Official censorship of Jewish publications in Vilnius - 1798-1917

ENThe history of official Russian censorship of Jewish publications has basically not been of interest to specialists thus far. Back in 1921, Benzion Katz described the situation in the following manner, and invited researchers to deal with this huge gap in the history of Russian Jews: "If in future, a researcher attempts to write the history of Jewish literature in Russia, and in conjunction with that, the censorship of its literature and periodicals, he will not find any relevant historical material. Without a doubt, there are many facts in Russian literature which apply to the history of censorship in Russia, but there was nothing printed about Jewish censorship, apart from a few bits of information." Unfortunately, this invitation has remained ignored up to now, even though this problem is of great scholarly significance. Research into the history of Jewish censorship provides an opportunity to better understand the development of official czarist politics vis a vis the Jewish question; it also enables us to greatly expand on our knowledge in the field of Jewish education and publishing. Official censorship of Jewish publications appeared in Russia immediately after the division of Poland, when large numbers of Jews ended up under Russian authority. It emerged because of a wish by Emperor Paul I to fundamentally revamp the country's entire system of censorship, which was practically non-existent until then.Because there were Jewish printing houses within the Polish territory which ended up under Russian jurisdiction, their output also came within the domain of the newly created censoring body. At the time when Jewish censorship was being organized (1796-1797), the government came up against an almost unsolvable problem: among the Russian officials who had been chosen to serve on the censorship committees, there wasn't a single one who could interpret works written in the Hebrew language. Therefore the government was forced to use the services of the Jews themselves. This tradition - of Jews (or converts) acting as Jewish censors - continued even later on [p. 225-226].