The Jewish Experience in Russia:

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

       Crusaders Taking Over Jerusalem 1096-1099, slaughtering Jew and Arab alike, in France and Rhineland in towns like Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Cologne, then in Prague and later in Salonica.  Jews had made the rounds;  Jerusalem in 70;  Rome as slaves, Germany, France, then on North East to Russian Territory.  Jews lived in Germany in 321 when Emperor Constantine issued regulations which indicated the existence of an organized Jewish community with rabbis and elders of Cologne and it is probable that Jews were settled elsewhere on the Rhineland at the time.  

The conversion of Germany to Christianity began in the 2nd century and continued until the 9th century. The process occurred in two stages:  1st stage was Aryan, but 2nd was Catholic.  The area that is now Germany was introduced to Christianity by 300 (CE) AD, when it was part of the Roman Empire. The conversion of Germany was completed by the time of Charlemagne in the 8th and 9th centuries.

Jews have settled in Lithuania for many reasons, including persecution, economic opportunity, and religious freedom:  Jews migrated to Lithuania to escape persecution, expulsions, and massacres carried out by the Crusaders. In the 14th century, Grand Duke Gediminas invited merchants and craftspeople to settle in Lithuania, where they could practice their crafts without compromising their religion.  It was usually by  invitation that Jews would go to a country.                                     

My paternal grandmother came from Lazdijai, Lithuania, bordering Lithuania and Poland,  and my paternal grandfather came from Telsiai, Lithuania.  Lithuania was in the Baltic Republic. The Baltic republics, also known as the Baltic states, are the independent countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania: The Baltic states were created in 1917 from the Baltic provinces of Russia and became independent again in 1991 after the Soviet Union broke up.                                                     

   Israel on the Russian map; so little it's not even there, not named.  Jerusalem fell in 70 CE.

 Jews arrived in Lithuania back in 1321.  By 1495, they were living in cities like Vilna, Grodno, and Kovno with a population of 10,000.  In 1529 they were given a charter guaranteeing freedom of movement and employment.  Soon, we managed most of the foreign trade market and found jobs in tax-farming, an unfavorable position for other peoples.  

Jews had lived in Russian lands of Crimea, Caucasus, Khazars, Lithuania, Turkestan, Ukraine, etc. since classical times.  In 986, Jews were in a disputation on Duke Vladimir's conversion to Christianity. In 12th century, Jews were living in Grodno, Belorussia.  Kiev had a Jewish gate in the 12th century, and the Jewish quarter there was looted by 1113.  At this time, Jews were advanced in education, attending western yeshivot and were sending questions to German rabbis. 

Pope Urban VI was the pope in 1387. He was elected in 1378 and served until his death in 1389. Urban VI was the most recent pope to be elected from outside the College of Cardinals. Christianity came to Lithuania in 1387, when King Jogaila and his cousin Vytautas the Great officially adopted Catholicism. This made Lithuania the last pagan country in Europe to convert to Christianity.   With Christianity came the decrees against Jews that had started back in the 300s.  Why?  Jews refused to convert. This 14th century also saw Belorussian Jews living in Brest-Litovsk  and in Pinsk in 1506.                            

Anti-Semitism didn't take long to activate.  From 1495 to 1502, they were excluded from Lithuania, and from 1566 to 1572, the Jewish badge was introduced and Jews disqualified from giving evidence in court or to police.  

By 1563, 300 Russian Jews  were drowned at Polotsk and Vitebsk because they refused to be baptized into Christianity.  In 1667 the Russian Jews were expelled from E. Ukraine upon its annexation to Russia.  Anti-Semitism kept Jews from even visiting Russia which were written in treaties from 1550 and 1678.  Jews were the kicked out in 1727, 1738, and 1742.  By 1753, 35,000 Jews were driven out of Russia. 

 Then in 1762, Catherine II permitted all aliens to live in Russia, except Jews.  

Jews typically could not engage in agriculture due to restrictions on Jews owning land and farming in the Pale, and were thus predominantly merchants, artisans, and shopkeepers. This made poverty a serious issue among the Jews.

Poland was partitioned in 1772, 1793, and greatly in 1795, which caused the great Jewish masses in White Russia (Belorussia) [Belarus],  Ukraine, Lithuania, and Courland to become Russian subjects which lasted for more than a century, keeping Jews under the thumb of the Czars.  By 1786 they could only live in towns, laying the foundation of the PALE OF SETTLEMENT.  Christians had rights in 1795.  By 1802 the PALE was defined and restricted Jews in the villages from 1807-1808, limiting the activities of the Kahal (organized congregation) in the spheres of religion and charity, and prohibited the traditional Jewish clothing style.  It took a measure to promote agriculture with the Jews.  The Jews remained loyal to Russia during Napoleon's 1812 invasion, and Alexander I (1801-1825) was at first benevolent to them.  Later, he turned against them, and 20,000 Jews were expelled from Vitebsk and Mohilev in 1824. Those remaining were forbidden to live near the frontier.  About 600 oppressive enactments regarding Jews were published during the reign of Nicholas I .  In 1827, military service was brutally imposed on Jews.  Jewish books were censored in 1836, and in 1844 the Kahal was abolished;  with Alexander II trying to Russify Jews by education and relaxing restrictions, while the judicial law of 1864 contained no anti-Jewish discrimination.  65,000 Jews were working in agriculture.  Jews shined in economics, culture and left-wing politics, and social anti-Semitism began to replace religious prejudices, they thought. 

 Then Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 and Jews became the victims being blamed for no reason.  1880 was the year of a terrible pogrom, making them seen as a foreign element to be kept apart from the village people with MAY LAWS being written. May 3, 1882 prohibited Jews from living or acquiring property except in towns in the Pale of Settlement.  They were revoked in March 1917-end of WWI after the Russian Revolution.  The result was still recurrent local expulsions, intolerable overcrowding and the blocking of opportunity in work and caused almost all Jews to emigrate from Russia during the period they were in force.   In 1891, Jews were expelled from Moscow. Official anti-Semitism reached a peak with the Beilis case, the most notorious of long series of Blood Libels.  The Pale of Settlement frontiers didn't change until 1915 during WWI.  

During World War I, 100,000 Jews were expelled or emigrated to the Russian interior.  However, in independent Lithuania,  Jews received national autonomy from 1918 to 1924. Vilna was taken over by Poland in the war in 1919. Jews lost their control on their affairs. 

From 1930 on, Russia kept "discouraging" Jews from their religious practices, and many prominent Jews were removed in the purges of the 1930s.  Russia did not recognize the Jews as a nationality and discouraged Hebrew by outlawing it and persecuted Zionism   

In Berlin, thousands of Party officials, Hitler Youth members, and Labor Service leaders take an oath of loyalty read by Rudolf Hess in Munich and broadcast across Germany. Berlin, Germany, February 25, 1934; the beginning of the end.  

 At the beginning of World War II,  Jews numbered about 175,000.  About 25,000 were deported by the Russians from Lithuania and Latvia in July 1940.  Jews left in Lithuania were massacred by the Germans and Lithuanians by 1943.  24,000 Jews were living there in 1959, but by 1989, about a half of these had left for Israel, leaving 12,312.  

Annexation early in WWII of Western White Russia, Western Volhynia, Eastern Galicia, Northern Bukovina, Bessarabia, Lithuania, and Latvia led to mass-deportation of Jews, especially the intelligentsia.  Nazis invaded Russia by 1941 and aimed at exterminating the Jews;  so the 500,000 Jews in White Russia was able see half escape to the interior and to 200,000 were slaughtered.   Total of Jews slaughtered in WWII was 6 million.Opens in new tab

The musical Fiddler on the Roof is set in the fictional town of Anatevka, Ukraine, during the year 1905: The story is about Tevye, a dairyman who tries to preserve his Jewish culture and traditions while his family faces outside influences. The musical is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholom Aleichem, and the town of Anatevka is based on Boyarka, a town near Aleichem's birthplace in Ukraine. The musical explores themes of prejudice, particularly the prejudice of Russian Christians against Jews. The pogrom in the musical is based on the real-life Kishinev pogrom of 1903, which was a persecution of Russian Jews. The musical's setting has taken on a life of its own, and in 2014, a real Anatevka was created in Ukraine as a refuge for Jewish families. 

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Alexander_II_of_Russia