There were many restrictions in the law that were aimed towards the Jews, first of which was that the Jews were not allowed to be engaged in agriculture, except by leasing, this meant the Jews were no allowed to grow crops without the prescription of a lease. There was only a limited amount of Jews that were allowed to join a university or secondary school. No Jew was allowed to participate in trade on a Sunday.
There was no protection that was offered from the Tsar and authorities towards the Jews. The pogroms meant that anti-Semitic people had the right to beat up any Jew they wanted to, without receiving any punishment. This pogrom was made by the Tsar, he made this pogrom as the Jews were wrongly blamed for the assassination of Alexander II. The Jews were not protected against anyone, this is why the gentiles took full advantage of this opportunity to inflict pain upon the Jews. The non Jews weren’t punished even if they had murdered the Jews, this was how much Russia was against the Jews.
Many other people were urging the Jews to leave the country and return back to Palestine, this was called Zionist movement. Between 1883 and 1903, some 25,000 Jews moved out of Russia to Palestine, and between 1904 and 1914 there were about 40,000 Jews that moved to Palestine. The main reason for the large number of immigrants that travelled into Palestine was the violent persecution that was encouraged in Russia. The main development of Zionist movement into Palestine, was chiefly from Russia.
Most of the Jews were singled out for a lot of things. Special taxes, for instance, on the synagogue and Jewish meat, were imposed in order to keep the special schools for Jews running, but not all the money reached its destination. They were also restricted in their education as only 10% of Jews were allowed tin universities in their own area, and only a minor 5% were allowed to join a university in either St. Petersburg or Moscow. Within Russia contained a lot of anti-Semitics including the Tsar, which meant that the majority of Russia were against the Jews. Numerous amount of children were baptised against the wishes of their parents, only Jews who became Orthodox were allowed to request for a free divorce.
Some reasons why Abraham Yacobvitsc may have wanted to come to England was that in 1890 there was a Jewish emancipation (freedom to participate), this meant that they had the right to do whatever they wanted. Before the Jewish emancipation in 1882, 46,000 people had originally lived in England, this shows that there was an established community in England.
Several Jews ended up in England by mistake, the place that they really wanted to end up in was USA. To get to America the Jews had to head west to Hamburg or Bremen in Germany, or Amsterdam in Holland. Many of them had little education, this is why they became victims of dud ticket sellers. The ticket sellers told them that the tickets took them to New York, but in actual fact had been given tickets to go to Hull. Others could only afford to go as far as England, they hoped that one day they will eventually be able to earn enough money to travel to America.
When in 1881 the flare-up of violence occurred in Russia, this brought the position of the Jews under much danger. Therefore many of the Jews decided to travel abroad to find a much safer and Jewish friendly community. It was the Jews in England who the lead in organising measures to provide enough funds for the Jews to come across to England. Articles in the “Times” of January 11 and 13, 1882, drew the attention of the whole world to the cruel persecutions that were happening in Russia to the helpless Jews. Therefore a meeting was held of the most important citizens of London in the Mansion House. On February 1, 1882, as a consequence a fund was raised amounting to more than £108,000 in order to help the Jews to come to England and start a fresh life.
There were many reasons why the Jews ended up in Manchester, first of which was that they might have ran out of money. The Jews were trying to get from Hull to Liverpool and then onto USA, but simply ran out of money on their way. They could only get as far as Victoria station in Manchester and then they did not have enough money to go any further, therefore they were stuck in Manchester.
Another reason was that Manchester quickly grew into the most important industrial centre in the world, and considerably the first industrial society. The pace of change was fast and frightening, at the time it seemed like almost anything could happen. There were new industrial processes, new ways of thinking, new classes or groups of society, new religious sects and new forms of labour organisations. This attracted educated visitors from all over Europe. “What Manchester did today,” it was said, “the rest of the world does tomorrow”.
Many of the Jews that were arriving in Britain were trans-migrants, travelling through on their way to United States. An increasing number of Jews decided to stay on and live in cities in like Manchester, with its opportunities for work and prospects of support from the increasing, settled Jewish community. In 1851 Eastern Europeans already made up 25% of Manchester’s Jewish community, and in 1881 they were 66%, out of a total Jewish population now approaching 7,000.
An additional motivating factor towards the Jews decision to live in Manchester was that there were already many successful Jews living in Manchester who migrated from Russia. Some of the many successful Jews in Manchester were the Inwald family, Helena Weisberg, Chaim and Vera Weizmann, Samuel Aaron Claff who was an immigrant money leader, daughters of the Zion garden party and Marie Nahum.