The Commission received the name "Commission for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews." [1] [Footnote 1: Compare above, pp.

161 and 169.] While the Government was again engaged in one of its numerous experiments over the problem of Jewish separatism, an event, unusual in those days, took place: the Odessa pogrom [1] of 1871.

In this granary of the South, which owed its flourishing commerce to Jews and Greeks, an unfriendly feeling had sprung up between these two nationalities, which competed with one another in the corn trade and in the grocery business.
This competition, though of great benefit to the consumers, was a thorn in the flesh of the Greek merchants.

Time and again the Greeks would scare the Jews during the Christian Passover by their barbarous custom of discharging pistols in front of their church, which was situated in the heart of the Jewish district.

But in 1871, with the approach of the Christian Passover, the Greeks proceeded to organize a regular pogrom.
[Footnote 1: _Pogrom_, with the accent on the last syllable, signifies _ruin_, _devastation_, and was originally applied to the ravages of an invading army.] To arouse the mob the Greeks spread the rumor that the Jews had stolen a cross from the church fence and had thrown stones at the church building.