Blavatsky H.P. - The Jews in Russia: Difference between revisions

If your neighbor would take the trouble to ask any traveller or Russian Israelite now in America it would learn that Kief, as well as other “greatest cities” are full of Jews; that in fact there are more Jews than Gentiles in the first named of those cities. Pretty much all trade is in their {{Page aside|263}} hands, and they furnish even all the olive oil that is permanently burnt at the ''rakas'' (shrines) of the 700 orthodox saints whose beatified mummies fill up the Catacombs of Kief, and the wax for the candles on all the altars; and it is again the Jews who keep the dram-shops, or ''kabak'', where the faithful congregate after service to give a last filip to their devotional ardor. It is barely four months since the chief Rabbi of Moscow published in the official ''Vedomosty'' an earnest address to his co-religionists throughout the empire to remind them that they were Russians by nativity, and called upon them to display their patriotism in subscriptions for the wounded, prayers in the synagogues for the success of the Russian arms and all other practical ways. In 1870, during the ''émeute'' in Odessa, which was caused by some Jewish children throwing dirt into the church on Easter night, and which lasted more than a week, the Russian soldiers shot and bayonetted twelve Christian Russians and not a single Jew; while—and I speak as an eyewitness — over two hundred rioters were publicly whipped by order of the Governor-General, Kotzebue,<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[Count Paul Kotzebue, Governor-General of Odessa and later of Warsaw.—''Compiler''.]}}</ref> of whom none were Israelites. That there is a hatred between them and the more fanatical Christians is true, but the Russian Government can be no more blamed for this than the British and American Governments because Orangemen and Catholics mutually hate, beat, and occasionally kill each other.

{{Style P-Signature in capitals|H. P. Blavatsky.}}

{{Footnotes}}