 | |
| Author | Steven J. Zipperstein |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | History |
| Publisher | Liveright |
Publication date | March 27, 2018 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 978-1631492693 |
Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History is a 2018 non-fiction book by Steven J. Zipperstein on the events leading to the Kishinev Pogrom, the atrocities of the event itself, and its legacy.
The book begins with Zipperstein detailing the events leading to the Pogrom. In 1903, many Christians were struggling as farmers and other lower class jobs whereas many Jews were finding much more success, living in large homes that formerly belonged to Christians. [1] Religious differences also led to many Christians viewing the Jews as different or even lesser peoples. [2] As tensions rose, synagogues warned their members to leave before a greater conflict arose. Many chose to remain and in April, the violence and harassment intensified. Tensions peaked when Kishinev's daily newspaper wrote an article accusing Jews of killing a Christian boy for his blood. The article enraged many Christians and antisemites used it to justify violence against Jews as self-defense, which Zipperstein states caused them to view the Pogrom as a way to defend Christians from the domination of Jews, rather than an attack. He further states that the event was also fueled by social and economic reasons. [1]
On April 19 and 20, 1903, the three-day Kishinev Pogrom massacre began in Kishinev, Russia (today Chișinău, Republic of Moldova). [2] Mobs of laborers and artisans attacked the 50,000 Jews that lived in the city, feathering them, ravaging homes, raping, and killing. [2] The attackers destroyed homes and synagogues, ravaging Jews. Pogromists broke into stores, raped women, and used pitchforks, guns, and other weapons to all viciously attack men, women, and children. [2] Zipperstein noted that many of the crimes done were by neighbors and former friends who had known the Jews for many years. [1] Very few civilians and policemen helped protect the Jews. According to Zipperstein, most officials supported the Pogrom, confiscating weapons from Jews and helping the attackers. Zipperstein writes that when a Jew asked an officer for help, the officer did not budge, saying that this is what the Jews deserved. [1] The mob continued their rampage all around the city, shouting slogans such as "Death to the Jews." [1] The end result was 49 killed, 95 seriously wounded, 400 more wounded, and 1500 homes destroyed. [2]
After compiling papers, guidebooks, newspapers, and transcripts, Zipperstein saw that there was controversial and contradictory information of the event. One misunderstanding is that the Jewish people were cowardly and ran away from the attack, which Zipperstein states is not true and that they stood up for themselves, guarding areas for protection and finding defense weapons such as bats and metal objects. A poem criticizing the Jewish people was written by Russian Jewish and Zionist poet Hayim Nahman Bialik, which Zipperstein states is contradicted by evidence that a group of over 250 Jewish men rounded up to fight back. [3]
Another conclusion that Zipperstein investigated centered around accusations of the Tsar supporting Pogroms and that they were organized by authoritative figures. He supports this claim, citing things such as a letter written by Nicholas II to his mother as evidence, as the tsar regarded the Pogromists as "loyal people," rather than criticizing them. [3] He also cites the slow support for victims, stating that Russia had anti-semitic support, pointing to how Russian officials and police were not ordered to help the Jews and the little support that was sent was only to protect the tsar's reputation. [1]
Zipperstein also discusses the significance of the Kishinev Pogrom and illustrates how it is a symbol for the Jewish plight in 20th century Europe. The Pogrom became a representation of the discrimination Jews were facing, as they were not only ruthlessly and mercilessly attacked with little to no help, but were also shamed in poem and writing after the event. [2] Zipperstein argues that as a result of Pogroms such as this in Russia and other countries, many Jews were forced to emigrate, largely to the United States and Palestine, leading to a global displacement of Jews all across Europe. [2] He also argues that as Kishinev was home of many powerful Zionists and was well known throughout all of the Russia, this led to the news of the Pogrom being spread further than if it had occurred in a lesser known town. [1]
Writing in Tablet , cultural critic Rokhl Kafrissen called the book "a pivotal moment in the study of pogroms" that "exploded many of the myths of Kishinev". [4]
Author, screenwriter and film director Nicholas Meyer has said that his new “The Adventures of the Peculiar Protocols,” was inspired by Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. [5]
A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire. Similar attacks against Jews which also occurred at other times and places retrospectively became known as pogroms. Sometimes the word is used to describe publicly sanctioned purgative attacks against non-Jewish groups. The characteristics of a pogrom vary widely, depending on the specific incident, at times leading to, or culminating in, massacres.
The Kishinev pogrom or Kishinev massacre was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev, then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on 19–21 April [O.S. 6–8 April] 1903. A second pogrom erupted in the city in October 1905. In the pogrom of 1903, which began on Easter Day, 49 Jews were killed, 92 were gravely injured, a number of Jewish women were raped, over 500 were lightly injured and 1,500 homes were damaged. American Jews began large-scale organized financial help, and assisted in emigration. The incident focused worldwide attention on the persecution of Jews in Russia and led Theodor Herzl to propose the Uganda Scheme as a temporary refuge for the Jews.
The Uganda Scheme was a proposal to create a Jewish homeland in a portion of British East Africa. It was presented at the Sixth World Zionist Congress in Basel in 1903, by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist movement. He presented it as a temporary refuge for Jews to escape rising antisemitism in Europe. At the Congress the proposal met stiff resistance.
The history of the Jews in 19th-century Poland covers the period of Jewish-Polish history from the dismemberment of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, until the beginning of the 20th century.
Pavel Aleksandrovich Krushevan was a journalist, editor, publisher and an official in Imperial Russia. He was an active Black Hundredist and known for his far-right, ultra-nationalist and openly antisemitic views. He was the first publisher of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The Jewish Territorial Organisation, known as the ITO, was a Jewish political movement which first arose in 1903 in response to the British Uganda Offer, but which was institutionalized in 1905. Its main goal was to find an alternative territory to that of Palestine, which was preferred by the Zionist movement, for the creation of a Jewish homeland. The organization embraced what became known as Jewish Territorialism also known as Jewish Statism. The ITO was dissolved in 1925.
A series of pogroms against Jews in the city of Odessa, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, took place during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They occurred in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881 and 1905.
Zionism as an organized movement is generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. However, the history of Zionism began earlier and is related to Judaism and Jewish history. The Hovevei Zion, or the Lovers of Zion, were responsible for the creation of 20 new Jewish towns in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.
Pogroms in the Russian Empire were large-scale, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish rioting that began in the 19th century. Pogroms began to occur after Imperial Russia, which previously had very few Jews, acquired territories with large Jewish populations from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire from 1772 to 1815. These territories were designated "the Pale of Settlement" by the Imperial Russian government, within which Jews were reluctantly permitted to live, and it was within them where the pogroms largely took place. Jews were forbidden from moving to other parts of European Russia, unless they converted from Judaism or obtained a university diploma or first guild merchant status. Migration to the Caucasus, Siberia, the Far East or Central Asia was not restricted.
Antisemitism —prejudice, hatred of, or discrimination against Jews— has experienced a long history of expression since the days of ancient civilizations, with most of it having originated in the Christian and pre-Christian civilizations of Europe.
Częstochowa pogrom refers to an alleged anti-Semitic disturbance that occurred on August 11, 1902, in the town of Chenstokhov, Russian Partition under Nicholas II. According to an official Russian report by the Tsarist Governor of the Piotrków Governorate, the said pogrom started after an altercation between a Jewish shopkeeper and a Catholic woman.
The Belostok (Białystok) pogrom occurred between 14–16 June 1906 in Białystok, Poland. During the pogrom between 81 and 88 people were killed by soldiers of the Imperial Russian Army, the Black Hundreds and the Chernoe Znamia, and about 80 people were wounded.
Antisemitism in the Russian Empire included numerous pogroms and the designation of the Pale of Settlement from which Jews were forbidden to migrate into the interior of Russia, unless they converted to the Russian Orthodox state religion.
This timeline of antisemitism chronicles the acts of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, in the 19th century. It includes events in the history of antisemitic thought, actions taken to combat or relieve the effects of antisemitism, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.
Steven J. Zipperstein is the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University. Zipperstein earned his B.A. and Ph.D. at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"In the City of Slaughter" is a Hebrew poem written in 1904 by Hayim Nahman Bialik about the 1903 Kishinev pogrom.
The history of the Jews in Odesa dates to 16th century. Since the modern city's founding in 1795, Odesa has been home to one of the largest population of Jews in what is today Ukraine. They comprised the largest ethno-religious group in the region throughout most of the 19th century and until the mid-20th century.
The second Kishinev pogrom took place on October 19–20, 1905 in Kishinev, two and a half years after the first Kishinev pogrom. It was part of the wave of pogroms that swept across the Russian Empire after tsar's October Manifesto in the wake of the abortive Revolution of 1905. 19 Jews were murdered and 56 wounded.
The pogroms of the Russian Civil War were a wave of mass murders of Jewish civilians, primarily in Ukraine, during the Russian Civil War. In the years 1918–1920, there were 1,500 pogroms in over 1,300 localities, in which 50,000 to 250,000 Jews were murdered. All armed forces operating in Ukraine were involved in the killings, in particular the Ukrainian People's Army and the Armed Forces of South Russia. It is estimated that more than a million people were affected by material losses, 50,000 to 300,000 children were orphaned, and half a million were driven out from or fled their homes.
Jacob Bernstein-Kogan was a Russian physician, Zionist, and Jewish community activist.