Among the favored occupations, ranging in importance beneath agriculture, the new law includes industry and handicrafts. Manufacturers and artisans are declared exempt from the double tax imposed on Jews,[247] and the founders of "the most needed factories" are promised, in addition, a Government loan. The Jewish merchants and burghers are placed in the last rank, being merely "tolerated." Manufacturers, artisans, and merchants are given permission to sojourn temporarily for business purposes in "the interior Governments, not excluding the capitals, but not otherwise than with gubernatorial passports," such as are given for going abroad.
In the chapter entitled "On the Civil Organization of the Jews," the new charter establishes, on the one hand, the liability of the Jews to the authority of the municipalities, the common police, and the common law courts, and grants the Jews, on the other hand, the right of electing rabbis and "Kahalmen," who shall be replaced every three years, and shall be ratified by the gubernatorial administration. Special clauses provide that the rabbis are obliged "to look after all the ceremonies of the Jewish faith and decide all disputes bearing on religion," but they are strictly forbidden to resort to "anathemas" and excommunications (the so-called herem). The Kahals in turn are held responsible for the regular payment of the state taxes. The communal autonomy of the Jews was thus calculated to serve two masters, religion and the exchequer, God and mammon, and was expected to adjust its manifold problems to both.
The "Jewish Constitution" of 1804 is provided as it were with a European label. Its first chapter bears the heading "On Enlightenment." Jewish children are granted free access to all public schools, gymnasiums, and universities in the Russian Empire. The Jews are also granted the right of opening their own schools for secular culture, one of three languages, Russian, Polish, or German, to be obligatory. One of these languages is also, within a period of two to six years from the promulgation of the law, to become obligatory for all public documents, promissory notes, commercial ledgers, etc. The Jews elected members of municipalities or chosen as rabbis and Kahal members are obliged, within a definite term (1808-1812), to know one of these three languages to the extent of being able to write and speak it. Moreover, the Jewish members of the municipalities are expected to wear clothes of the Polish, Russian, or German pattern.
This "enlightened" program represents the tribute which the Russian Government felt obliged to render to the spirit of the age, the spirit of enlightened Prussian absolutism rather than that of French emancipation. It was the typical sample of a Prusso-Austrian Reglement, embodying the very system of "reforms brought about by the power of the state" against which Speranski had vainly cautioned. In concrete reality this system resulted in nothing else than the violent break-up of a structure built by centuries, relentless coercion on the one hand and suffering of the patronized masses on the other.
3. The Projected Expulsion from the Villages
The legal enactment of 1804 was appraised by the Russian Jews at its true value: problematic benefits in the future and undeniable hardships for the present. The prospect of future benefits, the attainment of which was conditioned by the weakening of the time-honored foundations of a stalwart Jewish cultural life, expressing itself in language, school, and communal self-government, had no fascination for Russian Jews, who had not yet been touched by the influences of Western Europe. But what the Russian Jews did feel, and feel with sickening pain, was the imminence of a terrible economic catastrophe, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the villages. It soon became evident that the expulsion would affect 60,000 Jewish families, or about half a million Jews. Needless to say, within the two or three years of respite which remained before the catastrophe, this huge mass could not possibly gain access to new fields of labor and establish itself in new domiciles, and it was therefore in danger of being starved to death. In consequence, St. Petersburg was flooded with petitions imploring the authorities to postpone the expulsion for a time. These petitions came not only from the Kahals but also from country squires, for whom the removal of the Jewish tenants and innkepeers from their estates entailed considerable financial losses. With the approach of the year 1808, the time limit set for the expulsion, the shouts of despair from the provinces became louder and louder. It is difficult to say whether the Russian Government would have responded to the terrible outcry, had it not been for an event which set all the political circles of St. Petersburg agog.
It was in the autumn of 1806. The "Jewish Parliament" in Paris, which had been assembled by Napoleon, was concluding its sessions, and was sending out appeals to all the countries of Europe announcing the impending convocation of the "Great Synhedrion." This new fad of Napoleon disturbed all the European Governments which were on terms of enmity with the French Emperor, and had reason to fear the discontent of their Jewish subjects. The Austrian Government went so far as to forbid the Jews to enter into any relations with "dangerous" Paris. St. Petersburg too became alarmed. Napoleon, who had just shattered Prussia, and had already entered her Polish provinces, was gradually approaching the borders of hostile Russia. The awe inspired by the statesmanlike genius of the French Emperor made the Russian Government suspect that the convocation of a universal Jewish Synhedrion in Paris was merely a Napoleonic device to dispose the Jewish masses of Prussia, Austria, and Russia in his favor. In these circumstances it seemed likely that the resentment aroused in the Russian Jews by their imminent expulsion from the villages would provide a favorable soil for the wily agitation of Napoleon, and would create a hotbed of anti-Russian sentiment in the very regions soon to become the theater of war. To avoid such risks it seemed imperative to extinguish the flame of discontent and stop the expulsion.
Thus it came about that in the beginning of February, 1807, at the very moment when the sessions of the Synhedrion were opened in Paris, the Minister of the Interior, Kochubay, submitted a report to Alexander I., in which he pointed out the necessity "of postponing the transplantation of the Jews from the villages into the towns and townlets, so as to guard this nation in general against the intentions of the French Government." The Tzar concurred in this opinion, with the result that a special committee was immediately formed to consider the practical application of the Statute of 1804. Apart from Kochubay and other high officials, the committee included the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Budberg, diplomatic considerations being involved in the question. On February 15, Senator Alexeyev was directed to inspect the western provinces and find out to what extent "the military circumstances and the present condition of the border provinces as well as the economic ruin of the Jews, which is inevitable if their expulsion be enforced," render this expulsion difficult or even impossible of execution.
At the same time the Minister of the Interior instructed the administrators of the western Governments to prevent the slightest contact between the Jews of Russia and the Synhedrion in Paris, which the French Government was using as a tool to curry political favor with the Jews. The same circular letter to the Governors recommends another rather curious device. It suggests that the Jews be impressed with the idea that the Synhedrion in Paris was endeavoring to modify the Jewish religion, and for this reason did not deserve the sympathy of the Russian Jews.
At the same time the Holy Synod was sending out circulars instructing the Greek Orthodox clergy to inform the Russian people that Napoleon was an enemy of the Church and a friend of the Jews.