Nadene Goldfoot
Lithuania's town of Lazdey/Lazdijai was established in 1570 and granted permission to have a weekly market and 2 yearly fairs. My father's maternal ancestors of Jermulowski could have lived there then. Until 1795 it was part of the Polish Lithuanian Kingdom.
The 3 superpowers of that period-Russia, Prussia and Austria divided the land resulting in Lithuania becoming party Russian and partly Prussian. Lazdey was handed over to Prussia who ruled there from 1795 to 1807. Then Napoleon defeated Prussia in 1807 and Polish territories occupied by Prussia were transferred to The Great Dukedom of Warsaw (Poland). Everyone was equal before the law except the Jews who were not granted any civil rights. By 1815 when Napoleon was defeated, all of Lithuania was annexed to Russia and by 1866 became a part of the Suwalk Gubernia as an administrative center.
Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire (Russian: Еврейские погромы в России; Hebrew: הסופות בנגב ha-sufot ba-negev; lit. "the storms in the South") were large-scale, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish rioting that first began in the 19th century. Pogroms began occurring after the Russian Empire, which previously had very few Jews, acquired territories with large Jewish populations from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Ottoman Empire during 1772–1815.
Pogroms from 1871 to 1906
These territories were designated "the Pale of Settlement" by the Imperial Russian government of Catherine II, within which Jews were reluctantly permitted to live, and it was within them that the pogroms largely took place. Jews were forbidden from moving to other parts of European Russia (including Finland), unless they converted from Judaism or obtained a university diploma or first guild merchant status. Migration to Caucasus, Siberia, Far East or Central Asia was not restricted. Therefore, the Jews were forced to remain in the Pale, no matter what war or a poor economy might be going on, though later many did get to the Ukraine which was still in the Pale.
A report from Odessa, Russia said this; "Indeed, “Russian” pogroms really started in 1881 while previous violence, not yet catalogued as pogroms, was “Greek” led." That's because pogroms in Odessa had started in 1821, 1859, 1871, and all involved Greeks and Jews. The 1871 pogrom was the first to attract national attention. A number of commentators in the Russian press presented the riot as a popular protest against Jewish economic exploitation of the native population. The Odessa pogrom led some Jewish publicists, exemplified by the writer Perets Smolenskin, to question belief in the possibility of Jewish integration into Christian society, and to call for a greater awareness of Jewish national identity.
The town of Telz/Telziai was also part of the Polish Lithuanian kingdom and it fell under Czarist Russian rule, first from 1802 as part of the Vilna Province (Gubernia) as an administrative center and from 1843 a part of the Kovno Province. When Napoleon and his army retreated, they passed through Telz, leaving behind desolation as well as a big gun that ended up as a park decoration. Jews had lived in this town since the early 1600s.
Jews here suffered from blood libels in 1758 and again in 1827 with Jews that were innocent. No, Jews do no use Christian blood in their cooking or even making matzos. The result was that the Jews had suffered through a period of war, though and had great fear for their lives. In 1825 nobles ased the Tsar to expel Jews because they...spread diseases....and threaten to rob and to steal...when actually they saw Jews as competitors producing and selling alcohol. They were great wine-makers. During the Polish Rebellion of 1831, Telz Jews suffered both from the rebels and from the Cossacks. A Jew, Menashe Lukniker, was accused of helping the rebels and was hanged by the Russian rulers. Authorities in Telz started to arm the population and to enlist men to fight rebels. Local Jews, people without any arms, offered instead to supply their army with steel, leather, gunpowder, and they did. Many famines developed, such as in 1869-1872 and 1874.
Then the pogroms started against Jews in the 1880s in Ukraine and other places. Besides that, Telz Jews were then conscripted into the army for 6 years at a time; a time when they also left their country for the USA, Argentina and South Africa, no doubt when my father's father-my grandfather left for America.
Israel had been renamed as Palestine by the Romans in 135 CE after losing a very important battle to the Jewish General Bar Kokhba who fought for 3 years previously, holding out against the world's strongest army that long, an embarrassment to the Romans, so they named the land after the Judah's worst long-time enemy, the Philistines.
In 1880, the ancient Jewish land of Israel was occupied by the Turks and their Ottoman Empire, and they had held it for almost 400 years by then. Ottoman Rule in Palestine-1517-1917.
For the Turks, their reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called the Kanûn-u Esâsî (meaning "Basic Law" in Ottoman Turkish), written by members of the Young Ottomans, which was promulgated on 23 November 1876. It established the freedom of belief and equality of all citizens before the law. The empire's First Constitutional era, was short-lived. But the idea of Ottomanism proved influential. A group of reformers known as the Young Ottomans, primarily educated in Western universities, believed that a constitutional monarchy would give an answer to the empire's growing social unrest.
Through a military coup in 1876, they forced Sultan Abdülaziz (1861–1876) to abdicate in favour of Murad V. However, Murad V was mentally ill and was deposed within a few months. His heir-apparent, Abdülhamid II (1876–1909), was invited to assume power on the condition that he would declare a constitutional monarchy, which he did on 23 November 1876. The parliament survived for only two years before the sultan suspended it. When forced to reconvene it, he abolished the representative body instead. This ended the effectiveness of the Kanûn-ı Esâsî.
Golda Meir, former PM of Israel, was born in Kiev, Ukraine on May 3, 1898, and suffered in a pogrom from hunger and fear which caused her to move to the USA. Meir wrote in her autobiography that her earliest memories were of her father boarding up the front door in response to rumours of an imminent pogrom. Early in life she witnesses the endemic anti-Jewish violence in Czarist Russia (the pogroms). The image of that anti-Semitism would remain with her and greatly influence the course of her life.
She had written to Henry Kissinger for help once, so I have to share this story: Meir sent a letter to Henry Kissinger who was serving as the US secretary of state and was a Jewish-American asking him to help Israel. He wrote back: 'I am an American citizen, then the state secretary, then a Jew.' She responded by saying: 'It's OK, we read from right to left.'" (That was a great reminder to him, I thought.)
My own paternal grandmother was caught in a pogrom and her legs were broken in it at an early age, causing her to be shorter and with bowed legs. It caused her to immigrate to America as a teen-ager. She had lived in Telz.
Two avenues were considered by Jews who lived in the Pale and wanted to get out: Palestine with Turkish rule or America. Those involved in religious clubs or study groups chose Palestine. Why Palestine? Jews were originally from the tribe of Judah which was the southern end of biblical Israel. Their religion states that they were to live there, but they had been forced out in 70 CE. These descendants were true pioneers, with a fierce desire to live in their ancient country again instead of being whipping posts for other peoples.
There was already an indigenous Jewish population in Palestine during the Ottoman Empire and before. Its members were concentrated principally in the holy cities of Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron.
The first two waves of immigration took place under the Ottoman Empire. The first aliya, between 1882 and 1903, brought 20,000 to 30,000 Russians fleeing Czarist Russia’s pogroms. Between 1903 and 1914, during the second aliya, 35,000-40,000 more Russians, most of them socialists, established themselves in Palestine. The newcomers were very active in the building of Tel-Aviv and also founded kibbutzim (collective villages).
The novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer inspired the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, which was located in the Pale of 1905 in the fictional town of Anatevka, Ukraine. Yentl, a musical was later adapted into a film located in the Pale of 1873 Poland.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_and_modernization_of_the_Ottoman_Empire
https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/odessa/LIF_violence.asp?gclid=CjwKCAiAkan9BRAqEiwAP9X6UYo4iQtZs4LbhG-u-GYpk-Xtk_LMVh72glVIJynOvdwLOntvzFbKZhoC3m8QAvD_BwE
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/image/locations-major-pogroms-1871-1906-pale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogroms_in_the_Russian_Empire
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/culture/ukraine-the-place-golda-meir-fled-from-now-embraces-her-as-a-hero-553516
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golda_Meir
https://www.msudenver.edu/golda/goldameir/chronologyofgoldameir/
THE Settlers by Meyer Levin-historical novel...
From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters
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