JEWS IN RUSSIA

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 60, 8 September 1914, Page 7

JEWS IN RUSSIA

ADMITTED TO COMMISSIONS RETURN FOR DISTINCTION. (Received September 8, 9 a.m.) PETROGRAD. 7th September. It is officially announced that Jews •will be admitted to commissions in the army and navy. Already several hundred Jews in the ranks have been promoted to commissions by Imperial decree for distinction at Lemberg. Most of the anti-Sevritic newspapers applaud the decision. It is stated that the removal of the civil Jaw restrictions upon Jews will follow in due course. [There are over five million Jews in Russia, and their numbers, in spite of emigration, are rapidly on the ( increase. They are chiefly to be found in Poland and the western and south-western provinces of Russia. The Jews have always been most harshly treated in Russia, not so much""on account of their faith, but because they are keen business men and extortionate* money-lenders. They are rstricted by law to a pale of settlement which includes fifteen departments, and by the Jaws of 1892 the congestion of the Jewish population, the denial of free movement, and the exclusion from the general rights of citizens were rendered more oppressive than ever before. The right to leave the pale is indeed granted to merchants of the first guild, to those possesing certain educational diplomas, to veteran soldiers, and to certain classes of skilled artisans. But these concessions are unfavourably interpreted and much extortion results. There have been several pogroms or massacres of Jews, and the condition of the Jews has been reduced to one of abject poverty and despair. The Duma lias proved bitterly opposed to ideas of Jewish liberty, iii spite of these disabilities there are among the Russian Jews many enterprising contractors, skilful doctors, and successful lawyers and scientists.]