in a nut-shell: "Are the Jews to be suffered in the country, or not?"
If they are, then we must abandon the system "of hampering them in their
actions and in their religious customs" and grant them at least "equal
liberty of commerce with the others," for in this case "we may
anticipate more good from their gratitude than from their hatred."
Should, however, the conclusion be reached that the Jews ought not to be
tolerated in Russia, then the only thing to be done is "to banish them
all without exception from the country into foreign lands." This might
be "more useful than to allow this estate to remain in the country and
to keep it in a position which is bound to arouse in them continual
dissatisfaction and resentment." It need scarcely be added that the
voice of the "queer" admiral found no hearing.

Nor did the Jewish people manage to get a hearing. Stunned by the
uninterrupted succession of blows and moved by the spirit of martyrdom,
Russian Jewry kept its peace during those dismal years. Yet, when the
news of an impending general regulation of the Jewish legal status began
to leak out, a section of Russian Jewry became astir. For to anticipate
a blow is more excruciating than to receive one, and it was quite
natural that an attempt should be made to stay the hand which was lifted
to strike. Towards the end of 1833 the Council of State received, as
part of the material bearing on the Jewish question, two memoranda, one
from the Kahal of Vilna, signed by six elders, and another from Litman
Feigin of Chernigov, well known in administrative circles as merchant
and public contractor.

The Kahal of Vilna declared that the repressive policy, pursued during
the last few years by the "Jewish Committee," had thrown a large part of
the Jewish people "into utmost disorder," and had made the Jews "shiver
and shudder at the thought that a general Jewish statute had been