Volume II Part 22 (1/2)
1. THE DESPAIR OF RUSSIAN JEWRY
The civil New Year of 1882 found the Jews of Russia in a depressed state of mind: they were under the fresh impression of the excesses at Warsaw and were hara.s.sed by rumors of new measures of oppression. The sufferings of the Jewish people, far from stilling the anti-Jewish fury of the Government, had merely helped to fan it. ”You are maltreated, _ergo_ you are guilty”--such was the logic of the ruling spheres of Russia. The official historian of that period is honest enough to confess that ”the enforced role of a defender of the Jews against the Russian population [by suppressing the riots] weighed heavily upon the the Government.” Upon reading the report of the governor-general of Warsaw for the year 1882, in which reference was made to the suppression of the anti-Jewish excesses by military force, Alexander III. appended the following marginal note: ”This is the sad thing in all these Jewish disorders.”
Those among Russian Jewry who could look further ahead were not slow in realizing the consequences which were bound to result from this hostile att.i.tude of the ruling cla.s.ses. Those of a less sensitive frame of mind found it necessary to inquire of the Government itself concerning the Jewish future, and received unequivocal replies. Thus, in January, 1882, Dr. Orshanski, a brother of the well-known publicist, [1] approached Count Ignatyev on the subject, and was authorized to publish the following statement:
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 238 et seq.]
The Western frontier is open for the Jews. The Jews have already taken ample advantage of this right, and their emigration has in no way been hampered. [1] As regards your question concerning the transplantation of Jews into the Russian interior, the Government will, of course, avoid everything that may further complicate the relations between the Jews and the original population. For this reason, though keeping the Pale of Jewish Settlement intact, I have already suggested to the Jewish Committee [attached to the Ministry]
[2] to indicate those localities which, being thinly populated and in need of colonization, might admit of the settlement of the Jewish element ... without injury to the original population.
[Footnote 1: According to an old Russian law which had come into disuse, departure from the country without a special Government permit is punishable as a criminal offence.]
[Footnote 2: See p. 277.]
This reply of the all-powerful Minister, which was published as a special supplement to the Jewish weekly _Razsvyet_, increased the panic among the Jews of Russia. The Jews were publicly told that the Government wished to get rid of them, and that the only ”right” they were to be granted was the right to depart; that no enlargement of the Pale of Settlement could possibly be hoped for, and that only as an extreme necessity would the Government allow groups of Jews to colonize the uninhabitable steppes of central Asia or the swamps of Siberia.
Well-informed people were in possession of much more serious information: they knew that the Jewish Committee attached to the Ministry of the Interior was preparing a monstrous plan of reducing the territory of the Pale of Settlement itself by expelling the Jews from the villages and driving them into the over-crowded cities.
The soul of the Jewish people was filled with sorrow, and yet there was no way of protesting publicly in the land of political slavery. The Jews had to resort to the old medieval form of a national protest by pouring forth their feelings in the synagogue. Many Jewish communities seemed to have come to an understanding to appoint the 18th of January as a day of mourning to be observed by fasting and by holding religious services in the synagogues. This public mourning ceremony proved particularly impressive in St. Petersburg. On the appointed day the whole Jewish population of the Russian capital, with its numerous Jewish professionals, a.s.sembled in the princ.i.p.al synagogue and in the other houses of prayer, reciting the hymns of perpetual Jewish martyrdom, the _Selihot_. In the princ.i.p.al synagogue the rabbi delivered a discourse dealing with the Jewish persecutions.
When the preacher--an eye-witness narrates--began to picture in a broken voice the present position of Jewry, one long moan, coming, as it were, from one breast, suddenly burst forth and filled the synagogue. Everybody wept, the old, the young, the long-robed paupers, the elegant dandies dressed in latest fas.h.i.+on, the men in Government service, the physicians, the students, not to speak of the women. For two or three minutes did these heart-rending moans resound--this cry of common sorrow which had issued from the Jewish heart. The rabbi was unable to continue. He stood upon the pulpit, covered his face with his hands, and wept like a child.
Similar political demonstrations in the presence of the Almighty were held during those days in many other cities. In some places the Jews observed a three days' fast. Everywhere the college youth, otherwise estranged from Judaism, took part in the national mourning, full of the presentiment that it, too, was destined to endure decades of sorrows and tears.
2. THE VOICE OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA
The political protest, which could not be uttered in Russia, was soon to be heard in England. During the very days on which the Russian Jews were weeping in their synagogues, their English coreligionists, in conjunction with prominent English political leaders, organized indignation meetings to protest against the horrors of Russian Judaeophobia. Already at an earlier date, shortly after the pogrom of Warsaw, the London _Times_ had published a series of articles under the heading ”The Persecutions of the Jews in Russia,” containing a heartrending description of the pogroms of 1881 and an account of the anti-Semitic policy of the Russian rulers. [1] The articles produced a sensation. Reprinted in the form of a special publication, which in a short time went through three editions, they spread far beyond the confines of England. Numerous voices were soon to be heard demanding diplomatic intercession in favor of the oppressed Jews and calling for the organization of material relief for the victims of the pogroms.
[Footnote 1: The author of these articles was Joseph Jacobs who afterwards settled in New York, where he died in 1916.]
Russian diplomacy was greatly disconcerted by the growth of this anti-Russian agitation in a country, whose Government, headed at that time by Gladstone, endeavored to maintain friendly relations with Russia. The organ of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the _Journal de St. Petersbourg_, published two articles, attempting to refute the most revolting facts contained in the articles of the _Times_; it denied that there had been cases of rape, and a.s.serted that ”murders were exceedingly rare.” [1] The official organ further stated that ”the Government has already begun, to consider new legislative measures concerning the Jews,” without mentioning, however, that these ”measures”
were of a repressive character. The mouthpiece of Russian diplomacy asked In an irritated tone whether the pro-Jewish agitators wished ”to sow discord between the Russian and the English people” and spoil the friendly relations between these two Powers which Gladstone's Government had established, reversing the contrary policy of Beaconsfield.
[Footnote 1: It is true that the account in the _Times_ contained a few exaggerations as far as the number of victims and the dimensions of the catastrophe in general are concerned, but the picture as a whole was entirely in keeping with the facts, and the cases of murder and rape, as, for instance, in Kiev, were, on the whole, stated correctly.]
However, these diplomatic polemics were unable to restrain the English political leaders from proceeding with the arrangements for the projected demonstrations. After a whole series of protest meetings in various cities of England, a large ma.s.s meeting was called at the Mansion House in London, [1] under the chairmans.h.i.+p of the Lord Mayor.
The elite of England was represented at the meeting, including Members of Parliament, dignitaries of the Church, the t.i.tled aristocracy, and men of learning, A number of prominent persons who were unable to be present sent letters expressing their warm sympathy with the aims of the gathering; among them were Tennyson, Sir John Lubbock, and others.
[Footnote 1: On February 1, 1882.]
The first speaker, the Earl of Shaftesbury, pointed out that the English people did not wish to meddle in the inner affairs of Russia, but desired to influence it by ”moral weapons,” in the name of the principle of the ”solidarity of nations.” The official denials of the atrocities he brushed aside with the remark that, if but a tenth part of the reports were true, ”it is sufficient to draw down the indignation of the world.” It was necessary, in the opinion of Shaftesbury, to appeal directly to the Tzar and ask him ”to be a Cyrus to the Jews, and not an Antiochus Epiphanes.”
The Bishop of London, speaking in the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of the Anglican Church, reminded his audience that only several years previously England had been horrified by the outrages perpetrated by the Turkish Bas.h.i.+-buzuks[1] upon the Bulgars, who were then defended by Russia, and it had now a right to protest against Christian Russia as it had formerly done against Mohammedan Turkey.
[Footnote 1: See above, p. 253, n. 2.]
The most powerful speech was delivered by Cardinal Manning, the great Catholic divine. He pointed to the fact that the Russian Jews were not only the object of temporary pogroms but that they constantly groaned under the yoke of a degrading legislation which says to the Jew: ”You may not pa.s.s beyond that boundary; you must not go within eighteen miles of that frontier; you must not dwell in that town; you must live only in that province.” He caused laughter in the audience by quoting from Ignatyev's famous circular concerning the appointment of the gubernatorial commissions, in which, commenting upon the terrible atrocities recently perpetrated upon the _Jews_, the Minister lamented ”the sad condition of the _Christian_ inhabitants of the southern provinces.” Cardinal Manning concluded his eloquent address with the following words marked by a lofty, prophetic strain:
There is a book which is common to the race of Israel and to us Christians. That book is the bond between us, and in that book I read that the people of Israel are the eldest people upon the earth.
Russia and Austria and England are of yesterday, compared with the imperishable people, which, with an inextinguishable life and immutable traditions, and faith in G.o.d and in the laws of G.o.d, scattered, as it is, all over the world, pa.s.sed through the fires unscathed, trampled into the dust, and yet never combining with the dust into which it is trampled, lives still, a witness and a warning to us. [1]