Newspaper Page Text
by CHARLES M. SEGAL
Forged by Crisis
KISHINEV FLAMES KINDLE AJC’S
50-YEAR FIGHT FOR HUMAN FREEDOM
On that partly cloudy Sunday, April 19, 1903,
the Sons of the American Revolution were still
in a festive mood. The night before, at New
York’s famous Delmonico’s, they had toasted
the one hundred and twenty-eighth anniver
sary of Paul Revere’s historic ride.
“The New York Times” carried a report on
this week-end observance. Also reported: U. S.
SQUADRON TO ATTEND GERMAN NAVAL
CELEBRATION AT KIEL . . . NEW YORK
SUBWAY PROGRESSING 180 OF 209
BLOCKS EXCAVATED . . . “ELEVATED
MEN” WIN WAGE INCREASE; AUGUST BEL
MONT OPPOSES NINE-HOUR WORK DAY . . .
A subhead above one story informed readers:
“President Amelia Higginson Urges Old Maid’s
Association of Western New York to Promote
Spinsterhood.”
Six thousand miles away, at Kishinev little
known capital of Bessarabia more somber
news was shaping up that Sunday. On this
seventh day of Passover, disaster struck Kish
inev’s 50,000 Jews; for forty-eight hours, the
whip and the knout reigned. The reverbera
tions of that week end were to be felt around
the world.
A news ticker might have recorded the Kishi
nev events thus:
SUNDAY, APRIL 19: Noon. Church bells sig
nal beginning of pogrom. Russian mobs invade
Jewish homes, plundering, wrecking. Sire -ts
echo with “DEATH TO THE ZHYDS! BEAT
THE ZHYDS!"
SUNDAY NIGHT: Looting bursts into mur
der. Rioters club and knife every Jew in sight.
Jews are disarmed by police as soldiers and
gendarmerie joke.
MONDAY, APRIL 20: A M. Slaughter begins
again. Synagogues are descrated. Bessarabia’s
governor tells Jewish delegates he can do noth
ing until he receives orders from St. Peters
burg. Wagons loaded with dead and wounded
Jews move through the streets.
MONDAY NIGHT: Pogrom ends with troops’
arrival. Toll: 47 dead; 92 severely injured;
2,000 families homeless; 123 children orphaned;
600 shops plundered.
Despite the iron curtain of czarist censor
ship, the painful news leaked out to the world
in meager dispatches. The first ten-line report
of the MASSACRE OF JEWS IN RUSSIA ap
peared in "The New York Times" Friday,
April 23. It made page six, sandwiched be
tween stories about the Baghdad Railway and
a Boston actors’ fund benefit. Protests began to
mushroom.
In fifty cities American leaders denounced
Russia's crimes against the Jews. There were
mass meetings, special services in synagogues
and churches. Resolutions calling for U. S. in
tervention were passed in cities from Boston to
Sacramento, from Detroit to Texarkana.
Newspapers across the land took up the cry,
supporting protests by Congressmen and state
legislators, governors, mayors, judges, college
presidents, labor leaders and clergymen of all
faiths.
At Carnegie Hall, former President Grover
Cleveland declared: "Every American humane
sentiment has been shocked by the late attack
on the Jews in Russia—an attack murderous,
atrocious and in every way revolting.”
In Atlantic City, Judge Mayer Sulzberger of
Philadelphia told a meeting that “without hat
red or malice toward Russia or its rulers, we
must proclaim the wrong that she is doing in
pressing the life out of her Jewish subjects by
law and administration and in encouraging out
right murder, and worse ...”
On June 15. American Jewish leaders con-
A program scene (at right) in Kishi
nev' 1903. depicted by the noted artist
Abel Pann.
ferred with President Theodore Roosevelt and
Secretary of State John Hay on how to make
America's moral position felt more effectively.
Meanwhile, money was needed to succor the
Kishinev survivors. But no adequate fund
raising machinery existed among American
Jews in the early years of this century. To meet
the critical need for funds, three men under
took a campaign for private, voluntary contri
bution. They were Oscar S. Straus, jurist and
diplomat; Jacob H. Schiff, financier; and Cyrus
L. Sulz.berger, merchant, philanthropist and
civic leader. They raised $109,000.
The world has not yet recovered from the
Iirt pogrom when the second Kishinev massacre
br ke in 1905. This time it was accompanied
by a systematic semi-official campaign of per
secution of Jews in eastern Europe. Thousands,
m.’.de homeless and starving, again turned im
ploring ly to America.
And again, stepping into the breech, were
the Messrs. Straus, Schiff and Sulz.berger. They
sent 1,400 telegrams across the nation. In re
sponse, more than a million and a quarter dol
lars was turned over to Russian Jews.
The task had been accomplished.
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