1 Around 5663-5664 (1903-1904), the authorities in Smolensk uncovered a group of forgers. They would produce a vocational certificate affirming that the recipient worked in one of the professions – such as dentistry – which alone granted Jews the right to live in a town that was outside the bounds of the Pale of Settlement.2 This scheme had enabled over 150 families to resettle throughout Russia. The case reached the courts in the midst of the Russo-Japanese War, and Smolensk was one of the regions that had been mobilized. Things were grim, both on account of the charge itself, and also because hundreds of Jewish families were now to be extradited.
Ten years before my father became involved in public issues, he had inspired a group of Jewish magnates to set up a fund of thousands of rubles to finance activities for the public good, year after year.
A certain Lubavitcher chassid by the name of R. Avraham Yitzchak Zarchin3 had received his permit to live in Smolensk by virtue of his ability to manufacture ink, but now in fact he engaged in business. When he told the Rebbe Rashab that he would soon have to appear in court, he was advised to see whether the imminent threat to the entire community could be defused locally. And in fact, when R. Avraham Yitzchak then approached the local authorities, he was given to understand that matters could be smoothly settled – in exchange for 7000 rubles…
In response to my father’s request, that sum from the above fund was dispatched from Petersburg to Smolensk. All the incriminating documents promptly vanished from the face of the earth, and all the Jewish families were left in peace. (In fact, R. Avraham Yitzchak returned to my father a certain part of the amount that had been received from the fund but was not needed.)
The decree remained ineffective for several years – until the establishment of the Duma, the infamous parliament. It included a notorious villain by the name of Markov, the second of that name. Being a violent anti-Semite, he sought to reopen the Smolensk file by unearthing Jewish offenses against the czarist authorities, but the investigators were unable to prove anything, because no trace was left of the relevant documents.
When Baron Ginzburg later heard about how the threat had been handled, he said that he had been prepared to give 30,000 rubles for this cause, but that course of action had appeared not to be feasible.
In fact, however, the problem was not allowed to rest until it would reach the authorities of the central government. That would have cost several times 30,000 rubles, whereas since the problem was nipped in the bud, its solution cost relatively little.
Later, after the Minister Plieva was assassinated, more decrees had been decided upon in Petersburg for the expulsion of Jews from their homes, and the like. Jewish activists, including the well-known [lawyers] Mr. Schlassberg and Mr. Vinover, planned large-scale strategies, and were certain that large sums of money would be needed to bribe many ministers of state. My father thereupon found ways of reaching lower officials in the relevant ministry, whose expectations were humbler. They saw to it that the minutes of the meetings at which the decisions had been decided upon, and all the rest of the prepared documents, should somehow be lost. However, it took so long for the entire case to be reopened from the beginning, that “once the trial slept through the night, the case lapsed.”4
Eventually, with help from Above, the decree was repealed.
