THE JEWISH COMMUNITY 179Weingartens, Goldfarbs, Silbersteins, Schwartzkopfs, and Weissmanns. In the
Russian Pale, the Jews frequently adopted a surname based on their family's city
of origin or, like the ex-slaves in America, on the name of the noble proprietor
of the estate where they lived. Thus in addition to the Warschauers, Wieners,
Posners, Minskers, and Pinskers, there appeared Jewish Potockis, Jewish
Czartoryskis, and Jewish Wisniowieckis.
Official hostility was expressed in a variety of ways. In Galicia, special taxes
were imposed on religious practices. The candle-tax, and the levy assessed on
the attendance roll of the synagogues, penalized the Jews' devotion to their reli-
gion. In the Congress Kingdom, a liquor-tax struck specially hard at Jewish
licensees. In Russia from 1805, military conscription frequently took the form of
the wholesale deportation of entire age-groups of Jewish youth to distant gar-
risons of the Empire. In this respect, the Jewish towns of the Pale suffered the
same brutal treatment as the settlements of petty Polish nobility. Under
Nicholas I, Jewish conscripts came under heavy pressure to submit to Christian
baptism. Repeated attempts were made to suppress Jewish education. In 1835,
the use of Hebrew in schools, and in official documents, was formally banned -
though to little immediate effect. In the second half of the century, the
Russification of public life affected the Jews no less than the Poles. The endemic
pogroms which followed the May Laws were largely organized by official
provocateurs. The appearance of the police-sponsored Jew-baiting gangs, the
Black Hundreds, was but the latest expression of a rooted conviction in official
circles that all Jews were potentially disloyal.
Social mobility greatly increased. No longer confined to their own ghettos,
Jewish families could try to migrate to the suburbs, to the countryside, or even
to foreign countries. In Galicia, it was often said in jest that the only successful
expedition of 1848 was the Long March of the Jews on the two miles from
Kazimierz to Cracow. In Russian Poland, in Warsaw and Lodz, wealthy Jewish
families moved out from the city centres. In some cases, they moved over the
frontier into Galicia where they were free to buy land. Economic constraints and
severe overcrowding forced increasing numbers to emigrate abroad. Between
1800 and 1880, the natural increase of the Jews of the Pale was in the order of
500 per cent. Similar conditions prevailed in Galicia. At the end of the century,
the threat of active persecution increased emigration and turned a steady stream
into a stampede which continued until the First World War. Although statistics
vary, there can be little doubt that more Jews left the Polish lands than stayed
behind. They went in stages: first to Vienna or Berlin, then to England or France,
and above all to America. Some were well prepared, and departed legally.
Invited by their Landmannschaft or 'Regional Council' abroad, they were pro-
vided with tickets for the journey and with work when they arrived. Others
departed illegally, especially from Russia, and could make no preparations. At
the ports of embarkation, they sold themselves to redemption agents, who gave
them a free passage to America in exchange for three, five, or seven years'
bonded labour on arrival.^2