"There is also another striking proof which your Excellency, I am confident, will agree with me to be in their favour. If the Israelites had indeed imposed upon the peasants and impoverished them, the former, as they were obliged to quit the villages and join their brethren in the towns, would undoubtedly have carried some property with them, but their utter destitution was apparent from almost all of them becoming immediately a heavy burthen on the congregation, and many of them actually perished from want before they could reach the town fixed upon for their future abode.
"Your Excellency will also be pleased to reflect that the proprietors of the various establishments let on rent to the Israelites being themselves good and charitable Christians, and naturally most benevolently inclined towards their brethren in faith, would not have suffered their Hebrew tenants to impose upon them, and had the Israelites in reality been guilty of the crime, the proprietors would of themselves have driven them away.
"The circumstances, explanations of which I have now had the honour of submitting to your Excellency, have, however, in consequence perhaps of similar endeavours not having been made previously to the present moment, produced an unfavourable impression on the mind of His Majesty's Government; so much so, that His Majesty the Emperor, in his august solicitude for the welfare of the Hebrew population resident in his dominions, appointed a special committee to investigate the causes of the unsatisfactory state in which the population remains to this day, and to deliberate on the means fittest to be applied as remedies. The result of these enquiries was that the Israelites were represented to the Committee in very erroneous and unfavourable colours. Those who were characterised as rebellious and disobedient were therefore subjected to coercive measures as idlers who prove a burthen to the society of which they are members, and in order to be able to institute a just discrimination between such Israelites as have sought to make themselves useful, and such as do not yet carry on a trade or some other legal occupation, His Majesty's Government calls upon the latter to enrol themselves in one of the four following classes: 1st, one of the three guilds of merchants; 2nd, the burgess of a town by the purchase of a piece of land or a house; 3rd, a corporation of artizans, after having given the proof of ability required by the law; or 4th, the grand body of agriculturists, whether on their own property or under a proprietor. And such Israelites as shall not have placed themselves by the appointed time (the 1st January 1850) in one of the four classes are to be subject to such restrictive measures as the Government shall think it right to employ.
"Believing that in consequence of such classification more than four-fifths of the Hebrew population will necessarily have to be enlisted amongst those who, according to the above declaration, will be regarded as a burthen on society at large, I feel it a duty humbly and earnestly to make a few observations to your Excellency, and beg at the same time that your Excellency will be pleased to give credit to my assurance that in this instance I am regarding the Israelites not with the sympathy natural to a brother in faith, but with the impartiality of a perfect stranger; the sentiments which I now shall have the honour to express to your Excellency being those only of a friend to humanity.
"There cannot exist a doubt that the above imperial decree will be a most beneficial incentive to a large number of the Hebrew communities to enrol themselves in some one of the four classes in question; and his most gracious Majesty will now have the high gratification of knowing that in future those amongst his Hebrew subjects can, under no pretence whatever, be accused of idleness, the nature of their occupation being registered in the archives of the respective Guberniums they inhabit. I, however, humbly venture to suggest the addition of two other classes to the four already specified, as a proceeding in accordance with the enlightened views of His Majesty's Government. I allude, first, to labourers of every description, domestic servants, clerks, commercial agents, brokers and employees, water-carriers, porters, waggoners and carmen, provision dealers, cutters of wood for fuel, and persons engaged in similar occupations. The nature of their pursuits does not qualify them to be enrolled in any of the four classes, yet they are a body of people who, as your Excellency will admit, deserve to be looked upon with an eye of mercy for two reasons. First, because they are continually exerting themselves by their incessant labours to maintain themselves and their families in an honest and respectable way; and, secondly, because the existence of such individuals is most essential to the promotion of the welfare and comfort of His Majesty's Hebrew subjects belonging to any of the four classes. For if the latter were obliged to devote their time and attention to all the work originally intended to be executed by their inferiors, what would become of their business? Would it then not appear quite natural that in the course of time their situation would become precarious to such a degree that they would have to give up their avocations altogether. Another class of people which I am particularly anxious to introduce to the consideration of His Majesty's Government is that which comprises the spiritual leaders of the congregations, assessors of the Hebrew ecclesiastical courts, scribes qualified to write the sacred scrolls of the Pentateuch, and other religious documents, persons qualified to slay animals for food in conformity with the Jewish law, readers of prayers in the Synagogue, readers of the Pentateuch to the congregation, operators of circumcision, students who devote themselves to the study of Hebrew theology, and teachers of religion. The body of people just mentioned, your Excellency will give me leave to say, I regard as the very soul of the congregation, for it is religion alone that makes a man true and faithful to his fellow creatures, and sincere and loyal to the Government under which he lives.
"His Imperial Majesty being sensible of this sacred truth, in his great mercy and paternal love to all his subjects without reference to their religious creeds, granted permission to his Hebrew subjects, the soldiers at St Petersburg, to have Synagogues of their own, and I assure your Excellency that I cherish with feelings of the deepest gratitude to His Majesty, the memory of those days when, by his gracious permisssion, I was enabled to join my brethren in prayer. This event alone is a sufficient assurance to me that His Majesty's Government will in its wisdom add all those individuals to the classes of those who are considered as subjects useful to society. There are also individuals, though they cannot be brought under any of these various classes, to whom the Government will, I dare hope, extend its mercy. I mean persons advanced in age, or in an infirm state of health, and others who have no choice but to cultivate the soil, but have not the means to purchase land and agricultural implements. In short, these observations are merely to show that an immense number of people still exist who may be in every respect useful, honest, industrious, learned, and distinguished in various branches without finding a place in any of the four classes. A wise and humane Government then will surely not suffer them to be regarded as a burthen to the congregations, and cause them to be subjected to coercive measures.
"I have now shown (I trust clearly) to your Excellency that the reasons advanced for not extending to the Israelites the mercy of their most illustrious and benevolent Monarch are unfounded incorrect representations, a circumstance which, of course, I am far from attributing to the most honourable and distinguished Committee appointed for the purpose, but to parties for unaccountable reasons inimically inclined towards the Israelites. I have further proved to your Excellency that the Israelites in general are not of an idle disposition; that, moreover, most of them are anxious to cultivate the land, and even pray for such occupation; that the majority of the Israelites dwelling near the Austrian and Prussian frontiers are so circumstanced that an accusation of transgressing the laws of excise and customs cannot in justice be preferred against them. I have also represented to your Excellency that the numerous restrictions under which the Israelites of all classes suffer are a cause that their commerce can have no chance whatever of prospering, but that, on the contrary, they must from day to day sink into deeper distress; and, further, that the last measure adopted for the amelioration of their condition would tend to a contrary effect, unless the number of classes be increased. It is an unquestionable fact that the great body of the Israelites in His Majesty's empire are in a state of extreme misery. I do not venture to discuss again the causes of these evils, but only speak of the reality and depth of their existence. His Majesty himself has seen them, the Special Commission has verified the fact, and I myself having had His Majesty's most gracious permission to visit my brethren, have been a sorrowful witness of it. This, then, being so, I am convinced His Majesty and his Government will bear with me while, with heartfelt gratitude for the goodness which His Majesty has already extended to the House of Israel in his solicitude to be made acquainted with their real condition, I venture to submit to your Excellency my own very humble but earnest belief of the principles of policy which, if brought into action, would surely remedy most extensively the evils already described, and bring the work of investigation which His Majesty and his Government have begun to a most happy, glorious, and honourable consummation.
"I venture to hold my own views on this subject with confidence and decision, only because I know most intimately the feelings of my brethren. I have observed them closely in different parts of the world; have watched over them through a long life with very anxious attention; and could now, if it would benefit them, lay down that life for what I know to be their true character.
"Their natural disposition as a body, your Excellency, is not what it may have appeared to be. Expelled long ago with fearful slaughter from their ancient country, and dispersed in every land under heaven, the oppression of ages may have given them, in the eyes of His Majesty's Government, the semblance of a character which is not their own. That which they may appear to have may be artificial and superficial, forced upon them by long existing, most extraordinary, and peculiar circumstances. For these evils His Majesty the Emperor holds the full and most efficacious remedy in his own most gracious heart and most powerful hands, under the blessing of Almighty God, which would surely rest upon him in the prosecution of such an unspeakably benign object.
"Will His Majesty deign to hear my most humble and most earnest petition, and graciously put this remedy into application?