and one third will be completely dissolved in the surrounding population. Such being the attitude towards the Jewish problem of the ruling spheres of Russia, any improvement in the situation of Russian Jewry was manifestly out of the question. Even where such an improvement might have been found to tell with the anti-Semitic policies of the government, it was ruled out as soon as it failed to the benefit of the Jews. Thus, when in 1895 the governor of Vilna in his most humble report to the Tsar advocated the desirability of abrogating the pay-off settlement for the purpose of weakening the detrimental influence of Jewry since the latter constituted a majority of the population in the cities of the western region, Nicolas II penned the following resolution. I am far from sharing this view of the governor. The leaders of Russian Jewry knew full well that the wind which was blowing from the heights of the Russian throne was unfavorable to them and their initial hopeless gave way speedily to a feeling of depression. A memorandum drafted at the time by prominent Jews of St. Petersburg with the intention of submitting it to one of the highest functionaries at the Russian court mirrors this pessimistic frame of mind. The Russian Jews are deprived of that powerful level for intellectual and moral advancement which is designated as the hope for a better future. They are fully aware of the fact that the highest authority in the land influenced by the distorted information concerning the Jews which is systematically presented to it by officials acting from aberrations or other selfish motives is exceedingly unfavorable to the Jews. They must resign themselves to the fact that there is actually no possibility of directing the attention of the Tsar and sovereign to the true state of affairs and that even those dignitaries who themselves act justly and tolerantly towards the Jews are afraid of putting in a good word for them for fear of being charged with favoritism towards them. Two, the martyrdom of the Moscow community. The attitude which officials of high rank were prone to adapt towards the Jews was gloriously illustrated at that time in Moscow. It will be remembered that the small Jewish colony which had been left in the second Russian capital after the cruel expression of 1891 was barred from holding religious services in its large Sinovoo which had been closed by order of Alexander III. In view of the forthcoming festivities in the honor of the coronation of Nicholas II which were to be held in Moscow in the spring of 1896. The representatives of the Jewish community of the second Russian capital petitioned the governor-general of Moscow, Grand Duke Selkius Aleksandrovich to secure for them the Tsar's permission to have their synagogue open at least during the coronation days as a special act of grace in order that the Jews of Moscow may be given a chance to celebrate the joyful events with due solemnity. But the Grand Duke, maddened by Jew hatred, notified the petitions through the chief of police that their petition was an insolent violation of the imperial will and could not be considered. The martyrdom of the Moscow community, the heritage of the past reign, stood out like a black stain even upon the gloomy background of the new era. An imperial U.K. reached in 1892 had decreed that the structure of the sealed of Moscow synagogue should be sold to the highest bidder unless it was converted into a charitable institution. The community was naturally anxious to prevent the desecration of its sanctuary and to preserve the edifice for better days to come. With this end in view, it placed in the synagogue building the trade school for Jewish children which had been established in memory of Aleksandrovich II. The antisemitic authorities of Moscow sent it in this step of wicked design. The governor general got into communication with the ministers of the interior and of public instruction and as a result on May 27, 1896 the executive board of the Moscow community received the following order to stop the admission of pupils to the trade school and to close the school altogether after the completion of the prescribed course of studies by the present contingent of students. Thereupon the Jews of Moscow made another attempt to save their synagogue by transferring either their school and asylum for poor and orphaned children. The so-called Talmud Torah. This attempt too was frustrated by the Muscovite Hammons. On October 28, 1897 the governor general announced that after consultation with the minister of the interior the decision had been reached to close the asylum which sheltered about 100 poor children on the fanciful ground that these children might just as well receive their instruction in Russian educational establishments. The underlying motive of the new order was unmistakably revealed in its latter part. Unless in the course of two months the building of the synagogue will be reconstructed and so altered as to be fitted for a hospital or a similar charitable institution it will be sold at public auction. Once more the Jewish community endeavored to save its sanctuary which its enemies had made of their minds to destroy. The synagogue structure was revealed to meet the purposes of a hospital and the shelter but the commission appointed by the governor general to examine the alteration found that they were not sufficiently extensive and therefore suggested that the interior of the synagogue should be entirely remodeled so as to exclude the possibility of its ever being used for devotional purposes. The struggle centering around the alterations dragged on for another eight years until the revolution of 1905 and the assassination of the ferocious governor general. It was then that the Jews finally succeeded in releasing their sanctuary from the dead sentence which had been passed upon it. The motive which animated the Moscovite Jew haters was perfectly evident. It was their fervent desire to wipe out the last remnants of the local Jewish community by subjecting the Jews to religious and administrative persecutions and thereby comparing them to flee from the center of Greek orthodoxy. The growth of the Jewish settlement at Moscov was checked in ruthless fashion. The Jewish artisans had been expelled as far back as 1891 but the Jewish merchants who purchased their right of residence in the second Russian capital at the annual cost of 1,000 rubles the tax levied on first guild members had been allowed to remain. Moreover, as the largest industrial center of Russia Moscov naturally attracted a goodly number of Jewish merchants who came there temporarily on business. These newcomers were handled more severely than alien enemies in wartime. Police detectives prowled about on the streets and at the railroad stations seizing passers-by who happened to exhibit a cemetery countenance and dragging them to the police stations with a view to the examination of their right of residence in Moscov. The unfortunate Jews whose documents did not comply with all the technicalities of the law were expelled at once. The Moscov police news carried a regular advertisement offering a reward for the capture of right-less Jews. In October 1897, the Moscov chief of police announced the premium of equal amount for the capture of one Jew or of two burglars. Finally, the Russian government took a most effective step towards preventing the increase of the Jewish population of Moscov. On January 22, 1899, an imperial U.K.s was etched forthwith prohibiting Jewish merchants of the first guild from settling in Moscov unless they shall have obtained special permission from the minister of finance and from the governor general of Moscov. It being beforehand agreed that no such permission should be granted. The same U.K.s enacted a number of offensive discriminations against the Jewish merchants already settled in Moscov by depriving them of their vote in the commercial associations and by other similar devices. On a subsequent occasion, the admission was candidly made that all these measures were prompted by the desire to read as far as possible the government of Moscov of the Jews already settled there on a legal basis. Three, restrictions in the right of residence. Whereas the regime of grandiose Syriac Jews in Moscov represented an acute stage of Judeo-phobia manifesting itself in cruelties of an exceptional character, the central government in St. Petersburg exhibited the same disease in a more normal form. Here, the oppression of the Jews was pursued systematically and quietly and was carried on as one of the most important functions of the public administration. The sacrosanct institution of the Pale of Settlement and the other mainstays of political antisemitism were zealously guarded by the faithful watchdogs of Russian reaction, the various ministers of the interior who followed one another between the years 1895 and 1904. Drunubo until the autumn of 1895. Koremikin 1896 to 1899. Sipyagin 1899 to 1902. And Plev 1902 to 1904. True, during the regime of the last two ministers the antisemitic temperature rose above normal but it was only due to the fact that the increased revolutionary propaganda of those days had generally stimulated the powers of reaction to a greater display of energy. Quite aside from these exceptional conditions, the rigid consistency and enforcing the restrictive laws was sufficient to account for many tragedies in the life of the Jews while the despotism of the provincial authorities aggravated the situation still further and turned the tragedies into catastrophes. As far as the Pale of Settlement is concerned, the government continued its old-time policy of coping of the Jews within the area of the cities and towns by shielding the villages carefully against the influx of Jews. Since the promulgation of the temporary rules in 1882, the authorities of St. Petersburg had been aiming at the gradual elimination of those rural Jewish old-timers who had been allowed under those rules to remain in the villages. They had been looking forward to the time when the eyes of the Russian music would no more be offended by the sight of a jewel, but this pious wish did not materialize quickly enough. Several governments put forth the simple proposition to expel all Jews from the villages, not excluding those who had been settled there for a long time. This step, however, was deemed too radical. The Minister of Finance, Peter, wished to solve the problem in a different way. He sought to appreciate the Tsar that the introduction of state eco-monopoly would automatically have the effect of forcing the Jews to leave the countryside, and as much as the liquor traffic formed the principal occupation of the village Jews. Fittest conjecture was, to a certain degree, borne out by the facts. By the end of the 90s, the Jewish country population of Russia had been considerably reduced. Nevertheless, there was no relief inside for the loss of the administration had grown in proportion. The governors and the other gubernatorial authorities resulted in all kinds of cunning devices to force the Jews out of the villages or out of the railroad stations which were situated outside the town limits. The Christian landowners frequently complained about these deportations and petitioned the governors to permit the Jewish grain merchant who were engaged in buying and shipping the grain from the minority storehouses to reside at the railroad stations. The Senate was compelled over and over again to pass upon the appeals of illegally deported Jews and to enter into an examination of all kinds of hair-spritting questions involved in the manipulation of the anti-Jewish laws by the law courts, whether, for instance, an old-time Jewish villager who returns to his home after a brief absence is to be regarded as a new settler who has no right to live in the country or whether a Jew who lives on an estate which happens to be situated in two contiguous villages is allowed to remove from the one to the other. As a rule, the authorities decided these questions against the Jews, though the most reverting decisions of this kind were later reversed by the Senate. In connection with the prohibition of residents outside the cities, a new problem has arisen in Jewish life, the summer resort question. The authorities recently prohibited Jewish families from spending the summer in the outskirts of the cities if a particular resort or cottage was found to be situated outside the city line. Thousands of Jewish families were thus deprived of an opportunity to rest in God's free nature during the summer months and to breathe the fresh air of the field and forest for no other reason that they were Jews, a new variety of territorially affixed city serfs. The law was just as merciless in the case of Jews afflicted with disease. The watering places situated outside the towns were barred to Jewish sufferers who wished to take a cure there. The Crimean watering place Yalta, in the neighborhood of the Imperial Summer Resort, Liwadia, was the object of particular vigilance having been barred to the Jews by order of the dying Alexander III. The Jewish consumtives who had managed to obtain illegal access to this spa were pitilessly expelled. The following incident, which was reported at the time in the Russian press, may serve as an illustration of this ruthless policy. The wife of a Jewish physician had come to Yalta to improve her shattered health. While she was suffering from severe blood spitting, a policeman invaded the bedroom of the sick woman insisting on giving a written pledge to leave the place within 24 hours. The patient was terribly frightened. On the following day, the deportation was stopped in consequence of the testimony of a physician that the slightest motion was fraught with danger to the invalid. But the frightened uncertainty had intensified the cuff. The young woman became worse and soon afterwards died. As it happened, the action of the police was subsequently found to be entirely unwarranted for as the wife of a physician, this victim of bureaucratic heartlessness was even according to the letter of the law entitled to the right of residence in Yalta. A similar case was that of a sick Jewish student who had been sent by his physicians to Yalta to cure his lungs. He was expelled in the dead of winter and deported under a police convoy together with a batch of prisoners to Sevastopol, notwithstanding the fact that he was in a feverish condition. The correspondent of a local paper in Sevastopol reported that along the entire road from the harbor to the prison, which was traversed by the batch, passers-by would stop in their work, staggered by the extraordinary spectacle. The sufferer appealed to the Senate, but the letter found that the orders of the police contained nothing contrary to the law. The highest tribunal of the empire went with an economy on record that a Jewish student was liable to the penalty of being arrested and marched under a police escort together with criminal offenders for an attempt to heal his lungs in the warm, southern climate. But no place in the empire could buy as regards hostility to the Jews with the city of Kiev, this inferno of Russian Israel. Though surrounded on all sides by a string of towns and townlets with the dense Jewish population, the southwestern metropolis was guarded by a host of police watched up against the invasion of aliens. Apart from the privileged Jews who formed part of the permanent population, the police were forced to admit into the city Jewish visitors who came to Kiev for a few days to attend to their affairs. Yet haunted by the fear lest these visitors might stay there too long, the police arranged oblivers or raids to hunt them down like stray dogs. About once a week during the night the police would raid certain hostilities in each the Jews were want to stop, put those that were caught on the rest and then expel them from the confines of the city. This additional heavy night were called for a larger police staff and to meet this increased expenditure annual sum of 15,000 rubles were appropriated from the proceeds of the Jewish meat tax. This revenue collected from the Jews for the purpose of maintaining the charitable and educational institutions of the Jewish communities was now used to pay the police agents to enable them to hunt down these Jews and expel them in merciless fashion. To put it more plainly the convict after being sentenced to be hanged was forced to buy the rope. The methods of the Russian inquisition gradually reached the top notch of efficiency. Even the Kiev-Lenin, the Kievans the anti-Semitic official organ of Kiev was bound to confess on one occasion that in the course of the month of July of the year 1901 things have taken place in Kiev which are hardly conceivable. As far as the general disabilities are concerned the entire area of the Russian Empire outside the Paid of Settlement though open to foreigners of all nationalities remained hermitically closed to the Jewish citizens of Russia and the borders of that prohibited area were guarded even more rigorously than they have been during the previous reign. In the consistent enforcement of this principle the government did not shrink from the most rewarding extremes. Although passed in 1896 interdicted Jewish soldiers from spending outside the Paid of Settlement even the brief belief of absence which they were granted during the term of military service. A Jewish soldier serving in a regiment which was stationed let us say in St. Petersburg Moscow or even far off Siberia was forced under this law to travel hundreds and even thousands of miles to the Paid of Settlement to spend his month of follow there being denied the right to remain in the city in which he was discharging his military duty and it made no difference even if the follow was granted to him for the purpose of recuperating his health. In many places of the empire the whimsicality of the local authorities in construing the law of residence was of a nature to suggest that they had no other end in view except that of making sports of the Jews. The administration of Siberia for instance invented the following regulation a Jewish merchant or artisan who is registered in one of the Siberian cities shall have the right only to live in the particular city of his registration and in no other. Since very many Jews resided outside the localities of their accidental registration a transmigration of Siberian Jewry was the result. The Jews registered for example in Tomsk though they might have lived from the day of the birth in Irkutsk were devoted in batches to Tomsk meeting on the way parties of exiled Jews from Tomsk who had the misversion of having their names entered upon the record of Irkutsk. Human beings were shuffled like pack of cards this rewarding practice of the Siberian authorities which had begun at the end of the preceding reign was sustained by the senate in a decision found in 1897. End of section 1 section 2 of history of the Jews in Russia and Poland volume 3 from the accession of Nicholas II until the present day by Shimon Duvnov translated by Israel Friedländer this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by SS Kim Manicked Baesho, Portugal Chapter 31 the accession of Nicholas II Part 2 4 the economic collapse of Russian Jewry The result of all these persecutions was complete economic collapse of Russian Jewry Speaking generally the economic structure of the Russian Jews experienced violent upheavals during the first years of Nicholas II's reign The range of Jewish economic endeavor circumscribed though it was narrowed more and more In 1894 the law placing the legal trade under government control was put into effect by Vite the Minister of Finance catering to the prejudices of the ruling spheres of Russia Vite had already endeavored to convince Alexander III that the legal state monopoly would have the effect of completely undermining Jewish exploitation the latter being primarily bound with the sale of liquor in the towns and villages In view of this the monopoly was introduced with particular zeal in the western governments where a little later in the course of 1896 to 1898 during the reign of Nicholas II all private path houses were replaced by official liquor stores so-called imperial bar rooms In consequence of this reform tens of thousands of Jewish families who had derived their livelihood either directly from the liquor trade or indirectly from occupations connected with it such as the keeping of inns and hostelries were deprived of their means of subsistence It goes without saying that as far as the moral aspect of the problem was concerned the best elements of Russian Jewry welcomed this reform which failed to wipe out an ugly stain on the excursion of the Jewish people the liquor traffic bequeated to the Jews by ancient Poland Known as the most sober people on earth the Jews had been placed in the tragic position that thousands of them in their search for a piece of bread was forced to serve as a medium for promoting the pernicious Russian drunkenness the memory of the days when the Jewish saloon was the breeding place of programs in each the Russian peasants and burgers filled themselves with Jewish alcohol to fortify themselves in their infamous work of demolishing the homes of the Jews was still fresh in their minds cheerfully what the Jewish people have yielded its monopoly of the liquor trade to the Russian bar room keepers the Russian government who seemed genuinely attracted to audit had it only been allowed to pursue other methods of owning a livelihood but in closing the avenue of the liquor traffic to 200,000 Jews the government did not even think of removing the special restrictions which brought their way to other lines of endeavor having been robbed of the scanty livelihood they derived from their country in thousands of rural victims of the state monopoly flocked into the cities only to clash with the host of urban victims of the same reform who had also been deprived of their means of sustenance the growth of the proletariat within the pale of settlement both in business and in the trade assumed appalling proportions the observers of economic life in the pale such as the well-known communist subordin and others called attention to the frightful increase of populism in the region between 1894 and 1898 the number of Jewish families in need of assistance increased 27% as compared with the former years in 1897 the number of Jews without definite occupations amounted in certain cities to 50% and more the number of destitute Jews applying for help before the Passover festival reached unheard of proportions amounting in Odessa Vilna, Minsk, Kovno and other cities to 40% and even 50% of the total Jewish population the crop failures in 1899 and 1900 in the south of Russia resulted in a terrible famine among the impernicious Jewish masses whereas the peasants who suffered from the same calamity received financial assistance from the government the Jews had to resort to self-help to the collection of funds throughout the empire to which only here and there liberal Christians added their minds many of these Jewish proletariats were willing to take up agriculture but the temporary rules of 1882 blocked their way to the countryside and made it impossible for them to buy or even miss a piece of land prominent Jews of St. Petersburg such as Baron Ginsburg and others petitioned the government to allow the Jews to purchase small parcels of land for personal use but after long deliberations their petition was rejected thus at the end of the 19th century the ruling spheres of the Russian empire proved more anti-Semitic than at the beginning of the same century when the government of Alexander I and even that of Nicholas I had endeavored to promote agriculture among the Jews and had established the Jewish agricultural colonies in the south of Russia the many of operation went so far as to prohibit the Jews from buying or leasing parcels of land which were part of a city but happened to be situated outside the city line a rich Jew of Minsk by the name of Polak petitioned in 1897 the local town council to sell him a piece of suburban property for the establishment of a Jewish agricultural farm but his petition was refused the refusal was not only consistent for the fact that the Jews were forbidden to own land of Jews in the art of agriculture entirely superfluous it may be added that this prohibition of land ownership was upheld by the government even in the case of Jewish students who had completed their course in the School of the Jewish Agricultural Farm near Odessa similar methods were employed to check the development arts and craft which were widely represented among the Jews but stood on a very low technical level even the efforts to organize mutual help among the working classes were blocked by the government in all kinds of ways the well-known Jewish millionaire Brodsky of Kiev wishing to assist the toiling messes without distinction of creed offered to open a trade bank in the city and to contribute toward that purpose the sum of 120,000 rubles when in 1895 he submitted the constitution of the proposed bank to the local authorities for the approval he was required to insert the clause to the effect that the directors and the chairmen of the bank council should always be Christians and that the council itself should not include more than one Jewish member to this insolent demand Brodsky made the only fitting retort being myself a Jew I cannot possibly agree that the constitution of an establishment which is to be founded with the money contributed by me and which is to bear my name shall contain restrictions affecting my co-religionists he naturally withdrew his offer and Kiev was deprived of a trade bank the fact that the failure of the project also affected the Christian artisans did not disturb the authorities in the list it was enough of compensation that the Jews were made to suffer not only materially but also morally and the purpose of the highly placed Jew betas was accomplished 5. professional and educational restrictions in the domain of those liberal professions to which the Jewish intellectuals being bad from entering the civil service were particularly attracted the law went to almost any length in its endeavor to keep them close to the Jews the legal career had been blocked to them ever since the passage of the law of 1889 which made the admission of a properly qualified Jews to the bar dependent upon the granting of a special permission by the minister of justice in the course of a whole decade the minister found it possible to grant this permission only to one Jew who it may have had set on the bench for 25 years there were two or three such relics dating back to the liberal era of Alexander II in consequence of this provision the proportion of Jews at the bar which prior to the enactment of the restriction had reached from 14 to 22% was reduced to 9% in 1897 a committee appointed by the government was considering the proposal to place the disability on the statute books and to establish a 10% norm for Jewish lawyers the reason advanced by the committee for the proposed restriction of the distinctly medieval variety the conduct of a lawyer is determined by the impulses of his will of his conscience in other words that's fear of his inner life which find its manifestation in religion now the admission of Jews constitutes a menace resulting from views peculiar to the Jewish race which are contrary to Christian morality subsequently the champions of Christian morality on the step of the ministry of justice be thought themselves that it might even be better and nobler to stop the admission of Jews to the bar all together and the proposal regarding the presentation norm was tabled hundreds upon hundreds of young Jews who had completed their legal education at the universities or who had acted as assistants to Suwon Autonies so once more their hopes for the legitimate pursuit of their profession vanished into the air Jewish physicians were restricted to private practice and robbed of their right to occupy government or public position even the autonomous gems for institutions adopted more and more the practice of refusing to appoint Jews and very frequently the printed advertisements of the gems for offerings medical positions contained the stipulation Chromier Yevreev except the Jews the scholastic education of the Jewish children was throttled in the same pitless manner as there to fall the disgraceful school bomb which had been introduced in 1887 performed with ever increasing relentlessness its task of tooming to spiritual death the Jewish youth who were knocking at the doors of the gymnasium and universities in the beginning of 1898 the post-op minister of public instruction which had been occupied by Dirlanov was entrusted to professor Borlapov of Moscow while Dirlanov had been occasionally inclined to soften the rigor of the school norm it was commonly rumored that this good natured dignitary could not bear to see a common cry and tearful entreaties of the mothers of the rejected scholars made in sanctioned the admission of a certain number of Jewish children over and above the established percentage norm its success of Borlapov an academic teacher who had become a gender of education was impervious to any sentiment of pity in the course of the three years of his administration he did not only refuse to automate the slightest departure from the established norm but attempted to curtail it still further thus orders were issued to calculate the percentage norm of the Jewish applicants for admission to the universities not in its relation to the total number of the annual admissions but separately for each faculty 1898 to 1899 this provision was designed to limit the number of Jewish students who flocked to the medical and legal faculties since in view of the fact that the Jews were entirely bad from appointment in the general educational institutions the other faculties did not offer them even a sporting chance of earning a livelihood the ruthlessness displayed by the ministry of public instruction towards the Jewish youth who justified on the ground that certain elements among them were affiliated with the revolutionary movement which just at that time had assumed particular intensity in the Russian student body this sentiment was openly voiced in the circular of the ministry issued on May 26, 1901 which makes the following statement the disorders which took place at the end of the 90s in the institutions of higher learning testified to the fact that the instigators of these disorders were to a large extent persons of non-Russian extraction bold up of himself the reactionary minister of enlightenment fell victim of this agitation among the student body he died from the bullet of a terrorist who happened to be of an adulterated Russian extraction his successor general 1901 to 1902 though endeavoring to assuage the university disorders by a policy of kindly solitude maintained the formal uncompromising attitude as far as the Jews were concerned in view of the fact that in spite of all restrictions the ratio of Jewish students at all universities actually exceeded the norm prescribed by law the new minister decreed that the percentage of Jewish admissions be temporarily curtailed in the following proportion 2% for the capitals instead of the formal 3% 3% for the universities outside the pair of settlement instead of 5% and 7% for the pair of settlement instead of 10% even the restrictions placed upon the admission of the Jews to the gimnasia was intensified in 1901 Jewish children who had graduated from a pro-gymnasium were forbidden to continue their education in the advanced classes of the gimnasium unless there was a free Jewish vacancy within the percentage norm or truly miraculous contingency the same policy was extended to the commercial schools established funds which were provided by the merchant class and the bulk of which came from Jews in the commercial schools maintained by the commercial associations Jewish children were admitted only in proportion to the contributions of the Jewish merchants towards the upkeep of the particular school in private commercial schools however percentages of all kinds varying from 10 to 50% were fixed in the case of Jewish pupils this provision had the effect that Jewish parents were vitally interested in securing the entrance of as many Christian children as possible in order to increase thereby the number of Jewish vacancies occasionally a Jewish father in the hope of creating a vacancy for his son would induce a Christian to send his boy to a commercial school though the letter as a rule offered little for the Christian population by undertaking to defray all expenses connected with this education yet many Jewish children though enduring all these humiliations found themselves outside the doors of the intermediate Russian schools it is worthy of note that in this attempt at the spiritual extermination of the Jewish children by barring them from intermediate educational institutions the Russian law followed strictly the ancient rule of the pharaohs if it be a son then yes shall kill him but if it be a daughter then she shall leave the government schools for girls were opened to the Jewish population without any restriction and the influx of GACs to this gymnasium was only checked unofficially by the anti-Semitic authorities of this or that institution thereby turning the tide of applicants in the direction of private girls schools but as far as the higher schools were concerned Jewish girls were subjected to the same restriction as the boys the higher course for women and pedagogic courses in St. Petersburg restricted the admission of GACs to 5% the constitution of medical institute for women founded in 1895 provided at first for the entire exclusion of GACs but in 1897 the doors of this institution were opened to the H tribe just enough to admit them to the extent of 3% it was scarcely to be expected that the Jewish youth who had been locked out of the Russian school should entertain particularly friendly sentiments toward the regime which wasted their lives humiliated their dignity and solid their souls the Jewish led driven from the doors of gymnasia became an imbitered ex-turn who was forced to study at home and from ear to ear present himself for examination before the school authorities an immense host of young men and women who found their way blocked to the higher educational institutions Russia went abroad flocking to foreign universities and higher professional schools where they learned to estimate at its full value regime which in their own country denied them the advantages granted to them outside of it a large number of these college youths returned home permeated with revolutionary ideas leaving witnesses to the suggestive of government which saw its reason for existence in the suppression of all revolutionary strivings end of section 2 section 3 of history of the Jews in Russia and Poland volume 3 from the accession of Nicholas II until the present day by Shimon Duvnov translated by Israel Friedlander this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by SS Kim Manikt Baishio in Portugal chapter 31 the accession of Nicholas II part 3 6. anti-semitic propaganda and programs the reactionary Russian press encouraged and stimulated by the official Jew-baters engaged in an increasingly ferocious campaign against the Jews the Russian censorship known all over for its merciless cruelty of the printed world and trembling at the criminal thought of inciting hatred toward the government yet granted untrammeled freedom to those who propagated hatred to Judaism and thereby committed the equally criminal offence of inciting one part of the population against the other the Norway Vremia the most widespread semi-official press organ and its satellites in the provincial capitals were permitted to do what they pleased they were free to slander the Jewish religion, the Jewish people and the Jewish communities when the famous Dreyfus Affair had started in France the Norway Vremia the oracle of Russia's ruling spheres arrayed itself on the side of the Jew-baters from among the French standard step and launched a savage campaign of slander against the Jews of the entire globe many an article published in the anti-Semitic press was scarcely distinguishable from the proclamations calling upon the mob to massacre the Jews by far the most effective propaganda on behalf of program was carried on sometimes without a conscious realization of the consequences by the government itself by persisting in its anti-Jewish policy observing this uninterrupted bad treatment of the Jews on the part of the Russian legislation and administration which treated the Jews as if they were criminals witnessing the explosions inflicted upon the illegally residing Jews and the raids engineered against them watching the constant mockery at the Jewish children from the doors of the educational institutions and seeing the endless multitude of other humiliating disabilities the unenlightened Russian populace necessarily gained the conviction that the extermination of Jewry was a noble and patriotic duty coupled with the usual economic and national conflicts these strands of mind could not but lead to acts of violence at the end of the 90s the Russian horizon was darkened again by the ominous shadow of the beginning of the 80s pogroms at first sporadic and within circumscribed limits broke out again in various part of the pale on February 18th and 19th 1897 an anti-Jewish riot took place in Spola a town in the government of Kiev the following officially inspired account of the excesses in each the facts were undoubtedly toned down appeared in the Norway Ramya at three o'clock in the afternoon an immense crowd of peasants rushed into our town and wrecked completely the stores homes and warehouses belonging exclusively to the Jews a large number of rich business places and small stores as well as hundreds of houses were demolished by the crowd which acted one might say with elemental passion dooming to destruction everything that fell into its hands the town of Spola which is celebrated for its flourishing trade and its comparative prosperity now present the picture of city which has been ravaged by a hostile army the lines of old women and children may be seen moving into the town to carry home with them the property of disease of essential importance is the fact that these disorders were undoubtedly pre-arranged the local Jews knew of the impending disaster four days before it took place they spoke about it to the local police chief but the letter assured them that nothing is going to happen two months later on April 16 and 17 the Christian inhabitants of the town of Kantankutsenka in the government of Kersen indulged in a similar amusement at the expense of the Jews to quote the word of a semi-official report a cruel program has taken place almost the entire town has been destroyed by an infuriated mob all Jewish stores were wrecked and the goods found there was thrown about a part of the merchandise was looted by the rebel the synagogue alone remained unscathed here too it was known beforehand that the program was in the course of preparation the Jews petitioned the authorities to avoid the catastrophe but the local police force was found inadequate to cope with the situation in 80 towns the governors of the respective provinces eventually appeared on the scene with detachment of troops but in the meantime the revolting performances were over many rioters were placed on the arrest and put on trial more than 60 were sentenced by the court to a term in prison from 8 to 14 months one of the defendants a little Russian peasant who had been arrested for having taken part in an anti-Jewish riot voiced his amazement in these characteristic words they told us we had permission to beat the Jews and now it appears that it is all a lie a program on more comprehensive scale arranged in honor of the Easter festival and lasting for three days April 19 to 21 1899 allowed to take place in the city of Nikolaev the south Russian port of entry bands of rioters to the number of several thousands among them many newly arrived great Russian day laborers and a few intellectual ring leaders fell upon Jewish stores and residents and destroyed or looted their contents complying faithfully with the established program ritual while the police and attack forces proved powerless on the third day when the news of the freedom according to the rioters and robbers at Nikolaev reached the villages in the vicinity a whole army of peasants both men and women numbering some 10,000 started towards the city on their wagons with the intention of carrying off the property of the Jews but they were too late for in the meantime the trucks and soldiers had been ordered to stop the programs and disperse the rioters the peasants were driven off and had to return to their villages on their empty wagons exasperated by their failure the peasants entered their fury upon the Jewish cemetery outside the city demolishing a large number of tombstones and then scattering all over the district made an attack upon the Jewish population in the neighboring settlements and villages in the Jewish agricultural colony of Nagavata all farmhouses and stores were wrecked and looted and the agricultural implements demolished the Russian peasants was unscrupulously ruining and robbing his Jewish fellow peasants in the adjacent colonies the Jews being of a robust physique were able to put up an effective defense the early protests against this new outbreak of barbarism was voiced by the son of the fatherland Sin Odea Chestva a liberal Russian press organ when at last questioned the paper will that terrible relic of the gloomy era of the middle ages take an end when will there be a stop to this breaking of windows this beating of men and this wrecking of houses and stores this time the orders from St. Petersburg were explicit the local authorities were commanded to prevent the further spread of program agitation the reasons for this unaccustomed attitude is not difficult to guess two weeks after the Nikolayev atrocities the first international head conference opened its sessions May 6 to 18 having been called at the initiative of the Russian emperor to discuss the question of disarmament and this conference must have suggested to the Tsar the advisability of first disarming the anti-Jewish rioters in Russia itself however he failed to draw the more important conclusion from the conference called by him that it was necessary to stop or at least to reduce the constant arming of his own government against the Jews and to discard the medieval weapons of oppression and persecution which spelt destruction to an entire nation this alone is enough to expose the hallowness of the spectacles at Hague which had been designed by the feeble-minded Nikolas as a sort of diplomatic entertainment that the Russian authorities when so minded were fully capable of grappling with the pogrom agitation was demonstrated by the rapidity with which on a later occasion they suppressed the anti-Jewish excesses in the Polish city of Częstochów August 1902 in this hotbed of dismal Polish clericalism the goal of thousands of Catholic pilgrims who arrived there to worship the holy virgin on the bright mountain where between a Jewish straight man and the Polish woman grew owing to the instigations of Catholic priests into a monstrous assault upon Jewish houses and stores by a crowd of 15,000 Poles here too the customary shouts were heard beat the Jews nothing will happen to us but the Częstochów rioters made the grievous error in their calculations the reaction of the Russian authorities did not extend to the Poles who were not considered politically dependable and were known to be equally hostile to the Zids and the Moskars the excesses had started in the morning and in the evening they were at an end of earlier from the soldiers having put the tremendous crowd to a flight when the case came up before the courts the public prosecutor waited for the severe punishment of the culprits the guilty Poles were sentenced to penalty solitude and to terms in prison and in some cases even damages were awarded to the Jewish victims on extraordinary rare occurrence in legal proceedings of this kind the union of Polish anti-Semitism with Russian Judeo-phobia brought again to life the old monstrous accusation against the Jews the ritual murder libel a Polish servant girl in the employ of David Blondis or Jewish barber in Vilna steeped as she was in gross superstition and being a pliant tool in the hands of fanatical priests ran out one night March 1900 into the street shouting that her master had wounded her and had tried to squeeze blood a crowd of Christians quickly assembled and seeing the scratches on the neck and hands of the girl fell upon Blondis and gave him a severe beating the criminal was thrown into prison and the prosecuting authorities listening to the voice of the people were zealous in their search for the threats of the crime the anti-Semitic press launched a well-planned campaign against the Jews of influencing the judicial verdict the law court recognized the fact of the assault but denied the presence of any murderous intent and leaving aside the possibility of a ritual motive sentenced Blondis to imprisonment for four months the council for the defense the well-known lawyer Grudzenburg and others fearing less this sentence might be construed by the enemies of Judaism as a collaboration of the ritual murder libel appealed from the verdict of the court and proved victorious a decision handed down by the senate ordered the case to be sent back for a second trial to the district court of Vilna and the court of Jurymen after listening to the statements of authoritative experts and the brilliant speeches of the defense rendered the verdict of not guilty in 1902 the prisoner was set at liberty and the nightmare of the ritual murder to refuse yet was dispelled for the time being even the Russian stage was made subservient to the purposes of Jew baiting a converted Jew by the name of Efron Litvin who had joined the anti-Semitic business form of Novia of Remia wrote libelous play under the title the sons of Israel but the smugglers in which Jews and Judaism were made the subject of the most horrible calamities the play was first produced at St. Petersburg in the theater controlled by Suvorin the publisher of the Novia of Remia and in the course of 1901 to 1902 it made the rounds of the provincial stage everywhere the Russian Jew haters welcomed this talentless production which pictured the Jews as robes and criminals and represented the Jewish religion and morality as the fountain head when the supposed hatred of the Jews against the Christian derived its origin naturally enough the Jews and the best elements among the Russian intelligentsia looked upon the mere staging of such play as an incitement to programs they appealed repeatedly to the police calling upon them to stop the production of a play which was sure to fan national and religious hatred the police however were not guided by the wishes of the Jews but by those of their enemies as a result in a considerable number of cities where the play was presented such as Smolensk, Oriole, Kishnev Tiflis and others violent demonstrations took place in the theaters the Jewish spectators and the part of the Russian public particularly from among the college youth, hissed and hooted demanding the removal from the stage of this rival on a whole people the antisemites in turn shouted downed the Jews and started a fight with the demonstrators the police of course sided with the antisemites attacking the demonstrators and dragging them to the police stations this agitation led to a number of legal proceedings against the Jews who were charged with disturbing the peace during the trial of one of these cases in the city of Oriole the council for the defense used the following argument the play inflames the national passions and makes the national traits of a people the object of ridicule and mockery of people moreover which is denied equal rights and has no means of voicing its protest the production of such play should never have been permitted the more so as the police were well acquainted with the agitated state of the public mind the argument of the defending autonomy was scarcely convincing for the articles of the Russian law which forbids the incitement of one part of the population against the other loses its validity when the other part means the Jews end of section 3 section 4 of history of the Jews in Russia and Poland volume 3 from the accession of Nicholas II until the present day by Shimon Dubnov translated by Israel Friedlander this LibriVox recording is in the public domain of the SSKIM Manikut Baishu, Portugal chapter 32 the national awakening part 1 the rise of political Zionism for two decades the sledge-hemo of Russian reaction had been descending with crushing force upon the vast community of 6 million Russian Jews yet in the end it was found that the heavy to use the well-known simile of Pushkin instead of shattering the national organism of Jewry had only helped to steal it and to harden its indestructible spiritual self the Jewry of Russia showed to the world that it was in doubt with an iron constitution and those that had hoped to crush it by the stroke of their hemo were ultimately forced to admit that they had produced the opposite result at first it seemed as if the effect of these blows would be to turn the Jewry into a shapeless mess there were moments of despair and complete prostration when the approaching darkness threatened to obliterate all paths this stage was followed by a period of mental haziness marked by team yearnings for regeneration which were bound to remain fruitless because unaccompanied by organizing energy this traditional state of affairs lasted throughout the 80s and during the first half of the 90s but by and by out of the chaos of these nebulous social tendencies there emerged more and more clearly the outlines of definite political national doctrines and organizations and new paths were blazed in different directions converged toward one goal that of the regeneration of the Jewish people from within both in its national and social life the turning point of this process is marked by the year 1897 that year in which the first international Zionist congress held its sessions integrated not only the political Zionist movement but also the development of other currents of Jewish national and political thoughts the entire gamut of political slogans rang through the air all bearing testimony to one and the same fate that the era of national prostration had come to an end and that the vague longings for liberation and regeneration had assumed the character of a conscious endeavor pursuing a well-defined course the careful observer skillfully failed to perceive that beneath the hemorrhage history the formless mess of Jewry was being forged into a well-shaped instrument of great power the organization of the Jewish people had made its beginning among the movement which arose at the end of the 19th century there was some which came to the surface of Jewish life rather noisily attracting the attention of the Jewish masses as well as that of the outside world others, however, were embedded more deeply in the consciousness of the educated classes and were productive of a new outlook upon the national Jewish problem the former were unanswered to the question of Jewish misery of the Juden note in its practical aspect the latter offered a solution of the national cultural problem of Judaism in its totality the movements of the first kind are represented by political Zionism and territorialism in the second category stand spiritual Zionism and national cultural autonomism on a parallel line with both varieties of the national movement and frequently intersecting it went to the Jewish socialistic movement tinged to a lesser or larger degree by nationalistic tendencies for 15 years the lovers of Zion or the Hibat Zion movement had been pursuing its course in Russia without showing marked progress in the direction of that universal Jewish goal which had been formulated by its champions Lillian Blum and Pinsko during that period some 15 Jewish agricultural colonies had sprung up in Palestine the Jewish population of the Holy Land had been increased by some 20,000 souls and an effort had been made to create a national model school and to revive the ancient Hebrew tongue but needless to say all this was far from solving the burning passion of the 6 million Russian Jews who were clamoring for relief from their intolerable condition at the slow rate of progress which had hitherto characterized the Jewish endeavors in Palestine any attempt to transfer a considerable portion of the Russian center to the Holy Land was doomed to failure particularly in view of the hostility of the Turkish government which was anxious to check even this insignificant growth of Jewish colonization at that juncture the Arab Europe resounded with the clarion tones of Theodor Herzl's appeal to the Jews to establish a Jewish state the appeal came from western Europe from the circle's image the sufferings of their eastern brethren had hitherto been viewed entirely from the philanthropic point of view it came from a young venous journalist who had been aroused by the orgy of anti-Semitism in the capital of Austria with the agitation of Burgomaster Luger and others and by the exciting anti-Jewish scenes enacted in the capital of France where as the correspondent of the Viennese daily the Noyev Raya Press he followed the Dreyfus Affair in his first early stages Hölzer became certainly conscious of the acute pain of the Jewish misery he saw the anti-Semitism of western Europe closing ranks of the anthropophobia of eastern Europe he saw the ideal of assimilation crumbling to pieces and he made up his mind to hoist the flag of Jewish nationalism scarcely aware of the fact that it had already been hoisted in the east his pamphlet the Jewish state which appeared in the beginning of 1896 was in its fundamental premises a repetition of the old appeal of Pinske the order of the new publication was convinced like his predecessor that the only relief from the Jewish misery lay in the concentration of the Jewish people upon a separate territory without determining the question whether that territory should be Palestine or Argentina but in contradistinction to Pinske Hölzer was not satisfied with formulating the problem theoretically he offered at the same time a plan of political and economic organization by means of which the problem was to be solved the creation of special representative bodies which were to enter into negotiations with rulers and governments concerning the session of appropriate territory to the Jews under international protectorate also to obtain huge funds to carry out the transplantation and resettlement of vast Jewish masses representing a combination of theoretic enthusiasm and practical utopias the Jewish state of Hölzer revived the nearly smothered political hopes which had been cherished by the hope of Zion circles in Russia the Russian Jews groaning under the Yokovan Egyptian bondage flocked to the new Moses who announced the glad tidings of the Exodus and Hölzer beholding the ready host in the shape of the hope of Zion societies was quick to adjust his territorialistic scheme to the existing Palestinian movement in this wise the organization of political Zionism sprained to life using as its medium of expression the international party congresses most of which convened in Switzerland in the city of Basel the first Basel congress held in August 1897 was an impressive demonstration of the national awakening of the Jewish people for the first time the united representative of Eastern and Western Jewry proclaimed before the world that the scattered sections of Jewry looked upon themselves as one national organism striving for national regeneration from the center of Western assimilation advocating the disappearance of Jewry came the war cry proclaiming the continued existence of the Jewish nation though that existence was conditioned by the establishment of a separate publicly and legally assured territorial center of the four articles of the program which were adopted by the first congress three deal with the fundamental task of the party the political and financial endeavors looking to the colonization of large Jewish masses in Palestine and only one voices the need of strengthening the Jewish national feeling and self-respect in the further progress of the Zionist organization these two principles political and cultural were constantly struggling for mastery the Zionist of the west gravitating towards political activities and diplomatic negotiations while the Zionist of the east laid greater emphasis upon internal cultural work along national lines looking upon it as an indispensable prerequisite for national rebirths the struggle between these two principles continued at each succeeding annual congress at the second and third held in Basel in 1898 and 1899 and the fourth in London in 1900 and the fifth in Basel in 1901 on the one hand the Zionist were feverishly engaged in the external organization of the movement the consolidation of the shekel payer societies the creation of the Jewish colonial trust and the Jewish national fund the conduct of diplomatic negotiations with the Turkish government and with the political representatives of other countries for the purpose of obtaining a guaranteed charter for a wholesale colonization in Palestine on the other hand endeavors were made to nationalize the Jewish intellectual classes to promote the Hebrew language to create a national school and to conquer the communities for Zionism that is to strengthen the influence of the party in the administration of the Jewish communities the convention of Russian Zionist held at Minsk in 1902 paid particular attention to the cultural aspiration of the party and adopted a resolution calling for the appointments of two committees on orthodox and progressive to find ways and means for placing Jewish education on a national basis the same convention demonstrated the growth of movement for during the first five years of its existence the Zionist organization in Russia had succeeded in securing about 70,000 shekel payers who were organized in approximately 500 societies yet the political and financial achievements of Zionism during that period of bloom prior to the crisis of 1903 were insignificant the diplomatic negotiations of the Zionist leader Dr. Theodor Herzl with the Sultan of Turkey and his government as well as with the German Emperor and several other European sovereigns failed over their purpose the signing of a Turkish charter for the wholesale colonization of Palestine the financial instrument of the party the Jewish colonial trust proved as yet too weak to collect the proposed fund of 10 million dollars modest sum when compared with the purpose for which it was destined the colonization of Palestine proceeded at a slow pace and its miniature scale was entirely out of proportion to the grand plan of establishing a national autonomous center in Palestine with all Zionism proved during that brief interval a potent factor in the national awakening of Jewry the strengths of the movement lay not in the political aims of the organization which were mostly beyond reach but in the very fact that tens of thousands of Jews were organized with the national end in Jew it lay moreover in the current national cultural activities in the Gaggen-Walz Arbite which yielding to necessity had been raised from a means to an end in western Europe the principal significance of Zionism lay in its effect as a counter balance to assimilation Herzl having declared that Zionism aims at the establishment of a publicly and legally assured home for those Jews who in their present places of residence are not able or not willing to assimilate themselves in Russia however where Jewish life was dominated by more powerful nationalizing influences the chief importance of political Zionism lay in this very propaganda of national diverse in the midst of those whom militant studio phobia was endeavoring to reduce by intolerable operation to the level of moral degenerates the apathy and faint heartedness which had characterized public Jewish life during the 80s and the first half of the 90s was followed by a period of noise bustle of organizing activity and of great animation the pale of settlement resounded with the tin of its hundreds of Zionist societies with the speeches of Zionist agitators at public meetings and in the synagogues with the intense agitation preceding the elections for each Zionist congress with the heated debate about the program between the political and the cultural Zionist between the nihilized the faction of Orthodox Zionist and the progressives the public utterances of the Zionist leaders Herzl and Noldau were the subject of interminable discussion and comment the Russian Jews were particularly stirred by the annual congress addresses of Noldau on the general situation in Jewry in which the famous writer pictured with characteristic vividness the tragedy of the Golas the boundless extent of Jewish misery the material aspect in the lens of oppression and the moral aspect among the emancipated sections of Jewry which culminated in the thought that Jewry could not exist without Zion Noldau's motto Jewry will be Zionistic or it will not be was differently interpreted in the different circles of the Russian Jewish intelligentsia among the Russian leaders of the party earlier minority Dr. Mandelstam of Kiev and others were fully in accord with the extreme political views of the western leaders the majority of the former workers in the ranks of the Hobebezion movements Ushizkin, Chlenup and others sought to harmonize the political functions of Zionism with its cultural aspirations and combined diplomatic negotiations concerning a charter with the upkeep of the existing colonization work in Palestine which later was contemptuously branded by the hound by adherents of political Zionism as infiltration this babel of opinions within the ranks of the organization could not fail to weaken its effectiveness as an agency for the attainment of the ultimate Zionist call at the same time it brought life and animation into the movement the track of the whip of the Egyptian taskmasters remained unheard amidst the clash of ideas and the proud slogans of national liberation which resounded throughout the Jewish pale to spiritual Zionism or Ahad Hamism and yet political Zionism viewed as a theory failed to offer a satisfactory solution of the great Jewish problem in all its history complexity born of the reaction against anti-Semitism and endeavoring to suit the pain of the wounded Jewish heart it was marked by all its merits and demerits of a theory which was substantially missionic in character and was entirely dependent on subjective forces on faith and will power if you only will it then it is no fair detail in these words the ultimate goal of political Zionism is indicated by its founder who firmly believed that an extraordinary exertion of the national will would transform the fair detail of a Jewish state into reality when confronted with the question as the future of the Jewish nation in case faith and will power should prove unable to grapple with the conditions over which it had no control and the fair detail of the United political autonomous center should not be realized political Zionism either remained silent or indulged in a polemical retort which was in flagrant contradiction to Jewish history without Zion, Judaism is bound to perish the national conscience however could not be reconciled to such an answer or more or less satisfactory solution to the problem of Judaism could not spring from the external reaction against anti-Semitism but could only mature as the fruit of profound contemplation of the course of development pursued by the Jewish people in the diaspora such a solution could only be found in the endeavor to adapt a new national movement to this historic course from this point of view political Zionism was rectified by spiritual Zionism of the publicist and philosopher Ahad Ham Yu Ginzburg even before political Zionism or Herzlianism appeared on the scene Ahad Ham had succeeded in substantially modifying the Palestinian idea as formulated by Lillian Blumenpinska in the program of the semi-imagining author Bune Moshe Sons of Moses established in Odessa he laid down the fundamental principle that the preparation of the land for the people must be preceded by the transformation of the people into a formally need national organization we must propagate the national ideas and convert it into a lofty moral ideal having become associated with the Palestinian colonization in a practical manner as a leading member of the Odessa Korean society founded in 1890 Ahad Ham intuitively preached that the significance of this microscopic colonization was not to be solved in its economic results but in its spiritual and cultural effects in establishing upon the historical soil of Judaism a nursing ground for pure national culture which should be free from foreign mixture and from the cultural eclecticism of the diaspora after the spectacular appearance of political Zionism on the Jewish stage this fundamental idea of neo-Palestinianism was more fully elaborated by Ahad Ham assuming the shape of a comprehensive doctrine known as the doctrine of spiritual Zionism when the first Basel congress was over Ahad Ham declared that the Jewish state as formulated by Herzl was beyond realization for the reason that under the prevailing circumstances it was entirely impossible to transform to Palestine the whole diaspora or even a substantial part of it consequently the Palestinian colonization could not put an end to the material Jewish misery whereas a small Jewish center gradually rising in Palestine might with the help of a proper organization solve the national spiritual problem of Judaism the formation of a spiritual center in the historic homeland of the nation the creation in the center of a Jewish national school the revival of the Hebrew language as a medium of daily speech the untrammeled development of a Jewish culture without the pressure of a foreign environment such in short would be the true goal of the Palestinian idea a publicly and legally assured home for the Jewish spirit of this kind would exert an uninterrupted nationalizing influence upon the diaspora serving as a living center of attraction for a genuine Jewish culture and acting like a focus which scatters its race over a large periphery the Zionist doctrine of Ahad Ham as a counterbalance to official Zionism which was all marked by the Basel program led to interminable discussions among the partisans of the movement it did not succeed in creating a separate party or a special public agency for its realization yet the element of that doctrine have mingled in a larger lesser degree with the views of the political Zionist in Russia who infested themselves in the protests of the cultural Zionist against the extreme political advocates of the movement at the Zionist Congress the Zionist convention at Minsk referred to previously resulted in a partial triumph for the ideas championed by Ahad Ham who submitted a report on the spiritual regeneration of Judaism the convention adopted a resolution calling for a larger measure of cultural work in the schedule of the party activities but rejected at the same time the proposal of the referee to create the Jewish World Organization for the revival of Jewish culture on the ground that such an organization might destroy the political equilibrium of Zionism End of section 4