The Blood of 1905 and the Promise of 1917: Two Octobers That Changed Us Forever
On this day, two moments—twelve years and a world apart—collide in the Jewish soul.
One is soaked in blood and smoke.
The other is written in ink and hope.
Both happened on October 31.
Both still echo in every Jewish heart that refuses to surrender.
1905: The Pogroms That Broke a Nation
It began with a lie.
Czar Nicholas II had just signed the October Manifesto—a scrap of paper promising “civil liberties” to calm a restless empire.
To the mobs, it was a green light.
Across 600 towns and cities, the signal went out: “The Jews did this.”
In Odessa, the killing started at dusk.
Cossacks stood aside as drunken crowds—armed with axes, iron bars, and government-issued rage—smashed through Jewish neighborhoods.
By morning, 800 were dead.
Synagogues burned.
Children were thrown from balconies.
“The streets ran red, and the gutters were clogged with feathers from torn bedding—our people’s last possessions.”
In Kiev, the pogrom lasted three days.
Jewish self-defense units—boys with pistols, old men with knives—fought street by street.
They lost. But they fought.
In Bialystok, a mother hid her infant in a flour barrel.
When the mob passed, she found the child suffocated by the weight of the grain.
3,000 Jews murdered. 100,000 homeless.
An entire civilization told in one brutal week: You have no future here.
And so they left.
Sholem Aleichem boarded a ship with nothing but a typewriter and a broken heart.
Hundreds of thousands followed—carrying the trauma of October 31, 1905 across oceans.
Some went to America.
Some went to Palestine.
All carried the same vow: Never again unarmed.
1917: The Room Where History Turned
Twelve years later.
Same date. Different empire.
London. 10 Downing Street.
A mahogany table. Five men.
The British War Cabinet is exhausted.
Gallipoli was a disaster. The Somme, a slaughter.
But in the desert, something is shifting.
General Allenby’s troops have just smashed through Beersheba.
Jerusalem is in sight. The Ottoman Empire is cracking.
And in that room, Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour slides a single sheet of paper across the table.
It’s addressed to Lord Walter Rothschild, a leader of British Jewry.
It contains 67 words—fewer than a tweet, more than a revolution:
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…”
The vote is unanimous.
On October 31, 1917, the British Empire—ruler of a quarter of the planet—declared that the Jewish people have a right to return home.
No one in that room could have imagined:
That this letter would become the legal foundation for the State of Israel.
That it would be invoked in 1947 at the UN.
That it would be read aloud in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948, as David Ben-Gurion declared independence.
But Chaim Weizmann—chemist, Zionist, and the man who helped Britain win the war with acetone—knew.
He stood outside the door, chain-smoking.
When the news came, he wept.
From Pogrom to Promise: The Jewish Arc of October 31
1905: We learned that paper promises mean nothing when the mob comes. Only rifles do.
1917: We learned that paper promises can mean everything—when backed by power, will, and history.
Between these two Octobers lies the story of modern Jewish survival:
- Self-defense (born in the blood of Kiev)
- Self-determination (born in the ink of London)
Today: The Lesson Is Still Live Fire
We light Shabbat candles tonight under the same sky that once rained feathers and fire in Odessa.
We train at the range tomorrow under the same sun that rose over Allenby’s victory at Beersheba.
The Balfour Declaration is not a museum piece. It is a battle plan.
Because the world that cheered our slaughter in 1905 still exists.
Because the empires that promised us a home in 1917 still try to take it away in 2025.
So we remember October 31 for two reasons:
- 1️⃣ To never forget the cost of being unarmed.
- 2️⃣ To never surrender the right to be undefeated.
Shabbat Shalom, and keep your powder dry.
— Jews Can Shoot
“Because the next pogrom won’t announce itself with a manifesto.”
A Note About the Date
The October 31 overlap between the 1905 Odessa pogrom and Halloween is most likely coincidental.
Historically, the pogroms began in mid-to-late October (around October 18–22 on the Old Style calendar), which doesn’t align exactly with October 31 on the Gregorian calendar.
The Halloween connection was not part of the original history.
It appears to have been popularized much later by modern Jewish outreach organizations—most notably Aish HaTorah, which seems to have pioneered using this date overlap as an educational and emotional hook.
Other Orthodox and kiruv-oriented groups (such as the OU, NCSY, Torah.org, and The Jewish Press) have repeated or referenced it.
However, Chabad and most academic or non-Orthodox Jewish sources do not use this framing, because there’s no verified evidence that the Odessa pogrom began on October 31.
It’s an effective teaching image—but not a historically proven one.
And it matters, because many Jews today genuinely believe the Odessa pogrom happened on Halloween, when in fact the link is symbolic, not factual.
The truth doesn’t weaken the message—it strengthens it:
The pogrom’s horror stands on its own, and its lessons about Jewish self-defense and survival remain just as urgent—whether or not they fall on Halloween.
