I should say something about the attitude of the Russian state to the Jews. Well, the Russian state, unlike governments in western Europe, was explicitly anti-Semitic. That is, they regarded the Jews as a misfortune. This was true practically from the beginning, but Catherine, it was of course in her reign, that the second and the first, second partition took place and Russia acquired a relatively small Jewry, Catherine did not find this very disturbing. They were talking about, as I say something like 30, 35,000 Jews. But later on, when a much larger number of Jews came under rule of the Russian tsar. Various restrictions were imposed on the Jews. They had to pay a special tax, they had to as I say live in certain areas. But from the Russians point of view in the Russian state, they didn't know what to do with the Jews. Now of course the Russian state was a multinational empire, at the end of the century, only about half of the citizens of the Russian Empire were actually Russians, but the attitude of the government varied greatly from national minority to national minority. And somehow their attitude to the Jews arguably was the worst. From the point of view of the Russian government, the Jews were a minority which cannot be assimilated, which is by it's very nature Anti-Christian, by its very nature, exploitative. Well, what were the Jews doing? I mean, it's very difficult to say. They were excluded from agriculture. Only 1% of the Jews somehow had something to do with agriculture. The rules, the policies of the Russian government was to exclude the Jews from agriculture, in as much as they would make a bad influence in the Russian peasantry. So under the circumstances, how do you make a living? And I confess that it was never perfectly clear to me how you can make a living. But it's small scale peddlers, small scale artisans acting as agents of the landlord to collect taxes from the peasants. This is very significant in as much as present Ukrainian, present anti-Semitism, was the concept once that they saw the Jews as the agents of the landlord. And they thought it was the Jews who took their money. The other, and this is also very significant, the government rented alcohol license to Jews. And this was of course a source of income the government. A remarkable percentage, a remarkable share of the Russian budget actually came from taxes on vodka. And it was the Jews who kept the bars or the places where you could drink. And so, quote, the Jews became responsible for the drunkenness of the Russian people, of the Ukrainian people, well, obviously they were not and obviously [COUGH] the attraction to Vodka way preceded the appearance of the Jews. In fact, well, I mustn't talk too much about Russia and vodka, but I can say with some assurance it wasn't the Jews who pursued and perfected the drink. No, actually, Jews drank less than not Jews. And this actually, I understand, has a genetic component. In as much as people with Jewish genes, when you drink, you get sick. If you are Ukranian, it takes much longer for you to get sick. Science is very useful. Science helps us understand. So drunkenness among Jews was not a major problem. And their surrounding population it was. So I am talking about the attitude of the Russian state to the Jews. And on the one hand, they regarded the Jews as, cannot be assimilated. On the other, they did not consider it possible to emancipate the Jews, emancipation as you remember meaning doing away with all those laws and regulation which applies only to Jews, because they considered the Jews dangerous. Now the worst from the Jewish point of view was the so called Canton system introduced in 1825 by Nicholas I. Which drafted Jewish boys into the army at age 12. Now, not all, that is, Jewish communities were given an obligation to provide so many and so many boys at age 12. >> What was this called again? >> The Canton system, but that's not so important. Now Russians, that is the Russian serfs who made up the great bulk of the army were not drafted at age 12. The explanation was given that Jewish boys need more preparation. Now nothing worse could have happened to a Jewish family than taking your boy at age 12. Life expectancy was between 25 and 35. You were drafted into the army for 25 years. That meant that the Jewish boy who was taken away from family was assumed it would never again see the rest of their family. And one of the reasoning behind this undertaking was to make the Jewish boys convert. And indeed about half of those unfortunate little things who were drafted into the army did convert. Now it must be said that the Russian state, at least in the course of the 19th century, it changed in the 20th century, was anti-semitic by religion, not by race, meaning that there is one remarkable occasion when little boy Jew converted, and became a general in the Russian army. I can think of only one instance, but it was still possible. That is, conversion, which was extremely rare, happened. It made a difference. I have record, that how, by the beginning of the 20th century this would not have worked, that is 20th century Russian antisemitism and racism was racial, rather than religious. But I'm not talking about the 19th century. By the way, this particular law was abolished after the death of Nicholas in 1855. That is his successor, Alexander II abolished this obligation. However, during Alexander II's reign, the creation of modern military introduced the general draft in which all males were obliged to serve in the army. And as I'm gonna be saying in a minute, there's enormous Jewish migration out of Russia. One reason for this immigration was boys wanted to avoid Russian draft, because serving in the Russian army, even in the second half of the century, was not pleasant. The Russian army, in particular, was particularly anti-semitic in as much as considered the Jews as incapable and in general they were likely to be poorly mistreated and that was a good reason to leave. So, what have I been saying? What I'm saying is that the position of the Russian Jews in the beginning of the century was not very good. In the course of the century it got worse. Whatever industrialization was taking place partially destroyed the livelihood of some of the Jews who were engaged in small scale trade and manufacture and only toward the very end, the last decade of the century did Russian industrialization started in a larger scale. And that allowed some Jews to take advantage of opportunities, and indeed, toward the end of the century, there were, as you would expect, some Jews who succeeded in establishing factories, and there was now, for the first time, a layer, a very thin layer of rich Jews, which could not have existed before. And also the creation of a Russian working class in which Jews were disproportionately represented. And this will be significant in the creation of Russian socialism in which Jews played again a disproportionate role. So what I am saying, is that what happened in the course of the century, that Jewish life became more difficult. Antisemitism was, and remained a very significant factor, and also the Jewry became more, and more heterogeneous. At the beginning of the century economic and social status among the Jews was a very narrow range. Toward the end of the century it has changed. That is, Jews became impoverished and at least a small layer became better off. And intellectually the split between the Hasidic, the Orthodox, who very much were dismayed by the changes that were going on on the one hand. And this small group, for those who were attracted to it like men widened the attitude of the Russian state toward Jewish schooling was also contradictory. On the one hand at times excluded Jews from Russian schools and Russian universities. In fact, the proportion of the student body in the University of Kiev is 5% and in Moscow and St. Petersberg only 3% and on the other believed that educating Jews in a Russian spirit and learning, making them learn language, would help in the changing the nature of the Russian Jewry. As far as language is concern it is very significant. Now, I mentioned before, it is a religious obligation for Jewish males to be able to read in Hebrew, so the Russian Jews were literate in Hebrew and Yiddish. Women were much more likely to be literate in Yiddish. It's interesting that the role of women in as much as women were much more likely engaged with the surrounding world than men. As much as the men who stayed home and read the Torah, it would be the women who would engage with Ukrainians in various commercial exchanges, and consequently they were more likely to be able to speak the local languages. But what is remarkable as compared to the West that there was a separate Jewish culture. And Jewish contribution to Russian, and Ukrainian culture would come only in the 20th century, where then it became suddenly very significant indeed, but not in the course of the 19th century. A Jewish writer would want to reach other Jews, and would write in Yiddish, which was the language of their possible audience. So this vibrant Yiddish culture existed in Russia but not in the West.
