Khapper

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Khapper is a 19th century colloquialism that comes from the Yiddish word for catcher. The khappers kidnapped Jewish boys (sometimes as young as eight) to fill out a quota for cantonists, Jewish recruits to the Russian Army.

According to the policy of Nicholas I, twenty-five years of military service was made mandatory; part of the program aimed specifically at Russian Jews and was intended to capture Jewish children at a young age and make them serve for long enough so that they forgot their Jewish faith and converted to Russian Orthodoxy.

Khappers were often themselves Jewish and their role proved to be a very demoralizing one for the Jewish society, and brought to the fore great divisions between various segments of the community. They could often be bribed, a fact which led to bidding wars between neighboring families. Community elites almost never surrendered their children.