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The press was either tamed or used as a tool of the governmental policies. The venal Novoye Vremya, which the Russian satirist Shchedrin had branded as "the sewer," embarked, towards the end of the eighties, on the noble enterprise of hunting down the Jews with a zeal which was clear evidence of a higher demand for Judaeophobia in the official world.
During the very days on which the Russian Jews were weeping in their synagogues, their English coreligionists, in conjunction with prominent English political leaders, organized indignation meetings to protest against the horrors of Russian Judaeophobia.
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.
In the hotbed of militant Judaeophobia, in Kiev, raids upon "illegal" Jewish residents were the order of the day. During the year 1886 alone more than two thousand Jewish families were evicted from the town.
True, the Russian-Jewish press applied itself assiduously to the task of defending the rights of the Jews, but its voice remained unheard in those circles of Russia in which the poisonous waters of Judaeophobia gushed forth in a broad current from the columns of the semi-official Novoye Vremya, the pan-Slavic Russ, and many of their anti-Semitic contemporaries.
The only Russian-Jewish press organ which, defying the threats of the censor, had dared to fight against official Russian Judaeophobia, the Voskhod, had been suppressed already in March, before the promulgation of the Moscow expulsion edict, "for the extremely detrimental course pursued by it." A similar fate overtook the Novosti of St.
The impression prevailed that militant Judaeophobia was determined to deprive the Jews even of the right of securing a piece of bread. The Government was well aware beforehand that the labors of the gubernatorial commissions would yield results satisfactory to it. It, therefore, found it unnecessary to wait for their reports and resolutions, and proceeded to establish in St.
As if to strengthen the effect of this sanction, the Jews were to taste even more fully the whip of persecution and expulsion than they had done during the preceding decade. The poisonous Judaeophobia bacilli seemed to thrive more than ever in the highest Government circles of St. Petersburg.
This retrograde tendency was bound to affect the Jewish question. The bacillus of Judaeophobia became astir in the politically immature minds which had been unhinged by the acts of terrorism. The influential press organs, which maintained more or less close relations with the leading Government spheres, adopted more and more a hostile attitude towards the Jews.
The same influences also stimulated the luxurious growth of Judaeophobia which from now on assumed in the highest Government circles a most malignant character.
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