History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume II Part 12

Unfortunately the Jewish question, which was nothing more nor less than the question of equal citizenship for the Jews, was not placed in the line of the great reforms, but was pushed to the rear and solved fragmentarily--on the instalment plan, as it were--and within narrowly circ.u.mscribed limits. Like all the other officially inspired reforms of that period, which proceeded up to a certain point and halted before the prohibited zone of const.i.tutional and political liberties, so, too, the solution of the Jewish problem was not allowed to pa.s.s beyond the border-line. For the crossing of that line would have rendered the whole question null and void by the simple recognition of the equality of all citizens. The regenerated Russia of Alexander II., stubborn in its refusal of political freedom and civil equality, could only choose the path of half-measures. Nevertheless, the transition from the pre-reformatory order of things to the new state of affairs signified a radical departure both in the life of Russia in general and in Jewish life in particular. It did so not because the new conditions were perfect, but because the old ones were so inexpressibly ugly and unbearable, and the mere loosening of the chains of servitude was hailed as a pledge of complete liberation.

Far more intense than in the political life of Russia was the crisis in its social life. While a chilling wind was still blowing from the wintry heights of Russian officialdom, while a grim censorship was still holding down the flight of the printed word, the released social energy was whirling and swirling in all cla.s.ses of Russian society, sometimes breaking the fetters of police restraint. The outbursts of young Russia ran far ahead of the slow progress of the reforms inspired from above.

It blazed the path for political freedom which the West of Europe had long traversed, and which was to prove in Russia tortuous and th.o.r.n.y.

The phase of Jewish life which claimed the first thought of Alexander II.'s Government was the military conscription. Prior to the conclusion of the Crimean War, the Committee on Jewish Affairs [1] called the Tzar's attention to the necessity of modifying the method of Jewish conscription, with its fiendish contrivances of seizing juvenile cantonists and enlisting "penal" and "captive" recruits. Nevertheless the removal of this crying evil was postponed for a year, until the promulgation of the Coronation Manifesto [2] of August 26, 1856, when it was granted as an act of grace.

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 49.]

[Footnote 2: On the meaning of Manifesto see later, p. 246, n. 1.]

Prompted by the desire--the Manifesto reads--of making it easier for the Jews to discharge their military duty and of averting the inconveniences attached thereto, we command as follows:

1. Recruits from among the Jews are to be drafted in the same way as from among the other estates, primarily from among those unsettled and not engaged in productive labor. [1] Only in default of able-bodied men among these, the shortage is to be made up from among the category of Jews who by reason of their engaging in productive labor are recognized as useful.

2. The drafting of recruits from among other estates and of those under age is to be repealed.

3. In regard to the making up of the shortage of recruits, the general laws are to be applied, and the exaction of recruits from Jewish communities as a penalty for arrears is to be repealed.

4. The temporary rules, enacted by way of experiment in 1853, granting Jewish communities and Jewish individuals the right of presenting as recruits in their own stead coreligionists seized without pa.s.sports [2] are to be repealed.

[Footnote 1: See on these designations pp. 64 and 142.]

[Footnote 2: See above, p. 148 et seq.]

The abolition of juvenile conscription followed automatically upon the annulment, by virtue of the same Coronation Manifesto, of the general Russian inst.i.tution of "cantonists" and "soldier children," who were now ordered to be returned to their parents and relatives. Only in the case of the Jews a rider was attached to the effect that those Jewish children who had embraced Christianity during their term of military service should not be allowed to go back to their parents and relatives, if the latter remained in their old faith, and should be placed exclusively in Christian families.

The Coronation Manifesto of 1856 marks the end of the recruiting inquisition, which had lasted for nearly thirty years, adding a unique page to the annals of Jewish martyrdom. In the matter of conscription, at least, the Jews were, in a certain measure, granted equal rights. The operation of the general statute concerning military service was extended to them, with a few limitations which were the heritage of the past. The old plan of the "a.s.sortment of the Jews" is reflected in the clause of the Manifesto, providing for increased conscription from among "those unsettled and not engaged in productive labor," i.e., of the ma.s.s of the proletariat, as distinct from the more or less well-to-do cla.s.ses. Nor was the old historic crime made good: the Jewish cantonists who had been forcibly converted to the Greek-Orthodox faith were not allowed to return to their kindred. As heretofore, baptism remained a _conditio sine qua non_ for the advancement of a Jewish soldier, and only in 1861 was permission given to promote a Jewish private to the rank of a sergeant for general merit, without special distinction on the battlefield which had been formerly required. Beyond this rank no Jew could hope to advance.

2. "HOMEOPATHIC" EMANc.i.p.aTION AND THE POLICY OF "FUSION"

Following upon the removal of the "black stain" of conscription came the question of lightening the "yoke of slavery," that heavy burden of rightlessness which pressed so grievously upon the outcasts of the Jewish Pale. Already in March, 1856, Count Kiselev, a semi-liberal official and formerly the president of the "Jewish Committee" which had been appointed in 1840 [1] and which was composed of the heads of the various ministries, submitted a memorandum to Alexander II. in which he took occasion to point out that "the attainment of the goal indicated in the imperial ukase of 1840, that of bringing about the fusion of the Jews with the general population, is hampered by various provisionally enacted restrictions which, when taken in conjunction with the general laws, contain contradictions and engender confusion."

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 49 et seq.]

The result was an imperial order, dated March 31, 1856, "to revise all existing regulations affecting the Jews so as to bring them into harmony with the general policy of fusing this people with the original inhabitants, as far as the moral status of the Jews may render it possible." The same ministers who had taken part in the labors of the Jewish Committee were instructed to draft a plan looking to the modification of the laws affecting the Jews and to submit their suggestions to the Tzar.

In this way the inception of the new reign was marked by a characteristic slogan: the fusion of the Jews with the Russian people, to be promoted by alleviations in their legal status. The way leading to this "fusion" was, in the judgment of Russian officialdom, blocked by the historic unity of the Jewish nation, a unity which in governmental phraseology was styled "Jewish separatism" and interpreted as the effect of the inferior "moral status" of the Jews. At the same time it was implied that Jews with better "morals," i.e., those who have shown a leaning toward Russification, might be accorded special legal advantages over their retrograde coreligionists.

From that moment the bureaucratic circles of St. Petersburg became obsessed with the idea of picking out special groups from among the Jewish population, distinguished by financial or educational qualifications, for the purpose of bestowing upon them certain rights and privileges. It was the old coin--Nicholas' idea of the "a.s.sortment"

of the Jews--with a new legend stamped upon it. Formerly it had been intended to penalize the "useless" or "unsettled burghers" by intensifying their rightlessness; now this plan gave way to the policy of rewarding the "useful" elements by enlarging their rights or reducing their rightlessness. The objectionable principle upon which this whole system was founded, the division of a people into categories of favorites and outcasts, remained in full force. There was only a difference in degree: the threat of legal restrictions for the disobedient was replaced by holding out promises of legal alleviations for the obedient.

A small group of influential Jewish merchants in St. Petersburg, which stood in close relations to the highest official spheres, the purveyor and banker Baron Joseph Yozel Gunzburg [1] and others, seized eagerly upon this idea which bade fair to shower privileges upon the well-to-do cla.s.ses. In June, 1856, this group addressed a pet.i.tion to Alexander II., complaining about the disabilities which weighed so heavily upon all Jews, "from the artisan to the first guild merchant, from the private soldier to the Master of Arts, and forced them down to the level of a degraded, suspected, untolerated tribe." At the same time they a.s.sured the Tzar that, were the Government to give a certain amount of encouragement to the Jews, the latter would gladly meet it half-way and help in the realization of its policy to draw the Jews nearer to the original inhabitants and turn them in the direction of productive labor.

[Footnote 1: Popularly known by his middle name as _Yozel_.]

Were--the pet.i.tioners declare--the new generation which has been brought up in the spirit and under the control of the Government, were the higher mercantile cla.s.s which for many years has diffused life, activity, and wealth in the land, were the conscientious artisans who earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, to receive from the Government, as a mark of distinction, larger rights than those who have done nothing to attest their well-meaningness, usefulness, and industry, then the whole Jewish people, seeing that these few favored ones are the object of the Government's righteousness and benevolence and models of what it desires the Jews to become, would joyfully hasten to attain the goal marked out by the Government. Our present pet.i.tion, therefore, is to the effect that our gracious sovereign may bestow his kindness upon us, and, by distinguishing the grain from the chaff, may be pleased to accord a few moderate privileges to the most educated among us, to wit:

1. "Equal rights with the other (Russian) subjects or with the Karaite Jews [1] to the educated and well-deserving Jews who possess the t.i.tle of Honorary Citizens, to the merchants affiliated for a number of years with the first or second guild and distinguished by their business integrity, to the soldiers who have served irreproachably in the army."

2. The right of residence outside the Pale of Settlement "to the best among the artisans" who possess laudatory certificates from the trade-unions. The privileges thus accorded to "the best among us"

will help to realize the consummation of the Government "that the sharply marked traits which distinguish the Jews from the native Russians should be levelled, and that the Jews should in their way of thinking and acting become akin to the latter." Once placed outside their secluded "Pale," the Jews "will succeed in adopting from the genuine Russians the praise-worthy qualities, by which they are distinguished, and the striving for culture and useful endeavor will become universal."

[Footnote 1: On the emanc.i.p.ation of the Karaites see Vol. I, p. 318.]

The pet.i.tion reflects the humiliating att.i.tude of men who were standing on the boundary line between slavery and freedom, whose cast of mind had been formed under the regime of oppression and caprice. Pointing to the example of the West where the bestowal of equal rights had contributed to the success of Jewish a.s.similation, the St. Petersburg pet.i.tioners were not even courageous enough to demand equal rights as the price of a.s.similation, and professed, perhaps from diplomatic considerations, to content themselves with miserable crumbs of rights and privileges for "the best among us." They failed to realize the meanness of their suggestion to divide a nation into best and worst, into those worthy of a human existence and those unworthy of it.

3. THE EXTENSION OF THE RIGHT OF RESIDENCE

After some wavering, the Government decided to adopt the method of "picking" the best. The intention of the authorities was to apply the gradual relaxation of Jewish rightlessness not to groups of restrictions, but to groups of persons. The Government entered upon the scheme of abolishing or alleviating certain restrictions not for the whole Jewish population but merely for a few "useful" sections within it. Three such sections were marked off from the rest: merchants of the first guild, university graduates, and incorporated artisans.

The resuscitated "Committee for the Amelioration of the Jews" [1]

displayed an intense activity during that period (1856-1863). For fully two years (1857-1859) the question of granting the right of permanent residence in the interior governments to merchants of the first guild occupied the attention of that Committee and of the Council of State.

The Committee had originally proposed to restrict this privilege by imposing a series of exceedingly onerous conditions. Thus, the merchants intending to settle in the Russian interior were to be required to have belonged to the first guild within the Pale for ten years previously, and they were to be allowed to leave the Pale only after securing in each case a permit from the Ministers of the Interior and of Finance.

But the Council of State found that, circ.u.mscribed in this manner, the privilege would benefit only a negligible fraction of the Jewish merchant cla.s.s--there were altogether one hundred and eight Jewish first-guild merchants within the Pale--and, therefore, considered it necessary to reduce the requirements for settling in the interior.

[Footnote 1: Compare above, p. 49.]

A long succession of meetings of this august body was taken up with the perplexing problem how to attract big Jewish capital into the central governments and at the same time safeguard the latter against the excessive influx of Jews, who, for the sake of settling there, would register in the first guild and, under the disguise of relatives, would bring with them, as one of the members of the Council put it, "the whole tribe of Israel." After protracted discussions, a resolution was adopted which was in substance as follows:

The Jewish merchants who have belonged to the first guild for not less than two years prior to the issuance of the present law shall be permitted to settle permanently in the interior governments, accompanied by their families and a limited number of servants and clerks. These merchants shall be ent.i.tled to live and trade on equal terms with the Russian merchants, with the proviso that, after the settlement, they shall continue their membership in the first guild as well as their payment of the appertaining membership dues for no less than ten years, failing which they shall be sent back into the Pale. Big Jewish merchants and bankers from abroad, "noted for their social position," shall be allowed to trade in Russia under a special permit to be secured in each case from the Ministers of the Interior and of Finance.

The resolution of the Council of State was sanctioned by the Tzar on March 16, 1859, and thus became law.

In this manner the way was opened for big Jewish capital to enter the two Russian capitals and the tabooed interior. The advent of the big capitalists was followed by the influx of their less fortunate brethren, who, driven by material want from the Pale, were forced to seek new domiciles, and in the shape of first guild dues paid for many years a heavy toll for their right of residence and commerce. The position of these merchants offers numerous points of contact with the status of the "tolerated" Jewish merchants in Vienna and Lower Austria prior to 1848.

Toleration having been granted to the Jews with a proper financial status, the Government proceeded to extend the same treatment to persons with educational qualifications. The latter cla.s.s was the subject of protracted debates in the Jewish Committee as well as in the Ministries and in the Council of State. As early as in 1857 the Minister of Public Instruction Norov had submitted a memorandum to the Jewish Committee in which he argued that "religious fanaticism and prejudice among the Jews"

could only be exterminated by inducing the Jewish youth to enter the general educational establishments, "which end can only be obtained by enlarging their civil rights and by offering them material advantages."

Accordingly, Norov suggested that the right of residence in the whole Russian Empire should be granted to the graduates of the higher and secondary educational inst.i.tutions. [1] Those Jews who should have failed to attend school were to be restricted in their right of entering the mercantile guilds. The Jewish Committee refused to limit the rights of those who did not attend the general schools, and proposed, instead, as a bait for the Jews who shunned secular education, to confer special privileges in the discharge of military service upon those Jews who had attended the _gymn.a.z.ia_ [2] or even the Russian district schools, [3] or the Jewish Crown schools, [4] more exactly, to grant them the right of buying themselves off from conscription by the payment of one hundred to two hundred rubles (1859). But the Military Department vetoed this proposal on the ground that education would thus bestow privileges upon Jews which were denied even to Christians. The suggestion, relating to military privileges was therefore abandoned, and the promotion of education among Jews reduced itself to an extension of the right of residence.

[Footnote 1: The latter category comprises primarily the _gymn.a.z.ia_ (see next note) in which the cla.s.sic languages are taught, and the so-called _real gymn.a.z.ia_ in which emphasis is laid on science. The higher educational inst.i.tutions, or the inst.i.tutions of higher learning, are the universities and the professional schools, on which see next page, n. 4.]

[Footnote 2: The name applies on the European continent to secondary schools. A Russian _gymn.a.z.ia_ (and similarly a German _gymn.a.z.ium_) has an eight years' course. Its curriculum corresponds roughly to a combined high school and college course in America.]

[Footnote 3: _i.e._, schools found in the capitals of districts (or counties), preparatory to the _gymn.a.z.ia._]

[Footnote 4: See above, p.58 and below, p.174.]

In this connection the Jewish Committee warmly debated the question as to whether the right of residence outside the Pale should be accorded to graduates of the higher and secondary educational inst.i.tutions, or only to those of the higher. The Ministers of the Interior and Public Instruction (Lanskoy and Kovalevski) advocated the former more liberal interpretation. But the majority of the Committee members, acting "in the interests of a graduated emanc.i.p.ation," rejected the idea of bestowing the universal right of residence upon the graduates of _gymn.a.z.ia_, and _lyceums_ and even upon those of universities and other inst.i.tutions of higher learning, [1] with the exception of those who had received a learned degree, Doctor, Magister, or Candidate. [2] The Committee was willing, on the other hand, to permit the possessors of a learned degree not only to settle in the interior but also to enter the civil service. The Jewish university graduate was thus expected to submit a scholarly paper or even a doctor dissertation for two purposes, for procuring the right of residence in some Siberian locality and for the right of serving the State. Particular "circ.u.mspection" was recommended by the Committee with reference to Jewish medical men: a Jewish physician, without the degree of M.D., was not to be permitted to pa.s.s beyond the Pale.

[Footnote 1: Such as technological, veterinary, dental, and other professional schools, which are independent of the universities.]

[Footnote 2: _Magister_ in Russia corresponds roughly to the same t.i.tle in England and America. It is inferior to the doctor degree and precedes it. _Candidate_ is a t.i.tle, now mostly abolished, given to the best university students who have completed their course and have presented a scholarly paper, without having pa.s.sed the full examination.]

In this shape the question was submitted to the Council of State in 1861. Here opinions were evenly divided. Twenty members advocated the necessity of "bestowing" the right of residence not only on graduates of universities but also of _gymn.a.z.ia_, advancing the argument that even in the case of a Jewish _gymn.a.z.ist_ [1] "it is in all likelihood to be presumed that the gross superst.i.tions and prejudices which hinder the a.s.sociation of the Jews with the original population of the Empire will be, if not entirely eradicated, at least considerably weakened, and a further sojourn among Christians will contribute toward the ultimate extermination of these sinister prejudices which stand in the way of every moral improvement."

[Footnote 1: _i.e._, the pupil of a _gymn.a.z.ium_.]