One positive command he gave us: You shall love and honor your emperor. In every congregation a prayer must be said for the czar’s health, or the chief of police would close the synagogue.

Antin’s remark underscores the coercive loyalty demanded of Jews in the Russian Empire: public displays of devotion to the czar were treated not as voluntary patriotism but as a condition of communal survival. The “positive command” is framed ironically—set against a background of restrictions and harassment—so that the mandated prayer becomes evidence of state surveillance rather than genuine reverence. By linking synagogue practice to the threat of police closure, the quote highlights how religious life could be regulated through bureaucratic intimidation, and how minority communities were forced to perform allegiance to a ruler and system that often denied them equal rights.