 Section 22 of History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume 2, From the Deaths of Alexander I until the Deaths of Alexander III. 1825-1894 by Shimon Dubnop. Translated by Israel Friedland. This Livrifox recording is in the public domain. Recording by SS Kim. Manicked by Sho. Chapter 23, New Measures of Operation and Public Protests. Part 1. 1. The Dispair 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 stealing the anti-Jewish fury of the government had merely helped to van it. You are maltreated, although 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 government. Upon reading the reports of the Governor General of Warsaw for the year 1882, in which references were made to the suppression of the anti-Jewish excesses by military force, Alexander III appended the following marginal mode. 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. Olszanski, a brother of the well-known publicist, approached Count Ignatiev on the subject and was authorized to publish the following statement. 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. 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 to indicate those localities which being thinly populated and in need of colonization might automate the settlement of the Jewish element without injury to the original population. This reply of the all-powerful minister, which was published as a special supplement to the Jewish weekly, Raziviat, 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 hoped for and that only as an extreme necessity would the government allow groups of Jews to colonize the uninhabitable steps 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 overcrowded cities. The soul of the Jewish people were 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 feeling 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 residing the hymns of perpetual Jewish martyrdom, the celliode. In the principal synagogue, the rabbi delivered a discourse dealing with the Jewish persecutions. When the preacher on eyewitness rates began to picture in a broken voice the present position of Jewry one long morn coming as it wore from one breast suddenly burst forth and filled the synagogue. Everybody wept, the old, the young, the long-robed popes, the element then distressed in latest fashion, the men in government service, the physicians, the students, not to speak of the women. For two or three minutes this heart-rending mourns resumed. This cry of common sorrow which had esched 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-day fest. Everywhere, the college youth, otherwise estranged from Judaism took part in the national mourning full of resentment that it too was destined to endure decades of sorrows and tears. Two, 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 each the Russian Jews were weeping in their synagogues their English co-religionists in conjunction with prominent English political leaders organized indignation meetings to protest against the horrors of Russian Judeo-phobia. 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 heart-rending description of the pogroms of 1881 and an account of the anti-Semitic policy of the Russian rulers. 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. Russian diplomacy was greatly disconcerted by the growth of this anti-Russian agitation in a country whose government headed at the time by Gladstone endeavored to maintain friendly relations with Russia. The organ of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs the journal The St. Petersburg 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 models were exceedingly rare. 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 spoiled friendly relations between these two powers which Gladstone's government had established reversing the contrary policy of Beacon's Field. However, these diplomatic polemics were unable to restrain the English political leaders from proceeding with the arrangements for the project 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 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 present sent letters expressing their warm sympathy with the aims of the gathering. Among them were Tennyson, Sir John Lubbock and others. The first speaker, the Earl of Shakespeare, 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 deniers of the atrocities he brushed aside with their mark that if by the 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 Shakespeare to appeal directly to the Tsar 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 Bash Busukes upon the Burgers who were then defended by Russia and it had now a right to protest against Christian Russia as it had formally done against Mohammedan Turkey. The most powerful speech was delivered by Cardinal Menning the Great Catholic Divine. He pointed to the fact that the Russian Jews were not only the object of temporary programs but that they constantly groaned under the yoke of degrading legislation which says to the Jews you may not pass beyond that boundary you must not go within 18 miles of that frontier you must not dwell in that town you must live only in that province. He calls laughter in the audience by quoting from Ignatius 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 of the southern provinces. Cardinal Menning concluded his eloquent address with the following words marked by a lofty prophetic strain there is a book which is common to the race of Israel and to us Christians that book is the bond between us and in that book I read that the people of Israel are the eldest people upon the earth Russia and Austria and England of yesterday compared with the imperishable people which with an inextinguishable life and immutable traditions and faith in God and in the laws of God scattered as it is all of the world passed through the fires unscathed trampled into the dust and yet never combining with the dust into which it is trampled lives still, witnessed and warning to us after several more speeches by Canon Ferro Professor Price and others the following resolutions were adopted one that in the opinion of this meeting the persecution and the outrages which the Jews in many parts of the Russian dominions have for several months passed suffered an offense to the Christian civilization and to be deeply deplored two that this meeting while disclaiming any rights or desire to interfere in the internal affairs of another country and desiring that the most amicable relations between England and Russia should be preserved feels a duty to express its opinion that the laws of Russia relating to Jews tend to degrade them in the eyes of the Christian population and expose Russian Jewish subject to the outbreaks of fanatical ignorance three that the Lord may be requested to forward a copy of these resolutions to the right honorable W.B. Gladstone and the right honorable or Grandville in the hope that a Majesty's government may be able when an opportunity arises to exercise a friendly influence with the Russian government in accordance with the spirit of the proceeding resolutions Finally, a resolution was adopted to open a relief fund for the sufferers of the programs and for improving the conditions of Russian Jewry by emigration as well as by other means The committee chosen by the meeting for this purpose included the Lord Mayor, the Archbishop of Canterbury Cardinal Manning, the Bishop of London not done in the host child and others A few days after the mansion house meeting the English government responded to the resolutions adopted on that occasion The following dispatch dated London February 9th appeared in the Russian papers In the House of Commons, Gladstone replying to the interpolation of Sir John Simon stated that reports concerning the persecutions of the Jews in Russia had been received from the English consuls and could not but inspire sentiments of the utmost pain and horror But the matter being an internal affair of another country it could not become the object of official correspondence or inquiry on the parts of England All that could be done was to make casual and unofficial representations All other actions touching the question of the relations of the Russian government to the Jews were more likely to harm than to help the Jewish population Would not. On this occasion, Gladstone merely repeated the words of the Russian official communication which had been published on the eye of the mansion house meeting in the hope of scaring the organizers of the protest The Russian government, which has always most scrupulously refined from interfering in the inner affairs of other countries is correspondingly unable to allow a similar violation of international practice by others Any attempts on the part of another government to intercede on behalf of the Jewish people can only have the result of calling forth the resentment of the lower classes and thereby affect unfavorably the conditions of the Russian Jews In addition to this threat the imperial messenger endeavored to prove that the measures adopted by the government against the programs were not weak as may be seen from the large numbers of those rested by the police after the disorders which amounted to 3,675 in the south and to 3,151 in Warsaw End of footnote Another telegram sent from London on February 14 contained the following communications In the House of Commons Gladstone, replying to Baron Worms stated that no humane purposes would be achieved by parliamentary debates about the Jews of Russia Such debates were rather likely to arouse the hostility of a certain portion of the Russian population against the Jews and that therefore no day would be appointed for the debate as requested by Worms In this way, matters were smoothed over to the great satisfaction of Russian diplomacy The public and government of England confined themselves to expressing their feelings of disgust at the treatment of the Jews in Russia but no immediate representations to St. Petersburg were attempted by Gladstone's cabinet For the same reason the English Prime Minister refused to forward to his destination a petition addressed to the Russian government by the Jews of England with Baron Rothschild at their head Count Ignatiev had no cause for worry The misunderstanding with the friendly government had been removed and the fury protest at the English meetings interfered but little with his peace of mind He pursued his course unabashed by the disgust which it aroused in the whole civilized world The voice of protest against the Russian barbarities which resounded throughout England was seconded in far of America Long before the obsession of Alexander III the government of the United States had repeated occasion to make representations to the Russian government with reference to its treatment of the Jews These representations were prompted by the fact that American citizens of the Jewish faith were subjected during their stay in Russia to the same disabilities and discriminations which the Russian government imposed upon its own Jews Yet actuated by broader humanitarian considerations the United States government became interested in the general question of the position of Russian Jewry and invited reports from its representatives at St. Petersburg on the subject On April 14, 1880 the Secretary of State William M. Evans responding to a petition of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations who had complained about the extraordinary hardships which the Jews of Russia were made to suffer at that time Directed the United States Minister at St. Petersburg John W. Foster to bear in mind the liberal sentiments of this government and to express its views in a manner which will subserve the interest of religious freedom Acting upon these instructions Foster took occasion to discuss the Jewish question in his conversations with leading Russian officials about which he reported fully to his government On May 22 of the same year a resolution was passed by the House of Representatives requesting the President to lay before it all available information relating to the cases of expulsion of American citizens of the Jewish faith from Russia and at the same time to communicate to this House all correspondence in reference to the prescription of Jews by the Russian government The programs of 1881 and the indignation they aroused among the American people induced the United States government to adopt a more energetic form of protest In his dispatch to the United States Minister at St. Petersburg dated April 15, 1882 the new Secretary of State Frederick T. Flehrling-Huyzen takes account of the prevailing sentiment in the country in these words The prejudice of race and creed having in our day given way to the claims of our common humanity the people of the United States have heard with great regret the stories of the sufferings of the Jews in Russia He therefore notifies the minister that the feeling of friendship which the United States entertains for Russia prompts this government to express the hope that the imperial government will find means to cause the persecution of these unfortunate being to cease A more infuriating note of protest was sounded in the House of Representatives by Samuel S. Cox of New York who in his lengthy speech delivered on July 31, 1882 scathingly denounced the repressive methods practiced by the Russian government against the Jews and more particularly the outrages which had been perpetrated upon them during the proceeding year He makes the former directly responsible for the letter In his opinion, the programs were not merely a spontaneous and sudden outburst of the Russian populace against the Jews but rather the slow result of the disabilities and discriminations which are imposed upon the Jews by the Russian government and are bound to degrade them in the eyes of their fellow citizens It is said that the Russian peasantry not the government responsible, I answer If the peasantry of Russia are too ignorant or debased to understand the nature of this cruel persecution, they have warned for their conduct in the customs and laws of Russia to which I have referred These discriminate against the Jews They have reference to their isolation their separation from Russian protection their expulsion from certain parts of the empire and their religion When a peasant observes such forceful movements and authoritative discrimination it arouses his ignorance and inflames his fanatical zealotry Adding this to the jealousy of the Jews as middlemen and businessmen and you may account for but not justify these horrors The Hebraic Russian question has been summed up in a few words Extermination of 2.5 million of mankind because they are Jews After giving an elaborate account of the horrors which had taken place in Russia during 1881 he wound up his speech with the following eloquent appeal This people is one of the survivors with Egypt, China and India of the infancy of mankind It is at the mercy of the cruel desperate of the North With the lineage unrivaled for purity or religious sentiment and ethics drawn out of the glory and greatness of Mount Sinai With the eternal influence from its law givers, prophets and psalmist never vouchsafed to any language race or creed It outlives the philosophies and myths of Greece and the grandeur and power of Rome It is this race brokenhearted and scattered to which the Tsar of all the Russians adds the enormity of his rule upon the victims of the ignorance and slander of the ages The birthright of this race is thus disbord and so have we no words of protest struggling against adversities which no other people have encountered The wine from the crushed grape the resolution introduced by him on that occasion was to the following effect whereas the government of the United States should exercise its influence with the government of Russia to stay the spirit of persecution as directed against the Jews and protect the citizens of the United States and seek redress for injuries already inflicted as well as to secure by wise and enlightened administration the Hebrew subject of Russia and the Hebrew citizens of the United States resident in Russia against the recurrence of wrongs therefore resolved that the president of the United States if not incompatible with the public service report to this house any further correspondence in relation to the Jews in Russia not already communicated to this house The resolution which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs was finally passed by the House on February 23, 1883 The sentiments of the broad masses of the American people had found utterance somewhat earlier at a big protest meeting which was held in February 1882 in the city of New York where the first refugees from Russia had begun to arrive A resolution was adopted protesting against the spirit of medieval persecution thus revived in Russia and calling upon the government of the United States to make energetic representations to St. Petersburg One of the speakers at the New York meeting Judge Noah Davis said amidst the enthusiastic applause of the audience Let them come I would to heaven it were in our power to take the whole 3 million Jews of Russia The value of the Mississippi alone could draw her strong arms around and draw them all to an opulent bosom and bless them with homes of comfort prosperity and happiness Let them are praying to come The draw of Jehovah is besieged with prayers for the powers of escape and if they cannot live in peace on the Russian laws without being subject to these awful persecutions let us aid them in coming to us These words of the speaker uttered in a moment of oratorial exhortation voiced the secret wish of many enthusiasts of the Russian ghetto End of Section 22 Section 23 of History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume 2 from the deaths of Alexander I until the deaths of Alexander III 1825 to 1894 by Shumon Dubnov translated by Israel Friedland Chapter 23 New Measures of Operation and Public Protests Part 2 3 The Problem of Immigration and the Poverty at Balta In Russia itself a large number of emigration societies came into being about the same time which had for their objective a large number of emigration societies about the same time which had for their objective the transfer of Russian Jews to the United States the land of the free The organizers of these societies evidently relied on some miraculous assistance from the outside such as the alliance Israelite of Paris and similar Jewish bodies in Europe and America under the immediate effect of the United States statement to Dr. Oshansky in which the Russian minister referred to the western frontier as the only escape for the Jews the Russian Jewish press was flooded with reports from hundreds of cities particularly in the south of Russia telling of the formation of emigrant groups Our poor classes have only one hope left to them that of leaving the country Emigration, America are the slogans of our brethren This phrase occurs at a time with stereotyped frequency in all the reports from the provinces Many Russian Jewish intellectuals dreamed of establishing Jewish agricultural and farming colonies in the United States were some batches of emigrants who had left during the year 1881 had already managed to settle on the land A part of the Jewish youth was carried away by the idea of settling in Palestine and conducted a vigorous propaganda on behalf of this national idea among the refugees from the modern Egypt There was urgent need of uniting these emigration societies scattered over the pale of settlement and of establishing central emigration committees to regulate the movement which had gripped the people with elemental force Unfortunately, there was no unity of purpose among the Jewish leaders in Russia The intellectuals who stood nearer to the people such as the well-known calculus Professor Mandel Stamm, who enjoyed great popularity in Kiev and others like him as well as a section of the Jewish press particularly the Basviet insisted continually on the necessity of organizing the emigration movement which they regarded as the most important task confronting Russian Jewry at the time The Jewish oligarchy in St. Petersburg on the other hand, was afraid that such an undertaking might expose it to the charge of disloyalty and lack of Russian patriotism Others again, whose sentiments were voiced by the Russian Jewish periodical force court and who were of more radical tone of mind looked upon the attempt to encourage wholesale emigration of Jews in connection to the government of Ignatiev and as an indirect abandonment of the struggle for emancipation in Russia itself In the spring of 1882, the question of organizing the emigration movement had become so pressing that it was decided to convene a conference of provincial Jewish leaders in St. Petersburg to consider the problem Before the delegates had time to arrive the sky of South Russia was once more lit up by a terrible flare Balta, a large Jewish center in Podolia where a Jewish emigration society had sprung into being shortly before the catastrophe became the scene of a frightful pogrom It was shortly before the Russian Passover, the high season of pogroms when the Russian public was startled by a strange announcement published towards the end of March in the imperial messenger to the effect that from now on it would accurately report all cases of Jewish disorders in accordance with the official information received from the governors The announcement clearly implied that the government knew beforehand the imminence of new pogroms Even the conservative Moscow news commented on the injudicious statement of the official organ in emphatic and sarcastic terms The imperial messenger is comforting the public by the announcement that it would in due time and at due length report all cases of excesses perpetrated upon the Jews One might think that these everyday occurrences are forming part of the natural course of events which demand nothing else than timely communication to the public Is there indeed no means to put a stop to this crime scandal? Events soon made it clear that there was no desire to put a stop to this scandal as the Moscow paper lightly termed the exploits of the Russian rubber bands The local authorities of Bartha were forewarned in time of the approaching pogroms Beginning with the middle of March the people in Bartha and the surrounding country were discussing them openly When the Jews of that town made their apprehensions known to the local police commissioner they received from him an evasive reply In view of the fact that the Jewish population of Bartha was three times as large as the Christian it did not have been difficult for the Jews to organize some sort of self-defense but they knew that such an organization was strictly forbidden by the government and realizing the consequences they had to confine themselves to a secret agreement entered into by a few families to stand up for one another in the hour of distress On the second day of the Russian Easter corresponding to the seventh day of the Jewish festival on March 29, the pogrom began surpassing by the severity of the map and the criminal conduct of the authorities or the bacchanalia of 1881 A contemporary observer basing his statements on the result of a special investigation gives the following account of the events in Bartha At the beginning of the pogrom the Jews got together and forced a band of rioters to draw back and seek shelter in the building of the fire department But when the police and soldiers appeared on the scene the rioters decided to leave their place of refuge Instead of driving off the disorderly band the police and soldiers began to beat the Jews with their rifle butts and sword This served as a signal to start the pogrom At that moment, somebody sounded an alarm bell and in response, the map began to float together Fearing the numerical superiority of the Jews in that part of the town the crowd passed across the bridge to the so-called Turkish side where there were fewer Jews The crowd was accompanied by the military commander the police commissioner and the burglar master and a part of the local battalion which in fact however did not prevent the map while passing the cathedral street from demolishing a Jewish store and breaking the windows in the house of another Jew a member of the town council After the map had crossed over to the Turkish side the authorities threw up military cordons on all the three bridges leading from that side to the rest of the town with the order not to allow any Jews to pass Needless to say, the order was carried out At the same time, the Christians of remaining sections of the town and of the village of Aleksandropka were allowed to pass unhindered Thanks to these arrangements the Turkish side was sacked in the course of three to four hours so that by one o'clock in the morning the rioters found nothing left to do During the night, the police and military authorities arrested 24 rioters and a much larger number of Jews The latter were arrested because they ventured to stay near their homes The following morning, the Christians were released and allowed to swell the ranks of the pillaging mob and the Jews were kept in jail until the following day and freed only when the governor arrived On the following day, March 30th at four o'clock in the morning a large number of peasants amounting to about 5,000 and armed with clubs began to arrive in town having been summoned by the Ispravnik from the adjacent villages The arrival of the peasants were welcomed by the Jews They were told that they had been called to come to their aid but they soon found out their mistake for the peasants declared that they had come to beat and blunder the Jews Simultaneously, with the arrival of the peasants large numbers from among the local mob began to assemble around the cathedral and at eight o'clock in the morning signals were given to renew the program First, this was prevented by the officers of the local battalion who patrolled the city ordered the soldiers to surround the mob and hold it off for about an hour During mid-time, the Greek Orthodox bishop Razionovsky admonished the rioters and tried to make them understand that such doings were contrary to the laws of the church and the state But when the police commissioner the military chief Visravnik arrived before the cathedral The military cordon was withdrawn and the crowd, now let loose threw itself upon a nearby liquor store and after demolishing it and filling itself with alcohol resumed its work of destruction with the cooperation of the peasants who had been summoned by the Visravnik and the assistance of the soldier and policemen It was on this occasion that those wild savage sins of murder, rapine and plunder took place The account of which, as published in the newspapers is but the pale shadow of the real facts The pogrom of Balta was called forth not by the mere inactivity but by the direct activity of the local authorities What these savage sins were would not learn from the newspapers They were forbidden by the censor to reward them But we know of them partly from unpublished sources and partly from the later court proceedings Aside from the demolition of 1250 houses and business places and the destruction and pillage of property and merchandise according to a statement of the local rabbi All well-to-do Jews were turned into beggars More than 15,000 people were sent out into the wide world a large number of people were killed and maimed and many women were violated 40 Jews were slain and dangerously wounded 170 received slight wounds Many Jews, and particularly, Jesus became insane from the fright There were more than 20 cases of rape The 17-year-old daughter of a poor polisher Ada Malice by name was attacked by a horde of bestial lads before the eyes of her brother When the mother of the unfortunate girl ran into the street and called to her aid a policeman who was standing nearby the latter followed the woman into the house and then instead of helping her dishonored her on the spot The Finnish horse invaded the homes of Baruch Szlakowski and began their bloody work by slaying the master of the house whereupon his wife and daughter fled and hid themselves in a nearby orchard Here, a Russian neighbor led them into his house under the pretext of defending their honor against the rioters but once in his house he disgraced the daughter in the presence of her mother In many cases, the soldiers of the local Galician assaulted and beat the Jews who showed themselves on the streets while the military operations of the mob were going on In accordance with the customary program ritual the human fins were left undisturbed for two days and only on the third day were troops summoned from a nearby city to put a stop to the atrocities On the same day, the governor of Podolia arrived to make an investigation It was soon learned that the local authorities the police commissioner, the ISPRAVNIK the military commander, the Bogo master and the president of the nobility had either directly or indirectly abetted the program Many rioters who had been arrested by the police were soon released because they threatened otherwise to point out to the higher authorities the ring leaders from among the local officials and representatives of Russian society The Jews, again, were constantly terrorized by these scoundrels and cowed by the fear of massacres and complete annihilation in case they dared to expose their hangmen before the court The program of Balta found a feeble echo in the immediate neighborhood in a few localities of the government of Podolia and Karsen It seemed as if the energy of destruction and savagery had spent itself in the exploits at Balta On the whole, the program campaign conducted in the spring of 1882 covered but in insignificant territory when compared with the program enterprise of 1881 though surpassing it considerably in point of quality The Harals of Balta were a substantial honest of the Kishnev atrocities of 1903 and the October programs of 1905 Four, the Conference of Jewish Notables at St. Petersburg The Harals of Balta cast their shadow upon the Conference of Jewish Delegates which met in St. Petersburg on April 8 to 11, 1882 The Conference, which had been called by Baron Horace Ginsburg with the permission of Ignatiev was made up of some 25 delegates from the provinces Among them, Dr. Mandelstam of Kiev Rabbi Isaac Elhan Spector of Kovner and 15 Notables from the capital including Baron Ginsburg himself the railroad magnate Polakov and professor Bakst The question of Jewish emigration was the central issue of the conference although in connection with it the general situation of Russian Jewry came up for discussion There was a mixed element of tragedy and timidity in the deliberations of this miniature congress at which neither the voice of the masses nor that of the intelligentsia were given a full hearing On the one hand, the conference listened to heart-rending speeches picturing the intolerable position of the Jews and one of the delegates smelling from Mogilev who had just delivered such a speech was so overcome that he fainted and died in a few hours On the other hand, the most influential delegates particularly those from the capital were looking about timorously fearing lest the government suspect them or lack of patriotism Others again looked upon emigration as an illicit form of protest as sedition and they clung to this conviction even when the conference had been told in the name of the minister of the interior that it was expected to consider the question of deigning out the Jewish population in the pale of settlement in view of the fact that the Jews will not be automated into the interior government of Russia At the second meeting of the conference the rabbi of St. Petersburg Dr. Drabkin reported to the delegates about his last conversation with Ignatiev and replied to the rabbi who had stated that the Jews were waiting for an imperial war ordering the suppression of the programs and were anticipating the removal of the legal disabilities The minister had characterised these assertions as common places and had added in an irritated tone The Jews themselves were responsible for the programs By joining the nihilists they thereby deprived the government of the possibility of sheltering them against violence The sophistry of the minister was refuted despite by his own confession that the Balta program was due to a false rumor charging the Jews with having undermined the local Greek Orthodox Church In other words that the cause of the Balta program was not to be traced to any tendencies within Jewry but rather to the agitation of evil-minded Jew-baters At the same session the discussion of the immigration question was sidetracked by a new design of the sleeperly minister The financier Samuel Polakov who was close to Ignatius declared in the spirit of base flunkism that the labours of the conference would prove fruitless unless they were carried on in accordance with government instructions On this occasion he informed the conference that in a talk which he had with the minister the letter had blended the endeavours to stimulate immigration as an incitement to sedition on the ground that immigration existed for Russian citizens Asked by the minister for suggestions as to the best means of relieving the congestion of Jews in the pain Polakov replied by settling them all over Russia To this the minister had retorted that he could not allow the settlement of Jews except in Central Asia and in the newly-conquered Oasis of Akal Teke In obedience to these ministerial utterances the obscure financier sharply opposed the plan of Jewish immigration to foreign lands and seriously recommended to the conference to consider the proposal made by Ignatius The minister's suggestion was bitterly attacked by Dr. Bandersdam who saw in it a new attempt to make sports of the Jews Even Professor Baust who objected to immigration on principle declared that the proposed scheme of settling the Jews amounted in reality to a deportation to far-off places and was tantamount to an official classification of the Jews as criminals From the project of deportation which failed to meet with the sympathy of the conference the delegates proceed to discuss the burning question of programs It was proposed to send the deputation to the Tsar appealing to him to put a stop to the legislative restrictions which were bound to inspire the Russian population with the belief that the Jews were outside the pale of the law In the question of foreign immigration the majority of the conference voted against the establishment of immigration committees on the ground that the letter might give the impression as if the Jews were desirous of leaving Russia After the debate lasting four days the following resolutions were adopted First, to reject completely the thought of organizing immigration as being subversive of the dignity of the Russian body politic and of the historic rights of the Jews to their present fatherland Second, to point to the necessity of abolishing the present discriminating legislation concerning the Jews This abolition being the only means to regulate the relationship of the Jewish population to the original inhabitants Third, to bring to the knowledge of the government the passive attitude of the authorities which had clearly manifested itself during the time of the disorders Fourth, to petition the government to find means demonstrating the Jewish population which had suffered from the problems as a result of inadequate police protection At the same time the conference took occasion to refute the old accusation which had again been brought up in the gubernatorial commissions that the Jews still retained their ancient autonomous Kahalo organization and that the letter was operating secretly and was fostering Jewish separatism to the detriment of the other elements of the population The resolution of the conference on this score read as follows We, the under-signed the representatives of various centers of Jewish settlement in Russia Revice, members of religious organizations and synagogue boards consider it our sacred duty calling to witness God omniscient to declare publicly in the presence of the whole of Russia that there exist neither an open nor a sacred Kahalo demonstration among the Russian Jews that Jewish life is entirely foreign to any organization of this kind and to any of the attributes ascribed to such an organization by evil-minded persons The signers of this solemn pronouncement were evidently unaware of the degrading renunciation of the national rights which was implied in the declaration that not only had the Jews lost their former comprehensive communal organization this was in accordance with the facts but that was such an autonomous organization to exist they would regard it as criminal offense, subversive public order and punishable by the four features of the civil rights End of Section 23 Section 24 of History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume 2 From the Deaths of Alexander I until the Deaths of Alexander III 1825 to 1894 by Shimon Dubnov translated by Israel Friedlander This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by SS Kim Manicked by Shaw Portugal Chapter 24 Legislative Programs 1. The Temporary Rules of May 3, 1882 During the interval between the program of Warsaw and Death of Balta the government was preparing for the Jews a series of legislative programs In the recesses of the Russian government offices which served as the laboratories of police barbarism the authorities were busy forcing a chain of legal and administrative restrictions in order to regulate Jewish life in the spirit of complete civil rights franchisement The Central Committee on Jewish Affairs attached to the Ministry of the Interior which was called for short the Jewish Committee but might far more appropriately have been called the anti-Jewish Committee was basing its labors upon the opinions submitted by the gubernatorial commissions and rearing on this foundation a monstrous structure of disabilities The new project was based upon the following theory The old Russian legislation was marked by its hostility of the Jews as a sacred group of alien faith and race What departure from this attitude was attempted during the reign of Alexander II when the rights of certain categories of Jews were enlarged and the period of toleration was inaugurated but subsequent experience proved the inexperience of this tolerant attitude towards the Jews has been demonstrated by the recent manifestation of anti-Jewish movement abroad, German anti-Semitism and the popular protest in Russia itself where it assumed the form of pogroms Since Russia has now chosen the path of national policy it follows also in regard to the Jewish question that this country cannot but turn to its ancient tradition Throw aside the innovations which have proved useless and follow vigorously the principles evolved by the whole past history of the monarchy according to which the Jews must be regarded as aliens and therefore can lay no claim to full toleration This barbarous theory which brought Russia back to the traditions of ancient Moscow was expounded elaborately in the protocol of the session of the anti-Jewish committee as a sort of preamble to the legal project submitted by it While engaged in these labors the members of the committee received the news from the pogrom in Warsaw and were greatly heartened by it They did not fail to make an entry in the protocol to the effect that the disorders which had taken place in the Kingdom of Poland where the Jews enjoyed equal rights i.e. the right of residence tend to support the theory of the injuriousness of the Jewish people Official pens began to scribble more rapidly and within a short time by the spring of 1882 a project was ready to be inflicted as severe punishment upon the Jews for the atrocities perpetrated upon them The Concord 4 represented by the Jewish population was to be dislodged from a large area within the pale of settlement overcrowded though the latter had become by forbidding the Jews to settle on new outside cities and towns i.e. in the countryside Those already settled there were either to be evicted by the verdict of the rural communes or to be deprived of livelihood by the prohibition to buy or lease immovable property and to trade in liquor This project was submitted by Ignatiev to the committee of ministers accompanied by the suggestion that the new disabilities be enacted not in new legal procedure by the Council of State but in the form of temporal rules to be sanctioned in an extra-legal way by the Tsar with the ending view to do away with the aggravated relations between the Jews and the original population However, even the members of the reactionary committee of ministers were embarrassed by Ignatiev's project The committee felt that it was impossible to carry out the expropriation of personal and property rights on an extensive scale without the due process of law and that the permission to be granted on rural communes of expelling the Jews from the villages was tantamount to leaving the letter to the tender mercies of the united Russian masses which would thus more than ever be strengthened in the commission that the Jews might be expelled and assaulted with impunity so that the relations between the two elements of the population instead of improving would only become more aggravated On the other hand, the committee of ministers went on record that it considered it necessary to adopt rigorous measures against the Jews in order that the peasant should not think that the Tsars will in reading them of Jewish exploitation was not put into execution As a result of these contentions several concessions were made by Ignatiev and following compromise was reached The clause ordering the expulsion of the hundreds of thousands of Jews already settled in the villages were eliminated and the prohibition was restricted to the Jews who wished to settle outside the towns and towns that are new The committee of ministers yielded to Ignatiev's demand that the project should be enacted with every possible dispatch without preliminary submission to the council of state Such was the genesis of the famous temporary rules which was sanctioned by the Tsar on May 3, 1882 shown of all bureaucratic rhetoric the new law may be reduced to the following laconic provisions First to forbid the Jews henceforth to settle a new outside the towns and townslets Second to suspend the completion of instruments or purchase of real property and merchandise in the name of Jews outside the towns and townslets Third to forbid the Jews to carry on business on Sundays and Christian holidays The first two rules contained in their harmless wording a cruel punitive law which dislodged the Jews from nine-tenths of the territory heeded to accessible to them and tend to coup of millions of human beings within the suffocating confines of the towns and townslets of the western region And yet, notwithstanding its tremendous implication the law was passed outside the ordinary course of legal procedure under the disguise of temporary rules which, in spite of the title have been enforced with merciless cruelty for more than a generation Two Abandonment of the program policy After imposing a severe and immediately effective penalty upon Russian Jewelry for having been ruined by the programs The government suddenly remembered its duty and dangled the threat of future penalties before the prospective instigators of Jewish disorders On the same fateful third of May the Tsar sanctioned the decision of the committee of ministers concerning the necessity of declaring solemnly that the government is formally resolved to prosecute invariably any attempt at violence on the person and property of the Jews who are under the protection of the general laws In accordance with this declaration a senatorial UK's dated May 10 was sent out to the governors warning them that the heads of the gubernatorial administrations would be held responsible for the adoption of timely measures looking to the prevention of the conditions leading to similar disorders and for the separations of these disorders at the very outset and that any negligence in this regard on the part of the administration and the police authorities would result in the dismissal from office of those found guilty This warning was accompanied by the following confession In view of the fact that said occurrences in the past have made it evident that the local population incited by evil minded persons from covetors or other motives has taken part in the disorders It is the duty of the gubernatorial administration to make it clear to the local communes that they are obliged to adopt measures for the purpose of impressing upon the inhabitants. The gross criminal offense implied in willfully perpetrating violent act against anybody's person and property They would almost seem as if the government by promulgating on one and the same day the temporary rules against the Jews and the circular against the pogroms wished to intimate to the Russian people that in as much as the Jews were now being exterminated through the agency of the law there was no further need to exterminate them on the streets The originators of the temporary rules did not seem to realize that the latter were nothing but a variation of those violent acts against person and property from which the street mob was warned to refrain for the loss of the freedom of movement is violence against the person and the denial of the right to purchasing real estate is violence against property Even the Russian press, though held at that time in the grip could not help commenting on the fact that the effect of the official circular against the pogroms had been greatly weakened by the simultaneous promulgation of the temporary rules It would seem as if the terrible atrocities at Barta had made the highest government's fears realize that the previous policy of connivance at the pogroms which had been practiced for a whole year could not but disgrace Russia in the eyes of the world and undermine public order in Russia itself As soon as this was realized the luckless minister who had been the pilot of Russian politics throughout that terrible year was bound to disappear from the scene On May 30, Count Ignatiev was made to resign and Count Demeterius Tolstoy was appointed minister of the interior Tolstoy was a grim reactionary and champion of autocracy and police power but he was at the same time an enemy of all manifestations of moral which tended to undermine the authority of the state A few days after his appointment the new minister issued a circular in which he reiterated the recent declaration of his predecessor concerning the reserve of the government to prosecute every kind of violence against the Jews announcing emphatically that any manifestation of disorders would unavoidably result in the immediate prosecution of all official persons who are in duty bound to concern themselves with the prevention of disorders This energetic pronouncement of the government had a magic effect All provincial administrators realized that the central government of St. Petersburg had ceased to trifle with the promoters of the programs and the program epidemic was at an end Beginning with June 1882 the programs assumed more and more of sporadic character Here and there sparks of the old conflagration would flare up again but only to die out quickly In the course of the next 20 years until the Kishnev massacre of 1803 no more than about 10 programs of any consequence may be enumerated and these disorders were all isolated movements with purely local coloring and without the earmarks of a common organization or the force of an epidemic such as characterized the program campaigns of 1881 for those of 1903 to 1905 This is an additional proof for the contention that systematic programs in Russia are impossible as long as the central government and the local authorities are honestly and formally set against them The stringent measures adopted by Tolstoy was soon reflected in the legal trials arising out of the programs Formerly, the local authorities refrained as a rule from putting the rioters on trial lest their testimony might implicate the local administration and even when action was finally brought against them the culprits mostly escaped with slight penalties such as imprisonment for a few months But after the declaration of the government in June, the courts adopted a more rigorous attitude towards the rioters In the summer of 1882 a number of cases arising out of the programs at Balta and in other cities were tried in the courts The penalties imposed by the courts were frequently severe though fully deserved such as deportation and confinement at hard labor drafting into penal military companies etc In one case, two soldiers being convicted of pillage and murder were court-martialled and sentenced to death When the sentence was submitted for ratification to Drentlin Governor-General of Kiev the rabbi of Balta acting on behalf of the local Jewish community he took himself to Kiev to support the culprits in their petition for pardon It was strange to listen to this appeal for mercy for the criminal guilty of violence and murder coming from the camp of their victims from the demolished homes which still resounded with the mourns of the wounded and with the whipping of lost lives and dishonored women One finds it difficult to believe that this appeal for mercy was due entirely to an impulse of forgiveness Associated with it was probably the apprehension that most of the murderers would be avenged by the like-minded accomplices who were still at liberty Good note, this by the way was not always the case The court of Cherenikov which was compelled to bring in a verdict of guilty against the perpetrators of the program in the town that of Karapubitsyn the same government decided to recommend the culprits to the clemency of the superior authorities in view of the dissatisfaction of the people with the exploitation of the Jews There are many instances of these anti-Jewish political manifestations in the law courts End of footnote The Jews of Balta were soon to learn that their humility was elucided by the highly placed promoters of the riots In the beginning of August Governor General Trentlin came to Balta He was exceedingly irritated not only on account of the recent circular of Torstoy which implied a personal threat against him as one who had connived at the number of programs within his dominions but also because of the steps taken by the representatives of the Balta Jewish community at St. Petersburg in the direction of exposing the spiritual fathers of the local riots Having arrived in the solely stricken city the head of the province who ex-officio should have conveyed his expression of sympathy to the sufferers summoned the rebels and the leaders of the Jewish community and in the presence of his official staff treated them to a speech full of venomous hatred He told them that the actions the Jews had armed everybody against themselves that they were universally hated that they lived nowhere as happily as in Russia and that the deputation they had sent to St. Petersburg for the purpose of presenting their complaints and slandering the city authorities and representatives as if they had incited the tumultuous mob against the Jews had been of no avail In conclusion he branded the petition of the Balta community for commutation of the death sentence passed upon the rioters as an act of hypocrisy adding impressively that these persons have been pardoned irrespective of the request of the Jews The speech of the bureaucratic Jew beta whose proper place was in the dock side by side with the targeted murderers produced a terrible panic in the whole region of Kiev The militant organ of the Jewish press the voice code properly remarked After the speech of General Edgerton Drentlin our confidence in the impossibility of repetition of the programs has been decidedly shaken What avail can ministerial circulars be when the highest administrator was paralyzed their actions in public by the living world The apprehension voiced by the Jewish organ were fortunately unfounded True, the minister Tolstoy was not able to punish the criminal harangue of the savage governor general who had powerful connections at the Russian court But the firm resolution of the central government to hold the heads of the administration to account for the weapons at programs had the desired effect All that the snarling dogs could do was to bark 3. Disabilities and immigration The program machinery was stopped by a ward of command from St. Petersburg As a counterbalance the machinery for the manufacture of Jewish disabilities continued in full operation The temporary rules of May 3 established a system of legal prosecutions which were directed against the Jews on the ground of their economic injuriousness The fact that the Jewish population was in many regards outside the operation of the general law of Russia opened up a wide field for grossest forms of arbitrariness and lowlessness At one stroke all the exit from the overcrowded cities into the villages within the pale of settlement were tightly closed All branches of industry connected with Jewish land ownership outside the cities were curtailed and in some places entirely cut off In many villages the right to be stored under rural communes of ostracizing vicious members by a special verdict was used as a weapon to expel those Jews who had long been settled there It will be remembered that Ignatiev had proposed to encourage the peasants officially in the use of this weapon against the Jews and that the committee of ministers had rejected his proposal There were now administrators who did the same thing unofficially Prompted by selfish motives the local kulaks or bosses from among the Russian tradesmen acting in conjunction with the rural elders would convene peasants' assemblies which were treated to liberal doses of alcohol The intoxicated half illiterate musics would sign a verdict demanding the expulsion of the Jews from their village The verdict would be promptly confirmed by the governors and would immediately become law Such expressions were particularly frequent in the governments under the jurisdiction of Drentlin, governor general of Kiev and no one doubted that this ferocious Chewbate had passed the word to that effect throughout his dominions The economic misery within the pale drove a number of Jews into the Russian interior but here they were met by the whip of the law made doubly painful by the scorpions of administrative copies Wholesale explosions of Jews took place in St. Petersburg Moscow, Kiev Karkov and other forbidden centers The effect of these explosions upon the commercial life of the country was so disastrous that the big Russian merchants of Moscow and Karkov appealed to the government to relax these restrictions surrounding the visits of Jews to these cities The civil authorities were now joined by the military powers in hounding the Jews There were in the Russian army a large number of Jewish physicians many of whom had distinguished themselves during the preceding Russo-Turkish war The reactionary government at the helm of Russian affairs could not tolerate the sight of a Jewish physician exercising the right of an army officer which were otherwise utterly unattainable for a Jewish soldier Accordingly, the Minister of War Banowski issued a rescript dated April 10, 1882 to the following effect First, to limit the number of Jewish physicians and felt shares in the military department to 5% of the general number of medical men Second, to stop appointing Jews on the medical service in the military districts of western Russia and to transfer the surplus over and above 5% into the Eastern District Third, to appoint Jewish physicians only in those contingents of the army the budget calls for at least two physicians with the proviso that the second physician must be a Christian The reason for these provisions was stated in the most offensive form It is necessary to stop the constant growth of the number of physicians of the mosaic appreciation in the military department in view of their deficient conscientiousness in discharging their duties and their unfavorable influence upon the sanitary service in the army This revolting affront had the effect that many Jewish physicians handed their resignation immediately The resignation of one of these physicians the well-known novelist Yeroshchevsky was couched in such emphatic terms and buried the moral blow directed at the Jewish professional men with such dignity that the minister of war deemed it necessary to put the author on trial Among other things, Yeroshchevsky wrote So long as the aspersions test upon the Jewish physicians so pitilessly are not removed Every superfluous minute spent by them in serving this department will merely add to their disgrace In the name of their human dignity they have no right to remain there where they are held in abhorrence Under these circumstances it seemed quite natural that the tendency towards emigration which had called forth a number of emigration societies as far back as the beginning of 1882 took an ever stronger hold upon the Jewish population of Russia The disastrous consequences of the resolution adopted by the conference of notables in St. Petersburg were now manifest By rejecting the formation of a central agency for regulating the emigration the conference had abandoned the movement to the blind elemental forces and the catastrophe was bound to follow The program at BALTA called forth a new outburst of the emigration panic and in the summer of 1882 some 20,000 Jewish refugees were again huddled together in the Galician border town of Brody They were without means for continuing their journey to America having come to Brody in the hope of receiving help from the Jewish societies of Western Europe The relief committees established in the principal cities of Europe were busily engaged in evacuating Brody of these destitute mess of fugitives In the course of the summer and autumn this task was successfully accomplished A large number of emigrants were dispatched to the United States and the rest were dispersed over the various centers of Western Europe Aside from the highway of American emigration went along a tiny parallel path the Jewish emigration to Palestine The Palestine movement which had shortly before coming to being attracted many enthusiasts from among the Jewish youth In the spring of 1882 a society of Jewish young men, consisting mostly of university students was formed in Karkov under the name BILU from the initial letters of the Hebrew motto Beth Yaakov, Leku-Weh-Nelka or House of Jacob Come Yeah and Let Us Go The aim of the society was to establish a model agricultural settlement in Palestine and to carry on a widespread propaganda for the idea of colonizing the ancient homeland of the Jews As a result of this propaganda several hundred Jews in various parts of Russia joined the BILU society Of these only a few dozen pioneers left for Palestine between June and July of 1882 At first the leaders of the organization attempted to enter into negotiations with the Turkish government with a view to obtaining from it a large tract of land for colonizing purposes but the negotiations failed through The handful of pioneers were obliged to work in the agricultural settlements near Jaffa in Mikve Israel a foundation of the alliance Israelite in Paris and in the colony Zion which had been recently established by a private initiative The useful idealists had to endure many hardships in an unaccustomed environment and in a branch of endeavor entirely alien to them A considerable part of the pioneers was soon forced to give up the struggle and make way for the new settlers who are less intelligent but physically better fitted for their task The foundations of Palestinian colonization had been laid within exceedingly narrow limits and the very idea of the national restoration of the Jewish people in Palestine was then, as it was later a much greater social factor in Jewish life than the practical colonization of this country which could only observe an insignificant number of laborers At those moments when the Russian horrors made life unbearable, the eyes of many sufferers were turned eastward towards the tiny strip of land on the shores of the Mediterranean where the dreams of a new life upon the resuscitated winds of great antiquity held out the promise of fulfillment A contemporary writer in surveying recent events in the world of tears makes the following observations Jewish life during the latter part of 1882 had assumed a monotonous gloomy oppressive dull aspect true. The streets are no longer full of whirling feathers from torn beddings. The window panes no longer crash through the streets. The thunder and lightning which were recently filling the air and gliding the hearts of Greek Orthodox Jews are no more. But have the Jews actually gained by the change from the illegal prosecutions in the form of programs to the legal prosecutions of the 3rd of May? Melt-treated, plundered, reduced to beggary, put to shame, slandered and displeaded the Jews had been cast out of the community of human beings. Their destitution, amounting to beggary has been firmly and definitely afflicted to them. Gloomy darkness without a ray of light has descended upon that beeched and narrow world in each. This unhappy tribe has been languishing so long gasping for breath in the suffocating atmosphere of poverty and contempt. Will this go on for a long time? Will the light of day break at last? End of section 24 section 25 of History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume 2 From the Deaths of Alexander I until the Deaths of Alexander III 1825 to 1894 by Szymon Dubnov translated by Israel Friedlander This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by SS Kim Manit Baisha Portugal Chapter 25 Inner Obhevers 1. This illusionment of the intelligentsia and the national revival The catastrophe at the beginning of the 80s took the Jews of Russia unawares and found them unprepared for spiritual self-defense. The impressions of the recent brief era of reforms were still fresh in their minds. They still remember the initial steps of Alexander II's government in the direction of the complete civil emancipation of Russian Jewry The appearance of the intellectual classes of Russia calling upon the Jews to draw nearer to them the bright prospects of rejuvenated Russia The neigardly gifts of the Russian government were received by Russian Jewry with an outburst of gratitude which bordered on flunkism. The intellectual young Jews and Jews who had passed through the Russian public schools made frantic endeavors not only towards association but also towards complete cultural amalgamation with the Russian people. A simulation and justification became the watch-worth of the day. The literary ideas of young Russia became sacred tablets of the Jewish youth. But suddenly, low and behold that same Russian people in each the progressive forces of Jewry were ready to merge their identity appeared in the shape of a monster which belched forth holds upon holds of rioters and murderers. The government had changed front and adopted the policy of reaction and fierce Jew hatred while the liberal classes of Russia showed but scant sympathy with downtrodden and mal-treated nation. The voice of hostile press the nowhere of Ramia the ruse and others resounded through the air with full vigours whereas the liberal press owing partly but only partly to the tightening grip of the censor defended the Jews in a perfunctory manner. Even the publicist of the radical type of principally grouped around the periodical Vania Tzapski records of the fatherland looked upon the programs merely as the brutal manifestation of an economic struggle and viewed the whole complicated Jewish problem with all its century long tragic implications in the life of subordinate social economic question. The only one whose soul was deeply stirred by the site of the new offerings of an ancient people was the Russian satirist Shedrin Shartikov and he poured forth his sentiments in the summer of 1882 after the completion of the first cycle of programs in an article marked by a lyric strain so different from his usual style. But Shedrin was the only Russian writer of prominence who responded to the Jewish sorrow. Turgenev and Tolstoy held their peace whereas the literary celebrities of Western Europe, Victor Hugo Renaud and many others came forward with passionate protests. The Russian intelligentsia remained cold in the face of the burning torches of Jewelry. The educated classes of Russian Jewelry were hurled to the kick by this chilly attitude and their former enthusiasm gave way to disillusionment. Udnot. The article appeared in the Oteh Chestvenia Chapsky in August 1882. The following sentences in that article are worthy of reproduction. History has never recorded in its page a question more replete with sadness more falling to the sentiments of humanity and more filled with torches than the Jewish question. The history of mankind as a whole is an endless meteorology yet at the same time it is also a record of endless progress. In the records of meteorology the Hebrew tribe occupies the first place. In the annals of progress it stands aside as if the luminous perspective of history could never reach it. There is no more heart-rending tale than the story of this endless torture of men by men. In the same article the Russian satirist draws a clever parallel between the merciless Russian kulak who ruins the peasantry and the pitiful Jewish exploiter, the half-starved tradesman who in turn is exploited by everyone. End of Udnot. This disillusionment found its early expression in the lamentations of repentant assimilators. Some of these assimilators writing in the first months of the programs makes the following confession. The cultural Jewish classes have turned their back upon their history, have forgotten their traditions and have conceived a contempt for everything which might make them realize that they are the members of the eternal people. With no definite ideas dragging their Judaism behind Gally's slave, drags his heavy chain, how could these men justify their belonging to the tribe of Christ killer and exploiters? Truly pitiful has become the position of these assimilators who but yesterday were the champions of national self-effacement. Life demands self-determination to sit between two stools has now become an impossibility. The logics of events has pledged them before the alternative either to declare themselves openly as renegades or to take their proper share in the sufferings of their people. Another representative of the Jewish intelligentsia writes in the following strain to the editor of Russian-Jewish periodical. When I remember what has been done to us, how we have been loved Russia and Russian speech, how we have been induced and compelled to introduce the Russian language and everything Russian into our families so that our children know no other language but Russian and how we are now reversed and persecuted, then our hearts are filled with sickening despair from which there seems to be no escape. This terrible insert knows at my vitals. It may be that I am mistaken but I do honestly believe that even if I succeeded in moving to a happier country where all men are equal where there are no programs by day and Jewish commissions by night I would yet remain sick at heart to the very end of my life. To such an extent do I feel one out by this accursed ear, this universal mental eclipse which has visited our dear fatherland. Russian Jewish literature of that period is full of similar self revelations of disillusioned intellectuals. However, this repentant mood did not always lead to positive results. Some of these intellectuals having become part and parcel of Russian culture life were no longer able to find their way back to Judaism and they were carried off by the current of assimilation culminating in baptism. Others stood at the crossroads wavering between assimilation and Jewish nationalism. Still others were so stunned by the blow they had received that they reeled violently backwards and proclaimed as their slogan the return home in the sense of complete renunciation of free criticism and of all strivings for inner reforms. However in the healthy part of Russian Jewry, this change of mind resulted in turning their ideas definitely in the direction of national rejuvenation upon modern foundations. The idea of struggle for national rejuvenation in Russia itself had not yet matured. It appeared as an active force only in the following decade. During the era of pogroms the salvation of Judaism was primarily associated with the idea of emigration. The champions of American emigration were prone to idealize this movement which had in reality sprung from practical necessity and they saw in it, not without justification, the beginning of a new free center of Judaism in the diaspora. The Hebrew poet, Judah Life Gordon addresses the daughter of Jacob, the Jewish people disgraced by the son of Hamo the Russian government in the following wars. Come, let us go where liberty is light. Don't shine upon all with equal might where every man without disgrace is free to adhere to his greed and his race where though too shalt no longer fear dishonor from brutes my sister dear. The exponents of American emigration were inspired by the prospect of exodus from the land of slavery into the land of freedom. Many of them looked forward to the establishment of agricultural and farming settlements in that country and to the concentration of large Jewish masses in the thinly populated states of the Union where they hoped the Jews might be granted a considerable amount of self-government. Side by side with the striving for transplantation of Jewish centers within the diaspora another idea which negatives the diaspora all together and places in its state the resuscitation of the Jewish National Center in Palestine struggle to live amidst the birth pangs of the pogroms. The first theoretic exponent of this new movement called Love of Zion was M. Lillian Blum who in a formal stage of radicalism had preached the needs of religious reforms in Judaism. As far back as in the autumn of the first pogrom year Lillian Blum published a series of articles in each he interpreted the idea of Palestinian colonization which had but recently sprung to life in the light of the common national task of the people of Jewelry. Lillian Blum endeavored to show that the root of all the historic misfortunes of the Jewish people lay in the fact that it was in all lands an alien element which refuses to assimilate in its entirety with the dominant nation with the landlord as it were. The landlord tolerates his tenants only so long as he finds him convenient let the tenant make the slightest attempt at competing with the landlord and he will be promptly evicted. During the Middle Ages the Jews were persecuted in the name of religious fanaticism. Now a beginning has been made to persecute them in the name of national fanaticism coupled with economic factors and this second chapter of our history will no doubt contain many a bloody page. Jewish sufferings can only be removed by removing its cause. We must seems to be strangers in every land of the globe and establish ourselves in a country where we ourselves made the landlords. Such a country can only be our ancient fatherland, Palestine which belongs to us by the rights of history. We must undertake the colonization of Palestine on so comprehensive a scale that in the course of one century the Jews may be able to live in hospitable Europe almost entirely and settle in the land of our forefathers to which we are legally entitled. These thoughts expounded with that simplified logic which will strike certain types of mind as incontrovertible were fully attuned to the sentiments of the Jewish masses which were standing with guarded loins ready for their exodus from the new Egypt. The immigration societies formed in the beginning of 1882 counted in their ranks many advocates of Palestinian colonization. Bitter literary views were waged between the Americans and Palestinians. A young poet, Shimon Brooke, composed following enthusiastic exodus march which he prefaced with the biblical verse speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward. It was the dawn of the marrow forward to the strain of the songs of the days gone by. For future ages like thunders to us cry rise my people from thy grave and live once more a nation free and brave and in our ears songs of a new life ring and hymns of triumph the storms too as seen. This march voiced the sentiment of those who dreamed promised land whether it be on the shores of Jordan or on the banks of the Mississippi. Two, Pinsker's auto emancipation The conception of immigration as a means of national rejuvenation which had sprung to life amidst the thunder and lightning of the programs found the thoughtful exponent in the person of Dr. Leon Pinsker a prominent criminal worker in Odessa who had at one time looked to assimilation as promising a solution of the Jewish problem. In his pamphlet, auto emancipation published in September 1882 which is marked by profound thinking Pinsker vividly describes the mental agony experienced by him at the site of the physical slavery of the Jewry of Russia and the spiritual slavery of the emancipated Jewry of Western Europe. For him, the Jewish people in the diaspora is not a living nation but rather the ghost of a nation haunting the globe and scurrying all living national organisms. The salvation of Judaism can only be brought about by transforming this ghost into a real being by re-establishing the Jewish people upon a territory of its own which might be obtained through the common endeavor of Jewry international Jewish cooperation in some convenient part of the globe be it Palestine or America. Such is the way of Jewish auto emancipation in contrary distinction from the civic emancipation which had been bestowed by the dominant nationalities upon the Jews as an act of grace and which does not safeguard them against anti-Semitism and the humiliating position of second-rate citizens. The Jewish people can be restored if instead of many places of refuge scattered all over the globe it will be concentrated in one politically guaranteed place of refuge. What is purpose or general Jewish Congress ought to be called which should be entrusted with financial and political issues involved in the plan. The present generation must take the first step towards restoration. Posterity will do the rest. Pinskas pamphlet which was written in German and printed abroad with the intention of appealing to the Jews of Western Europe failed to produce any effect upon that assimilated section of the Jewish people. In Russia however it became the catechism of the love of Zion movement and eventually of Zionism and territorialism. The theory expounded in Pinskas pamphlet made a strong appeal to the Russian Jews not only on account of its close reasoning but also because it gave powerful utterance to that pessimistic frame of mind which seemed to have seized upon them all. Its weakest point lay in the fact that it rested on a wrong historic premise and on a narrow definition of the term nation in the sense of territorial and political organism. Pinskas seemed to have overlooked that the Jews of the diaspora taken as a whole have not ceased to form a nation though of a type of its own and that in modern political history nations of this cultural complexion have appeared on the scene more and more frequently. Lacking a definite practical foundation Pinskas doctrine could not but accommodate itself to the Palestinian colonization movement although its insignificant dimensions were entirely out of proportion to the far-reaching plans conceived by the author of auto emancipation. Lillian Bloom and Pinskas were joined by the old nationalist Smolenskin and the former assimilator Levanda. Ha Shahr and Ha Melit in Hebrew and Razviat in Russian became the literary vehicles of the new movement. In opposition to these tendencies the Voskhod of Saint Petersburg reflected the ideas of the progressive Russian-Jewish intelligentsia and defended the old position which was that of civil emancipation and inner-Jewish reforms. In the middle between these two extremes stood the Lillian Weekly, Ruskiyevri, the Russian Jew in Saint Petersburg and the Hebrew Weekly, Ha Zefira, the dawn in Warsaw voicing the moderate views of the Haskala period with the decided bent toward the nationalistic movement. Three, miscarried religious reforms. The storm of problems not only broke many young tweaks on the tree of enlightenment but had attained to full bloom in the preceding period but it also bent others into monstrous shapes. This abnormal development is particularly characteristic of the idea of religious reforms in Judaism which sprang to life in the beginning of the 80s. A fortnight before the problem at Elizabeth grad which inaugurated another gloomy chapter in the annals of the papers reported that a new Jewish sect had appeared in their city under the name of the spiritual biblical brotherhood. Its members denied all religious dogmas and ceremonies and acknowledged only the moral doctrines of the Bible. They condemned all mercantile pursuits and endeavored to live by physical labor primarily by agriculture. The founder of this brotherhood was a local teacher and journalist Jacob Gordon who stood at the time under the influence of the South Russian stundist as well as of the socialistic Russian populist. The spiritual biblical brotherhood was made of all together of a school of people. In the newspaper appeared which appeared shortly after the spring programs of 1881 the leader of the sect hiding his identity under the hand name of brother Bibleist called upon the Jews to divest themselves of those character traits and economic pursuits which excited the hatred of the native population against them. The love of money the hunt for barter, usury and petty trading. This appeared which sounded in unison in the voice of the Russian Chewbaters and appeared at the time when the wounds of the program victims were not yet healed or out of profound indignation among the Jews. Shortly afterwards the spiritual biblical brotherhood fell asunder. Some of its members joined the like-minded sect in Odessa which had been founded there in the beginning of 1883 by a teacher Jacob Brilooka under the name of New Israel. The aim of New Israel was to facilitate by means of radical religious reforms conceived in the spirit of rationalism the contact between Jews and Christians and thereby pave the ways for civil emancipation. The two-fold religious social program of the sect was as follows The sect recognizes only the teaching of Moses. It rejects the Talmud the dietary laws the rites of circumcision and the traditional form of worship The day of rest is transferred from Saturday to Sunday The Russian language is declared to be the native tongues of the Jews and made obligatory in everyday life Usually and similar distasteful pursuits were forbidden As a reward for all these virtuous endeavors the sect expected from the Russian government which it petitioned to the effect complete civil equality for its members permission to intermarry with Christians and the right to share a special badge by which they were to be marked off from the Talmudic Jews As an expression of gratitude for the anticipated government benefits the members of the sect pledged themselves to give their boys and girls who were to be born during the coming year the names of Aleksandr in honor of the Russian Tsar The first religious half of the program of New Israel might possibly have attracted a few adherents But the second business-like part of it opened the eyes of the public to the true aspiration of these reformers who in their eagerness for civil equality were ready to battle away religion, conscience and honor and who did not poke at betraying such low flunkism at a time when the blood of the victims of the Balta program had not yet dried Thus, it was that withering influence of reactionary Judeo-Povya compromised and crippled the second attempt at inner reforms in Judaism Both movements soon passed out of existence and their founders subsequently left Russia Gordon went to America and renouncing his sins of youth and popular edict playwright prelocal settled in England and entered the employee of the missionaries who were anxious to propagate Christianity among the Jews A few years later during 1884 and 1885 New Israel cropped up in a new shape this time in Kishnev where a puny congregation of New Testament Israelites were founded by Lavinovitz, having for its aim the fusion of Judaism with Christianity In the house of prayers in each this congregation consisting altogether of 10 members worshipped, someone's were also delivered by a protestant collagement A few years later this new missionary device was also abandoned The pastiferous atmosphere which surrounded the Russian Jewish at the time could do no more than produce this poisonous growth of religious reform For the wholesome seeds of such a reform were bound with the after the collapse of the ideas which had served as a large star during the period of enlightenment End of section 25