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Menorah Review (No. 57, Winter, 2003) Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Menorah Review VCU University Archives 2003 Menorah Review (No. 57, Winter, 2003) Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/menorah Part of the History of Religion Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons © The Author(s) Recommended Citation https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/menorah/56 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the VCU University Archives at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Menorah Review by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NUMBER 57 • CENTER FOR JUDAIC STUDIES OF VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY. WINTER 2003 A 100th Anniversary Memoria//ssue Dedicated to the Victims of the Kishinev Pogrom 1903 and to All Who Followed 1903-2003 once the wife and kids come along for the of the hysterical charges against them, they Klshil18Y, 1�2� ride, that's when you examine the tires, were nevertheless the snake in the lap of listen to that engine purr, load up the emer­ Holy Mother Russia.l That is, scapegoat MIchael gency blankets, check the cellphone, collect number one. In times of economic andlor by Robert the extra clothing, towels, wipes, diapers, political crisis, as in other places and earlier Professor Emencusof •• flares,flashlights, food, oh, and more. Re­ times,Jews became the prime target of abuse. ... E�"tory .. ·: sisting with your family is quite different Their predicament was aggravated by the UniverSityof MaSSachusetts from being single. fact that many of those politically opposed Dartmouth Do you stay or run? Do you try to to the traditionally anti-Semitic, incompe­ protect or take off? Do you comfort others tent and manipulative czarist government Ap ril 12, 2002. KISHINEV JEWISH CEM­ or flee? Families. I'm reminded of the heart­ were Jews. ETERY VANDALIZED. Up to 50 tomb­ scorching testimony of Hermann Graebe, a Russians and Moldavians comprised stones in the Kishinev Jewish cemeterywere German civilian engineer witnessing the almost half of the population of Kishinev, vandalized during Passover, many of the mass murder of the Jews of Dubno: "With­ and the Jews made up most of the other half.' tombstones damaged beyond repair. out screaming or weeping, these people un­ Most of the city's prosperous economy had When I read this headline, I felt the dressed, stood in family groups, kissed each fallen by default or assertiveness into Jewish dread of the approaching century anniver­ other, said their farewells. ' ... The man and hands, even though a sizable minority of sary of the Kishinev pogrom. My firstintro­ wife were looking on with tears in their eyes. Jews required charity to survive. But, as duction to this event was in my search for The father was holding the hand of a boy of with medieval money-lending,any economic Holocaust poetry. I'd been incredulous that about 10, speaking to him softly. The boy success agravated traditional antagonism. Bialik's poem City of Slaughter was written was fighting back his tears. The father And enemies the Jews did have: Krushevan in 1903, not 1943. Then my horror was pointed to the sky, stroking the boy's head, the newspaper publisher, the contractor doubled when I realized Bialik was so angry and seemed to explain something to him." Pronin,provincial governorvon Raaben and at what he saw that passages of his poem In 1903, the Russian Jews were in a fix. Orthodox bishop Iakov, who said nothing to blame the Jews, Jewish men, for not killing State,church and people were alienated from dissuade his parishioners of the medieval themselves or praying so hard that a silent the Jews, the Christ-killing Jews, who were defamations they still believed, ritual mur­ God would be forced to intervene. He calls needed primarily as scapegoats for Russian der and blood libel. In the second rank were them mice, and roaches, and dogs. problems: the recently freed serfs,the growth those government officials who turned their Crushed in their shame, they saw it all of nationalism, rapid economic and social backs on law and order when it came to the They did not stir nor move; change. Who better to blame things on than Jews, men like vice-governor Ustrugov and They did not pluck their eyes out; they the so-called stiff-necked, Christian-child­ chief of police Khanzhenkov. Lower-level Beat not their brains against the wall! murdering Jews? Save Russia, beat the government bureaucrats,police officialsand His anger reminded me of the anger that Jews, went the popular slogan. Restrict soldiers not only mistreated Jews but en­ many feel on first reading about Jewish them to a massive ghetto, the Pale of Settle­ couraged those who did. The head of the passivity in the face of Nazi depredations. I ment. No matter thatthe Jews were i nnocen t artisans guild Stepanov,Pronin's collabora­ myself, an experienced scholar, had this tor, was also hostile. Bekman, commander foolish reaction. Whydidn'tthey fightback, of the garrison,was impartial but many if not how could they let themselves be stripped of IN THIS ISSUE most of his officers and soldiers hated the their rights, their property, their clothes, Jews. Finally, prosecutor Goremykin and • their dignity, their lives? It wasn't a double Kishinev, 1903-2003 • on death the Jews experienced, it was a death Brief Reflections KishinevFrom Our IJews have threatened Christians from within, as five times over. When I teach about Jewish Editors they have done to all their hosts, "like a mouse in our pocket,like a snake in our lap,like a firein our reactions, and the near-miracle of active • Crys1a1Night Jewish resistance, I show the students how insides." Jews were "the enerrues of the Cross." • TheCity of Slaughter The words of Pope Innocent HI in regard to Jews much easier it is to resist when you are 20 in J 205 and 1208. Simonsohn I,Documents 82, years old, single and childless. Nothing • From1he Children of 1he WarsawGhetto 88. seems impossible. Drive to New York from andTerezin ... Boston on a lark, why the hell not? Tires • If IForge t... I?Can DareI? 2See the excellent treatment by Edward Judge, soft? Cranky engine? Who cares? You can Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy ofa Pogrom (New • NoteworthyBooks hitch a ride or, if it comes to that, walk. But York,1992). 2 Menorah Review, Winter 2003 mayor Schmidt tried to do their jobs impar­ the open mouths of such wounds that Under this strong pressure of interna­ tially, but overall those who acted against No mending will ever mend, tional public opinion, some of the perpetra­ the Jews were rewarded. Nor healing ever heal. tors of the Kishinev pogrom were brought to The catalyst for the pogrom was the There your feet will stumble justice but they were awarded relatively death of a boy in a neighboring town some On wreckage doubly wrecked, lenient sentences.' One of the consequences weeks earlier in February 1903. Rumors Torah scroll heaped on Talmudic of all the publicity accompanying the many were that he was crucified by the Jews, a manuscript, atrocities in Kishinev was that a number of centuries-old myth that Jews ritually re­ Fragments again fr agmented. Jewish banking houses throughout Europe quired the blood of a Christian boy to add to By noon Tuesday, when the army finally and the United States stopped, or threatened the matzah eaten during Passover. moved in and made some 800 arrests, it was to stop, credits to the cash-poor czarist Krushevan's newpaper published the report over. government. and, even though it was retracted in March, There is indirect evidence that Russian Although America's German Jews dis­ it planted the seed of violence fallen on the minister of the interior, Count Plehve, or­ liked the Russian Jews, they were neverthe­ fertile soil of traditional Christian anti­ chestrated the Kishinev pogrom as part of a less deeply distrubed by the barbarism of the Semitism. Another rumor spread that the plan to divert the Russian people's attention czar's persecution even before Kishinev. czar had issued a secret edict pennitting toward a scapegoat for Russia's economic, Jacob Schiff, a power in international fi­ three days of "beating the Jews" and pillag­ political problems and, at the same time, nance, led a crusade to force Czar Nicholas ing them as part of the Christian Easter damage the Russian Jews who were some of to abandon his anti-Semitic campaign.' He celebrartion. Wishful thinking with dire the leading lights in revolutionary move­ brought pressure to bear on the American results. ments. True enough, but, as Edward Judge government to use its influence to amelio­ Easter Sunday, April 6, 1903, coincided argues, the overriding concern of the Rus­ rate the suffering of Jews in other European with the last day of Passover. At first, sian government was to preserve law and locations, and influenced his friends and inhibitions loosened by alcohol, groups of order and this superseded support for any family as well as non-Jewish financialhouses rioters vandalized Jewish property, many riots. Nevertheless, as Judge points out, by to a banking boycott of Russia, resulting in Christian businessmen and homeowners issuing anti-Jewish legislation, by discrimi­ the denial of loans to Russia in most French, marking their property with crosses to pro­ nation and quotas in residence, education, English and U.S. money markets' In 1904, tect them. Because the police refused to government and professional positions, by after war broke out between Russia and intervene to stop the rioting against the Jews officially repressing the Jews and by sup­ Japan, Schifflobbied for high-risk war loans and because Bishop Iakov blessed the Chris­ porting anti-Jewish national officials and to the Japanese.
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