Each local Jewish community (the Kahal¹) had the responsibility for selecting those who would serve. The communal leaders consisting of the wealthy, the well-connected, and the rabbis decided which members of the community would serve. It was natural for them to protect their own families and children from conscription and to send the weakest and most vulnerable members of the community. These included single men, heretics, beggars, vagrants, orphaned children, and children of the poor.

Robert Rockaway „Jews Fled Russia to Escape Poverty, Oppression, and Czarist Edicts—and their Own Self-Interested Communal Leaders

¹ – Kahał (hebr. קהלה kehilla – zgromadzenie, gmina)…