In 1905, when naval defeat at the hands of the Japanese forced Nicholas II to grant Russia’s first-ever constitution, they vented their fury in a new wave of pogroms. In Odessa 302 people are known to have been killed; more deaths went unrecorded. ‘On Tuesday night October 31st,’ the shocked American consul reported home, ‘the Russians attacked the Jews in every part of town and a massacre ensued. From Tuesday ’til Saturday was terrible and horrible. The Russians lost heavily also, but the number of killed and wounded is not known. The police without uniforms were very prominent. Jews who
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