Wednesday, April 29, 2020

What's Your Criteria For Voting For A President? Choices Between Biden and Trump

Nadene Goldfoot                                                     
 One Hundred Twenty Years ago, Jews in Europe were at a crisis; to be a Jew or not after their history of 3,000 some years since the days of Moses, and kings of Saul, David and Solomon, with their own country of Israel and then Judah.  The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and all the strife they had to endure since that time left some very strong-minded people; but now were they going to endure more pain through their choice;   by going to Palestine which was under the Ottoman Empire of Turks or would they choose the Christian America with streets paved with gold.  My grandparents chose the USA, but others chose Palestine and became the Jewish Palestinians until May 14, 1948 when Israel was born again and accepted by the League of Nations and the new United Nations and became the Israelis. I've made aliyah and have dual citizenship as of 1980, teaching English there for 4 years.   
                                                                  
Joe Biden
President Donald Trump
Those that chose America are making up their minds today with voting for a president that is again upon us, and this time the choice is between Democrat Joe Biden and the present Republican President Donald Trump.  Here are some facts one should be aware of if one of your criteria is the welfare of Israel who will be 72 on May 14th.  Do today's Jews care about it?  We don't make that much of a difference as it is, since we are only 2% of the American population.  However, our decision may sway others, and when it comes down to it, every vote counts; at least we hope it does.  

The Democrats held the presidential office since January 20, 2009 with Barack Hussein Obama II, USA's 44th president.  He made decisions that were not of the benefit for Israel, mostly concerning Jerusalem.  Joe Biden was his vice President.  Hillary Clinton was his Secretary of State.  He selected them because they were congenial to his ideas.  

Until 1948, Jews were a majority of the population of Israel's main city, the city of David, as it was called.  The year of the census was 1863, and the British Consulate there stated in his report that Jews were the majority .  This was before the Brits arrived, or when Lord Balfour wrote his letter stating that England would help the Jews to have a Jewish state.  It was before such men as Theodor Herzl.  It was even before the 1st Aliyah from Russia of Jews in 1880 leaving their cold land of many pogroms against Jews.  It was a time when the Ottoman Empire and it's Turks ruled the land.  Jews had been told by the Romans in 70 CE that they had to leave and were not to return, but there were Jews who had never left in the first place.  There has always been Jews living in Eretz Yisrael through the many conquerors.  
                                                    

This brings us to Resolution UNSC 2334 which rules that even the Western Wall is in "occupied Palestinian territories." United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 was adopted on 23 December 2016. It concerns the Israeli settlements in "Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem". The resolution passed in a 14–0 vote by members of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC).

"The draft was originally presented by Egypt on the basis of a document prepared by British legal and diplomatic figures working together with the Palestinians, with Britain regarded as the key player in formulating the resolution and pressing for a vote.It was adopted."  Britain managed to screw Israel in giving up 80% of land deemed to be the Jewish Homeland for King Abdullah when he came to them.  The land became Jordan. Britain had the 30 year mandate and they benefitted themselves and made sure they backed people with oil on their property.  Israel had no oil on their teeny piece.  


"Four members with United Nations Security Council veto power, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom, voted for the resolution, but the United States abstained".  This abstention was like voting for the
 resolution.  The effect was the
same.   Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated it "may have serious ramifications for Israel in general and specifically for the settlement enterprise" in the medium-to-long term.
The resolution states that Israel's settlement activity constitutes a "flagrant violation" of international law and has "no legal validity". It demands that Israel stop such activity and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

High pressures were exerted to avoid the vote. On 22 December, United States President-elect Donald Trump called on Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to withdraw the proposal, and Egypt withdrew the nomination after what its ambassador called an "intense pressure". Then on 23 December, the draft was taken up and proposed again by Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela. Israel unsuccessfully pressured New Zealand to withdraw its support, with Netanyahu telling Foreign Minister Murray McCully that support for the proposal would be considered by Israel as a "declaration of war". Britain encouraged New Zealand to keep pushing for a vote. Following a telephone conversation between Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin, the Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin requested that the vote be postponed until after Christmas. His proposal failed to gain any support.
                                                    
 This was the wall around King Herod's palace, and is the remnant left standing in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount where Jews go to pray, for they cannot use any other spot there.  The Temple Mount is under the auspices of the state of Jordan's religious people.  King Solomon's 1st Temple used to be on the Temple Mount but was destroyed by the Babylonians under their king Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE, and then was rebuilt again in 538 BCE by the freed Jews from Persia under the rule of Kings Cyrus and his son King Darius.  Unfortunately, for religious and political reasons, the Palestinians refuse to accept the fact that we have over a 3,000 year history in the land, and that Jerusalem was a Jewish capital of ancient Israel.

Did the USA's government accept our Jewish history?  William Henry Seward, Secretary of State of the USA from 1861 to 1869 and earlier served as governor of New York and was a US Senator 
during the American Civil War in the 1860s under President Lincoln and he surely did.  He visited the holy land and of course visited Jerusalem.  He found and stated that that there was a Jewish majority living in Jerusalem, and remained so until 1948 when Israel was declared a state and accepted by the United Nations (UN).  What happened with that declaration was that our  waiting for the return to our Israel  actually happened after praying 3 times a  day  since 70 CE and promising not to forget Jerusalem or else lose the use of the right hand . Patience finally paid off.  But, the British held the mandate over Palestine for 30 years, and in 1948 they pulled out which was the end of their term, leaving the Jews without any way to defend themselves.  Their own British General Glubb then led the Jordanian Arab Legion to expel all Jews from Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter.  It was a divided city between the Jews and Muslims and others with real divisions to keep them apart .  "Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ, KPM, known as Glubb Pasha, was a British soldier, scholar and author, who led and trained Transjordan's Arab Legion between 1939 and 1956 as its commanding general. During the First World War, he served in France. The Brits were definitely showing favoritism towards the Arabs and were helping them to enter the land while they were keeping Jews out, and this at the time of the Nazi strength against the Jews; with Jews suffering and needing to get to a safe location, like their own endowed country, the promised Jewish Homeland, promised through Lord Balfour's letter in which they would help the Jews to have their Jewish Homeland.  

Writer Mark Twain wrote "The Innocents Abroad" about an excursion he took to the Holy Land, Egypt, The Crimea, Greece, etc from Brooklyn on February 1, 1867.  It was a savory accounting of all he saw which he describes as only he could do it.  On page 203 he said that Palestine is only from 40 to 60 miles wide.  The State of Missouri could be split into 3 Palestines, and there would then be enough material left for part of another- possibly a whole one." 

Like Ireland, who have a Catholic population and a Protestant population and who have fought against each other, the same happened with the Jews and the Muslims.  The Muslim Palestinians and their Muslim neighbors such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, etc, make decisions according to their religious needs as well as political ones.  In the USA, religion and politics are to stay apart.  Americans are not really used to think along such a vein.  
                                                       
IDF at the Wall in 67-a first for them
The Six Day War in 1967 turned the Muslims around and really shook them up.  After fighting against the fledgling state of Israel in 1948, 1956, and 1967, they felt the furor of losing these battles 3 times in a row, and this was a loss to all the Muslim states who had ganged up on teeny Israel who had to fight alone.  So they met in Africa's Khartoum city, and decided on the 3 nos, that they would never recognize Israel and would never make peace with her.   1967's War's result was allowing Jews into Jerusalem for the 1st time since May 1948, and the Jews were so happy with joy!  The Jews had been kept out of their beloved Jerusalem for 19 years!   They made a bee-line for their own Jewish Quarter and said prayers at the Western Wall (kotel)  

In 2016, Barack Obama had been the US president for the past 7 years already.  He didn't veto the UNSC 2334.  This, I remind you, rules that Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem's Old City which includes the Western Wall and the Temple Mount  and states that they are "illegally occupied by Israel because they are now deemed Palestinian territories.  He had this chance to vote against this lying rule and didn't do it.  This very day was his last day in office, for Donald Trump won the position after Obama's 2 terms of 8 years, and he left this very bitter taste in my mouth of using such a day to go against Israel.  It was as if he waited until the last day to stick it to Israel, and he had no love for Netanyahu for Netanyahu could out talk Obama, and did so on live TV one time in explaining Israel's situation.  I don't believe he had much love for Israel's history, either, since half of his family either had been Muslims or still were.  It was on his father's side of which he had had very little contact-probably until he became President.  His father was an African who had met his mother while at a university as a student.  

By voting the way he did, he was giving UNSC 2334 his approval, and that the Palestinian Arabs demanded nothing less than all of Jerusalem's Old City to have an ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Jews who were living in Judea and Samaria which others call THE WEST BANK. 

Their Palestinian Arab ruler, Abbas, demanded that ALL JEWS were to be expelled from any part of their future Palestinian State.  Israel doesn't have such thoughts.  Arabs live where they want in Israel and make up 20% of the population, which has actually grown beyond that by this  year of 2020; more like 24%.  This is the only Jewish state in the world while there are at least 48 Muslim majority states already in the world.  The % is important to keep and let it remain what it was created to be; a haven for Jews after 3,000 years of persecution.  Our history explains in the bible, THE OLD TESTAMENT, how we were to live in this land of Canaan, and now I can see why.  Being Jews can live according to our Mosaic Law, creativity abounds from there with the findings of such being shared with the world, things in the world of medical help for the world as one example.  Wonderful things have been coming out of Israel in its short period of 72 years.  Jews of the world make up only 0.02 % of the population, yet we have contributed so many  good things, and all the while under the stigma of being such low life!  You can see that this fact indeed makes me angry.  We're always the scape goat!  

On July 29, 2013  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that no Israeli settlers or border forces could stay in a future Palestinian state and that Palestinians deem illegal all Jewish settlement building within the land occupied in the 1967 Middle East War.   This was his vision he laid down even before peace talks had started up again in Washington after a 3 year lapse.  

December 27, 2016:  Netanyahu accused Obama of initiating UNSC 2334 and demanding that it be passed.  
Obama with his Vice President, Joe Biden


Vice President Joe Biden was accused of convincing Ukraine to vote in favor of the UN Resolution 2334.  This resolution  condemned Israel for building housing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, places of the Jewish origins which are found in the Bible.  Biden had been in Ukraine for political reasons and his son was also found to be there for his occupation; two Bidens that had influence over Ukraine.  

Biden persuaded the Ukrainian diplomats to vote YES on the measure .  They would have at least abstained if he hadn't used his pressure.  This was reported by Israel's Environmental Protection Minister, Ze'ev Elkin who let the Jerusalem Post Newspaper know about it.  

It was also cited by a member of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's office.  He had told the news reporter that Biden had indeed called but wasn't able to confirm whether or not their discussion was about the Friday UN vote.  PM Netanyahu of Israel also put some pressure on the US to veto this hateful measure, but as we know, Obama abstained with the result in the U.N. Security Council approving the resolution with 14 votes to 0.  CNN reported about it on the following Monday.  

Netanyahu's statement about the voting was that Israel had no doubt that the Obama Administration initiated the measure, stood behind it, coordinated it on the wording and had demanded that it be passed.  Mossad is usually right on in its findings.  I have no doubt that they did a lot of research on this.  

2016 was a year of the worst antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents.  The Simon Wiesenthal Center made up a list of the worst 10 for that year.  

  Obama's last day in office spent giving a vote that was of negative consequences against Israel.It reversed decades-long US policy of  vetoing such diplomatic moves against the Jewish State.  
                                                   
      US ambassador Susan Rice made a similar negative vote before in 2011.  She said, "This draft resolution risks hardening the position of both sides and could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations.  In this same year, Obama told the UN General Assembly that peace would not come through statements and resolutions at the UN.  The resolution identifies Jerusalem's holiest sites, including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall as OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY.  

It also urges UN members to tell the difference apart in their important dealings between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.  It is effectively endorsing BDS.  The resolution 2334 is destructive and irresponsible and seeks to isolate and delegitimize Israel.  This time the USA was guilty of actions that were completely unacceptable and reckless.  These are not my words, but those of US Congressman Alcee L. Hastings, a Democrat from Florida, and are the thoughts of more than one Democrat and Republican.  I'm glad to see that not all Democrats went along with Obama's tirade against Israel.  

Such a year as 2016!!  It was a year rife with global Islamist terrorism and horrific human rights  violations.  For instance, the UN General Assembly passed 20 resolutions against Israel and only 4 against all the other countries combined.  It's like they had a fatwah against Israel.
                                                         
Rachel is in the middle with one child,
Benjamin, but Joseph was her 1st.  Her sister Leah is on the left.
Rachel is from Jewish history.  
UNESCO, which is an Arab-backed group, introduced a resolution that erased any historic link between the Jewish people and Judaism's holiest sites; the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.  If that wasn't enough, they rebranded RACHEL'S TOMB and the TOMB OF THE PATRIARCHS as exclusively Muslim sites.  The resolution also "deeply regrets" Israel's refusal to remove these sites from its national heritage list.  Can you imagine the chutzpa of the Palestinians?  

Rachel was the 2nd wife of Jacob and his deepest love.  She was one of the 4 matriarchs of the Jewish people.  She was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and died near Bethlehem.  In Jewish stories, one will see her weeping for her children who were driven into captivity.  So now the Muslims are taking a Jewish heroine as one of theirs, and erasing her Jewish history. All this is happening for the purpose of trying to drive the Jews into the sea so they can have all the land.  

"In response, the government of Israel retaliated with a series of diplomatic actions against some members of the Security Council and accused the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama of having secretly orchestrated the passage of the resolution. Palestine's representatives stated this was an opportunity to end the occupation and establish a Palestinian state to live side by side with the state of Israel on the 1967 line." If this means going back to the 1967 line before the Six Day War, it would be ignoring all that happened as the result of a war started by the Arabs, as all these wars have been.  Israel has had to fight in Defense, 
always; not as a means of gaining land.  This is where Obama and Netanyahu got into it on live TV. 

On April 20, 2020, the J Street organization, a Jewish group who created themselves to counter AIPAC, another Jewish group, announced that it endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden's 2020 presidential bid.  I ask, and the newspaper also asks, how Jews can do this  after Biden convinced Ukraine to vote for this terrible UNSC 2334?  Do voters ever check out people running and ask themselves, is he or she going to be good for the Jews?  Do they ever check their past records?  
                                                    

As I saw it, Hillary Clinton was a copy-cat of Obama.  We had  2 choices then in the 2017 campaign; Hillary or Trump.  Obama was in for 8 years, and I saw where he was going.  I was livid on that last day of his office with his vote.  It had covered so much and did so much harm.  That wasn't their first go-to-it scuffle during those 8 long years, either.  It was the frosting on the cake, though, and had really curdled my feelings toward Obama.  Trump has done well by Israel by going for the Embassy to be located in Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv.  It's meaning was deeper than locating an office.  It made a statement to all about how Trump felt about Israel.  


After 3,000 years of patiently waiting for our own country again and at a time when the necessity of it couldn't be more apparent, we have it, Israel founded on May 14, 1948.  Are the Jews of today in the USA going to just sit back and yawn when one hears the name of Israel?  Or do they have the courage our ancestors had to care for Israel and when they can, stand up for it?  


All this evidence, and J Street votes for Biden.  I ask again what Arutz Sheva asks of the American Jews, "How is it possible that Jews who care about the Western Wall support Biden?  I ask, "How is it possible that Jews who care about Israel support Biden?  How can they forget about the existence of Israel? " 


Resource:
Update:  https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/10/is_a_vote_for_joe_biden_in_the_interest_of-american_jews.htm
  ArutzSheva Newspaper, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/279155
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_2334
Professor Kontorovich, international lawyer, advocate of Israel's rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bagot_Glubb
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/views-on-israel-of-u-s-presidential-candidates-2020-joe-biden

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Anti-Semitic Acts During CoronaVirus Pandemic

Nadene Goldfoot                                           
Remembering the Holocaust in Israel
6 million lives murdered because of anti-Semitism
While most all our world population is at home, the anti-Semites are at work and of course, we Jews are still the scapegoats said to cause this situation.   The American Jewish Congress reports that "Our latest Anti-Semitism Digital Monitoring report alerts that extremist groups have shifted toward calls to action”.
                                                         
Slogans such as “Holocaugh” and “If you have a bug, give a hug: spread the flu to every Jew” are being disseminated by extremists on social media channels and messaging apps."  These comments are just the tip of the iceburg.  The Nazi believers are most active, and this sort of thinking has led to several deaths not too long ago.  

                                                     
The American Jewish Congress " is an association of American Jews organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts.  It was started by Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise in 1918. The AJC have noted this upsurge in anti-Semitism.

                                                                                    
Rabbi Wise
Judge Louis Brandeis

Description

"Louis Dembitz Brandeis was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents from Bohemia, who raised him in a secular home.  "Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise was an early 20th-century American, Progressive Era, Reform rabbi, and Zionist leader."

Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC), said Monday there has been a rise in accusations that Jewish people are behind the spread of the virus or are directly profiting from it.

 Jewish organizations trying to congregate online have been targets of "zoombombing."
"Israeli researchers found that "researchers on anti-Semitism, show an 18% spike in attacks against Jews last year. The report warns that the pandemic has threatened to amp up incitement even more.
Although they did not include 2020 statistics, the researchers said the hatred has come from sources as varied as right-wing European politicians, ultra-conservative American pastors, anti-Zionist intellectuals and Iranian state authorities."

It's an old story to many of us oldsters who know much about our Jewish history and how through the ages we've been the scapegoat of anything bad that has come along including illnesses.  Here it's happening again in this day and age of science, and we have a certain population that continues to blame others for whatever horror comes along and that's been the Jews.

Resource:  https://ajcongress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Updated-2-AJCongress-report-1.pdf?utm_source=American+Jewish+Congress&utm_campaign=d09b62e2dc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_12_09_48_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_50422fbff1-d09b62e2dc-338001889&mc_cid=d09b62e2dc&mc_eid=320638f2a1

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Russian Dynasties who were Anti-Semitic; Alexander, Romanov

Nadene Goldfoot                                           
                                                                           
               Peter the Great,  reigned in Russia from May 7,1682  to February 8, 1725. Peter’s father, Romanov czar Alexis Mikhailovich, married twice. Both his wives bore him children, giving rise to a bitter and bloody succession struggle after his death.
Peter’s mother, Natalya Naryshkina, was Alexis’ second wife. Highly intelligent, Natalya was rare among Russian women for her European education. She also had a Karaite ancestor – one Naryshko of the Crimean Peninsula – about whom she was quite open. Karaites are a Jewish sect who reject the Oral Law and started in the 8th century in and around Persia.  Those Jews had not accepted the discipline of the Babylonian gaonate.  

Interestingly enough, all Romanov rulers after Peter remembered their descent from this gentleman, exercising tolerance toward the Karaite minority in both Crimea and Lithuania. Peter himself ignored his roots; the Karaite connection doesn’t seem to have affected his attitude toward Jews.  Those who disliked him called him the antiChrist, making him to dislike Jews.  

Peter had 2 wives and altogether, 14 children.  "He took Martha Skavronskaya, a Polish-Lithuanian peasant, as a mistress some time between 1702 and 1704. Martha converted to the Russian Orthodox Church and took the name Catherine. Though no record exists, Catherine and Peter are described as having married secretly between 23 Oct and 1 December 1707 in St. Petersburg. Peter valued Catherine and married her again (this time officially) at Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg on 1712-02-19.  She is known as Catherine I.  In 1724 Peter had his second wife, Catherine, crowned as Empress, although he remained Russia's actual ruler. All of Peter's male children had died.
                                                                           
Catherine I b: April 15, 1684 in Estonia, actuallyPolishMarta Helena SkowroÅ„ska, later known as Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya, a Roman Catholic peasant
d: May 17, 1727 in Russia
 Catherine I was a Russian Empress.  She ruled from 1725 to 1727, and in May 1727, expelled all Jews living in Little Russia (Belarus and Ukraine).  This order was countermande after her death.  She was the 2nd wife of Peter the Great b: 1712 who; died in 1725.  When he died, she picked up the reigns.  . 

"Catherine was the first woman to rule Imperial Russia, opening the legal path for a century almost entirely dominated by women, including her daughter Elizabeth and granddaughter-in-law Catherine the Great, all of whom continued Peter the Great's policies in modernizing Russia. At the time of Peter's death the Russian Army, composed of 130,000 men and supplemented by another 100,000 Cossacks, was easily the largest in Europe. However, the expense of the military was proving ruinous to the Russian economy, consuming some 65% of the government's annual revenue. Since the nation was at peace, Catherine was determined to reduce military expenditure. For most of her reign, Catherine I was controlled by her advisers. However, on this single issue, the reduction of military expenses, Catherine was able to have her way."

                                                                           
Peter III"Peter III was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was born in Kiel, Germany as Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, the only child of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Anna Petrovna.Nature had made him mean, the smallpox had made him hideous, and his degraded habits made him loathsome. And Peter had all the sentiments of the worst kind of small German prince of the time. He had the conviction that his princeship entitled him to disregard decency and the feelings of others. He planned brutal practical jokes, in which blows had always a share. His most manly taste did not rise above the kind of military interest which has been defined as "corporal's mania," the passion for uniforms, pipeclay, buttons, the "tricks of parade and the froth of discipline." He detested the Russians, and surrounded himself with Holsteiners.
It was 
arranged for Peter to marry his 2nd cousin, Sophia Augusta Frederica (later Catherine the Great), daughter of Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst and Princess Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. The young princess formally converted to Russian Orthodoxy and took the name Ekaterina Alexeievna (i.e., Catherine). They married on 21 August 1745. The marriage was not a happy one but produced one son, the future Emperor Paul, and one daughter, Anna Petrovna (20 December 1757 – 19 March 1759). Catherine later claimed that Paul was not fathered by Peter: that, in fact, they had never consummated the marriage.  During the sixteen years of their residence in Oranienbaum, Catherine took numerous lovers, while her husband did the same in the beginning."  Seems she took her frustrations out on us Jews. 
Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst Stettin, PomeraniaPrussia
(now SzczecinPoland) AKA
Catherine II, known to her people as Catherine the Great
Antisemite most well known to today's Jews
who created the Pale of Settlement, which forced Jews
out of Russia and into nearby land she owned.
She had married Peter III

She came to power following a coup d'état that she organised—resulting in her husband, Peter III, being overthrown.  

She ruled from 1762 to 1796, and her Jewish policy was marked by a
combination of liberalism and coercion.  On the one hand, Jews were allowed
to register in the merchant and urban classes in 1780 but permission was restricted to White Russia in 1786.  This marked the beginning of the Pale of Settlement.  During her last years, which were marked by reaction in 1789 to 1796, she prevented the extension of Jewish settlement and in 1795, prohibited Jewish residence in Rural areas.  



Russia often treated Judaism as a separate entity, where Jews were maintained with a separate legal and bureaucratic system. Although the government knew that Judaism existed, Catherine and her advisers had no real definition of what a "Jew" is, since the term meant many things during her reign. Judaism was a small, if not nonexistent, religion in Russia until 1772. When Catherine agreed to the First Partition of Poland, the large new Jewish element was treated as a separate people, defined by their religion. In keeping with their treatment in Poland, Catherine allowed the Jews to separate themselves from Orthodox society, with certain restrictions. She levied additional taxes on the followers of Judaism; if a family converted to the Orthodox faith, that additional tax was lifted. Jewish members of society were required to pay double the tax of their Orthodox neighbours. Converted Jews could gain permission to enter the merchant class and farm as free peasants under Russian rule.
In an attempt to assimilate the Jews into Russia's economy, Catherine included them under the rights and laws of the Charter of the Towns of 1782. Orthodox Russians disliked the inclusion of Judaism, mainly for economic reasons. Catherine tried to keep the Jews away from certain economic spheres, even under the guise of equality; in 1790, she banned Jewish citizens from Moscow's middle class.
In 1785, Catherine declared Jews to be officially foreigners, with foreigners' rights. This re-established the separate identity that Judaism maintained in Russia throughout the Jewish Haskalah. Catherine's decree also denied Jews the rights of an Orthodox or naturalised citizen of Russia. Taxes doubled again for those of Jewish descent in 1794, and Catherine officially declared that Jews bore no relation to Russians.  
                                                                         
Nicholas Pavlovich Romanov
Emperor Nicholas I of the Romanav Dynasty,
b: July 6, 1796; d: March 2, 1855
The man was 6'9" tall.  
Jews lived under Russian Czars throughout the 19th century and had to endure many a pogrom before escaping to such places as the USA and Palestine.  The Nicholas Czars were all anti-Semitic.

Nicholas I reigned as Emperor in Russia from 1825 to 1855.  He was also king in Poland next door, also the home of many Jews.  He was also a Grand Duke of Finland.  He was the grandson of Catherine the Great.  He married Alexandra Feodorovna AKA Charlotte of Prussia and they had 7 children.  

                   Life of Jews under Nicholas I of Russia

In 1851 the Jewish population numbered at 2.4 million with 212,000 of them living in Russian controlled Poland territory. This made them one of the largest inorodtsy minorities in the Russian Empire.
He aimed at assimilating the Jews by police methods.  
On 26 August 1827 the edict of military conscription ("Ustav rekrutskoi povinnosti") was introduced, which required Jewish boys to serve in the Russian military for 25 years from the age of 18. Before that many of them were forcibly conscripted into Cantonist schools since the age of 12, while being a Cantonist did not count into the time of military service. They were sent far away from their families to serve in the military so they would have difficulties to practice Judaism and thus be Russified. The poor, village Jews and Jews without families or unmarried Jews were especially targeted for the military service. Between 1827 and 1854 it is estimated that there were 70,000 Jews conscripted. Some of the Jews who served in the Russian military eventually converted to Christianity.
By 1844, the Jewish community organization was abolished and secular government schools were introduced.  The Jewish costume was forbidden in 1850.  Intellectual life was strictly supervised.  Converts to Christianity were granted several years exemption from taxation.  
Under Nicholas I, the Jewish agricultural colonisation of Ukraine continued with the transfer of Siberian Jews to Ukraine. In Ukraine, Jews were given land, but had to pay for it, leaving very little to support their families. On the other hand, these Jews were exempt from the forced military conscription.
Under Nicholas I there were attempts to reform the education of the Jews in attempt of Russification. The study of the Talmud was disapproved as it was seen as a text that encouraged Jewish segregation from Russian society. Nicholas I further toughened censorship of the Jewish books in Yiddish and Hebrew by allowing these to be printed only in Zhitomir and Vilna, Lithuania. 

Tsar Nicholas I aimed to destroy Jewish life, and his reign is remembered as one of the most 
painful episodes for European Jewry. In 1825, Tsar Nicholas ordered the conscription of all
 Jewish males into the Russian imperial military beginning at age 12. In Jewish diasporal
 communities hailing from the Russian Empire, the 19th century is often recalled as a time 
where Jews were forced to the front lines of the army and used as "cannon fodder". Jews 
were forbidden from becoming officers.  Many of the boys forced into the military were 
captured by "snatchers" (khapers). Jewish agricultural communities in more Southern 
areas were often exempt as the Russian government liked to encourage agriculturalism among 
Jews, while other communities that were exempted were often expelled from their towns
 and villages.                                                  
                                                             
Alexander I of Russia  reigned from 1801 to 1825.
born 23 December 1777; d: December 1, 1825.
He was the son of Paul I and 
Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg,Germany.  On 9 October 1793, Alexander married Louise of Baden, known as Elizabeth Alexeievna after her conversion to the Orthodox Church. He later told his friend Frederick William III that the marriage, a political match devised by his grandmother, Catherine the Great, regrettably proved to be a misfortune for him and his spouse. 
His 1st Jewish policy was a liberal one, and during his reign,
the 1st Jewish agricultural colonies were established in S. Russia.
His ultimate goal, however, was not the amelioration of the position of the
Jews, but the undermining of their religious individuality.

He changed his approach later, and imposed restrictions on the Jews
and ordered their expulsion from many regions in Russia.  
With his mental health deteriorating, Alexander grew increasingly suspicious of those around him, more withdrawn, more religious, and more passive. Some historians conclude his profile "coincides precisely with the schizophrenic prototype: a withdrawn, seclusive, rather shy, introvertive, unaggressive, and somewhat apathetic individual"
                                                            

Son Alexander II of Russia  reigned from 1855 to 1881.
Born April 29, 1818; assassinated: March 13, 1881.
At the beginning of his reign, he eased up some of the anti-Jewish decrees of his father, Nicholas I, and this was encouraging to the Jews in hope for emancipation.  But, towards the end of his reign, an anti-Semitic tendency
was running through the palace as well which won out. 
Long-standing repressive policies and attitudes towards the Jews were intensified after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II on 13 March 1881. This event was wrongly blamed on the Jews and sparked widespread Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire, which lasted for three years, from 27 April 1881 to 1884.
                                                                                                                          

Alexander III reigned from 1881 to 1894.
At 6'3", his reign is remembered for his harsh anti-Jewish measures including
the MAY LAWS, expulsions from villages and from Moscow, and widespread pogroms and anti-Semitism in universities.  This caused mass Jewish emigrations to the West and a fillip to the Zionist movement in Russia to return to Palestine (Israel). The 1st aliyah (return) was in 1880.  
 Alexander III; 10 March 1845 – 1 November 1894) was Emperor of RussiaKing of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death on 1 November 1894.He was highly reactionary and reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father, Alexander II. Under the influence of Konstantin Pobedonostsev (1827–1907) he opposed any reform that limited his autocratic rule.  Tsar Alexander III (1881-1894) was hostile to Jews; his reign witnessed a sharp deterioration in the Jews' economic, social, and political condition.                

The Warsaw pogrom of 1881 worsened Polish-Jewish relations, and was criticized by some members of the Polish elite. Historian Michael Ochs notes that period from 1863 to 1881 was witnessing the increase of anti-Semitism in the Russian-controlled Poland.

They banned Jews from inhabiting rural areas and shtetls (even within the Pale of Settlement) and restricted the occupations in which they could engage. The Russian imperial police strictly applied the anti-Semitic discriminatory laws, while the Russian media engaged in unrestrained anti-Semitic propaganda. In 1891, all Jews were systematically expelled from Moscow. These repressions embittered many Jews against Russian society, convincing many that Russia could no longer be their home.
The Tsar's minister Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev stated the aim of the government with regard to the Jews was that "One third will die out, one third will leave the country and one third will be completely dissolved in the surrounding population".  The pogroms and the repressive legislation resulted in the mass emigration of Jews to western Europe and America. Between 1881 and the outbreak of the First World War, an estimated 2.5 million Jews left Russia - one of the largest group migrations in recorded history.
After the Pesach pogrom of 1903, pogroms became the official policy of the Russian Empire, and the anti-Semitic terror reached its peak in October 1905.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov
Emperor Nicholas II b: May 18, 1868; d: July 17, 1918
His wife was also Alexandra Feodorovna AKA Alix of Hesse (German).
They were married in 1894.  
Nicholas II, was the last emperor of Russia and reigned from November 1, 
1894 to March 15, 1917.  He was forced to abdicate and then the whole family 
was murdered, a plot that made movies and books as well as now on Netflix.
A girl was found with amnesia, saying she was the last child of the family, 
Anastasia, which turned out to be false.  
Nicholas continued the harsh policies of his father, Alexander III
 toward the Jews.
Severe pogroms occurred in 1903 to 1907, and the notorious Beilis trial took 
place in 1913.  When his premier, Stolypin, presented a plan affording some relief 
to the Jews, Nichals replied:  "As long as I am czar, the Jews of Russia shall
 not receive equal rights."   With his family, he was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks at that time, exiled to Siberia, and executed the following year in July 1918.  

No wonder we had issues like the Bellis Affair happen.  Menahem Mendel Beilis was a Russian Jew accused of ritual murder in Kiev in the Russian Empire in a notorious 1913 trial, known as the "Beilis trial" or "Beilis affair". The process sparked international criticism of the antisemitic policies of the Russian Empire. The Beilis trial took place in Kiev from September 25 through October 28, 1913. The Beilis case was compared with the Leo Frank case in which an American Jew was convicted of raping and murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan. After his acquittal, Beilis became an enormous hero and celebrity.

In World War I, many Jews felt they could improve their position in society if they contributed to defending Russia. Over 400,000 were mobilized and 80,000 served on the front lines. Despite this, when the Russian army faced defeat, anti-Semitic commanders blamed Jewish populations. Jews were accused of treason and spying for the Germans, with some Jews being kidnapped and tried for espionage. After their trials, mass expulsions of Jews living near the front lines were organized, with Jews being expelled from Courland and northern Lithuania in 1915. One month later, the printing of Hebrew characters was forbidden.

Resource:  
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia