HERZL YANKL TSAM

'Herzl Yankl Tsam' (; 1835-1915) was a Jewish cantonist in the Russian Empire. Tsam appears to have been the only Jewish officer in the Tsarist army in the nineteenth century who had the rank as high as captain.Zvi Y. Gitelman (2001): ''A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present''. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253338115. p.5
Drafted as a 17-year-old Cantonist, Tsam served in Tomsk, Siberia. Tsam became an officer in 1873 (his fellow officers attested to his qualities in the promotion petitions) and, after forty-one years of service, he was retired with a rank and pension of colonel (подполковник). The promotion was granted on the day of his retirement, so he would have the pension, but wouldn't be able to serve as a colonel. An able commander and administrator, he turned one of the worst companies of his regiment into one of the best. In spite of pressures, he never converted to the state religion of Russian Orthodox Christianity.
After retirement, Tsam took an active part in the Jewish community of Tomsk.

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★ History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union