Trudy Gold
Alexander II and the Jews, 1856-1881: Pragmatic Opportunist?

Trudy Gold | Alexander II and the Jews, 1856-1881 Pragmatic Opportunist? | 06.21.22

Visuals displayed throughout the presentation.

- Good evening, everyone from sunny Cornwall, wherever you are in the world, and I hope everyone’s okay. England, as I’m sure you all realise, is going through a really, really bad patch at the moment. But talking bad patches, of course, what we’re going to do today, yesterday, William brilliantly dealt with Alexander II. What I’m now going to do, and we’re going to hope that this is going to work for the two of us, what I’m going to now do is to slot him into Jewish history. Because of course, what happens under the czar is so important to Jewish history. Please don’t forget that this area, the Pale of Settlements, Paleing meetings stock aid, although it only takes up 4% of the Russian Empire, it’s about the size of Europe, and 12% of the pale are Jewish, and it’s the home to the largest Jewish community in the world. At the beginning of the 19th century, there were just over a million Jews in the Russian area. And please don’t forget, that means Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, et cetera. These are all subjects of the Russian Empire. By the 1850s, the period I’m just coming into, it was about three and a half million. By the end of the century, it was five and three quarter million. So despite all the horrors that I’m going to talk about, one thing that did happen, you have a tremendous growth in population. And of course, this didn’t just apply to the Jews. This was very much a Europe-wide phenomenon. The only two countries that didn’t successfully reproduce themselves were in fact Ireland. And of course, you’ll know the horror of the potato, feminine starvation and France. And there is a prize at the academy for a serious essay on why France did not properly reproduce itself.

So anyway, let’s quickly slot Alexander II back into history. As you all know, there he is. He came to the throne, age 37. He was the son of the Barrack master, the very cold, hard, Nicholas I, the great autocrat, and his wife, Charlotte of Prussia, who of course had converted to Russian orthodoxy. Now interesting, Alexander II, his tutor was a liberal, a man called Vasily Zhukovsky, and he taught in modern European languages. And in 1837, he went on a tour of 20 Russian provinces. He also visited many Western countries. Now William mentioned that he in fact, visited England and the young Victoria who he met in 1839, there was almost a possibility of a romance. But of course, Alexander wasn’t a minor royal, so he could never have worked. Because Victoria needed a consult who would be in England and he needed some a wife who would be, if you like, second to him in Russia. Now, we also know that he had a so certain social conscience, he donated money to the Irish Potato famine. Now what I said, when I put this presentation together, I said, was Alexander the second a czar liberator, or really was he an opportunist? Because he inherits the throne at the end of the Crimean War. His father had the largest empire in the world, the largest army, but he could not defeat the French and the British because the one thing that Russia wasn’t, was modernised. And it was obvious to him and his advisors that what needed to happen was modernization. He issues a pronouncement to his people, education, equal justice, tolerance, and humaneness. And he is of course, acclaimed as the czar liberator, was he? What he did do though, he did initiate certain reforms, because if you take the cynical view, in order to modernise Russia, he needed to create, if you like, an educated middle class. He’s ruling over an empire, the largest empire in the world.

And I tried to give you a sense of the size of it, from Poland in the West, all the way out to Manchuria, all the different kinds of countries that he cut 116 different national groups, the various peasant trees. Also, the great changes in ideas, agriculture, how on earth do you run a country the size of Russia? In fact, the Bolsheviks couldn’t do it. I was there under Bolshevism. Gorbachev couldn’t do it. Now you’ve got the whole issue of Putin. And of course, he still dreams. Putin still dreams of regaining the whole empire of Nicholas the I and Alexander II. So he needs to modernise. Now in order to modernise, and this is always the problem for autocracy, and please make no bones about it. Alexander II was an autocrat. He ruled by divine right. So he’s making offers through paternalistic goodness to his people. But the real purpose in my view was to create an articulate middle class to enable him to compete with the west. And that of course, meant industrialization. When he took the throne, there was hardly any railway track in Russia. The industries were not developed. Anyway, so going back, as I said, what he really is an absolutist, but he needs to modernise his country in order to compete with the west. So what he does is, he introduces certain measures that are going to make it possible to create an articulate middle class and in industrialised society. And of course, he is the czar who frees the 47 million serfs of Russia. The problem was, of course, he never gave them the money to buy land, and he compensated the landowners with funds that he’d made through bond issues.

He also relaxed to a certain extent, the censorship of the press, and he stopped all restrictions on foreign travel, sort of emulating Peter the Great and Catherine. He realised the importance and he himself had travelled widely of bringing foreigners into Russia. And I would say by the middle of his reign, Western culture was no longer very remote to Russia. Now what has to happen, of course, is the development of trade, commerce, and industry. He also makes reforms in the military, universal conscription, and prior to 1861, we’ve already talked about the terrible cancerous system. But also, of course, don’t forget how many of the peasants were conscripted into the army. Also, he begins a better education of the officer class. He realises, look, we talk about on the horror of the prime. Okay, let’s go on. Okay, the other thing he did, of course, that had huge ramifications for the future. Alaska was losing money and he realised it would be impossible to defend. And in wartime, against whom? The British, I think Canada. So in 1867, he sold Alaska to the US for 7.2 million dollars, which is I think about 132 million today. If you want to play around with what’s happening with Russia and America today, can you just imagine if Alaska was still part of the Russian empire? However, he did suppress separatism in a speech to the Polish nobility, which included the areas that they had once reigned, West Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, the areas where the majority of your families come from. He said, “gentlemen, let us have no dreams.” What he was not going to do was to give too much freedom to those particular minorities.

If you remember, in 1830, there’d already been one Polish revolt. He didn’t want another. And he actually stopped all these territories from being part of liberal reforms. Now let’s turn to the Jews. On the 31st of March, 1856, he called on the Kiselev committee. You remember, I’ve already discussed that with you. That was the committee that was in charge of the Jews of Eastern Europe. And this was the review that he wanted, facilitate the merger of this people with the native population, insofar as the moral status of the Jews makes this possible. Let’s be very, very careful here. Alexander was no lover of the Jews. He was asked by one or two of his more liberal ministers to get rid of the Pale. Why are you restricting the Jews to this particular part of Russia? He refused to do that. However, there was a certain change, and I’m just going to read you now from a paper called the Russky Invalid, the Russian veteran. It was a publication of the Russian Ministry of War. And this is 1858, in an editorial. Let us be worthy of our age. Let us give up the childish habit of presenting the Jews in our literary works as ludicrous and anonymous creatures.

Let us not forget the innate ability of the Jews for the arts and sciences, and by offering them a place amongst us, let us utilise their energy, readiness of wit, and still as a new means of satisfying the ever-growing needs of our people. Now this is incredibly positive and it’s got a lot to do with Russian intellectuals travelling in Europe and seeing what Jews are doing in the Hapsburg Empire. Please don’t forget that Galicia, part of the Hapsburg empire boarded the Pale and it had a huge Jewish population. But Russian intellectuals, visiting Paris, visiting Berlin, visiting Vienna, where Jews are becoming emancipated and becoming a vital part of society. Now, can we turn to the next slide? Please, Judi. Yes. This is Russky Vestnik, the Russian messenger. “Let us be worthy of our age. Let us give up the childish habits of presenting Jews in our literary works.” So what I’ve basically told you, but let me try something else now. This is the time of making attacks on the Jews has passed forever. Rather, let us defend ourselves against their justified attacks and through our actions, nullify the truth of Shylock’s famous words, “the villainy you teach me, I will execute.” The government attorney, Koznakoski, he asked the czar to remove Jewish disabilities. Now he sent him a memo saying, organised trade score that the same people which are present is regarded as a scourge on the population of the western provinces.

The Pale will be transformed into arteries carrying life giving sap into all parts of the empire. But he did abolish the cantonist system. Can we see the next slide please, Judi? Now in 1856, that terrible 31 years in the Russian army, if you remember, six years cantonist. Canton is a army camp where they are ratified. The first meal was pork. This terrible, terrible story of young boys. And of course, as I already told you, the community itself had to decide what children would go, and it was usually the children of the poor, the children of the weak. And it led to terrible discord in the Jewish community. Now this is actually stopped and he cuts military service for everybody. However, Jewish children which had been coerced into Christianity were not allowed to return to their families. Now this was in a Jewish newspaper, The Dawn, the news to us is like the sound of the great Shachar, which will awaken the dead on the day of resurrection. Now certain categories are allowed to leave the Pale. He won’t abolish the Pale, but he will allow certain categories in. Look, at this period, he’s beginning to unindustrialized. It’s going to be an incredible process. He frees the serfs. He’s building up the cities. By 1900, from feudalism to industrialization within 45 years, let’s take the year 1900. Russia was the fifth industrial power in the world after Germany, Britain, America, and France, the fifth industrial power in the world. And you can just imagine the misery because one of the things he didn’t introduce, the peasants are coming into the newly enlarged cities.

But you can imagine the working conditions. There’s none of the poor law reform you see in Britain or in the West. So, as far as the Jews are concerned, he’s allowing certain categories to leave the Pale, new communities are going to be established, wholesale merchants, industrialists, people who can be useful, useful Jews who will help Russia grow, financiers, academics, discharged veterans, artisans, and if you had a skill or trade that would be particularly useful to Russia, you can lead. Also, if you were a very talented musician or a dancer, you could attend now the great conservatoires. And of course, this was seen as an incredible move forward. And it established Jewish communities in both Moscow and in St. Petersburg. Now they were kind of very much cut off in many ways from the Jews of the Pale. And we’re going to see how a few incredibly interesting families became very wealthy and very powerful. But they’re very much, to me, they’re far more representative of the court Jews of Europe than, you can’t really say that this is about the Jewish community being modernised. What it’s really about is a few extraordinary individuals who because they are useful to the state and they’re incredibly entrepreneurial, they’re going to make a huge difference. Can we see the next slide, please, Judi? There you have some Moses Montefiore. Why has he popped up? He was an extraordinary man.

If you remember, Sir Moses Montefiore was a Sephardi Jew who lived an incredibly long life, 1784 to 1885. And he came from an illustrious family, the very wealthy family. He married the daughter of a man whose other daughter married Rothschild. So Nathan Rothschild and his wife lived next door to Sir Moses Montefiore and his wife, they were sisters. The family, the father’s name was Barron Cohen. And he was the stockbroker, basically to Nathan Rothschild, who quickly became one of the richest men in Europe. Now not only was he very good in business, he was incredibly well respected. He was the Sheriff of London for a period. When Queen Victoria was a young girl, she had her mother, the Duchess of Kent had an estate next door to Montefiore’s and Victoria had a horrible early life. She often played in the garden and a friendship was created. And Moses Montefiore, by the time he’s 40, he and his wife, Judith, they decide that they’re going to retire from business and he’s going to devote himself to the cause of Jewish suffering throughout the world. And he’s going to make all sorts of trips to Romania, twice to Russia, to the Pope, to the sultan of Turkey. Whenever Jews are in trouble, he goes. He also makes many visits to the land of Israel. And many of you will know about the Judith Montefiore’s School and Montefiore’s window. But the point I’m bringing him in here, is he was the Jew to all Jews in trouble they turned. And he went to visit Russia in 1762, and he kept a diary. He goes to St. Petersburg and he meets some of the leaders of the Jewish community. And this is what he wrote in his diary. I noted when I converted with Jewish merchants, when I conversed with Jewish merchants, literary men, editors of Russian periodicals, artisans, and persons who had formally served in the Russian imperial army all alluded to their present position in the most satisfactory terms, or bless the emperor.

They now dress like ordinary gentlemen in England, France, or Germany. Their schools are well attended and they are foremost in every honourable enterprise destined to promote the prosperity of their community and of the country at large. So here you will see, this seasoned traveller, a great friend of both Israeli and the Rothschild family, ignited by Queen Victoria, respected in the city of London, the most famous Jew in the world. And his view is, and remember, he’s only looking at these elitist families. It’s reckon only about a hundred thousand Jews did leave the Pale. And if you think about it with that incredible population explosion by the end of the century, 500 quarter million, it’s still meant that it’s a small proportion. Never forget that the majority of Jews in the Pale of Settlement, making up 12%, but tending because of Judaism and Jewish practise to gravitate to stetler or towns where they could make up at least a third of the population. Or best you find some 90% of the population. So these aren’t the Jews he’s meeting. The Jews he’s meeting, of course, are the rarefied Jews who have been encouraged to leave the pale because they are very important. And this also leads to the growth of the Enlightenment in Russia, which I’m going to talk about in my next session on Thursday, the Husk, the Enlightenment and Rave, which was a Russian language, Jewish newspaper, 1856.

It really, it begins and it actually says that the Jewish women should bring in Russian wet nurses for their children so that they could abide the milk of Mother Russia. And the editorial, our language must be theirs. Rassvet is the dawn, this is the name of the paper. Our motherland is Russia. And just as her air is ours, so to must her language be ours, imbibe the milk of mother Russia. And also, now remember, this is a small group of intelligentsia. The bulk of Jews are either Hasidic or Misnagdim, which just means opposers, traditional Orthodox. You have the beginnings of reform in the borderlands. That means the Galicia, Brody. That’s why Odessa was brought. When I say reform, I’m not talking about reform Judaism or on the borders with Prussia. Now be very careful about this. So everything I’m saying now only applies to a small minority. But just Sir Moses Montefiore looks like an English gentleman of the period. He hopes that this can be the dream in Russia. Now these intellectuals, they actually began to argue that Russian should replace German in secular subjects. German should not take the place of the rich Russian language. Those of you who know this period well will know that Moses Montefiore in Germany had actually said to many of the figures of the German Enlightenment. Why using French? Germany’s by far the best language. It’s the richest language. And now in Russia, you have young Jewish intellectuals saying, Russian is the language to use. And this is, we also know from memoirs by the 1860s, government officials sometimes appeared at celebrations in Jewish schools. And in on very few occasions, but it did happen. Jews were admitted to Russian circles and Russian clubs.

This is I think, one of the saddest aspects of the diaspora. Our love affair with the diaspora, we kind of had our nose pressed up against the ghetto wall. We so much wanted to be part of their worlds. And this is the memoir of a man who was in such, we dunno his name. He was a Jew from Kano. And he announces his election. They elected me, not in spite of me being a Jew, but because of it. So that I might serve as an instrument of their highest ideals. And one of the figures of the Enlightenment, who I’m going to talk about on Thursday, Le La Vane he said, perhaps the door of our little huts two will open and we will rush forth to the celebration of our good mother. So let’s have a look at some of the extraordinary characters who are going to dominate Jewish life. Now what were the businesses that they went most into? Banking and railway building. Now when Alexander took the throne, there are only 19,000 miles. There’s hardly any track in Russia, 19,000 miles. If you think of the size, what’s going to be built, three quarters of the Russian railway system is going to be built by Jews, particularly the Collenburg, the Natansons. If you think of the bankers, the Ephrussi, the Beloviches, the Gunzbergs, and also these characters, they’re going to build themselves up. It’s the fathers make a small fortune, and it’s their sons who make the great fortune. And also they had connections with other Jewish bankers throughout Europe, and that they are going to create the basis of modern Russian banking.

So it’s a group of Jews who create the basis of modern banking and also the railway networks. Please don’t forget that Barringer Hirsch created most of the railway network for the Turkish empire in South America. It was very much a Jewish profession. Your arbiters of modernity. How on earth do you make an empire great? Well, you need the railways, you need to process the goods, you need to move them. So the Gunzburg’s are going to create the second largest bank. The largest was Meyer and company. In Warsaw, the largest bankers, the Gunzbergs, the Cullenbergs, Via Frusa Bank, which I’ve already referred to, of course, in Odessa, the Moscow International Bank, the Don Agrarian Bank, the as of Don Bank. They also really were behind the sugar industry. They pioneered the purchase of the bee crops from the Nobility of Estates. They extracted sugar from their own refineries. By 1900 of the 300 refineries in the Empire, a hundred were owned by Jewish families. You could make out that they are the court Jews of the 19th century. Most Jews who are in business, of course, where are they? They are in litter shops and they are petty trader. And it also has to be said, with the industrialization of Russia, there’s be a misery and a lot of poverty. And the Jews in the pale are also going to suffer tremendously. Now, let’s talk a little bit about the Gunzburg family. The Gabriel Jacob Gunzburg and Joseph Yozel Gunzburg, and then Natalie Hertz Gunzburg. They were the great Bank of St. Petersburg and they really became the centre of the community in St. Petersburg.

Now, the family fortune came the father, the prophets from the sale of Spirits, and also the father and then his son, Yozel. They are the suppliers of the Russian army in the 1840s, 1850s. This is very much a Jewish trade. If you think back to the Jew of Narbor, a Jew supplied his army, Soland Medina. If you look at the court, Jews of Austria, it was a Jew who provisioned the armies of the emperor in the battle against the Turks in 1683. So it was the Duke of Matt Sauce, who was a Sephardi Jew who provision the armies of the TURPs in the 16th century. So these are the kind of wealthy Jews. You find the niche in the, if really in the market and the capital of course, made possible. So they get the capital comes from provisioning and from vodka sales. And the Gunzburg bank becomes the first private bank, one of the first private banks in Russia. So the Russian government, of course, is a major client. I’ve already said this huge investment in railroad building and also joint stock banks. They’re also involved in mining. When I mentioned Moses Montefiore to you, obviously, I’ve skimmed over him. I looked at him in a lot of detail when I looked at England. I mean, he was very much involved in insurance. He sat on the board of 40 different countries. These kind of 40 different companies, these kind of individuals. They walk the world. Now he was ennobled by the Archduke of Hesh Daat for services for the state. He’s international. But Alexander II recognised his title and made it hereditary.

Look, Alexander II, let me make this quite clear to you. He didn’t love Jews. However, he saw the usefulness they could have to the state. So he had close ties to the aristocracy because they were all borrowing money from him, but also he supported liberal politics. And he was the defacto spokesman of the Jews of St. Petersburg. And he gathered around him almost to court, a group of employees, businessmen, associates, lawyers, Jewish lawyers, doctors, writers. And he had the audacity to intervene with the czars to defend the Jews. And he was instrumental in funding something I’m going to talk about on Thursday, the Society for the Promotion of Culture amongst the Jews of Russia. He also supported a society for handicrafts and agricultural work, which later became ORT. Now why is he doing that? Think about it. Also, he took on, I believe, one of the outside world’s downgraded view of the Jew. The Jew does not make things with his hands. The Jew does not work the earth. And so let’s set up schools to make that happen. So the other area that he becomes very active in, is the Jewish Colonisation Association of whom of Barron de Hirsch. And this of course, was an organisation to help Jews in time of trouble. And he was one of the funders of that. Before, he was the prime mover in the building of the corral synagogue in St. Petersburg. And in fact, before it was built, people were allowed to govern in his home. So he’s very much the powerful, important Jewish philanthropist. He’s a court Jew. He walks the world. Can we go on please, if you don’t mind, Judi.

There you see, the next one, Naftalie Herz Gunberg. And of course, he was the one who was more involved with ORT. Now a very, very important family. Here you see a portrait of the whole family together. They had palaces. Really, it looks like a Victorian family, doesn’t it? They finished up, by the way, in Paris. Now this, let me now turn to another group of entrepreneurs, the Polyakovs. I could have chosen quite a few, but I just decided to choose three, really, the Gunzberg family and the Polyakov brothers. Now quoting from Howard Morley Sachar, the most famous railway king in the Russian Empire. Also a co-founder of World ORT, along with the Gunzbergs. He had huge business interests in Russia and the Ukraine, and credited with constructing one quarter of Russia’s railways. So both families, banking, railways, industrialization. How do you critic a peasant society, the largest empire in the world, and turn it into a modern economy? He actually started his career as the proprietor of a private postal system in Kharkiv, in Ukraine. He worked with the Minister of Posts, Ivan Tolstoy, and later handled his business interests. And in return, he did it very, very well. He looked after the man’s huge fortune. The man promised, he paid him back. This is another pattern, statesman using Jewish entrepreneurship, Bismarck and Bleichroder. Bleichroder was the personal banker to Bismarck.

This is how it all starts. And he made much of his money at first in vodka distilleries on Tolstoy’s estate and was granted the contract to build the local railway line. Again, this is the basis of his fortune, fast track. And he actually won a medal at the 1878 Paris World Exhibition for his contribution to modernity, to the railway system, literary sa- He also, in his great, just like the Gunzbergs, these characters had beautiful aristocratic mansions. I visited Russia. I used to teach there and just as communism was easing off. And I can remember going to a palace 30 miles from Moscow. It was called the Charit of Paris, the owner who was a general in the Russian army. He only visited six weeks of the year. And yet the whole pavilion was made out of seashells. And evidently, it had taken workers and peasants a year to- They’d lined all the walls with seashells. I mean, you’ve got to see the most incredible wealth against misery. Because in the towns and the cities of this huge industrialization process, it’s getting more and more difficult for people to feed themselves. There were seven railway czars in Russia. Three were converted Jews, three were real Jews, and one was a non-Jew. And in his particular interest, he held literary salons. I mean, Pushkin often visited his salons as did Adam Mickiewicz, who of course, was the great master of Polish poetry. And he also was involved with Gunzberg in the funding of the St. Petersburg’s synagogue.

So, art and ICA, helping poor Jews. Now can we turn to his brother Lazar? Yeah, there’s Lazar. He was another one of the entrepreneurs. He founded five commercial banks in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Odessa. He was the principal shareholder. He also diversified into insurance, many trading companies. His wealth, he created it through stock exchange deals. He traded mainly in Ukrainian and Russian, and South Russian wheat. Ukraine was the bread basket of the empire. And when you think about what’s happening now, it really does bring it home to us. The interrelated issues of all these countries in Eastern Europe, that there was huge rivalry between him and the ethnic Russian banks. And in fact, one of the banks in Russia, in Moscow, was controlled by the mayor, a man called Nikolay Alekseyev. And later on that’s going to cause a real problem. He was the leader of the Moscow community. So you have his brother and Gunzberg in St. Petersburg. He leads the Moscow community. He sponsors the Moscow coral synagogue. And also he had the families pray in his house before he established the synagogue. Important to remember, the Moscow and St. Petersburg community were Jews who were allowed out of the Pale because they were super useful to the state, the very rarefied Jewish communities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

You see, this is third generation, look how he’s dressed. Second generation, beg your pardon. He’s dressed like a Russian now, a Russian aristocrat, no longer is there the beard, the ghetto garv. This is the world that he come from, this is the world he’s coming to. Now, he was known as the Rothschild of Moscow. The other area to mention in Alexander the second reign, was as the establishment of district and provisional assemblies. They’re known as the Zemsta. And the only area that was exempt were the former Polish provinces. Remember, he’s very hard on Poland because of the revolt. They were given the right to levy taxes and spend the proceeds on schools, public health, roads, and social services. This is modernising Russia. This is paternalism in action. And Jews with property qualifications, this is in the Pale, were able to vote and even be elected into these assemblies. Particularly in the Ukraine, there was high Jewish participation. Not surprising, considering the Ukraine was very much an aristocratic and peasant society. Now, judicial reform based on a European model, the ministry of the interior still had the right to banish without trial. But it’s a step towards the rule of law. Also, in the emergence of the Russian bar, which Jews were allowed to join, and some such as Maxim Vinaver, who I’m going to talk about in another session, became very, very prominent. Also, one of the problems in the reign of Nicholas I was that Jewish schools were not headed up by Jewish headmaster.

That was changed under Nicholas II, under, beg your pardon, under Alexander II. And then everything begins to go wrong. In 1863, there is a Polish revolt and it was suppressed with the most appalling ferocity. Alexander in the latter part of his reign, begins to change his mind. And by the late 1860s, early 1870s, were Jews useful or harmful to the state. And it’s at this stage, a man called Jacob Brafman, erupts onto the scene that is going to cause real problems for the Jewish community. So just to put it all together, you’ve had this opening up of Russia to an elite group who are beginning to think that Russia might emulate the West. And as I said, I’m going to do much more detail on that on Thursday. However, my view is, that he was a total pragmatist. He used people as much as he needed them to further the interests of the state. But in the end, he was an autocrat. And now into the story, are Jews a problem in the state? You are going to see, in the latter part of his reign, he’s going to go back to autocracy, to go back to nationalism, to the ideas of his father, Nicholas I. So Jacob Brafman was born in the shtetl of Kletsk, which is near Minsk. I’ve been to all these places, it’s quite extraordinary. If you wander through them now, I don’t know if we’ll ever go back, but because of course, Minsk is in Belarus and under Lukashenko, very, very strange country.

But he’s in shtetl. His father was a rabbi. He was orphaned, very, very poor. He wrote his memoirs. So as far as he was concerned, he was ill treated by the Jews of the village and often clashed with the traditional authorities. He tells a story after he was married. He had a daughter. The daughter died, and the Chevra kadisha demanded more money than he had to bury his daughter. So they took the pillow from his dead child’s bed. Was it true? Wasn’t it true? I don’t know. Certainly, becomes incredibly bitter. As a young boy, he managed to avoid military service. He became itinerant. He went from village to village, town to town. He failed at many trades. And he finally finishes up in Minsk where he converts to Russian Orthodoxy in 1858. And he becomes a missionary to the Jews. Alexander II actually visited Minsk and Brafman submitted a memo to his officials on how to convert the Jews and make them into useful subjects. He proposed, because he’s already a missionary to the Jews now. He proposed that the a new missionary society should be created that would work in Yiddish. He offered to translate the New Testament into Yiddish. His writings were actually sent, some of the officials were interested. They sent his writings to St. Petersburg and he was offered a chair in Hebrew Studies at the Minsk Academy. So he’s getting an important position. And he took leave of absence from the seminary. He went to Vilna and he began to write many, many articles. One really made a huge impact, the view of a Jewish conduct convert to Orthodoxy on the Jewish question in Russia. And his question was this, “Why has conversion failed?” And he began to develop his ideas, which later is going to be written down in “The Book of the Kahals.”

And this was the basic notion of it. The Jews, and remember, the Kahals had actually been abolished by whom? They’d been abolished by Nicholas I. But the Jews, the Kahals still existed and it had become a hidden state within a state. It used in the Talmud as its basis and allowed rabbis to act as sovereigns over fellow Jews. The rabbis are really the czars of the Jews and the Talmud is their book. And all gentiles are there to be exploited. It is the Kahal that is the main barrier to assimilation. He deliberately, the rabbis, while the sovereigns of the Jews, they deliberately foster Jewish separatism. Because the Kahals had already been abolished, what he says is, it has created a deep state, the real allegiance to the Jews. There is a conspiracy, and the real allegiance of the Jews is to the Kahal, the sovereign, the rabbis. And what happens is, in the latter years of Alexander II, a doctrine of Pan-slavism is becoming very important. Pan-slavism which is looking for, it’s really a competition with the Aryan theories of the West. The Slavs are the greatest race that ever walked the world. So what Russia must move towards was Pan-slavism, orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality. Russia must be saved from Britain and France and from liberalism. Brafman in his book criticises the alliance. The alliance in Paris, because he says that is part of the tie up with the Kahals. And it’s really the conspiracy theory that there is a secret shadow Jewish government. Ironically, it becomes, if you like, the formula for the protocols of the elders of Zion. And Kotovsky, who was a very important Russian conservative writer.

He was inspired to write a trilogy of anti-Jewish novels inspired by the Livre Du Kahal. That is of course a translation. It was translated into many languages. And it becomes a very important stop in the history of antisemitism. So dozens of glowing reviews in Russian conservative press. Now as I said before, despite all these problems, there’s a huge population increase in the Pale. But the Jews living there are becoming more and more impoverished. And it’s at this stage that the people’s will party composed of young revolutionaries. Back in 1879, they slipped from another revolutionary party. They used political assassination as their weapon. It was a justifiable weapon against autocracy. They wanted to destabilise the evil empire. And of course, William graphically told you about the assassination of Alexander II. Now one of the problems from the Jewish point of view, is that a woman associated with the assassination, but not one of the assassins, was a woman called Hesya Helfman. And she is going to become part of almost a conspiracy by the czarist authorities to blame the Jews for the assassination. Because what happens after the assassination of Alexander II, a series of pogroms breaks out throughout the empire. A pogrom, by the way, is the Russian word for riot. Between 1881 and 1884, there are over 200 pogroms. I suppose the most famous would be in Kiev, Warsaw, and Odessa. Now what caused the pogroms? And I’m going to give you a series of reasons that I’m going to pick up again next week when we look at the reign of Alexander I and Nicholas II. Jews will always be foreign agents.

Remember, someone associated with the assassination was Jewish. It’s whipped up in the press. Many of the people who went on the rampage against the Jews were in debt to the Jews. Many of them were itinerant railway workers. I’ve already looked at the high number of Jews who ran the railway empires. And also, one of the most horrific pogroms in a Catrina grad, which was named for the Empress Elizabeth, who was herself was a terrible antisemite, 15th to 16th of April, 1881, which is Easter or Eastern Orthodox. Easter was very much religious. The Jews are the Christ killers. One of the Christ of the polygamist as they went through the Pale, the Jews killed Christ and now they’ve killed Azar. Ironically, the city named for the Empress, Elizabeth was later named for Zenobia Of course, a Jewish revolutionary. When he fell from favey, who was named for someone else. And certainly, the news are Alexander III initially blamed the Jews. So I’m just going to finish on Hesya Helfman. She was a Jewish girl born into a Jewish family in Kiev, and she left home at 16 to avoid an arranged marriage. She became very active in revolutionary circles. In Kiev, she met Leo Deutsch, who was one of the four founders of the Russian Marxist party. I’m going to spend a lot of time with you on this later on, either this month or next month, because one of the issues we have to deal with Russia, and of course you all know this, is that the huge number of Jewish revolutionaries, or let me put it carefully, people of Jewish birth who became revolutionaries.

Le Deutche was really the precaster of the Russian socialist Democratic Party. Now, Hesya Helfman was part of the group that assassinated Alexander II, but all she did was to run a safe house with another member of the group. Of course, the police raided the flat. Two days after the attack, the man she was with shot himself. She was arrested, she was tried and convicted, but because she was four months pregnant, the execution was postponed until after the birth of a child. And there was a campaign to stop her execution in Western Europe. She gave birth in October, 1881, and died of complications soon after. Her origins were stressed all the time during the 1881 pogroms. She later on was immortalised by many of the revolutionary figures. She became a bit of a heroin to Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman. Of course, Rosa Luxemburg, who led the revolution in Berlin. And Emma Goldman, who was called by the American Police, the most dangerous woman in the world. So it’s all going to erupt and life is going to become more and more difficult because following on from the pogroms, Count Ignatieff, who by the way is the grandfather of the wonderful Michael Ignatieff, was written some wonderful biographies including one on Isaiah Berlin. He promulgates something called the May laws. Pobedonostev, who is the lay procurator of the Russian Orthodox Church. And the main minister of Alexander III. The Jews are going to be blamed. He said a third will die, a third will immigrate, a third will assimilate.

Eventually, we don’t want a Jewish problem in Russia, but in the meantime, we’re going to make Jewish life so hard that this will happen, that they will immigrate, et cetera. And Ignatieff institutes the May laws, which is going to squeeze Jewish life. So that by 1900, 40% of the Jews of the Pale of Settlement are going to be on poor relief from other Jews who leave. Because beginning in 1881, there’s internal and external migration. And of course, the largest destination is America. But don’t forget Baron de Hirsch and Gunzberg the land in South America. Don’t forget Canada, we look developed. And don’t forget, also those strange settlements up on the Canadian border. Don’t forget, also out of this is going to come Jewish socialism, the Bund. Out of it’s going to come Zionism and out of it is going to come international socialism. So out of these horrific events, this is when Jews begin to make up their minds. Now ironically, very few of the Hasidic Jews leave. It’s going to be the Misnagdim who are going to make 40% of the Jews of Russia are going to get out. And of course, I’m taking a guess that that’s the majority of your families. And it’s certainly, one side of my family. That was the period of horror when, and it’s going to exacerbate under Alexander III. And I suppose it comes to its horrific conclusions in the reign of Nicholas II, who was recently canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church, Nicholas II probably the most anti-Semitic of all the czars. And before his wife was taken away at Yekaterinburg, by her desk, was a copy of the protocols of the elders of czar.

Thank you. And I’m sorry about the hiccup of the machine. And Judi, thank you for holding my hand. Should we have a look at questions?

• [Judi] Yes, go ahead.

Q&A and Comments

• Please tell us about the Canton system. I talked about that last week. The Cantonists system. No, conscription into the army applied to non-Jews. Some children of Polish aristocrats and vagabonds also were subjected to this cantonist process. And Arlene is telling us, there’s a book, “The Cantonist, the Jewish Children’s Army of the Tsar” by Larry Domnitch, Devora Publishing 2003. Thank you, Arlene. You are always so helpful. Now, underage sons of constricts, were in the Canton schools, not only Jews. Yes. Truly, don’t knock Cornwall. Valerie, I loved Cornwall. Please don’t get me wrong, I was knocking my reception upstairs. Trudy and Judi, I’m so relieved. It’s just a technical. Reid Roski, thank you.

Q: Did Sir Moses not realise that he wasn’t seeing the whole picture? A: Look, this is the Moses Montefiore. This is from John Spain. Moses Montefiore had visited Russia in the reign of Nicholas I. And because of what was happening to him in England, I think he did hope that Russia would improve.

Q: How did Sir Moses live up to be a hundred? A: There wasn’t much medicine available in those times. He must have just had incredible genes. What else can we say? In fact, it was 101, Annette. When he married his wife, Judith, they decided to become religious and they kept kosher. And whether they dined at Buckingham palace or whether Judith Wellington, kosher food was always provided. And in their estate in Ramsgate, they had a synagogue and one of his most precious possessions was a Toras girl, he bought with him from Jerusalem. He visited seven times Jerusalem.

Q: What was the extent of intermarriages in Russia during this period? A: Very small compared to the population. It would only really in the main apply to the sophisticated in St. Petersburg and in Moscow. You’ve got to remember, Jews only really want to become part of a society if that society’s got a lot to offer them.

Q: Did the court Jews get into trouble if the country they were supplying lost the war? A: Huge question, Shelly. Suffice to say, court Jews were always insecure. Certainly when their Lord died, then usually there was terrible troubles for them.

Q: The Gunzberg family are still involved with World War? A: Yes. The grandson took over and I think from then on they always have. Yes, extraordinary family.

Q: Did any of the great court Russian Jews have any truck designers? A: No, Jeffrey. But what you’re going to find fascinating is your- Look, what do you thinks going to happen? I’m going to talk about the Haskalah. I’m going to talk about the society for the promotion of culture amongst the Jews of Russia. People who were involved with it were people like Peretz Smolenskin and Leon Pinsker.

Q: Where do you think they went when they realised that the dream in Russia could never be fulfilled? A: They, of course, Jewish nationalism. And I’m going to talk about that on Thursday.

Louis and Stan, they’re saying the times which relate to our grandparents and great-grandparents of lives we know much detail. Pushkin died in 1837. That’s interesting. I’m going to check that out. Maybe it was the fathers, I’m going to check that out. Thank you.

Q: Did the wealthy Jews continue to practise Judaism or did they assimilate? Were synagogues permitted in St. Petersburg? A: How much of the mindset was due to the church having, as I understand, no humanitarian arm. Okay. Now certainly, the Polyakovs and the Gunzburg’s did practise Judaism, but some of the bankers did intermarry and assimilate. Yes. So their synagogues were permitted. Everything’s going to change after Alexander is assassinating. And I’m going to talk about that next week.

How much of the mindset of the czars was due to their church having, as I understand, no humanitarian arm. Well, Nickel, that’s something that William was talking about. Also, you’ve got to remember, they are the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox Church was very paternalistic, rather more than humanitarian. Jacob Brafman invented the first J for J. Oh Betty, my grandfather was Manasha Brafman, born in Lublin. He was a wealthy man, not religious, but was one of the leaders of the, back then. That’s interesting, Betty. So he was ethnically Jewish. But what does that mean, not religious? This is from Barry. Cecil, John Rhodes, who created Rhodesia, had a Jewish partner. Alfred, when first visiting Matabeleland, which became Rhodesia, Rhodes noticed a building being built in Bulawayo. what the building was Beth? replied, it was a synagogue. Rhode replied saying that if Jews come to Rhodesia, it would be a successful country which it became. Yeah.

This is Tracy. On a visit to the synagogue in St. Petersburg, we were told by staff members that had been physically built by Jewish soldiers in the czars army, who be by reason of their service were exempt from living in the Pale. Yes. Under Alexander the second, Jews could leave the Pale if they had been in the Army. Yes. First Aliah was in 1861. Not really. Not really. It’s 1881. Let’s talk about that when we come to it. There’s a photo of the existence, this is from Susan. Hi, Susan. There’s a photo of the extended Jewish family of a Rabbi Bischoff’s father, taken in 1889 in front of a large house, not dissimilar to the photo of the Gunzberg family in Russia.

Q: Where was this photo taken? A: Here in Penzance on the tip of Cornwall. Just half a mile from where you are right now. Yes. And it’s beautiful to be down here, Susan. I’ll see you later in the week.

Q: How did the Jewish community deal with Brahman’s thesis? A: David. They were absolutely horrified. Absolutely horrified by it. Look, there is such a disease as Jewish self-hatred. It’s a horrible disease. And Brafman, whether he over egged his treatment at the hand of the traditionalists in his shtetl or whether it was actually true because Jewish life was hard as well. Don’t forget the downgrading of Jewish life. It is happened so often in our history.

Now this is from Lucy Hufman. How are you, Lucy? Many people in historians say there was an excess from the Pale in the early 1880s due to the pogroms. However, the reason others give is, conscription of army males and leaving was a way to avoid what was almost a life sentence. What is your view? Lucy, like many things, there are many reasons that people leave. Yes, there were pogroms. Yes, there was conscription, but something else there was poverty. Because when we look at the May laws, which I’ll look at hopefully, on next Tuesday. You’ll see that it squeezes Jewish economic life. So poverty, conscription. There’s also internal migration within the Pale. It’s becoming incredibly overcrowded. And also don’t forget letters. Letters. What the picture seems to be, is that in the time of the cantonists, a few young people did cross over to America. Look at the time of American independence, there were under 3000 Jews in America. But young people are going to quite often to avoid the draught. letters go home. There’s a wonderful book that the Immigrant Jews of New York, or it’s by Irving Howe, it’s called “Land of our Fathers.” It’s got two titles, one in Britain, one in America. But I think, Lucy, all those reasons, and it depends on the families.

Q: How do they select the Jews who are allowed to leave the payoff for the cities if they were mostly farmers? A: The Jews were not mostly farmers. And Bobby, that’s the point. There was this dream to make them all into agriculturalists. There were some, but the majority of Jews were not farmers. They’re peddlers or you’d find them in the little shtetler. Who do you think were the bookmakers? Who do you think were the cobblers? Who were the furniture makers? For the peasantry, they performed the service interestry for the peasantry. They looked after the inns. They were the innkeepers. They were the tax farmers. They would collect the goods on the estate for a percentage. They were the middlemen between the peasantry and the Lords, and the merchants. So that’s basically the story. And those who were allowed to leave property qualification, money, money, money, money. Look, the railway kings were incredibly useful, the bankers. But so were Jewish lawyers, doctors, anyone with a craft that was useful. And also the setting up of factories, Jewish entrepreneurship, Russians going west, saw what the Jews were doing in the West. These people can be helpful to us.

The children were taken off the streets by Canapolis in other words. Yes, tragically, they were, Marilyn. If the villages would not give the children up, then Canapolis went and stole children. And we know from Alexander Herzon that some children were as young as eight years old. This is Margaret, she’s complimenting. This has been such a great background to Jewish history as discussed in religious Jewish communities in South Africa. Yes, of course, South Africa becomes an important destination, mainly because the Union-Castle Line was advertising for immigrants in Lithuania. That’s why 80% of South African Jews are Lithuanian. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? This is from Hadassa. My great-great great grandfather was Sir Moses Chaplin in Ramsgate. He sent my great-grandmother to be educated in English boarding school. Hadassa, aren’t we an unbelievable group? Where else will I get this information? This is from Carol. Could I please repeat the dates between which 200 pogroms took place and the numbers and dates between which most Russian Jews left, right. Carol, there were 200 pogroms, over 200 pogroms between 1881 and 1884. But then there are waves of pogroms and between 1881 and 1914, two and a half million Jews got out of Russia. And of course, the biggest exodus was to America. Then quite a large number came to England, Britain. And quite often, I mean my family’s story is that they thought they were in America. They were dropped in hole. Some were dropped at the Scottish port. You see, they didn’t know the difference between in English or an American accent. And the sea captains made far more money if they just dropped them in Europe. Some were dropped, but some went to the French or German ports. Quite often the existing communities paid them to go onto America. They went to Canada, they went to South Africa. And of course, Palestine. But Palestine is different because it’s ideological. But I’ll spend a lot of time on this, Carol, ‘cause it’s very important. Yes.

Jonathan points out ironic that Montefiore’s descendant Hugh Montefiore was an Anglican bishop. Yeah. I always find, I shouldn’t say this, but I find that terribly disappointing. Yes, the Montefiores had no children. Exactly, Hadassa. Well, actually he did have an illegitimate child, by the way. But that’s another story for another time. And there’s a brilliant book. I cannot remember the name. It’s a female historian, a very good historian. I’ll try and remember it for next week. But no, Judith and Moses had no children. And her sister, of course, Anne was married to Nathan Rothschild. Can you imagine? They lived next door to each other on Park Lane. This is Betty, Manasha Brafman was a believer and a strong proponent of Zionism involved in Jewish life, not religious.

Michael, I’m somewhat offended by your comments about the settlements in Canada being strange. I’m sorry, I should have expanded on that. First, the settlements were not Saskatchewan, but in the Northwest Territories in the 1880s, didn’t become a province until 1905. Now what I found strange, I was doing some reading. It’s not an area of expertise on my part, I must admit. But I was doing some reading about their contacts with First Nation. And that’s what I found fascinating. I should have used the word fascinating rather than strange. But First Nation Indians were teaching them evidently to build log cabins. The CPR owned the right of way for 25 miles on each side of their transcontinental railway. They needed settlers so the land was partaking. CPR investors in London. Many of them Jewish encouraged the immigration of Russian Jews. Yes, exactly, Michael, because they didn’t want too many of them in London. I know my grandfather came to New York in 1888 because he told us the weather was worse than Russia. It was the big blizzard of 1888. World of our Fathers. Yes. One can now understand why Russian FM Lavrov got the idea that educated people know that some of the worst, most worst anti-Semites would use. Unfortunately, I think, if a people is put down for thousands of years, and if you don’t have the benefits of it, the community, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, Karl Marx is such a classic case.

Yes, Gene. I was told that the Union Castle wanted passengers because they brought goods to London and needed ballas for the ships for the return journey. And so our ancestors’ histories are extraordinary or Ireland. Yes, of course. They went to Ireland. They were, yeah. Anywhere they were dropped off in Ireland. They were dropped off in the Scottish ports. Of course. This is Rahazel. We’re in Alaska last week and visited old Russian settlements in remote areas. There are still 90 Russian Orthodox churches in Alaska. There was a lot of conversion of native Alaskans into Orthodoxy. That is very interesting, Hazel. Oh, Jonathan is asking. Are you related to the Carol Zeitmans? Quentin, some landed in Cork, believing they were in America. Yeah, these family stories are absolutely fascinating. I think that’s it, Judy.