History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume II Part 13

Such was the opinion of the "liberal" half of the Council of State. The conservative half argued differently. Only those Jews deserve the right of residence who have received "an education such as may serve as a pledge of their having renounced the errors of fanaticism. "The wise measures adopted" as a precaution against the influx of Jews into the interior governments" would lose their efficacy, "were permission to settle all over Russia to be granted suddenly to all Jews who have for a short term attended a _gymn.a.z.ium_ in the Western and South-western region, for no other purpose, to be sure, than that of pursuing on a larger scale their illicit trades and other harmful occupations." Hence only Jews with a "reliable education," i.e., the graduates of higher educational inst.i.tutions, who have obtained a learned degree, should be permitted to pa.s.s the boundary of the Pale.

Alexander II. endorsed the opinion of the conservative members of the Council of State. The law, promulgated on November 37, 1861, reads as follows:

Jews possessing certificates of the learned degree of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery, or Doctor of Medicine, and likewise of Doctor, Magister, or Candidate of other university faculties, are admitted to serve In all Government offices, without their being confined to the Pale established for the residence of Jews. They are also permitted to settle permanently in all the provinces of the Empire for the pursuit of commerce and Industry.

In addition, the law specifies that, apart from the members of their families, these Jews shall be permitted to keep, as a maximum, "two domestic servants from among their coreligionists."

The promulgation of this law brought about a curious state of affairs, the upshot of the genuinely Russian h.o.m.oeopathic system of emanc.i.p.ation, A handful of Jews who had obtained learned degrees from universities were permitted not only to reside in the interior of t e Empire, but were also admitted here and there to Government service, in the capacity of civil and military physicians. Yet both of these rights were denied to all other persons with the same university education, "Physicians and Active Students," [1] who had not obtained learned degrees. On one occasion the Minister of Public Instruction put before the Council of State the following legal puzzle: A Jewish student, while attending the university of the Russian capital, enjoys the right of residence there.

But when he has successfully finished his course and has obtained the customary certificate, without the learned degree, he forfeits this right and must return to the Pale.

[Footnote 1: Both t.i.tles are given at the conclusion of the prescribed university course; the former to medical students, the latter to students of other faculties.]

Yet the Government in its stubbornness refused to make concessions, and when it was forced to make them, it did so rather in its own interest than in that of the Jews. Owing to the scarcity of medical help in the army and in the interior, ukases issued in 1865 and 1867 declared Jewish physicians, even without the t.i.tle of Doctor of Medicine, to be admissible to the medical corps and later on to civil service in all places of the Empire, except the capitals St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Nevertheless, the extension of the plain right of domicile, without admission to civil service, remained for a long time dependent on a learned degree. It was only after two decades of hesitation that the law of January 19, 1879, conferred the right of universal residence on _all_ categories of persons with a higher education, regardless of the nature of the diploma, and also including pharmacists, dentists, _feldshers_, [1] and midwives.

[Footnote 1: From the German _Feldscherer_, a sort of combination of leech, first-aid, and barber, who frequently gave medical advice.]

The privileges bestowed upon the big merchants and "t.i.tled"

intellectuals affected but a few small groups of the Jewish population.

The authorities now turned their attention to the ma.s.s of the people, and, in accordance with its rules of political h.o.m.oeopathy, commenced to pick from it a handful of persons for better treatment. The question of admitting Jewish artisans into the Russian interior occupied the Government for a long time. In 1856 Lanskoy, the Minister of the Interior, entered into an official correspondence concerning this matter with the governors-general and governors of the Western provinces. Most of the replies were favorable to the idea of conferring upon Jewish artisans the right of universal residence. Of the three governors-general whose opinion had been invited the governor-general of Vilna was the only one who thought that the present situation needed no change. His colleague of Kiev, Count Vasilchikov, was, on the contrary, of the opinion that it would be a rational measure to transfer the surplus of Jewish artisans who were cooped up within the Pale and had been pauperized by excessive compet.i.tion to the interior governments where there was a scarcity of skilled labor. [1]

[Footnote 1: The official statistics of that time (about the year 1860) brought out the fact that the number of Jews in the fifteen governments of the Pale of Settlement, exclusive of the Kingdom of Poland, but Inclusive of the Baltic region, amounted to 1,430,800, forming 8% of the total population of that territory. The number of artisans in the "Jewish" governments was far greater than in the Russian interior. Thus in the government of Kiev there were to be found 2.06 artisans to every thousand inhabitants, against 0.8 in the near-by government of Kursk, i.e., 2% times more. In reality, the number of Jews in the Western region, without the Kingdom of Poland, exceeded considerably 1 and one-half millions, there being no regular registration at that time.]

A surprisingly liberal p.r.o.nouncement came from, the governor-general of New Russia, Count Stroganov. In the world of Russian officialdom professing the dogma of "gradation" and "caution" in the question of Jewish rights he was the only one who had the courage to raise his voice on behalf of complete Jewish emanc.i.p.ation. He wrote:

The existence in our times of restrictions in the rights of the Jews as compared with the Christian population in any shape or form is neither in accord with the spirit and tendency of the age nor with the policy of the Government looking towards the amalgamation of the Jews with the original population of the Empire.

The count therefore concluded that it was necessary "to permit the Jews to live in all the places of the Empire and engage without any restrictions and on equal terms with all Russian subjects in such crafts and industries as they themselves may choose, in accordance with their habits and abilities." It is scarcely necessary to add that the bold voice of the Russian dignitary, who in a lucid interval spoke up in a manner reminiscent of the civilized West, was not listened to by the bureaucrats of St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, as far as the specific question of Jewish artisans was concerned, the favorable replies were bound to have a decisive effect.

However, red-tape sluggishness managed to r.e.t.a.r.d the decision for several years. In 1863 the question was referred back to the Jewish Committee, only a short time before the dissolution of that body, which for a quarter of a century had perpetrated every conceivable experiment over the "amelioration of the Jews." Thence the matter was transferred to the Committee of Ministers and finally to the Council of State.

In the ministerial body, Valuyev, Minister of the Interior, favored the idea of granting the right of settling outside the Pale to Jewish artisans and mechanics, dependent on certain conditions, "by practising caution and endeavoring to avert the rapid influx into the midst of the population of the interior governments of an element hitherto foreign to it." In reply to Baron Korff, who had advocated the admission of the Jewish artisans beyond the Pale not only with their families but also with Jewish domestics, Valuyev argued that this privilege "will enable Jewish business men of all kinds to reside in the interior governments, under the guise of employes of their coreligionists." "The Jews,"

according to Valuyev, "will endeavor to transfer their activity to a field economically more favorable to them, and it goes without saying that they will not fail to seize the first best opportunity of exploiting the places of the Empire hitherto inaccessible to them." The Council of State pa.s.sed the law in the formulation of the Ministry of the Interior, adding the necessary precautions against the entirely legitimate endeavor of Jewish business men "to transfer their activity to a field economically more favorable to them."

After nine years of preparation, on June 28, 1865, Alexander II. finally gave his sanction to the law permitting Jewish artisans, mechanics and distillers, including apprentices, to reside all over the Empire. Both in the wording of the law and in its subsequent application the privilege was hedged about by numerous safeguards. Thus, the artisan who wished to settle outside the Pale had to produce not only a certificate from his trade-union testifying to his professional ability but also a testimony from the police that he was not under trial. At stated intervals he had to procure a pa.s.sport from his native town in the Pale, since outside the Pale his status was that of a temporary resident. In his new place of residence he was permitted to deal only in the wares of his own workmanship. If he happened to be out of work, he was to be sent back to the Pale.

While opening a valve in the suffocating Pale, the Government took good care to prevent the artificially pent-up Jewish energy from rushing through it. However, heaving cooped up for so long, the Jews began to press through the opening. In the wake of the artisans, who, on account of the indicated restrictions of the law or because of the lack of travelling expenses, emigrated in comparatively small numbers, followed the commercial proletariat, using the criminal disguise of artisans, in order to transfer their energies to a "field economically more favorable to them." The position of these people was tragic. The fict.i.tious artisans became the tributaries of the local police, depending entirely on its favor or disfavor. The detection of such "criminals" outside the Pale was followed by their expulsion and the confiscation of their merchandise.

As a matter of fact, the Russian Government did everything in its power to stem the influx of Jews into the interior. Only with the greatest reluctance did it widen the range of the "privileged" Jewish groups. The Tzar himself, held in the throes of the old Muscovite tradition, frequently put his veto upon the proposals to enlarge the area of Jewish residence. A striking ill.u.s.tration of this att.i.tude may be found in the case of the retired Jewish soldiers, who, after discharging their galley-like army service of a quarter of a century, were expelled from the places where they had been stationed and sent back into the Pale. To the report submitted in 1858 by the Jewish Committee, pointing out the necessity of granting the right of universal residence to these soldiers, the Tzar attached the resolution: "I decidedly refuse to grant it." When pet.i.tions to the same effect became more insistent, all he did was to permit in 1860, "by way of exemption," a group of retired soldiers who had served in St. Petersburg in the body-guard to remain in the capital. Ultimately, however, he was obliged to yield, and in 1867 he revoked the law prohibiting retired Jewish soldiers to live outside the Pale. Thus after long wavering the right of domicile was finally bestowed upon the so-called "Nicholas soldiers" and their offspring--a rather n.i.g.g.ardly reward for having served the fatherland under the terrible hardships of the old form of conscription.

4. FURTHER ALLEVIATIONS AND ATTEMPTS AT RUSSIFICATION

Nevertheless, the liberal spirit of the age did its work slowly but surely, and partial legal alleviations were granted by the Government or wrested from it by the force of circ.u.mstances. The barriers which had been erected for the Jews within the Pale itself were done away with.

Thus the right of residence was extended to the cities of Nicholayev and Sevastopol, which, though geographically situated within the Pale, had been legally placed outside of it. The obstructions in the way of temporary visits to the holy city of Kiev were mitigated. The disgraceful old-time privilege of several cities, such as Zhitomir and Vilna, ent.i.tling them to exclude the Jews from certain streets, [1] was revoked. Moreover, by the law of 1862, the Jews were permitted to acquire land in the rural districts on those manorial estates in which after the liberation of the peasants the binding relation of the peasants to the landed proprietors had been completely discontinued.

Unfortunately, what the Jews thus gained through the liberation of the peasants, they lost to a large extent soon afterwards through the Polish insurrection of 1863, forfeiting the right of acquiring immovable property outside the cities in the greater part of the Pale. For in 1864, after quelling the Polish insurrection, the Government undertook to Russify the Western region, and both Poles and Jews were strictly barred from acquiring estates in the nine governments forming the jurisdiction of the governors-general of Vilna and Kiev.

[Footnote 1: On the medieval privilege _de non tolerandis Judaeis_ see Vol. I, pp. 85 and 95.]

The two other great reforms, that of rural self-government and the judiciary, were not stained by the ignominious label _kromye Yevreyev_, "excepting the Jews," so characteristic of Russian legislation. The "Statute concerning Zemstvo Organizations," [1] issued in 1864, makes no exceptions for Jews, and those among them with the necessary agrarian or commercial qualifications are granted the right of active and pa.s.sive suffrage within the scheme of provincial self-government. In fact, in the Southern governments the Jews began soon afterwards to partic.i.p.ate in the rural a.s.semblies, and were occasionally appointed to rural offices. Nor did the liberally conceived Judicial Regulations of 1864 [2] contain any important discriminations against Jews. Within a short time Jewish lawyers attained to prominence as members of the Russian bar, although their admission to the bench was limited to a few isolated cases.

[Footnote 1: A system of local self-government carried on by means of elective a.s.semblies and its executive organs. There is an a.s.sembly for each district (or county) and another for each government.]

[Footnote 2: Among other reforms they inst.i.tuted the Russian bar as a separate organization.]

Little by little, another dismal spectre of the past, the missionary activity of the Government, began to fade away. In the beginning of Alexander's reign, the conversion of Jews was still encouraged by the grant of monetary a.s.sistance to converts. The law of 1859 extended these stipends to persons embracing any other Christian persuasion outside of Greek Orthodoxy. But in 1864 the Government came to the conclusion that it was not worth its while to reward deserters and began a new policy by discontinuing its allowances to converts serving in the army. A little later it repealed the law providing for a mitigation of sentence for criminal offenders who embrace Christianity during the inquiry or trial.

[1]

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 45.]

In encouraging "the fusion of the Jews with the original population,"

the Government of Alexander II. had in mind civil and cultural fusion rather than religious a.s.similation, which even the inquisitorial contrivances of Nicholas' conscription scheme had failed to accomplish.

But as far as the cultural fusion or, for short, the Russification of the Jews was concerned, the Government even now occasionally indulged in practices which were borrowed from the antiquated system of enlightened absolutism.

The official enlightenment, which had been introduced during the forties, was slow in taking root. The year 1848 was the first scholastic year in the two enlightenment nurseries, the rabbinical schools of Vilna and Zhitomir. Beginning with that year a number of elementary Crown schools for Jewish children were opened in various cities of the Pale.

The cruel persecutions of the outgoing regime affected the development of the schools in a twofold manner. On the one hand, the Jewish population could not help turning away with disgust from the gift of enlightenment which its persecutors held out to it. On the other hand, the horrors of conscription induced many a Jewish youth, to seek refuge in the new rabbinical schools which saved their inmates from the soldier's uniform. Many a parent who regarded both the barracks and the Crown schools as training grounds for converts preferred to send his children to the latter, where, at least, they were spared the martyrdom of the barracks. The pupils of the rabbinical schools came from the poorest cla.s.ses, those that carried on their shoulders the whole weight of conscription. True, the distrustful att.i.tude towards the official schools was gradually weakening as the new Government of Alexander II.

was pa.s.sing from the former policy of oppression to that of reforms. By and by, the compulsory attendance at these schools became a voluntary one, prompted by the desire for general culture or for a special training as rabbi or teacher. Nevertheless the expectation of the Russian Government under Nicholas I. that the new schools would take the place of the time-honored educational Jewish inst.i.tutions, the heder and yeshibah, remained unfulfilled. Only an insignificant percentage of Jewish children went to the Crown schools, and even these children did so only after having received their training at the heder or yeshibah.

Realizing this, the Government decided to combat the traditional school as the rival of the new. Immediately upon his accession to the throne, Alexander confirmed the following resolution adopted by the Jewish Committee on May 3, 1855: "After the lapse of twenty years no one shall be appointed rabbi or teacher of Jewish subjects, except graduates of the rabbinical schools [1] or of the general educational establishments of a higher or secondary grade."

[Footnote 1: i.e., the Government training schools for rabbis provided by the ukase of 1844. See the preceding page.]

Having fixed a term of twenty years for abolishing the inst.i.tution of melammeds and religious leaders, the product of thousands of years of development, the Government frequently brandished this Damocles sword over their heads. In 1856 a strict supervision was established over heders and melammeds. A year later the Jewish communities were instructed to elect henceforward as "official rabbis" [1] only graduates of the rabbinical Crown schools or of secular educational establishments, and, in default of such, to invite educated Jews from Germany. But all these regulations proved of no avail, and in 1859 a new ukase became necessary, which loosened the official grip over the heders, but made it at the same time obligatory upon the children of Jewish merchants to attend the general Russian schools or the Jewish Crown schools.

[Footnote 1: Crown (In Russian _kazyonny_) rabbis in Russia are those that discharge the civil functions connected with their office, in distinction from the "spiritual" or ecclesiastic rabbis who are in charge of the purely religious affairs of the community. This division has survived in Russia until to-day.]

The enforcement of school attendance would scarcely have produced the desired effect--the orthodox managed somehow to give the slip to "Russian learning"--were it not for the fact that under the influence of the inner cultural transformation of Russian Jewry the general Russian school became during that period more and more popular among the advanced cla.s.ses of the Jewish population, and gymn.a.z.ium and university took their place alongside of heder and yeshibah. Yet the hundreds of pupils in the new schools faded into insignificance when compared with the hundreds of thousands who were educated exclusively in the old schools. The fatal year 1875, the last of the twenty years of respite granted to the melammeds for their self-annihilation, arrived. But the huge melammed army was not willing to pa.s.s out of Jewish life, in which they exercised a definite function, with no subst.i.tute to take its place. The Government was forced to yield. After several brief postponements the melammeds were left in peace, and by an ukase issued in 1879 the idea of abolishing the heders was dropped.

Towards the end of this period the Government abandoned altogether its attempts to reform the Jewish schools, and decided to liquidate its former activity in this direction. By an ukase issued in 1873 the two rabbinical schools and all Jewish Crown schools were closed. On the ruins of the vast educational network, originally projected for the transformation of Judaism, only about a hundred "elementary schools" and two modest "Teachers Inst.i.tutes," [1] which were to supply teachers for these schools, were established by the Government. The authorities were now inclined to look upon the general Russian schools as the most effective agencies of "fusion," and put their greatest trust in the elemental process of Russification which had begun to sweep over the upper layers of Jewry.

[Footnote 1: In Vilna and Zhitomir. The latter was closed in 1885. The former is still in existence.]

5. THE JEWS AND THE POLISH INSURRECTION OF 1863

While the official world of St. Petersburg was obsessed with the idea of the Russification of Jewry, in Warsaw the tendency of Polonization, as applied to the Jews of the Western region, cropped up in the wake of the revolutionary Polish movement in the beginning of the sixties. At the inception of Alexander's reign the Russian Government set out to equalize the legal status of the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland with that of the Empire, and to abolish the surviving special restrictions, such as the prohibition of residing in certain towns, or in certain parts of towns, disabilities in acquiring property, and others. But the highest Polish administration in Warsaw was obstructing in every possible way the liberal attempts of the Russian Government. Prior to the insurrection of 1863, the att.i.tude of Polish society towards the Jews was one of habitual animosity, and this notwithstanding the fact that by that time Warsaw harbored already a group of Jewish intellectuals who were eager to a.s.similate with the Poles and were imbued with Polish patriotism. When, in 1859, the _Warsaw Gazette_ published an anti-Semitic article in which the Jews were branded as foreigners, the Polish-Jewish patriots, including the banker Kronenberg, a convert, were stung to the quick, and they came forward with violent protests. This led to pa.s.sionate debates in the Polish press, generally unfriendly to the Jews. The radical Polish organs, published abroad by political exiles, took occasion to denounce bitterly the anti-Semitic trend of Polish society. The veteran historian Lelevel, who had not yet forgotten Poland's historic injustice of 1831, [1] issued a pamphlet in Brussels, calling upon the Poles to live in harmony with the race with which it had existed side by side for eight hundred years.

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 105.]

Lelevel's kindly words would scarcely have brought the anti-Semites to reason, had not the Poles at that moment embarked upon an enterprise for the success of which they sorely needed the sympathy and co-operation of their Jewish neighbors. The revolutionary movement which engulfed Russian Poland in 1860-1863 required the utmost exertion of effort on the part of the entire population, in which the half-million Jews played no small part. All of a sudden Polish society opened its arms to those whom it had but recently branded as foreigners, and out of the ranks of Warsaw Jewry came a hearty response, expressing itself not only in patriotic manifestations but also in sacrifices and achievements for the sake of the common fatherland.

At the head of the Warsaw community during this stormy period stood a man who combined Polish patriotism with rabbinic orthodoxy. Formerly rabbi in Cracow, Berush [1] Meisels had as far back as 1848 been sent as deputy to the parliament at Kremsier, [2] and stood in the forefront of the Polish patriots of Galicia. In 1856 he accepted the post of rabbi in Warsaw. When the revolutionary movement had broken out, Meisels endeavored to instruct his flock in the spirit of Polish patriotism.

Revered by the Jewish ma.s.ses for his piety, and by the intellectuals for his political trend of mind, this spiritual leader of Polish Jewry played in the revolutionary Polish movement a role equal in importance to that of the leading ecclesiastics of Poland. The harmonious co-operation of the orthodox Chief Rabbi Meisels, the reform preacher Marcus Jastrow, [3] and the lay representatives of the community lent unity and organization to the part played by the Jews in preparing the rebellion.

[Footnote 1: A variant of the name _Baer_.]

[Footnote 2: A town in Moravia, where, after the rising of 1848, the Austrian parliament met provisionally till March, 1849.]

[Footnote 3: After the suppression of the Polish insurrection, Jastrow went to the United States, and became a leading rabbi in Philadelphia.