IN ROUMANIA
IN no part of Europe is mediaeval prejudice against the Hebrew race
more fiercely rampant than in Roumania; for in no other part of Europe,
save Russia, are mediaeval social conditions and modes of thought
and conduct so rife. There is hardly any middle class in Roumania
yet. In that country industries are unknown, commerce is scarce and
the mechanics are few. Theoretically a modern constitutional state,
in reality it is a country peopled by two extreme castes: the small
peasant proprietors or labourers, and the nobles. The husbandman
drudges in the open country and the nobleman dissipates in the capital.
In fact, though not in name, we find in the Roumania of to-day
Froissart’s England, less the splendour and the servitude of feudalism.
Out of a population of five and a half millions, five millions are
peasants, and these, deprived to a large extent of the rights of
citizenship and of the opportunities for self-improvement, live in
almost as abject misery and as crass ignorance[206] as they did five
centuries ago, represented by only thirty members in the Lower House of
the national Parliament and by none in the Senate, while the remaining
eleven twelfths of the Lower House and the whole of the Senate are
elected by the aristocracy of a quarter of a million, which also
furnishes all the officials. The one product of the nineteenth century
that has found a sincere appreciation in Roumania is Nationalism, and
it is under this modern cloak that mediaeval bigotry loves to parade
its terrors on the banks of the Danube.
In Moldavia, the northern portion of the kingdom, Jews are first heard
of in the fifteenth century, though they do not become conspicuous
until the eighteenth. It was in a village of this province that was
born, about 1700, Israel Baalshem, the founder of the Hebrew sect
of dissenters known, or rather not known, as the “New Chassidim.”
Baalshem’s mission, when denuded of those vulgar accessories of the
supernatural without which man seems incapable of being lifted to
higher things, was a noble one. In the century which preceded his
advent Judaism had degenerated into a school of casuistry; simplicity
was lost in a maze of sophistical subtlety, conscience was stifled
beneath a mountain of formalism, and faith was drowned in the ocean
of Rabbinical nonsense.[207] In no part of Europe was the decay more
complete than in these regions. The long-ringleted Rabbis of Poland had
extended their lethal domination over Moldavia, and with their solemn
puerilities had perpetuated the spiritual sterility of those districts.
This, at all events, is the impression made on the mind of a modern
student, whose rationalism may dull him to the latent spirituality of
the Rabbis and reveal to him perhaps all too clearly their sophistry.
But, in any case, sophistry can only appeal to a people which has
reached an advanced stage of intellectual senility. The Moldavian Jews
were still in their intellectual infancy. It was emotion and not logic
that their soul craved for. The Rabbis were mere priests, the Jews of
Moldavia needed a prophet. Israel Baalshem arrived in time to supply
the demand and to tear asunder the net of Talmudism.
An angel announced his birth and foretold to his parents that their son
would enlighten Israel. After a virtuous, if somewhat eccentric life,
devoted at first to prayer and lamentation in the savage solitude of
the Carpathian mountains, then to hysterical rapture and to miracles
in the haunts of men, Baalshem bequeathed his doctrine and his
enthusiasm to faithful disciples who carried the legacy over Moldavia,
Galicia, and the Russian “pale.” The principal dogma of Baalshem’s
teaching is the universality of God, His real and living presence in
every part of creation, pervading, inspiring, and vivifying all. Every
being, every thing, every thought, every action is a manifestation or
an image of Divine power and love. All things are holy, or contain
in them the germs of holiness. This knowledge is the fruit of faith,
not of learning. It is a revelation. The practical results of this
ethereal teaching are love, charity, and cheerful optimism. For how can
one presume to hate, despise, or condemn anything as evil, foolish,
unclean, or ugly, since it is the vehicle of Goodness, of Wisdom, of
Purity, and of Beauty? The true lover of the Creator must also be a
lover of His creatures. The end and aim of our life is union with
God--fusion with the Light of which all things are more or less dim
reflections. From this exposition of his doctrine it will be seen that
Israel Baalshem was a typical mystic. He belongs to the same family of
seers as the Neo-Platonists, as St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross,
as John Bunyan and George Fox, as the Mohammedan Sufis, and many other
inspired dissenters who, scattered though they are over many countries,
many centuries and many creeds, have three cardinal characteristics in
common: protest against formalism, thirst for vision or revelation, and
intense desire for absorption in the One.
This Gospel of Love first preached “in the wild ravines of Wallachia
and the dreary steppes of the Ukraine” found many listeners. The
Rabbis--the upholders of book-taught wisdom--denounced the doctrine
of direct inspiration. The “Pious” retaliated with denunciations of
the Rabbis. The contest resulted in excommunication, in cremation
of books and in persecution, which only helped to spread the new
teaching further. However, after the death of the founder and the
first apostles, there arose internal dissensions which led to a
subdivision of the “Pious” into sects. Degeneration, hypocrisy, and
corruption followed disintegration, love was forgotten in the pursuit
of sectarian and selfish ambitions, and to-day the Chassidim, though
numbering in Roumania, Poland, and South-western Russia about half a
million of adherents, are scorned by the orthodox as a mob of fanatics,
redeemed by genuine faith, but deluded and exploited by leaders who are
no longer saints.[208]
The Jews of Moldavia, already numerous in the time of Israel Baalshem,
received new additions towards the end of the eighteenth century. Then
a large number of Jewish refugees entered the country from Austria,
Poland, and Russia, so that at the beginning of the nineteenth century
they are found scattered all over the province as village inn-keepers
and resident traders, or as itinerant merchants visiting the rural
districts and buying or advancing money upon the crops. In the big
towns also they established important colonies--as for example in
Jassy, where they form more than one third of the population, and
in Galatz, where they occupy whole streets with their shops. In all
these centres they live by trade or as craftsmen--tinsmiths, glaziers,
shoemakers, hatters, tailors, butchers, bakers and the like. The
southern province of Wallachia is studded with smaller colonies both of
Spanish and of Polish Jews, while there are families, settled chiefly
in Bucharest, whose ancestors have been in the country from time
immemorial. Like their brethren of Moldavia the Wallachian Jews also
are engaged in commerce, handicrafts, and finance, thus forming that
industrious and intelligent middle class which the Christian population
lacks. These Jews for ages lived on terms of comparative peace with
their neighbours; the rich among them educating their children at the
schools frequented by the children of the native nobility. But these
friendly relations were not destined to endure.
As in many other lands, so in Roumania the religion, the success,
and the aloofness of the Jew raised a host of enemies against him
among the Christians. Here, as elsewhere, the Jews were often accused
of child-murder in the eighteenth century. But, while under Turkish
domination, the Christians were obliged to suppress an animosity which
they had no power of satisfying. It is not till the beginning of the
nineteenth century, when Russia’s interference loosened the Sultan’s
grasp on the Danubian provinces and the Nationalist spirit added fuel
to the older hatred, that the first symptoms of anti-Judaism appear
in Moldavia. In 1804 Prince Mourousi issued a decree forbidding the
Jews to hold land, except that attached to inns. The process of
restriction, once commenced, advanced with steady and rapid strides,
accompanied by periodical assaults on the unpopular race. The fact
that the Jews had gathered the threads of commerce in their own hands
was alleged as a reason for crushing them. But for this fact no one
could be held responsible, unless it were the Roumanians themselves. An
essentially agricultural people, the native Christians despise trade,
which consequently has always been left to the Jews in Moldavia, just
as in Wallachia it is largely monopolised by Greeks and Armenians.
In 1840 the opening of the Black Sea to international commerce drew
many more Jews to the country, and the ill-feeling against them
grew in proportion to the increase in their numbers. In 1867 the
Roumanian politician, Bratiano, exploited the widespread prejudice for
electioneering purposes, and the active persecution of Israel entered
upon its acutest stage. Religious fanaticism in some measure, and
racial rivalry in a greater, lent colour to a hostility which arose
mainly from economic jealousy. Usury, that plausible phantom of a
long-exploded fallacy, was brought forward as an additional excuse for
intolerance.
Analogous causes led to analogous conditions in Roumania’s western
neighbour, Servia. Under Ottoman rule the lot of the Jew in that
country differed little from that of his Christian fellow-slave. The
Mohammedan theocracy recognises no rights except those of the true
believers. Both Jews and Christians, inasmuch as they refuse to accept
the latest addition to the revealed Word of God, are outside the pale
of citizenship. But, on the whole, the Jews, thanks to their pacific
disposition and lack of political aspirations, as well as to the closer
resemblance between the Mosaic and the Mohammedan forms of worship,
suffered less than the Christian _rayahs_ from Turkish oppression.
The emancipation of the province, while rescuing the Christian from
ignominy, condemned the Jew to an even worse fate. Under the Turk the
Jew was at least allowed the congenial privilege of buying and selling,
whereas under the Christian even that consolation was denied to him.
In Servia, by a curious dispensation of constitutional legislation,
the very opposite to the one prevailing amongst us before 1858, the
Jews, while forbidden the most elementary rights of citizenship,
were theoretically eligible to the highest offices in the state.
According to Servian law, a Jew could be a Prime Minister, but not a
grocer. He might make laws for others, but could not appeal to them
for his own protection. This Gilbertian state of things had attracted
the attention of the friends of Israel abroad, and for many years
successive representatives of Great Britain and of other Western
Powers at Belgrade, spurred by the Jewish charitable associations,
had endeavoured to induce the Servians to grant to the Jews the
necessaries, as well as the luxuries, of existence. In 1875 the
Servians, no longer able to resist the pressure of Europe, proceeded
to show their liberality by electing a Jew to the Skuptchina. But
the European Powers declined to be deluded by this clever display of
legerdemain. Our own Foreign Office, besides steps taken directly
at Belgrade, made an effort to enlist Prince Bismarck’s and Prince
Gortchakoff’s powerful influence on behalf of the Servian Israelites.
The effort was, of course, unsuccessful. The German Chancellor cared
nothing for the Jews, and his Russian colleague less than nothing.[209]
Meanwhile similar remonstrances were made, and similar results
obtained, at Bucharest, until the Congress of Berlin in 1878 afforded
the champions of the Jews and justice an opportunity of forcing upon
the Roumanians the counsels of toleration to which they had hitherto
refused to listen.[210] Among these champions none was more staunch
than Lord Beaconsfield. It was the one subject on which the Commander
of the Tories out-whigged the most advanced of Whigs. Even Gladstone
in the most radical period of his career pronounced Disraeli on the
Jewish Question “much more than rational, he was fanatical.”[211]
Though baptized at the age of twelve, Disraeli remained a genuine and
loyal son of Israel. While as a British statesman of a certain school
he opposed Gladstone’s campaign on behalf of the Eastern Christians in
1876, as a Jew he was working heart and soul on behalf of the Eastern
Jews. He also was consistent. By the aid of M. Waddington, the French
Delegate at the Congress of Berlin, and his own diplomatic adroitness,
Disraeli succeeded in gaining over Prince Bismarck and, through him, in
overcoming the good Emperor William’s conscientious scruples about the
propriety of treating Eastern Jews as if they were Christians. And so
it came to pass that by Art. 44 of the Treaty of Berlin the recognition
of Roumanian Independence was made conditional upon the abolition of
all religious disabilities in the Danubian principalities.
What followed might have supplied valuable material to Aristophanes. To
the stipulation of the Treaty the Roumanians returned the astounding
answer that “there was no such thing as a Roumanian Jew.” This calm
denial of the existence of more than a quarter of a million of human
beings failed to satisfy the signatories to the Treaty. Thereupon the
Roumanians lifted up their voices and, with remarkable lack of sense
of the ludicrous, protested against the “iniquity” of being forced
to admit the Jews to the rights of Roumanian citizenship, solemnly
declaring that the Russian or even the Turkish yoke was preferable
to this grievous condition. The chief reasons brought forward by
Roumanian politicians in justification of their attitude in 1878,
and since that date re-echoed even in this country by apologists of
Roumanian bigotry, were based upon grounds of national sentimentality.
It was urged that it is contrary to Roumanian traditions to admit to
political equality any one who is not of pure Roumanian blood; that
the preservation of the purity of their race has ever been the chief
concern of the Roumanians; and that the accident of being born on
Roumanian soil does not constitute a title to the status of Roumanian
citizenship.
Now, apart from the facts that the ancestors of many Roumanian Jews
have been in the country for ages, and that many of their descendants
have fought gallantly for Roumania’s freedom, the “purity of race,” on
which Roumanian patriots are so fond of dwelling, is as pure a myth
as any to be found in the collection of legends that still passes for
history in the Balkan Peninsula. In the first place, the very origin
of the Roumanians is surrounded by a denser cloud of mist than that
which usually surrounds the origin of nations. That their language is
akin to Latin is no more certain proof of the Roman descent which they
claim than is the parallel kinship of Spanish, Portuguese, and French
to the tongue of ancient Rome a proof of the Latin origin of the modern
Spaniards, Portuguese, and Frenchmen. But, even granting that Rome
is, to use the phrase of a recent Roumanian Minister, “le berceau de
leur race,” the original nucleus of Roman colonists has undergone in
the course of ages such matrimonial vicissitudes as must have caused
the blood to lose a considerable portion of its primitive “purity.”
The Roman settlers found the country already peopled by an alien race.
Ovid, banished by Augustus to Tomi on the Black Sea--near the modern
town of Kustendje--describes the district as one inhabited by savages.
♦8–17 A.D.♦ All his letters from the country during his ten years’
exile are one long lament over his hard fate. He dwells again and again
on the bitterness of the lot which has cast him among people who do not
understand Latin, he expresses the fear that he will gradually forget
his own tongue, and his whole correspondence is an alternate wail on
the horrors of barbarous warfare and the hardships of barbarous life.
Towards the end of the first century Trajan conquered Dacia, the modern
Wallachia, and, in pursuance of the old Roman policy, the conquerors
endeavoured to confirm their hold upon the country by the settlement
of Latin colonists and by the introduction of the Latin language.
♦250 A.D.♦ The Latinisation of Dacia was, however, interrupted by the
invasion of the Goths, a warlike horde lured by the prospect of reaping
where the peaceful peasantry of Dacia had sown under the protection
of the Roman eagles. They met with no opposition in the newly and
imperfectly settled province; and this absence of opposition is the
best proof of the precarious nature of the Roman rule and of the
paucity of the Roman settlers. Twenty years later the Emperor Aurelian,
convinced of the impossibility of holding the country, relinquished
it to the Goths and Vandals. Upon the evacuation of Dacia most of the
Roman subjects crossed the Danube and settled in the region stretching
from the river’s southern bank, and then was formed the new Dacia which
corresponds to modern Bulgaria. The old country of the same name on
the northern bank of the Danube retained, it is true, a great number
of its inhabitants, but the mere fact of their consenting to serve a
Gothic master, when the option to remain under Roman rule was open to
them, shows how feeble the Roman element must have been among them.
This population was gradually blended with the dominant Gothic tribe,
and there was formed an independent state inhabited by a mixed race
which, characteristically enough, claimed the renown of a Scandinavian
origin, or descent from the old indigenous “savage Getae” whom Ovid
has immortalised in his Pontic Epistles. Interest promoted peaceful
relations, and even alliance, with the Roman Empire, and thus the Roman
language continued to be heard on the northern bank of the Danube.
Yet another hundred years have passed by, and a new horde of
barbarians, even more fierce and monstrous, overthrew the power of the
Goths, who in abject terror implored the Emperor Valens to permit them
to cross the river and settle in Thrace. ♦375 A.D.♦ Valens, hoping to
ensure the stability of his Empire by enlisting the services of new and
hardy subjects, granted the request of the Goths, though not without
hesitation and misgivings. The barbarians crossed the Danube to find
themselves compelled to part with their arms and their children. This
harsh demand, justified though it may have been as a precautionary
measure, excited the indignation of the immigrants, who tried to force
a passage in defiance of the Roman legions. The latter met violence
with violence, until an Imperial order reached them to transport the
new-comers across the river. The passage was stormy, and many were
drowned, but there survived a number sufficient to rout the Imperial
troops and to turn the Eastern Empire into a field of massacre, rapine,
and ruin.[212]
Such are the titles upon which the modern Roumanians have always based
their claims to a Roman pedigree. First, it is to be observed that the
term Roumanian includes not only the inhabitants of Wallachia, the
ancient Dacia, occupied for a while by the Roman legions, but also the
inhabitants of Moldavia, over whom the Roman never bore sway. Secondly,
even in Dacia, how many of the original Romans were there left after
the double evacuation and conquest of the province? Nor did matters
improve after the fourth century. Roumania is the highway over which,
during the last fifteen hundred years, wave after wave of Goth, Hun,
Avar, Slav, and Bulgar has poured on its southward course; and it must
be a truly extraordinary flood that leaves no alluvial deposit behind
it. If to these inundations be added the Greek element which, though
never very numerous, exercised a powerful influence over the country
during the Ottoman domination, it would need exceptionally robust faith
to uphold the purity doctrine.
In fact, the quantity of foreign blood in Roumania is amply attested
by the features of the modern Roumanian peasant and by the Roumanian
language itself. This language, besides a large admixture of Slavonic
words and idioms which the professors of Bucharest have been earnestly
endeavouring to eliminate, is phonetically very closely related to the
Slavonic dialects of the neighbourhood, and until two generations ago
was actually written in Slavonic characters. It was about 1848--the
_annus mirabilis_ of Continental Nationalism--that the Latin alphabet
was introduced, but, despite the strenuous exertions of patriotic
pedants, even this alphabet had to be modified so as to meet the
phonetic requirements of non-Latin throats,[213] and the feat has been
accomplished, clumsily enough, by a profusion of accents and other
accessories more or less picturesque and bewildering. The very family
names of the Roumanians, when not artificially brought into harmony
with modern academic sentiment, reveal a non-Latin origin. Those of the
peasantry are frequently Slavonic, while those of the nobility are not
infrequently Greek. Yet the purists banished the Slavonic element from
the dictionary of the Roumanian language compiled under the auspices of
the Roumanian Academy by two native Latinists. Take, again, Roumanian
folk-lore. Any one who has given the subject even superficial attention
can see at a glance the deep impress of Slavonic thought and custom in
the legends and superstitions of the Roumanian peasantry. Yet, such
are the sublime effects of racial fanaticism, when a few years ago a
competition was instituted at Bucharest for the best comparative study
of the national folk-lore, the work on which the prize was bestowed did
not contain a single allusion to the folk-lore of the adjacent Slavonic
countries.
Of course, these facts, ignored though they are by the Roumanians and
their advocates, do not prevent a Roumanian from being a Roumanian,
however much they may prevent him from being a Roman; nay, one would
be loth to grudge to natives of Moldo-Wallachia the pleasure of
contemplating a long line of noble Latin ancestors, imaginary though it
be, did they not make this harmless gratification of their vanity an
excuse for depriving other natives of Moldo-Wallachia of the very means
of existence. Moreover, one may not unreasonably ask, in what way would
the enfranchisement of the Jews impair the “purity” of the Roumanian
race? The Jews in other lands are often charged, and not unjustly, with
aversion from intermarriage with the Gentiles. Indeed, the Roumanians
themselves seem to feel the force of this objection, for they attempt
to parry it by the argument that, should the Jews be admitted to the
deliberations of the Roumanian Parliament, they would form a compact
party of obstructionists--why, does not appear. A more probable result
of such an admittance has recently been suggested by one of those
very Jews who, although a Roumanian for many generations, although
educated in Roumania’s schools and imbued with Roumanian traditions,
has been compelled to leave his country, because that country--“the
only country I knew and, God knows, loved with heart and soul, reckoned
me a ‘foreigner’ and as such deprived me of the chance of earning a
livelihood.” This exile declares: “Were the treaty of Berlin lived
up to, and the Jews given emancipation, they, being all literate and
city-dwellers, would, according to the provisions of the electoral law,
belong to either the first or the second electoral college, and would
therefore either share the privileges of the present privileged class,
whose number exactly equals that of the resident Jews, and share its
power, or would compel that privileged class to give up its privileges
and change the laws so as to give the great mass of people a voice in
the running of their public affairs.”[214]
When the dialecticians of Bucharest realised that their ingenuity
produced no impression upon the blunt minds of Western statesmen,
they changed their tactics. A commission of deputies was appointed
to investigate and report on the question of Jewish disabilities.
The commissioners’ report began with the subtle distinction between
“Roumanian Jews” and “native Jews,” declaring that only the latter
variety was in existence, and adding that these Jews, though born
in the country, were really aliens. As such, they might obtain
naturalisation, if they applied for it individually; but the boon could
only be granted by a special Act, passed for each particular case.
This revision was effected by the simple alteration of Art. 7 of the
Roumanian Constitution, which had hitherto restricted the right of
naturalisation to “foreigners of Christian denominations,” into one
embracing all “foreigners” alike, without distinction of creed, who had
lived for ten years in the country.
By this generous concession the Roumanians claimed, and their
apologists have innocently endorsed the claim, that they did as much
as could fairly be expected from them. The illusory and disingenuous
nature of the concession was patent to all, and the friends of the Jews
were quick and emphatic in pointing it out to the Western Cabinets. But
the Western Cabinets had by this time begun to think that they had done
enough for Israel. Some of the Powers, like Germany, were anxious to
conciliate Roumania in order to obtain a railway concession. Others,
like England, were equally anxious to secure commercial advantages,
while they one and all were cordially tired of the tedious and
unremunerative crusade on behalf of justice. ♦1880♦ Lord Salisbury, in
authorising the British representative to announce to the Bucharest
Government the glad news that they could henceforth regard their
country as a sovereign state, timidly expressed a hope, on behalf
of England and France, that, in return for the Powers’ forbearance,
Roumania, by a liberal application of the revised article of the
Constitution, would bring matters “into exact conformity with the
_spirit_ of the Treaty of Berlin.” Thus the East once more succeeded
in the time-honoured method of conquering by sheer inertia, and by
dividing the Western Powers through their separate interests; and the
Jews were left to float or founder according to the decrees of Fate.
They did not float.
The Roumanians, through the alteration in the letter of their
Constitution, by which the Jews were no longer excluded from the
franchise as non-Christians but as non-Roumanians, had nominally placed
them on a par with other aliens--Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and
Italians--and, having done this, they professed intense astonishment
that the Jews, alone among foreigners, continued to clamour for civil
and political rights. Yet the reason of their obstinacy is not far to
seek. The subjects of England, France, Germany, and Italy are quite
content with their status, for they would gain nothing by enrolling
themselves as Roumanian citizens. Their nationality affords them ample
protection against injustice, while the wretched Jews, whose cause
France and England had pleaded in vain, if they are not Roumanian
citizens, are citizens of no city. They have no Government to which
they might appeal in an hour of need. Furthermore, it was feared from
the very first that the cumbrous machinery of individual naturalisation
would be put in motion as rarely as possible, and experience has more
than confirmed those fears. During the twenty-four years which elapsed
between the Treaty of Berlin and 1902, very few live Jews were granted
the franchise. For the posthumous naturalisation of the six hundred who
had fallen in battle fighting for the freedom of Roumania, and that of
two hundred more, admitted at the same time, was an exceptional act of
liberality which has created no precedent. From 1878 to 1888, out of
4000 applications only thirty were granted, and since that date fifty
more, bringing up the whole number to a grand total of eighty.[215]
During the same period the disabilities, under which the hapless race
was suffered to remain labouring, have grown almost incredible in
their severity, and have eclipsed the grievances which the Treaty of
Berlin so unsuccessfully attempted to remove. Those grievances already
amounted to oppression. The Jews were obliged to serve in the army as
their Christian fellow-countrymen, and to pay the same taxes; and yet,
though burdened with the same duties, they were denied equal rights.
They were made to assist in the defence of a country which they were
forbidden to call their own, and to contribute to the expenditure of
a Government whose actions they had no voice in controlling. But, at
all events, they were allowed the privilege of earning a livelihood.
Since that time all the weight of Roumanian legislation and popular
fanaticism has been brought to bear upon one object--the extinction of
the Jewish race in the kingdom.
As an example of this systematic persecution may be mentioned the
law of 1885, excluding the Jews from the trade in liquor, which had
been open to them since 1849. This arbitrary act was justified by the
argument that the Jews were fostering the vice of intoxication among
the peasants. But the law has not lessened the consumption of liquor by
a single drop. The Roumanian peasant still drinks as much as he drank
before. Nor does the fact that his drink now comes from a Christian
instead of a Hebrew source seem to produce any difference in its
effects. The truth is that the Roumanian peasant is one of the most
thirsty in the world, occupying as he does the third place in the scale
of universal bibulosity. The brandy bottle is his companion in joy, and
ever present comforter in sorrow. At weddings, as at funerals, brandy
is an honoured guest. On holidays it enhances the merriment, and on
week-days it relieves the monotony of work. To the brandy bottle, as to
an infallible counsellor, the Roumanian peasant still appeals at times
of taxation or any other domestic calamity.
Among such calamities the greatest and most frequent is famine; for,
though Roumania is, next to Russia, the principal grain-exporting
country in Europe, the Roumanian agriculturist, like his Russian
neighbour, and for similar reasons, is one of the most favourite
victims of hunger. “It sometimes happens,” says the Queen of Roumania,
“that in one year the soil yields enormously, and in the succeeding
year, owing to a failure of the crops, we have famine.... It is
difficult for any but those who have seen it for themselves to imagine
what a poor harvest means in a purely agricultural state. It is
horrible. Hunger in its most appalling aspect stalks everywhere....
Picture fields that look like empty threshing-floors; starving cattle,
their bones starting through their flesh, browsing on the barren
ground, and falling dead from sheer exhaustion; men, women and children
without so much as a handful of meal left to provide their meagre diet
of ‘mamaliga.’” At such times “the taverns are far too much frequented;
it is one way of cheating an empty stomach.”[216]
It is, of course, undeniable, and the fact is attested by all those
who have studied the question of temperance reform in any part of
the world, that the supply tends to foster the demand. But no one
has ever asserted that it creates it. Nor has it been demonstrated
that temperance is promoted by the exclusion of one portion of the
population from a trade which is open to all others.
Other laws have been passed, forbidding the Jew to lend money to the
Christian, and the Christian to be ruined by the Jew. The futility of
such enactments, everywhere manifest, is nowhere more clearly proved
than in Roumania. The _boyards_, impoverished by the extravagance which
characterises the newly-emancipated and semi-civilised nobleman, still
go to the money-lender. But the main object is achieved--to represent
the Jew as corrupting the wealthy, and as ruining the poor. It would
perhaps have been wiser on the part of Roumanian legislators to try to
reform their people instead of persecuting those who simply minister
to its vices and exploit its follies. Eradicate the demand, and the
supply will cease of its own accord, is a remedy not yet understood
at Bucharest. Still primitive in their mental attitude, Roumanian
politicians act on the principle ridiculed by the Eastern proverb: They
beat the saddle when the beast is to blame.
How far the Roumanian’s misfortunes are to be traced to the Jew can be
shown from the fact, established by statistics, that the number of
Jews in the Balkan States, though the case is far different in other
parts of the world, is in inverse ratio to the advanced condition of
the general population. In Servia the Jews are barely counted by the
hundred (00.20), and so they are in Greece (00.34). In the latter
country the race would be even more scarce, were it not that many
shrewd and enterprising Greeks are tempted to emigrate to foreign
countries. In Bulgaria also the Jews form an insignificant minority
(00.76).[217] In the kingdom of Greece they enjoy perfect freedom of
worship and all the rights and privileges of Hellenic citizens. In the
Principality of Bulgaria also they are treated on equal terms with
the Christians. Why is it that in Roumania only they figure in their
hundreds of thousands and are oppressed? The answer is obvious. The
Jews have become numerous in Roumania, where the degraded condition of
the people offers the line of least resistance; and the rulers of those
countries fearing lest, if they do not protect their own compatriots
from the competition of a superior race, the wealth and influence of
the latter might increase to a dangerous extent, harass and handicap
them by prohibitive legislation.
However, the Jew’s fecundity seems to be proof against any degree of
persecution. In spite of all checks, the Jews in Roumania, as their
forefathers in Egypt, “increased abundantly and multiplied, and the
land was filled with them.” The Roumanian legislators were, therefore,
bound, in consistency with their own policy, “to deal wisely with
them.” And now ensued a literal repetition of the first chapter of the
Book of Exodus. King Charles appears to be actuated by the same fears
as those which dictated the policy of Pharaoh: “lest they multiply,
and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join
also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out
of the land.” The experience of thousands of years has taught no
lesson to Roumanian statesmen, and Jewish disabilities have kept pace
with the increase of the victims. At the present moment the Jews are
excluded not only from the public service but also from the learned
professions. They are allowed neither to own land nor even to till
it in the capacity of hired labourers. Mere residence in a country
district is a punishable offence, and when the Jew, driven from the
open country, takes refuge in a city, most avenues to an honest living
are studiously closed to him. He is permitted to engage in none but the
lowest trades and handicrafts. Nay, even as journeymen artisans the
Jews are not allowed to exceed the proportion of one to two Christians.
Education is altogether forbidden to them. In addition to these and
like restrictions, which doom Israel to perpetual penury and ignorance,
these unfortunate Roumanians who cannot boast a “Latin” pedigree
are treated by their “Roman” fellow-countrymen as pariahs. They are
insulted and baited by high and low, without the slightest means
of redress; their social, as well as their political, status being
literally more degraded than that of the gipsy; and that will convey
a sufficiently clear idea to those who know the feelings of loathing
and horror which that unfortunate outcast inspires in the Roumanian
peasant. In one word, the Roumanian Jews can only be described as
bondsmen in their native land.
In the Middle Ages the Synagogue, as well as the Church, indulged in
various gruesome performances calculated to strike terror into the
hearts of sinners. One of the varieties of the ban, book, and candle
rite was also adopted by the Law Courts as a means of extracting
evidence from unwilling witnesses. The Austrian newspapers, in the
summer of 1902, published detailed accounts of a judicial torture
of the kind, known as “Sacramentum more Judaico,” revived by the
modern Roumanians in cases where Jews are engaged in litigation
with Christians. Without the least regard for his religious
susceptibilities, the Roumanian Jew is obliged to go through all the
ritual solemnity of a mock burial: his nails are cut, he is wound up
in a shroud, placed into a coffin and then laid out, corpse-like,
in the synagogue. The Rabbi, under the eyes of a congregation of
revolted co-religionists and scornful unbelievers, pronounces an awful,
comprehensive and minute malediction upon the Jewish plaintiff and
his progeny, should he not speak the truth. The corpse repeats the
imprecations after the Rabbi; for if he declines to curse himself and
his family he loses his case.[218]
At length, worn out by persecution and having abandoned all hope
of succour, the Jews of Roumania began to emigrate in considerable
numbers. In the year 1900 there was a great exodus; but the stream was
temporarily stemmed by the accession to power of M. Carp, from whose
well-known liberality the would-be exiles anticipated a mitigation
of their sufferings. They were disappointed. M. Carp’s cabinet was
short-lived, and its successor, instead of relieving rather aggravated
the sorrows of Israel. Emigration was resumed and continued on an
ever-increasing scale. The Jews now began to leave the country by tens
of thousands, on their way to England and America, assisted thereto by
wealthy co-religionists abroad.[219]
The outpouring of this crowd of needy refugees into Austria was not
calculated to please the inhabitants of that empire. Measures were
taken to prevent any of them from seeking a permanent home in the
dominions of the Hapsburgs, and the police were charged, gently but
firmly, to speed the unwelcome guests on their journey. When the funds,
generously contributed for the purpose, fell short of the requirements
of the travellers, the Austrian authorities hastened to send them back,
and the Austrian newspapers began to denounce the Government through
whose tyranny these destitute Israelites were compelled to leave their
native country. This protest elicited from the Roumanian Government
one of its customary _démentis_. Those who had not hesitated to deny
the very existence of “Roumanian Jews” could have no difficulty in
declaring that “There is absolutely no foundation for the malicious
statement published by some foreign papers regarding a wholesale
emigration of the Jews from Roumania.” The statement was based “on
a perversion of the new Roumanian Labour Law,” and the Roumanian
Government deprecated the publication of such articles, “as they might
call forth, as was the case years ago, an unhealthy excitement in the
minds of the people.”[220]
But, facts being more convincing than official denials, the exodus
grew more alarming, because the forces to which it owed its origin
continued in operation. The “Jewish Colonization Association” now came
to the aid of the indigent exiles, and endeavoured to save them from
additional suffering by preventing those who were not provided with
the necessary passage money, or were not physically fit, from leaving
their homes.[221] These wise measures restrained to a certain extent
indiscriminate expatriation, but, as might have been foreseen, failed
to check it entirely. The exodus continued, and the outcry against
Roumania spread, for now the countries into which the undesirable
current flowed were compelled by self-interest to do what they had
hitherto vainly attempted to effect from a sense of philanthropy.
America, the favourite haven of refuge for the fortune-seeker of every
colour and clime, undertook the task of spokesman. The late Mr. Hay,
Secretary of State, in September, 1902, through the representatives of
the United States in the countries which took part in the Congress of
Berlin, reminded the Governments of those countries of Art. 44 of the
Treaty signed by them in 1878, urging them to bring home to Roumania
her flagrant and persistent failure to fulfil the conditions on which
she had obtained her independence. After a handsome tribute to the
intellectual and moral qualities of the Jew, based on history and
experience, the American Minister protested, on behalf of his country,
against “the treatment to which the Jews of Roumania are subjected,
not alone because it has unimpeachable ground to remonstrate against
resultant injury to itself, but in the name of humanity.” He concluded
with a vigorous appeal to “the principles of International Law and
eternal justice,” and with an offer to lend the moral support of the
United States to any effort made to enforce respect for the Treaty of
Berlin.[222]
This powerful impeachment, coming as it did from a distant party in
no way connected with the affairs of Continental Europe, may have
caused heart-searchings in nearer and more immediately concerned
countries; but it failed to awaken those countries to a proper sense
of their interests, not to say duties. The only quarter in which
America’s appeal to humanity found an echo was England. A number
of representative men, such as the late Archbishop of Canterbury,
the present Bishop of London, Lord Kelvin, the Marquess of Ripon,
the late Mr. Lecky, Sir Charles Dilke, the Master of Balliol, and
others, publicly expressed their profound sympathy with the victims of
persecution. Mr. Chamberlain also seized the opportunity of declaring
that, as history proves, the Jews, “while preserving with extraordinary
tenacity their national characteristics and the tenets of their
religion, have been amongst the most loyal subjects of the states in
which they have found a home, and the impolicy of persecution in such
a case is almost greater than its cruelty.”[223] Other Englishmen
also joined in the denunciation of Roumania not so much from pity for
the victims of oppression as from fear lest, unless the Roumanian
Government was compelled to change its policy, England should have to
face another inroad of “undesirable” Jewish immigrants.
In like manner, the only Government which volunteered to second
Mr. Hay’s Note was the British, and on the common basis of these
two representations, the signatory Powers of the Treaty of Berlin
“exchanged views.” The results of this exchange can be summed up only
too easily. The historian of the future will probably derive therefrom
some interesting lessons regarding European politics and ethics in the
beginning of the twentieth century. They are as follows:
Germany, under whose presidency the stipulation concerning the Jews of
Roumania was framed, did not choose to consider herself called upon to
insist on the execution of that stipulation. The Liberal section of the
German press received the American Note with sincere, but ineffectual,
appreciation; while of the Conservative majority some pronounced it
naïve, and others affected to regard it as an attempt on America’s part
to interfere in European affairs, or even as an electioneering trick
having for its sole object to enhance President Roosevelt’s political
prestige! The German Government, though more courteous than the German
press, proved equally cold. As we have already seen, that Government
was the last to join in the efforts to improve the lot of the Roumanian
Jews and the first to declare itself satisfied with the deceptive
revision of Article 7 of the Roumanian Constitution. This attitude,
when considered in conjunction with the fact that a Hohenzollern reigns
in Roumania, and with that kingdom’s place in the present political
combinations of the Continent, enables us to understand, if not to
applaud, Germany’s reception of Mr. Hay’s Note.
Austria-Hungary, whose proximity to Roumania pointed her out as the
Power primarily concerned, and entitled to act, declined to take any
steps singly or collectively. The self-restraint of Austria, like that
of Germany, and even in a greater degree, was dictated by political
considerations, Roumania being practically the only State in the
Balkans, where the influence of Austria-Hungary and of the Triple
Alliance still counts for something. Besides, the Vienna Cabinet could
not decently join in advocating Jewish emancipation, for it was Austria
which in May, 1887, concluded with Roumania a treaty whereby some
seventy thousand Jewish residents in the latter kingdom--who, according
to a practice common in Mohammedan countries, had enjoyed Austrian
protection while Roumania was under Ottoman rule--were deprived of the
status of Austrian subjects, without receiving any other status in
exchange.
Italy was deterred from lending her support to the American Note by
Roumania’s relations with the Triple Alliance and also by the vogue
which the “Roman” idea obtains in the land which the Roumanians are
pleased to regard as “the cradle of their race.”
Russia, whose treatment of her own Jewish subjects would have made
an appeal to “humanity and eternal justice” on behalf of the Jews in
another country a sad mockery, decorously refrained from supporting the
American Note. It is true that the Russian press imitated the Teutonic
in scoffing at America’s action as a pretext for gaining admission to
the counsels of the European Areopagus, and in condemning it as an
impertinence! But the Czar’s Government, with better taste, extricated
itself from an awkward position by basing its refusal on the ground
that the grievances set forth in Mr. Hay’s despatch were so old that
it was hardly worth while troubling about them. In the opinion of the
Russian Ministers, the Jews must by now be thoroughly accustomed to
starvation.
France, with all the good intentions in the world, could do nothing
without Russia’s consent and, therefore, contented herself with the
expression of a modest hope that the Roumanian Government might of
their own accord decide to fulfil their obligations, seeing that the
real sufferer is Roumania itself, and with pointing to the lack of
means of enforcing such fulfilment.[224]
In brief, the European Powers considered that they did their duty by
expressing their platonic concurrence with that part of the American
Note which referred to the obligations of humanity and civilisation
generally. But to the more definite appeal to the Treaty of Berlin they
refused to pay any attention whatsoever. Nor can we wonder at their
refusal. The appeal was not a very happy one; for every party to that
contract has conscientiously broken it in turn. Russia, in defiance of
its provisions, has fortified Batoum; Turkey has not even attempted to
carry out the reforms in the European Provinces of the Empire, ordained
by the Treaty; Great Britain has done nothing for the Armenians. Why
then should poor Roumania alone be called upon to carry out her share
of an agreement, already disregarded with impunity by everyone else
concerned?
Such a retort would, of course, have been too candid and too rational
for diplomacy. Instead, the Roumanian Government had again recourse
to the more correct, if somewhat hackneyed, expedient of an official
contradiction of the truth. The Roumanian Minister in London declared
that “the idea that any persecution existed was absolutely erroneous.”
The Jews were foreigners, and “the disabilities imposed upon foreigners
were absolutely necessary for the protection of his countrymen, who
had bought their independence with the sword, and had a right to
manage their economic affairs according to their requirements, etc.,
etc.”[225] What the Roumanian conception of such a right is has been
very eloquently explained by Roumania’s accomplished Queen. After
having drawn a pitiful and, although exaggerated, in the main faithful
picture of Roumania’s economic misery, Her Majesty declares that,
under such conditions, the civilised world ought not “to require her
to harbour and support others, when she herself stands in dire need
of assistance.” Those “others” are “foreigners,” that is, Roumanian
Jews; their exodus is represented as the voluntary emigration of “a
foreign population” due to the instinct which prompts a rat to quit
a sinking ship, and their departure is welcome, because they, being
traders, drain the country of its wealth. This interesting economic
doctrine is expounded by Her Majesty as follows: “It is a fact that no
money has ever been introduced into Roumania through any one in trade.
Any that such a man may possess goes abroad, first to purchase his
stock and outfit, and later for supplies to carry on his business, even
such articles as buttons and the commonest kinds of braids not being
manufactured here except on the very smallest scale.”[226] Here again
the Jewish apologist is more convincing than his Roumanian accuser.
Admitting that, on the whole, the Queen’s statements are correct, he
asks: “But why is it so? For the reason that the ruling class prohibits
‘foreigners’ to acquire lands in the country, and by means of this and
other laws keeps foreign capital from coming in.”[227]
Protests pass away, grievances remain. The well-meant action of Mr. Hay
and Lord Lansdowne, far from bettering, really aggravated the condition
of the people on whose behalf it was taken. The Roumanian politicians,
with characteristic astuteness, perceived that the immediate cause of
the complaint was the emigration of the Jews to the United States,
England and Canada, and, naturally enough, arrived at the conclusion
that the one thing needful was to remove the ground of complaint by
stopping emigration. A telegraphic order was sent to all the local
authorities, forbidding the issue of passports to the Jews. Those
who had already reached the frontier were forcibly turned back, and
hundreds of others, who had sold all they possessed in order to raise
the funds necessary for the journey, were compelled to return home and
perish.[228] Thus an act intended as a blessing proved an unmitigated
curse, and modern Roumania by this new measure has outstripped even
mediaeval Spain in cruelty. For the Spanish sovereigns, blinded by
religious bigotry, had yet given to the Jews the alternatives of
conversion or exile. Their Roumanian imitators, infatuated by racial
fanaticism, will not baptize the Jews, nor dare they banish them; but,
like Pharaoh of old, they virtually bid them stay and be slaves.