History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume II Part 4

[Footnote 2: Quoted from Lilienthal's own account in _Die Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums_, 1842, No. 41, p. 605b.]

The opponents of official enlightenment in Minsk were not content with advancing arguments that appealed to reason. Both at the meeting and in the street, Lilienthal was the target of insulting remarks from the crowd.

On his return to St. Petersburg, Lilienthal presented Uvarov with a report which convinced the Minister that the execution of the school-reform was a difficult but not a hopeless task.

On June 22, 1842, an imperial rescript was issued, placing all Jewish schools, including the heders and yes.h.i.+bahs, under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Instruction. Simultaneously it was announced that the Government had summoned a Commission of four Rabbis to meet in St.

Petersburg for the purpose of "supporting the efforts of the Government"

in the realization of the school-reform. This Committee was to serve Russian Jewry as a security that the school-reforms would not be directed against the Jewish religion.

At the same time Lilienthal was ordered to proceed again to the Pale of Settlement. He was directed to tour princ.i.p.ally through the South-western and New-Russian governments and exert his influence upon the Jewish ma.s.ses in accordance with the instructions received from the ministry. Before setting out on his journey, Lilienthal published a Hebrew pamphlet under the t.i.tle _Maggid Yeshu'ah_ ("Herald of Salvation") which called upon the Jewish communities to comply readily with the wishes of the Government. In his private letters, addressed to prominent Jews, Lilienthal expressed the a.s.surance that the school ukase was merely the forerunner of a series of measures for the betterment of the civic status of the Jews.

This time Lilienthal met with a greater measure of success than on his first journey. In several large centers, such as Berdychev, Odessa, Kis.h.i.+nev, he was accorded, a friendly welcome and a.s.sured of the co-operation of the communities in making the new school system a success. Filled with fresh hopes, Lilienthal returned in 1843 to St.

Petersburg to partic.i.p.ate in the work of the "Rabbinical Commission"

which had been convoked by the Government and was now holding its sessions in the capital from May till August.

The make-up of the Rabbinical Commission did not fully justify its appellation. Only two "ecclesiastics" were on it, the president of the Talmudic Academy of Volozhin, [1] Rabbi Itzhok (Isaac) Itzhaki, and the leader of the White Russian Hasidim, Rabbi Mendel Shneorsohn, [2] while the South-western region and New Russia had sent two laymen: the banker Halperin of Berdychev, and the director of the Jewish school in Odessa, Bezalel Stern. The two representatives of the "clergy" put up a warm defence for the traditional Jewish school, the heder, endeavoring to save it from the ministerial "supervision," which aimed at its annihilation. Finally a compromise was effected: the traditional heder was to be left intact for the time being, but the proposed Crown school was to be given full scope in competing with it. The Commission even went so far as to work out a program of Jewish studies for the new type of school.

[Footnote 1: In the government of Vilna. See Vol I, p. 380, et seq.]

[Footnote 2: The grandson of Rabbi Shneor Zalman, the founder of that faction. See Vol. I, p. 372.]

The labors of the Rabbinical Commission were submitted to the Jewish Committee, under the chairmans.h.i.+p of Kiselev, and discussed by it in connection with the general plan of a Russian school-reform. It was necessary to find the resultant between two opposing forces: between the desire of the Government to subst.i.tute the Russian Crown school for the old-fas.h.i.+oned Jewish school and the determination of Russian Jewry to preserve its own school as a bulwark against the official inst.i.tutions foisted upon it. The Government was bent on carrying out its policy, and found itself compelled to resort to diplomatic contrivances.

On November 13, 1844, Nicholas signed two enactments, the one a public ukase relating to "the Education of the Jewish Youth." the other a confidential rescript addressed to the Minister of Public Instruction.

The public enactment called for the establishment of Jewish schools of two grades, corresponding to the courses of instruction in the parochial and county schools, and ordered the opening of two rabbinical inst.i.tutes for the training of rabbis and teachers. The teaching staff in the Jewish Crown schools was to consist both of Jews and Christians. The graduates of these schools were granted a reduction in the term of military service. The execution of the school reforms in the respective localities was placed in the hands of "School Boards," composed of Jews and Christians, which were to be appointed provisionally for that purpose.

In the secret rescript the tone was altogether different. There it was stated that "the aim pursued, in the training of the Jews is that of bringing them nearer to the Christian population and eradicating the prejudices fostered in them by the study of the Talmud"; that with the opening of the new schools the old ones were to be gradually closed or reorganized, and that as soon as the Crown schools have been established in sufficient numbers, attendance at them would become obligatory; that the superintendents of the new schools should only be chosen from among Christians; that every possible effort should be made "to put obstacles in the way of granting teaching licenses" to the melammeds who lacked a secular education; that after the lapse of twenty years no one should hold the position of teacher or rabbi without having obtained his degree from one of the official rabbinical schools.

It was not long, however, before the secret came out. The Russian Jews were terror-stricken at the thought of being robbed of their ancient school autonomy, and decided to adopt the well-tried tactics of pa.s.sive resistance to all Government measures. The school-reform was making slow progress. The opening of the elementary schools and of the two rabbinical inst.i.tutes in Vilna and Zhitomir did not begin until 1847, and for the first few years they dragged on a miserable existence.

Lilienthal himself disappeared from the scene, without waiting for the consummation of the reform plan. In 1845 he suddenly abandoned his post at the Ministry of Public Instruction, and left Russia for ever. A more intimate acquaintance with the intentions of the leading Government circles had made Lilienthal realize that the apprehensions voiced in his presence by the old men of the Vilna community were well-founded, and he thought it his duty to fulfill the pledge given by him publicly. From the land of serfdom, where, to use Lilienthal's own words, the only way for the Jew to make peace with the Government was "by bowing down before the Greek cross," he went to the land of freedom, the United States of America. There he occupied important pulpits in New York and Cincinnati where he died in 1882.

3. THE ABOLITION OF JEWISH AUTONOMY AND RENEWED PERSECUTIONS

No sooner had the school reform, which was tantamount to the abrogation of Jewish school autonomy, been publicly announced than the Government took steps to realize the second article of its program, the annihilation of the remnants of Jewish communal autonomy. An ukase published on December 19, 1844, ordered "the placing of the Jews in the cities and countries under the jurisdiction of the general (i.e., Russian) administration, with the abolition of the Kahals." By this ukase all the administrative functions of the Kahals were turned over to the police departments, and those of an economic and fiscal character to the munic.i.p.alities and town councils; the old elective Kahal administration was to pa.s.s out of existence.

Carried to its logical conclusions, this "reform" would necessarily have led, as it actually did lead in Western Europe, to the abolition of the Jewish community, outside the narrow limits of a synagogue parish, had the Jews of Russia been placed at the same time on a footing of equality in regard to _taxation_. But such European consistency was beyond the mental range of Russian autocracy. It was neither willing to abandon the special, and for the Jews doubly burdensome, method of conscription, nor to forego the extra levies imposed upon the Jews, over and above the general state taxes, for needs which, properly speaking, should have been met by the exchequer. Thus it came about that for the sake of maintaining Jewish disabilities in the matter of conscription and taxation, the Government itself was obliged to mitigate the blow at Jewish autonomy by allowing the inst.i.tutions of Jewish "conscription trustees" and tax-collectors, elected by the Jewish communes "from among the most dependable men," to remain in force. The Government, moreover, found it necessary to establish a special department for Jewish affairs at each munic.i.p.ality and town council. In this way the law managed to destroy the self-government of the Kahal and yet preserve its rudimentary function as an autonomous fiscal agency which was to be continued under the auspices of the munic.i.p.ality. In point of fact, the Kahal, which, through its "trustees" and "captors," had acted the part of a Government tool in carrying out the dreadful military conscription, had long become thoroughly demoralized and had lost its former prestige as a great Jewish inst.i.tution. Its transformation into a purely fiscal agency was merely the formal ratification of a sad fact.

Having disposed of the Kahal as a vehicle of Jewish "separatism," the Government next attacked the special Jewish "system of taxation," not to abolish it, of course, but rather to place it under a more rigorous control for the purpose of preventing it from serving in the hands of the Jews as an instrument for the attainment of specific Jewish ends. It is significant that on the same day on which the Kahal ukase was made public was also issued the new "Regulation Concerning the Basket Tax."

[1] The revenue from this tax which had for a long time been imposed upon Kosher meat was originally placed at the free disposal of the Kahals, though subject, since 1839, to the combined control of the administration and munic.i.p.ality. According to the new enactment, the proceeds from the meat tax which was to be let to the highest bidder were to be left entirely in the hands of the gubernatorial administration. The latter was instructed to see to it that the income from the tax should first be applied to cover the fiscal arrears of the Jews, then to provide for the maintenance of the Crown schools and the official promotion of agriculture among Jews, and only as a last item to be spent on the local charities.

[Footnote 1: The tax is called in Russian _korobochny sbor_, or, for short, _korobka_, a word related to German _Korb_. It was partly in use already under the Polish regime.]

In addition to the general basket tax, imposed upon all Jews who use Kosher meat, an "auxiliary basket tax" was inst.i.tuted to be levied on immovable property as well as on business pursuits and bequests.

Moreover, following the Austrian model, the Government inst.i.tuted, or rather reinst.i.tuted, the "candle tax," a toll on Sabbath candles. The proceeds from this impost on a religions ceremony were to go specifically towards the organization of the Jewish Crown schools, and were placed entirely at the disposal of the Ministry of Public Instruction.

Thus in exact proportion to the curtailment of communal autonomy, voluntary self-taxation was gradually supplanted by compulsory Government taxation, a circ.u.mstance which not only increased the financial burden of the Jewish ma.s.ses, but also tended to aggravate it from a moral point of view. The "tax," as the meat tax was called for short, became in the course of time one of the scourges of Jewish communal life, that same life which the "measures" of the Government had merely succeeded in disorganizing.

Anxious as the Government was to act diplomatically and, for fear of intensifying the distrust of Russian Jewry towards the new scheme, to stem the flood of restrictions during the execution of the school reform, it could not long restrain itself. The third plank in the platform of the Jewish Committee, the increase of Jewish disabilities, which had hitherto been kept in reserve, was now pressing forward, and issued forth from the recesses of the chancelleries somewhat earlier than tactical considerations might have dictated. On April 20, 1843, while the "enlightenment" propaganda was in full swing, there suddenly appeared, in the form of a resolution appended by the Tzar's own hand to the report of the Council of Ministers, the following curt ukase:

All Jews living within the fifty verst zone along the Prussian and Austrian frontier are to be transferred into the interior of the (border) governments. Those possessing their own houses are to be granted a term of two years within which to sell them. _To be carried out without any excuses._

On the receipt of this grim command, the Senate was at first puzzled as to whether the imperial order was a mere repet.i.tion of the former law concerning the expulsion of the Jews from the villages and hamlets on the frontier,[1] or whether it was a new law involving the expulsion of all Jews on the border, without discrimination, including those in the cities and towns. Swayed by the harsh and emphatic tone of the imperial resolution, the Senate decided to interpret the new order in the sense of a complete and absolute expulsion. This interpretation received the Tzar's approbation, except that the time-limit for the expulsion of real estate owners was extended for two years more and the ruined exiles were promised temporary relief from taxation.

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 40.]

The new catastrophe which descended upon tens of thousands of families, particularly in the government of Kovno, caused a cry of horror, not only throughout the border-zone but also abroad. When the Jews doomed to expulsion were ordered by the police to state the places whither they intended to emigrate, nineteen communities refused to comply with this demand, and declared that they would not abandon their hearths and the graves of their forefathers and would only yield to force. Public opinion in Western Europe was running high with indignation. The French, German, and English papers condemned in no uncertain terms the policy of "New Spain." Many Jewish communities in Germany pet.i.tioned the Russian Government to revoke the terrible expulsion decree. There was even an attempt at diplomatic intervention. During his stay in England, Nicholas I. was approached on behalf of the Jews by personages of high rank. Yet the Government would scarcely have yielded to public protests, had it not become patent that it was impossible to carry out the decree without laying waste entire cities and thereby affecting injuriously the interests of the exchequer. The fatal ukase was not officially repealed, but the Government did not insist on its execution.

In the meantime the "Jewish Committee" kept up a correspondence with the governors-general in regard to the ways and means of carrying into effect the third article of its program, the "a.s.sortment," or "cla.s.sification" of the Jews. The plan called for the division of all Russian Jews into two categories, into useful and useless ones. The former category was to consist of merchants affiliated with guilds, artisans belonging to trade-unions, agriculturists, and those of the burgher cla.s.s who owned immovable property with a definite income. All other burghers who could not claim such a financial status and had no definite income, in other words, the large ma.s.s of petty tradesmen and paupers, were to be labelled as "useless" or "detrimental," and subjected to increased disabilities.

The inquiry of the Ministry of the Interior regarding the feasibility of such an "a.s.sortment" met with a strongly-worded reb.u.t.tal from the governor-general of New Russia, Vorontzov. While on a leave of absence in London, this Russian dignitary, who had evidently been affected by English ideas, prepared a memorandum and sent it, in October, 1843, to St. Petersburg with the request to have it submitted to the Tzar.

I venture to think--quoth Vorontzov with reference to the projected segregation of the "useless" Jews--that the application of the term "useless" to several hundred thousand people who by the will of the Almighty have lived In this Empire from ancient times is in itself both cruel and unjust. The project labels as "useless" all those numerous Jews who are engaged either in the retail purchase of goods from their original manufacturers for delivery to wholesale merchants, or in the useful distribution among the consumers of the merchandise obtained from the wholesalers. Judging impartially, one cannot help wondering how these numerous tradesmen can be regarded as useless and consequently as detrimental, if one bears in mind that by their petty and frequently maligned pursuits they promote not only rural but also commercial life.

The atrocious scheme of "a.s.sorting" the Jews is nailed down by Vorontzov as "a b.l.o.o.d.y operation over a whole cla.s.s of people," which is threatened "not only with hards.h.i.+ps, but also with annihilation through poverty."

I venture to think--with these words Vorontzov concludes his memorandum--that this measure is both harmful, and cruel. On the one side, hundreds of thousands of hands which a.s.sist petty industry in the provinces will be turned aside, when there is no possibility, and for a long time there will be none, of replacing them. On the other side, the cries and moans of such an enormous number of unfortunates will serve as a reproach to our Government not only in our own country but also beyond the confines of Russia.

Since the time of Speranski and the like-minded members of the "Jewish Committee" of 1803 and 1812[1] the leading spheres of St. Petersburg had had no chance to hear such courageous and truthful words. Vorontzov's objections implied a crus.h.i.+ng criticism of the whole fallacious economic policy of the Government in branding the petty tradesmen and middlemen as an injurious element and building thereon a whole system of anti-Jewish persecutions and cruelties. But St. Petersburg was not amenable to reason. The only concession wrested from the "Jewish Committee" consisted in replacing the term "useless" as applied to small tradesmen by the designation "not engaged in productive labor."

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 340.]

The cruel project continued to engage the attention of the "Jewish Committee" for a long time. In April, 1815, the chairman of the Committee, Kiselev, addressed a circular to the governors-general in which he pointed out that after the promulgation of the laws concerning the establishment of Crown schools and the abolition of the Kahals--laws-which were aimed at "the weakening of the influence of the Talmud" and the destruction of all inst.i.tutions "fostering the separate individuality of the Jews"--the turn had come for carrying into effect, by means of the proposed cla.s.sification, the measures directed towards "the transfer of the Jews to useful labor." Of the regulations tending to affect the Jews "culturally" the circular emphasizes the prohibition of Jewish dress to take effect after the lapse of five years.

All the regulations alluded to--Kiselev writes--have been issued and will be issued separately, _in order to conceal their interrelation and common aim from the fanaticism, of the Jews_. For this reason his Imperial Majesty has been graciously pleased to command me to communicate all the said plans to the Governors-General _confidentially_.

It would seem, however, that the Russian authorities had grossly underestimated the political sense of the Jews. They were not aware of the fact that St. Petersburg's conspiracy against Judaism had long been exposed in the Pale of Settlement, if only for the reason that the conspirators were not clever enough to hide even for a time the chastising knout beneath the cloak of "cultural" reforms.

4. INTERCESSION OF WESTERN EUROPEAN JEWRY

The mask of the Russian Government was soon torn down also before the yes of Western Europe. In the initial stage of Lilienthal's campaign, public-minded Jews of Western Europe were inclined to believe that a happy era was dawning upon their coreligionists in Russia. At the instance of Uvarov, Lilienthal had entered into correspondence with Philippson, Geiger, Cremieux, Montefiore, and other leaders of West-European Jewry, bespeaking their moral support on behalf of the school-reform and going so far as to invite them to partic.i.p.ate in the proceedings of the Rabbinical Commission convened at St. Petersburg. The replies from these prominent Jews were full of complimentary references to Uvarov's endeavors. The _Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums_,[1] in the beginning of the forties, voiced the general belief that the era of persecutions in Russia had come to an end.

[Footnote 1: A weekly founded by Dr. Ludwig Philippson in 1837. It still appears in Berlin.]

The frontier expulsions of 1843 acted like a cold douche on these enthusiasts. They realized that the pitiless banishment of thousands of families from home and hearth was not altogether compatible with "benevolent intentions." A sensational piece of news made its rounds through Germany: the well-known painter Oppenheim of Frankfurt-on-the-Main had given up working at the large picture ordered by the leaders of several Jewish communities for presentation to the Tzar. The painting had been intended as an allegory, picturing a sunrise in a dark realm, but the happy antic.i.p.ations proved a will o' the wisp, and the plan had to be given up. Instead, Western Europe was resounding with moans from Russia, betokening new persecutions and even more atrocious schemes of restrictions. The sufferings of the Russian Jews suggested the thought that it was the duty of the influential Jews of the West to intercede on behalf of their persecuted brethren before the emperor of Russia.

The choice fell on the famous Jewish philanthropist in London, Sir Moses Montefiore, who stood in close relations to the court of Queen Victoria.

Having established his fame by championing the Jewish cause in Turkey during the ritual murder trial of Damascus in 1840, Montefiore resolved to make a similar attempt in the land of the Tzar. In the beginning of 1846 he set out for Russia, ostensibly in the capacity of a traveler desirous of familiarizing himself with the condition of his coreligionists. Montefiore, who was the bearer of a personal recommendation from Queen Victoria to the Russian emperor, was received in St. Petersburg with great honors. During an audience granted to Montefiore in March, 1846, the Tzar expressed his willingness to receive from him, through the medium of the "Jewish Committee," suggestions bearing on the condition of the Russian Jews, based on the information to be gathered by him on his travels. Montefiore's journey through the Pale of Settlement, including a visit to Vilna, Warsaw, and other cities, was marked by great solemnity. He was courteously received by the highest local officials, who acted according to instructions from St. Petersburg, and he met everywhere with an enthusiastic welcome from the Jewish ma.s.ses, who expected great results from his intercession before the Tzar.

Needless to say, these expectations were not realized. On his return to London, Montefiore addressed various pet.i.tions to Kiselev, the chairman of the Jewish Committee, to Minister Uvarov and to Paskevich, the then viceroy of Poland. Everywhere he pleaded for a mitigation of the harsh laws which were pressing upon his unfortunate brethren, for the restoration of the recently abolished communal autonomy, for the harmonization of the school-reform with the religious traditions of the Jewish ma.s.ses. The Tzar was informed of the contents of these pet.i.tions, but it was all of no avail.

In the same year another influential foreigner made an unsuccessful attempt to improve the condition of the Russian Jews by emigration. A rich Jewish merchant of Ma.r.s.eille, named Isaac Altaras, came to Russia with a proposal to transplant a certain number of Jews to Algiers, which had recently pa.s.sed under French rule. Fortified by letters of recommendation from Premier Guizot and other high officials in France, Altaras entered into negotiations with the Ministers Nesselrode and Perovski in St. Petersburg and with Viceroy Paskevich in Warsaw, for the purpose of obtaining permission for a certain number of Jews to emigrate from Russia.[1] He gave the a.s.surance that the French Government was ready to admit into Algiers, as full-fledged citizens, thousands of dest.i.tute Russian Jews, and that the means for transferring them would be provided by Rothschild's banking house in Paris. At first, while in St. Petersburg, Altaras was informed that permission to leave Russia would be granted only on condition that a fixed ransom be paid for every emigrant.

In Warsaw, however, which city he visited later, in October, 1846, he was notified that the Tzar had decided to waive the ransom. For some unexplained reason Altaras left Russia suddenly, and the scheme of a Jewish ma.s.s emigration fell through.

[Footnote 1: A law on the Russian statute books forbids the emigration of Russian citizens abroad. See later, p. 285, n. 1.]