THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 465, 10 March 1882, Page 7

THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

The recommendations of the District Assemblies of Finland, Cherson Volbynia— viz., that Jews shall be excluded from all State employments and forbidden to trade in the bazaars and markets— will, it is expected, be adopted by the Minister of the interior, and receive the sanction of the law. The following is a summary of the principal recommendations, hostile to the Jews, which has been adopted by the majority of the local commissions to consider the Jewish question, and which have been submitted to General Ignatieff, a Minister of the Interior :— (1) The decree which authorised Jews to erect synagogues and other houses of prayer must be annulled. All synagogues and public places for prayer are to be closed, and Jews are only to be allowed to.'perform their religious services in private houses ; these, however, may not be specially constructed for religious purposes. (2) Jews shall not be permitted to elect the managers of their prayermeetiegs nor to appoint any rabbis. (3) The ordinance by which Jews were allowed to give their children an exclusively Jewish education shall be revoked. Some of the commissions are in favour of permission being granted to Jews to send their children to the Christian schools. (4) The registers of births, marriages, and deaths, among the Jews shall in future be kept by the Christian authorities, as Jews cannot be trusted to keep coTrect'and faithful - records. (5) In order to prevent the Jews in future from " exploiting" the rural populations, they will be strictly forbidden to reside in villages or in market districts. (6) Neither in towns nor in villages shall Jews nave the right to own houses or landed property. (7) Jews shall not lease niill N estates, or factories, nor may they be employed there. Any proprietor of mills, estates, or factoties, who shall entrust their management to Jews, will render himself liable to a fine of from 500 to 1000 roubles. (8) Jews will not be allowed to sell spiritous drink", nor to be in any way engaged in the manufacture of such drinks. (9) Mo Jew may be employed by the State. (10) Jews may not be contractors or purveyors, and several trades and commercial transactions are to be forbidden them. (11) Local banks are to be formed for the purpose of granting loans to peasants, in order to enable them to purchase land. The banks will be forbidden to make such loans to Jews The commissions which were not inimical to the Jews have, for the most part, restricted their favourable recommendations to permitting Jews to reside in any part of the country and to purchase a limited area of land.— Jewish Chronicle.