On May 15, 1882, Tsar Alexander III of Russia introduced the so-called "Temporary laws" which stayed in effect for more than thirty years and came to be known as the May Laws.

The systematic policy of discrimination banned Jews from all rural areas and towns of less than ten thousand people, even within the Pale of Settlement. Strict quotas were placed on the number of Jews allowed into higher education and many professions.

Articulated by Konstantin Pobedonostsev, a Russian statesman and a known anti-Semite, the policy was designed to "cause one-third of the Jews to emigrate, one-third to accept baptism, and one-third to starve".

The laws remained in effect until 1914 and provided the impetus for emigration. In the period 1881 to 1920, about two million of Russian Jews left Russia, most went to the United States.