History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume 1 of 3. From the Beginning until the Death of Alexander I (1825)

The papers lamented the loss of the hero. A representative of the Polish aristocracy, the proud Stanislav Pototzki, devoted a special discourse to his memory at a meeting of the "Society of the Friends of Science" in Warsaw.

Thou hast saddened – thus spoke the orator – the land of heroes, thou valiant Colonel Berek, when unmeasured boldness drove thee into the midst of the enemy… Well doth the fatherland remember also thy old wounds and thy former exploits, remember eternally that thou wast the first to give thy people an example, an example of rejuvenated heroism, and that thou hast resuscitated the image of those men of valor over whom in days gone by wept the daughters of Zion.

The Polish nation remembered, and that for a short time only, the one Berek; but the thousands of his oppressed brethren were forgotten. The only way in which the gratitude of the "fatherland" manifested itself was a special order of the Duke granting permission to Berek's widow, who found it difficult to live and bring up her children on her scanty pension, to reside in the streets of Warsaw from which the Jews were barred, and "to engage there in the sale of liquor." Other civil privileges the Jews could not hope for, even by way of exception.

This state of affairs could not very well inspire the Jewish population with a great love for military service, although the Jews had been graciously permitted to discharge it in person. With few exceptions, the Jews preferred to pay an additional tax rather than spill their blood for a country which offered them obligations without rights. The decree of January 29, 1812, legalized this substitution of personal military service by a monetary ransom, the grand total of which amounted to 700,000 gulden a year.

On the brink of destruction, during the war tempest of 1812, the Duchy of Warsaw still found leisure to strike an economic blow at the Jews. At the suggestion of Minister Lubenski, a ducal decree was issued on September 30 forbidding the Jews, after the lapse of two years, to sell liquor and keep taverns, which meant, in other words, that tens of thousands of Jewish families were to be deprived of their livelihood. Secretly the Government justified this measure by the impending augmentation of the territory of the Duchy and the restoration of Old Poland, where strict economic measures were necessary to keep the returning Jewish population in bounds. But the confidence reposed in the power of Napoleon was not justified. The idol was overthrown. The Duchy of Warsaw, the pale specter of an independent Poland, vanished into air, and the fate of the country again lay in the hands of the three Powers that had divided it, particularly Russia. The millions of Jews in Russian Poland were well aware of what they had to expect at the hands of their new rulers.

CHAPTER IX

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE RUSSIAN RÉGIME

1. The Jewish Policy of Catherine II. (1772-1796)

The quarantine which Russia, prior to Catherine II., had established for the "enemies of Christ," was broken through in 1772 by the first partition of Poland. At one stroke the number of Russian subjects was swelled by the huge Jewish masses of White Russia. The Russian Empire was augmented by a new province adjoining its central possessions, and together with the new region and its variegated population it acquired hundreds of thousands of subjects of the kind it had hitherto ruthlessly driven beyond its borders.

What was to be done with the unwelcome heritage bequeathed by Poland? The primitive policy of an Elizabeth Petrovna might have dictated some barbarous measure, such as the wholesale expulsion of the Jews from the newly-acquired territory. But the statesmanlike intellect of a Catherine could not, during the formulation of the liberal "Instructions,"234 admit such barbarism, which moreover would have been incompatible with the new pledges the Russian Government had found it necessary to give to the heterogeneous population of White Russia at the time of annexation. In the "Placard" issued on this occasion by Count Chernyshev, the first Governor-General of White Russia, all residents, "of whatever birth and calling," were "solemnly assured by the sacred name and word of the Empress," that their religious liberty as well as their personal rights, and the privileges attaching to property and estate, would remain inviolate.

This "assurance" included the Jews, though not without qualification, as is shown by this passage:

From the aforesaid solemn assurance of the free exercise of religion and the inviolability of property for one and all, it follows of itself that also the Jewish communities residing in the cities and territories now incorporated into the Russian Empire will be left in the enjoyment of all those liberties which they possess at present, in accordance with the [Russian] law and [their own] property. For the humaneness of her Imperial Majesty will not allow her to exclude the Jews alone from the grace vouchsafed to all and from the future prosperity under her beneficent rule, so long as they on their part shall live in due obedience as faithful subjects, and shall limit themselves to the pursuit of genuine trade and commerce according to their callings.

To be sure, the Jews, in contradistinction to the rest of the population, are promised the high Imperial favor on condition of "due obedience." Yet the inviolability of their former rights was solemnly guaranteed, and Russian politics had henceforward to be guided by it.

Immediately on the annexation of the new province a general census was ordered. According to the testimony of a contemporary, the number of Jews in White Russia was found to amount to over forty thousand families, about two hundred thousand souls. An ukase of 1772 imposed upon them a per capita tax of one rubel (50c.). The annexed territory was divided into two Governments, those of Moghilev and Polotzk, or, as it is called at present, Vitebsk. In the interest of the regular collection of taxes, the administration from the very beginning gave instructions "to have all Jews affiliate with the Kahals and to institute such [Kahals] as the governors may suggest or as necessity for them may arise."

The problems connected with the inner organization of the Jews were of a more complicated character. Far-reaching changes were taking place at that time in the provincial and the social organization of the Russian Empire. In 1775 was promulgated the "Regulation Concerning the Governments."235 In 1785 was issued the "Act Concerning Municipal Administration,"236 and the authorities were confronted by an alternative: either to place the Jews under the general laws, according to the estate to which they belonged (in the cities the mercantile class, the burghers, and the trade-unions), or, in view of their peculiar conditions of life and the Kahal autonomy inherited from Poland, allow them to retain their own institutions as part of their communal and spiritual self-government. It was a difficult problem, and Russian legislation at first wavered between these two ways of solving it, with the result that matters became muddled. The interference of the local administration and the old rivalry among the various estates made confusion worse confounded.

The ukase issued by the Senate in 1776 sanctioned the existence of the Kahal, regarding it primarily as a fiscal and legislative institution, which the Russian administration found convenient for its purposes. At the instance of Governor-General Chernyshev, the Jews of White Russia were set apart as a separate tax-unit and as an estate of their own. They were to be entered on special registers in the towns, townlets, villages, and hamlets, wherever a census was taken. The instructions read that

in order that their taxes may be more regularly remitted to the exchequer, Kahals shall be established in which they [the Jews] shall all be enrolled, so that every one of the "Zhyds,"237 whenever he shall desire to travel somewhere on business, or to live and settle in one place or another, or to take anything on lease, shall receive a passport from the Kahal. The same Kahal shall pay the head-tax, and turn it over to the provincial exchequer.

Thus, as regards the payment of taxes, and the rights not only of transit but also of business, every Jew was placed in the same position of dependence on his Kahal as under the old Polish régime. At the same time the Kahal was endowed with certain judicial functions. District and Government Kahals, the latter conceived as courts of appeal, were established for cases between Jews, each of these Kahals being assigned a definite number of elective judges. Only lawsuits between Jews and non-Jews were to be brought before the general magistracy courts.

But a few years later the Government was shaken in its resolve to uphold the former Kahal organization to its full extent. In 1782 an inquiry was addressed by the Senate to Passek, the new Governor-General of White Russia, as to the legality of establishing special Jewish law courts. A year later the Government took a decided step in the opposite direction. It recognized the rights of Jews registered in the merchant class to participation in the general city government, to elect and to be elected on equal terms with the Christian members of the magistracies, town councils, and municipal courts. The realization of this reform was greatly hampered by the opposition of the Christian merchants and burghers, who hated the Jews, and could not reconcile themselves to the municipal equality of their competitors. Having accustomed themselves to look down upon the Jews as citizens of an inferior grade, the Christian city officials assumed a hostile attitude towards their Jewish colleagues who had been elected to public posts, and by electioneering methods managed to reduce their numbers in the city corporations to a minimum. The interests of the Jews were bound to suffer, particularly as far as the administration of justice was concerned.

On the other hand, the administration itself began to oppress them. The liberal Chernyshev was superseded by the anti-Jewish Passek, who did his utmost to restrict the Jews in their economic activities, to the obvious advantage of their competitors in the ranks of the Shlakhta and the Christian merchants.

The Jews – a contemporary who had himself been affected by these measures informs us – were driven from their breweries and distilleries, their toll-houses, hostelries, etc., which formed their principal means of livelihood. Thousands of families were reduced to beggary. In addition, new restrictions were introduced affecting business, handicrafts, and so forth.

The acuteness of the economic and social crisis among the Jews of White Russia during that period of transition is evidenced by the petition which their delegates submitted in 1784 to Catherine II.

The petition, consisting of six points, is permeated with a profound feeling of despair. The Jews complain that the administration has deprived them completely of their main sources of income: distilling, brewing, and liquor-selling in the cities. They furthermore point out that Governor-General Passek has forbidden the landed proprietors to lease the inns on their estates to Jews, and that in consequence a large number of families, who depended for their livelihood on some form of liquor-selling and innkeeping, had been brought to the verge of ruin. They also contend that the Jews had not reaped the expected benefits from the equal municipal rights conferred upon them, for where the Jews are in a minority not a single Jewish candidate is admitted to a municipal or judicial office, "so that whenever a Jew goes to law against a Christian, he is liable to become the victim of a partial verdict, because there is no coreligionist to intercede on his behalf in the courts, and he is not familiar with the Russian language." Their further grievances relate to the arbitrariness of the landed proprietors, who "from sheer caprice, contrary to agreement," impose an excessive land rent on the Jews who have erected houses on their property, so that they are forced to abandon their houses. Sometimes houses are requisitioned for Government purposes, or are torn down "to be rebuilt according to [new official street] plans," without the slightest compensation to their owners. The magistracies, on the other hand, often compel the Jews who are domiciled in the townlets and villages, but are enrolled among the merchants or burghers of some city, to build houses in that city, "whereby the Jews are liable to be reduced to extreme poverty, inasmuch as by spending their capital on building they have no capital wherewith to run their business."

The petition was received by the Empress, who, in forwarding it, in 1785, to the Senate for consideration, deemed it necessary to indicate her general attitude in the following "resolution":

Her Majesty desires to have it pointed out that, inasmuch as the aforesaid persons of the Jewish religion have been placed by the ordinances of her Majesty in the same position as the others, it is necessary in every case to observe the rule that everyone is entitled to the advantages and rights appertaining to his calling or estate, without distinction of religion or nationality.

The Senate had to comply with the comprehensive and liberal-minded injunction of the Empress in endeavoring to solve the burning problems affecting Jewish life. The solution finally arrived at was a feeble compromise between the economic, national, and class interests which were contradictory to one another. In its ukase of May 7, 1786, the Senate partly fulfilled and partly declined the demands of the White Russian Jews. The right of pursuing freely the liquor trade in the cities was refused, in view of the fact that, according to the new law, liquor-dealing constituted a monopoly of the city administration. On the other hand, the Jews were accorded the rights of participating on equal terms with non-Jews in the public bids for the lease of the pothouses. Passek's rescript forbidding the landowners to let out distilleries and inns to the Jews was declared an illegal infringement of the rights of the landowners, and therefore ordered to be countermanded.

The complicated question as to the compatibility of municipal self-government with Jewish Kahal autonomy was equally solved by a compromise. With respect to the magistracies, town councils, boards of aldermen, and law courts, the Jews were accorded proportionate representation in agreement with the general provisions of the new city government. The common municipal courts, in which Jews were to be represented by elective jurymen of their own, were to handle both civil and criminal cases, not only between persons of different denominations, but also between Jew and Jew. The District and Government Kahals were to deal with spiritual affairs only. They were also to be charged with the distribution of the state and communal taxes in the various Jewish communities.

As for the complaints of the Jews against the oppression of the administration as well as of the magistracies and the landowners, all the Senate did was to point to the principle by which all the members of a given estate are equally vouchsafed the rights appertaining to it. The Senate even went so far as to bar all references to the former Polish laws with their discriminations against the Jews, "for, inasmuch as they [the Jews] are enrolled among the merchants and burghers on the same terms, and pay equal taxes to the exchequer, they ought in all circumstances to be given the same protection and satisfaction as the other subjects." Yet in the very same ukase the Senate refuses to grant the petition of several White Russian Jews who asked to be enrolled in the merchant corporation of Riga, basing its refusal on the absence of a special Imperial permit allowing the Jews to register as merchants outside of White Russian territory.

Here we have the first application of the ignominious principle of subsequent Russian legislation, that everything is forbidden to Jews unless permitted by special law. The ukase of 1786, with all its liberal phrases about the equality of the members of all classes irrespective of religion, imperceptibly instituted a Pale of Settlement by attaching the Jews to definite localities, which had been wrested from Poland, and refusing them the right of residence in other parts of Russia. The implied criticism of the Senate, directed against "the former Polish laws with their discriminations against the Jews," could with far greater justice be leveled in much sharper form against the Russian legislation which subsequently curtailed the Jewish right of transit and commerce to an extent undreamt-of even by the fiercest anti-Jewish restrictionists of Poland.

While in the first two decades after the occupation of White Russia the Russian Government observed a comparatively liberal, at least a well-intentioned, attitude towards the Jewish question, in later years it openly embarked upon a policy of exceptional laws and restrictions. The general reactionary tendency, which was partly the result of the "ominous" successes of the great French Revolution, and gained the upper hand in Russia towards the end of Catherine's reign, was mirrored also in the position of the Jews. At that juncture the second and third partitions of Poland (1793, 1795) were effected, and hundreds of thousands of Jews from Lithuania, Volhynia, and Podolia were added to the numbers of Russian subjects. The country, which barely a generation before had not tolerated a single Jew within its borders, now included a territory more densely populated by Jews than any other. Some means of reconciliation had to be found between these historic opposites, the traditional anti-Jewish policy of Russia, on the one hand, and the presence of millions of Jews within its dominions, on the other, and such means were found in that system of Jewish rightlessness which since that time has become one of the principal characteristics of the political genius of Russian autocracy. The ancient Muscovite policy peeped out with ever greater boldness from beneath the European mask of St. Petersburg.

On the very eve of the second partition of Poland, when the Russian Government merely anticipated an influx of Jews, it had a fatal gift in store for them: the law of the Pale of Settlement, which was to create within the monarchy of peasant serfs a special class of territorially restricted city serfs. It should be added that the impulse towards the creation of this disability did not come from above but from below, from the influential Christian middle class, which, fearing free competition, began to shout for protection.

The first step in robbing the Jews of Russia of their freedom of movement was made a few years after the occupation of White Russia. The Jewish merchants of the White Russian Governments Moghilev and Polotzk (or, as the latter is called at present, Vitebsk) which border on the Great Russian Governments of Smolensk and Moscow, began to visit the two cities of the same name and carry on trade, wholesale and retail, in imported dry goods. They did a good business, for the Jewish merchants sold goods of a higher quality at a lower figure than their Christian competitors. This set the merchants of Moscow agog, and in February, 1790, they lodged a complaint with the commander-in-chief of Moscow against the Jews who sell "foreign goods by lowering the current prices, and thereby inflict very considerable damage upon the local trade." The complainants point to the ancient tradition of the Muscovite Empire excluding the Jews from its borders, and assure the authorities that Jewish rivalry will throw the trade of Moscow into complete "disorder," and bring the Russian merchants to the verge of ruin.

The petition, which at bottom was directed not alone against the Jews, but also against the interests of the Russian consumer, who was exploited by the "real Russian" trade monopolists, found a sympathetic echo in Government circles. Accordingly, in the autumn of the same year, the Council of State, after considering the counter-petition of the Jews asking to be enrolled in the merchant corporations of Smolensk and Moscow, rendered the decision that it did not deem it expedient to grant the Jews the right of free commerce in the inner Russian provinces, because "their admission to it is not found to be of any benefit." A year later this verdict was reaffirmed by an Imperial ukase issued on December 23, 1791, to the effect that "the Jews have no right to enroll in the merchant corporations in the inner Russian cities or ports of entry, and are permitted to enjoy only the rights of townsmen and burghers of White Russia." To mitigate the severity of this measure the ukase "deemed it right to extend the said privilege beyond the White Russian Government, to the vice-royalty of Yekaterinoslav and the region of Tavrida," i. e. the recently annexed territory of New Russia, where the Government was anxious to populate the lonely steppes.

In this way the first territorial ghetto, that of White Russia, was established by law for the purpose of harboring the Jewish population taken over from Poland. When again, two years later, the second partition of Poland took place, the northwestern ghetto was increased by the neighboring Government of Minsk and the southwestern region – Volhynia with the greater part of the Kiev province and Podolia. The ukase of June 23, 1794, conferred upon this enlarged Pale of Settlement the sanction of the law. The Jews were granted the right "to engage in the occupations of merchants and burghers in the Governments of Minsk, Izyaslav (subsequently Volhynia), Bratzlav (Podolia), Polotzk (now Vitebsk), Moghilev, Kiev, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk, Yekaterinoslav, as well as in the region of Tavrida." The ukase thus enlarges the former pale of Jewish settlement by including Little Russia, or the portion of the Ukraina which had been wrested from Poland as far back as 1654,238– in short, the territory from which the Jews had been assiduously driven "beyond the border" in the reign of the three Empresses preceding Catherine. The organic connection of Little Russia with the portion of the Ukraina on the right bank of the Dnieper which had just been annexed from Poland, left the Russian Government no other choice than to allow the Jews who had lived in those parts from time immemorial to remain there. Even the holy city of Kiev opened its gates to the Jews. The Dnieper became thereby the central river of the Jewish Pale of Settlement.

The third partition of Poland, in 1795, added to the Dnieper system that of the Niemen, the territory of Lithuania, consisting of the Governments of Grodno and Vilna.239 This completed the process of formation of the Pale of Settlement, at the end of the eighteenth century. As for Eastern Russia, she was just as vigilantly on her guard against the penetration of the Jewish element as she had been in the time of the ancient Muscovite Empire.

The same ukase of 1794, which circumscribed the area of the Jewish right of residence, laid down another fundamental discrimination, that of taxation. The Jews, desirous of enrolling themselves in the mercantile or burgher class in the cities, were to pay the instituted taxes "doubly in comparison with those imposed on the burghers and merchants of the Christian religion." Those Jews who refused to remain in the cities on these conditions were to leave the Russian Empire after paying a fine in the form of a double tax for three years. In this way the Government exacted from the Jews, for the privilege of remaining in their former places without the right of free transit in the Empire, taxes twice as large as those of the Christian townspeople enjoying the liberty of transit. This punitive tax did not relieve the Jews from the special military assessment, which, by the ukases of 1794 and 1796, they had to pay, like the Russian mercantile class in general, in exchange for the personal discharge of military service.

It is interesting to observe that at the solicitation of Count Zubov, the Governor-General of New Russia, the Karaites of the Government of Tavrida were released from the double tax. They were also granted permission to own estates, and were in general given equal rights with the Christian population, "on the understanding, however, that the community of Karaites should not be entered by the Jews known by the name of Rabins (Rabbanites), concerning whom the laws enacted by us are to be rigidly enforced" (ukase of June 8, 1795). Here the national-religious motive of the anti-Jewish legislation crops out unmistakably. The handful of Karaites, who had for centuries lived apart from the Jewish nation and its spiritual possessions, were declared to be more desirable citizens of the monarchy than the genuine Jews, who were on the contrary to be cowed by repressive measures.