Jews as Economic Parasites

As stated before, the Other is often the screen onto which the self projects its least desirable qualities. In his essay, "On the Jewish Question" (1844) Karl Marx shows how the least desirable aspects of capitalism are projected onto the Jewish religion. Marx's essay does not illustrate racial anti-semitism, but rather a construction of Jewish law and religion as something bad and dangerous. 6

Marx wrote his essay as a treatise on the prospect of "Jewish emancipation" in 19th century Germany. He turns this prospect around and declares that in the end, "The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism" (Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz 1980: 268). It is the doctrine of Judaism that holds both Jews and the rest of society in the "slavery" of the capitalist system. The system of capitalism, in Marx's conception has its origins in Jewish doctrine:

"The God of the Jews has become the God of the universe. The real God of the Jews is Money...in bourgeois society the real nature of the Jew has found universal realization...Not only in the Pentateuch or in the Talmud, but in our present society we find the nature of the Jew..."(Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz 1980: 267).

Thus, if society is to break free of capitalism it has to first break free from Judaism:

"What is the worldly basis of Judaism? Practical necessity, selfishness. What is the worldly culture of the Jew? Commerce. What is his worldly God? Money...The emancipation from commerce and from money, from the practical and real Judaism, would be self-emancipation of our age" (Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz 1980: 266).

Though Marx wrote specifically about western Europe, his model is useful for understanding what went on in Russia. It is true that generally the Russian Jew had more money than the Russian peasant. However, it is not true, as some Russians believed, that the Jews were responsible for the poverty among the peasantry. On the contrary, exploitative land-lords in Russia existed since the time of Peter the Great (1725-1761), during which time 97% of the population was poor peasantry, tied to the land for life, dependent and poor. But the Jews &endash;even before any large population of them lived in Russia&endash; were often blamed for the worst situations of hunger and deprivation.

In 1800, Senator Dyerzhavin was sent out to the town of Shklov, in a remote section of Belorussia to investigate conflicts between Jews and landowners in that town, and later, to investigate complaints of hunger among the peasantry. The fruit of his journeys is his famous piece: "Opinion of Senator Dyerzhavin concerning the averting of want of foodstuffs in White Russia (Belorussia) by curbing the avaricious Pursuits of the Jews, also concerning their re-education, and other matters." It is clear to most historians that the want of food in Belorussia had much more to do with exploitative land owners than with the Jews. However, Dyerzhavin had a distorted idea of Judaism, claiming that Jews "have no conception of loving-kindness, disinterestedness and other virtues," and that their goal in life was "to collect riches in order to erect a new temple of Solomon to satisfy their fleshy desires" (Dubnow vol. 1 1916: 332).7 Like Marx, he constructed a false idea of Jewish doctrine and used it to explain the faults of the system.

This idea obviously stuck around because when Nicholas I toured these same depressed provinces at the beginning of his reign he wrote in his journal:

"The general ruin of the peasants of these provinces are the Zhyds 8...They are absolute leeches, fastening themselves everywhere and completely exhausting these unfortunate provinces" (Lincoln 1978: 289).

Abstract Judaism/"Jewishness"

In Marx's conception it is Jewish doctrine (as opposed to Jewish people) which is inherently bad. Marx believed that if Jews and the society in which they lived were freed from Jewish (as well as Christian) doctrine, then everyone would benefit. The concepts of Jewish doctrine and Judaism which existed at the time of Nicholas I were not identical to those of Marx.9 But in both cases what was feared in the mass of Jewish people was something abstracted, something that could travel outside the Jewish communities as well as something that could be erased off of Jewish people. This basic premise explains various attempts made to convert Russia's Jews from Judaism, including, of course, the conscription/conversion policy.

Concepts of race, and thus the racial anti-Semitism that motivated the Nazi extermination policy did not exist at the time of Nicholas I. What did exist were various concepts of Judaism as alien and therefore dangerous to a Christian society. This basic idea is represented in the writing of reform-era religious writer V.I. Askochenskii. He wrote a number of pamphlets aimed at relatively uneducated audiences, which contained short articles or reprinted church sermons. In one article, (1859) he criticized a recent appointment by British parliament of a Jew as consul-general in Algeria. He claimed that Jews followed laws "derived from moral principles based on religious dogma," and that just as a "Muslim or Chinese" judge would view a case of polygamy differently from a British judge, so would a Jew (Klier 1995: 124-125). What is obvious here is that there is a perception of a "Jewish" way of thinking which is equally alien to any Christian society as a way of thinking that is "Muslim," or "Chinese." (Neither should we ignore this as another example of Judaism's association with "the Orient.")

The reform era saw the advent of the Haskalah, a term referring to the Enlightenment movement within Judaism. Though the major thinkers of the Haskalah were located in Germany, Russia did have it's own "Eastern Haskalah." These thinkers believed that Jewish religion was backward and fundamentally opposed to progress and Rationalism. In their minds, the backwards Jewish doctrine could be abstracted from Jewish people. Two young members of the Haskalah movement, Zelinskii and Portugalov, wrote a letter (1862) in response to Aleksandrov's comments on the Talmud. They claimed to speak "in the name of all Jewish youths" with a "contemporary, civilizing education." They stated that they had never even seen the Talmud and that "The New Generation of the best of Jewish youth don't have the slightest understanding of the Talmud" (Klier 1995: 136).

To erase the Jewish doctrine from an individual's mind constituted the first step in making them suitable for membership in a Christian society. In 1862, N. Melgunov wrote that "educated" Jews

"...have already become Christian in Spirit, because contemporary education, rooted in Christianity, engenders the beginnings of Christian morality and love in a Jew who is cut off from his racial exclusivity" (Klier 1995: 137).

Melgunov is no rabid anti-Semite, he does go on to say that Christian truths are actually "hidden" in Jewish literature. Klier's comment on Melgunov highlights the idea of an abstracted Jewishness which I am trying to outline. He writes that Melgunov's piece is

"tainted by the assumption that educated Jews were Christians in all but rite, and had lost the essence of Judaism which still permeated the Jewish masses" (Klier 1995: 143, emphasis mine).

Aksakov affirms that Jewish doctrine was unwanted in Russia, saying that Jews were to be "guests in the Russian land" unless they "rejected the Jewish banner and Mosaic law" (Klier 1995: 134). Klier points out that a Jew- by-birth could be accepted into Russian society, but that it was at the expense of a wholesale rejection of his "Jewishness":

"the Jew who sought entry into Russian society had to certify his enlightened credentials by throwing mud at his national traditions and the mass of his coreligionists who still clung to them...it became a general ideological litmus test demanded by gentiles, Judeophiles and Judeophobes alike" (Klier 1995: 139).

Judaism as Infectious Disease

Just as this abstracted Jewishness could be erased off a person, it could travel around and infect others. Uneducated country folk were particularly susceptible to this disease. My use of the word "disease" is my own interpretation of a trend in Russian thought that dates to the middle ages. I have yet to find any primary source which specifically calls Judaism a "disease" or likens it to a disease, (as in the abstract, not in the biological sense of contagion) but I use the word "disease" to describe the actions taken and the language used to describe Jews and especially the cases of the "Judaizing Heresies." But first, I'd like to revisit the concept of the Pale of Settlement. Those who have been stricken in an epidemic are often quartered away physically (in turn socially) from their host society. Is the physical delineation of the Pale the same kind of thing, an attempt to limit the potential spread of the Jewish disease? It would have been preferable to let Judaism spread among the Polish and Lithuanian peasants than among the Russian peasants.

The notion that Judaism could spread itself is evidenced throughout Russian history. This is clear in the comments of Peter I (1725-1761) which accompanied his order to expel all Jews from Russia: "I prefer to see in our midst nations professing Islam and paganism rather than Jews...It is my endeavor to eradicate evil, not to multiply it" (Sachar 1990: 73). These are strong words. Like a disease, Judaism can "multiply." Disease imagery appears in Tsarina Catherine's report of 1773 from her visit to Belorussia, in which she wrote that the country "swarmed" with Jews. The (French) word she used, "fourmille" is the root of "fourmillment" which is used to refer to the teeming or swarming of ants. This theme crops up even earlier in the words of Ivan IV, who gave his order of expulsion (1550) with the comment:

"It is not convenient to allow Jews to come with their goods to Russia, since many evils result form them. For they import poisonous herbs into our realms, and they lead astray the Russians from Christianity" (Trachtenberg 1943: 99).

We can return to Howard Sachar, and if we can live with his exaggerated language, he will reveal the same ideas as above. The attitude of the average Russian peasant towards the Jews, according to him was "The less one had to do with these denizens of darkness the safer one was from contamination" (Sachar 1990: 4).

The "Judaizing Heresies"

Perhaps the best illustrations of the Russian notion of an infectious Judaism are the cases of the "Judaizing Heresies": The original cases occurred in the 1400's and an even more significant set of cases appeared in the first quarter of the 1800's.

The earlier affair, according to scholars, implanted a fear of conversion to Judaism in the Russian mind. The so called "Novgorod Heretics" were brought to the public with various accusations of Heresy linked to Judaism between the years of 1470 and 1490 by Abbot Iosif Volotskii and Archbishop Gennadii. David Godfrank (1980) claims that through the 19th century, clergy and historians alike tended to accept the accusations of these men. Volotskii claimed that the Jews who accompanied a Lithuanian Prince who was visiting Novgorod succeeded in "propagating their doctrines." Later a group of clerics were accused of using a Psalter with "Jewish interpretations" and of using a "Jewish calendar." Volotskii also accused them of "homosexuality" along with having interests in, and preaching "Judaism... astrology...magic" (Godfrank 1980: 144-145).

In the first part of the 19th century, various religious sectarian groups were beginning to form in a few places scattered around the Russian empire. These groups were former Russian Orthodox people who remained Christian but chose to adopt much of the Old Testament Law 17. Some groups, such as the Molokans, celebrated holidays which are considered "Jewish," such as the observance of the Sabbath on Saturday, and the celebration of Purim. These groups did not develop under the influence of local Jews and they did not consider themselves "Jewish" in any way. Yet they became known to civil and Church authorities as "Sabbatarians" and/or "Judaizers" due to the fact that they adopted seemingly "Jewish" practices and beliefs.

The government response to the emergence of these groups reflects the idea that Judaism is something dangerous that can spread throughout the countryside, and that it must, like an epidemic disease, be contained and destroyed. A Russian official, Golitzin, was sent out to the countryside to investigate one sectarian group. He wrote back to Moscow with a suggestion that the origins of the sect be "examined most rigorously" for the purpose of "preventing its further spread and bringing back the renegades to the fold of Orthodoxy" (Dubnow vol. 1 1916: 401).

By 1823, Nicholas I was in power. His policy towards the "Judaizers" reflects both his personality and the larger societal notion that Jews aim to convert the ignorant peasants to their faith, thereby threatening the security and spiritual purity of Russia. Count Kochubay gave the following orders as a solution to the problem of the "Judaizers":

1. The teachers and "chiefs" of the sects were to be put into military service or sent to Siberia if they were unfit to serve.

2. All Jews were to be expelled from the regions in which the sects have emerged.

3. Interaction between sectarian and Orthodox people was to be thwarted.

4. Outward display of "ceremonies which bear no resemblance to those of Christians" were to be forbidden (Dubnow 1916 vol. 1: 402).

It is clear from the above set of restrictions that Kochubay believed contact with Jews might lead more people into sectarian groups. Expulsions of Jews from Russia in the past had come with both religious and economic rationale, but Kochubay's orders give no such explanation. Expulsion is an extreme measure, and this indicates to me a great deal of fear. Interestingly, "outward display" of "Jewish" ritual is forbidden. Here the abstract "Jewishness" is even less tangible; in this conception even seeing Jewish ritual could cause the disease to spread. Like an epidemic disease, it seems Kochubay aimed to contain Judaism, to seal it away from the purity of Russian Orthodoxy, and therefore the homogeneity of the peasantry.

Kochubay's next set of orders are absolutely fascinating. They confirm that "Jewishness" in the abstract existed in the consciousness of the time by virtue of the fact that the word "Jewish" (Zhydovskaya ) carries an exceptionally threatening stigma. The term can be applied to a person or group and then that person or group bears the weight of that negative description. It can be transferred and placed onto a person like a label:

"To make sectarians an object of contempt, instructions are to be given to designate the Sabbatarians as a Zhydovskaya sect and to publish far and wide that they are in reality Zhyds, 8 inasmuch as their present designation as Sabbatarians, or adherents of the Mosaic law,17 does not give people the proper idea concerning this sect, and does not excite them in the feeling of disgust which must be produced by the realization that what is actually aimed at is to turn them into Zhyds " (Dubnow vol. 1 1916: 403).

Volotskii's original accusation was of this same nature. Halperin (1975) explains that the charge of "Judaizing" was a piece of propaganda, that in labeling the heretics "Judaizers,"

"The opponents of the heresy seem to have decided that the most effective image, epithet or accusation they could employ against the heretics, the one which would have the greatest effect on the audience, was that of the Judaizer" (Halperin 1975: 147).

In other words, by itself, the idea of "Judaizer" carries a stigma and meaning of its own. Volotskii chose to use it not only because he felt the heretics practiced a religion which resembled Judaism, but because he recognized the power within the word "Judaizer."

The above passages, when considered again, reveal more aspects of the popular conception of "Jewishness." In fact we can see here that the designation of "Zhyd" is also abstract. It is possible to be "turned into" a Zhyd. The idea was that if a person came to the realization that they were being transformed into a "Jew" in the eyes of everyone else, they would surely return to the Orthodox faith, leaving behind the label and stigma of Zhydovskaya.

(Fig. 5) Here is a picture of a Zhyd. If you are not careful The Judaizers will turn you into one! We are not Zhyds! How do differentiating terms like "Zhyd" function in the construction of "Jewishness" as Other? How do they function in the formation of a "Russian" identity?

Therefore, the terms "Zhyd" and "Judaizer," by themselves, carry meaning. Volotskii used "Judaizer" along with other derogatory, differentiating terms such as "homosexual." This concept of "stigma" and "meaning" being carried within a term deserves more attention. In his article, "The Other Question: The Stereotype and Colonial Discourse"(1992), Homi K. Bhabha looks at how stereotypes within the colonial discourse about the colonized/Other function in the maintenance of colonial power and the Othered status of the colonized. Obviously, Jews in Russia were not a colonized people in the usual sense; but they were, like colonized peoples, subjected to the domination of a "foreign" government which was informed by misconception and constructed misrepresentations of those which it ruled. The colonized group is subject to both the power in the concrete of the colonizer, as well as the power the colonizer has to create ideas about the colonized which legitimate their domination. This "regime of truth" is parallel and complementary to the concrete regime of law, physical control and violence. Bhabha writes,

"The construction of the colonial subject in discourse, and the exercise of colonial power through discourse demands an articulation of forms of difference...it follows that the epithets racial or sexual come to be seen as modes of differentiation, realized as multiple, cross-cutting denominations, polymorphous and perverse, always demanding a specific and strategic calculation of their effects...[it is] crucial to the binding of a range of differences and discriminations that inform discursive and political practices of racial and cultural heirachization" (Bhabha 1992: 313).

According to Bhabha's model, the use of the word "Zhyd" does more than insult those it is aimed at or repulse those who hear it. Rather, it serves to "inscribe" Jews, (and in the above cases, heretics and sectarians) into a discourse which puts them in the category of "Other" not by some misrepresentation, but simply by the use of a word which, by its nature articulates the Otherness. Bhabha emphasizes that he is more concerned with the processes of subjectification than he is with the particular negative details of colonial discourse. That Volotskii would choose "Judaizer" as an epithet means that he understood it would work, of its own inertia, to insult or alienate those it was directed towards, and more importantly, it would define himself and the Orthodoxy as not-heretic/Other, as "pure."

While accusations of Judaizing occurred at various times in history, cases of actual converts to Judaism were very rare. However a look at one case certainly evidences the extreme fear and disdain some Russians had for Judaism. In 1738 the government investigated the case of Alexander Vosnitsyn, a retired naval captain who converted to Judaism under the influence and guidance of Boruch Leibov. Both men were burned in public in St. Petersburg.

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