A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism (39 page)

Other ministers spoke of the “sufferings of tens of thousands of individuals, although they may be Jews.”
¹⁷
They called on Ignatiev to stop the antisemitic slurs that stirred hatred. The chairman of the Committee of Ministers feared that the behavior of the police would spread: “Today they bait and rob the Jews. Tomorrow they will turn on the so-called
kulaks
[rich peasants]…. Then merchants and landowners will take their turn under the gun.”
¹⁸

Such statements from other government officials forced Ignatiev to make compromises. As a result, on May 3, 1882, Tsar Alexander III issued “temporary rules” that would govern the lives of Jews in the Pale of Settlement for the next 35 years, until 1917. Overall, the new rules did not help Jews, although they did reduce the violence. Pauline Wengeroff described their impact:

Restrictions were piled upon restrictions, and these continue more or less to this day, with no end in sight. The areas where Jews were allowed to live were more and more restricted. St. Petersburg and other Russian cities were forbidden to them; only certain categories of Jews—for example, merchants… who paid very dearly for the right, and who had earned an academic diploma in Russia—were permitted to remain
.

Academic education itself was made harder and harder to get. Only a very small number of Jews were admitted to the high schools. Of the few who managed to graduate from high school, only a few would be admitted to the university. Inevitably there was corruption among
both Jews and Russians. Jews used any means they could think of to enable their children to enter high schools and universities, to circumvent the brutal ordinances…
.

Finally, when after unimaginable effort the parents had succeeded in bringing their Jewish boy to the point of taking the exam, even if he passed it at the head of his year, there was no certainty that he would get in, even into the high school. Once again, it was the question of the quota. How many Jewish students would be admitted depended on how many non-Jews were studying. By the time it came to admission to the university, many Jews were left behind
.

The choice of a profession for a young Jew in Russia was not determined by his inclination or his abilities, nor by his parents’ plans for him, but simply and solely by coincidence, which would admit some and cut off others, for no other reason than they were Jews. And as in school, so it was in further life. The atmosphere surrounding the Jews became dark and threatening. They were scorned and ridiculed, even by the lowest levels of society, and persecuted.
¹⁹

As a result of the “temporary rules,” Russia had only ten relatively isolated pogroms between June 1882 and 1903. Each was triggered by local conditions; none of them set off a chain reaction the way the 1881 pogrom in Elizavetgrad had. But there were disquieting signs. The tsar and his key advisers increasingly used antisemitism to win popular support. They financed anti-Jewish newspapers and journals, as well as “patriotic” organizations that regarded Jews as the enemy. In 1894, Alexander III died, and the new tsar, Nicholas II, continued his father’s policies.

As more and more Russians gave up any hope of reform, some joined revolutionary groups that had little in common except a strong opposition to tsarist rule. To try to turn attention away from himself, the tsar decided to unite the Russian people against a common enemy—“the Jews.” His agents began to organize pogroms and revive the old blood libels. In 1903, just before Easter in Kishinev, then the capital of Bessarabia (Moldavia today), a government-supported newspaper charged that “the Jews” had killed a Christian child so that they could use his blood in the matzos they baked for Passover (see
Chapter 5
). A government-backed patriotic society known as the “Black Hundreds” took to the streets to demand justice. Within hours, a pogrom was under way.

Western newspapers reported the fury of the mob that attacked the Jews of Kishinev at Easter, 1903. The photograph shows just a few of the many Jews injured by a mob fueled with religious passion and patriotic zeal.

But revolutionary groups in Russia were quick to point out that this pogrom had been planned by the government from start to finish. A rebel then in exile reported, “It has been learned that there were about 12,000 troops in Kishinev at the time, against 200 to 300 active rioters and housebreakers. And, as soon as the Government chose to proclaim martial law, after two days of delay, all disorders instantly stopped. The
New York Times
confirmed those claims:

The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia, are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Russian Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, “Kill the Jews,” was taken up all over the city…. The dead number 120 and the injured about 500…. Babes were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to [halt] the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and
wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews.
²⁰
*

Young Russian Jews, angered by reports from Kishinev, decided it was time to fight back. When violence spread to the city of Homel, in what is now Belarus, they armed themselves to defend their families. The authorities responded by arresting them, as the rioting continued under police protection. In the end, however, even pogroms could not stop change from reaching Russia. In 1905, after a disastrous defeat in a war with Japan, the tsar was forced to make changes that reduced his power. In February, he agreed to organize an advisory council, or
duma
. He and his followers tried unsuccessfully to deprive Jews of the right to vote, on the grounds that they were not full citizens. By October 17, the tsar was forced to issue a manifesto guaranteeing the basic freedoms of all Russian citizens—including Jews.

Once again, the government organized massive demonstrations to protest the changes. Those demonstrations quickly turned into riots directed against the Jews. An investigation by the
duma
later revealed that leaflets urging violence were printed at police headquarters and financed by the tsar himself.

The uprising ended in 1907 with the tsar still in control. Before long, he mounted a new campaign against the Jews. As part of the campaign against the Jews, the Russian secret police created a forgery known as
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
. It was said to be “proof” that Jews were plotting to take over the world. Like other myths about “the Jews,” it would quickly spread to countries around the world in the early 1900s.

(1914–1920s)

Between 1903 and 1905, more than 3,000 antisemitic pamphlets, books, and articles were published in Russia alone. One of those works was
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
, which supposedly contained the minutes of a secret meeting of Jewish leaders—the so-called “Elders of Zion.” At that meeting, according to the
Protocols
, the “Elders” plotted to take over the world.

In 1905, few people had paid much attention to the document, but after World War I, it became a worldwide sensation. Many believed that it explained seemingly “unexplainable” events—wars, economic crises, revolutions, epidemics. The idea of a Jewish conspiracy had been around for centuries, but the
Protocols
gave that belief new life, and it remained rooted in popular culture long after it was exposed as a hoax in the early 1920s. For many people, World War I and the earthshaking events that followed it confirmed the authenticity of the document, no matter what evidence was offered to the contrary.

World War I was sparked not by a Jewish conspiracy but by an assassination in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. On June 28, 1914, a Bosnian Serb who belonged to an extreme nationalist group killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, an empire that controlled much of central Europe. Just two months later, the world was engulfed in a war that lasted four years, was fought on three continents, and ultimately involved 30 nations. On one side were the Central Powers—Austria-Hungary, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire, and the countries that supported them. On the other side were the Allies—Serbia, Russia, France, and Britain, and the countries that supported them. More
than 19 million people were killed during the fighting; about half of them were civilians.

Winston Churchill, who later became prime minister of Britain, described the terrible nature of this “world war”:

All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. The mighty educated States involved conceived—not without reason—that their very existence was at stake. Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them win…. Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals—often of a greater scale and of longer duration. No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies. The wounded died between the lines: the dead moldered into the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas and all on board left to their fate, or killed as they swam. Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex.
¹

E
UROPE AT
W
AR
(1914–1918)

The areas of heavy fighting during World War I in Europe, particularly in the east, were areas where most Jews lived. Many were caught in the crossfire.

Approximately 400,000 Jews served in the armies of the Central Powers, including 300,000 who fought for Austria-Hungary. Among these fighting for the Allies were 300,000 Jews in the Russian military and 4,000–5,000 in the American armed forces.

When people are engaged in such a war, their search for enemies focuses not only on the foreign armies outside their country’s borders but also on enemies—real and imagined—within those borders. During World War I, a number of rulers, generals, and ordinary citizens accused vulnerable minorities in their own countries of treason and disloyalty. In the Ottoman Empire, Christian Armenians were the primary victims. In much of eastern Europe—particularly Russia—Jews were the target. They were seen as disloyal, even though more than 300,000 Jews fought, often with distinction, in the Russian army. In fact, Jews fought in every army involved in the conflict; for example, 100,000 served in the German army.