Jewish Life in the Russian Empire under Czar Alexander III (1881-1894)

Czar Alexander III who ruled over the Empire of Russia from 13 March 1881 until his death in 1894 was the second son of Czar Alexander II. As Czar, Alexander III engaged in Anti-Semitic policies, passing his "May laws" in May of 1882. His laws were supposed to be temporary but they lasted several decades. Among the restrictions imposed by these laws was the limitation of where Jews could live within the Pale of Settlement. Because of this, Jews were evicted, compelled to move to designated areas within the Pale or they would be jailed. Alexander III also restricted the occupations that Jews could attain, as well as where they could travel or study.

At the Museum of Family History, within its "Emperors and Czars of Europe" exhibition, you can read an article, or rather a letter written by an unnamed author in May 1891 from St. Petersburg, Russia to the Berliner Tageblatt newspaper. It is worth reading because, rather than giving you a dry historical account of these events during this time that deeply affected the life of the Russian Jew, you can hear someone actually give voice to their plight. Here is a short excerpt from the article:

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"Since 1881, when Ignatieff promulgated the terrible Jewish laws the lives of the 5,000,000 Russian Hebrews who, with few exceptions led a pitiful, beggarly existence, have been passed in unbroken war against the frightful abuse and persecution of the authorities. Eternal lies are the cause of this; false accusations against the Jews of crimes against the State, the authorities, Russian citizens and a Draconic code of laws which robs them of the privileges of honest subjects. A late cause of this inhuman condition is the desire of dishonest Government servants to bent upon the plunder of their fellow citizens. Robbers! Men who are obliged to live crowded together paint the Jews to the Czar as terrible robbers, like so many sheep; who have no whole pieces of clothing upon their backs; men whose rags draw tears to the eyes of the beholder; whose only pleasure is the practice of the commands of their religion!"

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The aforementioned article appeared in the New-York Daily Tribune on May 31, 1891. Nearly seven months later, and article appeared in the same newspaper explaining the plight of the Jews of Russia, that during that year nearly 7,500 Russian refugees were landing at the Port of New York every month, being forced to by conditions imposed upon them to emigrate. The author of this article is trying to raise funds in order to pay for the fares of the "Hebrew immigrants" who arrived in New York.

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"The persecution which is driving these people from their homes continues; and the Hebrew community of the city of New York has been, and is, striving to do its utmost in the direction above indicated. It is, however, overwhelmed by the immensity of the task. It feels that the unhappy plight of these refugees, driven out from their once settled, contented homes, for no fault of their own, yet without right of protest or hope of redress, appeals to all the instincts of humanity, and particularly to the love of fair play and liberty innate in every American heart. We, therefore, deem it a duty to lay before our fellow citizens, irrespective of creed, the sad facts herein recited, believing that they will touch a responsive chord and lead many a generous hear to tender substantial assistance."

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These articles can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ece-alexander-III.htm. If you follow the "next" link at the end of the text, you can also read about Jewish life in Zambrow, Poland (then part of the Roman Empire) during the reign of the Czar who reigned after Alexander III died, Czar Nicholas II.

At the Turn of the 20th Century: Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Britain and a Fact-Finding Mission Abroad

There were nearly five million Jews who lived in Czarist Russia during the nineteenth century. They were forced to live within a specified area and were subjected to religious persecution and a life of great poverty. Many Jews emigrated during this time, about 150,000 of them immigrating to Great Britain. This wave of immigration peaked in the late 1890s when tens of thousands of mostly poor and semi-skilled and unskilled immigrants settled in the East End of London.

At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a public uproar about the rising tide of immigration that was often fueled by the media. During this period the British Brothers League was formed. Local politicians supported this organization; many anti-immigrant marches and rallies were organized and petitions were signed. They didn’t want Great Britain to become a “dumping ground” for the “scum of Europe.”

William Evans-Gordon was a conservative politician and PM within the British parliament. He also wrote a book entitled 'The Alien Immigrant', which was published in 1903, the year he took a fact-finding tour of Eastern Europe and the Baltic region.

Evans-Gordon travelled from St Petersburg to Krakow, visiting and photographing the major towns of Jewish settlement. It was his sentiment that alien immigration to Great Britain, especially Jewish immigration, should be limited. He called on the Parliament to set up a Royal Commission, and as a result of this, in 1905, the Aliens Act was passed.

The act for the first time introduced immigration controls and registration in Great Britain. The Act was designed to prevent paupers or criminals from entering the country and set up a mechanism to deport those who slipped through. It provided asylum for people fleeing religious or political persecution. Anti-Semitic elements wanted a stop or severe restrictions on Jewish immigration to Britain, but were completely defeated. The 1905 Act did not meet any of the demands of restrictionists who wanted numerical restrictions on immigration.

According to Wikipedia, “Evans-Gordon continued to campaign for further anti-immigration legislation, seeking re-election in 1906. He kept up regular correspondence with Chaim Weizmann who would later write of him:

'Sir William Evans-Gordon had no particular anti-Jewish prejudices...he was sincerely ready to encourage any settlement of Jews almost anywhere in the British Empire but he failed to see why the ghettoes of London or Leeds should be made into a branch of the ghettoes of Warsaw and Pinsk.'"

This one-page exhibition at the Museum of Family History is entitled “At the Turn of the 20th Century: The Jewish Community at Home and Abroad, Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Britain and a Fact-Finding Mission Abroad, 1903."

By visiting this exhibition (and seeing some of the photographs taken during his visit), you can read what Evans-Gordon wrote about his European travels to Dvinsk, Vilnius, Pinsk, Libau, Lodz, Galicia and Romania. It provides an interesting perspective about how others viewed Jewish life within the Pale of Settlement and elsewhere within the Russian Empire at the turn of the twentieth century.

You can visit this exhibition at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/20c-evans-gordon.htm.