 section 26 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 Ritlander this liver works recording is in the public domain recording by SS Kim Manit Baishor Portugal chapter 26 increased Jewish disabilities part one one the pilot commission and new schemes of oppression the temporary rules of May 3rd 1882 had been passed so to speak as an extraordinary world measure outside the usual channel of legislative action yet the Russian government could not but realize that sooner or later it would be bound to adopt the customary legal procedure and place the Jewish question before the highest court of the land the Council of State to meet this eventuality it was necessary to prepare materials of somewhat better quality than had been manufactured by the gubernatorial Commission's and Central Jewish Committee which owed their existence to Ignatiev forming part and parcel of the general anti-Jewish policy of the discharged minister even prior to the promulgation of the temporary rules the council of ministers had called the charge attention to the necessity of appointing a special high commission to deal with the Jewish question and to draft legal measures for submission to the council of state this suggestion was carried out on February 4 1883 on each day an imperial UK's was each calling for the formation of a high commission for the revision of the current laws concerning the Jews the chairmanship of the commission was first interest to Markov or former minister of the interior and after his untimely death to count Palin or former minister of justice who guided the work of the commission during the five years of existence hence it's popular designation as the Palin Commission the membership of the commission was made up of six officials representing the various departments of the ministry of the interior and of one official for each of the ministries of finance justice public instruction crown domains and foreign affairs and lastly of our few experts who were consulted casually the new bureaucratic body received no definite instructions as to the period of time within each it was expected to complete its labors it was evidently given to understand that the work entrusted to it could well afford to wait the first session of the high commission was held fully 10 months after his official appointment by the star and its business proceeded at a snail's pace surrounded by the mysterious air characteristic of Russian official down for several years the high commission had to work its way through the set in editance of the different gubernatorial commissions represented by mounds of paper with the most fantastic projects of solving the Jewish question endeavoring to bring these materials into some kind of system it also received a number of memoranda on the Jewish question from outsiders among them from public-minded Jews who in most cases used Baron Horace Hinsburg as they'll go between memoranda which sought to put the various aspects of the question in the right perspective after four years spent on the examination of the material the commission undertook to formulate its own conclusions but for reasons which will become patent late on this conclusion were never crystallized in the form of legal provisions while the high commission was a seriously engaged in the revision of the current laws concerning the Jews in other words was repeating the CC first task abandoned by schools of similar bureaucratic creations in the past the government pursued with unobated ego its all-time policy of making the life of the Jews unbearable by turning out endless varieties of new legal restrictions these restrictions were generally passed outside the law IE without their being previously submitted to the council of state they were simply brought up as suggestions before the council of ministers and after adoption by the letter received legal sanctions through ratification by the Tsar without awaiting the results of the revision of Jewish legislation which it had itself undertaken the Russian government embarked enthusiastically upon the task of forging new chains for the happiness Jewish race for a number of years the high commission was nothing more than a cover to screen these cruel experiments of the powers at the helm of the state at the very time in each the ministerial officials serving on the high commission indulged in abstract speculations about the Jewish question and invented various methods for its solution the council of ministers anticipated this solution in the spirit of David anti-semitism and was picked to give it effect in concrete life the wind which was blowing from the heights of Russian bureaucracy was decidedly unfavorable to the Jews the belated the coronation of Alexander the Third which took place in May 1883 and in accordance with Russian tradition brought in the form of an imperial manifesto various privileges and alleviations for different sections of the Russian population left the Jews severely alone the Tsar Lenten attentive ear to those zealous governors and governors general who in their most humble reports propounded the new fangled theory of the injuriousness of the Jews the marginal remarks frequently attached by him to these reports assume the first of binding resolutions in the beginning of 1883 the governor general of Odessa Gurko took occasion in his report to the Tsar to comment on the excessive growth of the number of Jewish pupils in the gymnasium and their injurious effect upon their Christian fellow pupils Gurko proposed to fix a limited percentage for the automation of Jews to these schools and the Tsar made the annotation I share this conviction the matter ought to receive attention the matter did of course receive attention it was brought up before the committee of ministers but the letter was reluctant to pass upon it at once and thought it wiser to have it prepared and duly submitted for legislative action at some future time however when the governor general of Odessa and the governor of Karkov in their reports for the following year expatiated again on the necessity of fixing a school norm for the Jews the Tsar made another annotation in a more emphatic tone it is desirable to decide this question finally this suffice to impress the committee of ministers with the conviction that the growing influx of the non-Christian element into the educational establishments exert from a moral and religious point of view a most injurious influence upon the Christian children the question was submitted for consideration to the High Commission under the chairmanship of Count Parland the Minister of Public Instruction was ordered to frame post haste on enactment embodying the spirit of the imperial resolution soon the new fruit of the Russian bureaucratic genius was ready to be plugged the school norm which was destined to occupy a prominent place in the fabric of Russian Jewish disabilities the center of gravity of the system of oppression lay as it always did in the restriction attaching to the rights of domicile and free movement restrictions which frequently made life for the Jews physically impossible by cutting off their access to the sources of livelihood the temporary rules of the 3rd of May displayed in this domain a dazzling variety of legal tortures such as might have excited the envy of medieval inquisitors the May laws of 1882 bought the Jews from settling outside the cities on your eye in the future exempting those who had settled in the rural districts prior to 1882 these all-time Jewish rustics were thrown in the flesh of the Russian anti-Semites who hoped for a sudden disappearance of the Jewish population from the Russian countryside according to a whole set of administrative measures were put in motion with a view to make the life of the village Jews unbearable another connection we had occasion to point out that Russian authorities as well as the Christian competitors of the Jews made it their business to expel the letter from the rural localities as vicious members by heading the peasant assemblies render special verdict against them this method was now supplemented by new contrivances to dislodge the Jews a village Jew who happened to absent himself for a few days or weeks to go to town was frequently barred by the police from returning to his home on the ground that he was a new settler there are cases of Jewish families on record which according to custom had left the village for high holidays to attend services in an adjacent town or town led and which on their return home met with considerable difficulties because their return was interpreted by the police as a new settlement in the dominions of the anti-Jewish set up drentlin the administration construed the temporary rules to mean that Jews were not allowed to move from one village to another or even from one house to another within the precincts of their native village moreover the police was authorized to expel from the villages all those Jews who did not possess their own houses upon their own land on the ground that these Jews in renting new quarters would have to make a new lease with their owners and such a lease was forbidden by the May laws this malicious misinterpretations of the law affected some 10,000 Jews in the villages of Cherenikov and Portava these Jews lived habitually in rented houses or in houses which were their property but were built upon ground belonging to peasants and they were consequently liable to expulsion the cry of these unfortunate who were threatened with eviction in the dead of the winter was heard not in nearby Kiev but in far off St. Petersburg by a senatorial UK's published in January 1884 a check was put on these administrative highway methods the explosion was stopped though a considerable number of Jewish families had in the meantime been evicted and ruined at the same time other restrictions which were in like manner deduced from the temporary rules were allowed to remain in full force one of these were the prohibition of removing from one village to another even though they were contiguous so that the rural Jews were practically placed in the position of selves being affixed to their places of residence this cruel practice was sanctioned by the law of December 29 1887 as a contemporary writer puts it the law implied that when a village in each a Jew lived was burned down or when a factory in each he worked was closed he was compelled to remove into one of the towns or town let's since he was not allowed to search for a shelter and livelihood in any other rural locality in accordance with the same law or Jew had no right to offer shelter to his widowed mother or to his informed parents who lived in another village furthermore a Jew was barred from taking over or commercial or industrial establishment picketed to him by his father if the latter had lived in another village he was not even allowed to take charge of house because it's to him by his parents if they had resided in another village though situated within the confines of the pale while this network of disabilities was winning the Jews it yielded a plentiful harvest for the police from the highest to the lowest officials graft the Russian habeas corpus act shielded the persecuted Jews against the capitalized and violence of the authorities in the application of the restrictive laws and Russian official dome held on tightly to Jewish rightlessness as their own special benefits hatred of the Jews has at all times gone hand in hand with love of Jewish money to Jewish disabilities outside the pale outside the pale of settlement the network of disabilities was stretched out even more widely and was sure to catch the Jews in its meshes throughout the length and breadth of the Russian Empire outside the 15 governments of Western Russia and the 10 governments of the Kingdom of Poland there was scattered a handful of privileged Jews who were permitted to reside behind the pale man with an academic education first killed merchants who had for a number of years paid their guild Jews within the pale and handicraftsmen so long as they confine themselves to the pursuit of their craft the influx of illegal Jews into this taboo region was checked by measures of extraordinary civility the example was set by the Russian capital the window towards Europe which had been broken through by Peter the Great the city of St. Petersburg harboring some 20,000 privileged Jews who lived there legally became the center of attraction for a large number of illegal Jews who flocked to the capital with the intention deemed the criminal offense by the government of engaging in some modest business pursuit without paying the high-gold Jews or of devoting themselves to science or literature without a diploma from a higher educational institution in their pockets the number of these Jews who obtained their right of residence through a legal fiction by enrolling themselves as artisans or as employees of the privileged Jews were very considerable and the police expanded vast amount of energy in waging of his struggle against them the city governor of St. Petersburg who was notorious for the cruelty of his police regime made it his specialty to hunt down the Jews a contemporary writer in reviewing the events of the year 1883 gives the following description of the exploits of the Metropolitan Police the campaign was started at the very beginning of the year and continued uninterruptedly until the end of it early in March the Metropolitan Police received orders to search most vigorously the Jewish residences and examine the passports in the police stations special records were instituted for the Jews St. Petersburg was to be purged of the odious Hebrew tribe the contrivances employed were no longer novel and were the same which had been successfully tried in other cities the Jews were raided in regular fashion those that were found with doubtful claims to residents in the capital were frequently accompanied by their families immediately dispatched to the proper regular stations as quoted by policemen the time for departure was measured by hours the term of explosion was generally limited to 24 hours or 48 hours as if it involved the execution of a court martial sentence and yet the majority of the victims of explosion were people who had lived in St. Petersburg for many years and had succeeded in establishing homes and business places which could not be liquidated within 24 hours or there about the hurried explosions from the capital result in numerous conversions to Christianity amusing stories circulated all over town concerning Jews who had decided to join the Christian Church and had applied for permission to remain in the capital for one or two weeks the time required by law for a preliminary training in the truth of the new faith but whose petition was readily refused because the police believed that a similar training might also be received within the boundaries of the pale of settlement as a matter of fact fictitious conversions of this kind were but seldom resorted to in the fight against governmental violence as a rule the evasion of the law was affected by less harmful perhaps but no less humiliating and even tragic fictions many a Jewish newcomer would bring with him on his arrival in St. Petersburg on artisan certificate and enroll himself as an apprentice of some full-fledged Jewish artisan but who be tied if the police happen to visit the workshop and fail to find the fictitious apprentice at work he was liable to immediate explosion and the owner of the shop was no less exposed to grave risks some Jews in their eagerness to obtain the right of residence registered as men's servants in the employ of Jewish physicians or lawyers this would be servants or frequently summoned to the police stations and close examined as to their character of their services the answer expected from them or something like I clean my master's boots carry behind him his portfolio at court etc several prominent Jewish writers lived for so many years in St. Petersburg on this flunkish basis among them the talent young poet Shimon Frouk the singer of Jewish sorrow who was fast establishing for himself or reputation both in Jewish and in Russian literature it can easily be realized how precarious was the position of these men any day their passports might be found ornamented by a red police notation ordering their explosion from the capital within 24 hours all Russia was stirred at the time by the sensational story of a young Jewish who had come to St. Petersburg or Moscow to enter the college courses for women and in order to obtain the right of residence found herself compared to register fictitiously as a prostitute and take out a yellow ticket when the police discovered that young woman was engaged in studying instead of playing her official trade she was banished from the capital in 1886 England was shocked by the explosion from Moscow of the well-known English member of parliament the banker Sir Samuel Montagu later Lord Swetling despite his influential position Montagu was ordered out of the Russian capital within 24 hours like an itinerant vagrant none of these tragedies however was able to produce any effect upon the ring leaders and henchmen of the Russian inquisition the energy of the authorities spent itself primarily in the fight against the natural yet according to the Russian court illegal struggle of the Jews for their existence and against the sacred right of man to move about freely the merciless Russian law trampling upon this inviolable right draw human beings from village to town and from one town to another in the hotbed of militant Judea phobia in Kiev raised upon illegal Jewish residents were the order of the day during the year 1886 alone more than 2,000 Jewish families were evicted from the town not satisfied with the explosion of the Jews from the towns prohibited to them by law the authorities contrived swell the number of these towns by adding new localities which were part of the pale and as such open to the Jews in 1887 the large south Russian cities crossed off on the dawn and Tagan log were transferred from the pale of settlement to the taboo territory of the dawn army those Jews who had lived in these cities before the promulgation of the law were allowed to remain but the new settling of Jews was strictly forbidden not satisfied with constantly lessening the area in each without any further restrictions the Jewish population was gasping for breath the government was on the lookout for ways and means to narrow also the sphere of Jewish economic activity the medieval system of Russian society with its division into estates and guilds became an instrument of Jewish oppression the authorities openly followed the maxim that the Jew was to be robbed of his profession to the end that it may be turned over to his Christian rival under Alexander II the government had endeavored to promote handicrafts among the Jews as a counterbalance against their commercial pursuit and had therefore conferred upon Jewish artisans the rights of residents all over the empire the change of policy under Alexander III is well illustrated by the uk of 1884 closing the Jewish School of Handicrafts in Zithomir which had been in existence for 23 years the reason for the enactment is stated with brazen impudence owing to the fact that the Jews living in the towns and towns of the southwestern region formed the majority of handicraftsmen and thereby hampered the development of handicrafts among the original population of that region which is exploited by them the existence of a specific Jewish school of handicrafts seems in view of the lack of similar schools among the Christians on additional weapons in the hands of the Jews for the exploitation of the original population of that region here the pursuit of handicrafts is actually stigmatized as a means of exploitation the true meaning of the terrible world an invention of the Russian government is thereby put in a glaring light the Jew is an exploiter so long as he follows any pursuit however honorable and productive in each a Christian might engage in his state the slightest attempt of the Jew to enlarge his economic activity met with the relentless punishment of the law the Jewish artisan though permitted to live outside the pail had only the right to sell the products of his own workmanship when found to sell other merchandise which was not manufactured by him he was liable on the article 1171 of the penal court not only to be immediately expelled from his place of residence but also to have his goods confiscated the Christian competitors of the Jews shoulder to shoulder with the police kept a careful watch over the Jewish artisans and so to it that a Jewish tailor should not dare to sell a piece of material a watchmaker a new factory made watch with a chain being only allowed to repair old watches a baker a pound of flour or a cup of coffee the discovery of such a crime was followed immediately by cutting short the career of the poor artisan in accordance with the provisions of the law end of section 26 section 27 of history of the Jews in Russia and Poland volume 2 from the death of Alexander the first until the death of Alexander the third 1825 to 1894 by Shimon Dubnov translated by israel fritland this livable's recording is in the public domain recording by s.s.k.m. Manit Baishu, Portugal chapter 26 increased Jewish disabilities part two three restrictions in education and in the legal profession a salient future of that gloomy era of counter reform was the endeavor of the government to dislodge the Jews from the liberal professions and as corollary to bar them from the secondary and higher schools which were the training ground for these professions what the government had in view was to reduce the number of those privileged Jews who under the law passed in the time of Alexander the second had been reordered for their completion of a course of studies in an institution of higher learning by the right of unrestricted presidents throughout the empire the authorities now founded to their purpose to hamper the spread of education among the Jews rather than promote it the highly placed obscurantists contended that the jewish students exerted an injurious influence upon their christian communists from the religious and moral point of view while the political police reported that the jewish college men are quick in joining the ranks of the revolutionary workers the fear of educated russian subjects who are not of the dominant faith was natural in the country in each poor vietnamese chief the moving spirit of inner russian politics looked upon popular education in general as a destructive force brought with danger to throne and altar there can be but little doubt that the previously mentioned imperial resolutions indicating the necessity of curtailing the number of Jews in russian educational establishment were inspired by the grand inquisitor notwithstanding the opposition of the majority of the palan commission whose members had not yet entirely discarded the enlightened traditions of the reign of alexander the second the question was decided in accordance with the wishes of the here too as in the case of the temporary rules the government was resolved to enact the new disabilities by the sovereign will of the emperor without submitting them to the highest legislative body of the land the council of state for fear that undesirable debates might arise in the august body concerning the experience of putting an embargo on education on december 5th 1886 the tsar acting on the suggestions of the committee of ministers directed the minister of public instruction dlanov to adopt measures for the limitation of the automation of Jews to the secondary and higher educational establishments for six long months the minister whose official duty was the promotion of education was wavering between a number of schemes designed to restrict education among the Jews suggestions for such restrictions came from officials of the ministry and from superintendents of school districts some proposed to close the schools only to the children of the lower classes among the Jews in each the unsympathetic traits of the jewish character were particularly conspicuous others recommended a restrictive percentage for Jews in general without any class discrimination still others pleaded for moderation less excessive restriction in automation to russian universities should force the jewish youth to go to foreign universities and make them even more dangerous since they were bound to return to russia with liberal notions concerning the political form of government at last in july 1887 the minister of public instruction acting on the above mentioned imperial resolution published his two famous circulars limiting the admission of Jews to the universities and to secondary schools the following norm was established in the pale of settlement the Jews were to be admitted to the schools to the extent of 10 percent of the christian school population outside the pale the norm was fixed at five percent and in the two capitals st. Petersburg and mosco at three percent although decreed before the very beginning of the new scholastic year the percentage norm was nevertheless immediately applied in the case of the gimnasia the real schools and the universities in the higher professional institutions such as the technological veterinarian and agronomical schools the restrictions had been practiced even before the promulgation of the circular or were introduced immediately after it this was the genesis of the educational percentage norm the source of sorrow and tears for two generations of russian Jews both fathers and sons now having run the gauntlet in the months of july and august of every year thousands of jewish children were knocking at the doors of the gimnasia and universities but only tens and hundreds obtained admission in the towns of the pale where the Jews formed from 30 to 80 percent of the total population the admission of jewish pupils to the gimnasia and real schools were limited to ten percent so that the majority of jewish children were deprived of secondary education the position of the gimnasium and real school graduate who were unable to continue their studies in the institutions of higher learning was particularly tragic many of these unfortunately the rest personal appears to the minister of public instruction the eleon of who being good-natured would despite his reactionary proclivities frequently sanctioned the admission of the petitioners over and above the school norm but the majority of the young men but from the college found themselves compelled to go abroad in search of education and being generally without means suffered untold hardships nevertheless the cruel restrictions could not suppress the need for education in a people with an ancient culture those that had failed to gain admission to the gimnasia completed the prescribed course of studies at home under the guidance of private tutors or by private study and afterwards presented themselves for examination for the maturity certificate as externs braving all the difficulties of this stony path having successfully passed their secondary course they found again their way but as soon as they wished to enter the universities and the matters of learning had no choice left except to take up their pilgrim staff and travel abroad year in year out two processions of immigrants went their way from Russia to the west one was traveling across the Atlantic in search of bread and liberty the other was headed towards Germany, Austria, England and France in search of higher education the former was driven from their homes by a peculiar interdictio igneous at Aqai the other by an interdictio skiantii having closed the avenues of higher education to the bulk of Russian jewelry the government now went a step further and contrived to dispossess even those Jews who had already managed to obtain a higher education in spite of all difficulties it was not satisfied with barring college bread Jews from the civil service and on academic career thus limiting the Jewish physicians and lawyers to private practice it was anxious to restrict even this narrow field of activity still open to Jews in view of the fact that the Jewish jurists had no chance to apply their knowledge in the civil service and were entirely excluded from the bench they naturally turned to the bar with the result that they soon occupied a conspicuous place there both quantitatively and qualitatively their success was a source of annoyance to the Russian anti-Semite both those who hated the Jews on principle and those who did so selfishly being themselves members of the bar these enemies of Judaism called the attention of the government to the large number of Jewish lawyers at the St. Petersburg bar a circumstance due partly to the natural gravitation towards the administrative and legal center of the country and partly to the fact that the admission of Jews to the bar met with less obstruction from the judicial authorities in the capital than in the provinces where professional jealousy frequently stood in the way of the Jews the reactionary minister of justice Manasain managed to convince the Tsar that it was necessary to check the further admission of Jews to the bar however from diplomatic considerations it was thought wiser to carry this restriction into effect not under an anti-Jewish flag but rather as a general measure directed against all members of non-Christian negotiations the restriction was therefore extended to Mohammedans and the handful of privileged Karaites and the religious intolerance of the new measure was thus drawn into even bolder relief on November 1889 an Imperial UK's decreed as follows that pending the enactment of a special law dealing with this subject the admission of public and private attorneys of non-Christian denominations by the competent judicial institutions and bar associations shall not take place except with the permission of the minister of justice under recommendation of the presidents of the above mentioned institutions and associations it goes without saying that the Russian minister of justice made ample use of the right comfort oponium of denying automation to Jews as public and private attorneys while readily sanctioning the automation of Mohammedans and Karaites the minister almost invariably refused to confirm the election of young Jewish baristas however warmly they may have been recommended by the judicial institutions and bar associations in this way many talented Jewish Jews who might have filled the university chair with distinction or might have attained brilliant success in the legal profession was first out of his path and deprived of an opportunity to serve his country by its laborers and pursue a career for which he had fitted himself at the university instead these derailed professionals went to swell the host of those who had been wronged and disinherited by the injustice of the law for discrimination in military service he seemed as if the government was intent on making a one-sided compact with Russian Jewry we shall deprive you of all the elementary rights due to you as men and citizens we shall rob you of the right of domicile and freedom of movement and of the chance of making a livelihood we shall expose you to physical and spiritual starvation and shall cast you out of the community of citizens yet you dare not swerve an inch from the path of your civic obligations a lurid illustration of this unique exchange of services was provided by the manner in which military duty was imposed upon the Jews Russian legislation had long since contrived to establish revolting restrictions for the Jews also in this domain Jews with physical defects which rendered Christians unfit for military service such as a lower stature and that of a chest were nevertheless taken into the army in the case of a shortage of recruits among the Jewish population even only sons the sole wage owners of their families were of their widowed mothers were drafted whereas the same category of conscripts among Christians were unconditionally exempt moreover a Jew serving in the army always remained the private and could never attain to an officer's rank as if the government intended to make sports of the Jewish soldiers the latter were deprived of their right of residence in the localities outside the pair where they had been stationed and as soon as their term of service had expired was sent back into the territory of the Russian Jewish ghetto thus even Nicholas the first was out, Nicholas the discharged Jewish soldiers who had served under the old recruiting law enjoyed both for themselves and their families the right of residence throughout the empire the new military statute of 1874 withdrew from the retired Jewish soldiers this reward for faithfully performed duty and in 1885 the Senate sustained this franchisement of these Jews who had spent years of their life in the service of their fatherland a Jew from Berdichev Vilna or Odessa who had served five or six years somewhere in St. Petersburg, Moscow or Kazan was forced to leave these tabooed cities and return home on the very day on which he had taken off his soldier's uniform yet despite this curious encouragement of Jewish patriotism the government had the audacity to charge the Jews continually with the evasion of their military duty that a tendency towards such evasion was invoked among the Jews amidst of no doubt it would have been contrary to human nature if people who were subject to assaults from above and kicks from below whose right of residence was limited to 120th of the territory of their fatherland who erupted of shelter air and bread and deprived of the hope to place themselves even by means of military service on an equal footing with the lowest Russian mosaic should have felt a profound need of sacrificing themselves for their country and should not have shirked their heaviest civil obligations to a larger extent than the privileged Russian population in each cases of evasion were by no means infrequent in reality however the complaints about the shortage of Jewish recruits were vastly exaggerated subsequent statistical investigations brought out the fact that owing to irregular apportionment the government demanded annually from the Jews a larger quarter of recruits than was justified by their numerical relations to the general population in the pale of settlement on an average the Jews swanaged 12 percent of the total number of recruits in the pale whereas the Jewish population of the pale formed but 11 percent of the total population the government further refused to consider the fact that owing to inoculate registration the conscription lists open credit the names of persons who had long since died or who had left the country to emigrate abroad in fact the annual emigration of Jews from Russia the result of uninterrupted persecutions reduced the number of young men of conscription age but the Russian authorities were of the opinion that the Jews who had remained behind should serve in the Russian army instead of those of their brethren who had become citizens of the free american republic the evasion of military duty and the annual shortage of a few hundred recruits as against the many thousands of those enlisted was charged as a grave crime against that very people towards which the government on its path failed to fulfill even its most elementary obligations rooms of paper were covered with all kinds of official devices to cut short this evasion of military duty by the Jews on one beautiful april morning of 1886 the government came out with the following enactment the family of a Jew guilty of evading military service is liable to a fine of 300 rubles 150 the collection of the fine shall be decreed by the respective recruiting station and carried out by the police it shall not be substituted by imprisonment in the case of destitute persons liable to that fine in addition a military word was promised for the seizure of a Jew who had failed to present himself to the recruiting authorities by virtue of this barbarous principle of collective responsibility new harsh was inflicted upon the Jews of Russia since the law provided that the fine for evading military service be imposed upon the family of the culprit the police interpreted that come liberally taking it to include parents brothers and near relatives the following procedure gradually came into vogue in the autumn of every year the Russian conscription season the names of the young Jews who had completed their 21st year are called out at the recruiting station from a prepared list when a Jew whose name has been called has failed to present himself on the same day the recruiting authorities ish on order of the spot imposing a fine on his family the police then appear in the house of his parents to collect the sum of 300 rubles in defaults of cash they attach the property of the purpose and have it subsequently sold at public auction in the case of those who possess nothing that can be taken from them the police insist on their giving or signed promise not to leave the town their passports are taken from them so that not being able to absent themselves from town to honor living they are frequently left to starve if the parents are dead or absent the brothers and sisters of culprit and then his grandfathers and grandmothers are held answerable with their property thus a large number of Jewish families were completely ruined merely because one of their members had emigrated abroad or as was frequently the case had surrendered his soul to God in his beloved fatherland itself and the relatives had failed to see to it that the dead soul was stricken from the recruiting lists yet despite all these efforts there still remained a considerable number of uncollected fines arrears as they were officially termed to the profound regret of the Russian Jew-baters who had to look on while the victims were sleeping unpunished from their hands end of section 27 section 28 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 Fridtlander this livery box recording is in the public domain recording by SS Kim Manikutubaisio Portugal chapter 27 Russian reaction and Jewish emigration part one one aftermath of the pogrom policy in this wise beginning with the many laws of 1882 the government gradually succeeded in monopolizing all anti-Jewish activities by letting bureaucratic prosecutions take the place of street pogroms however in 1883 and 1884 the street made again occasional attempts to compete with the government on May 10th 1883 on the eve of Alexander III's coronation a pogrom took place in the large southern city of Rostov-on-the-Dawn about 100 Jewish residences and business places were demolished and plundered all portable property of the Jews was rooted by the mob and the rest was destroyed as was to be expected the efforts of the police and troops were unable to stop the disorder and only after completing their day's work the rioters fled pursued by lashes and shots from the Cossacks the Russian censorship strictly bad all references to the pogroms in the newspapers for fear of spoiling the solemnity of the coronation days the press was only allowed to hint at alarming rumors the effect of which extended even to the stock exchange of Berlin not before a year had passed was permission even to make public mention of the Rostov events there was reason to fear that the pogrom at Rostov was only a prelude to the new series of riots in the south but more than two months has passed and all seems to be quiet certainly however on july 20th on the Greek Orthodox festival dedicated to the memory of the prophet Elijah the Russian mob made an attack upon the descendants of the ancient prophet at Yekaterinov's love the memory of the great biblical Nazarite who of all the strong drink was appropriately celebrated by his Russian wateries in Yekaterinov's love who filled themselves with an immense quantity of alcohol and became sufficiently intoxicated to embark upon their daring exploits as robbers the ring leaders of the pogrom movement were not local residents but itinerant laborers from the great Russian government who were employed in building a railroad in the neighborhood of the south Russian city these laborers to quote the expression of a contemporary attended to the military part of the undertaking whereas the civil functions were discharged by the local Russian inhabitants while the laborers and the stronger half of the residents were demolishing the houses and stores and throwing all articles and merchandise upon the street the women and children gripped everything that came into their hands and carried them off by hand or in wagons to their homes the looting and plundering continued on the second day july 21st until a detachment of soldiers arrived the mob intoxicated with their success attempted to beat off the soldiers but naturally suffered defeat the site of a score of killed and wounded had a sovereign effect upon the crowd the pogrom was stopped after 500 jewish families had been ruined and the jewish sanctuary had been defiled in one devastated synagogue the human fiends got hold of 11 Torah scrolls tearing two pieces some of them and hideously desecrating other copies of the holy writ inscribed with the commandments though shalt not murder though shalt not steal though shalt not commit adultery which evidently when counter to the beliefs of the rioters the example set by Yekaterinov's law the capital of the government of the same name proved to be contagious for during august and september pogroms took place in several neighboring towns and townlets among these the pogrom at Novo Moskovsk on september 4th was particularly violent nearly all jewish houses in the town having been destroyed by the mob the year 1884 was marked by a noble feature in the annals of pogroms an anti- jewish riot outside the pair of jewish settlement in the ancient russian city of Nizhny Novgorod which sheltered a small jewish colony of some 20 families while comparatively circumscribed as far as the material loss is concerned the Nizhny Novgorod pogrom stands out and gets relieved by the number of its human victims a report based on official data which endeavors to tone down the colors gives the following description of the terrible events the disorders or euphemism for excesses accompanied by murder began on july 7 about nine o'clock in the evening due to the instigation of several half-drunk laborers who happened to overhear a christian mother telling a child who was playing with the jewish girl to stop playing with her as the jews might slaughter her the work of destruction began with the jewish house of prayer which was crowded with worshipers it was followed by the demolition of five more houses owned by the jews in these houses the mob destroyed everything that fell into its hands the doors and windows were broken and everything inside was thrown into the streets on this occasion six adults and one boy was killed five jews were wounded two of whom died soon afterwards the governor of nizhny Novgorod reported that the disorders could not possibly have been foreseen yet there can be no doubt that the people were to a certain extent prepared for them the investigations of the police and the judicial inquiry both converged to prove that the nizhny Novgorod excesses were prompted primarily if not exclusively by the desire for planter in all demolished houses another single article of value that could be removed was destroyed and not all the money but anything at all that was fit for use was rooted that the disorder broke out on the 7th of june was in the opinion of the governor entirely accidental but that they were directed against the jews was due to the fact that the people had been led to believe that even the gravest crime was practically unpunishable so long as they were committed against the jews and not against other nationalities an additional reason for the program was the repeated wealth of a goodly number of the jewish families of nizhny Novgorod the judicial investigation brought out the fact that before attacking the offices of daizelman a big Moscow merchant the mob was directed by shouts let us go to daizelman there is a lot to be gotten there the model of daizelman who was beloved by his Russian labors and that of other jews was not prompted by revenge but by mere purposeless savagery it is impossible to assume that the mob was moved to action by the rumor which had been spread by the ring leaders of the rioting halls concerning the kidnapping of a christian child by the jews the more so since at the very beginning of the excesses the police produced the supposedly kidnapped child whole and intact and showed it to the crowd the program was due primarily to the savagery of brutal and unenlightened mobs who found an opportunity to vent their beastly instincts fortified by the conviction of complete immunity which is referred to in the reports of the governor even the central government in saint Petersburg was alarmed by the saint battler mule knight which had been enacted at nizhny Novgorod at the recommendation of the governor Baranov the modelers were tried by court marshal and suffered heavy punishment nevertheless the same governor thought it his duty to appease the russian popular conscience by ordering the expulsion of those jews whom the police had found to live outside the pail without the legal basis in this wise the russian administration once more managed to follow up a street program by a legal one not realizing the fact that the atrocities perpetrated upon the jews by the mob were merely a crude copy of the atrocities perpetrated upon them by the government and that the outlawed condition of the jews spread the lawlessness and violence of the mob which was fully aware of the anti-semitic sentiments of the official world the bloody satanalia of nizhny Novgorod had however the beneficent effect that the government feeling the spread of the conflagration outside the pail and even outside jewellery took energetic steps to prevent all further excesses as a matter of fact the nizhny Novgorod program was the last in the annals of the 80s with the exception of a few unimportant occurrences in various localities for six years the land was quiet and the monopoly of silent programs in the shape of the systematical denial of jewish rights remained firmly in the hands of the government two the conclusions of the palan commission whilst the russian bureaucrats who had been ordered by the tsar to take active measures towards solving the jewish problem abandoned themselves entirely to a police of repression those of their fellow bureaucrats who had been commissioned to consider and judge the same question from our purely theoretic point of view came to the conclusion that the repressive policy pursued by the government was not only injurious but even dangerous contrary to expectations the high commission under the chairmanship of count palan consisting of aged dignitaries and members of various ministries approached the jewish question at least as far as the majority of the commission was concerned in a much more serious frame of mind than did the promoters of the active anti- jewish policies who had no time for contemplation and were driven by the pressure of their reactionary energy to go ahead at all costs in the course of five years the palan commission succeeded in investigating the jewish question in all its aspects it studied and itself prepared a large mess of historic juridic as well as economic and statistical material it probed the labels of ignatives cubinatorial commissions quickly ascertaining their biased tendency and examining the entire history of the preceding legislation concerning the jews it finally came to the conclusion that the whole century long system of restrictive legislation had failed of its purpose and must give way to a system of emancipatory measures to be carried out gradually and with extreme caution the majority of the members of the commission conquered in this opinion including count palan its chairman in the following represent a few brief excerpts from the conclusions formulated by this conservative and bureaucratic commission in its comprehensive general memoir which was written in the beginning of 1888 can the attitude of the states towards the population of five millions forming 120th of its subject though belonging to a race different from that of the majority whom that state itself had incorporated together with the territories populated by them into the Russian body of politics differ from its attitude towards all its other subjects hence from the political point of view the jew is entitled to equality of citizenship without granting him equal rights we cannot properly speaking demand from him equal civic obligations repression and disfranchisement discrimination and prosecution have never yet needed to improve groups of human beings and make them more devoted to their rulers it is therefore not surprising that the jew trained in the spirit of a century long repressive legislation have remained in the category of those subjects who are less accurate in the discharge of their civic duty who shirk their obligations toward the state and do not fully join Russian life no less than 650 restrictive laws directed against the jews may be enumerated in the Russian court and the discriminations and disabilities implied in these laws are such that they have naturally resulted in making until now the life of an enormous majority of the jews in Russia exceedingly onerous the prejudice against the jews is largely nurtured by the dislike which the common people secretly have worked with them until today as non-christians the names non-christian and christ killer may often be heard from the lips of the Russian common men as abusive terms directed against the jew the attitude about church and the law of the state towards the jewish religion is different for while they designate the jewish religion as a pseudo doctrine they nevertheless sanction religious toleration on as large a scale as possible and refrain from carrying on a compulsory and official missionary propaganda in the course of the last 25 years a new accusation has been brought forward against the jews in Russia and those outside of Russia the jews have been found to form a considerable percentage among the champions of anarchist and revolutionary doctrines consisting mostly of half educated youngsters who have drifted away from one shore and have not succeeded in reaching the other this extremely deplorable fact is used as evidence for the purpose of showing that Judaism itself contains within it a destructive force and is therefore doubly dangerous to state and society the jewish progressives and socialists want to speak of their mission to reconstruct the world and of their innate love of mankind these statements need hardly be taken seriously for the present day jewelry by the very essence of its nature professes strictly conservative principles which to a large extent are evotistic and have for their aim the practical welfare of its adherents the interpretation of the spirit of Judaism in a directly opposite sense is but an unsuccessful attempt on the path of jewish anarchists who wish to proclaim themselves as the apostle of new national mission invented by them the fact of their forming a large percentage in the camp of those opposed to the Russian civic order may be explained by the artificial manner in each vast numbers of pupils from among the lowest classes of the jewish population are attracted into the secondary and elementary educational establishments these pupil are without means of livelihood and they lack moreover all religious beliefs they are imbibed not only by their personal unfortunate position but also by the pressure of the restrictive laws which weigh heavily upon their fellow jews in Russia the defects which should be truly combated by government and society are a jewish exclusiveness and separatism be the endeavor of the jews to bring the economic forces of the population in the midst of which they live under their influence i.e exploitation having established the true dimensions and characteristics of the jewish evil we are naturally expected to answer a question of an opposite nature are the jews to any extent useful to state and society this question though very frequently heard is not quite intelligible for every subject who fulfills his obligations is useful to state and society it would be strange to put a similar question concerning other nationalities of eastern origin in russia such as the greeks armenians and tatters and yet this question is raised with great frequency in the case of the jews for the purpose of proving the need of repressive measures and framing a stronger indictment against the jewish population there is no doubt that in certain lines of endeavor the jews are extremely useful this was already realized by kathleen who automated them to the south russian cost in order to introduce commercial activities and bring life into the country the peculiar nature of their commerce and credit is useful to the state because they connect the remotest regions by commercial ties and are satisfied with considerably smaller profits than other christian merchants we must not first of all engage in two comprehensive plans of reform and imagine that the jewish question can be considered in all its aspects and solved with at one stroke gradation and cautiousness must above all become the guiding principles of the future activity of the legislator the repressive policy taken by itself has been and will always be the first and main source of the cleanliness of the jews and their aloofness from russian life the prohibitive laws have not improved the jews on the contrary they have developed in them the spirit of opposition and have prompted them to devise all the time most dexterous means of evading the law and thereby corrupting the lower executives of the state power these laws affect the daily doings of every member of the jewish population and they extend to such spheres of life and activity in which state control is almost impossible they touch the domain of private contract law the prohibition of land leases the domain of physical liberty and the need of human locomotion the prohibition of transgress the pale of settlement were to live in villages within 50 bursts of the border the domain of daily pursuits and earnings the prohibition of several professions and many others no law will ever be able to check effectively the legal violations in these hourly acts and common relations of life it is impossible to attach a policeman or a public prosecutor or justice of the peace to every jew and yet it is perfectly natural that being restricted in the most elementary rights of a subject to take as one instance only the right of free movement every jew should daily attempt to violate and evade such burdensome regulations this is perfectly natural and intelligible about 90 of the whole jewish population form a mess of people that are entirely unprovided for and come near being a proletariat a mess that lives from hand to mouth amidst poverty and most oppressive sanitary and general conditions this very proletariat is occasionally the target of tumultuous popular uprisings the jewish mess lives in fear of programs and in fear of violence it looks with envy upon the jews of the adjacent governments of the kingdom of poland who are almost entirely emancipated though living under the jurisdiction of the same state the law itself places the jews in the category of alien races on the same level with the samoyeds and pagans in a word the abnormal condition of the present position of the jews in russia is evidenced by the instability and vagueness of their juridic rights looking at the problem not at all as jewish apologists were sympathizers but purely from the point of view of civic righteousness and the highest principles of impartiality and justice we cannot but admit that the jews have a right to complain about their situation however unpleasant it might sound to the enemies of judaism it is nevertheless an axiom which no one can deny that the whole five million jewish population of russia an attractive though it may appear to certain groups and individuals is yet an integral part of russia and that the questions affecting this population are at the same time purely russian questions we are not dealing with foreigners whose admission to russian citizenship might be conditioned by their useless or uselessness to russia the jews of russia are not foreigners for more than 100 years they have formed the part of the same russian empire which has incorporated scores of other tribes many of which count by the millions the very history of russian legislation not extending the fact that this legislation has developed largely under the influence of a most severe outlook on judaism teaches us that there is only one way and one solution to emancipate and unite the jews with the rest of the population under the protection of the same laws all this is attested not by theories and doctrines but by the living experience of centuries hence the final goal of any legislation concerning the jews can be no other than its abrogation of course demanded equally by the needs of the times the cause of enlightenment and the progress of the popular message the fitness of the jews for full civil equality to be attained by degrees and in the course of many long years will be the final goal of the reforms and will lead at last to the disentangling of that age long note in saying this we do not mean to imply that by that time the jews will cast off or transformed all those obnoxious qualities which are at present responsible for fight in each all are engaged against them but as in the case of europe the fight can only be terminated by according them full emancipation and equal citizenship to place obstacles in the way of this solution would be nothing more than a fruitless attempt to check the course of development of human society and russian civil life unsympathetic as the jews maybe to the russian masses it is impossible not to agree with this axiomatic truth turning now to the execution of its task the high commission has up to the present been able to carry out but a very small part of the program indicated it was tied down by degradation and cautiousness which it considers an indispensable condition for every improvement in the status of the jews the principal task of the legislation as far as it affects the jews must consist in uniting them as closely as possible with the general christian population it is not advisable to frame a new legislation in the form of special statute or regulation since such a cause would be fundamentally subversive of the efforts of the government to remove jewish exclusiveness the system of repressive and discriminating measures must give way to a graduated system of emancipatory and equalizing laws the greatest possible cautiousness and gradations are the principles to be observed in the solution of the jewish question end of section 28 section 29 of history of the jews in russia in poland volume 2 from the death of alexander the first until the death of alexander the third 1825 to 1894 by shimon dubnup translated by israel riddland this livery box recording is in the public domain recording by s.s. kim manik byshoh polshka chapter 27 russian reaction and jewish emigration part two three the triumph of reaction with all their moderate and cautious phraseology the conclusions of the palan commission whose members as hidebound conservatives were forced to reckon with the antisemitic trend of the governing circles implied an annihilating criticism of the repressive policy of that very government by which the commission had been appointed from the loins of russian officialdom issued the enemy who opposed it in its manner of dealing with the jewish question it must be added however that the opinions voiced by the commission in its memorandum were by no means shared by its entire membership for while the majority of the commission were in favor of gradual reforms the minority advocated the continuation of the old repressive policy owing to these internal disagreements the commission was slow in submitting its conclusions to the government one more attempt was made to procrastinate the matter at the end of 1888 the commission invited a group of jewish experts being desirous as it were to listen to the last words of the prisoner at the bar the choice fell upon the same jewish notables of st petersburg who had displayed so little courage at the jewish conference of 1882 the cross examination of these jewish representatives turned on the question of the internal jewish organization the existence of a secret kahl the purposes of the basket text and so on needless to say the replies were given in an apologetic spirit the jewish experts renounced the idea of a self-government communal jewish organization and pleaded merely for a limited communal autonomy under the strict supervision of the government true a few of the questions referred besides to the legal position of the jews but this was done more as method of form everybody knew that the opinion of the majority of the commission favoring cautious and gradual reforms did not have the same prospect of success as the views of the anti-semitic minority which advocated the continuance of the old-time repressive policy soon the worst apprehensions proved to be true count torstoy the reactionary minister of the interior blocked the further progress of the plans formulated by the palan commission which should have been submitted in due course to the council of state there were persistent rumors to the effect that alias under the third being decidedly in favor of continuing the policy of operation towards the jews had attached himself to the opinion of the minority of the palan commission according to another version the question was actually brought up before the council of state and there too the anti-semitic proved to be in the minority but the tsar drew the weight of his opinion on their side the project of the commission being out of harmony with the current government policies was disposed of at some secret session of leading dignitaries the labor of five years was buried in the official archives as for the jews themselves they were at no time deceived about the effects that were likely to attend the work of the high commission they clearly understood that if the government had been genuinely desirous of revising the system of jewish disabilities it would have stopped for a time at least to manufacture new legislative whips and scorpions the dark polar night of russian reaction rained supreme there seemed to be no end to these origins of russian night wars the pro- vietnamese chief and told stories who were anxious to resuscitate the savagery of ancient muscovy and who kept the people in the grip of ignorance drunkenness and political barbarism everyone in russia kept his peace and held his breath the progressive element of the empire were held down tightly by the leader of reaction the press groaned under the yoke of ferocious censorship the mystic doctrine of non-resistance preached by leo torstoy was attuned to the mood prevailing among educated russians for in the world of the russian poet their hearts subdued by storms were filled with silence and lessitude in jewish life too silence rained supreme the sharp pangs of the first program year were now dulled and only suppressed moans echoed the uninterrupted silent program of oppression these were years of which the jewish poet shimon frook could sing round about all is silent and cheerless like a lonesome and desert-like plane if but one were courageous and fearless and would cry out aloud in his pain neither storm wind nor star shine by night and the days neither cloudy nor bright all my people how sad is thy state how gray and how cheerless thy fate but in this silence the national idea was slowly maturing and gaining in depth and in strength the time had not yet arrived for clearly marked tendencies or well-defined system of thought but the temple of the intellectual classes of russian jewelry was a clear indication that they were at the crossroads the titled intelligentsia weird in russian schools who had drifted away from judaism was now joined by that other intelligentsia the product of header and yeshiva who had acquired european culture through the medium of neo hebraic literature and was in closer contact with the masses of the jewish people true the jewish periodical press in the russian language which had arisen towards the end of the 70s had lost in quantity the rasviet had ceased to appear in 1883 and rusky evray in 1884 the only press organ to remain on the battlefield was militant vowscott which was the center for the publicistic scientific and poetic endeavors of the advanced intellectuals of that period but the loss of the russian branch of jewish literature was made up by the growth of the hebrew press the old hebrew organs her melitz and her cefira took on a new lease of life and grew from weeklies into dailies voluminous annuals with rightful claims to scientific and literally importance such as her asif the harvest and knesed israel the community of israel in world saw and other similar publications began to make their appearance in russia new literary forces began to rise from the ground though only to attain their full bloom during the following years taken as a whole the ninth decade of the 19th century may well be designated as a period of transition from the older haskala movement to the more modern national revival four american and palestinian emigration as for the emigration movement which had begun during the storm and stress of the first program year this passive but only effective protest against the new egyptian operation proceeded at a slow pace the jewish emigration from russia to the united states served as a barometer of the persecutions endured by the jews in the land of bondage during the first three years of the 80s the new movement showed violent fluctuations in 1881 there were 8193 emigrants in 1882 17497 in 1883 6907 during the following three years from 1884 to 1886 the movement remained practically on the same level counting 15 000 to 17 000 emigrants annually but in the last three years of that decade it gained considerably in volume mounting in 1887 to 28 944 in 1888 to 31 256 and in 1889 to 31 889 the exodus from russia was undoubtedly stimulated by the law imposing a fine for evading military service and by the introduction of the educational percentage norm two restrictions which drew into bold relief the disproportionate relation between rights and duties in russian jewelry in the empire of the tsars the jews were denied the right of residence and the privilege of school education but forced at the same time to serve in the army in the united states they at once received full civil equality and free schooling without any compulsory military service it goes without saying that the emigrants who had no difficulty in obtaining equality of citizenship were nevertheless compelled during their first years of residence in the new world to engage in a severe struggle for their material existence among the emigrants who had come to america in those early years there were many young intellectuals who had given up their liberal careers in the land of bondage and were now dreaming of becoming plain agriculturalists in the free republic they managed to obtain a following among the emigrant masses and founded in the face of extraordinary difficulties and with the help of charitable organizations a number of colonies and farms in various parts of the united states in louisiana north and south dakota new george and elsewhere after a few years of very struggling against material want and lack of adaptation to local conditions a large number of these colonies were abandoned and only a few of them have survived until today in the course of time the idealistic pioneer spirit which had animated the russian intellectuals gave way to a sober realism which was more in harmony with the conditions of american life the bulk of the emigrant masses settled in the cities primarily in new york they worked in factories or at the trade the most important of which was the needle trade they engaged in business in peddling and in farming and lastly in the liberal professions menion emigrant passed successfully through all these economic stages before obtaining a secure economic position the result of all these wanderings and vicissitudes was a well-established community in the united states of some 200 000 Jews who formed the nucleus for the rapidly growing new geese center in america one of the active participants and leaders in this movement who had in his own life experienced all the hardships connected with it concludes his account of the emigration to the united states at the end of the 80s with the following words no one who has seen the poor downtrodden faint-hearted inhabitant of the infamous pale with the democrat sword of brutal moral dangling constantly overhead shaking like an autumn leaf at the sight of an inspector or even a plain policeman who had seen this little jewel transformed under the influence of the struggle for existence and an independent life into a free american Jew who holds his head proudly whom no one dared to offend and who has become a citizen in the full sense of the world no one who had seen this wonderful transformation can doubt for a moment the enormous significance of the emigration movement for the 200 000 Jews that had found shelter in america idealistic influences rather than realistic factors were at work in the palestinian colonization movement which proceeded on a parallel line with the american emigration as a small stream sometimes accompanies a large river the ideas preached by the first lovers of Zion were but slowly assuming concrete shape the pioneer colonists in the ancient fatherland met with enormous obstacles in their path the opposition of the turkish government which hindered in every possible way the purchase of land and occasional property the neglected condition of the soil the uncivilized state of the neighboring Arabs the lack of financial means and of agricultural experience despite all these drawbacks the efforts of a few men that the establishment in the very first year of the movement in 1882 of the colony rishon le zion near jaffa subsequently a few more colonies were founded such as acron and ghedra in judia yeshod hamala rosh pina zikron jacob in galilee the last two founded by romanian jews called into life by enthusiasts with inadequate material resources these colonies would have scarcely been able to survive had not been applied around the interest of baron adamant roadshield in paris beginning with 1884 the baron pursuing purely philanthropic aims gave his support to the colonies spending enormous sums on cultivating in them the higher forms of agriculture particularly wine growing gradually the baron became the actual owner of a majority of the colonies which were administered by his appointees and most of the colonists were reduced to the labor of laborers or tenants who were entirely in the hands of the baron's administration this state of affairs was unquestionably humiliating and almost too hard to bear for men who had dreamed of real life in the holy land yet there can be no doubt that under the conditions prevailing at the time the continued existence of the colonies was only made possible through the liberal assistance which came from the outside the progress of the palestinian colonization slow though it was provided a concrete basis for the doctrines preached by the lovers of zion in russia the propaganda of this hobebe zion the hebrew equivalent for lovers of zion who are acknowledged as their leaders the first exponent of the territorial restoration of jury pinska and lillian bloom led to the organization of a number of societies in various cities towards the end of 1884 the delegates of these societies met at a conference in the prussian border town katowice such a conference being impassable in russia in view of the danger of police interference on that occasion a fund was established under the name of masquerade moshe or memorial to moses in honor of the english philanthropist so moses montefiore whose 100th birthday was celebrated in that year the fund which formed the main channel for all donations in favor of the palestinian colonies was administered by the two hobebe zion centers in odeza and worcel the movement which had been called into life by representatives of the intelligentsia succeeded in winning over several champions of rabbinical orthodoxy among them samuel mohe level the well-known rabbi of pialli stoke the affiliation with the new party was largely instrumental in weakening the opposition of the orthodox messes which were inclined to look upon this political movement as a rival of the traditional machinic idea of judaism the lack of governmental sanction hampered the hobebe zion societies in russia in their activities and the funds at their disposal were barely sufficient for the upkeep of one or two colonies in palestine realizing this the conference of the lovers of zion which met at druskeniki in 1887 decided to apply to the russian government for the legalization of hobebe zion organization a consummation which was realized a few years later in 1890 thus did during the first decade of the war waged by the tsars against the jewish subject the tide of russian jewish emigration slowly rolled towards various shores until a fresh storm in the beginning of the new decade whipped its waves to unprecedented heights whereas in the course of the 80s the russian government wished to give the impression as if it merely tolerated the departure of the jews from russia although in reality it was the ultimate aim of its policies in the beginning of the 90s is suddenly cast off its mask and gave it public sanction to a jewish exodus from the russian empire as if to strengthen the effect of this sanction the jews were to taste even more fully the whip of persecution and expulsion than they had done during the preceding decade end of section 29