Anti-Jewish Newspaper Agitation

An active anti-Jewish propaganda was being carried on in the city; and, knowing the temper not only of Russian mobs, but of mobs in general, the Jews feared for their lives and their property.

Continuing A Russian Pogrom Against the Jews,
with a selection from article in Forum by Richard Gottheil published in . This selection is presented in 4.5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in A Russian Pogrom Against the Jews.

Time: March 31, 1903
Place: Kishineff (modern Chișinău), Moldovia

Whatever trades were open to them the Jews plied with diligence. According to reliable statistics there are 20,976 Jewish artisans in Bessarabia and 4,296 agriculturists. The condition of the Jews there was the same as in the other portions of the Pale, but no worse; and, though bad crops have from time to time caused famine and much suffering, no special trouble was expected in just this portion of the Russian Diaspora. It is, therefore, no wonder that when the reports of the massacres at Kishineff first came to the Western world they came as a bolt from the blue. Resignation is the attitude into which the Russian Jew has trained himself, and which is commonly preached to him from Western pulpits and lecture-platforms. Besides, the Jews had their hands full in their endeavor to ameliorate the condition of their Romanian brethren; and the world had one eye upon Russia in Manchuria, and the other on the troubles brewing in the Balkan peninsula. But the 40,000 Jews who lived in Kishineff, and who form a goodly percentage of the population, generally said to be 110,000, were not at rest. An active anti-Jewish propaganda was being carried on in the city; and, knowing the temper not only of Russian mobs, but of mobs in general, they feared for their lives and their property.

They had every cause to fear. About five years ago, a newspaper called Bessarabetz had been established there by one Krushewan. It was the only newspaper permitted to exist by the authorities. Since the second year of its publication, it has been violently anti-Jewish; rivaling the Anti-Juif of Paris, Algiers, and Brussels, and the Staatsburger Zeitung of Berlin. Its whole object seemed to be to sow strife and hatred between the Christian and the Jewish inhabitants of the city. Its word of parole was “Death to the Jews.” “We will undertake another crusade against the Jews”; “It is time Russian life were freed from parasites”; “Jewish corpses shall be bound to cart wheels” — these are only a few of the choice phrases used by Krushewan. No gag was put upon his mouth, no muzzle upon his pen, by the head of the local censor bureau, the Vice-Governor, Oustrugoff. It is in evidence that hand-written pamphlets were circulated in the cabarets openly proclaiming: “The Czar has given permission to attack the Jews on the first two days of the festival of the Passover.” Nor was their circulation prohibited by the censor. He even went so far as to reassure the Jewish official representatives, who asked him for protection, that there was no danger. From across the Romanian border, also, the poison was being instilled. In the month of March the Vocea Tutovei, of Berlad, published the most inflammatory articles in connection with the celebration at Eastertide. It is stated upon good authority that the subsequent riots were organized with deliberation, and that the places where the organizers met are well known.

The mine thus carefully laid needed but a spark to set it off. There is a little village on the Dneister, in the neighboring government of Kherson, called Dubossari, which before March 17th was unknown to history. Now, unfortunately, it is marked in the calendar of Jewish martyrdom. On that day the horribly mutilated body of a young Christian boy was discovered. It was said that he had been sent to make a purchase at a Jewish shop and had then been found in that condition. All through Jewish history the Eastertide has been a season of fear and trembling. Though it may have brought tidings of peace and good will to other men, it has brought the lurid glare of blood to the Jews. Hardly a year passes without the charge of ritual murder being brought against the Jews at this time — a charge which Christian popes, bishops, emperors, kings, and professors, with the most searching investigations, have often declared to be false. Two post-mortem examinations showed that in the Dubossari case there could be no thought of what, even by a stretch of the imagination, might be called a ritual murder. It was proved that the poor lad had been slain by members of his own family who were interested in his disappearance. But it was too dainty a morsel to be despised by the anti-Semites in Kishineff. It was used by the Bessarabetz in order still further to incite the popular fury against the Jews. An outbreak against them at Dubossari was easily prevented by a battalion of infantry sent from Benderi; but on March 31st an outbreak did occur at Tumanovo in the district of Tiraspol, fifty miles northwest of Odessa.

The train had, indeed, been well laid. It led directly to the office of the Bessarabetz in Kishineff. April 19th was the first day of the Passover celebration in the Russian Greek Church. It was a Sunday; all the shops were closed, and the people seem to have been idly collected in the streets of the city, especially in the Tcheuflin Square, near the merry-go-rounds and the drinking-booths. It is asserted that they were uneasy because they were idle; sufficient amusement not having been provided for them this year as at previous times. What a frolicking, mafficking time they did have before nightfall! There were Jews, also, among them who had come to see the fun. What diabolical, what Satanic fun they did have that day! They little thought what the next few hours would bring them. But the authorities had done much thinking in their stead; for on April 17th a large number of extra beds had been provided in the police barracks; and when the Kishineff rabbi, a few days previously, had applied to the bishop for help in quieting the excitement, he had received the answer that the bishop himself believed in the blood accusation. The ugly temper of the people seems to have been increased by the report, industriously spread, that the editor of the Bessarabetz had been threatened with arrest.

Richard Gottheil begins here. Vladamir Korolenko begins here.

More information here and here, and below.

The Kishineff Pogrom of 1903 [IN HEBREW]

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