The Haskalah Movement in Russia Part 15

"But here happened what usually occurs after a long fast. The wiser partook of food with discretion. They selected the ingredients which were wholesome, and which their system could digest. All unripe, objectionable food they rejected; their main object was to select the food which the Jewish system could a.s.similate. The governing principle was to unite Jewish learning with the new culture. They knew that among the new delicacies there were many that were injurious and unhealthy, though the defects were disguised by alluring spices; but those who had not lost the innate, unerring Jewish scent found no difficulty in distinguishing that which was sound from the injurious, and they remain strong and faithful Jews to this day.

"Others, and they formed the greater part of the Russian Jews, seized things as they came. Nay, the more dangerous the delicacy, the more the relish with which it was devoured. And these delicacies were gorged at such a rate as to cause const.i.tutional disorder. They who were a little wiser somehow shook off the objectionable matter, and became 'whole'

again; and a great number 'died,' and a still greater number are dangerously 'sick' to this very day.

"The sick among our Russian brethren, those who partook in dangerous quant.i.ties of the unwholesome delicacies, believed that they would solve all difficulties by 'Russification,' that is, by abandoning the old Jewish culture and adopting Russian mannerisms and customs--by ceasing to lead Jewish lives and by leading the lives of Russians. A great number of Jewish literary men of those times believed that if the Russian Jews would become 'Russified,' and would adopt modern civilization, they would receive full and equal rights, on the same terms as the other nationalities. These literary men were dazzled by the little liberty Alexander II granted the Russian Jews, and they did not understand that he pursued the same object as his father, Nicholas I. In the days of Alexander II, many more Jews were converted to Christianity than in the bitter days of Nicholas I; and many who were not converted remained but caricatures of real Jews.

"The so-called 'Jewish Aristocracy' in Russia, and especially the wealthy Jews of North Russia, of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kharkov, Russified at top speed. They removed from their homes and their home-life anything that was in the least degree Jewish. They shattered all that for thousands of years had been holy and dear to the Jew. Like apes they imitated the manners and customs of the Christians. The younger children did not even know that they were descended from Jews, as was the case in the first 'pogroms,' when the children asked their parents: 'Why do they beat us? Are we, too, Jews (Razve vy tozhe Yevrey)?'"]

[Footnote 28: For a full biography see Brainin, Perez ben Mosheh Smolenskin, Warsaw, 1896; Keneset Yisrael, i. 249-286; Ha-Shiloah, i.

82-92, and his works, especially Ha-Toeh be-Darke ha-Hayyim, Vienna, 1876.]

CHAPTER VI

THE AWAKENING

1881-1905

(pp. 268-303)

[Footnote 1: Most of this is based on Persecution of the Jews in Russia, Philadelphia, 1891, pp. 8-18, 22, 35, 51-82, 184-185; Frederick, The New Exodus, London, 1892, pp. 192-208; Errera, Les juifs russes, Brussels, 1893, pp. 29, 43 f., 89-90, 188-189. Between 1883 and 1885, the Mining Inst.i.tute and Engineering Inst.i.tute for Public Roads adopted the five per cent limit, the Kharkov Technical Inst.i.tute a ten per cent limit, and the Veterinary Inst.i.tute, of the same city, the only one of the sort in Russia, excluded Jews altogether.

"My zemlyakes" (countrymen), says a reminiscent writer, "soon after they had finished their course in engineering, had taken each a different road. One became a crown-rabbi, one a flour merchant, a third a bookkeeper, but none of them could, on account of his religion, legally pursue his chosen vocation" (Yiddishes Tageblatt, New York, May 13, 1908).]

[Footnote 2: Urussov, Memoirs of a Russian Governor (Engl. transl., New York, 1908), pp. 70, 90-91. "Out of 266 students admitted to the Kharkov University in 1901, only 8 were Jews, though at least 12 had 'finished the gymnasium,' not only with the 'highest possible' marks, but with gold medals. At the Technological Inst.i.tute of the same city, 7 were Jews in a total of 240, though 12 applying for admission had received the 'highest possible' marks. At the Kiev University, of 580 new students, 32, all of them medallists, were Jews. How many applied for admission, the daily and weekly press, from which these figures are taken, did not report."]

[Footnote 3: Ner ha-Ma'arabi, vii, 27.]

[Footnote 4: "He who claims that a spirit of reaction has affected our people as a whole," says Moses Reines (Ozar ha-Sifrut, ii. 45), "is greatly mistaken. That the children of the poor from whom learning cometh forth still forsake their city and country and acquire knowledge, ... that societies for the spread of Haskalah are formed every day, ...

that strict and pious Jews send their sons and daughters to where they can obtain enlightenment, that rabbis, dayyanim, and maggidim urge their children to become proficient in the requirements of the times ... write for the press ... and deplore the gezerot (restrictions) regarding admission to schools--all this proves convincingly that they do not see right who complain that our entire nation is going backward."]

[Footnote 5: See Ha-Maggid, 1899, no. 160. While in 1848 there were 2446 and in 1854, 4439 converts, in 1860-1880 there were from 350 to 450 per annum, in 1881, 572, in 1882, 610, and in 1883, 461 converts. With the spread of Zionism conversions continued to diminish, and, while there were relapses during the renewed pogroms of 1891 and 1901, they decreased materially, though the Jewish population is constantly on the increase.]

[Footnote 6: Autobiography, pp. 42-51. See also Kahan, Meah.o.r.e ha-Pargud, pp. 15-17.]

[Footnote 7: Ha-Meliz, 1900, no. 123; Luah Ahiasaf, 5696, p. 312; Zablotzky and Ma.s.sel, Ha-Yizhari, Manchester, 1895, Introduction; Ha-Meliz, x.x.xvii, no. 36; The Menorah, April, 1904.]

[Footnote 8: Yalkut Ma'arabi, 1904, pp. 46 f.]

[Footnote 9: Ha-Shahar, x. 511, 30; Habazelet, 1882, no. 2.]

[Footnote 10: Ha-Le'om, 1906, nos. 21-22; Belkind, in Ha-Zefirah, no.

46, 1913; Lubarsky and Lewin-Epstein, Derek Hayyim, New York, 1905.]

[Footnote 11: Greenstone, The Messiah Idea in Jewish History, ch. viii.]

[Footnote 12: The Progress of Zionism, pp. 3-4; cf. Voskhod, 1895, iv.]

[Footnote 13: Zamenhof's new universal language was primarily intended to be the international language of his people, "who are speechless, and therefore without hope, scattered over the world, and hence unable to understand one another, obliged to take their culture from strange and hostile sources."]

[Footnote 14: Ahiasaf, iv.; Gordon, op. cit., i. xxi; Razsvyet, 1882, i.; Magil's Kobez (Collection), no. 3, p. 45.]

[Footnote 15: Ha-Meliz, 1899, no. 256; 1901, no. 2; weekly Voskhod, 1893, no. 40; monthly Voskhod, 1894, iv. Some Jewish financiers erected gymnasia in Vilna and Warsaw, improved the condition of the hadarim, and turned many Talmud Torahs into technical schools. Of the Lodz Talmud Torah a writer says that "no Jewish community, even outside of Russia, possesses such an inst.i.tution, not excepting the Hirsch schools in Galicia."]

[Footnote 16: London, Unter judischen Proletariern, 1898, pp. 81-83; Bramson, K Istorii, etc., pp. 63-69, 71-74; Ha-Meliz, xli., no. 246 (1901, no, 35); Ha-Zefirah, xxix., no. 285; and the Jewish Gazette, July 16, 1909 (Kunst und Nationalismus). The Ha-Zamir (a choral society), founded in Lodz by Nissan Schapira, counts its members by the thousands.]

[Footnote 17: London, op. cit, pp. 64-74; Ha-Meliz, 1900, nos. 192-193; Rubinow, op. cit., pp. 530-532, 548-553, 561-566.]

[Footnote 18: Ha-Meliz, 1901, nos. 20, 27, 36, 54, 95.]

[Footnote 19: Atlas, Mah Lefanim u-mah Leaher, pp. 53 f.; Ha-Meliz, 1900, no. 47; 1901, no. 27.]

[Footnote 20: Ha-Meliz, 1901, no. 87.]

[Footnote 21: Reflexions sur l'etat des israelites russes, Odessa, 1871, pp. 121-122.]

[Footnote 22: Kayserling, Die judischen Frauen, Leipsic, 1879, pp.

306-313; Rubinow, op. cit., p. 581. The Russian Jewess has already produced several writers above the average (Einhorn, Mosessohn, Ben Yehudah, Sarah and Eva Schapira) in Hebrew, has given Russian literature at least one novelist of note (Rachel Khin), has furnished leaders in the movement for the emanc.i.p.ation of women (Maria Saker), and especially for the liberation of Russia (Finger, Helfman, Levinsohn, Novinsky, Rabinovich). According to Mr. Rabinow, the Russo-Jewish "women and girls use every available means" to obtain an education, and at least fifty per cent of them possess a knowledge of Russian in addition to their vernacular Yiddish.]