One of man's most grievous crimes is indifference, inattention to his
neighbour's fate; this indifference is pre-eminently ours.
The situation of the Jews in Russia, which is a disgrace to Russian
culture, is one of the results of our carelessness, of our
indifference to the straight and just decrees of life.
In the interests of reason, justice, civilisation, we must not
tolerate that people without rights should live among us; we would
never have tolerated it, if we had a strong sense of self-respect.
We have every reason to reckon the Jews among our friends; there are
many things for which we must be grateful to them: they have done and
are doing much good in those lines of endeavour in which the best
Russian minds have been engaged. Nevertheless, without aversion or
indignation, we bear a disgraceful stain on our consciousness, the
stain of Jewish disabilities. There is in that stain the dirty poison
of slanders and the tears and blood of numberless pogroms.
I am not able to speak of anti-Semitism in the manner it deserves.
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