The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1911-02-23
Martyrdom of the Russian Jew.

AS a matter of fact, the policy
of the Russian government toward
the Jew is brutal, tyrannical and
cruel. In three decades one and d
half million Jews were forced to
leave the Empire. In a series of ter
rible "pogroms, or anti-Jewish riots
outbreaks stimulated and counte-
nanced by subtle government policy
thousands of helpless Jews have
been murdered, many more thous-
ands crippled or wounded, and rob-
berry or destruction of the property
of the victims has left their widows
and children destitute.
There are, of course, few wealthy
Jews who buy completely immunity
everything is for sale in Russia
and these few live in peace. But the
masses of the Russian Jewish popu-
lation of over five millions are very
poor. For the most part the Jews
are herded together in the cities of
the provinces known as the Pale,
They may not live in the country
districts, nor buy, laese, or manage
real estate therein. Those who, be-
cause of their occupations, have un-
der the law been privileged to re-
side in cities outside the Pale now,
after years of legal residence, find
the privilege withdrawn through
some arbitrary distortion of the law,
and are suddendly driven from their
homes. The Jew is almost excluded
from State service. Legally, the call
ing of Judge is not barred to the Jew;
yet, in spite of the great number
of Jewish jurists, there is in the
whole empire one Jewish Judge, a
relic of former years, while the few
Jews who were formerly employed
as State attorneys or court justices
now belong to the history of the past.
Similar is the relation of Jews to
public instruction. Excepting the
teachers of Jewish religion, there
are no Jewish teachers in the pri-
mary, secondary or high schools.
Equally free from Jews" are the
various professorships; and Of the
Jewish lecturers who succeeded in
establishing themselves during the
more liberal era, but few remain.
Jews are taxed, and heavily taxed,
for education, but only a small per-
centage of their children may enter
the Russian schools. No Jew may
enter the navy, the frontier or quar-
antine service, or the gendarmerie.
Jews may serve in the army
in fact, they furnish 80 to 40 per
cent. more soldiers than their prop
er allotment-but no Jew may be-
come an officer. The Jew may die
for "Holy Russia but he need look
for no reward. Sixty thousand Jews
served in the war with Japan. A
ukase of 1904 promised general
right of residence within and with
out the Pale to all of those who
should be found to have served wor-
thily. But the Russian government
is bound by no promises. This
privilege was denied even the Jewish
volunteers who endured privations
and sustained wounds in the defense
of Port Arthur.
In municipal affairs the Jew must
bear the heaviest burdens of taxa
ton without receiving the ordinary
rights of citizenship. Under de-
grading law of 1892, no Jew can
either vote for, or be elected, alder
man. The governors of the prov
inces comprising the Pale of Jewish
Settlement are empowered to select
from the Jewish inhabitants of each
city several representatives for the
municipal assembly. Their number
must not exceed one-tenth of the
whole body, and is usually fixed by
the Minister of the Interior. Even
in cities where the Jews constitute
three fourths OF the population they
have in reality neither a direct nor
an indirect voice in the regulation of
municipal affairs. In such places il
literates and drunkards, in virtue of
the fact that they are not Jews, often
rule over an intellectual and we'll
conducted populace. Those Jews who
are appointed to the assembly by the
governor, far from being representa-
tive, are likely to be men of inferior
character out of all sympathy with
the governed.-Herman Rosenthal in
''The Outlook