Russian Jews :: essays research papers

Russian Jews     To Russian Jews, the synagogue was the center of morality and religionwas the near important thing in their lives. The rabbi was their leader, theycame to him with every problem they had. Jews were poor, but they each gavetzedakah. It was said that even the poorest Jews could find someone poorer tohelp and give funds to. According to the Jewish religion, tzedakah is one ofthe most important mitzvahs you can do. The same could be said about the Jewishholidays. They were observed very strictly, but Shabbat was the most welcomed.In order to teach the importance of Jewish law, they started their own schools,their own courts of law, and their own burial societies. even though there werepogroms, religious persecution forced the Jews to seduce stronger communitiesand made them more united.     In the beginning of the 1800s, black lovage I ruled Russia. He promisedthe Jews that they could become farmers, could live in two distri cts, and couldbuy unoccupied land. Although Alexander was kind and helped the Jews, the taxthey were forced to pay, stayed. before he died in 1825, the Jewish situationbecame hard for them to bare. They lived in poverty in small and crowded placesand were oppressed. For hundreds of years, Jews lived these ship canal in twocommunities - the ghetto and the shtetl. To keep out thieves and rioters fromcoming in, they built walls around their section of town. When they did this,the political relation and churches got an idea, they would use the walls that the Jewsbuilt, to lock them in.     These walls were located near a metalworks that made cannons, so they namedit ghetto which means "foundry". They would close the gates every night andthe Jews would be locked in until daybreak. The word of the ghettos quicklyspread, soon there were ghettos all over Europe. The Jews were all treated thesame in every ghetto that was in Europe, according the government and ch urches,the Jews had no rights. They were no allowed to own land, join crafts guilds,or do any kind of work that Christians got to do. In some ghettos, they wereeven forced to wear badges so anyone who saw them would know they were Jewish.The badge was usually a sense impression of David. For many years, the government tookcopies of the Talmud, and burnt them. Also the government forced the Jews tolisten to long Christian sermons. Even though all these terrible things tookplace and the government was not good to the Jews, the ghettos seemed to be a