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Nijni-Novgorod (Nizhni-Novgorod)

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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Russian city; capital of the government of the same name; famed for its fairs, which are held annually. It is without the Pale of Settlement. The regulations of 1835 permitted, for the first time, the temporary residence in Nijni-Novgorod, during the fair, of Jewish merchants of the first and second gilds and of Jewish manufacturers; but they were forbidden to sell foreign goods. The Jews, however, notwithstanding the prohibitive laws, gradually established themselves in Nijni-Novgorod. On July 7, 1884, a mob attacked the Jews in the part of Nijni-Novgorod known as Kunavina, a number of them being tortured to death. The occasion of the riot was the rumor that the Jews had killed a Christian child. After 1888 the fair administration, at the instance of prominent Christian merchants, gradually deprived Jewish merchants of the right of residence even during the fair, the reason being that Jewish competition caused much injury to the Christian merchants, who testified that the Jews sold their goods at a discount of 35 per cent below normal prices. But in spite of these restrictions numbers of Jews attend the fair, and the city has a permanent Jewish population of approximately 550 families, most of them well-to-do; the total population is 95,124, according to the census of 1897. The Zionists have organized a model ḥeder.