ts, and those of an economic and fiscal character to
the municipalities and town councils; the old elective Kahal
administration was to pass out of existence.

Carried to its logical conclusions, this "reform" would necessarily have
led, as it actually did lead in Western Europe, to the abolition of the
Jewish community, outside the narrow limits of a synagogue parish, had
the Jews of Russia been placed at the same time on a footing of equality
in regard to _taxation_. But such European consistency was beyond the
mental range of Russian autocracy. It was neither willing to abandon the
special, and for the Jews doubly burdensome, method of conscription, nor
to forego the extra levies imposed upon the Jews, over and above the
general state taxes, for needs which, properly speaking, should have
been met by the exchequer. Thus it came about that for the sake of
maintaining Jewish disabilities in the matter of conscription and
taxation, the Government itself was obliged to mitigate the blow at
Jewish autonomy by allowing the institutions of Jewish "conscription
trustees" and tax-collectors, elected by the Jewish communes "from among
the most dependable men," to remain in force. The Government, moreover,
found it necessary to establish a special department for Jewish affairs
at each municipality and town council. In this way the law managed to
destroy the self-government of the Kahal and yet preserve its
rudimentary function as an autonomous fiscal agency which was to be
continued under the auspices of the municipality. In point of fact, the
Kahal, which, through its "trustees" and "captors," had acted the part
of a Government tool in carrying out the dreadful military conscription,
had long become thoroughly demoralized and had lost its former prestige
as a great Jewish institution. Its transformation into a purely fiscal
agency was merely the formal ratification of a sad fact.

Having disposed of the Kahal as a vehicle of Jewish "separatism," the
Government next attacked the special Jewish "system of taxation," not to
abolish it, of course, but rather to place it under a more rigorous
control for the purpose of preventing it from serving in the hands of
the Jews as an instrument for the attainment of specific Jewish ends. It
is significant that on the same day on which the Kahal ukase was made
public was also issued the new "Regulation Concerning the Basket Tax."
[1] The revenue from this tax which had for a long time been