CONFLICTS AND CONQUESTS
1840-1855
The charges brought against the Jews of Russia by henchmen of the czar
were grave, indeed, only they did not contain a particle of truth. In
Russia itself, not only Jews and non-Russians but even many Christians
testified to the innocence of the Jews, and protested against their
oppressors. Bibikov, the Governor-General of Podolia and Volhynia;
Diakov, the Governor-General of Smolensk; and Surovyetsky, the noted
statesman, all write in terms of such praise of their unfortunate
countrymen of the Jewish faith that their statements would sound
exaggerated, were it not that many other unprejudiced Russians confirm
their views.[1] The fact that Nicholas thought the Jews reliable as
soldiers speaks against the imputation that they were mercenary and
unpatriotic. Neither was the conventional accusation, that they were a
people of petty traders, applicable to the Jews in Russia. Laborers of
all kinds were very common among them. It was they, in fact, who
rendered all manner of service to their Gentile neighbors, from a
cobbler's and blacksmith's to producing the most exquisite _objets
d'art_ and gold and silver engraving. They were equally well represented
among the clerks and bookkeepers, and the bricklayers and stone-cutters.
They took up with the most laborious employments, if only they furnished
them with an honest even though scanty livelihood.[2]
But most unfounded of all was the allegation that Jews were opposed to
education. The _Memoirs_ of Madame Pauline Wengeroff indicate that even
among the very strict Jews of her time children were not denied
instruction in the German, Polish, and Russian literatures. We have seen
how they availed themselves of the permission, granted to them by
Alexander I, to attend the schools and universities of the empire. Nor
did they fail to open schools of their own. No sooner was the
Franco-Russian war over than Joseph Perl of Galicia founded a school in
Tarnopol (1813), then under the Russian Government, and two years later
he drew upon his own resources to build a school-house large enough to
accommodate the great, steadily growing number of students. In 1822 we
hear of a school that had been in existence for some time in Uman (the
Ukraine). It had been established by Meïr Horn, Moses Landau, and Hirsh
Hurwitz, all of whom were indefatigable laborers in the cause of
Haskalah in the Ukraine. Perl's school was the pattern and model for a
multitude of other schools, among them the one founded by Zittenfeld
(1826) in Odessa, in the faculty of which were Simhah Pinsker, Elijah
Finkel, the grandson of Elijah Gaon, and Abraham Abele, the eminent
Talmudist. In 1836 a girls' department was added to it, and when
Lilienthal visited Odessa (ab. 1843) it had an attendance of from four
to five hundred pupils of both sexes, the annual expense being
twenty-eight thousand rubles. A similar school was opened in Kishinev by
Stern, and in the early "forties" there was hardly a Jewish community of
note without one or more of such Jewish public institutions. Several
well-to-do Maskilim not only founded but, like Perl, also maintained
such schools, and gave instruction in some or all of the subjects taught
in them.[3]
The "forties" began auspiciously for Haskalah in Russia. On January 15,
1840, the Riga community, amid pomp and rejoicing, opened the first
Jewish school affiliated with a university. The teaching staff consisted
of three Jews and one Christian, with Doctor Max Lilienthal (1815-1882),
the young, highly recommended, and recently chosen local rabbi, as its
principal. In the same year, the indefatigable Basilius Stern succeeded
in forming a committee, of which Hayyim Efrusi and Moses Lichtenstadt
were members, to deliberate on founding rabbinical seminaries in Russia.
In 1841, forty-five delegates, representing the six chief committees of
the Lovers of Enlightenment, assembled in Vilna, and thence issued an
appeal in which they adopted as their platform the elevation of the
moral standards of adults by urging them to follow useful trades and
discouraging the Jewish proclivity to business as much as possible; a
reform of the prevailing system of the education of the young; the
combating, if possible the eradication, of Hasidism, the fountainhead,
as they thought, of ignorance and superstition; the establishment of
rabbinical seminaries, after the model of those in Padua and Amsterdam,
to supply congregations with educated rabbis. It was further agreed that
a Consistory be created, to supervise Jewish affairs and establish
schools and technical institutes wherever necessary. To these main
points were added several others of minor importance. The Maskilim of
Besascz insisted that steps be taken to stop the prevailing custom of
premature marriages. Those of Brest proposed that Government aid be
invoked to compel Jews to dress in the German style, to use authorized
text-books in the hadarim, and interdict the study of the Talmud except
by those preparing themselves for the rabbinate.[4]
Even in Vilna and Minsk, towns which later put themselves on record as
opposed to Government schools, the Jews yielded gladly to the
innovations of such Maskilim as S. Perl, G. Klaczke, I. Bompi, and the
distinguished philanthropist David Luria, who took the initiative in
transforming the educational system of these cities. Under the
superintendence of Luria, the Minsk Talmud Torah became a model
institution; the training conferred there on the poor and orphaned
surpassed that given to the children of the rich in their private
schools. This aroused jealousy in the parents of the latter, and at
their request Luria organized a merchants' school, for the wealthier
class. He then established what he called Midrash Ezrahim, or Citizens'
Institute, in which he met with such success that he attracted the
attention of the authorities, and received a special acknowledgment from
the czar.[5]
Russian Jewry was astir with new life. In many places secular education
was divorced for the first time from rabbinical speculation. Knowledge
became an end in itself, and learning increased greatly. An
investigation by Nicholas I convinced all who were interested that
though the Talmud remained the chief subject of study, the number of
educated Jews was far greater than commonly supposed. The upliftment of
the masses was the beau-ideal of every Maskil, and Hebrew and even the
much-despised Yiddish were employed to effect it. Ignorance was regarded
as the bane of life, and enlightenment as the panacea for all the ills
to which their downtrodden brethren were heirs. As their pious
coreligionists deemed it the universal duty to be well-versed in the
Talmud, so the Maskilim thought it incumbent upon everybody to be highly
cultured. No obstacle was great enough to discourage them. They were
willing martyrs to the goddess of Wisdom, at whose shrine they
worshipped, and whose cult they spread in the most adverse
circumstances.
Had the Government not interfered with the efforts of the Maskilim, or
had it chosen a commission from among the Russian Jews themselves, among
whom, as soon became evident to Nicholas himself, there were more than
enough to do justice to an educational inquiry, the Haskalah movement
would have continued to spread, notwithstanding the obstacles put in its
way. But Nicholas was determined to reduce the number of Jews also by
"re-educating" them in accordance with his own ideas. Every attempt made
by the Jews to educate themselves was, therefore, checked. Even the
noble efforts of Luria were stopped, his schools were closed, and his
only rewards were "a gold medal from the czar and a short poem by
Gottlober."
In Germany, since the time of Mendelssohn, the study of the Talmud had
been on the wane. The great yeshibot formerly existing in Metz,
Frankfort, Hamburg, Prague, Fiirth, Halberstadt, etc., disappeared, and
the reforms introduced in the synagogue and the numerous converts to
Christianity impressed the outside world with the idea that Judaism
among German Jews was writhing in the agony of death. If the same
disintegrating elements were introduced among the Russian Jews, the
Government believed that they would ultimately come over to the Greek
Catholic Church of their own accord. Hence it was anxious to learn the
secret of this power and beamed graciously on several learned Jews of
Germany.
David Friedländer (1750-1834) was then considered the legitimate
successor of Mendelssohn, whose friend he had been for more than twenty
years. He resembled his master in many respects, though he lacked both
his genius and his sympathy. Mendelssohn translated the Pentateuch and
the Psalms into German, Friedländer translated the Haftarot (selections
from the Prophets) and the prayer book. Mendelssohn encouraged the
publication of the Meassef; he did likewise, and contributed several
articles to the journal. But, unlike his master, or, as he claimed, like
his master in secret, he held exceedingly latitudinarian views on
Judaism. In his later years he advocated abolishing the study of Hebrew
in the schools and discarding it from the prayer book. He even rejoiced
that by attending the services in Protestant churches many Jewish
families were becoming acquainted with the religion he himself would
have accepted on certain conditions.[6]
It was to Friedländer that Bishop Malchevsky, actuated, as he
maintained, by a desire to render the Jews worthy of the enjoyment of
civil rights, applied for suggestions, in 1816, when the missionary zeal
of Alexander I was first aroused. He responded in a pamphlet, _On the
Improvement of the Israelites in the Kingdom of Poland_,[7] in which he
declared that the quickest way of "civilizing" the Jews would be to
deprive their rabbis of power and influence, to force them to dress in
the German fashion, and use the Polish language, to admit them to the
public schools and other educational institutions, and, above all, to
abrogate the laws discriminating between them and their Gentile
countrymen.
Friedländer's advice regarding the removal of civil disabilities was
never executed, but his other suggestions were followed out with more
vigor than was necessary or good. To do away with the rabbis, and
consequently with the Talmud, was just what was desired. It was partly
with this end in view that Alexander I permitted, that is, commanded,
the establishment of the rabbinical seminary in Warsaw. But when it was
found that, although the seminary students were provided with all
necessaries, and notwithstanding the decree that six years from the date
of its opening none but seminary graduates would be eligible to the
rabbinical office, few students availed themselves of the opportunity
afforded, and none obtained positions, the whole plan fell into
disfavor.[8] The Government, nevertheless, remained as stubbornly
determined as ever, and unable to turn all the children into Cantonists,
it decided to have those who remained at home gradually converted by
means of a method worked out by the Minister of Education, Uvarov. They
were forced to attend what became known as Government schools, though
maintained exclusively with Jewish funds. In order to win the confidence
of the Jews for the project, Doctor Lilienthal, whose speech at the
dedication of the Riga School secured him a diamond ring as a token of
the czar's approval, was sent from St. Petersburg on a mission of
investigation, more especially of persuasion.
For more than three years Lilienthal was one of the most popular
personages in Europe. The eyes of all who had the amelioration of the
lot of the Russian Jew at heart, it may be said the eyes of the
civilized world, were fixed upon him as an epoch-maker in the history of
the Jews. Nature had formed him, physically and mentally, to be a leader
among his people, and his training and temperament made it easy for him
to ingratiate himself into the favor of the great. It seemed that he was
just the man to be the successful executor of the czar's plan.
The Maskilim, above all, hailed him as the champion of the cause of
Haskalah. He was their Moses or Ezra, the God-sent redeemer of their
benighted brethren out of the quagmire of fanaticism. From various
cities numerous urgent appeals came to him to hasten the execution of
his great plan. Wherever he went, he was enthusiastically received, a
truly royal welcome was extended to him. The Vilna community
appropriated five thousand rubles for the school fund, and pledged
itself to raise more if it were found necessary; and he was invited also
to Minsk by the kahal of the city.
Unfortunately, Lilienthal's tactics exposed him to suspicion, and the
seed of discord was soon sown between him and his former admirers. He
tried to serve two masters, the czar and the Jews, and he alienated
both. The pious regarded him as a mere tool in the hands of the
Government, for, they maintained, _education without emancipation leads
to conversion_. The enlightened element also lost confidence in one who,
instead of boldly attacking superstition, preferred, while in Minsk, to
identify himself not only with the Mitnaggedim, but even with the
Hasidim. He was also too headstrong and too vain of his achievements.
Benjamin Mandelstamm, who, as he tell us in his letters, considered
Lilienthal "as wise as Solomon and as enterprising as Moses," complains
a little later of his arrogance, and at the last speaks of him with
contempt. His assumed superiority grieved the Maskilim, and their former
enthusiasm was rapidly replaced by hatred and persecution. He found it
necessary to put himself under the protection of the police while in
Minsk, and when he returned to Vilna his reception was far less hearty
than it had been before.
In order to regain the confidence of the Russian Jews, Lilienthal
obtained a permit from the Minister of Education to call an assembly of
prominent Jews at St. Petersburg, to decide for themselves how to better
the condition of the existing schools and to consider the practicability
of establishing rabbinical seminaries. For he, too, like the Maskilim,
considered the rabbis the chief menace to Haskalah. Rabbinical authority
was supreme, and if the rabbis could be won over, all would be gained.
The bell-wethers once secured, the flocks were sure to follow. It took a
long time for Lilienthal, and still longer for the Maskilim, to find out
that what they regarded as the cause was in reality the consequence.
Eight years later Lilienthal himself admitted the sad truth, that the
rabbinical seminaries in Russia could not effect the coveted end. "It
must not be lost sight of," says he in his _Sketches of Jewish Life in
Russia_[9] "that the Russian Jews live strictly in accordance with our
received laws, and they are sufficiently learned in them to know that
the many cases of conscience which are of constant occurrence cannot be
decided understandingly by any one who has but a superficial knowledge
of the Talmud and of the decisions of the later doctors of the Law, but
that it requires the study of an entire lifetime to become thoroughly
acquainted with those stupendous monuments of learning and deep research
in the great concerns of life."
[Illustration: ALEXANDER ZEDERBAUM, 1816-1893]
After several busy months at St. Petersburg and frequent consultations
with Count Uvarov, Lilienthal returned to Vilna, and two weeks later he
published his circular letter, _Maggid Yeshiiah_ (_The Announcer of Good
Tidings_)[10] The "good tidings" were that an imperial ukase (June 22,
1842) would convene a council of distinguished Jews at St. Petersburg,
to deliberate how to "re-educate" the Jews. Accordingly, in the early
part of April, 1843, the notables, from different places and with
diametrically opposed views, assembled in the Russian capital.
Representing the Jews, there were Rabbi Isaac Volozhin, the dean of the
Tree of Life Yeshibah, perhaps the strongest man present; Rabbi Menahem
Mendel Shneersohn of Lubavich, leader of the Hasidic reform sect; Joseph
Heilprin, the financier and banker of Berdichev, and Bezalel (Basilius)
Stern, principal of the Jewish public schools of Odessa. Representing
the Government were Count Uvarov, Chevalier Dukstaduchinsky, and others,
with de Vrochenko, Minister of State, as chairman and Lilienthal as
secretary. Montefiore of England, Crémieux of France, and Rabbi
Philippson of Germany had been invited, but they failed to come. The
council decided to open Jewish public schools in every city where Jews
reside, and also two rabbinical seminaries, the one in Vilna, the other
in Zhitomir, the former being considered the Jewish metropolis of the
northwestern part, the latter, of the southwestern part, of Russia. They
also proposed to do away with the Judeo-Polish garb, and suggested
certain alterations in the prayer book.
The delegates met, deliberated, and disbanded, but the tidings announced
in Lilienthal's epistle did not prove to be good. In one of the fables
of Kryloff, the Russian Æsop, we are told that once a swan, a pike, and
a crab, decided to make a trip together. No sooner had they started
than, in accordance with their nature, the swan began to fly, the pike
to shuffle along, the crab to crawl backward. It was so with the
delegation of 1843. Rabbi Isaac, the rabid Mitnagged, could find but
little to admire in the proposals of Rabbi Menahem Mendel, the ardent
Hasid, and both were bitterly opposed to the view preached by Doctor
Lilienthal, that the salvation of the Jews and Judaism would be brought
about by a system of education adopted in accordance with an ukase by
Nicholas. Stern, too, had little use for Lilienthal, whom he declared to
be ignorant of the condition of Russian Jews and incapable of working in
their behalf. From such discord nothing good could come. The fact is,
that the few resolutions mentioned had been drawn up beforehand by the
Government officials, and the time and trouble and expense which the
council involved were, _à la Russe_, for appearance sake. Finding his
efforts an utter failure, Lilienthal went to Odessa with letters of
recommendation from Uvarov to Vorontzov, the patron of Stern, and was
elected rabbi of that enlightened and wealthy community. But, for some
inexplicable reason, he suddenly left the city on the plea of visiting
friends in Germany, and went to the United States, where he remained to
the end of his life, and became one of the leading rabbis and communal
workers among his coreligionists whose lines had fallen in pleasanter
places than the fortunes of those he had left behind in Russia.[11]
For Lilienthal's disillusionment came apace, and he finally recognized
the error of his ways. In his book, _My Travels in Russia_, published
both in English and in German, he admits that the opponents of the
schools he advocated were after all in the right. Education without
emancipation was indeed the straightest road to conversion. Witness the
thirty thousand Jewish apostates in St. Petersburg and Moscow alone,
most of whom hailed from the Baltic provinces, where the Jews were more
cultured, but not less oppressed, than their brethren.
Those men--says he--who have acquired from study an idea of the
rights of man, and that the Jew ought to enjoy the same
privileges as every other citizen; those men who tried, by the
knowledge they had obtained, to open for themselves better
prospects in life, and now saw every hope frustrated by laws
inimical to them only as Jews, ran, from mere despair, into the
bosom of the Greek Church. The harassing care for a living, the
terrible difficulties in surmounting them forced them, in an
hour of distress, to deny their faith. I always compared them
with the Anusim [forced converts] of Spain. Among them there is
no religious indifference, as is the case in Western Europe and
Germany; and I have met with many converted Jews there, who,
with tears in their eyes, complained of heart-burnings and pangs
of conscience; and they look upon themselves as eternally lost.
Those tears will show a heavy balance against Czar Nicholas,
when, bereft of his earthly power, he stands before the eternal
tribunal.
The other charge--he says again after refuting several
accusations of the kind stated above--the other charge, that the
Jews are averse to secular studies, rests upon an equally
erroneous foundation. For even in Germany Jewish parents have at
length found out that it is absolute folly to let their sons
devote themselves to the study of science, since they never can
hope for obtaining the least office; and since many a one, after
the best years of his youth are passed, tired of waiting, and
fearful of not having in his old age any means of support, finds
in the baptismal font the last anchor of his shattered hopes.
How much more must this consideration have weight in Russia?
Nicholas, instead of encouraging the Jews to study, ordered, on
the contrary, that all such of them as held offices and insignia
of distinction under Alexander should either resign or become
apostates. I know myself several collegiate councillors and men
attached to the court, who went to the synagogue on the Day of
Atonement with the insignia of the order of St. Anna around
their neck, and prayed there with devotion and fervor, who still
were forced into apostasy. Such instances are not calculated to
encourage Jewish parents to let their children study; and it is
but too true that many whose inclination led them to study were
carried thereby into the bosom of the Christian Church.[12]
After almost half a decade of indefatigable labor, Lilienthal finally
came to understand the Russian State policy, "to assign a plausible
reason for every act done by the Government, in order to stand justified
in the estimation of Europe, whilst they, by throwing dust in the eyes
of the public, conceal their true purpose." The laws which seemed
favorable to the Jews, and apparently aimed at promoting culture among
them, went hand in hand with laws of the most rigorous character. It is
true that the Jews were not the only unfortunates whom the fanatic
autocrat wished to Russify, that is, compel to see the pure light of
Greek Orthodoxy. But they, of course, suffered the most. The slightest
laws were enforced by the chinovniks (officials) with the knout and the
leaden lash. When the Judeo-Polish gaberdine, the long side-curls
(peot), and the wig or turban (knup) fell into disfavor with the
Government, the miserable offender caught by an officer seldom saved
himself with the mere sacrifice of knup, coat, peot, and beard. And when
the time arrived for the execution of the more important laws, such as
the Exportation Act of April 20, 1843, no fiendish ingenuity could
surpass the cruelty of the Cossacks. This ukase more than any other, it
is claimed, embittered Lilienthal against Russia, and caused him to flee
to where he could say as one awakening from a nightmare: "The horrible
hatred against the Jews in Russia is nothing more to me than a hazy
remembrance. My soul is no longer oppressed by frightful pictures of
tyranny and persecution."[13] He was in the land of the free!
The Lilienthal tragedy thus came to a premature close. The hero
disappeared at the beginning of the play. He had the potency, but he
lacked the conditions, for producing great results. His German birth and
training, the very qualities which recommended him to the Government,
operated against him when he came to deal with Russian Jews. Yet he
succeeded in giving a strong impetus to the Haskalah movement, and
builded better than he knew. The statement in his address at the
dedication of the Riga school,[14] "This hour we may call the hour of
the renaissance of the mental education of Israel," which reads like an
oratorical platitude, was not entirely visionary. The real history of
Haskalah in Russia commences with Lilienthal.
Time helped greatly to restore, even to deepen, the affection of the
Maskilim for Lilienthal. A modern critic speaking of "life and
literature" in Hebrew, pictures him in glowing colors, and finishes his
description thus:
I have presented to you, reader, a man of deep culture, known
and respected in the highest circles, and yet inseparably
connected with his race and religion, and ready to offer his
life for their welfare; a man who worked with might and main for
others at the sacrifice of his own comfort and advancement; an
orator whose exalted phrases shattered the pillars and
foundations of ignorance and superstition; a hero who in time of
peril was proof against the arrows and missiles of the enemy,
and who did not relax his hand from the flag. But what was the
fruit he reaped? Mostly ingratitude and persecution, a heart
lacerated with despair, a soul writhing under the pangs of
frustrated hopes. Such a personality with its fine shades, and
with the poetry of the artist superimposed, would afford
splendid material for the hero of a novel--a hero to captivate
the eye and heart of the reader by his nobility and
grandeur.[15]
For a long time Russian officialdom discussed the question, whether the
establishment of exclusively Jewish schools would prove beneficial, but
nobody doubted the efficacy of rabbinical seminaries. Yet it was these
latter institutions that evoked the strongest protests from the Jews.
The advocates of Haskalah gradually came to recognize the truth, which
Lilienthal admitted afterwards, that for a Russian rabbi a thorough
knowledge of the Talmud was absolutely indispensable. But it was with
the object of discouraging such knowledge that the seminaries had been
suggested by Uvarov, and it was this study that was almost entirely
ignored in them. What congregation, many of whose members were profound
Talmudists, would accept a rabbi to whom unvocalized Hebrew was a snare
and a stumbling-block? Moreover, the whole atmosphere of the seminaries
was Christian, nay, military. Not a few members of their faculties or
boards of governors were discharged police officers or superannuated
soldiers, and at the head of the seminary in Vilna, the metropolis of
Russian Jewry, stood an apostate Jew! They became, as it were,
infirmaries of the bureaucracy, where, at the expense of the Jews, it
could stow away anyone who had proved a failure or was no longer useful.
The Government also undertook to provide the graduates with positions,
patronage which rendered the students insolently independent of their
coreligionists, and encouraged some of them to indulge in a _modus
vivendi_ distasteful to their future flocks. The graduates, therefore,
proved failures as rabbis, and the Government was forced to provide for
them by appointing them as teachers.[16]
If this was the case with the rabbinical seminaries, we can easily
imagine the state of the subordinate schools. The Christian principals
were coarse and uneducated as a rule, and did their best to prejudice
the children against their religion. Scattered all over the Pale were to
be found Jews competent to fill positions not only as teachers in
inferior grades but as professors in the universities. Yet Lilienthal
was advised (1841) to advertise for three hundred teachers in Germany.
Finally the Government decided to employ Jews as teachers of Hebrew
only, the least important subject in the curriculum; for instruction in
the secular branches none but Christians were eligible. No Jews were
allowed to become rectors in their own schools, and their salaries were
so small that they could not support themselves without teaching an
additional class, which was prohibited. A Jew might, indeed, become an
"honorable overseer" (pochotny blyustityel), to mediate between pupils
and parents, but the title was the only pay attached to the office.
Respectable parents, therefore, kept their children at home, or rather
in the heder, and many a child's name was on the roll of attendance who
was not even aware of the existence of the school. "Every year in the
autumn," relates a writer a quarter of a century later, "there was a
kind of compulsory recruiting of Jewish children for the Government
school, accompanied sometimes by struggles between the victims and their
enemies,--scenes without a parallel, in some respects, in the civilized
world. I remember how poor mothers and sisters wept with despair when
some boy of the family was carried off or enlisted by the officers to be
a pupil of a Government school." Like the poimaniki, the poor and the
orphaned were compelled, or induced, to fill the class-rooms shunned by
the rich and respectable, and though the Government not only condemned
the ancient Hebrew institutions, but declared the twenty thousand
teachers who imparted instruction in them to be outlaws and criminals,
the melammedim pursued their vocation as ever, and the hadarim, Talmud
Torahs, yeshibot, and batte midrashim swarmed with students of the
prohibited learning.[17]
Nicholas was paid measure for measure, and the cunning of his ministers
was made of no avail by the shrewdness of his Jewish subjects. The
report of the Minister of Education, at the end of 1845, shows
incredible progress. It states that since the ukase of November 13,
1844, i.e. in the course of a single year, more than two thousand
schools of different grades were established in various cities of the
Pale, with more than one hundred and eighty thousand pupils, not
including the technical schools in Odessa, Riga, Kishinev, Vilna, and
Uman, with their hundreds of students! The truth was that, instead of
the reported Russification, there had set in a vigorous reaction, which
rendered the position more critical. Both sides had become
desperate.[18] Some Maskilim, emboldened by the interest the Government
evinced in their efforts, had resorted to all manner of means to
accomplish their object, and frequently allied themselves with the
oppressors. The Slavuta publishing house, it is claimed, was closed, and
the Schapiras met with their tragic end, because "as printers they
scrupulously abstained from publishing Haskalah literature." Maskilim
were employed by the authorities as tax collectors, and these, as is
ever the case with rapacious farmers of taxes, besides executing the
harsh laws of the tyrant, looked also to their own aggrandizement, and
harassed their pious coreligionists in all ways conceivable. Many of
them even hindered the colonization movement, because, if allowed to
mature, it would deprive them of their income.[19] In addition to this,
the Jews were now burdened, through the instrumentality of the Maskilim,
with a tax on the candles lighted on Sabbath eve, yielding annually over
one million rubles, the greater part of which went into the coffers of
greedy officials. Another tax, also for the maintenance of the
newly-organized Government schools, was levied--one kopeck and a half
per page!--on text-books, whether imported from abroad or published in
Vilna or Zhitomir, and the text-books were published with unnecessarily
large type and wide margins to increase the number of pages. The
abridgment and translation of Maimuni's _Mishneh Torah_ (St. Petersburg,
1851), superintended by Leon Mandelstamm, cost the Russian Jews tens of
thousands of rubles, notwithstanding the expenditure of two or three
millions on their own educational institutions, and at a time when every
kopeck was needed for the support of the host of victims of fire,
famine, and cholera, which ravaged many a city. Hence the reaction
became more and more formidable. The cry grew louder and louder, _Znaty
nye znayem, shkolles nye zhelayem!_ ("We want no schools!"). The
opposition, which began in the latter years of Alexander I, reached its
culmination in the last decade of the reign of Nicholas I. "Israel,"
laments Mandelstamm, "seems to be even worse than formerly; he is like a
sick person who has convalesced only to relapse, and the physicians are
beginning to despair." It was a struggle not unlike that all over Europe
at the beginning of the Renaissance, a struggle between liberty and
authority, between this world and other-worldliness, between the spirit
of the nineteenth century and that of the millenniums which preceded it.
Here is a description, by Morgulis, of the struggles and conquests of
the new, small, but zealous, group of Maskilim in Russia at about that
time:[20]
Those upon whom the sun of civilization and freedom happened to
cast a ray of light, showing them the path leading to a new
life, were compelled to study the European literatures and
sciences in garrets, in cellars, in any nook where they felt
themselves secure from interference. Neither unaffiliated Jews
nor the outer world knew anything about them. Like rebels they
kept their secrets unto themselves, stealthily assembling from
time to time, to consider how they might realize their ideal,
and disclose to their brethren the fountainhead of the living
waters out of which they drank and drew new youth and life.
Whatever was novel was accepted with delight. They looked with
envy upon the great intellectual progress of their western
brethren. Fain would they have had their Jewish countrymen
recognize the times and their requirements, but they could not
give free utterance to their thoughts. On the contrary, they
found it expedient to assume the mask of religion in order to
escape the suspicion of alert zealots, and gain, if possible,
new recruits. In many places societies were founded under the
name of Lovers of the New Haskalah, the members of which
observed such secrecy that even their kinsmen and those among
whom they dwelt were unaware of their existence. If through the
discovery of some forbidden book any of them happened to be
detected, he never betrayed his friends. Such a one was usually
compelled to marry, so that, being burdened with family cares,
he might desist from his unpopular pursuits.
From which it would appear that though the opposition to Haskalah in
Russia was by no means as violent as had been the opposition to
enlightenment in France, for instance, or even among the Jews of Germany
and Austria,[21] it was a bitter and stubborn conflict between parents
and children in the adjustment of old ideals to a new environment.
Aside from the hindrances which Haskalah encountered because of
Nicholas's conversionist policy, it was greatly hampered by the
geographical distribution of the Jews. Here again the czar defeated his
own end by segregating the three or four million of his Jewish subjects
in certain districts, technically called the Pale, the greatest ghetto
the world has ever known. It was a Judea in itself. The Jews there
seldom came in contact with outside civilization. The languages they
used were Hebrew as the literary tongue, Yiddish among themselves, and
the local Slavonic dialect with their non-Jewish neighbors. Russian was
strange, not only to the great majority of Jews, but to the Russians
themselves. It was merely the State language, and even the Government
officials fell back on their mother tongue whenever they were at liberty
to do so. It was this that made it very difficult for the Jews to be
Russified.
But even if Russification had been a much easier process, Russian
civilization was hardly worth the having.[22] To become Russified would
have meant not only religious but also intellectual suicide. Whatever
was good in the Russia of that day was an importation. The language was
scarcely beyond the barbarous state. Its literature possessed neither
original nor adopted writings, no profound philosophical systems, no
Rousseau or Goethe, no Franklin or Kant, not even any practical
information with which to reward the student. The best writers were
Kryloff, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, and Dyerzhavin. The prices of books were so
high as to make them unattainable. Karamzin's _History of the Russian
Empire_ sold at fifty-five rubles per copy. The royal library, which had
been founded by the Jewish court physician Sanchez, contained only eight
Russian books during the reign of Alexander I, and not many more were
added by his successor. The dramatic art developed by the Jewish
playwright Nebakhovich remained for a long time in the same state as
when he ceased his work.[23] If Russia was the most powerful, it
continued to be the most fanatical and uncivilized country in Europe.
All who had occasion to visit and study it during the first half of the
nineteenth century testify to its deplorable intellectual status.
According to a very ingenious and observing writer, quoted by Buckle in
his _History of Civilization_, it consisted of but two ranks, the
highest and the lowest, or the nobility and the serfs: _Les marchands,
qui formaient une classe moyenne, sont en si petit nombre qu'il ne
peuvent marquer dans l'état; d'ailleurs presque tous sont étrangers_.
The higher classes were distinguished for "a total absence of all
rational tastes on literary topics."
Here [in Russia]--the same writer continues--it is absolutely
_mauvais genre_ to discuss a rational subject--pure _pédanterie_
to be caught upon any topics beyond dressing, dancing, and a
_jolie tournure_. Military prowess is ranked far above scholarly
attainment, and a man in a uniform, no matter how depraved,
takes precedence of one in plain clothes, whatever his
achievements. All the energies of the nation are turned towards
the army. Commerce, the law, and the civil employments are held
in no esteem; all young men of any consideration betake
themselves to the profession of arms. Nothing astonished them
more than to see the estimation in which the civil professions,
and especially the bar, are held in Great Britain.[24]
How different was the position of the Jews in other countries,
especially in Germany! Culture streamed upon them from all sides. As
their numbers were small, and as they lived, in most cases, in the
larger cities of the empire, their contact with the Christian world was
immediate and continuous. And then the irresistible fascination of
German literature, and the easy, almost imperceptible transition from
the Judeo-German to the Teutonic-German! All this and many minor
allurements were potent enough to draw even the heretofore callous
German Jews out of their isolation, and their Germanization by the
middle of the nineteenth century was an established fact. No wonder,
then, that, unlike Russian Jewry, the German Jews experienced an
unprecedented revolution; that the difference between the Mendelssohnian
generation and the next following was almost as great as that between
the modern American Jew and his brother in the Orient. No wonder, also,
that when Haskalah finally took root in Russia, it was purely German for
fifty years and more; that Nicholas's vigorous attempts, instead of
making the Slavonic Jews better Russians, merely helped to make those he
"re-educated" greater admirers of Germany. The most puissant autocrat of
Russia unwittingly contributed to the downfall of Russian autocracy, and
Gregori Peretz, the Dekabrist, son of the financier who became converted
under Alexander I, was the first of those who were to endeavor, with
book and bomb, to break the backbone of tyranny under Nicholas II.[25]
Till about the "sixties," then, the Russo-Jewish Maskilim were the
recipients, and the German Jews were the donors. The German Jews wrote,
the Russian Jews read. Germany was to the Jewish world, during the early
Haskalah movement, what France, according to Guizot, was to Europe
during the Renaissance: both received an impetus from the outside in the
form of raw ideas, and modified them to suit their environment. Berlin
was still, as it had been during the days of Mendelssohn and Wessely,
the sanctuary of learning, the citadel of culture. In the highly
cultivated German literature they found treasures of wisdom and science.
The poetical gems of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, and Herder captivated
their fancy; the philosophy of Kant and Fichte, Schelling and Hegel
nourished their intellect. Kant continued to be the favorite guide of
Maimon's countrymen, and in their love for him they interpreted the
initials of his name to mean "For my soul panteth after thee."[26]
But more efficacious than all other agencies was Mendelssohn's German
translation of the Bible, and the _Biur_ commentary published therewith.
Renaissance and Reformation, those mighty, revolutionary forces, have
entered every country by side-doors, so to say. The Jewish Pale was no
exception to the rule. What Wycliffe's translation did for England, and
Luther's for Germany, Mendelssohn's did for Russian Jewry. Like the
Septuagint, it marked a new epoch in the history of Jewish advancement.
It is said that Mendelssohn's aim was chiefly to show the grandeur of
the Hebrew poetry found in the Bible, but by the irony of fate his
translation displayed to the Russian Jew the beauty and elegance of the
German language. To the member of the Lovers of the New Haskalah,
surreptitiously studying the Bible of the "Dessauer," the Hebrew was
rather a translation of, or commentary on, the German, and served him as
a bridge to cross over into the otherwise hardly accessible field of
German literature.
The cities on the borders of Russia were the first strongholds of
Haskalah, and among them, as noted before, few struggled so intensely
for their intellectual and civil emancipation as those in the provinces
of Courland and Livonia. Though their lot was not better than that of
their coreligionists, yet, having formerly belonged to Germany, and
being surrounded by a people whose culture was superior to that of the
rest of Russia, they were the first to adopt western customs, and were
surpassed only by the Jews in Germany in their desire for reform. Their
strenuous pleadings for equal rights were, indeed, ineffectual, but this
did not lessen their admiration for the beauties of civilization, nor
blind them to its benefits. "Long ago," remarks Lilienthal, "before the
peculiar Jewish dress was prohibited, a great many could be seen here
[in Courland] dressed after the German fashion, speaking pure German,
and having their whole household arranged after the German custom. The
works of Mendelssohn were not _trefah pasul_ [unclean and unfit], the
children visited the public schools, the academies, and the
universities."[27]
The beautiful city of Odessa, on the Black Sea, at that time just out of
its infancy and full of the virility and aspiration of youth, was also
in the full glare of the German Haskalah movement. With its wide and
straight streets, its public and private parks, and its magnificent
structures, it presents even to-day a marked contrast to other Russian
cities, and the Russians, not without pride, speak of it as "our little
Paris." In the upbuilding of this southern metropolis Jews played an
exceedingly important part. For, as regards the promotion of trade and
commerce, Russia had outgrown the narrow policy of Elizabeta Petrovna,
and did not begrudge her Jews the privilege of taking the lead. The
"enemies of Christ" were permitted, even invited, to accomplish their
"mission" also in Odessa, and thither they accordingly came, not only
from Volhynia, Podolia, and Lithuania, but also from Germany, Austria,
and especially Galicia. Erter, Letteris, Krochmal, Perl, Rapoport,
Eichenbaum, Pinsker, and Werbel became better known in Russia than in
their own land. As the Russo-Polish Jews had carried their Talmudic
learning back to the countries whence they originally received it, so
the Galician Jews, mostly hailing from the city of Brody, where Israel
Zamoscz, Mendel Levin, Joseph Hakohen, and others had implanted the
germs of Haskalah, now reimported it into Russia. The Jews of Odessa
were, therefore, more cultured than other Russian Jews, not excepting
those of Riga. Prosperous in business, they lavished money on their
schools, and their educational system surpassed all others in the
empire. In 1826 they had the best public school for boys, in 1835 a
similar one for girls, and in 1852 there existed fifty-nine public
schools, eleven boarding schools, and four day schools. The children
attended the Richelieu Lyceum and the "gymnasia" in larger proportion
than children of other denominations, and they were among the first, not
only in Russia, but in the whole Diaspora, to establish a
"choir-synagogue" (1840). "In most of the families," says Lilienthal,
"can be found a degree of refinement which may easily bear comparison
with the best French salon." Even Nicholas I found words of praise for
the Odessa Jews. "Yes," said he, "in Odessa I have also seen Jews, but
they were men"; while the zaddik "Rabbi Yisrolze" declared that he saw
"the flames of Gehennah round Odessa."[28]
Warsaw, too, was a beneficiary of Germany, having been occupied by the
Prussians before it fell to the lot of the Russians. It was there that
practically the first Jewish weekly journals were published in Yiddish
and Polish, Der Beobachter an der Weichsel, and Dostrzegacz Nadvisyansky
(1823). There was opened the first so-called rabbinical seminary, with
Anton Eisenbaum as principal, and Cylkov, Buchner, and Kramsztyk as
teachers. The public schools were largely attended, owing to the efforts
of Mattathias Rosen, and a year after a reformed synagogue had been
organized in Odessa another was founded in Warsaw, where sermons were
preached in German by Abraham Meïr Goldschmidt.
But Riga on the Baltic, Odessa on the Black Sea, and Warsaw on the
Vistula were outdone by some cities in the interior. Haskalah lovers
multiplied rapidly, and were found in the early "forties" in every city
of any size in the Pale. "The further we go from Pinsk to Kletzk and
Nieszvicz," writes a correspondent in the Annalen,[29] "the more we lose
sight of the fanatics, and the greater grows the number of the
enlightened." With the establishment of the rabbinical seminaries in
Zhitomir (1848), this former centre of Hasidism became the nursery of
Haskalah. The movement was especially strong in Vilna, the "Jerusalem of
Lithuania," as Napoleon is said to have called it. From time immemorial,
long before the Gaon's day, it had been famous for its Talmudic
scholars. "Its yeshibot," says Jacob Emden in the middle of the
eighteenth century, "were closed neither by day nor by night; many
scholars came home from the bet ha-midrash but once a week. They
surpassed their brethren in Poland and in Germany in learning and
knowledge, and it was regarded of much consequence to secure a rabbi
from Vilna." Now this "city and mother in Israel" became one of the
pioneers of Haskalah, all the more because, in addition to the public
schools and the rabbinical seminary, the Jews were admitted to its
university on equal terms with the Gentiles. "Within six years,"
exclaims Mandelstamm, "what a change has come over Vilna! Youths and
maidens, anxious for the new Haskalah, are now to be met with
everywhere, nor are any ashamed to learn a trade." The schools exerted a
salutary influence on the younger generation, and the older people, too,
began to view life differently, only that they were still reluctant to
discard their old-fashioned garb. There also, in 1847, the leading
Maskilim started a reform synagogue, which they named Taharat ha-Kodesh,
the Essence of Holiness.[30]
It should not be forgotten that, if Lilienthal met with mighty
opposition, he also had powerful supporters. There were many who, though
remaining in the background, strongly sympathized with his plan. Indeed,
the number of educated Jews, as proved by an investigation ordered by
Nicholas I, was far greater than had been commonly supposed. Not only in
the border towns, but even in the interior of the Pale, the students of
German literature and secular science were not few, and Doctor Loewe
discovered in Hebron an exceptional German scholar in the person of an
immigrant from Vilna.[31] The tendency of the time is well illustrated
by an anecdote told by Slonimsky, to the effect that when he went to ask
the approval of Rabbi Abele of Zaslava on his _Mosde Hokmah_, he found
that those who came to be examined for ordination received their award
without delay, while he was put off from week to week. Ill at ease,
Slonimsky approached the venerable rabbi and demanded an explanation:
"You grant a semikah [rabbinical diploma] so readily, why do you seem so
reluctant when a mere haskamah [recommendation] is the matter at issue?"
To his surprise the reason given was that the rabbi enjoyed his
scientific debates so much that he would not willingly part with the
young author.
Stories were told how the deans of the yeshibot were frequently found to
have mastered the very books they confiscated because of the teachings
they inculcated. Before the reign of Nicholas I drew to its end,
Haskalah centres were as numerous as the cities wherein Jews resided. In
Byelostok the Talmudist Jehiel Michael Zabludovsky was lending German
books to young Slonimsky, the future inventor and publicist; in
Vlotslavek Rabbi Joseph Hayyim Caro was writing and preaching in classic
German; in Zhagory, Hayyim Sack helped Leon Mandelstamm (1809-1889), the
first Jewish "candidate," or bachelor, in philology to graduate from the
St. Petersburg University (1844) and the assistant and successor of
Lilienthal, in the expurgation and German translation of Maimuni's
_Mishneh Torah_. When, in 1857, Mandelstamm resigned, he was followed by
Seiberling, for fifteen years the censor of Jewish books in Kiev, upon
whom a German university conferred the doctor's degree. The
poverty-stricken Wolf Adelsohn, known as the Hebrew Diogenes, formed a
group of Seekers after Light in Dubno, while such wealthy merchants as
Abraham Rathaus, Lilienthal's secretary during his campaign in
Berdichev, Issachar Bompi, the bibliophile in Minsk, Leon Rosenthal,
financier and philanthropist in Brest-Litovsk, and Aaron Rabinovich, in
Kobelyaki (Poltava), promoted enlightenment by precept and example. In
Vilna, Joseph Sackheim's young son acted as English interpreter when
Montefiore was entertained by his father, and Jacob Barit, the
incomparable "Yankele Kovner" (1793-1833) another of Montefiore's
hosts, was master of Russian, German, and French, and aroused the
admiration of the Governor-General Nazimov by his learning and his
ability.
Yes, the Jews began to pay, if they had ever been in debt, for the good
that had for a while been bestowed upon them by Alexander I. Alexander
Nebakhovich was a well-known theatrical director, his brother Michael
was the editor of the first Russian comic paper Yeralash, and Osip
Rabinovich showed marked ability in serious journalism. In 1842 died
Abraham Jacob Stern, the greatest inventor Russia had till then
produced; and, as if to corroborate the statement of the Talmud, that
when one sun sets another rises, the Demidoff prize of two thousand five
hundred rubles was the same year awarded to his son-in-law, Hayyim Selig
Slonimsky (HaZas, 1810-1904) of Byelostok, for the first of his valuable
inventions. Stern's genius was surpassed, though in a different
direction, only by that of Elijah Vilna. His first invention was a
calculating machine, which led to his election as a member of the Warsaw
Society of the Friends of Science (1817) and to his being received twice
by Alexander I (1816, 1818), who bestowed upon him an annual pension of
three hundred and fifty rubles. This invention was followed by another,
"a topographical wagon for the measurement of level surfaces, an
invention of great benefit to both civil and military engineers." He
also constructed an improved threshing and harvesting machine and a
sickle of immense value to agriculture.[32]
But it is scarcely possible, nor would it be profitable, to enumerate
either the places or the persons who were, so to speak, inoculated with
the Haskalah virus. In Grodno, Kovno, Lodz, Minsk, Mohilev, Pinsk,
Zamoscz, Slutsk, Vitebsk, Zhagory, and other places, they were toiling
zealously and diligently, these anchorites in the desert of knowledge.
Among them were men of all classes and callings, from the cloistered
Talmudist to the worldly merchant. The path of Haskalah was slowly yet
surely cleared. The efforts of the conservative Maskilim were not devoid
of some good results, nor even were those of Nicholas, though aimed at
Christianizing rather than civilizing, entirely wasted. With all their
shortcomings, and though producing but few rabbis acceptable to
Russo-Jewish congregations, the seminaries in Warsaw, Zhitomir, and
Vilna were powers for enlightenment. In them the future prominent
scientists, scholars, and litterateurs were reared, and there the
foundations were laid for the activities of Goldfaden, Gurland, Harkavy,
Kantor, Landau, Levanda, Mandelkern, Paperna, Pumpyansky, Rosenberg,
Steinberg, and others. Their fate was that of Mendelssohn's Bible
translation. The end became a means, the means, an end. But they not
only "brought forth" great men, they rendered no less important a
service in "bringing out" those already great. Had it not been for their
professorships, men like Abramovitsch, Lerner, Plungian, Slonimsky,
Suchastover, and Zweifel, who were not blessed with worldly goods like
Fünn, Katzenellenbogen, Luria, or Strashun, would probably have sought
in private teaching or petty trading a source of subsistence, and
Judaism in general and Russian Jewry in particular would have sustained
a considerable loss. They helped to prepare the soil, even to implant
the germ, and
Once the germ implanted,
Its growth, if slow, is sure.
As the history of this period is incomplete without an acquaintance with
the lives of some of the Maskilim who sowed the seeds that burst into
blossom under the favorable conditions of the "sixties," I shall select,
as specimens out of a multitude, the two who, more than any others,
furthered the cause of Haskalah, Isaac Bär Levinsohn and Mordecai Aaron
Günzburg.[33]
Isaac Bär Levinsohn of Kremenetz, Volhynia (RiBaL, 1788-1860), was for
many years a name to conjure with, not only among the Maskilim of all
shades, but also among their opponents. Long before he reached man's
estate, he had entered upon the career to which he was to dedicate his
life. Even in those times of numerous child prodigies, Levinsohn was
distinguished for his intellectual precocity. At the age of three he was
ripe for the heder. At nine he was the author of a work on Cabbala. At
ten he mastered the Talmud, and knew the entire Hebrew Bible by heart.
But what singled him out among his classmates was his passionate love of
secular knowledge. The son of Judah Levin, an erudite merchant who knew
Hebrew and Polish to perfection, the grandson of Jekuthiel Solomon,
famed for wealth and refinement, he evinced unusual ability in selecting
and retaining what was good and true in everything he read. At fourteen
he was familiar with the literatures of several nations, so that during
the Franco-Russian war (1812) he easily secured an appointment as
interpreter and secretary in the local police department. But excessive
study caused ill-health, and at the suggestion of his physicians he went
to Brody in Galicia, a fortunate incident in the otherwise solitary and
gloomy life of the future reformer, for next to Germany Galicia played
an important part in the Haskalah movement in Russia. There he met
Joseph Perl, the noted educator; Doctor Isaac Erter, the immortal
satirist; M.H. Letteris, the distinguished poet; S.L. Rapoport, one of
the first and profoundest of Jewish historians, and Nahman Krochmal, the
saintly philosopher. Into this circle of "shining ones" Levinsohn was
introduced, and each and all left an impression, some greater, some
less, upon his plastic soul. It was there and then, in the congenial
company of friends of about his own age, that Levinsohn determined to
devote himself to improving the educational system of his people and
began to plan his work on _Learning in Israel_ (_Te'udah be-Yisraël_),
which procured for its author the foremost place in the history of the
Haskalah movement.
The book was finished in 1823, but, owing to Levinsohn's pecuniary
circumstances, it remained unpublished till 1828. Meanwhile it
circulated in manuscript among the leading Maskilim of Russia, Austria,
and Germany, and established its author's reputation wherever it was
read. Levinsohn was one of those who understand the persuasive power of
the still small voice of sweet reasonableness. He knew that a few
convincing arguments couched in gentle language will accomplish more for
the furtherance of an ideal than the trumpet call of a hundred clamoring
militants, and Haskalah will make headway only when it can prove itself
to be a help, and not a hindrance, to religion. Accordingly, he aimed to
show that the Tanaim, Amoraim, Saboraim, Geonim, and rabbis of later
generations were versed in the sciences, were familiar with foreign
history, and interested in the affairs of the world. But these he quotes
only as exemplars of broad-mindedness, they must no longer be regarded
as authorities in secular knowledge. "Art and science," he says, "are
steadily progressing.... To perfect ourselves in them we must resort to
non-Jewish sources." This was a bold statement for those times, however
mildly expressed. The _Te'udah_ became a bone of contention. It was torn
and burnt by fanatics, exalted to the skies by friends. The new apostle
of enlightenment was forced to leave the city and reside for a while in
Berdichev, Nemirov, Ostrog, and Tulchin. But wherever he went, his
tribulation was sweetened by the enthusiasm of his admirers and the
consciousness that his toil was not entirely wasted. In Warsaw and in
Vilna his name was great, and Nicholas presented him with a thousand
rubles as a mark of appreciation of the book, the fly-leaf of which
bears the inscription "To science."
In the midst of his more serious studies Levinsohn diverted himself
occasionally with lighter composition, in which many an antiquated
custom served as the butt for his biting satire. In his youth he had a
penchant for poetry, and his poem on the flight, or expulsion, of the
French from Russia was complimented by the Government. His muse dealt
with ephemeral themes, but his _bons mots_ are current among his
countrymen to this day. A novel sort of plagiarism was the fashion of
the time. Authors attributed their work to others, instead of claiming
the product of others as their own. Levinsohn's _Hefker Welt_, in
Yiddish, and _Sayings of the Saints_ and _Valley of the Dead_, in
Hebrew, belong to this category. But the deep student did not persist
long in this species of diversion. Wittgenstein, the field-marshal, and
professors at the Lyceum of his town, supplied him with books, and he,
an omnivorous reader, plunged again into his graver work, the result of
which was the little book since translated into English, Russian, and
German, _Efes Dammim_ (_No Blood!_). As the name indicates, it was
intended as a defence against the blood, or ritual murder, accusation.
It was the right word in the right time and place. In Zaslav, Volhynia,
this monstrous libel had been revived, and popular fury rose to a high
pitch. Several years later the Damascus Affair stirred the Jewish world
to determined action, designed to stamp it out once for all. To wage war
against this superstitious belief seems to have fallen to the lot of
several of Levinsohn's family. In 1757, when it asserted itself in
Yampoly, Volhynia, his great-uncle, by the unanimous consent of the
Council of the Four Countries, was sent to Rome to intercede with the
Pope. After six years of pleading, he returned to his native land with a
signed statement addressed to the Polish king and nobles, which declared
the accusation to be utterly false. Another uncle of his had performed a
similar task in 1749. True scion of a noble family, Levinsohn followed
in their wake, and his effort was declared to be a "sharp sword forged
by a master, to fight for our honor."
Everything was against Levinsohn when he started on his third great
work, _The House of Judah_ (_Bet Yehudah_). He found himself poor, sick,
and alone, and deprived of his fine library. In those days, and for a
long time before and afterwards, Hebrew authors were paid in kind. In
return for their copyright they received a number of copies of their
books, which they were at liberty to dispose of as best they could. Now,
while Levinsohn's copies of his _Bet Yehudah_ were still at the
publisher's, a fire broke out, and most of them were consumed.
The _Te'udah be-Yisraël_ had been prompted by a desire to prove the
compatibility of modern civilization with Judaism. Levinsohn's object in
writing his _Bet Yehudah_ was the reverse. The impetus came from without
the Jewish camp. The book represents the author's views on certain
Jewish problems propounded by his Christian friend, Prince Emanuel
Lieven, just as Mendelssohn's _Jerusalem_ was written at the instigation
of Lavater. Though there is a similarity in the causes that produced the
two books, there is a marked difference in their methods. Mendelssohn
treats his subject as an impartial non-Jewish philosopher might have
done. He is frequently too reserved, for fear of offending. Levinsohn,
in Greek-Catholic Russia, is strictly frank. He is conscious of the
difficulties under which he is laboring. To discuss religion in Russia
is far from agreeable. "It is," he says, "as if a master, pretending to
exhibit his skill in racing, were to enter into competition publicly
with his slave ... and at the same time wink at him to slacken his
speed." Of one thing he is certain: Judaism is a progressive religion.
It had been and might be reformed from time to time, but this can and
must be only along the lines of its own genius. To improve the moral and
material condition of the Jews by weaning them away from the faith of
their fathers (as was tried by Nicholas) will not do. On the contrary,
make them better Jews, and they will be better citizens.
The _Bet Yehudah_ may justly be called the connecting link between the
_Te'udah_, which preceded it, and _Zerubbabel_, which followed it. The
latter, though written in Hebrew, was really intended exclusively for
the Gentile world, as the former had been mainly for the Jewish world.
It is a continuation, but not yet a conclusion, of the self-assigned
task of Levinsohn. The Talmud, we have seen, was at that time the object
of assaults of zealous Christians and disloyal Jews, and hostile works
against Judaism were the order of the day. Most of them, however, like
the fabulous snake, vented their poison and died. It was different with
McCaul's poignant diatribe against the cause of Judaism and the honor of
the Talmud, which had been translated into many languages. Montefiore,
while in Russia, urged Levinsohn to defend his people against their
traducers, and the bed-ridden sage, almost blind and hardly able to hold
a pen, finally consented. What _Zerubbabel_ accomplished, can be judged
from the fact that in the second Hebrew edition of McCaul's _Old Paths_
(1876) are omitted many of the calumnies and aspersions of the first
edition, published in 1839.
Levinsohn's life was a continuous struggle against an insidious disease,
which kept him confined to his bed, and prevented him from accepting any
prominent position. But though, as he said, he had "neither brother,
wife, child, nor even a sound body," he impressed his personality upon
Russian Jewry as no one else, save the Gaon, had before him. His breadth
of view and his sympathetic disposition gradually won him the respect
and love of all who knew him. The zaddikim Abraham of Turisk and Israel
Rasiner were his lifelong friends; the Talmudist Strashun acknowledged
his indebtedness to him, and Rabbi Abele of Vilna remarked jestingly
that the only fault to be found with the _Te'udah_ was that its author
was not the Gaon Elijah. He enjoyed prominence in Government circles,
and Prince Wittgenstein was passionately fond of his company. Above all
he endeared himself to the Maskilim. To him they looked as to their
teacher and guide; him they consulted in every emergency. Lebensohn and
Gottlober, Mandelstamm and Gordon, equally sought his criticism and
advice. For all he had words of comfort and encouragement. The younger
Maskilim he warned not to waste their time in idle versification, not to
become intoxicated with their little learning; and the older ones he
implored to respect the sentiments of their conservative coreligionists.
"Take it not amiss," he would say to the latter, "that the great bulk of
our people hearken not as yet to our new teachings. All beginnings are
difficult. The drop cannot become a deluge instantaneously. Persevere in
your laudable ambition, publish your good and readable books, and the
result, though slow, is sure."
Thus lived and labored the first of the Maskilim, an idealist from
beginning to end. Persecution did not embitter, nor poverty depress him.
And when he passed away quietly (February 12, 1860) in the obscure
little town in which he had been born, and which has become famous
through him, it was felt that Russia had had her Mendelssohn, too.
Strange to say, he little suspected the tremendous influence he exerted
upon the Haskalah movement, but was quite sanguine of the success of his
fight for "truth and justice among the nations." His work he modestly
summed up in the epitaph which was inscribed on his tombstone at his
request:
Out of nothing God called me to life.
Alas, earthly life has passed, and I must
Sleep again on the bosom of Mother Nature.
Witness this stone. I fought with God's
Foes, not with a Sword, but with the Word;
I fought for Truth and Justice among the Nations
And _Zerubbabel_ and _Efes Dammim_ testify thereto.
Contemporaneous with Isaac Bär Levinsohn, and hardly less distinguished
and influential, was Mordecai Aaron Günzburg (ReMAG, Salanti, Kovno,
December 3, 1795--Vilna, November 5, 1846). His family had been
prominent in many walks of life since the fourteenth century, and,
whether in the land of the Saxons or of the Slavs, represented the cream
of the Jewries in which they lived. His father was a Maskil of great
repute, who had written several treatises, in Hebrew, on algebra,
geometry, optics, and kindred subjects. He sought to supplement his son
Mordecai Aaron's heder education with a knowledge of secular sciences.
But at that time and in that place not many were the books, outside the
Talmud, accessible to a lad eager for learning, the only ones available
being such as the _Josippon_, _Zemah David_, and _Sheërit Yisraël_ on
Jewish History, the _Sefer ha-Berit_, and a Hebrew translation of
Mendelssohn's _Phaedon_ on general philosophy. But the precocious and
clear-minded youth did not need much to stimulate his love for history
and his inclination to philosophy, and his intellectual development
continued in spite of the untoward circumstances in which he happened to
be placed.
Though he was "given" in marriage at a very early age, the proverbial
"millstone" weighed but lightly upon the neck of young Günzburg. He
never discontinued the habit of secluding himself in his study for
hours, sometimes for days, at a time, and there writing down his
thoughts in painstaking penmanship. These productions, with all their
crudity, promised, according to a keen critic, the flowers which would
one day "ripen into delicious fruit, not only pleasant to the sight but
also delicious to the taste." In fact, even his religious views
underwent but slight modification in later and maturer years. Ceremonial
laws, or minhagim, were to him a social compact among the members of a
sect. He who transgresses them is, _eo ipso_, excluded from the sect, as
he who disregards the social code, though not immoral, is ostracized
from society. This led him to the logical conclusion that every Jew must
comply with the customs of his people, though his opinion as to their
moral value may differ from that of the rest. He believed in freedom of
thought, but would not concede freedom of action or even of expression,
and would say with Bolingbroke, "Freedom belongs to a man as a rational
creature, he lies under the restraint as a member of society."
At these conclusions, Günzburg arrived only after a long, severe, though
silent, struggle in the seclusion of his closet. His active mind would
not at first surrender unconditionally to the coercion of custom. But
his conception of ceremonialism served him in good stead on many an
occasion in his eventful life. Being an expedient to preserve harmony,
it may and must vary with change of conditions. Accordingly, Günzburg
always accommodated himself to his environment. In Vilna he subscribed
to the regulations of the _Shulhan 'Aruk_, in Mitau he quickly and
completely became Germanized. Such adaptability rendered him conspicuous
wherever he went, and as early as 1829 his name was included among the
learned of Livonia, Esthland, and Courland in the Biographical
Dictionary then published by Recke and Napyersky.
His claim to fame, however, consists in the influence he exerted upon
Russian Jews. Like Levinsohn, he was a constructive force. In his
younger days, he had inveighed against the benighted rabbis and the
antiquated garb, but moderation came with discretion. He would not sweep
away by force the accumulation of hundreds of years. Judaism needed
reforms of some sort, but these could not be brought about by the
Russo-German-doctor-rabbis, men who could rede the seven riddles of the
world, but whose knowledge of their own people and its spiritual
treasures was close to the zero point. "For a rabbi," writes he, "Torah
must be the integer, science the cipher. Had Aristotle embraced Judaism,
notwithstanding his unparalleled erudition, he would still remain a
sage, never become a rabbi." But he was as little satisfied with the
exclusively Talmudistic rabbis. "O ye modern rabbis," he calls out in
one of his essays, in which he stigmatizes Lilienthal's plans as the
"gourd of Jonah," "you who stand in the place of seer and prophet of
yore, is it not your duty to rise above the people, to intervene between
them and the Government? And how can you expect to accomplish it, if the
language and regulations of our country are entirely unknown to you?"
The impress Günzburg left upon Hebrew literature is of special
importance. Until his time, despite the examples set by Satanov and
Levin, Hebrew was stamped with the hallmark of medievalism. Like the
Spanish entertainment in Dryden's _Mock Astrologer_, at which everything
at the table tasted of nothing but red pepper, so the literature of that
day was dominated by the style and spirit of the Talmud and saturated
with its subtleties. Astronomy, philosophy, mathematics, and poetry
swarmed with puns, alliterations, pedantic allusions; they were
overladen with irrelevant notes and interwoven with quaint and strained
interpretations. Günzburg was the first, with the exception of Erter
perhaps, to try to remedy the evil. "Every writer," he maintained,
"should guard himself against the fastidiousness or stiffness which
results from pedantry, and take great pains not only with the content of
his thoughts, but with the language in which these thoughts are
couched." Simplicity, perspicuity, and conciseness, these he taught by
precept and example, and though he was accused of "Germanizing" the
Hebrew language, he persisted in his labor until he attained the
foremost rank among the neo-Hebraic litterateurs.
In Günzburg we find the artistic temperament developed to a degree rare
among Hebraists of even more recent years. He wrote only in moments of
inspiration. At times he passed weeks and months without penning a line,
but when once aroused he wrote unceasingly until he finished what he had
begun. He was careful in the choice of his words, careful in the choice
of his books, and would recommend nothing but the best. "I may not have
genius enough," he would say, "to distinguish between better and best,
but I do not lack common sense, to differentiate tares from weeds."
Above all, he possessed a sense of honor, the greatest stimulus, as he
maintained, to noble endeavors. "For as marriage is necessary to
perpetuate the race, and food to sustain the individual, so is honor to
the existence of the superior man."
Of the fifty years of his active life more than one-half was spent in
literary labor. His books obtained a wide circulation, and, though they
were rather expensive, became rare soon after their publication. Yet,
strange to say, this eminent Hebraist seldom, if ever, lauds the
beauties of the "daughter of Eber" (Hebrew) like his fellow-Maskilim
since the days of the Meassefim, nor does he even think it incumbent on
a Jew to be conversant with it.
Three periods have passed over me--he writes to a friend--since
I dedicated myself to Hebrew. As a youth I loved it as a Jewish
lad loves his betrothed, not because he is enamored of her
charms, but because his parents have chosen her for him; as I
grew older, I continued to love it as a Jewish man loves his
wife, not because of real affection, but because she is the only
one he knows; now that I am old, I still love her, as an elderly
Jew loves his helpmate: he is aware that she lacks many of the
accomplishments of which more educated women can boast, but, for
all that, remembering her faithfulness in the past, he loves her
also in the present, and loves her till he dies.
Günzburg was different from most of his contemporaries in another
respect. He was a voluminous writer, but only a few of his books and
essays bear on what we now call Jewish science. Zunz, Geiger, and Jost,
seeing that Judaism was gradually losing its hold upon their Jewish
countrymen, resorted to exploring and narrating, in German, the
wonderful story of their race, in the hope of renewing its ebbing
strength. Levinsohn, living amid a different environment, deemed it best
to convince his fellow-Jews that secular knowledge was necessary, and
religion sanctioned their pursuit thereof. Günzburg, the man of letters,
determined to teach through the vehicle of Hebrew the true and the
beautiful wherever he found it. He felt called upon to reveal to his
brethren the grandeur of the world beyond the dingy ghetto, to tell them
the stories not contained in the Midrash, _Josippon_, or the biographies
of rabbis and zaddikim. He translated Campe's _Discovery of the New
World_, compiled a history of ancient civilization, and narrated the
epochal event of the nineteenth century, the conflict between Russia and
France. He taught his fellow-Jews to think correctly and logically, to
clothe their thoughts in beautiful expressions, and revealed his
innermost being to them in his autobiography, _Abi'ezer_. As a writer he
appears neither erudite nor profound. We cannot apply to his works what
we may safely say of Elijah Vilna's and Levinsohn's, that "there is
solid metal enough in them to fit out whole circulating libraries, were
it beaten into the usual filigree." But he was elegant, cultured,
intelligent, honorable; one who joined a feeling heart to a love for
art; a Moses who struck from the rock of the Hebrew tongue refreshing
streams for those thirsting for knowledge; a most amiable personality,
and an altogether unusual character during the century-long struggle
between light and darkness in the Jewry of Russia.
[Illustration: PEREZ BEN MOSHEH SMOLENSKIN, 1842-1885]
(Notes, pp. 318-322.)