Khappers were Russian Jews employed by the Kahals to fulfill the recruit quotas imposed on the Jewish communities from 1827 to 1857 in the Russian Empire. Tsar Nicholas I created these recruit quotas because he viewed military service as a way to russify Jews, whom he held in low regard, by teaching them the Russian language and converting them to Russian Orthodox Christianity. The term is a 19th-century colloquialism that comes from the Yiddish word for grabber, in itself a borrowing from Ukrainian "хапати" (khapaty, to grab).
See also
- Cantonist