Subsequently, the champions of "Christian morality" on the staff of the Ministry of Justice bethought themselves that it might even be better and nobler to stop the admission of Jews to the bar altogether, and the proposal regarding the percentage norm was tabled. Hundreds upon hundreds of young Jews who had completed their legal education at the universities, or who had acted as assistants to sworn attorneys, saw once more their hopes for the legitimate pursuit of their profession vanish into the air.

Jewish physicians were restricted to private practice and robbed of their right to occupy a Government or public position. Even the autonomous Zemstvo institutions adopted more and more the practice of refusing to appoint Jews, and very frequently the printed advertisements of the Zemstvos offering medical positions contained the stipulation kromye yevreyev ("except the Jews").

The scholastic education of the Jewish children was throttled in the same pitiless manner as theretofore. The disgraceful school norm which had been introduced in 1887[14] performed with ever-increasing relentlessness its task of dooming to spiritual death the Jewish youths who were knocking at the doors of the gymnazia and universities. In the beginning of 1898, the post of Minister of Public Instruction, which had been occupied by Dyelanov, was entrusted to Professor Bogolepov of Moscow. While Dyelanov had been occasionally inclined to soften the rigor of the school norm—it was commonly rumored that this good-natured dignitary could not bear to see a woman cry, and the tearful entreaties of the mothers of the rejected scholars made him sanction the admission of a certain number of Jewish children over and above the established percentage norm—his successor Bogolepov, an academic teacher who had become a gendarme of education, was impervious to any sentiment of pity. In the course of the three years of his administration, he not only refused to admit the slightest departure from the established norm, but attempted to curtail it still further. Thus, orders were issued to calculate the percentage norm of the Jewish applicants for admission to the universities not in its relation to the total number of the annual admissions, but separately for each faculty (1898-1899). This provision was designed to limit the number of Jewish students who flocked to the medical and legal faculties, since, in view of the fact that the Jews were entirely barred from appointments in the general educational institutions, the other faculties did not offer them even a sporting chance of earning a livelihood. The ruthlessness displayed by the Ministry of Public Instruction towards the Jewish youth was officially justified on the ground that certain elements among them were affiliated with the revolutionary movement which, just at that time, had assumed particular intensity in the Russian student body. This sentiment was openly voiced in a circular of the Ministry, issued on May 26, 1901, which makes the following statement: "The disorders which took place at the end of the nineties in the institutions of higher learning testified to the fact that the instigators of these disorders were, to a large extent, persons of non-Russian extraction."

Bogolepov himself, the reactionary Minister of enlightenment, fell a victim of this agitation among the student body. He died from the bullet of a Terrorist who happened to be of unadulterated Russian extraction. His successor, General Vannovski (1901-1902), though endeavoring to assuage the university disorders by a policy of "kindly solicitude," maintained the former uncompromising attitude as far as the Jews were concerned. In view of the fact that, in spite of all restrictions, the ratio of Jewish students at all universities actually exceeded the norm prescribed by law, the new Minister decreed that the percentage of Jewish admissions be temporarily curtailed in the following proportion: Two per cent for the capitals (instead of the former three per cent), three per cent for the universities outside of the Pale of Settlement (instead of five per cent), and seven per cent for the Pale of Settlement (instead of ten per cent).

Even the restrictions placed upon the admission of the Jews to the gymnazia were intensified. In 1901, Jewish children who had graduated from a pro-gymnazium[15] were forbidden to continue their education in the advanced classes of a gymnazium unless there was a free Jewish vacancy within the percentage norm—a truly miraculous contingency. The same policy was extended to the commercial schools established with funds which were provided by the merchant class and the bulk of which came from Jews. In the commercial schools maintained by the commercial associations Jewish children were admitted only in proportion to the contributions of the Jewish merchants towards the upkeep of the particular school. In private commercial schools, however, percentages of all kinds, varying from ten to fifty per cent, were fixed in the case of Jewish pupils. This provision had the effect that Jewish parents were vitally interested in securing the entrance of as many Christian children as possible in order to increase thereby the number of Jewish vacancies. Occasionally, a Jewish father, in the hope of creating a vacancy for his son, would induce a Christian to send his boy to a commercial school—though the latter, as a rule, offered little attraction for the Christian population—by undertaking to defray all expenses connected with his education. Yet many Jewish children, though enduring all these humiliations, found themselves outside the doors of the intermediate Russian schools.

It is worthy of note that in this attempt at the spiritual extermination of the Jewish children by barring them from intermediate educational institutions the Russian law followed strictly the ancient rule of the Pharaohs: "If it be a son, then ye shall kill him; but if it be a daughter, then she shall live." The Government schools for girls were opened to the Jewish population without any restriction, and the influx of Jewesses to these gymnazia was only checked unofficially by the anti-Semitic authorities of this or that institution, thereby turning the tide of applicants in the direction of private girls' schools. But as far as the higher schools were concerned, Jewish girls were subjected to the same restrictions as the boys. The Higher Courses for Women and the Pedagogic Courses in St. Petersburg restricted the admission of Jewesses to five per cent. The constitution of the Medical Institute for Women, founded in 1895, provided at first for the entire exclusion of Jewesses. But in 1897, the doors of this institution were opened to the hated tribe—just enough to admit them to the extent of three per cent.

It was scarcely to be expected that the Jewish youths who had been locked out of the Russian school should entertain particularly friendly sentiments towards a régime which wasted their lives, humiliated their dignity, and sullied their souls. The Jewish lad, driven from the doors of the gymnazia, became an embittered "extern," who was forced to study at home and from year to year present himself for examination before the school authorities. An immense host of young men and women who found their way blocked to the higher educational institutions in Russia went abroad, flocking to foreign universities and higher professional schools, where they learned to estimate at its full value a régime which in their own country denied them the advantages granted to them outside of it. A large number of these college youths returned home permeated with revolutionary ideas—living witnesses to the sagacity of a Government which saw its reason for existence in the suppression of all revolutionary strivings.

6. Anti-Semitic Propaganda and Pogroms

The reactionary Russian press, encouraged and stimulated by the official Jew-baiters, engaged in an increasingly ferocious campaign against the Jews. The Russian censorship, known all over for its merciless cruelty, which was throttling the printed word and trembling at the criminal thought of "inciting hatred toward the Government," yet granted untrammeled freedom to those who propagated hatred to Judaism, and thereby committed the equally criminal offence of "inciting one part of the population against the other." The Novoye Vremya, the most wide-spread semi-official press organ, and its satellites in the provincial capitals were permitted to do what they pleased. They were free to slander the Jewish religion, the Jewish people, and the Jewish communities. When the famous Dreyfus affair had started in France, the Novoye Vremya, the oracle of Russia's ruling spheres, arrayed itself on the side of the Jew-baiters from among the French general staff, and launched a savage campaign of slander against the Jews of the entire globe. Many an article published in the anti-Semitic press was scarcely distinguishable from the proclamations calling upon the mob to massacre the Jews.

By far the most effective propaganda on behalf of pogroms was carried on, sometimes without a conscious realization of the consequences, by the Government itself: by persisting in its anti-Jewish policy. Observing this uninterrupted maltreatment of the Jews on the part of the Russian legislation and administration, which treated the Jews as if they were criminals, witnessing the expulsions inflicted upon the "illegally residing" Jews and the raids engineered against them, watching the constant mockery at the Jewish children who were driven from the doors of the educational institutions, and seeing the endless multitude of other humiliating disabilities, the unenlightened Russian populace necessarily gained the conviction that the extermination of Jewry was a noble and patriotic duty. Coupled with the usual economic and national conflicts, this trend of mind could not but lead to acts of violence.

At the end of the nineties the Russian horizon was darkened again by the ominous shadow of the beginning of the eighties: pogroms, at first sporadic and within circumscribed limits, broke out again in various parts of the Pale. On February 18 and 19, 1897, an anti-Jewish riot took place in Shpola, a town in the government of Kiev. The following officially inspired account of the excesses, in which the facts were undoubtedly toned down, appeared in the Novoye Vremya:

Two months later, on April 16 and 17, the Christian inhabitants of the town of Kantakuzenka, in the government of Kherson, indulged in a similar "amusement" at the expense of the Jews. To quote the words of a semi-official report:

Here, too, it was known beforehand that a pogrom was in the course of preparation. The Jews petitioned the authorities to avert the catastrophe, but the local police force was found inadequate to cope with the situation.

In both devastated towns the governors of the respective provinces eventually appeared on the scene with detachments of troops, but in the meantime the revolting performances were over. Many rioters were placed under arrest and put on trial. More than sixty were sentenced by the courts to a term in prison from eight to fourteen months. One of the defendants, a Little-Russian peasant, who had been arrested for having taken part in an anti-Jewish riot, voiced his amazement in these characteristic words: "They told us we had permission to beat the Jews, and now it appears that it is all a lie."

A pogrom on a more comprehensive scale, arranged in honor of the Easter festival, and lasting for three days (April 19-21, 1899), was allowed to take place in the city of Nicholayev, the South-Russian port of entry. Bands of rioters, to the number of several thousand, among them many newly arrived Great-Russian day laborers, and a few "intellectual" ringleaders, fell upon Jewish stores and residences and destroyed or looted their contents, complying faithfully with the established pogrom ritual, while the police and Cossack forces proved "powerless." On the third day, when the news of the freedom accorded to the rioters and robbers at Nicholayev reached the villages in the vicinity, a whole army of peasants, both men and women, numbering some ten thousand, started towards the city on their wagons, with the intention of carrying off the property of the Jews—but they were too late; for in the meantime Cossacks and soldiers had been ordered to stop the pogroms and disperse the rioters. The peasants were driven off and had to return to their villages on their empty wagons. Exasperated by their failure, the peasants vented their fury upon the Jewish cemetery outside the city, demolishing a large number of tombstones, and then, scattering all over the district, made an attack upon the Jewish population in the neighboring settlements and villages. In the Jewish agricultural colony of Nagartava all farm-houses and stores were wrecked and looted, and the agricultural implements demolished. The Russian peasant was unscrupulously ruining and robbing his Jewish fellow-peasant. In the adjacent colonies, the Jews, being of a robust physique, were able to put up an effective defence.

The only protest against this new outbreak of barbarism was voiced by the "Son of the Fatherland" (Syn Otyechestva), a liberal Russian press organ:

This time the orders from St. Petersburg were explicit: the local authorities were commanded to prevent the further spread of the pogrom agitation. The reason for this unaccustomed attitude is not difficult to guess. Two weeks after the Nicholayev atrocities, the first International Hague Conference opened its sessions (May 6-18), having been called at the initiative of the Russian emperor to discuss the question of disarmament, and this Conference must have suggested to the Tzar the advisability of first disarming the anti-Jewish rioters in Russia itself. However, he failed to draw the more important conclusion from the Conference called by him: that it was necessary to stop, or at least to reduce, the constant arming of his own Government against the Jews and to discard the mediæval weapons of oppression and persecution which spelled destruction to an entire nation. This alone is enough to expose the hollowness of the spectacle at the Hague, which had been designed by the feeble-minded Nicholas as a sort of diplomatic entertainment.

That the Russian authorities, when so minded, were fully capable of grappling with the pogrom agitation was demonstrated by the rapidity with which, on a later occasion, they suppressed the anti-Jewish excesses in the Polish city of Chenstokhov (August 19, 1902). In this hotbed of dismal Polish clericalism, the goal of thousands of Catholic pilgrims, who arrive there to worship the Holy Virgin on the "Bright Mountain," a street brawl between a Jewish tradesman and a Polish woman grew, owing to the instigations of Catholic priests, into a monstrous assault upon Jewish houses and stores by a crowd of fifteen thousand Poles. Here, too, the customary shouts were heard: "Beat the Jews! Nothing will happen to us." But the Chenstokhov rioters made a grievous error in their calculation. The protection of the Russian authorities did not extend to the Poles who were not considered politically "dependable," and were known to be equally hostile to the Zhyds and the "Moskals."[16] The excesses had started in the morning, and in the evening they were at an end, a volley from the soldiers having put the tremendous crowd to flight. When the case came up before the courts, the public prosecutor pleaded for the severe punishment of the culprits. The guilty Poles were sentenced to penal servitude and to terms in prison, and in some cases even damages were awarded to the Jewish victims—an extraordinarily rare occurrence in legal proceedings of this kind.

The union of Polish anti-Semitism with Russian Judæophobia brought again to life the old monstrous accusation against the Jews—the ritual murder libel. A Polish servant girl in the employ of David Blondes, a Jewish barber in Vilna, steeped, as she was, in gross superstition and being a pliant tool in the hands of fanatical priests, ran out one night (March, 1900) into the street, shouting that her master had wounded her and had tried to squeeze blood from her for the Matzah. A crowd of Christians quickly assembled, and seeing the scratches on the neck and hands of the girl, fell upon Blondes and gave him a severe beating. The "criminal" was thrown into prison, and the prosecuting authorities, listening to the "voice of the people," were zealous in their search for the threads of the crime. The anti-Semitic press launched a well-planned campaign against the Jews in the hope of influencing the judicial verdict. The lower court recognized the fact of the assault, but denied the presence of any murderous intent, and, leaving aside the possibility of a ritual motive, sentenced Blondes to imprisonment for four months. The counsel for the defence, the well-known lawyer Gruzenberg, and others, fearing lest this sentence might be construed by the enemies of Judaism as a corroboration of the ritual murder libel, appealed from the verdict of the court, and proved victorious: a decision handed down by the Senate ordered the case to be sent back for a second trial to the District Court of Vilna, and the court of jurymen, after listening to the statements of authoritative experts and the brilliant speeches of the defence, rendered a verdict of not guilty (February 1, 1902). The prisoner was set at liberty, and the nightmare of the "ritual murder Dreyfusiad" was dispelled for the time being.

Even the Russian stage was made subservient to the purposes of Jew-baiting. A converted Jew by the name of Efron-Litvin, who had joined the anti-Semitic business firm of the Novoye Vremya, wrote a libelous play under the title "The Sons of Israel," or "The Smugglers," in which Jews and Judaism were made the subject of the most horrible calumnies. The play was first produced at St. Petersburg, in the theatre controlled by Suvorin, the publisher of the Novoye Vremya, and in the course of 1901-1902 it made the rounds of the provincial stage. Everywhere, the Russian Jew-haters welcomed this talentless production, which pictured the Jews as rogues and criminals, and represented the Jewish religion and morality as the fountain-head whence the supposed hatred of the Jews against the Christians derived its origin. Naturally enough the Jews and the best elements among the Russian intelligenzia looked upon the mere staging of such a play as an incitement to pogroms. They appealed repeatedly to the police, calling upon them to stop the production of a play which was sure to fan national and religious hatred. The police, however, were not guided by the wishes of the Jews, but by those of their enemies. As a result, in a considerable number of cities where the play was presented, such as Smolensk, Oryol, Kishinev, Tiflis, and others, violent demonstrations took place in the theatres. The Jewish spectators and a part of the Russian public, particularly from among the college youth, hissed and hooted, demanding the removal from the stage of this libel on a whole people. The anti-Semites, in turn, shouted: "Down with the Jews!", and started a fight with the demonstrators. The police, of course, sided with the anti-Semites, attacking the demonstrators and dragging them to the police stations. This agitation led to a number of legal proceedings against the Jews who were charged with disturbing the peace. During the trial of one of these cases (in the city of Oryol), the counsel for the defence used the following argument:

The argument of the defending attorney was scarcely convincing. For the article of the Russian law which forbids the "incitement of one part of the population against the other" loses its validity when the "other part" means the Jews.

CHAPTER XXXII
THE NATIONAL AWAKENING

1. The Rise of Political Zionism

For two decades the sledge hammer of Russian reaction had been descending with crushing force upon the vast community of the six million Russian Jews. Yet in the end it was found that the heavy hammer, to use the well-known simile of Pushkin, instead of shattering the national organism of Jewry, had only helped to steel it and to harden its indestructible spiritual self. The Jewry of Russia showed to the world that it was endowed with an iron constitution, and those that had hoped to crush it by the strokes of their hammer were ultimately forced to admit that they had produced the opposite result. At first it seemed as if the effect of these blows would be to turn Jewry into a shapeless mass. There were moments of despair and complete prostration, when the approaching darkness threatened to obliterate all paths. This stage was followed by a period of mental haziness, marked by dim yearnings for regeneration, which were bound to remain fruitless because unaccompanied by organizing energy.

This transitional state of affairs lasted throughout the eighties and during the first half of the nineties. But by and by, out of the chaos of these nebulous social tendencies, there emerged more and more clearly the outlines of definite politico-national doctrines and organizations, and new paths were blazed which, leading in different directions, converged toward one goal—that of the regeneration of the Jewish people from within, both in its national and social life.

The turning-point of this process is marked by the year 1897. That year, in which the first International Zionist Congress held its sessions, inaugurated not only the political Zionist movement, but also the development of other currents of Jewish national and political thought. The entire gamut of public slogans rang through the air, all bearing testimony to one and the same fact: that the era of national prostration had come to an end, and that the vague longings for liberation and regeneration had assumed the character of a conscious endeavor pursuing a well-defined course. The careful observer could scarcely fail to perceive that beneath the hammer of history the formless mass of Jewry was being forged into a well-shaped instrument of great power. The organization of the Jewish people had made its beginning.

Among the movements which arose at the end of the nineteenth century there were some which came to the surface of Jewish life rather noisily, attracting the attention of the Jewish masses as well as that of the outside world. Others, however, were imbedded more deeply in the consciousness of the educated classes and were productive of a new outlook upon the national Jewish problem. The former were an answer to the question of the "Jewish misery," of the Judennot, in its practical aspect. The latter offered a solution of the national-cultural problem of Judaism in its totality. The movements of the first kind are represented by Political Zionism and Territorialism. In the second category stand Spiritual Zionism and National-Cultural Autonomism. On a parallel line with both varieties of the national movement, and frequently intersecting it, went the Jewish socialistic movement, tinged to a lesser or larger degree by nationalistic tendencies.

For fifteen years, the "Lovers of Zion," or the Hibbat Zion movement, had been pursuing its course in Russia, without showing marked progress in the direction of that universal Jewish goal which had been formulated by its champions, Lilienblum and Pinsker.[17] During that period some fifteen Jewish agricultural colonies had sprung up in Palestine. The Jewish population of the Holy Land had been increased by some twenty thousand souls, and an effort had been made to create a national model school and to revive the ancient Hebrew tongue; but needless to say all this was far from solving the burning question of the six million Russian Jews who were clamoring for relief from their intolerable condition. At the slow rate of progress which had hitherto characterized the Jewish endeavors in Palestine any attempt to transfer a considerable portion of the Russian center to the Holy Land was doomed to failure, particularly in view of the hostility of the Turkish Government which was anxious to check even this insignificant growth of Jewish colonization.

At that juncture, the air of Europe resounded with the clarion tones of Theodor Herzl's appeal to the Jews to establish a "Jewish State." The appeal came from Western Europe, from the circles in which the sufferings of their "Eastern brethren" had hitherto been viewed entirely from the philanthropic point of view. It came from a young Viennese journalist who had been aroused by the orgy of anti-Semitism in the capital of Austria (the agitation of Burgomaster Lueger, and others), and by the exciting anti-Jewish scenes enacted in the capital of France, where, as a correspondent of the Viennese daily "Die Neu Freie Presse," he followed the Dreyfus affair in its first early stages. Herzl became suddenly conscious of the acute pain of the Jewish misery. He saw the anti-Semitism of Western Europe closing ranks with the Judæophobia of Eastern Europe. He saw the ideal of assimilation crumbling to pieces, and he made up his mind to hoist the flag of Jewish nationalism, scarcely aware of the fact that it had already been hoisted in the East.[18] His pamphlet ("The Jewish State"), which appeared in the beginning of 1896, was in its fundamental premises a repetition of the old appeal of Pinsker. The author of the new publication was convinced, like his predecessor, that the only relief from the Jewish misery lay in the concentration of the Jewish people upon a separate territory, without determining the question whether that territory should be Palestine or Argentina. But, in contradistinction to Pinsker, Herzl was not satisfied with formulating the problem theoretically; he offered at the same time a plan of political and economic organization by means of which the problem was to be solved: the creation of special representative bodies which were to enter into negotiations with rulers and Governments concerning the cession of an appropriate territory to the Jews under an international protectorate, and were also to obtain huge funds to carry out the transplantation and resettlement of vast Jewish masses. Representing a combination of theoretic enthusiasm and practical Utopias, the "Jewish State" of Herzl revived the nearly smothered political hopes which had been cherished by the Hobebe Zion circles in Russia. The Russian Jews, groaning under the yoke of an Egyptian bondage, flocked to the new Moses who announced the glad tidings of the Exodus, and Herzl, beholding the ready hosts in the shape of the Hobebe Zion societies, was quick to adjust his territorialistic scheme to the existing Palestinian movement.

In this wise, the organization of political Zionism sprang into life, using as its medium of expression the international party congresses, most of which convened in Switzerland, in the city of Basle. The first Basle Congress held in August, 1897, was an impressive demonstration of the national awakening of the Jewish people. For the first time, the united representatives of Eastern and Western Jewry proclaimed before the world that the scattered sections of Jewry looked upon themselves as one national organism striving for national regeneration. From the center of Western assimilation, advocating the disappearance of Jewry, came the war-cry, proclaiming the continued existence of the Jewish nation, though that existence was conditioned by the establishment of a separate "publicly and legally assured" territorial center. Of the four articles of the "Basle program," which were adopted by the first Congress, three deal with the fundamental task of the party, the political and financial endeavors looking to the colonization of large Jewish masses in Palestine, and only one voices the need "of strengthening the Jewish national feeling and self-respect."

In the further progress of the Zionist organization, these two principles, the political and the cultural, were constantly struggling for mastery, the Zionists of the West gravitating toward political activities and diplomatic negotiations, while the Zionists of the East laid greater emphasis upon internal cultural work along national lines, looking upon it as an indispensable prerequisite for national rebirth. The struggle between these two principles continued at each succeeding annual Congress (at the second and third held in Basle in 1898 and 1899, at the fourth in London in 1900, and at the fifth in Basle in 1901). On the one hand, the Zionists were feverishly engaged in the external organization of the movement: the consolidation of the Shekel-payer societies, the creation of the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Jewish National Fund, the conduct of diplomatic negotiations with the Turkish Government and with the political representatives of other countries for the purpose of obtaining a guaranteed "charter" for a wholesale colonization in Palestine. On the other hand, endeavors were made to nationalize the Jewish intellectual classes, to promote the Hebrew language, to create a national school, and "to conquer the communities" for Zionism, that is, to strengthen the influence of the party in the administration of the Jewish communities. The Convention of Russian Zionists, held at Minsk in 1902, paid particular attention to the cultural aspirations of the party, and adopted a resolution calling for the appointment of two committees, an orthodox and a progressive, to find ways and means for placing Jewish education on a national basis. The same Convention demonstrated the growth of the movement, for, during the first five years of its existence, the Zionist organization in Russia had succeeded in securing about seventy thousand Shekel-payers who were organized in approximately five hundred societies.

Yet the political and financial achievements of Zionism during that period of bloom—prior to the crisis of 1903—were insignificant. The diplomatic negotiations of the Zionist leader, Dr. Theodor Herzl, with the Sultan of Turkey and his Government, as well as with the German emperor and several other European sovereigns, failed of their purpose—the obtaining of a Turkish charter for the wholesale colonization of Palestine. The financial instrument of the party, the Jewish Colonial Trust, proved as yet too weak to collect the proposed fund of ten million dollars—a modest sum when compared with the purpose for which it was destined. The colonization of Palestine proceeded at a slow pace, and its miniature scale was entirely out of proportion to the grand plan of establishing a national autonomous center in Palestine. Withal, Zionism proved during that brief interval a potent factor in the national awakening of Jewry. The strength of the movement lay, not in the political aims of the organization, which were mostly beyond reach, but in the very fact that tens of thousands of Jews were organized with a national end in view. It lay, moreover, in the current national-cultural activities, in the Gegenwartsarbeit, which, yielding to necessity, had been raised from a means to an end. In Western Europe, the principal significance of Zionism lay in its effect as a counterbalance to assimilation, Herzl having declared that "Zionism aims at the establishment of a publicly and legally assured home for those Jews who, in their present places of residence, are not able, or not willing, to assimilate themselves." In Russia, however, where Jewish life was dominated by more powerful nationalizing influences, the chief importance of political Zionism lay in this very propaganda of a national rebirth in the midst of those whom militant Judæophobia was endeavoring to reduce by intolerable oppression to the level of moral degenerates. The apathy and faint-heartedness which had characterized public Jewish life during the eighties and the first half of the nineties was followed by a period of noisy bustle, of organizing activity, and of great animation. The Pale of Settlement resounded with the din of its hundreds of Zionist societies, with the speeches of Zionist agitators at public meetings and in the synagogues, with the intense agitation preceding the elections for each Zionist congress, with the heated debates about the program between the political and the cultural Zionists, between the Mizrahists (the faction of orthodox Zionists) and the Progressives. The public utterances of the Zionist leaders, Herzl and Nordau, were the subject of interminable discussion and comment. The Russian Jews were particularly stirred by the annual Congress addresses of Nordau on the "General Situation in Jewry," in which the famous writer pictured with characteristic vividness the tragedy of the Golus, the boundless extent of Jewish misery, having a material aspect in the lands of oppression and a moral aspect among the emancipated sections of Jewry, and which culminated in the thought that Jewry could not exist without Zion.

Nordau's motto, "Jewry will be Zionistic, or it will not be," was differently interpreted in the different circles of the Russian Jewish intelligenzia. Among the Russian leaders of the party only a minority (Dr. Mandelstamm of Kiev, and others) were fully in accord with the extreme political views of the Western leaders. The majority of the former workers in the ranks of the Hobebe Zion movement (Ussishkin, Chlenov, and others) sought to harmonize the political functions of Zionism with its cultural aspirations and combine the diplomatic negotiations concerning a charter with the upkeep of the existing colonization work in Palestine, which latter was contemptuously branded by the hide-bound adherents of political Zionism as "infiltration." This Babel of opinions within the ranks of the organization could not fail to weaken its effectiveness as an agency for the attainment of the ultimate Zionist goal. At the same time, it brought life and animation into the movement. The crack of the whip of the Egyptian taskmasters remained unheard amidst the clash of ideas and the proud slogans of national liberation which resounded throughout the Jewish Pale.

2. Spiritual Zionism, or Ahad-Ha´amism

And yet, political Zionism viewed as a theory failed to offer a satisfactory solution of the great Jewish problem in all its historic complexity. Born of the reaction against anti-Semitism, and endeavoring to soothe the pain of the wounded Jewish heart, it was marked by all the merits and demerits of a theory which was substantially Messianic in character and was entirely dependent on subjective forces, on faith and will-power. "If you only will it, then it is no fairy tale"[19]—in these words the ultimate goal of political Zionism is indicated by its founder, who firmly believed that an extraordinary exertion of the national will would transform the fairy tale of a "Jewish state" into reality. When confronted with the question as to the future of the Jewish nation in case faith and will-power should prove unable to grapple with the conditions over which it had no control, and the "fairy tale" of a united political autonomous center should not be realized, political Zionism either remained silent or indulged in a polemical retort which was in flagrant contradiction to Jewish history: "Without Zion, Judaism is bound to perish." The national conscience, however, could not be reconciled to such an answer. A more or less satisfactory solution of the problem of Judaism could not spring from the external reaction against anti-Semitism, but could only mature as the fruit of profound contemplation of the course of development pursued by the Jewish people in the Diaspora; such a solution could only be found in the endeavor to adapt the new national movement to this historic course. From this point of view political Zionism was rectified by "Spiritual Zionism," the teaching of the publicist and philosopher Ahad Ha'am (U. Ginzberg).

Even before political Zionism, or "Herzlianism," appeared on the scene, Ahad Ha'am had succeeded in substantially modifying the Palestinian idea as formulated by Lilienblum and Pinsker. In the program of the semi-Masonic order Bne Moshe ("Sons of Moses"), established by him in Odessa,[20] he laid down the fundamental principle that the preparation of the land for the people must be preceded by the transformation of the people into a firmly-knit national organization: "We must propagate the national idea, and convert it into a lofty moral ideal." Having become associated with the Palestinian colonization in a practical manner, as a leading member of the Odessa Palestine Society, founded in 1890,[21] Ahad Ha'am indefatigably preached that the significance of this microscopic colonization was not to be sought in its economic results, but in its spiritual and cultural effects, in establishing upon the historic soil of Judaism a nursing-ground for a pure national culture which should be free from foreign admixture, and from the inevitable cultural eclecticism of the Diaspora. After the spectacular appearance of political Zionism on the Jewish stage this fundamental idea of "Neo-Palestinianism" was more fully elaborated by Ahad Ha'am, assuming the shape of a comprehensive doctrine, known as the doctrine of "Spiritual Zionism." When the first Basle Congress was over, Ahad Ha'am declared that the "Jewish State," as formulated by Herzl, was beyond realization, for the reason that, under the prevailing circumstances, it was entirely impossible to transfer to Palestine the whole Diaspora, or even a substantial part of it. Consequently, the Palestinian colonization could not put an end to the material "Jewish misery," whereas a small Jewish center, gradually rising in Palestine, might, with the help of a proper organization, solve the national-spiritual problem of Judaism. The formation of a spiritual center in the historic homeland of the nation, the creation in that center of a Jewish national school, the revival of the Hebrew language as a medium of daily speech, the untrammelled development of a Jewish culture, without the pressure of a foreign environment—such in short he held to be the true goal of the Palestine idea. A "publicly and legally assured home for the Jewish spirit" of this kind would exert an uninterrupted nationalizing influence upon the Diaspora, serving as a living center of attraction for a genuine Jewish culture, and acting like a focus which scatters its rays over a large periphery.

The Zionist doctrine of Ahad Ha'am, as a counterbalance to official Zionism which was hall-marked by the "Basle Program," led to interminable discussions among the partisans of the movement. It did not succeed in creating a separate party or a special public agency for its realization; yet the elements of that doctrine have mingled in a larger or lesser degree with the views of the political Zionists in Russia, and manifested themselves in the protests of the cultural Zionists against the extreme political advocates of the movement at the Zionist Congresses. The Zionist Convention at Minsk, referred to previously, resulted in a partial triumph for the ideas championed by Ahad Ha'am, who submitted a report on the "Spiritual Regeneration of Judaism."[22] The Convention adopted a resolution calling for a larger measure of cultural work in the schedule of the party activities, but rejected at the same time the proposal of the referee to create a Jewish world organization for the revival of Jewish culture, on the ground that such an organization might destroy the political equilibrium of Zionism.

3. Spiritual Nationalism, or National-Cultural Autonomism

Both political and spiritual Zionism have their roots in the same common ground, in "the negation of the Golus": in the conviction that outside of Palestine—in the lands of the Diaspora—the Jewish people has no possibility of continuing its existence as a normal national entity. Both political and spiritual Zionists have their eyes equally fixed upon Zion as the anchor of safety for Judaism, whether it be in its material or in its spiritual aspect. Neither doctrine had formulated a clear idea of the future destinies of the Jewish Diaspora, that is, of the destinies of the entire Jewry of the world, minus the section settled in Palestine. The political Zionists evaded the question as to the fate of the Jewish people in case their aspirations should not materialize, and, faithful to the motto proclaimed by Nordau, were ready, as it were, to sentence the entire Diaspora to death, or to a life worse than death, in the eventuality of the Palestine charter being refused. The cultural Zionists protested against this hypothetical Zionism, insisting that the Diaspora would preserve its national vitality by mere contact with a small cultural center in Palestine. But how the tremendous bulk of the Diaspora Jewry should be organized for a Jewish life on the spot, how it should be enabled to liberate itself from the political and cultural pressure of the environment—that question remained unanswered by both wings of Zionism. An answer to this question could not be found by considering merely the last stage of Jewish history, but by viewing the latter in all its phases, beginning with the ancient Greco-Roman and Eastern Diaspora. Such an answer, based upon the entire Jewish past, was attempted by the doctrine of "Spiritual Nationalism," or, more correctly, "National-Cultural Autonomism." Its fundamental principles have been formulated by the present writer in his "Letters Concerning Ancient and Modern Judaism."[23]

The theory of Autonomism takes as its point of departure the historic fact that at all times, with the exception of a few brief and partial deflections, the Jewish Diaspora, taken as a whole, represented a national organism, in which the absence of political or territorial unity was made up by the stronger cohesion of its spiritual and cultural ties and the greater intensity of its social and autonomous life. For many centuries the entire culture of Judaism assumed a religious coloring and its communal autonomy was centered in the synagogue—which circumstance gave the modern champions of assimilation reason for thinking that the Jews were only a religious group scattered among various nations. It was a fatal error on the part of the Parisian Synhedrion convoked by Napoleon when, in its declaration of 1807, it proclaimed that "Jewry to-day does not constitute a nation," an error which during the nineteenth century became an article of faith with the Jews of Western Europe. The latest development of the national movement has shown that Jewry, though scattered among various political states, is a nation full of vitality, and that the Jewish religion is only one of its functions. The Jewish national idea, secularized to a certain degree, is based on the assumption that all sections of the Jewish people, though divided in their political allegiance, form one spiritual or historico-cultural nation, which, like all national minority groups in countries with a mixed population, are in duty bound to fight in their several lands at one and the same time not only for their civil equality, but also for their national rights—the autonomy of the Jewish community, school, and language. What Jewish orthodoxy has for centuries stood for and still stands for, under the guise of religious Judaism, progressive Jews should fight for under the banner of a national Jewish culture. The fate of universal Jewry ought not to be bound up with one single center. We should take into account the historic fact of a multiplicity of centers of which those that have the largest numbers and can boast of the most genuine development of a national Jewish life are entitled to the hegemony of the Jewish people. In those lands in which civil emancipation has been achieved the fight must go on for national emancipation, the recognition of the Jews as a nation which is entitled to a comprehensive communal and cultural autonomy. In Russia, the struggle must be carried on simultaneously for civil as well as national rights. Temporary set-backs in this struggle for a national existence ought not to discourage a nation which has endured the most terrible sufferings for centuries and has been able to preserve its spiritual freedom even in the midst of slavery.

A certain measure of relief from these sufferings might be found in the old-time remedy of Jewish history, in the emigration from the lands of bondage to countries enjoying a greater amount of freedom. If in one of the centers the Jews are subject to prolonged persecution, then their gradual transplantation, be it partial or complete, to another center offering more favorable opportunities in the struggle for existence ought to be attempted. Thus, during the last decades, the partial exodus of the Jews from Russia has helped to create an important Jewish center in North America and a smaller, yet spiritually valuable center, in Palestine. The latter may become a medium for the nationalization of the entire Diaspora, but only then when the Diaspora itself will be organized directly upon the foundations of a cultural autonomy. Zionism, when reduced to its concrete possibilities, can form only one plank in the universal platform of the Jewish nation. The Palestinian center may strengthen the national development of the Diaspora, but it does not constitute a conditio sine qua non for its autonomous existence.

Similar to Spiritual Zionism which had not succeeded in forming a special party, and yet acted as a lever in the general Zionist movement, Autonomism, too, failed to find its embodiment in a party organization, and yet became an integral part of the politico-national movements of Russian Jewry at the beginning of the present century. During the revolutionary struggle in Russia, in 1905 and 1906, the demand for a national-cultural autonomy was embodied in various degrees by nearly all Jewish parties and groups in their platforms, aside from, and in addition to, the demand for civil equality.[24]

4. The Jewish Socialistic Movement

On a parallel line with the nationalistic ideology, which formed a counterbalance to the assimilationist theory of Western Europe, the doctrine of Socialism came gradually to the fore, emphasizing the principle of the class struggle in a more or less intimate connection with the national idea. The Jewish labor movement was born at the end of the eighties in Lithuania—in Vilna, and other cities; its adherents were recruited from among the Jewish workingmen who were mainly engaged in handicrafts. In the nineties, the movement spread to the growing manufacturing centers of Lithuania and Poland—Bialystok, Smorgon, Warsaw, and Lodz. At first, the labor societies were established with a purely economic end in view—the organization of strikes for fewer working hours, increased wages, and the like. The leaders of these societies who were recruited from among the young Jewish intelligenzia, some of whom had received a university education abroad, endeavored to model the movement upon the pattern of the West-European Social-Democracy. The doctrine of Marxian Socialism was applied, sometimes rather hastily, to the primitive stage of capitalistic production in the Pale of Settlement where it was still very difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the poverty-stricken "petty bourgeoisie," forming the bulk of the Jewish population, and the labor proletariat.

In the second half of the nineties, the Jewish Socialistic societies were drawn into the maelstrom of the Russian revolutionary movement. In 1897, all these societies were consolidated in the "League of the Jewish Workingmen of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia," known under its abbreviated name as Der Bund ("The League"). The first secret convention of the "League" took place in Vilna in the month of September, just one month after the first Zionist Congress at Basle. Various party centers were organized in Russia—clandestinely, of course; the party organ, published in the language of the Jewish masses, in Yiddish, appeared abroad under the name of Die Arbeiter Stimme. It is worthy of note that the formation of the Jewish "Bund" gave a year later the stimulus to the organization of the "Russian Social-Democratic Party," which united the formerly existing Russian labor societies. The "Bund" now joined the ranks of Russian Social Democracy as a separate autonomous group, although a number of Jewish Social Democrats who had adopted the viewpoint of assimilation or cosmopolitanism occupied a conspicuous place in the leadership of the Russian party at large.

At subsequent conventions the "Bund" endeavored to formulate its national program. At first, the tendency prevailed to limit the national element in the party platform to the use of the popular Jewish vernacular as a propaganda medium among the masses. At the third convention of the "Bund," which took place in Kovno in 1899, the proposal to demand national equality for the Jews was voted down on the ground that the attention of the workingmen should be concentrated upon their class interests and ought not to be diverted in the direction of national aspirations. The fourth convention of the party, held in 1901, similarly declared "that it was premature, under the present circumstances, to put forward the demand for a national autonomy for the Jews," although it realized at the same time that "the concept of nationality is also applicable to the Jewish people." Only after prolonged debates in the party press, and after a violent struggle with the centralizing tendencies of the Russian Social-Democratic Party, the convention of the "Bund," held in 1905, adopted a resolution, demanding "national-cultural autonomy" in the domain of popular education as well as public rights for the language spoken by the Jews.

In this wise, the national element gradually permeated even the doctrine of Socialism which, in its essence, had always been opposed to it and had placed in its stead the principle of internationalism and class interests. On the other hand, an attempt was made to inject the Socialistic element into Zionism. Beginning with 1901, the Poale-Zion ("The Zionist Workingmen") began to organize themselves in separate societies which proclaimed the territorial principle of Zionism as the only means of solving the Jewish social-economic question, proceeding from the assumption that in the lands of the Diaspora the Jewish masses would always be barred from the domain of big industry.

5. The Revival of Jewish Letters

This national revival of Russian Jewry found its expression also in Jewish literature. The periodical press, particularly in the Hebrew language, exhibited new life and vigor, and in other domains of literary productivity various big talents made their appearance. As early as the end of the eighties, the two weekly Hebrew organs, the ha-Melitz in St. Petersburg, and the ha-Tzefirah in Warsaw, were transformed into dailies. The Hebrew annuals pursuing purely literary and scientific aims, such as the ha-Asif ("The Harvest"), Keneset Israel ("The Community of Israel"), Pardes ("The Garden"), and others, made way for the more energetic ha-Shiloah, a monthly publication which reacted more rapidly on the questions of the day.[25] This review, which is the equal of the leading periodicals of Europe, exercised considerable influence upon the views of the nationalist Jewish youth during the period of transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.

At one and the same time, considerable headway was made by the periodical press in the popular vernacular, called Jargon, or Yiddish. The Jüdisches Volksblatt, a weekly publication, appeared in St. Petersburg from 1881 to 1890. The Hausfreund, the Jüdische Volksbibliothek, the Jüdische Bibliothek, edited by Spektor, Shalom Aleichem, and I. L. Perez, respectively, were published in Warsaw and Kiev between 1888 and 1895. Der Jud, a Yiddish weekly, was issued in Warsaw in 1899-1902.

As for the Jewish press in the Russian language, the former mouthpiece of the progressive intelligenzia, the Voskhod, which appeared at the same time as a weekly and as a monthly publication, leaned more and more towards the national movement. Another Russian-Jewish weekly, Budushchnost, "The Future," which appeared in St. Petersburg from 1899 to 1903, was Zionistic in tendency.

In the theoretic branch of publicistic literature the dominant figure during that period was Ahad Ha'am, whose articles endeavored to answer not only the exciting questions of the day, but also the perpetual problems of Judaism. His brief semi-philosophic, semi-publicistic essays, under the general heading Perurim ("Titbits"), served as a lode star for those who hoped to find the synthesis of "Jew" and "man" in modern Jewish nationalism. In a series of articles he lashes "slavery in freedom,"[26] or the assimilation of the emancipated Jews of Western Europe; he criticizes the theory of "Nationalism without Zion," and the manifestations of a Jewish Nietzscheanism with its denial of the Jewish ethical doctrine. Not satisfied with mere criticism, he formulates in these articles the principles of a "spiritual revival"[27] in the sense of a nationalization of Jewish culture. The essays of Ahad Ha'am, which were subsequently collected under the title 'Al Parashat Derakim, "At the Parting of the Ways,"[28] represent a profound and closely reasoned system of thought which is firmly grounded in historico-philosophical premises.

In the forefront of publicists of a less theoretic turn of mind stood the talented Nahum Sokolow, the editor of the ha-Tzefirah in Warsaw, who, after some vacillation, joined the ranks of political Zionism. In the border-land between journalism and literary criticism the most conspicuous figures were David Frischman and Micah Joseph Berdychevsky. The former emphasized in his brilliant literary essays the necessity of a "Europeanization" of Judaism, while the latter championed the cause of Nietzcheanism, protesting against the suppression of the "man" in the "Jew," and against the predominance of the spiritual over the material in the doctrine of Judaism. Berdychevsky is also the author of a number of sketches portraying the tragic split in the soul of the Jewish intellectual and the primitive harmoniousness of the old hasidic world.

In the realm of Jewish belles lettres S. J. Abramovich, known under his pen-name Mendele Mokher Sforim, the writer of the "Era of Reforms," remained as theretofore the acknowledged leader. The creative energy of this author, who mastered with equal skill both the national and the popular language, attained to even greater heights during the period of the new Jewish martyrdom. His novel Wünschfingerl, "The Wishing Ring," which was originally written in Yiddish, and, in its Hebrew version, grew into a large volume, Be-'Emek ha-Bakha, "In the Valley of Tears," (1897-1907), constitutes a great epic depicting Jewish life during the gloomy reign of Nicholas I. and the "Era of Enlightenment" under Alexander II. A series of sketches, marked by inimitable humor, portray the disintegration of the old mode of life under the influence of the pogroms of 1881 and the subsequent emigration from Russia (Bime ha-Ra'ash, "In Stormy Days," and others). His autobiographical series (Bayyamim Hahem, "In Those Days") and his incomplete Shloime Reb Hayyims ("Solomon the son of Hayyim") reveal the power of rare psychological analysis.

Abramovich's literary activity, extending over half a century,[29] earned for him the title of "Grandfather of Neo-Hebrew Literature" (Der Zeide).[30] He was privileged to witness the brilliant successes of his "sons and grandsons" who came gradually to the fore, particularly in Yiddish literature. His younger contemporary, Isaac Leib Perez, wrote, during the first period of his literary endeavors, clever stories, portraying the life of the Jewish masses in Poland and distinguished by a powerful realism, often tinged with satire (his series Reisebilder, "Travel Pictures," and other sketches which were written mostly during the nineties). Later on, Perez leaned more and more towards modern literary symbolism, drawing his inspiration mostly from the mystic legends of the Hasidim (his series Hasidish, which was subsequently expanded into two volumes under the title Volkstümliche Geschichten, "Popular Stories," 1909).[31]

Towards the end of the century, the talent of the great Jewish humorist Shalom Aleichem (S. Rabinovitz)[32] attained its full bloom. He was particularly successful in his masterly delineation of the Luftmensch type of the Pale of Settlement, who is constantly on the hunt for a piece of bread, who clutches at every possible profession and subsists on illusions (his sketches Menahem Mendel). Using the popular vernacular with its characteristic idioms and witticisms as his vehicle of expression, Shalom Aleichem draws the pictures of the "Little People" of the Russian ghetto (his series Kleine Menshelekh), describes the joys and sorrows of their children (Maassios far Jüdishe Kinder, "Stories for Jewish Children"), and puts into the mouth of the unsophisticated philosopher of the ghetto, "Tevye (Tobias) the Dairyman," the soul-stirring epic of the great upheavals in this secluded little world (the series of sketches under the name Tevye Der Milchiger). To these big stars on the sky of Jewish belles lettres may be added the host of lesser luminaries who write in the rejuvenated ancient language of the nation or in the vernacular of the masses, the Yiddish.

The literary revival manifested itself with particular vigor in the domain of poetry. At the beginning of the nineties, the voice of Judah Leib Gordon, the poet of the "Era of Reforms"[33] was silenced (he died in 1892). The singer of the national sorrow, Simon Frug,[34] who was carried away by the new ideas of Zionism, began to sing his "Zionids" in the Russian language, writing at the same time for the masses sonorous poems in Yiddish, though neither of them reveals the poetic charm of his older national elegies.

New stars now glisten on the horizon. The middle of the nineties saw the ripening of the mighty talent of Hayyim Nahman Bialik, who brought the poetical forms of ancient Hebrew speech to unprecedented perfection. The magnificence of form is matched by the wealth of content. The greatest creative power of Bialik is displayed in his treatment of national motifs. Himself the product of the rabbinical Yeshibah and Bet ha-Midrash, he sings of the spiritual beauty hidden behind these ancient and outwardly unattractive walls, in this antiquated citadel of the Jewish spirit, where the cult of intellectual knighthood reigned supreme, where the spiritual shield was forged which preserved a nation of lambs amidst a horde of wolves (his wonderful poems Im Yesh Et Nafsheka la-Da'at,[35] ha-Matmid, "the Diligent Student," and others). The sufferings and humiliations heaped upon his people by its enemies bring the poet to the brink of despair, for he realizes that the old shield has been laid aside, and no new shield has taken its place. He is filled with indignation at the indifference of the Jewish masses to the appeal for regeneration sounded by Zionism (Aken Hatzir ha-'Am, "Verily, the People are like Grass," and others). At a later stage, beginning with the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, Bialik's lyre becomes more and more pessimistic, adopting the tone of wrathful rebuke and fiery denunciation.

In contradistinction to this singer of the national soul, another contemporary poet, Saul Chernikhovsky, sounds the keynote of general human experience and the joy of living. He demonstratively prostrates himself before the statue of Apollo (Lenokah Pesel Apollo, "Before the Statue of Apollo"), offering to it the repentant prayer of the Jew for having denied the ideal of beauty. He raves about "Hellenism," the cult of joy and light, repudiating the one-sided spirituality and rigorism of old Judaism. Erotic motifs, descriptions of nature, ballads, rustic idylls—such are the characteristic features of Chernokhovsky's poetry which forms, as it were, a general human pendant to the poetry of Bialik, though yielding to it in the depth of literary conception. Both Bialik and Chernikhovsky fructified the field of Jewish poetry, which in the beginning of the twentieth century found a whole host of more or less talented cultivators, most of them writing in the ancient national language, though in a rejuvenated form.

Less rapid was the progress of Jewish scholarly endeavors. Yet, beginning with the eighties, even this domain is marked by an uninterrupted activity which forms a continuation of the scientific achievements of the West. The nineties inaugurate systematic efforts directed toward the elucidation of the history of the Jews in Russia and Poland. A series of scholarly researches, monographs, and general accounts of Jewish history, written mostly in Russian, make their appearance. Particularly noteworthy are the efforts to blaze new paths of Jewish historiography converging towards the national conception of Judaism. The Jewish historians of the nineteenth century in Western Europe, who were swayed by assimilationist ideas, viewed Jewish history primarily from the theological or spiritualistic point of view. The scholarly endeavors of Russian Jewry constitute an attempt to understand the social development of the Diaspora as a peculiar, internally-autonomous nation which, at all times, has sought to preserve not only its religious treasures, but also the genuine complexion of its diversified national life.