THE EMANCIPATION MOVEMENT
THE REALISTS
The accession of Alexander II to the throne marks a decisive moment in
the history of the Russian empire. The fresh impetus that proceeded from
the generous and liberal ideas encouraged by the Czar himself reached
the ghetto. Substantial improvements in the political situation of the
Jews the empire and the easier access to the liberal professions granted
them, the abolition of the old order of military service and the
suppression of the Kahal--these, joined to the expectation of an early
civil emancipation, stirred the Jewish humanists profoundly. Startled
out of their age-long dreams, the Jews with a modern education found
themselves suddenly face to face with reality, and engaged in a struggle
with the exigencies of modern life. In justice to them it must be said
that they realized at once where their duty lay, and they were not found
wanting.
They ranged themselves on the side of the reform government, and with
all their strength they tried to neutralize the resistance with which
the conservative Jews met the reforms, projected or achieved. They were
particularly active in the regions remote from the large cities, which
had hardly been touched by the new currents. Early in the struggle, the
creation of a Hebrew press placed an effective instrument in the hands
of the defenders of the new order.
The interest aroused among the Jews by the Crimean War suggested the
idea of a political and literary journal in Hebrew to Eliezer Lipman
Silberman. It was called _Ha-Maggid_ ("The Herald"), and the first
issue appeared in 1856, in the little Prussian town of Lyck, situated on
the Russo-Polish frontier. It was successful beyond expectation. The
enthusiasm of the readers at sight of the periodical published in the
holy language expressed itself in dithyrambic eulogies and a vast number
of odes that filled its columns. The influence it exercised was great.
It formed a meeting-place for the educated Jews of all countries and all
shades of opinion. Besides news bearing on politics and literature, and
philological essays, and poems more or less bombastic, _Ha-Maggid_
published a number of original articles of great value. Its issues
formed the link between the old masters, Rapoport and Luzzatto, and
young Russian writers like Gordon and Lilienblum.
The learned French Orientalist Joseph Halévy, later the author of an
interesting collection of Hebrew poems, used _Ha-Maggid_ for the
promulgation of his bold ideas on the revival of Hebrew, and its
practical adjustment to modern notions and needs by means of the
invention of new terms. In part, his propositions have been realized in
our own days. To Rabbi Hirsch Kalisher and the editor, David Gordon, as
the first promoters of the Zionist idea, _Ha-Maggid_ gave the
opportunity, as early as 1860, of urging its practical realization, and
due to their propaganda the first society was formed for the
colonization of Palestine.
This pioneer venture in the field of Hebrew journalism stimulated many
others. Hebrew newspapers sprang up in all countries, varying in their
tendencies according to their surroundings and the opinions of their
editors. In Galicia especially, where there was no absurd censorship to
manacle thought, Hebrew journals were published in abundance. In
Palestine, in Austria, at one time in Paris even, periodicals were
founded, and they created a public opinion as well as readers. But it
was above all in Russia, in the measure in which the censorship was
relaxed, that the Hebrew press became eventually a popular tribunal in
the true sense of the word, with a steady army of readers at its back.
Samuel Joseph Finn, an historian and a philologist of merit, published a
review at Wilna, called _Ha-Karmel_ (1860-1880), which was devoted
to the Science of Judaism in particular.
Hayyim Selig Slonimski, the renowned mathematician, founded his journal
_Ha-Zefirah_ ("The Morningstar") in 1872. It was issued first in
Berlin and later in Warsaw. He himself wrote a large number of articles
in it, in his chosen field as popularizer of the natural sciences.
In Galicia, Joseph Kohen-Zedek published _Ha-Mebasser_ ("The
Messenger") and _Ha-Nesher_ ("The Eagle"), and Baruch Werber,
_Ha-'Ibri_ ("The Hebrew").
By far outstripping all these in importance was the first Hebrew journal
that appeared in Russia, _Ha-Meliz_ ("The Interpreter"), founded at
Odessa in 1860, by Alexander Zederbaum, one of the most faithful
champions of humanism. _Ha-Meliz_ became the principal organ of the
movement for emancipation, and the spokesman of the Jewish reformers.
The Hebrew press with all its shortcomings, and in spite of its meagre
resources, which prevented it from securing regular, paid contributors,
and left it at the mercy of an irresponsible set of amateurs, yet
exercised considerable influence upon the Jews of Russia. [Footnote:
Sometimes ten readers clubbed together for one subscription.]
Unremittingly it busied itself with the spread of civilization,
knowledge, and Hebrew literature.
In the large centres, especially in the more recently established
communities in the south of Russia, the intellectual emancipation of the
Jews was an accomplished fact at an early day. The young people streamed
to the schools, and applied themselves voluntarily to manual trades. The
professional schools and the Rabbinical seminaries established by the
government robbed the _Hedarim_ and the _Yeshibot_ of
thousands of students. The Russian language, hitherto neglected, began
to dispute the first place with the jargon and even the Hebrew. Wherever
the breath of economic and political reforms had penetrated,
emancipation made its way, and without encountering serious opposition
on the part of traditional Judaism.
Wilna, the capital of Lithuania, sorely tried by the Polish insurrection
of 1863, and intentionally excluded by the government from the benefits
of all administrative and political reforms, did not continue to be the
centre of the new life of the Russian Jews, as it had been of their old
life. The "Lithuanian Jerusalem" had put aside its sceptre, and it lay
down for a long sleep, with dreams of the Haskalah, "twin-sister of
faith". As Wilna has since that time witnessed no excesses of
fanaticism, so also it has not known an intense life, the acrid
opposition between Haskalah and religion. It remained the capital of the
moderate, traditional attitude and religious opportunism.
By way of compensation, the small country towns and the Talmudic centres
in Lithuania put up a stubborn resistance to the new reforms. The poor
literary folk stranded in out-of-the-way corners far removed from
civilization were treated as pernicious heretics. Nothing could stop the
fanatics in their persecution, and they had recourse to the extremest
expedients. Made to believe that the reformers harbored designs against
the fundamental principles of Judaism, the people, deluded and erring,
thought the obscurantists right and applauded them, while they rose up
against the modernizers as one man.
The opposition between humanism and the religious fanatics degenerated
into a remorseless struggle. The early Haskalah, the gentle, celestial
daughter of dreamers, was a thing of the past. The educated classes,
conscious of the support of the authorities and of the public opinion
prevailing in the centres of enlightenment, became aggressive, and made
a bold attack upon the course and ways of the traditionalists. They
displayed openly, with bluntest realism, all the evils that were
corroding the system of their antagonists. They followed the example of
the Russian realistic literature of their day, in exposing, branding,
scourging, and chastising whatever is old and antiquated, whatever
mutinies against the modern spirit. Such is the character of the
realistic literature succeeding the epoch of the romanticists.
The signal was again given by Abraham Mapu, in his novel descriptive of
the manners of the small town, '_Ayit Zabua_' ("The Hypocrite"), of
which the early volumes appeared about the year 1860, at Wilna. In view
of the growing insolence of the fanatics, and the urgency of the reforms
projected by the government, the master of Hebrew romance decided to
abandon the poetic heights to which his dreams had been soaring. He
threw himself into the scrimmage, adding the weight of his authority to
the efforts of those who were carrying on the combat with the
obscurantists. Even in his historical romances, especially in the second
of them, he had permitted his hatred against the hypocrites of the
ghetto, disguised in the skin of the false prophet Zimri and his
emulators, to make itself plainly visible. Now he unmasked them in full
view of all, and without regard for the feelings of the other party.
"The Hypocrite" is an ambitious novel in five parts. All the types of
ghetto fanatics are portrayed with the crudest realism. The most
prominent figure is Rabbi Zadok, canting, unmannerly, lewd, an
unscrupulous criminal, covering his malpractices with the mantle of
piety. He is the prototype of all the Tartufes of the ghetto, who play
upon the ignorance and credulity of the people. His chief follower,
Gadiel, is a blind fanatic, an implacable persecutor of all who do not
share his opinions, the enemy of Hebrew literature, embittering the life
of any who venture to read a modern publication. Devoted adherent of the
Haskalah as he was, Mapu was not sparing of paint in blackening these
enemies of culture.
Around his central figure a large number of characters are grouped, each
personifying a type peculiar to the Lithuanian province. The darkest
portrait is that of Gaal, the ignorant upstart who rules the whole
community, and makes common cause with Rabbi Zadok and his followers.
The venality of the officials gives the heartless _parvenu_ free
scope for his arbitrary misdeeds, and without let or hindrance he
persecutes all who are suspected of modernizing tendencies. He is
enveloped in an atmosphere of crime and terror. Mapu was guilty of
overdrawing his characters; he exceeded the limits of truth. On the
other hand, he grows more indulgent and more veracious when he describes
the life of the humbler denizens of the ghetto.
Jerahmeel, the _Batlan_, is a finished product. The _Batlan_
is a species unknown outside of the ghetto. In a sense, he is the
bohemian in Jewry. His distinguishing traits are his oddity and farcical
ways. Not that he is an ignoramus--far from that. In many instances he
is an erudite Talmudist, but his simplicity, his absent-mindedness, his
lack of all practical sense, incapacitate him from undertaking anything,
of whatever nature it may be. He is a parasite, and by reason of mere
inertia he becomes attached to the enemies of progress.
The _Shadhan_, the influential matrimonial agent lacking in no
Jewish community, is painted true to life. Spiteful, cunning, witty,
even learned, he excels in the art of bringing together the eligibles of
the two sexes and unravelling intricate situations.
The most sympathetic figure in the whole novel is the honest burgher.
Mapu has given us the idealization of the large class of humble
tradesmen who have been well grounded in the Talmud, who are endowed
with an open heart for every generous feeling, and whose good common
sense and profoundly moral character the congested condition of the
ghetto has not succeeded in perverting.
All these figures represent real individuals, living and acting. Mapu
has without a doubt exaggerated reality, and frequently to the detriment
of truth. Nevertheless they remain veracious types.
On the other hand, he has not succeeded so well in the creation of the
Maskilim type. The new generation, the enlightened friends of culture,
are puppets without life, without personality, who speak and move only
for the purpose of glorifying the "Divine Haskalah".
Mapu's conception of Jewish life can be summed up in two phrases:
_enlightened_, hence good, just, generous; _fanatic_, hence
wicked, hypocritical, lewd, cowardly.
If the novel on account of its treatment of the subject has some claims
upon the description realistic, it has none by reason of its form. "The
Hypocrite" suffers from all the defects of Mapu's historical romances,
which, in the work under consideration, take on a graver aspect. The
style of Isaiah and poetic flights do not comport well with a modern
subject and a modern environment. Herein, again, Mapu's example became
pernicious for his successors.
When the novel is in full swing, there occurs a series of letters
written by one of the heroes from Palestine. The enthusiasm of the
author for the Holy Land cannot deny itself, and this unexpected Zionist
note, in a purely modern work, reveals his soul as it really is, the
soul of a great dreamer.
It was after the appearance of Mapu's "Hypocrite", in the year 1867,
that Abraham Bär Lebensohn published, at Wilna, his drama "Truth and
Faith", written twenty years before, in which, also, the Tartufe of the
ghetto plays a great part.
At about the same time a young writer, Solomon Jacob Abramowitsch,
issued his realistic novel _Ha-Abot weha-Banim_ ("Fathers and
Sons", Zhitomir, 1868). Abramowitsch had already acquired some fame by a
natural history (_Toledot ha-Teba'_) in four volumes, in which he
taxed his ingenuity to create a complete nomenclature for zoology in
Hebrew. His novel is a failure. The subject is the antagonism between
religious fathers and emancipated sons, and the action takes place in
Hasidic surroundings. There is nothing to betray the future master, the
delicate satirist, the admirable painter of manners. Abramowitsch then
turned away from Hebrew for a while, and made the literary fortune of
the Jewish-German jargon by writing his tales of Jewish life in it, but
about ten years ago he re-entered the ranks of the writers of Hebrew,
and became one of the most original authors handling the sacred
language. What distinguishes Abramowitsch from his contemporaries is his
style. He was among the first to introduce the diction of the Talmud and
the Midrash into modern Hebrew. The result is a picturesque idiom, to
which the Talmudic expressions give its peculiar charm. Though it
continues essentially Biblical, the new element in it puts it into
perfect accord with the spirit and the environment it is called upon to
depict. It lends itself marvellously well to the description of the life
and manners of the Jews of Wolhynia, the province which forms the
background of his novels.
All these creators of a Hebrew realism were outstripped by the poet
Gordon, who expresses the whole of his agitated epoch in his own person
alone.
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