Tension within the Jewish Community
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Tension within the Jewish Community
Between the years of 1881 and 1914, the Jewish population in Russia and Eastern Europe underwent many changes. Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II implemented laws against Jews, hoping to extrude them from society. Anti-Semitism began to rise steadily and as a result, pogroms occurred throughout areas of Eastern Europe. As religious tension grew stronger throughout this period, the Jewish community began to witness a weakening of authority. As the Jewish population began to split in many different directions, many Jews hoped to russify their everyday life. Consequently, Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe started to disintegrate and conflict within the Jewish community soon followed. In Slohem Aleichem's novel, Tevye the Dairyman, Tevye witnesses this disintegration in Russia first hand, as well as the growing unrest between Russian Jews. Central to the novel and modern East European Jewish life, tension arose among the Jewish population in regards to traditional Judaism, work, and money.
After Jews entered the Russian educational system, the russification and secularization of Jews increased steadily. Although most viewed Eastern European Jewry at the turn of the 19th century as an entirely Yiddish-speaking community, several Russian Jews were learning and speaking Russian...