219 years of persecution — in numbers
2
arrests of the Alter Rebbe in the Peter & Paul Fortress
53
days in the Alexeyevsky Ravelin in 1798
70 000
Jewish boys taken as cantonists over 29 years
5 million
Jews confined to the Pale of Settlement
1 100+
synagogues closed in the USSR by 1939
death
sentence
sentence
verdict against the Frierdiker Rebbe in 1927
14
years in the Gulag served by Chassid Mendel Futerfas
0
legal yeshivot in the USSR by 1930
Timeline of Persecution · 1772–1991
Tsarist Russia
Soviet USSR
Twilight
1772
1991
1772Chabad
Founded
Founded
1812Napoleon.
Aided Russia
Aided Russia
1843Tzemach Tzedek
Arrested
Arrested
1903Kishinev
Pogrom
Pogrom
1927Death
Sentence
Sentence
1941Holocaust
in Ukraine
in Ukraine
1991End of
Persecution
Persecution
1798Alter Rebbe
in Prison
in Prison
1827Cantonism.
70,000 Children
70,000 Children
1881First Wave
of Pogroms
of Pogroms
1917Revolution.
Yevsektsiya
Yevsektsiya
1937Great
Terror
Terror
1951Gulag.
Futerfas
Futerfas
The Pale of Settlement · 1791–1917 · A Prison Without Walls
Around 5 million Jews were required to live only within this zone. Leaving without permission was a criminal offence.
Seven Generations Under Oppression
The Lubavitcher Rebbes and the rulers who persecuted them
Alter Rebbe
1745–1812 · I
✡
Mitteler Rebbe
1773–1827 · II
Tzemach Tzedek
1789–1866 · III
✡
Maharash
1834–1882 · IV
Rashab
1860–1920 · V
Frierdiker Rebbe
1880–1950 · VI
versus
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Alexander I
1801–1825
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Nicholas I
1825–1855
Alexander II
1855–1881
Alexander III
1881–1894
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Nicholas II
1894–1917
Lubavitch history did not live in silence. It unfolded across the Pale of Settlement, through tsarist restrictions, the poverty of the shtetl, revolution, civil war, and pogroms in which tens of thousands of Jews were murdered on the lands of Ukraine. Against this backdrop, Lubavitch became not merely a geographic place but a spiritual fortress — a point where Jewish memory, faith, and dignity continued to live despite the violence of history.
Read by Era
1772 — 1917
Tsarist Russia
Foundation of Chabad · Two Arrests of the Alter Rebbe · Pale of Settlement · Cantonism · Pogroms · Beilis Affair
→
1917 — 1929
Revolution & the 1920s
Yevsektsiya · Synagogue Closures · Arrest of the Frierdiker Rebbe · Death Sentence · 12–13 Tammuz
→
1930 — 1945
The Great Terror & War
NKVD · Executed Rabbis · Rabbi Levi Yitzchak in the Gulag · Holocaust on Soviet Territory
→
1945 — 1991
Post-War Soviet Era
Doctors' Plot · 14 Years in the Gulag · Refuseniks · The Rebbe's Fight for Soviet Jews · Collapse
→