CHAPTER VIII JEWISH RUSSOPHOBIA

The Jews and the War—Their Attitude in 1876—Their Hatred of Slavism—The Problems of Other Countries—English Sympathy—The Guildhall Meeting—The Russian Government Blamed—Tolstoy and the Jews—My Jewish Friends—A Curious Tradition—Self-Protection


In many respects the Jewish Question in Russia has now become an anachronism. I am happy to say that a new argument in favour of the Jews is the part played by many of them in our ranks during the present struggle against the Central Empires. Their present attitude has effaced the great hatred they used to manifest against everything Russian. But a survey of my work for Anglo-Russian friendship would be incomplete and would not be honest if it passed over my attitude on this question, and especially as the attacks made upon me have been very vigorous and have forced me to retort in what was, for me, an almost single-handed struggle.

My first public expression of views upon the Jewish Question was in 1882, when I addressed two letters to The Times in which I protested against the accusations levelled against the Russian Government that it encouraged the social war against the Jews in the southern provinces. I pointed out that {113} the origin of the disturbances was economic rather than religious. I said then, as I shall always say, that the worst charges brought against the Jews could not by any form of special pleading be held to justify outrage and murder. I reminded the Jews that when thousands of harmless peasants, men, women and children, were being ruthlessly slaughtered in Bulgaria, they ranged themselves beside those responsible for the massacres, the Turks. The next worst thing to committing a murder is to look calmly on and sympathise with another who is taking life. That is what the Hebrews did in 1876. At least they should be logical, and if they do not like the application of "the Law," which demands "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," they should have acted differently in 1876.

When Mr. Gladstone and his friends were fighting what seemed to be a losing battle, the Jews were against them. It was a Jew, Disraeli, who was the arch-plotter against the freeing of Bulgaria, and with a few exceptions his race was with him. The Jews hated Slavism, and the Slavs could not be expected to retort with soft words of brotherly love. In spite of this, I repeat that the peasant riots against the Jews in some provinces deserved blame; but the actions of mobs are never based upon religious principles or religious teaching.

In England, Russia's Jewish problem is not understood. I wrote in 1882, and the same applies now: "It may be wrong to dislike the Jews, but if two and a half million Chinese were monopolising all the best things in Southern England, and were multiplying even more rapidly than the natives of {114} the soil, perhaps the cry 'England for the English' would not be so unpopular as some of our censors seem to think."

The feeling against the Japanese in certain parts of America is, I believe, every whit as bitter as the feeling against the Jews in Russia. I have always been puzzled why the Englishman cannot see this. The Jew is the Cuckoo of Russia; he is forcing the aborigines out of their own nest, and Russians not unnaturally say: "Our own Government helps him to do it, therefore it is time we helped ourselves."

People are prone to hasty judgment.

In The Times, on the occasion to which I have referred above, I wrote:

"The Landlordism of which your Irish farmers complain is but a pale shadow of the cruel servitude enforced on our peasants by the Jews. The disorders both in Ukraine and in Ireland are social and agrarian."

Eight years later the Jewish Question in Russia once more seemed to catch hold of the English imagination, and with increased violence.

A flaming up of Russian violence against the Jews in the south-western provinces of Russia was the cause. In London Christian sympathy was invoked, and the heads of the Church, nobility and members of Parliament besought the Lord Mayor to convene a meeting of protest with the object of preparing a Memorial to be sent to the Tsar "to give public expression of opinion respecting the renewed persecutions to which millions of the Jewish race are subjected in Russia, under the yoke of severe and exceptional edicts and disabilities."

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I immediately wrote to The Times pointing out that before Englishmen began to look abroad for things to reform, they might well put their own house in order. I called attention to General Booth's recently published book, In Darkest England, which I had read with something akin to horror. I wonder what would have been said in England if meetings of protest against the Horrors of London had been held in Petrograd!

In my indignation I even ventured to assume the mantle of prophecy. "While your meeting," I wrote, "will have no effect whatever upon Russians, it will have a great effect upon the Jews of Russia. It will proclaim aloud, in the hearing of these millions, that England and its great Lord Mayor, with all the wealth of London at their back, have undertaken the cause of the Russian Jews. And these poor people will believe it, and thousands and tens of thousands will sell all they have and come over to experience the first fruits of the generosity which promises them a new land of Canaan—in the City of London.

"I adjourn the further discussion of the Jewish question until you have had, let us say, ten per cent of the immigration which these meetings will invite."

In a little more than the ten years I mentioned the Aliens Act had become law!

The Guildhall meeting was held on December 10th, 1890, and the Memorial to the Russian Emperor was carried without a dissentient voice and duly sent to Petrograd. In February the Russian Ambassador handed the Memorial to Lord Salisbury {116} with a request that he would have the kindness to return it to the Lord Mayor unanswered; as a matter of fact it had not even been read in Russia.

I need scarcely add that I was assailed by Jews from every quarter as "one whom the whole Jewish race recognised as their bitterest enemy," and yet all I said in effect was that if the Montagues hate the Capulets, and the Capulets the Montagues, then all the Acts of Parliament will not ensure peace. And yet we women are called unreasonable.

I will quote again from one of my letters to The Times, for although written thirty-four years ago, I see no reason to change so much as a word.

"The Jewish question is not entirely religious, but social. Englishmen ought to understand it, for they have to deal very often with the same difficulties. An Anglo-Indian member of Parliament, of great eminence as an administrator in Bengal, was kind enough to lend me the other day an interesting Blue Book on the riots in the Deccan, from which I learn that the most innocent agriculturists in India have repeatedly attacked the Hindoo money-lenders, exactly as our peasants attacked the Jews, and for the same reason. And how did you deal with this difficulty? Not by increasing the licence, but by restricting the opportunities of the Hindoo money-lenders; and as you do it with some success, your example can be useful indeed. In short, you do as General Ignatieff proposed to do in his famous rescript which you abuse so much. Seek to remove the cause of the disorder by protecting the peasants against the extortionate practices of the village usurers."

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In those days I was not lazy and wrote as well as I could; but how difficult people were to convince. They seemed unable to distinguish between a Yiddish-speaking Jew, who had been domiciled in Russia, and a true Russian, and nothing can be more insulting to a Russian than this. The Yiddish jargon is not used by men of the Russian race, who have at their command so rich, so musical, so melodious a language as that which Pouschkin, Tourguenieff, and Tolstoy found an adequate instrument for the expression of their genius.

A Yiddish-speaking man may be a Russian subject, but he is no more a real Russian on that account than a Hottentot, being a British subject, is a real Englishman. Although we Russians may be as bad as some people describe us, we have at least one virtue which is not always recognised: we do our utmost to prevent murderers, thieves, and burglars, and other criminals crossing the frontier. No Russian subject is allowed to leave Russia without a passport, which is never granted to any known criminal. If any such criminals evade our vigilance, our police are only too anxious to inform your police and solicit their co-operation in the arrest of the fugitive. But such offenders have only to allege that they are political refugees, to be welcomed in England and protected by the authorities. In England murder used to be regarded as no murder when the victim was a Russian policeman. But when the same criminals kill an English policeman, as they did in the Sydney Street affair, the matter is not seen in quite the same light.

Try to put yourself in our place. What would you {118} think if "Peter the Painter" had been welcomed in Petrograd, and if our Government had refused to give him up because he had only killed an English policeman, and was therefore entitled to the right of asylum as a political refugee? Of course, such a crime against civilisation is unthinkable on the part of the Russian Government, but it would represent only too faithfully the position which England has been proud to maintain before the world.

At the time of the Sydney Street outrage I asked:

"What I want to know is whether, now that you are suffering a very, very small part of the misery which these murderers have inflicted on us, you are willing to co-operate with the police of the world in extirpating this gang of ruthless murderers? If you are, you will find ready co-operation on our side; if you are not, then, I fear, the world will say that you care nothing for murder so long as it is only Russian police, generals, or ministers who are murdered, and you will remain in the future, as in the past, the refuge and the shelter of the assassins of the world."

Truth compels me to admit that there are blindfolded people in Russia as well as abroad, and it is not only amongst the foreigners that the real nature of the Russian nation has been sometimes misunderstood. Unfortunately there are prejudiced people amongst ourselves who insist upon being blind and unable to see obvious facts, and the meaning of the war of 1876 has been entirely misunderstood. Let us, for instance, quote Count Leon Tolstoy, who had very peculiar ideas about war. Can anybody, not only in Russia but even abroad, doubt his {119} talent? But nevertheless he proved how easy it is to err in politics even in spite of literary gifts.

I must quote a letter published abroad under the pompous title, A Protest, signed by Count Leon Tolstoy and Russian "celebrities." This document had to be presented to the Emperor—for his enlightenment. This document, however, never went so far.

This event should never have been taken au sérieux anywhere, though stated by a talented author.

Nothing amuses Russians more than to see how gravely "Tolstoy's philosophy and theology" is taken abroad. Amongst us he is only great as a novelist. You may, no doubt, find among the Russians, as well as abroad, enthusiasts ready to embrace any craze. Fortunately they have no lasting moral weight.

The Jewish question in Russia is a very difficult problem indeed. We have in Russia millions of Jews belonging to an anti-Christian creed, and those who imagine it is sufficient for our Emperor "to write a few lines ordering the country at large to love the Talmudist Jew," and who fail to see the difference between the latter and the Greek Orthodox Russian, forget that even Jesus Christ's law to love our enemy is often neglected by those who pride themselves on being His followers. I insist upon the term "Talmudist Jews." The Karaite Jews having joined Russia in the greater part of her national aims and duties, deservedly obtained the same privileges and rights as the rest of the people. The Talmudists, unfortunately, take a different ground, and sometimes have to suffer for it.

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At the time of the Guildhall Meeting The Daily News, with perfect fair play, allowed a correspondent to state the facts "within their own knowledge." One of them had shortly before visited the Russian southern provinces. Here are his very words:

"The Jewish population of Odessa alone numbers about 100,000 souls. Nearly the whole of the vast commerce is in the hands of the Jews. They own a large share of the immovable property in the city. Of the very few and unimportant industries over which they do not command an absolute monopoly, there is scarcely one which is not virtually controlled by the ramifications exercised by their secret commercial syndicates."

N.B.—The Municipal Council of 72 members always includes 24 Jews, or one-third of that civil and constituent body, and in material power the Jewish section of the Council outweighs the rest. The author also admits that "if there were no limitations at all, the Jewish elements at the university would exclude all the Russians."

The same paper, allowing also another witness to be truthful and accurate, admits the following account from Petrograd itself. After complaining bitterly of the difficulty of getting from the Jews themselves any instance of oppression, he expressed his surprise that: "In the English community, chiefly interested in commerce, sympathy with the Jews has been difficult to find. Amongst the Germans and French," he goes on to say, "the same dislike of the Jews is found."

The Anglo-Saxon race has shown to the world how careful it can be in defending its interests on {121} the least appearance of danger from without. The innocent children of the Celestial Empire have been simply hunted out of America and Australia, although these poor timid creatures never dreamed of establishing an imperium in imperio which can be dangerous to the State, nor even asked for any political rights at all, their only ambition being to live in peace and to work for their rice and their rats.

The Russian Government, though not hampered by the ignorant prejudices of the masses, is obliged nevertheless to acquaint itself with public feeling, and to do its best to paralyse mischievous outbursts from whatever source. Thus in protecting the Russians from the Jews, our Government is, in fact, in accord with the parliamentary spirit of the age in its support of the protesting majority against an aggressive minority. England, of all the world, should be the last to blame those efforts.

It must not be thought that I am anti-Jewish as far as individuals are concerned. I have had very friendly relations with many Jews, including Auerbach, Mr. George Montofiore and Dr. Max Nordau, to quote only a few names. The last-named dedicated to me his play The Right to Love, after the Guildhall fiasco. Perhaps the most curious thing was that whereas I was attacked by Jews and vilified without mercy, my friends in Russia were angry with my "judophilism."

Just before last leaving for Russia, I was startled by the contents of a letter which appeared in London. The Jewish author of that curious document is fortunately personally unknown to me. He actually has the impudence to say that "in Russia a foreigner of {122} the Hebrew persuasion can easily find means and ways—generally for the sum of fifty roubles—to be transformed ad hoc into a true believer, into a Christian of any denomination of his own choice." To me that phrase is a regular riddle. Thank God! I do not know people who for fifty roubles, or no matter for how many roubles, may change their political or even religious creed. Being a convinced Christian myself, I can only be glad when I hear of somebody who has appreciated the Greek orthodox views enough to adopt them. Our Church prays daily for such unions, and I cannot understand why I should doubt the good faith of such proselytes. Has not Jesus Christ Himself ordered to propagate His teaching, and counselled us to love our enemies? I do not see why we should wound their feelings by doubting their good faith. A Hebrew or a Mohammedan, after the establishment of a new moral link with us Christians, ought to be treated as a brother and an ally.

Even without that Christian union a very great gulf exists in Russia between the "Talmudist Jews" and the "Karaims" (in England called "Karaites"). The latter are treated with confidence and respect, and their dealings are characterised by integrity and love for Russia—two qualities which are not by any means the predominant characteristics of the Talmudists. All this can be easily proved. A curious tradition seems, in the eyes of some Russians, to account for that great difference between people of the same race. The ancestors of the "Karaims" are said to have left the Holy Land much before the beginning of our era, escaping thus the blame of {123} having taken any part in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ—hence their moral superiority!

In protecting our country from obnoxious proselytism—be it religious or political—we defend in reality that great unity; which naturally has to be in accordance with our Church. But our Church, as such, does not interfere with the temporal power. Her only weapon is the exclusion from her bosom of those who depart from her teaching and her practice.