The first religious half of the program of “New Israel” might possibly have attracted a few adherents.  But the second “business-like” part of it opened the eyes of the public to the true aspirations of these “reformers,” who, in their eagerness for civil equality, were ready to barter away religion, conscience, and honor, and who did not balk at betraying such low flunkeyism at a time when the blood of the victims of the Balta pogrom had not yet dried.

Thus it was that the withering influence of reactionary Judaeophobia compromised and crippled the second attempt at inner reforms in Judaism.  Both movements soon passed out of existence, and their founders subsequently left Russia.  Gordin went to America, and, renouncing his sins of youth, became a popular Yiddish playwright.  Priluker settled in England, and entered the employ of the missionaries who were anxious to propagate Christianity among the Jews.  A few years later, during 1884 and 1885, “New Israel” cropped up in a new shape, this time in Kishinev, where the puny “Congregation of New Testament Israelites” was founded by I. Rabinovich, having for its aim “the fusion of Judaism with Christianity.”  In the house of prayer, in which this “Congregation,” consisting altogether of ten members, worshipped, sermons were also delivered by a Protestant clergyman.

A few years later this new missionary device was also abandoned.  The pestiferous atmosphere which surrounded Russian-Jewish life at that time could do no more than produce these poisonous growths of “religious reform.”  For the wholesome seeds of such a reform were bound to wither after the collapse of the ideals which had served as a lode star during the period of “enlightenment.”

CHAPTER XXVI

INCREASED JEWISH DISABILITIES

1.  THE PAHLEN COMMISSION AND NEW SCHEMES OF OPPRESSION

The “Temporary Rules” of May 3, 1882, had been passed, so to speak, as an extraordinary “war measure,” outside the usual channel of legislative action.  Yet the Russian Government could not but realize that sooner or later it would be bound to adopt the customary legal procedure and place the Jewish question before the highest court of the land, the Council of State.  To meet this eventuality, it was necessary to prepare materials of a somewhat better quality than had been manufactured by the “gubernatorial commissions” and the “Central Jewish Committee” which owed their existence to Ignatyev, forming part and parcel of the general anti-Jewish policy of the discharged Minister.  Even prior to the promulgation of the “Temporary Rules,” the Council of Ministers had called the Tzar’s attention to the necessity of appointing a special “High Commission” to deal with the Jewish question and to draft legal measures for submission to the Council of State.