As in the days of the Spanish inquisition, these private houses of worship would, on the solemn days of Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, be stealthily visited by the "marranos" of Moscow, those Jews who had saved themselves from the wholesale expulsions by fictitious conversion to Christianity.

The passionate prayers of repentance of these involuntary apostates rose up to heaven as they had done in centuries gone-by from the underground synagogues of Seville, Toledo, and Saragossa.
By and by, the attempt to take the Jewish citadel by storm gave way to the former regular state of siege, which had for its object to starve out the Jews.

The municipal counterreform of 1892 dealt a severe political blow to Russian Jewry.

Under the old law, the number of Jewish aldermen in the municipal administration had been limited to one-third of the total number of aldermen, aside from the prohibition barring the Jews from the office of burgomaster [1].

Notwithstanding these restrictions, the Jews played a conspicuous part in municipal self-government, and could boast of a number of prominent municipal workers.