HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I UNTIL THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER III
by S.M. Dubnow
A Project Gutenberg EBook
3. THE GUILDHALL MEETING IN LONDON
The cry of indignation against Jewish oppression, which
had been
smothered in Russia, could not be stifled abroad. The
Jews of England
took the initiative in this matter. On November 5, 1890,
the London
_Times_ published a letter from N.S. Joseph, honorary
secretary to the
Russo-Jewish Committee in London, passionately appealing
to the public
men of England to intercede on behalf of his persecuted
coreligionists.
The writer of the letter called attention to the fact
that, while the
Russian Government was officially denying that it was
contemplating new
restrictions against the Jews, it was at the same time
applying the
former restrictions on so comprehensive a scale and with
such
extraordinary cruelty that the Jews in the Pale of
Settlement were like
a doomed prisoner in a cell with its opposite walls
gradually
approaching, contracting by slow degrees his breathing
space, till they
at last immure him in a living tomb.
The writer concludes his appeal in these terms:
It may seem a sorry jest but the Russian law, in very
truth, now
declares: The Jew may live here only and shall not live
there; if he
lives here he must remain here; but wherever he lives
he shall not
live--he shall not have the means of living. This is
the operation
of the law as it stands, without any new edict. This is
the sentence
of death that silently, insidiously, and in the veiled
language of
obscurely worded laws has been pronounced against
hundreds of
thousands of human beings.... Shall civilized Europe,
shall the
Christianity of England behold this slow torture and
bloodless
massacre, and be silent?
The appeal of the Russo-Jewish Committee and the new
gloomy tidings from
Russia published by the _Times_ decided a number of
prominent Englishmen
to call the protest meeting which had been postponed half
a year
previously. Eighty-three foremost representatives of
English society
addressed a letter to the Lord Mayor of London calling
upon him to
convene such a meeting. The office of Lord Mayor at that
time was
occupied by Joseph Savory, a Christian, who did not share
the
susceptibilities which had troubled his Jewish
predecessor. Immediately
on assuming office, Savory gave his consent to the
holding of the
meeting.
On December 10, 1890, the meeting was held in the
magnificent Guildhall,
belonging to the City of London, and was attended by more
than 2000
people. The Lord Mayor who presided over the gathering
endeavored in his
introductory remarks to soften the bitterness of the
protest for the
benefit of official Russia.
As I hear--he said--the Emperor of Russia is a good
husband and a
tender father, and I cannot but think that such a man
must
necessarily be kindly disposed to all his subjects. On
his Majesty
the Emperor of Russia the hopes of the Russian Jews are
at the
present moment fixed. He can by one stroke of his pen
annul those
laws which now press so grievously upon them and he can
thus give a
happy life to those Jewish subjects of his who now can
hardly be
said to live at all.
In conclusion, the Lord Mayor expressed the wish that
Alexander III. may
become the "emancipator" of the Russian Jews,
just as his father
Alexander II. had been the emancipator of the Russian
serfs.
Cardinal Manning, the warm-hearted champion of Jewish
emancipation, who
was prevented by illness from being present, sent a long
letter which
was read to the meeting. The argument against interfering
with the inner
politics of a foreign country, the cardinal wrote, had
found its first
expression in Cain's question, "Am I my brother's
keeper?" There is a
united Jewish race scattered all over the world, and the
pain inflicted
upon it in Russia is felt by the Jewish race in England.
It is wrong to
keep silent when we see six million men reduced to the
level of
criminals, particularly when they belong to a race
"with a sacred
history of nearly four thousand years."
The speakers who followed the Lord Mayor pictured in
vivid colors the
political and civil bondage of Russian Jewry.
The first speaker, the Duke of Westminster, after
recounting the
sufferings of Russian Jewry, moved the adoption of the
protest
resolution, notwithstanding the fact that the "great
protest of 1882"
(at the Mansion House meeting)[1] had brought no results.
"We read in
the history of the Jewish race that 'God hardened the
heart of Pharaoh
so that he would not let the people of Israel go'; but
deliverance came
at last by the hand of Moses."
[Footnote 1: See p. 288 et seq.]
After brilliant speeches by the Bishop of Ripon, the Earl
of Meath, and
others, the following resolution was adopted:
That in the opinion of this meeting the renewed
sufferings of the
Jews in Russia from the operation of severe and
exceptional edicts
and disabilities are deeply to be deplored, and that in
this last
decade of the nineteenth century religious liberty is a
principle
which should be recognized by every Christian community
as among the
natural human rights.
At the same time a second resolution was adopted to the
following
effect:
That a suitable memorial be addressed to his Imperial
Majesty the
Emperor of all the Russias, respectfully praying his
Majesty to
repeal all the exceptional and restrictive laws and
disabilities
which afflict his Jewish subjects; and begging his
Majesty to confer
upon them equal rights with those enjoyed by the rest
of his
Majesty's subjects; and that the said memorial be
signed by the
Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, in the name of the citizens
of London,
and be transmitted by his Lordship to his Majesty.
A few extracts from the memorandum may be quoted by way
of illustrating
the character of this remarkable appeal to the Russian
emperor:
We, the citizens of London, respectfully approach your
Majesty and
humbly beg your gracious leave to plead the cause of
the afflicted.
Cries of distress have reached us from thousands of
suffering
Israelites in your vast empire; and we Englishmen, with
pity in our
souls for all who suffer, turn to your Majesty to
implore for them
your Sovereign aid and clemency.
Five millions of your Majesty's subjects groan beneath
the yoke of
exceptional and restrictive laws. Remnants of a race,
whence all
religion sprung--ours and yours, and every creed on
earth that owns
one God--men who cling with all devotion to their
ancient faith and
forms of worship, these Hebrews are in your empire
subject to such
laws that under them they cannot live and thrive....
Pent up in narrow bounds within your Majesty's wide
empire, and even
within those bounds forced to reside chiefly in towns
that reek and
overflow with every form of poverty and wretchedness;
forbidden all
free movement; hedged in every enterprise by
restrictive laws;
forbidden tenure of land, or all concern in land, their
means of
livelihood have become so cramped as to render life for
them
well-nigh impossible.
Nor are they cramped alone in space and action. The
higher education
is denied them, except in limits far below the due
proportion of
their needs and aspirations. They may not freely
exercise
professions, like other subjects of your Majesty, nor
may they gain
promotion in the Army, however great their merit and
their
valour....
Sire! we who have learnt to tolerate all creeds,
deeming it a
principle of true religion to permit religious liberty,
we beseech
your Majesty to repeal those laws that afflict these
Israelites.
Give them the blessing of equality! In every land where
Jews have
equal rights, the nation prospers. We pray you, then,
annul those
special laws and disabilities that crush and cow your Hebrew
subjects....
Sire! your Royal Sister, our Empress Queen (whom God
preserve!)
bases her throne upon her people's love, making their
happiness her
own. So may your Majesty gain from your subjects' love
all strength
and happiness, making your mighty empire mightier
still, rendering
your Throne firm and impregnable, reaping new blessings
for your
House and Home.
The memorial was signed by Savory, who was Lord Mayor at
that time, and
forwarded by him to St. Petersburg. It was accompanied by
a letter,
dated December 24, from the Lord Mayor to
Lieutenant-General de Richter,
aide-de-camp of the Tzar for the reception of petitions,
with the
request to transmit the document to the emperor.
It is almost unnecessary to add that this touching appeal
for justice by
the citizens of London failed to receive a direct reply.
There were
rumors that the London petition threw the Tzar into a
fury, and the
future court annalist of Russia will probably tell of the
scene that
took place in the imperial palace when this document was
read. An
indirect reply came through the cringing official press.
The mouthpiece
of the Russian Government abroad, the newspaper _Le Nord_
in Brussels,
which was especially engaged in the task of whitewashing
the black
politics of its employers, published an article under the
heading "A
Last Word concerning Semitism," in which the rancor
of the highest
Government circles in Russia found undisguised
expression:
The Semites--quoth the semi-official organ with an
impudent
disregard of truth--have never yet had such an easy
life in Russia
as they have at the present time, and yet they have
never complained
so bitterly. There is a reason for it. It is a
peculiarity of
Semitism: a Semite is never satisfied with anything;
the more you
give him the more he wishes to have.
In the evident desire to fool its readers, _Le Nord_
declared that the
protesters at the London meeting might have saved
themselves the trouble
of demanding "religious liberty" for the
Jews--which in the London
petition was understood, of course, to imply civil
liberty for the
professors of Judaism--since nobody in Russia restricted
the Jews in
their worship. Nor did the civil disabilities weigh
heavily upon the
Jews. On the contrary, they felt so happy in Russia that
even the Jewish
emigrants in America dreamt of returning to their
homeland.
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