So profound a thinker could not for long be a mere pupil. Wolff's argument a posteriori for the existence of God, in accordance with his philosophic hobby, the "principle of sufficient reason," displeased him wholly. A Hebrew letter to Mendelssohn, in which he shook the foundation of the Metaphysics by means of his irrefutable ontology, won him the admiration of the Berlin sage, who invited him to become his daily guest.

Maimon's intellect unfolded from day to day, until, some time afterwards, he astonished the philosophic world by his great work, Die Transcendentale Philosophie (Berlin, 1790), in reference to which Kant wrote to his beloved disciple Marcus Herz: "A mere glance at it enabled me to recognize its merits, and showed me, that not only had none of my opponents understood me and the main problem so well, but very few could claim so much penetration as Herr Maimon in profound inquiries of this sort." He demolished the prevalent Leibnitzo-Wolffian system in it, and proved that even the Kantian theory, though irrefutable from a dogmatic point of view, is exposed to severe attacks from the skeptic's point of view.

Thenceforth he became a leading figure in philosophic controversy. In 1793 he published Ueber die Progresse der Philosophie; in 1794, Versuch einer neuen Logik, and Die Kategorien des Aristoteles, and, three years later, Kritische Untersuchungen ueber den menschlichen Geist (Berlin, 1797), wherein he originated a speculative, monistic idealism, which pervaded not only philosophy, but all sciences during the first half of the nineteenth century, the system by which Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel were influenced. According to Bernfeld, he was the greatest Jewish philosopher since the time of Spinoza, with whose depth of reasoning he combined an ease and straightforwardness of illustration characteristic of Benjamin Franklin.[25]

With all this he remained an ardent lover of the Talmud to the last. In fact, his philosophy is distinctively Jewish. Like Spinoza, he exhibited the effects of the Cabbala and of rabbinic speculation, with which he had been familiar from childhood. The honor of the Talmudic sages was always dear to him, and he never mentioned them without expressing profound respect. Persecuted though he was by his German coreligionists, he never bore them a grudge. As a man he loved them as brothers, but as a philosopher he could not subscribe to their views implicitly. But for friends and benefactors his affection was unusually strong. With what love he talks of Mendelssohn in the chapter dedicated to him in his autobiography, even though "he could not explain the persistency of Mendelssohn and the Wolffians generally in adhering to their system, except as a political dodge, and a piece of hypocrisy, by which they studiously endeavored to descend to the mode of thinking common to the popular mind!" His devotion to his wife was not diminished even after he had been compelled to divorce her because of his supposed heretical proclivities. "When the subject [of his divorce] came up in conversation, it was easy," says his biographer,[26] "to read in his face the deep sorrow he felt: his liveliness then faded away sensibly. By and by he would become perfectly silent, was incapable of further entertainment, and went home earlier than usual." Of his Russo-Polish brethren he speaks in the highest terms. He cannot bestow too much praise on their care for the poor and the sick, and he always hoped once more to see his native land, to whose king he dedicated his Transcendental Philosophy. "For," says he, "the Polish Jews are, indeed, for the most part not enlightened by science; their manners and way of life are still rude, but they are loyal to the religion of their fathers and to the laws of their country."[27]

It is because I regard him as the greatest Maskil of his time that I have dwelt on Maimon at such length. Mendelssohn's philosophy, if he had an original system, has long since passed into oblivion; Maimon's will be studied as long as Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Kant are in vogue. His importance to us does not lie in the circumstance that his autobiography—"that wonderful bit of Autobiography," as George Eliot speaks of it, or "that curious and rare book," as Dean Milman calls it—and the pictures drawn of him by Berthold Auerbach and Israel Zangwill[28] have made him the hero of some of the world's best biographies and novels. Over and above this, he is the prototype of his unfortunate countrymen during the days of transition. He embodied the aspiration, courage, and disappointments of them all, and if, as Carlyle said, "the history of the world is the history of its great men," Maimon's life should be studied by all interested in the Kulturkampf of the Russo-Polish and of the German Jews in the eighteenth century.

What could he not have accomplished, he to whom Kant and Goethe, Schiller and Koerner paid tributes of unstinted praise, had he not been doomed to suffer and to starve. Only at the last moment, before he was silenced forever, was he able to say, Ich bin ruhig ("I am at peace"). Yet, in spite of the difficulties and impediments besetting him at every step, his promise of greatness and usefulness was not belied. In the Introduction to his commentary on Maimuni's Guide to the Perplexed (Gibe'at ha-Moreh), in which he attempted to reconcile his master's system with that of modern philosophy—even as the master had tried to reconcile Judaism with Aristotelianism—he gave a brief sketch of the development of modern thought. This part of his work was assiduously studied by his compatriots. Among his unpublished writings was found a work on mathematical physics, Ta'alumot Hokmah, and in his Talmudic treatise, Heshek Shelomoh, he inserted a dissertation, Ma'aseh Hosheb, on arithmetic, like a skilful physician putting a healing, though to some it may appear a repelling, balm into a delicious, attractive capsule.

The story of Maimon, as I have said, is the story of many of the peripatetic apostles of Haskalah, and his experience was more or less also theirs. Issachar Falkensohn Behr (or Baer Falkensohn, 1746-1796?), without funds, friends, or rudimentary knowledge of the subjects necessary for admission into a public school, left his native city of Zamosez with the determination to enter the university of "Little Berlin," as Koenigsberg was called. Too poor to carry out his plan, he tramped to Berlin. Through the influence of his relatives and countrymen, Israel Moses Halevi and Daniel Jaffe, he was introduced to Mendelssohn, and was enabled to devote himself systematically to the study of German, the alphabet of which he had learned from Wolff's treatise on mathematics, and to French, Latin, physics, philosophy, and medicine. In a very short time he mastered them all, especially German. His Gedichte eines polnischen Juden (Mitau and Leipsic, 1772) caused no little stir among the poets. Lessing and Goethe, close observers of symptoms of enlightenment among the Jews, expressed themselves differently as to the real merit of the collection; but both concurred with Boie, who, writing to Knebel, the friend of Goethe, remarked concerning them, "You are right; the Jewish nation promises much after it is once awakened."[29]

For one reason or another we find that some Slavonic Jewish youths preferred other places to Berlin for the pursuit of their studies. Such were Benjamin Wolf Guenzberg and Jacob Liboschuets. The former was probably the only Jew at the Goettingen University. It was from there that he inquired of Jacob Emden "whether it was permissible to dissect on the Sabbath," and his thesis for the doctor's degree was De medica ex Talmudicis illustrata (Goettingen, 1743).[30] Liboschuets studied at the University of Halle. After graduation, finding that as a Jew he could not settle in St. Petersburg, he established himself in Vilna, where he became celebrated as a diplomat, philanthropist, and, more especially, expert physician. When Professor Frank was asked who would take care of the public health in his absence, he is reported to have said, Deus et Judaeus, "God and the Jew" [Liboschuets]!

In their deep-rooted love for learning, they sometimes ventured even beyond the German boundaries, into countries whose language and customs had little in common with theirs. Padua continued to be the resort of Russo-Polish Jews that it had been before 1648. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto found an ardent admirer and zealous propagandist of his principles in the young medical student Jekuthiel Gordon (ab. 1729), who wrote concerning his master to friends in Vienna and Vilna.[31] Judah Halevi Hurwitz (d. 1797), whose work 'Ammude Bet Yehudah (Amsterdam, 1765) was highly recommended by Mendelssohn and Wessely, was a graduate of the same famous institution. In addition to his medical and philosophic attainments, he wrote a number of poems, and he was among the first to translate fables from German into Hebrew.[32]

The story of Zalkind Hurwitz (1740-1812), "le fameux," as he was called by a French writer, is interesting. Starting, as usual, by going to Berlin, and succeeding, as usual, in gaining the friendship of Mendelssohn, he then visited Nancy, Metz, and Strasburg, and finally settled in Paris. Like Doctor Behr, he had to resort to peddling as a means for a livelihood. The rudiments of French he acquired from any book he chanced to obtain. Nevertheless, he soon became proficient in the language of his adopted country, and wrote his excellent Apologie des juifs, which, crowned by the Academy of Metz and quoted by Mirabeau, was largely instrumental in removing the disabilities of the Jews in France. Clermont-Tonnerre, the advocate of Jewish emancipation, said of him, Le juif polonais seul avait parle en philosophe. He was suggested as a member of the Sanhedrin convoked by Napoleon in 1807. Though for some reason he never enjoyed the honor of membership in it, he was, nevertheless, the ruling spirit in the august assembly, and later generations have paid him the homage he deserves.[33]

Where Hurwitz failed, another of his countrymen was to succeed. Judah Litvack (1776-1836) removed from Berlin to Amsterdam, became prominent among the Dutch mathematicians, and wrote a Dutch work, Verhandeling over de Profgetallen Gen. ii (Amsterdam, 1817), which appeared in a second edition four years after the first. The author was elected a member of the Mathesis Artium Genetrix Society, and appointed one of the deputation sent to the Sanhedrin (February 12, 1807), before which he delivered a discourse in the German language.

The "distant isles of the sea," the British Islands, Russo-Polish Jews seem to have frequented ever since the Restoration, probably contemporaneously with the settlement of the Spanish Jews. The famous mystic Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk, one of the many Baal-Shems who flourished in Podolia at the beginning of the eighteenth century, settled in London before 1750, and became the subject of many wonder stories. Sussman Shesnovzi, apparently a countryman of his, describes him, in a letter to Jacob Emden, as "standing alone in his generation by reason of his knowledge of holy mysteries." That this was the opinion of many and prominent personages may be inferred from the fact that among his callers were such distinguished visitors as the Marchese de Crona, Baron de Neuhoff, Prince Czartorisky, and the Duke of Orleans. The confidence of such as these brought Falk a considerable fortune, a large part of which he bequeathed to a charity fund, the interest of which the overseers of the United Synagogue still distribute annually among the poor.[34] Shortly before "Doctor" Falk's death (1782), there settled in London Phinehas Phillips of Krotoschin, the founder of the Phillips family, which has furnished two Lord Mayors to the city of London.

It was not merely because of its business facilities that England appealed to the Slavonic Jews. Baruch Shklover, or Schick (1740-1812), went thither to study medicine, and it was from English literature that he selected the material for his Keneh ha-Middah (Prague, 1784; Shklov, 1793), on trigonometry. It would appear that the first Hebrew book, Toledot Ya'akob, printed for a Jew in England, was, as the name of the author, Eisenstadt, suggests, that of a Slavonic Jew. Although a silversmith by profession, Israel Lyons (d. 1770) was appointed teacher of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. He acquired repute as a Hebrew scholar, and published, in 1757, the Scholar's Instructor, or Hebrew Grammar (4th ed., 1823), and in 1768 a treatise printed by the Cambridge Press, Observations and Inquiries Relating to Various Parts of Scripture History. In the same chosen field labored Hyman Hurwitz (1770-1844), the friend of Coleridge, who founded the Highgate Academy (1799), and wrote an Introduction to Hebrew Grammar, Vindica Hebraica, and Hebrew Tales, which were translated into various languages. He finally became professor of Hebrew in University College, London.

A younger contemporary of Abrahamson, the Jewish German medallist, was Solomon (Yom Tob) Bennett (1780-1841), the engraver of Polotsk, who spent a number of years at Copenhagen and Berlin in perfecting himself in his art. Among his works is a highly praised bas-relief of Frederick II, which was much admired by the professors of the Academy. An ardent lover of liberty, of which there was little more in Germany at that time than in Russia, he left for England, where he spent the remaining years of his life, in Bristol. Besides being an artist and an engraver he was a profound theologian, anxious to defend the cause of Judaism against enemies within and without. The enemy within he attacked in his cutting criticism of Solomon Cohen's Rudiments of Religion, and the enemy outside, in his other work, The Constancy of Israel (Nezah Yisrael, London, 1809). He also wrote expositions on many important Biblical topics, such as sacrifices (1815) and the Temple (1824). Having pointed out the defects of the Authorized Version (1834), he was ambitious of publishing a complete revised translation of the Bible. Specimens appeared in 1841. Death intervened and frustrated his plans. As Schick was the first Jew to translate from English into Hebrew, so Bennett was the first after Manasseh ben Israel to write in English in behalf of his people.[35]

If the contributions of Slavonic Jews to Latin, German, French, Dutch, and English literature were not less considerable at that time than those of the Jews residing in the countries where these languages were respectively used as media, they excelled them in Hebrew literature. In the renaissance of the holy tongue, they played the most important part from the first. The striving for knowledge, not for the purpose of obtaining a coveted privilege, but for its own sake, became an irresistible passion, and it was accompanied by an unquenchable desire to disseminate knowledge among the masses, to make learning and wisdom common property. The Hebrew language being the best vehicle for the purpose, it was soon impressed into the service of Haskalah. The pioneer Maskilim learned to handle it with ease and clearness that would do credit to a modern writer in a much more developed European language.

From the middle of the fifteenth to the latter part of the eighteenth century, Hebrew literature consisted, if a few scattered books on philosophy, mostly translations from the Arabic, are excepted, mainly of Talmudic disquisitions, written in the rabbinic dialect and in a euphuistic style. Besides the great Maimuni, there were few able or willing to write Hebrew "as she should be spoke." The early German Maskilim, in trying to escape the Scylla of Rabbinism, fell victims to the Charybdis of Germanism. They possessed originality neither of style nor of sentiment, neither of rhyme nor of reason. Hebrew poetry was an adaptation of current German poetry. The very best the period produced, the Mosaide of Wessely, was influenced by and largely an imitation of Klopstock and others. Like English classic poetry, it is pretty in form but poor in spirit. The element of nationality, or distinctiveness, the life-giving and soul-uplifting element in all poetry, as Delitzsch justly maintains it to be, was lacking in the German Maskilim, anxious for naturalization as they were. It was the Slavonic Maskilim who mastered Hebrew in its purity, as it had not been mastered since the day of Judah Halevi. In those days of transition the diligent student can find, in germ, what was later to develop into the resplendent poetical flowers produced by the Lebensohns, the Gordons, Dolitzky, Schapiro, Mane, and Bialik.

The Slavonic contributors to the Meassef, the first Hebrew literary periodical (1784-1811), were not conspicuous in number, but if quality can compensate for quantity, they made up for it by the value of their articles. Dubno and Maimon enriched the early issues, the one with poetry, the other with philosophy; and when it began to struggle for its existence, and was on the point of giving up the ghost, Shalom Cohen (1772-1845) came to the rescue, and, as editor, prolonged its existence by a few years. Among the best articles in the Meassef are those of Isaac Halevi Satanov (1733-1805). This "conglomeration of contrasts," whom Delitzsch regards as the restorer of Hebrew poetry to its primitive beauty and purity, was the embodiment of the period in which he lived. "He was," we are told, "a thorough master of Jewish traditional lore, and at the same time a most advanced thinker, a profound physicist, and an inspired poet; a master of the old school and at the same time the founder of the new school, the national-classical, of Hebrew poetry." His pure and precise style, his good-natured, Horace-like, delicate, yet unmistakable, humor, he showed in a series of books bearing the name of Asaf, which still must be counted among the gems of Hebrew literature.[36]

Satanov was greatly in favor of expanding the Hebrew language, but the first to borrow expressions from the Talmud literature or coin words of his own was Mendel Levin, also of Satanov, Podolia (1741-1819), the friend of Mendelssohn while in Berlin, the inspirer of Perl and Krochmal while in Brody, the companion of Zeitlin and Schick while in Mohilev. The Meassefim, the name generally applied to all who participated in the publication of the Meassef, were shocked by what they regarded a profanation of the sacred tongue. Their idea was that Hebrew was to be utilized as a means of introducing Western civilization. Afterwards it was to be relegated once more to the holy Ark. To Levin Hebrew had a far higher significance. Not only should Western civilization be introduced into Jewry through its means, but Hebrew itself should be so perfected as to take a place by the side of the more modern and cultivated languages. It should find adequate expressions for the new thoughts and ideas which the new learning would introduce into it directly or indirectly. The medieval translations from the Arabic should be retranslated into the new Hebrew, he held, and he furnished an example by recasting the first part of Maimuni's Moreh Nebukim. His modernized version, lucid and fluent, printed alongside of Ibn Tibbon's, presents a striking contrast to the stiffness and obscurity of the Provencal scholar's. Levin was also the first to write in the Yiddish, or Judeo-German, dialect, for the instruction of the masses, which made him the butt of more than one satire. But what was generally regarded as a degrading task was fraught with the greatest consequences to the Haskalah. To this day Yiddish has continued an important medium for disseminating culture among Russian Jews, both in the Old World and in the New.[37]

The century remarkable among other things for encyclopedia enterprises,—Chambers' Encyclopedia in England, the Universal Lexicon in Germany, and that wonderful and monumental work, the Encyclopedie in France—saw, before its close, a similar attempt, in miniature, in Hebrew and by a Slavonic Maskil. Whether the Hebrew encyclopedist was influenced by the example of Dr. Tobias Cohn's Ma'aseh Tobiah mentioned above, or was unconsciously imbued with the prevailing tendency of the times, it is impossible to tell. In any event, he resorted to the same means, and presented the Jewish world with a volume containing a little of every science known, under the innocent name The Book of the Covenant (Sefer ha-Berit, Bruenn, 1797).

The book appeared anonymously. This, the author assures us, was due not to humbleness of spirit, but to a vow. His diligence and constant application had greatly impaired his eyes. He vowed that if God restored his sight, and enabled him to finish his task, he would publish the book without disclosing his authorship. God hearkened unto his prayers, and the work was soon completed. But an unforeseen trouble arose. His book was ascribed "by some to the sage of Berlin, by others to the Gaon of Vilna, and by many to the united efforts of a coterie of scholars, for it could not be believed that so many and diverse sciences could be mastered by one person." Moreover, the author was censured for being afraid to come out openly and boldly as a champion of Haskalah.[38] In spite of obstacles and strictures, the book met with success surpassing the author's expectations. It found its way not only into Russia, Poland, and Germany, but even into France, Italy, England, Holland, and Palestine. An edition of two thousand copies was entirely exhausted, unusual at a time when books were costly and money was scarce, and another edition was issued. What Phinehas Elijah (Hurwitz) of Vilna had sown in tears, he lived to reap in joy.

There was a crying need in Russia for a work of the sort. In Germany the very Government encouraged organizations and publications aiming at enlightenment. Accordingly, a Society for the Promotion of the Good and the Noble was started, and the Meassef was published. In Russo-Poland not even a Hebrew printing-press was permitted, and certainly no periodical publications would have been tolerated. Phinehas Elijah, therefore, grasped the opportunity, and showed himself equal to it. His aim was, like that of the French encyclopedists, to lead his readers "through nature to God." He gives an account of the various sciences, natural and philosophical, as a prolegomenon to the study of theology, even of the mystic teachings of Vital's Gates of Holiness. Withal he evinces a sound intellect and refined, if rudimentary, taste. He decries the "ancestor worship" that rendered the Jew of his day a fossil specimen of an extinct species. The present is superior to the past, "a dwarf on a giant's shoulder seeth farther than doth the giant himself." He ridicules the base and degrading habit of dedicating books to "benefactors, friends, lovers, parents, men, or women." His work was written for the glory of God, and he dedicates it to eternal, all-conquering truth.[39]

All these Maskilim, so many hands reaching out into the light, were both the cause and the consequence of the longing for enlightenment characteristic at all times of the Slavonic Jew. Graetz and his followers among the latter-day Maskilim delighted in calling them "they that walk in darkness." Facts, however, prove that at no time before Nicholas I was education per se regarded with the least suspicion, though the Talmud was given the preference. As in the pre-Haskalah period, the greatest Talmudists deemed it a sacred duty to perfect themselves in some branch of secular science. When, in 1710, a terrible plague broke out in his native town, Rabbi Jonathan of Risenci (Grodno) vowed that, "if he were spared, he would disseminate a knowledge of astronomy among his countrymen." To fulfil the vow he went to Germany (1725), where, though blind, he devoted himself assiduously first to the acquisition of astronomy, then to writing on it.[40] Baruch Yavan of Volhynia, who more than any one exposed the impostures of Jacob Frank, "spoke and wrote Hebrew, Polish, German, and probably French," and his accomplishments and address won him the admiration of Count Bruehl, the virtual ruler of Poland, and the favor of the highest officials at St. Petersburg. His associate in the righteous fight, Bima Speir of Mohilev, was also possessed of a thorough command of the language of Russia, and was well posted in its literature, history, and politics. The Pinczovs, descendants of Rabbi Polack, connected with the most eminent rabbinical families, and themselves famous for piety and erudition, produced many works on mathematics and philosophy. Mendelssohn's translation of the Pentateuch was at first hailed with joy, and was recommended by the most zealous rabbis. Doctor Hurwitz of Vilna did not hesitate to dedicate his 'Ammude Bet Yehudah to Wessely, who was more popular in Russo-Poland than in Germany. The whole edition of his Yen Lebanon, which fell flat in the latter country, though offered gratis, was sold when introduced into the former.[41] Joseph Pesseles' correspondence concerning Dubno, with David Friedlaender, the disciple of Mendelssohn (1773), proves the high esteem in which the liberal-minded savants of Berlin were held in Russia. The rabbis of Brest, Slutsk, and Lublin gave laudatory recommendations to Judah Loeb Margolioth's popular works of natural science, which form a little encyclopedia by themselves. Margolioth was the grandson of Mordecai Jaffe, himself rabbi successively at Busnov, Szebrszyn, Polotsk, Lesla, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder (d. 1811). The writings of Baruch Schick of Shklov, referred to above, were accorded the same welcome. His translation of Euclid and his treatises on trigonometry, astronomy ('Ammude ha-Shamayim), and anatomy (Tiferet Adam) won the admiration of rabbis as well as laymen. Epitaphs of the day contain the statement that the deceased was not only "at home in all the chambers of the Torah," but also in "philosophy and the seven sciences." And this, exaggerated though it may be, must be seen to contain a kernel of the truth, when we recall that among Maimon's intimate friends was the rabbi of Kletzk, Lithuania; that in the humble dwelling of his father there were works on historical, astronomical, and philosophical subjects; that the chief rabbi of a neighboring town, Rabbi Samson of Slonim, who, according to Fuenn, "had in his youth lived for a while in Germany, learned the German language there, and made himself acquainted in some measure with the sciences," continued his study of the sciences, and soon collected a fair library of German books.[42] Saadia, Bahya, Halevi, Ibn Ezra, Crescas, Bedersi, Levi ben Gerson (whom Goldenthal calls the Hebrew Kant), Albo, Abarbanel, and others whose works deserve a high place in the history of Jewish philosophy, were on the whole fairly represented in the libraries, and diligently studied in the numerous yeshibot and batte midrashim.

Thus the enlightenment which dawned upon France, Germany, and England cast a glow even on the Slavonic Jews, despite the Chinese wall of disabilities that hemmed them in. Unfortunately, this only helped to render them dissatisfied with their wretched lot, without affording them the means of ameliorating it. While the Jews in Western Europe profited and were encouraged by the example of their Christian neighbors; while, in addition to their innate thirst for learning, they had everywhere else political and civil preferments to look forward to, in Russo-Poland not only were such outside stimuli absent, but the Slavonic Jews had to struggle against obstacles and hindrances at every step. No such heaven on earth could be dreamed of there. The country was still in a most barbarous state. Those who wished to perfect themselves in any of the sciences had to leave home and all and go to a foreign land, and had to study, as they were bidden to study the Talmud, "lishmah," that is, for its own sake. This is the distinguishing feature between the German and Slavonic Maskilim during the eighteenth century. The cry of the former was, "Become learned, lest the nations say we are not civilized and deny us the wealth, respect, and especially the equality we covet!" The latter were humbly seeking after the truth, either because they could better elucidate the Talmud, or because, as they held, it was their truth, of which the nations had deprived them during their long exile.[43] They were unlike their German brethren in another respect. Almost all of them were "self-made men," autodidacts in the truest sense. Lacking the advantages of secular schools, they culled their first information from scanty, antiquated Hebrew translations. Maimon learned the Roman alphabet from the transliteration of the titles on the fly-leaves of some Talmudic tracts; Doctor Behr, from Wolff's Mathematics. But no sooner was the impetus given than it was followed by an insatiable craving for more and more of the intellectual manna, for a wider and wider horizon. "Look," says Wessely, "look at our Russian and Polish brethren who immigrate hither, men great in Torah, yet admirers of the sciences, which, without the guiding help of teachers, they all master to such perfection as to surpass even a Gentile sage!"[44] Such self-education was, of course, not without unfavorable results. Never having enjoyed the advantage of a systematic elementary training, the enthusiasts sometimes lacked the very rudiments of knowledge, though engaged in the profoundest speculations of philosophy. "As our mothers in Egypt gave birth to their children before the mid-wife came," writes Pinsker somewhat later,[45] "even so it is with the intellectual products of our brethren: before one becomes acquainted with the grammar of a language, he masters its classic and scientific literature!"

Steadily though slowly, brighter, if not better, days were coming. "Thought once awakened shall not again slumber." As Carlyle says of the French of that period, it became clear for the first time to the upturned eyes of the Jews, "that Thought has actually a kind of existence in other kingdoms [than the Talmud]; that some glimmerings of civilization had dawned here and there on the human species." They begin to try all things; they visit Germany, France, Denmark, Holland, even England; learn their literatures, study in their universities, and contribute their quota to the apologetic, controversial, scientific, and philosophic investigations "with a candor and real love of improvement which give the best omens of a still higher success." Fortune, indeed, has cast them also into a cavern, and they are groping around darkly. But this prisoner, too, is a giant, and he will, at length, burst forth as a giant into the light of day.

(Notes, pp. 310-314.)



CHAPTER III

THE DAWN OF HASKALAH

1794-1840

A glimmer of light pierced the Russian sky at the accession of Catherine II (1762-1796). This "Semiramis of the North," the admirer of Buffon, Montesquieu, Diderot, and, more especially, Voltaire, whose motto, N'en croyez rien, she adopted, endeavored, and for a while not without success, to introduce into her own country the spirit of tolerance which pervaded France. Her ukases were intended for all alike, "without distinction of religion and nationality." Her regard for her Jewish citizens she showed by allowing them to settle in the interior, establish printing-presses (January 27, 1783), and become civil and Government officers (April 2, 1785). In the edict promulgated by Governor-General Chernyshev it is stated that "religious liberty and inviolability of property are hereby granted to all subjects of Russia and certainly to the Jews; for the humanitarian principles of her Majesty do not permit the exclusion of the Jews alone from the favors shown to all, so long as they, as faithful subjects, continue to employ themselves, as hitherto, with commerce and trade, each according to his vocation." That she remained true to her promise, we see from the numerous privileges enjoyed by many Jews, who began to frequent Moscow and St. Petersburg and reside there for business purposes.

Paul (1796-1801), too, was kindly disposed toward the Jews, and permitted them to live in Courland; and when Alexander I (1801-1825) became czar, their hopes turned into certainty. Alexander I did, indeed, appear a most promising ruler at his accession. The theories he had acquired from Laharpe he fully intended to apply to practical life. Like Catherine, he wished to rule in equity and promote the welfare of his subjects irrespective of race or creed. He ordered a commission to investigate the status of the Russian Jews (December 9, 1802). The result was the polozheniye (enactment) of December 9, 1804, according to which Jews were to be eligible to one-third of all municipal offices; they were to be permitted to establish factories, become agriculturists, and either attend the schools and colleges of the empire on the same footing as subjects of the Christian faith, or, if they desired, found and maintain schools of their own. The approach of the great Usurper and the crushing defeat the Russians sustained at the battle of Friedland (June 4, 1808) also favored the advance of the Jews. As the short, but troublous, reign of Paul and his wars with Turkey, Persia, Prussia, Poland, and Sweden had impoverished the country and depleted the treasury, the shrewd Alexander was not averse from appealing to Jews for help. Of course, as in many more enlightened countries and in more modern times, most of the privileges were merely paper privileges. Few of them ever went into effect. The noble intentions of the enlightened rulers were steadily thwarted by bigoted councillors and jealous merchants. Every favor shown the Jews aroused a storm of protests, which resulted in numerous infringements. The Jews were compelled to pay for the good intentions of Catherine with a double tax (June 25, 1794), and, during Paul's reign, without the emperor's knowledge, a law was enacted requiring of Jews double payment of the guild license. In spite of all efforts, the Jews, instead of being emancipated politically, were burdened with additional discriminations.[1]

Had not the wheel of progress suddenly stopped revolving, Russian Jews might have constituted one of the most useful as well as most intellectual elements in the vast empire. As it was, the kindly intention of czar or czarina sufficed to arouse them from the asthenia to which they were reduced for want of freedom. The times were rife with excitement, and the Jewish atmosphere with expectancy. The mighty changes which were taking place in Russia and Poland; the dismemberment of the latter; the annexation of Balta (1791), Lithuania (1794), and Courland (1797) to the former; the short-lived yet potent German rule in Byelostok (1793-1807), and the rude but memorable contact with France (1807-1812), these and many other important happenings in a brief span of time had a telling effect upon the diverse races under the dominion of Russia, and among them not the least upon the Jewish race. Everywhere the desire for "liberty, equality, and fraternity" began to manifest itself. In Courland, the most German of Russian provinces, Georg Gottfried Mylich, a Lutheran pastor at Nerft, made a touching appeal (ab. 1787) in German on behalf of the Jews, insisting that the word Jew "should not be taken to indicate a class of people different from us, but only a different religious body; and as regards his nationality, it should not hinder him from obtaining citizen's rights and liberties equal to those of the people of Sleswick, the Saxons, Danes, Swedes, Swiss, French, and Italians, who also live among us." In Poland, Tadeusz Czacki, the historian, wrote his Discourse on the Jews (Rosprava o Zhydakh, Vilna, 1807), in which he deplores that Jews "experienced indulgence rarely, oppression often, and contempt nearly always" under the most Christian governments, and suggests a plan for reforming their condition. But the main appeal for freedom came, as might have been expected, from the Jews themselves. Contemporaneous with, if not before, Michel Beer's Appel a la justice des nations et des rois, a Lithuanian Jew, during his imprisonment in Nieszvicz on a false charge, wrote a work in Polish on the Jewish problem,[2] while in 1803 Loeb, or Leon, Nebakhovich, an intimate friend of Count Shakovskoy, published The Cry of the Daughter of Judah (Fopli Docheri Yudeyskoy), the first defence of the Russian Jew in the Russian language. The followers of the religion of love are implored to love a Jew because he is a Jew, and they are assured that the Jew who preserves his religion undefiled can be neither a bad man nor a bad citizen.

But the Jews did not wait for their dreams to be realized. They threw themselves into the swirl of their country's ambition, as if they had never received anything other than the tenderness of a devoted mother at her hands. They were "kindled in a common blaze" of patriotism with the rest of the population. That in spite of all accusations to the contrary they remained loyal to Poland, is amply proved by the history of that unfortunate country. The characteristic kapota of the Polish Jew, his whole garb, including the yarmulka (under cap), is simply the old Polish costume, which the Jews retained after the Poles had adopted the German form of dress.[3] "When, in the year 1794," says Czacki, "despair armed the [Polish] capital, the Jews were not afraid of death, but, mingling with the troops and the populace, they proved that danger did not terrify them, and that the cause of the fatherland was dear to them." With the permission of Kosciusko, Colonel Joselovich Berek, later killed at the battle of Kotzk (1809), formed a regiment of light cavalry consisting entirely of Jews, which distinguished itself especially at the siege of Warsaw. Most of the members perished in defence of the suburb of Praga. In the agony of death, Rabbi Hayyim longed for good tidings, that he might die in peace. And when the fight was over, Zbitkover expended two barrels of money, one filled with gold ducats and one with silver rubles, for the live and dead soldiers who were brought to him.[4] Indeed, Prince Czartorisky was so convinced of their patriotism, that he always advocated the same rights for the Polish Jews as were claimed for the Polish Gentiles, entrusted his children to the care of Mendel Levin of Satanov, and instructed his son, Prince Ladislaus, always to remain their friend.[5]

But when, in spite of struggle and sacrifice, the doom "finis Poloniae" was sounded, and a large portion of the once powerful empire was incorporated into Russia, we find the Jews bearing their sorrow patiently, and willingly performing their duties as subjects to their new masters. Their attachment to their czar and country was not shaken in the least when, in 1812, Napoleon made them flattering promises to secure their services in his behalf. Rabbi Shneor Zalman, the eminent leader of the Lithuanian Hasidim, hearing of the invasion of the French army, spent many days in prayer and fasting for the success of the Russians, and fled on the Sabbath day, not to be contaminated by contact with the "godless French." When Napoleon was finally defeated, the event was celebrated both at home and in the synagogue, and Russian soldiers were everywhere welcomed by Jews with gifts and good cheer.[6] Lilienthal relates that the Jews succeeded in intercepting a courier who carried the plan of operations of the French army, and Alexander declared in a dispatch that Jews had opened the eyes of the Russians, and the Government, therefore, felt itself bound to them by eternal gratitude.[7] It is to this proof of patriotism that some attribute Alexander's interest in the Jews and his order that three deputies should reside in St. Petersburg to represent them in Russia, and in Poland a committee consisting of three Christians and eight Jews should be appointed to devise ways and means of ameliorating their condition.[8]

The times were promising in other respects. In that critical period, the Government, reposing but little confidence in Russian merchants, whose business motto was "No swindle, no sale," allowed several Jews to become Government contractors (podradchiki). These, while rendering valuable services, amassed considerable fortunes. Notwithstanding the law restricting Jewish residence to the Pale of Settlement, Catherine II speaks of Jews who resided in St. Petersburg for many years, and lodged in the house of a priest, who had been her confessor. Moreover, Jews contributed not a little to the liberal policy of Alexander I. Among them were Eliezer Dillon of Nieszvicz (d. 1838), who was honored by the emperor with a gold medal "for faithful and conscientious services," and was given an audience by his Majesty, at which he pleaded the cause of his coreligionists;[9] Nathan Notkin, who mitigated the possible effect of Senator Dyerzhavin's baneful opinions concerning Jews, as expressed in his report (Mnyenie, September, 1800), and who suggested the establishment of schools for children and for adults in Yekaterinoslav and elsewhere; Abraham Peretz, the personal friend of Speransky, Dyerzhavin, and Potemkin, and a brilliant financier, whose high standing enabled him to be a power for good in the councils concerning Jews;[10] and his father-in-law, Joshua Zeitlin (1724-1822). Zeitlin was a rare phenomenon, reminding one of the golden days of Jewish Spain. His knowledge of finance and political economy won him the admiration of Prince Potemkin, the protection of Czarina Catherine, and the esteem of Alexander I, who appointed him court councillor (nadvorny sovyetnik). But his mercantile pursuits did not hinder him from study, and his high living did not interfere with his high thinking. His palatial home at Ustye, in Mohilev, became a refuge for all needy Talmudists and Maskilim, whom he helped with the liberality of a Maecenas; he conducted an extensive correspondence on rabbinic literature, and for many years supported Doctor Schick and Mendel Levin. For Doctor Schick he built a laboratory, and filled his library with rare manuscripts and works on Jewish and secular subjects.[11]

Even among the conservative Talmudists signs of improvement were not wanting. The Gaon became the centre of a group of enlightened friends and disciples, who continued in his footsteps after his death. His son, Rabbi Abraham, who published and edited many of his works, a task requiring no small amount of acumen and Talmudic erudition,[12] was also the author of books on geography, mathematics, and physics. His pupils, such as Doctor Schick and Rabbi Benjamin and Rabbi Zelmele, influenced their contemporaries either directly, by bringing them in touch with the new learning, or indirectly, by reforming the school system and the method of Talmud study.[13] Of Rabbi Zelmele, who like his master became the hero of a wonder-biography written by his disciple Ezekiel Feivel of Plungian, we are told that he regarded grammar as indispensable to a thorough knowledge of the Bible and the Talmud, pleaded for a return to the order of study prescribed in the Pirke Abot, and complained that, owing to the neglect of Aramaic, the benefits of comparative philology were lost and unknown. He declared also that while he believed in all the Bible contains, the stories in the Talmud are, for the most part, legends and parables used for the purpose of illustration.[14]



Towering above all the disciples of the Gaon, the most outspoken in behalf of enlightenment is Manasseh of Ilye (1767-1831). At a very early age he attracted the attention of Talmudists by his originality and boldness. In his unflinching determination to get at the truth, he did not shrink from criticising Rashi and the Shulhan 'Aruk, and dared to interpret some parts of the Mishnah differently from the explanation given in the Gemara. With all his admiration for the Gaon, but for whom, he claimed, the Torah would have been forgotten, he also had points of sympathy with the Hasidim, for whose leader, Shneor Zalman of Ladi, he had the highest respect. Like many of his contemporaries, he determined to go to Berlin. He started on his way, but was stopped at Koenigsberg by some orthodox coreligionists, and compelled to return to Russia. This did not prevent his perfecting himself in German, Polish, natural philosophy, mechanics, and even strategics. On the last subject he wrote a book, which was burnt by his friends, "lest the Government suspect that Jews are making preparations for war!" But it is not so much his Talmudic or secular scholarship that makes him interesting to us to-day. His true greatness is revealed by his attempts, the first made in his generation perhaps, to reconcile the Hasidim with the Mitnaggedim, and these in turn with the Maskilim. He spoke a good word for manual labor, and proved from the Talmud that burdensome laws should be abolished. His Pesher Dabar (Vilna, 1807) and Alfe Menasheh (ibid., 1827, 1860) are monuments to the advanced views of the author. In the Hebrew literature of his time, they are equalled only by the 'Ammude Bet Yehudah and the Hekal 'Oneg of Doctor Hurwitz.[15]

This short period of enlightenment and tolerance, inaugurated by a semblance of equality, indicates the native optimism of the Slavonic Jew. For a while a cessation of hostilities was evident in the camp of Israel. The reforms introduced by the Gaon, and propagated by his disciples, began to bear fruit. Hasidism itself underwent a radical change under the leadership of Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Ladi (1747-1813) and Jacob Joseph of Polonnoy, who, unlike their colleagues of the Ukraine, were learned in the Talmud and familiar with the sciences. Protests by Hasidim themselves against the irreverent spirit that developed after the death of the Besht, had in fact been heard before. The saintly and retiring Abraham Malak (d. 1780) had denounced, in no uncertain terms, the gross conception held by the Hasidim of the sublime teachings of their own sect. He drew a beautiful picture of the ideal zaddik, who is "so absorbed in meditation on the Divine wisdom that he cannot descend to the lower steps upon which ordinary people stand."[16] But the more active Rabbi Shneor, or Zalman Ladier, as he was usually called, insisted on putting the zaddik on a par with the rabbi, whose duty it is not to work miracles but to teach righteousness. Assuming for his followers the name HaBaD, the three letters of which are the initials of the Hebrew words for Wisdom, Reason, and Knowledge, he furthered the cause of enlightenment in the only way possible among his adherents.[17] How well he succeeded may be inferred from the fact, trivial though it be, that the biography of the Besht, The Praises of the Besht (Shibhe ha-Besht), by Dob Baer, published in Berdichev (1815), omits many of the legends about the Master included in the version published the same year in Kopys. The omission can be explained only on the ground that the editor, Judah Loeb, who was the son of the author, did not wish to give offence, or he had outgrown the credulity of his father.[18]

The feeling of tolerance manifested itself also in the Jewish attitude towards the Gentiles. "O that we were identified with the nations of our time, created by the same God, children of one Father, and did not hate each other because we are at variance in some views!" This exclamation of Doctor Hurwitz[19] found an echo in the works of the other Maskilim that wrote in Hebrew, but more especially of those who used a European language. They were deeply interested in whatever marked a step forward in their country's civilization. The opening of a gymnasium in Mitau (1775) was a joyful occasion, which inspired Hurwitz's Hebrew muse, and at the centennial celebration of the surrender of Riga to Peter the Great (July 4, 1810), the craving of the Jewish heart, avowed in a German poem, was expressed "in the name of the local Hebrew community to their Christian compatriots." The last stanza runs as follows:

Grant us, who, like you, worship the God above, Also on earth to enjoy equality with you! To-day, while your hearts are open to love, Let us seal our happiness with your love, too![20]

This desire for naturalization brought with it an attempt at "Russification." To show the beauty of the Russian language, Baruch Czatzskes of Volhynia translated some of the poems of Khersakov into Hebrew, and others published manuals for the study of Russian and Polish.[21] Among the first books issued from the newly-established printing-press in Shklov, the centre of Jewish wealth, refinement, and culture at that time, was the Zeker Rab with a German translation (1804). In an appendix thereto the Shklov Maskilim announced their intention to publish a weekly, the first in the Hebrew tongue. Yiddish was also resorted to as a medium for educating the masses, and as early as 1813 some Vilna Jews applied to the Government for permission to publish a paper in that language, though it was not until ten years later (1823-1824) that a Yiddish periodical, Der Beobachter an der Weichsel, appeared in Warsaw. Nor do we hear of any opposition to the Government decrees, issued probably at the request of Dillon, Notkin, Peretz, or Nebakhovich, that the elders of the kahals in and after 1808, and the rabbis of the congregations in and after 1812, be conversant with either Russian, German, or Polish. This sudden Russification of the Jews amounted sometimes to no more than a superficial imitation of Russian civilization, which pious rabbis as well as liberal-minded men like Schick, Margolioth, Ilye, and Hurwitz, felt impelled to call a halt to. Jews, especially the rich, aped the Polish pans. Their wives dressed in Parisian gowns of the latest fashion, and their homes were conducted in a manner so luxurious as to arouse the envy of the noblemen. Israel waxed fat and kicked. Their greatest care was to become wealthy; they pampered their bodies at the expense of the impoverishment of their souls, and some feared that "with the passing away of the elder generation there would not remain a man capable of filling the position of rabbi."[22]

The privilege of attending public schools and colleges further stimulated the Russification of the Jews. As soon as these institutions of learning were thrown open to them, numerous Jewish youths made headway in all branches taught, especially in medicine. That Alexander's benign decree of November 10, 1811, issued through the Secretary of State Speransky, was not always executed by his officials goes without saying. Simeon Levy Wolf, one of the first Russo-Jewish graduates, was denied his degree of doctor of jurisprudence in Dorpat unless he embraced Christianity.[23] When, in 1819, some of the Vilna graduates applied for the privilege of not paying the double tax, they were told that they must first renounce their faith, an exception being made only in favor of Arthur Parlovich. Still the number of Jewish graduate physicians was on the increase. Osip Yakovlevich Liboschuets, who was the son of the famous physician of Vilna, took his doctor degree at Dorpat (1806), became court physician in St. Petersburg, where he founded a hospital for children, and wrote extensively in French on the flora of his country.[24] The medical institute of Vilna (1803-1833), afterwards transferred to Kiev, became the centre of attraction for the Russian Jewry. Padua, Berlin, Koenigsberg, Goettingen, Copenhagen, Halle, Amsterdam, Cambridge, and London were for a third of a century replaced by the home of the Gaon and of Doctor Liboschuets. The first students were recruited from the bet ha-midrash, and they frequently joined, as in former days, knowledge of the Law with the practice of their chosen profession. Such were Isaac Markusevich, whose annotations to the Shulhan 'Aruk (ab. 1830) were published fifty years later;[25] Joseph Rosensohn, the promising Talmudist who became rabbi of Pyosk at the age of nineteen;[26] and Kusselyevsky of Nieszvicz, a stipendiary of a Polish nobleman and a great favorite with Professor Frank. Because of his proficiency, he was exempted from serving as a vratch (interne), and for his piety and learning he was addressed by Jews and Gentiles as "rabbi."[27]

With what dreams such happenings filled the Jewish heart! "Thank God," writes a merchant of the first guild in reply to an inquiry from distant Bokhara, "thank God, we dwell in peace under the sovereignty of our czar Alexander, who has shown us his mercy, and has put us in every respect on an equality with all the inhabitants of the land."[28] But a rude awakening was soon to make the Jews aware that their visions of better days were still far from realization. In 1815, Alexander I formed the acquaintance of Baroness Kruedener, and since then, to the satisfaction of Prince Galitzin, "with what giant strides the emperor advanced in the pathway of religion!" His humanitarian deeds gave way to a profound religious mysticism. He experienced a revulsion of feeling toward reforms in his vast empire, and, as always, the Jews were the first victims of an ill-boding change. The kindly monarch who, at Paris, had said to a Russo-Jewish deputation, J'enleverai le joug de vos epaules, began to make their yoke heavier than he had found it. The enlightened czar, who, in striking a medal commemorating the emancipation of the Jews of his empire, had anticipated Napoleon by a year, suddenly became a bigoted tyrant, whose efforts were devoted to converting the same Jews to Christianity. He who had claimed that his greatest reward would be to produce a Mendelssohn, now resorted to various expedients, to render education unpalatable to the Jews. The Jewish assemblymen, who, in 1816, soon after the Franco-Russian war, had been convoked to St. Petersburg, were not allowed to meet; and when, two years later, they did meet, their every attempt was baffled by the Government. Jews were expelled systematically from St. Petersburg (1818). They were forbidden to employ Christians as servants (May 4, 1820), to immigrate into Russia from abroad (August 10, 1824), and reside in the towns and villages of Mohilev and Vitebsk (January 13, 1825). Several years after the double poll and guild tax had been abolished in Courland (November 8, 1807), it was restored with an additional impost on meat from cattle slaughtered according to the Jewish rite (korobka). All this impoverished the Jews to such an extent that they were forced to sell the cravats of their praying shawls (taletim), in order to defray the expense of a second deputation to St. Petersburg.[29]

Had Alexander I been satisfied with merely restricting the Jews' rights, the favorable attitude towards enlightenment we have noticed above would probably have remained unaltered. Unfortunately, Alexander became a fanatic conversionist. It was a time when missionary zeal became endemic, and Baroness Kruedener's influence was strengthened. The Reverend Lewis Way, having founded (1808) the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, made a tour through Europe, everywhere urging the Gentiles to enfranchise the Jews as an inducement to them to embrace Christianity, the only means of hastening the advent of the Apostolic millennium. His Memoires sur l'etat des israelites presented to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (October 11, 1818) and his visit to Russia resulted in an imperial ukase (March 25, 1817) organizing a Committee of Guardians for Israelitish Christians (Izrailskiye Christyanye). The members of this association were to be granted land in the northern or southern provinces of Russia and to enjoy special privileges. The bait proved tempting, and, as a consequence, some prominent Maskilim, too weak to resist the allurements, precipitated themselves into the Greek Catholic fold. Abraham Peretz, financier and champion of Jews' rights, consented to be converted, as also Loeb Nebakhovich, the dramatist, whose plays were produced in the Imperial theatre of St. Petersburg and performed in the presence of the emperor.[30] Equally bad, if not worse, for the cause of Haskalah was the conduct of those who, disdaining, or unable, to profess the new religion, discarded every vestige of traditional Judaism, and deemed it their duty to set an example of infidelity and sometimes immorality to their less enlightened coreligionists. What Leroy-Beaulieu says of Maimon, "that type of the most cultured Jew to be found before the French Revolution," might more justly be applied to many a less prominent Maskil after him: "Despite his learning and philosophy he sank deeper than the most degraded of his fellow-men, because in repudiating his ancestral faith he had lost the staff which, through all their humiliations, served as a prop even to the most debased of ancient Jews."[31]

Haskalah thus having become synonymous with apostasy or licentiousness, we can easily understand why the unsophisticated among the Russian Jews were so bitterly opposed to it from the time the sad truth dawned upon them, until, under Alexander II, their suspicions were somewhat dissipated. Previous to the latter part of the reign of Alexander I the "struggle groups" in Russian Jewry were at first Frankists and anti-Frankists, and afterwards Hasidim and Mitnaggedim. It was a conflict, not between religion and science, but between religion and what was regarded as superstition. Secular instruction, far from being opposed, was, as we have seen, sought and disseminated. Long after the pious element in Germany had been aroused to the dangers that lurked in the wake of their "Aufklaerung," and had begun to endeavor to check its further progress by excommunication and other methods, the Russian Jews remained "seekers after light." They might have condemned a Maskil, they had not yet condemned Haskalah. Mendelssohn's German translation was welcomed in Russia at its first appearance no less than in Germany, but when some of the children of Rabbi Moses ben Menahem embraced the Christian faith, and their father, as was natural, was suspected of skepticism, the Biur and the Meassefim were pronounced, like libraries by Sir Anthony Absolute, to be "an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge." So also with Wessely's Epistles, which were destroyed in public, together with Polonnoy's Toledot Ya'akob Yosef. Haskalah itself was not impugned, and as theretofore translations and original works on science were encouraged, and the wish was entertained that "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."[32]

But the latest experiences in their own country put Haskalah in a very different light from that in which they were wont to regard it. Formerly the opposition to it had been limited to the very land that gave it birth. Because of their determination to study, Solomon Maimon was denied admission to Berlin, Manasseh of Ilye was stopped in Koenigsberg, and Abba Glusk Leczeka, better known as "the Glusker Maggid," the subject of a poem by Chamisso, was persecuted everywhere. It was Rabbi Levin, of Berlin, who prohibited the publication of Wessely's works, and insisted that the author be expelled from the city.[33] It was Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague who, though approving of Wessely's Yen Lebanon, opposed the translation of the Pentateuch by Mendelssohn, while Rabbi Horowitz of Hamburg denounced it in unmeasured terms, admonishing his hearers to shun the work as unclean, and approving the action of those persons who had publicly burnt it in Vilna (1782). Moses Sofer of Pressburg adopted as his motto, "Touch not the works of the Dessauer" (Mendelssohn),[34] and seldom allowed an opportunity to pass without denouncing the Maskilim of his country. Now the clarion note of anti-Haskalah, sounded by these luminaries in Israel, found an echo among the Jews in Russia. They had discovered, to their great sorrow, that like Elisha ben Abuya, the apostate in the Talmud, "those who once entered the paradise [of enlightenment] returned no more." The very name of the seat of Haskalah was an abomination to the pious. To be called "Berlinchick" or "Deitschel" was tantamount to being called infidel and epicurean, anarchist and outlaw. The old instinct of self-preservation, which turned Jews from lambs into lions, holding their ground to the last, asserted itself again. As the Talmudic rabbis excluded certain books from the Canon, as the study of even the Jewish philosophers was later proscribed by certain French rabbis, so the Russian rabbis laid the ban upon whatever savored of German "Aufklaererei."

Thus began the bitter fight against Haskalah, in which Hasidim and Mitnaggedim, forgetting their differences, joined hands, and stood shoulder to shoulder. For, after all, was not Judaism in both these phases endangered by the new and aggressive enemy from the West? And did not the two have enough in common to become one in the hour of great need? Hasidism, in fact, was Judaism emotionalized, and since, beginning with Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Ladi, it, too, advocated the study of the Talmud, the distinction between it and Mitnaggedism was hardly perceptible. The study of the Zohar and Cabbala was equally cultivated by both; Isaac Luria and Hayyim Vital were equally venerated by both, and hero worship was common to both. The Ascension of Elijah (Gaon) is as full of miracles as The Praises of the Besht. It is no wonder, then, that the animosities, which reached their acme during the last few years of the Gaon's life, were weakened after his death, and that the compromise, pleaded for by Doctor Hurwitz and Manasseh Ilye, was somehow effected. But it was otherwise with the Haskalah. "Verily," says the zaddik Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, "verily, grammar is useful; that our great ones indulged in the study thereof I also know; but what is to be done since the wicked and sinful have taken possession of it?" In the same manner does Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin inveigh against the followers of Mendelssohn, because of the latitudinarian habits of the Maskilim, who "despise the counsel of their betters, and go after the dictates of their hearts."[35] Both saw in Haskalah a deadly foe to their dearest ideals, a blight upon their most cherished hopes, and, like Elizabeta Petrovna, they would not derive even a benefit from the enemies of their religion.

Still, Alexander I approached his object only tentatively. Haskalah during his reign was like the Leviathan in the Talmud legend which resembled an island, so that wayfarers approached it to moor under its lee and find shelter in its shade, but as soon as they began to walk and cook on it, it would turn and submerge them in the stormy and bottomless sea. The Jews were invited or induced to forsake their religion, and only the less discerning were caught in the snare. It remained for the "terrible incarnation of autocracy," Nicholas I (1825-1855), or, as his Jewish subjects called him, Haman II, to fill their cup of woe to overflowing and employ every available means to convert them to his own religion.

Nicholas's one aim was "to diminish the number of Jews in the empire," but not by expulsion, the means employed by Ferdinand and Isabella. He knew too well their value as citizens to allow them to migrate. He would diminish their numbers by forced baptism. Baptized Jews were exempted from the payment of taxes for three years; Jewish criminals could have their punishment commuted or could obtain a pardon by ceasing to be Jews. But as these inducements could naturally appeal only to comparatively few, more stringent measures were resorted to. Hitherto the Jews had been excused from military service, paying an annual sum of money for the privilege. On September 7, 1827, an ukase was issued requiring them not only to pay the same amount as theretofore, but also to serve in the army; and while Christians had to furnish only seven recruits per thousand, and only at certain intervals, the Jews had to contribute ten recruits for each thousand, and that at every conscription. The only exception was made in the case of the Karaites, who, according to Nicholas's decision, had emigrated from Palestine before the Christian era, and could not therefore have participated in the crucifixion of Jesus. Jews found outside of their native towns without passports, and those in arrears with their taxes, frequently even those who, having lagged behind in their payment to the Government, eventually discharged their obligations, were to be seized and sentenced to serve in the army, and this meant a lifetime, or at least twenty-five years, of the most abject slavery imaginable. This grievous measure caused the utmost misery. No Jewish youth leaving home could be sure of returning and seeing his dear ones again. The scum of the Jewish population (poimshchiki, or "catchers") made it their profession to ensnare helpless young men or poor itinerant students suspected of the Haskalah heresy, destroy their passports, and deliver them up as poimaniki (recruits), to spare the rich who paid for the substitutes. To form an idea of the time we need but read some of the numerous folk-songs of that day. Here is one of many:

Quietly I walk in the street, When behind me I hear the rush of feet. Woes have come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

"Your passport," they ask. Alas, it is lost! "Then serve the White Czar!" that is the cost. Woe has come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

There are many rooms, they take me to one, And strip from my body the poor homespun. Woe has come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

They take me to another room, The uniform,—that is my doom. Woe has come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

Rather than wear the cap of the czar, To study the Torah were better by far. Woe has come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

Rather than eat of the czar's black bread, I'd study the Scriptures head by head. Woes have come and sought me, Alas, had I bethought me.

Yet this was not all. Knowing that it is easier to convert the children than their elders, the Government of Nicholas I, out-Heroding Herod, inaugurated a system so cruel as to fill with terror and pity the heart of the most ferocious barbarian. Infants were torn from their mothers, boys of the age of twelve, sometimes of ten and eight, were herded like cattle, sent to distant parts of Russia, and there distributed as chattels among the officers of the army. Many of these Cantonists, as they were called, either died on the way, or were killed off when they resisted conversion. Those who survived sometimes returned to Judaism, and formed the nucleus of Jewish settlements in the interior of Russia. These "soldiers of Nicholas" (Nikolayevskiye soldati), with their uncouth demeanor and devoted, though ignorant, adherence to the faith of their fathers, furnished much material for the folk-songs of the time and the novelists of the somewhat happier reigns of Nicholas's successors.[36]

One of these Cantonists, the first to give a description of the life of his fellow-sufferers, was Wolf Nachlass, or Alexander Alekseyev. For many years he remained faithful to the religion of his forefathers, though he had been pressed into the service at the age of ten. About 1845 he changed his views, became an ardent Greek Catholic, and converted five hundred Cantonists, to the great delight of Nicholas I, who thanked him in person for his zeal. He lost his leg, and during the long illness that followed Nachlass settled in Novgorod, and wrote several works on Jewish customs and on missionary topics.

Less horrifying, but equally aiming at disintegration, was Nicholas's scheme of colonization. What better means was there for "diminishing the number of Jews" than to scatter them over the wilderness of Russia and leave them to shift for themselves? This, of course, was necessarily a slow process and one involving some expense, but it was fraught with great importance not only for the Russian Church, but for Russian trade and agriculture as well.

"Back to the soil!" Was not this the cry of the romantic Maskilim in Germany, in Galicia, and particularly in Russia? And have not country life and field labor been depicted by them in the most glowing colors? Here was an opportunity to save the honor of the Jewish name and also ameliorate the material condition of the Russian Jews. The permission given to them by Alexander I to establish themselves as farmers in the frigid yet free Siberian steppes was greeted with enthusiasm by all. Nicholas's ukase was hailed with joy. Elias Mitauer and Meyer Mendelssohn, at the head of seventy families from Courland, were the first to migrate to the new region (1836), and they were followed by hundreds more. Indeed, the exodus assumed such proportions that the Christians in the parts of the country abandoned by the colonists complained of the decline in business and the depreciation of property. The movement was heartily approved by the rabbis; the populace, its imagination stimulated, began to dream dreams and see visions of brighter days, and all gave vent to their hopefulness in songs of gladness and gratitude, in strains like these:[37]

Who lives so free As the farmer on his land? His farm his companion is, His never-failing friend.

His sleep to him is sweet After a hearty meal; Neither grief nor worry The farmer-man doth feel.

He rises very early To start betimes his toil, Healthy and very happy On his ever-smiling soil.

O blessings on our czar, Czar Nikolai, then be, Who granted us this gladness, And bade the Jews be free.

Alas, this joy was of short duration! Very soon Nicholas became suspicious of his Siberian colonization scheme, that it was in reality a philanthropic measure, and in place of saving the Jew's soul it only promoted his physical well-being. This suspicion grew into a conviction when he learned that the Jewish community at Tomsk, still faithful to the heritage of Israel, applied for permission to appoint a spiritual leader. The autocrat, therefore, signed an ukase checking settlement in the hitherto free land, depriving honest men of the privilege enjoyed by the worst of criminals, and enrolling the children of those already there among the military Cantonists (January 5, 1837).

Then began real misery. Believing at first that the czar's intentions were sincere, many Jews had sold their hut and land and left for Siberia. No sooner were they there than they were sent, on foot, to Kherson. The decree of the "little father" was executed in—no other phrase can describe it so well—Russian fashion. The innocent Jews who had come to Siberia by invitation were seized, treated as vagabonds, and deported to their destination. Want and suffering produced contagious diseases, and many became a burden to the Jews of Kremenchug and such Christians as could not witness unmoved the infernal comedy played by the defender of the Greek Catholic Church. Help could be rendered only secretly, and those who dared complain were severely punished.

At the same time that this was taking place in the wilderness of Siberia, a phenomenon of rare occurrence was to be witnessed in the very heart of the Jewish Pale, in Lithuania. Aroused by the wretched condition of his coreligionists, Solomon Posner (1780-1848) determined to erect cloth factories exclusively for Jews. He sent to Germany for experts to teach them the trade. These Jewish workingmen proved so industrious and intelligent that before the end of three years they surpassed their teachers in mechanical skill. But this attempt of Posner was only prefatory to the greater and more arduous task he set himself. It was nothing less than the establishment of a colony in which some of the most Utopian theories would be applied to actual life. Ten years after Robert Owen founded his communistic settlement at New Harmony, Indiana, several hundred robust Russian Jews settled on some of the thousands of acres in Lithuania that were lying fallow for want of tillers. With these farmers Posner hoped to realize his Utopia. He provided every family with sufficient land, the necessary agricultural implements, as well as with horses, cows, etc., free of charge, for a term of twenty-five years. In return, the members of the community pledged themselves to use simple homespun for their apparel, black on holidays, gray on week-days, not to indulge in the luxuries of city life, and to avoid trading of any sort. As time passed, Posner opened coeducational technical schools for the children and batte midrashim for adults, and soon the homesteads presented the appearance of progressive and flourishing farms. Posner's successful effort attracted the admiration of Prince Pashkevich, and was both a living protest against the accusation of Nicholas that Jews were unfit to be farmers and an eloquent plea for the unfortunate victims of a capricious tyrant in Siberia and Kherson.[38]

In his efforts to curb the stiff-necked Jews by all manner of fiendish persecution, Nicholas did not neglect to try the efficacy of some of the plans advocated by Lewis Way. Undismayed by the failure of the Committee of Guardians for Israelitish Christians, in which Alexander I had put so much confidence, a "Jewish Committee," all the members of which were Christians, was organized by imperial decree (May 22, 1825). This committee established, in 1829, a school at Warsaw where Christian divinity students were to be instructed in rabbinical literature and in Judeo-German, in order to be fully equipped for missionary work among the Jews. It appointed Abbe Luigi Chiarini to translate, or rather expose, the Babylonian Talmud, to which undertaking the Government contributed twelve thousand thalers.

To do his work thoroughly, the abbe deemed it advisable to write a preliminary dissertation, presenting his aim and views. This he did in his Theory of Judaism (Theorie du judaisme, Paris, 1830). He endeavored to show how worthless, injurious, and immoral were the teachings of the Talmud. Only by discarding them would the Jews qualify themselves to enjoy the right of citizenship. He proved, to his own satisfaction, that ritual murder was enjoined in the Talmud, and this he did at a time when many a community was harassed by this fiendish accusation. When early death cut short the abbe's effort (1832), the Government, still persisting in its plans, engaged the services of Ephraim Moses Pinner of Posen, who published specimens of his intended translation in his Compendium (Berlin, 1831). But the fickle or restless emperor seems to have tired of the plan, or perhaps he found Pinner too Jewish for his purposes. Of the twenty-eight volumes planned, only one, which was dedicated to Nicholas, appeared during the decade following Chiarini's death, and the work was abandoned entirely.[39]

The crusade against the Talmud, thus headed and backed by the Government, now broke out in all its fury. Anti-Talmudic works in English, French, and German were imported into Russia, translated into Hebrew, and scattered among the people. The Old Paths, by Alexander McCaul, a countryman and colleague of Lewis Way, but surpassing him in zeal for the conversion of Jews, was translated into Hebrew and German (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1839) for the edification of those who knew no English. Jews themselves, either out of revenge or because they sought to ingratiate themselves with the high authorities, joined the movement, and openly came out against the Talmud in works modelled after Eisenmenger's Entdecktes Judenthum. Such were Buchner, author of Worthlessness of the Talmud (Der Talmud in seiner Nichtigkeit, 2 vols., Warsaw, 1848), and Temkin, who wrote The Straight Road (Derek Selulah, St. Petersburg, 1835). The former was instructor in Hebrew and Holy Writ in the rabbinical seminary in Warsaw; the latter was a zealous convert to the Greek Catholic faith, who spared no effort to make Judaism disliked among his former coreligionists.

All these desperate attempts proved of no avail. Judaism was practiced, and the Talmud was studied during the reign of Nicholas I more ardently than ever before. Their sacred treasures attacked by the Government without and by renegades and detractors within, the Russian Jews nevertheless clung to them with a tenacity unparalleled even in their own history. Danzig's Life of Man (Hayye Adam, Vilna, 1810), containing all Jewish ritual ceremonies, was followed out to the least minutiae. Despite the poverty of the Jews and the comparatively exorbitant price the publisher had to charge for the Talmud, and, aside from the many sets of former editions in the country and those continually imported, and in addition to the Responsa, commentaries, Midrashim, and other works directly and indirectly bearing on it, more than a dozen editions of the Talmud had appeared in Russia alone since the ukase of Catherine II (October 30, 1795) permitting Russian Jews to publish Hebrew works in their own country. This ukase had been intended originally to exclude seditious literature from Russia, but what was unfavorable for the rebellious Poles proved, in a measure, very beneficial to the law-abiding Jews. Under the supervision of a censor, and with but slight interruptions, the Jews published their own books, and in 1806 Slavuta, in Volhynia, saw the first complete edition of the Talmud on Russian soil. Then followed another edition in the same place (1808-1813), a third in Kopys (1816-1828), and a fourth in Slavuta (1817-1822), and several others elsewhere.

The story of the Vilna-Grodno edition of the Talmud is interesting as well as illuminating. It depicts the relation of the Jews among themselves and to the Government. Begun in 1835, at Ozar, near Grodno, an imperial ukase directed the removal of the work to Vilna, the metropolis of Russo-Poland. When the publishers, Simhah Ziml and Menahem Mann Romm, had completed their work in the new quarters, the copies of the book were destroyed by incendiaries (1840). After some time, an effort was made by Joseph Eliasberg and Mattathias Strashun to continue the publication, but the Warsaw censor prohibited its importation into Poland, where the bulk of the subscribers lived. To add to the calamity, a feud broke out between the head of the Slavuta publishing company, Moses Schapira (1758-1838), and the Vilna publishers. The publication of the Talmud had always been supervised by the prominent rabbis of the land, and their authorization was necessary to make an edition legal. This the rabbi never granted unless the previous edition was entirely disposed of. The Slavuta publishers claimed that their edition had not been sold out when the Vilna publishers started theirs. The litigation continued for some time, and was finally decided in favor of the Vilna firm. The publishers of Slavuta, however, having the Polish rabbis and zaddikim on their side, continued to publish the Talmud, regardless of the protests of Rabbi Akiba Eger and the "great ones" of Lithuania. But a terrible misfortune befell the Slavuta publishers. On account of some accusation, the two brothers engaged in the business were deported to Siberia, and their father, the head of the establishment, died of a broken heart. This cleared the field for the Romms of Vilna, who continue to prosper to this day, and have now the greatest Hebrew publishing house in the world. "It is the finger of God," the pious ones said, and studied the Talmud with increased devotion.[40]

The numerous Talmud editions indicate the demand for the work, and the multiplicity of yeshibot explains the cause of the demand. We have seen how the yeshibot destroyed by Chmielnicki were re-established soon after the massacres ceased. Their number increased when the Hasidic movement threatened to render the knowledge of the Talmud unpopular; and when the Maskilim, too, made them a target for their attacks, there was hardly a town in which such institutions were not to be found. But surpassing all the yeshibot of the nineteenth century, if not of all centuries, was the Yeshibah Tree of Life (Yeshibat 'Ez Hayyim) in the townlet of Volozhin. There the cherished hopes of the Gaon were finally realized. Within its walls gathered the elect of the Russo-Jewish youth for almost a century.

The founder of this famous yeshibah was Rabbi Hayyim Volozhin, the greatest of the Gaon's disciples (1749-1821). A prominent Talmudist at twenty-five, he, nevertheless, left his business and household at that age, and went to Vilna to become the humble pupil of the Gaon, whose method he had followed from the beginning. When he felt himself proficient enough in his studies, he returned to his native place, and founded (1803) the Tree of Life College, with an enrollment of ten students, whom he maintained at his own expense. But soon the fame of the yeshibah and its founder spread far and wide, and students flocked to it from all corners of Russia and outside of it. In response to Rabbi Hayyim's appeal contributions came pouring in, a new and spacious school-house was erected, and Volozhin became a Talmudic Oxford. To be a student there was both an indication of superiority and a means to proficiency. Rabbi Hayyim did away with the "Tag-essen," or "Freitisch" custom, and introduced a stipendiary system in its stead, thus fostering the self-respect of the students. But they did not as a rule require much to satisfy them with their lot. They came to Volozhin "to learn," and they well knew the Talmudic statement, that "no one can attain eminence in the Torah unless he is willing to die for its sake."

Rabbi Hayyim was succeeded by his son Rabbi Isaac, who united knowledge of secular subjects with profound Talmudic erudition, was active in worldly affairs, and played a prominent part in the Jewish history of his day. He was of the leading spirits who, in 1842, attended the rabbinical conference at St. Petersburg convoked by Nicholas I. The number of students increased under his leadership, according to Lilienthal, to three hundred. But Rabbi Isaac became so engrossed in public affairs that he found he could no longer do justice to his position. His two sons-in-law, therefore, took his place, and when the older died, in 1854, Rabbi Naphtali Zebi Judah Berlin (1817-1893) entered on his useful career, unbroken for forty years, as the dean of the greatest seat of learning in the Diaspora. Under his administration the Tree of Life College reached both the height of its prosperity and the end of its existence (1892).[41]

Thus all the schemes and machinations of the Russian Government respecting the Jews proved ineffectual. Nicholas I, with the possible exception of Ivan the Terrible, the greatest autocrat in Russian history, at whose wish seemingly insuperable obstacles were instantly removed, the wink of whose eye was sufficient to kill or revive the millions of his crouching slaves—Nicholas I, with all his herculean strength, yet found himself helpless in the presence of a handful of wretched Jews. Furious at his defeat, he expressed the intention to reduce all Jews to Governmental servitude or to make them, like the Cossacks, lifelong soldiers. Being advised to postpone the execution of this plan and to employ less severe measures meanwhile, he issued the Exportation Law of 1843, ordering the expulsion of Jews from the fifty-vyerst boundary zone and from the villages within the Pale, thereby depriving fifty thousand families at once of their homes and their support.

Those from the country—writes a Russo-Jewish eye-witness of the scenes following the enforcement of this inhuman law—move first to the neighboring cities, and increase the existing poverty, rendering the difficulty of finding profitable employment still greater. God only knows how it will end when the congestion increases still further.... I must also inform you—he proceeds—that these past four months several imperial commissioners have visited the frontier towns on the Lithuanian border, from which the Jews are to be banished, in order that the value of the real estate may be estimated. But how is the valuation calculated? Even one who is acquainted with the venality and unscrupulousness of Russian officers cannot form a correct idea of how this business is conducted. If a man has no connection with those in authority, or cannot obtain powerful intercession, or is unable to give heavy bribes, his property is valued at perhaps five per cent, or is set at so low a figure as to make the appraisal differ little from downright robbery. We, however, are used to such measures, for when they banished us some time past from certain districts of the city of Brest-Litovsk, where for centuries celebrated scholars of our people dwelt, nothing better was done by the crown to compensate us for our houses.[42] The same occurred at the expulsion from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Nikolayev, Alexandrov, Sebastopol, etc., but as it did not affect so large a mass, nor injure us to so great an extent, we bore the injury silently. Alas, this is not the case at present. We should gladly quit the country, gladly should we emigrate to America, Texas, and especially to Palestine under English protection, if, on the one hand, we had the means and, on the other, the Government would permit us.[43]

This Exportation Law of Nicholas I, the result of a lawsuit between a Jew and a nobleman living on the eastern frontier, which had been decided by the supreme court in favor of the former, aroused much excitement in every civilized country of Europe. It was before anti-Semitism was in flower, and the people of the time were more responsive even than during the later Kishinev massacres. Indignation meetings were held. Both Jews and Gentiles, not only abroad, but even in Russia, protested. Prayers were offered for the unfortunate. Cremieux in France and Rabbi Philippson in Germany appealed to the public. All to no effect. Grief was especially manifest among English Jews, always the first to feel when their fellow-Jews in other countries suffer, and Grace Aguilar, like Rachel weeping over her children, lamented over her Russian brethren:

Ay, death! for such is exile—fearful doom, From homes expelled yet still to Poland chain'd; Till want and famine mind and life consume, And sorrow's poison'd chalice all is drained. O God, that this should be! that one frail man Hath power to crush a nation 'neath his ban.

At this critical period, Moses Montefiore, encouraged by his success in refuting the blood accusation at Damascus, and stimulated by the many petitions he had received from Russia, Germany, France, Italy, England, and America, undertook the philanthropic mission of interceding with the czar on behalf of his coreligionists. It is natural to suspect that no trouble is entirely undeserved; it is but human to sympathize with our friends, and yet regard their suffering as a judgment rather than a misfortune. But Montefiore's trip to Russia dispelled the last trace of suspicion against the Russian Jews. In spite of their poverty, he saw numerous charitable and educational institutions in every city he visited. He found the Jewish men to be the cream of Russia. "He had the satisfaction," Doctor Loewe, his secretary, tells us, "of seeing among them many well-educated wives, sons, and daughters; their dwellings were scrupulously clean, the furniture plain but suitable for the purpose, and the appearance of the family healthy." To all his pleadings Count Uvarov returned but a single answer: "The Russian Jews are different from other Jews; they are orthodox, and believe in the Talmud"[44]—a reason for persecution in Holy Russia!

Montefiore's visit to Russia, from which so much had been hoped, did not improve the situation in the least. For all his strenuous efforts, he was compelled to leave the Jews as destitute as he had found them. Nay, they might truthfully have said to the Moses of England what their ancestors had said to the Moses of Egypt, "Since thou didst come to Pharaoh, the hardness of our lot has increased." From the first of May (1844) they were not allowed to continue to earn the pittance necessary to maintain life, as, for instance, by the slavish labor of breaking stones on the highways, with which three hundred families had barely earned dry bread.[45] The great love and respect shown to the uncrowned king of Israel proved to the czar's officials the existence of some artful design on the part of the Jews, and convinced them especially of the disloyalty of Montefiore. The latter, they maintained, was scheming to set himself up as the Jewish czar. Hence every movement of his was closely watched, every word he uttered carefully noted, and not a few Jews were left with memorable tokens for doing homage to the English baronet. Their disabilities were not removed, their condition was not improved, the hopes they entertained resolved themselves into pleasant dreams followed by a sad awakening.[46]

Yet, though his visit did not, as Sir Moses had anticipated, "raise the Jews in the estimation of the people," it was not without beneficent effect on the Jews themselves. It cemented the "traditional friendship" which has always existed between Anglo-Jews and Russo-Jews more than between any sets of Jews of the dispersion. It disclosed to the latter that there were happier Jews and better countries than their own; that there were men who sympathized with them as effectively as could be. Above all, it convinced them that a Jew may be highly educated and wealthy, and take his place among the noble ones of the earth, and still remain a faithful Jew and a loyal son of his persecuted people. "I leave you," Sir Moses called to them at parting, "but my heart will ever remain with you. When my brethren suffer, I feel it painfully; when they have reason to weep, my eyes shed tears." Had Montefiore's visit resulted merely in arousing his brethren's self-consciousness, he had earned a place in the history of Haskalah, for self-consciousness is the most potent factor in the culture of mankind.

Jews from other lands also came to the rescue of their Russian coreligionists. Jacques Isaac Altaras, the ship-builder of Marseilles, petitioned the czar to allow forty thousand Jewish families to emigrate to Algeria. Rabbi Ludwig Philippson, editor of the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, appealed to his countrymen to help the Russian Jews to settle in America, Australia, Africa, anywhere away from Russia. But all attempts were ineffectual. Though Count Kissilyef assured Montefiore that the czar "did not wish to keep them [the Jews], five or six hundred thousand might leave altogether," emigration was next to impossible. Russia was constantly playing the game of the cat with the mouse. Her nails were set and her eyes fixed upon her prey, and yet she made it appear to the outside world that she was anxious about the welfare of the Jews. For Russian tactics have always been, and still are, the despair of the diplomat, a labyrinth through which only they who hold the clue can ever hope to find their way.

The condition of the Jews in Russo-Poland was, if possible, even worse than in Lithuania and Russia proper. Nothing, in fact, but the auto-da-fe was needed to give it the stamp of medieval Spain. As before the division of Poland, the Poles suspected the Jews of disloyalty to Poland, while the Russians suspected them of disloyalty to Russia. Hitherto too proud to soil his hand with a manual or mercantile pursuit, the Polish pan, now that the glory of his country had departed, and he was deprived of his lordly estates, began to engage in business of all kinds, and, finding in the Jewish trader a rival with whose skill and diligence he could seldom compete, he became embittered against the entire race. This was the cause of the innumerable restrictions, the extortion, and exploitation in Russo-Poland, which surpassed those of Russia proper.