The anti-Semitic movement in Poland, which began shortly after the revolution of 1905, assumed extraordinary dimensions in 1910-1911, when the boycott became a fierce economic pogrom, reaching its culmination in 1912, during the election campaign to the fourth Imperial Duma. The Jewish electors of Warsaw formed a majority, and were, therefore, in a position to send a Jewish deputy to the Duma. Yet out of consideration for the national susceptibilities of the Poles who insisted on sending as a representative of the Polish capital one of their "own," a Christian, the Jews were willing to accept a Polish candidate, provided the latter was not an anti-Semite. When, however, the Polish election committee, disregarding the feelings of the Jews, nominated the anti-Semitic candidate Kukhazhevski, the Jews gave their votes to the Polish Socialistic nominee Yaghello, who carried the election. This attitude of the Jews aroused a storm of indignation among the higher classes of Polish society. An anti-Jewish campaign, marked by extraordinary bitterness, was set in motion, and in the press and on the streets the Jews were nicknamed "Beilises," an echo of the ritual murder legend which had given rise to such horrors in ancient Catholic Poland. The economic boycott was carried on with incredible fury, and in a number of towns and villages the cowardly enemies of the Jews, being afraid of attacking them openly, set fire to Jewish houses, with the result that in many cases entire families were consumed in the flames.
The furor Polonicus assumed more and more dangerous forms, so that at the beginning of the World War, in 1914, almost the entire Polish nation, from the "progressive anti-Semites" down to the clericals, were up in arms against the Jews. From this armed camp came the defiant war cry: "On the banks of the Vistula there is no room for two nationalities," thus sentencing to death the two millions of Polish Jewry who consider themselves a part of the Jewish, and not of the Polish nation. Out of this soil of national hatred crawled forth the snake of the terrible "military libel," which during the first year of the war drenched Polish Jewry in rivers of blood. Over the bleeding body of the Jewish people Polish and Russian anti-Semitism joined hands. Horrors upon horrors were perpetrated before which the ancient annals of Jewish martyrdom fade into insignificance.
Nearly twenty centuries have passed since the ancient Judæo-Hellenic Diaspora sent forth a handful of men who established a Jewish colony upon the northern Scythian, now Russian, shores of the Black Sea. More than a thousand years ago the Jews of Byzantium from one direction, and those of the Arabian Caliphate from another, went forth to colonize the land of the Scythians. The Jew stood at the cradle of ancient Kiovian Russia, which received Christianity from the hands of the Byzantines. The Jew witnessed the birth of Catholic Poland, and, during the stormy days of the Crusades, fled from the West of Europe to this haven of refuge which was not yet entirely in the hands of the Catholic Church. He has seen Poland in its bloom and decay; he has witnessed the rise of Muscovite Russia, tying the fate of one-half of his nation to the new Russian Empire. Here the power that dominates history opened up before the Jewish people a black abyss of mediævalism in the midst of the blazing light of modern civilization, and finally threw it into the flames of the gigantic struggle of nations. What may the World War be expected to bring to the World-Nation? Full of agitation, the Jew is looking into the future, and the question of his ancient prophet is trembling on his lips: "Ah Lord God! wilt Thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?"[61].... Let the entire past of the Jewish people serve as an answer to this question—a people which, in the maelstrom of human history, has succeeded in conquering the two cosmic forces: Time and Space.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] Ezekiel XI, 13.