The two other great reforms, that of rural self-government and the judiciary, were not stained by the ignominious label kromye Yevreyev, “excepting the Jews,” so characteristic of Russian legislation.  The “Statute concerning Zemstvo Organizations,” [1] issued in 1864, makes no exceptions for Jews, and those among them with the necessary agrarian or commercial qualifications are granted the right of active and passive suffrage within the scheme of provincial self-government.  In fact, in the Southern governments the Jews began soon afterwards to participate in the rural assemblies, and were occasionally appointed to rural offices.  Nor did the liberally conceived Judicial Regulations of 1864 [2] contain any important discriminations against Jews.  Within a short time Jewish lawyers attained to prominence as members of the Russian bar, although their admission to the bench was limited to a few isolated cases.

[Footnote 1:  A system of local self-government carried on by means of elective assemblies and its executive organs.  There is an assembly for each district (or county) and another for each government.]

[Footnote 2:  Among other reforms they instituted the Russian bar as a separate organization.]

Little by little, another dismal spectre of the past, the missionary activity of the Government, began to fade away.  In the beginning of Alexander’s reign, the conversion of Jews was still encouraged by the grant of monetary assistance to converts.  The law of 1859 extended these stipends to persons embracing any other Christian persuasion outside of Greek Orthodoxy.  But in 1864 the Government came to the conclusion that it was not worth its while to reward deserters and began a new policy by discontinuing its allowances to converts serving in the army.  A little later it repealed the law providing for a mitigation of sentence for criminal offenders who embrace Christianity during the inquiry or trial. [1]

[Footnote 1:  See above, p. 45.]

In encouraging “the fusion of the Jews with the original population,” the Government of Alexander II. had in mind civil and cultural fusion rather than religious assimilation, which even the inquisitorial contrivances of Nicholas’ conscription scheme had failed to accomplish.  But as far as the cultural fusion or, for short, the Russification of the Jews was concerned, the Government even now occasionally indulged in practices which were borrowed from the antiquated system of enlightened absolutism.

The official enlightenment, which had been introduced during the forties, was slow in taking root.  The year 1848 was the first scholastic year in the two enlightenment nurseries, the rabbinical schools of Vilna and Zhitomir.  Beginning with that year a number of elementary Crown schools for Jewish children were opened in various cities of the Pale.  The cruel persecutions of the outgoing regime affected the development of the schools in a twofold manner.