Nadene Goldfoot
Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was rather shocked to see how Jews were being treated in the world while on his cruise in 1867. It brings to mind just what was at stake for our ancestors and why they chose the USA. It was a revelation for him. He's telling the world the following.
"Jews are treated just like human beings, instead of dogs. They can work at any business they please; they can sell brand new goods if they want to; they can keep drug stores; they can practice medicine among Christians; they can even shake hands with Christians if they choose; they can associate with them; just the same as one human being does with another human being; they don't have to stay shut up in one corner of the towns; they can live in any part of a town they like best; it is said they even have the privilege of buying land and houses and owning them themselves, though I doubt that, myself; they never have had to run races naked through the public streets, against jackasses, to please the people in carnival time; there they never have been driven by the soldiers into a church every Sunday for hundreds of years to hear themselves and their religion especially and particularly cursed; as this very day, in that curious country, a Jews is allowed to vote, hold office, yea, get up on a rostrum in the public street and express his opinion of the government if the government doesn't suit him! Ah, it is wonderful. " America!
In 1867, the Jews of Galicia were granted full equality of rights, and thus were the first among the Jews of Eastern Europe to be emancipated. The Zionist movement flourished in Galicia. During the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, before World War I the Jewish community flourished in Galicia. At the beginning of the 20th century, the number of Jews in Galicia reached more than 800,000.
In 1867, following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise (Ausgleich), the Habsburg Monarchy was reorganized into a constitutional monarchy, At this time, the largest Jewish populations were in Galicia, Bukovina, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and Lower Austria (where Vienna is located). In 1867, the Jews of Austria-Hungary were emancipated, and they were allowed to live in Habsburg territories (such as Carnolia) that were formerly off-limits.
Jewish emancipation was the external process in various nations in Europe of eliminating Jewish disabilities, e.g. Jewish quotas, to which European Jews were then subject, and the recognition of Jews as entitled to equality and citizenship rights.
Before the emancipation, most Jews were isolated in residential areas from the rest of the society; emancipation was a major goal of European Jews of that time, who worked within their communities to achieve integration in the majority societies and broader education. Many became active politically and culturally within wider European civil society as Jews gained full citizenship. They emigrated to countries offering better social and economic opportunities, such as United Kingdom and the Americas. Some European Jews turned to Socialism, and others to Zionism.
Jews were subject to a wide range of restrictions throughout most of European history. Since the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, Christian Europeans required Jews and Muslims to wear special clothing, such as the Judenhut and the yellow badge for Jews, to distinguish them from Christians. The practice of their religions was often restricted, and they had to swear special oaths. Jews were not allowed to vote, where vote existed, and some countries formally prohibited their entry, such as Norway, Sweden and Spain after the expulsion in the late 15th century. In fact, England expulsed Jews in 1290 and not allowed entrance until 1655.
It was in 1838, all the Jews in Meshed, Persia (Iran) were forced to convert to Islam. Jews living in Muslim countries had been treated as 2nd class citizens, but better than those in Europe, though there were a few pogroms at different periods.
In the century spanning the years 1820 through 1924, an increasingly steady flow of Jews made their way to America, culminating in a massive surge of immigrants towards the beginning of the twentieth century. Impelled by economic hardship, persecution, and the great social and political upheavals of the nineteenth century--industrialization, overpopulation, and urbanization--millions of Europe's Jews left their towns and villages and embarked on the arduous journey to the "Golden Land" of America.
In the USA 1867 when Mark Twain had left on his cruise, the USA had President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee. March 1 – Nebraska is admitted as the 37th U.S. state. May 28 – Alaska is purchased for $7.2 million from Alexander II of Russia, about 2 cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward. The news media call this "Seward's Folly." June 29 – Kidder massacre: A Sioux and Cheyenne war party kills U.S. Second Lieutenant Lyman Kidder, along with an Indian scout and ten enlisted men in Kansas. October 21 – Manifest Destiny – Medicine Lodge Treaty: Near Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas, a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma.1867–1873 – Chinese, Scandinavian and Irish immigrants lay 30,000 miles (48,000 km) of railroad tracks in the United States.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, Jewish immigrants came mostly, though not exclusively, from Central Europe. In addition to settling in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, groups of German-speaking Jews made their way to Cincinnati, Albany, Cleveland, Louisville, Minneapolis, St. Louis, New Orleans, San Francisco, and dozens of small towns across the United States. During this period there was an almost hundred-fold increase in America's Jewish population from some 3,000 in 1820 to as many as 300,000 in 1880.
Jews weren't able to start making aliyah to Palestine until 1881. There were 5 such movements starting then to live in Palestine, away from eastern Europe. Jews of Lithuania were among the first to get to Palestine. They joined Jews whose ancestors had never left, hidden or forgotten in other parts of Judah by the Romans. Safed was such a city on the top of a mountain.
From 1882-1890, 750,000 Jews living in Russia were forced to resettle in a strip of land called the Pale of Settlement which consisted of 25 provinces of the eastern European countries we are familiar with; Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, White Russia, Bessarabia, and Crimea The Pale of Settlement was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917 in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish residency, permanent or temporary, was mostly forbidden. To live in a different part of Russia, one had to have a special permit, given only to people who graduated high school, big businessmen, or skilled artisans. Their empress, Catherine II, was responsible for this decree.
Mark Twain was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature." he's best known for writing "Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn," a children's favorite novel.
Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, but he invested in ventures that lost most of it—such as the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of these financial setbacks, but in time overcame his financial troubles with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers. He eventually paid all his creditors in full, even though his bankruptcy relieved him of having to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it" as well; he died the day after the comet made its closest approach to the Earth.
Update 10:50pm Mark Twain visited Rome while on the cruise and went to the toured the Church of St. Peter. While there he saw 12 small pillars in St. Peter's, which came from Solomon's Temple. They must have been taken in 70 CE when Rome took all the valuables out of the Temple before burning it to the ground along with the city. ( p.113 in Twain's book).
Resource:
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_European_Jewry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_emancipation
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-pale-of-settlement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
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