The articles in recent posts focus upon the effect and impact of the Great War in the war’s Eastern Zone, in terms of Jewish military service in the army of Imperial Russia, and, the experience of the Jews of Eastern Europe during the great war. These articles, primarily drawn from (microfilm!) pages of both The Jewish Chronicle and The Jewish Exponent, typically approach these complimentary topics as straightforward news items, albeit often in fascinating depth, detail, and sometimes very great length.
But, alongside news reporting, the Chronicle regularly published fascinating, often lengthy; often profound opinion pieces – editorials, letters to the editor; essays; musings and more – which make great and relevant reading – even a century after their publication, for the topics addressed remain as current in this year of 2019 – even after the Shoah; even after Israel’s reestablishment as a Jewish nation-state in 1948 – as they were over 100 years ago.
One such item (well, relatively brief) appeared in June of 1915. The Chronicle republished a letter by an anonymous writer (“A Jew”) that appeared in the Daily Mail the previous month, regarding the conundrum – for the Jews of the United States – of the motivation (well, perhaps one motivation of several) of why Jews were serving in the Russian army. The letter-writer suggests that the primary impetus of anti-Jewish sentiment and policy in Russia was a actually top-down (in modern parlance) policy of Russification instituted by “M. Pobiedonostzeff” [sic], by whom he certainly meant jurist, statesman, and tsarist advisor Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, which – in the letter-writer’s opinion – was implemented in order to consolidate national unity and thus strengthen Russia against German expansionism. Thus – so the theory went – an alleviation or negation of German power would render the policy of Russification moot, and thus the ostensible impetus for Russian regime’s oppression of the Jews would be negated.
Well, the wheels of history turned very differently. (Then again, when do the wheels of history ever turn as expected or desired, in the lives or men or nations?) Given the actual nature of Imperial Russia’s withdrawal from the war, and the surrender of Germany to the Western Allies (not an actual military victory), the scenario of the optimistic letter-writer’s naive prognostication – akin to the alternate history scenario of writer Martin J. Gidron, in his novel The Severed Wing – never came to fruition.
“WHY THE JEWS ARE FIGHTING GERMANY”
The Jewish Chronicle
June 4, 1915
Under this caption the Daily Mail of Friday last printed an article written by “A Jew,” who treats the manner in which Jews in all countries have flocked to the colours. Discussing the sentiments of the Jews in Russia in this direction the writer observes: –
“The enthusiasm of the Russo-Jewish soldier is a puzzle, notably to the Jews of America, who liberally fed with German propaganda, cannot understand why the Jews should desire the victory of Russia, nor why English Jews do not feel some slackening of their enthusiasm in this war when they remember that Russia, the persecutor of all the Jewish race, is an Ally of this country. Well, the Russian Jew, among his many virtues and despite his not few faults, has a remarkably clear insight. He has an analytical mind, and accepting facts as they are, he, by habit, delves to the root causes of them. He, therefore, asks why the Jew is persecuted in Russia. He knows that the Slav character is not in itself of a persecuting nature. Jewish persecution in Russia is a result of the policy of Russification which M. Pobiedonostzeff initiated. His policy was dictated by a desire on the one hand to strengthen the national sentiment and the national bonds subsisting between the numerous races in Russia, and thereby, on the other hand, to counter the growing power and influence of Russia’s next-door neighbor, Germany. Such was the Russian policy, and the stronger that Germany grew, the larger the influence she had, especially upon the border provinces of Russian Poland, the more intense was the attempt at Russification, and the more intense was the persecution of the Jew. But the Russian Jew know that the crushing of German power would mean the removal of a menace and of a fear that have troubled Russia for half a century past. With that removed, there will be no further need for the policy of Russification, and hence no need for the persecution of the Jew.