The Haskalah Movement in Russia Part 6

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, surrept.i.tiously 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 surpa.s.sed 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 surpa.s.sed 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 princ.i.p.al, 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 Mer 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 surpa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 cla.s.sic 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 a.s.sistant 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 n.a.z.imov 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 surpa.s.sed, 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, s.l.u.tsk, Vitebsk, Zhagory, and other places, they were toiling zealously and diligently, these anchorites in the desert of knowledge.

Among them were men of all cla.s.ses 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 Funn, 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 mult.i.tude, the two who, more than any others, furthered the cause of Haskalah, Isaac Bar Levinsohn and Mordecai Aaron Gunzburg.[33]

Isaac Bar 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 cla.s.smates was his pa.s.sionate 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-Yisrael_), 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 circ.u.mstances, it remained unpublished till 1828. Meanwhile it circulated in ma.n.u.script 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 b.u.t.t 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 superst.i.tious belief seems to have fallen to the lot of several of Levinsohn's family. In 1757, when it a.s.serted 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 n.o.bles, which declared the accusation to be utterly false. Another uncle of his had performed a similar task in 1749. True scion of a n.o.ble 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-Yisrael_ 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 compet.i.tion 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-a.s.signed task of Levinsohn. The Talmud, we have seen, was at that time the object of a.s.saults 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 pa.s.sionately 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d called me to life.

Alas, earthly life has pa.s.sed, and I must Sleep again on the bosom of Mother Nature.

Witness this stone. I fought with G.o.d'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 Bar Levinsohn, and hardly less distinguished and influential, was Mordecai Aaron Gunzburg (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 _Sheerit Yisrael_ 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Gunzburg. 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, Gunzburg 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, Gunzburg 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 acc.u.mulation 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 Gunzburg 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. Gunzburg 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 Gunzburg 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble 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 Mea.s.sefim, nor does he even think it inc.u.mbent on a Jew to be conversant with it.

Three periods have pa.s.sed 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.

Gunzburg 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. Gunzburg, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PEREZ BEN MOSHEH SMOLENSKIN, 1842-1885]

(Notes, pp. 318-322.)

CHAPTER V

RUSSIFICATION, REFORMATION, AND a.s.sIMILATION

1856-1881

The year 1856 will always be remembered as the _annus mirabilis_ in the history of Russia. It marked at once the cessation of the Crimean war and the accession of the most liberal and benevolent monarch Russia ever had. On January 16, the heir apparent signified his consent to accept Austrian intervention, which resulted in the Treaty of Paris (March 30), granting the Powers involved "peace with honor"; and in August, in the Cathedral of the a.s.sumption at Moscow, amidst unprecedented rejoicing, the czarevich placed the imperial crown upon his head. From that time reform followed reform. The condition of the soldiers, who had virtually been slaves under Nicholas I, was greatly improved, and a proclamation was issued for the emanc.i.p.ation of the peasants, slaves not for a limited time only, but for life and from generation to generation. It cost the United States five years of fratricidal agony, a billion of dollars, and about half a million of lives, to liberate five or six millions of negroes; Russia, in one memorable day (February 19, 1861), liberated nearly twenty-two millions of muzhiks (peasants), and gave them full freedom, by a mere stroke of the pen of the "tsar osvobodityel," the Liberator Czar, Alexander II (1856-1881).

Other innovations, of less magnitude but nevertheless of far-reaching importance, were introduced later. Capital punishment, which still disgraces human justice in more enlightened states, was unconditionally abolished; the number of offences amenable to corporal punishment was gradually reduced, until, on April 29, 1863, all the horrors of the gauntlet, the spur, the lash, the cat, and the brand, were consigned to eternal oblivion. The barbarous system of the judiciary was replaced by one that could render justice "speedy, righteous, merciful, and equitable." Railway communication, postal and telegraph service, police protection, the improvement of the existing universities, the opening of many new primary schools, and the introduction of compulsory school attendance, told speedily on the intellectual development of the people.

In the words of Shumakr, Russia experienced "a complete inward revival."

Old customs seemed to disappear, all things were become new. New life, new hope, new aspirations throbbed in the hearts of the subjects of the gigantic empire, and better times were knocking at their doors. _Joli tout le monde, le diable est mort!_

This era of great reforms and the resuscitation of all that is good and n.o.ble in the Slavonic soul brought about also a moral regeneration. The colossus who, according to Turgenief, preferred to sleep an endless sleep, with a jug of vodka in his clutched fingers, proved that he, too, was human, with a feeling, human heart beating in his bosom. With the restoration of peace and the abolition of serfhood, there began a removal of prejudice even against Jews. Hitherto the foremost litterateurs in Russia, imitating the writers of other lands, had painted the Jew as a monstrosity. Pushkin's prisoner, Gogol's traitor, Lermontoff's spy, and Turgenief's Zhid (Jew) were caricatures and libels, equal in acrimony, and not inferior in art, to Shakespeare's Shylock and d.i.c.kens's f.a.gin. But now the best and ablest men of letters signed a protest against such unjust and impossible characters.

Two thousand years of cruel suffering and affliction--said the historian and humanitarian Professor Granovsky, of the University of Moscow--have at last erased the b.l.o.o.d.y boundary line separating the Jews from humanity. The honor of this reconciliation, which is becoming firmer from day to day, belongs to our age. The civic status of the Jews is now established in most European countries, and even in the places that are still backward their condition is improved, if not by law, then by enlightenment.

And law and enlightenment radiated their sunshine also upon the Jews of rejuvenated Russia. The Cantonist system was abolished for good; the high schools and universities were opened to Jews without discrimination; and the Governments lying outside the Pale were made accessible to Jewish scholars, professional men, manufacturers, wholesale merchants, and skilled laborers (March 16, 1859; November 27, 1861).[1] Through the efforts of Wolf Kaplan, one of Gunzburg's noted pupils, the persecution of Jews by Germans in Riga was stopped, and the eminent publicist Katkoff undertook to defend them in the newspaper Russkiya Vyedomosti. n.a.z.imov, the Governor-General of Vilna, Mukhlinsky, who inspected the Jewish schools in western Russia, Artzimovich, of southern Russia, and many other prominent personages arose as champions of the Jews.[2]

The physician and pedagogue Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov (1810-1881), the superintendent of the Odessa and Kiev school districts, is especially deserving of honorable mention in the history of Haskalah. Of all the Russians of the period who gloried in their liberal convictions, he was the most liberal. In him the last vestige of prejudice and race distinction disappeared, and he conscientiously devoted himself to the study, not only of the present, but also of the past of the Jews, to be in a better position to lend them his a.s.sistance. To the Jews he appealed to unite and spread enlightenment among the ma.s.ses by peaceful means. To the Gentiles, again, he did not hesitate to point out the good qualities of the Jews, and in an article on the Odessa Talmud Torah he held up the inst.i.tution as a model for the public elementary schools. He admired especially the enthusiasm with which Jewish youths devoted themselves to the acquisition of knowledge. "Where are religion, morality, enlightenment, and the modern spirit," asked he, "when these Jews, who, with courage and self-sacrifice, engage in the struggle against prejudices centuries old, meet no one here to sympathize with them and extend a helping hand to them?" His liberality carried him so far that he established a fund for the support of indigent Jewish students at the University of Kiev, and he advocated strenuously the award of prizes and scholarships to deserving Jewish students. Such as he were rare in any land, but nowhere so rare as in Russia.[3]