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Chapter 15 Sticking it to the Tsar: Jacob Schiff, Herman Rosenthal, and the American Fight against Tsarist Persecution of Jews After the Kishinev pogrom occurred on April 6-8, 1903, the Russian government tried to manage the international reaction by pretending that nothing serious had happened1 The Minister of the Interior, Vyacheslav Plehve, apparently succeeded in convincing the U.s. Ambassador of his point of view. In New York, by contrast, the cover-up attempt infuriated Herman Rosenthal, a leading American intellectual and head of the Slavonic Division of the New York Public Library. He expressed his displeasure to Jacob Schiff, the banker and well-known defender of American-Jewish interests: You have always taken a deep interest in matters which concern humanity at large, and you have by word and deed extended your sympathy to the helpless Jews of Russia in the time of need. And at this time, when the whole world is horror-struck at a great crime against humanity, I wish to call your attention to some facts bearing directly on the recent massacres of the Jews in Kishinev. I was an eye witness of the anti-Jewish riots in South Russia in 1881, and I knew from evidence historically authenticated that those riots were inspired by Russian officials guided by the Minister of the Interior , Count Ignatyev; none the less I hesitated to express my suspicions as to the real cause of the deplorable events in Kishinev, although I had intimation of it from private communications received from Russia. I wanted to see the columns of the Russian press which, to put it mildly, is very conservative in reporting or commenting on events that are apt to reflect on the Russian government. Now, with these very conservative statements of the Russian Jewish and nonJewish press at hand, and the unvarnished facts staring one in the face, one cannot help crying out in anguish at such unpardonable offense against justice and humanity. On reading of Secretary Hay's instructions to our Ambassador to Russia to inquire at the foreign office about the events in Kishinev I had hoped that he would at least inform our government as to the 1 A fine study of the pogrom can be found in Edward H. Judge, Easter ill Kishillev: Allatomy ofa Pogrom (New York: New York University Press, 1992). 258 EMPIRE JEWS true state of affairs. I was sadly disa ppointed when I read the reply given him by the foreign office "that the situation was well controlled , and that there was no need of supplies for which funds were being collected in the United States." This was dated May 9th, and if Mr. McCormick had taken the trouble to look over the newspapers Navasti, Novae Vremia, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, published in St. Petersburg on the 29th, 30th, and 31st of April, he could not help seeing the list of names of the 41 Jews killed and the appeal for help issued by the Mayor of Kishinev, Mr. K. Schmidt, and by the Women 's Committee of the Red Cross Society; as well as the list of contributors , Jewish and non-Jewish, published in Voskhod and Budushchnost '. These appeals were issued with the sanction of the Governor of Bessarabia, for no appeal in Russia may be issued without the sanction of the government. It seems hardly possible that Mr. McCormick should have allowed himself to be misled so easily by the officials of the foreign office, when the very air is full of the echoes of a great calamity. The effect of the catastrophe was felt on the stock exchange and prices dropped when the government officials' reports of the massacres were published; as may be seen in Pramyshlennyi Mir (The Industrial World) of April 29th2 With Schiff's encouragement, Rosenthal published documents regarding Kishinev in English translation in the American Hebrew, a weekly published in New York3 Schiff was equally indignant and quickly gathered money and aid for the victims of the pogrom.4 Simultaneously Schiff took an instrumental role in preparing a petition that was sent by the B'nai B'rith organization to President Theodore Roosevelt for further forwarding to Tsar Nicholas lIS Couched in "respectful language," it "called upon the tsar to prevent future pogroms and proclaim religious liberty for all his subjects.,,6 Twelve thousand individuals signed it, including many prominent politicians, civic leaders, and members of the business elite. At Roosevelt's request it was sent to Petersburg, where, nonetheless, the Russian government...

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