Pale of Settlement

Limits for the area in which Jewish settlement was permissible in Russia came into being when Russia was confronted with the necessity of adjusting to a Jewish element within its borders, from which Jews had been excluded since the end of the 15th century.

According to the census of 1897, 4,899,300 Jews lived there, forming 94% of the total Jewish population of Russia and c. 11.6% of the general population of this area.

After the Revolution of February 1917 the provisional government abolished the Pale of Settlement among the rest of the anti-Jewish restrictions.

On the other hand, Jewish merchants were prohibited from trading in the provinces of inner Russia.

After the first partition of Poland in 1772, when masses of Jews living within the former country came under Russian rule, it was decided (1791)

These decrees were intended to serve the national and economic interests of the state by preventing competition of the Jewish with Russian merchants and encouraging settlement in the desolate steppes of southern Russia

As a result, the "temporary regulations" of May 3 (15), 1882 stated: (1) Jews are forbidden to settle outside the towns and townlets;

The "temporary laws" satisfied the demands of the Russian rural merchant class that sought to be rid of its Jewish rivals in the villages of the Ukraine and Belorussia.

Within the framework of its enforcement numerous expulsions of both groups of Jews and entire communities from towns and villages which were "out of bounds" (such as the expulsion from Moscow in 1891) were carried out.