RUSSIAN REACTION AND JEWISH EMIGRATION
1. AFTERMATH OF THE POGROM POLICY
In this wise, beginning with the May laws of 1882, the Government
gradually succeeded in monopolizing all anti-Jewish activities by
letting bureaucratic persecutions take the place of street pogroms.
However, in 1883 and 1884, the "street" made again occasional attempts
to compete with the Government. On May 10, 1883, on the eve of Alexander
III.'s coronation, a pogrom took place in the large southern city of
Rostov-on-the-Don. About a hundred Jewish residences and business places
were demolished and plundered. All portable property of the Jews was
looted by the mob, and the rest was destroyed. As was to be expected,
"the efforts of the police and troops were unable to stop the
disorders," and only after completing their day's work the rioters fled,
pursued by lashes and shots from the Cossaks. The Russian censorship
strictly barred all references to the pogroms in the newspapers, for
fear of spoiling the solemnity of the coronation days. The press was
only allowed to hint at "alarming rumors," the effect of which extended
even to the stock exchange of Berlin. Not before a year had passed was
permission given to make public mention of the Rostov events.
There was reason to fear that the pogrom at Rostov was only a prelude to
a new series of riots in the South. But more than two months had passed,
and all seemed to be quiet. Suddenly, however, on July 20, on the
Greek-Orthodox festival dedicated to the memory of the prophet Elijah,
the Russian mob made an attack upon the descendants of the ancient
prophet at Yekaterinoslav. The memory of the great biblical Nazirite who
abhorred strong drink was appropriately celebrated by his Russian
votaries in Yekaterinoslav who filled themselves with an immense
quantity of alcohol and became sufficiently intoxicated to embark upon
their daring exploits as robbers.
The ringleaders of the pogrom movement were not local residents but
itinerant laborers from the Great-Russian governments, who were employed
in building a railroad in the neighborhood of the South-Russian city.
These laborers, to quote the expression of a contemporary, attended to
the "military part of the undertaking," whereas the "civil functions"
were discharged by the local Russian inhabitants:
While the laborers and the stronger half of the residents were
demolishing the houses and stores and throwing all articles and
merchandise upon the street, the women and children grabbed
everything that came into their hands and carried them off, by hand
or in wagons, to their homes.
The looting and plundering continued on the second day, July 21, until a
detachment of soldiers arrived. The mob, intoxicated with their success,
attempted to beat off the soldiers, but naturally suffered defeat. The
sight of a score of killed and wounded had a sobering effect upon the
crowd. The pogrom was stopped, after five hundred Jewish families had
been ruined and a Jewish sanctuary had been defiled. In one devastated
synagogue the human fiends got hold of eleven Torah scrolls, tearing to
pieces some of them and hideously desecrating other copies of the Holy
Writ, inscribed with the commandments, "Thou shalt not murder," "Thou
shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not commit adultery"--which evidently ran
counter to the beliefs of the rioters.
The example set by Yekaterinoslav, the capital of the government of the
same name, proved to be contagious, for during August and September
pogroms took place in several neighboring towns and townlets. Among
these the pogrom at Novo-Moskovsk on September 4 was particularly
violent, nearly all Jewish houses in that town having been destroyed by
the mob.
The year 1884 was marked by a novel feature in the annals of pogroms: an
anti-Jewish riot outside the Pale of Jewish Settlement, in the ancient
Russian city of Nizhni-Novgorod, which sheltered a small Jewish colony
of some twenty families. While comparatively circumscribed as far as the
material loss is concerned, the Nizhni-Novgorod pogrom stands out in
ghastly relief by the number of its human victims. A report, based upon
official data, which endeavors to tone down the colors, gives the
following description of the terrible events:
The "disorders" [a euphemism for excesses accompanied by murder]
began on June 7 about nine o'clock in the evening, due to the
instigation of several half-drunk laborers who happened to overhear
a Christian mother telling her child, who was playing with a Jewish
girl, to stop playing with her, as the Jews might slaughter her. The
work of destruction began with the Jewish house of prayer which was
crowded with worshippers. It was followed by the demolition of five
more houses owned by Jews. In these houses the mob destroyed
everything that fell into its hands. The doors and windows were
broken and everything inside was thrown into the streets. On this
occasion six adults and one boy was killed; five Jews were wounded,
two of whom died soon afterwards.
The governor of Nizhni-Novgorod reported that the disorders could not
possibly have been foreseen. Yet there can be no doubt that the people
were to a certain extent prepared for them. The investigations of the
police and the judicial inquiry both converged to prove that the
Nizhni-Novgorod excesses were prompted primarily, if not exclusively, by
the desire for plunder. In all demolished houses not a single article of
value that could be removed was destroyed, and not only money but
anything at all that was fit for use was looted. That the disorders
broke out on the seventh of June was, in the opinion of the governor,
entirely accidental, but that they were directed against the Jews was
due to the fact that the _people had been led to believe that even the
the gravest crimes were practically unpunishable, so long as they were
were committed against the Jews, and not against other nationalities_.
An additional reason for the pogrom was the reputed wealth of a goodly
number of the Jewish families of Nizhni-Novgorod. The judicial
investigation brought out the fact that before attacking the offices of
Daitzelman, a big Moscow merchant, the mob was directed by shouts: "Let
us go to Daitzelman; there is a lot to be gotten there." The murder of
Daitzelman, who was beloved by his Russian laborers, and that of other
Jews, was not prompted by revenge, but by mere purposeless savagery. It
is impossible to assume that the mob was moved to action by the rumor
which had been spread by the ringleaders of the rioting hordes
concerning the kidnapping of a Christian child by the Jews--the more so
since at the very beginning of the excesses the police produced the
supposedly kidnapped child whole and intact, and showed it to the crowd.
The pogrom was due primarily to the savagery of brutal and unenlightened
mobs, who found an opportunity to vent their beastly instincts,
fortified by the conviction of complete immunity, which is referred to
in the report of the governor.
Even the central Government in St. Petersburg was alarmed by the St.
Bartholemew night which had been enacted at Nizhni-Novgorod. At the
recommendation of Governor Baranov, the murderers were tried by
court-martial and suffered heavy punishment. Nevertheless, the same
governor thought it his duty to appease the Russian popular conscience
by ordering the expulsion of those Jews whom the police had found to
live outside the Pale "without a legal basis." In this wise, the Russian
administration once more managed to follow up a street pogrom by a legal
one, not realizing the fact that the atrocities perpetrated upon the
Jews by the mob were merely a crude copy of the atrocities perpetrated
upon them by the Government, and that the outlawed condition of the Jews
bred the lawlessness and violence of the mob, which was fully aware of
the anti-Semitic sentiments of the official world. The bloody saturnalia
of Nizhni-Novgorod had, however, the beneficent effect that the
Government, fearing the spread of the conflagration outside the Pale and
even outside Jewry, took energetic steps to prevent all further
excesses. As a matter of fact, the Nizhni-Novgorod pogrom was the last
in the annals of the eighties--with the exception of a few unimportant
occurrences in various localities. For six years "the land was quiet,"
and the monopoly of "silent pogroms," in the shape of the systematic
denial of Jewish rights, remained firmly in the hands of the Government.
2. THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE PAHLEN COMMISSION
Whilst the Russian bureaucrats who had been ordered by the Tzar to take
"active" measures towards solving the Jewish problem abandoned
themselves entirely to a policy of repression, those of their
fellow-bureaucrats who had been commissioned to consider and judge the
same question from a purely theoretic point of view came to the
conclusion that the repressive policy pursued by the Government was not
only injurious but even dangerous. Contrary to expectations, the "High
Commission" under the chairmanship of Count Pahlen, consisting of aged
dignitaries and members of various ministries, approached the Jewish
question, at least as far as the majority of the Commission was
concerned, in a much more serious frame of mind than did the promoters
of the "active" anti-Jewish policies, who had no time for contemplation
and were driven by the pressure of their reactionary energy to go ahead
at all cost. In the course of five years the Pahlen Commission succeeded
in investigating the Jewish question in all its aspects. It studied and
itself prepared a large mass of historic, juridic, as well as economic
and statistical material. It probed the labors of Ignatyev's
gubernatorial commissions, quickly ascertaining their biased tendency,
and examined the entire history of the preceding legislation concerning
the Jews. It finally came to the conclusion that the whole century-long
system of restrictive legislation had failed of its purpose, and must
give way to a system of emancipatory measures, to be carried out
gradually and with extreme caution. The majority of the members of the
Commission concurred in this opinion, including Count Pahlen, its
chairman. In the following we present a few brief extracts from the
conclusions formulated by this conservative and bureaucratic commission
in its comprehensive "General Memoir" which was written in the beginning
of 1888:
Can the attitude of the State towards a population of five millions,
forming one-twentieth of its subjects--though belonging to a race
different from that of the majority--whom that State itself had
incorporated, together with the territories populated by them, into
the Russian body politic, differ from its attitude towards all its
other subjects?.... Hence, from the political point of view, the Jew
is entitled to equality of citizenship. Without granting him equal
rights, we cannot, properly speaking, demand from him equal civic
obligations.... Repression and disfranchisement, discrimination and
persecution have never yet leaded to improve groups of human beings
and make them more devoted to their rulers. It is, therefore, not
surprising that the Jews, trained in the spirit of a century-long
repressive legislation, have remained in the category of those
subjects, who are less accurate in the discharge of their civic
duty, who shirk their obligations towards the State, and do not
fully join Russian life. _No less than six hundred and fifty
restrictive laws directed against the Jews may be enumerated in the
Russian Code_, and the discriminations and disabilities implied in
these laws are such that they have naturally resulted in making
until now the life of an enormous majority of the Jews in Russia
exceedingly onerous....
The prejudice against the Jews is largely nurtured by the dislike
which the common people secretly harbor towards them until to-day as
non-Christians.... The names "Non-Christian" and "Christ-killer" may
often be heard from the lips of the Russian common man as abusive
terms directed against the Jew. The attitude of our Church and of
the law of the State towards the Jewish religion is different. For,
while they designate the Jewish religion as a "pseudo-doctrine,"
they nevertheless sanction religious toleration on as large a scale
as possible [?!], and refrain from carrying on a compulsory and
official missionary propaganda.
In the course of the last twenty-five years a new accusation has
been brought forward against the Jews in Russia and those outside of
Russia. The Jews have been found to form a considerable percentage
among the champions of anarchistic and revolutionary doctrines,
consisting mostly of half-educated youngsters who have drifted away
from one shore and have not succeeded in reaching the other. This
extremely deplorable fact is used as evidence for the purpose of
showing that Judaism itself contains within it a destructive force,
and is, therefore, doubly dangerous to State and society. The Jewish
progressives and socialists are wont to speak of their mission to
reconstruct the world and of their innate love of mankind.... These
statements need hardly be taken seriously, for present-day Jewry, by
the very essence of its nature, professes strictly conservative
principles, which to a large extent are egotistic and have for their
aim the practical welfare of its adherents. The interpretation of
the spirit of Judaism in a directly opposite sense is but an
unsuccessful attempt on the part of Jewish anarchists who wish to
proclaim themselves as the apostles of a new national mission
invented by them. The fact of their forming a large percentage in
the camp of those opposed to the Russian civic order may be
explained by the artificial manner in which vast numbers of pupils
from among the lowest classes of the Jewish population are attracted
into the secondary and elementary educational establishments. These
pupils are without means of a livelihood, and they lack, moreover,
all religious beliefs; they are embittered not only by their
personal unfortunate position but also by the pressure of the
restrictive laws which weigh heavily upon their fellow-Jews in
Russia.
The defects which should be truly combated by Government and society
are: a) Jewish exclusiveness and separatism; b) the endeavor of the
Jews to bring the economic forces of the population, in the midst of
which they live, under their influence (i.e., exploitation)....
Having established the true dimensions and characteristics of the
"Jewish evil," we are naturally expected to answer a question of an
opposite nature: are the Jews to any extent useful to State and
society? This question, though very frequently heard, is not quite
intelligible, for every subject, who fulfils his obligations, is
useful to State and society. It would be strange to put a similar
question concerning other nationalities of Eastern origin in Russia,
such as the Greeks, Armenians, and Tartars. And yet this question is
raised with great frequency in the case of the Jews, for the purpose
of proving the need of repressive measures and framing a stronger
indictment against the Jewish population. There is no doubt that in
certain lines of endeavor the Jews are extremely useful. This was
already realized by Catherine, who admitted them to the
South-Russian coast in order to introduce commercial activities and
bring life into the country,.... The peculiar nature of their
commerce and credit is useful to the State, because they connect the
remotest regions by commercial ties and are satisfied with
considerably smaller profits than are the Christian merchants....
We must not, first of all, engage in too comprehensive plans of
reform and imagine that the Jewish question can be considered in all
its aspects and solved at one stroke.... Gradation and cautiousness
must above all become the guiding principles of the future activity
of the legislator.
The repressive policy, taken by itself, has been and will always be
the first and main source of the clannishness of the Jews and their
aloofness from Russian life.... The prohibitive laws have not
improved the Jews. On the contrary, they have developed in them the
spirit of opposition, and have prompted them to devise all the time
most dexterous means of evading the law, thereby corrupting the
lower executives of the State power. These laws affect the daily
doings of every member of the Jewish population, and they extend to
such spheres of life and activity in which State control is almost
impossible. They touch the domain of private contract law (the
prohibition of land leases), the domain of physical liberty and the
need of human locomotion (the prohibition to transgress the Pale of
Settlement, or to live in villages within fifty versts of the
border), the domain of daily pursuits and earnings (the prohibition
of several professions), and many others.
No law will ever be able to check effectively the legal violations
in these hourly acts and common relations of life. It is impossible
to attach a policeman or a public prosecutor or a justice of the
peace to every Jew. And yet it is perfectly natural that, being
restricted in the most elementary rights of a subject--to take as
one instance only the right of free movement--every Jew should daily
attempt to violate and evade such burdensome regulations. This is
perfectly natural and intelligible....
About ninety per cent of the whole Jewish population form a mass of
people that are entirely unprovided for, and come near being a
proletariat--a mass that lives from hand to mouth, amidst poverty,
and most oppressive sanitary and general conditions. This very
proletariat is occasionally the target of tumultuous popular
uprisings. The Jewish mass lives in fear of pogroms and in fear of
violence. It looks with envy upon the Jews of the adjacent
governments of the Kingdom of Poland, who are almost entirely
emancipated, though living under the jurisdiction of the same State.
[1] The law itself places the Jews in the category of "alien races,"
on the same level with the Samoyeds and pagans. [2] In a word the
abnormal condition of the present position of the Jews in Russia is
evidenced by the instability and vagueness of their juridic rights.
[Footnote 1: The law of 1862 conferred upon the Jews of "the Kingdom
of Poland," i.e., of Russian Poland, the right of unrestricted
residence throughout the Kingdom, including the villages (see p.
181). This privilege was practically annulled by the enactment of
June 11, 1891, which severely restricts the property rights of the
Polish Jews.]
[Footnote 2: The Russian Code of Laws classifies the Jews as follows
(Volume IX., Laws of Social Orders, Article 762): "Among the Aliens
inhabiting the Russian Empire are the following: 1) The Siberian
Aliens; 2) The Samoyeds of the Government of Archangel; 3) The
nomadic Aliens of the Government of Stavropol; 4) The Kalmycks
leading a nomadic life in the Governments of Astrakhan and
Stavropol; 5) The Kirgiz of the Inner Ord; 6) The Aliens of the
Territories of Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, Semiryechensk, Ural, and
Turgay; 7) the alien populations of the Trans-Caspian Territory; 8)
The Jews."]
Looking at the problem, not at all as Jewish apologetes or
sympathizers, but purely from the point of view of civic
righteousness and the highest principles of impartiality and
justice, we cannot but admit that the Jews have a right to complain
about their situation.... However unpleasant it might sound to the
enemies of Judaism, it is nevertheless an axiom which no one can
deny that the whole five million Jewish population of Russia,
unattractive though it may appear to certain groups and individuals,
is yet an integral part of Russia and that the questions affecting
this population are at the same time purely Russian questions. We
are not dealing with foreigners, whose admission to Russian
citizenship might be conditioned by their usefulness or uselessness
to Russia. The Jews of Russia are not foreigners. For more than one
hundred years they have formed a part of that same Russian Empire,
which has incorporated scores of other tribes many of which count by
the millions....
The very history of Russian legislation, notwithstanding the fact
that this legislation has developed largely under the influence of a
most severe outlook on Judaism, teaches us that there is only one
way and one solution--to emancipate and unite the Jews with the rest
of the population under the protection of the same laws. All this is
attested not by theories and doctrines but by the living experience
of centuries.... Hence the final goal of any legislation concerning
the Jews can be no other than its abrogation, a course demanded
equally by the needs of the times, the cause of enlightenment, and
the progress of the popular masses.
The fitness of the Jews for full civil equality, to be attained by
degrees and in the course of many long years, will be the final goal
of the reforms, and will lead at last to the disentangling of that
age-long knot. In saying this, we do not mean to imply that
by that time the Jews will have cast off or transformed all those
obnoxious qualities which are at present responsible for the fight
in which all are engaged against them. But, as in the case of
Europe, this fight can only be terminated by according them full
emancipation and equal citizenship. To place obstacles in the way of
this solution would be nothing more than a fruitless attempt to
check the course of development of human society and Russian civil
life. Unsympathetic as the Jews may be to the Russian masses, it is
impossible not to agree with this axiomatic truth.
Turning now to the execution of its task, the High Commission has up
to the present been able to carry out but a very small part of the
program indicated. It was tied down by that gradation and
cautiousness which it considers an indispensable condition for every
improvement in the status of the Jews.... The principal task of the
legislation, as far as it affects the Jews, must consist in uniting
them as closely as possible with the general Christian population.
It is not advisable to frame a new legislation in the form of a
special "Statute" or "Regulation," since such a course would be
fundamentally subversive of the efforts of the Government to remove
Jewish exclusiveness. _The system of repressive and discriminating
measures must give way to a graduated system of emancipatory and
equalizing laws_. The greatest possible _cautiousness_ and
_gradation_ are the principles to be observed in the solution of the
Jewish question.
3. THE TRIUMPH OF REACTION
With all their moderate and cautious phraseology, the conclusions of the
Pahlen Commission, whose members, as hide-bound conservatives, were
forced to reckon with the anti-Semitic trend of the governing circles,
implied an annihilating criticism of the repressive policy of that very
Government by which the Commission had been appointed. From the loins of
Russian officialdom issued the enemy who opposed it in its manner of
dealing with the Jewish question.
It must be added, however, that the opinions voiced by the Commission in
its memorandum were by no means shared by its entire membership. For
while the majority of the Commission were in favor of gradual reforms,
the minority advocated the continuation of the old repressive policy.
Owing to these internal disagreements, the Commission was slow in
submitting its conclusions to the Government. One more attempt was made
to procrastinate the matter. At the end of 1888 the Commission invited a
group of Jewish "experts," being desirous, as it were, to listen to the
last words of the prisoner at the bar. The choice fell upon the same
Jewish notables of St. Petersburg, who had displayed so little courage
at the Jewish conference of 1882. [1] The cross-examination of these
Jewish representatives turned on the question of the internal Jewish
organization, the existence of a secret Kahal, the purposes of the
"basket tax," [2] and so on. Needless to say the replies were given in
an apologetic spirit. The Jewish "experts" renounced the idea of a
self-governing communal Jewish organization, and pleaded merely for a
limited communal autonomy under the strict supervision of the
Government. True, a few of the questions referred besides to the legal
position of the Jews, but this was done more as a matter of form.
Everybody knew that the opinion of the majority of the Commission,
favoring "cautious and gradual" reforms, did not have the same prospects
of success as the views of the anti-Semitic minority which advocated the
continuance of the old-time repressive policy.
[Footnote 1: See p. 304 et seq. In addition to those mentioned, M.
Margolis was invited as an expert.]
[Footnote 2: See above, p. 61, n. 1.]
Soon the worst apprehensions proved to be true. Count Tolstoi, the
reactionary Minister of the Interior, blocked the further progress of
the plans formulated by the Pahlen Commission which should have been
submitted in due course to the Council of State. There were persistent
rumors to the effect that Alexander III., being decidedly in favor of
continuing the policy of oppression towards the Jews, had "attached
himself to the opinion of the minority" of the Pahlen Commission.
According to another version, the question was actually brought up
before the Council of State, and there, too, the anti-Semites proved to
be in the minority, but the Tzar threw the weight of his opinion on
their side. The project of the Commission, being out of harmony with the
current Government policies, was disposed of at some secret session of
leading dignitaries. The labor of five years was buried in the official
archives.
As for the Jews themselves, they were at no time deceived about the
effects that were likely to attend the work of the High Commission. They
clearly understood that, if the Government had been genuinely desirous
of "revising" the system of Jewish disabilities, it would have stopped,
for a time at least, to manufacture new legislative whips and scorpions.
The dark polar night of Russian reaction reigned supreme. There seemed
to be no end to these orgies of the Russian night owls, the
Pobyedonostzevs and Tolstois, who were anxious to resuscitate the
savagery of ancient Muscovy, and who kept the people in the grip of
ignorance, drunkenness, and political barbarism. Every one in Russia
kept his peace and held his breath. The progressive elements of the
Empire were held down tightly by the lid of reaction. The press groaned
under the yoke of a ferocious censorship. The mystic doctrine of
non-resistance preached by Leo Tolstoi was attuned to the mood
prevailing among educated Russians, for, in the words of the Russian
poet, "their hearts, subdued by storms, were filled with silence and
lassitude."
In Jewish life, too, silence reigned supreme. The sharp pangs of the
first pogrom year were now dulled, and only suppressed moans echoed the
uninterrupted "silent pogrom" of oppression. These were years of which
the Jewish poet, Simon Frug, could sing:
Round about all is silent and cheerless,
Like a lonesome and desert-like plain.
If but one were courageous and fearless
And would cry out aloud in his pain!
Neither storm-wind nor starshine by night,
And the days neither cloudy nor bright:
O my people, how sad is thy state,
How gray and how cheerless thy fate!
But in this silence the national idea was slowly maturing and gaining in
depth and in strength. The time had not yet arrived for clearly marked
tendencies or well-defined systems of thought. But the temper of the
intellectual classes of Russian Jewry was a clear indication that they
were at the cross-roads. The "titled" _inteligenzia_, reared in the
Russian schools, who had drifted away from Judaism, was now joined by
that other _intelligenzia_, the product of heder and yeshibah, who had
acquired European culture through the medium of neo-Hebraic literature,
and was in closer contact with the masses of the Jewish people.
True, the Jewish periodical press in the Russian language, which had
arisen towards the end of the seventies, had lost in quantity. The
_Razvyet_ had ceased to appear in 1883, and the _Russki Yevrey_ in 1884.
The only press organ to remain on the battlefield was the militant
_Voskhod_, which was the center for the publicistic, scientific, and
poetic endeavors of the advanced intellectuals of that period. But the
loss of the Russian branch of Jewish literature was made up by the
growth of the Hebrew press. The old Hebrew organs _ha-Melitz_ and
_ha-Tzefirah_ took on a new lease of life, and grew from weeklies into
dailies. Voluminous annuals with rightful claims to scientific and
literary importance, such as the _ha-Asif_ ("The Harvest") and _Keneset
Israel_ ("The Community of Israel") in Warsaw, and other similar
publications, began to make their appearance in Russia. New literary
forces began to rise from the ground, though only to attain their full
bloom during the following years. Taken as a whole, the ninth decade of
the nineteenth century may well be designated as a period of transition
from the older Haskalah movement to the more modern national revival.
4. AMERICAN AND PALESTINIAN EMIGRATION
As for the emigration movement, which had begun during the storm and
stress of the first pogrom year, this passive but only effective protest
against the new Egyptian oppression proceeded at a slow pace. The Jewish
emigration from Russia to the United States served as a barometer of the
persecutions endured by the Jews in the land of bondage. During the
first three years of the eighties the new movement showed violent
fluctuations. In 1881 there were 8193 emigrants; in 1882, 17,497; in
1883, 6907. During the following three years, from 1884 to 1886, the
movement remained practically on the same level, counting 15,000 to
17,000 emigrants annually. But in the last three years of that decade,
it gained considerably in volume, mounting in 1887 to 28,944, in 1888 to
31,256, and in 1889 to 31,889. The exodus from Russia was undoubtedly
stimulated by the law imposing a fine for evading military service and
by the introduction of the educational percentage norm--two restrictions
which threw into bold relief the disproportionate relation between
rights and duties in Russian Jewry. In the Empire of the Tzars the Jews
were denied the right of residence and the privilege of a school
education, but forced at the same time to serve in the army. In the
United States they at once received full civil equality and free
schooling without any compulsory military service.
It goes without saying that the emigrants who had no difficulty in
obtaining equality of citizenship were nevertheless compelled, during
their first years of residence in the New World, to engage in a severe
struggle for their material existence. Among the emigrants who came to
America in those early years there were many young intellectuals who had
given up their liberal careers in the land of bondage and were now
dreaming of becoming plain agriculturists in the free republic. They
managed to obtain a following among the emigrant masses, and founded, in
the face of extraordinary difficulties, and with the help of charitable
organizations, a number of colonies and farms in various parts of the
United States, in Louisiana, North and South Dakota, New Jersey, and
elsewhere. After a few years of vain struggling against material want
and lack of adaptation to local conditions, a large number of these
colonies were abandoned, and only a few of them have survived until
to-day.
In the course of time the idealistic pioneer spirit which had
animated the Russian intellectuals gave way to a sober realism
which was more in harmony with the conditions of American
life. The bulk of the emigrant masses settled in the cities,
primarily in New York. They worked in factories or at the
trades, the most important of which was the needle trade;
they engaged in business, in peddling, and in farming, and,
lastly, in the liberal professions. Many an immigrant passed
successively through all these economic stages before obtaining
a secure economic position.
The result of all these wanderings and vicissitudes was a
well-established community in the United States of some 200,000 Jews,
who formed the nucleus for the rapidly growing new Jewish center in
America. One of the active participants and leaders in this movement,
who had in his own life experienced all the hardships connected with it,
concludes his account of the emigration to the United States at the end
of the eighties with the following words:
No one who has seen the poor, down-trodden, faint-hearted inhabitant
of the infamous Pale, with the Damocles sword of brutal mob rule
dangling constantly over his head, shaking like an autumn leaf at
the sight of an inspector or even a plain policeman; who has seen
this little Jew transformed, under the influence of the struggle for
existence and an independent life, into a free American Jew who
holds his head proudly, whom no one would dare to offend, and who
has become a citizen in the full sense of the word--no one who has
seen this wonderful transformation can doubt for a moment the
enormous significance of the emigration movement for the 200,000
Jews that have found shelter in America.
Idealistic influences rather than realistic factors were at work in the
Palestinian colonization movement, which proceeded on a parallel line
with the American emigration, as a small stream sometimes accompanies a
large river. The ideas preached by the first "Lovers of Zion" were but
slowly assuming concrete shape. The pioneer colonists in the ancient
fatherland met with enormous obstacles in their path: the opposition of
the Turkish Government which hindered in every possible way the purchase
of land and acquisition of property; the neglected condition of the
soil, the uncivilized state of the neighboring Arabs, the lack of
financial means and of agricultural experience. Despite all these
drawbacks, the efforts of a few men led to the establishment in the very
first year of the movement, in 1882, of the colony Rishon le-Zion, near
Jaffa. Subsequently a few more colonies were founded, such as Ekron and
Ghederah in Judea, Yesod Hama'alah, Rosh-Pinah, Zikhron Jacob in
Galilee--the last two founded by Roumanian Jews. Called into life by
enthusiasts with inadequate material resources, these colonies would
have scarcely been able to survive, had not their plight aroused the
interest of Baron Edmond de Rothschild in Paris. Beginning with 1884,
the baron, pursuing purely philanthropic aims, gave his support to the
colonies, spending enormous sums on cultivating in them the higher forms
of agriculture, particularly wine-growing. Gradually, the baron became
the actual owner of a majority of the colonies which were administered
by his appointees, and most of the colonists were reduced to the level
of laborers or tenants who were entirely in the hands of the baron's
administration. This state of affairs was unquestionably humiliating and
almost too hard to bear for men who had dreamed of a free life in the
Holy Land. Yet there can be no doubt that under the conditions
prevailing at the time the continued existence of the colonies was only
made possible through the liberal assistance which came from the
outside.
The progress of the Palestinian colonization, slow though it was,
provided a concrete basis for the doctrines preached by the "Lovers of
Zion" in Russia. The propaganda of these _Hobebe Zion_--the Hebrew
equivalent for "Lovers of Zion"--who acknowledged as their leaders the
first exponents of the territorial restoration of Jewry, Pinsker and
Lilienblum, led to the organization of a number of societies in various
cities. Towards the end of 1884 the delegates of these societies met at
a conference in the Prussian border-town Kattowitz, such a conference
being impossible in Russia, in view of the danger of police
interference. On that occasion a fund was established under the name of
_Mazkeret Moshe_, "A Memorial to Moses," in honor of the English
philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, whose hundredth birthday was
celebrated in that year. The fund, which formed the main channel for all
donations in favor of the Palestinian colonies, was administered by the
two _Hobebe Zion_ centers in Odessa and Warsaw. The movement which had
been called into life by representatives of the _intelligenzia_
succeeded in winning over several champions of rabbinical orthodoxy,
among them Samuel Mohilever, the well known rabbi of Bialystok; their
affiliation with the new party was largely instrumental in weakening the
opposition of the orthodox masses which were inclined to look upon this
political movement as a rival of the traditional Messianic idea of
Judaism. The lack of governmental sanction hampered the _Hobebe Zion_
societies in Russia in their activities, and the funds at their disposal
were barely sufficient for the upkeep of one or two colonies in
Palestine. Realizing this, the conference of the "Lovers of Zion" which
met at Druskeniki [1] in 1887 decided to apply to the Russian Government
for the legalization of the _Hobebe Zion_ organization, a consummation
which was realized a few years later, in 1890.
[Footnote 1: A watering-place in the government of Grodno.]
Thus did, during the first decade of the war waged by the Tzars against
their Jewish subjects, the tide of Russian-Jewish emigration slowly roll
towards various shores, until a fresh storm in the beginning of the new
decade whipped its waves to unprecedented heights. Whereas in the course
of the eighties the Russian Government wished to give the impression as
if it merely "tolerated" the departure of the Jews from Russia--although
in reality it was the ultimate aim of its policies--in the beginning of
the nineties it suddenly cast off its mask and gave its public sanction
to a Jewish exodus from the Russian Empire. As if to strengthen the
effect of this sanction, the Jews were to taste even more fully the whip
of persecution and expulsion than they had done during the preceding
decade.