Trudy Gold
Enter the Russian Jews
Trudy Gold - Enter the Russian Jews
- Well, good evening everyone, and in this course on America, what I’m going to look at today is the beginnings of the exodus of the Russian Jews from Eastern Europe to America. But very important to remember that what I’m going to do to today, I’m going to talk about the conditions. Over the next three lectures, I’m going to talk about the conditions in Eastern Europe that actually made the Jews, 40% of them are going to leave. And then I’m going to look at the forces that shaped the Jewish world in the Russian Empire. And as a result, many of those ideas that were fomented in the Russian Empire are going to land up in New York and the other centres of Jewish life in Russia. Now, I’d like you first of all to have a look at a map of the Pale. Can we see the first slide? Now, this is very, very important. As I’ve mentioned to you many times before, you’ve got to remember, the Jewish settlement in Eastern Europe had actually begun with Jews moving into the Kingdom of Poland from really the 1300s onwards. It becomes the largest Ashkenazi community in the world. And it was huge because it encompassed Lithuania and the Ukraine. But we’ve often discussed how one of the features of Jewish history is this, Jews can only react to the outside world. And the Kingdom of Poland provided relative security really until the middle of the 17th century when you had one of the worst pogroms in Jewish history. It’s awful that we’re using that word pogrom when our thoughts are with October the 7th. But in the pogroms, what happened was the Ukrainian Cossacks, under their leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Remember, Ukraine is part of the Polish Empire.
They revolted against the Poles, the Polish Catholics, they were Russian Orthodox, and they murdered upwards of 100,000 Jews in the most appalling way. Not only did it leave huge ravages in the Jewish community, but it begins to mark the decline of Poland. And beginning in 1772, culminating in 1815, the Jews of Eastern Europe have new masters. About 100,000 of them go into Prussia, which you will see on the edge. It says Russia, but there should be a P there. You see? About another 70,000 went into Galicia, which was part of the Habsburg Empire, later called the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But the bulk of world Jewry are now subjects of the czars. And you can see, if you have a look at that map, you can see how they divided it up into various administrative districts. And actually, we are going to send this map to you round because it’s too small for you to see many of the towns. And I’m sure many of you watching, these names will echo with many of your families. So you can see Livonia, you can see Viciebsk, you can see Minsk, you can see Grodno, Bohemia, Poltava. These are all parts of what is known as the Pale of Settlement. Basically, the Russian czars wanted to expand their empire. The last thing they wanted was a Jewish community. And in the end, they put the Jewish community, Jews made up about 12% of the people living in that section. And it’s called the Pale of Settlement, paling, stockading. And Jews could not go into Russia proper. 12% of the population are Jewish.
They live amongst the Belarus, amongst the various groups within, the Poles, the Lithuanians, the various groups within the Russian Empire. Now, what I’m going to look at today is between 1881 and 1914. So the Jews are confined to this area right up until the reign of Alexander II. Now, so 1881, 40% of the Jews of Eastern Europe, because some of you will say, oh, my family came from Russia, others will say Poland, it’s all the same area. Russia at this stage covered 1/6 of the land surface of the globe. It’s the largest empire in the world. To let you get a picture of it, it’s Russian Orthodox. But of course, within the empire, the Poles are Catholic. There are other religious denominations, and, of course, you have the Jews. But the Russian Orthodox Church, very high church, the czar believed he was divinely appointed to rule. It wasn’t until the 1860s that the 57 million serfs of Russia were freed. It’s a desperately backward empire. And the majority of Jews living in the empire lived a deeply religious life. It’s important to remember that. When did acculturation occur? It occurs in France, with the beginning of the Revolution. It occurs in England, it occurs in the German lands, in parts of the Habsburg Empire, and, of course, in America, which is, of course, a different story because its far more pluralist identity. But in Europe, if you think about it, in Eastern Europe, there’s not going to be much acculturation because for Jews to want to become part of society, that society has got to have something they wanted. And if you think about Russian society, when it first overtook the Jewish world, you had landowners with estates the size of an English county.
And the peasantry, there isn’t yet a vibrant middle class in Russia. So you have a situation where Jews lived in the old way, many of them lived in shtetls, which are the little villages on the lands of the nobility, just as they had in Poland. And the woman, the great title, you are Queen of the Shabbat. Now this is Shmaryahu Levin. This is what he writes. “The relations between Jew and Gentile in our town were friendly enough. True, we lived in two different worlds, but it never occurred to us that their world was the more secure one, why the foundations of ours were shaky. On the contrary, we accounted our world nobler, farmer, and higher. Of course we learned, even as children, that we Jews as a people were a nation in exile.” This is very interesting because in the West at this period, Jews are becoming citizens of the countries in which they live of the Jewish religion. Now, there wasn’t that much illiteracy amongst Russian Jews. Hebrew for prayer and Yiddish. Yiddish was the spoken language. But the learning that they would have encountered was totally religious. We know that there were about 6,000 chederim with 15,000 teachers, melameds, by the 1860s. There were the Talmud, Torah, and then the yeshiva. There were three yeshivot of huge fame. I dunno, how many of you have travelled in Eastern Europe. I’ve been to all of them, also the towns. Volozhin, Vilna, and Mir. And interesting, this is another quote from Levin. “Where else but in the Pale were scholars the princes of the community, prized far above the richest men?” Never forget that the biggest prize in marriage for the richest man’s daughter was a rabbi or a yeshiva student. And remember, though, the Talmud was not unworldly. It covered a wide variety of matters.
Legal matters like civil damages, physical sciences. There’s no problem, by the way, with Jews studying the sciences. They can study. In fact, the Vilna Gaon wrote a textbook on trigonometry. And also, one of his students translated Euclid. Anything that enhances parts of Judaism. Sexual relations were discussed. And the transition, ironically, later on, we’re going to see the development of the Haskalah in Russia. And because, and I’ll talk about that today, because parts of the Talmud would deal with worldly matters, it wasn’t such a great leap. Now… Now what the Jews of Eastern Europe are going to undergo are many, many different phases amongst different czars. Basically, and a way of remembering the czars of Russia is, call it Canaan. Catherine, she had a son Paul, who reigned for five years, but nothing happened. So it’s Catherine, Alexander, Nicholas, Alexander, Alexander, Nicholas. Now basically, in the early years, the czars didn’t really want, all they wanted to do was to deal with this unassimilable mass. It’s in the reign of Alexander II that things begin to change. Can we see a picture of Alexander, please? Alexander II inherits the throne after the disastrous Crimean War, in which the largest empire in the world is defeated by whom? It’s defeated by the French and the British. Why? Because they were industrialised and mechanised. And Alexander realises he’s got to drag Russia into the 19th century. Now, how’s he going to do that?
He needs to raise the level of education. So consequently, what he’s going to do is to create a middle class. And he begins to relax the laws that kept down all the different groups in the empire. Later on, when Stalin was Commissar for Nationalities, he said there were over 116 national groups in the Russian Empire. The Jews were just one. So gradually, many of the punitive laws against the minority groups were actually relaxed. And that included the Jews. And for the first time, he also freed the peasants from the land. But unfortunately, he never gave them money to buy land, which is going to cause a huge problem. So for the first time in the reign of Alexander II, you have Jews living outside the Pale. About 100,000 Jews lived outside the Pale. If you had money, and you’ll already begin to see, because as Russia industrialises, you’re beginning to see a group of very wealthy Jews, for example, involved in the railways, involved in the modernization of Russia. But it’s a tiny percentage. You’re also going to see a group of Jews. So if you’ve got money, if you have a trade that’s going to be useful to the Russians, you can leave the Pale of Settlements and settle in Russia proper. And it’s the beginnings of communities in Moscow and St. Petersburg. And also, if you had great artistic talent, and don’t forget, of course, the Jews are going to flood into the conservatoires. Why not think of the conservatoire of Odessa that leads to characters like Efrem Zimbalist Sr. Heifetz, et cetera. So 100,000 are allowed to leave the Pale because they are useful to the Russian state. There’s a liberalisation process.
And in that process, for the first time, a small group of Jews really do experience the Haskalah, the enlightenment. And for the first time, you see Russian newspapers appearing in the Pale. And there’s even one produced called “Razsvet,” “The Dawn,” which tells Jewish women to take in Russian wet nurses so they can imbibe the milk of mother Russia. But this small group, beginning in St. Petersburg, in Odessa, they actually set up a society for the promotion amongst the Jews of Russia. This idea that if Russia’s opening up its arms, we must reciprocate. Now, we’re not talking about the majority of Jews. The majority of Jews are deeply religious. They’re either traditional Orthodox, the Misnagdim. And don’t forget, 50% of the Jews of Eastern Europe are Hasidic. They have no truck with this. The area where the Haskalah most leaks into the Pale is, of course, the borderlands with the Austrian Empire and with the Prussian Empire. But there is this hope. And you see some very interesting individuals who believe that Russia will change. But gradually what happens is, think of the 19th century, the growth of a Russian middle class, young Russians going to study at the universities of Europe, including a few Jews from wealthier families, either University of Zurich, the University of Paris. The wealthier ones send their children West. And what were the ideas that were populating the university campus? Nationalisms, the Russian Empire, the Habsburg Empire. Germany’s not yet united.
The unification of Italy. It’s all seething. And they begin. And why should the Poles be ruled by the Russians? Why should all these people be ruled when they’ve themselves had great and glorious histories? So it erupts. There’s a Polish revolt in 1863, which is put down very, very fiercely. And then the governor of Finland is assassinated. Political assassination is used. And then Alexander begins to put the lid back on. But it’s a fascinating notion of history. Can you ever do that? And finally, he is assassinated. Alexander II is assassinated by a group of young revolutionaries. And as a result, he’s actually blown up. And as a result, the throne is taken by his second son, Alexander III. And everything’s going to change for the Jews of Eastern Europe. Can we see the next slide, please? Here you see Alexander III. By the way, he was married to Maria Feodorovna. She originally was Princess Dagmar of Denmark. And those of you who love European history, her sister, Alexandra, was married to the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. So the two Danish princesses, one marries into the Russian royal house, the other into the British royal family. So he was a huge bear of a man. Evidently, he was 6'3". He was very strong. He was very intimidating. And he was an arch-reactionary. He was the second son. His brother had died suddenly. And as a result… And his brother, by the way, was engaged to Dagmar of Denmark. The brother dies, so he marries the fiancee.
The same thing happened in England when George V had married his brother’s fiance, Mary of Teck. You know, what are you going to do with them? You keep them in the country. So he had had a very bad relationship with his own father because on the death of his mother, his father had married his longterm mistress. He was a family man. But he was an arch-reactionary. And what happens is that, not only was he an arch-reactionary, but the main… Can we see the next slide, please? The main architect of his policy was a man called Konstantin Pobedonostsev. Now, those of you who are interested in literature, he is probably the study for the character of Karenin in Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.” So Alexander’s taken the throne. His father is blown up, and he’s got to push down. He and his advisors, they’ve got to keep the revolution. Is it possible there will be a revolution in Russia? How do we keep it all together? So he is the great eminence of imperial politics. He’s going to be the advisor to three czars. He was the advisor to Alexander II towards the end of his reign when he changed his policy. He’d been the professor of literature at Moscow University. He studied at the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence. He was very, very close. And he was by far the most influential man in the empire. And he masterminded Alexander’s manifesto of 1881. He believed in unshakeable autocracy, the absolute power of the czar. He is also the lay procurator of the Russian Orthodox Church. He ordered to Tolstoy’s excommunication, by the way, in 1901. He wrote an interesting pamphlet, “Reflections of a Russian Statesman.”
He condemned elections, democracy, jury service, press, free education, and social reform. He claimed that Western education and institutions were radically bad in themselves and totally inapplicable to Russia, as they did not correspond to the spirit of the pure Russian people. “Democracy,” he said, “the insupportable dictatorship of a vulgar crowd.” He wanted Russia almost to be frozen in time. And he was absolutely anti-Semitic at his core. He was visited by a British author called Arnold White. And this is what Pobedonostsev said to him. “The characteristics of the Jewish race are parasitic. For their sustenance, they require the presence of another race as host, although they remain aloof and self-contained. Take them from the living organism, put them on a rock, and they die. They cannot cultivate the soil.” And in his reign… Now, unfortunately, this is the kind of sentiment that was very much the province of these right-wing reactionary leaders and aristocrats. He believed passionately in Pan-Slavism. Just as you had the growth of Aryan theory in Russia, that there is something special in the great Slav soul, and introducing the democratic traditions of Europe could destroy the whole of Slavic civilization. So what were the three pillars? The Russian Orthodox Church, autocratic rule of the czar, and the instinctive love and obedience to the czar from the common people.
How it contrasts with the decadence of the West. You see, this is the problem. Autocracy often sees liberalism, the West, where people are emerging, beginning to emerge with some sort of notion of democracy. This is weakening. His immediate plan was to stamp out any opposition, particularly liberalism and socialism and other forms of nationalism. In October, 1881, he introduced the police constitution, which gave arbitrary powers of arrest, strict censorship, judicial and educational institutes are revamped in favour of the aristocracy. Because in the liberal years of Alexander II to create this middle class, they have begun educating. The Okhrana, the scary Russian secret police, was empowered to execute or exile liberal terrorist leaders, a Russification programme for the minorities. The language of the people of, for example, Poles, Latvians, Estonians, Finns, Armenian, is forbidden, and all their educational institutions are Russified. And then what happens is this, on the 13th of March, 1881, which is the date of Alexander II assassination by the People’s Will Party, within six weeks of the assassination, pogroms begin in Yelisavetgrad in in Kherson province, followed by others in Kiev and Odessa. Soon this terrible unrest spreads to the countryside. There were 259 pogroms, 219 in villages and only 36 in small towns. The violence continues intermittently for a year until March, 1882. The final pogrom of this phase was actually in Novgorod.
And that was the last one was in 1884. Jews were accused of ritual murder. 10 Jews were hacked to… Look, I don’t have to tell you to use your imagination, because we know what happened in Israel. That’s a pogrom. A total of 45 Jews lose their lives, including in these events. But many were injured and there was huge damage to property. Certainly it’s the worst outbreak of anti-Jewish violence since the Cossack revolts in Poland and the Ukraine. This is from the American consul in Kiev. “The disturbances are abetted by the authorities. There was international outcry.” It was called the Southern Tempest. And of course, this is going to be the trigger that’s going to lead so many of your families to get out of Russia. What caused them? Were they planned by the authorities? It’s not thought so. Because one, it turns out that one of the assassins who was very remote from the actual crime, a woman called Hesya Helfman. And I will be talking about the role of women in revolutionary movements later on. A disproportionate number of Jewish women who had become influenced by the Haskalah, when the lid is put back on again, they can’t go back to Judaism. Judaism can’t contain them. They’re going to be become involved in movements. And Hesya Helfman became a kind of beacon to characters like Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman, who I’ll be talking about next week. So it’s the assassination of our father czar, the fact that the press highlighted Hesya Helfman, this Jewish woman, Jews are considered to be foreign agents, and also the peasants have been freed from serfdom, but not given the money to buy land. They lived in intolerable conditions, some were in debt to Jews, and many of the perpetrators were itinerant railway workers. And the the rumour was that the Jews are the exploiters. In fact, the reality, 40% of the Jews of Eastern Europe were below the poverty line.
By 1900, they’re going to be dependent on charity by Jews who’ve already made it to the New World, or to England or to Canada, who send money back home. The reality was terrible, terrible poverty. But there were, as I said, a few visible plutocrats like Israel Brodsky in Kiev who was the sugar baron. One of the slogans was, “The Jews killed our Lord. The Jews killed our czar.” And between the 15th and 16th of April ‘80, it’s the Eastern Orthodox Easter. They were accused, again, of ritual murder. And the authorities actually took the line that there’s been an uproar against the Jews because of their parasitic economic activities. And it was certainly, it was a man called Count Ignatyev. Can we see him, please? They are the pogroms of 1881, 1882. You know, we have a litany for the ninth of Av. Can we go on, please? Here you see count Nikolai Ignatyev. Funnily enough, his grandson was interviewed on Lockdown quite recently. He is a wonderful character who wrote a brilliant biography of Isaiah Berlin. But that was his grandfather. He was a Russian statesman. He’d been the Russian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He very much believed in Pan-Slavism, nationalism. He was a very, very autocratic right-wing figure. And he was responsible for drafting what is known as the May Laws. Now, the May Laws were laws introduced as a result of the pogroms. Where the Jews suffered so badly, there was a government inquiry and this is the opening, the injurious economic activities of the Jews had caused the pogroms. Okay?
It’s like the obscenity that today, people are saying it was, certain horror creatures are saying, and I’m sorry, that’s my view, are saying that Israel was responsible for Hamas’s atrocity. It’s that kind of ridiculousness. Blame the victim. So Jews were forbidden to transact business on a Sunday and on major Christian holidays, because already they’ve lost the Shabbat. There was a huge quota restricting Jews in the high schools and universities. 10% in the universities in the Pale, 5% outside the Pale. It led to many empty schools and universities. Any peddler who left a village for more than three days had no right of return. There was the most appalling, lots and lots of edicts that made life almost impossible. And this was really the beginnings of the horror story that is going to lead to the huge exodus. And then, as though times could not be hard enough… Let’s see, May Laws. Can we go on please? Can we go on? There you see, there’re the May Laws. The next question, please. The next slide, please. Simon Frug. Okay. Now, in 1891, Alexander III made his brother, Grand Duke Sergei, Governor of Moscow. And it was the first day Passover. How often do our enemies go against us on religious holidays? 20,000 Jews in Moscow, in the main, the wealthier, the more acculturated ones, had to get out with 24-hours notice. So Jews had no time to sell their properties.
They could only take movables. Men, women, and children were summarily rounded up and taken in chains to the railway stations for shipment back into the Pale. So into the already overcrowded, squeezed towns of the Pale of Settlement. But railways are a clue. One of the reasons so many Jews could get out of Eastern Europe was the development of the railway network. And I should also mention there was internal migration within the Pale. And similar expulsions were enacted in St. Petersburg and in Kharkiv. And, as I’ve already told you, by the end of the 19th century, 40% of the Jews depended on charity. Now, this is the poet Simon Frug. He was a fascinating man. He was born in the Ukraine. He had a very religious background, but he became a student of the Haskalah. He wrote his poetry in “Razsvet,” the Russian-Jewish paper. He moved to St. Petersburg. He becomes a very important literary figure. And this is what… Can we see what he wrote? His poem, please. “Neither storm, wind, nor stars shine by night, and the day neither cloudy nor bright. Oh my people, how sad is thy state? How grey and cheerless thy fate?” And let’s have a look also at an article in “Razsvet.”
Can we see the next slide, please? This is from an unknown columnist. Remember, these are the people who believed Russia would open up. “When I think what was done to us, how we were taught to love Russia and the Russian world, how we were lured into introducing the Russian language and everything Russian into our homes, so that our children knew no other languages but Russian. And how we are now rejected and hounded. My heart is filled with corroding despair from which there is no escape.” And I think now we will see, the next slide will show us, yeah, the expulsion of the Jews from Moscow. In fact, you know, when Simon Frug died in Odessa, it was one of the biggest funerals. 10,000 people went to his funeral. After the pogroms of 1881, Odessa was always the most liberal city in the Pale because it was remote from the central authorities. It was a port. 1/3 of the population was Jewish, and it was a great centre of Jewish learning and the Haskalah. In 1881, he became a Zionist. Another man called Leon Pinsker, who had also been part of the Society for the Promotion of Culture Amongst the Jews of Russia. He realised it was all over. And he wrote a manual. He wrote it. He was a brilliant man. He’d been a doctor in the Russian Army. He believed Russia was changing in Alexander II’s reign. And he writes this manual called “Auto-Emancipation.” He writes it to a relative in Austria, in Vienna, basically saying, because he witnesses the stampede of Jews out of Russia. And he says, you are fooling… He said this, “The world suffers from Judophobia. It is a psychic aberration. It is a 2,000-year-old disease.
It is incurable.” He said, “Even those of you who are fleeing to America are fooling yourselves. The only answer is to stop being ghosts upon the face of the world.” He said this as a response to the pogrom. What did his cousin suggest? That he needed help. That he was having a mental breakdown, basically. But it’s interesting. In my next presentation to you, I’m going to look at the various movements that are going to arise amongst the Jews in Eastern Europe, many of which are going to cross the pond. And, of course, you’re going to see Zionism, you’re going to see Bundism. You’re going to see an authentic Jewish socialism. You’re going to see revolution. It’s a fascinating tale. And don’t forget, when they land in America, they bring with them… Look, the majority of immigrants to America, we discussed this last time, they had some sort of affection for the homeland, but not the Jews. In fact, I’ve been told by many people that when they left Eastern Europe, they actually spat. And also, can we have the next slide, please? This is “The Times.” And the Moscow correspondent from “The London Times.” “One must go to Moscow to comprehend the strength of feeling and the tremendous fascination it has for the Russian mind.” He’s talking about the Slav policy. “A dozen years ago, it seemed to be the exclusive property of a small, though influential group, of reactionary thinkers.
Today, it has literally possessed the nation. The sign of this reactionary force themselves upon the attention at every corner in Inner Russia. Gentleman and officers who, 15 years ago, affected rationalism in religion and left the demonstrative part of the church ceremonial to the monks now halve ostentatiously before every shrine and church edifice bow and cross themselves. Another indication, perhaps even more significant, is found in the immense proportional increase of books printed in the Russian language.” This is a poem of the period. “These poor villages, this sterile nature, homeland of patience, land of the Russian people. The proud glance of the foreigner can neither see or observe that which pierces through and shines hidden in its humble nakedness.” The sort of almost the reverence of the love of the peasantry, but the peasantry that’s totally obedient. Now the expulsion caused an international outcry. Can we see the next slide, please? This is Benjamin Harrison. And he gave a speech to Congress, and there was a huge article in “The New York Times.” There was an outcry in Russia, about Russia in Britain, in France, in Germany, in America, saying that the Russians have gone too far, and their anti-Semitic policy. Remember, there are telegraphs now. Remember that communications are much easier. And this is what Benjamin Harrison said, “This government has found occasion to express in a friendly spirit with much earnestness to the government of the czar its serious concern because of the harsh measures being enforced on the Hebrews.” Okay, can we go on, please? That was “The New York Times,” which, of course, had the article. And the next, please. And so it goes on in the reign of Alexander III.
And the question is, can you keep an ideal down? And gradually by the 1880s, 1890s, socialism is creeping into Russia. It’s all underground. You’ve got the oppression of the Russian Orthodox Church, the oppression of the Okhrana, and basically Jewish life is becoming harder and harder. And you can actually map how hard it is when we look at the immigration figures to the States and outside. And then the most ineffectual man to rule Russia ascends the throne in 1894. Alexander III had been subjected to an explosion in a railway carriage where a group of assassins had tried to kill him. It didn’t work and he managed to save the whole family. He was a big bear of a man, but it weakened him and he died very young. He had no faith in his son who he considered an absolute weakling. And he never allowed him to be part, really, of government. Now, he was madly in love with Alex, who, of course, was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The two of them, if they had run a little country estate, they would’ve been fine. They were incredibly ordinary, boring people. They were madly in love with each other, and they kept a diary. And we’re going to see all the events that are going to swirl around Nicholas. And he would write in his diary who comes for tea, what happens with Mama. It’s absolutely, extraordinarily pathetic. I would recommend Simon Sebag Montefiore’s books on Russia. There are so many interesting biographies. Now, he’s their eldest child. Ironically, he’s ethnically German and Danish. His last Russian ancestor was a daughter of Peter the Great, but he was related to most of the royal houses of Europe.
And this is interesting. When the First World War erupts, remember, his mother’s siblings, his mother’s brother is the King of Denmark and George I of Greece. Alexandra, by this time, is Queen of England. So he’s George the V’s first cousin. He’s first cousin to the King of Norway. Also the second cousin to Kaiser Wilhelm. And ironically, in the summers, the family all assembled in the Danish royal palaces. He fell madly in love with Alex. And he’s determined to carry on with autocracy. He was so ridiculously clumsy. In 1896 when he was crowned, there was to be a banquet for the poor of Moscow. 100,000 people attended. The poor. There was a stampede. There wasn’t enough food. Nearly 5,000 people were either killed or injured, and the czar went on dancing. He said it was the will of God. He is catastrophic. He is an autocrat without the strength to be an autocrat. And then, if we could… Can we go on, please? He was a violent anti-Semite. And it was in his reign that “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which I’ve talked to you often about, they first appear in Russia. They are produced in Russia and, of course, are behind the Kishinev pogrom. And later on, one of the most dangerous, dangerous documents that have ever been written. And we know it came out of Russia. There’s lots of different versions. But if you want, I have lectured on it twice in Lockdown. And, of course, there are many books. Hadassa Ben-Itto, her brilliant book, and also Norman Cohn, “Warrant for Genocide.” He goes as far as to call it “Warrant for Genocide.”
Now… Then, as though things were not bad enough, he manages to get Russia embroiled in the Russo-Japanese War. And you will remember, 'cause I mentioned when I talked about Jacob Schiff, the Russo-Japanese War, it was the Jewish financier, the American-Jewish financier of German birth, Schiff, who gave, well, lent, $200 million to the Japanese because of the terrible policy of the Russians towards the Jews. Whenever they wanted to ward off a revolution or trouble, they blamed the Jews. And actually, it’s forcing more and more Jews into the revolutionary parties. I want to say from the outset, the majority of Jews were never revolutionaries, but a disproportionate number of the revolutionaries were Jewish. And also, can we go on? Next slide? The Black Hundreds. These were a sinister pogromist organisation. The czar was the president, and they were the ones who go through the Pale of Settlements screaming for Russian nationalism, spewing out anti-Semitism. Very, very dangerous. And remember, the czar is the president. And then there was another appalling pogrom in Kishinev. The next slide, please. Now Kishinev, it happened at Easter. And one of the authors of one of the versions of “The Protocols,” a man called Krushevan, serialised them in his local paper. A boy disappears. The Jews are blamed. It’s a blood lie, but it’s “The Protocols.” The Jews are blamed for everything. And there was an appalling pogrom.
Now, what made Kishinev of particular interest in terms of that terrible litany of pogroms was the news got out very quickly. I would recommend to you Steve Zipperstein’s brilliant book on the Kishinev pogrom. I think it’s called “Pogrom.” He’s a brilliant writer, American. And basically, they managed to get the news out very, very quickly. And as a result, it hit the West. And the horror in the West, not that they did anything about it, but the point was, what was going on in Russia was publicised. And this really led to another huge upswing in anti-Semitism. Now, the socialist underground organisation went into Kishinev and they wrote an account of the pogrom. Because what made it even more horrific, Kishinev was a garrison town. So when the pogromists went on their rampage, there were 16,000 soldiers there. And they let the pogromists do their worst for two days, and then they went in and cleaned it up within a couple of hours. Now, a young Jewish poet called the Bialik went in and he wrote a poem. And I’m going to read it to you, and I’m going to be talking about it next time we meet. It’s called “The City of Slaughter.” “Arise and go now to the city of slaughter. Into its courtyard, wind thy way, there with thine own hands touch, and with the eyes of thine head, behold on tree, on stone, on fence or mural clay, the spattered blood and dried brains of the dead. Proceed then to the ruins, the split walls reach, where wider grows the hollow and greater grows the breach. Pass over the shattered half, attain the broken wall whose burnt and barren brick, whose charred stones reveal the open mouths of such wounds that no mending shall ever mend, nor healing ever heal. There will thy feet in feathers sink and stumble, on wreckage doubly wrecked, scroll heaped on manuscript, fragment against fragmented.
Pause not upon this havoc; go thy way. Descend then to the cellars of the town, there where the virginal daughters of thy folk were fouled. Where seven heathen flung a woman down, the daughter in the presence of her mother, the mother in the presence of her daughter before slaughter, during slaughter, and after slaughter. Touch with thy hand the cushion stained, touch the pillow incarnadined. This is the place the wild ones of the wood, the beasts of the field with bloody axes in their paws, compelled thy daughters yield. Beasted and swine! Note also do not fail to note, in that dark corner and behind that cask crouched husbands, bridegrooms, brothers, peering from the clap cracks, watching their sacred bodies struggling underneath the bestial breath, stifled in the filth and swallowing their blood. The lecherous rabble portioning for booty their kindred and their flesh. Crushed in their shame, they saw it all. They did not stir nor move. They didn’t pluck their eyes out. They beat not their brains against the wall. Perhaps, perhaps, each watcher had his heart to pray, a miracle, oh Lord, and spare my skin this day. Those who survived this foulness, who from their blood awoke, behold their life polluted, the light of their world gone out. How did their menfolk bear it? How did they bear this yoke? They crawled forth from their holes. They fled to the house of the Lord. They offered thanks to him, the sweet benedictory word. The Cohanim sallied forth, to the rabbi’s house they flitted. Tell me, oh rabbi, tell, is mine own wife permitted? The matter ends and nothing more, and all is as it was before. Come now and I bring thee to their lairs, the privies, jakes and pigpens where the heirs of Hasmoneans lay, with trembling knees, concealed and cowering the sons of the Maccabees. The seed of saints, the signs of the lions.
Who, crammed by scores in all the sanctuaries of they shame, so sanctified my name. It was the flight of mice they fled. The scurrying of roaches was their flight. They died like dogs and they were dead.” It’s a terrible poem. It’s terrible in its awesomeness because… Also, it’s not accurate. But the point is, Bialik was a Zionist. There were actually many instances of self-defense in Odessa, in Gomel, where Jews did fight back. But as far as Bialik’s concerned, this is what happens in the diaspora. I think that is one of the reasons October the 7th is already… Beyond the horror of it, it is the shock, because Israel, if you think about Zionism and the dream of that kind of Zionism, it was to make sure that nothing like that ever happened again. And it’s going to cause, I think, a huge rethink. But that’s just my view. So I don’t want you to see that as a balanced account. It wasn’t. In fact, if you read the account of the socialists, it was respectful, because the guilty ones were the pogromists and the Russian troops who let it happen. But they’re almost out of the picture. And so the situation continues. And in the middle of the Russian Revolution, there is, 1905, it can’t hold together. And what happens is that there is a liberal revolution. What happens is lots of disparate groups go for revolution. A group of ordinary folk who’ve got no food march on the czar’s palace begging for bread. He’s not there. The Cossacks are turned on the crowd, 3,000 people are mown down.
And that was the symbol for the 1905 revolution. It led to the czar being forced to give a parliament where there were lots of different views in that parliament. And we will talk more about it next time. But the point is, it failed because the troops came back from the front and many of them were loyal still to the czar. And the revolution was put down. But Russia is hurtling towards disaster. As far as the Jews are concerned, there is a terrible blood libel trial called the Beilis Affair. Ironically, it lasts two years. Beilis is acquitted. And I’m talking about that when I talk about the Frank trial in America. Beilis is acquitted, but the czar gave a medal to prosecuting attorney. The other thing that happened is that he’s completely losing his grip. He has four daughters and then the czarevitch is born. You know the accidents of history. The czarevitch had leukaemia, but the Russians didn’t know about it. And it made Alexandra and Nicholas even more remote. And she was already a very religious woman. She’d adopted the Russian Orthodox Church. By the way, when she was executed at Yekaterinburg, when she was taken away, one of the books by her bedside was “The Protocols.” Anyway, she fell under the sway of any crazy faith healer who abounded in Russia, as they did in many parts of Europe. And that led to the extraordinary character of Rasputin. And finally then, Russia is going to be plunged into the First World War. And then the story isn’t over for the Jews, because the Russians couldn’t count on the loyalty of the Jewish community.
So as a result, men were drafted into the army. 500,000 children, old women, old men and women, are frog marched into the Russian interior in the winter of 1914, 1915. A further 100,000 die of starvation or cold. So this is one of the darkest chapters in human history, and certainly in Jewish history because the next three years are the war years. The Jewish area is a terrible battleground. But these are the factors, this appalling regime that is, with all the diverse characters that you think about. And so many of them, 40% are going to get out, and the largest number to America. And they’re going to bring with them many of the ideas, but they’re also going to bring with them Jewish folktales, their love of music, the melodies, and they are going to revolutionise the way America sees itself. Now, I brought in two maps of the immigration figures, but I think I will save that to next time, if that’s all right. Because I want to give a little bit of time for questions. And I know, look, I’ve gone very quickly because I know a lot of you know this. I wanted to highlight how bad it became before they started to get out. And of course there were other options. We’ve already begun to look at them, and that’s what I want to do a lot more detail on. And it took, when they came to America, they’re going to completely revolutionise the Jewish community. Just think numbers.
The same thing happened in England. There were only 60,000 Jews in Britain in 1880, and then 300,000 Eastern Europeans come. Many who had come to England, by the way, were sent on to America because they weren’t wanted by the Anglo-Jewish community. Makes us seem too different. Same thing happened in Germany. The same thing happened in France. So let’s have a look at the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Oh, Joan is, hi Joan, flying to Israel this evening, weather permitting.
Q: “Were the Jewish women of the Pale literate?”
A: Now that’s a very, very good question. Of course, look, quite often it was Jewish women. Look, the men, if the men would study, quite often the Jewish women were the ones who made the business. So they would certainly be numerate.
Q: “Were they Yiddish?”
A: Some of them learnt to read and write in Yiddish, but not that many. It was the men who were literate. Every male Jew had to be literate to take part in a service. Yeah, same question from Abigail. I’m going to be bringing an expert on Jewish women because I think it’s such an interesting scene.
Q: “What was the Jewish population in the Pale?”
A: At the beginning of the century, it was 1 ¼ million. By the end of the century, it was about 5 million. Huge population explosions all over the world, all over the western and central and Eastern Europe at this period. There are two countries where, one was Ireland and the other was France.
Q: “Did the American Civil War have any impact on Alexander the II’s reign and on the people of the Russian Empire?”
A: Well, it certainly had an impact on nationalism, but that’s a very big question, David, and I want to answer it properly at the next time.
Q: “Could you put it back up?”
A: Jill’s asking for the map of the Pale of Settlement. We’re going to send it to all of you, because what I need you to see is the smaller towns, which my eyesight wouldn’t see on that screen. So we’re going to send you the map. Yes. Excellent resource on Pale of Settlement, including maps, Jewish Virtual Library. Thank you very much.
Oh, this is from Jonathan. Hi, Jonathan. “Michael Ignatieff was the Leader of the Opposition in Canada and certainly didn’t share his grandfather’s anti-Semitism.” No, he was a wonderful man. He is a wonderful man. I had the honour of meeting him. Sure. But Chaim Weizmann met his father and wouldn’t shake his hand.
Q: “The pogroms were highly organised. Who was behind this and who were the activists?”
A: Now, it’s a very good question, Margaret. It doesn’t seem they were orchestrated particular. At first, the theory was it was orchestrated by the Okhrana, the early pogroms. But it seems that somehow the press had built up so much resentment. And, look, when society is economically, socially, and politically striven, we look for a scapegoat. Certainly the Kishinev pogrom was orchestrated by the right, by the ultra-right? There were, even within Russia, different strands of opinion. And it’s those who wanted autocracy that were using antisemitism. That’s why “The Protocols” were written.
David says, “Ironically, 'The New York Times’ showed concern for the Hebrews, but repressed news of the Shoah.” We’re going to be looking at this in a lot of detail, David. And of course, you’ve got that wonderful Ken Burns series on America and the Shoah. It’s a very complex situation.
This is Shelly. “My grandfather left Belarus with his father in the late 1890s for New York. Several years, they returned to the Pale. I wish I knew why. He got married, had two daughters, and left for Manitowoc, Wisconsin. She and her daughters came to the U.S. after World War I in 1920.” It’s quite likely there are family reasons. You’ve got to remember families and what goes on in families. Who knows? You know, that’s the problem. I think our children and grandchildren ask questions. My parents didn’t ask questions of their parents. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? So we don’t have enough of a picture.
This is from Betty. “My father came from Vilna to Canada. He came alone. He was 13 years old. He became a peddler, saving enough to rent and open a general store in a village in New Brunswick. We lived over the store, the only Jewish family in the village. All four of his children went to university, my brother becoming head of the surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital.” Yes, Betty, what a lovely story. And it’s such a Jewish story because, you know, if you think of the immigrants, within a generation, what is it? Is it the restless gene? Is it that we’ve got nowhere else to go? I don’t know. It’s a complicated story and a lovely story.
This is Arthur. “There’s a superb book about the three cousins who started World War I. Well researched and very human. ‘George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to War’ by Miranda Cartner.” Yes.
Michael’s telling us, “Copies of ‘Mein Kampf’ by the bastard Hitler translated into Arabic found on Hamas…” Look, Michael, you know that our enemies have read all of this. The pogrom. I’m sure they’ve read accounts of the Khmelnytsky Massacres and the pogroms. I’m sure they have read them. Look, why did they attack on a Jewish holiday? Look, they study us. Yes, the poem of Bialik. Yes, exactly.
Oh, sorry, did I? Yes, it’s the czarevitch who had haemophilia.
Q: “What are Cossacks and were they Jewish?”
A: The Cossacks were a tribe of… They lived by the Dnieper River in the Ukraine or in the Urals. They were splendid horsemen. They were of Turkic and Tatar origin, and they later on became the troops of the czar. If you think about, they were Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox. They believed in physical strength and horsemanship. They were illiterate. The Jew is the absolute opposite. Because, you know, I’ve talked to you before about ben Zakkai, who is the hero of the Jew at this time? The scholar. And of course they’re Jew haters. They were Russian Orthodox or Greek. The tragedy we’ve got to deal with. And I’m going to say it. I mean, come on. Look, you can’t have 2,000 years of hatred. No, I’m not mad. I do not believe all people of Christian and Muslim origin loathe Jews. But what I do believe, Judaism is the parent religion on one level of Christianity and Islam. And we didn’t go away, so we rejected them. Plus with Christianity, we killed their God. So look, I’m short terming this. I’m short handing this, I’ve given many lectures on it. But even if you’re no longer religious, it becomes part of the culture and that’s what you’re up against. How you expunge it? I don’t know. I’m beginning to think the only answer, if you believe in education, is that Jewish history’s actually got to be taught in the non-Jewish world. Not the Holocaust, because I’ve had so many comments from Holocaust survivors, they feel a lot of sympathy for the poor old lady or man who goes in, but they don’t see them in their Jewish context. They don’t know our story. And they’ve got to. It’s the only… Anyway.
Joan says, “Mount Sinai was started because Jewish doctors were not accepted in other hospitals.” It’s mad, isn’t it, Joan?
This is from Ellen. “My grandparents came to New York in the late 1800s. However, my aunt returned to Russia because New York was not religious enough. She was murdered in the Shoah.” Oh, Ellen. Oy oy oy.
This is from Stuart. “My grandfather came to the U.S. from Pastavy, now in Belarus, with his eldest daughter and eventually made enough money to bring the other five sisters and his wife over. My father was the first U.S.-born member.” Yes. That is such a family pattern. It’s such a wonderful pattern. Yeah, quite often they came, either the head of the family or the eldest son, they came and if they made enough money, they brought the rest of the family over. Unfortunately, there were desertions. Anyway, what a story. Look, we have to go in hope. We have to walk in hope. We are an optimistic people. We have no choices. And never forget, we will go on and we will survive because we are the eternal people. I really believe that.
So next time I’m going to look at the forces within Russia that are going to explode in America. And so I wish you all well, and let’s hope we have better news in the next few days. God bless, everybody. Thank you.