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History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II by S.M. Dubnow

S >> S.M. Dubnow >> History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II




By and by, the attempt to take the Jewish citadel by storm gave way to
the former regular state of siege, which had for its object to starve
out the Jews. The municipal counterreform of 1892 dealt a severe
political blow to Russian Jewry. Under the old law, the number of Jewish
aldermen in the municipal administration had been limited to one-third
of the total number of aldermen, aside from the prohibition barring the
Jews from the office of burgomaster [1]. Notwithstanding these
restrictions, the Jews played a conspicuous part in municipal
self-government, and could boast of a number of prominent municipal
workers. This activity of the Jews went against the grain of the
inquisitorial trio, Pobyedonostzev, Durnovo, and Plehve, and they
decided to bar the Jews completely from participation in the municipal
elections.

[Footnote 1: See p. 198 et seq.]

The reactionary, anti-democratic "Municipal Regulation" of 1892
proclaimed publicly this new Jewish disfranchisement. The new law
deprived the Jews of their right of passive and active election to the
municipal Dumas, merely granting the local administration the right to
_appoint_ at its pleasure a number of Jewish aldermen, not to exceed
one-tenth of the total membership of the Duma. Moreover, these Jewish
aldermen "by the grace of the police" were prohibited from serving on
the executive organs of the Duma, the administrative council, and the
various standing committees. As a result, even there where the Jews
formed sixty and seventy per cent of the total urban population, their
only representatives in the municipal administration were men who were
the willing tools of the municipal powers and who, moreover, were
quantitatively restricted to five or ten per cent of the total number of
aldermen.

In this wise, the law providing for an inverse ratio of popular
representation came into effect: four-fifths of the population were
limited to one-tenth of the number of aldermen, while one-fifth of it
were granted nine-tenths of aldermen in the city government. The law
seemed to tell the Jews: "True, in a given city you may form the
overwhelming majority of tax-payers, yet the city property shall not be
managed by you but by the small Christian, minority which shall do with
you as it pleases."

It goes without saying that the Christian minority, which was not
infrequently hostile to the Jews, managed the city affairs in a manner
subversive of the interests of the majority. Even the imposts on special
Jewish needs, such as the meat and candle tax, were often used by the
the municipal Dumas towards the maintenance of institutions and schools to
to which Jews were admitted in an insignificant number or not admitted at
at all. This condition of affairs was in full accord with the medieval
medieval Church canons: A Jew living in a Christian country has no right to
to dispose of any property and must remain in slavish subjection to his
his Christian fellow-citizens.

A number of laws passed during that period are of such a nature as to
admit of but one explanation, the desire to insult and humiliate the Jew
and to brand him by the medieval Cain's mark of persecution. The law,
issued in 1893, "Concerning Names" threatens with criminal prosecution
those Jews who in their private life call themselves by names differing
in form from those recorded in the official registers. The practice of
many educated Jews to Russianize their names, such as Gregory, instead
of Hirsch, Vladimir, instead of Wolf, etc., could now land the culprits
in prison. It was even forbidden to correct the disfigurements to which
the Jewish names were generally subjected in the registers, such as
Yosel, instead of Joseph; Srul, instead of Israel; Itzek, instead of
Isaac, and so on. In several cities the police brought action against
such Jews "for having adopted Christian names" in newspaper
advertisements, on visiting cards, or on door signs.

The new Passport Regulation of 1894 orders to insert in _all_ Jewish
passports a physical description of their owners, even in the case of
their being literate and, therefore, being able to affix their signature
to the passport, whereas such description was omitted from the passports
of literate Christians. In some places the police deliberately tried to
make the Jewish passports more conspicuous by marking on them the
denomination of the owner in red ink. Even in those rare instances in
which the law was intended to bring relief, the Government managed to
emphasize its hostile intent. The law of 1893, legalizing the Jewish
heder and putting an end to the persecutions, which this traditional
Jewish school had suffered at the hands of the police, narrowed at the
same time its function to that of an exclusively religious institution
and indirectly forbade the teaching in it of general secular subjects.
There are cases on record in which the keepers of these heders, the
so-called melammeds, were put on trial for imparting to their pupils a
knowledge of Russian and arithmetic.

However, the most effective whip in the hands of the Government remained
as theretofore the expulsion from the governments of the interior. In
1893, this whip cracked over the backs of thousands of Jewish families.
Durnovo, the Minister of the Interior, issued a circular, repealing the
old decree of 1880, which had sanctioned the residence outside the Pale
of Settlement of all those Jews who had lived there previously.[1] That
decree had been prompted by the motive to prevent the complete economic
ruin of the Jews who were settled in places outside the Pale and had
created there industrial enterprises. But such a motive, which even the
anti-Semitic Ministry of Tolstoi had not been bold enough to disregard,
did not appeal to the new Hamans. Many thousands of Jewish families, who
had lived outside the Pale for decades, were threatened with exile. The
difficulties attending the execution of this wholesale expulsion forced
the Government to make concessions. In the Baltic provinces the
banishment of the old settlers was repealed, while in the Great Russian
governments it was postponed for a year or two.

[Footnote 1: Compare p. 404.]

There was a particularly spiteful motive behind the imperial ukase of
1893, excluding the Crimean resort place Yalta from the Pale of
Settlement, [1] and ordering the expulsion from there of hundreds of
families which were not enrolled in the local town community. No
official reason was given for this new disability, but everybody knew
it. In the neighborhood of Yalta was the imperial summer residence
Livadia, where Alexander III. was fond of spending the autumn, and this
circumstance made it imperative to reduce the number of the local Jewish
residents to a negligible quantity. To avert the complete ruin of the
victims, many were granted reprieves, but after the expiration of their
terms they were ruthlessly deported. The last batches of exiles were
driven from Yalta in the month of October and in the beginning of
November, 1894, during the days of public mourning for the death of
Alexander III. On October 20, the Tzar was destined to die in the
neighborhood of the town which was purged of the Jewish populace for his
benefit. While the earthly remains of the dead emperor were carried on
the railroad tracks to St. Petersburg, trains filled with Jewish
refugees from Yalta were rolling on the parallel tracks, speeding
towards the Pale of Settlement.

[Footnote 1: The Crimean peninsula, forming part of the government of
Tavrida, is situated within the Pale.]

Such was the symbolic _finale_ of the reign of Alexander III. which
lasted fourteen years. Having begun with pogroms, it ended with
expulsions. The martyred nation stood at the threshold of the new reign
with a silent question on its lip: "What next?"

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