ABSTRACT
When the first reports began to filter into London about the pogroms among Russian Jewry, the subject was also raised in the society journal. The editor expressed deep sympathy for the Jews who were going through such a terrible crisis in various parts of Eastern Europe, and he speculated that the pogroms and the frenzied exodus of the Jews were a sign from God. At the beginning of 1882, articles in the journal began to provide the first details, and this showed that a realisation of the enormous scope of the pogroms had been grasped by the London Society leaders. The events were used to strengthen the beliefs on which the existence and activities of the London Society were based, and they were given an ideological interpretation by its official spokesman. The committee appointed by the society to investigate
the pogroms in Russia thought, as did may other friends of Israel, that these sufferings presaged:
…the beginning of a fulfilment of the prophetic Scriptures foretelling the return of the Jews to their own land… The Missionaries of the Society rejoice at the protest which Christians everywhere are making against these outbursts, as being not only abhorrent to our common humanity, but also alien to the true spirit of Christianity.2
