One exception to the mutual antipathy which divides the Jew of Poland from his Gentile fellow-countryman is offered by the upper class of the Jews of Warsaw. While the masses of the nation, cut-off from all but commercial intercourse with their Christian neighbours, live huddled together in separate quarters, fed on the traditions of the past, and observing, in dress, diet and deportment, the ordinances of the Talmud in all their ancient strictness, a small minority of their cultured brethren has overstepped the narrow limits of orthodox Judaism and identified itself in all things, save creed, with the Poles, whose national aspirations it shares and with whom it does not even shrink from intermarrying occasionally. But this reconciliation is confined to that infinitesimal class which, thanks to its wealth, is free from persecution, and in temperament, sentiment, and ideas belongs to the most advanced section of Occidental Jews rather than to the Jewry of Eastern Europe. Besides, it is a reconciliation strenuously opposed by the Russian authorities which, while inciting the Poles against the Jews, encourage the Jews to cling to their exclusiveness and to resist all Polish national aspirations as alien to them.
Yet, in spite of all disabilities, and as though in quiet mockery of them, the Russian Jews contrive not only to exist, but, in some degree, to prosper. Their skill, their sobriety, their industry, their indomitable patience, their reciprocity, and their cunning—all fostered by the persecution of centuries—enable them to hold their own in the struggle, and to evade many of the regulations which are intended to bring about their extinction. They often obtain a tacit permission to live in various trading places beyond the “pale,” and in many villages in which they have no legal right of residence. Vocations forbidden by law are pursued by the connivance of corrupt officials, and the despised outcasts frequently succeed in amassing large fortunes as merchants or contractors, by the practice of medicine, or at the Bar, or in earning a respectable livelihood as professors and authors, and even as Government servants!
Even culture is not allowed to die out. National enthusiasm, fomented by persecution, and denied political self-expression, finds an outlet in literature. In spite of the State, the Church, and the Synagogue, the darkness of the Russian ghetto is illumined by gifted writers in prose and verse, like Perez, Abramovitch, Spektor, Goldfaden, and others, who have invested the debased Yiddish jargon of the Russian Jew with the dignity of their own genius, and have produced a literature popular in form as well as in sentiment—a literature which reflects with wonderful vividness and fidelity the humour and the sadness of Russian life, and under a different guise carries on Mendelssohn’s educational mission. In addition to these original works, there is a vast activity in every department of foreign literature and science, including translations from many European languages, and a vigorous periodical press which disseminates the products of Western thought among the masses of the ghetto. So that the Russian Jew has access, through his own Yiddish, not only to works of native creation, but also to the most popular of foreign books, great and otherwise: from Goethe’s Faust and Shakespeare’s Hamlet to Sir A. Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Side by side with these efforts to foster the Yiddish element proceeds a movement on behalf of the Hebrew element, while the upper classes of Polish Jews are actively promoting Polish culture among their poorer Yiddish-speaking brethren. All these movements, whether conducted on parallel or on mutually antagonistic lines, supply sure evidence of one thing—the vitality of the Russian Jewry.
This success, however, while affording consolation to the sufferers, fans the aversion of the persecutors and spurs the Government to a periodical renewal of the measures of coercion. It is acknowledged that, under fair conditions, the Russian Jew, owing to his superior intelligence, versatility, perseverance, and temperance, would in a few years beat the Russian Christian in every field of activity. Hence it is the Russian Christian’s interest and resolve to crush him. This resolve is cynically avowed by Russians of the highest rank. The late M. De Plehve, Minister of the Interior, in an audience granted to a deputation of Jews in April, 1904, confessed with amazing candour that the barbarous treatment of their race was dictated by no other reason than its superiority over the Russian. “You are a superior race,” said the Minister. “Therefore, if free entrance to the High Schools were to be accorded to you, you would attain, although through worthy and honest means, too much power. It is not just that the minority should overrule the majority.” He then proceeded to inform his hearers that he held the Jews responsible for the revolutionary agitation in the Empire and for the murders of Imperial functionaries, concluding with a warning and a threat, and dismissing them with the assurance, “You need not count on obtaining equal rights with the Christian population.”[178]
The eternal feud found another tragic and characteristic expression on a large scale in the spring of 1903. It was Easter Day. The good Christian folk of Kishineff, the capital city of Bessarabia, had been to church where they had heard the glad tidings of their Lord’s resurrection, had joined in the hymn of triumph, and then had greeted one another with the kiss of brotherly love and the salutation, “Christ is risen!” “He is risen, indeed!” Directly after, they fell upon their fellow-citizens—whose ancestors crucified Christ nineteen hundred years ago. The Jewish colony was sacked, many Jews were slaughtered without distinction of sex or age, and their dwellings, as well as their shops, were looted. Soldiers were seen helping the rioters in the work of destruction and carrying off their share of the spoils.
Like its predecessors, this outrage excited profound indignation in many parts of the civilised world. Protests were raised in France, in the United States of America, and in Australia. At Melbourne there was held a crowded meeting, presided over by the Lord Mayor, and the Anglican Bishop of the city moved a resolution, which was unanimously carried, expressing “the meeting’s abhorrence of the merciless outrages committed upon the Kishineff Jews, including helpless women and children,” and the hope “that the Russian Government would take effectual measures to prevent the repetition of crimes which were a stain on humanity at large.” The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne moved that the resolution be transmitted to the Lord Mayor of London. Similar resolutions were adopted at meetings held in Sydney.[179] In London mass meetings were held at Mile-end and Hyde Park, where thousands of Jews with their women and children assembled to record their horror at the massacre of their Russian brethren, in their various tongues—Russian, German, Yiddish, French, Italian, and English. All the speakers agreed in tracing the outrages to the instigation or the encouragement of the Russian Government. The second meeting embodied its sentiments in the following terms:
“The meeting expresses: (1) Its deep sympathy with all the sufferers from the riots at Kishineff, and its condolence with the relatives of the victims. (2) Its admiration for all those who, without distinction of nationality or creed, risked their lives in defending the helpless Jewish population. (3) Its indignation at, and abhorrence of, the conduct of the Russian Government, which, in order to intimidate the revolutionary forces of the people, failed to take steps to prevent the cowardly massacre of innocent men, women, and children. (4) Its belief that only the development of a powerful working-class movement in Russia can prevent the repetition of similar atrocities. This meeting also sends fraternal encouragement to all who are working for the overthrow of the present régime and the advent of Socialism in Russia.”[180]
The conviction that the massacre was due to the direct inspiration of the Russian Government was shared by others than the Jews. Dr. Barth, the German Radical Leader, published in Die Nation, a Berlin weekly journal, an unsigned paper, stated to be from the pen of a Russian occupying a high position, in which the writer says:
“M. Plehve, Minister of the Interior, is directly responsible for the Kishineff massacre. He is a patron of M. Kruschevan, the editor of the anti-Semite paper Bessarabets, and has even granted him a subsidy of 25,000 roubles to conduct a second anti-Semite organ at St. Petersburg called the Znamya. M. Plehve desired to increase the subsidy, but M. Witte, the Minister of Finances, intervened. M. Kruschevan then, thanks to M. Plehve’s patronage, was enabled to draw money from the National Bank without security.”
After asserting that General von Raaben, the Governor of Bessarabia, did nothing to avert or stop the rioting, while M. Ostragoff, the Vice-Governor, was actually at the same time a contributor to the Bessarabets, and also the censor, the writer proceeds: “M. Plehve desires to divert Christians from their own grievances, so he conducts a campaign of Jew-baiting. The Czar was indignant when he heard of the massacre. He wished to send an aide-de-camp to report on the matter, but M. Plehve managed to dissuade his Majesty, and sent instead M. Kopuchin, one of his creatures, who drew up a mild report, which M. Plehve further doctored before submitting to the Czar.”