While the Government was again engaged in one of its numerous experiments over the problem of Jewish separatism, an event, unusual in those days, took place:  the Odessa pogrom [1] of 1871.  In this granary of the South, which owed its flourishing commerce to Jews and Greeks, an unfriendly feeling had sprung up between these two nationalities, which competed with one another in the corn trade and in the grocery business.  This competition, though of great benefit to the consumers, was a thorn in the flesh of the Greek merchants.  Time and again the Greeks would scare the Jews during the Christian Passover by their barbarous custom of discharging pistols in front of their church, which was situated in the heart of the Jewish district.  But in 1871, with the approach of the Christian Passover, the Greeks proceeded to organize a regular pogrom.

[Footnote 1:  Pogrom, with the accent on the last syllable, signifies ruin, devastation, and was originally applied to the ravages of an invading army.]

To arouse the mob the Greeks spread the rumor that the Jews had stolen a cross from the church fence and had thrown stones at the church building.  The pogrom began on Palm Sunday (March 28).  The Jews were maltreated, and their houses and shops were sacked and looted.  Having started in the immediate vicinity of the church, the riot spread to the neighboring streets and finally engulfed the whole city.  For three days hordes of Greeks and Russians gave free vent to their mob instincts, demolishing, burning, and robbing Jewish property, desecrating synagogues and beating Jews to senselessness in all parts of the city, undisturbed by the presence of police and troops who did nothing to stop the atrocities.  The appeal of representative Odessa Jews to Governor-General Kotzebue was met by the retort that the Jews themselves were to blame, “having started first,” and that the necessary measures for restoring order had been adopted.  The latter assertion proved to be false, for on the following day the pogrom was renewed with even greater vigor.

Only on the fourth day, when thousands of houses and shops had already been destroyed, and the rioters, intoxicated with their success, threatened to start a regular massacre, the authorities decided to step in and to “pacify” the riff-raff by a rather quaint method.  Soldiers were posted on the market place with wagon-loads of rods, and the rioters, caught red-handed, were given a public whipping on the spot.  The “fatherly” punishment inflicted by the local authorities upon their “naughty” children sufficed to put a stop to the pogrom.