The Haskalah Movement in Russia Part 4

There are many rooms, they take me to one, And strip from my body the poor homespun.

Woe has come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

They take me to another room, The uniform,--that is my doom.

Woe has come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

Rather than wear the cap of the czar, To study the Torah were better by far.

Woe has come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

Rather than eat of the czar's black bread, I'd study the Scriptures head by head.

Woes have come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

Yet this was not all. Knowing that it is easier to convert the children than their elders, the Government of Nicholas I, out-Heroding Herod, inaugurated a system so cruel as to fill with terror and pity the heart of the most ferocious barbarian. Infants were torn from their mothers, boys of the age of twelve, sometimes of ten and eight, were herded like cattle, sent to distant parts of Russia, and there distributed as chattels among the officers of the army. Many of these Cantonists, as they were called, either died on the way, or were killed off when they resisted conversion. Those who survived sometimes returned to Judaism, and formed the nucleus of Jewish settlements in the interior of Russia.

These "soldiers of Nicholas" (Nikolayevskiye soldati), with their uncouth demeanor and devoted, though ignorant, adherence to the faith of their fathers, furnished much material for the folk-songs of the time and the novelists of the somewhat happier reigns of Nicholas's successors.[36]

One of these Cantonists, the first to give a description of the life of his fellow-sufferers, was Wolf Nachla.s.s, or Alexander Alekseyev. For many years he remained faithful to the religion of his forefathers, though he had been pressed into the service at the age of ten. About 1845 he changed his views, became an ardent Greek Catholic, and converted five hundred Cantonists, to the great delight of Nicholas I, who thanked him in person for his zeal. He lost his leg, and during the long illness that followed Nachla.s.s settled in Novgorod, and wrote several works on Jewish customs and on missionary topics.

Less horrifying, but equally aiming at disintegration, was Nicholas's scheme of colonization. What better means was there for "diminishing the number of Jews" than to scatter them over the wilderness of Russia and leave them to shift for themselves? This, of course, was necessarily a slow process and one involving some expense, but it was fraught with great importance not only for the Russian Church, but for Russian trade and agriculture as well.

"Back to the soil!" Was not this the cry of the romantic Maskilim in Germany, in Galicia, and particularly in Russia? And have not country life and field labor been depicted by them in the most glowing colors?

Here was an opportunity to save the honor of the Jewish name and also ameliorate the material condition of the Russian Jews. The permission given to them by Alexander I to establish themselves as farmers in the frigid yet free Siberian steppes was greeted with enthusiasm by all.

Nicholas's ukase was hailed with joy. Elias Mitauer and Meyer Mendelssohn, at the head of seventy families from Courland, were the first to migrate to the new region (1836), and they were followed by hundreds more. Indeed, the exodus a.s.sumed such proportions that the Christians in the parts of the country abandoned by the colonists complained of the decline in business and the depreciation of property.

The movement was heartily approved by the rabbis; the populace, its imagination stimulated, began to dream dreams and see visions of brighter days, and all gave vent to their hopefulness in songs of gladness and grat.i.tude, in strains like these:[37]

Who lives so free As the farmer on his land?

His farm his companion is, His never-failing friend.

His sleep to him is sweet After a hearty meal; Neither grief nor worry The farmer-man doth feel.

He rises very early To start betimes his toil, Healthy and very happy On his ever-smiling soil.

O blessings on our czar, Czar Nikolai, then be, Who granted us this gladness, And bade the Jews be free.

Alas, this joy was of short duration! Very soon Nicholas became suspicious of his Siberian colonization scheme, that it was in reality a philanthropic measure, and in place of saving the Jew's soul it only promoted his physical well-being. This suspicion grew into a conviction when he learned that the Jewish community at Tomsk, still faithful to the heritage of Israel, applied for permission to appoint a spiritual leader. The autocrat, therefore, signed an ukase checking settlement in the hitherto free land, depriving honest men of the privilege enjoyed by the worst of criminals, and enrolling the children of those already there among the military Cantonists (January 5, 1837).

Then began real misery. Believing at first that the czar's intentions were sincere, many Jews had sold their hut and land and left for Siberia. No sooner were they there than they were sent, on foot, to Kherson. The decree of the "little father" was executed in--no other phrase can describe it so well--Russian fashion. The innocent Jews who had come to Siberia by invitation were seized, treated as vagabonds, and deported to their destination. Want and suffering produced contagious diseases, and many became a burden to the Jews of Kremenchug and such Christians as could not witness unmoved the infernal comedy played by the defender of the Greek Catholic Church. Help could be rendered only secretly, and those who dared complain were severely punished.

At the same time that this was taking place in the wilderness of Siberia, a phenomenon of rare occurrence was to be witnessed in the very heart of the Jewish Pale, in Lithuania. Aroused by the wretched condition of his coreligionists, Solomon Posner (1780-1848) determined to erect cloth factories exclusively for Jews. He sent to Germany for experts to teach them the trade. These Jewish workingmen proved so industrious and intelligent that before the end of three years they surpa.s.sed their teachers in mechanical skill. But this attempt of Posner was only prefatory to the greater and more arduous task he set himself.

It was nothing less than the establishment of a colony in which some of the most Utopian theories would be applied to actual life. Ten years after Robert Owen founded his communistic settlement at New Harmony, Indiana, several hundred robust Russian Jews settled on some of the thousands of acres in Lithuania that were lying fallow for want of tillers. With these farmers Posner hoped to realize his Utopia. He provided every family with sufficient land, the necessary agricultural implements, as well as with horses, cows, etc., free of charge, for a term of twenty-five years. In return, the members of the community pledged themselves to use simple homespun for their apparel, black on holidays, gray on week-days, not to indulge in the luxuries of city life, and to avoid trading of any sort. As time pa.s.sed, Posner opened coeducational technical schools for the children and batte midrashim for adults, and soon the homesteads presented the appearance of progressive and flourishing farms. Posner's successful effort attracted the admiration of Prince Pashkevich, and was both a living protest against the accusation of Nicholas that Jews were unfit to be farmers and an eloquent plea for the unfortunate victims of a capricious tyrant in Siberia and Kherson.[38]

In his efforts to curb the stiff-necked Jews by all manner of fiendish persecution, Nicholas did not neglect to try the efficacy of some of the plans advocated by Lewis Way. Undismayed by the failure of the Committee of Guardians for Israelitish Christians, in which Alexander I had put so much confidence, a "Jewish Committee," all the members of which were Christians, was organized by imperial decree (May 22, 1825). This committee established, in 1829, a school at Warsaw where Christian divinity students were to be instructed in rabbinical literature and in Judeo-German, in order to be fully equipped for missionary work among the Jews. It appointed Abbe Luigi Chiarini to translate, or rather expose, the Babylonian Talmud, to which undertaking the Government contributed twelve thousand thalers.

To do his work thoroughly, the abbe deemed it advisable to write a preliminary dissertation, presenting his aim and views. This he did in his _Theory of Judaism_ (_Theorie du judaisme_, Paris, 1830). He endeavored to show how worthless, injurious, and immoral were the teachings of the Talmud. Only by discarding them would the Jews qualify themselves to enjoy the right of citizenship. He proved, to his own satisfaction, that ritual murder was enjoined in the Talmud, and this he did at a time when many a community was hara.s.sed by this fiendish accusation. When early death cut short the abbe's effort (1832), the Government, still persisting in its plans, engaged the services of Ephraim Moses Pinner of Posen, who published specimens of his intended translation in his _Compendium_ (Berlin, 1831). But the fickle or restless emperor seems to have tired of the plan, or perhaps he found Pinner too Jewish for his purposes. Of the twenty-eight volumes planned, only one, which was dedicated to Nicholas, appeared during the decade following Chiarini's death, and the work was abandoned entirely.[39]

The crusade against the Talmud, thus headed and backed by the Government, now broke out in all its fury. Anti-Talmudic works in English, French, and German were imported into Russia, translated into Hebrew, and scattered among the people. _The Old Paths_, by Alexander McCaul, a countryman and colleague of Lewis Way, but surpa.s.sing him in zeal for the conversion of Jews, was translated into Hebrew and German (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1839) for the edification of those who knew no English. Jews themselves, either out of revenge or because they sought to ingratiate themselves with the high authorities, joined the movement, and openly came out against the Talmud in works modelled after Eisenmenger's _Entdecktes Judenthum_. Such were Buchner, author of _Worthlessness of the Talmud_ (_Der Talmud in seiner Nichtigkeit_, 2 vols., Warsaw, 1848), and Temkin, who wrote _The Straight Road_ (_Derek Selulah_, St. Petersburg, 1835). The former was instructor in Hebrew and Holy Writ in the rabbinical seminary in Warsaw; the latter was a zealous convert to the Greek Catholic faith, who spared no effort to make Judaism disliked among his former coreligionists.

All these desperate attempts proved of no avail. Judaism was practiced, and the Talmud was studied during the reign of Nicholas I more ardently than ever before. Their sacred treasures attacked by the Government without and by renegades and detractors within, the Russian Jews nevertheless clung to them with a tenacity unparalleled even in their own history. Danzig's _Life of Man_ (_Hayye Adam_, Vilna, 1810), containing all Jewish ritual ceremonies, was followed out to the least minutiae. Despite the poverty of the Jews and the comparatively exorbitant price the publisher had to charge for the Talmud, and, aside from the many sets of former editions in the country and those continually imported, and in addition to the Responsa, commentaries, Midrashim, and other works directly and indirectly bearing on it, more than a dozen editions of the Talmud had appeared in Russia alone since the ukase of Catherine II (October 30, 1795) permitting Russian Jews to publish Hebrew works in their own country. This ukase had been intended originally to exclude seditious literature from Russia, but what was unfavorable for the rebellious Poles proved, in a measure, very beneficial to the law-abiding Jews. Under the supervision of a censor, and with but slight interruptions, the Jews published their own books, and in 1806 Slavuta, in Volhynia, saw the first complete edition of the Talmud on Russian soil. Then followed another edition in the same place (1808-1813), a third in Kopys (1816-1828), and a fourth in Slavuta (1817-1822), and several others elsewhere.

The story of the Vilna-Grodno edition of the Talmud is interesting as well as illuminating. It depicts the relation of the Jews among themselves and to the Government. Begun in 1835, at Ozar, near Grodno, an imperial ukase directed the removal of the work to Vilna, the metropolis of Russo-Poland. When the publishers, Simhah Ziml and Menahem Mann Romm, had completed their work in the new quarters, the copies of the book were destroyed by incendiaries (1840). After some time, an effort was made by Joseph Eliasberg and Mattathias Strashun to continue the publication, but the Warsaw censor prohibited its importation into Poland, where the bulk of the subscribers lived. To add to the calamity, a feud broke out between the head of the Slavuta publishing company, Moses Schapira (1758-1838), and the Vilna publishers. The publication of the Talmud had always been supervised by the prominent rabbis of the land, and their authorization was necessary to make an edition legal.

This the rabbi never granted unless the previous edition was entirely disposed of. The Slavuta publishers claimed that their edition had not been sold out when the Vilna publishers started theirs. The litigation continued for some time, and was finally decided in favor of the Vilna firm. The publishers of Slavuta, however, having the Polish rabbis and zaddikim on their side, continued to publish the Talmud, regardless of the protests of Rabbi Akiba Eger and the "great ones" of Lithuania. But a terrible misfortune befell the Slavuta publishers. On account of some accusation, the two brothers engaged in the business were deported to Siberia, and their father, the head of the establishment, died of a broken heart. This cleared the field for the Romms of Vilna, who continue to prosper to this day, and have now the greatest Hebrew publishing house in the world. "It is the finger of G.o.d," the pious ones said, and studied the Talmud with increased devotion.[40]

The numerous Talmud editions indicate the demand for the work, and the multiplicity of yeshibot explains the cause of the demand. We have seen how the yeshibot destroyed by Chmielnicki were re-established soon after the ma.s.sacres ceased. Their number increased when the Hasidic movement threatened to render the knowledge of the Talmud unpopular; and when the Maskilim, too, made them a target for their attacks, there was hardly a town in which such inst.i.tutions were not to be found. But surpa.s.sing all the yeshibot of the nineteenth century, if not of all centuries, was the Yeshibah Tree of Life (Yeshibat 'Ez Hayyim) in the townlet of Volozhin.

There the cherished hopes of the Gaon were finally realized. Within its walls gathered the elect of the Russo-Jewish youth for almost a century.

The founder of this famous yeshibah was Rabbi Hayyim Volozhin, the greatest of the Gaon's disciples (1749-1821). A prominent Talmudist at twenty-five, he, nevertheless, left his business and household at that age, and went to Vilna to become the humble pupil of the Gaon, whose method he had followed from the beginning. When he felt himself proficient enough in his studies, he returned to his native place, and founded (1803) the Tree of Life College, with an enrollment of ten students, whom he maintained at his own expense. But soon the fame of the yeshibah and its founder spread far and wide, and students flocked to it from all corners of Russia and outside of it. In response to Rabbi Hayyim's appeal contributions came pouring in, a new and s.p.a.cious school-house was erected, and Volozhin became a Talmudic Oxford. To be a student there was both an indication of superiority and a means to proficiency. Rabbi Hayyim did away with the "Tag-essen," or "Freitisch"

custom, and introduced a stipendiary system in its stead, thus fostering the self-respect of the students. But they did not as a rule require much to satisfy them with their lot. They came to Volozhin "to learn,"

and they well knew the Talmudic statement, that "no one can attain eminence in the Torah unless he is willing to die for its sake."

Rabbi Hayyim was succeeded by his son Rabbi Isaac, who united knowledge of secular subjects with profound Talmudic erudition, was active in worldly affairs, and played a prominent part in the Jewish history of his day. He was of the leading spirits who, in 1842, attended the rabbinical conference at St. Petersburg convoked by Nicholas I. The number of students increased under his leadership, according to Lilienthal, to three hundred. But Rabbi Isaac became so engrossed in public affairs that he found he could no longer do justice to his position. His two sons-in-law, therefore, took his place, and when the older died, in 1854, Rabbi Naphtali Zebi Judah Berlin (1817-1893) entered on his useful career, unbroken for forty years, as the dean of the greatest seat of learning in the Diaspora. Under his administration the Tree of Life College reached both the height of its prosperity and the end of its existence (1892).[41]

Thus all the schemes and machinations of the Russian Government respecting the Jews proved ineffectual. Nicholas I, with the possible exception of Ivan the Terrible, the greatest autocrat in Russian history, at whose wish seemingly insuperable obstacles were instantly removed, the wink of whose eye was sufficient to kill or revive the millions of his crouching slaves--Nicholas I, with all his herculean strength, yet found himself helpless in the presence of a handful of wretched Jews. Furious at his defeat, he expressed the intention to reduce all Jews to Governmental servitude or to make them, like the Cossacks, lifelong soldiers. Being advised to postpone the execution of this plan and to employ less severe measures meanwhile, he issued the Exportation Law of 1843, ordering the expulsion of Jews from the fifty-vyerst boundary zone and from the villages within the Pale, thereby depriving fifty thousand families at once of their homes and their support.

Those from the country--writes a Russo-Jewish eye-witness of the scenes following the enforcement of this inhuman law--move first to the neighboring cities, and increase the existing poverty, rendering the difficulty of finding profitable employment still greater. G.o.d only knows how it will end when the congestion increases still further.... I must also inform you--he proceeds--that these past four months several imperial commissioners have visited the frontier towns on the Lithuanian border, from which the Jews are to be banished, in order that the value of the real estate may be estimated. But how is the valuation calculated? Even one who is acquainted with the venality and unscrupulousness of Russian officers cannot form a correct idea of how this business is conducted. If a man has no connection with those in authority, or cannot obtain powerful intercession, or is unable to give heavy bribes, his property is valued at perhaps five per cent, or is set at so low a figure as to make the appraisal differ little from downright robbery. We, however, are used to such measures, for when they banished us some time past from certain districts of the city of Brest-Litovsk, where for centuries celebrated scholars of our people dwelt, nothing better was done by the crown to compensate us for our houses.[42] The same occurred at the expulsion from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Nikolayev, Alexandrov, Sebastopol, etc., but as it did not affect so large a ma.s.s, nor injure us to so great an extent, we bore the injury silently. Alas, this is not the case at present. We should gladly quit the country, gladly should we emigrate to America, Texas, and especially to Palestine under English protection, if, on the one hand, we had the means and, on the other, the Government would permit us.[43]

This Exportation Law of Nicholas I, the result of a lawsuit between a Jew and a n.o.bleman living on the eastern frontier, which had been decided by the supreme court in favor of the former, aroused much excitement in every civilized country of Europe. It was before anti-Semitism was in flower, and the people of the time were more responsive even than during the later Kishinev ma.s.sacres. Indignation meetings were held. Both Jews and Gentiles, not only abroad, but even in Russia, protested. Prayers were offered for the unfortunate. Cremieux in France and Rabbi Philippson in Germany appealed to the public. All to no effect. Grief was especially manifest among English Jews, always the first to feel when their fellow-Jews in other countries suffer, and Grace Aguilar, like Rachel weeping over her children, lamented over her Russian brethren:

Ay, death! for such is exile--fearful doom, From homes expelled yet still to Poland chain'd; Till want and famine mind and life consume, And sorrow's poison'd chalice all is drained.

O G.o.d, that this should be! that one frail man Hath power to crush a nation 'neath his ban.

At this critical period, Moses Montefiore, encouraged by his success in refuting the blood accusation at Damascus, and stimulated by the many pet.i.tions he had received from Russia, Germany, France, Italy, England, and America, undertook the philanthropic mission of interceding with the czar on behalf of his coreligionists. It is natural to suspect that no trouble is entirely undeserved; it is but human to sympathize with our friends, and yet regard their suffering as a judgment rather than a misfortune. But Montefiore's trip to Russia dispelled the last trace of suspicion against the Russian Jews. In spite of their poverty, he saw numerous charitable and educational inst.i.tutions in every city he visited. He found the Jewish men to be the cream of Russia. "He had the satisfaction," Doctor Loewe, his secretary, tells us, "of seeing among them many well-educated wives, sons, and daughters; their dwellings were scrupulously clean, the furniture plain but suitable for the purpose, and the appearance of the family healthy." To all his pleadings Count Uvarov returned but a single answer: "The Russian Jews are different from other Jews; they are orthodox, and believe in the Talmud"[44]--a reason for persecution in Holy Russia!

Montefiore's visit to Russia, from which so much had been hoped, did not improve the situation in the least. For all his strenuous efforts, he was compelled to leave the Jews as dest.i.tute as he had found them. Nay, they might truthfully have said to the Moses of England what their ancestors had said to the Moses of Egypt, "Since thou didst come to Pharaoh, the hardness of our lot has increased." From the first of May (1844) they were not allowed to continue to earn the pittance necessary to maintain life, as, for instance, by the slavish labor of breaking stones on the highways, with which three hundred families had barely earned dry bread.[45] The great love and respect shown to the uncrowned king of Israel proved to the czar's officials the existence of some artful design on the part of the Jews, and convinced them especially of the disloyalty of Montefiore. The latter, they maintained, was scheming to set himself up as the Jewish czar. Hence every movement of his was closely watched, every word he uttered carefully noted, and not a few Jews were left with memorable tokens for doing homage to the English baronet. Their disabilities were not removed, their condition was not improved, the hopes they entertained resolved themselves into pleasant dreams followed by a sad awakening.[46]

Yet, though his visit did not, as Sir Moses had antic.i.p.ated, "raise the Jews in the estimation of the people," it was not without beneficent effect on the Jews themselves. It cemented the "traditional friendship"

which has always existed between Anglo-Jews and Russo-Jews more than between any sets of Jews of the dispersion. It disclosed to the latter that there were happier Jews and better countries than their own; that there were men who sympathized with them as effectively as could be.

Above all, it convinced them that a Jew may be highly educated and wealthy, and take his place among the n.o.ble ones of the earth, and still remain a faithful Jew and a loyal son of his persecuted people. "I leave you," Sir Moses called to them at parting, "but my heart will ever remain with you. When my brethren suffer, I feel it painfully; when they have reason to weep, my eyes shed tears." Had Montefiore's visit resulted merely in arousing his brethren's self-consciousness, he had earned a place in the history of Haskalah, for self-consciousness is the most potent factor in the culture of mankind.

Jews from other lands also came to the rescue of their Russian coreligionists. Jacques Isaac Altaras, the ship-builder of Ma.r.s.eilles, pet.i.tioned the czar to allow forty thousand Jewish families to emigrate to Algeria. Rabbi Ludwig Philippson, editor of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, appealed to his countrymen to help the Russian Jews to settle in America, Australia, Africa, anywhere away from Russia. But all attempts were ineffectual. Though Count Kissilyef a.s.sured Montefiore that the czar "did not wish to keep them [the Jews], five or six hundred thousand might leave altogether," emigration was next to impossible.

Russia was constantly playing the game of the cat with the mouse. Her nails were set and her eyes fixed upon her prey, and yet she made it appear to the outside world that she was anxious about the welfare of the Jews. For Russian tactics have always been, and still are, the despair of the diplomat, a labyrinth through which only they who hold the clue can ever hope to find their way.

The condition of the Jews in Russo-Poland was, if possible, even worse than in Lithuania and Russia proper. Nothing, in fact, but the auto-da-fe was needed to give it the stamp of medieval Spain. As before the division of Poland, the Poles suspected the Jews of disloyalty to Poland, while the Russians suspected them of disloyalty to Russia.

Hitherto too proud to soil his hand with a manual or mercantile pursuit, the Polish pan, now that the glory of his country had departed, and he was deprived of his lordly estates, began to engage in business of all kinds, and, finding in the Jewish trader a rival with whose skill and diligence he could seldom compete, he became embittered against the entire race. This was the cause of the innumerable restrictions, the extortion, and exploitation in Russo-Poland, which surpa.s.sed those of Russia proper.

The Jewish archives--said Doctor Marcus Jastrow, then Rabbi in Warsaw--were humorously known as "California" or the "Mexican Gold Mines." Jews had to pay at every step. They had to pay a Tagzettel [daily tax] for permission to stay in Warsaw, which permission, however, did not include the luxury of breathing.

The latter had to be purchased with an additional ten kopecks per capita. The income from these taxations amounted to over a million and a half, but in spite of all this the Jews were regarded as parasites, as leeches feasting upon the life-blood of their Christian compatriots.[47]

Such is the background upon which the picture of Haskalah is to be drawn--black enough to throw into relief the faintest ray of light. The Russian Jews, during the reign of Nicholas I, found themselves in a position possible only in Russia. They were not allowed to emigrate, nor suffered to stay. In 1823 they were expelled from the farms, and had to crowd into the cities; in 1838 they were expelled from the cities, and forced to go back to the country. Then Siberia was opened to them, but when it was found that even the land of the outcasts was hailed as a place of refuge by the Jews, they were told to go to Kherson. At last arrangements were perfected to allow them to colonize Lithuania--all at once even this was interdicted. They had been conquered with the Poles, yet were left unprotected against the Poles. Could they help suspecting the tyrant of what he really intended to do--of seeking to diminish their numbers by conversion? Is it surprising that when he determined to open public schools and establish rabbinical seminaries, Jews looked upon these, too, as the sugared poison with which he intended to extirpate Judaism? Or can we blame them for being determined to the last to baffle him? Nicholas did not understand the great lesson taught by the history of the Jews and inculcated in the old song,

To destroy all these people You should let them alone.

All that tyranny could inflict, the Russian Jews endured. Yet their number was not diminished. No coercion could make them leave, in a body, the old paths they were wont to tread. Nicholas's so-called reforms only encouraged a reaction, and the more he afflicted the Jews, the more they multiplied and grew. The behalot of 1754, 1764, and 1793 were repeated in 1833 and 1843; the missionary propaganda only strengthened the devotion of the faithful; and the denial of the means of support only increased the stolidity of the sufferers. And if, like some stepchildren, they were first beaten till they cried, and then beaten because they cried, like some stepchildren they rapidly forgot their lot in the happiness of home and the studies of the bet ha-midrash, and could sing[48] without bitterness even of the behalah-days, when

Little boys and little girls Together had been mated, Tishah be-Ab, the wedding day,-- Not a soul invited.

Only the father and the mother, And also uncle Elye-- In his lengthy delye (caftan), With his scanty beard-- Jump and jig with each other Like a colt afeared.

(Notes, pp. 314-317.)