When Alexander II decided to flip the table, the Russian Empire's reserves of strength became apparent. Once the anti-Jewish movement began, the government's finances started to improve.
The Tsarist Government initially targeted only Jewish capitalists, but it soon spread to the entire Jewish population, and a nationwide wave of anti-Jewish sentiment swept Russia.
The government enacted laws restricting where Jews could live, forbidding them from buying land or engaging in agriculture, and barring them from serving in departments such as the postal service, railways, and military...
Well-informed Jewish capitalists fled, while ordinary Jewish people became scapegoats, bearing the hostility of the whole society in their stead.
The Tsarist Government's actions ignited the spark of Europe's anti-Jewish movement. Anti-Jewish sentiment became a hot social topic, with the potential to spread like wildfire across the plains.
As a witness to history, Franz chose to watch coldly from the sidelines. The saying that pitiful people must have something hateful about them might be too one-sided, but it was not wrong when applied to the Jews.
"Greed" was the original sin. Jewish capital had pursued profit without restraint, ultimately bringing trouble upon itself. To protect themselves, these people did not hesitate to steer disaster toward their entire people.
That was right. Jewish capital had also been pushing from behind the rapid expansion of Russia's anti-Jewish movement. There was nothing strange about that—when profit was at stake, a capitalist's integrity was worth exactly this much.
Without their compatriots drawing away the outside world's attention, the Tsarist Government would have fixed its gaze on their mere few hundred or thousand people. Forget transferring capital—even keeping their lives would have required God's blessing.
Even after fleeing abroad, they would not have been safe. Too many people eyed these fat sheep hungrily. Only by muddying the waters could