The Promised Land | Page 8

necessity of breaking the Jewish
laws of daily life while in the service. A soldier often had to eat trefah
and work on Sabbath. He had to shave his beard and do reverence to
Christian things. He could not attend daily services at the synagogue;
his private devotions were disturbed by the jeers and insults of his
coarse Gentile comrades. He might resort to all sorts of tricks and
shams, still he was obliged to violate Jewish law. When he returned
home, at the end of his term of service, he could not rid himself of the
stigma of those enforced sins. For four years he had led the life of a
Gentile.
Piety alone was enough to make the Jews dread military service, but
there were other things that made it a serious burden. Most men of
twenty-one--the age of conscription--were already married and had
children. During their absence their families suffered, their business

often was ruined. At the end of their term they were beggars. As
beggars, too, they were sent home from their military post. If they
happened to have a good uniform at the time of their dismissal, it was
stripped from them, and replaced by a shabby one. They received a free
ticket for the return journey, and a few kopecks a day for expenses. In
this fashion they were hurried back into the Pale, like escaped prisoners.
The Czar was done with them. If within a limited time they were found
outside the Pale, they would be seized and sent home in chains.
There were certain exceptions to the rule of compulsory service. The
only son of a family was exempt, and certain others. In the physical
examination preceding conscription, many were rejected on account of
various faults. This gave the people the idea of inflicting injuries on
themselves, so as to produce temporary deformities on account of
which they might be rejected at the examination. Men would submit to
operations on their eyes, ears, or limbs, which caused them horrible
sufferings, in the hope of escaping the service. If the operation was
successful, the patient was rejected by the examining officers, and in a
short time he was well, and a free man. Often, however, the deformity
intended to be temporary proved incurable, so that there were many
men in Polotzk blind of one eye, or hard of hearing, or lame, as a result
of these secret practices; but these things were easier to bear than the
memory of four years in the Czar's service.
Sons of rich fathers could escape service without leaving any marks on
their persons. It was always possible to bribe conscription officers. This
was a dangerous practice,--it was not the officers who suffered most in
case the negotiations leaked out,--but no respectable family would let a
son be taken as a recruit till it had made every effort to save him. My
grandfather nearly ruined himself to buy his sons out of service; and
my mother tells thrilling anecdotes of her younger brother's life, who
for years lived in hiding, under assumed names and in various disguises,
till he had passed the age of liability for service.
If it were cowardice that made the Jews shrink from military service
they would not inflict on themselves physical tortures greater than any
that threatened them in the army, and which often left them maimed for

life. If it were avarice--the fear of losing the gains from their business
for four years--they would not empty their pockets and sell their houses
and sink into debt, on the chance of successfully bribing the Czar's
agents. The Jewish recruit dreaded, indeed, brutality and injustice at the
hands of officers and comrades; he feared for his family, which he left,
often enough, as dependents on the charity of relatives; but the fear of
an unholy life was greater than all other fears. I know, for I remember
my cousin who was taken as a soldier. Everything had been done to
save him. Money had been spent freely--my uncle did not stop at his
unmarried daughter's portion, when everything else was gone. My
cousin had also submitted to some secret treatment,--some devastating
drug administered for months before the examination,--but the effects
were not pronounced enough, and he was passed. For the first few
weeks his company was stationed in Polotzk. I saw my cousin drill on
the square, carrying a gun, on a Sabbath. I felt unholy, as if I had
sinned the sin in my own person. It was easy to understand why
mothers of conscript sons fasted and wept and prayed and worried
themselves to their graves.
There was a man in our town called David the Substitute, because he
had gone as a soldier in another's stead, he himself being exempt. He
did it