On the one hand, the Jewish population could not help turning away with disgust from the gift of enlightenment which its persecutors held out to it.  On the other hand, the horrors of conscription induced many a Jewish youth, to seek refuge in the new rabbinical schools which saved their inmates from the soldier’s uniform.  Many a parent who regarded both the barracks and the Crown schools as training grounds for converts preferred to send his children to the latter, where, at least, they were spared the martyrdom of the barracks.  The pupils of the rabbinical schools came from the poorest classes, those that carried on their shoulders the whole weight of conscription.  True, the distrustful attitude towards the official schools was gradually weakening as the new Government of Alexander II. was passing from the former policy of oppression to that of reforms.  By and by, the compulsory attendance at these schools became a voluntary one, prompted by the desire for general culture or for a special training as rabbi or teacher.  Nevertheless the expectation of the Russian Government under Nicholas I. that the new schools would take the place of the time-honored educational Jewish institutions, the heder and yeshibah, remained unfulfilled.  Only an insignificant percentage of Jewish children went to the Crown schools, and even these children did so only after having received their training at the heder or yeshibah.

Realizing this, the Government decided to combat the traditional school as the rival of the new.  Immediately upon his accession to the throne, Alexander confirmed the following resolution adopted by the Jewish Committee on May 3, 1855:  “After the lapse of twenty years no one shall be appointed rabbi or teacher of Jewish subjects, except graduates of the rabbinical schools [1] or of the general educational establishments of a higher or secondary grade.”

[Footnote 1:  i.e., the Government training schools for rabbis provided by the ukase of 1844.  See the preceding page.]

Having fixed a term of twenty years for abolishing the institution of melammeds and religious leaders, the product of thousands of years of development, the Government frequently brandished this Damocles sword over their heads.  In 1856 a strict supervision was established over heders and melammeds.  A year later the Jewish communities were instructed to elect henceforward as “official rabbis” [1] only graduates of the rabbinical Crown schools or of secular educational establishments, and, in default of such, to invite educated Jews from Germany.  But all these regulations proved of no avail, and in 1859 a new ukase became necessary, which loosened the official grip over the heders, but made it at the same time obligatory upon the children of Jewish merchants to attend the general Russian schools or the Jewish Crown schools.

[Footnote 1:  Crown (In Russian kazyonny) rabbis in Russia are those that discharge the civil functions connected with their office, in distinction from the “spiritual” or ecclesiastic rabbis who are in charge of the purely religious affairs of the community.  This division has survived in Russia until to-day.]