FREE THE JEWS IN POLAND AND RUSSIA: A SHORT HISTORY PDF

Antony Polonsky | 624 pages | 26 Sep 2013 | The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization | 9781906764395 | English | Oxford, United Kingdom History of the Jews in Russia - Wikipedia

The history of Jews in Poland dates back at least 1, years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culturebecause of the long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy which ended after the Partitions of Poland in the 18th century. During World War II there was a nearly complete genocidal destruction of the Polish Jewish community by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, during the German occupation of Poland between andcalled the Holocaust. Since the fall of communism in Polandthere has been a renewed interest in Jewish culture, featuring an annual Jewish Culture Festivalnew study programs at Polish secondary schools and universities, and the opening of Warsaw 's Museum of the History of Polish Jews. From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in until the early years of the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History inPoland was the most tolerant country in Europe. According to some sources, about three-quarters of the world's Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century. Still, as Poland regained independence in the aftermath of World War Iit was the center of the European Jewish world with one of the world's largest Jewish communities of over 3 million. Antisemitism was a growing problem throughout Europe in those years, from both the political establishment and the general The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History. The Polish state also supported Jewish paramilitary groups such as the HaganahBetarand Irgunproviding them with weapons and training. Collaboration by individual Poles has been described as smaller than in other occupied countries. Their departure was hastened by the destruction of Jewish institutions, post-war violence and the hostility of the Communist Party to both religion The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History private enterprise, but also because in — Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Israel, [26] without visas or exit permits. The contemporary Polish Jewish community is estimated to have between 10, and 20, members. The first Jews to visit Polish territory were traders, while permanent settlement began during the Crusades. One of them, a diplomat and merchant from the Moorish town of Tortosa in Spanish Al-Andalusknown by his Arabic name, Ibrahim ibn Yaqubwas the first chronicler to mention the Polish state ruled by Prince Mieszko I. In the summer of orJacob made a trade and diplomatic journey from his native Toledo in Muslim Spain to the Holy Roman Empire and then to the Slavic countries. The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History the first Jews to arrive in Poland in or were those banished from Prague. As elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europethe principal activity of Jews in medieval Poland was commerce and trade, including the export and import of goods such as cloth, linen, furs, hides, wax, metal objects, and slaves. Jews came to form the backbone of the Polish economy. Mieszko III employed Jews in his mint as engravers and technical supervisors, and the coins minted during that period even bear Hebraic markings. Another factor for the Jews to emigrate to Poland were the Magdeburg rights or Magdeburg Lawa charter given to Jews, among others, that specifically outlined the rights and privileges that Jews had in Poland. For example, they could define their neighborhoods and economic competitors and set up monopolies. This made it very attractive for Jewish communities to pick up and move to Poland. The tolerant situation was gradually altered by the Roman Catholic Church on the one hand, and by the neighboring German states on the other. With the consent of the class representatives and higher officials, in he issued a General Charter of Jewish Liberties commonly called the Statute of Kaliszwhich granted all Jews the freedom of worship, trade and travel. If despite this a Jew should be accused of murdering a Christian child, such charge must be sustained by testimony of three Christians and three Jews. During the next hundred years, the Church pushed for the persecution of Jews while the rulers of Poland usually protected them. However, those church decrees required the cooperation of The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History Polish princes for enforcement, which was generally not forthcoming, due to the profits which the Jews' economic activity yielded to the princes. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. In —broad privileges were extended to Lithuanian Jews including freedom of religion and commerce on equal terms with the Christians. However, religious persecution gradually increased, as the dogmatic clergy pushed for less official tolerance, pressured by the Synod of Constance. In pogroms took place in many towns in Silesia. Traders and artisans jealous of Jewish prosperity, and fearing their rivalry, supported the harassment. In the statute of Warka forbade Jews the granting of loans The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History letters of credit or mortgage and limited their operations exclusively to loans made on security of moveable property. For example, Wolczko of Drohobycz, King Ladislaus Jagiello's broker, was the owner of several villages in the Ruthenian voivodship and the soltys administrator of the village of Werbiz. Also Jews from Grodno were in this period owners of villages, manors, meadows, fish ponds and mills. However until the end of the 15th century agriculture as a source of income played only a minor role among Jewish families. More important were crafts for the needs of both their fellow Jews and the Christian population fur making, tanning, tailoring. As a result, Jews were banished from Lower Silesia. The decline in the status of the Jews was briefly checked by Casimir IV the Jagiellonian —but soon the nobility forced him to issue the Statute of Nieszawa[43] which, among other things, abolished the ancient privileges of the Jews "as contrary to divine right and the law of the land. Two years later Casimir issued another document announcing that he could not deprive the Jews of his benevolence on the basis of "the principle of tolerance which in conformity with God's laws obliged him to protect them". In the same year, Alexander, when he was the Grand Duke of Lithuaniafollowed the example of Spanish rulers and banished Jews from Lithuania. For several years they took shelter in Poland until he reversed his decision eight years later in after becoming King of Poland and allowed them back to Lithuania. Poland became more tolerant just as the Jews were expelled from Spain inas well as from AustriaHungary and Germanythus stimulating Jewish immigration to the much more accessible Poland. Indeed, with the expulsion of the Jews from SpainPoland became the recognized haven for exiles from Western Europe; and the resulting accession to the ranks of Polish Jewry made it the cultural and spiritual center of the Jewish people. The most prosperous period for Polish Jews began following this new influx of Jews with the reign of Sigismund The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History the Old —who protected the Jews in his realm. His son, Sigismund II Augustus —mainly followed his father's tolerant policy and also granted communal-administration autonomy to the Jews and laid the foundation for the power of the Qahalor autonomous Jewish community. This period led to the creation of a proverb about Poland being a "heaven for the Jews". According to some sources, about three-quarters of all Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century. Jewish religious life thrived in many Polish communities. ByJews were given permission to choose their own Chief Rabbi. The Chief Rabbinate held power over law and finance, appointing judges and other officials. Some power was shared with local councils. The Polish government permitted The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History Rabbinate to grow in power, to use it for tax collection purposes. In this period Poland-Lithuania became the main center for Ashkenazi Jewry and its yeshivot achieved fame from the early 16th century. In addition to being a renowned Talmudic and legal scholarIsserles was also learned in Kabbalahand studied history, astronomy, and philosophy. The Remuh Synagogue was built for him in After the childless death of Sigismund II Augustusthe last king of the Jagiellon dynastyPolish and Lithuanian nobles szlachta gathered at Warsaw in and signed a document in which representatives of all major religions pledged mutual support and tolerance. The following eight or nine decades of material prosperity and relative security experienced by Polish Jews — wrote Professor Gershon Hundert — witnessed the appearance of "a virtual galaxy of sparkling intellectual figures. Inthe multi-ethnic Commonwealth was devastated by several conflicts, in which the country lost over a third of its population over three million people. The Jewish losses were counted in the hundreds of thousands. The first of these large-scale atrocities was the Khmelnytsky Uprisingin which Bohdan Khmelnytsky 's Ukrainian Cossacks massacred tens of thousands of Jews and Catholic Poles in the eastern and southern areas of Polish- occupied Ukraine. The Jewish community suffered greatly during the Ukrainian Cossack uprising which had been directed primarily against the Polish nobility and landlords. Ruled by the elected kings of the House of Vasa sincethe embattled Commonwealth was invaded by the Swedish Empire in in what became known as the Deluge. The kingdom of Poland which had already suffered from the Khmelnytsky Uprising and from the recurring invasions of the Russians, Crimean Tatars and Ottomansbecame the scene of even more atrocities. The Polish general Stefan Czarniecki defeated the Swedes in He was equally successful in his battles against the Russians. As soon as the disturbances had ceased, the Jews began to return and to rebuild their destroyed homes; and while it is true that the Jewish population of Poland had decreased, it still was more numerous than that of the Jewish The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History in Western Europe. Poland continued to be the spiritual center of Judaism. Throughthe Polish kings generally remained supportive of the Jews. Although Jewish losses in those events were high, the Commonwealth lost one third of its population — approximately three million of its citizens. The environment of the Polish Commonwealth, according to Hundert, profoundly affected Jews due to genuinely positive encounter with the Christian culture across the many cities The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History towns owned by the Polish aristocracy. There was no isolation. The worldwide Jewish population at that time was estimated at 1. Inthe Koliyivshchyna rebellion west of the Dnieper river in The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History led to ferocious murders of Polish noblemen, Catholic priests and thousands The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History Jews by the Ukrainian Haidamaka Cossacks. The culture and intellectual output of the Jewish community The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History Poland had a profound impact on Judaism as a whole. Some Jewish historians have recounted that the word Poland is pronounced as Polania or Polin in Hebrewand as transliterated into Hebrew, these names for Poland were interpreted as "good omens" because Polania can be broken down into three Hebrew words: po "here"lan "dwells"ya " God "and Polin into two words of: po "here" lin "[you should] dwell". The "message" was that Poland was meant to be a good place for the Jews. During the time from the rule of Sigismund I the Old until the Nazi HolocaustPoland would be at the center of Jewish religious life. Yeshivot were established, under the direction of the rabbis, in the more prominent communities. Such schools were officially known as gymnasiumsand their rabbi principals as rectors. Jewish printing establishments came into existence in the first quarter of the 16th century. The growth of Talmudic scholarship in Poland was coincident with the greater prosperity of the Polish Jews; and because of their communal autonomy educational development was wholly one-sided and along Talmudic lines. Exceptions are recorded, however, where Jewish youth sought secular instruction in the European universities. The learned rabbis became not merely expounders of the Law, but also spiritual advisers, teachers, judges, and legislators; and their authority compelled the communal leaders to make themselves familiar with the abstruse questions of Jewish law. Polish Jewry found its views of life shaped by the spirit of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, whose influence was felt in the home, in school, and in the synagogue. In the first half of the 16th century the seeds of Talmudic learning had been transplanted to Poland from Bohemiaparticularly from the school of Jacob Pollakthe creator of Pilpul "sharp reasoning". Shalom Shachna c. He lived and died in Lublinwhere he was the head of the yeshivah which produced the rabbinical celebrities of the following century. Shachna's son Israel became rabbi of Lublin on the death of his father, and Shachna's pupil Moses Isserles known as the ReMA — achieved an international reputation among the Jews as the co-author of the Shulkhan Arukhthe "Code of Jewish Law". His contemporary and correspondent Solomon Luria — of Lublin also enjoyed a wide reputation among his co-religionists; and the authority of both was recognized by the Jews throughout Europe. Heated religious disputations were common, and Jewish The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History participated in them. At the same time, the Kabbalah had become entrenched under the protection of Rabbinism ; and such scholars as Mordecai Jaffe and Yoel Sirkis devoted themselves to its study. This period of great Rabbinical scholarship was interrupted by the Chmielnicki Uprising and The Deluge. The decade from the Cossacks' uprising until after the Swedish war — left a deep and lasting impression not only on the social life of the Polish-Lithuanian Jews, but on their spiritual life as well. The intellectual output of the Jews of Poland was reduced. The Talmudic learning which up to that period had been the common possession of the majority of the The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History became accessible to a limited number of students only. What religious study there was became overly formalized, some rabbis busied themselves with quibbles concerning religious laws; others wrote commentaries on different parts of the Talmud in which hair-splitting arguments were raised and discussed; and at times these arguments dealt with matters which were of no practical importance. At the same time, many miracle workers made their appearance among the Jews of Poland, culminating in a series of false "Messianic" movements, most famously as Sabbatianism was succeeded by Frankism. History of Jews in Poland - Wikipedia

As a global organization, we, like many others, recognize the significant threat posed by the coronavirus. During this time, we have made some of our learning resources freely accessible. Our distribution centers are open and orders can be placed online. Do be advised that shipments may be delayed due to extra safety precautions implemented at our centers and delays with local shipping carriers. A very readable and comprehensive overview that examines the realities of Jewish life while setting them in their political, economic, and social contexts. For many centuries Poland and Russia formed the heartland of the Jewish world: right up to the Second World War the area was home to over 40 per cent of the world's Jews. Nearly three and a half million Jews lived in Poland alone, with nearly three million more in the Soviet Union. Yet although the majority of the Jews of Europe and the United States, and a large proportion of the Jews of Israel, originate from these lands, and many of the major movements that have characterized the The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History world in recent times have their origins there, the history of their Jewish communities is not well known. Rather, it is the subject of mythologizing that fails both to bring out the specific features of the Jewish civilization that emerged there and to illustrate what was lost in its destruction: Jewish life in these parts, though often poor materially, was marked by a high degree of spiritual and ideological intensity and creativity. Antony Polonsky re-creates this lost world - brutally cut down by the Holocaust and seriously damaged The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History the Soviet attempt to destroy Jewish culture - in a study that avoids both sentimentalism and the simplification of the east European Jewish experience into a story of persecution and martyrdom. It is an important story whose relevance reaches far beyond the Jewish world or the bounds of east-central Europe, and Professor Polonsky succeeds in providing a comprehensive overview that highlights the realities of Jewish life while also setting them in the context The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History the political, economic, and social realities of the time. He describes not only the towns and shtetls where the Jews lived, the institutions they developed, and their participation in the economy, but also their vibrant religious and intellectual life, including the emergence of hasidism and the growth of opposition to it from within the Jewish world. By the late eighteenth century other factors had come into play: with the onset of modernization there were government attempts to integrate and transform the Jews, and the stirrings of Enlightenment led to the growth of the Haskalah movement that was to revolutionize the Jewish world. Polonsky looks at developments in each area in turn: the problems of emancipation, acculturation, and assimilation in Prussian and Austrian Poland; the politics of integration in the Kingdom of Poland; and the failure of forced integration in the tsarist empire. He then shows how the deterioration in the position of the Jews between and encouraged a range of new movements - Zionism, socialism, and autonomism - as well as the emergence of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature. He also examines Jewish urbanization and the rise of Jewish mass culture. The final part of the volume deals with the twentieth century. It then reviews Polish - Jewish relations during the war and examines the Soviet record in relation to the Holocaust. The final chapters deal with the Jews in the Soviet Union and in Poland sinceconcluding with an epilogue on the Jews in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia since the collapse of communism. This is an abridged version of a three-volume hardback edition which won the Kulczycki Book Prize for Polish Studies awarded by the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and also the Pro Historia Polonorum Prize for the best book on the history of Poland published in a foreign language between and a prize established by the Polish Senate and awarded by the Polish Historical Association. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Academic Skip to main content. Search Start Search. Choose your country or region Close. Dear Customer, As a global organization, we, like many others, recognize the significant threat posed by the coronavirus. Please contact our Customer Service Team if you have any questions. Overview Description. Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History Antony Polonsky The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press A very readable and comprehensive overview that examines the realities of Jewish life while setting them in their political, economic, and social contexts. Also of Interest. Jews and Their Foodways Anat Helman. Images at Work David Morgan. Paul and the Gentile Problem Matthew The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History. Chosen People The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History S. Jews in Poland and Russia: v. Caston and Robert A. Christ Among the Messiahs Matthew V. Who Rules the Synagogue? Zev Eleff. Curated Stories Sujatha Fernandes. Mystical Resistance Ellen D. Pogroms - HISTORY

The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1, years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious diaspora; the vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world. The presence of Jewish people in the European part of Russia can be traced to the 7th—14th centuries CE. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Jewish population in Kyivin present-day Ukrainewas restricted to a separate quarter. Evidence of the presence of Jewish people in Muscovite Russia is first documented in the chronicles of During the reign of Catherine II in the 18th century, Jewish people were restricted to the Pale of Settlement within Russia, the territory where they could live or immigrate to. Alexander III escalated anti-Jewish policies. Beginning in the s, waves of anti-Jewish pogroms swept across different regions of the empire for several decades. More than two million Jews fled Russia between andmostly to the United States and what is today the State of Israel. The Pale of Settlement took away many of the rights that the Jewish people of the late 17th century Russia were experiencing. At this time, the Jewish people were restricted to an area of what is current day Belarus, Lithuania, eastern Poland and Ukraine. They were allowed to move further east, towards a less crowded population, though it was only a minority of Jews who took to the migration. Before there wereZionists in Russia, while the main Jewish socialist organization, the Bundhad 33, members. Only Jews had joined the Bolshevik Party before ; thousands joined after the Revolution. SomeJews were killed in the pogroms of —,of them in Ukraine, 25, in Belarus. After a short period of confusion, the Soviets started executing guilty individuals and even disbanding the army units whose men had attacked Jews. Although pogroms were still perpetrated after this, mainly by Ukrainian units of the Red Army during its retreat from Polandin general, the Jews regarded the Red Army as the only force which was able and willing to defend them. The Russian Civil War pogroms shocked world Jewry and rallied many Jews to the Red Army and the Soviet regime, strengthening the desire for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people. Following the civil war, however, the new Bolshevik government's policies produced a flourishing of secular Jewish culture in Belarus and western Ukraine in the s. This region never came to have a majority Jewish population. Numerous Jews were victimized in Stalin's purges as "counterrevolutionaries" and "reactionary nationalists", although in the s the Jews were underrepresented in the Gulag population. According to Israeli historian Benjamin Pinkus"We can say that the Jews in the Soviet Union took over the privileged position, previously held by the Germans in tsarist Russia ". Aboutwere decorated, and more than a hundred achieved the rank The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History Red Army general. In the late s and early s, many Soviet Jews took the opportunity of liberalized emigration policies, with more than half of the population leaving, most for Israel and the West: Germany, the United States, Canada and Australia. For many years during this period, Russia had a higher rate of immigration to Israel than any other country. The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History have been present in contemporary Armenia and Georgia since the Babylonian captivity. Records exist from the 4th century showing that there were Armenian cities possessing Jewish populations ranging from The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History, to 30, along with substantial Jewish settlements in The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History Crimea. After the conquest of the Khazarian kingdom by Sviatoslav I of Kyivthe Khazar Jewish population may have assimilated or migrated in part. The Kyivan community was oriented towards Byzantium the RomaniotesBabylonia and Palestine in the 10th and 11th centuries, but appears to have been increasingly open to the Ashkenazim from the 12th century on. Few products of Kyivan Jewish intellectual activity exist, however. At that time, Jews were probably found also The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History northeastern Russia, in the domains of Prince Andrei The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History —although it is uncertain to which degree they would have been living there permanently. Although northeastern Russia had a low Jewish population, countries just to its west had rapidly growing Jewish populations, as waves of anti- Jewish pogroms and expulsions from the countries of Western Europe marked the last centuries of the Middle Agesa sizable portion of the Jewish populations there moved to the more tolerant countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Middle East. Expelled en masse from England, France, Spain and most other Western European countries at various times, and persecuted in Germany in the 14th century, many Western European Jews migrated to Poland upon the invitation of Polish ruler Casimir III the Great to settle in Polish- controlled areas of Eastern Europe as a third estatealthough restricted to commercial, middleman services in an agricultural society for the Polish king and nobility between andduring the reign of Casimir the Great. After settling in Poland later Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and Hungary later Austria-Hungarythe population expanded into the lightly populated areas of Ukraine and Lithuaniawhich were to become part of the expanding Russian Empire. InAlexander the Jagiellonian expelled Jewish residents from Grand Duchy of Lithuaniabut reversed his decision in In the shtetls populated almost entirely by Jews, or in the middle-sized town where Jews constituted a significant part of population, Jewish communities traditionally ruled themselves according to halakhaand were limited by the privileges granted them by local rulers. See also Shtadlan. These Jews were not assimilated into the larger eastern European societies, and identified as an ethnic group with a unique set of religious beliefs and practices, as well as an ethnically-unique economic role. Documentary evidence as to the presence of Jews in Muscovite Russia is first found in the chronicles of The relatively small population of them were subject to discriminatory laws, but these laws do not appear to have been enforced at all times. Jews residing in Russian and Ukrainian towns suffered numerous religious persecutions. Converted Jews occasionally rose to important positions in the Russian State, for example Peter Shafirovvice-chancellor under Peter the Great. Shafirov came, as most Russian Jews after the fall of the Polish—Lithuanian The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History infrom a Jewish family of Polish origin. He had extraordinary knowledge of foreign languages and served as the chief translator in the Russian Foreign Office, subsequently he began to accompany Tsar Peter on his international travels. Following this, he was raised to the rank of vice-chancellor The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History of his many diplomatic talents and skills, but was later imprisoned, sentenced to death, and eventually banished. Their situation changed radically, during the reign of Catherine IIwhen the Russian Empire acquired rule over large Lithuanian and Polish territories which historically included a high proportion of Jewish residents, especially during the second and the third Partitions of Poland. Under the Commonwealth's legal system, Jews endured economic restrictions euphemised as " disabilities ", which also continued following the Russian occupation. Catherine established the Pale of The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short Historywhich included Congress PolandLithuania, Ukraine, and the Crimea the latter was later excluded. Jewish people were restricted to residence within the Pale and were required to obtain special permission to immigrate into other parts of Russia. Within the Pale, the Jewish residents were given right of voting in municipal elections, but their vote was limited to one third of the total number of voters, even though their proportion in many areas was much higher, even a majority. This served to provide an aura of democracy, while institutionalizing conflict amongst ethnic groups on a local level. Jewish communities in Russia were governed internally by local administrative bodies, called the Councils of Elders QahalKehillaconstituted in every town or hamlet possessing a Jewish population. The Councils of Elders had The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History over Jews in matters of internal litigation, as well as fiscal transactions relating to the collection and payment of taxes poll taxland taxetc. Later, this right of collecting taxes was much abused; in the civil authority of the Councils of Elders over its Jewish population was abolished. Under Alexander I and Nicholas I, decrees were put forth requiring a Russian-speaking member of a Jewish community to be named to act as an intermediary between his community and the Imperial government to perform certain civil duties, such as registering births, marriages, and divorces. This position came to be known as the crown rabbi although they were not always rabbis and often The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History not respected by members of their own communities because their main job qualification was fluency in Russian, and they often had no education in, or knowledge of Jewish law. The 'decree of August 26, ' made Jews liable for military service, and allowed their conscription between the ages of twelve and twenty-five. Each year, the Jewish community had to supply four recruits per thousand of the population. However, in practice, Jewish children were often conscripted as young as eight or nine years old. They were then required to serve in the Imperial Russian army for 25 years after the completion of their studies, often never seeing their families again. Strict quotas were imposed on all communities and the qahals were given the unpleasant task of implementing conscription within the Jewish communities. Since the merchant- guild members, agricultural colonists, factory mechanics, clergy, and all Jews with secondary education were exempt, and the wealthy bribed their way out of having their children conscripted, fewer potential conscripts were available; the adopted policy deeply sharpened internal Jewish social tensions. They used their power to suppress protests and intimidate potential informers who sought to expose the arbitrariness of the qahal to the Russian government. In some cases, communal elders had the most threatening informers murdered such as the Ushitsa case The zoning rule was suspended during the Crimean Warwhen conscription became annual. In the case of unfulfilled quotas, younger Jewish boys of eight and even younger were frequently taken. The official Russian policy was to encourage the conversion of Jewish cantonists to the state religion of Orthodox Christianity and Jewish boys were coerced to baptism. As kosher food was unavailable, they were faced with the necessity of abandoning of Jewish dietary laws. Polish Catholic boys were subject to similar pressure to convert and assimilate as the Russian Empire was hostile to Catholicism and Polish nationalism. The cultural and habitual isolation of the Jews gradually began eroding. An ever-increasing number of Jewish people adopted Russian language and customs. Russian education was spread among the Jewish population. A number of Jewish-Russian periodicals appeared. Alexander II was known as the "Tsar liberator" for the abolition of serfdom in Russia. Under his rule Jewish people could not hire Christian servants, could not own land, and were restricted in travel. Alexander III was a staunch reactionary and an antisemite [45] influenced by Pobedonostsev [46] who strictly adhered to the old doctrine of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality. His escalation of anti-Jewish policies sought to ignite "popular antisemitism", which portrayed the Jews as " Christ-killers " and the oppressors of the Slavic, Christian victims. A large-scale wave of anti-Jewish pogroms swept Ukraine inafter Jews were scapegoated for the assassination of Alexander II. In the outbreak, there were pogroms in Ukrainian towns, thousands of Jewish homes were destroyed, many families reduced to extremes of poverty; [ citation needed ] large numbers of men, women, and children were injured and some killed. Disorders in the south once again recalled the government attention to the Jewish question. A conference was convened at the Ministry of Interior and on May 15,so-called Temporary Regulations were introduced that stayed in effect for more The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History thirty years and came to be known as the May Laws. The repressive legislation was repeatedly revised. Many historians noted the concurrence of these state-enforced antisemitic policies with waves of pogroms [47] that continued untilwith at least tacit government knowledge and in some cases policemen were seen inciting or joining the mob. The systematic policy of discrimination banned Jewish people The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History rural areas and towns of fewer than ten thousand people, even within the Pale, assuring the slow death of many shtetls. It was possible to evade this restrictions upon secondary education by combining private tuition with examination as an "outside student". Accordingly, within the Pale such outside pupils were almost entirely young Jews. The restrictions placed on education, traditionally highly valued in Jewish communities, resulted in ambition to excel over the peers and increased emigration rates. Special quotas restricted Jews from entering profession of law, limiting number of Jews admitted to the bar. Inan Edict of Expulsion was enforced on the historic Jewish population of Kyiv. Most Jews were expelled The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History Moscow in except few deemed useful and a newly built synagogue was closed by the city's authorities headed by the Tsar's brother. Tsar Alexander III refused to curtail repressive practices The Jews in Poland and Russia: A Short History reportedly noted: "But we must never forget that the Jews have crucified our Master and have shed his precious blood. Innew measures banned Jewish participation in local elections despite their large numbers in many towns of the Pale. The Town Regulations prohibited Jews from the right to elect or be elected to town Dumas. Only a small number of Jews were allowed to be members of a town Duma, through appointment by special committees. A larger wave of pogroms broke out in —06, leaving an estimated 1, Jews dead, and between 7, and 8, wounded. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Russian Empire had not only the largest Jewish population in the world, but actually a majority of the world's Jews living within its borders. Of this total, The total population of the Pale of Settlement amounted to 42,—of these, 4, When hundreds of thousands of refugees from Poland and Lithuania, among them innumerable Jews, fled in terror before enemy invasion, the Pale of Settlement de facto ceased to exist.