After looking closely at Jewish conditions, White became convinced that the perverted type of Jew which had been painted to him in St. Petersburg "was evolved from the inner consciousness of certain orthodox statesmen, and has no existence in fact." Wherever he went he saw men who were sober, industrious, enterprising business men, efficient artisans, whose physical weakness was merely the result of insufficient nourishment. His visit to the South-Russian colonies convinced him of the fitness of the Jews for colonization.

In short—he writes in his report—if courage—moral courage,—hope, patience, temperance are fine qualities, then the Jews are a fine people. Such a people, under wise direction, is destined to make a success of any well-organized plan, of colonization, whether in Argentina, Siberia, or South Africa.

On his return to London, White submitted a report to Baron Hirsch, stating the above facts, and also pointing out that the assistance which should he rend red to the emigration work by the Russian Government ought to take the form of granting permission to organize in Russia emigration committees, of relieving the emigrants of the passport tax, [1] and of allowing them free transportation up to the Russian border.

[Footnote 1: The tax levied on passports for travelling abroad amounting to fifteen rubles ($7.50).]

2. THE JEWISH COLONIZATION ASSOCIATION AND COLLAPSE OF THE ARGENTINIAN SCHEME

White's report was discussed by Baron Hirsch in conjunction with the leading Jews of Western Europe. As a result, the decision was reached to establish a society which should undertake on a large scale the colonization of Argentina and other American territories with Russian Jews. The society was founded in London in the autumn of 1891, under the name of the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), in the form of a stock company, with a capital of fifty million francs which was almost entirely subscribed by Baron Hirsch. White was dispatched to St. Petersburg a second time to obtain permission for organizing the emigration committees in Russia and to secure the necessary privileges for the emigrants. The English delegate, who was familiar with the frame of mind of the leading Government circles in Russia, unfolded before them the far-reaching plans of Baron Hirsch. The Jewish Colonization Association was to transplant 25,000 Jews to Argentina in the course of 1892 and henceforward to increase progressively the ratio of emigrants, so that in the course of twenty-five years, 3,250,000 Jews would be taken out of Russia.

This brilliant perspective of a Jewish exodus cheered the hearts of the neo-Egyptian dignitaries. Their imagination caught fire. When the question came up before the Committee of Ministers, the Minister of the Navy, Chikhachev, proposed to pay the Jewish Colonization Association a bonus of a few rubles for each emigrant and thus enable it to transfer no less than 130,000 people during the very first year, so that the contemplated number of 3,250,000 might be distributed evenly over twenty-five years. A suggestion was also made to transplant the Jews with their own money, i.e., to use the residue of the Jewish meat tax for that purpose, but the suggestion was not considered feasible. The official chronicler testifies that "the fascinating proposition of Baron Hirsch appeared to the Russian Government hardly capable of realization." Nevertheless, prompted by the hope that at least part of the contemplated millions of Jews would leave Russia, the Government sanctioned the establishment of a Central Committee of the Jewish Colonization Association in St. Petersburg, with branches in the provinces. It further promised to issue to the emigrants free of charge permits to leave the country and to relieve them from military duty on condition that they never return to Russia.

In. May, 1893, the constitution of the Jewish Colonization Association was ratified by the Tzar. At that time the emigration tide of the previous year was gradually ebbing. The flight from Russia to North and South America had reached its climax in the summer and autumn of 1891. The expulsion from Moscow as well as alarming rumors of imminent persecutions, on the one hand, and exaggerated news about the plans of Baron Hirsch, on the other, had resulted in uprooting tens of thousands of people. Huge masses of refugees had flocked to Berlin, Hamburg, Antwerp, and London, imploring to be transferred to the United States or to the Argentinian colonies. Everywhere relief committees were being organized, but there was no way of forwarding the emigrants to their new destination, particularly to Argentina, where the large territories purchased by Hirsch were not yet ready for the reception of colonists. Baron Hirsch was compelled to send out an appeal to all Jewish communities, calling upon they to stem for the present this disorderly human avalanche.

Ere long Baron Hirsch's dream of transplanting millions of people with millions of money proved an utter failure. When, after long preparations, the selected Jewish colonists were at last dispatched to Argentina, it was found that the original figure of 25,000 emigrants calculated for the first year had shrunk to about 2500. Altogether, during the first three years, from 1892 to 1894, the Argentinian emigration absorbed some six thousand people. Half of these remained in the capital of the republic, in Buenos Ayres, while the other half managed to settle in the colonies, after enduring all the hardships connected with an agricultural colonization in a new land and under new climatic conditions. A few years later it was commonly realized that the mountain had given birth to a mouse. Instead of the million Jews, as originally planned, the Jewish Colonization Association succeeded in transplanting during the first decade only 10,000 Jews, who were distributed over six Argentinian colonies.

The main current of Jewish emigration flowed as heretofore in the direction of North America, towards the United States and Canada. In the course of the year 1891, with its numerous panics, the United States alone absorbed more than 100,000 emigrants, over 42,000 of whom succeeded in arriving the same year, while 76,000 were held back in various European centers and managed to come over the year after. The following two years show again the former annual ratio of emigration, wavering between 30,000 to 35,000.

The same fateful year of 1891 gave rise to a colonization fever even in quiet Palestine. Already in the beginning of 1890 the Russian Government had legalized the Palestinian colonization movement in Russia by sanctioning the constitution of the "Society for Granting Assistance to Jewish Colonists and Artisans in Syria and Palestine," which had its headquarters in Odessa. [1] This sanction enabled the Hobebe Zion societies which were scattered all over the country to group themselves around a legalized center and collect money openly for their purposes. The Palestinian propaganda gained a new lease of life. This propaganda, which was intensified in its effect by the emigration panic of the "terrible year," resulted in the formation of a number of societies in Russia with the object of purchasing land in Palestine. In the beginning of 1891 delegates of these societies suddenly appeared in Palestine en masse, and, with the co-operation of a Jaffa representative of the Odessa Palestine Society, began feverishly to buy up the land from the Arabs. This led to a real estate speculation which artificially raised the price of land. Moreover, the Turkish Government became alarmed, and forbade the wholesale colonization of Jews from Russia. The result was a financial crash.

[Footnote 1: The first president of the Society was the exponent of the idea of "Antoemancipation," Dr. Leon Pinsker, who occupied this post until his death, at the end of 1891.]

The attempt at a wholesale immigration into destitute Palestine with its primitive patriarchal conditions proved a failure. During the following years the colonization of the Holy Land with Russian Jews proceeded again at a slow pace. One colony after another rose gradually into being. A large part of the old and the new settlers were under the charge of Baron Rothschild's administration, with the exception of two or three colonies which were maintained by the Palestine Society in Odessa. It was evident that, in view of the slow advance of the Palestinian colonization, its political and economic importance for the Russian-Jewish millions was practically nil and that its only advantage over and against the American emigration day in its spiritual significance, in the fact that on the historic soil of Judaism there there rose into being a small Jewish center with a purer national culture than was possible in the Diaspora. This idea was championed by Ahad Ha'am[1], the exponent of the neo-Palestine movement, who had made his first appearance in Hebrew literature in 1889 and in a short time forged his way to the front.

[Footnote 1: "One of the People," the Hebrew pen-name of Asher Ginzberg.]

3. CONTINUED HUMILIATIONS AND DEATH OF ALEXANDER III.

In the meantime, in the land of the Tzars events went their own course. The Moscow tragedy was nearing its end, but its last stages were marked by scenes reminiscent of the times of the inquisition. After banishing from Moscow the larger part of the Jewish population, the governor-general, Grand Duke Sergius, made up his mind to humble the remaining Jewish population of the second Russian capital so thoroughly that its existence in the center of Greek Orthodoxy might escape public public notice. The eyes of the Russian officials at Moscow were offended by the sight of the new beautiful synagogue structure which had been finished in the fateful year of the expulsion. At first, orders were given to remove from the top of the building the large cupola capped by the Shield of David, which attracted the attention of all passers-by. Later on, the police, without any further ado, shut down the synagogue, in which services had already begun to be held, pending the receipt of a new special permit to re-open it. Rabbi Minor of Moscow and the warden of the synagogue addressed a petition to the governor-general, in which they begged permission to hold services in the building, the construction of which had been duly sanctioned by the Government, pointing to the fact that Judaism was one of the religions tolerated in Russia. In answer to their petition, they received the following stern reply from St. Petersburg, dated September 23, 1892:

His Imperial Majesty, after listening to a report of the Minister of the Interior concerning the willful opening of the Moscow Synagogue by Rabbi Minor and Warden Schneider, was graciously pleased to command as follows:

First. Rabbi Minor of Moscow shall be dismissed from his post and transferred for permanent residence to the Pale of Jewish Settlement.

Second. Warden Schneider shall be removed from the precincts of Moscow for two years.

Third. The Jewish Synagogue Society shall be notified that, unless, by January 1, 1893, the synagogue structure will have been sold or transformed into a charitable institution, it will be sold at public auction by the gubernatorial administration of Moscow.

The rabbi and the warden went into exile, while the dead body of the murdered synagogue—its structure—was saved from desecration by placing in it one of the schools of the Moscow community.

The fight against the places of Jewish worship was renewed by the police a few years later, during the reign of Nicholas II. The principal synagogue being closed, the Jews of Moscow were compelled to hold services in uncomfortable private premises. There were fourteen houses of prayer of this kind in various parts of the city, but, on the eve of the Jewish Passover of 1894, the governor-general gave orders to close nine of these houses, so that the religious needs of a community of ten thousand souls had to be satisfied in five houses of worship, situated in narrow, unsanitary quarters. The Government had achieved its purpose. The synagogue was humbled into the dust, and its sight no longer offended the eyes of the Greek-Orthodox zealots. The Jews of Moscow were forced to pour out their hearts before God in some back yards, in the stuffy atmosphere of private dwellings. As in the days of the Spanish inquisition, these private houses of worship would, on the solemn days of Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, be stealthily visited by the "marranos" of Moscow, those Jews who had saved themselves from the wholesale expulsions by fictitious conversion to Christianity. The passionate prayers of repentance of these involuntary apostates rose up to heaven as they had done in centuries gone-by from the underground synagogues of Seville, Toledo, and Saragossa.

By and by, the attempt to take the Jewish citadel by storm gave way to the former regular state of siege, which had for its object to starve out the Jews. The municipal counterreform of 1892 dealt a severe political blow to Russian Jewry. Under the old law, the number of Jewish aldermen in the municipal administration had been limited to one-third of the total number of aldermen, aside from the prohibition barring the Jews from the office of burgomaster [1]. Notwithstanding these restrictions, the Jews played a conspicuous part in municipal self-government, and could boast of a number of prominent municipal workers. This activity of the Jews went against the grain of the inquisitorial trio, Pobyedonostzev, Durnovo, and Plehve, and they decided to bar the Jews completely from participation in the municipal elections.

[Footnote 1: See p. 198 et seq.]

The reactionary, anti-democratic "Municipal Regulation" of 1892 proclaimed publicly this new Jewish disfranchisement. The new law deprived the Jews of their right of passive and active election to the municipal Dumas, merely granting the local administration the right to appoint at its pleasure a number of Jewish aldermen, not to exceed one-tenth of the total membership of the Duma. Moreover, these Jewish aldermen "by the grace of the police" were prohibited from serving on the executive organs of the Duma, the administrative council, and the various standing committees. As a result, even there where the Jews formed sixty and seventy per cent of the total urban population, their only representatives in the municipal administration were men who were the willing tools of the municipal powers and who, moreover, were quantitatively restricted to five or ten per cent of the total number of aldermen.

In this wise, the law providing for an inverse ratio of popular representation came into effect: four-fifths of the population were limited to one-tenth of the number of aldermen, while one-fifth of it were granted nine-tenths of aldermen in the city government. The law seemed to tell the Jews: "True, in a given city you may form the overwhelming majority of tax-payers, yet the city property shall not be managed by you but by the small Christian, minority which shall do with you as it pleases."

It goes without saying that the Christian minority, which was not infrequently hostile to the Jews, managed the city affairs in a manner subversive of the interests of the majority. Even the imposts on special Jewish needs, such as the meat and candle tax, were often used by the the municipal Dumas towards the maintenance of institutions and schools to to which Jews were admitted in an insignificant number or not admitted at at all. This condition of affairs was in full accord with the medieval medieval Church canons: A Jew living in a Christian country has no right to to dispose of any property and must remain in slavish subjection to his his Christian fellow-citizens.

A number of laws passed during that period are of such a nature as to admit of but one explanation, the desire to insult and humiliate the Jew and to brand him by the medieval Cain's mark of persecution. The law, issued in 1893, "Concerning Names" threatens with criminal prosecution those Jews who in their private life call themselves by names differing in form from those recorded in the official registers. The practice of many educated Jews to Russianize their names, such as Gregory, instead of Hirsch, Vladimir, instead of Wolf, etc., could now land the culprits in prison. It was even forbidden to correct the disfigurements to which the Jewish names were generally subjected in the registers, such as Yosel, instead of Joseph; Srul, instead of Israel; Itzek, instead of Isaac, and so on. In several cities the police brought action against such Jews "for having adopted Christian names" in newspaper advertisements, on visiting cards, or on door signs.

The new Passport Regulation of 1894 orders to insert in all Jewish passports a physical description of their owners, even in the case of their being literate and, therefore, being able to affix their signature to the passport, whereas such description was omitted from the passports of literate Christians. In some places the police deliberately tried to make the Jewish passports more conspicuous by marking on them the denomination of the owner in red ink. Even in those rare instances in which the law was intended to bring relief, the Government managed to emphasize its hostile intent. The law of 1893, legalizing the Jewish heder and putting an end to the persecutions, which this traditional Jewish school had suffered at the hands of the police, narrowed at the same time its function to that of an exclusively religious institution and indirectly forbade the teaching in it of general secular subjects. There are cases on record in which the keepers of these heders, the so-called melammeds, were put on trial for imparting to their pupils a knowledge of Russian and arithmetic.

However, the most effective whip in the hands of the Government remained as theretofore the expulsion from the governments of the interior. In 1893, this whip cracked over the backs of thousands of Jewish families. Durnovo, the Minister of the Interior, issued a circular, repealing the old decree of 1880, which had sanctioned the residence outside the Pale of Settlement of all those Jews who had lived there previously.[1] That decree had been prompted by the motive to prevent the complete economic ruin of the Jews who were settled in places outside the Pale and had created there industrial enterprises. But such a motive, which even the anti-Semitic Ministry of Tolstoi had not been bold enough to disregard, did not appeal to the new Hamans. Many thousands of Jewish families, who had lived outside the Pale for decades, were threatened with exile. The difficulties attending the execution of this wholesale expulsion forced the Government to make concessions. In the Baltic provinces the banishment of the old settlers was repealed, while in the Great Russian governments it was postponed for a year or two.

[Footnote 1: Compare p. 404.]

There was a particularly spiteful motive behind the imperial ukase of 1893, excluding the Crimean resort place Yalta from the Pale of Settlement, [1] and ordering the expulsion from there of hundreds of families which were not enrolled in the local town community. No official reason was given for this new disability, but everybody knew it. In the neighborhood of Yalta was the imperial summer residence Livadia, where Alexander III. was fond of spending the autumn, and this circumstance made it imperative to reduce the number of the local Jewish residents to a negligible quantity. To avert the complete ruin of the victims, many were granted reprieves, but after the expiration of their terms they were ruthlessly deported. The last batches of exiles were driven from Yalta in the month of October and in the beginning of November, 1894, during the days of public mourning for the death of Alexander III. On October 20, the Tzar was destined to die in the neighborhood of the town which was purged of the Jewish populace for his benefit. While the earthly remains of the dead emperor were carried on the railroad tracks to St. Petersburg, trains filled with Jewish refugees from Yalta were rolling on the parallel tracks, speeding towards the Pale of Settlement.

[Footnote 1: The Crimean peninsula, forming part of the government of Tavrida, is situated within the Pale.]

Such was the symbolic finale of the reign of Alexander III. which lasted fourteen years. Having begun with pogroms, it ended with expulsions. The martyred nation stood at the threshold of the new reign with a silent question on its lip: "What next?"

THE END