Alexander III

(1845–94)

   Czar of Russia 1881–94. Alexander in was a stern and old-fashioned Russian nationalist, opposed to any kind of reform. When he came to the throne he was determined to undo all the liberal influence brought in by his father ALEXANDER II. His prescription for Russia was Orthodox religion, autocracy, and narodnost (a blind Russian patriotism). Young Jews and Jewish intellectuals played a large part in revolutionary movements. Alexander was therefore ruthless with the Jews. In 1881 the first organized pogrom occurred in Yelizavetgrad (Kirovgrad), and in the next few years there were widespread attacks on Jews. A series of anti-Jewish measures, starting with the May Laws of 1882, imposed severe restrictions on the movement and settlement of Jews. A quarter of a million Jews were moved from the western districts of Russia into the Pale of Settlement. Later, the Jews of Moscow and St Petersburg (Leningrad) were also expelled into the Pale, where some four million Jews were huddled into hundreds of shtetls (small towns). Certain professions were closed or nearly closed to Jews. A numerus clausus limited the Jewish entries to secondary schools and universities to a tiny percentage.

   It was during the reign of Alexander in that the great exodus of Jews took place from the Pale of Settlement to the United States, Latin America, Britain, Europe, South Africa and Palestine. In all, two million of them joined in this mass migration, which altered the face of the Jewish world.