DS
135
R9
R97
1897
A 541914
SPECIAL SERIES. “
H21 PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS
IN RUSSIA
WITH ↑ MAP OF RU A, SHOWING THE BALI
JEWISH SETTLEMENT
Isten mu
OUR
SOULD BY
Kusso-Jewish COMMITTEL OF LONDON.
(REPRINTED
Philadelphia
PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF
MOHON

YAN
B
KAYZYWNE
1837
ARTES
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PTTW
VERITAS
PLURIOUS UNDRES
TCEBOR
SCIENTIA
CIRCUMSPICE
VAGRAHAJAJAJA
SI QUÆRIS PENINSULAM-AMⱭNAM_
OF THE
WWW.QUUMI, OMOKON
en
TAAKARGAARAJA!

55
50
B
Warto
20
P
Carlocrona
E
U S
Danag
Lae
Bresla
Kalisz
1
Posen
Visala
2
Gracow
U
Fisailo
Gal
Poland.
Plock
Warsa
POLAND
Lodz 8
Pale of Jewish
Settlement.
Bal
A
Konigsberg
Tuldum
Liba
Memel
Russian Territory
from which the
Fews are excluded.
8.1
R
(in Europe
COURLAND
Mitar
amen
Gof
Riga
KOWNO
Bialystok
B GRODN
TO
no
s
Sophia & I
KPhippopolis
E
Dronabaving
Brest
Litevoli
Dorpat
LIVONIA
1
Wilna
WILNA
Grodno
Pripe
Lublin VOLEYNIA
Lemberg
a
Jassy
Varna
Pruth
Minsk
Bobruisk
MINSK
Pinsk
Kamenetz
DOLIA
Galate
Peipus
ord
VITEBSK
Dnytte
Bu
Jitomir Kievy
Prip
SARABIA
κα
Almar
Dnies
Nogarod
Border
Vitebsk.
Maghilev
EQ
Tcherngor
Driner
Desna
N
SMOLENSK
Smolensk
CHERNIGOV
Berditches
KIEV
Icherkasy
Shpola
Elizavetgrad
73
KHERSON
5 Nikolaiev
Therson
G& 1sth of Pere
Valdai Hills
$2
1 a
Y
25 Longitude East 30 from Greenwich
KALOU
2 Jarosla
WER
Tver
Boroding Mosco
Form
Ekaterinoslar
Dnieper
ORIDA
Kalonga Riaz and
Toula
TOULA
Orel
CREL
Hoursk
HOURSK
года
Poltava
VA
enenching
m
35
MOSCOW
JAROSLAV KOSTROMA
Oke
Cr
Eupatoria
Buffa
Sebastopol Saferopol
Balaklava
Black
ck S
Str
EKATERINOSLAV
5Yelenaiak DON
14
Taganrog
S. of
Azov
or
Rostov
VLADIMIR
Kharkov
70V
NIJNI-
Vladimir Novgorod
VIN
Kostroma
Voroney
VORONEJ
Rostov
Folga
D
Azor
Ekaterino dar
Boub
40
TAMBO
13c
Nove Tcherkas
on
NOVGOROD
Tambor
0
Souknum Kalch
PENZA
Penza
K S
S
Sour
Isarhan
SARATOV
Saratory
STAVR
C
Stavropol
Viatka
VLATKA
6
C
Kas an
KASAN
Syra
BIRSE
Volga
Koum
9
A Mozdo
Elbas
C
L.Elton
9
Vitka
alek
שישונה.
5
ASTRAKHAN
Astrakhan
79-
Kama
Vadikavkas
R
Samara
To ORENBURG)
A
Uralsk
Sea
C
as P
Gunn
$4
Derbend
.50
Bielay a
Zlataust
A
MO
Yaman
Tromel
RENBURG
Orenburg
4
55
Troitsk
50
50
45
35
135
R4
R97
1871
SPECIAL SERIES. No. 1.
THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS
IN RUSSIA,
WITH A MAP OF RUSSIA, SHOWING THE PALE OF
JEWISH SETTLEMENT.

CALEND
SHER
ISRAEI
EL'S MISSION
ܐ
C
LIS REAGEE
NTO THAT
ISSUED BY THE
RUSSO-JEWISH COMMITTEE of London.
(REPRINTED.)
Philadelphia:
JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA.
1897.
PRESS OF
EDWARD STERN & CO., INC.
PHILADELPHIA.
((
66
"All Jews born in England shall be regarded as
aliens. No Jews shall dwell in any part of the United
Kingdom but the Principality of Wales, and the
"counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, Hereford and Mon-
"mouth, unless they be full graduates of some Univer-
'sity, members of the learned professions, skilled arti-
sans certificated by the Technical Institute, or have
"been members of a Chamber of Commerce for five
"years, paying £100 per annum for that privilege. No
"Jew shall hold any government or municipal office.
، ،
No Jew shall buy or rent landed property. All Jews
"shall pay special taxes in connection with religious
functions. No synagogue may be opened without the
Queen's signed permit, and no public prayers may be
"held in any other place than a synagogue. Married
Jews who become converted to the Established Church
of England, are ipso facto divorced on conversion, but
the wife if she remain a Jewess, may not marry again.
"All Jews attaining the age of 20 years, shall serve five
"years in the active army, and thirteen years in the
reserve, but no Jew may become an officer, or even an
"officer's servant. No Jew shall serve in the navy."
((
((
((
""
(6
THE PERSECUTION
(C
OF
THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.
A condition of things such as is suggested by the
above set of rules is so utterly impossible in free Eng-
(3)
150273
4
land, that they may easily raise a smile. Yet they rep-
resent in a manner calculated to bring the subject home
to English readers, the normal situation of the Jews of
Russia, under which they have been obliged to live for
much more than a century. The whole life of the Rus-
sian Jew has always been hampered, from cradle to
grave, by restrictive laws of the kind indicated above,
and given in fuller, though by no means complete, detail
in the Appendix. When it is remembered that besides
these special laws, Russian Jews have also to obey all
the multitudinous details of the general Russian Code,
a state of affairs is brought before the imagination which
Englishmen would consider utterly intolerable.
Hard though the yoke was, the burden has been made
absolutely unbearable by enactments brought into exist-
ence some eight years ago, and put into rigorous opera-
tion during the last three or four years; they were even,
it was feared, about to be extended and intensified during
the present year. The practical effect of even their
present application can be best summed up in the one
crushing unwritten law, "No Russian Jew shall earn a
living."
HISTORICAL SUMMARY.
In order to understand and substantiate this summary
it will be necessary to comprehend the general attitude
of the Russian Government to the Jews, and the events
that led up to the now infamous Ignatieff Laws of
May 3, 1882. Russia is still, as is well known, in the
mediæval stage of development, where Church and State
are identical. Those who do not belong to the Ortho-
dox Russian Church are not regarded as true Russians.
Jews are thus both heretics and aliens in Russian eyes.
5
LO
With the followers of other creeds this principle could
not well be carried out in its entirety without leading to
international complications. But Russian Jews have
no natural external protectors, and the principle is
applied in full rigor to them. They do not belong to
the Orthodox Church; therefore they are "foreigners,"
and are so styled and reckoned in the Law Books, even
though their ancestors have been settled in the districts
where they reside many centuries before Russia had any-
thing to do with them.
There is another reason, besides the religious, which
has caused the Russian Government to regard the Jews
with scant favor, and connects them with some of the
blackest pages of Russian rule. The Russian Jews are
regarded as "an inheritance from Poland," and they are
kept, to this day, mainly cooped up within the confines
of Old Poland, where they first came within the Russian
grip. Besides Poland itself, there are the eight prov-
inces of Western Russia (Vilna, Kovno, Vitebsk,
Grodno, Minsk, Mohilev, Volhynia, Podolia), which
formerly belonged to Poland. Jews are also found in
the three provinces of the Ukraine or Little Russia
(Kiev, Tchernigov and Poltava), and in the four divi-
sions of South Russia (Ekatrinoslav, Taurida, Cherson,
Bessarabia). Western, Little and South Russia-these
form the notorious Jewish Pale of Settlement, and within
these precincts the ordinary Russian Jew must live and
die. He must not set foot in holy and orthodox Great
Russia, in the Czardoms of Kasan and Astrakhan, or
in Finland and the Baltic Provinces. This restriction
within the Western Provinces, applied to Jews alone of
all the multifarious races, creeds and nationalities that
go to form All the Russias, is the fount and origin of
-
6
all the ills that assail Russian Jewry. While it is
retained, there is no hope of any permanent improve-
ment in the condition of the Russian Jews. It cramps
all their industrial and commercial energy, and, besides,
marks them out to all their fellow-countrymen as aliens,
and a pariah caste set apart for special and degrading
treatment. The only other Russian subjects that are
similarly hampered are discharged criminals.
Some attempt was made in earlier reigns to settle Jews
in agricultural colonies outside the Pale, but the attempt
was saddled with conditions that made its success impos-
sible. Under the milder régime of Alexander II. some-
what more favorable opportunities were afforded them.
In 1865 the Czar issued a rescript allowing Jewish arti-
sans to settle outside the Pale. Besides this, the Gov-
ernment at that time encouraged the education of Jewish
youths, who were, on becoming full graduates or mem-
bers of the learned professions, allowed to settle beyond
the Pale. Altogether a considerable number of Jews
were by these means enabled to settle outside the Pale,
thus relieving the remainder from their competition, and
opening new centres for Jewish industry. Restricted as
they were in other respects, this simple boon enabled
them to advance in many ways, especially in education.
After his lamentable death a change occurred in the
position of the Jews. The anti-Semitism of Germany
had been merely theoretical and vaporing. But it
served to bring the chronic anti Semitic feeling of the
Russian officials to a head, with the deplorable result
known as the Anti-Jewish Riots of 1881. Perhaps the
officials were not altogether sorry to let the excitement
of the people vent itself on the Jews. Besides this, a
few of the more prominent Nihilists were discovered to
7
be Jews by birth, though they had long cast off all con-
nection with their creed and people. This was urged as
an excuse by the official world for their attitude towards
the Jews as a body, and caused them to look on at the
terrible riots without stirring a finger to prevent or
remedy them.
At the head of the Ministry of the Interior at that
time stood General Ignatieff. He proved that he shared.
the anti-Semitic views of the official world by issuing a
rescript in September, 1881, even before the riots were
over, putting leading questions to the local governors as
to the best means of preventing the Jews from "exploit-
ing" the peasantry. After allowing time to elapse in
order to receive their answers, he issued the now
notorious May Laws of May 3, 1882, O. S. The actual
text of these is important enough to be reproduced in
its entirety, and its original form as given in No. 42 of
the Official Collection of Laws.
THE MAY LAWS.
"272. On the Execution of the Temporary Orders con-
cerning the Jews.
The Committee of Ministers, having heard the report
* Temporary Laws are those passed as Resolutions of the
Committee of Ministers. The constitutional legislative body
is the Council of the Empire, consisting of high officials,
all nominees of the Crown, and presided over by the Grand
Duke Michael. The Council would not at that time have
consented to pass such laws as the May Laws; so Ignatieff
had recourse to the alternative, allowed in cases of urgency,
of getting the May Laws enacted as Resolutions of the Com-
mittee of Ministers. When the Imperial sanction was
obtained, they became temporary laws. A temporary law
may last forever. As a matter of fact, the May Laws have
already existed over eight years.
8
of the Minister of the Interior on the execution of the
temporary orders concerning the Jews, resolved—
(1) As a temporary measure and until a general
revision has been made in a proper manner of
the laws concerning the Jews, to forbid the
Jews henceforth to settle outside the towns and
townlets, the only exceptions admitted being in
those Jewish colonies that have existed before,
and whose inhabitants are agriculturists.
(2) To suspend temporarily the completion of
instruments of purchase of real property and
mortgages in the name of Jews; as also the
registrations of Jews as lessees of landed estates
situated outside the precincts of towns and
townlets, and also the issue of powers of attor-
ney to enable Jews to manage and dispose of
such property.
(3) To forbid Jews to carry on business on Sun-
days and on the principal Christian holidays,
and that the same laws in force about the clos-
ing on such days of places of business belong-
ing to Christians shall, in the same way, apply
to places of business owned by Jews.
(4) That the measures laid down in paragraphs 1,
2 and 3 apply only to the Governments within
the Pale of Jewish Settlement.
His Majesty the Emperor was graciously pleased to
give his assent to the above resolutions of the Committee
of Ministers on the 3d of May, 1882.”
The effect of the first clause of this enactment would
clearly be to create a Pale within the Pale. Hitherto,
ordinary Jews, if prevented from going beyond the Pale,
9
could move from town to village, and from village to
village, within the Pale. This was to be stopped. In
process of time all the Jews of the Pale would be cooped
up in the towns and "townlets" found within it. There
they might be left to "stew in their own juice."
The second clause was not less wide-reaching in its
scope, for it tended to the same end, by restricting still
further the possibility of Jewish life in the country. If
a Jew might not acquire land by purchase, mortgage or
lease, or have anything to do with landed estate, his
country life must come to an end, and even the favored
exceptions permitted to reside in the villages as old
inhabitants would have no work to occupy them.
The third clause was specially hard in places where
the large majority of inhabitants were of the Jewish
faith, and kept Saturday as their day of rest.
The last clause, however, was a saving clause, restrict-
ing the application to the Pale, and leaving movement
free throughout Poland.
Ignatieff began to carry his temporary laws into exe-
cution, but the burst of indignation in Western Europe
at the Russian persecution of the Jews helped to bring
about his fall in the autumn of 1882, and with his dis-
appearance his laws were to some extent discredited and
only partially carried into execution. Indeed, in some
places it was considered that they had been withdrawn.
Thus, in November, 1884, on a certain point concerning
these laws being referred to the Governor-General of
Vilna, he replied that they were suspended and under
consideration by the Senate.
But whether moderately or vigorously applied, the
May Laws still remained on the Russian Statute Book,
and only needed a revival of anti-Semitic feeling among
10
the rulers of Russia to be brought into full operation.
This came with the increased power of M. Pobiedonost-
zeff, Procurator of the Holy Synod since 1880, whose
baneful influence on the mind of his former pupil, the
present Czar, has brought into Russia an era of religious
intolerance directed against all dissenters from the Ortho-
dox Church. Oppressive and repressive laws have been
directed and applied against Christian sects; Lutherans
and Roman Catholics are suffering to some extent,
though not so severely as the Jews, from M. Pobiedonost-
zeff's determination to suppress every influence in Russia
that is not strictly Orthodox.
Against the Jews it was not necessary to introduce
new measures to effect this end. The May Laws were
conveniently in existence, and as time went on, the inter-
pretation given by the Senate, the highest court of appeal,
became more and more stringent. On one occasion it
was decided that certain Jews who had been settled in a
village within the Pale before May, 1882, could not
migrate to any other village. This became a leading
case, and the result has been to make the word "settle"
equivalent to "intern." A Jew who was settled in a
Russian village within the Pale before 1882 is very lit-
erally "settled" there. The important corollary was
added that the object of the May Laws was "the com-
plete, though gradual, withdrawal of the Jews from the
open country."
The withdrawal of the Jews had to be gradual, or
else the object would be too apparent, and the resulting
congestion lead to some pestilence. But the May Laws
have been applied locally and intermittently throughout
the Pale of Jewish Settlement, harrying the Jews from
the villages into the towns, the enforced removal causing
11
in most cases the entire impoverishment of their fami-
lies, and the finding of employment in the towns becom-
ing more difficult with each new irruption of Jewish
villagers. Thus it will be readily understood what acute
misery has been caused to the Hebrews of the town of
Tchernigov by this clearing of the neighboring vil-
lages. Within little more than eighteen months the
Jewish population of the town, already overcrowded as
it was, has risen from 5,000 to 20,000 souls: four have
now to find a living where one found a difficulty in doing
so before.
PROJECTED EXTENSION OF MAY LAWS.
During the winter of 1889-90 it became known that
official Russia had it in mind, not as one would have
thought, to repeal the May Laws, the disastrous effect of
which had already become apparent, but to extend and
intensify them and render them permanent. Informa-
tion was sent to the Governors-General that it was pro-
posed to advise the Czar to adopt new measures, having
for their object the extension of the May Laws, the
addition of new edicts emphasizing the old restrictions
and disqualifications, and lending the sanction of per-
manent law to many legal decisions of the Senate given
in a sense adverse to the Jews.
It was understood that the Grand Duke Michael,
president of the Imperial Council, objected to these
repressive laws, and it was even reported that the Czar
himself signified his disapproval of this policy of per-
secution.
But notwithstanding this powerful intervention, which
gave rise to high hopes, from some unexplained cause
drafts of the projected laws were sent to the governors
12
of the several provinces, ostensibly with the object of
inviting their opinion thereon.
Curiously, however, some of the Governors-General
to whom the draft laws were submitted for comment,
began to act almost as if they had actually been ratified.
They thus became known to the Jews and others; copies
of the draft laws were freely circulated in Paris, London,
Vienna and Warsaw, and attention was called to their
stringent character in the European press, the Times
taking the lead in denouncing the intended tyranny.
Forthwith Russian Ambassadors and other accredited
individuals hastened to assure the world that no new
enactments had been passed, and that no fresh edicts
against the Jews were intended.
Indeed, it must have become obvious to the Russian
officials that no such fresh laws were necessary to effect
the end they had in view, namely, to clear the rural
districts of the Jews, and to practically intern them in
the towns. By a rigorous application of the first May
Law, and by an insidious straining of its terms, already
effected by the decisions of the Senate, they could attain
their ends, at least as regards the Pale of Settlement,
without any of the formalities and invidiousness of new
legislation. Indeed, the Russian Code is so framed
that it can be turned into a formidable means of
persecution at any time, simply by the revival of old
laws and applying the thumb-screw of police adminis-
tration. The manifest injustice of thus leading the
world to think these laws are abrogated by disuse, and
then suddenly calling them into active operation, must
be abundantly obvious. The existence of the laws even
as a dead-letter is a hardship, being a perpetual menace,
and marking the Jews as a pariah class. This renewed
13
application of dead laws is not alone an evil per se, but
carries with it the further grievance that the Jews never
know when such legal weapons may not be re-opened
upon them. Thus the Russian Jew lives in a perpetual state
of insecurity, and may truly be said to live on the brink
of a volcano. And then a further hardship is inflicted
by the interpretation of the law which is invariably
taken by the Senate, the Supreme Court of Appeal, in a
sense adverse to the Jews. On one occasion, indeed,
this has been acted upon as a ruling principle. A Jew,
who had the right of residence, and, therefore, of holding
a house outside the Pale, desired to register a deed of
transfer of a house to his wife, relying on the general
principle of Russian law that a husband communi-
cates all his civil rights to his wife. The officials
refused to register, and on the matter being referred to
the Senate, it confirmed the refusal, on the principle.
that the general Russian laws are to be interpreted in a
restrictive sense with respect to Jews. In other words,
unless the Russian Code expressly says to the Hebrew,
"you may,” it must be assumed to say "you shall not.”
And there still remains a further hardship for the
unfortunate Russian Israelite in the harsh manner in
which the law is administered by the officials.
EXPULSION FROM VILLAGES.
A few instances of this latter point may be adduced,
to enable the reader to realize what is implied in the new
process of carrying out the May Laws, respecting the
expulsion from the villages of Jews who did not reside
there before 1882. What the ulterior consequences of
such expulsions will be we shall see later on. In the
villages of Gawinoski and Alexeewki, near Okna
14
(Podolia), all the Jews received expulsion orders, the
reason assigned being that their names were not on the
registers in May, 1882. Notwithstanding the fact that
they had all been residents in these villages from 10 to
15 years, and that the peasants and land-owners testified
to the general fact that they had all been there prior to
1882, they were forced to depart without delay. It was
mid-winter at the time, and they craved leave to stay
till spring; but their petition was refused, and they were
turned out of their homes during the most inclement
weather, and had to seek refuge in the towns. Four
Jewish families were summarily expelled from Stanisla-
wowki. Among them was a woman who was danger-
ously ill, and she begged the district official to grant her
a little time to give her the chance of recovery. He not
only refused, but gave orders to all the peasants in the
neighborhood that they might not afford shelter to any
of the expelled Jews even for a single night.
At Szebesh (Vitebsk) the expulsion of Jews was car-
ried out in a very complete manner, the police having
also included a large number of artisans. There was,
however, one Jew, who with his family seems to have
escaped the vigilance of the police. When the fact was
discovered by the police inspector, he drove in a cart to
the village in the middle of the night, turned out the
family, put the children and baggage into the cart, and
started off with them to the nearest town, leaving the
parents to trudge behind. At a distance of two versts
from the town he put down the children and effects in
the middle of the road, and then drove away, leaving
the children alone in the dark and cold.
As an instance of the way in which the law is strained,
take the following case. In the village of Palitzki,
15
which is nearly large enough to be regarded as a town,
the population consisted almost exclusively of Jews.
Suddenly the police awoke to the fact that it was a vil-
lage, and not a town, and expelled all those who had not
resided there before May, 1882. Among the expelled
was one M. M., who had been born and bred there, and
had never left the place. A short time since, however,
he stayed away a few days to marry a girl who was resi-
dent with her family at Szebesh. On his return with
his bride he was forth with ordered to leave. His whole
life-long sojourn was ignored, and he was regarded as a
new settler under the May Laws and expelled accordingly.
A Jewish soldier, discharged from the army on the
expiration of his term of service, was similarly expelled
from the same village, though he had belonged to the
village before commencing his military career. His
prior sojourn was ignored. The fact of his absence
being due to an act of military duty was also ignored.
His return was regarded as a new arrival, and the expul-
sion order was issued, and had to be obeyed. Many
other expedients are resorted to to oust the Jews, even
from non-rural districts. The suburbs of large towns
are officially declared to be outside the urban limits, and
therefore to be counted as villages. On this plea Jewish
families have been driven from the suburbs of Vilna
into the already overcrowded ghetto of that town. A
place named Reshilovko has been always regarded as a
town, and officially so styled in public documents.
Recently a decree was issued expelling the Jews from its
precincts as from a village. On its being pointed out
that it had been officially recognized as a town, the
reply was made that it could not be a town, as it had
no Town Council.
16
EXPULSION OF ARTISANS.
Such are the means by which the Russian Adminis-
tration is carrying out the design of the May Laws to
clear the open country of the Jews, and coop them up
in towns. The Czar's officials are, however, just as zeal-
ous and as subtle in forcing back into the Pale of Jewish
Settlement the many thousands who have managed to
escape that prison-house. Among these the largest
number consists of artisans who, as we have seen, were
granted the right of free movement by Alexander II. in
1865. It would be, perhaps, too barefaced to refuse this
right directly, but the very generality of the permission.
gives an opportunity to the officials for evading it. It
gives permission to "artisans" to reside outside the fifteen
provinces; but who is to say what classes of workmen
are to be included under the term "artisan?” Thus
the administration of the Province of Smolensk has
decided that Jewish bakers, butchers, glaziers and vine-
gar makers are no longer to be regarded as artisans, and
accordingly Jews coming under those categories have
been ordered to quit Smolensk and return to the Pale of
Settlement. The authorities of Simbirsk have taken the
hint and acted upon it, expelling several Jewish artisans
and their families. A vinegar maker, who had lived
there for thirty years, and had carried on his trade in
the same place since 1869, was ordered to leave, the arti-
sans' guild having lately declared that vinegar making
was not a handicraft trade, and this, though the Senate
last year determined that vinegar makers were to be
regarded as artisans, and were therefore to be permitted
residence anywhere in Russia. This Jew, however,
though 72 years of age, and with a family dependent
on him and his trade, has been forced to depart, and he
17
1
and his family are ruined. From the same town a Jew-
ish baker, resident in the place for twenty-five years, has
also been expelled, presumably because a baker is no
longer regarded as an artisan. The expulsion order as
usual included all the family. The eldest son, a student
in the highest class of the Gymnasium, is thus also com-
pelled to leave the town, and his studies are cut short
just as he is about to attain the educational position at
which he aimed. It may be here remarked that the
right of residence outside the Pale does not pass on to
the children unless they also qualify as artisans. If not
so qualified, at the age of twenty-one they must settle
within the Pale.
-
Another instance of the elasticity of the term “arti-
san" is afforded by the craft of printing. Quite recently,
twenty-five Jewish workmen, at a well-known printing
press at Moscow, were summarily dismissed and sent
back to the Pale, though some of them had lived out-
side it as compositors ever since 1874. On inquiry being
made of the reason for this, the reply was made that
printing is not a handicraft but an art-craft, and that
therefore compositors are not artisans. One of the vic-
tims of this injustice is now in London.
A further loophole is afforded to the officials by the
epithet "skilled" which is applied to the term "artisan."
With the extreme division of labor in modern indus-
try, it is rare to find a workman competent in all parts
of his craft, and it is therefore easy to find him tripping
by purposely setting him to do some branch of his craft
with which he is not acquainted. Thus a tailor's cutter
is set to do the work of a presser, or vice versa, and on
his failing, the unfortunate victim is expelled from the
guild and from the town where he had at least been able
18
to earn a living. In most cases the guild-master is called
upon to judge as to the workman's capacity for his trade,
and there is at the present moment, in London, a Jewish
shoemaker from Livonia, who was expelled on the judg
ment of a guild-master, a rival neighbor. Similarly
an artisan must work at his craft in order to retain the
privilege. The police will therefore make a domiciliary
visit on the Jewish Sabbath, and finding the workman
at rest expel him for not being engaged at his craft.
Still more harshly the same restriction is applied to
workmen who have passed the age for work. These are
ruthlessly sent back to the Pale, from the towns where
they have spent a lifetime of honorable industry.
Even within the Pale no favor is shown to arti-
sans, the plea being that they are not specially
excepted from the May Laws. In the village of Lepe-
ticha (Melitopol district) expulsion orders were served
on a hundred families, on the ground that the names
of those families did not appear on the registry before
May, 1882. As a matter of fact, no such special
registry existed in the village before or even at that
date; so registration, even if the Jews had deemed it
necessary, would have been impossible. Official docu-
mentary evidence was therefore not forthcoming, though
the evidence of their neighbors proved that they had
resided in the village above ten years. Many of the
people served with expulsion orders were artisans,
whose certificates showed them to be workers in the
village before 1882, but this availed them nothing.
They then claimed that as artisans they had the right
to live anywhere in Russia; but here again they were
foiled, for it was pointed out to them that the May Laws
made no exception in favor of artisans. These might
19
be allowed to live outside the Pale, but could not within
it live in villages. The hundred families had to leave the
village within thirty days, under pain of expulsion by
étape, in the company of criminals, handcuffed, two and
two, and driven more like animals than men.
1
Thus every means are adopted within the fifteen
provinces to carry out the policy of internment in the
towns, and without them every subterfuge is utilized to
drive back within them the most numerous class of Jews
-skilled artisans who have managed to escape from
the ghetto. Yet more deliberate is the policy by which
the Government are seeking to limit the number of
those who in the future will be enabled to escape beyond
the Pale. Liberty of movement beyond it is granted.
only to three chief classes: young men who have reached
the higher grades of education in the universities,
certain classes of professional men, and merchants of
the first guild. In the first two classes of cases recent
measures have been passed, evidently intended to limit
the number of those who might escape by their intel-
lectual ability from being imprisoned in the Pale.
RESTRICTIONS ON EDUCATION.
The Jew has been always renowned for his care of his
children's education. In Russia he has the further
incentive of being able by this means to gain for his
sons a release from a veritable prison-house. Ever
since Alexander II. gave encouragement to his Jewish
subjects to attend the schools of the country, they have
eagerly taken advantage of the privilege. Any lad who
has shown the slightest promise of intellectual ability
has been encouraged to pursue his studies. If his father
was not rich enough to support the lad during his years
20
of study, his neighbors would club together to help him,
Owing to this avidity for education, the proportion of
Jewish children at the schools, especially the higher
schools, has always been larger than that of the general
population, a fact which one would have thought would
be put down to their credit. This is not the view
adopted by the Russian official world, which has recently
taken steps to lessen the number of lads educated at the
gymnasia and at the universities, and by that means
lessening the number of those who in the next genera-
tion would be entitled to settle beyond the Pale. One
cannot think the association of the two things is acci-
dental.
Hitherto there has been no direct check put upon
this most praiseworthy zeal of Jewish parents to give
their children the best education in their power. But,
three years ago a new restriction was put that is a
typical example of persecution in the guise of red-tape.
A rescript was issued limiting the proportion of Jewish
scholars at universities and gymnasia to
10 per
cent. in the Pale, 5 outside it, and 3 at Moscow and
St. Petersburg. At first sight this does not seem so
unfair, since the proportion of the Jewish population
within the Pale is only 12 per cent. or thereabouts.
But this proportion is reckoned on the whole population,
in town or country, whereas the universities and higher
schools are, of course, in the towns; and here the Jewish
proportion is very much higher in eighty-two towns,
over 50 per cent.; in four over 80; and these statistics
are from 1884, before the May Laws had driven so
many more Jews into the towns. It is a manifest injus-
tice that in a town where half of the inhabitants are
Jews, only one-tenth of the scholars of the High School
21
shall be of the Jewish persuasion. It is, for instance,
palpably unjust that at the University of Odessa, only
5 per cent. of the students may be Jews when there are
106,000 of that creed, out of a total population of 240,-
000. The case is still harder with the universities and
technological institutes, where an actual means of liveli-
hood depends on passing through such establishments.
Debarred thus from the public schools, the Jews of
Russia might reasonably ask to be allowed to establish
higher schools of their own. Indeed the surplus of the
special tax put upon animals killed in accordance with
Jewish law is declared legally to be intended for that
purpose. As a matter of fact it is rarely so applied: on
one occasion the Governor of Kishineff "borrowed"
100,000 roubles from this surplus to build himself an
official residence. But apart from this, the Jews, in sev-
eral instances, attempted to establish higher schools at
their own cost, but were met by a recent rescript for-
bidding them, and pointing out that the ordinary schools
were open to Jews. This is sufficient to indicate that
the policy at the root of the new restriction is to limit
the number of highly educated and professional Jews,
who would have a right to freedom of movement. It
was, doubtless, this same policy that caused the Russian
Government to refuse Baron Hirsch's munificent offer
of £2,000,000, to be applied to the higher and technical
education of the Russian Jews.
Even where schools have been established by the
munificence of opulent Jews, the proportion of Jewish
scholars is still rigidly kept. Thus, at Vinitza (Podolia) a
technical school was recently opened at the expense of the
late Mr. Weinstein, a member of the Jewish community
there, who number some 10,000 out of a total population
22
of 25,000. Notwithstanding the fact that the Jews were
nearly half the population, and the school was founded
by a Jew, only eight scholars of that creed were admitted,
while eighty Christian lads were granted the privilege.
In the same way, at Gorlovka, there is a mining school
established by the late M. Poliakoff, the Jewish railway
contractor. It was hoped that Jewish students would
have free access to such an establishment, and a number
of them studied for a whole year beforehand, in order to
be prepared for the course of study at the school. On
application to be admitted, however, only the normal
5 per cent. were allowed to pass its portals, and the
remainder had to bear the waste of a year of their lives
as best they might.

RESTRICTIONS ON PROFESSIONS.
Besides closing the professions in this way by limiting
the number of those who may go through the necessary
education and examinations for them, the Russian Gov-
ernment has recently lessened the opportunities of those
who even by a lucky chance are among the tenth who
are admitted to the higher educational establishments.
Recent regulations have decided that no Jew shall be
an army doctor; the only college for veterinary sur-
geons, that at Charkov, has been closed to them. Jews
cannot be engineers, they are excluded from the Civil
Service, and indeed all public offices. The profession of
advocate, in which Jews have had great success, is now
closed except to those who can obtain a permit of the
Minister of Justice, a permit which recent experience
has shown is now never given.* The Russian Law in
* While these pages have been passing through the press,
according to newspaper reports, the Czar's attention has
23
effect says:
"You Jews may study for the law, but you
must not practise at the bar. You may study to be
engineers, but you must not act in that capacity."
There can be little doubt that these illiberal meas-
res have been adopted, partly at least, in order to lessen
the number of those who can escape from the Pale.
As an instance of the all-seeing watchfulness of the
Russian Government in this regard, we may take the
following recent enactment. Midwifery is one of the
professions that confer liberty of movement outside the
Western Provinces. But a recent decision has settled
that a midwife does not confer the same right on her
children, who must be left behind if she desires to follow
her profession in Russia proper.
MERCHANTS OF FIRST GUILD.
The only other class of Russian Hebrews that are
permitted free movement through the land of their birth
is that of merchants of the first guild who have paid
their subscription, about 1,000 roubles annually, for
five years inside the Pale, and who continue to pay
the same outside it. It is obvious that this class can be
but small, and is not an unwelcome one to the minor
officials, whose income is largely supplemented by black-
mail. But even these merchants have restrictions put
upon them. They may take one Jewish clerk with them,
but if he leaves them they may not replace him by another
from within the Pale, and until recently they could not
have a Christian servant or clerk. Again, such a mer-
chant may have his children with him till they reach
been called to the injustice, and a number of Jewish advo-
cates have received the permit. This statement has not been
confirmed, and without official confirmation appears some-
what apocryphal.
24
AL
twenty-one, but he must not bring his aged parents.
case has been known in which, to evade this barbarous
restriction, a merchant registered his old father as his
valet, and his own mother as his cook.
EXTENT AND EFFECTS OF EXPULSIONS.
It is by this time abundantly obvious to the reader,
that recent Russian legislation concerning the Jews has
been insidiously and carefully directed to two points-
to force all Jews into the towns within the Pale, and to
reduce the number of those outside it as far as possible.
An estimate has been made of the number of Russian
Jews who will be dislodged from their homes by the
new restrictions. It is on the face of it rough, and in
round figures, but may be useful to define the situation
even approximately :-
Expulsion from villages inside Pale is
estimated to affect
•
500,000
200,000
Expulsion of artisans outside Pale
Expulsion from the commercial towns
outside Pale (Riga, etc.)
500,000
Expulsion from the 50 Verst Zone*
250,000
Total,
1,450,000
Even if we reduce this number to a million, this is
an enormous mass of persons to be thrown suddenly
on their own resources in strange localities already
overburdened with persons of their own creed and call-
ings. The process of harrying the Russian Jews from
pillar to post is as yet only in its initial stages. But
already the mass of misery that has been produced by
* Jews must not reside within a distance of 50 versts (33
miles) of the frontiers, but this rule was allowed to become
obsolete. It is now being put into force again.
25
the congestion is appalling. Jews have always been the
poorest class of all Russians, owing to their large fam-
ilies and heavy taxes, reckoned to be half as much
again as even those of a Russian Christian Dissenter.
But the new policy of cooping them up in towns has
made their poverty more pronounced. There are said.
to be over 25,000 Jewish paupers in Berditschev, the
Russian Jerusalem, and throughout the Pale thousands
of families have only one meal a day, and not even that
if the head of the family has not found work during the
day. The congestion of the Jews into the towns forces
them into the petty trades and sweated urban industries.
They are obliged often to work and live in the same
room, to the number of 15. No wonder those who take
refuge in England find the life of a "greener" in a back-
slum of East London preferable to such extremity of
misery. Jewish philanthropists in London, who have
taken pity on some of the victims of the sweating system
and offered to send them back to Russia, have been met
by the assurance that, wretched as their life here is, it is
luxury and comfort compared with the same fate in the
Russian ghetti.
The cooping up in towns is beginning to tell most
terribly on the morbidity and general vitality of the
Russian Jews, who alone of all their co-religionists fail
to show superior vital statistics to those of their neigh-
bors. Doctors used to credit Jews with immunity from
phthisis. But of recent years the number of rejections
for this disease, which cannot be malingered, was among
Russo-Jewish recruits 6.5 per cent., against 0-5 of other
Russians. For other diseases and for feeble constitution,
no less than 617 of the Jewish recruits were rejected,
against but 27.2 of the ordinary Russians. A terrible
26
tale is told by such figures. Translated into plain Eng
lish, it means that the persecution is a persecution tel
death.
1
Sad as is the physical degeneration caused by the
cooping up of the Jews within the Pale, and inside the
towns within it, still sadder is the moral degeneration
which is the direct result of it. What must result when
ten men are kept in a place where only three could find
a decent living? The fierceness of the struggle for exist-
ence can only result in fraud and chicanery being em-
ployed as the only means of living. None of the more
honorable careers being open, they are forced to over-
crowd the petty industries and to undersell one another.
The vast bulk of the Russian Israelites are at the present
moment living on the verge of starvation, which is only
kept off by the admirable way in which they help one
another. But with starvation thus staring them in the
face, what wonder if any means be adopted to avoid it?
The accusation which the Russian officials bring against
the fraudulent tendencies of the Jews is the direct out-
come of their own treatment and the severest condem-
nation of it.
PERSECUTION BY LOCAL OFFICIALS.
Besides the direct misery that is produced by this
“internment” in the towns of the Pale, there is much
indirect persecution caused by the overt evidence it
affords of the ill-will of the Russian Government towards
the Jews. No one watches the political weathercock
with such keenness as the Russian Tchinovnik. Seeing
the Government set against the Jews, the minor officials.
feel justified in putting into full force the multitudinous
oppressive measures against them that crowd the Russian
27
Statute Book.
They even initiate new regulations of
the character of by-laws to further harass the lot of the
unfortunate Hebrews whose onerous taxes go to pay part
of their salaries. All these additional restrictions bring
further grist to the official mill by affording new oppor-
tunities for blackmail on the part of the officials. It is,
of course, impossible to quote more than a few examples
of the oppressive character of the local tyranny which
supplements so effectually the more systematic persecu-
tion of the Government.
One of the most strikingly degrading of these minor
persecutions is the recent issue of orders by the Gov-
ernors-General of Odessa and Mohilev, permitting the
local police to punish any Jew "showing disrespect” in
the public streets. The Israelites of Odessa, as a mark
of their indignation, for some time after the issue of the
order, refused to attend any public place of resort, and
the order would seem to have been withdrawn in that
city. But Jews are now obliged to touch their hats to
every official on pain of being punished for the vague
crime known as "disrespect."
A further hardship which Jews have recently suffered
from the local administration, is the stringent carrying
out of the laws against the employment of Israelites in
the Government service. This principle is now being
made retrospective. Thus, in consequence of a circular
from the Deputy-Governor of Kovno, to the effect that
all Jewish writers and clerks in the Government offices,
municipal establishments, and courts of justice, were to
be dismissed, ten Jews in Novo-Alexandrovsk, who had
been in the public service for more than fifteen years,
during which they had enjoyed the esteem and confi-
dence of their Christian fellow-workers, were suddenly
28
discharged. They and their families are now absolutely
without means and are reduced to beggary.
Even after dismissal, former employés of the Govern
ment are mercilessly persecuted. Some Jewish clerks,
having been dismissed by Government order from the
offices of the Odessa Notaries, joined in establishing an
office for the preparation of petitions and drafting docu-
ments, thinking that they might thereby gain a scanty
living. The Governor-General of Odessa, however, has
ordered the police to close this office, and the families of
dismissed clerks have consequently been reduced to a
state of abject poverty.
And here, again, as elsewhere, the restrictive applica-
tion is made as stringent as possible. It is reported
from Kiev that the senior physician of the Kirilov Hos-
pital having admitted several Jewesses to practise as
nurses in the wards, this fact was brought to the knowl-
edge of the local governor, who issued an order that no
person of the Jewish religion should be allowed to prac-
tise in the hospital, and the Jewesses were accordingly
discharged, presumably on the ground that nurses are
Government officials. Similarly private tutors, by some
inscrutable interpretation, are brought under the same
category. The directors of the different Teachers' Insti-
tutes of Kishinev have received orders from the Minister
of Public Instruction that no Jewish teachers may give
instruction in Christian houses.
((
PERSECUTION AS ALIEN VAGRANTS."
Still more arbitrary and cruel is the manner in which
the law is being strained against what are termed "alien
vagrants." Foreign Jews, notwithstanding many years'
residence in Russia, are now no longer permitted to
29
1
remain in the country, and, in default of compliance
with the order for their expulsion, are treated
vagrants and prosecuted accordingly. But the officials
frequently accuse bona fide Russian-born Jews of being
aliens. Two such cases are reported from Letitschew
(Podolia). S. C. and T. D., born and bred in this town,
the former a most respectable and benevolent man, who
had inherited a house and some small means from his
father, the latter a carrier, industrious, honest and highly
respected, were both brought before the District Court.
and subsequently before the Odessa Criminal Court, and
declared to be vagrants. They have been already eigh-
teen months in prison, and there they are likely to
remain, till they or their relatives can satisfy the authori-
ties that they are Russian-born. This is no easy matter
when the accused are men advanced in years. Regis-
tration of births was formerly a very lax institution
with Russo-Jewish parents; for in the days of the Em-
peror Nicholas, their children, if registered, were often
forcibly taken from their homes in early years for mili-
tary service, and this involved forcible conversion. In
the particular cases referred to above, the names of the
accused appear year after year on the town books, paying
the Imperial taxes like any other Russian subjects. It
seems late in the day to declare them aliens now, and to
imprison them as Brodyags, "rogues and vagabonds,”
merely because they are Jews, and can bring no official
proof of their place of birth.
as
Again, T. E., a native of Trostianez (Podolia), an
illiterate man, was lately brought before the District
Court as a vagrant because he could not prove the place
of his birth. He was remanded for seven days to enable
him to bring evidence, but failed to produce it. He was
>
30
sentenced to four years' imprisonment, to be followed
perpetual exile to Siberia. Later on the required evi-
dence was forthcoming, but the court refused to accept
it or to review the sentence. The man has a wife and
seven children, who are thus deprived of their only sup
port, and are likely to starve.
The manner in which Jews of Bessarabia have been
treated is peculiarly instructive in this regard. Part of
this province was handed over to Russia by the Treaty
of Berlin. Its Jews were regarded by the Roumanians.
as "foreigners." Russia follows suit, and thus they have
no nationality, and are simply at the mercy of the local
police, who either prosecute or expel them. Similarly,
when Prince Bismarck, a few years ago, expelled all
Russian subjects from the Provinces of Prussian Poland,
Russia refused to receive the Jews who had ventured
beyond her borders, and they were left without any
nationality or natural domicile in the whole world. It
will thus be seen that it is no idle formality on the part
of the Russian Government to call its Jews "foreigners."
If it had not been for the hospitality of Western Europe,
these "aliens," having no land to call their own, would
have been driven into the sea.
These examples will suffice to show the attitude taken
up by the local officials of Russia when they discern
that the Jews have sunk lower in the eyes of the Central
Government. The word can easily be passed by word
of mouth from headquarters "to make it warm for the
Jews," and no new regulations are necessary to carry
out such instructions. Yet when any new policy is about
to be adopted concerning the Jews, it is to these officials
that the Government resorts for information and advice.
Sets of leading questions are issued to the local gov-
31
ernors, the very tenor of which is sufficient to indicate
the tone of reply that is wanted. It was on replies
obtained in this way that the May Laws were formu-
lated. Considering that every new regulation against
the Jews means so many opportunities for these officials
to extort blackmail from the unfortunate Israelites, to
ask their opinion on the advisability of imposing new
restrictions is equivalent to consulting Reynard on the
regulation of the poultry-yard.
Nor are there any adequate means by which the Jews
themselves can state their own case in answer to the
accusations of their enemies. There are practically no
representative bodies that can approach the Government
on any question affecting the general body of Russian
Israelites. Thus their only hope of getting any redress
for their injuries, or any alleviation of their sufferings,
is to get the intervention of the outside world in the form
of protests in the European press.
ALLEGED FAILINGS OF RUSSIAN JEWS.
From the above recital of the systematic and grinding
oppression under which the Russian Jews live, it might
be thought that there was some pressing necessity to keep
the Jews and Jewish influence outside orthodox Rus-
sia. As a matter of fact no adequate reason has ever
been adduced for retaining this relic of the Middle Ages
in nineteenth century Russia. The excuses brought
forward are of the flimsiest, and are usually based on
prejudice rather than fact. The Russian Jew will not
work with his hands," is often the cry of the official
apologists. Russian official statistics, however, declare
that of the 2,404,253 Jews living in the Pale of Settle-
ment in 1888, no less than 293,507 are artisans (“rem-
32
esslennik "), 12 per cent. of the whole. The proportion
of the same class in France is only 10 per cent., and in
Prussia 9.1 per cent. We have seen, besides, that a
large number of Russo-Jewish artisans live outside the
Pale, as they are entitled to do, so that proportionately
a far greater number of Russian Jews are handicrafts-
men than among the Russians themselves, who are still
mainly agriculturists. "Ah! but the Jews will not take
to agriculture" is the parrot cry of the Russian Jew-
haters, who point to the failure of the Jewish colonies
established by Nicholas in the South of Russia. These,
however, were hampered by the absurd condition that
each plot of land should be owned in perpetuity by two
families conjointly, and by the moral, material and phys-
ical difficulties put in the way of the colonists at their
first settlement. And as a matter of fact, the colonies,
notwithstanding the difficulties with which they have
been met, have not been such utter failures as has been
represented. A Government inspector reported very
favorably upon them as late as 1880, and remarked that he
saw no signs of incapacity for an agricultural life among
the Jewish colonists. The last decade has seen quite a
large number of agricultural colonies established in Pal-
estine and the United States by Russian Jews themselves.
The new restrictions against purchasing or even renting
land on lease would be by themselves sufficient to keep
the Israelites of Russia from devoting themselves to
agriculture, for even those who had the privilege of
residing in the villages could never be anything better
than farm laborers.
It is idle to accuse the whole mass of Russian Jews of
usury and exploitation, when at least 80 per cent. of
them are so poor as to be living from hand to mouth,
33
and half of the remainder are artisans. No doubt there
are money-lenders among the Russian Jews, as among
Russian Christians, who "exploit" the peasantry, but
this class is infinitesimal in number, compared with the
mass of poverty-stricken and hard-working petty traders
and mechanics in the towns. Equally exaggerated is
the alleged deleterious influence of the Jewish innkeepers,
to whom are attributed the well-known drunken habits
of the Russian peasants. But these are equally, if not
more, prone to intoxication in the interior of Russia
where there are no Jewish publicans. To persecute the
Russian Jews because some of their co-religionists supply
liquor to the drunken Russian peasants is quite as insen-
sate as would be the persecution of all English retail
dealers because certain of them contribute to the drunk-
enness of England.
An old accusation against the Russian Jews is their
evasion of military service. Even if this were true, it
would be but natural, when no respect is paid to their
religious scruples while they are under arms, and where
there is no hope for a Jew to rise out of the ranks. But,
as a matter of fact, official statistics, of which we give a
summary in the Appendix (pp. 55, 56), conclusively
show that the exact reverse is the case.
The only other charge that remains to be considered
is that the Jews are the chief source of Nihilism and
disaffection. If this were so, it could scarcely be won-
dered at, considering how little cause the Russian Jews
have to desire a continuance of the present régime. But
they are eminently a loyal and patient people, and would
Pe quite content if they were allowed to earn their living
i peace. There were Jews and Jewesses among the
Nihilists, it is true, but they had in almost every case
34
:
ceased to be Jews, and many of them had become, at
least nominally, converts of the Orthodox Church.
Members of the nobility, and even of the clergy, were
also found among the Nihilists, but this fact has not
been brought against those two classes; why should it
be brought against the Jews?
But it is unnecessary here in England to argue elab-
orately that the ordinary Russian Jews are not fiends in
human shape, as their enemies in Russia declare them to
be, in excuse for their treating them so inhumanly. We
have seen many thousands of them pass through England,
and we can still observe some thousands who have
remained with us in the large cities. They certainly
bring with them some of the insanitary habits that
belong to Russians generally, and have been perhaps
intensified by being cooped up in the towns of the Pale.
But apart from that, and a willingness to slave eighteen.
hours a day for the barest pittance, there is nothing
abominable and atrocious that has been observed in their
character and behavior. And even in the short time
many of them have been here, they have shown a capa-
city for improvement under freer conditions of life that
has surprised even their best friends. In particular, the
readiness with which their children adapt themselves
to English ways of thinking and acting is sufficient to
show what good citizens they are capable of becoming,
if they are allowed free scope for their abilities. The
inquirers into East London poverty, under Mr. Charles
Booth, declared that, miserable as is the condition of these
Russian Jews when they arrive, they do not form a social
danger or menace, owing to their capacity for self-hel
and mutual aid, and the certainty that they will raiste
themselves from their depth of poverty and degradation.
35
TRUE CAUSES OF THE PERSECUTION.
It is indeed this capacity for betterment that is at the
root of Russian antipathy to the Hebrews. In the midst
of an older economic system of customary prices and long
credits they introduce a principle of keen competition
that cuts down prices and profits to the advantage of the
consumer indeed, but not to the advantage of the com-
mercial classes, who are set against the Jews as rivals
who excel them. The same, to a large extent, has
occurred in the professions, where the superior energy
and persistence of the Hebrew has enabled him to get
ahead of his more easy-going confrères. There was a
general upward movement of the Jewish population under
the régime of Alexander II., and this has been the head.
and front of their offending. It was irritating to the
racial and religious arrogance of the Russian pur sang
to find the despised Hebrew making headway in busi-
ness and in the professions.
"These Jews are daring to
excel us pure Russians," M. Pobiedonostzeff is reported
to have said, and certainly he has done his best to repress
that tendency.
The absurdity of any racial antipathy to the Jews is
obvious in an empire almost as multinational as Austro-
Hungary. M. Pobiedonostzeff, to do him justice, has
been equally eager in repressing the influence of Poles,
Finns and Germans, but the consistency of his injustice
does not make it a whit the less unjust. But against the
Jews he has a still further reason for ill-will. Amidst
all their misery and oppression, they still cling to their
ancient faith, and resist the many temptations held out
to them to abandon it. By becoming a convert to the
Orthodox Russian Church, a Jew is immediately freed
from all the degrading restrictions on his freedom of
36
movement and his choice of a profession. He is likewise
helped pecuniarily by an immediate sum down, and until
recently by freedom from taxation for five years. If
he is married, his conversion procures him a divorce,
though, unless she likewise is converted, his wife may not
marry again. By conversion, too, a Jew may escape the
consequences of any misdeed against a fellow-Jew, for,
to quote the Russian Code, "in actions concerning Jews
who have embraced Christianity, Jews may not be
admitted as witnesses if an objection is raised against
such admission." All that a Jew therefore need do to
escape any legal process against him by a brother-Jew
is to be converted, and his victim is powerless. Yet,
notwithstanding all these temptations, only thirteen
hundred annually, out of the five millions of Russian
Jews, are found willing, under the pressure of compul-
sion, to concede even the nominal abrogation of their
faith. M. Pobiedonostzeff doubtless regards this as a
further proof of Jewish depravity; but few will be found
to agree with him outside the Russian borders. Here
again the recent policy of M. Pobiedonostzeff is consist-
ent in antagonism to all unorthodox sects in Russia.
Lutherans and Roman Catholics, Raskolniks and Molo-
khani suffer the persecution of the Procurator of the
Holy Synod and religious Vizier of All the Russias.
The Jews are alone, however, in combining all those
qualities against which Russian officialism is at present
waging relentless war. They are commercial and urban,
while the officials are convinced, and perhaps rightly so,
that the present system of autocracy and bureaucracy is
only possible while the poor, ignorant and superstitious
peasantry are the predominating influence in Russian
life. The Jews are not Slavs, and are, nolens volens, a
37
standing protest against Panslavism. The Jews are not
even Christians, much less orthodox Russian Christians,
and thus stand a third time in the way of the claim of
Russia for the Russians, i. e., for the orthodox Slavonic
and bureaucratic Russians. This is the plea that is at
the root of the most recent attempt to crush out Jewish
influence in Russia by crushing out the Jews themselves.
The root of the whole matter is racial arrogance, a deter-
mination not to allow, at any cost, the Jews to show
themselves superior, or even equal, to the Russians.
RUSSIAN LOSSES BY PERSECUTIONS.
Against such fanatic intolerance as this, it is, perhaps,
idle to point out the harm that will be done to Russian
commerce and industry by thus destroying the chief
element of progress in them. Russians themselves
acknowledge that the remarkable progress of Western
Russia of recent years, has been greatly assisted, if not
caused, by the commercial ability of the Jews there settled.
Already signs are manifest of the injury that has been
done in such an industry as that of flour mills, hitherto
mainly in the hands of Jewish intermediaries. The
recent fair of Nijni-Novgorod was a complete failure,
owing to the enforced absence of Jewish traders, who
had previously been the life of the place. The loss of
270,000 Russian Jews who have emigrated during the
past ten years, mainly to America, has rescued from
Russia some of the younger and more energetic Jews
who might have helped to develop its resources. Their
absence is, perhaps, not regretted by the Russian Jew-
haters, who would probably be glad if the whole five
millions followed. But such an exodus is impossible;
neighboring States would not allow it, and meanwhile.
38
the normal increase of population more than makes up
for the loss, replacing sturdy workers by helpless infants.
What good can come to Russia by this denial to one-
twentieth of its subjects all the elements of justice? It
only serves to make the Jewish question more acute, to
bring odium and disgrace on the Russian name. It
does not make Russian Jews in any way better from
the point of view of the Slavophiles. It only intensifies
their faults and their differences from the other Russians.
The system sends to the outside world a number of the
more energetic of the Jews, who cannot be other than
ill-wishers to the Government that has driven them
forth from hearth and home. And it tends to make
those who remain join the mass of disaffected in just
those parts of the empire where patriotic feelings should
be strongest in the day of conflict with neighboring
enemies. And, worst evil of all, it will create, nay, has
already created, a mass of poverty which will soon bring
matters to a crisis. Either State aid will be required to
prevent utter starvation, or a pestilence will ravage all
the towns of Western Russia.
THE REMEDY.
Surely it would be wiser as well as more humane, to
grant the Jews of Russia the mere elementary rights of
human beings, liberty of movement and freedom in
choice of a career. All experience is in favor of such a
policy. During the past century all the nations of
Western Europe have adopted it with results which not
one but a few fanatics can call other than advantageous
to the nations among whom the Jews dwell. It does not
befit a great nation like Russia to express fear of the
influence of one-twentieth of its population becoming
39
predominant over the remaining nineteen-twentieths.
Nor does it beseem a Christian nation like Russia to lag
behind her ancient enemy Turkey in this respect. The
boon of liberty has been recommended over and over
again by Commissions specially appointed by successive
Czars to inquire into the Jewish Question.
There should be no Jewish Question. No excuse has
ever been adduced by the officials of Russia, that can
justify them in treating the unfortunate Hebrews of
Russia as if they are tainted with some moral hydro-
phobia. The present system of barbarous repression
demoralizes the whole Russian nation by accustoming
them to sights of cruelty and oppression. Russian anti-
Jewish riots stand on a lower moral level than even
Spanish bull-fights. Further, the system is a perpetual
menace to the Jews; they live in continual fear of popu-
lar outbreak, caused by their being marked out by special
legislation from the rest of their fellow-countrymen. In
times of national excitement, as in the days immediately
succeeding the murder of the late Czar, their own lives.
and the honor of their women are put in jeopardy. The
Russian Government claims obedience and many oner-
ous sacrifices from its Jewish subjects. What does it
offer them in return? Not even safety for themselves
or protection for their wives and children. Nay, in the
face of recent events can it be said to offer them even
the right of earning a living?
There is no means of getting rid of this disgraceful
and disastrous state of things but one. Complete eman-
cipation of the Russian Israelites from the degrading
restrictions that oppress them in every direction is the
only possible solution. The Pale of Settlement must
disappear; education must be freely open to the Jews;
40
honorable careers in the professions and public service.
must be allowed to Russian Jews as to Russian Chris-
tians. It is not a privilege they ask for, it is a right, the
right of every citizen of a country to be regarded as
equal to every other in the eyes of the law.
It is difficult to bring home to Western European
minds the misery and degradation caused by this legis-
lative and administrative persecution of the Jews of
Russia. The public mind, ever ready to sympathize
with individual examples of physical ill-treatment, can-
not realize the slow crushing out in a whole community
of all manhood, of all hope of a truly human life. But
it is hoped that the above recital of the sad situation
and sadder prospects of the Jews of Russia, will cause
Englishmen to give expression to their abhorrence in
such a way as to penetrate to the Czar, even through the
Department of His Majesty's Journal, which edits all
communications from the outer world.
On His Majesty the Czar the hopes of the Russian
Jews rest. He can by a stroke of the pen give life to
millions of his subjects who can now scarcely be said to
live. He has repeatedly and graciously intimated that
the interests of his Jewish subjects are as dear to him as
those of the most Orthodox Russian. He cannot allow
a new class of serfs to be created in his kingdom, and
the position of Jews is rapidly becoming worse than
that of the serfs, who, at least, had masters that were
responsible for them, while Jews are gradually becoming
serfs of the Russian police. Alexander II. has the im-
perishable glory of having been the emancipator of the
Russian serfs. Let Alexander III. advance a further
step towards Russian liberty, and become the emanci-
pator of the Russian Jews,
41
Grodno, .
Kovno,
Minsk,
ON THE JEWISH POPULATION OF RUSSIA.
Russian statistics are in a very backward state. The
results that are reached by the Imperial Statistical
Bureau are very incomplete, and are rarely published
in such a way as to be checked. This is specially the
case with the statistics of Russian Jews, and a good deal
of uncertainty exists as to their number, which is vari-
ously put down at three and at six millions.
The most recent figures that have been published are
contained in a Report made to the Pahlen Commission
in 1885, and professed to give the Jewish population of
the Pale of Jewish Settlement of 1884. It is very
doubtful whether this was the case, and it is more proba-
ble that the figures were extracted from the latest census
of Russia, that of 1879. The figures are at best only a
minimum, and should probably be increased about 30
per cent.
Mohilev,
Podolia,
Vilna,
Vitebsk,
Volhynia,
Kiev,
Poltava,
•
Ma
Tchernigov,
Charkov,
•
I.-WESTERN RUSSIA.
·
NOTE.
•
Total
Population.
II. THE UKRAINE (Little Russia).
Jews. Percentage.
1,163,525 229,574 19.7
1,419,493 269,399 19.0
1,410,754
20.1
283,194
151,055
835.244
18.1
418,858
18.7
175,996 148
133,785
12.9
289,820
14.9
2,239,514
1,191,992
1,037,892
1,946,438
2,332,421
2,399,400
1,896,450
2,160,203
339,557
84,041
83,117
8,474*
14.6
3.5
4.4
0.4
*This number must refer to artisans, etc., who have
right of residence outside the Pale, as Charkov is not
included within it.
42
Bessarabia,
Cherson,
Ekaterinoslav,
Taurida, .
Odessa, Kertsch,
and Sebastopol,
Total,
•
III.-SOUTH RUSSIA.
•
•
Total
Population.
1,385,743
1,479,303
1,459,066
898,945
265,813
25,481,896
Jews. Percentage.
267,827 12.1
140,162
9.5
3.2
2.5
47,304
21,197
77,279
2,920,639
29.1
11.5
To this total of 2,920,639 has to be added (a) the
Jews of Poland, reckoned to number 1,079,000, or 14:4
per cent. of the population; (b) the Jews outside the
Pale, probably numbering 750,000. This would raise
the total number of Jews in the Russian Empire in 1884
(? 1879) to 4,748,640. There can be little doubt, there-
fore, that they amount to more than five millions at the
present time, even though their infant mortality must
have been increased by the May Laws, and such large
numbers, say 200,000 in the six years, have emigrated.
Some interesting details were given to the Pahlen
Commission of the proportion of Jews in the towns of
the Pale. In four towns they were over 80 per cent.;
in fourteen from 70 to 80 per cent.; in no less than sixty-
eight from 50 to 70 per cent.; in twenty-eight they were
from 20 to 40 per cent. These 114 towns probably
include the whole of the towns and "townlets within
which Jews are now allowed to reside.
>>
THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.
From "The Times," November 5, 1890.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES."
..
SIR-Under the light of the most recent intelligence
it is now no longer difficult to understand the truth of
the Russian assertions of August last, that no new repres-
sive measures against the Jews were intended. Though
the draft of the new edict was then not only in existence,
but was an open secret, circulated so freely in the Jew-
ish Pale of Settlement that copies found their way to
London, Paris and Vienna, it had not been presented to
the Committee of Ministers by its promoter. The Czar's
Government was, therefore, technically in a position to
deny that any new edict was contemplated. That the
promulgation of the new edict had been intended there
is no doubt. That at the moment of denial the inten-
tion had been abandoned, probably consequent on the
cry of horror aroused throughout the civilized world,
there can now also be no doubt.
But the sigh of relief that escaped many lips, when
the world was told that no new edicts were to be enacted
against the Jews of Russia, was scarcely justified by the
true state of affairs. The répertoire of exceptional and
repressive laws against those hapless people was already
full enough to enable any amount of persecution. To
have issued new edicts against them would have been
truly a work of supererogation, while the May Laws of
(43)
44
1882-the hateful work of Ignatieff-were in existence.
These, together with the bulky mass of restrictive laws
which had been piled one on another during a long succes-
sion of years from the days of the Empress Catherine I.
were all-sufficient, and with a little ingenuity and
enough zeal in their application, the Russian Jews, in
their tens and hundreds of thousands, could be exter-
minated without the promulgation of any new edict.
And this, in fact, is now being slowly but surely
effected. The May Laws of 1882, which all the denials
of all the Russian diplomatists cannot blot out from the
Statute-book till the Czar, with a stroke of his pen,
repeals them, constitute by themselves an instrument of
torture and persecution of so odious a character that the
ordinary mind fails to grasp their full scope and purport
till their practical results are brought to light and their
victims stand before us in all their misery. The novelist
who depicted a doomed prisoner in a cell with its oppo-
site walls gradually approaching, contracting by slow
degrees his breathing space, till they at last immure him
in a living tomb, foreshadowed, in fiction and in an
individual case, the now imminent fate of countless
thousands of human beings in the so-called Pale of Jew-
ish Settlement in Russia. The May Laws of 1882 have
been gradually applied, and lately not only with in-
creased severity but in enlarged proportions. Whether
the money with which the victims have hitherto been
able to bribe the officials and so purchase immunity or
evasion has come to an end, or whether the provincial
governors, many of whom are humane men and friendly
to the Jews, have received orders from headquarters to
enforce the law with all possible rigor, the fact remains.
that the Jews are now being ruthlessly expelled, partly
|
45
by main force, partly by force of circumstances, from
the villages and townlets within the Pale, and are
driven into the over-crowded towns, there to swell the
volume of chronic poverty and suffering. There they
become helpless paupers among the struggling poor, a
starving multitude in a hunger-stricken hive. Squeezed
within limits too narrow for the old inhabitants, without
food or the means of acquiring food, without work or
the chance of finding work, their own sad fate is sealed,
and before their career is closed they will probably bring
pestilence and death to the towns they have unwillingly
invaded.
Nor is this the only phase of persecution by which the
Israelites of Russia are being slowly done to death. To
the young Jewish student who can live on a crust, semi-
starvation is a mere incident of life, and he forgets his
hunger if only he can slake his thirst for knowledge.
Cramped by the limits of space, deprived of the wealth
of earth, he can at least enlarge his intellectual range.
and store up the wealth of knowledge. But here, too,
he is foiled. The gymnasia and Universities are prac-
tically closed against him, only a 3 per cent. propor-
tion of Jews in some, and a 5 per cent. proportion in
others, being permitted. What must this mean to an
intellectual race, when in one town alone the Jews num-
ber 70 per cent. of the entire population, and when in
the whole Pale of Settlement there are only two Uni-
versities?
The Jews were reviled by their enemies for following
only the paths of commerce, buying and selling, and
producing nothing. Thus many abandon commerce,
settle in villages and pursue an agricultural life. But
the May Laws drive them back into the towns. Excep-
46
tion is made in favor of those settled in the villages
before 1882; but again the law declares that even those
who have thus settled may not hold the land. They
may remain there, but they may not follow the calling
that brought them there, and that secured for them the
means of living.
The Jews were reviled by their enemies for following
only pursuits that brought them monetary wealth.
Few Jews in Russia have reached the goal of opulence.
Nowhere in the wide world is seen such poverty as per-
vades the entire Pale of Settlement. But the Jews,
scorning the base insinuation that they prize riches
above knowledge, claim the higher education, show
themselves in the schools worthy of it, and yet the por-
tals of the Universities are closed against them, except
within limits wholly disproportionate to their numbers.
The few who gain admission achieve the highest tri-
umphs, but find they have been drinking from the cup
of Tantalus. The Faculty of Law declares them quali-
fied to be lawyers, but a new regulation forbids them to
practise without a Ministerial consent that is now invari-
ably withheld. The Faculty of Medicine declares them
qualified to act as army doctors, but a new law forbids
them practising in the Army. Even the humble post
of schoolmaster is no longer open to the Jew, and those
on whom long service should have conferred a vested
right of employment have been discharged.
It may seem a sorry jest; but the Russian law, in very
truth, now declares-the Jew may live here only and
shall not live there; if he lives here he must remain
here; but wherever he lives he shall not live-he shall
not have the means of living. This is the operation of
the law as it stands without any new edict. This is the
47
sentence of death that silently, insidiously, and in the
veiled language of obscurely worded laws, has been
pronounced against hundreds of thousands of human
beings, and the executions are proceeding-not on the
scaffold in the sight of gaping multitudes, not in the
dungeon by dagger or by bowl, but in the dusky ghetti
of the Pale, the victims cramped and crushed, starved
of air and space and food, with scarcely roof or rags to
cover them, kicked and cuffed by officials who scoff at
the squalid poverty that officialism has produced, pant-
ing for life and light, but with no hope, save of the light
and life of another world.
Shall civilized Europe, shall the Christianity of Eng-
land, behold this slow torture and bloodless massacre
and be silent?
Your obedient Servant,
N. S. JOSEPH,
Hon. Secretary to the Russo-Jewish Committee.
APPENDIX.
AN
ABRIDGED SUMMARY
1
OF
LAWS,
SPECIAL AND RESTRICTIVE,
RELATING TO THE
JEWS IN RUSSIA,
BROUGHT DOWN TO TIE YEAR
1890.
INDEX TO APPENDIX.
On Religion,
On Duties towards the State :-
•
I.-Military Duties,
II.-Taxation, .
On the Education of Jewish Youth,
On Personal Status and Right of Settlement and
Movement:-
I.-Permanent Residence Within the Pale
of Jewish Settlement,
II.-Permanent Residence Outside the Pale
of Jewish Settlement,
•
•
Regulations as to Foreign Jews, .
(50)
•
•
PAGE
51
III.—Temporary Residence Within the Pale of
Jewish Settlement,
62
IV. Temporary Residence Outside the Pale
of Jewish Settlement,
V.-On Passports,
On the Rights of Property,.
On Agricultural Pursuits and Husbandry,
On Commercial Rights,
On the Trade in Intoxicants,
On Industrial Pursuits,
On Civil Service,
On Representation,
On Military Service,.
On Legal Procedure in reference to the Jews,
On Punishments, .
•
53
56
57
59
60
64
66
67
71
72
75
76
77
79
81
83
88888
84
86
A
APPENDIX.
General observation.-It must be remarked that many
of the laws here given contradict one another. This
fact must not be regarded as involving any inaccuracy
in transcription or translation. In Russia, laws are piled
on one another without satisfactory consolidation. Hence
the contradictions, which, as they exist in the original
text, exist also in this Summary.
ON RELIGION.
man
woman
A married [m] who adopts the Orthodox Christian
faith must sign a declaration to the effect that [he] will
endeavor to convert [her husband] to the same faith. (§ 81,
vol. X., part 1, issued 1887.)
wife
Should either a husband or a wife (but not both) adopt
Orthodoxy, both are prohibited residence outside the
Pale of Jewish Settlement. (Ibid. and § 31, Suppl. on
Passports, vol. XIV., ed. 1857.)
If a Jew or Jewess converted to the Christian Ortho-
dox religion does not agree to continue his or her life
with the spouse remaining in the Jewish religion, the
marriage is dissolved, and the convert can marry a per-
son of the Orthodox religion. (§ 81, Civil Laws; Code
of Laws of the Russian Empire, vol. X., part 1, ed. 1887.)
Jews on reaching their fourteenth year, may be
received in the Orthodox Church without permission of
their parents or guardians. (§ 1, Suppl. to § 78, of the
Law on Prevention of Crimes, 1876.)
The Minister of the Interior may allow Jewish
children to be converted to any of the Christian denomi-
nations that are tolerated in the Empire, even without
the consent of their parents. (§ 3, Suppl. to § 76, Law
regarding the Religious Affairs of Foreign Denominations,
(51)
B
52
vol. XI., part 1, (ed. 1857); § 1, note to § 94, Law on
Prevention of Crimes, vol. XIV., 1876.)
If either husband or wife adopts Christianity, the
children under seven years of age of the same sex as the
convert shall also be baptized. (Ibid., Suppl. to Art. 76,
$ 6.)
Every convert to Christianity shall receive a mone-
tary payment of from 15 to 30 roubles, without distinc-
tion of sex, and children half that sum. (§ 6, Suppl. to
§ 78 (note), Law on Prevention of Crimes, 1876.)
Rural communities of Jewish agriculturists shall keep
apart from settlers belonging to another persuasion. (§
979, vol. IX., 1876.)
For the office of Rabbi, only such persons are eligible
who have passed a course of instruction either in the old
Rabbinical schools, or in a training college for teachers,
or in one of the public higher or middle class educational
establishments. No one, except the Rabbis or their
assistants, may perform the rites of the Jewish faith.
Marriages or divorces not having taken place before a
Rabbi or his assistant, will be considered illegal. (Vol.
XI., part 1, Law about the Religious Affairs of Foreign
Denominations, §§ 1083 and 1086, and note; § 1135,
and note, issued 1886 and 1887.)
N. B.-Both Rabbinical schools were closed in 1873,
i. e., seventeen years ago. Of the two training colleges
for teachers, one, namely, that of Zitomir, was closed
in 1885. Besides, when these colleges were founded, it
was ordained by law, that such pupils as intended to
become Rabbis should not be received. As to the
public educational establishments, it is well known
that there neither the Hebrew language, nor the Hebrew
religion is taught, but only such branches of knowledge
as have nothing in common with Jewish theology.
Consequently, such so-called Crown Rabbis must neces-
sarily be elected who receive their education at the
higher and middle class public establishments, but who
are absolutely unable to perform religious rites which
require theological knowledge. Thus it comes to pass,
that the religious requirements of the Jewish commu-
nities cannot be provided for in a legal manner.
53
Synagogues and houses of prayer in the same streets
and squares where Orthodox churches exist must be
situated at a distance of at least a hundred sajen from
the latter. (§ 258, vol. XII., part 1, Law on Buildings.)
Public prayer and worship may only be held in the
Synagogues and houses of prayer. Jews holding divine
worship in their houses without permission of the
authorities will be punished by law. (Note to §§ 1060
and 1061, vol. XI., part 1, Law on the Religious Affairs
of Foreign Denominations, 1857; § 98, vol. XIV., Law
on Prevention of Crimes, 1876.)
The establishment of synagogues is allowed only in
places where there are no less than eighty Jewish
houses, whereas houses of prayer can be started only in
places where there are not less than 30 Jewish houses.
(Vol. XI., Religious Affairs of Foreign Denominations, §
1062; Build. Laws, § 259.)
N. B.-Thus in places with a smaller Jewish popula-
tion the Hebrews are prohibited public prayer under
pain of criminal prosecution.
Robbery of articles used in public worship, and of
effects appertaining to the synagogue, is not considered
as sacrilege. (§§ 219-233, Penal Code, 1885; § 170,
Law on Punishments by Justices of the Peace.)
ON DUTIES TOWARDS THE STATE.
I.-MILITARY DUTIES.
A person who is not a Christian, but whose brother
has adopted Orthodoxy and lives apart, will not have.
the right of exemption as the only support of the family.
(Explanation of Sen., 22 Dec., 1877, No. 9532, 1885, and
Oct. 17, No. 7274.)
Those who do not contribute to the support of the
family forfeit the right of exemption of the first or
second class. But this law does not apply to converts
to Christianity. (§ 48, Law about Military Duty, vol.
IV., 1886.)
The rules laid down in § 51 of the Law on Military
54
Duty, according to which persons called out for service
or being already in service, can offer as substitute a
brother or another relative, do not apply to Jews. (Law
of 31st January, 1889.)
Jews cannot be elected by their town as members of
recruiting committees. (Imperial Order of May 20,
1874.)
In the Kingdom of Poland also, Jews cannot be elected
members of the recruiting committees. (Circular of the
Minister of the Interior, 1874, May 27, No. 971.)
No documents of any kind affording the right of car-
rying on a trade or a profession will be issued to Jews
under any condition, except when they have produced
evidence that they have been registered in the recruiting
districts. (§ 1012, Law on Military Duty, 1886.)
The removal of the names of Jews to divisions of
other districts or governments is only permitted if they
have resided in the locality to which they wish to belong
not less than two years. (For non-Jews a previous resi-
dence of only three months is required.) In case of
removal to divisions outside the Pale of Settlement, they
lose all rights of exemption accruing from certain condi-
tions of family relations. (§ 119', Law on Military Duty,
1886.)
The military authorities have the right to submit Jews,
whose entering the service has been postponed on account.
of bodily infirmity or insufficiently developed muscular
strength, without notice, to a medical examination;
such authorities not being obliged to pay any regard to
the time prescribed by law for this purpose. (Note 2
to § 146, Law on Military Duty, 1886)
Jews who have adopted Orthodoxy, will, before they
have entered the service, and notwithstanding the classi-
fication according to denominations, be considered as
Jews. But once they have entered the service they will
be considered as Christians. (Explanation of Rules by
the Senate, 1886, February 19, No. 1342.)
Should there be in any district a deficiency in the
number of Jews eligible as recruits, either of those not
exempt, or of those who on account of family conditions.
55
have a right to exemptions of the third or the second class,
it is permitted to draft into the army such Jews as enjoy
the exemption of the first class. (Note 2 to § 152, Law
on Military Duty, 1886.)
The family of a Jew who has evaded the fulfilment
of his military duties, will have to pay a fine of 300
roubles. The amount of the reward paid to any one
arresting a Jew who has evaded his military duties will
be fixed by the Minister of the Interior. (§ 360 and
note, Law on Military Duty, 1886.)
N. B.-The restrictions cited under this heading were
called forth by the charge levelled against the Jews,
that they tried to evade their military duties. But
official data disprove the charge. The proportion of
the number of Jews liable to conscription, to the num-
ber of non-Jews equally liable, must necessarily equal
the proportion of the Jewish male population to the
non-Jewish. According to the data produced in the
"Journal of Statistics," issued by the Central Statistical
Committee, the male population of all denominations in
European Russia, for a period of twelve years (1875-
1886), consisted of an average of 37,918,932, of whom
1,496,076 were Jews, equal to 3.95 per cent. of the entire
population. Now it appears from the printed accounts
of the Ministry of the Interior, that during these twelve
years, there were called for the purpose of conscription,
8,434,449 non-Jews, or a yearly average of 702,871, and
446,802 Jews, or a yearly average of 37,233. Thus 5.80
per cent. were Jews. This means a far higher per-
centage of their number in comparison with their per-
centage in the general population.
In 1887, according to the reports of the Ministry
printed in the "Government Gazette," there were called
out:-Non-Jews, 798,992; Jews, 42,407, i. e., 5:31 per cent.
In 1888-Non-Jews, 862,254; Jews, 44,918, i. e., 5·20
per cent. Finally, in 1889:-Non-Jews, 844,019; Jews,
46,190, or 5'47 per cent.
During the same period of twelve years (1875–1886),
there were drafted into the army:-Non-Jews, 2,381,-
272, or a yearly average of 198,439; Jews, 94,535, or a
yearly average of 7,878, i. c., 5.97 per cent. In 1887:
Non-Jews, 234,085; Jews, 12,263, or 5.24 per cent. In
1888: Non-Jews, 249,087; Jews, 13,141, or 5.27 per cent.
In 1889:-Non-Jews, 254,106; Jews, 14,552, or 5'72 per
cent.
56
Thus we find that, whereas the fair proportion of
Jewish soldiers in the Russian army should be, accord-
ing to these numbers, 395, the actual proportion of
Jewish soldiers was largely in excess of the fair per-
centage; indeed, nearly half as much again as the
equitable proportion.
II. TAXATION.
Over and above the ordinary assessments to which
the rural population and the inhabitants of the towns
are liable, the Jews have to pay the following special.
taxes:
I.-The "Box Tax," which is again subdivided into two
classes: (A) universal or general, (B) private or sub-
sidiary.
The general tax is levied :-
(1) On every animal which is slaughtered kosher ;*
(2) On every bird which is slaughtered kosher ;*
(3) On every pound of meat which is sold as
kosher*
(4) Penalties and fines for evasions of the law on
this point are to be utilized for the objects for
which the tax was instituted.
The subsidiary tax levied from the Jews consists of:
(1) A certain percentage on the rents of the houses,
shops and warehouses of Jews.
(2) A certain percentage on the profits of factories,
breweries, industrial establishments and other
trade enterprises carried on by Jews.
(3) A certain percentage on the capital bequeathed
by Jews.
(4) A tax on apparel specially worn by Jews and
Jewesses. For the wearing of a skull cap
(used by Jews during domestic prayers), a tax
of five silver roubles a year is levied. (§§ 1,
5, 8, 10, note to § 281, Law on Taxes, vol. V.,
1857.)
* According to Jewish rite, and declared fit for food. The
tax is farmed, and adds 2d. or 3d. to the retail price of meat.
Maou
57
II.-Candle Tax (on Sabbath lights*), amounting to
230,000 roubles a year. (Ibid., §§ 9 and 67.)
III.-Tax on Printing Offices, amounting to 20 roubles
for every printing press worked by hand, 120 roubles for
every sinall machine press, and 200 roubles for every
large or double machine press. (Note to § 158, vol.
XIV., Law on Censure, 1886.)
N. B.-The Box Tax and the Candle Tax, as also the
tax levied for the support of educational establishments,
and the income of the Günzburg endowment, for giving
subsidies to Jewish agriculturists, are not entered in
the financial budget of the Ministry. (Suppl. to 2 221
part 2; note 2, ?? 1 and 3, vol. I., part 2, Law on the Cab-
inet.)
The exemption from the Box Tax of those engaged
in agriculture is abolished. (Note 2 to § 1, Suppl.
to § 281, Tax Law, vol. V., 1857.)
ON THE EDUCATION OF JEWISH YOUTH.
Jewish children are admitted only in the public and
private educational establishments of places in which
their parents have a right of residence. (§ 966, vol. IX.,
Circular of 1876; Circular of the Minister of Public
Education, 1884, July 15, No. 9846.)
The issue of subsidies formerly granted to Jewish boys
and girls receiving their education in the public educa-
tional establishments superintended by the Ministry of
Public Education from the sums set aside for the edu-
cation of the Jews, and amounting to 24,000 roubles
annually, is abolished. (1875, July 25 (54,934a);
Imperial assent to the Budget of the Committee of Min-
isters.)
In accordance with § 967 of the same volume, Jews
who have passed a public middle-class school are allowed
to enter universities, academies and other higher educa-
*It is the religious duty of every Jewish housewife to
light at least two candles on the eve of the Sabbath and fes-
tivals, and this custom is most rigorously carried out.
58
tional establishments without restriction. In 1880 the
authorities commenced to restrict the number of Jews so
entering. In 1882 the number of Jewish students in
the Military Academy for Medicine was limited to 5 per
cent. At present no Jews at all are admitted at this
academy. In 1883 the number of Jewish students in
the Mining Institute was also limited to 5 per cent.
About the same time their number was also limited in
the Engineering Institute for Public Roads. In 1885
the Jews at the Technical Institute at Charkoff were
limited to 10 per cent. In 1886 a prohibition was issued
against the admission of any Jews at all at the Veteri-
nary Institute at Charkoff. In 1887 the number of Jews
to be admitted at the Institute of Civil Engineers was
fixed at 3 per cent. And finally, in accordance with the
proposals of the Committee of Ministers, which received
the Imperial assent on December 5, 1886, and June 26,
1887, the Ministry of Public Education obtained the right
of restricting the number of Jewish pupils in the educa-
tional establishments generally. The Ministry thereupon
limited, in all schools and universities, the number of Jews
residing in places within the Pale of Jewish Settlement to
10 per cent., in places outside that Pale to 5 per cent., but
in St. Petersburg and Moscow to 3 per cent. of the total
number of pupils in each school or university. This with-
out regard to the proportion of Jews to the general popu-
lation in any one place.*
Since 1885 Jews are not allowed to hold university
scholarships derived from the Public Treasury, and can
only enjoy scholarships derived from private endowments.
The proceeds of the Candle Tax is to be applied to the
building of Jewish schools.† (§ 9, note to § 281, Tax
Law, vol. V., 1857; § 1067, Law on the Religious Affairs
of Foreign Denominations, vol XI., part 1, 1857.)
* In some places the Jewish population is 80 per cent. of
the entire population.
† As a matter of fact the money is frequently used for
other purposes unconnected with educational or other
wants of Jews.
59
N. B.-The Rabbinical Schools of Wilna and Zitomir
have been converted into training colleges for teachers.
The Jewish State Schools for secondary education have
been closed by Imperial order. Those for elementary
education have been preserved only in those places
where the number of public schools proved insufficient
on account of the large population of the Jews. The
training college of Zitomir has been closed by order.
(Note to 2 1083, Law on the Religious Affairs of Foreign
Denominations, vol. XI., part 1, 1857; Imperial assent to
the Report of the Ministry of National Education, 28th
November, 1885.)
ON PERSONAL STATUS AND RIGHT OF SET-
TLEMENT AND MOVEMENT.
The Jews are declared to be Aliens, whose social rights
are regulated by special ordinances. (Note 7, § 835,
vol. IX., 1876.)
I. PERMANENT RESIDENCE WITHIN THE PALE OF
JEWISH SETTLEMENT.
In the whole Russian Empire (exclusive of the king-
dom of Poland) the Jews are prohibited from perma-
nently residing or settling anywhere, except in the follow-
ing fifteen gubernia:-Bessarabia, Vilna, Vitebsk, Vol-
hynia, Grodno, Ekaterinoslav, Kovno, Minsk, Mohilev,
Podolia, Poltava, Taurida (except Sebastopol), Cherson
(except Nicolaiev), and Tshernigov, also in the guber-
nium of Kiev, exclusive of the city of Kiev. These
gubernia are, therefore, called the Pale of Permanent
Jewish Settlement. ($ 16 of the Law of Passports, vol.
XIV., 1886.)
Jews who are merchants of the first guild* may live
in the city of Kiev, but only in the Libedsky and
Plossky districts of the town. (Ibid., § 17, vol. IV.)
In the towns Nicolaiev and Sebastopol the right of
* The monetary qualification of this guild is payment of
taxes of not less than 1000 roubles per annum-of course, a
very exceptional condition.
60
settlement, of carrying on a trade or the business of con-
tractor, or of obtaining house or landed property, is
granted only to Jewish merchants of either guild. (Law
on Passports, Art. 16.)
D
Jews are prohibited from residing permanently in the
western gubernia situated next the frontier, and also in
Bessarabia within 50 versts* of the frontier. From this
rule are excepted those Jews who were registered in these
localities before 27th October, 1858, or who possessed
before 27th October, 1858, house and landed property in
these localities, although they did not belong to such
communities. (Ibid., § 23.)
Jews in the Pale of Permanent Settlement are forbidden
to take up new residence outside the towns and townlets, the
only exception being in the case of settlers in Jewish agri-
cultural colonies established before 1882. The removal of
Jews from the settlements where they had resided before
3d May, 1882, to other settlements is unconditionally pro-
hibited. (Vol. IX., Law upon Status, § 959, note 4, 1886,
and note 5, 1889.)
N. B.-This is one of the principal May Laws, of 1882,
which has caused so large an influx into the towns.
Jews are thereby also, under a recent legal decision,
prohibited from removing from one village to another.
II. PERMANENT RESIDENCE OUTSIDE THE PALE OF
JEWISH SETTLEMENT.
Outside the above-mentioned fifteen gubernia only
those Jews are permitted to reside who can be classed
under the following categories:-
(1) Merchants of the first guild, both of the Rus-
sian Empire and of the Kingdom of Poland,
who have satisfied the special conditions estab-
lished by law.
(2) Jews who have a diploma of doctor of medi-
cine and surgery, or of doctor of medicine; or
who have a diploma of doctor or master of one
of the other faculties of the University.
* About 33 English miles.
61
(3) Jews who have discharged their military duties
in accordance with the recruiting law and
belong to the reserve; also those soldiers and
non-commissioned officers who have unlimited
furlough.*
(4) Jews who have passed the higher educational
establishments, inclusive of those for the study
of medicine.
(5) Graduates in pharmacy, dentists and surgeons,
also midwives.
(6) Jews who are studying pharmacy, surgery
and midwifery.
(Vol. XIV., Law on Passports, § 17.)
In the gubernium of Courland, as also in Shlok
(Livonia), only those Jews may reside permanently who
were registered there according to the revision before 13th
April, 1835. Of the Jews settled in Shlok, only those
shall be allowed permanently to reside in Riga who had
settled there before 17th December, 1841. The settle-
ment of Jews in Riga, whether from other gubernia or
from Shlok, is prohibited. (Vol. XIV., Law on Pass-
ports, § 17.)
Jews from Bokhara and Khiva, as also Jews of other
Central-Asiatic dominions, may become Russian subjects
and be registered in the frontier towns of the districts of
Orenburg and Turkestan; but only on condition that
they belong to a merchant guild, and that the rights of
other Russian Jews be granted them. (Vol. IX., § 992,
note, 1886; vol. XIV., Law on Passports, § 17.)
In the military territory of the Don, and in the old
districts of Rostov and of Taganrog, at present incorpo-
rated in the Don territory, the settlement of Jews is
prohibited. (Law on Passports, § 17.)
* This privilege has now been lost by the Jews.
This includes a district of great importance, hitherto
largely populated by Jews engaged in commerce, who had
been always allowed to settle there, being part of Ekateri-
noslav gubernium, and thus in the Pale of Settlement, but
detached therefrom on 19th May, 1887.
62
In the government of Stavropol and in the trans-Cau-
casian territory, only those Jews are allowed to remain
who lived there before 12th May, 1837, and formed
settlements of their own. (§ 27, Law on Passports, vol.
XIV., 1857.)
Jews are not permitted to enter, or to settle in, Siberia.
(Ibid., § 30, 1887.)
The settling of Jews in Siberia for the purpose of fol-
lowing agricultural pursuits is prohibited. (§ 978, vol.
IX., 1876.)
Wives of Jews who have been exiled to Siberia are
permitted to follow their husbands. But the husbands
of Jewesses exiled to Siberia may not follow their wives.
(Note 1 to § 40, Law on Deportation, vol. XIV., 1857.)
Jewish exiles in Siberia are prohibited residence
within a hundred versts from the Chinese frontier, and,
in general, from the frontier of all tribes not under the
dominion of Russia. (Ibid., note to § 363, 1886.)
Outside the places of Permanent Jewish Settlement
Jews may adopt as children, in accordance with the
general laws, only such of their co-religionists as have
themselves a right to reside in all places of the Empire.
(Collection of Laws, 1889, No. 35, § 298.)
Jews are not permitted to dwell in the Grand Duchy
of Finland.
N. B.-No such law exists among the laws of Old Fin-
land, which were accepted by the Imperial Government
on annexation, nor in the "Collection of Laws of the
Grand Duchy of Finland," issued annually by official
order from 1827 to 1890.
III.—TEMPORARY RESIDENCE WITHIN the Pale of
JEWISH SETTLEMENT.
Only temporary residence of Jews in the cities of Kiev
and Sebastopol is permitted, and only for the following
purposes:
(1) In order to take possession of an inheritance.
(2) In order to establish legal claims on property
in courts of justice and in government offices.
63
(3) For business transactions or anything connected
with government contracts; but only if such
transactions take place in towns where Jews
may permanently dwell.
Besides in the above-mentioned cases of residence, the
Jews are permitted to enter the city of Kiev only under
the following circumstances:
(a) For military duty.
(b) For business during the fair.
(c) For importing and selling articles of food in the
markets and in the harbor.
(d) For transporting passengers and forwarding.
goods.
(e) For purchasing materials.
(f) For delivering the products of their own handi-
craft.
(9) For using the mineral waters or for attending
the hospital.
(h) For attending the educational establishments.
(i) For learning a handicraft.
Whenever a Jewish visitor of any of the above de-
nominations is obliged to remain in Kiev more than
twenty-four hours, the police may give a printed license,
on which a special entry must be made in case the time
is extended.
Such extension of time is limited thus: by the expira-
tion of the time of military duty; by the termination of
the fair; by the market days. For carmen, for the pur-
chase of materials, and for the settlement of accounts for
work, by a fortnight. For invalids, by the completion
of the course of mineral waters or hospital attendance.
For students, by the termination of the course of study.
For apprentices, by the termination of the time fixed for
the learning of a handicraft; and for those who arrive
upon other business, by a maximum of six weeks.
Those Jews who are temporarily in Kiev, being neither
patients drinking the waters, nor being the wives or
children of soldiers on active service, nor persons learn-
ing a handicraft, are only permitted a temporary resi-
dence in the Libedsky and Plossky districts of the town.
64
Jews from other towns who possess factories, or are
merchants of one of the two guilds, are permitted to
enter Sebastopol only—
For the purpose of doing business at the fairs, or, if
they are contractors, for the supply of the gov-
ernment with goods for that town; but for the
sake of carrying on such business they are not
permitted to employ Jews except those who are
their servants or clerks. Jews living in the
neighborhood of Sebastopol, and in other towns.
of the Pale of Jewish Settlement, are permitted
to enter Sebastopol only for business on the
established market days. Young Jews may
only come to Sebastopol for the sake of learn-
ing a handicraft. (§ 284, Law on Passports,
vol. XIV., 1886.)
In the gubernia of Vitebsk and Mohilev, Jews are
only permitted to reside in villages by special license,
but they may not settle as ordinary inhabitants. (Ibid.,
§ 16.)
In the gubernia of Vitebsk and Mohilev, Jews are
allowed to work in the making of roads in the settle-
ments, but only on condition that, as soon as their work
is completed, they have no longer a right to reside there.
The same conditions must be observed in Courland in
respect of Jews from the gubernium of Kovno, engaged
in similar work. (Ibid., §§ 20, 21, 1857.)
IV.-TEMPORARY RESIDENCE OUTSIDE THE PALE OF
JEWISH SETTLEMENT.
Temporary residence outside the Pale of Jewish Settle-
ment is permitted to the Jews only under the following
circumstances:
(1) For the purpose of taking possession of an in-
heritance.
(2) For the purpose of establishing legal claims on
property in courts of justice and in govern-
ment offices.
(3) For business transactions, and for everything
65
connected with government contracts; but only
if such contracts take place in towns where
Jews may permanently dwell. In all such
cases the police are authorized to permit the
Jews to remain, but for no longer than six
weeks. The authorities of such gubernia can-
not prolong their stay beyond two months,
unless they have obtained permission from the
higher authorities. (§ 283, Law on Passports,
vol. XIV., 1886.)
Jewish mechanics, distillers and brewers, and gener-
ally master artisans and their journeymen, may reside
outside the Pale of Jewish Settlement, but, in order to
obtain their passport (which is to be renewed periodi-
cally), they must produce a certificate of their calling in
accordance with the rules established by law for that
purpose. Young Jews under eighteen years of age are
permitted to live in places outside the Pale of Jewish
Settlement, for the purpose of learning a handicraft, but
only for a period of not more than five years. (Ibid.,
note 3 to § 283.)
Jewish cutters and tailors may live in places where
regiments are located, or where military training col-
leges exist, but only until the term of their contract
with the military authorities has expired. (Ibid., § 19,
1857.)
Jewish artisans may reside-in the fortress towns on
the eastern shore of the Black Sea, and in the towns of
Temruk and Suchum-Kale; also on the north-western
shore of the Caspian Sea; and in the town of Petrofsk ;
but only temporarily, and in such manner that the field
of their trade activity does not extend beyond the bound-
aries of these towns. (Ibid., § 28, 1886.)
Jewish carmen, who have brought goods to places out-
side the Pale of Jewish Settlement, are not permitted to
remain in such places longer than a fortnight. (Ibid.,
§ 285, 1857.)
Jewish merchants of the first guild, not yet qualified
to settle outside the Pale, are permitted to come person-
ally, or to send their accredited agents, to the capitals
66
and other towns for the purpose of purchasing goods;
they may do so twice a year, on condition, however, that
their total stay do not exceed six months of the year.
Such merchants may visit the fairs at Nijni-Novgorod,
Irbit, Charkov and Summi, both for buying and for
selling wholesale.
Jewish merchants of the second guild are permitted
to come personally, or to send their accredited agents,
to the capitals and other towns, for the purpose of pur-
chasing goods, only once a year for two months.
Merchants of both guilds are permitted to visit the
Christmas and summer fairs in Kiev, and carry on busi-
ness there, both wholesale and retail, whether in Russian
or foreign commodities. Their stay must terminate with
the termination of the fair.
Jews of the gubernia of the Kingdom of Poland may
as a rule visit the gubernia within the Pale of Jewish
Settlement; but only guild merchants may visit the
other gubernia of the Empire and they only once a year,
and then only for two months, for the purpose of doing
business, of contracting with the Government for the
supply of goods, but only for such places where Jews may
permanently reside; and on condition that, in case such
transactions take place in the interior provinces of the
Empire, and are being managed by themselves, no Jews.
be employed by them. (Ibid., § 289, 1886.)
Jewish tradesmen, who are settlers of old standing in
the trans-Caucasian territory, may visit Astrachan to
sell "Marena" dye, but only twice a year, and only for
an aggregate of six months in any one year. (Ibid., §
290, 1857.)
V.-ON PASSPORTS.
Jews within the Pale of Jewish Settlement are only
permitted to dwell outside the towns in which they have
been registered according to the revision, if provided
with passports. (§ 18, Law on Passports, vol. XIV.,
1857.)
Jews can obtain licenses for travelling only into those
67
gubernia where Jews have the right of permanent settle-
ment. (Ibid., § 121.)
Travelling within the Pale of Jewish Settlement is
permitted to Jews, provided they have a passport in
which it is observed that such passport is only valid in
places set aside for their permanent residence; and in
the certificates issued to merchants it is indispensable that
the religious persuasion of their holders be mentioned.
(Ibid., § 286, 1889; Circular of the Minister of the Interior,
1878, June 24, No. 73.)
Immediately on the arrival of Jews in the capitals, the
police are required to examine their passports and to
inquire into their right of visiting such capital. Those
who have no right to visit the capitals are to be imme-
diately sent back to their places of residence. (Ibid.,
§ 294, 1857.)
N. B. The laws laid down under the preceding five
chapters deprive five millions of Jews of one of the
most essential personal rights, enjoyed not only by all
Russian subjects, Christian, Mohammedan or heathen,
without distinction, but also by foreigners, namely, the
right of residing anywhere, and of free movement
throughout the Empire. At the present time the whole
mass of Russian Jews, with only a few exceptions, are
caged and crowded in the narrow confines of the terri-
tory which is called "the Pale of Jewish Settlement;"
and even there exclusively in towns. In all civilized
States the right of settlement in any place is recognized
to be one of the most essential and natural laws of every
subject. In time of peace, foreigners even enjoy that
right. The deprivation of such a right is regarded,
even by the Russian legislation (?? 30-32, 48, 49, 51 of
the Law of Punishment, 1885), as a punishment inflicted
for various criminal offences, and then only for a period
fixed by sentence in a court of justice.
ON THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.
ON THE ACQUISITION OF PROPERTY; ON THE MORT-
GAGING AND LEASING OF THE SAME; and on
FARMS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT.
Landed estates, including also land which has been
apportioned to peasants for their permanent use, cannot
68
be sold to Jews. (Vol. IX., Law on Status, Suppl. I. to
§ 330 (note); § 3, 1887.)
Land, and other appurtenances belonging to an estate,
and which are not part of allotments made to peasants
on their emancipation, may not be sold to Jews." (Ibid.,
§ 4; Suppl. ibid.)
Estates in the Western and Baltic provinces, formerly
belonging to the Jesuits, and which have to be sold by
auction to satisfy the debts of their owners, cannot be
bought by Jews. (Vol. VIII., Law on the Administra
tion of Crown Property in the Western and Baltic Govern-
ments; Suppl. to § 1 (note 1), § 7.)
(
۲۱
"
Jews are not admitted to the public auctions of Crown!
lands. (Ibid., Suppl. to § 2 (note 2); $160 onzed odz
Jews are not permitted to attend the publie auctions of th
property mortgaged to banks, and forfeited for non-pay
ment Vol. XIII, Lan of Common Aid, Suppl to S
165 (nate 29, §3, 1857.), Cullom or oviqob 219161)
Jews are not admittted to publie auctions of allotments
of land forfeited by peasants who have made default in
In
payment of serfilom commutation tax, or State land-
tribute, or in Bessarabia, their landerate...(Raules about
the Beasantry; Special Suppl. to vol XiRulesome Dis-
tress 135-138 Rules on Peasants belonging to the
State, Supply, to
Just to figh 1'5 '(note 1y's 7 Rules about the
Tsaran" 1, ni 893612
All Jews, without.exception, are prohibited from pur-
chasing landed property from land-owners or peasants in
the nine Western gubernia. (Note 3 to 959 vọt. dEX,
donul rest ucl d'y 1979
Law on Statiis, 1886
6,6x221 bed in et jo od t
(
1J (
2.
66
9 bas
Seasants in Bebyg
[ .
C

LA
>
S
JSTAT
N. B.
boPB: "The meaning of the foregoing seven laws is
that Jews are not allowed to purchase landed estate
anywhere. 1909¶ 40 ?THOLI AUT MO
( ་ །
،
ا
{
(
Throughout the Pale of Jewish Settlement, the comple~()
tion of conveyances of purchase of, landed on house
property and mortgages in the name of Jews is suspended,
as also the registration of Jews as lessees of landed estate,
situated outside the precincts of towns and townlets, atid
also the issité of powers of attorney enabling 'Jews to*áct¶®
'to'
69
as agents for the managing and disposing of such prop-
erty.* (Ibid., § 2; note 4 to § 959.)
No Jews, even those who are merchants of the first
guild, may purchase landed or house property in any
part of the town of Kiev. Only those merchants of the
first guild are excepted who, before being registered as
merchants at Kiev, have been during five years mer-
chants of the first guild in one of the towns within the
Pale of Jewish Settlement. (Resolution of the General
Meeting of the Department of Cassation and of the First
and the Second Department of the Imperial Senate, 3d
Nov., 1886.)
Jews possessing a diploma of doctor of medicine and
of surgery, or who have a diploma of doctor, master, or
ordinary first-class diploma in one of the other faculties
of the University, do not transfer to their wives or their
children their right of acquiring house property outside
the Pale of Jewish Settlement. (Resolution of the
General Meeting of the First Department and the Depart-
ment of Cassation of the Imperial Senate, 1889, No. 25.)
With the exception of those who have a scientific
University degree, all Jews are prohibited from obtaining,
or renting, or farming landed property in the military
territory of the Don, as also in the districts formerly
belonging to Rostov and to the city of Taganrog, but at
present included in the Don territory. (Vol. XIV.,
Law on Passports, § 17; vol. VIII., 1886, and note to that
section, 1887.)
Jews are prohibited from obtaining landed property of
any kind in any part of the Baltic Governments. (1869,
30th May (47,152); Imperial Ukase promulgated by the
Senate of the Ministry of the Interior; 1866, 18th Feb.
(43,031), Imperial assent to Law of the Baltic Committee.)
In the Baltic provinces Jews cannot lend money on
the security of house or landed property of any kind,
* This is one of the "May Laws" of 1882, and it practi-
cally annuls all the limited powers of acquisition of landed
and house property conferred by the other laws except only
in towns within the Pale.
70
either in the country or in the towns. (Collection of
Local Laws of the Baltic Governments, part III., book II.,
§§ 1504, 1512, 1864.)
The acquisition of land or house property in Turkestan
is prohibited to Jews not domiciled there. Jews born in
the countries of Central Asia which are situated in the
vicinity of Turkestan, are subject to the common law
relating to foreign Jews. (Vol. IX., Law on Status,
§ 1003, note 3, 1887; Collection of Laws 1889, No. 76,
§ 666.)
Land and house property which has been obtained by
Jews by inheritance outside those places where they are
permitted to possess such property, must be sold by them
in the course of six months. (Ibid., § 960, 1886.)
The Jews are prohibited from renting mills and
factories from the Crown in places where they are not
allowed to reside. They are also prohibited from retail-
ing intoxicating liquors on Crown lands even in places
where they are allowed permanently to reside (i. e., in
the Pale of Settlement). (Vol. VIII., part I., Law on
Crown Rents, § 22, 1876, and note to the same, 1886.)
The leaseholder of an estate belonging to the Crown
and situated in the Western and Baltic Governments,
may not sublet a country-inn to a Jew. (Ibid., Law on
Crown Property in the Western and Baltic Governments,
$ 35, 1876.)
Persons who have received temporary grants of Crown
revenues in the Western and Baltic Governments accord-
ing to the privileges of 1775, and by Imperial Ukases,
are prohibited from assigning their interests therein to
Jews. (Vol. VIII., part 1, Law on Crown Property in the
Western and Baltic Governments; Suppl. to § 2 (note 3),
$ 18.)
Jews are prohibited from being managers or stewards
of inhabited estates, and from farming from the land-
owners the incomes they derive from the peasants.
(Vol. IX., § 961, 1886.)
In Courland, Jews may not farm the rents due by the
peasants to the land owners. They are also prohibited
from renting inns and public-houses in townlets and
71
villages. (Collection of Local Laws of the Baltic Govern-
ments, part I., § 1401, No. 3, p. III., § 4041.)
In places where Jews may not permanently reside,
they may not be admitted to the public auctions where
chattels belonging to the Crown are being sold. (Vol.
X., § 1500, 1887.)
N. B.-Under the laws cited in the preceding heading,
the Jews, with a few exceptions, are deprived of every
right to acquire or hold house or landed estate outside
the towns within the Pale of Settlement. And besides
these enactments, the code of laws contains old regu-
lations which do allow Jews to acquire or hold such
property, to rent land, farm rents, and like obligations
appertaining to land, to possess distilleries, to rent or
to manage mills and factories. (Vol. IX., Law on Status,
?? 959, 961, and Suppl. 963.) These regulations have not
been repealed, and remain on the statute books, and
serve only to gloss over the Jewish disabilities. As a
matter of fact, they have been rendered absolutely
nugatory by the May Laws, being practically and
legally repealed by them.
ON AGRICULTURAL PURSUITS AND
HUSBANDRY.
The application of a part of the income derived from
the Box Tax to the training of Jews as agriculturists is
abolished.
The Jewish Colonization fund, which was kept on
deposit at the State Treasury by the Minister of Crown
Lands, and at the Odessa Treasury by the Cherson-Bes-
sarabia Superintendent of Crown Lands, has been trans-
ferred to the funds of the Imperial Treasury.
Jews are prohibited from settling in Siberia for the
purpose of becoming agriculturists. (Vol. II., Part 2,
Position of Aliens, § 833, note; 1886, note 2 to § 1; Suppl.
to § 281; Law on Taxes, vol. V., 1857; Collection of
Regulations, 1887, No. 62, § 553, vol. IX.; Law on
Status, § 978.)
Acquisition or renting of rural property of any kind
as well as the settlement outside of towns, being pro-
hibited to Jews, agricultural pursuits are rendered
72
impossible to them. As an exception to the rule, some
agricultural colonies which were established in certain
places chosen by the Government in the reigns of Alex-
ander I. and Nicholas still exist, but no new colonies
are permitted to be established.
-
ON COMMERCIAL RIGHTS.
Trading in the gubernia outside the Pale of Settle-
ment without restriction is allowed only to Jews who
have acquired the position of a merchant of the first
guild while within the fifteen gubernia of the Pale.
In order to become a merchant of the first guild in the
above gubernia, a Jew must have been previously a
merchant of the first guild in the Pale of Settlement for
five years.
The Jew who has become a merchant of the first guild
and settles outside the Pale of Settlement, forfeits his
rights, and is obliged to return into the Pale, if he cease
to pay the fees of the first guild, unless he has paid the
fees for at least ten years. (Vol. XIV., Statute on Pass-
ports, 17; 1, contin. 1886.)
Jewish merchants of the first guild, belonging to the
Pale of Settlement, are allowed to visit the capitals and
the other towns outside the Pale, for purchasing goods,
only twice a year, and provided that both visits should
not together exceed six months. (Vol. XIV., Statute on
Passports, § 283, 2, contin. 1886.)
In Siberia merchant licenses are given only to the fol-
lowing categories of Jews:-(1) To the children of
Jewish convicts who came there with their parents or
who were born there; (2) to Jewish convicts who have
been condemned to deportation without loss of civil
rights. (Vol. IX., Suppl. to the $ 974 (note), 3, contin.
ed. 1887.)
N. B.-It follows, therefore, that Jewish criminals and
their sons are the only Jews who can obtain a license
to trade in Siberia, certain parts of which are extremely
prosperous and full of natural resources.
Jews of the Western gubernia, not belonging to any
guild, may not take any Government contract or farm
73
royalties, nor may they sell wholesale by powers of attor-
ney anything belonging to a member of the nobility, nor
carry on business within the Empire and beyond the
frontier, even if it be only to forward and to sell actual
land produce. (Vol. IX., Law on Status, Suppl. to § 974
(note 2); § 7, 1887.)
Jewish merchants of the first guild, in the Pale of
Settlement, may receive goods directly from the capitals.
and from the ports, but only wholesale, and only through
firms residing at those places, or by means of corre-
spondence with the manufacturers. Jewish merchants
of the first guild are prohibited from employing Jews in
the management or superintendence of contracts con-
cluded by them in the interior provinces.
The sale of products of gubernia within the Pale of
Jewish Settlement, may be effected by Jewish merchants.
of the Pale of the first guild, in the capitals and ports,
but only wholesale, and with the help of Christian
employés, or local merchants, or by mercantile firms, or
by means of correspondence with the manufacturers.
But such Jews are forbidden personally to sell goods in
the capitals and ports, or to open shops at these places
under pain of immediate expulsion and confiscation of
their goods.
Within the Pale of Jewish Settlement, Jewish mer-
chants of the first guild may, by order of Christians
residing in other gubernia, clear goods from the Custom
House which their owners would be entitled to receive
through the Custom Houses situated in the Pale.
Such Jews are, however, prohibited from selling their
own goods which they have to receive and which have
to pass through the same Custom Houses, outside the Pale
of Jewish Settlement, even though they employ Chris-
tians for the purpose.
Jewish merchants of the first guild, belonging to the
Pale, may sell foreign goods at the fairs of Charkov and
Summi, but only wholesale. At other fairs they may
not sell foreign goods, whether on their own account or
as consignees. (Ibid., § 2.)
Foreign goods which require to be sealed by the Cus-
74
tom House officers may not be brought to the fairs by
Jewish manufacturers, viz., neither to Nijni-Novgorod,
Irbit, Charkov, nor Summi; although such goods may
have undergone a certain manufacturing process at their
factories, e. g., by dyeing, etc. (Ibid., § 3.)
Jews visiting places where they are only allowed to
reside temporarily for business transactions, may not
during their visit sell goods in a house or by hawking
them in the street, and any infraction will be punished
by law. (Ibid., § 5.)
Jews are prohibited from acting as commission agents
of any foreign firm for sending goods from the Custom
Houses at the frontier to places where Jews may not
permanently reside. (Ibid., § 6.)
The Custom House officers may not accept a declara-
tion from Jews, or from their agents or employés, nor may
they issue a license for the passing of goods belonging
to Jews destined for the Custom Houses of gubernia out-
side the Pale of Settlement. (Vol. VI., Law of the Cus-
toms, § 954, 1886.)
Every one may keep his books in whatever language
he likes, except the Jews. They are obliged to use
either Russian, or the language in business use at the
place where they live, but in no case Hebrew. (Vol.
IX., Law on Status, § 955; Vol. XI., part 2, Commer-
cial Law, § 610, 1887.)
Jews cannot act as agents for contractors for delivery
and supply of goods in any place where they themselves
have no right to be contractors for the delivery and
supply of goods. (Vol. X., Civil Law on Delivery and
Supply for the Crown, § 7, note.)
In places of Permanent Jewish Settlement, Jews are
prohibited from carrying on business on Sundays and
on the principal Christian holidays. (Vol. IX., § 959,
notes 4 and 3; Vol. XIV., On Prevention of Crimes, §
16, note.)
N. B.-One of the May Laws. This is a great hard-
ship in those towns where the Jews form the great bulk
of the population. In many towns Sunday is the legal
and customary market day. There is no restriction to
75
"
the Sunday trading of Mohammedans and other non-
Christians.
Jewish merchants of the first guild, who, observing
the conditions established by law, settle in places outside
the Pale of Jewish Settlement, may take with them Jew-
ish clerks and domestic servants, that is to say, in both
the capitals as many as the local governor and the
governor-general will allow; in the other cities of the
Empire not more than one Jewish clerk or employé, and
not more than four servants for every family. (Vol.
XIV., Law on Passports, Art. 17, § 1, 1886.)
Jews who hold a University diploma of a scientific
degree, and who enjoy by law the right of residing in
any place in the Empire, may (for the purpose of carry-
ing on business and industrial pursuits), during the time
of their residence outside the Pale of Jewish Settlement,
have with them, besides the members of their families,
domestic servants from among their co-religionists, but
not more than two. Such of them as become merchants
of the second guild, may, besides, have a clerk or
employé of their own faith. (Ibid., § 2.)
Shares in the company of the "Upper and Middle
Market Rows," in the Krassnoi Square in Moscow, may
not be transferred to Jews, even if they become converts
to Orthodoxy, because only persons born Christians are
allowed to obtain such shares. (Collection of Regula-
tions, 1890, No. 82, § 817, 818.)
Jews may not possess shares in the joint-stock com-
pany for the manufacture of sugar Kordelefka, in the
district Vinitza, in the government Podolia; they may
not be members of the board of that company nor be
appointed to the office of manager or trustee. (Collec-
tion of Regulations, 1890, No. 89, § 889; § 9, note; § 23,
notes 1 and 2.)
ON THE TRADE IN INTOXICANTS.
Jews may deal in intoxicants only in places where
they are allowed to reside permanently, but not other-
wise than in their own houses. Jewish potmen may be
76
employed, but only in public-houses belonging to Jews.
(Law on the Tax on Spirits, 1887, § 366.)
Outside the boundary of towns and townlets, Jews
may carry on business in spirits, but only in houses
which are their own property, built on ground belong-
ing to them, and acquired by them before 3d May,
1882. But Jews may not deal in spirits in houses and
on ground belonging to them only for life, or of which
they have only a lease. (Ibid., § 363, note 3.)
The brewing of beer and mead for their own domestic
use is permitted in such Jewish settlements as contain
not fewer than ten houses. (Ibid., § 108, note 1.)
Retired soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the
Jewish faith, settled in places outside the Pale of Jewish
Settlement, in accordance with the old privilege, shall
not enjoy the right to deal in spirits in such places.
(Ibid., § 363, note 1.)
In the gubernia of the Kingdom of Poland, Jews are
permitted to retail spirits, but only in towns and town-
Îets; and in such villages as are inhabited by Jews only.
(Ibid., § 363, note 2.)
Jews who have the right to reside permanently in
Siberia may not carry on business there in intoxicants.
(Ibid., § 363, note 4.)
Jews who have removed to Turkestan from the interior
gubernia of the Empire are prohibited from manufac-
turing and dealing in intoxicants in Turkestan. (Ibid.,
§ 102, note 2; § 363, note 5, 1889.)
The clauses of the law forbidding the opening of estab-
lishments for retailing beer and spirits in the vicinity of
churches, houses of prayer, mosques, etc., etc., do not
apply to the vicinity of Jewish synagogues and houses
of prayer. (Ibid., §§ 414, 498 and 499.)
ON INDUSTRIAL PURSUITS.
Jews are not permitted to occupy themselves in gold
mining in places where they are prohibited to reside per-
manently. (Vol. VII., Law on Private Gold Mining,
§ 30, note 1.)
dy
77
Jews not being allowed to occupy themselves in gold
mining cannot be agents for others in that industry.
(Ibid., § 31.)
In those places where trade guilds exist, plasterers,
bricklayers, masons, quarry-men, carpenters and paviors,
as also servants, are exempt from belonging to such
guilds, but not if they belong to the Jewish' faith.
Vol. XI., Law on Industrial Professions, 18871 285.)
In places of permanent Jewish residence Jews cannot
be elected as masters of trade guildsord 306,
notėijda ni to urodzolf to quidziɔ199 42, ni dom
IX
In the committee of trade guilds, consisting of Chris-
tians and Jews, the master and vice master must be non-
JewsIbidi & 888 and -474)e deinol. to moit
ال
·
(۱)
J
In places of the Pale, the governing body of such
guilds are obliged to take note of all Jews as have joined
the guild, so that those Jews may be expelled from the
guild who have not followed their calling during six
months without sufficient cause! (Ibid. § 346)
K
00
}
Jewish working men are allowed to have Christian
apprentices only when at least one of their forenen is a
Christian, and when they have obtained a special autho-
rization from the committee of the guildTold note to
Art. 990!) Invesqad) Ha de boljimbe od od son
Jewish artisans residing outside of the Pale of Settle-
ment may sell only the products of their own workda
license of a guild merchant obtained by these Jews does44
not give them the right of selling articles hot of theinqe
manufacture. Ibid., Artı 193, Resolution 1 of Senate,
1874, No. 731.)¿d bonistgh auoitoiitsup Innoiiqs9x9
Al
I
tografotographers are not permitted to open pho-

Jewish
•
ST
2
tographie establishments butside the Pale of Permanent
Settlement, nor to enjoy as artisans, the right of
Pyntese siding
there. (Circular of the Minister of the Interior, 1875,
Apply 35 No. 4395.figo odd bus zobuj to biod aďt
bas odezng to rodnum sið gnoms sviesos yam 29dko
Jud; aníðainNI CIVIL SERVICE. 2918007b6 ɑTowa
-zim19q 2291920 add duoddiy modd depons dou ysa yoda
It is prohibited to receive Jews into the Civil Serviceoia
except those of the following categories C221 zsroid
78
(1) Jews who have the scientific degree of doctor
or master, or the first class university diploma,
may be admitted in any part of the Empire.
(On Civil Service, vol. III., Art. 7, 46.)
(2) Jews who have a diploma of a physician of the
second class, are admitted into the public
medical service only within the Pale of Settle-
ment. Outside of the Pale they are admitted
only in the department of the Ministry of Edu-
cation, and of the Ministry of the Interior, but
not in St. Petersburg or Moscow, or in their
respective provinces. (Ibid., Art. 57.)
(3) In the Civil Service of the Army, the propor-
tion of Jewish surgeons is limited (since 1882)
to 5 per cent. Promotion is given them only
up to the fifth medical class, but with the con-
sent of the chief commanders of the military
districts. To posts above the fifth class they
are not to be appointed at all. In a hospital
there may be only one Jewish surgeon. To the
district medical administration offices, to the
chief medical administration offices, as well as
to hospitals and offices in fortresses, they are
not to be admitted at all. (Imperial Order,
10th April, 1882.)
The same rule as to the 5 per cent. proportion is to be
applied to military surgeons' assistants and surgeons'
apprentices. (Ibid.)
N. B.-In fact, even the Jews who possess all the
exceptional qualifications determined by the law are
not admitted as a rule into Civil Service, even for the
most subordinate positions. Lately, notwithstanding
the foregoing permissive laws, no Jews have been
admitted as army surgeons.
The board of judges, and the council of sworn advo-
cates, may receive among the number of private and
sworn advocates, persons who are not Christian; but
they may not accept them without the express permis-
sion of the Ministry of Justice. (Collection of Regula-
tions, 1889, No. 127, § 1031.)
79
A special permission of the Ministers of the Interior
and of Justice is required for the reception of non-Chris-
tian private attorneys in the district sessions. (Collec-
tion of Regulations, 1890, No. 47, § 398.)
N. B.-Since the two foregoing regulations were
enacted, not one Jew has been admitted as sworn
advocate or private attorney. [But see note on p. 22.]
ON REPRESENTATION.
The election of Jews, in places of their permanent
residence, to offices which they are allowed to fill, and
which are of secular communal interest, can be effected
only by their own congregational body, and apart from
the elections for the same offices made by the Christian
community. (Vol. IX., Law on Status, § 984.)
The number of non-Christian members of a town
council may not exceed one-third of the entire number
of members. (Local Institutions, 1886, Art. 1982.)
The number of members of the Committee of the
Bourse in Odessa not professing the Christian religion.
must not exceed one-third of the entire number of mem-
bers. The president of the Committee and the govern-
ment broker may not be Jews. (Collection of Regula-
tions, 1890, No. 78, § 794.)
A Jew is not eligible for the post of mayor, nor can
he act as his locum tenens. The number of non-Chris-
tian deputies in the Municipal Council may not exceed
a third of the entire number. (Local Institutions, Art.
2035.)
As Jews have no right to fill the duties of a mayor,
they are altogether excluded from the presidency of muni-
cipal meetings. (Circular of the Local Department of
the Ministry of the Interior, 1879, Oct. 12th, No. 7795.)
Jews are not admitted at all to take part in the
election of members for the local District and Provincial
assemblies,* nor can they be elected to any office in
* Corresponding with English County Councils.
80
these bodies or their Boards. (Statute on Province and
District Local Institutions (Zemstva); § XII. of the Law
sanctioning the Statute of 12th June, 1890; Collect. of Laws
No. 63, § 597.)
N. B. This wholly excludes Jews from local self-gov-
ernment except municipal, and even then their number
is limited to one-third.
By virtue of a general rule as to the eligibility of Jews,
it is enacted that in the composition of official bodies
not more than a third may consist of Jews, so that the
two-thirds and the president must be Christians. (Vol.
IX., Law on Status, § 983.)
Jews may not be elected to fill the office of president
of school boards, whether in District or in Provincial
towns, nor can they be chosen as members of the same
by rural or urban electors. (Collection of Laws, 1889,
No. 13, § 116.)
Jews are not eligible for the offices of mayor or police
counsellors. Nor may they fill any other duties neces-
sary in a town, which either have to be filled exclusively
by Christians, or which from their nature cannot be
conveniently and decently entrusted to Jews. (Vol. IX.,
Law of Status, & 989.)
In the nine Western Provinces, as also in the govern-
ments of Bessarabia, Ekaterinoslav, Poltava, Taurida,
Cherson and Tshernigov, on the appointment by rota-
tion of thirteen jurors and three substitutes, the rule is
to be observed that the number of Jews be in proportion
to the number of Christians as the number of Jewish
inhabitants of each district to the total population.
(Judiciary Law, Regulations on Criminal Procedure, §
550, note, 1886.)
In the nine Western governments, as also in the
gov-
ernments of Bessarabia, Ekaterinoslav, Pultava, Taurida,
Cherson and Tshernigov, the foreman of a jury may
not be a Jew. (Law on Criminal Procedure, § 6701,
1886.)
In the Kingdom of Poland Jews cannot be elders of
81
a hamlet unless it is exclusively inhabited by Jews.
(Civic Regulations of the Kingdom of Poland, book I.,
$16; VII., § 1.)
Jews are eligible for the office of "Lavnik" in ham-
lets inhabited by a mixed population, but only in cases
in which they comprise not fewer than a third of the
population. (Ibid., note 2.)
Jews can be elected to the office of "Soltiss" (bailiff)
only of such hamlets as are exclusively inhabited by
Jews. (Ibid., note 3.)
ON MILITARY SERVICE.
Jewish recruits may not be employed in guarding
quarantine district. (Vol. XXIII., Medical Law, § 1532,
1888; Collection of Military Regulations, part 2, book 1,
§ 1180, note.)
Jewish privates and non-commissioned officers may not
be employed to guard the frontier. (Vol. VI., Law on
Customs, 101, Collection of Military Regulations, part
2, book, 1182, note.)
§
Jews may not serve in the navy. (Collection of Milit.
Regulations, vol. XXXI. (30,484).)
Jews may not serve as gendarmes in the districts of
Warsaw and in the Caucasus; even such Jews as have
embraced Orthodoxy are disqualified from this office.
(Collection of Military Regulations, part 2, book 1, § 1184;
Suppl. § 1, note 1.)
Recruits of Jewish extraction may not be employed in
the navy, nor in the local divisions, nor among the
miners and sappers, nor in the commissariat service, nor
as clerks. Recruits of all other denominations, who
serve in the districts of the Amoor, have the right to
take their families with them at the expense of the State,
on condition of their settling permanently in that district
on their entering the reserve. But Jewish recruits have
not that permission. (Circular of the Principal Staff, 1889,
July 31, No. 180; Instructions, § 24; Suppl. 3, Rules.)
82
Jewish soldiers and non-commissioned officers who are
converts to Orthodoxy may not serve in any regiments
or divisions permanently stationed in gubernia where
Jews are registered. (Collection of Milit. Regulations, part
2, book 1; Vol. V., Suppl. XVIII. (to § 213), 1859, and
additions to the same, first continuation, 1861.)
It is not allowed to employ Jewish soldiers as attend-
ants upon officers. Jewish medical officers in the army,
on the other hand, may employ none but Jewish attend-
ants. (Ibid., § 2129, Suppl. § 39, and note.)
Although Jewish privates may be promoted to become
non-commissioned officers and clerks, yet no further pro-
motion to any military post or position as officer is
allowed. (Ibid., § 568.)
Soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the Jewish
faith, notwithstanding they may have served their time,
and fulfilled the required conditions, may not be ap-
pointed as porteépée younkers* or become candidates for
any post as officer. (Ibid., § 727, note.)
Jewish soldiers and non-commissioned officers who
belong to the reserve, although they may possess a degree
in chemistry not lower than that of dispenser, may not,
in case of a mobilization of the army, be appointed to
fill the post of army dispenser. (Circular of the Princi-
pal Staff, 1888, March 21st; No. 66, Chief Milit. Au-
thorities of Medicine.)
Jewish soldiers and non-commissioned officers are not
allowed to enter the schools for the training of officers.
(Ibid., part 2, book 15, § 506, note.)
In case Jews pass the examination in the subjects
taught at the military schools, the following words shall
be omitted from their certificate "As far as their knowl-
edge is concerned, there is no objection to admitting them
to the military schools (Collection of Regulations,
1882, Sept. 17th, No. 84, § 642; notes by the authorities;
explanation from the Ministry of War.)
""
* An upper degree of non-commissioned officers permitted
to carry swords.
83
Since 1887 Jewish volunteers are no longer admitted
to the examination for the rank of officer, either in the
military schools or in those for the training of officers or
by special commission.
Since 1889 Jews are no longer permitted to serve in
the army as bandmasters, and of young Jewish soldiers
no greater proportion may be appointed as musicians
than one-third of the total number of members of the
band.
Jews belonging to the reserve or being substitutes for
those entering active service, according to the regulations
of the military law, have no right of residence outside
the Pale of Jewish Settlement. (Resolutions of the Sen-
ate, 1st Department, 1885, May 1st, No. 3372.)
The law which forbids Jews from residing outside the
precincts of towns and townlets applies also to Jews
belonging to the reserve or having unlimited furlough,
who have completed their military duties according to
the previous recruiting law. (Resolutions of the Senate,
1st Department, 1885, October 3d; Circular of the Minis-
try of the Interior, November 6th, No. 29.)
ON LEGAL PROCEDURE IN REFERENCE TO
THE JEWS.
In gubernia where Jews are permitted to reside perma-
nently, they are allowed to give evidence in actions con-
cerning such of their co-religionists as have embraced
Christianity, but only in such cases where a sufficient
number of Christian witnesses cannot be found. (Vol.
X., part 2, § 233; vol. XV., part 2, § 251.)
In actions concerning Jews who have embraced
Christianity, Jews may not be admitted as witnesses if
an objection is raised against such admission. (Law on
Criminal Procedure, § 96, note; 4707, note 5; Law on
Military Courts, SS 621, 848; Law of Naval Courts
Martial, §§ 318, 767.)
In the form of oath specially administered to Jews
the following extra words must occur:
"With a pure
84
heart and without mental reservation, but in accordance
with the thoughts and intention of those who administer
the oath to me." (Vol. XI., part 1, Law on Foreign
Denominations, § 1061 (note); Suppl. continued, 1886.)
ON PUNISHMENTS.
No persons, except Rabbis authorized by the Govern-
ment, and their assistants, are allowed to perform the
ceremonies of the Jewish religion, as laid down in the
law concerning alien religious denominations. Those
who infringe this regulation are liable to the following
penalties: For the first offence, imprisonment from four-
teen days to four months; for the second offence to penal
servitude for four years. The head of the family at
whose instance such ceremony has been performed, has to
pay a fine not exceeding twenty roubles. (Criminal
Law, § 302.)
Non-Jews, guilty of concealing military deserters, are
liable to imprisonment from two to four months, or to mil-
itary arrest from three weeks to three months. But a Jew
who has concealed a Jewish deserter, even during ever
so short a time, is liable to penal servitude from twelve
to eighteen months. In addition to this, the members of
the Jewish community where a Jewish deserter has been
concealed, will be sentenced to a fine not exceeding 300
roubles. (Criminal Law, 1885, §§ 528 and 530.)
If a non-Jew evades the fulfilment of his military
duties, the liability, according to §§ 506-520, to punish-
ment lies only upon him personally. But if a Jew
evades the fulfilment of his military duties, his family
is liable to a fine of 300 roubles, over and above his own
personal responsibility. (Law on Military Duty, 1886,
$ 360.)
Non-Jews convicted of contraband importation of
foreign goods, and of smuggling in general, or of partici-
pation in the same, are liable to punishments laid down
in Penal Code, §§ 744-764, 766-781, 784, 787, 790, 801–
817, 819-821. But Jews, besides the ordinary punish-
85
ment, will be removed to a distance of fifty versts from
the frontier, not merely if convicted of smuggling, but
even if suspected of that offence. They may be thus
removed with their families without a regular sentence
by a judge, and merely on the requisition of the Custom
House authorities. (Vol. XIV., Law on Passports, § 23,
note, 1886.)
Persons of all denominations, other than Jewish, who
have infringed the regulations as to the education of
youth, are liable to pay the fines laid down in §§ 1049-
1052 of the Penal Code. But Jewish teachers (melam-
dim), for the same offence, are liable: for the first and
second offences to a fine of twice the amount of the
penalty to which non-Jews are liable under the same
circumstances; for the third offence, over and above the
payment of the fine, to an imprisonment of four to eight
months. (Penal Code, § 1053.)
Jewish colonists, if guilty of negligence in their occu-
pation, or of carrying on a trade not permitted them,
are liable for the first offence to imprisonment of two to
four months, for the second offence to double that pun-
ishment, for the third offence to penal servitude for four
years. (Ibid., § 1056.)
Those who are guilty of building synagogues or houses
of prayer without permission, or who have built such
within the distance from Christian churches prohibited
by law, are liable to a fine not exceeding 200 roubles.
(Ibid., § 1074.)
Persons of all other denominations, who carry on a
trade not permitted them by law, are, if found guilty,
liable, according to § 1169, to a fine not exceeding 300
roubles. But Jews who carry on any trade outside the
Pale of Jewish Settlement are punished by the confisca-
tion of their goods and immediate expulsion. (Ibid., §
1171.)
K
Non-Christians who have performed the ceremony of
marriage on persons who have not reached the age
prescribed by law, or who have performed an illegal
divorce, will, as well as their accomplices, lose their posts
and be imprisoned for a period of two to four months.
86
But Rabbis convicted of such breach of the law for
the second time, will be punished with penal servitude
for four years. (Ibid., § 1579.)
REGULATIONS AS TO FOREIGN JEWS.
Foreign Jews, who obtain by inheritance house or
landed property in Russia, must sell the same within the
period of six months. (Vol. IX., Law on Status, § 960,
vol. XIV., Law on Passports, § 296, 1887.)
Foreign Jews who are not Karaites, are not permitted
to immigrate into Russia, or to become Russian subjects.
(Vol. IX., Law on Status, § 991.)
Every foreigner on producing his passport will be
required to declare, among other things, to which relig-
ious denomination he belongs. (Vol. XIV., Law on
Passports, § 486, note, § 7, 1886.)
Foreign Jews shall be furnished with passports, on
which it shall be expressed that the same is valid only
for such places where the Jews may permanently reside.
(Ibid., §§ 8, 2.)
Foreign Jewish subjects known from their social posi-
tion, and from their large business transactions, on visit-
ing Russia, are permitted to carry on their business
within the Empire, and to found banking houses, subject
to their becoming merchants of the first guild. This can
only take place if a special permission has been granted
to that effect by the Ministers of Finance, of the Interior,
and of Foreign Affairs; such permission must be solicited
again at every renewal of the merchant guild certificate.
(Vol. IX., § 1001, note 1, 1887.)
All foreigners who visit Russia for the purpose of
transacting business, either without becoming Russian
subjects, or with the intention of becoming Russian sub-
jects, are required first to produce a certificate from a
foreign Consistorium, or any other high clerical au-
thority, to the effect that they and their families are
Christians. The same law applies to those who arrive
from the Kingdom of Poland, and from the Grand
Duchy of Finland. (Ibid., note 3.)
87
Jews from Roumania, who have no means of subsist-
ence, will not be admitted into Russia. (Vol. XIV., Law
on Passports, § 487, contin. 1886.)
The local authorities shall keep a strict watch, that no
foreign Jews reside under Christian names in places
where they are prohibited to stay. (Vol. XIV., Law
on Passports, § 531, 1886.)
Foreign Jews may not manage or farm inhabited or
uninhabited estates. (Vol. IX., § 1004.)
General observations.-The restrictive laws hereinbe-
fore enumerated, the stringency of which is sufficiently
obvious, give a very inadequate idea of their full working
effectiveness. Their practical working is intensified by a
series of rulings by the Senate (the Court of Judicature),
which has almost invariably interpreted the laws in a
sense unfavorable to the Hebrews. It may, therefore, be
readily understood that these laws are not only applied,
but overstrained in their scope and intention by the
Russian officials.
OF THE
Jewish Publication Society
OF AMERICA.
OUTLINES OF JEWISH HISTORY. From the Return from Babylon to
the Present Time. By Lady Magnus. (Revised by M. Friedländer.)
PUBLICATIONS
THINK AND THANK. By Samuel W. Cooper.
RABBI AND PRIEST. By Milton Goldsmith.
THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.
VOEGELE'S MARRIAGE AND OTHER TALES. By Louis Schnabel,
CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO: BEING PICTURES OF A PECULIAR
PEOPLE. By I. Zangwill.
SOME JEWISH WOMEN. By Henry Zirndorf.
HISTORY OF THE JEWS. By Prof. H. Graetz.
Vol. I.
From the Earliest Period to the Death of Simon the Mac-
cabee (135 B. C. E.).
From the Reign of Hyrcanus to the Completion of the
Babylonian Talmud (500 C. E.).
Vol. III. From the Completion of the Babylonian Talmud to the
Expulsion of the Jews from England (1290 C. E.).
Vol. IV. From the Rise of the Kabbala (1270 C. E.) to the Permanent
Settlement of the Marranos in Holland (1618 C. E.).
From the Chmielnicki Persecution in Poland (1648 C. E.) to
the Present Time.
Vol. II.
Vol. V.
SABBATH HOURS. Thoughts. By Liebman Adler.
PAPERS OF THE JEWISH WOMEN'S CONGRESS.
OLD EUROPEAN JEWRIES. By David Philipson, D.D.
JEWISH LITERATURE AND OTHER ESSAYS. By Gustav Karpeles.
THE TALMUD. By Emanuel Deutsch.
READINGS AND RECITATIONS. Compiled by Isabel E. Cohen.
STUDIES IN JUDAISM. By S. Schechter.
Dues, $3.00 per Annum.
ALL PUBLICATIONS FOR SALE BY THE TRADE AND
AT THE SOCIETY'S OFFICE.
SPECIAL TERMS TO SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES.
The Jewish Publication Society of America,
Office, 1015 Arch St.
P. O. BOX 1164.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
OUTLINES OF JEWISH HISTORY,
From the Return from Babylon to the Present Time,
1890.
With Three Maps, a Frontispiece and Chronological Tables,
BY LADY MAGNUS.
REVISED BY M. FRIEDLÄNDER, PH. D.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
The entire work is one of great interest; it is written with moderation,
and yet with a fine enthusiasm for the great race which is set before the
reader's mind-Atlantic Monthly.
We doubt whether there is in the English language a better sketch of
Jewish history. The Jewish Publication Society is to be congratulated
on the successful opening of its career. Such a movement, so auspi
ciously begun, deserves the hearty support of the public.-Nation (New
York).
Of universal historical interest.-Philadelphia Ledger.
Compresses much in simple language.-Baltimore Sun.
Though full of sympathy for her own people, it is not without a sin-
gular value for readers whose religious belief differs from that of the
author.-New York Times.
One of the clearest and most compact works of its class produced in
modern times.-New York Sun.
The Jewish Publication Society of America has not only conferred a
favor upon all young Hebrews, but also upon all Gentiles who desire to
see the Jew as he appears to himself.-Boston Herald.
We know of no single-volume history which gives a better idea of the
remarkable part played by the Jews in ancient and modern history.-
San Francisco Chronicle.
-
A succinct, well-written history of a wonderful race.-Buffalo Courier.
The best hand-book of Jewish history that readers of any class can
find.-New York Herald.
A convenient and attractive hand-book of Jewish history.-Cleveland
Plain Dealer.
The work is an admirable one, and as a manual of Jewish history it
may be commended to persons of every race and creed.-Philadelphia
Times.
Altogether it would be difficult to find another book on this subject
containing so much information.-American (Philadelphia).
Lady Magnus' book is a valuable addition to the store-house of litera-
ture that we already have about the Jews.-Charleston (S. C.) News.
We should like to see this volume in the library of every school in the
State.-Albany Argus.
A succinct, helpful portrayal of Jewish history.-Boston Post.
Bound in Cloth.
Price, postpaid, $1.00, Library Edition.
75 cents, Sohool Edition.
"THINK AND THANK."
A Tale for the Young, Narrating in Romantic Form the
Boyhood of Sir Moses Montefiore.
WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS.
BY SAMUEL W. COOPER.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
A graphic and interesting story, full of incident and advenure, with
an admirable spirit attending it consonant with the kindly and sweet,
though courageous and energetic temper of the distinguished philan
thropist.-American (Philadelphia).
THINK AND THANK is a most useful corrective to race pr judice. It
is also deeply interesting as a biographical sketch of a distinguished
Englishman.-Philadelphia Ledger.
A fine book for boys of any class to read.-Public Opinion (Washington).
It will have especial interest for the boys of his race, but all school-
boys can well afford to read it and profit by it.-Albany Evening Journal.
Told simply and well.-New York Sun.
An excellent story for children.-Indianapolis Journal.
The old as well as the young may learn a lesson from it.—Jewish
Exponent.
It is a thrilling story exceedingly well told.-American Israelite.
The book is written in a plain, simple style, and is well adapted fo
Sunday-school libraries.-Jewish Spectator.
It is one of the very few books in the English language which can be
placed in the hands of a Jewish boy with the assurance of arousing and
maintaining his interest.-Hebrew Journal.
Intended for the young, but may well be read by their elders.-Detroit
Free Press.
Bright and attractive reading.-Philadelphia Press.
THINK AND THANK will please boys, and it will be found popular
In Sunday-school libraries.-New York Herald.
The story is a beautiful one, and gives a clear insight into the circum-
stances, the training and the motives that gave impulse and energy to
the life-work of the great philanthropist.—Kansas City Times.
We should be glad to know that this little book has a large circulation
among Gentiles as well as among the "chosen people." It has no trace
of religious bigotry about it, and its perusal cannot but serve to make
Christian and Jew better known to each other.-Philadelphia Telegraph.
Price, postpaid, 50c.
Bound in Cloth.
RABBI AND PRIEST.
A STORY.
BY MILTON GOLDSMITH.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
The author has attempted to depict faithfully the customs and prac
tices of the Russian people and government in connection with the
Jewish population of that country. The book is a strong and well wril-
ten story. We read and suffer with the sufferers.-Public Opinion
(Washington).
Although addressed to Jews, with an appeal to them to seek free-
dom and peace in America, it ought to be read by humane people of all
races and religions. Mr. Goldsmith is a master of English, and his
pure style is one of the real pleasures of the story.-Philadelphia Bulle
tin.
The book has the merit of being well written, is highly entertaining,
and it cannot fail to prove of interest to all who may want to acquaint
themselves in the matter of the condition of affairs that has recently
been attracting universal attention.-San Francisco Call.
RABBI AND PRIEST has genuine worth, and is entitled to a rank
among the foremost of its class.-Minneapolis Tribune.
The writer tells his story from the Jewish standpoint, and tells it
well.--St. Louis Republic.
The descriptions of life in Russia are vivid and add greatly to the
charm of the book.-Buffalo Courier.
A very thrilling story.-Charleston (S. C.) News.
Very like the horrid tales that come from unhappy Russia.-New
Orleans Picayune.
The situations are dramatic; the dialogue is spirited.-Jewish Mes-
senger.
A history of passing events in an interesting form.-Jewish Tidings.
RABBI AND PRIEST will appeal to the sympathy of every reader in its
touching simplicity and truthfulness.-Jewish Spectator.
Bound in Cloth.
Price, Post-paid, $1.
CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO
BEING
PICTURES OF A PECULIAR PEOPLE.
BY I. ZANGWILL.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
The art of a Hogarth or a Cruikshank could not have made types of
character stand out with greater force or in bolder relief than has the
pen of this author.-Philadelphia Record.
It is one of the best pictures of Jewish life and thought that we have
seen since the publication of "Daniel Deronda."-London Pall Mall
Gazette.
This book is not a mere mechanical photographic reproduction of the
people it describes, but a glowing, vivid portrayal of them, with all the
pulsating sympathy of one who understands them, their thoughts and
feelings, with all the picturesque fidelity of the artist who appreciates
the spiritual significance of that which he seeks to delineate.-Hebrew
Journal.
Its sketches of character have the highest value.
Not often
do we note a book so fresh, true and in every way helpful.-Philadelphia
Evening Telegraph.
A strong and remarkable book. It is not easy to find a parallel to it.
We do not know of any other novel which deals so fully and so authori-
tatively with Judæa in modern London.-Speaker, London.
Among the notable productions of the time.
portrayed is unquestionable truth.-Jewish Exponent.
Bound in Cloth.
•
•
TWO VOLUMES.
•
Many of the pictures will be recognized at once by those who have
visited London or are at all familiar with the life of that city.-Detroit
Free Press.
All that is here
It is a succession of sharply-penned realistic portrayals.-Baltimore
American.
Price, postpaid, $2.50.
SABBATH HOURS.
THOUGHTS.
By LIEBMAN ADLER.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
Rabbi Adler was a man of strong and fertile mind, and his sermons
are eminently readable.-Sunday School Times.
pl
As one turns from sermon to sermon, he gathers a wealth of precept,
which, if he would practice, he would make both himself and others
happier. We might quote from every page some noble utterance or
sweet thought well worthy of the cherishing by either Jew or Christian.
-Richmond Dispatch.
The topics discussed are in the most instances practical in their
nature. All are instructive, and passages of rare cloquence are of fre-
quent occurrence.-San Francisco Call.
The sermons are simple and careful studies, sometimes of doctrine,
but more often of teaching and precept.-Chicago Times.
He combined scholarly attainment with practical experience, and
these sermons cover a wide range of subject. Some of them are singu-
larly modern in tone.-Indianapolis News.
They are modern sermons, dealing with the problems of the day, and
convey the interpretation which these problems should receive in the
light of the Old Testament history.-Boston Herald.
While this book is not without interest in those communities where
there is no scarcity of religious teaching and influence, it cannot fail to
be particularly so in those communities where there is but little Jewish
teaching.-Baltimore American.
The sermons are thoughtful and earnest in tone and draw many forci-
ble and pertinent lessons from the Old Testament records.-Syracuse
Herald.
They are saturated with Bible lore, but every incident taken from the
Old Testament is made to illustrate some truth in modern life.-San
Francisco Chronicle.
They are calm and conservative,
applicable in their essential
meaning to the modern religious needs of Gentile as well as Jew. In
style they are eminently clear and direct. - Review of Reviews (New York).
•
Able, forcible, helpful thoughts upon themes most essential to the
prosperity of the family, society and the state.-Public Opinion (Washing-
ton, D. C.).
Bound in Cloth.
Price, postpaid, $1.25,
EUROPEAN JEWRIES
By DAVID PHILIPSON, D.D.
OLD
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
A good purpose is served in this unpretending little book,
which contains an amount and kind of information that it would be
difficult to find elsewhere without great labor. The author's subject is
the Ghetto, or Jewish quarter in European cities.-Literary World
(Boston).
It is interesting
to see the foundation of .
so much
fiction that is familiar to us-to go, as the author here has gone in one
of his trips abroad, into the remains of the old Jewries.-Baltimore Sun.
•
•
His book is a careful study limited to the official Ghetto.-Cincinnati
Commercial-Gazette.
Out-of-the-way information, grateful to the delver in antiquities,
forms the staple of a work on the historic Ghettos of Europe.-Mil-
waukee Sentinel.
He tells the story of the Ghettos calmly, sympathetically and con-
scientiously, and his deductions are in harmony with those of all other
intelligent and fair-minded men.-Richmond Dispatch.
Bound in Cloth
A striking study of the results of a system that has left its mark upon
the Jews of all countries.-San Francisco Chronicle.
He has carefully gone over all published accounts and made discrimi-
nating use of the publications, both recent and older, on his subject, in
German, French and English.-Reform Advocate (Chicago).
Price, Postpaid, $1.25

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 03005 7007
paja, angpen beyton MAUNSEL
AUR

ܘܘ
ܕܬ
ܐܐ