It was not long, however, before the secret came out. The Russian Jews were terror-stricken at the thought of being robbed of their ancient school autonomy, and decided to adopt the well-tried tactics of passive resistance to all Government measures. The school-reform was making slow progress. The opening of the elementary schools and of the two rabbinical institutes in Vilna and Zhitomir did not begin until 1847, and for the first few years they dragged on a miserable existence. Lilienthal himself disappeared from the scene, without waiting for the consummation of the reform plan. In 1845 he suddenly abandoned his post at the Ministry of Public Instruction, and left Russia for ever. A more intimate acquaintance with the intentions of the leading Government circles had made Lilienthal realize that the apprehensions voiced in his presence by the old men of the Vilna community were well-founded, and he thought it his duty to fulfill the pledge given by him publicly. From the land of serfdom, where, to use Lilienthal's own words, the only way for the Jew to make peace with the Government was "by bowing down before the Greek cross," he went to the land of freedom, the United States of America. There he occupied important pulpits in New York and Cincinnati where he died in 1882.
3. THE ABOLITION OF JEWISH AUTONOMY AND RENEWED PERSECUTIONS
No sooner had the school reform, which was tantamount to the abrogation of Jewish school autonomy, been publicly announced than the Government took steps to realize the second article of its program, the annihilation of the remnants of Jewish communal autonomy. An ukase published on December 19, 1844, ordered "the placing of the Jews in the cities and countries under the jurisdiction of the general (i.e., Russian) administration, with the abolition of the Kahals." By this ukase all the administrative functions of the Kahals were turned over to the police departments, and those of an economic and fiscal character to the municipalities and town councils; the old elective Kahal administration was to pass out of existence.
Carried to its logical conclusions, this "reform" would necessarily have led, as it actually did lead in Western Europe, to the abolition of the Jewish community, outside the narrow limits of a synagogue parish, had the Jews of Russia been placed at the same time on a footing of equality in regard to taxation. But such European consistency was beyond the mental range of Russian autocracy. It was neither willing to abandon the special, and for the Jews doubly burdensome, method of conscription, nor to forego the extra levies imposed upon the Jews, over and above the general state taxes, for needs which, properly speaking, should have been met by the exchequer. Thus it came about that for the sake of maintaining Jewish disabilities in the matter of conscription and taxation, the Government itself was obliged to mitigate the blow at Jewish autonomy by allowing the institutions of Jewish "conscription trustees" and tax-collectors, elected by the Jewish communes "from among the most dependable men," to remain in force. The Government, moreover, found it necessary to establish a special department for Jewish affairs at each municipality and town council. In this way the law managed to destroy the self-government of the Kahal and yet preserve its rudimentary function as an autonomous fiscal agency which was to be continued under the auspices of the municipality. In point of fact, the Kahal, which, through its "trustees" and "captors," had acted the part of a Government tool in carrying out the dreadful military conscription, had long become thoroughly demoralized and had lost its former prestige as a great Jewish institution. Its transformation into a purely fiscal agency was merely the formal ratification of a sad fact.
Having disposed of the Kahal as a vehicle of Jewish "separatism," the Government next attacked the special Jewish "system of taxation," not to abolish it, of course, but rather to place it under a more rigorous control for the purpose of preventing it from serving in the hands of the Jews as an instrument for the attainment of specific Jewish ends. It is significant that on the same day on which the Kahal ukase was made public was also issued the new "Regulation Concerning the Basket Tax." [1] The revenue from this tax which had for a long time been imposed upon Kosher meat was originally placed at the free disposal of the Kahals, though subject, since 1839, to the combined control of the administration and municipality. According to the new enactment, the proceeds from the meat tax which was to be let to the highest bidder were to be left entirely in the hands of the gubernatorial administration. The latter was instructed to see to it that the income from the tax should first be applied to cover the fiscal arrears of the Jews, then to provide for the maintenance of the Crown schools and the official promotion of agriculture among Jews, and only as a last item to be spent on the local charities.
[Footnote 1: The tax is called in Russian korobochny sbor, or, for short, korobka, a word related to German Korb. It was partly in use already under the Polish régime.]
In addition to the general basket tax, imposed upon all Jews who use Kosher meat, an "auxiliary basket tax" was instituted to be levied on immovable property as well as on business pursuits and bequests. Moreover, following the Austrian model, the Government instituted, or rather reinstituted, the "candle tax," a toll on Sabbath candles. The proceeds from this impost on a religions ceremony were to go specifically towards the organization of the Jewish Crown schools, and were placed entirely at the disposal of the Ministry of Public Instruction.
Thus in exact proportion to the curtailment of communal autonomy, voluntary self-taxation was gradually supplanted by compulsory Government taxation, a circumstance which not only increased the financial burden of the Jewish masses, but also tended to aggravate it from a moral point of view. The "tax," as the meat tax was called for short, became in the course of time one of the scourges of Jewish communal life, that same life which the "measures" of the Government had merely succeeded in disorganizing.
Anxious as the Government was to act diplomatically and, for fear of intensifying the distrust of Russian Jewry towards the new scheme, to stem the flood of restrictions during the execution of the school reform, it could not long restrain itself. The third plank in the platform of the Jewish Committee, the increase of Jewish disabilities, which had hitherto been kept in reserve, was now pressing forward, and issued forth from the recesses of the chancelleries somewhat earlier than tactical considerations might have dictated. On April 20, 1843, while the "enlightenment" propaganda was in full swing, there suddenly appeared, in the form of a resolution appended by the Tzar's own hand to the report of the Council of Ministers, the following curt ukase:
All Jews living within the fifty verst zone along the Prussian and Austrian frontier are to be transferred into the interior of the (border) governments. Those possessing their own houses are to be granted a term of two years within which to sell them. To be carried out without any excuses.