Rabbi and Priest: A Story

by Milton Goldsmith

Minsk preserved a defiant demeanor throughout the trial. He made no defence, nor did he endeavor to have his punishment mitigated. His condemnation followed, as a matter of course.

The scaffold found him unsubdued.

"My attempt has failed," he cried, "but think not that General Melikoff is safe! After me will come a second, and after him a third. Melikoff must fall, and the Czar will not long survive him."

The fifth of March witnessed his death struggles upon the scaffold.

Darker and darker it grew in Israel. The sun of its brief prosperity was gradually becoming obscured by heavy clouds of intolerance and fanaticism, clouds which did not display the proverbial silver lining of hope and comfort. This was a period of great activity for Mikail; never before had he found such congenial employment. After making a series of one-sided investigations, in which he interrogated principally those who had real or imaginary cause for complaint against the Hebrews, the priest embodied his conclusions in a book, entitled "The Annihilation of the Jews." Unquenchable hatred breathed in every page. With a cunning hand, he subverted facts to suit his fancy. He drew a vivid picture of the great dissatisfaction existing because the Hebrews were achieving success in various branches of enterprise to the exclusion of the gentiles. With peculiar logic he argued that sooner or later quarrels must ensue between the races, that if there were no Jews there could be no trouble, and that they should therefore be driven out of the country. His work accused the Jews of thriving almost entirely upon usury and gross dishonesty, in spite of the fact that many of the chief industries of Russia were in the hands of thrifty and honorable Israelites. It purposed to forbid the Jews from keeping inns, on the ground that they fostered intemperance, in the face of statistics which showed drunkenness to be most prevalent in provinces where no Jews are allowed to reside. It finally advised the confiscation of all property belonging to the Jews and the summary expulsion of the despised race from the Empire.

Such a book, at a time when rulers and people were alike eager for sensation, acted like a firebrand. The newspapers, knowing that the author was a member of the commission appointed by the Czar to investigate the conduct of the Jews and that his work would receive the imperial sanction, published extracts from its pages and commented editorially upon its arguments. Mikail's conclusions were accepted, and the cry rang throughout Russia, "Down with the Jews!" In all the land there was not a man who dared raise his voice in defence of the unfortunate people.

That Minsk, the would-be slayer of Melikoff, had once been a Jew, served to increase the outcry against the race. Of the scores of Nihilists who had already been executed not one was alluded to as a Catholic, although that church claimed them as her own; but the newspapers added the word "Jew" every time they had occasion to mention his name.

There were as yet no open hostilities in Russia. The great majority of laborers and moujiks knew nothing of this agitation. They lived in peace with their Jewish neighbors, on whom many were dependent for work and wages. For the best of reasons, they did not read the newspapers and they cared little for the vague rumors of discontent that now and then assailed their ears. Occasionally there were quarrels, but these were unimportant and of rare occurrence.

A dispute arose one day in the shop of a man named Itikoff. A thief entered his place and having requested the proprietor to get him a certain article he rifled the money-box the moment the Jew's back was turned. Itikoff saw the act in a mirror, and turning suddenly he seized the man by the neck and beat him severely. The man's cries brought a crowd to the door who, seeing a fellow-gentile maltreated by a Jew, at once set upon the unfortunate shopkeeper and brutally assaulted him. They then sacked his shop and threw his merchandise into the street, whence it was quickly removed by the assembled mob. A number of policemen arrived and arrested Itikoff for instigating a riot. Despite his pleading he was carried to jail, and only released upon the payment of a fine of two hundred roubles.[19]

Such occasional incidents, while they were characteristic of Russian justice, were not of a nature to foster good feeling between the Jews and the gentiles.