On March 13, 1881, Czar Alexander II was assassinated in St. Petersburg when a bomb thrown at his carriage exploded. He had been traveling home to his imperial residence at the Winter Palace. His death was a major turning point in Jewish
history. Jews had benefited greatly from this Czar, who relaxed many of the laws his father, Czar Nicholas I, had enacted against the Jews.
Czar Alexander II had done away with the Cantonist system whereby Jewish males between the ages of 12 and 18 were conscripted into 25-year military service. He allowed some Jews to live outside the Pale of Settlement, the area of Russia that incorporated parts of present-day Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, where Jews had been forced to live after 1835. He also allowed Jews to be accepted in high schools and universities. During Czar
Alexander’s reign, many Jews entered the professions of medicine and law, and Jewish industrialists built railroads and factories. Jewish bankers contributed to the expansion of the country’s economy.
Because of Czar Alexander II’s relaxed restrictions in regard to living in the Pale of Settlement, two major Jewish communities were established: one in Moscow and one in St. Petersburg.
Alexander III was only 36 at the time of his father’s death. Instead of attributing his father’s assassination to a security failure, he claimed his father’s liberal policies caused his demise. A thoroughgoing anti-Semite, Alexander III decided
he would rule differently and consolidated his power with the strict enforcement of anti-Jewish regulations, including new curbs on trade and Jewish business. Under the new regime there were widespread pogroms. The situation of Russian Jewry deteriorated to the point that mass emigration ensued.
Harav Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor
During the second half of the 19th century Harav Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor of Kovno was the foremost rabbinical authority in Russia. He was not only the Posek Hador but worked tirelessly with Russian askanim to improve the situation of the Jews in Russia. He was the driving force behind the Conference of Russian Rabbis of 1879 and that of 1885, and he convened meetings of community representatives in the wake of the pogroms of 1881-82. Harav Elchanan relied greatly on the Jewish philanthropist Baron
Naftali Hertz (Horace) Gunzburg, who may be considered the Russian equivalent of the French Baron Rothschild. Many meetings regarding the political situation of Russian Jewry took placein the palatial home of Baron Gunzburg in St. Petersburg.
In a letter to another Russian askan, Rav Spektor wrote: “I well know my honorable
and dear friend, the exalted Baron Gunzburg. His heart is perfect with G-d and Judaism, he works wholeheartedly for the saving of our holy Torah…”
Baron Gunzburg was successful in having discriminatory laws against Jews in military service removed and in gaining greater freedom of movement for Jewish merchants and artisans. Gunzburg urged the government to rescind the
anti-Semitic “May Laws” of 1882 promulgated by Minister of the Interior Ignatyev. He also participated in the work of the Pahlen Commission of 1883–1888, which reviewed the laws pertaining to the Jews.
Baron Gunzburg’s Far-Reaching Philanthropy
Horace Gunzburg was an observant Jew, the director of the Russian Imperial Bank in St. Petersburg, which his father Yevzel (Yosef) Gunzburg had established. It was Horace who spearheaded the committee that built the magnificent Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg, the second-largest in Europe with a seating capacity of more than 1,200. (The largest in Europe is the Dohany Synagogue in Budapest.) Today the St. Petersburg synagogue serves as the center of the Jewish community. It houses a mikveh, Chabad center, kosher restaurant and wedding hall. Much of the money for the construction of this great synagogue was donated by Baron Gunzburg.
In 1878 Jews in a village in Georgia in the vicinity of Kutaisi were accused of the murder of a six-year-old girl. The trial took place in 1879, and the accused were, baruch Hashem, exonerated. Baron Gunzburg subsidized the publication of a book defending the Jews and the history of that blood libel by a scholar, Daniel Chwolson, as a response to the many antiSemitic writers who were polluting the public’s minds against the Talmud, which they claimed blasphemed the Christian
religion.
Baron Gunzburg attempted not only to ameliorate official oppression but also supported charitable organizations for the benefit of his Jewish brethren. In 1893 he set aside 1,350 acres of his estate in Bessarabia for the establishment of a Jewish
agricultural colony for which he served as chairman. Jewish leaders led by Baron Gunzburg petitioned the Russian Interior Ministry for the approval of a Jewish
charitable fund in honor of the 25th anniversary of the reign of Alexander II. The project was approved by the authorities and permission was granted on March 22, 1880 to set up the temporary committee of the original ORT organization. Its goal was to help impoverished Jews acquire skills that would enable them to become self-sufficient.
ORT, a Russian acronym that stands for Association for the Promotion of Skilled Trades, is now more than 130 years old and has developed into a worldwide organization with branches in more than 100 countries. Baron Gunzburg and
Samuel Polyakov, the latter known as the Railroad King for the many railroads he built in Russia, each donated 25,000 rubles to establish it.
In 1908 Baron Gunzburg co-founded the Russian Jewish Historical Ethnographic Society in St. Petersburg. The society held lectures on Jewish history and established a library, archives and a museum. It awarded prizes for Jewish historical
research, but its major undertaking was the publication of a historical quarterly Yevreyskaya Starina (Jewish Antiquities), which published studies, memoirs and documents. After the 1917 Revolution the society published two volumes of
documents on the origins of the pogroms of 1881 and 1903 in Russia.
The baron’s activities were not limited to Jewish aid. The Russian government frequently called upon him for advice on laws dealing with the stock exchange and other major business institutions. He was a generous contributor to the building
of the Stock Exchange Hospital, a trustee of the School of Commerce of Czar Nicholas II, an honorary member of the Committee of the Prince Oldenburg Infant Asylum from 1863, and as of 1876 honorary member of the Society for Improving the Condition of Poor Children of St. Petersburg. In 1890 he was elected president of the Hygienic and Low House RentSociety of St. Petersburg.
For his extraordinary charitable work Horace Gunzburg was decorated with several Russian orders and medals. Together with Prince Oldenburgsky, he was a founder of
the St. Petersburg Archeological Institute, a founder of the Institute of Experimental Medicine, a trustee and a member of the board of a number of institutions, including several orphanages and hospitals, and a member of the city Duma’s
charity commission.
Gunzburg Family Background
The Gunzburg family came to Byelorussia several centuries earlier from Germany via Poland. Rav Gavriel Yaakov Gunzburg, Horace’s grandfather, lived in Vitebsk and was a Rav and extremely wealthy. Rav Gunzburg owned the franchise for collecting the whiskey tax in Crimea. When he passed away his son Yosef amassed millions through this franchise. Rav Gavriel Yaakov was the thirteenth generation of
Gunzburg Rabbanim who served in cities throughout the Russian empire including Vilna, Slutzk, Kovno and Pinsk.
Rav Gavriel Yaakov’s wife, Leah, Horace’s grandmother, was a descendant of the Maharal through her grandfather Rabbi Moshe Rashkes.
Three years before Rav Gavriel Yaakov passed away in 1852, he and his daughters Beila and Elka were awarded honorary citizenship. Yevzel (Yosef) Gunzberg, Horace’s father, not long after was awarded hereditary honorary citizenship
for his “services to the treasury in wine-farming.” In 1854 Yevzel Gunzberg was awarded the gold Medal of Merit for “demonstrating great and ceaseless zeal in the regular supply of wine to the troops” during the Crimean War. He was awarded
another gold medal in 1856 called the St. Andrew Ribbon.
Together with other wealthy Russian Jewish families, he helped finance the building of much of Russia’s railroad network.
In 1859 Yevzel Gunzburg opened a banking house in St. Petersburg with a branch in Paris. The latter branch was headed by his younger son, Solomon. Subsequent generations of the Gunzburgs married into other Jewish banking families and expanded their business ties with the largest banks in Europe.
Naftuli Hertz (Horace) Gunsburg was born Feb. 8, 1833, in Zvenigorodka, Ukraine. He and his family moved to St. Petersburg after the Crimean War. It is not clear how he received his Torah education; however, sincce his grandfather Rabbi Gavriel Yaakov
was a Rav and passed away when Horace was 19, it can be assumed that
he learned either with his grandfather or with a talmid chacham hired specially to teach him.
According to some sources, he was also taught Hebrew by his father’s secretary, Mordechai Sukhostaver, who was a Hebrew writer; Adolph Neubauer, a Jewish bibliographer; Shneor Zaks, a Hebrew scholar; and Zvi Rabinowitz, author of Hamenuchah V’hatenuah (Inertia and Motion).
Horace was married to his cousin Anna Gesselevna Rosenberg. Her sisters were married to banker Siegmund Warburg of the German banking family; the banker Von Hirsch Hertzfeld of Budapest; and the Odessa banking house promoter Y. Ashkenazi. Horace’s sister Mathilda was married to the nephew of P. Fuld, an important banker who was finance minister under Napoleon III. One of Horace’s daughters was married to Joseph Sassoon of the renowned “Rothschilds of
the East.”
Gunzberg Enterprises
Baron Horace Gunzburg headed the inherited banking house I.E. Gunzburg and established other enterprises, including sugar refineries in the Podolia district, gold mines, a shipping company chain on the Sheksna River, and a joint stock company called Platina.
He was a member of the Stock Exchange Board and a city councilor (until 1892). He headed the Jewish community of St. Petersburg and the Society for the Spread of Education among Jews in Russia (OPE) for 40 years. Harav Yitzchak Elchanan
Spektor was an honorary member of the OPE. Horace Gunzburg also served as financial adviser to the archduke of Hesse-Darmstadt and was consul-general in
Russia from 1868–1872, the only instance when Russia agreed to appoint a Jew as consul. In addition, in appreciation for his valuable services, the Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt conferred upon Horace Gunzburg the hereditary title of baron. This title
was soon also conferred upon his father, Yevzel (Yosef). Czar Alexander II granted the Gunzburgs the right to use this title in Russia.
In 1903 the seventieth birthday of Baron Gunzburg was celebrated all over Europe and the United States. The Russian government then conferred on the baron the medal of St. Anne (first class). In New York a Baron de Gunzburg Fund was established to confer honor for outstanding work on Jewish history and literature.
Baron David Gunzburg
The best known of Horace Gunzburg’s 11 children, David (1857–1910), inherited his father’s position in the community and his extensive contacts in government
circles. He married his first cousin,Mathilde Gunzburg, a daughter of his father’s brother Uri. Unlike the rest of the family, however, his interests focused on oriental
and Arabic studies rather than business. He was reputed to be knowledgeable in 30 languages!
He edited the Tarshish of Rabbi Moses ibn Ezra, which was issued by the Meqitze Nirdamim Society, and he prepared for the press the Arabic translation of the same work, with a commentary. He also authored a major work on Jewish art together with W.V. Stassov, L’Ornement Hébreu (Berlin, 1903). In this book David Gunzburg gives examples of Jewish ornamentation from various manuscripts from Syria, Africa and Yemen.
He was an editor of the Russian Jewish encyclopedia, Yevreyskaya Entsiklopediya. He edited a catalogue of the manuscripts in the Institute for Oriental Languages and contributed much to the Revue des Études Juives, to the Revue Critique, to Voskhod, to Ha-Yom and to other collections of articles..
Like his father and grandfather before him, David Gunzburg expressed a strong interest in the welfare of the Jewish community; he belonged to many organizations,
such as the Society for the Promotion of Culture Among the Jews of Russia and the central committee of the Jewish Colonization Association. In St. Petersburg, he established the Talmud Torah “Mogen David” at his own expense. He
supported Jewish educational and charitable institutions not only in St. Petersburg but all over Russia, including the Pale of Settlement.
Baron David Gunzburg was the founder of the Society for Oriental Studies, and the Society for Relief for Poor Jews of St. Petersburg, and a life member of both the Archeological Society of St. Petersburg and of the Société Asiatique of Paris.
David Gunzburg’s personal library was one of the largest
private libraries in Europe and contained many rare books and manuscripts. He inherited some of the books and manuscripts of his father, Horace, and grandfather Yosef, who were great collectors. His magnifi centlibrary is now in the possession of
the Lenin State Library of Moscow .
Hamodia, Inyan Magazine, April 26, 2017
by Pearl Herzog