Anti-Semitism Ism

There have been Jewish members of the United States senate, and of the national House of Representatives. Besides filling many diplomatic offices, a Jew (0. S. Straus) has been a mem ber of the cabinet. Many Jews have filled professorial chairs at the universities, others have been judges, and in art, literature (there is a notable Jewish publication society), industry and commerce have rendered considerable services to national cul ture and prosperity. American universities have owed much to Jewish generosity, a foremost benefactor of these (as of many other American institutions) being Jacob Schiff. Such institu tions as the Gratz and Dropsie colleges are further indications of the splendid activity of American Jews in the educational field. Full accounts of American Jewish institutions are given in the American Jewish Year-Book, published annually since 1899. For ANTI-SEMITISM and ZIONISM see the respective articles.

The War completely changed the face of the Jewish world. In the Russian Empire it brought the Jews political emancipation, but it also brought them unspeakable suffering and ended by sub merging them in the flood of anarchy which accompanied the continued Civil War. Finally, the War led up to the Balfour Declaration, which foreshadowed the establishment under inter national guarantees of a national home for the Jews in Palestine.

Eastern Europe.

The crowded Jewries of eastern Europe felt the full impact of the War from the outset. The Russian pale of settlement became almost at once a theatre of operations. So, too, did Galicia, with its poverty-stricken Jewish population of over 800,000. The Jews were bound in any case to suffer in common with their neighbours, but their miseries were aggravated by whole sale deportations. Within a year of the outbreak of war, nearly 1,500,00o Jewish refugees had been set adrift. To make matters worse, the Polish Nationalists vigorously pursued their vendetta against the Jews and revived the boycott which began in Warsaw in 1912. So pitiful was the condition of the Jews that the Russian Government which had already made substantial grants to the Petrograd Jewish Relief Committee, eventually issued, as a tem porary measure, a decree permitting the Jews to reside freely in any of the towns of the Empire, with certain specified exceptions, of which the most important were Petrograd and Moscow. This decree was dated Sept. 3, 1915. The concessions thus granted gave the Jews some relief, though its effect was minimised by the illiberal spirit in which it was administered.

Public opinion was ripe for much more sweeping reforms. Of this there was ample evidence in the friendly welcome which the Jewish refugees received from their Christian neighbours in their new homes, in the action of a number of important public bodies who petitioned the Government in favour of the emancipa tion of the Jews, and in the protest of many enlightened Russian patriots against a policy which they regarded as detrimental to Russian interests and inconsistent with the spirit of unity which the national crisis demanded. But the reactionary traditions of the old regime were too powerful. Nothing was done for the Jews in 1916, and the inquiries of other Allied Governments, which were sympathetically interested in their case, showed that they had nothing to hope for.

It was not until the March Revolution that their emancipation became a possibility. The Jews wholeheartedly supported the revolution, and one of the first acts of the Lvoff Government was to issue a decree, dated April 3, 1917, for the repeal of "all restric tions of a religious and national character." This decree at one

stroke relieved the Jews of all disabilities, and it only remained for them to take their place in the new Russia. There was much dis cussion in Jewish circles as to what that place should be, and there was a strong feeling in favour of what was called national autonomy, the suggestion being that the Jews should be recognised as a national unit and enjoy, in common with every other nation ality in Russia, a limited measure of self-government.

The Jews had hardly been emancipated before these dreams were rudely shattered by the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. Among the Bolshevik leaders and their satellites were a certain number of Jews, none of whom, however, played any part in the Jewish community, or had any ties with it beyond their Jewish birth. The great majority of the Jews sided with the moderates and suffered accordingly under the Soviet regime. The communal organisations were broken up, and many of their leaders were im prisoned. Living, as most of them did, by trade, the Jews suffered severely from the economic debacle which the Bolshevik revolution brought with it, and to add to their distress it became increasingly difficult to send them relief from abroad.

Jews in Southeast Europe.—In Rumania the Jews had pre viously been subjected to much the same treatment as in Russia. In one respect their position was even worse. Jews, as such, were deemed by the Rumanian Government to be aliens, even though they were native-born and had no claim to any other nationality. As a sequel to the Berlin Treaty of 1878, under which the Powers recognised her independence, Rumania undertook in 1880 to give the Jews liberal facilities for naturalisation. Had this pledge been fulfilled, their status would have been gradually regularised, but the spirit in which it was carried out is shown by the fact that be tween 1880-1913, about 200 Jews were actually naturalised out of a Jewish population, mainly native-born, of over 200,00o. The Rumanian declaration of war on Bulgaria in 1913 brought 15,000 Jewish reservists to the colours. This produced a certain revul sion of feeling and it looked for a moment as though at last the Jewish soldiers would now be naturalised en bloc. A few individ ual applications were granted, but the anti-Jewish forces soon re gained the upper hand, and the elections of 1914 brought into power a reactionary Government from which Jews had nothing to hope.

The Jews did not suffer from the War in the same degree as in Russia. On May 11, 1917, representatives of the committee of native Jews were received by the King, who gave them vague but encouraging assurances. There, however, the matter ended and nothing was done for the Jews until a limited measure of emancipa tion was dictated by the Germans in the Treaty of Bucharest. The relief thus granted was of little practical value, and there was no change in the policy of the Rumanian Government, which con tinued to harass the Jews, and treated them with exceptional harsh ness in the occupied province of Bessarabia.

Since the War the emancipation of the Jews has been almost completed and only a few exceptional cases remain in dispute. The Government has intervened with energy to put an end to sporadic anti-Semitic outbreaks and to improve the lot of Jewish citizens, for whom there is now every prospect of a peaceful future.