The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Solzhenitsyn's '200 Years Together' w/ Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson - Part 1-10

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

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I want to welcome everyone back to the Piquaneda show. And yeah, this is the first episode of something I'm really excited about. I'm here with Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson. How are you doing, Dr. Johnson? I'm doing very well. We're finally settled in. We've got snow on the ground. It's like 15 degrees here in Pittsburgh.

I'm happy. Well, it's in the 40s here in the south. And that never makes anyone happy down here. Yeah, they're panicking now. Yeah, everybody's buying milk and eggs because they're making French toast. All right. So we're going to embark on a journey here. And so I guess the best way to start is to ask you to talk a little bit about this book and what it is.

Who wrote it? What it's about? And before we start getting into the text, why you think it's important? Well, you know, we couldn't have picked a better book. It's become infamous in the West, mainstream in Russia now. 200 years together by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who everyone knows. Although at the time he was alive and a Soviet anti-Soviet dissident, he was unpopular in the West. They liked, you know, liberal dissidents like, you know, Brojki and people like that.

But here you have a man who won the Nobel Prize for literature, as we all know, for the Gulagg, hell ago. And he has written 15 years ago now, something like that, 20 years, a book on Jews in Russian history. And it caused a tremendous stir. It took ages to have it translated. I've been using this book for a long time. I've cited from it a thousand times. I get so many ideas from it. but since this point of view and the Jews is fairly mainstream in Russia, it's done very well. This was his, as far as I know, his very last book, it doesn't seem complete, but I could translate little bits of it. I'm not secure enough in my linguistic ability to do anything of any length. but the American press

certainly has almost denied that it exists and it's essentially the history of Russia from written history to the end of the Soviet era and the role of the Jews in all of this and it's something that if there was anything up my alley personally it would be this so he caused a huge stir and the Jews never quite trusted him,

even when he won the prize. And he had a lot of enemies at the time in the U.S., just as many as he had in the Soviet Union. So this is extremely significant, and I can't praise it enough. I can't tell you the number of times I've been inspired by this, papers, and everything that came from something I read in this book. It's really extraordinary. Awesome. All right. Well, the way this is going to work is I'm just going to, I'm going to read the text, and you interrupt me whenever. I don't care if it's the end of a sentence, the end of a paragraph, or if it's in the middle of a sentence. You're here to provide commentary on this, all right? No problem.

All right. Let's do it. All right. Chapter 1, before the 19th century, from the beginnings in Khazaria. In this book, the presence of the Jews in Russia, prior to 1772 will not be discussed in detail. However, for a few pages, we want to remember the older epochs. One could begin that the paths of Russians and Jews first crossed in the wars between the Kiev-Rus and the Khazars. But that isn't completely right, since only the upper class of the Khazars were of Hebraic descent, the tribe itself being a branch of the Turks that had accepted the Jewish faith. If one follows the presentation of JD. I'm going to need your help with some of the pronunciations on the names because I'm just terrible on some of these.

So I believe I could be pretty bad too. Okay. All right. So I'll just. It sounds Lithuanian. I think he's Jewish, but I'm not 100% sure. Okay. If one follows the presentation of JD.

He is Jewish. It says it right in there. Yeah. Sorry about that. Respected. Yep. No problem. respected Jewish author of the mid-20th century, a certain part of the Jews from Persia moved across the Durban Pass to the lower Volga, where Atil, west coast of Caspian on Volga Delta, the capital city of Khazarian Kanate rose up starting 724 AD.

The tribal princes of the Turkish Khazars at the time, still idol-worshippers, did not want to accept either the Muslim faith, lest they should be subordinated to the Caliph. of Baghdad nor to Christianity, lest they come under vassalage to the Byzantine emperor, and so the clan went over to the Jewish faith in 732. But there was also a Jewish colony in the Basprin Kingdom on the Taman Peninsula at east end of the Crimea, separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov, to which Hadrian had Jewish captives brought in 137, after the victory, over Bar Kokpah. Later, a Jewish settlement sustained itself with outbreak under the Goths and Huns in the Crimea, especially Kaffa, Theodosia, remained Jewish. In 933, Prince Igor, 912 to 945,

Grand Prince of Kiev, successor of Oleg, regent after the death of Riruk, founder of the Kiev Kingdom in 862, temporarily possessed Kirch and his son's Sviyadhsv, Grand Prince 960 to 972, rested the Don region from the Khazars. The Kiev Rus already ruled the entire Volga region, including Atil in 909, and Russian ships appeared at Semander, south of Atil on the west coast of the Caspian. Descendants of the Khazars were the Kumiks in the Caucasus. In the Crimea, on the other hand, they combined with the Pollyt Sea nomadic Turkish branch from Central Asia in the northern black sea area and the Caucasus since the 10th century called Kuman by Western historians. Second map is here to form the Crimean Tatars.

but the Karayim, a Jewish sect that does not follow the Talmud, and Jewish residents of the Crimean did not go over to the Muslim faith. The Khazars were finally conquered by Tamerlane, much later by Tamerlane or Timor, the 14th century conquer. A few researchers, however, hypothesized. Okay, well, there's so much. Okay, go ahead. There's a lot here. And, of course, he's only going to skim over this stuff. the bulk of it is, you know, 18th, 19th century and, of course, the Soviet Union.

But I get a lot of questions and there's a lot of talk about Qasaria. And I've spent a ridiculous amount of time on it. And I know that reading this for someone who's not a specialist in the area can be torture, but you did perfectly fine. But I think ancient Qazaria is essential to understanding the Jewish mind. You see it in the map there where it's in a tremendously strategic area. It reached from the Caucasus to the Sea of Azul, the entire Crimean step. And it is a commercial empire.

It's capital, Attila, lay at the mouth of the Volga. Now, my information on this comes from the famous Russian research, or Lev Gumulev. But Shultzhenitsyn, and there's a lot of debate on this, says that only a, a small portion of the population became Jewish. Although he actually mentioned, it sounds like he's saying something racial. I can't tell if he's talking about Jews as race or the religion itself. But Gumilev suggests that the Khazar Civil War from 810 to 820

is what led to mass conversion. So the Turkish groups that you're talking about, the Plovsi, the Petschnigs, they harassed Kiev and Russ. They were financed by a Khazaria, and they were also middlemen. If you wanted to trade the Black Sea, the point south,

you had to pay a substantial toll to the Khazark Khanate, and this was a huge source of income. And as soon as Kiev got large enough, they put an end to it. but another key point is that these groups were the core of the slave trade. Nomads were used by the Jews and Slavs were coveted. There's also no relation between the word Slav and the word slave.

That's ridiculous. But slowly but surely, the money lending mentality that took root there spread all over the place. And once that was destroyed, once the connet was destroyed, specifically after that point, they moved to places nearby. Muntarakhan,

they were orchestrated the nomadic attacks on Russia, and slowly they filtered into Kiev itself. And because they were so experienced in banking and this kind of usury, that they were very easily able to dominate their Gentile competitors. So this is a constant problem. It's a huge portion of what eventually became the Jewish mentality.

The battle of Kiev and Russian Orthodoxy in the one side and the Khazar Jews and the other. And then much later on, the invasion, essentially, the demographic invasion of Jews into Europe from that part of the world. that helped define what Russia is. And although he doesn't go into great detail here, he's setting up, I mean, he has to mention this because the rest of the book is based on it. The Khazars were known for their extreme levels of violence. They accepted no rules of war. They used a lot of mercenaries. And no one was sad when they were finally conquered.

But that mentality became the core of what we all know, the Ashkenazi Jewish way of life. And it's something, it's really a closed book to most Americans, including most American historians. And the only time it ever shows up in any kind of scholarship is when there's something specific about Russia. Khazar Khanat was the most violent, unpredictable, and wealthy of these early medieval empire.

And they filled the vacuum left by the death of Attila, the Hun. But the location alone created this wealthy, usurious elite there. And you really can't defend it. So, but there was no doubt, as he already mentioned, that the ruler at the time, Boulin, his son Obadiah, I think it was. He was, you know, the motives were political. but Judaism or tamutic Judaism, the way that people understood it at the time, it had its own sacred books. It was all, you know, it was recognized, but there was no political power that there would be beholden to. Ghizari actually became that political power.

Hebrew became the official script of the empire. There was changes in burial patterns to more Judaized ones over time. And if I've written in the past, I quoted Ahmad Ibn Thadlund, wrote about 922. He said the Khazars and their king are all Jews. But they have just recently been Judeons. So that's a very brief background into the Khazar Empire. Okay. I'm going to continue reading where we left off.

A few researchers, however, hypothesized exact proof is absent that the Hebrews had wandered to some extent through the South Russian region in west and northwest direction. Thus, the Orientalist and Semitist Abraham Harcabi, for example, writes that the Jewish congregation in the future Russia, quote, emerged from Jews that came from the Black Sea coast and from the Caucasus, where their ancestors had lived since the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity. J.D. Bruscus also leans to this perspective. Another opinion suggested is the remnant of the ten lost tribes of Israel. This migration presumably ended after the conquest of this is a good one. Timur Tumutarokans, eastern shore of the Kirtch Straits overlooking the eastern end of the Crimean Peninsula,

the eastern flank of the old Bosporan kingdom, 1097 by the Polovsi. According to Harcavi's opinion, the vernacular of these Jews, at least since the 9th century, was Slavic, and only in the 17th century when the Ukrainian Jews fled from the pogroms of Kemalnetsky, Bogdan Kemalnetsky, Ukrainian Cossack 1593 to 1657, led the successful Cossack rebellion against Poland with help from the Crimean tartars. Did Yiddish become the language of Jews in Poland. In various matters, the Jews also came to Kiev and settled there. Already under Igor, the lower part of the city was called Kossari. In 933, Igor brought Jews that had been taken captive in Kirtch. Then in 965, Jews taking captive in the Crimea were brought there. In 1969,

Kossarin from Atil and Samander, in 989 from Chirsan, and in 1017 from too much, Tumataraqan. In Kiev, Western Jews also emerged in connection with the caravan traffic from east, from west to east, and starting at the end of the 11th century, maybe on account of the persecution in Europe during the First Crusade. Later research has confirmed like, were you going to say something? Nope. Okay. Later researchers confirm likewise that in the 11th century, the Jewish element in Kiev is to be derived from the Khazars. still earlier at the turn of the 10th century, the presence of a Khazar force and a Khazar garrison was chronicled in Kiev. And already in the first half of the 11th century, the Jewish Khazar element in Kiev played a significant role. In the 9th and 10th century, Kiev was multinational and tolerant.

At the end of the 10th century, in the time when Prince Vladimir I. Sivavatslovich, 980 to 1015 the saint grand prince of Kiev was choosing a new faith for the Russians there were not a few Jews in Kiev and among them were found educated men that suggested taking on the Jewish faith the choice fell out otherwise that it had 250 years earlier in the Khazar kingdom karasim 1766 to 18 26 Russian historian relates it like this. After he, Vladimir, had listened to the Jews, he asked where their homeland was. In Jerusalem, answered the delegates, but God has chased us in his anger

and sent us into a foreign land. And you whom God has punished dare to teach others, said Vladimir, we do not want to lose our fatherland like you have. After the Christianization of the Rus, according to Bruscus, a portion of the Khazard Jews in Kiev also went over to Christianity and afterwards in Novgorod Novgorov

perhaps one of them Luca Ziatta was even one of the first bishops and spiritual writers. You know, it's very common to talk about the story of how Vladimir, you know, the founder of Orthodox

Russia, chose the Orthodox faith. And it isn't so much that the chronicles are telling a story or a myth that he actually listened to representatives of the faith available to him at the time, Judaism included. And it has him saying these pithy things

that Roman church is very dry. You can't drink in Islam. And I'm sure he said something like that. But these are just abbreviations of what I'm sure are a very lengthy discussions. This was a literate society in Kiev. And so I don't want people thinking

this is just something made up. Of course, their political considerations. But when St. Vladimir chose, what they would, I guess, call it called the Greek faith is the Byzantine faith, Roman faith at the time, Eastern Roman faith, he took it very seriously because he had being a former pagan he had you know got hundreds of wives

he wasn't well he was always a talented ruler he didn't have his passions in check he um set them all free he led a completely different life after his conversion than before

so I have the feeling that this was something that he already had contact with a lot of these people and not just from Byzantine Bulgaria was a substantial source because the language was vaguely similar, that that part of the world was more of a source than Byzantium directly. But it made sense from a purely political point of view to worry about what each one would offer. Judaism was not an option precisely because of the Khazar issue. but he certainly listened to them.

They had already become, by this time, a powerful fourth in Kiev economically and politically. And we will, as in the next few paragraphs, he will explain exactly how. Christianity and Judaism being side by side in Kiev inevitably led to the learned zealously contrasting. them. From that emerged the work significant to Russian literature, sermon on law and grace by Hilarion, First Russian Metropolitan, Middle 11th century, which contributed to the settling of a Christian consciousness for the Russians that lasted for centuries. The polemic here is as fresh and lively as in the letters of the apostles. In any case, it was the first century of Christianity in Russia.

For the Russian neophytes of that time, the Jews were interesting, especially in connection to their religious presentation, and even in Kiev, there were opportunities for contact with them. The interest was greater than later in the 18th century when they again were physically close. Then, for more than a century, the Jews took part in the expanded commerce of Kiev. In the new city wall completed in 1037, there was the Jews gate, which closed in the Jews' quarter. the Kiev Jews were not subjected to any limitations, and the princes did not handle themselves hostily, but rather indeed, vouchsafed to them protection,

especially Zviat to Polk Izzyoslavich. You know, they didn't have tape quarters back then, so, you know, I'm usually reading this stuff. I mean, my professors use these words, you know, pronounce these. but, you know, I'm usually reading it rather than hearing it. So who knows how close I am? I just do it phonetically, whatever. Yeah.

All right. Zviya Tzlovich, prince of Novgorod 1078 to 1087, Grand Prince of Kiev, 1093 to 1113, since the trade and enterprising spirit of the Jews brought the prince's financial advantage. that seems to be a pattern like when you read Sombart where a lot of princes and a lot of politicians invite the Jews in because they make the money. But then eventually other Jews come in and start basically doing business with the people and the people usually end up in debt because of usury. Is that pretty accurate? Yeah. Poland was an even more extreme version of that. We'll talk about that, you know, not too long from now.

I have a paper, actually a series of papers on the topic of the next paragraph because it confirms exactly what you're thinking. They never know, you know, when people are good to them. And by the way, there's no doubt that these are Kazan. In fact, the term was used to describe or refer to these people. one of many. I think every once in a while, Khazar is still used in the Russian language.

But it doesn't take long, especially when you have factional fighting. I just published a paper on the Serbian despotate just prior to the collapse to the Turks. And when you have amongst your own people, factions and infighting, bringing in foreigners, especially foreigners that have money,

although very short-sighted. It looks good to them. It's a very short-sighted policy. But the same thing happened with the Jews. If you have a faction, if you have a rival, then getting a nice loan from the Jews may be just what's necessary to raise the mercenaries or whatever they're going to do to get rid of them. And given the fact, given the time period,

you know, they weren't all that educated in what the Jews were going to do. the church may have been the closest to that. They quickly took advantage. They quickly took over, and then his opponents were able to use that against him. And we'll talk about the riot here in this next paragraph, and then after that's done, I'll explain in more detail. Okay.

In 1113, Vladimir, later known as Manamak, out of qualms of conscience, even after the death of Svianza Polk, hesitated to ascend the key, Kiev throne prior to one of, pronounce that name for me because I know he's important in your history. Swatislavich. Swatislavich.

And exploiting the anarchy, rioters plundered the house of the regimental commander, Puttiata, and all Jews that had stood under the special protection of the greedy Sviotapok in the capital city. One reason for the Kiev Revolt was apparently the usury of the Jews, probably exploiting the shortage of money of the time. They enslaved the debtors with exorbitant interest. For example, there are indications in the statute of Vladimir Monomac that Kiev money lenders received interest up to 50% per annum. Karamson, therein, appeals to the Chronicles and an extrapolation by Basel Tatshyshtev 1686 to 1750, student of Peter the Great, first Russian historian. In Tassasiev, we find moreover, afterwards they clubbed down many Jews and plundered their houses

because they had brought about many sicknesses to Christians and commerce with them had brought about great damage. Many of them who had gathered in their synagogue seeking protection, defended themselves as well as they could, and redeemed time until Vladimir would arrive. But when he had come, the Kievites pleaded with him for retribution toward the Jews because they had taken all the trades from Christians and under Svianz Pulk had had much freedom and power. They had also brought many over to their faith. As I mentioned, I have a paper on this. Now, this was an anti-Ushri uprising in 1113. Sabatapok

Savatapok the second Ishislavich ruled Kiev largely dependent on Jewish usury that was his basis of financial support in fact even the chronicles

say that the Turkic you know the nomadic invasions from the south were God's punishment on him for this upon the death of Yaroslav the Wise 1054

his successor was Izyoslav and then you have cities like Turov who were splitting away Izzyislav was considered a good man at the time but once Vatsoslav died you had four princes vying for power this is when

Jewish money starts looking good to some of these some of these people. It wasn't just the Jews it was Poles of some of the nomads even the Germans but prior to this, because the usurers for a while had been given free reign, the rural commune,

even the lower nobles, you know, a powerful oligarchy had developed on their backs. Debt bondage was a form of slavery. More and more and more land was forfeit due to debt. There was even a salt embargo that the Jewish speculation

caused, which is one of the things that led to a major riot. and the mob went straight to the Jewish corner and deceit and the Chronicles talk about the Not just the Chronicles, the Patiricon, the lives of the saints of the Kiev caves say that this group of people who ruled were aware of their illegitimacy.

It was all based on Usory, which almost inherently is based on deception. The death of the prince unleashed a major revolt of the population, but it was not just part of it. Usury was the explicit purpose of it. It was an agrarian revolt against unearned money, unerun income. It wasn't directed against feudalism because that didn't exist at the time. But that's just a very lazy way of talking about.

You didn't have systematic usury amongst clergy in monasteries at the time because that economy wasn't really monetized. Jews controlled banking at the time in Eastern Europe and you know it's always the same Every time we see an anti-Jewish riot anywhere It's always the exact same set of accusations And problems Because you didn't have much of bureaucracy in Kiev

In fact I don't think you had any at all Even church prohibitions on usury Really couldn't be enforced very well well. You can call Jewish banking even at the time a system, and it had global connections. I mean, what we know, like the Rothschild that's far into the future, but the very tiny outlines of this were available. People like Spatapok tolerated Jewish trade and in Russian slaves. Even the governor of Crimea at the time was a Jew, although formerly a Christian, he was in fact Jewish. Well, you know, Azaria had been smashed a century earlier, but that didn't mean the mentality in the Jews that came from it went away. It just took, this domination took a very different form.

And at that point, Jews were using the Kuman raiders, the nomadic crimes of the South to obtain slaves. And so they had Jewish patronage. After, I mean, just before the revolt, these raids had increased substantially. The slaves were taken and then sold to Jewish merchants on Crimea, specifically the island of Khafa. So that was the cause of this rebellion and that, you know, factional fighting brings out the worst than everybody. And when you need money, when you're worried about your position, you'll pretty much reach out to anyone who's willing to help. But as you said, there's always a huge price to pay. and any chaos

you know Kievan Rus history is complicated because you have a lot of independent cities with their own royal lineage and the worse the chaos gets the better it was for the Khazzo elites

at the time in fact the first Kievan synagogue was built under Shavata Polk so and whenever they went to Poland for assistance it's amazing how they suddenly became Judaophiles.

So, you know, they got a regular subsidy, but at the price of either justifying or turning a blind eye to the literal and metaphorical enslaving of rural swaths in the south of the country. You know, when you bring this up to Jews, what they will say is that, well, they were just invited there. why are you blaming them? The leaders invited him there. You should be blaming the leaders. Well, this is exactly what I mean. They're invited for that specific reason. They needed money.

In this case, with the chaos after the after Izzyoslav, a son of Yeroslav, you know, you had wars against Polotsk. My God, they even went to Rome and he, actually converted to Catholicism. There were a lot of minor civil wars that plagued old Kiev, and that means these guys were going anywhere they could to get assistance and not just mercenaries because you have to pay them.

So it was Isislav that that's where the Jews first really penetrated. And yes, you know, by invite another, the Polish case is a totally different story. but inviting them, taking out loans, yeah, it did absolutely open the door for their completely anti-social behavior. And that mentality never went away. Spathaplok's guard is what protected the synagogue from these riders.

And I want to mention, too, that the stereotype with the defenseless Jew is an absurd myth because they still, you know, look to Khazaria. So at the point we're talking about here, just prior to that riot, that uprising, Jewish history had much of the country in debt. And especially when facing unrest among princes, foreign occupation, defeats from the Turks to the south, the population had enough. In that very year, the mob looted the Jewish quarter. And yes, it was an urban movement. But this was against the mentality of the Persian class and those profiting from the.

them. They're foreigners. They had no connection to the soil. They had no connection to the population. And factional fighting, regional fighting, even within princely families, this is exactly what caused these quote-unquote invitations, or at the very least, taking out loans from these people and hence justifying their existence. Okay, moving on. According to M.N. Popovsky, the Kiev program of 1113 had social and not national character. However, the leaning of this class-conscious historian towards social interpretations is well known. After he ascended to the Kiev throne, Vladimir answered the complainants. Since many Jews everywhere have received access to the various princely courts

and have migrated there, it is not appropriate for me without the advice of the princes, and, moreover, contrary to right, to permit killing and plundering them. Hence, I will without delay call the princes to assemble to give counsel. In the council, a law limiting the interest was established, which Vladimir attached to Yaroslav statute. Kharamsin reports appealing to Tatishev that Vladimir banned all Jews upon the conclusion of the council, and from that time forth there was none left in our father. land. But at the same time, he qualifies. In the Chronicles, in contrast, it says that in 1124, the Jews in Kiev died in a great fire. Consequently, they had not been banned.

Bruscus explains that it was a whole quarter in the best part of the city at the Jew's gate next to the Golden Gate. At least one Jew enjoyed the trust of André Bogagliowski or Andrei Boggoyovsky in Vladimir. Among the confidants of Andréi was a certain Ephraim Mojshik, whose patronomic Moishek or Moisevich indicates his Jewish derivation, and who, according to the words of the Chronicles, was among the instigators of the treason by which André was murdered.

However, there is also a notation that says that under Andrei Bogoliopsky, many Bulgarians and Jews from the Volga territory came and had themselves baptized and that after the murder of André, his son, Georgi, fled to a Jewish prince in Dagestan. In any case, the information on the Jews and that's

good. Go ahead. This is one of the reasons I say this. This isn't unfinished book. He's kind of all over the place. Andre Boulouski is a totally different situation. He was a northerner, a very different kind of economy.

Moscow comes from his mentality. He's a saint. He was murdered by one of his Jewish physicians. But, But back to the riot 1113, it was very popular. It was aimed at Jews, but also those Gentiles that had business relationships with them. And these were well known. So it was a nobility who feared for their property that sent form on a mock to restore law and order.

And they exaggerated how nasty the mob was trying to scare him. but the targets of the mob were very clear. It was very articulate. So he does mention briefly some of the new laws that were passed by him at a meeting of the princess and as an anti-usory legislation that somehow is going to be enforced and it was drawn up. Interest couldn't be compounded. Charging for money and usury were considered different. The interest charge could never, and this is common in other pieces of legislation, it could never amount to more than the principle.

Any violation of these things that tried to charge more, the debtor was then freed from the obligation to pay at all. The maximum rate of interest couldn't exceed 20% a year and certain forms of smallholder, you know, urban artisan property was protected and debt slavery was outlawed. an interest couldn't be collected for longer than two years. After that, the loan did not collect it. It wasn't an interest-bearing loan anymore. If a debtor had to work off a loan, he had the full rights of a citizen. He wasn't a slave in that sense.

However, there was one exception where slavery is permitted if the debtor tries to defraud the creditor. Now, because you don't have a regular bureaucracy at the time, this is really mostly an urban elite matter. The rural areas weren't monetized. The monasteries really weren't monetized. So we're really talking about people in almost the physical reach of the ruling class at the time. But this just goes to show how bad things had become in that regard. And this is a place anywhere the Jews were brought in.

and even, you know, 20% a year, you know, he had the opinion that there really isn't much he can do about it. He can't enforce much. And he also doesn't want to hurt the economy that he had nothing to do with by saying that this is simply impossible and interest can't be charged. So he tried to moderate it as best as best he can. The church was a central institution behind. So, and many of the, you know, the bishops and monks were talking about this at this point. And the mentality, the practices of the Khazars were well known. And they were making the connection between Jews, the Khazars, the Khazars empire, and that usurious mentality.

The viciousness that the Khazars always remained within the Russian mentality. one form or another. And it was key, as I said before, to understanding the Russian mind in general. Moving on. In any case, the information on the Jews in the time of the Sistal Rus is scanty, as their numbers were obviously small. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes that in the Russian heroic songs, Bilan, the Jewish Tsar, the warrior Shadawin in the old Bilan, about Ilya and Dobry, and Dobrina is a favorite general moniker for an enemy of the Christian faith. At the same time, it could also be a trace of memories of the struggle against the Khazars. Hence, the religious basis of this hostility and exclusion is made clear. On this basis, the Jews were not permitted to settle in the Moscow Rus.

The invasion of the Tatars pretended the end of the lively commerce of the Kiev Rus, and many Jews apparently went to Poland. Also, the Jewish colonization of the Volignia and Galicia continued, where they had scarcely suffered from the Tatar invasion. The encyclopedia explains, during the invasion of the Tatar's 1239, which destroyed Kiev, the Jews also suffered, but at the second half of the 13th century, they were invited by the Grand Princes to resettling Kiev, which found itself under the domination of the Tatars. On account of the special rights, which were also granted to the Jews in other possessions of the Tadars, envy was stirred up in the town residence against the Kiev Jews. Similar happened not only in Kiev, but also in the cities of North Russia, which under the Tatar rule, were accessible for many, possibly Muslim, merchants from Khorisham and Kiva, who were long since experienced. in trade and the tricks of profit-seeking. These people bought from the Tatar's the principalities right to levy tribute. They demanded excessive interest from poor people, and in case of their failure

to pay, declared the debtors to be their slaves and took away their freedom. The residents of Vladimir Sustal and Rostov finally lost their patience and rose up together at the peeling of the bells against the usurers. A few were killed and the rest chased off. A punitive expedition of the Khan against the mutineers was threatened, which, however, was hindered via the mediation of Alexander Nevsky. In the documents of the 15th century, Kievite Jewish tax leasers are mentioned who possessed a significant fortune. Yeah, again, he's kind of all over the place here. He's just jumped ahead a century, a century and a half. but the tartar invasion

disrupted everything and certainly the farther north you go and the farther west you go the less of an impact it had the swamps of Novgorod made it very difficult for them to get up there or so were told I'm of the opinion that the Tartars, the Mongols were not

Asiatic in the sense of what we consider asiatic all of the contemporary pictures of them don't show them with Asian features. But, and I never hear of any reference to translators being necessary at least. I'm sure there were Central Asians involved, I mean, you know, mercenaries and everything else. But there's a lot of the Mongol invasion story that doesn't quite add up. But that's, we can't get into that here. It is true, though, that it disrupted the economy.

and the entire Kiev and Commonwealth and all these independent cities because of the consonant fighting using foreigners to settle scores and all that they really didn't put up a huge resistance again that's partially because they weren't total foreigners

but at least order was imposed on this and he mentions properly that that many Jews went to Poland, this was roughly around the time that they were invited in, which is a totally separate topic. We've actually, we've dealt with this topic on your show before some months ago. I also love how the Jewish encyclopedia says the motivation is envy against the Kiev Jews. But once the shock, the implication here of what I'm reading is that once the shock and the invasion kind of wore off,

rebuilding is something that incentivized a lot of princes, especially in Kiev, to bring Jews in. Also, though, the so-called Mongol or tartar invasion pretty much eliminated. Kievros eliminated that old social system. I mean, people like Dugan think that this is really what, and it's a good thing, and it helped build because Moscow came out of all of this. but I guess the broader point is that because conquerors want tribute and at least some of the time they want it in cash although not all the time this is a field day for usurers

and here you have given the chaos at the time debtors were actually turned into slaves at least until everything is is paid all. So, so this is, this is important, but he doesn't spend a lot of time on it, but I think I know what he's getting at here. So that's, that's a kind of a summary of the mentality at the time. And, you know, this did nothing but benefit usurers, at least in the short term. Okay. New section, new heading. This is the Judaizing heresy. A migration of Jews from Poland to the east, including white Russia, Belarus, should also be noted in the 15th century.

There were lessers of tolls and other assessments in Minsk, Poloks, and in Smolensk, although no settled congregations were formed there. After the short-lived banishment of the Jews from Lithuania, 1496, the eastward movement went forth with particular energy at the beginning of the 16th century. The number of Jews that migrated into the Muscovy Rus was insignificant, although influential Jews at that time had no difficulties going to Moscow. Toward the end of the 15th century in the very center of the spiritual and administrative power of the Rus' a change took place that, though barely noticed, could have drawn an ominous unrest in its wake and had far-reaching consequences in the spiritual domain. It had to do with the Judaizing heresy. St. Joseph of Volokomkolomsk. You want to say it?

Sometimes it says Valk. That's the shortened version of it. Let's say St. Joseph of Voloch, that's good. Okay. St. Joseph of Valach, 1439 to 1515, who resisted it, observed, since the time of Olga and Vladimir, the god-fearing Russian world has never experienced such a seduction. According to Kroms, it began thus. The Jew Zechariah, who in 1470 had arrived in Novgorod from Kiev,

figured out how to lead astray two spirituals. Dionus and Alexi, he assured them that only the law of Moses was divine. The history of the Redeemer was invented. The Messiah was not yet born. One should not pray to icons, etc. Thus began the Judaizing heresy. Sergei Soloviev, 1820 to 79, to 79 great Russian historian, expands on this that Zechariah accomplished it with the aid of five accomplices who were also Jewish, and that this heresy obviously was a mixture of Judaism and Christian rationalism

that denied the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. The Orthodox priest, Alexi, called himself Abraham, his wife he called Sarah, and along with Dionis corrupted many spirituals and lay. But it is hard to understand how Zechariah was able so easily to increase the number of his Novgorod pupils, since his wisdom consisted entirely and only in the rejection of Christianity and the glorification of Judaism. Probably Zechariah seduced the Russians with the Jewish Kabbalah, a teaching that captured curious ignoramus, and in the 15th century was well known when many educated men sought in at the solution to all important riddles of the human spirit. The Kabbalists extolled themselves. They were able to discern all secrets of nature, explain dreams, prophesy the future, and conjure spirits.

Okay. In the Western literature, the academic literature here, the writers, given that their academics, are always dancing around this topic. I have a paper on this topic too, and it's one of the more interesting and generally mysterious events of Russian history. And it's not a shock that it came via Novgorod. Novgorod was strictly financially the wealthiest part of Russia at the time. It was the largest city in the Hanseatic League, so at very close to. ties with central and western Europe. To summarize it simply,

there was a small group of revolutionary Jews who sought to take over Russia. And that generally is what we call the Judaizer heresy or the Judaizer movement. And the result was, again, this is like Kuzaria, the rejection of this,

thanks to Joseph of Volokamansk and Gennadius of Novgorod, And they were also surprised about how easy it was to penetrate the city and its clergy so easily. So, and allegedly, the leader of this, Sadia, was a charite. I don't know how firm that is, but it really doesn't matter because we're talking about alchemy. We're talking about the Kabbalah. So 1471, I believe, was his appearance in Novgorod. And it was just before the re-conquest in Spain and the mass exodus of Jews from the Pyrenees Mountains.

And as he mentioned, the anti-Jewish laws in Lithuania. And he had a small group. And his propaganda was pretty successful amongst the high elite. and because people are afraid of being called anti-Semitic, they simply reduce it to just saying, well, they were opposed to church corruption. They were opposed to icons or liturgy. But it was an organized movement.

They had cells of five men each, and they realized how critical the church was anywhere in Russia. So going after the elite of the church, very much like the Reformation, was Tant-Prime. There was no attempt to convert the lower classes whatsoever. It was condemned in 1488 to condemn the entire Judaizing movement. And here you have now official Orthodox doctrine banning this kind of Judaization.

There was even a very primitive conception of Zionism, condemned at another synod, two years later, in 1490. So the agenda, you know, you don't have tons of written sources. A lot of this was word of mouth. But and this is right at the very beginning of the of the Florentine Renaissance. So these people were at the cusp of everything, showing how close this is to the Kabbalah at the time. This was the creation of a new man, astrology, gnostic alchemy, the combination of scientific theory. time with social revolution. So these clergy that were converted, they were able to see themselves as a vanguard of a new

Russia that, by the way, they would rule. Revolutionary movements in modernity, they all have this character. They were very pious for show. This is something the Jews were expert at, but their converts did the exact same kind of thing. But these men now had access to credit money. an ideology that justified it all. And that meant that he had a lot of influence in the close circles of Zar Ivan III, one of the greatest czarists of the era.

It spread to Novgorod because you still had remnants of slavery there, but this ideology justified it. The division of the world into the elite and the cattle and, of course, promising tremendous power. So, but they were very good at what they did. They were always excellent propagandists, and Russians at the time were just not used to it. We know propaganda very well. We are involuntary experts in propaganda.

But at the time, they didn't have much experience. And the more towards the interior of Russia you got, central Russia today, the less experience they had with Jews. Now, apparently by roughly 1,500, they had allegedly about 1,000 adherents in several Russian cities. But as their converts got deeper, something very much like a degree system, they realized later on, once they had access to all this stuff, they did have to renounce Christ. Because Dionysius, as you mentioned, one of the first so-called converts, was told that he could remain a Christian. and still practice the Gnostic sciences. You have the exact same thing with, you know, people like Bruno in the in the Florentine Renaissance,

but their job was to appear as Christian as humanly possible. And so it looked good on the outside. Now, to the extent that the Talmud was directly involved, because he, at least the leader was a carer, at least he said he was, it doesn't matter too much because the Kabbalah is the is the central issue here, whether Talmudist or Karite, the Gnostic mythos

is still learning the secrets of nature and hence controlling it and hence remaking it and therefore unlimited power could be theirs. And Qadamzin does mention it. He does talk about the arcane sciences,

the keys of Solomon. And at a very rudimentary level, this is exactly what invaded Novgorod and the attempt to even take the royal family itself. And because the whole thing was based on deceit and a show of Christian piety, despite this being a vehemently anti-Christian movement, they did pretty well for a very short time until the church, St. Ghanadius in particular, St. Joseph wasn't a bishop. He was an habit of a very large monastery, realized what was going on.

And in these, I think there were three synods total, condemned it. And condemned all aspects from then on to today of Judaism or anything that smacks of Judaism. So like how the Khazar Empire and the battle against it helped define the old Russian mentality, this is another variation of that. Because once this was condemned, once it was understood what was going on here, the church was now armed against it. And so here again, you have the Russian idea being partly a reaction to its opposite or Judaism. Okay. Moving on.

Jay Gessen, a Jewish historian of the 20th century, represents in contrast to the opinion, it is certain that Jews participated neither in the introduction of the heresy nor its spread, but with no indication of his sources. The Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Ephron of Ephron 1890 to 1906, the Russian equivalent of the 1911 Britannica, explains, apparently the genuinely Jewish element played no outstanding role limiting its contribution to a few rituals. The Jewish Encyclopedia, which appeared about the same time, writes on the other hand, today since the publication of the Salter and the Judaizers and other memorials, the contested question of the Jewish influence on the sex must be seen as settled in a positive sense.

The Novgorod heretics respected an orderly exterior, appeared to fast, humbly, and zealously fulfilled all the duties of piety. They made themselves noticed by the people and contributed to the rapid spreading of the heresy. When after the fall of Novgorov, Ivan Vasilievich, the third, 1414, to 1505, English name would be John's son of Basil, Grand Prince of Moscow, united the greater Russian territory under Moscow's rule, visited the city. He was impressed by their piety and took both of the first heretics, Alexia Dionys, to Moscow in 1480, and promoted them as high kings of the Assumption of Mary and the Archangel Cathedral's of the Kremlin. with them also the schism was brought over, the roots of which remained in Novgorod.

Alexi found special favor with the ruler and had free access to him and with his secret teaching enticed not only several high spirituals and officials, but moved the Grand Prince to appoint the Archimandrite, the head abbot in Eastern Orthodoxy, Zossima, as metropolitan, that is, the head of the entire Russian church, a man from the very circle, of those he had enticed with the heresy. In addition, he enticed Helena to the heresy, daughter-in-law of the great prince, widow of Yvonne the Younger,

and mother of the heir to the throne, the blessed nephew, Dmitri. The rapid success of this movement and the ease with which it spread is astonishing. This is obviously to be explained through mutual interests. When the Psalter of the Judaizing and other works, which could mislead the inexperienced Russian reader

and were sometimes unambiguously anti-quist. Christian, were translated from Hebrew into Russian, one could have assumed that only Jews in Judaism would have been interested in them. But also, the Russian reader was interested in the translations of Jewish religious texts, and this explains the success, which the propaganda of the Judaizing had in various classes of society. The sharpness and liveliness of this contract reminds me of that which had emerged in Kiev in the 11th century. This is one of these things that you come across in Russia and there's not a whole lot of examples of this happening elsewhere

because the Talmud is very clear the enemy of Jews is Rome Rome in the very broad sense of the term the opposite of the usurious mercantile mentality The thin end of the wedge Russia was of course being a third Rome was the most mercantile city

in you know loosely I mean this is this is not a nation state in our sense of the term but certainly unified religiously and linguistically um Novgorod

worried about you know the monarch putting limits on their greed always had kind of a rebellious elite. Aligarchs in Novgorod's so Moscow as a threat to their ambitions and any excuse, any justification for their wealth. And the war against oligarchy is going on to this very day in Russia. The kind of pseudo-intellectual ideology that was being adopted here in

ribs and drabs slowly over time. This early Kabbalah, or early introduction of the Kabbalah, was really an attempt to justify secession from Moscow and even to carve out a separate identity. Judaizing movement used the very lowest forms of lust to entice people. Contemporary sources, they connect this to sodomy, which could mean a lot of things, fornication, adultery, homosexuality. which strongly suggests that their adherents were engaged in this and now had an excuse for their perversion. This is hinted at, only hinted at in the condemnation of Zosima, as you've already mentioned, of Novgorod, the Senate of 1490.

Of course, he was deposed as a result of this. But it is important to note that because the Russian church wasn't ready for this, Russia wasn't ready for this, St. Gannadius did talk about the need to change things to streamline both monastic education and priestly education. A lot of these people were easy targets. This wasn't just a manifestation of quote Western rationalism, rejecting the liturgy and things like that. But this was a materialist and anomalous movement, but Russian at the time didn't really have a – it wasn't a great language to communicate this stuff. It was just that foreign to it. They didn't substitute the Old Testament for the New,

which is a very common in Western literature on this topic. They took pieces of the Old Testament, mixed them with books of magic and alchemy. And so one of the things that St. Gannadius did was authorize a translation of the Bible, a new one, and laying out the most authoritative sources. to show what was actual scripture

and what was interjected into it, what was manipulated. And that's why this Bible came out at the time because the, you know, Sharia and all the these Judaizers were adding things or giving, you know, providing glosses to scriptural statements that had no basis in

reality. And so some of the, you know, lower clergy thought, you know, this stuff was really in the Bible. So Gannadia said, okay, some of this ignorance has to go. We need to have our own authoritative Bible and make sure that these people know what the Bible says versus what these and other people have added to it. So, again, the entire thing is based on deceit. and with a group of people,

and we could see it today, with people who aren't used to it, who aren't used to this kind of mentality, they're easy pickings. So this was a key, not just political, legal, but an intellectual, spiritual watershed in Russian history. The Novgorod Archbishop Ganadi

uncovered the heresy in 14, 17, sent irrefutable proofs of it to Moscow, hunted the heresy out and unmasked it, until in 1490 a church council assembled to discuss the matter under the leadership of the just-promoted metropolitan Sussima. With horror, they heard the complaint of Ganadi that these apostates insult Christ and the mother of God, spit on the cross, called the icons like idolatrous images, bite on them with their teeth, and throw them into impure places, believe in neither the kingdom, of heaven nor the resurrection of the dead, and enticed the week while remaining quiet in the presence of zealous Christians. From the judgment of the council, it is apparent that the

Judaizers did not recognize Jesus Christ as a son of God that they taught the Messiah has not yet appeared, that they observed the Old Testament Sabbath Day rather than the Christian Sunday. It was suggested to the council to execute the heretics, but in accordance with the will of Ivan and the third, they were sentenced instead to imprisonment and the heresy was anathematized. In view of the coarseness of the century and the seriousness of the moral corruption, such a punishment was extraordinarily mild. The historians unanimously explained this hesitation of Ivan in that the heresy had already spread widely under his own roof and was practiced by well-known influential people. among them was Fyodor Kuditsyn, even Ivan's plenipotentiary secretary, so to speak, foreign minister,

famous on account of his education and his capabilities. The noteworthy liberalism of Moscow flowed from the temporary dictator of the heart, F. Curtson. The magic of his secret salon was enjoyed even by the Grand Prince and his daughter-in-law. The heresy was by no means in abatement, but rather prospered magnificently and spread itself out. At the Moscow court, astrology and magic, along with the attractions of the pseudo-scientific revision of the entire medieval worldview, was solidly propagated, which was free thinking, the appeal of enlightenment, and the power of fashion. And this is one of the few places where you're going to get this laid out. I've read pretty much everything, at least in English, on the Judaizing heresy. And they really don't say anything.

They're not familiar enough with how the Gnostic archana goes, what the Kabbalah really is, even in rudimentary forms. You know, people like Theodore Kuditsen, who, yeah, he's right. He's a foreign minister. He spoke many languages. to go to someone like that and to say, oh, no, this is what the New Testament really says. The church, that's just for the ignoramus. You know, we'll entertain them with pictures and everything else. But the elite, the intellectuals like you, you know, we'll tell you what the truth really is.

And we've come from afar in some exotic place with this secret knowledge. And it's embarrassing today. But that's the approach with some of the. in his case, very educated people. And plus the fact that it justified bad habits, it justified any kind of sexual deviants. You don't have to fast anymore. How great is that?

And plus, you get to keep more of your money, and Novgorod has an excuse to not listen to Moscow anymore. You know, it's not a huge mystery as to why it was so successful. But we have to remember, this is how Jewish revolutionaries have functioned every time. It goes back this far and even further than this. It's always the same cellular esoteric, exoteric distinction, this flattery, whatever method they needed to use,

it's time to destabilize a system and a mentality based on logos and also taking advantage of the naivete of people who don't really know about this and aren't used to this kind of propaganda. The concept of propaganda existed, but it wasn't a systematic thing. People at the time had no idea what that would even mean. So this was how this was spread

and it was a materialist doctrine. But the very simplistic, one and two syllable ways This is described, even amongst academics in English, there's obviously no excuse for it. And, of course, beyond ignorance, they're terrified of being called anti-Semitic. All right, we've got four more paragraphs to the next section, and then that's where we'll break it and pause until the next episode.

All right. The Jewish Encyclopedia sets forth, moreover, that Yvonne, is it, do you pronounce it Yvonne or Ivan? Ivan. Ivan, okay. The Jewish Encyclopedia sets forth, moreover, that Ivan III, out of political motivations, did not stand against the heresy. Would Zecharias help, he hoped to strengthen his influence in Lithuania, and besides that, he wanted to secure the favor of influential Jews from the Crimea, of the princes and rulers of Taman's Peninsula, Zecharias Day. Gisulfi and the Jew Cossi Cocos, a confidant of the Khan-Mengli Gide. After the Council of 1490, Sosema continued to sponsor a secret society for several years,

but then was himself discovered, and in 1494, the Grand Prince commanded him to depose himself without process and to withdraw into a cloister without throwing up dust into all appearances willingly. The heresy, however, did not abate. For a time in 1498, its votaries in Moscow seized almost all the power and their charge, Dmitri, the son of Princess Helena, was coronated as czar. Soon Ivan III coronated himself with his wife Sophia Palayalogas, and in 1502, his son Vasili inherited the throne. Curristen by this time was dead. Of the heretics, after the Council of 1504, one part was burned, a second part thrown in prison, and a third fled to Lithuania, where they formally adopted the Mosaic faith. It must be added that the overcoming of the Judaizing heresy gave the spiritual life of the Moscovy Rus at the turn of the 16th century a new impetus

and contributed to recognizing the need for spiritual education, for schools for the spiritual, and the name of Archbishop Ganadi is associated with the collecting and publication of the first church Slavic Bible, of which there had not been, not to that point been a consolidated text corpus in the Christian East. The printing press was invented, and after 80 years this Ganadi Bible was printed in Ostrog, as the first church Slavic Bible, with its appearance, it took over the entire Orthodox East. Even Academy member S.F. Platonov gives a generalizing judgment about the phenomenon. The movement of Judaizing no doubt contained elements of the West European rationalism.

The heresy was condemned its advocates had to suffer, but the attitude of critique and skepticism produced by them over against dogma and church order remained. Today's Jewish Encyclopedia remembers the thesis that an extremely negative posture towards Judaism and the Jews was unknown in the Moscovy Rus up to the beginning of the 16th century and derives it from this struggle against the Judaizers. Judging by the spiritual and civil measures of the circumstances, that is thoroughly probable. Jay Gesson, however, contends it is significant that such a specific coloring of the heresy as Judaizing did not lessen the success of the sex and in no way led to the development of a hostile stance toward the Jews.

I think because of their lack of experience with this mentality, you can think of like your average normie American, ask him what a Jew is. And he's probably going to say something like, well, they don't believe Christ is the Messiah. Their law is the Old Testament and the first five books of it.

And, you know, the law of Moses or something like that. And it goes no further than that. some are even stupid enough to say they go to a different church than we do. Now a very Protestant kind of kind of mentality but that's not too far off

from what Solzhenitsyn and people he's citing are talking about here it's people who had no experience with this with the very concept of revolution which was foreign to most people at the time

but because they had no experience with this, they didn't have really a developed conception of what the Jews were at the time. Despite the fact that you had plenty of church fathers talking about it at great length, but the way that these people presented themselves, it was a very different story. You know, we're not those kind of Jews.

You know, for a people who were generally very good, unfortunately, very naive, it took someone like St. Joseph or St. Benadius to finally realize what was going on around them. And this should sound familiar to us. A handful of people finally realized what's going on around them. And then, at least in this case, you had a rational and more or less just political system that could react to this and take action against it.

Now, what the Jewish encyclopedia is talking about the Lithuanian issue and the finances, You know, that may or may not be true. But Ivan III eventually realized what was happening, thanks to these two very important churchmen at the time and took action against it. But he's also right to say that it didn't go away. That mentality is always there. It's really there in any Christian country right under the surface.

I think it essentially became Protestantism, especially under Calvin in the West. but anywhere you go, the Catholic Orthodox country, this mentality is just under the surface. It's so much easier to slide down into sin than to ascend into virtue. And these people just justified it. And revolutionary ideologies always do, things like that.

Had they become more successful and even converted to Ivan, what would have happened is anyone's guess. But I don't think Russia would have continued to exist for a much longer as anything we know today. All right. Well, I'm as per normal when I release this, your links to everything, your work and where people can support you will be included in the show notes. But remind everybody right now.

Well, my main base is Radio Albion. The Orthodox Nationalist. WordPress.com is, or you can just go to Radio Albuans page and follow the links to, you know, with my name. I have a link there, the Russian Orthodox medievalist for direct donations. All my books are there. I have something like 13 out now on topics very much like this. And of course, this has been my specialty, you know, most of my adult life.

In fact, January 1st was the 35th anniversary of me deciding to do this full time. You know, for better or for worse, that was the date. And so going to radio album, you will be able to see all the ways to donate, contact me, because this is my full-time job. I require donations and support to be able to function, to remain independent, and continue to expose this stuff. And I know I've been very influential in several circles. And whether we like it or not, Russia is the center of the world. And I have no Russian blood in me.

But it's a simple fact of life. And Sultan Isson is bringing us into the doorway here as to what that really means. all right until episode two thank you very much i want to welcome everyone back to the piccenae show it is episode two with dr matthew rafael johnson reading 200 years together by alexander solcien how are you doing today dr johnson well i have two dogs uh both at the vet for totally different things um and uh but other than that for once i'm in a very good move that's good to hear i'm sorry about the dogs um whenever our uh whenever our furry friends are or are hurting or need need help that is uh it's distressing it can be uh definitely um take our

minds off of things that's right all right let's jump right in from where we left off the uh the header here says you're in no you're out okay you're in judging by its stable manner of life, it was in neighboring Poland that the biggest Jewish community emerged, expanded and became strong from the 13th to 18th century. It formed the basis of the future Russian Jewry, which became the most important part of world Jewry until the 20th century. Starting in the 16th century, a significant number of Polish and Czech Jews emigrated into the Ukraine, white Russia and Lithuania. In the 15th century, Jewish merchants traveled still unhindered from the Polish Lithuanian kingdom to Moscow.

But that changed under Ivan IV, Ivan the Terrible. Jewish merchants were forbidden entry. When in 1550, the Polish king, Sissigmund August, desired to permit them free entry into Russia, this was denied by Ivan with these words, quoting, We absolutely do not permit the entry of the Jew into my lands, because we do not wish to see evil in our lands, but rather may God grant that the people in my land may have rest from that irritation. And you, our brother, should not write us on account of the Jews again, for they had alienated the Russians from Christianity, brought poisonous plants into our lands, and done much evil to our lands.

according to a legend Ivan the 4th, terrible, upon the annexation of Politzk in 1563, ordered all Jews to be baptized in response to complaints of Russian residents against evil things and bullying by Jews, leisers, and other empowered by Polish magnates. Those that refused, apparently about 300 persons, are supposed to have been drowned in his presence in the Vina. but careful historians as J.I. Gessen do not confirm this version even in moderated form and do not mention it once. Well, you know, we've spoken about this topic concerning the connection of the Polish nobility, which was an oligarchy in a period of time we're talking about and the Jews. This is the cause of the Cossack uprisings. it helped create Ukrainian identity it's well profitable

this deal essentially the Jews were brought in to take care of the financial concerns of the elite excuse me so and this is the tax farming the least holding system

in order to keep the king toothless the monarch really didn't have much power in in Poland. And of course, the Orthodox Church was often either banned or worse than that, even in Ukraine. And the Cossacks presented themselves as the guardians of orthodoxy and this kind of communitarian idea. Polish nobles really became quite indolent because most of their work

financially speaking was done by these Jews. While the noble oligarchy maintained political control over the country, they had lost economic control over the country. Now, as far as a quote from Ivan the Terrible, assuming that's genuine, I think it is, or at least in some version,

he's referring to the Judaizers that we talked about last time. It's not like he didn't have experience with Jews, not nearly like the Poles or Ukrainians did, but he's talking about the Judaizer issue that we've dealt with before. This is the poison that he's talking about. No doubt he knew at least to some extent

what the Jewish mentality was. He knew what was going on in Poland. He was extremely, extremely literate. And so that's what he's referring to. Now, financial stuff, that came a little bit later as far as the Russians are concerned. But even in border areas, he was aware of what was happening. And it's part of the reason that the regime created these, going way back, these myths about him being this awful ruler. He was nothing of the kind.

Even the word terrible had a different meaning back then than it does now. Grozny is a Russian word. It means awesome. It means awe-inspiring. Even the older English translation of our uses of that word is very different from what it is today. Ivan IV was a great ruler and a great man. But that's a topic for a separate occasion. Okay.

Onward. Instead of that, Gessen writes that under the false Dimitri I first, 1505 to 06. six, both Jews and other foreigners in relatively large number, were baptized in Moscow. The story goes according to In the Time of Troubles by Sergei Ivanov, regarding the 15-98 to 1613, of confusion following the failed Rurik dynasty, that the false Dimitri II, the thief of Tushino, was born a Jew. The sources give contradictory information regarding the ancestry of the thief of Tuchino. Socinesean relates that after the, there's a note in here by the translator,

Sochanesan relates that after the times of troubles, Jews like Polish Lithuanian folk in general had restricted rights in Russia. There was prohibition of peddling in Moscow or to travel beyond Moscow at all, but ordinances were contradictory. Mikkel Fyodorovich, Michael, son of Theodore, 1613, became first Romanov, chosen as Tsar, did not pursue a principal policy against Jews. Alexis Mikhailovich, Alex, son of Michael, Tsar 1645, no sign of discriminating against Jews in the law book, free access granted to all cities, including Moscow, during the seizure of Lithuania, as well as later wars. treatment of Jews in captivity was not worse than other foreigners. Yeah, he's skipping over a lot of this because it's not really,

the number of Jews within the Russian Empire at the time was fairly small. They were concentrated in Poland, Lithuania. Now, the false Demetrius that you mentioned, I don't know if we've dealt with that or not, but it's a very strange phenomenon because the revolt against Boris Gooden, whose death signaled the beginning of the of the time troubled

Ivan the Terrible did have he was married several times sources are very iffy as to how many but his the very last the youngest

son of Ivan the Terrible was Dimitri of Uglick and sources generally say that he as a young kid was playing with something he shouldn't have and he bled to death, the knife or something like that.

Very quickly, the enemies of Boris Goodenov claimed that because Dmitri was a threat to him, he had him murdered. Now, the false Dmitri story is that the person, well, he was claiming to be

Dmitri, but the false Dmitri won, which was by far the important one because he actually took over. The story goes is that he escaped assassination, someone else was killed in his place, ran to Poland, actually Lithuania, and then Poland, converted to Catholicism to gain the support

of the, at least the support of the Jesuits there, raised a private army of maybe 3,500. Clearly he had some charisma. There's even an argument that he really was someone who was born into the royal family and led a very small invasion of Russia but because

people were accusing Boris of some terrible things including murdering this kid which is probably not true he ended up having a substantial following and once Boris Good Enough died in the middle of this the oligarchy in Moscow

who had been always under the thumb of the state, much as humanly possible, that was Ivan the Terrible's whole thing, was able to come into power again and used him as their instrument. His behavior in Moscow, when he did take over,

was pretty bad. And he eventually was murdered by this same oligarchy. And so it's a very interesting phenomenon. I have to, this is a very, I didn't do it justice here, but, but because, he had the backing to some extent

of the Polish state, that was probably the only time that you had a direct connection with the Jewish run Poland. The born-a-jew thing, I've heard that a hundred times. The

translators right here saying that this is very contradictory. It's difficult to get accurate information. But bringing foreigners in to run the place like Peter would do later, The only time that occurred at this point was under false Dmitri. The second one didn't really take over. But Dmitri the first did.

He's not considered a legitimate czar at all, but he did take power. So he may have brought some Jews with him. He brought a lot of foreigners there. And given the nature of Polish society at the time, this may be the first kind of concentrated experience that the average Russian noble had had with the Jews. and then the others after the time of trouble was over, Mikhail and Alexis, it wasn't a huge issue, at least not formally in law.

After the Treaty of Androsovo, 1667, in which Smolensk, Smolensk, Kiev, and the whole eastern bank of the Neupper River remained Russian. Jews were invited to stay, and many did. Some converted to Christianity, and some of these became heads of noble families. A small number of baptized migrated to a Cossack village on the dawn and a dozen Cossack families descended from them. Samuel Collins and Englishmen residing in Moscow at the time related that in a short time, the Jews have, in a remarkable way, spread through the city and court, helped by the mediation of a Jewish surgeon. Now, that small section backs up kind of what I said about the false demetries.

The Treaty of Androsovo was a terrible, as far as, as much of Ukraine, yeah, those three cities or those two cities became Russian. But the others, the right bank, was Polish. All of the gains of the Cossack Orthodox uprisings were nullified. And Poland imposed serfdom on formally free people. And because of now this close connection, you did have, an influx of Jews directly are coming from this. These baptisms, of course, probably weren't real, as Samuel Collins would say,

but it doesn't take many of them to cause a lot of financial trouble. So Andrew Sovo was a way to completely disenfranchise the Cossacks, both from Moscow and from Poland, and all of a sudden the Jews start becoming more relevant in Russian politics. Theodore III, son of Alexis, Theodore 1676, Tsar, Jews not to be assessed toll on entry to Moscow because they are not allowed in, whether with or without wares, but the practice did not correspond to the theory. In the first year, Peter the Great, doors were open to talented foreigners, but not Jews

on account of there being rogues and deceivers. Yet there is no evidence of limitations imposed. on them nor special laws. Indeed, Jews were found close to the emperor, Vice-Chancellor Baron Peter Schaffirov, close confidant Abram Velazovsky, later accused of thieving, his brother, Isaac Velasovsky, Anton de Viera, the General Policemaster of Petersburg, Viviard, head of secret police, and others. To A. Velazet Velazet, Velazepov. That's a loss. Sorry. No problem.

Peter wrote that what matters is competence and decency, not baptism or circumcision. Sounds familiar, huh? Sounds like some people are making that, still making these same arguments today for mass immigration from cultures that are the complete opposite of ours. Right. Yes. Peter the Great was a revolutionary. You know, I've written substantially on him. I'm working on a book on the topic.

He was a Freemason. He had no regard for human life, and he wanted to force modernity on Russia as much as humanly possible. So it's no shock that he brought, because he toured Europe, and assuming it was the same Peter that came back, who left, there's a whole theory about that, too.

foreigners then were invited in and of course that trickle became I mean the guy was raised in the German quarter of Moscow Peter the Great had nothing but contempt for Russia and it's no shock to anybody that

and I'm sure this list of Jews is only the beginning but the more modernized and monetized the Russian economy became the more Jews from Poland and were very interested in in immigrating. Don't forget this period of time, at least 80% of the world's Jews lived in the Polish Empire. There's the largest country in Europe at the time.

Their obsession with the Talmud, their dominance over the peasantry, their total lack of, you know, they had no ethnic or religious connections with the peasants who lived on the lands that they overest. saw serfdom was deepened um uh you shrie was was normal the peasants were were repressed to the absolute bone uprisings were were constant and jewish usury does have a big role in this that they're always looking for new new pastures um especially after um 1648 rebellion that we had a whole show on not that long ago so they shouldn't surprise anybody and this was the first time now you have Jews in high places. And so what began with the Judaizers that we talked about in the past now was starting something far more serious and something more damaging to Russia.

Because Peter was a Freemason, the 18th century was an extremely difficult time for Russia. You had very few legitimate czars or emperors except for Elizabeth. and the Masons literally ran the country under Byron, Lord Byron, under the two anas, which you'll mention here in a little bit, after the so-called Catherine the first. And the country was absolutely raped. So this was a brutal time in Russian history. And this is the outcome of the Petrine Revolution. Jewish houses in Germany inquired whether Russia would guarantee

their commerce with Persia but never received it. At start of the 18th century, there was increased Jewish trade activity in Little Russia, Ukraine, a year before Russian merchants got the right. Hetman, a Ukrainian chief, Skorapodzky, gave order several times for their expulsion, but this was not obeyed and Jewish presence actually increased. Catherine I, 1724 Zarina, decreed removal of Jews from Ukraine and Russian cities, but only lasted one year. Let me stop the right here.

Catherine, Catherine the first, I have a better claim to be as honor of Russia than Catherine did. Peter got bored with his wife, Udoxia, and on campaign in Central Europe met this, I don't know if she was a prostitute or what. And she got passed around, you know, and he kind of, married her despite there was nothing wrong with his with his wife and eventually she died of venereal disease and uh throsis of the liver she was a complete alcoholic she had no power i don't think she knew where she was most of the time she didn't decree anything it was an

oligarchy that had grown under peter now the capital of course has been moved to st petersburg by this time um so it was someone in that circle that decreed this. And the same thing goes for the anas that you see coming up here. They had very little power. They tried on a lot of clothes. I think that was their big thing. But there were two of them.

So that means that there was an oligarchy, people like Menshikov and others, ran the country because of their position, you know, charging rents and all of this. And of course, this was very interesting to Jews. And the only time anything was done about it was under the Empress Elizabeth. who, in my opinion, was the only real legitimate Tsar of the almost entire 18th century. Moving forward. Peter the 2nd, Tsar 1727, permitted Jews into Little Russia, first as temporary visits on the ground of their usefulness for trade,

then more and more reasons found to make it permanent. Under Anna, 1730 Tsarina, this right was extended to Smolens and Slavodzky. In 1734, permission was given to distill brandy, and in 1736, it was permitted to import vodka from Poland to Russia. Baltic financier Levi Lipman probably bailed out the future Zarina Anna financially while she was living in Corland. Later, he achieved a high rank in her court in financial administration and received various monopoly rights.

So at this time, the person who was running, the Russian Empire was Lord Byron, Johann Byron, who was a high-level German Freemason. Of course, he didn't officially have the title, who despised Russia and Russians and just simply raped the place for his own pleasure as much as humanly possible. The fact that the Jews,

given the fact that he was a Mason, that Jews came in, and for very powerful ones, not just in Coorland, the Corland issue, but people like Lipman and many like him were, of course, achieving high rank. And you see how slowly this is going on, how gradually, you know, oh, it's okay if we allow them to bring vodka in, despite the fact that it was destroying Poland. and this was one of the ways that resentment against the Jews

because they had a total monopoly at this point of distilling alcohol. The nobles weren't even allowed to do it. This went strictly to the Jews as a huge source of income. So this was just empowering the Jews in Poland. So slowly but surely, here, you know, 1830s, 20s, 30s, maybe in the early 4th, you have the slow trickling in

of very powerful Jews who until Elizabeth started to dominate this absolutely illegitimate and tyrannical state in St. Petersburg at the time.

Okay. Do you know how to pronounce the word? Is this Ukesi? Ukos, yeah. Ukos? Okay. All right. Onward. Elizabeth 1741 Zarina,

however, issued at Ucas Imperial Russian decree, one year after taking the throne, December 1742. Quote, Jews are forbidden to live anywhere in our realm. Now it has been made known to us that these Jews still find themselves in our realm, and under various pretexts, especially in Little Russia, Ukraine, they prolong their stay, which is in no way beneficial. But as we must expect, only great injuries to our loyal subjects from such haters of the name of our Savior, Jesus.

Christ, we order all Jews, male and female, along with their entire possession, to be sent without delay from our realm over the border and in the future not allowed back in, unless it should be that one of them should confess our Greek Christian religion. At this point, the state in St. Petersburg, before she took over in 1741, and she's Peter's daughter, the state has completely disintegrated. It was there and it could be powerful, but the people who were running it had no right to be there whatsoever. Elizabeth was explicitly a Russian nationalist, and she realized that this Treaty of Vendutovil, that somehow justified the Polish domination of Orthodox people in Western Ukraine, and Polish domination means Jewish domination, that this is leading to

the beginning of this kind of colonization of the Russian Empire, despite the fact that there were very few Jews here at the time. It was a slow trickle. But even she, or she should be congratulated for understanding this so early. There's a reason that she did this. And when she said this, this is what less than a year after she took over, she was saying that the Masonic tyranny is over. And I had to completely reform this state administration from the ground up.

That was ruined by Catherine Second. But that's, again, that's a separate issue. So this is a big deal in Russian history. And it shouldn't surprise anyone that it comes from Elizabeth, the only bright spot in the Russian 18th century. This was the same religious intolerance that shook Europe for centuries. The way of thinking of that time was not used. unique in any special Russian way, nor was it an exclusively Jew hostile attitude. Among Christians,

a religious intolerance was not practiced with any less cruelty. Thus, the old believers, men of the same Orthodox faith, were persecuted with fire and sword. This U-case of Elizabeth was made known throughout the realm, but immediately attempts were made to remove the ruler to relent. The military chancellor reported to the Senate for the Senate for Ukraine that already 140 people were evicted but that the prohibition for Jews to bring goods in would lead to a reduction in state income. The Senate reported to the Tsarina that trade had suffered great damage in little Russia as well as the Baltic provinces by the U-case of the previous year to not allow Jews into

the realm and also the state burst would suffer by the reduction of income from tolls. The Tsarina answered with the resolution, I desire no profit from the enemies of Christ. The Senate was a Peter's creation. It essentially was the oligarchs of the realm were appointed there. And they already had contacts over the border. And you see how they're trying to address her. But we're going to lose money.

You have to let them in. You have to keep them here. We're going to lose money otherwise. They were trying to do exactly what the Polish nobles were doing. And I have the feeling she was aware of that. And their control over Western Ukraine, you know, they're coming over the border into Russian Ukraine after the Treaty of Andrew Sovo. And as slowly monetized economy, these guys are losing money.

The oligarchs were losing money. It was a clear case of oligarchy on the one side and royalism or the common good on the other. and this is how they approached her like she was in third grade saying that we're all going to go broke. I mean, I'm sure they did lose profits. The state, not us, but the state is going to go broke if you enforce this. Same arguments we hear today. You just, you know, you're not a people.

You're an economic zone. And if the economics go wrong, oh, my God, we're going to, we have to have the proper economics. We need to keep the money flowing. damn the people and damn the culture. So Shoshanisan discusses contradictory sources as to the number of Jews that were actually evicted, ranging from almost none to 35,000, the latter figure having questionable origins. Strong resistance to the edict by Jews, land proprietors, and state apparatuses meant it was enforced

almost as little as previous attempts had been. Catherine II, Zarina 1762, in consequence of a coup. and also being a neophyte to orthodoxy herself, was unwilling to start her reign opening things up for Jews, though the Senate advised for it. Jews pressed for it and had spokesmen in Petersburg, Riga, and Ukraine. She found a way around her own law in permitting their entry for colonization into New Russia, area between Crimea and Moldova, which was still a wasteland, was organized secretly from Riga and the nationality of the Jews was kept more or less secret. Jews went from Poland.

Jews went there from Poland and Lithuania. Catherine the second, as he says, took over in a coup. She had her husband, Peter, murdered. Catherine was barely spoke Russian. And even later on, she had a very heavy accent. She was a lot like your typical 18th century monarch here. Russia is backward, you know, and the only thing. thing her peasants are good for is exploitation.

So once she murdered her husband, that was a pretty serious thing to do, or she had others do it, of course. The same Senate that was trying to talk Elizabeth into relenting approached Catherine. Catherine desperately in need of money and allies went for. This was the enlightened thing to do. This is a European thing to do. do. The very fact that she had to keep it secret, which when I read this the first time was news to me, that their identity wasn't really talked about because there would be the typical revolt as you had in all over Ukraine a century before. And it says, you know, the next section,

it's a note from the translators. In the first partition of Poland, 1772, Russia took Belarus, along with 100,000 Jews. So now, Poland is no longer a functional state, mostly because of this issue. Russia is taking pieces of it that used to be in Kiev and Rus. And in many cases, unaware that it had huge numbers of Jews that were Talmudic parasites. And this even gets into the mainstream literature.

This isn't just people like us. The mainstream literature, you know, talks about Cossack Rebellion, says their Jewish behavior was abominable. They really thought that the Messiah is coming, therefore there has to be no, if this was the paradise of the Jews, the Messiah is coming, so there's no restraint on our action. The fact we control this country so intensely that this is the New Israel and the Messiah is going to arrive here. Well, instead of the Messiah, they got Bogdan Kimon-Kimonyetsky, a line that I got a line that I got, got for me Michael Jones, which is perfect for this. So now Russia has a serious Jewish problem that came from its success, the same Jewish problem that brought the Polish society to absolute tyranny.

And the fact that she had to keep it a secret always makes me smile. But that's when you have a foreign woman needing allies, needing allies, needing money, needing support. The Senate already is making money over the border with these people, or in connection with these people. All of a sudden, what was a trickle now becomes a flood. In the first partition of Poland, 1772, Russia reacquired white Russia, Belarus, along with her 100,000 Jews. After the 11th century, more and more Jews came into Poland because princes and later kings

encouraged all active industrious people from Western Europe to settle there. Jews actually received special rights, 13th century from Balaslav the Pious, in 14th century from Casimir the Great, in 16th century from Sigismund and Stephen Bathany. Though this sometimes alternated with repression, in the 15th century by Vadaslav Yagiajayao, and Alexander.

son of Casimir. There were two pogroms in Krakow. In 16th century, several ghettos were constructed partly to protect them. The Roman Catholic spirituals were the most continuous source of a hostile stance. Nevertheless, on balance it must have been a favorable environment since in the first half of the 16th century, the Jewish population increased substantially. There was a big role for Jews in the business activity of landlords in that they became leasers of the brandy distilling, operations. After the Tatar devastation, Kiev in the 14th century came under Lithuania and or Poland, and in this arrangement, more and more Jews wandered from Padolia and Volignia into the Ukraine in the regions of Kiev, Poltava, and Chernigov. This process accelerated

when a large part of Ukraine came directly under Poland in the Union of Lubb. in 1569. The main population consisted of Orthodox peasants who for a long time had special rights and were free of tolls. Now began an intensive colonization of the Ukraine by the Polish Schlatzah Polish nobility with conjoint action by the Jews. The Cossacks were forced into immobility and obligated to perform drudgery and pay taxes. The Catholic lords burdened the Orthodox peasants with various taxes and service duties and in this exploitation, the Jews also partly played a sad role. They leased from the Lord, the propination, the right to distill vodka and sell it, as well as other trades. Quoting, the Jewish leaders who represented the Polish Lord received, of course, only to a certain

degree, the power that the landholder had over the peasants, and since the Jewish leasers strove to ring from the peasants of maximum profit, the rage of the peasants rose not only against the Catholic landlords, but also against the Jewish leasers. When from this situation, a bloody uprising of the Cossacks arose in 1648, under the leadership of Komonezky, Jews as well as Poles were the victims.

10,000 Jews died. The Jews were lor... Let me summarize. You know what, why don't... Do the next paragraph. paragraph, and then I want to summarize the Polish issue. Go ahead. Sure. The Jews were lured in by the natural riches of the Ukraine and by Polish magnates that were colonizing the land and thus assumed an important economic role. Since they served the interests of the landlords and the regime, the Jews

brought on themselves the hatred of the residents. N.I. Kostomatov adds that the Jews leased not only various branches of privileged industries, but even the Orthodox churches, gaining the right to levy a fee for baptisms. Well, he mentions the population increase. And I know, because I've written on this for so long, between the beginning of this process, roughly, you know, 1350 to the first partition of Poland, the percentage increase in the Jewish population was 75 times. The Christian population only went up between four and five times.

They were expulsion from Western cities, 11th to the 16th century, led to this huge immigration. But you also saw a huge increase in wealth and monetization. And this is what led to the

size, continuous expansion of Poland. This was the golden age of Polish Jews from 1,500 to 1648 until Kimmoyitzki. But as many have noted, this just papers over the tremendous tyranny internally. The revolt of the Cossack. This was happening all the time. Just 1648 was a particularly big one.

The Polish magnates had huge estates. Sometimes like the size of, you know, Switzerland. And as time went on, thanks to Ushry, wealth was concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, and the Jews were in control, although not necessarily direct ownership of it. It fueled a system of imperial rule. And you had this increasing proletariat, you know, men who didn't own anything. And this was, you know, but it did matter. because the elites were, to say the least, partners with these Jews. And Jews were able to maximize the nobles' incomes, and of course, as well as their own.

They were the intermediaries. They were the managers of the elite's estates. They were granted monopolies. And I mentioned before, the monopoly over the right to distill alcohol. and ultimately this was used to gain the maximum benefit from the peasantry. So many of their of their economic fraud was done in a state of inebriation. Of course, they didn't drink at all. So that was 1633, actually.

You know, the Polish elite were not engaged in commerce, but they didn't know how or they didn't care. they handed the job of extracting incomes to the nation's Jews. And of course, they would get a fee for every one of these short-term leases. This was the Urenda system. The organization of the Jews was in the Kahaal system. And this was a completely independent, fairly large body. There was a bunch of them all throughout the empire. and they were completely closed off.

They had zero connection with the peasantry. And there was no financial incentive. There was no ethnic incentive to create any kind of connection with the local population. The tax farmers have the support of the state. There's a few Polish writers, something like half of the income. The largest state was generated by tax farming. Those leases which were granted to the Jews. They had no goodwill, and they didn't care.

The Jews were not a part of the community that they exploited. So the intense contempt of the Goyem, he was, you know, the levels of exploitation were extraordinary. And when the Jews took over the liquor business in 1633, they were able to manipulate the price of grain because they were able to divert it to very profitable, you know, in distilling alcohol. And they promoted alcohol consumption. You didn't have an explosion of chronic drunkenness and alcoholism, which just led to more resentment against Jews. The whole point of this control was to find more and more weaknesses in the peasant population. The peasants were never stupid, but they do have weaknesses.

And a lot of Jewish historians, I've cited a greats here many times. who talks about the Polish nobleman as someone who's completely disconnected from his own country. They were extravagant. They were always in debt, almost childlike. And they got this way because they had the Jews taking care of everything. He was not just a financier. He was the advisor. The migration to Poland brought with it capital.

And that capital put at disposal of the elite. and their states expanded dramatically. This is the downfall of the polar system. That's how it got so huge. And it was a weird situation because you had the nobles who ruled the state in their CM or their parliament, which was a pure oligarchy. They ruled the state, but they didn't rule the finances. And it's almost as if they didn't understand that the expansion of the empire was a bad thing for them.

Their prophets were all short term. And even, you know, Sigism himself, August 2nd, he had Jews everywhere surrounding him. They used to call the Protestant semi-Jews to the Reformation. And, you know, just, you know, it's rare that the king was usually involved in this, but in this case, he was. And the more powerful they became, the more of the peasants were absolutely torment. this was the worst kind of serfdom in European history but the fact that the nobles were always in debt and of course I had to

you know pay usurious rates it wasn't just a peasantry that was under their control it was the nobles that were under their control too so I mean the old stereotype is this really easy going lazy Polish magnate they didn't have substantial martial arts There was a bit of an exaggeration.

And the Jesuits noticed this, but there was never any such thing, as Jones says, and a few others. There was no counter-reformation in Poland. And there was a reason for this. There's no shock that Calvinism and even more extreme versions of Protestantism took over in parts of Poland. Jewish historian greats. I think his not line was Poland became a second Babylon. for the Jews, so much so that even in 1572, the Jews were able to name Sigmund II successor,

along with the Protestants, the Huguenots in France, as well as the Turkish monarch in Istanbul, brokered by Solomon Ashkenazi, who had been an advisor to the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, as well as before that he was a chief doctor to the Polish monarch. The point is, when you have this level of power, it's based on these international ties. And the fact that through this financial web, they could figure out who his successor was, even over the heads of the oligarchy, who, you know, even in the 1570s, was, were totally,

under the heel of Jewish usury. And they benefited, at least in the short term, so they, you know, they let these kind of things go. Polish oligarchs had no good reason to change the system. So, you know, revolts were constant and religious battles were constant. I think 70% or 65% of the people living in Poland were non-Polish. and this is the reason that it eventually fell apart. These kind of rents upon rents, usury upon usury, can't sustain an economy. And this is ultimately what destroyed Poland.

After the uprising, the Jews on the basis of the Treaty of Belia Zirkov, 1651, were again given the right to resettle in Ukraine. The Jews were like before resident and leaser of the royal industries and the industries of the shlachta, and so it was to remain. Going into the 18th century, brandy distilling was practically the main profession of Jews. This trade often led to conflicts with the peasants who sometimes were drawn into taverns, not so much because of well to do, but on account of their poverty and misery. included among the restrictions placed on the Polish Jews in response to demands of the Catholic Church was the prohibition against Jews having Christian house servants. Because of the recruitment coupled with the state tax increases in neighboring Russia,

not a few refugees came to Poland where they had no rights. In the debates of Catherine's commission for reworking a new law code, 1767 to 68, one could hear that in Poland already a number of Russian refugees are servants to Jews. What he's talking about here, this is a little convoluted. He's talking about Russians leaving Russia to go to Poland. And so these refugees, or so it said, were working for the Jews almost immediately when they crossed the border. I think since we've come to a new section, we should probably end it right there and pick it up on the next one. We've been going about 45 minutes.

You want to end this one early and just start a whole new section, a new next time? Yeah, I have no problem with that at all. I know it's, he's being so cursory because then we get to the revolution, late 19th century, Soviet era. This is going to be far different. and he goes into tremendous detail, but he's just giving a smattering of what was going on prior to the 19th century.

So he's kind of all over the place and very cursory about it. So I'm trying to fill in some of the gaps for people who aren't specialists in the area. Correct. And this next section, which I've read and studied, is very important to really understand

what was to come in the future and especially, Russian attitudes towards Jews. So we'll leave this for next time. As always, I will include all of your links in the show notes so that people can donate to you and subscribe to you. And we'll pick this up again in a couple days. I appreciate that, my friend. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. This is part three of our reading of 200 years together by Alexander Solzhenitsky. How are you doing, Dr. Johnson? Have you ever been in a position where you had to draw blood from a dog twice a day by any chance?

Because, you know, that's what I have to do. I can't imagine. I can't imagine that that pup is enjoying it very much. Well, my dog was just diagnosed with diabetes. So now it's chaos. But we're going to do everything, you know, everything we possibly. can and you have a good vet. So I just wondered if anyone else had this, had this joyous, uh,

responsibility. But I assume maybe it's just me for now. Uh, that's, that does sound hard, especially since, um, you, yeah, you do care about the, care about the animal too.

So, um, yeah, yeah. Nope, um, I'm just giving a, uh, a very sharp clawed cat, um, antibiotics twice a day and yesterday he got me he got me pretty good so um it it's fine i think i'll live yes i think i will too let's get go yeah let's get going here um we are up to the section the khal and civil rights and here we go the jews of poland maintained a vigorous economic relations to the surrounding population yet in the five centuries that they live there did not

permit any influence from outside themselves. One century after another rolled by in post-medieval European development, while the Polish Jews remained confined to themselves and were always an anachronistic appearance. They had a fixed order within themselves. Here it is granted that these conditions, which later remained intact, also in Russia until the middle of the 19th century, were favorable for the religious and national preservation of the Jews from the very beginning of their diaspora. The whole Jewish life was guided by the Khahal, which had developed from the communal life of the Jews and the rabbis. You know, even on our own show on these, there are similar topics, the two of us, my own show, the Kahal comes up quite a bit because it was a, essentially a totalitarian system where every aspect, I mean, no different than the Talmud itself.

the cell of of Jewish life it was completely autonomous in the sense that it didn't have to answer to anybody there was the so-called four lands council where they divided up

their parts of the Polish Empire I think it was a greater lesser Poland Galicia and Volina were the four land and they were in charge of everything and taken together

that council what's the most powerful institution in the entire Polish Empire. So they collected taxes, old age, the pensions, quote unquote. It was the economic center of everything. You couldn't go. And I think we've mentioned this before. If there's a dispute between or among Jews, you can't take it to the secular or Polish legal system.

It was purely oligarchic. there was a lot of abuse because again there was no answering to anybody and you know it was eventually it collapsed in the 19th century early 19th century

but it was totally isolated and once this began to weaken this is where the Hasidic Jews to some extent came from the Talmud was the doctrine but slowly but surely the Kabbalah

entered into a basic discourse. It was persecuted quite a bit, not as such, but when the Hasidic first showed themselves with all these messianic claims, they were persecuted all over the Jewish world. So,

reading some of the documents, contemporary documents, that's how the work. One of the things that they did is that they told children stories and this is why it was so successful and very few Jews actually left it that if you were to leave the Cahal and go off on your own

the Goyam are animals they'll kill you you have to stay within the Cajal and that's the only way you're going to be able to function and that was a story that they told you know young men

to keep them from leaving and that's how they tolerated this oligarchy because there were plenty of poor Jews within the Kahal. But as time went on, and Poland itself didn't exist anymore as an empire, it started to fall apart, but there's always this mentality.

One of the themes of this discussion we've had so far is that Poland, Lithuania, defined overwhelmingly what we mean by the word Jewish and Talmudic and rabbinical. because there were so many of them here, they were so wealthy. And even though the Kahal took a huge hit with Kimmanyinsky and subsequent revolts later on, that just fed into their storytelling

that for no reason, they envy us. And therefore at any moment, if you leave this boundary, you're going to be murdered or tortured or whatever because they envy our intelligence or something like that. So they were completely, and this is how they were able to exploit people.

The Slavs was such tremendous abandoned because not only were they protected by the Poles, the estates that they worked with them, but that they had no connection. They had no kinship, but they had no connection with the outside world. They spoke Yiddish. they had no very few of them spoke local languages maybe elites may have but you know this is how they this is how the exploitation became a matter of course because they're not our people their goyum or their cattle this is this is what they deserve okay moving on what may have started as a democratic institution took on the qualities of an oligarchy bent on maintaining its own power

and Kahal had a mutually exploitative relation in that the rabbis were the executive enforcement arm of the Khahal and the rabbis owed their position to appointment by the khal. Likewise, the khal owed the maintenance of its power more to the secular regime than to its own people. The fact that the Jewish people have held themselves together in their diaspora for 2,000 years inspires wonder and admiration. But when one examines certain periods more closely, like the Polish-Russian one in the 16th and into the middle of the 17th century, and how this unity was only won by means of methods of suppression exercised by the Kahilat, then one no longer knows if it can be evaluated merely as an aspect of religious tradition.

If the slightest traits of such isolationism were detected amongst us Russians, we would be severely faulted. When Jewry came under the rule of the Russian state, this indigenous system, remained, in which the hierarchy of the kaha'al had a self-interest. According to J. I. Gessen, all the anger that enlightened Jews felt against the ossifying Talmudic tradition became stronger in the middle of the 19th century. Quoting, the representatives of the ruling class of jury staked everything on persuading the Russian administration of the necessity to maintain the centuries-old institution, which reflected the interest both of the Russian power and of the ruling

Jewish class. The Kahulian connection with the rabbis held all the power and not seldom abused it. It misappropriated public funds, trampled the rights of the poor, arbitrarily increased taxes, and wreaked vengeance on personal enemies. At the end of the 18th century, the governor of one of the administrative regions attached to Russia wrote in his report, the rabbis, the spiritual council in the Kahal, which are knitted closely together, hold all things in their land and Lord over the conscience of the Jews and in complete isolation rule over them without any relation to the civil order. Now, what Solzhenitsyn is trying to explain.

I mean, the first thing in the previous paragraph, he says that if we Russians or Orthodox people had this kind of arrangement within the places where we lived or in Russia itself. In other words, if we were strictly ethno-nationalist, we would be attacked right and left, which, of course, they are. the Jews do it. This is multiculturalism. So that's pretty clear what he's talking about here and that it's certainly not a religious matter. The distinction is very much like Islam, which came from Judaism to a great extent. Like Islam, the differences between philosophy, civil state, law, religion, ethnic self-interest, all of that, these lines are blurred or non-existent.

you know, God isn't really the issue. It hasn't been. It never has been, especially in the Kabbalah. God is an abstraction to them. And they are really almost the manifestation of God on earth. So it's very easy for that to quickly become, we are our own Messiah. And that's exactly, I think, still the dominant idea among Jews, the Jews today.

to the extent that the Gahel continued to exist in certain places, they had enough power to approach, you know, the first few partitions of Poland where some of these areas came onto the Russian administration. All of a sudden now Russia has hundreds of thousands of Jews that it didn't have much contact with before what was a trickle. Now is a huge flood. And at least for a while, the Russian administration,

the Russian administration locally didn't want to break it. They didn't want to really break the Polish aristocracy to continue to exist there too. It was a tremendously disruptive force in the extreme western parts

of the empire. But there were people like Catherine Gray and a few of us who tried to break it down, tried to so-called liberate the Jews by having them assimilate. Same problem in Germany. and it was more or less an unpopular option.

As time went on, of course, you know, Zionism was very rare at the time, but growing in strength. So that's where we are right now in history. There was a still, and I have a whole paper on this, the special mission, the Tsar Paul and Alexander I,

sent to Western, Gabriel Dersavut. actually being sent to Western Russia to figure out why the peasants hate the Jews so much. And I have a paper on that, which I got initially from this book, just a hint of it. And, you know, when I started reading this stuff, you know, the Russians were very naive. And he came back to Petersburg saying, oh, there's very good reasons for this contempt. You would have no idea what they do here. But things changed. They became more cunning when the Polish.

Empire was no more another. I had a new sovereign to deal with. And you had more and more Jews leaving the Kahul at this point and they had a tremendous influence in the capital,

especially when Dersavins started to say in his naifte, that my God, the exploitation is extraordinary. And I don't know if we're going to get to that at some point, but my paper on that, I think that was in the Barnryview.

I published it there. And that comes from this very book. In 18th century Eastern European Jury, two movements developed. The religious one of the Hasidim and the enlightening one favoring secular culture spearheaded by Moses Mendelssohn. But the Kellehot suppressed both with all its might. In 1781, the rabbinit of Vilna placed the ban over the Hasidim, and in 1784, the assembly of rabbis in Mogilev, declared them as outlaws and their property as without owner.

Thereafter, mobs laid waste to the houses of the Hasidum in several cities. It was an intra-Jewish program. The Hasidum were persecuted in the most cruel and unfair manner. Their rivals did not even feel embarrassed to denounce them before the Russian authorities with false political charges. In turn, the officials in 1799, based on the complaint of the Hasidics, arrested members of the Kela'ahat, of Vilna for embezzlement of tax money. The Hasidam movement expanded, being especially successful in certain provinces.

The rabbis had Hasidic books publicly burned, and the Hasidam emerged as defenders of the people against abuses of the Kelaan. Quote, it is apparent that in those times the religious war overshadowed other questions of religious life. Well, he's right here. He's talking about the Hasidic movement being not quite revolutionary, but very close to being revolutionary.

The same thing happened in Spain, the Sephardine. Even worse with the Karaits and Samaritans, this cruelty towards anything that disrupts their drive to unity knows very few matches lying about them, going to the secular authorities, which they normally would condemn and saying, this happened in the New Testament.

It happened in the Ottoman Empire. Jews would go to the secular authority and say, you know, this group of people, our enemies are plotting against you, or they're refusing to pay taxes, or they won't,

you know, they're condemning, they're refusing to assist in the war effort or whatever it is. And they would normally be believed. And so contrary to their condemnation, earlier condemnation of going to the outside authorities. They do it all the time to destroy the Hasidic movement.

So you have a, and eventually this distinction more or less collapsed. But the Hasidam turned out to be a semi-populist movement based more on the Kabbalah than on the Talmud. Of course, they don't reject Talmud by any means, but it was a matter of emphasis. and the Kabbalah became more and more popular through this growing and irrepressible movement of the of the of the Hasidic rabbi. The part of white Russia that fell to Russia in 1772 consisted of the provinces of Polatsk, later Vibsk, and Mogolev. In a communique to those governments in the name of Catherine, it was explained that their residents of whichever sex and standing they might be would from now on have the right to, to public exercise of faith and to own property in addition to all rights, freedoms, and privileges, which their subjects previously enjoyed. The Jews were thus legally set as equals to Christians,

which had not been the case in Poland. As to the Jews, it was added that their business stay and remain intact with all those rights that they today enjoy, i.e., nothing would be taken away from Polish rights either. Through this, the previous owner of the Kelaahat survived. The Jews with their Kahl system remained isolated from the rest of the population and were not immediately taken into the class of traders and businessmen that corresponded to their predominant occupations. In the beginning, Catherine was on her guard only against any hostile reaction of the Polish nobility from whom power threatened to slip away, but also against giving an unfavorable impression to her Orthodox subjects, but she did extend wider rights to the Jews, whom she wished well,

and promised herself of their economic utility to the nation. Already in 1778, the most recent General Russian Regulation was extended to white Russia. Those holding up to 500 rubles belong to the class of trade-plying townsmen, those with more capital, to the class of merchant, endowed into one of three guilds, according to possession, both classes were free of the poll tax and paid 1% of their capital, which was declared according to conscience. We know what happens when the Jews are quote-unquote liberated. Not that they were in any second-class position in Poland or in Russia,

or what you might call second class comes from the Jews themselves in the nature of the Kahl system. But Russians were just Russians. the great merchants, world believers, generally speaking, in the Russian Empire, but now they have to compete with these incredibly shrewd,

completely unified aliens, as far as their concern, who have contacts with liquidity and capital all over the world, especially in Constantinople and Northern Europe,

the Netherlands in particular, in London, of course, but have been doing this for generations upon generations upon generations. They will support one another, but when it comes to the gorean, no matter where they are,

exporting them ruthlessly is, it's not only a tolerated, but almost a sacramental act. So this automatically put the Cahal, again, which was thanks to the Hasidics and many other things, was starting to wane in importance. The so-called Enlightenment was,

you know, drawing Jews to the town, especially the capital. But it put them in a tremendously advantageous position and slowly, but truly Russians started realizing why the Cossacks were so anti-Judaic. This regulation was a particularly great significance. It set aside the national isolation of Jews up to that time.

Catherine wanted to end that. Further, she subverted the traditional Polish perspective on Jews as an element standing outside the state. Moreover, she weakened the Kahaal system, the capability of the Kajal to compel. Quoting, the process began of pressing Jews into the civil organism. The Jews availed themselves to a great extent of the right to be registered as merchants, so that, for example, 10% of the Jewish population of the Mogulav province declared themselves as merchants, but only 5.5% of the Christians.

The Jewish merchants were now freed from the tax obligations to the Kahal and did not have to apply to the Kahal anymore for permission to be temporary. rarely absent. They had only to deal with the cognizant magistrate. In 1780, the Jews in Mogolev and Skloff greeted Catherine upon her arrival with odes. With this advance of Jewish merchants, the civil category Jews ceased to exist. All other Jews had now likewise to be assigned to a status, and obviously the only one left for them was townsmen. But at first, few wanted to be reclassified as such, since the annual poll tax for townsmen at the time was 60 copecks, but only 50 kopeks for Jews. However, there was no other option. From 1783, therefore the Jewish townsmen, nor merchants,

needed to pay their taxes to the Kahal, but instead to the magistrate, each according to his class, and from him they also received their travel passes. So now, Jewish elites have to deal with a completely different reality. the one thing that they have going for them and this is ongoing really straight into the 19th century is the naifte of maybe not the locals so much but those in St. Petersburg who and this is prior to Dresjavins investigation into the causes of anti-Jewish rioting in Belarus

because this is where we're mostly talking about the far west and you know we've we've heard we've heard this argument before Catherine needed allies she went to the nobility she freed them from all service obligations

which completely upended the the social order made her very unpopular but in that same process saw the Jews as economically valuable remember last time we talked about the Empress Elizabeth when someone said to her we're going to lose money if you throw them out

and she said I don't care well here Catherine cares for not just a political but for a financial reason, too. So like so many Americans, the elite in Petersburg saw the Jews as this very industrious, utile and mostly isolated group of people. Bringing them closer to the mainstream meant that we could have

greater access to their money and their ability, having no idea what they were doing. And remember, the relation between the Kajal and the Polish elite it was still existing in these in Ukraine and other parts of the far west. So that didn't go away. So they had absorbed into themselves a very exploitative group of people who, and slowly, you know, you'll have, you'll have Russians realizing this. But at this point, people like Catherine had no idea how intense the exploitation really was.

And it was mostly later, I think after. her death, did it become more and more obvious when Dersovan was sent to Belarus? Moving on. The new order had consequences for the cities, which only took status into consideration, not nationality. According to this arrangement, all townsmen, thus also all Jews, had the right to participate in the local class governance and occupy official posts. Corresponding to the conditions of that time, this meant that the Jews became citizens

with equal rights. The entry of Jews as citizens with equal right into the merchant guilds and townsmen's class was an event of great social significance. It was supposed to transform the Jews into an economic power that would have to be reckoned with and raise their morale. It also made the practical protection of their life interests easier. At that time, the classes of traders and tradesmen, just like the municipal commonwealth, had a broad self-determination. thus a certain administrative and judicial power was placed into the hands of Jews just like Christians through which the Jewish population held a commercial and civil influence and significance. Jews can now not only become mayors but also advisory delegates and judges.

At first, limitations were enacted in the larger cities to ensure that no more Jews occupied electable positions than Christians. In 1786, however, Catherine sent to the great general of white Russia command written by her own hand to actualize the equality of Jews in the municipal class self-governance, unconditionally and without any hesitation, and to impose an appropriate penalty upon anyone that should hinder this equality. Remember, Catherine II was, in my opinion, an illegitimate monarch. She murdered her way, and quite literally slept her way, to the throne of Russia. She didn't speak Russian very well.

And when she took over in a coup, like we said last time, she needed allies. And the Jews seemed to be one very potent source of money and support. She found herself, without fully realizing it, in the same position that Polish nobles were, or a similar position, the Polish nobles had to the Jews. what happens when you

claim that ethnicity doesn't mean anything with the Jewish population? Well, the law may say that the concept of Jew doesn't exist, but the Jews don't accept that. And all this means is that the Jews are going to be able to outperform everybody given the nature of their experience that Russia never really had a very strong merchant backbone. It was a land power.

It was a royalist, a land power, not a commercial republic the old believers because they were outside of the mainstream developed a mercantile interest

although of course there was no use for her anything like that with them but in her search for allies you know giving away lands to people who would support her she was bringing Russia into a serious problem and what ended up happening

is she started to notice that peasants were rioting everything that happened in Poland. And so now she's saying that Jews have to have the same representation as their numbers and will punish anyone who doesn't go along with this. So clearly there's a relationship, a very unhealthy relationship here growing between the Kahul, what's left of it, and Catherine. It should be pointed out that the Jews thus were given equal rights not only in contrast to Poland,

but also earlier than in France or the German states. Under Frederick the Great, the Jews suffered great limitations. Indeed, the Jews in Russia had from the beginning the personal freedom that the Russian peasants were only granted 80 years later. Paradoxically, the Jews gained greater freedom than even the Russian merchants and tradesmen. The latter had to live exclusively in the cities, while in contrast, a Jewish population could live in colonial colonizations in the country and distill liquor. Although the Jews dwelt in clusters not only in the city but also in the village, they were accounted as part of the city contingent, inclusive of merchant and townsmen classes. According to the manner of their activity and surrounded by unfree peasantry,

they played an important economic role. Rural trade was concentrated in their hands, and they leased various posts belonging to the landowner's privilege, specifically the sale of vodka and taverns, and therewith fostered the expansion of drunk. The white Russian powers reported, the presence of Jews in the villages act with harm upon the economic and moral condition of the rural population because the Jews encouraged drunkenness among the local population. In the stance taken by the powers at B, it was indicated among other things that the Jews led the peasants astray with drunkenness, idleness, and poverty, that they had given them vodka on credit. reception of pledges for vodka, but the brandy operations were an attractive source of income

for both the Polish landowners and the Jewish commissioners. Granted, the gift of citizenship that the Jews received brought a danger with it. Obviously, the Jews were also supposed to acquiesce to the general rule to cease the brandy business in the villages and move out. In 1783, the following was published, quote, The general rule requires every citizen to apply himself in a respectable trade in business, but not the distilling of schnapps, as that is not a fitting business, and whenever the proprietor permits the merchant, townsman, or Jews to distill vodka,

he will be held as a lawbreaker. And thus it happened. They began to transfer the Jews from the villages to the cities to deflect them from their centuries-old occupation, the leasing of distilleries and taverns. Just briefly, people don't realize how small the bureaucracy was. in St. Petersburg, especially in the 19th century. People think this is this top-heavy bureaucracy, and that was not the case.

Politics was local in Russia, even more so than in the West. They could pass a statute or an executive decision, but enforcing it is another matter. It's very easy for a Jew to take someone who's deeply in debt to them hand over that right, that distilling right to someone else, a member of the Goyem. They did this in Poland all the time. When you have, you know, they're already colonizing just as much that they did under

under Polish rule in Russia and expanding just like they had done they had done before. So you didn't have a lot of enforcement mechanisms. and this, I'm almost positive, this law was largely unenforced, or if it continued, it continued under different circumstances, but the Jews continued to profit from it. Naturally, to the Jews, the threat of a complete removal from the villages naturally appeared not as a uniform civil measure, but rather as one that was set up specifically to oppose their national religion. The Jewish townsmen that were supposed to be resettled into the city and unambiguous,

were to be robbed of a very lucrative business in the country, fell into an inner city and inner Jewish competition. Indignation grew among the Jews, and in 1784, a commission of the Kelle Haute traveled to St. Petersburg to seek the cancellation of these measures. At the same time, the Kelaat reasoned that they should, with the help of the administration, regain their lost power in its full extent over the Jewish population. But the answer of the Zohaqqqqqq, but the answer of his arena read, as soon as the people yoke to the Jewish law have arrived at the condition of equality, the order must be upheld in every case so that each according to his rank and status enjoys the benefits and rights without distinction of belief or national origin. But the

clenched power of the Polish proprietors also had to be reckoned with. Although the administration of white Russia for bed them in 1783 to lease the schnapps distilling to an unauthorized person, especially Jews, the landlords continued to lease the industry to Jews. That was their right, an inheritance of centuries-old Polish custom. The Senate did not venture to apply force against the landholders and in 1786 removed their jurisdiction to relocate Jews into cities. For this, a compromise was found. The Jews would be regarded as people that had relocated to the cities, but were retained the right to temporary visits to the village. That meant that those that were living in the villages continued to live there. The Senate permission of 1786 permitted the

Jews to live in villages, and Jews were allowed to lease from the landholders the right to produce and sell alcoholic beverages, while Christian merchants and townsmen did not obtain these rights. so ultimately very little change because of a lack of enforcement it wasn't going to change anyway but I mean for the most part we're not talking about Russians here

this is still a heavily Polish Ukrainian part of the part of the world I mean Russians are involved but but this was simply a piece of the Polish empire that had been absorbed into into Russia previously part of

Russia, but, so, you know, at this point, Poland was gone as an empire. So, but the aristocracy there, the, I should say, the oligarchy there, was just as angry as any Jew was at this, at this regulation that says that they can't, they can't confer this monopoly, but they did it anyway. And having something so stupid like this, you know, temporary visits to the villages, like that's going to make any difference. because Russian started to realize the money, elites anyway, landholders, the money that they could make by partnering with the Jews on this stuff and the one class that suffered badly, as always, was the peasantry. Even the efforts of the delegation of Kellehot in St. Petersburg was not wholly without success. They did not get what they came for,

the establishment of a separate Jewish court for all contentions between Jews. but in 1786, the significant part of their supervisory right was given back, the supervision of Jewish townsmen, the majority of the Jewish population. This included not only the division of public benefits, but also the levying of poll tax and adjudicating the right to separate from the congregation. Thus, the administration recognized its interest in not weakening the power of the Kahal. In all Russia, the status of traders and businessmen, merchant, and townsmen did not have the right to choose their residences. Their members were bound to

that locality in which they were registered in order that the financial position of their localities would not be weakened. However, the Senate made an exception in 1782 for White Russia. The merchants could move, as the case might be, as it was propitious for commerce from one city to another. The ruling favored especially the Jewish merchants. the Russian oligarchs, the elite of the elite, were found in the Senate. That's what the Senate was. It was Petrine creation. And these were people who either directly or indirectly profited from incorporating these parts of the old Polish Empire into Russia.

This 1782 exception clearly was self-interested. they didn't want, you know, a city that had a lot of opportunities, you know, temporarily, gaining all this population and poorer cities losing population. Because usually, you know, they know what a debt bubble is. They know how that doesn't really work. Monetization was slowly creeping into these areas. People were using cash more and more. Certainly in the Senate, they were.

But White Russia or Belarus, they make this exception entirely because to allow Jews to go from one place to another, which I guarantee you they were doing anyway. However, they began to exploit this right in a greater extent than had been seen before. Jewish merchants began to be registered in Moscow and Smolensk. Jews began soon after the annexation of white Russia in 1882 to settle in Moscow. By the end of the 18th century, the number of Jews in Moscow was considerable. Some Jews that had entered the ranks of the Moscow merchant class began to practice wholesaling. Other Jews, in contrast, sold foreign goods from their apartments or in the courts, or began peddling, though this was at the time forbidden.

In 1790, the Moscow merchants submitted a complaint. In Moscow has emerged a not insignificant number of Jews from foreign countries and from white Russia, who, as opportunity afforded, joined the Moscow Merchants Guild and then utilized forbidden methods of business, which brought about very hurtful damage and the cheapness. of their goods indicated that it involves smuggling, but moreover, as is well known, they cut coins. It is possible that they will also do this in Moscow. As amends to their thoroughly cagey findings, the Moscow merchants demanded their removal from Moscow. The Jewish merchants appealed with a counter-complaint that they were not accepted into the Smolensk and Moscow merchant guilds. If you read a mainstream Jewish historian today,

all they're going to tell you is that this complaint from a merchant guild, or not just in Russia, but anywhere, comes from envy, it comes from the fact that they weren't as business-minded as Jews were. But there's this curious comment here that peddling was forbidden. It's true. Advertising, this occurred in every Western European country too. advertising, leaving your guild's specific area, engaging in competition, and certainly artificially manipulating prices,

this was new to them. Of course, they had a valid complaint. Of course, they were smuggling. Of course, they were cutting coins. Of course, they were doing what Walmart does and underselling everybody, which you couldn't do prior to this, and then taking over when you were your competition starts to suffer. The fact

that Jews had access to credit all over the world, the Russians didn't so much, that they could charge for loans, they could charge a much better rate, only of course to raise it later on. All the older regulations on

usury, they were flaunting, flouting, I should say, and making a mockery of it. And you notice at this particular period of time, the Jews didn't even answer it. They simply said we're being excluded. And this is why we'd have to do this,

but they weren't saying that we weren't doing it or trying to defend themselves in any way. Ultimately, the argument came to be that our business acumen assists the state, the same way that it assisted, allegedly the Polish nobility. And because of that, you need to tolerate us. But you see already, this is a very short period of time.

after the partitions of Poland, that they're already colonizing, not just the western parts of the empire, but Moscow itself and other major cities, going up against a totally unprepared, really non-mercantile, traditional medieval approach to economics, things like a just price, and through their Machiavellian methods,

completely undercut everybody. They had every right to complain. But again, because of their command of credit and capital, from a practical point of view, the state was very hesitant to do much about it at the time. The Council of Her Majesty heard the complaints. In accordance with the unified Russian order, she firmly established that the Jews did not have the right to be registered in the Russian towns and harbors, but only in white Russia. By no means is usefulness to be expected from the

migration of Jews into Moscow. In December 1791, she promulgated a highest order U-case, which prohibited Jews, quote, to join the Merchant Guilds of the Inner Provinces, but permitted them, quote, for a limited time to trade reasons to enter Moscow. Jews were allowed to utilize the right to the Merchant Guild in Townsman class only in White Russia. The right to permanent residency and membership in the Townsman class, Catherine continued, was granted in new Russia, now accessible in the vice regencies of Jakaterinislav and Torida. Shortly thereafter, these became the provinces of Yakotarinislav, Torida, and Cherson. That is, Catherine allowed Jews to migrate into the new expansive territories into which Christian merchants and townsmen from the provinces of Interior Russia generally were not permitted to emigrate.

when in 1789, when in 1796, it was made known that groups of Jews already had immigrated into Kiev, Chernigov, and Novgorod, Syrivesk provinces. It was likewise granted that to utilize the right of the Merchant Guild and the townsmen class. what this amounted to, in my opinion, is that the Jews were given permission, sometimes direct, sometimes indirect, to function as if they're a member of the Merchant Guild without having to conform to its specific practices, including the rejection of advertising and undercutting

and stuff like that, sending them into different areas that were just being sent, settled, New Russia, for example, which is close to the Black Sea, you know, and therefore they're connected with the rest of the world there, meant that they were colonizing these areas and dominating them,

and growing tremendously wealthy as an ethnic body in the Russian Empire. And so this is just getting started here. And the problem with debt is that you end up taking, you know, someone defaults, you end up taking their lands either in your own name or someone else's name. And the money just was rolling in. And Russia didn't have that mentality. They weren't a self-interested, self-seeking mercantile group of people, especially in the central provinces. So this was already becoming a disaster for Russia financially.

The pre-revolution Jewish Encyclopedia writes, The U.K.S. of 1791, quote, laid the groundwork for setting up the pale of settlement, even if it wasn't so intended. Under the conditions of the then-obtaining social and civic order in general, and of Jewish life in particular, the administration could not consider bringing about a particularly onerous situation and conclude for them exceptional laws, which among other things would restrict the right of residency. In the context of its time, this few case did not contain that which in this respect would have brought the Jews into a less favorable condition than the Christians. The case of 1791 in no way limited the rights of Jews in

the choice of residency, created no special borders, and for Jews, and for Jews, the way was opened into new regions, into which in general people could not emigrate. The main point of the decree was not concerned with their Jewishness, but that they were traitors. The question was not considered from national or religious point of view, but only from the viewpoint of usefulness. The U-Kees of 1791, which actually privileged Jewish merchants in comparison to Christian ones, was in the course of time the basis for the future pale of settlement, which almost until the revolution cast, as it were, a dark shadow over Russia. By itself, however, the U-Kis of 1791 was not so oppressive in its outworking as to prevent a small Jewish colony from emerging in St. Petersburg

by the end of the reign of Catherine II. Here lived the famous tax leaser Abram Peretz and some of the merchants close to him and also while the religious struggle was in full swing, the rabbi Abkhedor Chumovitz and his opponent, the famous Hasidic Sadik Zalman Burichovich. In 1793 and 1795, the second and third partition of Poland took place in the Jewish population from Lithuania, Poldolia, and Volina, numbering almost a million, came under Russia's jurisdiction. This increase in population was a very significant event, though for a long time not recognized as such. It later influenced the fate of both Russia and the jury of East Europe. after centuries long wandering, Jewry came under one roof

in a single great congregation, quote unquote. You notice that because the cahal is not really functioning like it used to, it's greatly weakening. They weren't able to discipline any of the Hasidic Jews. They, by this point, had become quite powerful

and had a whole different philosophical, more sophisticated point of view than your rabbis who were purely Talmudic in the waning Khaal system. But Shultzhenitsin is absolutely right now. All the problems of the Jews and what they caused in Poland has been totally transferred to Russia to a ruling class that, generally speaking, didn't know what they were getting themselves into. They were simply being told, and you know, this name of Peretz, as you read up here, Abram Peretz, that family and others very much like it, will come up again and again. And in Russian history, or really the history of St. Petersburg. So the Hasidic rabbis could do what they pleased.

So they were in a privileged position compared to Russians. They were highly experienced in manipulation, including manipulation of the state or nobility. And keep in mind something else that so much of new Russia, the closer they get to the Black Sea, the more that they, and they have a folk understanding of this, reestablishing Khazaria. Because some of these colonies, the pale of sediment actually did include portions of the old Khazar Empire. Empire. But don't listen. When people tell you the Jews couldn't leave the pale of settlement, it's a lie. They were all over the Russian Empire. And their position in the pale, generally speaking, was privileged. They were not subject to the draft in war time. But they knew how

more than anything else to manipulate both local and now, St. Petersburg itself, especially using the Senate. And, you know, this is going to have world-shattering consequences. When you go through the early Bolsheviks, you go through their backgrounds. So many of them are from this pale, from wealthy merchant families, post-Kahal, wealthy merchant families. For the most part, you know, semi-isolated, but not entirely so. Jewish nationalists. And once they reached a certain level of wealth, cohesion, and then spread all over the empire, revolution was around the corner, unfortunately.

In the now vastly expanded region of Jewish settlement, the same questions came up as before. The Jews obtained rights of merchant guilds and townsmen, which they had not possessed in Poland, and they got the right to equal participation in the class municipal self-government, then had to accept the restrictions of this status. They could not migrate into the cities of the inner Russian provinces and were liable to be moved out of the villages. With the now huge extent of the Jewish population, the Russian regime no longer had a way to veil the fact

that the Jews continued to live in the villages simply by modeling it as a temporary visit. A burning question was whether the economic condition could tolerate so many tradesmen and traders living amongst the peasants. In order to diffuse the problem, many Steadel were made equal to cities. Thus, the legal possibility came about for Jews to continue living there. But with the large number of Jews in the country and the high population density in the cities,

that was no solution. Now, it seemed to be a natural way out that the Jews would take advantage of the possibility offered by Catherine to settle in the huge, scarcely occupied New Russia. The new settlers were offered inducements, but this did not succeed in setting a colonization movement into motion. Even the freedom of the new settlers from taxes appeared not to be attractive enough to induce such a migration. Thus, Catherine decided in 1794 to induce the Jews to emigrate with contrary measures. The Jews were relocated out of the villages. At the same time, she decided to assess the entire Jewish population with a tax that was double that paid by Christians.

Such attacks had already been paid for a long time by the old believers, but applied to the Jews. This law proved to be neither effective nor of long duration. When we're talking about migration, and this happened actually a few more times, they wanted them to be small landholders and to actually begin cultivation. Again, this naifte, they didn't realize that was absolutely out of the question. even in the lands of the former Kaiser Empire because even there they were in cultivating the land

it was still a mercantile essentially toll-based economy at least that part of it that was that was monetized it just didn't matter the legal establishment in late

18th century Russia was no match for people who almost professionally pour over the text of the Talmud, which is all these, you know, very fine legal arguments on everything you could think of. Reading that thing, even parts of it is brutal. You know, this is way beyond Machiavelli.

And so they could find loopholes in anything. They had no moral standards except their own self-preservation and their own profit. So it's essentially a way to slowly, begin living off of corruption, but then corrupting everyone else, everyone else around them. Monetization in so many parts of the village in West and Southern Russia came from, a Jewish usurias demands. And so I also think that this is a very natural place to stop, only because there's a big

distinction, once Catherine dies, and Paul Short Rain comes in, and then Alexander I think everything changes. And I shouldn't say everything changes. There's a total, there's a substantial alteration and attitudes from the monarchy and those around them. Catherine was a disaster. She didn't really, you know, she shouldn't even have been there in the first place. She was a Germanic background, didn't speak Russian very well, that kind of but we can talk about the D'Urjavan mission which Paul and then Alexander sent several times out to the countryside to find out

why are their constant riots? Why are there so much contempt? They honestly didn't know. And Dershavan starts off as somewhat vaguely phylo-Semitic thinking that he's going to find out that they're jealous or that they're not going to, you know, that they're not a good businessman. And he found out that was absolutely wrong. And so much of what later on became the Russian point of view on Jews came from Djerzavus,

that whole investigative committee that he shared and the reports just from, you know, empirical observation of what Jews were doing in the countryside and in this city. And I think that distinction was not great at the time, at least as far as they were concerned, because they would use this temporary, you know, manipulating the words like temporary. as we talked about before, you know, no one's going to out legal argue a Jew when it comes to their own self-interest.

You know, it isn't going to work, especially Russians at that time. Dershavan and the investigative committee will change. Still, they're going to be able to buy their way into Russian lives. And it's going to be a back and forth throughout the 19th century, we come to the very end of the 18th century now.

and this seat change remove some of the naivte from the Russian monarchy and to a lesser extent the ruling class and that's something that we're going to talk about at some length because it's very important

and very few people even have heard of it before I had already taken notes to say where I had broken off so that we can get into Paul the first reign on the next episode so awesome all right as per usual in the show notes to this will be all the places where people can subscribe to you and to also donate

because yeah this is this is how you make your living and um i look forward to the next episode because this is uh this is where we really start getting into um the meat of a lot of uh let me we've already discussed a lot of resentments that are still felt today but this is where we start getting into a lot of the things that are even more current on their minds. Yeah. And as all this is going on, I mean, precisely as all this is going on, slowly but surely, you have peasants and Russian merchants building this resentment. And just like in Poland, it explodes with the Cossacks in Kimmelnitsky's 1648.

It will continue to explode from time to time, maybe not that systematically. but and because no one wanted that apple card upset you know the western parts of the of the empire were generating a lot of money and cash not just in kind no one wanted that unstable and that's why it was so important to figure out what was going on now what came out of it is a separate issue but all of this is building the pressure cooker is building and and jews simply can't continue to say that that you know we did nothing wrong you're just you're just ignorant you're just going him, you're jealous or whatever it might be. We're just smarter than you.

They can't. And that's part of why this book is very successful and why it was a huge and continues to be a huge seller in Russia itself. And this book, when it came out, changed. Just like things were changing in this point in history, this book itself changed. A lot of elite Russian opinion on the Jews in the Putin era. All right, until the next time.

Thank you, Dr. Johnson. All right, my friend. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. This is part four of our reading of 200 years together by Alexander Solzheny. How are you doing today, Dr. Johnson? I'm doing well. We're kind of snowed in out here, which as far as I'm concerned is a great thing.

But you would think that people who live around here were born and raised in Barbados by the way they complain. I mean, we're in, we're in Appalachia for Christ. This is, this is how it is. But it's absolutely beautiful where I live now. It's all fields and everything. And it's just really, it's absolutely extraordinary. We got four or five inches in Alabama. And you would think that people would have freaked out by that.

And no, it didn't even, I think the only thing that was cleaned out in the local supermarket, in the very small supermarket was milk. That was it. Everybody else was just like, yeah, we're going to stay in the house. I wonder if COVID just hardened everybody to these kind of things. No one really responds to these kind of because, you know, 10 years ago, it would have been mass panic, something like that. Yeah, all the all the milk, eggs, and toast would have been gone because obviously when you're snowed in,

you just eat French toast. That makes sense to me. All right. Here we go. Picking up right where we left off, page 24. and we're off. Those were the last regulations of Catherine. From the end of 1796, Paul I reigned.

The Jewish Encyclopedia evaluates him in this way. The time of the angry rule of Paul I passed well for the Jews. All edicts of Paul I concerning the Jews indicate that the monarch was tolerant and benevolent toward the Jewish population. When the interest of Jews conflicted with Christians, Paul I first by no means automatically cited with the Christian. Even when in 1797 he ordered measures to reduce the power of the Jews and the spirituals over the peasants,

this was actually not set up against the Jews. The point was the protection of the peasants. Paul recognized also the right of the Hasidim not to have to live in secrecy. He extended the right of Jews to belong to the merchant and townsman class, even to the Corland province, which was no Polish inheritance, and later it also did not belong to the pale of settlement. Consistent with the policy, he denied the respective petitions of the parishes of Kofno, Kamenes, Purosk, Kiev, and Vilna, and to be permitted to move the Jews out of their cities. Paul had it inherited the stubborn resistance of the Polish landholders against any changing of their

rights. Among these was the right over the Jews and the right to hold court over them. They misused these rights often. Thus, the complaint of the Jews of Berichich, Ukraine, against the princes of Razzavil, stated, in order to hold our religious services, we must first pay gold to those to whom the prince has leased our faith. And against Catherine's former favorite, Simon Zorich, one ought not to have to pay him for the air one breathes. In Poland, many Stedel and cities were the possession of nobles, and the landowners assessed arbitrary and opportunistic levies that the residents had to pay. This is one of these really balzy statements.

I know the verbiage here in translation is a little muddled, but the Jews somehow are projecting what everyone else in the Polish Empire, when it existed was complaining about them. They're simply accusing everyone else of the exact same thing. The truth is the opposite was the case. Jews continued to hold in former Polish areas, the leases to pretty much everything. And just like the Khazar Empire charged tolls on it.

And I think what he means here by spirituals, I don't remember, because I've translated bits and pieces of this, by spirituals, I think he means certain hands. heretics. I also inherited from Sosinians and non-Trinitarians. They weren't huge in Russia.

They're not talking about old believer. I think that's what he's talking about. Unless it's just a, I don't know where the, I don't know what the word is that he's translating that way. Do you think, could it possibly be liquor? Well, the way he states it, it sounds like he's referring, oh, reduce the power.

of the Jews and the spirituals. Yeah, it's possible. It sounds like they're referring to a group of people. Yeah, yeah, it does, yeah. So it could be. It could be just a strange, you know, spirits. It's just muddled in how it's stated. But we'll talk here in a minute about the commissions

to study the Jewish problem in the Western parts of the empire. By Zar Paul, by the way, has been canonized. for a whole bunch of very good reasons. I have an icon of him in my office here. And part of it was eventually what he was to the, at least in part, against the Jews. Because everywhere they go, you have even small towns were begging the authorities to allow him to throw the Jews out.

It's everywhere. And for all the same reasons. And because St. Petersburg wasn't all that aware of the Jewish mind at the time, although they were slowly getting an education, the commissions of Der Javen will change the Russian point of view on the Jews, probably forever. Der Javen and the Belarus famine.

Since the start of the reign of Paul I, there was a great famine in white Russia, especially in the province of Minsk. The poet Gavrilla Romanovich Derzavin, then serving as senator, was commissioned to go there and determine its cause and seek a solution, For which task he received no money to buy grain, but instead had the right to confiscate possessions of negligent landowners, saw their stockpile, and distribute them.

Der Javin was not just a great poet, but also an outstanding statesman who left behind unique proofs of his effectiveness, which we will want to delve into in the following. The famine, as Der Javen confirmed, was unimaginable. He writes, when I arrived in White Russia, I personally convinced myself at the great scale. a grain among the villagers. Due to the very serious hunger, virtually all nourished themselves from fermented grass mixed with a tiny portion of meal or pearl barley. The peasants were malnourished and sallow like dead people. In order to remedy this, I found out which of the rich landowners had grain in their storehouses, took it to the town center and distributed it to the poor, and I commanded the goods of a Polish count, in view of such pitiless greed, to be yielded to a trustee.

After the nobleman was made aware of the dire situation, he awoke from his slumber or better, from his shocking indifference towards humanity. He used every means to feed the peasants by acquiring grain from neighboring provinces, and when after two months the harvest time arrived, the famine ended. When D'Ur Javan visited the provincial government, he so pursued the noble rulers and district police captains that the nobility banded together and sent the Tsar a scurrilous complaint against Zerjavan. And that's something for the rest of his life he's going to have to deal with.

Why don't you keep going for a couple of paragraphs, because then I'm going to have a lot to say after that. Okay. Der Javin discovered that the Jewish schnaps distiller's exploited the alcoholism of the peasants, quoting, after I had discovered that the Jews were profit-seeking, used the lure of drink to beguile grain from the peasants, converted into brandy and therewith cause a famine. I commanded that they should close their distilleries in the village of Riosno.

I informed myself from sensible inhabitants, as well as nobles, merchants, and villagers about the manner of the life of the Jews, their occupations, their deceptions, and all their pedigogging with which they provide the poor, dumb villagers with hunger, and on the other hand, by what means one could protect them from the common pack and how to facilitate for them an honorable and respectable way out to enable them to become useful citizens. Afterwards in the autumn months, Dersavon described many evil practices of the Polish landlords and Jewish leasers in his memorandum on the mitigation of famine in white Russia and in the lifestyles of the Jews, which he also made known to the Tsar and the highest officials of the state. This memorandum is a very comprehensive document that evaluates the conditions inherited from the polls

as well as the possibilities for overcoming the poverty of the peasants, describing the peculiarities of the Jewish way of life of that time and includes a proposal for reform in comparison to Prussia and Austria. The very explicit practical presentation of the recommended measures makes this the first work of an enlightened Russian citizen concerning Jewish life in Russia in those first years in which Russia acquired Jews in a large mass. That makes it a work of special interest. The memorandum consists of two parts.

One, on the residents of white Russia in general, in reviews of the memorandum, we usually find no mention of this important part. And two, on the Jews. All right, so I can't overstate the importance of this. As far as Russian history is concerned, and this is a document that you would think a lot of our people would be very interested in but is almost nowhere to be found

until this book came out because and there's two czarth that are going to send him from the Senator Javan to investigate both Paul and Alexander their concern was

because there was a lot of unrest against the Jews they needed to figure out what was causing it. We know what was causing it, but at the time they didn't know because there was quite a bit of money to be made there. They didn't want that apple card upset at all.

So initially, it was called the Committee for the Organization of Jewish Life under the two emperors. And Dershaven was not an anti-Semite, if anything, he was a phylo-Semite. He was very neutral in this regard.

And let me quote directly, from the Senate, their draft, I translated myself from Katosonov, who mentioned it in 1993, the draft and purpose of the mission of the committee. And it says, to discover the cause of the financial complaints from peasants and the nature of their livelihood. These complaints are to the detriment of agriculture and economic life generally in these areas where the Jews live. This committee will deal with these issues and seek funds to remedy the present situation of the Jews. So there was a great interest in civic peace here. It's difficult to bring in an entirely, almost half a country into an empire.

It's always a delicate operation. And so Zarpaul, who was a very good man in all respects, was very concerned that this ought to be objective. He maybe naively wanted to incorporate Jews into Russia without creating friction. Well, good luck with that. it also was this area was very ethnically mixed. Of course, the Cossacks were there, Ukrainians, Poles, obviously, Germans, Hungarians and Czechs. So he had to tread very lightly. The context is that the Baltic grain trade, although it was up and down depending on the era, it continued to be very profitable.

So maintaining peace in that part of the empire was a not just a security issue, but an economic necessity. Now, throughout this period of time, the revolutionaries in France, of course, loathed the Russian monarchy, thought maybe that approaching the Polish elites and create a pseudo-nationalist movement to separate themselves from the empire,

that meant that this situation became even more great, because you really can't talk about Polish elite without talking about Jews. So in both of these commissions, under both emperors, the purpose was to understand the social relations in the area, and it was even put in such a way that it was to assist Jews in their transition from Polish to Russian rule. So this was not a negative thing.

But Orthodox peasants were to get a fair hearing as to why they're so upset, why the unrest is constant, why they always want to throw the Jews out of their towns. and of course the two purposes are very closely related. Now initially Drozhavins said he wasn't even talking about the Jews. He was motivated primarily by ending the arrogant action of Polish nobles, not Jews necessarily. Initially he saw the Jews as just like employees of the Poles. But pretty soon that's going to be, that error is going to be dispelled.

And a lot of the members of this commission, which he chaired, most of the names here are not Russian Yopatoki Zartorki and Kachubay who is Minister of the Interior these aren't necessarily Russian names so you had

Poles here who had connections with these Polish elites and these are Polish elite names anyway so if anything it was it was weighed in their favor they were very close to aristocratic Polish interests and Jewish money so there's no way

You can call this commission anti-Jewish or anti-Polish. But the very fact that these guys, these lifelong enemies of Russia have already been integrated as senators, show you how the Zardom viewed ethnic relations. But also, as we said last time, Jews in fairly small numbers, but with a lot of money are already infiltrating Russia's major cities. East Olsen, Yitzin will mention that too.

Ginsburg, Noyiken, Peretz especially. Many of them in, well, maybe 100 years from then, they're going to be buying up the sugar plantations or beet plantations in Ukraine. A lot of the railroads were financed by them, just like the Rothschild did in Austria. And the Lena Goldworks. So the Jewish Encyclopedia may say

that it was illegal for Jews to own land, there was no laws restricting it, at least at the time. And the Cahal, of course, was the core institution. So they wanted to integrate Jews into the system, despite being raised in this Cajal system. So, and we've already spoken about the Polish nobility and what their members. motivation is for bringing these Jews in and keeping them as a lot more than just

accounts. The alliance between Polish nobles and Nikahal, even under Russia, seemingly was unbreakable. So let's continue here, but I've translated pieces of Dersavins' essays, and I've used a writer by the name of Vladimir Kolskyakov writing in a Belarusian journal who covered, you know, once I discovered this, In Sultan Eaton's book, I just read everything I could on this topic. I came across a lot of amazing things. This is how my paper came into existence. And we'll catch up with all that here in a little bit.

Dejaven begins by establishing that the agricultural economy was in shambles. The peasants there were lazy on the job, not clever. They procrastinate every small task and are sluggish and field work. Year in, year out, they eat unwinnowed corn in the spring. Kolatucha or Bolatusha from eggs and rye meal. In summer they content themselves with a mixture of a small amount of some grain or other with chopped and cooked grass. They are so weakened that they stagger around. The local Polish landlords are not good proprietors.

They do not manage the property themselves but lease it out, a Polish custom. But for the least, there are no universal rules protecting the peasants from overbearing or to keep the business aspect from falling apart. Many greedy leasers by imposing hard work and oppressive taxes bring the people into a bad way and transform them into poor homeless peasants. This lease is all the worst for being short term, made for one to three years at a time so that the leaser hastens to get his advantage from it without regard to the exhausting of the estate.

The emancipate... No, no, no. You're fine. One more paragraph will be good. Okay. The emaciation of the peasants was sometimes even worse. Several landlords that leased as traffic in spirits in their village to the Jews signed stipulations that the peasants may only buy their necessities from these leasers, triple price.

Likewise, the peasants may not sell their product to anyone except the Jewish leaseholder, cheaper than the market price. Thus, they plunge the villagers into misery, and especially when they distribute again their hoarded grain. They must finally give a double portion. Whoever does not do it is punished. The villagers are robbed of every possibility to prosper and be full. So it doesn't take long for Dersavid in this committee,

regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, to realize what was going on here. This was an abuse of the peasantry that, it's not even serfdom at this point. So, of course, peasants weren't lazy. That's just a manner of speaking. They couldn't work. They were malnourished. But keep in mind, he also noticed that the barns were full of grain and they were either going to export or for alcohol.

Now, D'Javvin's powers, I think we already mentioned, they were mostly, they were mostly for information, but he could order abuses to end as far as food distribution. He did order the distribution of the produce specifically from one Polish noble Ognizki.

And he wrote Emperor Paul saying that he has the names of these offending landlords deliberately starving peasants. And he stopped a cart. And this is from the Kozlovakov article from 2014. he stopped a cart, a small caravan in Belarus

owned by powerful Jewish merchants, full of grain and flour. And he ordered that to go back to its initial owner and be distributed to the peasants. He absolutely forced landlords to make permanent adjustments to their way of living. But Polish nobles were doing this, of course, at the behest of Jews.

they were both profiting tremendously. Even things like short-term leases, well, that means that they could just raise the price because of the export trade, which was booming at the time. There was a huge demand in the West for Russian grain through the Baltic ports. That means the mass of production had to be increasing.

And so the peasants were pressed very, very hard. But of course, in a contradictory kind of way, remember these were mostly absentee landlords they weren't necessarily they're being able to see the fields this is very common at the time Jews were giving them this information and that's something else

Dershavin said nine years at a minimum and this has to be enforced he wanted the vodka monopoly to end I mean he and this is the significance of the Tsarist system because Paul had the power to do this you could never do this in a republic. You couldn't do this in the U.S. today.

But obviously now, just right away, within a very short period of time, he's making some powerful enemies. But obviously, both the Poles and the Jews were very, very much alarmed. Now, let me quote D'Javvin here. I translated this. Oh, hey, actually, no. Yeah, my first quote here is actually from Shulteneaton, or is it included. in the book. But Shulton Isson will go on here. We'll see in a little bit to detail a lot of the specific methods used to torment these poor people. And it really is, it really is sad showing the mentality of, of that system just

at the time it became part of the Russian Empire. I think a lot of the people who are listening to this will try to apply it to like today, like our system and say, oh, they're just being, they're just being due they're making bad decisions. I don't think they realize they're not living under the same system or even caste structure that we, you know, they have a caste structure that isn't really a caste structure, but you know what I mean.

And I think people just look at it, oh, how could they be, well, it's, these people aren't exactly free. They're not like, you know, it's like if, if things are bad in Alabama, you can move, you know, you can move to Montana if you have, you know,

if you have the means to do it. these people don't really have options. That's correct. Then he develops in more detail the problem of the liquor distilling. Schnops was distilled by the landlords, the landed nobility, the schlachta of the region, the priest, monks, and Jews. Of the almost million Jews,

two to three thousand live in the villages and live mainly from the liquor traffic. The peasants, after bringing in the harvest, are sweaty and careless in what they spend, They drink, eat, enjoy themselves, pay the Jews for their old debts, and then whatever they ask for drinks. Whatever they ask for drinks. For this reason, the shortages already manifest by winter. In every settlement, there is at least one, and in several settlements,

a few taverns built by the landlords, where for their advantage and that of the Jewish leaseholders, liquor is sold day and night. There the Jews trick them out of not only the life-sustaining grain, but that which is sown in the field, field implements, household items, health, and even their life. And all that is sharpened by the moors of the Koleva. Jews travel, especially during the harvest in autumn through the villages, and after they have made the farmer, along with his whole family drunk, drive them into debt and take from them every last thing needed to survive.

In that, they box the drunkard's ears and plunder him. The villager is plunged into the deepest misery. He lists also other reasons for the impoverishing of the peasants. Doubtless behind these fateful distilleries stand the Polish landlords. Propriterer and leaser act in behalf of the owner and attends to making a profit. To this class, Gessen asserts belong not just the Jews, but also Christians, especially priests. But the Jews were an irreplaceable, active, and very inventive link in the chain of exploitation of these illiterate emaciated peasants. that had no rights on their own.

If the white Russian settlement had not been injected with Jewish tavern managers and leasers, then the widespread system of exploitation would not have functioned, and removing the Jewish links in the chains would have ended it. And this is the first time that something so bold and clear and obvious was stated to people with power. But it put the emperor in a very difficult position. money was clearly coming in here almost as if to buy the

cooperation of the authorities but the whole point of Drozavon's mission was that this you know this can't continue the export trade was tremendous but Paul being the emperor that he was said very much like we heard with

the Empress Elizabeth a couple last week maybe saying that it doesn't matter the profit is not coming first here. The very fact that the nature of, you know, the nature of serfdom, even though that's a very broad word, it's not inherently exploitative. But when you add this kind of manipulation, we take this stuff for granted, advertising, public relations, flowery words used to fool people. That's kind of normal. You see it on TV all the time, but this is something that a lot of people

especially in the Russian cities, we're not used to. And the manipulation was extremely, the very fact that they were taking advantage of alcoholism, promoting it, was foundational here. Something else, D'ar Chauvin had a huge problem with. And that was the foundation for everything else that came after it,

that so long as we have them hooked on this stuff, we could do what we pleased. It is, however, self-defeating. Regardless of what you think about the signs in this conflict, it was a totally unsustainable system because their health is going to give way. You need workers, but the population was growing, and I suppose this could be for the medium term, you know, it lasted this long. But as the grain prices went up, the intensity of the oppression also went up, squeezing every bit.

And so this is what D'Javan sees. As soon as he gets off his horse, he sees something that I don't think we would be prepared to look at. And this was considered normal in the western parts of the Russian Empire. After this, Dershavin recommended energetic measures, as for example, for the expurgation of these burdens of peasant life. The landlords would need to attend to this problem. Only they alone, who are responsible for the peasants,

should be allowed to distill liquor. under their own supervision and not from far-remove places, and to see to it that every year a supply of grain for themselves and the peasants would be on hand, and indeed as much as would be needed for good nutrition. If the danger arises that this is not done, then the property is to be confiscated for the state coffers. The Schenops distilling is to begin no sooner than the middle of September and end middle of April. The whole time of land cultivation is to be free of liquor consumption. In addition, the liquor is not to be sold during worship services or night. The liquor stores should only be permitted in the main streets near the markets, mills, and establishments where foreigners gather. But all the superfluous and newly built liquor stores, whose number has greatly increased since the annexation of White Russia, are immediately to cease use for that purpose.

the sale of liquor in them to be forbidden. In villages and out-of-the-way places, there should not be any that the peasant not sink into drunkenness. Jews, however, should not be permitted to sell liquor either by the glass or the keg, nor should they be the brewmasters in the distilleries, and they should not be allowed to lease the liquor stores. Kolodas are also to be forbidden, as well as the short-term leasing of operations.

By means of exacting stipulations, the leaser is to be prevented from working at operation into the ground. Under threat of punishment is market abuse to be forbidden, by which the landlords do not permit their peasants to buy what they need somewhere else or to sell their surplus somewhere other than to the proprietor. There were still other economic proposals. In the manner the scarcity of food can in the future be prevented in the white Russian province. And this is just, you know, Dershavin had to sit down and figure out how the system worked. Keep in mind that the Koldov system was very insidious. It was simply, but simple, getting peasants drunk specifically at harvest time, because they had money then. And to entice them to take out larger loans at, of course, you know, very high rates.

But Dershavin did not want to bring this news back to the capital because the implications, and he did. of course, but the implications are tremendous. Since Jews function as the middlemen of the Polish economy, whether in Russia or in the old Polish empire, if you want to solve the peasant problem, you either expropriated them or assimilate them. Emperor Paul,

I think very naively, had a third option and that was settling these Jews on the land as small proprietors. And nearly every Jew refused this. They were not going to become business. It's not nearly as profitable as what they were, unproductive parasites.

Jews made their money gouging peasants, and they took from the lords all the time, because they were going in. They were capital to be manipulated. And we'll see here in this book, we're still in part one of this book. Solzhenitsyn will quote Dershavin's own writings on this at length. And at the time,

when I discovered this, it wasn't in English yet. So we'll get here in a second to exactly what Drozavins said about the nature of the system. And this also includes Jewish ownership over Orthodox and even Catholic parishes. I mean, yeah, Polish nobles were as illiterate as peasants were. But so it's not just that peasants were often ethnically alien, especially to the Jewish mind, but they were religiously alien. That makes exploiting them, destroying them much easier than if they were of the same stuff.

So you couldn't even get married. If Jewish owned the lease on an Orthodox church, you couldn't get married without paying them. On top of everything else, you were paying them. And this in particular was very obnoxious to the peasants. Peasants, by the way, that had proven to the world that they were very efficient, cultivators of tremendous amounts of grain, but none of that benefited them.

Starting from the Renaissance, you know, we're talking even 300 years. A spike in Western populations, which was continuing, drove grain prices through the roof. That's where the money economy came from, urban development came from. And the higher, as I said, the higher the price goes, the more the oppression develops. So this was incredibly obnoxious. So the Slavic grain was exported by a Jewish network, headquartered in several cities. You know, as far as I can see, it was Antwerp, Constantinople, Krakow, Poland, of course, and London. And they had satellite branches in Spain and Amsterdam and a very small one, even in St. Petersburg.

So they had access to capital that no one else, no one else did. Now, there were poorer Jews. I think we talked about that already within the Kahaal system. which was weakening but was not gone. But it was incredibly obnoxious. And the only people who really profited from them were the nobles on the one side, Polish landowners on the one side,

and of course their Jewish advisors on the other. In the second part of the memorandum, Zerzavin going out from the task given by the Senate submitted a suggestion for the transformation of the life of the Jews in the Russian kingdom. Not in isolation, but rather in the context of the misery of white Russia, and with a goal to improve the situation. But here he set himself the assignment

to give a brief overview of Jewish history, especially the Polish period, in order to explain the current customs of the Jews. Among others, he used the conversations with the Berlin-educated enlightened Jew physician Ilya Frank, who put his own thoughts down in writing. Quote, The Jewish popular teachers mingle mystic Talmudic pseudo-exegesis of the Bible

with the true spirit of the team. teachings. They expound strict laws with the goal of isolating the Jews from other peoples and to instill a deep hatred against every other religion. Instead of cultivating a universal virtue, they contrive an empty ceremony of honoring God. The moral character of the Jews has changed in the last century to their disadvantage, and in consequence they have become pernicious subjects. In order to renew the Jews morally and politically, they have to be brought to the point of returning to the original purity of their, to the original purity of their religion. The Jewish reform in Russia must begin with the foundation of public schools in which the Russian,

German, and Jewish languages would be taught. What kind of prejudice is it to believe that the assimilation of secular knowledge is tantamount to a betrayal of religion and folk and that working the land is not suitable for a Jew? Derjavin declined in his memorandum a suggestion by Noda Heimovich, not Nottingen, a major merchant from Sklof, whom he had also met. Although Notkin demurred from the most important conclusions and suggested to D'Urjavan that had to do with Jews, he was at the same time in favor, if possible, of excluding Jews from the production of liquor and saw it as needful for them to get an education and pursue a

productive career, preferably working with their hands, whereby he also helped. out the possibility of emigration into the fruitful step for the purpose of raising sheep and crops. Yeah, good luck with that. But that was the attempt all the way until Zarnik was the second to try to create something where, you know, but these people are claiming to be the nobles of the world, the mediators of the world, the presence of God on earth. They are not going to pull weeds. that's for the cattle. I'm not so sure if your typical Polish noble, especially the large ones, was there on hand

to see what was going on. They were getting, of course, information from their middlemen. The Jews were there on hand. So the point so far is that you can't get a more objective understanding of how the Jews operated in the Polish Empire or the Russian.

than this from a guy who didn't even want who didn't even think the Jews were the problem he soon realized that they were the problem there is no way

getting around this which is why you don't hear about it very much even in text dealing with you know surfdom in central Europe

or something like that Eastern Europe doesn't come up because there's absolutely nothing there's no answering this this is how it was

this was the mentality coming from Kizari that created the modern Talmudic Jew and this experience solidified all of this in their mind. This is how money is to be made. This is who we are.

And if there's any kind of a reaction, you know, the Messiah is coming soon. You know, they always seem to think that. So they have no limits on their behavior. And then we truly will be the masters of the planet. This was normal. This was fully acceptable. to the Jewish mind at the time.

And this shocked a lot of people. And of course, needless to say, Dershavin was in a lot of trouble for bringing this back to St. Petersburg. Following the explanation of Frank, who rejected the power of the Kehalot, Dershavin proceeded from the same general consequences. The original principles of pure worship and ethics

of the Jews has been transformed into false concepts by which the simple Jewish people is misled and constantly is so led, so much so that between them and those of other faiths, a wall has been built that cannot be broken through, which has been made firm, a wall that firmly binds the Jews together, and surrounded by darkness, separates them from their fellow citizens. Thus, in raising their children, they paid plenty for Talmud instruction, and that without time limit, as long as the students continue in their current conditions, there is no prospect for a change in their ways. They believe themselves to be the true worshippers of God and despise everyone of a different faith.

There the people are brought to a constant expectation of the Messiah. They believe that their Messiah, by overthrowing all earthlings will rule over them in flesh and blood and restore to them their former kingdom, fame, and glory. Of the youths, he wrote, they marry all too young, sometimes before they reach ten years old, and though nubile, they are not strong enough. Regarding the Kaha'al system, the inner Jewish collection of levies provides to the Kehalat every year an enviable sum of income that is incomparably higher than the state taxes that are raised from individuals in the census lists.

The Kaha'al elders do not excuse anyone from the accounting. As a result, their poor masses find themselves in the condition of severe emaciation, and great poverty, and there are many of them. In contrast, the members of the Kahal are rich and live in superfluity. By ruling over both levers of power, the spiritual and secular, they have a great power over the people. In this way, they hold them in great poverty and fear. The Kahelot issues to the people every possible command,

which must be performed with such exactitude and speed, that one can only wonder. It's no accident that Dersavin went to various Jewish scholars, usually of German background, who were part of the, you know, the so-called Jewish Enlightenment, because these were the people who first started talking about how powerful the Talmud was over the minds of the Kholl, especially in Eastern Europe. The fact that they were paying for this instruction. Now, of course, this is a massive group of books, but it seems to me it makes sense that the part of the, Talmud that they were specifically interested in were the parts where they condemn the Gentiles

as animals and everything else and that justifies things like slavery and usury and profiting at the expense of others. Occasionally it was the Jews but that that was technically against the rules and the Talmud ends up being both a religious or for religious justification as well as a secular

one because their incomes were guaranteed by the unity and the cohesion that the Talmud studies provided. This is extremely important. And I think many of them at the time saw the Talmud essentially a secular book that gives us instruction as to who we are and what we're supposed to do. And so as always, even though they were in Eastern Europe in great numbers, cohesion matters more than anything else and that's why alcohol

and manipulation and I remember these taverns wasn't just alcohol you know they had prostitutes there their version of whatever pornography was back there which also comes up in a lot of the pest and complaints to St. Petersburg they saw them as animals

and wanted to keep them in a state as animalistic as possible and therefore again D'Javan was in a rough position because he had to say this. He wrote about this at great length, realizing, though, that this is now putting the Russian government in a

position where it's going to have to, to some extent, intervene and disrupt the financial cash cow that that part of the empire had become. Dejaven identified the problem thusly. The Jews' great numbers in white Russia

is itself a heavy burden for the land on account of the disproportion to that of the crop farmers. This disproportionation, is the outstanding one of several important reasons that produces here a shortage of grain in other edible stores. Not one of them was a crop farmer at that time, yet each possessed and gobbled up more grain than the peasant with his large family, who had harvested it by the sweat of his brow. After all, in the villages, they are occupied in giving the peasant all their necessities on credit at an extraordinary rate of interest, and thus the peasant, who at some time or other

became a debtor to them can no longer get free of it. Arching over this are the frivolous landlords that put their villages into Jewish hands, not just temporarily but permanently. The landowners, however, are happy to be able to shift everything onto the Jews. According to their own words, they regard the Jews as a sole reason for the wasting of the peasants, and the landlord only rarely acknowledges that he, if they were removed from his holdings, would suffer no small loss since he receives from them no small income from the lease. And that last point is what we've been talking about since this began.

What I've been talking about in my historical work in this part of the world for decades, it became a symbiotic relationship very difficult to sustain, and the victims were the peasantry. and despite their much greater numbers, they were in no position physically or mentally to band together against them. And they were apparently easy to manipulate.

And remember, this is at the very beginning of the monetization of the economy. Something that your average peasant was very, was not used to. Jews were very much used to it. I don't even think the lords were used to it. But money then became this kind of talisman a symbol rather than actual products of the peasant made.

So D'Urzavin was forced to conclude, and many Polish nobles too, now that they're under a very different kind of government, that this relationship was completely unhealthy, unsustainable, and they're destroying everything in their pan. It's purely parasitic. The Jews produced absolutely nothing here. and the absentee landlord. I mean, they have some excuse because they were rarely on most of these properties.

So, you know, they have some excuse, not an entire excuse, but this was absolutely unjustified no matter what. The Talmud, however, absolutely justified it. And that's why the Jews were in a very special position here, and they continue to be. Thus, D'Javan did not neglect to examine the matter from a variety of angles. In fairness to the Jews, we must point out also that during this grain shortage, they have

taken care to feed not a few hungry villagers, though everyone also knows that that came with a bill. Upon the harvest being brought in, they will get it back a hundredfold. In a private report to the attorney general, Der Javin wrote, it is hard not to err by putting all the blame on one side. The peasants booze away their grain with the Jews and suffer under its shortage. The landholders cannot forbid drunkenness, for they owe almost all their income to the distilling of liquor. And all the blame cannot be placed even on the Jews that they take the last morsel of bread away from the peasant to earn their own life sustenance.

To Ilya Frank, Der Jaubin once said, since the providence of this tiny scattered people has preserved them until the present, we must take care for their protection. And in his report, he wrote with the uprightness of that time, if the most high providence to the end of some unknown purpose leaves, on account of his purposes, this dangerous people to live on the earth, then governments under whose scepter they have sought protection must bear it. They are thus obligated to extend their protection to the Jews so that they may be useful both to themselves and to the society in which they dwell.

Because of all observations in white Russia and of his conclusion, and of all he wrote in the memorandum, and especially because of all these lines, and probably also because he praised the keen vision of the great Russian monarchs, which forbade the immigration and travel of these clever robbers into their realm, is D'Ur Javin spoken of as a fanatical enemy of Jews, a great anti-Semite. He is accused, though unjustly, as we have seen, of imputing the drunkenness and poverty of the white Russian peasant exclusively to the Jews, and his positive measures were characterized as given without evidence to serve his personal ambition. Yeah, he was called, you know, even by now, amongst high society Jews had a tremendous influence. It was growing.

It wasn't huge in St. Peterborough, but it was growing. The Jews were putting out newspapers. They were well armed. These weren't innocent people, militarily speaking. They could fight back. But this had been hidden from public view for four centuries. And neither Paul nor Alexander had any preconceived notion here.

They were never prejudiced against them. Djos had no animus against Jews before that. And, you know, as I've said a hundred times, the commission exposed something that put the... state in a very difficult position. The resettlement plan, which came from Zarpal, it was only partially carried

out. He was, by the way, murdered soon after. Alexander I would reorganize the whole thing. He didn't continue Paul's policies, though. And don't forget, at this very same time, when Alexander I took over, Napoleon was talking about restoring the

Sanhedron in the Middle East under his protection. So this was kind of this proto-Zionism suggested that Jews would become the declared enemy of anyone who would rival the French emperor. So the concept in Paul's mind and Alexander's mind, well, if they're satisfied with Russian rule, they would have no reason to serve Napoleon. Yeah, again, naive. So, but rather than, you know, expelling them, which was, it would be extremely difficult to do and very costly, his primary concern was to ensure a loyal Jewish presence in Western Russia.

The second committee, which under Alexander, and I'm quoting it here, the committee was to carefully consider the proposals of Der Zavid and make observations and to the improvement of the Jews, not only in Belarus, but also in other regions purchased from Poland as well as in the provinces of the south. So even at this point, there was absolutely no animus. against the Jews here. But there was a lot of animus against Dershavon and Paul from the Cajal. But that he was in no wise prejudice against the Jews is indicated in that his whole memorandum

emerged in 1800 in response to the actual misery and hunger of the peasants. The goal was to do well by both the white Russian peasants and the Jews. He distinguished them economically and, his desire was to orient the Jews toward a real productive activity of whom, as Catherine planned, a part first and foremost was supposed to have been relocated in territories that were not closed. As a critical difficulty, Der Javin saw the instability and transientness of the Jewish population, of which scarcely one-sixth was included in the census. Without a special extraordinary effort, it is difficult to count them accurately.

because being in cities, Stettel, Manor, Chors, villages, and taverns, they constantly move back and forth. They do not identify themselves as local residents

but as guests that are here from another district or colony. Moreover, they all look alike and have the same name and have no surname. And not only that, all wear the same black garments.

One cannot distinguish them and misidentifies them when they are registered or identified, especially in connection with judicial complaints and investigations. therein the Kehlot takes care not to disclose the real number in order to not unduly burden their wealthy with taxes for the number registered. The very structure of this institution was adversarial to any government that they were, that they were, you know, whose territory they were in.

They didn't have, you know, they didn't have surnames. you have no way to identify them they were constantly moving they saw themselves as aliens their sole purpose is to exploit the goyum around them by one way or another

no real principles other than that there was no way to you know it's difficult to arrest them it's difficult to treat them you know you don't know who's who clearly they're all

you know they look alike I mean they're not kidding here there was simply no way to to track them down the worst of them down they were they didn't identify themselves as local residents because they weren't local residents they were constantly in motion they had no connection to any place especially in in in a Christian country and except as enemies except as parasites there's no other way to state it and no one could could debate this here. Let's do one more section

and then we'll move on and pick up on the next episode. You mean a paragraph? Is it one paragraph and you'll be and you'll comment and then we'll be we can move on? All right. D'Javan sought, however, a comprehensive

solution to reduce the number of Jews in the white Russian villages without causing damage to anyone and thus to ease the feeding of the original residence, yet at the same time for those that should remain to provide better and less degrading possibilities for earning their sustenance. In addition, he probed how to reduce their fanaticism and without retreating in the slightest from the rule of toleration toward different religions, to lead them by a barely noticed way to enlightenment, and after expunging their

hatred of people of other faiths, above all, to bring them to give up their besetting intention of stealing foreign goods. The goal was to find a way to separate the freedom of religious conscience from the freedom from punishment of evil deeds. Again, yes, it's naive. But there wasn't much more they can do. The money economy was in their hands. The grain trade was in their hands.

It wasn't as if the peasants were able to. to take over and do much for themselves. That would take a long time. But again, this is the first time the Talmud was exposed and pointed to in Russia as the cause here and all of the means of manipulation. You did have a handful of Russians

who could read the language. I would think more in Kiev than anywhere else. But essentially, he's saying we want to keep Jews from being Jews you know this is their

Khazar background this is this is simply what they do so long as they're in exile so long as they are in Christian or any other non-Jewish land and that that concept never quite you know and if they press too hard you're going to have constant unrest

the most productive elements of that part of the country we're going to have to leave and so they're in trouble either way. And that goes from from this point in history all the way up to 1917. It was a constant problem after the collapse of Poland because there really was no obvious solution given the circumstances here. Except, and again, to think that they're just going to give up this, give up their tremendously profitable life, appealing to their humanity or something like that, was naive, but they didn't think they had a choice.

here at the dawn of the 19th century. I think a lot of people will look at this and as I said earlier think, well, they're, I mean, it's the, it's the peasant's fault for being exploited. And really, if you understand the situation, if you understand the, if you have an understanding of what the average peasant, what their worldview was, what their education was, really what you're looking at is you're basically looking at like if a parent, exploited a child. And that's kind of a good,

that's kind of, I think it's a good comparison because when you consider that, you know, these people really should be considering all that they've been given, there should be a sense of noblesse oblige to the, to these peasants. I mean, that's just what makes it all the more insidious. Yeah, and that was never going to happen.

Peasants were shrewd. they were brilliant on the land, the way that they, you know, dealt with animals. The city people always thought they had special powers because they could, you know, they knew the cycles of nature so extremely well. Yeah, they couldn't explain it in scientific terms, but they actually were highly intelligent. They were very motor. And, you know, as the years went on, they became very political too, at least a certain stratum. in the Polish Empire, of course, the Cossacks were the core of their rebellion. They rebelled all the time.

But after Catherine destroyed the Zaporosia, smashed their fortresses, Peter had done the same a hundred years earlier, the Cossack military force was now not really the factor that it was, you know, for Kim Milyniewski's time. They didn't have the armed assistance of paramilitary organization to assist them. There were plenty of uprisings, especially under Catherine. Of course, Pugachev occurred under Catherine, where also an old believer rebellion. But, and that's exactly, though, what Zarr Paul and Alexander wanted to avoid.

They didn't want to play into anyone's hands, especially the enemy. This is, you know, the era of revolutionary France here. and that's all they needed was to play into French hands. So they were in a very difficult position. And Dersavannik exposed this and what they do to Dershavin, you know, late, I mean, he died a natural death.

Paul didn't, unfortunately. But Dershavent's reputation, they dragged through the mud for no other reason and they realized that he was right, showing even at this point how powerful the Jews were in the Russian Empire, despite their few numbers. numbers in places like St. Petersburg.

All right. We'll pick up right in the middle of the page on the next episode. And once again, I encourage people to go to the show notes. They will be linked everywhere. And I actually have hot links on wherever the videos are so that you can support Dr. Johnson's work. And I appreciate that. Once again, yeah. And once again, thank you. And until part five.

I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekanino show. We are here for part five of 200 years together by Alexander Solzhenice. And I listened back to one of the episodes that we did. And I actually said in the beginning that his name was Alexander Solzhenisky. I actually pronounced it that way. I felt like a tarred after I did that. We've all done things like that. I do weird things like that all the time.

Yeah, I could assure you. You know not it's hard. I promise. Okay. So how are you doing? Well, I'm doing very well. The snow keeps coming down. Makes me very happy. You know, we are snowed in an Appalachia, and it puts me in a good mood.

I have to tell you. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Being trapped, being what people call trapped inside the house, as long as you have everything you need is not as bad as a lot of people try to make it out to be. Yep.

That's very true. No complaints out of me. Yep. All right. So we have, we're going to start, pick up where we left off. And this is a long paragraph. So let's just jump right in. Thereafter, he laid out by layers and explicitly the measures to be recommended.

And in doing so, gave proof of his economic and statesman-like competence. First, that the Jews should have no occasion for any kind of irritation to send them into fight or even to murmur quietly. They are to be reassured of protection in favor by a manifest of the Tsar in which should be strengthened the principle of tolerance towards their faith and maintenance of the privileges granted by Catherine

only with one small change for the previous principle, but those that will not submit to these principles shall not be given freedom to emigrate, a demand that far exceeded in point the freedom the 20th century freedom, point of freedom the 20th century Soviet Union. Immediately thereafter, it states,

after a specific time interval, after which all new credit is temporarily forbidden, all claims of debt between Jews and Christians to be ordered, documented, and cleared, in order to restore the earlier relation of trust, so that in the future, not the slightest obstruction should be found for the transformation of the Jews to a different way of life. for the relocation into other districts or in the old places for the assignment of a new life conditions. Free of debt, the Jews are thus to be made as soon as possible into free men for the reforms. From the vantage point of the publication of the manifest are all dues assessed by Jews for the equalization of debt of poor people,

is to apply to poor Jews to deflect the payment of Cahal debts or for the furnishings for migrants. From the one group, no taxes to be levied for three years, from the other for six years, and instead, that money is to be dedicated to the setting up of factories and workplaces for these Jews. Landowners must abandon obligating Jews in their stettles to set up various factories and instead begin on their estates to cultivate grain in order that they may earn their bread with their own hands, but under no circumstances is liquor to be sold anywhere, secretly or openly,

or these landowners would themselves lose their rights to the production of liquor. It was also a non-negotiable to carry out a universal exact census of the population under responsibility of the Cahal elders. For those that had no property to declare as merchant, or townsmen, two new classes were to be created with smaller income. Village burgers and colonists, where the denotation Christianian farmer would not be used because of its similarity to the word Christian. The Jewish settlers would have to be regarded as free as not as serfs, but under no condition

or pretext may they dare to expand themselves into the domain of magistrates and town fathers, so that they not gain any special rights over Christians. After they have declared their wish to be enrolled in a particular status, then must the necessary number of young men be sent to Petersburg, Moscow, or Riga, one group to learn the keeping of merchant books, second to learn a trade, the third to attend schools for agriculture and land management. Meanwhile, some energetic and precise Jews should be selected as deputies, for all these areas where land is designated,

for colonization. There follows minutia on the arrangement of plans surveying the land, housing construction, the order to release different groups of settlers, the rights in transit, the grace period in which they would remain tax-free, all these details that D'Argavan laid out so carefully we passed by. Thank God. On the inner, I'm sorry? I said, thank God for that. on the interordering of the Jewish congregation, in order to place the Jews under the secular authorities just the same as everyone else, the Kehilat may not continue in any form.

Together with the abolishment of the Kehilat is likewise abolished all previous profiteering assessments which the Kahilat raised from the Jewish people, and at the same time, the secular taxes are to be assessed, as with the other subjects, not doubled. And the schools and synagogues must be protected by laws. The males may not marry younger than 17, nor the females, than 15 years. Then there is a section on education and enlightenment of the Jews.

The Jewish schools to the 12th year, and thereafter the general schools are to become more like those of other religions. Those, however, that have achieved distinction in the high sciences are to be received in the academies and universities as honorary associates, doctors, professors, but they are not to be taken into the rank of officers and staff officers, because although they may also be taken into the military service, they will, for example, not take up arms against the enemy on Saturday, which in fact often does happen. Presses for Jewish books are not, are to be constructed, along with synagogues, along with synagogues are to be constructed Jewish hospitals, poorhouses, and orphanages.

Well, there's a lot here. Now, these are, you know, I can only assume that people hearing this have heard the previous four. Otherwise, nothing's going to make any sense at this point. But what we're talking about are the results of Dersavans' commission under the Emperor Paul. Paul will be murdered pretty soon. And the Jews will succeed, at least temporarily, in getting rid of Dersawin. from these committees. We're going to talk about that in more detail when we get to the section of Alexander I.

But there's a lot of contradictory things here. Now, I neglected to mention last time that Dersava's understanding that the Jews, at least in part, came from many of the so-called liberated Jews, Jews that had no connection to the Kajal, especially in Germany. not quite assimilationist at this point, but leading the so-called Jewish Enlightenment. I don't know if everything that they told him was accurate because in discussing the Jews with these individuals, I don't know if they're ever named. I think one of them is.

But this whole notion of trying to place them directly under Tsarist law, which is, of course, an Orthodox government, especially under Paul, was simply out of the question. There seems to be this drive to, and this is all done with the best philosemitic intentions. Now, if they didn't like this, there was a slight misreading that they were allowed to emigrate if they didn't like this with all their property and everything else. my favorite part of this is again this is there's a translation issue i didn't translate this when i first did it um this section a long time ago but the but the the the quote zelsenitin says there's a specific interval if this is to be instituted after which all new credit

is temporarily forbidden and all claims of debt between jews and christians are to be ordered documented and then cleared. Now, between Jews and Christians, well, the dead only went one way, and I think we all know that. And the point of that is to make it easier. This is almost a sort of

a form of coercion for the quote-unquote transformation of the Jews to a different way of life, including their relocation, new life conditions. Now, the way Dersovin stated this, he's really talking about this being a benefit to Jews, but we all know the Jews were the, the creditors.

The only time they may not have been is within their own, because he does mention poor Jews here who are not treated very well, but are kept to the cahal. And then in fact, he comes out and says the cahal is going to be eliminated. There's this back and forth, whether it's strong, whether it's weak, it was weakened at the end of the Polish Empire, it grew in strength again. But because there was a lot of poor Jews in the Kahul, they were no longer going to be bound to it

and were free to become townsmen or merchants or anything else. That they were not serfs. They would be granted land. And really the only condition, other than the dent thing, is that they couldn't employ any Christians. So they're, you know,

they're trying to completely remake Jewish life, which given the context, is extremely naive. That word's going to come up a lot because it really is. They're going to be tax-free for a while. There are so-called profiteering assessments, which is all the scams that we talked about already, and they'll be under secular taxation. But on the other hand, their grant of land will be free and clear. they will not be served under any circumstances their schools will be protected

and everything else but this today in 2025 we realize that this is a very strange approach to the Jewish question and Russia was not the only place that tried this and this was an ongoing thing

Sir Nicholas II was trying to do stuff like this and they could serve in the army but not any high rank So there's a sense of assimilation of the Jews who might assimilate, but for the elite, they'll be granted almost a certain privileged status, but not such that they can lord it over anybody.

But of course, all of this failed. There was no, the profiteering arrangements that he's saying are going to be eliminated. That's what it was to be a Jew, even the middle layer of Jews. You know, their protection if they weren't engaging in this kind of

profiteering they wouldn't need protection anymore the attacks on the Jews all for the same reason undercutting competition destroying entire villages using debt

to dominate entire regions you know but of course this isn't going to work even if Paul had lived there was no chance that the dudes were going to accept this I think that maybe there was an idealized version

of Jewish life in Germany, that small group that left the shuttle and became more or less Germans, they had to take last names. So they took, you know, the most aristocratic last names, you know, Goldstein and these were all German names

and, you know, took the highest level name they possibly could because they had no choice. As far as I know, that was being done here, and it was eventually done. They couldn't just use their first names anymore. And of course, when they say a detailed census, that had to have rubbed the cahal the wrong way.

Because so much of what they were doing was hidden based on deceit and being able to identify them and where they lived would harm at least some of this. You know, smuggling. You know, it's no different than what the so-called Russian mafia, which, of course, is a Jewish mafia. It does today. so long as they're not on what we today call Israeli soil in the Middle East

and see these same people who have no course no right to that land they have no obligation the very fact that these people were moving from place to place which Dersavin wanted to have Paul stop

this whole concept meant that they had no connection it was much easier to manipulate people or to exploit people that you don't know relationships can be you know that was very difficult to do anyway the khal didn't have much of an outside

connection but if this is going to dissolve you know essentially what he's saying is those Jews that are increasingly dissatisfied with the kajal system and its tremendous inequality we could bring into into Russian society as much as as humanly possible

so what it comes down to is It's kind of a mass of contradictions, a mass of naifte, I think maybe some good, some bad information, but this agenda in one form or another is going to be tried, and it will fail all the way up until the Bolshevik revolution. Thus Der Javin concluded quite self-consciously, thus this cross-grained scattered people known as Jews, and this its sad condition will observe an example of order, especially regarding enlightenment. The first point will bear fruit, if not today and immediately, definitely in the coming times,

or at worst, after several generations in unnoticed way, and then the Jews would become genuine subjects of the Russian throne. While Der Javen was composing his memorandum, he also made it known what the Kehlat thought about it, and made it clear that he was by no means, making himself their friend. In the official answers, their rejection was formulated cautiously. It stated, the Jews are not competent for cultivating grain nor accustomed to it, and their faith is an obstacle.

They see no other possibilities than their current occupations, which serve their sustenance, and they do not need such, but would like to remain in their current condition. The Kehulat saw, moreover, that the report entailed their own. obsolescence, the end of their source of income, and so began quietly, but stubbornly and tenaciously, to work against Der Javen's whole proposal. It's common for kind of normies out there, and I got this argument a hundred times, to say that the Jews were in these profiteering relationships because they weren't allowed to be anything else. The claim is that they couldn't own land, they couldn't be in the professions, which of course is questioned. begging, number one, but here they're being offered the chance to be normal people, and at least the elders of the Cahal are rejecting it.

The faith is a problem. We don't know how to do any of this. We don't want to do any of this. There's nothing else but these current occupations, and they want to remain in their current condition. So when anyone brings up that they weren't allowed to be things, and therefore could only be usurers, and scam artists, well, you simply quote this. And this shows that time, and it wasn't just in Russia either. The time and again, they were offered to be regular citizens. And they largely refused. Now, of course, things changed after World War II as far as the foundation of Israel and Zionism was concerned.

But we'll see here coming up some of the things that they did. They eventually did get Dersav and often. that committee later on because despite his phylo-Semitic approach when this whole thing first started he learned exactly what the Jew really is so this was kind of a way

using as little coercion as possible to use their own divisions to try to get them out of that way of life and to become protected actual citizens of the Russian Empire but they come out and say no this is not what we want. This opposition expressed itself, according to Der Javen, by means of a complaint

filed by a Jewess from Leosno to the Tsar, in which she alleged that, in a liquor distillery, Der Javen horribly beat her with a club until she, being pregnant, gave birth to a dead infant. The Senate launched an investigation. Der Javen answered, as I was a quarter hour long in this factory, I not only did not strike any Jewess, but indeed did not even see one. He sought a personal reception by the Tsar. Let me be imprisoned, but I will reveal the idiocy of the man that has made such claims. How can Your Highness believe such a foolish and untrue complaint? The Jew that had taken the lying complaint was condemned to one year in penitentiary,

but after two or three months, Dershavin accomplished his being set free. this now under the reign of Alexander I. Paul, murdered in May 1801, was unable to come to any resolution and connection with Dershavin's memorandum. It led at the time to small practical results, as one could have expected, since Dershavin lost his position in the change of court. So when I say that that, you know, normal Christian people in Russia or elsewhere

were not prepared for the Jewish mind. This is what I'm talking about. This is stock and trade making up, you know, ridiculous crimes, trying to pin it on on people who don't like them

or know too much about them. And in this case, it was very ridiculous. There was no witnesses. There's no evidence. There's no nothing. The person who created this. And it's hard to tell whether it was about a Jewess, but was it a male Jew who initially made the complaint. The very fact that they were heard so quickly shows you exactly, you know, the honesty with the Russians approach the Jewish question.

But it's stuff like this that slowly educated the Russians as to what they're up against, going this far, willing to do anything. to smear a man, to destroy a man, and inventing crime. They did this all. They did this in the Turkish Empire all the time. Where Greek Orthodox teachers that were reviving on a national basis, the Greek nation,

you know, the Jews would then go to the Turks and say that they're fomenting rebellion. They're violent. They're leading the people astray. They hate you. You know, they're telling everyone not to pay taxes. Whatever it took. And in that case, it was often successful to get them killed or otherwise neutralized. And Dershavin, this was a huge education for the Russian elite,

and things for better or for worse are going to change when the new czar comes in. Not until the end of 1802 was the committee for the assimilation of the Jews established to examine Dershavin's memorandum and prepare corresponding recommendations. The committee consisted of two Polish magnates close to Alexander I, Prince Adam Zartorisky, and Count Severin Potaki, as well as Count Valerian Suboff. D'Havid observed regarding all three that they, too, had great holdings in Poland and would notice a significant loss of income if the Jews were to be removed, and that the private interests of the above-mentioned worthies would outweigh those of the state.

also on the committee were interior minister Count Kachubi and the already mentioned justice minister, the first in Russian history, Dershavin himself. Michael Sparansky also worked with the committee. The committee was charged to invite Jewish delegates from the Kehlot of every province and these most merchants of the First Guild did come. Besides that, the committee members had the right. to call enlightened and well-meaning Jews of their acquaintance. The already known Nodonotkin that had moved from white Russia to Moscow and then St. Petersburg,

the Petersburg tax leaser Abram Perrits, and who was also close friend of Sparonsky, Yehuda Lieb Nevaevich, and Mendel Satanova, both friends of Perrots and others. Not all took part in the hearings, but they exercised a significant influence on the committee members. Worthy of mention, Abram Parrot's son Gregory was condemned in the December's trial and exiled,

probably only because he had discussed the Jewish question with Pestle, but without suspecting anything of the December's conspiracy, and because his grandson was the Russian Secretary of State a very high position. Nevaschavich, a humanist but no cosmopolitan, who was deeply tied to Russian cultural life, then a rarity among Jews, published in Russian the crying voice of the daughter of Judah, 1803, in which he urged Russian society to reflect on the restrictions of Jewish rights and admonished the Russians to regard Jews as their countrymen, and thus that they should take the Jews among them into Russian society.

well we all know what that means these are the same people who were opposed to Dershavin's recommendations that we just discussed but when he says something nothing changes this is the exact same kind of language

that they use today worldwide that Russians have to reflect on the restrictions on Jewish rights despite the Jews saying these aren't restrictions this is who we are that were Russians just like you. He knows this is a lot. And taking Jews in Russian society means

if you make us just like you and pretend that we're not Jews, which in some places, you know, they try to do, we know we're going to win. We know we're going to be dominant, especially after the 18th century, especially after the murder of Paul. Because they knew that any restraint,

at least temporarily, was going to be removed from their act. activities. And that would just be, you know, it's like the liberation of the Jews after the French Revolution. It's an automatic, you know, because they're so cohesive versus the peasant class, and even the mid-level noble class in Russia, that they're always going to come out ahead. They had a mentality that the Russians simply didn't have. We'll talk about the Decemberus, I think, as time goes on at the end of, or because of Alexander's

Alexander's death but the manipulation of using terms and talking about liberation forcing Russians to reflect on things knowing full well

what the truth was it's day to day this wasn't debate this was just an attempt to first of all sideline Dresov and to influence this fairly young

new emperor Alexander, as much as humanly possible, at least in the beginning of his reign, they were quite successful. The committee came to an overwhelmingly supported resolution. The Jews are to be guided into the general civil life and education, to steer them toward productive work. It should be made easier for them to become employed in trades and commerce. The constriction of the right of free mobility should be lessened. They must become accustomed to wearing ordinary apparel for the custom of wearing clothes that are despised strengthens the custom. them to be despised. But the most acute problem was that Jews, on account of the liquor trade,

dwelled in the villages. Notkin strove to win the committee to the view of letting the Jews continue to live there and only to take measures against possible abuses on their part. The charter of the committee led to tumult in the Kehila, Gessen wrote. A special convocation of their deputies in 1803 in Minsk resolved, to petition our Tsar, may his fame become still greater that the worthies assume no innovations for us. They decided to send certain delegates to Petersburg, explained that an assembly had been held for that purpose, and even called for a three-day Jewish fast. Unrest gripped the whole pail of settlement, quite apart from the threatening expulsion of Jews from the villages.

The Kehelot took a negative stance toward the cultural question out of concern, concerned to preserve their own way of life. As answered to the many points of the recommendation, that Kahulat explained that the reform must in any case be postponed 15 to 20 years. And the reason for that is pretty clear. Something like this is going to, at least on the surface, divide Jewish society. And don't forget, the Hasidic movement was continuing to grow at this point who rejected most of this anyway, saying unrest gripped the whole pail of settlement. Well, on the one hand, they're getting the benefits of expanding their commerce outside of the countryside.

On the other hand, there's going to be Jews who are going to lose a lot of money because the liquor trade and their, you know, very secretive way of going about things might be threatened here. Of course, you know, wearing normal clothes, on the one hand, that could be considered a kind of assimilation. On the other hand, that could be a very effective way of disguising themselves. Going back centuries, you had when Jews did wear in the city's kind of ordinary clothing, there had to be some mark on them to identify them, at least to each other, if not ordinary people, because you're not dealing with the same kind of mentality. E. Michael Jones, Michael Hoffman,

so many other people on the Jewish question have brought this out in great detail. And Barron Metal, Michael Jones' book, which I recommend 1,500 pages, deals with the Jewish

question precisely on these issues for many chapters. And that the mentality didn't fit, and this is where Zionism ultimately came from, the mentality of the Jews

didn't fit a settled agricultural people. They were the opposite of a settled agricultural people. So the point of postponing, was, first of all, we have to see what Alexander is going to become, and we need to settle

any kind of actual or apparent divisions amongst our own people. Der Javin wrote, there were from their side various rebuttals aimed to leave everything as it was. In addition, Gurdko, a white Russian landowner sent Der Javen a letter he had received. A Jew and white Russia had written him regarding one of his plenipotentiaries in people It said that they had, in the name of all Kehalot of the world, put the sherem or harem the ban under Javan as a prosecutor and had gathered a million to be used as gifts for this situation as has forwarded it to St. Petersburg and had forwarded it to St. Petersburg. They appealed for all efforts to be applied to the removal of Der Javen as attorney general, and if that were not possible to seek his life. However, the thing they wanted to achieve was not to be forbidden to sell liquor in the village taverns. And in order to make it easier to advance this business, they would put together opinions from foreign regions from different places and peoples and how the situations of the Jews could be improved.

And in fact, such opinion, sometimes in French, sometimes in German, began to be sent to the committee. D'Javan was labeled as a persecutor. This kind of, you know, given the fact that they lived among the going, it was, it was delicate. But as a persecutor, his life was now forfeit. Gathered a million, meaning, you know, a million gold rubles for bribery. That's what gifts mean in this case. Getting people, and this is a very common tactic, getting Jews from all over the world to write the monarch. God knows, you know, I haven't seen a lot of these or if they've even been preserved, but what they said.

concerning all the false claims against D'Rsav and the one that we mentioned, there were many others, many of them never quite, you know, got to Petersburg, but anything. He simply knew too much. He saw how the Jewish mind worked directly. He went from at least a neutral to someone who was a tremendous critic of the Ghal. Now he wants to dissolve the Gahal. And I think there was a lot of money that went into the convocation of this second committee with all the names we just listed

people who were already economically related to the Jews, many of these being Polish including Jews themselves. You don't have a lot of strict orthodox people on that committee. These people all had an interest in this and whether or not there was a direct relation with Jewish bribery but they had to cash and Dersavin had to go. Thank God he died a natural death

but once they labeled him like that. They also inherently labeled anyone who was following him, anyone who thought that what he was doing was a good idea. So he couldn't be accepted. He had to be opposed, although the opposition may have come from different sources and for different reasons and different interests. He was now labeled as a persecutor, as Amalek, and I know there were assassination attempts on him, but they all failed, and eventually he's going to retire and die in natural death. Besides this, Noda Nottgen became the central figure that organized the little Jewish congregation of Petersburg. In 1803, he submitted a brief to the committee in which he sought to paralyze the

effort, the effect of the proposal submitted by Dershavin. D'Urjavan writes, Notkin came to him one day and asked, with feigned well wishing that he, Dershavin, should not take a stand all alone against the colleagues on the committee who are all on the side of the Jews, whether he would not accept 100 or, if that is too little, 200,000 rubles, only so that he could be of one mind with all his colleagues on the committee. Der Javen decided to disclose this attempt at bribery to the czar, bribery to the czar, and prove it to him with Gorko's letter. He thought such proofs prove effective, and the czar would start to be wary of the people that surrounded him and protected the Jews.

Sparonsky also informed the czar of it, but Spironsky was fully committed to the Jews, and from the first meeting of the Jewish committee, it became apparent that all members represented the view that the liquor distilling should continue in the hands of the Jews as before. Der Jaubin opposed it. Alexander bore himself ever more coldly toward him and dismissed his justice minister shortly thereafter, 1803. That means at this point,

Dersavent is all by himself, and he's aware of it. He's aware of what may be in store for him. The false accusations didn't work while Paul was still alive. That didn't end. But when that failed, they figured, well, he's not going to say no to 200,000

rubles to agree with everybody else. But he went, to the young czar and told them about it and it meant absolutely nothing. Sparonsky was one of Alexander's early teachers. And he was, at least for the day, fairly liberal.

He was as much a part of this Jewish network as the other members that we've mentioned, D'Jarvan, knowing what they really are. I mean, I mean, that's not to say the other members didn't know what the Jew really is, just that they profited from him. and so now Dershavan has to deal with the fact that he has the entire globe's

Jewish wealth which was tremendous most of it most of which were you know centered in just a few cities with the population mostly being now in Russia but it says Speransky was fully committed to the Jews and so even bribe or even the attempt to bribe Dersavid and I think it was just dismissed you know there were no witnesses or anything

and it all came down at least at this point to liquor distilling, manipulation of the peasantry using alcohol. So God knows if they were willing to pay $200,000 to Dersovan, these other men, despite the fact that they're already making money off the Jews, how much additional were granted to them to focus on the issue of liquor distilling. And now the young Alexander is very different from the older Alexander. In fact, I am of the opinion that he voluntarily left the throne and became a monk that's very controversial. I did a whole show on that one time.

But he matured quite a bit. But early on, he was a, you know, I think Napoleon, of course, 1812. The invasion changed him completely. And Napoleon had already, you know, at that point, promised the Jews their own, essentially a resurrection of the Khazar Empire. And so many of the Jews fought for him. And this is part of the reason why the military issue was so sensitive in Russia. So Sparansky is the bad guy here.

And it really is a minor miracle that D'Javan wasn't murdered, but he was dismissed from his post. Besides this, Dershavin's papers indicate that he, whether in military or civil service, always came into disfavor and was hot-headed and everywhere soon took his leave. One has to admit that Dershavin foresaw much that developed in the problematic Rousseau-Judeic relationship throughout the entire 19th century, even if not in the exact and unexpected form that it took in the event. He expressed himself coarsely, as was customary then, but he did not intend to oppress the Jews. On the contrary, he wanted to open the Jews' path to a more free and pre-turb. productive life.

I want to say something about Zarpal before we move on to the next section. Now we're getting into far more substantial and detailed parts of the book. As I mentioned earlier, Zarpal was canonized. He,

like most Russians, except for the membership of this committee, hated his mother, Catherine, Catherine II. And he tried to reverse this masonic, this cosmopolitan spirit

that had infected the upper levels of the nobility, especially those found in the Senate. Orthodox nationalists, he released from prison because Catherine the Great had thrown many of them in the dungeon. They didn't have a formal prison system, but they did have private dungeons. He spent a lot of his own money opening peasant schools and villages, educating them, not just of course about the Jewish question, but everything else. He banned

freemationary, which was one of the reasons that now, it's not just there was an economic connection with the Jews. Now there's a semi-quaze theological connection with the Jews through freemasonry. He also said, given the damage that women have done, the two Anas, both Catharines,

he forbade women from ever becoming empress again, and that lasted as long as the empire. It lasted. Paul wanted to create a class of peasant yeoman, not necessarily apart from the commune, but remember this was still a time of serfdom which only affected and I have a whole I have I've written on this substantially a portion of

of your typical Russian farmer typical Russian peasant was under serfdom on the 18th century that the peasants were squeezed a little bit harder earlier versions of serfdom were not I don't like to calling it that but he made it easier for peasants to complain against their Lord knew what this elite was becoming.

Just to ask you later on, would make fun of them because they were trying to speak foreign languages, especially French, and they never quite sounded right. Offering serfs generous, you know, loan possibilities to buy noble land. Paul was aware of the massive grain profits that were coming to Jews and their friend throughout the Baltic ports. He attempted to use his power to artificial. lower the price of bread, which means by the time he was murdered, there was not one single faction of the elite that he didn't irritate. Paul's program, and I've written on this too,

and why the very members of the committee, the first committee, and their allies, hated him so much. He wanted to force Russia's elite back into their older service capacity, which was abolished by his mother Catherine. You received, you know, you were a noble, but that title to land and peasant labor implied that you had service obligations. So everyone in Russia had someone to serve, a job to do.

When that was abolished by Catherine trying to get, you know, their support, that meant that nobles really didn't have a purpose. they became parasitic and hence saw a fellow traveler amongst the Jews. Paul said that nobles exist. It wasn't a tightly class-based society like in the West. Peter the Great tried to change that a little bit. But nobles either class or just as a de facto entity,

they existed only to serve the state, the nation, the church. Otherwise, they have no reason to exist. They have no reason to have serfs. because all their titles, all their privileges, were connected to serving the state, either usually in a military capacity, but sometimes in a diplomatic capacity. And so their answer was to finally murder Paul.

And they brought Catherine's grandson, Alexander, to power, who they thought, and people like Sparansky certainly thought, would be more responsive to enlightenment. And that centered, at least in part, around the Jewish question. The way Djersovin thought about all of this,

for the day, it was well thought out. We only have a thumbnail sketch here. He knew too much about how the Jews operated. He condemned how the old rabbinical system in the Gahal functioned. The Gahal maintained and empowered rich Jews at the expense of everybody else, Jew and Gentile alike. It was when he declared war

on the Jewish monopoly over vodka sales. That's when the Cahal turned on him. The gloves were off. Russians were all the way up to the revolution were not used to propaganda. They weren't very good at it. He became the subject of endless moral terror, slander,

blackmail, violence, and threats. And he mentions the Talmud in his opinion. As I mentioned, many interviews with Jews of all types, both foreign and domestic, that Talmud is what made your typical Jew hate everyone else. The basic view was that when their so-called Messiah comes, all the wealth of the world that wasn't already in their hands would then accrue to them.

And that's why under the Polish system, messianic ideas flourished all over the place, given their fantastic wealth. What else could this mean? We have such control here. But of course, Kim Monyinsky showed that to be a bit premature. But this Jewish yoke, both the nobles who profited from it, as well as Jews themselves, they were aware this was a parasitic burden that the goyam had to bear.

Interest compounded over, God knows how long, ensured that no one, Polish and Russian nobles included, could ever get out of debt. That doesn't mean the nobles can't still profit. Nobles, especially in Poland, or of Polish background, we're often ignorant of their financial condition. They saw the Jews as their best friends. So this clear community of interest kept the noble Jewish alliance in Poland and the Russian Empire alive.

And as far as the Polish Empire goes, the price was destruction of the falling apart of the empire by the 1790s. but the Russians never quite got their hands on the question. After Napoleon, after D'Jarvan stuff became, you know, his writings became well known. Of course, he became a very famous poet, apart from this question.

The Russians slowly but surely were educated. Certainly Nicholas I, who will be his successor. knew the issue. Alexander II, not so much. Alexander III and Zard Nicholas II were aware of it, but they didn't have the enforcement mechanisms at hand. So from Paul to Nicholas, the point was to elevate the status of the Russian peasant,

the Russian merchant, make them, you know, make them, you know, they own property, they always own property, but via the commune, of course, in Zara Nicholas's time, they were able to own it in their own right. By the time of the revolution, of the time of World War I, something like 90% of Russian land was owned by peasant owners. And also the idea that low interest or zero interest loans would be available

for peasants to buy their own, to escape somehow the Jewish debt burden. And Drozavinclair was aware of it even mentions it in his memorandum. random where he says, you know, we'll protect the Jews, but you have to clear these debts. And he put it in such a way where it acted like it went both ways. But no, the debts only were Jews, you know, being creditors of non-Jews, of Russians and Poles, with or without their knowledge. So, and they never were able to succeed.

Certainly they weren't able to succeed settling them on the land. And the kind of stuff that was said about Dersavvin by the Jews, they just, applied that same contempt, the big lie, which was their stock and trade, as I mentioned, against anyone who didn't like them. And that really continues today. Some Zars at this point knew more than others about the Jewish question. Some realized that the financial interest was too great for them to do that much about. Alexander the third probably, and Nicholas, the son, more than anyone else, knew what was happening, but it was very difficult to do a lot about it because, there's unrest in the wealthier, commercially oriented Western parts, exactly the parts we're talking about now, they made too much money. They couldn't afford a lot of unrest here. So to some extent, they had to leave it as it was.

But rather than talking about the Jews as such, the solution was to elevate the common Russian peasant, which by World War I more or less succeeded. Russian peasant was better off than any other part of Europe. at the time. So, and this is, you know, Paul was, was legitimately canonized. He was extremely pious. And just that alone, the Jews were aware of what kind of man he was. And eventually, Alexander I was going to learn that. But it's, you know, it's going to take a while. And now that we're at a whole new section of Alexander I think this is a perfect place to, to stop.

Sure. Let me throw a question out there before we get out of here. How much of the wealth that they were accumulating in liquor and in their devices that they were in charge of? How much of that was getting sent out internationally? Oh, that's a very difficult question. I don't know how this system worked. It was a network. I think the concentration of wealth was in Constantinople. or Istanbul.

It depended on what trade, but you know, Antwerp, London, and now Western Russia, the money that was sent out, it really depended on circumstances. I don't know in any detail how that, how that circulated,

if it circulated. Well, were they paying a VIG back to the, back to Istanbul? Well, the chief, see, because of, you know, them being driven out of so many places, the chief rabbis tended to shift. Istanbul, because of, you know, they were the, they dominated the Turkish Empire in all of these professions.

They were, you know, far more so than in Russia. Russians ran the Russian Empire. But as far as the financial position of Turkey, of the Ottoman Empire, that was. was in Jewish hands. So that's why I want to say that that's really where the center was, especially right now, at the point we're talking about, the transition to the 19th century. But Vig usually means, you know, weekly interest, how that circulated, how that moved from place to place, I simply don't know. But the point to remember is that any time.

a Jew needed to dip into that for the sake of their communities undercutting their Gentile competitors, they had access to it. And that meant that they could offer interest rates, at least initially, lower than anybody else. And it put these governments in a terrible position. The Ottomans were, you know, dominated more than anyone else were in a point where pretty soon, after Napoleon, England will be, Antwerp will soon be Russia, was always the problem because they were never able to control the Russian currency. This is why these people were moving to Petersburg.

But that's my opinion. It changed all the time. It depended on grain prices that went out of the Baltic. But, you know, and you don't know at any given time which Jewish community had the most available liquidity. It's not like there was a papacy. It's not like there was even a chief synod somewhere. It didn't function like that. They were quite autonomous but fanatically devoted.

As you see here with trying to condemn Dersav and getting all these people, including from Turkey, writing the Tsar saying how awful he is, they had access to liquidity if they needed it. Whether that automatically put an obligation onto the Cahal elsewhere, I don't know. I think so, but I don't know that in detail. I don't want to say anything and be wrong about it. Okay. No problem at all. All right. So we'll pick up chapter two in the next episode.

As always, I will include your links in the show notes so that people can support your work. And we appreciate people doing that. Please, people go do that. Go to anywhere this is posted. You will see the links. You will see links in the description. And, yeah, we'll be back for episode number six and start chapter two. Thank you, Dr. Johnson.

Appreciate you. See you soon. I want to welcome everyone back to part six of our reading of 200 years together by Alexander Solzhenycin. Dr. Johnson, how are you today? I'm in a pretty good mood, but, you know, I'm almost certain I did damage to my rotator cuff in the move. I just noticed, like a few days ago, that my sureness wasn't healing in my shoulder. and the weirdest things are very painful. The weirdest moves, I'm pretty sure that's a rotator cuff thing.

So given my mentality, it would probably be another three years before I decide to go to a orthopedist for treatment. But I've never had a problem like that before, and it's very, very odd, very strange. Yeah, that I've had rotator cuff issues as well. I can't even really throw a snowball without my arm. feeling like there's glass grinding around in there. Well, thank God it's my left arm. My right arm seems fine. Cool.

All right. We are up to Chapter 2. So as per normal, I'm going to start reading and stop me whenever. Chapter 2, during the reign of Alexander I first. At the end of 1804, the committee in charge of the organization of the Jews concluded its work by drafting a regulation on the Jews, known as the Regulation of 1804, the first collection of laws in Russia concerning Jews. The committee explained that its aim was to improve the condition of the Jews to direct them toward a useful activity by opening this path exclusively for their own good and by discarding

anything that might divert them from it without calling for coercive measures. The regulation established a principle of equal civil rights for Jews, Article 42, quoting, all Jews who live in Russia, who have recently settled there, or who have come from foreign countries for their commercial affairs, are free and are under the strict protection of the laws in the same way other Russian subjects are. In the eyes of Professor Gradovsky, we cannot but see in this article the desire to assimilate this people to the whole population of Russia? You see, there was a reason that there were restrictions on Jewish business practices

in Eastern Europe as well as Western Europe. Remember, things like advertising or underselling somebody, luring customers away from another outlet. I mean, these were unknown in both parts of... of Europe. But the Jews introduced this, and it was something very new. And so when you remove restrictions, you allow that mentality. And there's this blatant dishonesty.

A lot of theft, a lot of smuggling. I mean, the Rothschilds were involved early on in smuggling. They had very low overhead because they had the push carts more than a stable place. and this is why the guilds were so upset and they would sell like in a general store kind of a way the old system was it was a specialization you would sell one area of things

and and through dishonesty through simple lying you know they had more access to liquidity they could they could undersell anybody this is why the restrictions came into existence when you remove

when you claim that we're all equal citizens you allow that to develop. There aren't specific, there aren't race specific restrictions on activity. So all that does is empower this mentality. All of the complaints from Spain to France to Germany to Poland to Russia, they're identical in every way.

That this is how they're behaving. They're engaging in. underselling money as well as goods, and they're able to take over very quickly because they're not bound by the same moral code that we are, that Christian people are. This naivete that we've been talking about almost since the beginning,

it doesn't seem to go away. You still have it now. All these attempts to make them normal people, ordinary citizens, fail miserably. And no one ever seems to, to, to learn their lesson. The regulation gave the Jews greater opportunities than Der Javen's original proposals.

Thus, in order to create textile or leather factories or to move to agricultural economy on virgin lands, it proposed that a government subsidy be directly paid. Jews were given the right to acquire land without serfs but with the possibility of hiring Christian workers. Jews who own factories, merchants, and craftsmen had the right to leave the Pala settlement for a time for business purposes, thus easing the borders of this newly established area.

All that was promised for the current of the coming year was the abrogation of double royalties, but it soon disappeared. All the rights of the Jews were reaffirmed, the inviolability of their property, individual liberty, the profession of their religion, their community organization. In other words, the Kahalim system was left without significant changes, which in fact undermined the idea of a fusion of the Jewish world within the Russian state. The Kahalam retained their old right to collect royalties, which conferred on them a great authority but without the ability of increasing them.

Religious punishments and anathemas were forbidden, which assured a liberty to the Hasidum. In accordance with the wishes of the Khaalem, the project of establishing Jewish schools of general education was abandoned, but all Jewish children are allowed to study with other children without discrimination in all schools, colleges, and all Russian universities. And in these establishments, no child shall be under any pretext deviated from his religion or forced to study what might be contrary or opposed to him. Jews who, through their abilities, will attain a meritorious level in universities in medicine, surgery, physics, mathematics, and other disciplines will be recognized as such and promoted to university degrees. It was considered essential that the Jews learned the language of their region, change her external appearance, and adopt family names. In conclusion, the committee pointed out that in other countries, nowhere were used means so liberal, so much, measured and so appropriate to the need of the Jews. Jay Heson agrees that the Regulation of 1804 imposed fewer restrictions on Jews than the Prussian regulations of 1797, especially since the Jews

possessed and retained their individual liberty, which a mass of several million Russian peasants subjected to serfdom did not enjoy. The regulation of 1804 belongs to the number of acts imbued with the spirit of tolerance. I don't want to give the impression that it was just the Russian Empire that you had this naifte. Napoleon did the exact, we'll be talking about him here in a little bit. Napoleon did the exact same thing. Most European nations, kingdom, cities tried to do the same thing, had the same mentality, not fully aware of how deeply the Talmud penetrated into the Jewish mind.

The fact is the Jewish economic thought was completely opposed to economic thought at the time, whether it be in France, Germany or Russia, especially when you're talking about the landed powers. It was, you know, labor-based, it was based on productivity. It was based on the common good, strict moral code for the Jews. the exact opposite. It was based on exploitation, usury, manipulation, and of course, it's the latter mentality that has taken over. That's called capitalism today. I always recommend E. Michael Jones as Barron Metal, even though it's 1,500 pages long, it'll change how you view economics. And it's, it's, even I was surprised about how much had changed in a very short period of time. in terms of things like competition. You know, I mentioned advertising and all this, that these things were simply out of the question. But having a fixed residence was certainly resisted.

Having a, taking a last name was resisted because so many criminal activities were taken as normal that, that the way that the call worked is that they can get away with a lot. And they could always be smuggled out if worse came to worse. They all kind of looked the same to the average person, so they were able to get away with a lot.

But none of this seemed, and there's really no excuse in my mind, because of how they behaved in Poland. There was no excuse for that they had to have known, at least to some extent, but somehow they believe that they were different, their system was different, we're going to civilize them.

And of course, you know, from then to today, it never worked, it hasn't changed. And even with something like Zionism, the black hundreds believed in, you know, getting rid of them, sending them to, you know, the Middle East or somewhere. But even that, Zionism can't function

without their full control over the foreign policy apparatus of the major or the major powers. So even that doesn't really solve the problem. So this, the theme so far here has just been, Gentiles sometimes can't enter into the Jewish headspace. And it is difficult to think in those terms. But it is essentially your libertarian capitalist free market mentality was being created at the time and that imposed later on. We call that economics and capitalist economics today.

The Messenger of Europe, one of the most read journals of the Times wrote, Alexander knows that the vices we attribute to the Jewish nation are the inevitable consequences. of oppression that has burdened it for many centuries. The goal of the new law is to give the state useful citizens and to Jews a homeland. However, the regulation did not resolve the most acute problem in accordance with the wishes of all Jews, namely the Jewish population, the Kahulam deputies, and the Jewish collaborators of the committee. The regulation stipulated that no one among the Jews in any village or town can

own any form of stewardship of inns or cabarets under their name or nor the name of a third party, nor are they allowed to sell alcohol or live in such places, and propose that the entire Jewish population leave the countryside within three years by the beginning of 1808. We recall that such a measure had already been advocated under Paul in 1797, even before the Derjavan project appeared. Not that all Jews, with that exception, were to be distanced, from the villages, but in order that by its mass, the Jewish population in the villages would not exceed the economic possibilities of the peasants as a productive class. It is proposed to reduce the number of them in the agglomerations of the districts.

This time it was proposed to direct the majority of the Jews to agricultural labor in the Virgin lands of the Pale of Settlement, New Russia, but also the provinces of Ostrachan and the Caucasus, exonerating them for 10 years. of the royalties they up to then had to pay with the right to receive a loan from the Treasury for their enterprises, to be reimbursed progressively after 10 years of franchise. To the most fortunate, it was proposed to acquire land in personal and hereditary ownership with the possibility of having them exploited by agricultural workers. In its refusal to allow dissolution, the committee explained,

as long as this profession remains accessible to them, which in the end exposed, closes them to recriminations, contempt, and even hatred of inhabitants, the general outcry toward them will not cease. Moreover, can we consider the measure of removing the Jews from the village as repressive when they are offered so many other means not only to live in ease, but also to enrich themselves in agriculture, industry crafts, and that they are also given the possibility of possessing land in full ownership? How could this people be regarded as oppressed by the abolition of a single branch of

activity in a state in which they are offered a thousand other activities in fertile, uninhabited areas suitable for the cultivation of cereals and other agricultural products. You know, we said, I think, the last time on Saturday, we mentioned that, you know, if the committee and how philosemitic this committee is, we went through that in some detail. but if they're using the word oppressed, that means at the time Jews had to have been using that word,

writing to the committee saying how terrible it is that we're not allowed to have the monopoly on alcohol anymore. Furthermore, it seems that the committee, again, profiting from a lot of these people, given who it was,

we talked about that, I guess that was, I think that was last time. They seem to reduce the contempt for Jews for Jews just for alcohol missing all the other things that Dajavun himself spoke about. Yes, the alcohol was a key element in it, but it certainly wasn't

the only thing. But that was sufficient for the Jews to create this legend that they were terribly oppressed. And I just don't know what was possessing these people and thinking that they would ever become peasants. I don't know what the mentality was, unless it was a scam, but I've never come across any evidence concerning that. And you're out of Russian peasant, who was a landowner relative to the MIR. You know, serfdom was not quite what people think it is.

I mean, they had full title to it. Not in the 18th century, but it was getting much better. the privileges that were being given to Jews were not being given to the average Russian peasant. And I'm not sure where they got the idea that Jews were willing to take out a loan. It's like were they impoverished? They needed a loan for this? I'm just not, there may be there's just a certain insulation from reality here. But of course, to remove that was the entire point of Djaven's committee in the first place.

But by this point, you know, he wasn't involved. And a group of phylo-Semitic mostly polls were, and Jews themselves were involved in this committee. So it was this feedback loop all the time that really served their interests. But claiming, you know, to claim that they're oppressed has been such a longstanding weapon here. It was serving almost to take advantage of the moral code of your average Gentile man. And of course, none of it worked. These are compelling arguments. However, Hessen finds that the text of the committee testifies to a naive look on the nature of the economic life of a people consisting in believing that economic phenomena can be changed in a purely mechanical way by decree.

From the Jewish side, the projected relocation of the Jews from villages and the ban imposed on them on making alcohol, the secular occupation of the Jews, was perceived as a terribly cruel decision. and it was in these terms that it was condemned by Jewish historiography, 50 and even 100 years later. Given the liberal opinions of Alexander I, his benevolence toward the Jews, his perturbed character, his weak will, without a doubt forever broken by his ascension to the throne at the cost of his father's violent death, it is unlikely that the announced deportation of the Jews would have been energetically conducted, even if the rain had followed a peasant. peaceful course. It would have undoubtedly been spread out over time. But soon after the adoption of the 1804 regulations, the threat of war in Europe was outlined, followed by the application of measures favoring the Jews by Napoleon, who united a Sanhedron of Jewish deputies in Paris. The whole Jewish problem then took an unexpected turn. Bonaparte organized in Paris a meeting of the Jews whose main aim was to

offer the Jewish nation various advantages and to create a link between the Jews scattered throughout Europe. Thus, in 1806, Alexander I ordered a new committee to be convened, a new committee to be convened to examine whether special steps should be taken and postpone the relocation of the Jews. Napoleon added a brand new variable to all of this. But as I've said already, Napoleon was just as naive about this. as your typical gentile at the time was, or at least in ruling circles, the synhedron was simply a mass mobilization

to use the money and the power of the Jews for his own benefit. But Napoleon did also believe in the idea that maybe at some point this will be a mechanism by which we could have, you know, Jewish landowners and Jewish farmers and have them be normal Europeans, but they're not normal Europeans. They're aliens, and Zionism is based entirely on that concept. We don't belong here.

We don't think like these people. That was the initial concept of Zionism. So that means, as far as Alexander's concerned, and he's absolutely right. Alexander was a very weak man. It's very hard. I have a few papers out on him. It's very hard to get a,

to get a grasp on what he was doing. And it's true, his father was murdered. He is the oldest son. And he was under the influence of a lot of rotten people, one of the worst of which was Alexander Gulitzen, who I've lectured on not too long ago on my own show, and the so-called Bible society and everything else. I want to point out that another thing that was going in favor of the Jews at the

time was freemasonry, which Alexander, of course, he was never a member in the lodge, but tolerated. And people like Sparansky, people like Wollitsyn were members and promoted it all over the place. They used all kinds of flowery rhetoric, but this was an anti-Christian organization that had taken up its being right in the cabinet, so to speak, of Zara Alexander. given the fact that he was so easy to manipulate. Now, that changed a little bit later. I mean, there were heroes, people like the Archimandryphotios, who argued against all of this.

But having a guy like that, the very opposite of Tsar Paul, just made life easier for the Jews. It's certainly easier for the freemasonry. It's just, you know, Judaism or the Kabbalah for Gentiles. I think we've spoken about that. I've been writing on that since I was in college. So Napoleon, really the French Revolution in general, but Napoleon added a brand new variable.

Now we can't do anything. Our loyalties will be the revolutionary movement, which of course was already happening. And Napoleon, because they went, you know, Alexander went back and forth with Napoleon. Napoleon was able to manipulate him like everyone else until, of course, the invasion in 1912. But Alexander was terrified of what Bonaparte could do, what Napoleon could do. And there had been battles in his early years that the Russians lost, especially up in the mountains, despite very good leadership. So this was a brand new variable that, of course, worked in the Jews' favor.

Napoleon had increased the in France itself, you know, the emancipation of the Jews from any possible restrictions on to their behavior. He had a very idealistic and very naive view of what the Jews were and or at a very minimum wanted to harness all of that for his own purposes. And of course, that put Alexander in the Russian ruling class in general in a very difficult position. As announced in 1804, the Jews were supposed to abandon the villages by 1808. But practical difficulties arose and as early as 1807 Alexander I received several reports highlighting the necessity of postponing the relocation. An imperial decree was then made public requiring all Jewish societies to elect deputies and to propose through them the means which they consider most

suitable for successfully putting into practice the measures contained in the regulation of December 9th, 1804. The election of these Jewish deputies took place in the Western provinces and their views were transmitted to St. Petersburg. Of course, these deputies expressed the opinion that the departure of the Jews residing in the villages had to be postponed to a much later time. One of the reasons given was that in the villages, the unkeepers had free housing, whereas in towns and cities they would have to pay for them. The minister of internal affairs wrote in his report that the relocation of Jews currently residing in villages to land belong to the state will take several decades, given their overwhelming number.

Toward the end of 1808, the emperor gave orders to suspend the article, prohibiting the Jews from renting and producing alcohol, and to leave the Jews where they lived until a subsequent ruling. Immediately afterwards, 1809, a new committee said of the Senator Popoff was instituted for the study of all problems and the examination of the petitions formulated by the Jewish deputies. This committee considered it indispensable to put an energetic end to the relocation of the Jews and to retain the right to the production and trade of vodka. The committee worked for three years and presented its report to the emperor in 1812.

Alexander I did not endorse this report. He did not wish to undermine the importance of the previous decision and had in no way lost his desire to act in favor of the first. peasants. He was ready to soften the measure of expulsion, but not to renounce it. Thereupon, the Great War broke out with Napoleon, followed by the European War, and Alexander's concerns changed purpose. Since then, displacement out of the villages never was initiated as a comprehensive measure in the entire pill of settlement, but at most in the form of specific decisions in certain places. You know, contrary to popular belief, in contrary,

to say you know, France and Britain, the Russian Empire didn't have a huge bureaucracy in St. Petersburg or anywhere else. And even if they did, the long distances that they had to travel to enforce anything worked against them, and especially the weather.

This was always a problem. So I'm not 100% sure when a regulation like this was put out, I'm not sure how they were planning on enforcing it. It's not like they were thinking about using the army for this. You didn't have a formalized system of policing. You certainly didn't have a prison system. So much of the best of the Middle Ages was still retained in Orthodox Russia.

And that's why this election of deputies was a way to create a communication with Petersburg so that they could carry this out themselves. The war, of course, stopped all of that. and the Jewish question had never quite left the Russian mind but obviously there were more important things happening there was a Jewish element to the invasion which has already been

hinted at here but I'm not sure how they were going to make this happen and this third committee which is not particularly significant most of the work had already been done and the information had already been gathered so I'm not really sure sure it doesn't matter very much. The first two were really the only ones that make a difference.

But how this was going to be carried out is something that's never been, was never, not even discussed at the time in terms of coercion. During the war, according to a certain source, the Jews were the only inhabitants not to flee before the French army, neither in the forest nor inland. In the neighborhoods of Vilnius, they refused to obey a Napoleon's order to join his army, but supplied him forage, and provisions without a murmur, nevertheless in certain places it was necessary to resort to requisitions. Another source reports that the Jewish population suffered greatly from the abuses committed by Napoleon's soldiers, and that many synagogues were set on fire, but goes even further by stating that

Russian troops were greatly helped by what was called the Jewish Post set up by Jewish merchants, which transmitted the information with a celerity unknown at the time in serving as re-let, as relay, they even use Jews as couriers for the connections between the various detachments of the Russian army. When the Russian army resumed possession of the land, the Jews welcomed the Russian troops with admiration bringing bread and alcohol to the soldiers. The future Nicholas I, Grand Duke at that time, noted in his diary, it is astonishing that they, Jews, remained surprisingly faithful to us in 1812 and even helped us where they could at the risk of their lives. At the most critical point of the retreat of the French at the passage of Berizina, the local Jews communicated

to the Russian command, the presumed crossing point. The episode is well known. But it was, in fact, the successful ruse of General Laranque. He was persuaded that the Jews would communicate this information to the Russians and the French, of course, chose another crossing point. There's a lot of controversy as to, first of all, whether or not this is true, that they generally backed the Russian government. And why? Those two questions, I don't think there's a solid answer yet. I think the basic idea is that Napoleon was far more of a dictator with strong will than Alexander was.

That, again, the French methods of coercion were far greater than anything that the Russians were able to do domestically. And he's too far away to really be anything but a, but a, but a, symbol. It doesn't take a genius to realize that it doesn't matter. Even if you're holding Russia is almost impossible. The sheer manpower and supply you need is so overwhelming that it's just an invasion of Russia seems absolutely absurd. It's conceivable that the Kahul didn't really think that he was really going to win

here and that because possibly also because of the behavior of the French the invading force that they just turned many Jews against them. So, you know, because of these committees, I guess that Jews said, well, let's stay with the devil that we know, rather than devil that we only know from it from a, we don't know, or know just from a very long distance. So this is going to be an area of controversy for a while, I think. After 1814, the reunification of Central Poland brought together more than 400,000 Jews. The Jewish problem was then presented to the Russian government with more acuteness and complexity. In 1816, the government council of the Kingdom of Poland, which in many areas enjoyed a separate state existence, ordered the Jews to be expelled from their

villages. They could also remain there, but only to work the land, and this was without the help of Christian workers. But at the request of the Kahal of Warsaw, as soon as it was transmitted to the emperor, Alexander gave orders to leave the Jews in place by allowing them to engage in the trade of vodka on the sole condition that they should not sell it on credit. It is true that in the regulations published by the Senate in 1818, the following provisions are again found to put an end to the coercive measures of proprietors, which are ruinous to the peasants, for non-repayment of their debts to the Jews, which forces them to sell their last possessions.

Regarding the Jews who run inns, it is necessary to forbid them to lend money at interest to serve vodka on credit, to then deprive the peasants of their livestock or any other things that are indispensable to them. Characteristic trait of the entirety of Alexander's reign, no spirit of continuation in the measures taken, the regulations were promulgated, but there was no effective, there was no effective control to monitor their implementation. Same goes with the statute of 1817 with regard to the tax on alcohol. In the provinces of Great Russia, desolation was prohibited to the Jews. However, as early as 1819, the prohibition was lifted until Russian artisans had sufficiently

perfected themselves in this trade. That last line has always intrigued me. This notion that they have to catch up that they have to go down that same slippery slope that we today kind of take for granted. But he, Solzhenit again, is right here that there's no spirit of continuation. You can't get a hold of Alexander's political ideas. It really depended on who he was listening to. Of course, liberalism had a completely different presence. now given, you know, its ultimate sign Napoleon invading

Russia. There was revolutionary and Masonic movement within the Russian nobility thanks to the, you know, thanks to the Freemasons, thanks to the presence of the Jews in Russia. And that movement,

they tried to take over during the December's rebellion, which I don't think we'll talk about today after his death. But he was turning on liberal. He was turning on his previous teachers. But even in doing that, he never landed someplace where you could, you can, you know, there are principles here that he's going to adhere to.

I mean, he wanted a constitution. He wanted a bill of rights. He went back and forth on the Jewish question. I think the invasion hardened him a little bit. But, you know, here. What we're talking about here is the war is over. Russia is the predominant power in Europe. He's created the Holy Alliance, which was an ecumenical body.

And even his religious ideas were mostly, you know, they had, he was not a Mason, but they had this Masonic and ecumenical tone to them. That's what the so-called Bible Society was all about. This was almost explicitly Masonic undertaking. He was a member of it for a while. So you can't get a hold of him. He was, and this was unlike his successors. There, you know, and they were very, very firm about it.

But he was so, he was so fluid that even the war wasn't able to ground him in any way. Sultan Ethan mentions that, and he also, as I said before, the concept of bureaucratic enforcement, it didn't exist. Not that that ever occurred to Alexander. So you never knew what he was going to do. You never knew what direction he was going to go in, and it caused a lot of problems. Of course, Polish owners who were too concerned by their profits opposed the eradication of Jewish distilleries in the rural areas of the western provinces, and at that time, the Russian government did not dare act against them. However, in the Chernigov province, where their establishment was still recent,

the successful removal of distilleries in the hands of owners and Jews was undertaken in a 1821, after the governor reported, following a bad harvest that the Jews hold in hard bondage to peasants of the crown and Cossacks. A similar measure was taken in 1822 in the province of Boltov, in 1823, it was partially extended to the provinces of Mogulov and Vitebsk, but its expansion was halted by the pressing efforts of the Kahalam. Thus, the struggle led over the 25-year reign of Alexander, against the production of alcohol by the transplantation of the Jews out of villages gave little results.

But distilling was not the only type of production in the palest settlement. Owners leased out various assets in different sectors of the economy. Here a mill, they're fishing, elsewhere bridges, sometimes a whole property, and in this way not only peasant serfs were leased, such cases multiplied from the end of the 18th century onwards, but also the serfs churches, that is to say, Orthodox churches, as several authors points out, Kostomarov, Kadkof, and Shulgin.

These churches, being an integral part of an estate, were considered as belonging to the Catholic proprietor, and in their capacity as operators, the Jews considered themselves entitled to levy money on these, on those who frequented these churches, and on those who celebrated private offices. For baptism, marriage, or funeral, it was necessary to receive the authorization of a Jew for a Jew for a

The epic songs of Little Russia burst with bitter complaints against the Jewish farmers who oppress the inhabitants. It's worthwhile. It's worthwhile to point out that the 18th century and the purges of the Orthodox Church that Peter engaged in, the post-petring state, and even to a great extent, Catherine, the church had to rebuild itself. we're still talking about the fairly early 19th century it didn't have the the authority especially with the massive old believer movement that took over the villages not for the Jewish issue but they had a far more realistic

understanding of the Jewish issue they didn't have the moral authority that they used to nothing changed from the Polish Empire to the era we're talking about nothing changed the fact that Poland doesn't have an empire and it doesn't have political independence doesn't mean any part of its social structure changed in any way.

And because they were generating money and the empire didn't want to irritate the Jews and hence lose some of that and cause a lot of unrest in these very key parts of the empire, a lot of this stuff was left alone. They're still owning churches and charging a fee for it.

The entire Palo settlement where Jews had tremendous privileges was just economically speaking, just slightly different from the old Polish system of exploitation. And it's going to take much stronger czars to be able to address this directly. But this, you know, Alexander was probably the worst person to have had as emperor in this period of time. And he was one of these people who he knows that there's something wrong. but A, doesn't know what it is in detail, and B, doesn't know what to do about it. He did legitimately want to do the right thing. He just didn't know how.

And, you know, Customatov, who I've written on substantially, you know, he talks about this quite a bit. Because of their predominance in Ukraine, Ukrainian writers were far more realistic about, you know, the Cossacks have been broken. they existed but not like they had in Kimmlenitsky's time Catherine the Great thought of that and Peter even before with Ivan Mizampa so that check on Jewish power was gone or greatly weakened

so it's depressing but so much of the bad stuff about serfdom came from exactly these kind of institutions whether it be alcohol or debt were they able to take control of entire villages. And it was very hard for the state to do much about it. But the last thing they wanted was unrest, but they were creating the conditions for unrest and riots against the Jews.

Today, of course, we just consider it normal, so we don't do anything. The Russian governments had long perceived this danger. The rights of the farmers were likely to extend to the peasant himself and directly to his work, and the Jews should not dispose of the personal labor of the peasants, and by means of a lease, although not being Christians, become owners of peasant serfs, which was prohibited on several occasions, both by the decree of 1784 and by the ordinances of the Senate of 1801 and 1813, the Jews cannot possess villages or peasants nor dispose of them under any name whatsoever. However, the ingenuity of the Jews and the owners managed to circumvent what was forbidden.

In 1816, the Senate discovered that the Jews had found a means of exercising the rights of owners under the name of Crestencia. That is to say, after agreement with the owners, they harvest the wheat and barley sewn by the peasants. These same peasants must first thresh and then deliver to the distilleries leased by these same Jews. they must also watch over the oxen that are brought to graze in their fields, provide the Jews with workers and wagons, thus the Jews dispose of all these areas. While the landlords receiving from them substantial rent referred to as Christentia sell to the Jews all the harvest to come that are sown on their lands, one can conclude from this that they condemn their peasants to famine. It is not the peasants who are, so to speak, claimed as such, but only the Christensen. which does not prevent the result from being the same. This is a big area where the theme of naifte comes in.

The Talmud is nothing more than hair splitting. I've read huge chunks of it over the years, and it's agony from beginning to end. It's what's now taken for granted in American and legal practice. But that was not the understanding of law in the Middle Ages or the Russian Empire, the business and empire anywhere else. You know, natural law and custom and tradition and church law was the foundation of everything, at least at the local level. The Jews, of course, were the complete opposite of all of that.

They were able to just change the names and they could falsify whatever they wanted. They could talk their way out of anything. And this naivete would just kept them from being. punished for it. This story here is just one out of a thousand examples. All they have to do is change the name. And it's all the sudden okay. These regulations were written in such a way that they could argue about definitions. They could argue about what does it mean to own something? What does it mean to what is a peasant exactly? And they could nullify anything. And this is something that the peasants themselves were knew far better. than the elite in Petrograd. Despite all the prohibitions, the practice of Christentia

continued its crooked ways. Its extreme intricacy resulted from the fact that many landowners fell into debt with their Jewish farmers, receiving money from them on their estate, which enabled the Jews to dispose of the estate and the laborer of the serfs. But when, in 1816,

the Senate decreed that it was appropriate to take domains back from the Jews, he charged them to recover on their own the sums they had lent. The deputies of the Kahulam immediately sent a humble petition to his majesty asking him to annul this decree. The general administrator in charge of foreign affairs, the prince N. N. Gulletson convinced the emperor that inflicting punishment on only one category of offender with the exception of owners and officials. The landlords could still gain if they refused to return the capital received from the Christentia, and furthermore keep the Christensia for their

profit. If they have abandoned their lands to the Jews in spite of the law, they must now return the money to them. The future DeCembrus P.I. Pestel, at that time, an officer in the western provinces, was by no means a defender of the autocracy, but an ardent Republican. He recorded some of his observations on the Jews of this region, which were partially included in the preamble of his government program recommendations for the provisional supreme government. Quoting, awaiting the Messiah, the Jews consider themselves temporary inhabitants of the country in which they find themselves, and so they never, on any account, want to take care of agriculture.

They tend to despise even the craftsmen and only practice commerce. The spiritual leaders of the Jews who are called rabbis, keep the people in an incredible dependence by forbidding them in the name of faith, any reading other than that of the Talmud. A people that does not seek to educate itself will always remain a prisoner of prejudice. The dependence of the Jews in relation to the rabbis goes so far that any order given by the latter is executed piously without a murmur. The close ties between the Jews give them the means to raise large sums of money for their common needs, in particular to incite different authorities to concession and to all sorts of embezzlements, which are useful to them, the Jews.

that they readily accede to the conditions of possessors, one can see it ostensibly in the provinces where they have elected domicile. All commerce is in their hands. A few peasants are not. By means of debts in their power, this is why they terribly ruin the regions where they reside. The previous government, that of Catherine, has given them outstanding rights and privileges which accentuate the evil they are doing. for example the right not to provide recruits, the right not to announce deaths, the right to distinct judicial proceedings subject to the decisions of the rabbis, and they also enjoy all the other rights accorded to other Christian ethnic groups. Thus it can be clearly seen that the Jews form within the state, a separate state, and enjoy more extensive rights than Christians themselves. Such a situation cannot be perpetuated further, for it has led the Jews to show a hostile

attitude towards Christians and has placed them in a situation contrary to the public order that must prevail in the state. Here you have what, you know, given the time period, it's a liberal constitutionalist who, of course, at the time all believed in violent revolution and imposing, you know, their views of a high-level mason. The Decembrists were, you know, the elite of the elite, many of whom were free mations, hated the monarchy, or at least wanted a monarch they can control.

So even people who you would think might be allies of the Jews turn on them. This is really because of the Dershavin Committee. This information now is disseminated everywhere even concerning the Talmud

where this is their economic system. And given the nature of what the economic system in Russia was prior to this, it means that commerce is, as he says, entirely in their hands. The old believers were a separate issue. They were pretty good merchants themselves.

And they also maintained a great degree of in-group cohesion. The Pala's settlement was a highly privileged place. The Jews dominated entirely. It was a huge region, some of which was in the old Khazar Empire. So there's no excuse for not understanding this. There's no excuse for the naifte when you have someone like this. This is a very well-crafted understanding. And things like this were said all over Europe at the time.

Today, of course, in certain parts of Europe, you'll go to prison for mentioning this. But this is what people finally realize that this is a destructive entity that has been, you know, that we've brought into this country, that even with the profits that some of the elite get from their dealings with the Jews, eventually that's going to go away. Because remember, the nobles and the old Polish Empire were as much in debt as anybody else. And that was happening here,

that even the elite were in debt to these people. And that just means increasing levels of power, almost nesting levels of power as they come to dominate. This was, this was, serfdom wasn't the issue, this was the issue. This was direct domination. of the peasantry. That was not the case with serfdom.

This was taking a free population, a communal population, but a free population, and turning them into slaves, and it didn't distinguish really between nobles and peasants. They were all part of this hellish cycle of debt. The state found it very difficult to deal with this for reasons we've already mentioned, but it seems that even now, we say 18, 18, late 1810s, maybe 1820, nothing has changed. And the difference between now and then

is that what they were reacting against in Russia, today is just taking for granted. Well, that's just economics. We have five short paragraphs and we come to a natural stopping point. In the final years of Alexander I, the first reign, economic and other types of prohibitions against Jewish activities were reinforced.

In 1818, a Senate decree now forbade that never may Christians be placed in the service of Jews for debts. In 1819, another decree called for an end to the works and services that peasants and servants perform on behalf of the Jews. Galitzin always him told the council of ministers, those who dwell in the House of the Jews not only forget and no longer fulfill the obligations of the Christian faith, but adopt Jewish customs and rights. It was then decided that Jews should no longer employ Christians for their domestic service. It was believed that this would also benefit the needy Jews who could very well replace Christian servants. But this decision was not applied.

This is not surprising among the urban Jewish masses. Masses, there was poverty and misery. For the most part, they were wretched people who could scarcely feed themselves, but the opposite phenomenon has never been observed. the Jews would hardly work in the service of Christians. Undoubtedly, some factors opposed it, but they also apparently had means of subsistence coming from communities between which solidarity reigned.

However, as early as 1823, Jewish farmers were allowed to hire Christians. In fact, the strict observance of the decision prohibiting Christians from working on Jewish lands was too difficult to put into practice. During these same years, to respond to the rapid development of the sect of Subotniki in the provinces of Voronik, Samara, Tula, and others,

measures were taken for the palest settlement to be more severely respected. Thus, in 1821, Jews accused of heavily exploiting the peasants and Cossacks were expelled from the rural areas of Cherni-Gernigiv province and in 1822

from the villages of the Pultava province. In 1824 during... I just want to take it. Just for a second, I have no idea what that paragraph is saying. I think what I'll do after this is I'll go to the original Russian and see what it is. There's a few paragraphs that are like that here. But that measures were taken. I don't know what they're talking about.

But the idea is clear, though, that it's, it's, the cycle seems to be that they dominate the areas, they hold peasants in serfdom, and the state being what it is and being as far away as it is, is almost helpless to do anything about it. In 1824, during his journey in the Ural Mountains, Alexander I noticed that a large number of Jews in factories, by clandestinely buying quantities of precious metals, bribed the inhabitants to the detriment of the treasury and the manufacturers, and ordered that the Jews be no longer tolerated in the private or public factories of the mining industry. The Treasury also suffered from smuggling all along the western frontier of Russia, goods and commodities being transported and sold in both capitals without passing through customs. The governor has reported that smuggling was mainly practiced by Jews, particularly numerous in the border area.

In 1816, the order was given to expel all the Jews from a strip 60 kilometers wide from the frontier. wide from the frontier and that it be done in the space of three weeks. The expulsion lasted five years was only partial and as early as 1821, the new government authorized the Jews to return to their former place of residence. In 1825, a more comprehensive but much more moderate decision was taken. The only Jews liable to deportation were those not attached to the local Kehalam or who did not have property in the border area. In other words, it was proposed to expel only intruders. Moreover, the measure was not systematically applied.

You know, it seems that the peasantry, the cost-knit groups, they're taking matters into their own hands. And the most that the state was able to do at the time, and Alexander was learning very quickly as to what was going on, if you were. just let it happen. They're going to be, they're going to be expelled. You know, this is as democratic as you can get by their, by their wage and debt slaves. But even the laws or the regulations that were laid out, Solzhenitson has now said it like five times. I've said it 10 times.

It's very difficult to enforce this because you really don't have a modern state in the sense that the U.S. or Britain it. And the Jews were able to take advantage of that and were able to argue with it. But now you're starting to see some action and no one can blame them at the time. And this is part of the reason why Jews then and now were so desperate to keep a lot of this information

away from the public to make sure this is all censored because in their minds, this was all for no reason and they're just jealous that we have money and they're stupid Goyem and we have the right to rule them. And they don't like that. That's about as sophisticated as it gets. So, but the last phrase, this measure was not systematically applied.

It's, Russia was not ready for this kind of thing. And most places weren't. What happened with the destruction of Poland meant that Russia now had to deal with a couple of million Jews whose entire reason for existing was exploitation and manipulation and getting around the law and criminality that they took for granted as perfectly normal. You know, what's eye-opening here, and I think is something that I hope people are starting to realize is that the system of exploitation, as far as a commercial system of exploitation, that is going on, which is being reported, which is, you know, some people are trying to fight against has just been

institutionalized in the United States and in the West large scale. I mean, to the point where this is who we consider this to be who we are and that if you fight against it, if you say, well, we shouldn't do things this way, well, you're unpatriotic and you're a communist. The Jews were also a huge part of that movement as well. You know, the communists in Russian history create, the Jews, created the Soviet Union.

They also took advantage in the 1990s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It doesn't matter. It ends up being the same. It ends up with this enriched elite that then once they take over, want to make sure that no one knows that they're this enriched elite

that has taken over. And of course, always fraud and lies in manipulation. And more than anything else, their obsession with internal cohesion, which is how they dominate, which is how they do this. Yeah, it's taken for granted now. This is called free market capitalism. It comes from this very Jewish idea, and it has no moral or even practical truth to it. All right, Dr. Johnson, I'm going to once again encourage

people to go to the show notes of this. I put all Dr. Johnson's links so that you can donate to him. This is what he does. This is his full-time job. And the reason he is so he is so. well-versed and knows so much about this is because he can do it full-time. So continue to support him so that he can gobble up this knowledge and put it into language that we can understand. Thank you, Dr. Johnson, always. Well, I appreciate you, man. You're welcome.

Talk you soon. I want to welcome everyone back to part seven of our reading of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 200 years together. How are you doing it, Dr. Johnson? I'm doing very well. I've got to do something about my shoulder, but I'm in a good mood. It's like three degrees out and sunny. So this is like my perfect day. All right. It's three degrees and sunny. Okay. We just went over 40 here. So it's, it's, it's balmy compared to the way it's been recently. They're saying it's going to go up to the 20s. So, you know, I'm just going to deny that for now.

We needed some melt-off here anyway. We had central Alabama shouldn't have ice and we had ice, so all right. But that is true. All right, let's get going. We're going to pick up right where we left off last time. So here we go. The regulation of 1804 in its article stipulating the expulsion of the Jews from villages of the Western provinces naturally posed a serious problem to the government.

Where were they to be transferred? towns and villages towns and villages were densely populated and this density was accentuated by the competition prevailing in small businesses given the very low development of productive labor however in southern Ukraine stretched new Russia vast fertile and sparsely populated

obviously the interest of the state was to incite the mass of non-productive Jews expelled from the villages to go to work the land in new Russia 10 years earlier, Catherine had tried to ensure the success of this incentive by striking the Jews with a double royalty while totally exempting those who would accept to be grafted to new Russia. But this double taxation, Jewish historians mentioned it often, was not real, as the Jewish population was not censored and only the Kahl knew the manpower while concealing the numbers to the authorities in a proportionate. portion that possibly reached a good half. As early as 1808, the royalty ceased to be demanded, and the exemption granted by

Catherine no longer encouraged any Jews to migrate. Just briefly, New Russia is, in essence, where the current war in Ukraine is taking place. And it's no coincidence that this is somewhat close. to the, because it's on the Black Sea, it's close to the old Khazar Empire. I have paper after paper. I'm actually looking for some place to publish it on the new Khazardia idea because something like that was going on here. I don't know what he means by low development, productive labor.

Or really if this expulsion ever really took place and how it took place if it took place if it did. I mean, they'll say it did regardless either way. But it goes so far to show just how angry they made people that the government, despite, you know, not wanting to do it for the sake of peace and to remove them from the villages, that is to say, from the rural areas. And the only reason they were there was to take advantage of the peasantry. Of course, they're in urban people. They've always been an urban people.

But so this is, we're getting into a, very interesting part of Russian and Ukrainian history here. This time, and for the Jews alone, more than 30,000 hectares of hereditary but not private, but non-private land was allocated in New Russia with 40 hectares of state land per family. In Russia, the average lot of the peasants was a few hectares, rarely more than 10. Cash loans for the transfer and settlement, purchase the livestock equipment, etc., which had to be repaid after a period of six years within the following 10 years, the prior construction of an Izba log house was offered to the settlers in this region not only the peasants, but even some

owners lived in mud houses, to exempt them of all royalties for 10 years with maintenance of individual freedom in these times of serfdom and the protection of the authorities. The 1804 regulations having exempted Jews from military service, the cash compensation, was included in the royalty fee. Yeah, this is anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia here. Look at the privileges. They're not going to take it. But these were the privileges that were offered

and existed until the end, almost to the end, really, 1905, in the pale of settlement. But to this day, they'll tell you that this was a prison house of nations, like Trotsky in London wanted to say. I mean, yeah, of course, the Palos said they took all the tax breaks and everything else, but working the land, out of the question. The enlightened Jews, few at the time, Notkin Levinson, supported the governmental initiative, but this result must be achieved through incentives in no way coercive

and understood very well the need for their people to move on to productive work. The 80 years of the difficult saga of Jewish agriculture in Russia are described in the voluminous, and meticulous work of the Jew V. N. Nikitin. As a child, he had been entrusted to the Cantonists where he had received his name, who devoted many years to the study of the archives of the enormous unpublished official correspondence between St. Petersburg and New Russia. An abundant presentation interspersed with documents and statistical tables with tireless repetitions, possible contradictions, and the reports made it sometimes very distant times by inspectors of divergent opinions, all accompanied by detailed and yet incomplete tables,

none of this had been put in order, and it offers for our brief exposition much too dense material. Let us try, however, by condensing the citations to draw a panorama that is simultaneously broad and clear. The government's objective, Nikitin admits, in addition to the colonization program of unoccupied lands, was to give the Jews more space than they had to accustom them to productive physical labor to help guard them from harmful occupations by which, whether they liked it or not, many of them made the life of the peasant serfs even more difficult than it already was. The government, bearing in mind the improvement of their living conditions proposed to turn them to agriculture.

The government did not seek to attract Jews by promises. On the contrary, it endeavored that there should be no more than 300 families, transferred each year. It deferred the transfer so long as the houses were not built on the spot and invited the Jews, meanwhile, to send some of their men as scouts. Initially, the idea was not bad, but it had not sufficiently taken into account the mentality of the Jewish settlers, nor the weak capacities of the Russian administration. The project was doomed in advance by the fact that the work of the earth is an art that demands generations to learn. One cannot attach successfully to the earth people who do not wish it or who are indifferent to it.

This is one of the most significant paragraphs we've come across so far. And what stands out is the fact that this proves without question that Zars, Russia, at this fairly late date, was not an authoritarian state. The state didn't have much power, especially in the countryside. They couldn't do this. The level of totalitarianism that you would have to develop, I mean, we have it, of course. It's typical in post-modernity.

That's going to have to wait for the 20th century. The empire didn't have the resources to do anything like this or maintain it once it was done. These enlightened Jews that he's mentioned, I guess, didn't bother to tell the administrators or the czar himself that they're not going to work the land in an alien place. you know this is a third or fourth time we've mentioned these enlightened Jews from Germany and even Russia

they seem to be telling them you know half truths yeah they supported this there's no way that they didn't know that this was they knew this was going to fail I refuse to believe otherwise so these enlightened Jews who you know the good Jews

in the minds of the of the administration at the time that they were playing a game themselves There's the next line. I'll read it for you. The journalist Orchansky considered Jewish agriculture. It could have been a success,

but only if Jews have been transferred to nearby crown lands of Belarus where the peasant way of life was under their control before their eyes. Well, the place wasn't the problem. It was the people. And yes, what you just read, that you just can't transfer somebody there

and give them a hoe and expect them to know what they're doing. So much of that agrarian mentality has been lost. The peasant knowledge of the earth was extraordinary. It was beyond anything any scientists could talk about today, but in a practical, non-theoretical sense. So there's a lot going on here, but it has nothing to do with the place.

It has nothing to do with the administration or the attitude or the incentives. Jews are not going to work a land until they go where they think they belong. But, of course, Zionism was a very minor, if it even existed at all at this point, it was very small. Group of people. But the only place that they're going to work the land. I mean, you did have a couple of Jews who did this. Many of them converted, you know, I mean, legitimately converted. But it's a small percentage.

and for all of this discussion with enlightened Jews elsewhere, any Jew who knew anything would say this isn't going to work for a whole bunch of reasons. The religious is just one of them. The 30,000 hectares allotted to Jews in New Russia remained inalienable for decades. Apostiori, the journalist IG Orchansky considered the Jewish agriculture could have been a success, but only if Jews had been transferred to the nearby crown lands of Belarus. where the peasant way of life was under their control before their eyes. Unfortunately, there was scarcely any land there.

For example, in the province of Grotna, there were only 200 hectares marginal infertile land where the entire population suffered from poor harvests. At first, there were only three dozen families willing to emigrate. The Jews hoped that the expulsion measures from the western provinces would be reported if it had been foreseen in 1804 that its application would extend on three years, but it was slow to begin. The fateful deadline of January 1, 1808, approaching,

they began to leave the villages under escort from 1806 onwards. There was also a movement in favor of emigration among the Jews, the more so as the rumor indicated the advantages which were connected with it. The demands for emigration then flooded en masse. They rushed there, as it were, the promised land, like their ancestors who left Caldea and Canaan. entire groups left surreptitiously, without authorization, and some even without a passport. Some resold the passport they had obtained from their other departing groups, and then demanded

that they be replaced under the pretext they had lost it. The candidates for departure were day by day more numerous, and all insistently demanded land, housing, and substance. It's pretty clear what's happening here. the czarist government had heard enough about their manipulation of the peasantry. So they built this what is a very bizarre plan to settle them in various places with free everything, including exemption from the draft. I think they were exempt anyway.

And remember, we've gone back a couple decades. This is now prior to, several years prior to the invasion of Napoleon. they're going to take advantage of the benefits, but they're not going to work the land. We just read that the Jews were not part of any census. I don't know if that was really ever the case, maybe the very or very early 20th century. So there's no way to check who's where and who's going where and why.

They didn't have last names. There was no way to, you know, there was no, like today, everything is under surveillance. They had nothing like that back then. Plus, the very long distances, bad weather in the swamps, which was a problem here in this part of Belarus. There was no way, even if you could make this happen,

by force, there's no way you could maintain it. No one knew what was going on. However, they figured, well, this may happen anyway, so we're going to take advantage of all these benefits, but not work the land. We're going to get all this stuff for free and not do anything and see what happens. The influx succeeded the positive.

possibilities of reception of the support office of the Jews created in the province of Kersan. Time was lacking to build houses, dig wells, and the organizations suffered from the great distances in this region of the steps, the lack of craftsmen, doctors, and veterinarians. The government was indiscriminate of the people. The good provisions and sympathy toward the migrants, but the governor, Richelieu, demanded in 1807 that the entrances be limited to 200, 300 families per year, while recent. receiving without limitation those who wish to settle on their own account. In case of a bad harvest, all these people will have to be fed for several years in a row. The poorest settlers were paid daily allowances. However, the governors of the provinces allowed those over quota who wished to leave without knowing the exact number of those who were leaving, hence many vicissitudes along the way

due to misery, sickness, death. Some quite simply disappeared during the trip. distances across the step between 100 and 300 kilometers between a colony in the office, the inability of the administration to keep an accurate count and establish a fair distribution meant that some of the migrants were more helped than others. Some complained that they did not receive any compensation or loans. The colony inspectors, too few in numbers, did not have time to take a closer look. They received a miserable wage, had no horses and walked on foot. After a period of two years of stay, some settlers still had not.

no farm, no seeds, nor bread. The poorest were allowed to leave wherever they pleased, and those who renounced their condition as farmers recovered their former status as bourgeois. But only a fifth of them returned to their country of origin, and the others wandered, the loans granted to those who had been scratched off the list of settlers, were to be considered definitively lost. Some reappeared for a time in the colonies. Others disappeared without looking back or leaving a trace. The others pounded. of the pavement in the neighboring towns by trading according to their old habit. I've read about this in other sources, especially Russian language sources, and no matter

who's writing about it, it just gets dumber and dumber. I have no idea what these people thought was going to happen. There's no way. I mean, even if they weren't Jews, there was no way this was going to work. There's not the slightest doubt in my mind that these people were able to use their you know, the inability of the state to track them to get more than one loan, all these different subsidies that no one else was getting at the time. Of course, they went back to their old habits.

It's all that they were going to do and they were going to take advantage of this very dumb plan to be able to do it without having to pay any taxes, without having to, you know, I really have any social service whatsoever except to themselves. No one really knows because it's very difficult to tell who went where. and of course they took full advantage of it the more you read about it you know even if it was a success

it was going to fail miserably because once they get there what are they going to do? They didn't know the first thing about working the land that was beneath them and you know chances on if somehow by magic this would have worked out perfectly they would have figured out a way to get

Orthodox peasants or Catholic peasants to work for them and just not report it and, you know, broad people, I think that's what would have happened if this would have been magically successful. That's the best case scenario here. If this would have all worked out, they would have figured out a way to get the going on to do the backbreaking work. The many reports of the office and inspectors provide insight into how the new settlers were operating. To train the settlers who did not know where to start or how to finish, the services of peasants of the Crown were requested. The first plowing

is done for the most part through hired Russians. The habit is taken of correcting defects by a hired labor. They sow only a negligible portion of the plot allotted to them and use poor quality seeds. One has received specific seeds but does not plow or sow, another when sewing, loses a lot of seeds, and same goes during harvest. Some, due to the lack of experience, they break tools or simply resell them. They do not know.

I mean, the jokes write themselves. It's not funny, though. No. They do not know how to keep the livestock. They kill the cattle for food, then complain that they no longer have any. They sell cattle to buy cereals. They do not make provisions for dried dung, so their isbas, insufficiently heated, become damp.

They do not fix their houses, so they fall apart. They do not cultivate vegetable gardens. They heat the houses with straw stored to feed the cattle. Not knowing how to harvest, neither to mow nor to thresh. The colonists cannot be hired in the neighboring hamlets. No one wants them. They do not maintain the good hygiene of their homes, which favors diseases. They absolutely did not expect to be personally occupied with agricultural labor.

Doubtlessly, they thought that the cultivation of the land would be assured by other hands, that once in possession of great herds, they would go and sell them at the fairs. The settlers hoped to continue receiving public aid. they complain of being reduced to a pitiable condition, and it is really so of having worn their clothes up to the rope, and that is the case, but the inspection administration replies, if they have no more clothes, it is out of idleness, for they do not raise sheep, and so neither linen nor hemp, and their wives neither spin nor weave.

Of course, an inspector concluded in his report, if the Jews cannot handle their operations, it is by habit of a relaxed life, because of their reluctance to engage in agricultural work and they're an experience. But he thought it fair to add, agriculture must be prepared from earliest youth, and the Jews, having lived indolently until 45 to 50 years, are not in a position of transforming themselves into farmers in such a short time. The Treasury was obliged to spend two to three times more on the settlers than expected,

and extensions kept on being demanded. Risholulu maintained that the complaints came from the lazy Jews, not from the good farmers. However, another report notes that unluckily for them, since their arrival, they have not been comforted by an even remotely substantial harvest. This is everything I said in between the paragraphs before, not realizing that this was coming. Once you know the Jews pretty well, you know what's going to happen here. They come right out and say it. The Jews who were a part of this didn't expect to be occupied with agricultural labor. But that was the whole point that we're expecting to scam. You know, it's like,

it's like taking a mafioso from Brooklyn. They were going to take advantage of the plan. They weren't going to do anything to, in return, which was the whole point. The whole point was to get them to farm. You know, no one told them that this isn't going to, I can't imagine. At some point, someone had to have said something that Jews can't do this. Religiously, it's out of the question. And even if it wasn't a religious issue, they have no background in this. You're not going to go from being a parasite to now working the land for much less money. I don't care how many taxes you don't have to pay. It's just shocking.

And every time I read about this, I'm still shocked about how stupid this was. I don't think Jews suffered really much at all. I think they just said so. but they took advantage of everything, you know, complained all the time. And they got more money as a result. At any given moment, they could have, you know, went to Constantinople or whatever and got subsidies if they absolutely needed it. So I don't think they suffered really.

But this is, I can't get over the idiocy of this plan. In response to the many fragments communicated to St. Petersburg to signal how the Jews deliberately renounced all agricultural work, the ministry responded in the following way. The government has given them public aid in the hope that they will become farmers not only in name, but in fact. Many immigrants are at risk, if not incited to work, to remain debtors to the state for a long time. The arrival of Jewish settlers in New Russia at the expense of the state, uncontrolled and ill-supported by an equipment program, was suspended in 1810. In 1811, the Senate gave the Jews the right to lease the production of alcohol in the localities belonging to the

crown, but within the limits of the pale of settlement. As soon as the news was known in New Russia, the will to remain in agriculture was shaken for many settlers. Although they were forbidden to leave the country, some left without any identity papers to become inkeepers in villages dependent on the crown, as well as in those belonging to landowners. In 1812, it appeared that of the 848 families settled there were in fact only 538. 88 were considered to be on leave, parties earning their living in Kerasan, Nikolaev, Odessa, and even Poland. As for the others, they had simply disappeared. The entire program, the authoritative installation of families on land, was something unprecedented, not only

in Russia, but in the whole of Europe. The government now considered that in view of the Jews now proven disgust for the work of the land, seeing that they do not know how to go about it, Given the negligence of the inspectors, it appears that the migration has given rise to major disturbances, therefore the Jews should be judged indulgently. On the other hand, how can we guarantee the repayment of public loans by those who will be allowed to leave their status as farmers, how to palliate without injury to the treasury, the inadequacies of those who will remain to cultivate the land, how to alleviate the fate of those people who endured so. many misfortunes and are living on the edge. As for the inspectors, they suffer not only from understaffing, a lack of means, and various other shortcomings, but also from their negligence, absenteeism, and delays in the delivery of grain and funds. They saw with indifference the Jews selling their property, there were also abuses in exchange of payment they granted permits for long-term

absences, including the most reliable workers in a family, which could quickly lead to the ruin of the farm. Yeah, there's going to be injury to the Treasury. That we know for certain. Even after 1810 to 1812, the situation of the Jewish colonies showed no sign of improvement. Tools lost, broken, or mortgaged by the Jews, oxen again slaughtered, stolen, or resold, field sown late while awaiting warmth, use of bad seeds, and in too close proximity to houses, always on the one and same plot, no groundwork, sewing for five consecutive years on fields, that had only been plowed once, without alternating the sowing of wheat and potatoes, insufficient harvest from one year to another, yet again without harvesting seeds,

but the bad harvest also benefit the immigrants. They are then entitled to time off. Livestock left uncared for, oxen given for hire or assigned as carriages. They wore them down, did not nourish them, bartered or slaughtered them to feed themselves, only to say later they had died of disease. The authorities either provided them with others or let them leave in search of a livelihood. They did not care to build safe pens

to prevent livestock from being stolen during the night. They themselves spent their nights down to sleep. For shepherds, they took children or idlers who did not care for the integrity of the herds. On feast days or on Saturdays, they left them out to graze without any supervision. Moreover, on Saturday it is forbidden to catch the thieves. They resented their rare co-religionist who, with the sweat of their brow, obtained

remarkable harvests. The latter incurred the Old Testament curse the Hedham for if they show the authorities that the Jews are capable of working the land, they will eventually force them to do so. Few were assiduous in working the land. They had the intent while pretending to work to prove to the authorities by their continual needs their overall incapacity. They wanted first and foremost to return to the trade of alcohol, which was reauthorized to their co-religionists. Livestock, instruments, seeds were supplied to them several times, and new loans for their subsistence were relentlessly granted to them.

Many, after receiving a loan to establish themselves, came to the colonies only at the time of the distribution of funds, only to leave again. With this money to neighboring towns and localities in search for other work, they resold the plot that had been allocated to them, roamed, lived several months in Russia, agglomeration at the time intense moments of agricultural labor and earned their living by deceiving the peasants. The inspector's tables show that half of the families were absent with or without authorization and that some had disappeared forever. An example was the disorder prevailing in the village of Isre Levka in the province of Kersan, where the inhabitants of the inhabitants of

who had come to their own account, considered themselves entitled to practice other trades, they were there only to take advantage of the privileges. Only 13 of the 32 families were permanent residents, and again, they only sowed to make it seem legitimate while the others worked as tavern keepers in neighboring districts. Now, I have a theory about this. I haven't written on it quite yet.

We've already discussed that many members of the Senate and the committees that both Paul and L. Alexander empowered to look into the Jewish question. There was already close economic times with some Russian oligarchs with the Jews as middlemen, especially those of Polish background that were now part of the Russian Empire. The more I read about this, the more I think that no one

could possibly believe this would work, because even if these people had the best of intentions, there's no way to track them. So it's very possible that this was simply a scam that they may have worked out to get a large sum of money that they had no intention of paying back and all of these grants and then getting peasant labor from elsewhere

to help them, quote unquote, with learning how to farm. And all of this were not paying taxes or anything else. I'm willing to believe something like that only because it makes me less depressed about the whole thing. Clearly, this is a scam right here. They came to the colonies only at the time of the distribution of funds and then leave again. And in the previous paragraphs, it said, you know, well, they don't know what they're doing, so let's bring peasants in to assist them. I don't know where you could just transfer them or where they came from.

but so they had non-Jewish peasant labor. This was a huge scam. And it's almost, you know, so either this was the most naive plan that was ever created, or this was something worked out with some of the elites in the Senate, the oligarchs in the Senate, and many of those who knew the situation in Poland, profited from the situation in the old Polish Empire. and they they whacked up the money between them. It's got to be one of those two things,

and I think maybe it may well be the latter. Is it safe to say that when you look at people like Victoria Newland, Robert Kagan, this guy who was just not only Attorney General, Secretary of State, Blinken, Crystal, all of these guys, people whose families come from the Pail of Settlement, that they look at this and they're like, this is why we have such animus for Russia. And when you look, it's like they can't even take into account that their behavior was what caused so much of this.

Yeah, I think that so many of the neocons, Russian Jews, initial followers of Tronzky, but when that split with Stalin occurred, it wasn't ideological. Stalin did the same thing Tronsky did. Trotsky just didn't have a huge bureaucracy to work with like Stalin that they ended up becoming anti-Soviet but that was always anti-Russian

Russia is the symbolic Rome and the Talmudic mentality it has to be destroyed the Soviet Union didn't count it wasn't a part of that it was for most of its existence as we'll read here later a very Jewish enterprise

but I have never done this. I know there's a few people who have mentioned it taking some of these neocons and tracing their family tree seeing exactly whether they part of the anti-Zarist revolution or either the Mensovics or anyone else. But there's no way, you know, I think that Machiavellian mentality sees this kind of charity as weakness. Let's us assume it wasn't a scam

and there was good intentions behind this. Because Alexander could only do what his advisor said. That was the whole point of the committees. And the Senate was created by Peter the Great for that purpose. It was appointed and very wealthy men. That if it wasn't a scam, Jews saw this as just, you know, the weakness, the ignorance was contemptible. and we normal people would see it as an attempt to work out the Jewish problem, however naive it was.

Machiavellian is going to see it as in tremendous weakness. We could do whatever we want to these people. And there's going to give us more privileges. To think that, you know, Zaris Russia just inherently hated Jews for no reason. Yeah, you're exactly right. It was, you know, anytime in the U.S. and the Soviet Union cooperated economically. almost all the time. I have paper after paper on that.

You've read Anthony Sutton, three-volume work explaining in detail. You know, the U.S., the West in general, the U.S. in particular, built Soviet industry. It created and then rebuilt it after World War II. But then once it lost its profitability

in the late 60s and early 70s, then they wanted to go to Israel. And all of a sudden, this anti-Semitic nonsense was, you know, the anti-Zionist stuff in Russia or the Soviet Union came into prominence. So I think whatever battles with the Soviet Union existed, it wasn't the Soviet, you know, Trotky was not, never became anti-communist by any means. He didn't like Stalin. Trotsky was to great extent a Jewish nationalist as people like Moses Hess before him. And it wasn't ideology that separated those two.

So what was anti-Soviet, at least in certain circles, was in fact anti-Russian. You know, it's the things that are happening to Russia today, now that it's taken the nationalist and Eurasian point of view, would never have even been dreamed of against the USSR. There were no sanctions on the Soviet Union. Joe Biden himself,

with Richard Lugar and a few others, from 1972 to the early 80s, was traveling to the USSR, working out different agreements. Now with Putin, they don't want to talk to him at all. They call him a murderer and everything else. So in other words,

the gulag was perfectly acceptable to them. Nationalist Russia, that's something else. That has to be destroyed. And it sees very same. people today. You mentioned Blinken and all the, yes. There's definitely a connection. I don't know why Leo Strauss gets put into there.

Strauss didn't write on this topic at all, but I think your instincts are right. I don't know about the exact family tree, but for them to say that the Russian Empire didn't like, you know, of course they could construe this as persecution.

And yet the Pala Settlement was the most privileged part of the entire Russian Empire. It is true that when you read the biographies, as I've done of many of the Jewish revolutionaries, in the very early days of the Soviet Union, they are traced back to the pale of settlement. Upper middle class, merchant families, that's where these communists came from.

They had no connection to the working class at all, and Leninism, of course, had no connection with workers. That was just a pretext. That had nothing to do with anything, nothing to do with labor at all. So there's definitely a connection here. And I think the contempt for Russia came from this refusal to understand them. You know, this, how can you come up with a plan so stupid and expect it to succeed?

Of course, Napoleon is going to, you know, change things. But at this point, there was no chance of this ever being successful. The numerous reports of the inspectors note in particular and on several occasions that, the disgustive Jewish women for agriculture was a major impediment to the success of the settlers. The Jewish women who seemed to have put themselves to work in the fields subsequently diverted from it. At the occasion of marriages, the parents of Jewish women agreed with their future son-in-laws for them not to compel their wives to carry out difficult agricultural labor, but rather higher workers. They agreed to prepare ornaments, fox and hair furs, bracelets, headdresses, and even pearls for

days of celebrations. These conditions led young men to satisfy the whims of their wives to the point of ruining their farming. They go so far as to indulge in possessing luxurious effects, silks, objects of silver and gold, while other immigrants do not even have clothing for the wintertime. Excessively early marriages make the Jews multiply significantly faster than the other inhabitants. Then by the exodus of the young, the families become too little provided for and are incapable of ensuring the work.

The overcrowding of several families and houses too scarce generates uncleanliness and favors scurvy. Some women take bourgeois husbands and then leave colonies forever. Judging from the reports of the control office, the Jews of the various colonies continually complained about the lack of the steps. So hard it must be plowed with four pairs of oxen. Complaints included bad harvest, water scarcity, lack of fuel, bad. weather, disease generation, hail, grasshoppers. They also complained about the inspectors, but unduly, seeing that upon examination, the complaints were deemed unfounded.

Immigrants complained shamelessly of their slightest annoyances. They ceaselessly increased their demands. When it is justified, they are provided for via the office. On the other hand, they had little reason to complain about limitations to the exercise of their piety or of the number of schools open in the agglomerations. In 1829, for eight colonies, there were 40 teachers. I just figured the more they complain, the more money they're going to get. It's almost like they realize that they have the state over a barrel here.

There's not enough. The inspection office was very small, probably very easily bought off. they were already You already had laborers You know, Christian laborers brought in from elsewhere They were doing most of the work Yeah, they were unfounded

Because they didn't exist You know, poor Jews suffered But they suffered anywhere I'm assuming the basic Kahal system was just reproduced I can't say that for certain though And that may have been one of the problems With this remember there's only

There's not that many people here Yeah, the number of families was given the Jewish population of the Russian Empire was very small. So they're ceaselessly increasing their demands. They just saw that, you know, the goium, they'll do whatever we say and we can still take advantage of them.

However, as pointed out by Nickerson, in the same step during the same period in the same virgin lands, threatened by the same locusts, cultivations by German colonists, Mennonites, and Bulgarians had been established. They also suffered from the same bad harvest, the same diseases, but however, most of them always had enough bread and livestock, and they lived in beautiful houses without buildings,

their vegetable gardens were abundant, and their dwellings surrounded by greenery. The difference was obvious, especially when the German settlers at the request of the authorities, came to live in the Jewish settlements to convey their experiences to set an example. Even from a distance, their properties could be distinguished. In the Russian colonies, the houses were also better than those of the Jews. However, Russians had managed to get into debt with some Jews who were rich, than them and paid their debts while working in their fields. The Russian peasants, Nicotin explains, under the oppression of serfdom, were accustomed to everything and stoically endured all misfortunes.

That is how the Jewish settlers who had suffered losses following various indignities were assisted by the vast living spaces of the step that attracted fugitive serfs from all regions. chased by sedentary settlers, the latter replied by the luther replied by the looting, the theft of cattle, the burning of houses, well received, however, they offered their work and know-how. As reflective and practical men, and by instinct of self-preservation, the Jewish cultivators preferred receiving these fugitives with kindness and eagerness. In return, the latter willingly helped them in plowing, sewing, and harvesting. Some of them, to hide better, embrace the Jewish religion. These cases came to light in 1820. The government forbade Jews to use Christian labor. Well, this just gets better and better.

So you have people who are fleeing something, you know, the law or something like that. Classically, this step was where you would go. I mean, many Cossacks were recruited that way centuries earlier. But they suddenly become, Jews become very tolerant. Oh, this is perfect. We'll put them to work. and we'll even make them Jews just so no one can track them anymore. And of course, the implication here is that there's other settlers in these areas that did fine.

But, you know, that's to be expected. But, you know, the example I think of when you're reading this is Sammy the Bull Gravano, who was second in command to John Gotti. He went to the witness protection program after becoming a rat to his boss. and he was sent to Arizona and he was kicked out of the witness protection program because he became a drug dealer. In other words, that's what he does.

He's a criminal. He's not going to get a job at Burger King and work for minimum wage after living the life he did before. It's actually a very good illustration of what's happening here. no he that that's that's what he is that's what he does he doesn't know anything else and the exact same thing is happening here and and the scam and the machiavellian thinking that we know of in the talmudic mentality the jews today this is where it really shows itself in such sharp relief and the very fact that the state was was trying to do this to help them um is irrelevant because charity is construed by them as weakness meanwhile in 1817 the 10 years during which the Jewish settlers were exempt from royalties had passed, and they were now to pay by the peasants of the Crown. Collected petitions emanating not only from the colonists,

but also from public officials, demanded that the privilege should be extended for a further 15 years. A personal friend of Alexander I, Prince Galitzin, Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, also responsible for all problems concerning the Jews, took the decision to exempt them from paying royalties for another five years and to postpone the full repayments of loans up to 30 years. It is important to note on the honor of the authorities of St. Petersburg that no request of the Jews before and now has ever been ignored. You've said this already, but I want to remind people that this Prince Gullitzen was a high-ranking freemation. In fact, freemasonry at this point had deeply penetrated the elite, at least up in the

far north where St. Petersburg is and in the Senate. Galitzen was a hedonist and yet was placed in charge of the church through the through the synod. And of course being a freemason was half Jewish to begin with. And this was the guy

that was put in charge of this, at least the ultimate guy that was put in charge of this project. So now, you know, I'm starting to think, yeah, maybe this was a scam from the beginning. because this is how these people operate. Among the demands of the Jewish settlers, Nicotin found one which seemed to him to be particularly characteristic. Experience has proven,

and as much as agriculture is indispensable to humanity, it is considered the most basic of occupations, which demands more physical exertion than ingenuity and intelligence, and all over the world, those affected to this occupation are those incapable of more serious professions, such as industrialists and merchants, it is the latter category in as much as it demands more talent in education, which contributes more than all others the prosperity of nations, and in all periods it has been accorded far more esteem and respect than that of the agricultures.

The slanderous representations of the Jews to the government resulted in depriving the Jews of the freedom to exercise their favorite trade, that of commerce, and to force them to change their status by becoming farmers, the so-called plebs. Between 1807 and 1809, more than 120,000 people were driven out of villages and were forced to settle in uninhabited places. Hence their claim to return to them the status of bourgeois with the right attested in the passport to be able to leave without hindrances according to the wishes of each individual. These are well-weighed and unambiguous formulas. From 1814 to 1823, the farming of the Jews did not prosper. The statistical table show that each registered individual cultivated less than two-thirds of a hectare. As they tried to cut off the harshest work in the eyes of the inspectors, they found compensation in commerce and other miscellaneous trades. Well, what Nikitin is either saying or reporting here, this may have been the mentality at the time.

But, of course, it's a line. a tremendous amount of intellectual knowledge, maybe not theoretical knowledge, goes into agriculture. It isn't just physical labor. I'm just talking about farming per se, but running a household dedicated to farming. And being able to,

I mean, you have to be a businessman there too. And it's always a struggle. But it's not more serious, as he said, to become an industrial or merchant. Maybe you have to be more, scheming. Maybe you have to be more maccuvialian. Maybe you have to be more devious to be a merchant. But for him to say or report someone else saying that that's somehow intelligence and makes it superior to agriculture. And therefore, the Jews couldn't possibly lower themselves to this. This is typical of the mentality of the elite, especially in the Masonic orders in St. Petersburg. And it reflects the mentality of the Jews too.

We have three quarters of a page before we come to a natural stopping point, and that should probably take us up to an hour. Sounds good. Half a century later, the Jewish journalist I.G. Archonski proposed the following interpretation. What could be more natural for the Jews transplanted here to devote themselves to agriculture to have seen a vast field of virgin economic activity and to have precipitated themselves there with their customary and favorite occupations, which promised in the towns a harvest more abundant than that which they could expect as farmers. Why, then, demand of them that they should necessarily occupy themselves with agricultural labor, which undoubtedly would not turn out well for them,

considering the bubbling activity that attracts the Jews in the city's in formation? The Russian authorities at that time saw things differently. In time, the Jews could become useful cultivators if they resume their status. that as bourgeois, they would only increase the number of parasites in the cities. On record, 300,000 rubles spent on nine Jewish settlements, a colossal sum considering the value of the currency at the time.

It sounds like money laundering. Oh, yeah. A huge money laundering operation. In Ukraine? That never happens. In 1822, in 1822, the additional five years of royalty exemption had elapsed,

but the condition of the Jewish farms still required new franchises and new subsidies. The state of extreme poverty of the settlers was noted, linked to their inveterate laziness, disease, mortality, crop failures, and ignorance of agricultural work. I think what Orchansky is trying to say in a kind of a roundabout way is that, you know, we've talked about the naivete of the, of the elite here. There's also a possibility

of why I think they all knew exactly what the Jewish mind is, what the Kahal really was. They existed by non-productive labor, usury, rents and monetized commerce in a way that no one else had

done at the time in Russia. That had to end. Unrest was going to happen. Mass indebtedness was going to happen. We can't have that. but how they get from from that fact that's absolutely true to we're going to make farmers out of them and they're going to work the land that's where I that's why I can't make that connection and that's why more and more I'm starting to think this really was a scam from the beginning that Golitsyn was a part of it that these subsidies were just another another way to manipulate

the Guiam despite the fact that you did have poor Jews who were you know, doing this, suffer. But they were suffering anyway. Nevertheless, the young Jewish generation was gradually gaining experience in agriculture. Recognizing that good regular harvest were not in the realm of the impossible, the settlers invited their compatriots from Belarus and Lithuania to join them. All the more since there had been bad harvest there,

the Jewish families flocked in mass. With or without authorization, as in 1824, they feared the threat of general expulsion in the western part of the country. In 1821, as we have already mentioned, measures had been taken to put an end to the Jewish distilleries in the province of Shernigov, followed by two or three other regions. The governors of the western provinces let all the volunteers go without much inquiry as to how much land was left in New Russia for the Jews. Let's be careful. We have to remind ourselves that the Kahul already was willing to excommunicate anyone who did well. actually farming the land with their two hands.

We've read that already for the reasons we've already said. It's almost funny. That's going to make us all look bad, and they're going to think that we could all do it. So anytime you have a successful farm, we put successful in quotes, it's almost guaranteed Christian labor and the Jews are somehow able to bribe or manipulate the inspectors, and they go back to Petersburg and say, oh, yeah, this family's doing real well. So either way, it's a scam. From there, it was announced that the possibilities of recession did not exceed 200 families per year,

but 1,800 families had already started the journey. Some straight and nature, others settled along the way. From then on, the colonists were refused all state aid, but with 10 years exemption of royalties. However, the Caholam were interested in getting the poorest to leave in order to have less royalties to pay. And to a certain extent, they provided those who left with funds from the capital. community. They encouraged the departure of the elderly, the sick, and large families with few able-bodied adults useful to agriculture, and when the authorities demanded a written agreement from the levers, they were provided with a list of signatures devoid of any meaning. Of the 453 families who arrived

in a neighborhood at Akaterina Slav in 1823, only two were able to settle at their own expense. What had pushed them there was the mad hope of of the mad hope of receiving public aid, which might have dispensed the newcomers from work. In 1822, 1,016 families flocked to the new Russia from Belarus. The colonies were rapidly filled with immigrants to whom provisional hospitality was offered. Confinement and uncleanliness engendered diseases. Also, in 1825, Alexander I prohibited the relocation of the Jews. In 1824 and 1825, following further back,

harvest, the Jews were supported by loans, but in order not to give them too much hope, their origin was concealed, they supposedly came from the personal decision of an inspector or as a reward for some work. Passports were again issued so that the Jews could settle in towns. As for paying royalties, even for those settled there for 18 years, it was no longer discussed. So it's not just the state here. The state wasn't able to go to the Kahul and just heard them. to New Russia. Now the previous paragraph says exactly what was going on. The elders, the wealthy elders that Ghal just wanted to get rid of a lot of people they didn't want around anymore. Those who weren't productive, maybe those who weren't particularly devoted, families that were overpopulation. They were trying to deal with it by getting rid of them. In the meantime, they get all of these subsidies along the way. And of course, eventually it was abandoned. nothing was done. God knows how many rubles were spent. I think some Jews did get wealthy off off of this. And yet the mentality throughout Europe continued that maybe we could make farmers

out of them. It's, you know, and of course, as you know, are the kibbutz in Israel? Yeah, that's okay. Although they do use often foreign labor for that too. But as far as a foreign land goes, especially of all places, officially Orthodox monarchist Russia, working to land was absolutely out of the question. All right. We hit a perfect stopping point

and we'll pick it up in a couple days. On the next episode, I will, once again, as I will at the end of every episode, encourage people to, I provide links, especially in the videos if you go to YouTube,

bit shoot, Odyssey, and Rumble. There are hot, links that you can support Dr. Johnson's work with. So I encourage you to do that. Of course, sir. All right. We'll see you in a couple days. Thank you very much.

All right, my friend. I want to welcome everyone back to part eight of our reading of 200 years together by Alexander Solzhenycinessen. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing today? You know, we're at part eight, and we're only at page 44. This is going to be one hell of a year. I'm telling you. It's somebody said that I should probably start numbering the episodes.

Like right now it should be zero zero eight. Yeah. At least. All right. Let's jump right in. We are, yep, here we go. At the same time in 1823, a decree of His Majesty's orders that in the provinces, provinces of Baila, Russia, the Jews, shall cease all their distillery activities in 1824, abandoned farmhouses and relay stations,

and settle permanently in the towns and agglomerations. The transfer was implemented. By January 1824, some 20,000 people had already been displaced. The emperor demanded to see to it that the Jews were provided with activities and substance during this displacement so that without home base they would not suffer under these conditions or more pressing needs, such as that of food. The creation of a committee composed of four ministers, the fourth ministerial cabinet created for the Jewish affairs, produced no tangible results either in terms of funding, nor in administrative

capacities, nor in the social structure of the Jewish community, which was impossible to rebuild from the outside. In this, as before in many other domains, the Emperor Alexander I, appears to us to be weak-willed in his impulses, inconsistent and inconsistent and inconsistent with his resolves, as we can see him passive in the face of strengthening secret societies which were preparing to overthrow the throne. But in no case should his decisions be attributed to a lack of respect for the Jews. On the contrary, he was listening to their needs, and even during the war of 1812 through 1814, he had kept at headquarters the Jewish delegate's Zendl Sonnenberg and Licin-Burgen-Dillin, who defended the interests of the Jews.

Dylan, it is true, was soon to be judged for having appropriated 250,000 rubles of public money, and for having extorted funds from landowners. Sonnenberg, on the other hand, remained for a long time one of Alexander's close friends. On the orders of the Tsar, 1814, a permanent Jewish deputation functioned for a number of years in St. Petersburg for which the Jews had themselves raised funds, for there were plans for major secret expenditures within government departments. These deputies demanded that throughout Russia,

the Jews should have the right to engage in the trade, farming, and distillation of spirits, that they be granted privileges in matters of taxation, that the backlogs be handed over, that the number of Jews admitted to the members of the magistrate no longer be limited. The emperor benevolently listened to them, made promises, but no concrete measures were taken.

A lot of the Russian and Polish elite in the Senate were in a really rough position because although they profited from their relationships with the Jews, they also got scammed over and over again. You bring someone into this new department, and the first thing they do is embezzle a quarter of a million rubles and then extract rents from, from landowners. So this was always a double-edged sword. These aren't the older 17th century Polish landowners who really didn't care or never even kept records. This is a, this is a very

different story. And it is important to note that he was, none of it was Alexander passive for these secret societies that will attempt a revolution upon his death, the elite of the elite. but he initially supported them bringing someone like Gleitzen into head the the synod of all things in a church that he really didn't like

and this was a case with these procurators of the synod many of them were Masons, many of them were non-Orthodox he laid the groundwork for his own demise the Bible society was a strictly Masonic

Western institution that he was promoting they were pushing all of these very bizarre translations and eventually it was ended but when the Decemberist revolt was put down and Nicholas I took over this is all going to change and that goes along with his policy towards the Jews but Alexander I think is learning

slowly but truly that the more you do for them the worst things you're going to get for you because they see any concession as a matter of weakness and that's not something think that Nicholas I'm not a mistake that he was going to make later on. In 1817, the English Missionary Society sent the lawyer Louis Weil an equal rights activist for the Jews to Russia for the specific purpose of acquainting himself with the situation of the Jews of Russia. He had an interview with Alexander I, to whom he handed a note.

Deeply convinced that the Jews represented a sovereign nation, Wilde affirmed that all Christian peoples, since they had received salvation of the Jews, were to render to the Jews. to them the highest homage and to show them their gratitude by benefits. In this last period of his life, marked by mystical dispositions, Alexander had to be sensitive to such arguments. Both he and his government were afraid of touching with an imprudent hand the religious rules of the Jews. Alexander had great respect for the venerable people of the Old Covenant and was sympathetic

to their present situation. Hence his utopian quest to make this people access the New Testament. To this, and in 1817, with the help of the emperor, the Society of Christians of Israel was created, meaning Jews who converted to Christianity, not necessarily orthodoxy, and because of this enjoyed considerable privileges, they had the right everywhere in Russia to trade and carry on various trades without belonging to guilds or workshops, and they were freed, they and their descendants, for every. of any civil and military service. Nevertheless, this society experienced no influx of converted Jews and soon ceased to exist. I should note that the English missionary society, this is connected to the Bible society. This was a strictly ecumenical mission, which Alexander was a part of, at least for a while. It shows you that this is what Protestantism is, and this is why both Poles and Russians, called Protestants a

Judaism of the church. This far back, Protestants were saying these ridiculous things about the Jews, actually believing that they're the people of the Old Testament.

It's not like they were ignorant of the Talmud. It just was something that wasn't accessible to them. They believed the superficial explanations that many of the Jews had given them. and ever since Cromwell, for Christ's sake, Judaism was deeply a part of the other British elite and ruling class.

Alexander had been so badly misled by people like this, and I'm one of these people who believes that he absconded the throne and became Kuzmich. Actually, I did a lecture on that some time ago, to atone for many of these errors. the worst thing that could have happened to the Russian Empire at the time was the murder of Tsar Paul because things like this would not have gone this far but it was just this promotion of ignorance by groups like the Bible Society, the English Missionary Society, showing them homage. These are the people who claim to be against idolatry. You see how little has changed with the bulk of these Protestants,

especially from Britain. The good dispositions of Alexander I, in regards to the Jews, made him express his convictions, put an end to the accusations of ritual murders, which arose against them. These accusations were unknown in Russia until the division of Poland from where they came. In Poland, they appeared in the 16th century, transmitted from Europe, where they were born in England in 1144, before resurfacing in the 12th to 13th century in Spain, France, Germany, and Great Britain. Popes and monarchs fought off these accusations without them disappearing in the 14th nor 15th century. The first trial in Russia took place in Seno near Vedivetsk in 1816 was not only stopped by Her Majesty's decision, but incited the Minister of Religious Affairs Galitzin to send the authorities of all provinces the following injunction.

Henceforth, not to accuse the Jews of having to put to death Christian children solely supported by prejudice, and without proof. In 1822 to 23, another affair of this kind broke out in Villehe, also in the province of Vibetepsk. However, the court decreed in 1824, the Jews accused in many uncertain Christian testimonies of having killed this boy, supposedly to collect his blood, must be exonerated of all suspicion. Nevertheless, in the 25 years of his reign, Alexander I did not sufficiently study the questions to conceive and put into practice a methodical solution satisfactory to all regarding the Jewish problem as it was in Russia at the time. A lot of this shouldn't make any sense to you. It isn't so much that if there's an accusation

that a Jew murdered somebody, we should have a trial. It's that these accusations are not allowed. I was very impressed. I did a whole lecture last year, I think, on the Belize case in Kiev. And then, of course, I also read Ariel Toav's book. I think he was from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, giving credence to a lot of these rituals from these very extreme, heistic and extreme Orthodox groups, small though they are. I was very impressed by Toav's book. There was a strong amount of evidence.

Golitsyn, this shouldn't surprise you, that he was outraged, that anyone would accuse the Jews of this kind of thing. The assumption, I guess, is that it's impossible. They're incapable of this. This wasn't just a matter of prejudice. Where did it come from? In the legal system at the time, you can't just have something based on prejudice and without proof go before a judge. It was a normal system at the time, and it improved under Alexander. the second. So this was just almost a veneration of the Jews by these people. The Masons were deeply, you know, hated any. This was, this was their master race. And, you know, this is getting, you give them an inch, and this is the kind of crap that you get. Golitson certainly was profiting

from this, was profiting from them. And they wouldn't have reacted with this irrationality, saying that you're not allowed to even say this unless there was actual evidence that that these extreme groups are doing this, are killing kids. How to act, what to do with this separated people who has not yet grafted onto Russia, and which continues to grow in number, is also the question to which the Decembrus Pestel, who opposed the emperor sought an answer for the Russia of the future, which he proposed to direct. In the truth of Russia, he proposed two solutions, either make the Jews merge for good in the Christian population of Russia, Above all, it is necessary to deflect the effect, harmful to Christians, of the close length

that unites the Jews amongst themselves, or which is directed against Christians, which completely isolates the Jews from all other citizens. Conven the most knowledgeable rabbis and Jewish personalities, listen to their proposals, and then take action. If Russia does not expel the Jews, all the more they shouldn't adopt unfriendly attitudes towards Christians. The second solution would consist in helping the Jews' create a separate state in one of the regions of Asia Minor. To this end, it is necessary to establish

a gathering point for the Jewish people and to send several armies to support it. We are not very far from the future Zionist idea. The Russian and Polish Jews together will form a people of more than two million souls. Such a mass of men in search of a country will have no difficulty in overcoming obstacles such as the opposition of the Turks. Crossing Turkey from Europe, they will pass into Asiatic Turkey and occupy there enough place and land to create a specifically Jewish state. However, Pestl acknowledges that such an enormous undertaking requires special circumstances and an entrepreneurial spirit of genius. Nikita Murov, another Decemberist, stipulated in his proposed constitution, that Jews can enjoy civil rights in the

places where they live, but that the freedom to settle in other places will depend on the particular decisions of the people's supreme assembly. I'm not sure if this is one of the first proposals about this mass relocation to either Asia Minor, which is Turkey, or elsewhere in the Middle East. And I'm not even sure that they're referring to the fact, well, these are so-called people of the Old Testament, therefore they should go back to what we call Israel today. Jews did very, very well under the Ottoman Empire. That's going to change the dawn of the 20th century. And it also goes to show what the Decemberist movement was.

They attempted to essentially overthrow the monarchy at the death of Alexander I. They were high-ranking masons, Judeo-files. And I'm not sure had they taken over what they would have done. They were very unpopular, unlike Nicholas I, who eventually prosecuted them, although they got fairly weak sentences. I'm not sure if this is the first time this has been mentioned, but the Zionist idea had very few followers amongst Jews at the time. But this is at least a very early mention of the Zionist ideal.

But, you know, almost, I mean, several armies, well, who are they going to be fighting? Were they going to invade the Turkish Empire? And this seems to be the kind of mentality that's all over. the elite Russian impolishment attitude towards the Jews. Just one unrealistic idea after another. Nevertheless, the instances proper to the Jewish population, the Kahalam, opposed with all their might,

the interference of state power and all external influence. On this subject, opinions differ. From the religious point of view, as many Jewish writers explain, living in the diaspora's historical punishment that weighs on Israel for its former sins, scattering must be assumed to merit God's forgiveness and the return to Palestine. For this it is necessary to live without failing according to the law and not to mingle with the surrounding peoples.

That is the ordeal. But for a liberal Jewish historian of the early 20th century, the dominant class and capable of any creative work, deft to the influences of its time, devoted all its energies to preserving from the attacks of time, both external and internal, a petrified national and religious life. The Cahal drastically stifled the protests to the weakest. The cultural and educational reform of 1804 confined itself to illusoryly blurring the distinctive and foreign character of the Jews without having recourse to coercion or even taking mercy on prejudices. These decisions sowed a great disturbance within the Cahal, and that they

harbored a threat to the power it exercised over the population. In the regulation, the most sensitive point for the Kahl was the prohibition of delivering the unruly to the Harem or even more severe, the observation that to keep the population and servile submission to a social order, as it had been for centuries, it was forbidden to change garb. But it cannot be denied that the Kham also had reasonable regulatory requirements for the life of the Jews, such as the Kasaki rule, allowing and forbidding the members of the community from taking on a particular type of farming or occupation, which put an end to excessive competition between Jews. Thou shalt not move the bounds of thy neighbor, Deuteronomy 1914. In 1808, an unidentified Jew transmitted an anonymous note during reprisals from the Kahal to the Minister of Internal Affairs entitled,

some remarks concerning the management of the life of the Jews. He wrote, many do not regard as sacred the innumerable rights and rules, which divert attention from all this is useful, enslave the people to prejudices, take by their multiplication an enormous amount of time, and deprive the Jews of the advantage of being good citizens. He noted that the rabbis pursuing only their interests have enclosed life in an intertwining of rules, have concentrated in their hands all the police, legal, and spiritual authority, more precisely, the study of the Talmud and the observance of rights as a unique means of distinguishing oneself and acquiring affluence have become the first dream and aspiration of the Jews. And although the

governmental regulation limits the prerogatives of the rabbi and Kellehim, the spirit of the people remain the same. The author of this note considered the rabbis and the kaha'al as the main culprits of the ignorance and misery of the people. Despite the fact that this system of rule in eastern Europe is long gone, there is a kind of neo-cahull amongst Jews, especially in places like Ukraine, that have a very similar system. The Talmudic idea, even if it's not directly studied, its basic prejudices are still instilled in young Jews all the time. We have this rule that they're already, I don't know what certain type of farming. It was farming in general. So any attempt to settle them on land by the very rule of the Kahul is not going to work.

And you notice here that competition among Jews is out of the question. We're in competition with Gentiles. It can never be amongst each other. And Willis Cardo used to say when I was working for him years ago that if the Jews didn't have us, they'd be slaughtering each other because they functioned by this creation. of an enemy, this prejudice that the Gentile world is savage and inhuman and literally inhuman. But now the German Jewish, mostly confined to Germany, the Jewish Enlightenment, you did have this kind of talk in the second paragraph you mentioned about how wicked, not so much the Talmud as such, but we know it is the Talmud as such, but how it's being applied. that the Cahal uses these prejudices.

I mean, there's nothing in that series of books, that evil series of books that, you know, it's a totalitarian system. It regulates everything you do, even in the bathroom, even in how you eat and everything else. But this is one of the means that poor Jews who are put upon by the elites were kept in line. So with these series of,

and so this is more or less a rejection of the Talmud by a lot of these people. in Eastern Europe you didn't have a lot of that, especially at this point, because the Kaha'al was so powerful. In Western Europe, you had a stronger Jewish enlightenment that realized what was going on. But since the bulk, the overwhelming majority of the world's Jews were within the old Polish and Russian Empire, this is a mentality that still exists today, and this is exactly where it comes from. Another Jewish public man, Gila Markovic, a native of Prussia, wrote that the members of the Vilnius Kahal, with the help of the local administration, exerted a severe repression against all those who denounced their illegal acts. Now deprived of the right to the harem, they kept their accusers for long years in prison, and if one of them succeeded in getting a message from himself to the higher authorities, they sent him without any other form of trials to the next world. When this kind of crime was revealed, the Kahal spent large sums to stifle the affair.

Other Jewish historians give examples of assassinations directly commissioned by the Jewish Kahal. In their opposition to governmental measures, the Kahulam relied essentially on the religious sense of their action. Thus, the union of the Kahul and the rabbis, desirous of maintaining the power over the masses, made the government believe that every act of a Jew was subject to such and such a religious prescription. The role of religion was thereby increased. As a result, the people of the administration saw in the Jews not members of different social groups, but a single entity closely knit together. The vices and infractions of the Jews were explained not by individual motives,

but by the alleged land amorality of the Jewish religion. The cahal is not that far off from any other form of organized crime. And in this case, it's not so much the religious element. that veils their action. But it really relies then and now. Jewish power relies on public ignorance, which is why they're so obsessed with censorship and have always been, even in pre-modern times.

Public ignorance is absolutely essential. The Kabbalah, the Talmud, and all these associated books are almost entirely closed to the Gentiles. And of course, that's on purpose. purpose. Now, I think, you know, fat Americans are such that even if they knew they wouldn't know what to do. I think they'd rather kill themselves than do any harm to their social debtors. But the knowledge of this kind of thing is what they fear the most. So keeping all their books closed, their practice is secret. And the kahaal was essential to this. This was the main source of their power as far as the Gentile world was concerned. The union of Kahalam and rabbis did not want to see or hear anything. It extended its lead and cover over the masses.

The power of the Kahul only increased while the rights of the elders and rabbis were limited by the regulation of 1804. This loss is offset by the fact that the Kahal acquired, it is true only in a certain measure, the role of a representative administration which it had enjoyed in Poland. The Kahul owed the strengthening of its authority to the institution of deputies. This deputation of the Jewish communities established in the Western provinces in charge of debating at leisure with the government the problems of Jewish life was elected in 1807 and sat intermittently for 18 years. These deputies endeavored above all to restore to the

rabbis the right to the harem. They declared that to deprive the rabbis of the right to chastise the disobedient is contrary to the religious aspect which the Jews are obliged by law. to have for the rabbis. These deputies succeeded in persuading a member of the committee of Senator Popov 1809 that the authority of the rabbis was a support for the Russian governmental power. The members of the committee did not resist in front of the threat that the Jews would escape the authority of the rabbis to delve into depravity. The committee was prepared to maintain in its integrity all this archaic structure to avoid the terrible consequences evoked by the deputies. Its members members did not seek to know who the deputies considered to be violators of the spiritual law.

They did not suspect that they were those who aspired to education. The deputies exerted all their efforts to strengthen the authority of the cahal and to drink at the source of the movement towards culture. They succeeded in deferring the limitations previously taken to the wearing of traditional Jewish garb, which dated back to the Middle Ages, and so blatantly separated the Jews from the surrounding world. Even in Riga, the law that ordered the Jews to wear another garment was not applied anywhere, and it was reported by the emperor himself while awaiting new legislation.

All requests of the deputies were not satisfied. Far from it. They needed money, and to get it, the deputies frightened their communities by ominously announcing the intentions of the government and by amplifying the rumors of the capital. In 1820, Markovic accused the deputies of intentionally spreading false news, to force the population to pay to the khal, the sums demanded. In 1825, the institution of the Jewish deputies was suppressed. You know, the kahaul couldn't function unless it was able to influence the state itself,

both local and, you know, federal. And that was the case all over the place, you know. Zionism, and this is one of the reasons that may, Natura Carter, the Hasidic group that's against Israel, they say that Zionism can't exist unless Jews take over the foreign policy establishment of their host countries, which is something that they're repulsed by.

In other words, it's very good reason to distrust the Jews in this respect. But here you have a state within a state, very wealthy, completely unified, at least in Eastern Europe, and to to maintain it secrecy and this ideology especially secret is one of the reasons

that they were able to function. They had the money to penetrate the governing system, the elites around them, who did profit from their connection with the Jews. So all of this is based on this obsession with unity, cohesion, which is why the herm was so important. And I think with that line that you read very slowly and movement towards culture

that means movement towards enlightenment which did at the time threatened the Kahal life was very different in Western Europe for them than in Eastern Europe maintaining

especially younger and possibly more rebellious Jews and basic ignorance except for the Talmud was very important so the entire system was based on deceit control and you know

spreading false news this is 1825 and we're talking about it. And this is how the, you know, and superb organization. And that's the case today. There are even for a handful of Jews in a country, there are hundreds of organizations. They're at 100% mobilization. And that mentality didn't begin here, but it's very obvious here. And I don't think the suppression of the Jewish deputies really really mattered one way or the other.

Because one thing about the Gahal is despite the fact that it is, very rigid. It can also adapt to circumstances. One of the sources of tension between the authorities and Kahulam resided in the fact that the latter, the only ones authorized to levy the capitation on the Jewish population, hid the souls during the censuses, and concealed a large quantity of them. The government thought that it knew the exact numbers of the Jewish population in order to demand the corresponding amount of capitation, but it was very difficult to establish it. Is capitation taxation? You know? Oh, yeah, yeah, per capita. Okay, gotcha. For example,

in Berdicev, the unrecorded Jewish population regularly accounted for nearly half the actual number of Jewish inhabitants. According to the official data that the government has succeeded in establishing for 1818, the Jews were 677,000, an already important number, for example, by comparison with the data of 1812, the number of male individuals had suddenly doubled, but it was still an undervalued figure for there were about 40,000 Jews from the Kingdom of Poland to add. Even with reduced figures of the, even with reduced figures of the Kahalam, there were unrecovered taxes every year, and not only were they not recuperated, but they augmented from year to year. Alexander I personally told the Jewish representatives of his discontent at seeing so many concealments and arrears, not to mention the smuggling industry.

In 1817, the remission of all fines and surcharges, penalties, and arrears was decreed, and a pardon was granted to all those who had been punished for not correctly recording souls, but on the condition that the Qaholam provide honest data from then on. But no improved Yeah I mean these people just don't learn But no improvement ensued In 1820 the Minister of Finance announced that all measures aimed at improving the economic situation of the Jews were unsuccessful Many Jews were wandering without identity papers

A new census reported a number of souls Two or three times greater if not more than those previously provided by Jewish societies However, the Jewish population was constantly increasing. Most researchers see one of the main reasons for this growth as being the custom of early marriages prevalent at that time among the Jews as early as 13 years old for boys and from 12 years old onward for girls. In the anonymous note of 1808 quoted above, the unknown Jewish author writes that this custom

of early unions is at the root of innumerable evils and prevents the Jews from getting rid of inveterate customs and activities that draw upon them the general public's indignation and harms them as well as others. Tradition among the Jews is that those who are not married at a young age are held in contempt and even the most destitute draw on their last resources to marry their children as soon as possible, even though these newlyweds incurred the vicissitudes of a miserable existence. Early marriages were introduced by the rabbis who took advantage of them, and one will be better able to contract a profitable marriage by devoting himself to the study of the Talmud and the strict observance of the rights. Those who married early were indeed only occupied with studying

the Talmud, and when finally came the time to lead an autonomous existence, these fathers, ill-prepared for labor, ignorant of the working life, turned to the manufacture of alcohol and petty trading. The same goes for crafts. By marrying the 15-year-old apprentice no longer learns his trade, but becomes his own boss and only ruin his own. the work. In the mid-1920s, in the provinces of Grotna and Vilnius, there was a rumor that it would be forbidden to enter into marriage before reaching the age of majority, which is why there was a hasty conclusion of marriages between children who were little more than nine years old. These early marriages debilitated the life of the Jews. How could such a swarming, such a

desensification of the population, such competition and similar occupations? leads to anything else in misery. The policy of the Kahulam contributed to the worsening of the material conditions of the Jews. Well, keep in mind that, you know, as everyone knows, their relatively small numbers are always a source of anxiety. And we all know Kevin McDonald's book on these methods of adapting these cultural norms that compensated for the, the lack of numbers, which is what, you know, essentially all conversation about the Jews

for us revolver. This is partly why they're the way that they are. So having large families, and you see this with the Hasidics today. And clearly the lack of any work ethic for the bulk of these people, didn't change their financial position. These are still very wealthy institutions. This is the ultimate in parasitism. They're still. this huge controversy in Israel today about the Hasidics in Jerusalem who do not

work, they claim to study Talmud, they live on welfare, and all the other scams that they're involved in. And as the Israeli military situation gets worse and worse, they want to draft these people. But since they were there prior to the establishment of Israel, most of them

oppose the state of Israel, but don't mind taking money from it, they want to draft. these people. And so there's riots and all this stuff. And so work other than studying the Talmud is out of the question for a bulk of these people. Therefore, the elite engaged in what they say, petty training, trading scams, alcohol, extracting rents, crimes of all kinds to maintain themselves as a very powerful organization. They were parasites in every sense of the word. And the Jews themselves were not.

shy about talking about this. You're just not allowed to say it today and you go to prison in much of Europe if you even mention it. Manasha Illier, a distinguished Talmudis but also a supporter of the rationalism of the Age of the Enlightenment, published in 1807 a book which he sent to the rabbis. It was quickly withdrawn from circulation by the rabbin. And his second book was to be destined to a massive book burning. He addressed the dark aspects of Jewish life. He stated, misery is inhumanly great, but can it be otherwise when the Jews have more mouths to feed than hands to work? It is important to make the masses understand that it is necessary to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. Young people who have no income contract marriage by counting on the mercy of God and on the purse of their father,

and when this support is lacking, ladenwood family, they throw themselves on the first occupation come, even if it is dishonest. in droves they devote themselves to commerce but at later cannot feed them all they are obliged to resort to deceit this is why it is desirable that the jews turns to agriculture an army of idlers under the appearance of educated people live by charity and at the expense of the community no one cures the people the rich only think of enriching themselves the rabbis think only of the disputes between hasidim and minogdis jewish Orthodox, and the only concern of the Jewish activists is to short circuit the misfortune presented in the form of governmental decrees, even if they contribute to the good of the people.

Thus, the great majority of the Jews in Russia lived on small trade crafts and small industries or served as intermediaries. They have inundated the cities of factories and retail shops. How could the economic life of the Jewish people be healthy under these conditions? However, a much later Jewish author of the mid-20th century was able to write, recalling this time, it is true that the Jewish mass lived cheaply and poorly, but the Jewish community as a whole was not miserable. Well, the solution to the problem was organized crime. Remember that there were no gun laws in the Russian Empire, really, of any substance. The Kahul was armed, and later in the 19th,

in the early 20th century they were heavily on. This old myth of these poor scholars wandering around being attacked for no reason by the animal Gentiles. It's just that. It's a myth. It's a story. They, you know, despite all of these alleged problems, they continued to do very well. And the only way that that could be is through crime, through the extraction of rents, things like prostitution. because, you know, the distillery issue and owning these taverns, that wasn't just about alcohol.

These are also, you know, hostels really, or maybe like we would call a motel, where a prostitution was promoted. Of course, so long as it's Gentile women. And this is why they were so despised. But an increase in numbers meant that they were able to defend themselves. And that really, you know, that really hasn't changed. And this is one of the reasons that Zionism, you mean the Black Hundred supported some version of Zionism in the early 20th century. They simply don't belong here. They contribute very little, especially at the local level, and everyone is starting to hate them.

Again, which is why secrecy is so important then and now. There is no lack of interest in the rather unexpected testimonies of the life of the Jews in the Western provinces, seen by the participants in the Napoleonic expedition of 1812 who passed through the region. On the outskirts of Dochitza, the Jews are rich and wealthy. They trade intensively with Russia, Poland, and even go to the Leipzig Fair. At Klovoki, the Jews had the rights to distill alcohol and make vodka and mead. They established our own cabarets, inns, and relays located on highways. The Jews of Mogulov are well-off, undertake large-scale trading, although a terrible misery reigns around the area. Almost all the Jews in those places had a license to sell spirits.

Financial transactions were largely developed there. Here again is the testimony of an impartial observer. In Kiev, the Jews are no longer counted. The general characteristic of Jewish life is ease, although it is not the lot of all. On the level of psychology and everyday life, the Russian Jews have the following specific traits, a constant concern about their fate, their identity, how to fight, defend themselves. Cohesion stems from established customs, the existence of an authoritarian and powerful social structure charged with preserving the uniqueness of their way of life.

Adaption to new conditions is to a very large extent collective and not individual. And this is how they were able to function. If you go to Wikipedia and put in Cahal, which I don't recommend you do, or the pale of settlement, you'll get this story about how awful it was and the Jews were so terribly repressed,

but everyone at the time knew that that was a complete lie by using these methods that got them hated everywhere, promoting alcoholism, cabarets, what the heck is that at the time? That's essentially your adult bookstore, hotel relays on highways.

Just like the Khazar Empire, they control. controlled these trade routes and trade routes were difficult in a place as large as Russia with the weather and the mud as well as the ice and snow. So they were absolutely dominant in this respect. And the increase in numbers just meant that they were able to go to more places. Jews were not confined to the pale of settlement. They weren't confined to anything.

The only thing that the Cahal demanded was that they be confined to them because that is the nature of cohesion. That is their one and only concern because the more cohesive and organized they are, the more powerful they are. And it's a collective mentality, not an individual one. So if they promote individualism and free market and capitalism to Europe, that just weakens Gentiles. They don't think in those terms. And there's all these punishments for intra-Jewish competition going to the non-Jewish authority. to report, you know, a crime of the due, which is Rodeaf, which is their death. So cohesion, cohesion, cohesion.

This is how they functioned, and that's how they function today. I think it's interesting that you're starting to see mention of early ideas of having their own homeland back in Palestine and that people are promoting it. and because they want them to leave. But they don't, no one's taken into consideration that not every one of them's going to want to go back and that they can use it as, they can use it as their center of power as they remain a diaspora in other nations.

I mean, you, it's almost like they talk about it today. It's almost like Jews talk about it in the United States today. How they're a diaspora? Well, how are you a diaspora if you have a homeland? How are you a diaspora? You just don't want to live there.

You just, your whole life is being somewhere else, being the other, and being able to take advantage of that. Yeah, you know, the concept of Zionism in and of itself, and Sven Longshank used to say this all the time, I don't necessarily have a problem with it. The problem with Zionism is, A, the fact that it has to wipe out people that it poses, imposes itself upon, and number two, it would can. function unless it completely dominates the major powers, the dominant power surrounding them. Especially the U.S. and Western Europe. But the concept

that Jews should have their own state away from us in and of itself, and this was the right-wing position, the Christian Socialist Party in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Indian of the Russian people in Russia. This was their solution.

But because you know, there's only a certain number of people who are willing to go. They're going to be surrounded. They're surrounded by enemies, no, where they go. That their position will be very untenable unless they have sponsors all over the world. And that requires millions of Jews to stay behind and be that pipeline of money and support from one country to, you know, what we call Israel today. So Zionism in and of itself isn't the problem. It's what it has to do to function. That's the problem. Now, the Hasidic idea is to say that, well, Zionism only works when their Messiah comes.

And that will be the center of the world and all the wealth will flow to it. And that's what Natari Karta says, except for the last part. But prior to that, the Notary Karta position, some of the Hasidim say that trying to be the best

neighbor that you can be to avoid being attacked, to avoid exactly doing this kind of thing. This may be unique to deter Ricardo, and I've had many conversations with Rabbi Weiss over the phone and in person about this kind of thing. Yes, maybe it's a sanitized idea, but they put their money where their mouth is all the time. I mean, the JDL burnt down their main synagogue in Muncie, New York. So, but when these people were promoting the so-called Zionist idea at the time, of course there's no way that they could have known that in moving there they're still going to need to dominate and have sponsors that they control and maintain that kind of secrecy and maintain that kind of cohesion right now the position of Israel is extremely difficult they are so overstretched in the security department you have a lot of outmigration you have a very weak economy now and very little social trust, especially given the Netanyahu administration and the people who are running it. For the first time, if you recall, you know, both prior to the Hamas invasion and even after, criticizing Israel sort of became mainstream, which was partially damage control, but it did frighten a lot of people, that a lot of Jews, that we can't have this.

the reason that that happened, of course, is that Netanyahu with his settler administration was engaging in this overt but very conservative Jewish nationalism, you know, about homosexuals, you know, the religious rule, the country. And so secular Jews were, you know, really despised the guy, not to mention all of the constitutional legal reforms that gave his cabinet tremendous amount of power. Now, I don't believe that the Hamas invasion was staged. I don't believe that the Lakud encouraged it. I have a paper out on that. I don't think that's true. It's a very dangerous game to play.

So the point of all this is that they're very difficult situation, coupled with the total depopulation of much of Ukraine. Now, that's also dangerous. This is why you have, maybe not in public so much, but the new Khazardia idea, and you still have the Jewish oligarchs in charge of Ukrainian policy. But, you know, Ukraine is not an independent country, but the oligarchs have a tremendous amount of power and contacts with Jews around the world. They control Kievan policy essentially as surrogates for Jewish, you know, the administration of so-called Joe Biden was. heavily Jewish. And under Trump, it's massively pro-Zionist. You couldn't get more Jewish if you tried here.

So now, the fall of, the tragic fall of Assad may have allowed them to breathe a sign of relief. But what might happen as a result of that as settlers now are going into Golan? But, you know, there's only a few million of them there. They're tremendously divided now for the first time in a very long time. thanks to Netanyahu. What happened at the so-called international criminal court, the South African case, this is now public. All of a sudden these Jews are coming out saying, oh, we're opposed to all of this. But they would never say that back, you know, when they turned Gaza into an open-air prison in 2006,

and especially 2006 and prior to that. So this is a lot of damage control. But the Israeli defense forces are so strapped. and the Iranians proved that they could penetrate the so-called Iron Dome with no problem. I think the best thing that happened to them was the fall of Assad, but that's all going to depend on what happens. Yes, these militias, ISIS, these are all Western creations. They're financed by the West, but anything could happen. Even the West can't keep track of who's who.

They're always changing their name to avoid detection. Israel is using this as an excuse. to continue to attack Syrian territory. But they're really, you know, because of these divisions, the citadel in Jerusalem, that's just, you know, seems minor now by comparison. Out migration, a struggling economy. Shipping is still a problem, thanks to the Houthi in Yemen. They're in a rough position.

And I can't help but think, I know I don't want to jump the gun, but colonization of a depopulated Ukraine based on the new Khazardia idea. I mean, you know, Crimea is never going to go back. It's always going to be Russian. Much of eastern Ukraine is going to remain Russian. But that still leaves a large territory that is just traumatized beyond belief that is now very thinly populated. It's just going to get worse. Is it possible that there may be outmigration there?

Of course, they certainly have the money to make this work. You know, Israel, to me, is, you know, the promised land of the Jews is New York. It's really the U.S. today, far more so than this little state that's always on the verge of, you know, especially with Iranian power. And, you know, Iran is a first world country. And that's, you know, the U.S. was driven out of Afghanistan. I mean, nothing is guaranteed with these people. And once the Ukraine war is, you know, it's drawing to a close, Russians may start to focus more on the Middle East.

In Gaza, the war of attrition is not going Israel's way. They're suffering huge losses that they'll never admit to. And the same goes for Lebanon. And now that bombing hospitals, which is old news, they've been doing this for years, poisoning wells in early Zionism, you have Jews talking about this all the time. Now this is mainstream. Israel's position is iffy.

Anything, anything can happen. So rather than use the Samson option, which is, you know, to destroy themselves with nuclear weapons, which is, I don't know if they would ever do that, their own nuclear weapons essentially come up and come back down again, the possibility of another community in depopulated Ukraine, it's something that's still there. and so there's simply not enough of them in Israel. They're stretched all over the place. Now with Golan, I mean, how many settlers can they possibly send out? Settlers don't work. They never do. They require tremendous military assistance to function because everyone hates them.

They're heavily armed. For the first time you have, like normal people, talking about settlers. You know, that was unthinkable 10 years ago. So it's, you know, it's conceivable that this may have, and there are organizations. I mean, no one's more organized than Ukrainian Jews. You know, the largest Jewish institutions are in Ukraine. And you have so many organizations, tremendous control over the Kiev state apparatus. It's Jewish from top to bottom, at least in ruling circles.

you have now a Jewish, essentially a Jewish administration in the U.S. for God knows how many decades. That's definitely, that's definitely impossibility. I always thought that Israel, in the Jewish mind is, it's not as important as we make it out to be. Their power is mostly in the U.S. and Britain. It's in London. It's in D.C.

It's in New York. And they have tremendous power. But it's not. formerly a Jewish state. So what comes out of all this, I don't know. But they still have a kind of neo-Kahal system in Ukraine. But even there, you see divisions. Kulomoisky's in prison.

Zelensky, who is very unstable, is very erratic. I mean, he really is breaking down. He's going to have to be killed or replaced if this is going to continue. The military isn't going to be listening to him anymore to the extent that there is a military. these divisions are absolutely intolerable to Jews, as we've been saying. So what comes out of this, this is these very interesting times to be a Jew, what ends up happening in Ukraine, as far as Jewish angle is concerned, versus what happens as the IDF really has continued,

they're not winning. They're not winning in Gaza. They're not winning in Lebanon. They've lost in Lebanon several times now. casualties are very high. And with all of this criticism, something radical has to happen. And what that might be is we're not in any position to predict. But there may be a reversal of the delimination of the khal.

It may return again on Ukrainian territory. We have a few more sentences and then we're at our natural stopping point. We must do justice to this organic unity of land, which in the first, half of the 19th century gave the Jewish people of Russia its original aspect. The world was compact, organic, subjective exations, not spared of suffering and deprivation, but it was a world in itself. Man was not stifled within it. In this world, one could experience joie de vivre, one could find one's food, one could build one's life to one's taste and in one's own way, both materially and spiritually. Central fact, the spiritual dementia,

of the community was linked to traditional knowledge and the Hebrew language. But in the same book devoted to the Russian Jewish world, and other writer notes that the lack of rights, material misery, and social humiliation, hardly allowed self-respect to develop among the people. And things like cognitive dissonance, mental illness, which is, you know, Jewish stock and trade, complete neuroticism is part of the results of this. this almost sociopathic drive for power and control may well derive from this, and it's modern guys anyway, from this lack of self-respect given the fact of they know that their history is nonsense. And of course, that's not always the case. But some of them, the bulk of them probably have to be aware that we are a deceptive people, which is really where, Initially, the modern Zionism came from. We don't belong here.

We're not of these people. We have to go. But that turns out to be a lot more difficult than they ever realized. So whichever side of the Jewish psyche ends up winning here is going to be very interesting. All right. We'll come back for episode nine in a few days. As always, I will encourage people to go to the show notes. There are multiple ways to support Dr. Johnson.

work. And again, we thank you for providing the knowledge and the context that's required to understand this text. Thank you. It's my pleasure, my friend. I'll talk to you soon. See you in a couple days. Thank you. All right, ma'am. I want to welcome everyone back to part nine of our reading of 200 years together by Alexander Solzhenysohnese and Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson is here. How are you doing, Dr. Johnson? I'm doing okay. I'm doing all right. This is going very well, I think.

And I think we're getting some pretty good feedback from it. I don't know. I haven't looked, but I've heard from others that that's the case. Oh, yeah, we're getting a lot of feedback, especially on Twitter, on social media. So, yeah, no complaints yet. We had one person who contacted us who knows Russian really well to mention that we were, there was a word that we were wondering if it was talking about it was spirituals and he said he said that in the russian he said it's definitely uh referring to some kind of um like clergy some kind of spirit some kind of uh expert clergy kind of thing yeah that that was my first thought but then you know there's there's a lot rough in this translation.

So, and we've had a few terms like that. I haven't seen the original a very long time. I have it around here somewhere. But, and I'm, we have, we have at least one Russian speaker who's following us and he's following us in the original, in the original Russian. And no complaint so far. He just wanted to say that that one word would,

be, would relate that in some way there. Well, I sure can't speak it. I could read it slowly. And, but, you know, and I've translated bits and pieces, but certainly not secure enough in my abilities to do anything of any, of any length, especially with someone like, like Solzhen I don't want to do him any disservice. All right. Well, we're coming up to the end of a chapter here. So this may be a shorter episode than normal, but it'll give us both a chance to to take a little bit of a break, I guess, if we only go for a little bit. So let's jump right in as normal. Stop me anytime.

The picture we have presented of these years as complex, as is almost any problem related to the Jewish world. Henceforth, throughout our development, we must not lose sight of this complexity, but must constantly bear in mind without being disturbed by the apparent contradictions between various authors. Long ago before being expelled from Spain, the Jews of Eastern Europe marched at the head of other nations. Today, in the first half of the 17th, today, their cultural impoverishment is total. Deprived of rights cut off from the surrounding world, they retreated into themselves.

The Renaissance passed by without concern for them as of the intellectual movement of the 18th century in Europe. but this Jewish world was strong in itself. Hindered by countless religious commandments and prohibitions, the Jew not only did not suffer from them, but rather saw in them the source of infinite joys. In them, the intellectual found satisfaction in the subtle dialectic of the Talmud,

the feeling in the mysticism of the Kabbalah. Even the study of the Bible was sidelined and knowledge of grammar was considered almost a crime. well that um the the context of this is that he's talking about the first half of the 17th century so maybe just before the um uprising of kim unyitsky um you know we've already you know one of the big issues one of the being you know as we're summarizing everything so far one of the big issues is that jews especially in eastern europe were given every operation opportunity to become normal citizens.

And ultimately, this is where Zionism comes from. Zionism initially was pretty healthy. With people like Herzl came out and said, there's a reason that they don't like us here. We are completely alien to them. It's not our fault, and it's certainly not their fault. But, you know, we can't be here anymore. So they could never be ordinary citizens.

They were given every opportunity. We were just talking about this. to be landowners, to be normal citizens. So talking about, I don't know what he means at the head of other nations, he may just mean wealthier. They certainly have the superiority complex. But in Eastern Europe, of course, it's a different story. Now, I'm not sure if Jews, especially at the time, would agree with that.

But the Enlightenment started, at least for them, in places like Germany in northern Europe. They cut themselves off from the surrounding world. Talk about a theme. That's a theme that comes up over and over again. The theme of exile and how it's been reinterpreted over the years. Takunulam is what happens when that exile is over, having no connection necessarily with the state of Israel,

as we know it today, recruiting into themselves. It wasn't as if they were doing anything else, prior to that. Now the renaissance passed them by as if this was an entirely Gentile phenomenon. The alchemists were heavily influenced by what we today call the Kabbalah. The Enlightenment in Europe was as much of a threat as it was an opportunity. Jews were always identifiable, but the Enlightenment allowed them to leave the Cahal, leave the shuttle and you're not as important in the West but but then act like they're

their ordinary citizen there which of course is is not true now they certainly you know I think poor Jews were definitely hindered by all of this he's talking about the tell me he could only be talking about the Talmud I'm not sure what joy he means here I think he may mean an intellectual joy but the so-called subtle dialectic where everything is based on hair splitting, that served them very well in Gentile society. Some of the themes that have come up over the last nine and eight episodes have been the fact that people's, especially when they're new arrivals,

that they come in contact with are not ready for this group of people who are very strict among themselves, but totally maccabellian with everybody else. Yes, many popes and many patriarchs burned, the Talmud, that's true. But who the heck is going to read that? You know, I've read when I was at Nebraska, I still remember the Sostino edition in the basement, this big blue, this beautiful bound set of books took up half a shelf. And it was just agony from page one. There are some places, you know, like Sanhedron, more interesting than others.

But it was painful. It's a closed book to everybody. People aren't ready for this level of economic dominance, concept of competition, of the push-cart mentality, free trade. None of this was even conceptualized prior to the Jews moving into an area. Russia had it particularly bad

because although they've had experience with Jews that we talked about weeks ago, but when Poland was dismembered, all of a sudden, Russia now had something like 85% of the world's population within their borders pretty much overnight. Another theme, which comes directly from that, is this awful, naeufte, almost this childlike approach to the Jews, this idealistic approach to the Jews, that they're just like us, except that they're bound by these many rules.

And if we just convince them not to, you know, take the Talmud so seriously, or the Kahal so seriously, maybe they'll be just like us. And it simply doesn't work that way. So far, we haven't heard really about the Karaits, although there were many of them within the Russian Empire at this point. Wherever the Karaits went,

they immediately were met with extreme persecution by the Talmudis. I'm not sure about Samaritans. I think maybe they were confined to the Middle East, but you had plenty of car rights, especially roughly around the Crimean area, even today to some extent. But the Talmudists were wiping them out

from day one as soon as the Talmud became dominant. And of course, the author in this quote, himself seems to imply a dialectic between the Talmud and the Kabbalah. And there's something to that. I see it in a lot of Jewish publications, a lot of Jewish entertainment. The Jew is in two different pieces. One is like the IDF soldier, very practical, and conservative in a very broad sense.

And the other is this hippie. If you've ever seen the movie, Meet the Parents with Robert De Niro, especially the second one. You have this, you know, there's two people getting. married Ben Stiller is in it, the Jew, of course. He comes from this hippie family, the Kabbalah side, and Robert De Niro, of course, who plays a Jew, is a veteran. He's high intelligence. You know, it implies almost to Mossad. And they're coming together.

And I always thought that that movie, well, actually, you know, I don't know if he played a Jew or not, but it really didn't matter because the concept was very clear. when the Jewish family is made there's always these two pillars like you see in the Masonic Lodges the severity of the Talmud and the sort of mysticism as he says of the Kabbalah and that always goes straight through

every Jew and I love what he says here. Study the Bible well the Bible has nothing to do with Judaism. Michael Hoffman taught us all that. He taught me that even when I was in grad school their connection with the first five books of the Bible is zero.

They use some of that verbiage, but only to interpret it and reinterpret it and reinterpret it as they see fit over the centuries. But what we've discovered, and it's been a while since I've come across this in great detail, is that even with experience with the Jews,

someone like Alexander I first never quite seemed to cross that Rubicon, maybe near the end of his life, he still thought that these are just ordinary people and if I can just get to them somehow and at this point people like D'Rajavan had already learned now of course Nicholas is going to be a very different story

thank God but there was an elite attempt highly Masonic to keep Nicholas from the throne to think that Jews weren't involved in that is to be very naive but this naivete still to this day it hasn't gone away because things like

the Kabbalah and Talmud are completely closed off to us. People don't know what a Jew is. When the American thinks of a Jew, he thinks of Seinfeld. And actually, I've come across this many times. Oh, I love Seinfeld. Jews are great with this norming mentality. So you get a lot out of this quote. And those seem to be the dominant themes.

Even like in Kiev, when there's a reaction against them, there's always a way to sneak back in because they have access to this credit. It's hard to keep them away for long because you're always going to reach a point where your backs against the wall politically and you desperately need that kind of money, that ready liquidity to use to hire mercenaries or do whatever. That means they could never stay away for very long. There's always somebody, even the same person who is just falls into temptation and brings them in. and because of that connection to free trade money, the monetization of non-monetary societies, which is a disaster because that leads to debt,

these are some of the recurring themes, even up until this point, you know, the first quarter of the 19th century, that we've come across so far. I think it was interesting that you brought Seinfeld up there when, you know, I'm old enough, remember when it was on, and I remember the last episode,

and people literally hated the last episode because in the last episode, they were judged as terrible people. They were judged as selfish, self-serving people who cared about no one but themselves. And it's almost like, well, maybe I should stop my commentary right there. No, I remember it. I remember it very well. It wasn't funny. It was disappointing. Sometimes I wonder if this was how you repressed knowledge about yourself.

I think this has a lot to do with horror. Horrors like this, too. It's the return of the repressed. This was almost a sort of confession to the world, couched in this perfectly harmless circumstance. Frankly, they didn't really care about each other very much. Their friendship was skin deep. The only non-Jew in that was Michael Richards, but he is a 33rd degree freemason.

So he's kind of like honorary in that sense. Never said a word against their interests. But that episode, because it wasn't particularly funny, and if you remember the victim of that robbery was, I can't think of the comedian, the fact guy. Oh, he died. He's very funny. His whole stand-up was how fat he was. and, you know, very clueless.

He looked like, you know, the poor soul, fat guy. And they were pointing and laughing at him as he was getting robbed. And you don't see him again. But so it wasn't just that he clearly, you know, I think the assumption is that he wasn't Jewish. But he looked like a very pathetic person, which is exactly the kind of mark that Machiavellians look for. John Panette, that's it.

John Panette, who always made me laugh, who had a great career I believe a friend of Jerry at least in their stand-up days they thought it was funny that this guy well you know this is what Darwinism is in their mind you know the week the week have to go

he can't adapt and if you remember in that episode he was looking straight at the camera or straight at them as if to say what are you doing and that just made him laugh even harder and it wasn't funny you know

as just an ordinary person I like Seinfeld. I got a lot of the references. A lot of people didn't. As far as I was concerned, they didn't have accent because their accent was pretty much the same as mine, especially back then. But there's a lot of references in there

that you have to really know to get, like the Marble Rye and things like that. But yeah, I thought about that for a while when that came out. And I thought of it as some sort of a semi-confession, this is good, you know, the Jewish angle didn't come up much in Seinfeld. once in a while, like Uncle Leo or someone like that, but the fact that they were Jews once in a blue moon would show up because everyone else was playing non-Jews.

So, yeah, that was almost a confession, the Machiavellian mentality, and that John Pennett character, who is getting robbed, is your typical normie being robbed either by Jews or someone else, and they'll get a profit from it one way or another. There was this law. I think they were in Massachusetts. That was a good Samaritan law,

and they got in trouble from it. And then in their trial, everyone in previous episodes who didn't like them, that they screwed over, that they hurt, came to literally point the finger at them. And I guess it ended with them at a jail cell, altogether, strangely enough. I don't know if this is some sort of a confession or a warning,

but it wasn't even meant to be funny. It wasn't funny at all. So there was something more going on there. I don't know if Larry David has said anything about it in the past, but that is the Machiavellian mentality. And oh, wait a minute. The Goyam with these good Samarit laws, well, maybe you may get in trouble for that.

So, I don't know. I'm glad you brought it up. I can't believe it all came back to me so quickly. But I'm always mining Seinfeld for, symbols. It's very important. The strong attraction of the Jews to the Enlightenment began in Prussia during the second half of the 18th century and received the name of Hascala, Age of Enlightenment. This intellectual awakening translated their desire to initiate themselves in European culture

to enhance the prestige of Judaism, which had been humiliated by other peoples. In parallel with the critical study of the Jewish past, Hascalam militants, the Masculum, the Enlighten educated, wanted to harmoniously unite Jewish culture with European knowledge. At first, they intended to remain faithful to traditional Judaism, but in their tracks, they began to sacrifice the Jewish tradition and take the side of assimilation by showing increasing contempt for the language of their people, Yiddish, that is. In Prussia, this movement lasted the time of a generation, but it quickly reached the Slavic provinces of the empire, Bohemia and Galicia. In Galicia, supporters of Hasgola, who were even more inclined

to assimilation, were already ready to introduce the Enlightenment by force, and even often enough had recourse to it with the help of authorities. The border between Galicia and the western provinces of Russia was permeable to individuals as well as to influences. With a delay of a century, the movement eventually penetrated into Russia. You know, one of my favorite Renaissance era, or very late or very early Enlightenment era philosophers is Baruch de Spinoza very misunderstood man.

I believe his metaphysics is a disguised attempt to bring the Trinity with, you know, substance, attribute, and mode because all three are infinite. And I've spoken about, especially in writing about Spinoza, quite a big. bit. And he spent quite a bit of time criticizing, and he was driven out of the synagogue in the Netherlands. He was a Sephardic at one point driven out of his family, driven out of Spain.

And he is one of the original first people to attempt to provide a contribution to European metaphysics. And I think something happened. I'm convinced that he had a conception of the Trinity that, and one of the reasons, and he's very difficult to read, he thought in mathematical terms. And Spinoza was despised by the inward-looking Jew, as these people would say. And he was pretty much a completely secular man. He was very critical of the so-called medieval Jew of the day. but I'm not so sure that Enlightenment automatically meant assimilation.

It just meant that they were using certain aspects of European material culture for their own benefit. Yeah, they didn't have to dress in the traditional outfit anymore, but maybe that's a, that doesn't mean that they don't see themselves as Jews, although I'm sure it happened on occasion. it just meant that they were more able to mingle amongst the Gentiles without Gentiles really knowing it I mean it had paid off big in Britain maybe not in Spinoza's time but I mean they had a prime minister they had they had

roughly around the same time we're talking about here you know the middle of the 19th century so I'm not sure that those two things go together but I guarantee you the very strict Jews in the Kahal did think that those two things went together. You know, the Enlightenment at its root was anti-Christian that couldn't but attract the Jewish mind at the time. At the beginning of the 19th century in Russia, the government endeavored precisely to overcome Jewish particularism outside of religion and worship, as a Jewish author euphemistically specifies, confirming that this government did not interfere with the religion or religious life of the Jews. We have already seen that the regulation of 1804 opened the doors of primary schools,

secondary schools, and universities to all Jewish children without any limitations or reservations. However, the aim of all efforts of the Jewish ruling class was to nip in the bud this educational and cultural reform. The Gahal endeavored to extinguish the slightest light of the Enlightenment. To preserve in its integrity the established religious and social order, the Rabinit and Hesedem were endeavoring to eradicate the seedlings of secular education. Thus, the great masses of the palest settlement felt horror and suspicion for Russian schooling and did not want to hear about it. In 1817 and again in 1821, in various provinces, there were cases where the Kahalam

prevented Jewish children from learning the Russian language in any school, whichever it was. The Jewish deputies in St. Petersburg repeatedly insisted, repeated insistently that they did not consider it necessary to open Jewish schools where languages other than Hebrew would be taught. They recognized only the Heather Elementary School of the Jewish language and the Yeshiva. Graduate school intended to deepen the knowledge of the Talmud. Almost every important community had its yeshiva. The Jewish body in Russia was thus hindered and could not free itself on its own. I'm not sure.

I think some of this is just, very short-sighted thinking. The elders of any given Cahal, the leaders of any given shuttle, didn't like the idea that young Jews wanted to branch out. It would diminish their power. It would diminish their income.

And I don't think they realized just how powerful Jews were going to become precisely because of the Enlightenment, the so-called liberation from the shuttle. and we know today that yes, not every Jew is an expert on the Talmud, but that Talmudic mentality has become so dominant in modern societies

and postmodern societies that you don't have to be a part of a shuttle or a alcohol or anything else to think that way. We're born thinking that way. And I don't think they couldn't have known that at the time, but they became so dominant. Their mentality is so powerful,

solely but truly, especially in the West, that they realized that our mentality, our money, gave us such power that we were able to take over the basic, the default mechanisms of the Western mind and things that were revolutionary, say, you know, in 1848, were part of the course for Jews. Today, we see it as perfectly normal. Capitalism, free market, that was extremely revolutionary.

There is nothing conservative about that. Karl Marx was clear. Marxism or communism could never happen unless free trade destroyed the national and agrarian particularism of European ethnicities. That's why free trade was so important to him. And why he hated Russia with such intensity. The point of free trade was to create a single, you know, united Europe that loses its individual languages and ways of life.

Christianity is left in the dust because, you know, it's all about money now. only then could there be a revolutionary proletariat. You can't have a revolutionary proletariat that's religious, that's ethnically based. That's why urbanization was so important. Monetization is so important. Karl Marx was subjectively aware of this, which is where his Uday and Fraga came from, his work on the Jewish question, which Marxists wish he never wrote. But he was well aware of what was going on.

Only later did he realize that that's exactly the mentality that we need to create a totally deracinated proletarian. They have no nation, they have no religion, they have nothing but us, promising them the moon, and they'll follow us because they have nothing else to follow. It's extremely important. I've had talks with Jews that I know, and they'll tell me, well, you know, I've never read the Talmud. I've never, I'm like, the Talmud in your culture is like in the United States where you'll

have some boomer who will be like, oh, you know, we have. have um you know everything's fake news you can't trust anybody um and you know are our wars you know if you have someone who's saying our wars or um you know we shouldn't be going to war in this place and everything and then you start criticizing like anything they'll be like well we're a free country and we have the constitution they're not this is something that's built into us this is something that is drilled into us over over you know over a couple of centuries now where we believe we have freedom of speech, where we believe we have that. And it immediately comes out, and it's a reaction by a lot of people.

And it's the same thing with this kind of Talmudic thinking, with this radical collectivism where, you know, if you criticize a group of Jews for doing something, you have to criticize them all individually. but Jews will be like, oh, Sandy Kofax was such a, you know, he was such a great example of a Jew because, you know, he didn't, you know, look, look how successful he was as a pitcher. And then he didn't, he wouldn't pitch on Saturdays. He's such a credit to the Jewish race. It's like, well, you want to collectivize only when it's the good stuff and when the bad stuff, no, it's, this is something that is so deeply ingrained that people can't even see it anymore, just like the Americans, who's about, it's a free country, you know, we can do whatever we want. Well, because the media is in Jewish hands, for the most part, mainstream media,

very tightly controlled by that. The prejudice is that because it's privately owned, therefore it's independent. This is a prejudice that you see in every newspaper, every analyst. Only state-run media can be controlled. And, of course, the minute you start explaining, well, that doesn't work. I trust state media in places like Syria and Romania more than I do privately help. The control is the same. And you do work with the state to smash points of view that you don't like, especially during wartime.

So it's just, you know, this system relies on ignorance. It relies on fear. It relies on confusion. And just like with Marxism, it relies on people not having any alternative. They don't really have an identity. they don't even have a sexual identity anymore. Everything is being broken down in the postmodern mentality except for this one group of people

who are just fanatically cohesive and extremely well organized. You're Jews suffer with that too, but we're not talking about individuals. This conversation I've had with is so stupid. They're not all like that argument? I said, yeah, that's not the point. You know, I'm not talking about individuals here.

I'm talking about a group. Individuals derive from the group. A group can have, you know, I talk about the Jews. I'm not talking about my dentist up the street or the guys I went to high school with. I mean, I have to explain this to you. But this is, and even their racial identity. You know, after in 2020 that we're talking about, your Jews would go on as white people. we have to look into ourselves after the thing in Minnesota.

But of course, the minute their Jewish identity comes up, they will deny being white. Their conception is solely for Jewish interests. That's the only concept. Even if it's not something that they often vocalize, it's implied. And their dominance is so overwhelming right now, although I think we're living in an era where this is slowly changing. But to think that someone like Donald Trump is going to help anything. The only thing Donald Trump did in this regard is in his first campaign when he went to APEC and said,

I don't need your money. But that was probably the first and last thing he did that irritated the Jews as Jews, at least as far as Israeli Jews are concerned. He's a fanatic. You would think that a guy, the only Gentile to really dominate, in Manhattan real estate. He knows what the Jews are. There's no way he doesn't.

They respect him because he did win against them in places like Manhattan and New Jersey. I was a kid. He knows better. But that was the first and last good thing he ever did. But whenever anyone challenges you with that idea that I'd all like that, you simply say, I'm not talking about individuals.

I'm not talking about my dentist. I'm talking about Jews as a body. And they most certainly think, as a body. But the first cultural propagandists also emerged from it, unable to move things without the help of Russian authorities. In the first place, Isaac Bear Levinson, a scholar who had lived in Galicia, where he had been in contact with the militants of Hasgola, regarded not only the rabbinette, but also the Hasidim as responsible for many popular misfortunes. Basing himself on the Talmud itself or on and on rabbinical literature, he demonstrated in his,

his book instructions to Israel that Jews were not forbidden to know foreign languages, especially not the official language of the country where they lived, if necessary in private, as well as in public life. That knowledge of the secular sciences does not pose a threat to national and religious sentiment. Finally, that the predominance of commercial occupations is in contradiction with Torah as with reason, and that it is important to develop productive work. But to publishes book, Levinson had to use a subsidy from the Ministry of Education. He himself was convinced that cultural reform within Judaism could only be achieved with the support of the higher authorities. I think these are sort of the people that those like Alexander I were looking to,

the German Jews that we had cited a few times that Alexander had spoken to. But to what extent do these people, he certainly thinks is a Jew, and he's right. The Jews that, you know, dominated in the Ottoman Empire spoke Greek. Of course, they spoke Turkish as well as their own language. And this was the case everywhere. Eastern Europe was a slightly different story, but he's absolutely right. But it's doubtful that the run-of-the-mill Jew would agree with this last section here. It can only be achieved with support of the higher authorities.

And what he means by productive work, that's another matter. But today, of course, we consider, I mean, not mean you, but Normies consider commercial occupations to be productive work. Later it was Gassanowski, a teacher in Warsaw, who, in a notes of the authorities, without relying on the Talmud, but on the contrary, by opposing it, imputed to the Kahal and the Rabinit, the spiritual stagnation which had petrified the people. He stated that solely the weakening of their power would make it possible to introduce secular schooling, that it was necessary to control the Malamid primary school teachers, and to admit as teachers only those deemed pedagogically and morally suitable,

that the Kahal had to be dismissed from the financial administration, and that the age of nuptial's contract had to be raised. Long before them, in his note to Minister of Finance, Gila Markovic already quoted, wrote that in order to save the Jewish people from spiritual and economic decline, it was necessary to abolish the Kahulam to teach the Jew languages, to organize work for them in factories, but also to allow them to freely engage in commerce

throughout the country and use the services of Christians. Later in the 1930s, Litman Fagin, a Chernigov merchant and a major supplier, took up most of those arguments with even greater insistence, and though Berkendorf, his notes ended up in the hands of Nicholas I, Fegin benefited from the support of bureaucratic circles.

He defended the Talmud but reproached him, Melamid for being the lowest of the incompetence who taught a theology founded on fanaticism, inculcated in children, the contempt of other disciplines, as well as the hatred of the heterodox. He also considered it essential to suppress the Kahulam. Heson, the sworn enemy of the Kahl's system, affirms that the latter, by its despotism, aroused among the Jews, an obscure resentment. You know, I was born and raised in Union County, New Jersey. And in my town, the town was, at least when I was a kid, divided in terms of power between Jews and Italians.

I grew up knowing, you know, many Jews, never treated poorly by them. And different occupations went to different groups. It was just a matter of tradition. But it was pretty clear, even in my neighborhood, Jews would fight like crazy. the only time that they would stop fighting is if somehow we were involved you know you're stricter orthodox

and your more secular Jews they fought like cats and dogs but the minute they thought that as a group they were threatened all of that would go out the window but I've seen this with my own eyes my father was a funeral director you open a Gentile funeral home

in a semi-Jewish area. What do you think is going to happen? Nothing is more impure than Gentile corpses. He had to fight, but he fought with a guy named Marty Goldstein. And the other more right-wing Jews were bringing people in from Brooklyn to try to shut this down. And I, you know, many years later, vaguely remember guys like Marty saying, you can't trust these people. They're crazy. They're talking about the, more strict Jews. So, but I learned. later on that even though they don't trust the more extreme and vice versa, they know that there's a network if they need to, they could plug into if things hit the fan. And I don't know if

that started with all the criticism of Israel and the mainstream criticism of Netanyahu. I'm not 100% sure if that's happening yet. But I learned that even if they're not, or even if they don't like it, secular Jews are well aware that there's this network that they could plug into if they need help, regardless of what they're thinking about it when times are normal, normal for them. Long, very long was the path that enabled secular education to penetrate into Jewish circles. Meanwhile, the only exceptions were in Vilnius, where under the influence of relations with Germany, the Maxillam intellectual group had gained strength, and in Odessa, the new capital of New Russia, home to many Jews from Galicia due to the permeability of frontiers,

populated by various nationalities in the throes of intense commercial activity. Hence the Cahal did not feel itself powerful there. The intelligentsia, on the contrary, had the feeling of its independence and blended culturally by the way of dressing by all external aspects in the surrounding population. Even though the majority of the Odessite Jews were opposed to the Estabye, of a general educational establishment, principally due to the efforts of the local administration, in the 30s in Odessa, as in Kishinif, were created secular schools of the private type, which were

successful. Then in the course of the 19th century, this breakthrough of the Russian Jews towards education irresistibly intensified and would have historical consequences for Russia as for all mankind during the 20th century. Thanks to a great effort of will, Judaism managed to free itself from the state of threatening stagnation in which it found itself and to fully accede to a rich and diversified life. By the middle of the 19th century, there was a clear discernment of the signs of a revival and development in Russian Judaism, a movement of high historical significance which no one had yet foreseen. And that's where we'll end and we'll start next time, as we'll see the very different reign of, of Tsar Nicholas I, the first. But so, but we end with something that we had kind of seen coming already,

that the kahaal is on its last legs, that this is something that young Jews don't want to be a part of anymore. They have access to a huge world of a very rapidly growing European world that the more extreme Jews, especially in Eastern Europe, really couldn't be a part of. Their friends were financing it. But at least in terms of education, they weren't a part of it. At the same time, they knew that other Jews, even strict ones around the world,

were not as bound to an institution like to Kahul as they were in parts of Ukraine and, you know, the old Polish empire. We know that the Kahul isn't going to last much longer. And that just meant that Jewish life was going to get a lot more complicated. There were more variables. because whether it be just enlightenment, which essentially was a war against the Gahal, or assimilation. Now, assimilation didn't necessarily mean you're not a Jew anymore.

It's just you weren't necessarily identified as one. That you kind of were normal. You know, you were part of the normal society most of the time. Not necessarily you weren't a Jew anymore. I don't think that they, you know, maybe back then they did, but there was very little threat of conversion, I mean, legitimate actual conversion. But in the short-sighted mentality,

you know, they painted enlightenment and assimilation in the worst possible ways. It was self-interested, of course. Odessa ends up becoming the capital of Jewish Ukraine then and now. The Odessa lounge in Brooklyn is the headquarter of Jewish organized crime, the Russian mob, as the regime keeps calling it, despite it being 100% percent.

Jewish and very few Russian names are involved. Odessa is a powerful symbol. It became a Marxist state flying the red flag before the revolution, which is some of the reason why they were fights, not pogroms as they would like to tell you, but battles between Russians and Jews. I'll repeat this again for the third time now, that Jews were well-armed, regardless of whether they were involved in the Kahl system or not. They were tightly bound together.

They had plenty of money. We didn't really have gun control laws at the time, and no way to enforce them if they existed. And that's why the whole pogrom thing is such nonsense, because more Russians died in those battles than Jews. The Jews were heavily armed. By the time these guys got the Middle East in the 1940s, which was a creation of Stalin,

they were already experienced in weaponry and everything else. This ridiculous myth that the Normie believes of these poor Jews who were so put on were just helpless merchants who just wanted to have a better life is nonsense. Their youth was extremely well armed and extremely well trained in the use of these weaponry, just for their own interests. but now the stagnation I suppose you could call it stagnation maybe in a cultural sense it was but not in a financial sense Jews knew the money that could be made

not just in Russia but all over the world that Jews all over the world were making this money but the way to do it wasn't necessary to walk around being obvious you have to learn the language you have to learn the basic you know entertainment and cultural norms but that in no way means that you're not a Jew anymore

In fact, it means you have to hold even harder onto a Jewish identity because you don't have the obvious trappings. You know, you're not wearing the black hat and all the things that we associate with the Siddib. It's not obvious anymore. But so the Kaha'al is going to end. And contrary to what the leaders of the Kahl were saying, it just meant more power for Jews, more influence for Jews. and they were able to apply Talmudic studies in one way or another to an entire wide world, which, as we know today, was certainly not in the interests of Gentiles.

All right. Well, let's end it there. Next episode, we will start chapter three, which is titled during the reign of Nicholas I first. And as I do at the end of every episode, I encourage you to go to the show notes of this. I have hot lengths there for Dr. Johnson's work and where you can support him. Please go support him because this is what he does.

He studies this, he reads this, and then he comes here and shares the knowledge and the background that we need to understand this text and many other subjects that he's written on. Just check out my episodes, the rundown episodes that I've done with him, and also Radio Albion, where, would you have one or two releases a week there? Yeah, I have the Orthodox Nationalist, which has been going on for a very long time, which is an hour. And then the Daily Nationalist, which comes out on Thursdays, actually comes out every day, but my day for it is Thursday, which deals mostly with current events, you know, especially in the East. But I have to tell you, I'm glad you say this, because I did, I'm doing what I was told

I couldn't do. When I was in grad school, the prejudice was that unless you get a job, whether it be historian, political science, whatever, unless you get a job in academia, maybe in a think tank somewhere, you can't function as an academic. Or you can't function as a scholar. Well, I did that. I did whatever, but very few people can do. E. Michael Jones was clearly an inspiration. He did the same thing. Yes, I've taught at universities all over the country. But, you know, especially after 2020, there was no way. That could continue. And especially the shift to online classes, which I'm not going to do.

I need an audience. I was extremely popular, which made me even more of a problem. I got along with everyone personally, but people were finding out, my God, this guy was the editor of the Barns Review. You know, that became a big problem. But it's only because of my donors and people like you who promote me that I've been able to do what I was told was impossible. To live the life of a scholar and an academic totally outside. of any institutions, let alone a university. That means I answer to God alone,

and it's only because of my donors and friends that that's even remotely possible. And that's why every day I thank God for them. Let's bring back patronage, people. Let's bring back patronage. It's really important. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. I really appreciate it.

You're welcome, my friend. I'll talk to you next time. I want to welcome everyone back to part 10 of our reading of 200 years together by Alexander Sulschenison. Dr. Johnson. How are you doing today? Well, you know, among many other things,

it occurred to me that this is part 10. We're on page 54 of a 656 page doc. That's the first thing. The second thing for our listeners is that I'm getting when I bought this house the the roof needed to be fixed and it's being fixed right now

and of course at precisely when we begin recording these illegals I think they're illegals are out there right outside my office door so far so good

I haven't heard I mean window I haven't heard anything I hear them I don't know what they're doing but but if you hear here hammering. I'm not sure what we're going to do, but maybe we could treat it as a,

as a, as a, as a symbol of some kind. Yes. Yes, it will be, it will definitely be divine. I think at this point, we can, uh, or, or this happening in, yeah, yeah, in episode 10, um, uh, that this, that this would start happening, yes, but, um, I think it's just a matter of, uh, it's just a plain old matter of scheduling. And, um, I told you, I was had, I had banging going on in this house about an hour ago. So, yeah. The good kind or the bad kind? Oh, the bad kind.

Yeah, yeah, the bad kind. Yeah, I say hammering, so there's no mix up. Okay, okay. Be careful. All right. Chapter 3. I'll start reading and we'll go and see. And if the, if hammering or starts,

starts will work through it and laugh about it. All right. All right. Chapter 3, during the reign of Nicholas I. With regard to the Jews, Nicholas I was very resolute. It was during his reign, according to sources, that more than half of all illegal acts relating to Jews, from Alexis Mikhailovich to the death of Alexander II, were published, and the emperor personally examined this legislative work.

to direct it. Jewish historiography has judged that his policy was exceptionally cruel and gloomy. However, the personal interventions of Nicholas I first did not necessarily prejudice the Jews, far from it. For example, one of the first files he received as an inheritance from Alexander I was the reopening on the eve of his death while on his way to Tegaron, Teganrog, of the Velaire Faye. affair, the accusation against the Jews for having perpetuated a ritual murder on the person of a child.

The Jewish Encyclopedia writes that to a large extent the Jews were indebted to the verdict of acquittal to the emperor who sought to know the truth, despite the obstruction on the part of the people he trusted. In another well-known case linked to accusations against the Jews, the assassination of Miseslav, the emperor willingly turned to the truth. After having, in a moment of anger, inflicted sanctions against the local Jewish population, he did not refuse to acknowledge his error. By signing the verdict of acquittal in the Velaherk case, Nicholas wrote that the vagueness of the requisitions had not made it possible to take another decision, adding, nevertheless, I do not have the moral certainty that Jews could have committed such a crime, or that they could not have.

repeated examples of this kind of assassination with the same clues, but always without sufficient evidence, suggests to him that there might be a fanatical sect among the Jews, but unfortunately even among us Christians, there also exists sects just as terrifying and incomprehensible. Nicholas I and his close collaborators continued to believe the certain Jewish groups practice ritual murder. For several years, the emperor was under the severe grip of, calumny that smelled of blood. Therefore, his prejudice that Jewish religious doctrine was supposed to present a danger to the Christian population was reinforced. You're going to see a bit of a shift in this era.

There's always that naivete. But Nicholas I was a bit more realistic about Jewish texts, Jewish ideology, and the Jewish way of thinking. he severely limited the ability of the Jews to publish the Talmud in Yiddish or Russian. I think there was only one place he allowed for that to happen in the far west. This is the first time in roughly our era that ritual murder has shown up in Russia. I bet you I could find other examples. this is, you know, with newspapers and everything, this is the first mention of it. I am not familiar with this case.

It's very difficult to find information on it, matter what language I search in. I don't recall if it was an Ariel Toaub's book or not, but we all know it's the same kind of thing. I know there's no doubt in my mind that there is a fanatical group of the Haredi that do this kind of thing. I've spoken to members, rabbis and notorious Carter about this. They reject the concept. The problem is that these accusations are common. They all have the same pattern, and they've been made since ancient times.

Now, things change with the mass media, the telegraph, which I don't know if that had been invented at this point, but we're in the middle of the 19th century, roughly. But things change when you have that. And this is what Russia had brought into itself with the partitions of Poland. I think there were several million Jews in the Russian Empire at the time.

But Nicholas I first, being a very strong monarchy, was incorruptible. among Russian monarchists, Nicholas I was one of the favorites. He was extremely forthright. He was very simple in his way of life. He was very pious. He tended to idealize Peter the Great a little bit. And he knew that the oligarchy, no matter what background they had, was his enemy.

And that's where the so-called secret police came from. The point was to make sure that those with money aren't, especially after the December's revolt, which was put down in between Alexander and Nicholas, which was very brief, but it left a mark on Russia. It had quite a bit of Jewish support. These were essentially liberal constitutionalists

who wanted a secular, you know, a state trying to promote Constantine rather than Nicholas. Nicholas took over. And among monarchists, again, he's extremely important. extremely important. Jews didn't like him for this for this reason.

And you notice what's being quoted here. He didn't care who he offended. He didn't have a prejudice one way or another. It is possible that Jews can do something like this. But he's not... So he approached

this objectively. Now, so far, the cases that have been brought have led to acquittals. for the Jews accused, which does say something. I mean, Russia had a very fair system. I don't know.

I like the Belize case, which I have a whole lecture about. I don't know if that was just or not. But when you read the Anglo-American literature on Nicholas I, it is almost uniformly negative. They just repeat Bolshevik propaganda, liberal propaganda about him. and Solzhenitsyn actually makes reference to that. He's made reference to it already. So more and more, Russian Orthodox, and I stress to the Orthodox part,

elites are learning about what the Jewish mind really is, but Nicholas was not going to commit himself one way or another to the concept of ritual murder. The danger was understood by Nicholas and the fact that the Jews could convert Christians to Judaism. Since the 18th century, the high-profile conversion of the Judaism of Wozniznizen, a captain of the Imperial Army, had been kept in mind. In Russia from the second half of the 17th century onwards, groups of Judaizers multiplied.

In 1823, the Minister of Internal Affairs announced in a report the widespread of the heresy of Judaizers in Russia and estimated the number of its followers at 20,000 people. persecutions began, after which many members of the sect pretended to return to the bosom of the Orthodox Church, while continuing to observe in secret the rights of their sect. A consequence of all this was that the legislation on the Jews took, at the time of Nicholas I, a religious spin. The decisions and actions of Nicholas I first with regards to the Jews was affected, such as his insistence on prohibiting them from having recourse to Christian servants, especially Christian nurses, for work among the Jews, undermines and weakens the Christian faith in women. In fact, notwithstanding repeated prohibitions, this provision never was fully applied,

and Christians continued to serve amongst the Jews. You could go back to the earliest days of the church, or the earliest days of Christian civilization in Byzantine or elsewhere, and you'll hear this over and over and over again that there's a prohibition on Christians working for Jews. It is so constant and repeated. It's proof in my mind that the treatment of Christians working or indentured to Jews usually because of dead

or something like that was abominable, especially for women, because if you know your Talmud, You know that the worst you can get caught. I mean, if you cheat on your wife with a Gentile, the most that you're going to get accused of is beastiality, not adultery. This is something that's, you know, you're seeing the cliche,

and it's a very real cliche that I've seen with my own eyes of the wealthy Jew with the young Gentile blonde. That's not propaganda. I've seen it. It's such a, common thing Jewish women kind of just have they don't have a reputation for attractiveness

so they just kind of throw up their hands. There's not much they can do if the older Jew is powerful. We see this in the Weinstein case. So there's a sexual element. It's not so much a religious element. No one's fearful that they're going to be converted.

Remember, you don't have reform Jews at the time. That distinction comes later. especially in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia, these are all supposed to be fairly strict Talmudas. Because the Talmud doesn't see Gentiles, as most of us know, the Goyim, the cattle, as human, they're not protected by the rules and the laws that would govern normal intercourse with humans.

And that has more to do with anything else, because there's almost nothing and any legislation passed by any government talking about relations with Jews that doesn't mention that you may not hire or indenture Gentimes. Sometimes they mention women specifically.

Sometimes in this case they do. Sometimes they don't. But I think it's very, very clear what the issue is. And in Russia, and I'll repeat this, the bureaucracy was small, enforcing law in an empire this big with roads which were always iffy

under the best of conditions it's hard, it's difficult. Everything was at the local level and Jews can buy local government they can get away with quite a bit. So it's very important to notice this and because it's repeated all the time the treatment had to have been terrible

and that's why it is such a constant in all of this legislation. The first measure against the Jews, which Nicholas considered from the very beginning of his reign, was to put them on an equal footing with the Russian population with regard to the subjugation to compulsory service to the state, and in particular requiring them to participate physically in conscription, which they had not been subjected to since their attachment to Russia. The bourgeois Jew did not supply recruits, but acquitted 500 rubles per head. This measure was not dictated solely by governmental considerations to standardize the obligations of the population. The Jewish communities were in any case very slow to pay the royalties, and moreover, Russia would receive many Jews from Galicia, where they were already required to perform military service,

nor by the fact that the obligation to provide recruits would reduce the number of Jews not engaged in productive work. Rather, the idea was that the Jewish recruit, isolated from his closed community, would be better placed to join the Jews. the lifestyle of the nation as a whole and perhaps even orthodoxy. Taken into account, these considerations considerably tightened the conditions of the conscription applied to the Jews, leading to a gradual increase in the number of recruits and the lowering of the age of the conscripts. It cannot be said that Nicholas succeeded in enforcing the decree on the military service of the Jews without encountering resistance.

On the contrary, all instances of execution proceeded slowly. The council of ministers discussed at length, whether it was ethically defensible to take such a measure in order to limit Jewish overcrowding, as stated by Minister of Finance, George von Kankran, all recognized that it is inappropriate to collect humans rather than money. The Kahulam did not spare their efforts to remove this threat from the Jews or to postpone it. When exasperated by such slow progress, Nicholas ordered a final report to be presented to him in the shortest delays. This order, it seems, only incited the Caholam to intensify their action behind the scenes to delay the advancement of the matter. And they apparently succeeded in winning over to their cause one of the high officials, whereby the report never reached its destination.

At the very top of the imperial apparatus, this mysterious episode concludes Jay Heson could not have occurred without the participation of the Cahal. A subsequent retrieval of the report was also unfulfilled. without waiting any longer, introduced a conscription for the Jews by decree in 1827. Then in 1836, equality in obtaining medals for the Jewish soldiers who had distinguished themselves. This is the first time that that particular issue had come up. It was almost taken for granted that Jewish boys were not to be conscripted. Of course, they couldn't join voluntarily, given the nature of the cahal. remember it's still extremely difficult for the government or any government at the time to know how many Jews there were.

The Kahul went out of their way to mislead census officials or not cooperate with census officials. The fact they didn't have last names and things like this, we've mentioned this before. The numbers for taxation and things were always iffy. and that's deliberate. And so as far as either taxes or conscription, the number of Jews, there was always a certain quota that each region had to,

recruiting sergeant would come around and each group of villages had to supply one person. That's normally how it went in times of war. The conscription was usually for 20 years. But that changed depending on what was going on in the world. So it was very difficult to know

what the quota would be for any group of Jews. But the fact that Nicholas simply didn't care, he knew he was going to get pushed back for this. He didn't care. Turning these men, 18-year-olds into soldiers, you know, it might be the first time that any of these guys have ever come across honest work.

Honest work for a cause bigger than themselves. Conscription was such an outrage. to the Jews because, you know, we're not fighting for not only a Gentile power, but the Gentile power. And even today, you still have riots in Jerusalem from the Hasidics who don't recognize Israel, who refuse to be drafted. And as a war, you know, drags on over there, it's getting worse and worse, manpower-wise. so the notion that these people should be forced to fight for essentially Rome in their minds

for an orthodox power that spreads orthodoxy explicitly was an outrage and you see here they're doing anything they can they're paying people off they're lying about their numbers they're lying about their locations they're keeping a full report from coming to Nicholas

Nicholas is not stupid he knew exactly why the report never never showed up. And he said, screw it. I am drafting you. We're doing it now. And that's the big difference between Nicholas and Alexander. Totally exempted from recruitment were the merchants of all guilds, inhabitants of the agricultural colonies, workshop leaders, mechanics and factories, rabbis and all Jews having a secondary or higher education. Hence the desire of many Jewish bourgeois to try to make it into the class of merchants, bourgeois society, railing to see its members required to be drafted for military service, undermining the forces of the community, be it under the effect of taxation or recruitment. The merchants, on the other hand, sought to reduce their visible exposure to leave the payment of taxes to the bourgeois.

Relations between Jewish merchants and bourgeois were strained, for at the time the Jewish merchants, who had become more numerous and wealthier, had established strong relations in governmental spheres. The Kahal of Grudna appealed to St. Petersburg to demand that the Jewish population be divided into four classes, merchants, bourgeois, artisans, and cultivators, and that each should have not to answer for the others. In the idea proposed in the early 30s by the Kahalim themselves, one can see that the first step toward the future categorization carried out by Nicholas in 1840, which was so badly received by the Jews. The Kahulam were also charged with the task of recruiting among the Jewish

mass, of which the government had neither recorded numbers nor profiles. The Kahal put all the weight of this levy on the backs of the poor, for it seemed preferable for the most deprived to leave the community, whereas a reduction in the number of its wealthy members could lead to general ruin. The Kahulam asked the provincial authorities, but they were denied, the right to, disregard the turnover in order to be able to deliver the recruits, the tramp, recruitment, the tramps, those who did not pay taxes, the insufferable troublemakers, so that the owners who assume all the obligations of society should not have to provide recruits belong to their families. And in this way, the Kahalam were given the opportunity to act against certain

members of the community. Well, this shouldn't be surprising. We're at an era where warfare is changing. Wars up until this point roughly were compared to today low casualty events. We are coming to an era where things like science is being applied to weaponry, which is never anything good. The machine gun is going to be developing soon, super accurate rifles, new tactics. So that was one issue. But conscription wasn't like it, you know, it's not like the U.S. during Vietnam, that every healthy male 18 or over gets drafted.

As I mentioned before, a recruiting sergeant would be given charge of a certain region. A village or a group of villages, depending on how big they are, had to provide one healthy male. So it would make sense for the, so we're not talking about mass conscription here. It's the very concept that the state could do this. So it shouldn't surprise you that the Cajal is giving over people that they didn't like in the first place. And this happened all the time, but we're still healthy and whatever to send off to get rid of them. And that's what they were doing.

But depending on what was going on, that number could be increased. And you see, you know, the exact same thing happening. The American Civil War, you could buy your way out of the, of conscription in the north. This was common. And unfortunately, it is true that it always fell onto the relatively poor members of the population to do the fighting. And nothing has changed.

However, with the introduction of military service among the Jews, the men who were subject to it began to shirk and the full count was never reached. The cash taxation on Jewish communities had been considerably diminished, but it was noticed that this did not, this did by no means prevent it from continuing to be refunded only very partially. Thus, in 1829, Nicholas I, granted Grotna, Greta's request that in certain provinces, Jewish recruits should be levied in addition to the tariff imposed in order to cover tax arrears. In 1830, a Senate decree stipulated that the appeal of an additional recruit reduced the sums owed by the Kahal of 1,000 rubles in the case of an adult, 500 rubles in the case of a minor. It is true that following the untimely zeal of the governors, this measure was soon reported, while Jewish communities themselves asked for the government to enlist recruits to cover their arrears. In government circles, their proposal was welcomed coldly, for it was easy to foresee. that it would open new possibilities of abuse for the caholum.

However, as we can see, the idea matured on one side as well as on the other. Evoking these increased stringencies in the recruitment of Jews by comparison with the rest of the population, Heson writes that this was a glaring anomaly in Russian law, for in general, in Russia, the legislation applicable to the Jews did not tend to impose more obligations than that of other citizens. Nicholas the first keen intelligence inclined to draw clearly legible perspectives. Legend has it that the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway was, as a result, mapped out with a ruler. In his tenacious determination to transform the particular Jews into ordinary Russian subjects and, if possible, into Orthodox Christians, went from the idea of military recruitment to that

of Jewish Cantonists. The Cantonists, the name goes back to 1805, was an institute sheltering the children of the soldiers, lightning in favor of the fathers, the burden of service which lasted 25 years, it was supposed to extend the sections for military orphans created under Peter the Great, a kind of school for the government which provided the students with technical knowledge useful for their subsequent service in the army, which in the eyes of civil servants now seems quite appropriate for young Jewish children or even highly desirable to keep them from a young age and for long years cut off from their environment. In preparation to the Cantonese institution in 1827 decree granted Jewish communities the right to recruit a minor instead of an adult from the age

of 12, that is, before the age of nuptiality among the Jews. The new Jewish encyclopedia believes that this measure was a very hard blow, but this faculty in no way meant the obligations to call a soldier at the age of 12. It had to do, it had nothing to do with the introduction of compulsory conscription for Jewish children, as wrote erroneously, the encyclopedia, and as it ended up being accredited in the literature devoted to the Jews of Russia, then in the collective memory. The Ghalam even found that in, found this a profitable substitution, and used it by recruiting the orphans, the children of widows, sometimes bypassing the law protecting only children,

often for the benefit of the progeny of a rich man. Then from the age of 18, the Cantonists perform the usual military service so long at the time, but let us not forget that it was not limited to barracks life. The soldiers married, lived with their families, learned to practice other trades, they received the right to establish themselves in the interior provinces of the empire, where they completed their service. But unquestionably, the Jewish soldiers who remained faithful to the Jewish religion and its ritual suffered from being unable to observe the Sabbath or contravene the rules on food?

Yeah, this is interesting, and it often gets overlooked. For some reason, it gets forgotten about because you have someone who gets drafted, or God forbid someone who gets killed, you now have a child with Justice's mother. Now, normally in the peasant commune, there were methods for taking care of that. It was traditional and compulsory for everyone else in the community to go and take care of that family because it's no one's fault. But that wasn't always the case. So this whole concept was that you can, a young man who now is going to be struggling because he's, either literally or figuratively an orphan

can go to what amounts to a boarding school in the civil service. It was somewhat, depending on the personality of the kid, it was somewhat of a privileged way to go. And of course, once they reach majority, they're able to go into the army for a while. And, yeah, again, Jews use this to their advantage. But it was also a way, and Mikhail knew this, to take a young Jew.

And by the time he comes back, all those years later, he's not really a Jew anymore. He can't do, he's not really able to do this. You had clergy all over the army, but you didn't have rabbis. In fact, what you were supposed to get, at least in the Jewish case, was a very patriotic soldier who now has a penitial. and everything else, and it probably a very good education. But the very fact that this was actual productive, patriotic work for, of all places, Russia did drive the cahaw crazy, although they would. Again, all of this is manipulation.

And not to mention the fact that despite the wealth of these institutions, they have back taxes? Nicholas is not playing around. He's not going to go the way of Alexander. He knows that they lie. He knows that that's institutionalized. He knows that there's this intent contempt for Gentiles in the Kahul.

So anything that they can steal, anything that they can smuggle, any lies that they can tell the tax man or anyone else is not only justified but considered praiseworthy. So in some cases, the Kahul was willing to go with this Cantonese program

for the sake of not having to pay a certain amount of taxes. It really depended on the cahold, it depended on the circumstances. And of course, it's shocking to us, but the, but you know, Jews are going to do. This is, this is the nature of what we were dealing with at the time. And they realized very quickly that Nicholas was very different from what they had experience in the past. Miner's place with Cantonists separated from their family environment, naturally found it difficult to resist the pressure of their educators who were encouraged by reward. to successfully convert their pupils during lessons of Russian arithmetic, but above all,

of catechism that were also rewarded for their conversion. Moreover, it was facilitated by their resentment toward a community that had given them up to recruitment. But conversely, the tenacity of the Jewish character, the faithfulness to the religion inculcated at an early age, made many of them hold their grounds. Needless to say, these methods of conversion to Christianity were not Christian and did not achieve their purpose. On the other hand, the accounts of conversions obtained by cruelty or by death threats against Cantonists, supposedly collective drownings in the rivers for those who refuse

baptism, such stories receive public attention in the decades that followed, fall within the domain of pure fiction. As the Jewish Encyclopedia published before the revolution, the popular legend of the few hundred Cantonists allegedly killed by drowning, was born from the information published in a German newspaper, according to which 800 cantonists were taken away one fine day to be baptized in the water of a river, two of them perished by drowning. And don't be shocked if even now you come across historians who repeat this nonsense using the Jewish encyclopedia as a source, this older version. I don't think, I can't say with 100% certainty, but I don't think it's in the more modern editions of the encyclopedia.

but no conversion was done by force. No conversion can be done by force. You didn't have these underground Jews or anything like that. But this was to some extent the point of all of this. And he mentions, and he's right to mention, the fact that the Kahul gave them up, forced them into this.

And so, I don't know, maybe these aren't my friends, my family, after all. Now, the percentage of conversions, I simply don't know. They were not punished for being Jews throughout the system. As we've already mentioned, there's a whole special line of Jewish medals

that Nicholas had struck for valiant service. But so the conversions that did happen, they occurred not by force, not in, you know, in using secret Jewish rights afterwards, but they were legitimate. And we've met,

mentioned a few paragraphs ago the rise of the Judaizers. Sometimes it's tough to tell the difference when the sources mentioned Freemasons, which were not tolerated under Nicholas, although they still existed, and the Judaizers. I don't know if there's a huge difference, especially at the time. Judaizers, going back to the time of the Muscovite Empire, we talked about some time ago. We're essentially a cult alchemists only in the

elite of society, the higher levels of of matronry are the same way. So I don't know if there's a huge difference between the two, but calling a, what they used to call Protestants, especially Calvinist Judaizers. And then there's a good reason for that. But whether they, depending on the author, associating matronery with Judaism,

it's not totally illegitimate, but I don't necessarily know in every case what they're, what or who they're referring to. The statistical data from the military inspection archives to the general staff for the years 1847 to 1854, when the recruitment of Jewish Cantonists was particularly high, showed that they represented on average only 2.4% of the many Cantonists in Russia. In other words, that their proportion did not exceed that of the Jewish population in the country, even taking into account the undervalued data provided

by the Kaholam during the censuses. Doubtlessly, the baptized had an interest in exculpating themselves from their compatriots in exaggerating the degree of coercion they had to undergo in their conversion to Christianity, especially since as part of this conversion, they enjoyed certain advantages in the accomplishment of their service. Moreover, many converted Cantonists remained secretly faithful to their other religion, and some of them later returned to Judaism. In the last years of the reign of Alexander I, after a new wave of famine in Belarus, a new senator had been sent on mission. He had come back with the same conclusions as Dershavin a quarter of a century before. The Jewish committee established in 1823, composed of four ministers, had proposed a study

on what grounds it would be expedient and profitable to organize a participation of the Jews in the state and to put down in writing all that could contribute to the improvement of the civil situation of this people. They soon realized that the problem thus posed was beyond their strength, and in 1825, this Jewish committee at the ministerial level had been replaced by a director's committee, the fifth, composed of the directors of their ministries who devoted themselves to studying the problem for another eight years. In his eagerness, Nicholas preceded the work of this committee with his decisions. Thus, as we have seen, he introduced conscription for the Jews. This is how he said a deadline of three years to expel the Jews from all the villages of the western provinces

and put an end to their activity of alcohol manufacturing, but, as under his predecessors, this measure experienced slowdowns, stoppages, and was ultimately reported. Subsequently, he prohibited Jews from holding taverns and diners from living in such places and ensuring the retail side of alcohol in person, but this measure was not applied either. Another attempt was made to deny the Jews one of their favorite jobs, the maintenance of post houses with their ins and taverns, but again, in vain because, apart from the Jews, there was not enough candidates to occupy them. Well, you could feel Nicholas's frustration because we, as we're reading this, you feel the frustration.

How many times do they have to have reports all saying the same thing? How many times do they have to ban Jewish activity in terms of distilling? liquor only for it to fail over and over again. This is, I think, one of the reasons that conscription was introduced for them. They admitted, as we just read, that what the committee initially wanted to do was, quote, beyond their strength. They simply didn't have the resources to do it. And in both houses are part of the reason. When you have roads, like in Russia, especially when the countryside being so humongous, post houses for travelers were very important.

It's extremely difficult to enforce this when you have so many of these in so many different places. As I've said before, we're not just talking about an inn. We're talking about places where all manner of illegal activity took place, especially prostitution. In other words, another word for how. having, you know, Gentile women serve,

serve Jews. Maybe her family owed quite a bit of money or something like that. Setting a deadline for the expulsion of the Jews from the villages. Again, this is never going to be 100% accomplished. You know, slowdowns, stoppages, ultimately abandoned. So he just then put out a blanket prohibition. and the only reason that there were not enough candidates

is that there weren't enough Gentiles willing to invest in this which could be a costly occupation especially when you're in the middle of nowhere the whole point of a post house is that it is in the middle of nowhere so it does make sense you're going to have a tough time finding people Jews are perfectly okay with this because they you know they circulated in a particular area which made it very difficult to to track them at any given time.

But Nicholas is extremely frustrated. How many times have we gone through this same procedure since, you know, the murder of Paul, Zarpal. And given what Russia is, you know, Russia couldn't have been a tyranny because there was no way to enforce that. The only type of political violence was against the elite that despised the monarchy. and as a 19th century wears on, that gets worse and worse.

Elites are always the one that tries to get rid of a monarch. The elites are always the one that tries to revolutionize society in their interests. So the oligarchy, especially as masonry continues, its corrosive work, Judaism, he's going to have to start dealing with this with greater and greater levels of severity. but this was only applied to the elites in the major cities because that really was the only way that any of this stuff could be enforced. The Jews were aware of that.

They were also aware of the fact that they're not dealing with a weak-willed man like Alexander. In 1827, a leasing system of the distilling activities was introduced throughout the empire, but there was a considerable fall in the prices obtained at the auctions when the Jews were discarded, and it happened that there was no other candidates to take these operations. so that they had to be allowed to the Jews, whether in the towns or in the countryside, even beyond the area of residence. The government was, in fact, relieving the Jews of the responsibility of organizing the collection of taxes on liquor and thus receiving a regular return. Long before the merchants of the First Guild were allowed to reside in any part of the empire,

all farmers enjoyed the freedom to move and resided in capitals in other cities outside the palest settlement. From the midst of the farmers came prominent Jewish men like Lippman Fagin also already mentioned, and Evsel Gunzburg. He had held an alcohol manufacturing tenancy in a besieged, in a besieged Sevastopol. In 1859, he founded in St. Petersburg a banking establishment, one of the most important in Russia. Later, he participated in the placement of Russian treasury bonds in Europe. He was a founder of the dynasty of the Gunsburg Barons. Beginning in 1848, all Jewish merchants of the First Guild were allowed to lease drinking places, even where Jews had no right to reside permanently. The Jews also received the more extensive right with respect to the

distillation of alcohol. As we remember, in 1819, they were allowed to distill it in the provinces of Great Russia until Russian artisans acquire sufficient competence. In 1826, Nicholas decided to repatriate them to the Pala settlement, but in 1827, he conceded to several special specific request to keep distillers in place, for example, in the state factories of Erkuts. Vladimir Soviyov quotes that the following thoughts from Mr. Kotkov. In the western provinces, it is the Jew who deals with alcohol, but is the situation better in other provinces of Russia. The Jewish inkeepers who get the people drunk ruin the peasants and cause their

doom and they present throughout Russia? What is happening elsewhere in Russia where the Jews are not admitted and where the flow of alcohol is held by an Orthodox bartender or a Kuok? Let us listen to Leskof, the great connoisseur of Russian popular life. Quoting, in the provinces of Greater Russia where Jews do not reside, the number of those accused of drunkenness or crimes committed under the influence are regularly and significantly higher than within the palest settlement. The same applies to the number of deaths due to alcoholism. And this is not a new phenomenon. It has been seen.

It has been so since ancient times. And he's right. And again, you can almost hear the frustration. By the way, this is a very early use of the word Kulak to refer to like a low-level oligarch. But, no, that Vladimir Slovia, that is not the philosopher. That's the historian, Vladimir, Slovak. And Katkov was a conservative publisher at the time. We, from the very beginning, we see that Jews used alcohol, no matter where they are,

to drive the peasants into debt, to be able to manipulate them, to be able to get them to sign things. And they flaunted the law wherever they could. And it was relatively easy to do when it was hard to track them. those of us who were interested in organized crime end up talking about the Jews an awful lot know that during prohibition

the Jews were the dominant factor they liked using the Italians they put them but the Jews were far more powerful all over the place. Jews founded Las Vegas. The Jews were the first people to import heroin roughly around that same period of time

in 1920s but of course in the history of three books, they'll talk about Italians. They love playing. Now, of course, they claim that it's the Russian mafia, where in fact it's exclusively Jewish. And amazingly, there's no RICO

cases against them. You don't hear about these guys going to go into prison. Almost no one in the FBI speak, Yiddish, et cetera, et cetera. And it's no different at this in this period of time. We're talking about 100 years earlier. None of this

is new. And it didn't matter what the law said. Depending on where you are, it's easy to flaunt it. So once in a while, the populist took matters into their own hands. The problem with that is, if that got too big, now you have instability. And I'll repeat again, that the Jews were armed and were quite willing to defend themselves. don't let anyone say otherwise. So it's very easy to see the frustration here.

We're not dealing. Remember, this is a Russian Empire. It's not a nation state. St. Petersburg doesn't relate to the provinces like Washington, D.C., relate to New Jersey. It's a more or less decentralized system. I don't want to go so far as to say it's a confederation under a monarch. but it's not that far away from that.

And so when Nicholas is trying to centralize things, it becomes extremely difficult, and he didn't know how many of the elite who could carry this kind of stuff out were trustworthy, was trustworthy. Another huge frustration, which is why a very specific police force was founded to keep a watch on them.

And it was only to see where Mason Ring had shown itself was anyone doing anything in secret? This, of course, is called a secret police and everything is, you know, awfully totalitarian in a system that was the very opposite of totalitarian. That's how the history books are written. You can't talk about the suffering of the peasant without talking about the Jews, and yet almost everyone writing on this subject refuses to mention them except as the eternal victim. However, it is true. Statistics tell us that in the western and southern provinces of the empire, there was one drinking place per 297 inhabitants, whereas in the eastern provinces there were only one for 585. The newspaper, the voice, which was not without influence at the time, was able to say that the trade of alcohol,

the Jews, was the wound of this area, namely the western region, and an intractable wound at that. its theoretical considerations, I.G. Orchansky tries to show that the stronger the density in drinking places, the less alcoholism there was. We must understand that, according to him, the peasant will succumb to temptation, will succumb less to temptation if the flow of drinks is found under his nose and solicits him 24 hours a day. Remember, Dersawain, the bartenders trade night and day, but will the peasant be tempted by a distant cabaret when he will have to across several muddy fields to reach it. No, we know only too well that alcoholism is sustained not only by demand, but also by the supply of vodka. Orchansky nevertheless pursues his demonstration.

When the Jew is interposed between the distiller and the drunken peasant, he acts objectively in favor of the peasant because he sells vodka at a lower price, but it is true that he does does so by pawning the effects of the peasant. Certainly, he writes, some believe, nevertheless, that Jewish tenants have a poor influence on the condition of the peasants, but it is because, in the trade of bartending, as in all the other occupations, they differ by their know-how, skill, and dynamism. It is true that elsewhere, in another essay of the same collection, he recognizes the existence of fraudulent transactions with the peasants. It is right to point out that the Jewish trade is grossly deceitful and that the Jewish dealer, tavernkeeper and usurer, exploit a miserable

population, especially in the countryside. Faced with an owner, the peasant holds on firmly to his prices, but he is amazingly supple and confident when dealing with a Jew, especially if the latter holds a bottle of vodka and reserve. The peasant is often brought to sell his wheat, dirt cheap to the Jew. Nevertheless, to this crude, glaring, arresting truth, or Chansky seeks attenuating circumstances, but this evil that eats away the will of the peasants, how to justify it. Now, I've read the Orchansky book, The Set of Essays. He is a Jew, and he's simply, he's objective enough where he just can't hide the truth. The tavern where the Jew dominated and owned was the, you.

the locus of the worst elements of peasant life. And it was a simple den of iniquity. Nicholas was well aware of this. He was well aware that there's alcohol, there's going to be all kinds of irrational decisions. He uses the word cabaret. We know exactly what he's talking about here. The exact same thing happened in the U.S.

under the Jews during Prohibition. and it's in this nothing has changed we've already mentioned this goes back to to ancient times there's certain fathers of the church that talk about this there's a canon in i forget which which synod banning the clergy from ever going to a tavern now the definition of a tavern then is a little different from from today but it was always the jewish um um the jewish notal point for control and domination. There's nothing specifically that pushes the Russian to vodka.

The Jewish press will always say that they're drunks and everything else. No, this was brought to them. Rockie didn't exist in Russia until Peter the Great. It was a supply chain

that the Jews had put together and selling their product, farmers selling their product dirt cheap, despite the fact that there were members of communes that they had to answer to, it didn't matter when there's a bottle of vodka there.

And the girls, the Gentile girls that they had there, and God knows what else they were doing, that's been lost to history, but not the logic, is a, you know, just continue to eat away at the mentality of the peasant. So when industrialization occurred and the peasant then goes from the countryside to the city, he's already halfway derationated. None of this would have happened without Jewish influence. And lots of this was done with the circulation of Jews. It wasn't the same guy every time

but this tightly cohesive and centralized body of Jews was up against a very large but very decentralized Gentile system that under Nicholas was doing everything that couldn't stop this. It produced a lot of money. It produced a lot of liquidity for the system. It did, despite themselves, produce a lot of tax money, a huge amount of tax money. But everyone knew who mattered.

Gentiles knew that this was absolutely destructive. Even those who were profiting from it knew how destructive this was. And the Jew is at the – was and is at the center of it using these sorts of institutions. If you go look at the Jewish control over the speakeasies of American – in the 20s of American – prohibition, there's no difference that I could see between that and what was going on here. This is just a constant in the Talmudic mind. Would you say that before the Jews really started to have any kind of influence in the culture of Russia, the singular culture of Russia, was it a singular culture?

Was it a culture where, you know, even if it was regional, you knew what it was, it was it? you knew what it was. It didn't have to be written down. You didn't need laws. It was just people who shared something in common. And then you introduce a people into them. And it doesn't even have to be Jews with the way they operate with their manipulation, with the way they do commerce, everything like that. Any kind of culture that gets introduced to a culture, especially a very simple people, and agrarian people, that it's going to clash. It's going to cause problems. And you see people today arguing saying, oh, multiculturalism works perfectly fine.

Look at the United States. It's like, well, I mean, how can you argue that when you have the, you know, the obvious example here of one people, a historic people who when they encounter a people who, when they encounter a people who, who are not who are advanced in their way of, I'm sorry, you know, there's no better word, manipulation. I mean, how could you even argue that introducing a foreign culture into a culture is actually a good thing? That's, that's been the theme since I think the first word that I uttered in this, in this series. you had a fairly prosperous Russian

a Russian Orthodox society of course there were regional differences but Russia grew because these were very similar people they're speaking the same language they had the same religion they had the same calendar they had the same fan all this stuff similar but unidentical systems in terms of economics that was the big

regional side of it and then all of a sudden you introduce a cancer from a group of people who are aware that they're this destructive entity and that their whole mentality revolves around how do we latch onto this host

how do we keep him from dying while still being able to take advantage bleeding him slowly and as we mentioned the concept of the Messiah that once Jews reach critical mass of power and influence,

well, the Messiah, are you seeing it now? The Messiah must be coming. So now any incentive that they ever had to pull back is gone because pretty soon everyone's going to be our slave. That occurred in Poland. I'm not sure among the your strict Jews in Russia at the time. You have it right now amongst Jews in America,

looking to people like Schneerson. And I'm going to be talking about that in mind daily nationalist here in a little bit. It's, and as I said, I think the first day, I said that the Russian mind, the normal Gentile mind, especially the Christian mind, wasn't ready for what they had to face with this totally Machiavellian group of people who would do anything. Always at someone else's expense to turn a profit and to control. So it's not just they take over, but then they have to.

go out of their way to make sure that no one knows that they've taken over. So now they have to start controlling government agencies and everything else. It ends up being this cycle, this spiral of domination that's now reached. It's the zenith in Zionism. That's on the front page even today. The connection between, you know, when the Jews reached a critical mass in the U.S., roughly around the time prohibition, American women, you know, instituted prohibition, mostly females.

Now you had pornography issues for the very first time. Court cases about that. Court cases about, yeah, of course, the violating the Volstead Act, the existence of organized crime becoming extremely powerful and extremely wealthy in the major cities. In every case, you had powerful Jews at every step of the way. They reached a certain level, and there used to be a reaction to this kind of thing. Of course, now there isn't or is there. I mean, you know, this may be changing.

But Nicholas was the first Russian leader to really know this and to really get his hands around this. But at his disposal, he didn't have the resources that a, you know, a 20th century state would have. This is not a state. This is an empire for better or for worse. And it didn't function like the modern nation state does. and he was aware not just at the local level with the peasantry, he was aware how Freemasonry and Judaism was affecting his own elite, and he had to take substantial action right up until the time of the revolution,

which was also very Masonic and Judaic. You know, this was this constant back-and-forth battle at one level or another. Nicholas was the first to really understand this in the 19th century, and this is why he is treated so harshly in the historical literature today. All right. We'll leave it there. We're at a natural stopping point. We'll come back in a few days.

As I do at the end of every episode, encourage you to go to the show notes of this episode. I have links. I have hot links to support Dr. Johnson's work. And I ask you to please do that. So, Dr. Johnson, once again, thank you. the knocking was at a minimum. Oh, did you hear some? It actually seemed charming at a certain point.

Okay. Well, progress is being made. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Talk to you in a few days. Talk to you soon, my friend. Bye-bye.