The Haskalah Movement in Russia Part 14

[Footnote 25: The same phenomenon was witnessed to a certain extent also in Galicia, where for a while Haskalah flourished in great splendor.

There, too, the charm and fecundity of German literature, the similarity of Yiddish to German, and the privileges the Austrian Government accorded them, proved too strong a temptation for the Jews, and many of those who became enlightened were rapidly a.s.similated with their Gentile countrymen. While, therefore, in Galicia the Haskalah movement lasted longer than in Germany, it had ceased long before it reached its fullest development in Russia. Austrian civilization accelerated the a.s.similation of the educated, Polish prejudice r.e.t.a.r.ded the progress of the ma.s.ses. So that though Erter, Letteris, Krochmal, Goldenberg, Mieses, Rapoport, Perl, and Schorr exerted a great influence in Russia, their own country remained unaffected. Many of them, like A. Peretz, Eichenbaum, Feder, Pinsker, Werbel, and Rosenfeld emigrated to Russia, where they found a wider field for their activities, while others, like Professor Ludwig Gumplowicz, the sociologist, Marmorek, the physician, and Scheps, the litterateur, became alienated from their former coreligionists.]

[Footnote 26: Keneset Yisrael, iii. 84; Gottlober, Za'ar Ba'ale Hayyim, Zhitomir, 1868: [Hebrew: T'rng Nfs.h.i.+ 'lid Ki] (comp. Ps. xlii, and s.h.i.+r ha-Kabod, last verse).]

[Footnote 27: Occident, v. 243. Cf. Buchholtz, op. cit., pp. 82-116.]

[Footnote 28: Occident, v. 255; Yevreyskaya Biblyotyeka, ii. 207-210.]

[Footnote 29: 1840, no. 9.]

[Footnote 30: Emden, Megillat Sefer, p. 5; Gunzburg, Debir, ii. 105-106; Mandelstamm, op. cit, i. 3-4, 11; Annalen, 1841, no. 31.]

[Footnote 31: FKN, pp. 246-247; Gunzburg, op. cit., i. 48. Moses Reines also points out the fact that the prominent rabbis did not withhold their approval of the most typical Haskalah works when their authors were not suspected of heresy, as shown by Abele's haskamah on Levinsohn's Te'udah be-Yisrael, Tiktin's on Gunzburg's Toledot ha-Arez, and Malbim's on Zweifel's Sanegor (Ozar ha-Sifrut, 1888, p. 61).]

[Footnote 32: Ha-Boker Or, 1879, no. 4; FKI, pp. 537-538, 1132; Ha-Lebanon, 1872, no. 35; Ha-Zefirah, 1879, no. 9; Jewish Chronicle, May 4, 1877; Keneset Yisrael, 1887, pp. 157-162; Ha-Meliz, ix. (1889), nos.

198-199, 201, 232; Jost, op. cit., p. 305. Da'at Kedos.h.i.+m, St.

Petersburg, 1897, pp. 19, 22, 27.]

[Footnote 33: These biographical sketches, first published respectively in the New Era Ill.u.s.trated Magazine (1905, pp. 387-396) and the American Israelite (April 25, 1907), are drawn from the following sources; Houzner, I.B. Levinsohn (Russian), Odessa, 1862; Nathanson, Sefer ha-Zikronot (Heb.), Warsaw, 1878; Yiddishe Bibliotek (Yid.), Kiev, 1888; also Annalen, 1839, no. 17; Ha-Maggid, 1863, p. 381; Ha-Zefirah, 1900, p. 197; Maggid, op. cit., pp. 86-115; Gunzburg, Debir, i. and ii., Warsaw, 1883; Kiryat Sefer, Vilna, 1835 (esp. Letters 85-93, 101-102); Abi'ezer, Vilna, 1863; Lebensohn, Kiryat Soferim, Vilna, 1847; Pardes, i. 192; Recke und Napyersky, Allgemeines Schriftsteller und Gelehrten Lexicon der Provinzen Livland, Esthland und Kurland, Mitau, 1829, pp.

147-148; and the works referred to in the text.]

CHAPTER V

RUSSIFICATION, REFORMATION, AND a.s.sIMILATION

1856-1881

(pp. 222-267)

[Footnote 1: San Donato, The Jewish Question, St. Petersburg, 1883, p.

36.]

[Footnote 2: Ha-Meliz, 1888, nos. 95, 163; Gordon, Iggerot, Warsaw, 1894, ii., and Russky Vyestnik, 1858, i. 126.]

[Footnote 3: Scholz, Die Juden in Russland, Berlin, 1900, pp. 102-107; Hessen, Galeriya, p. 23; Voskhod, 1881, v. 1893; viii; Russky Yevrey, 1882, i.]

[Footnote 4: Second Complete Russian Code, xxv, nos. 24, 768; xxvii.

nos. 26, 508.]

[Footnote 5: Voskhod, October, 1881; Chwolson, Die Blutanklage, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1901, p. 117.]

[Footnote 6: Zunser, Biography, p. 28.]

[Footnote 7: Kol s.h.i.+re Mahallalel, i. 79-91.]

[Footnote 8: Kol s.h.i.+re YeLeG, i. 43.]

[Footnote 9: Bramson, op. cit, pp. 52-54; Russky Yevrey, 1879, nos.

16-17.]

[Footnote 10: Rosenthal, Toledot Hebrat Marbe Haskalah, i. 3, 19, 103, 158-159; ii. Introduction.]

[Footnote 11: How happy the Maskilim of that time were to save their fellows from the darkness of ignorance can be seen from the following anecdote told by a Maskil in a retrospective mood (Ha-s.h.i.+loah, xvii., 257-258): "Among the first of our young men to enter the gymnasium of my native town of Mohilev were Ackselrod and the Leventhal brothers. The former began to give instruction while he was still in the third grade .... One morning he suddenly disappeared. After several days of anxious search it was discovered that he had left on foot for Shklov, a distance of about thirty vyersts, and while there he succeeded in persuading fifteen boys to leave the yes.h.i.+bah and come with him to Mohilev, where, like a puissant warrior returning in triumph, he went with his little army to the different homes to secure board and lodging for them while they were being prepared for admission into the gymnasium."]

[Footnote 12: Op. cit., p. 35 (Engl. transl., p. 26).]

[Footnote 13: Op. cit., p. 9.]

[Footnote 14: Max Raisin, The Reform Movement, etc. (reprint from the Year Book of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, xvi.), Introduction.]

[Footnote 15: Odessky Yevrey, 1847 (Novaya Yevreyskaya Synagoga v Odessa).]

[Footnote 16: Hessen, op. cit., p. 68; Voskhod, 1881, p. 132.]

[Footnote 17: Rosenthal, op. cit., p. 70; Gordon, Iggerot, nos. 60-62; Ha-Meliz, xx, nos. 8, 11, 13.]

[Footnote 18: Voskhod, 1900, v.; Sefer ha-Shanah, ii. 288-290.]

[Footnote 19: Ha-Meliz, 1899, no. 39.]

[Footnote 20: Ben Sion, Yevrey Reformatory, St. Petersburg, 1882. In his manifesto (Ha-Meliz, April 21, 1881) Gordon declared: "We have discarded the dusty Talmud. We cannot rest satisfied, in questions of religion, with the worm-eaten carca.s.s, with the observances of rabbinical Judaism." See Ha-s.h.i.+loah, ii. 53. See also Kahan, Meah.o.r.e ha-Pargud (reprint from Ha-Meliz, 1885), St. Petersburg, 1886.]

[Footnote 21: Prelooker, op. cit., pp. 24 f.; Voskhod, Feb. 3, 1886; Razsvyet, 1881, no. 25.]

[Footnote 22: Duprey, Great Masters of Russian Literature (Engl. transl.

Dole, New York, 1886), p. 151.]

[Footnote 23: Rosenthal, op. cit, i. 66, 103, 158-159; Ha-Maggid, 1868, p. 18. Cf. McClintock and Strong, Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Cyclopedia, New York, 1891, ii. 805. The beautiful synagogue which the Jews began to erect in Moscow at the cost of half a million rubles was declared by Pobyednostsev to be "too high and imposing," and they were compelled to destroy the cupola and deform the interior. Nevertheless it had to remain a "dead" synagogue, until Nicholas II was pleased to give permission to open it.]

[Footnote 24: Shereshevsky, O Knigie Kahala, St. Petersburg, 1872; Seiberling, Gegen Brafmann's Buch des Kahals, Vienna, 1881; Ha-Shahar, iv. 621; xi. 242.]

[Footnote 25: Prelooker, Heroes and Heroines of Russia, London, p. 120; Ha-s.h.i.+loah, xvii. 257-263.]

[Footnote 26: Zederbaum, 'Ayin Zofiyah, Warsaw, 1877, pp. 7-8; Prelooker, Under the Czar, etc., pp. 8-21.]

[Footnote 27: It may not be superfluous to quote here the vivid picture given of the period I am now describing by Eliak.u.m Zunser in his interesting autobiography; the more, as it is depicted very much in the style of the Maskilim of to-day:

"It is an accepted law in hygiene that the digestive system must not be overburdened at any one time by too much food, that eating must not be done hastily, and, above all, great care must be taken to choose wholesome and digestible food. These principles are still more important to one who is hungry, who has abstained from food for any length of time. He should select the healthy and light foods, and partake of little at first until the powers of digestion are fully restored. Should he neglect to observe these simple rules, he will ruin his digestive system, the food will turn into poison, and he may contract a stubborn disease which no physician will be able to cure.

"This is exactly what happened to our Russian Jews from 1860 to 1880.

For many long centuries they had endured an intellectual fast. The Government had debarred them from the world's culture. They were closely packed together in the narrow and dark ghettos. They knew of their synagogues, yes.h.i.+bot, and prayer-houses (Kloisen) on the one hand, and of their little stores on the other. That there was a great world beyond and without, a world of culture, education, and civilization, of this they had only heard. A great many of them strove to break through the bounds that confined them and step into the world of light and life; but the Cossack, lead-laden whip in hand, stood there ready to drive them back.

"The thirst for education and civilization became daily more intense, and reached the utmost limits of endurance. Five million Russian Jews raised their hands to the Government and pleaded for mercy: 'Release us from this ghetto! We, too, are human beings! Give us breathing s.p.a.ce!

Give us light! We are faint and starving!' And the Cossack promptly answered 'Nazad ('Back!') Here you are and here you remain--not a step further!'

"And all at once, lo! there came a light! Alexander II, as soon as he ascended the throne, opened wide the doors of the ghetto, and the Russian Jews, young and old, men and women, rushed to the new culture.

All crowded to the dainty dish, and no time was lost in making up for the intellectual fast.