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The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885)

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Title: The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885)

Author: Nahum Slouschz


        
Release date: February 1, 2005 [eBook #7530]
                Most recently updated: December 30, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RENASCENCE OF HEBREW LITERATURE (1743-1885) ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Blain Nelson
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.





THE RENASCENCE OF HEBREW LITERATURE
(1743-1885)

BY NAHUM SLOUSCHZ

_Translated from the French_

       *       *       *       *       *

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

The modern chapter in the history of Hebrew literature herewith
presented to English readers was written by Dr. Nahum Slouschz as his
thesis for the doctorate at the University of Paris, and published in
book form in 1902. A few years later (1906-1907), the author himself put
his Essay into Hebrew, and it was brought out as a publication of the
_Tushiyah_, under the title _Korot ha-Safrut ha-'Ibrit ha-
Hadashah_. The Hebrew is not, however, a mere translation of the
French book. The material in the latter was revised and extended, and
the presentation was considerably changed, in view of the different
attitude toward the subject naturally taken by Hebrew readers, as
compared with a Western public, Jewish or non-Jewish.

The present English translation, which has had the benefit of the
author's revision, purports to be a rendition from the French. But the
Hebrew recasting of the book has been consulted at almost every point,
and the Hebrew works quoted by Dr. Slouschz were resorted to directly,
though, as far as seemed practicable, the translator paid regard to the
author's conception and Occidentalization of the Hebrew passages
revealed in his translation of them into French.

HENRIETTA SZOLD.

       *       *       *       *       *

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I
  In Italy--Moses Hayyim Luzzatto

CHAPTER II
  In Germany--The Meassefim

CHAPTER III
  In Poland and Austria--The Galician School

CHAPTER IV
  In Lithuania--Humanism in Russia

CHAPTER V
  The Romantic Movement--Abraham Mapu

CHAPTER VI
  The Emancipation Movement--The Realists

CHAPTER VII
  The Conflict with Rabbinism--Judah Leon Gordon

CHAPTER VIII
  Reformers and Conservatives--The Two Extremes

CHAPTER IX
  The National Progressive Movement--Perez Smolenskin

CHAPTER X
  The Contributors to _Ha-Shahar_

CHAPTER XI
  The Novels of Smolenskin

CHAPTER XII
  Contemporaneous Literature

CONCLUSION

INDEX

       *       *       *       *       *

INTRODUCTION


It was long believed that Hebrew had no place among the modern languages
as a literary vehicle. The circumstance that the Jews of Western
countries had given up the use of their national language outside of the
synagogue was not calculated to discredit the belief. The Hebrew, it was
generally held, had once been alive, but now it belonged among the dead
languages, in the same sense as the Greek and the Latin. And when from
time to time some new work in Hebrew, or even a periodical publication,
reached a library, the cataloguer classified it with theologic and
Rabbinic treatises, without taking the trouble to obtain information as
to the subject of the book or the purpose of the journal. In point of
fact, in the large majority of cases they were far enough removed from
Rabbinic controversy.

Sometimes it happened that one or another Hebraist was overcome with
astonishment at the sight of a Hebrew translation of a modern author.
And he stopped at that. He never went so far as to enable himself to
pass judgment upon it from the critical or the literary point of view.
To what purpose? he would ask himself. Hebrew has been dead these many
centuries, and to use it is an anachronism. He considered it only a
curiosity of literature, literary sleight of hand, nothing more.

The bare possibility of the existence of a modern literature in Hebrew
seemed so strange, so improbable, that the best-informed circles refused
to entertain the notion seriously--perhaps not without some semblance of
a reason for their incredulity.

The history of the development of modern Hebrew literature, its
character, the extraordinary conditions fostering it, its very
existence, are of a sort to surprise one who has not kept in touch with
the internal struggles, the intellectual currents that have agitated the
Judaism of Eastern Europe in the course of the past century.

So far from deserving a reputation for casuistry, modern Hebrew
literature is, if anything, distinctly rationalistic in character. It is
anti-dogmatic and anti-Rabbinic. Its avowed aim is to enlighten the
Jewish masses that have remained faithful to religious tradition, and to
interpenetrate the Jewish communities with the conceptions of modern
life.

Since the French Revolution the ghetto has produced valiant champions of
every good cause, politicians, legislators, poets, who have taken part
in all the movements of their day. But it has also given birth to a
legion of men of action sprung from the people and remaining with the
people, who, in the name of liberty of conscience and in the name of
science, fought the same battles upon the field of traditional Judaism
that the others were fighting outside.

A whole school of literary humanists undertook the work of emancipating
the Jewish masses, and pursued it for several generations with admirable
zeal. Hebrew became an excellent instrument of propaganda in their
hands. Thanks to their efforts, the language of the prophets,
inarticulate for nearly two thousand years, was developed to a striking
degree of perfection. It was shown to be a flexible medium, varied
enough to serve as the vehicle for any modern idea.

The great wonder is that this modern literature in Hebrew made itself
without teachers, without patrons, without academies and literary
_salons_, without encouragement in any shape or form. Nor is that
all. It was impeded by inconceivable obstacles, ranging from the
fraudulence of an absurd censorship to the persecution of fanatics. In
such circumstances, only the purest idealism, and the most
disinterested, could have ventured to enter the lists, and could have
come off the victor.

While the emancipated Jew of the Occident replaced Hebrew by the
vernacular of his adopted country; while the Rabbis were distrustful of
whatever is not religion; and rich patrons refused to support a
literature that had not the _entrée_ of good society,--while these
held aloof, the _Maskil_ ("the intellectual") of the small
provincial town, the Polish vagabond _Mehabber_ ("author"),
despised and unknown, often a martyr to his conviction, who devoted
himself heart, soul, and might to maintaining honorably the literary
traditions of Hebrew,--he alone remained faithful to what has been the
true mission of the Bible language since its beginnings.

It is a renewal of the ancient literary impulse of the humble, the
disinherited, whence first sprang the Bible. It is a repetition of the
phenomenon of the popular prophet-orators, reappearing in modern Hebrew
garb.

The return to the language and the ideas of an eventful past marks a
decisive stage in the perturbed career of the Jewish people. It
indicates the re-awakening of national feeling.

The history of modern Hebrew literature thus forms an extremely
instructive page in the history of the Jewish people. It is especially
interesting from the point of view of social psychology, furnishing, as
it does, valuable documents upon the course taken by new ideas in
impregnating surroundings that are characteristically obdurate toward
intellectual suggestions from without. The century-long struggle between
free-thinking and blind faith, between common sense and absurdity
consecrated by age and exalted by suffering, reveals an intense social
life, a continual clashing of ideas and sentiments.

It is a literature that offers us the grievous spectacle of poets and
writers who are constantly expressing their anxiety lest it disappear
with them, and yet devote themselves unremittingly to its cultivation,
with all the ardor of despair. At their side, however, we see optimistic
dreamers, worthy disciples of the prophets. In the midst of the ruin of
all that made the past glorious, and in the face of the downfall of
cherished hopes, they lose not an iota of their faith in the future of
their people, in its speedy regeneration.

What we have before us is the issue of the supreme internal struggle
that engaged the great masses of the Jews torn from their moorings by
the disquietude of modern existence. A fervent desire for a better
social life took possession of all minds. The conviction that the
eternal people cannot disappear seems to have regained ground and to
have been stronger than ever, and the current again set in the direction
of auto-emancipation.

It is the true literature of the Jewish people that we are called upon
to examine, the product of the ghetto, the reflex of its psychic states,
the expression of its misery, its suffering, and also its hope. The
people of the Bible is not dead, and in its very own language we must
seek the true Jewish spirit, the national soul.

Let not the reader expect to find perfection of form, pure art, in its
often monotonous lyric poetry, or its prolix, didactic novels. The
authors of the ghetto felt too much, suffered too much, were too much
under the dominance of a life of misery, a semi-Asiatic, semi-mediaeval
_régime_, to have had heart for the cultivation of mere form. Does
the Song of Songs fall short of being a literary document of the first
order because it does not equal the dramas of Euripides in artistic
completeness? It is conceded that the proper aim of the artist is art,
finished and perfect art, but to the philosopher, the social
investigator, the important thing is the advance of ideas.

       *       *       *       *       *

The object of the writer in presenting this essay to the public was not
to presume to give a detailed exposition of the development of modern
Hebrew literature, accomplishing itself under the most complex of social
and political conditions and in a social _milieu_ totally unknown
to the public at large. That would have led too far. It was not even
possible to give an adequate idea of all the authors requiring mention
within the limited frame adopted perforce. Besides, nothing or almost
nothing existed in the way of monographs that might have facilitated the
task. [Footnote: In point of fact, all that can be cited are the
following: the admirable biographical essays on Mapu, Smolenskin, etc.,
by Reuben Brainin; those of S. Bernfeld on Rapoport, etc., these two
critics writing in Hebrew; and the sketch of our subject by M. Klausner,
in the Russian language. Besides, mention may be made of an article in
the _Revue des Revues_, by M. Ludvipol, of Paris. In spite of the
diversity of schools and the conditions giving rise to them, which are
here to be treated for the first time from the point of view of a modern
history of literature, the reader will readily convince himself that the
subject lacks neither coherence nor unity. It is superfluous to say that
in this first attempt at a history of modern Hebrew literature, the
grouping of movements and schools borrowed from the Occidental
literatures is bound to have only relative value.]

The aim set up by the present writer is merely to follow up the various
stages through which modern Hebrew literature has passed, to deduce and
specify the general principles that have moulded it, and analyze the
literary and social value of the works produced by the representative
writers of the epoch embraced.

In a word, the object is to show how Hebrew poetry was emancipated from
the tradition of the Middle Ages under the influence of the Italian
humanists, how it underwent a process of modernization, and served as
the model for a literary renascence in Germany and Austria. [Footnote:
Especially Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, in his "Glory to the Righteous",
published in 1743, which has been made the point of departure in the
present inquiry.] In these two countries Hebrew letters were enriched
and perfected from the point of view of form as well as content.
Finally, due to favorable circumstances, the Hebrew language captured
its place as the literary and national language among the Jews of
Poland, and particularly of Lithuania.

In this progress eastward, Hebrew literature has never been faithless to
its mission. Two currents of ideas, more or less distinct, characterize
it. On the one hand is the intellectual emancipation of the Jewish
masses, which had fallen into ignorance, and, as a consequence, the
conflict with prejudice and Rabbinic dogmatism; and, on the other hand,
the awakening of national sentiment and Jewish solidarity. These two
currents of ideas finally flow together in contemporaneous literature,
in the creation of the national Jewish movement in its various
modifications. During a period of about twenty years, since 1882, the
course of events has forced the national emancipation of the Jewish
masses upon their educated leaders. By the same token, Hebrew has been
assigned a dominating position in all vital questions agitating Judaism,
and there has been brought about a literary development that is truly
significant.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER I

IN ITALY

MOSES HAYYIM LUZZATTO


In its precise sense, the term Renascence cannot be applied to the
movement that asserted itself in Hebrew literature at the end of the
fifteenth century, as little as the term Decadence can be applied to the
epoch preceding it.

Long before Dante and Boccaccio, as far back as the eleventh century,
Hebrew literature, particularly in Spain, and to a certain extent also
in the Provence, had reached a degree of development unknown in European
languages during the Middle Ages.

Though the persecutions toward the end of the fourteenth and the
fifteenth century crushed the Jewish communities in Spain and in the
Provence, they yet did not succeed in annihilating completely the
intellectual traditions of the Spanish and French Jews. Remnants of
Jewish science and Jewish literature were carried by the refugees into
the countries of their adoption, and in the Netherlands, in Turkey, even
in Palestine, schools were founded after a short interval.

But a literary revival was possible only in Italy. Elsewhere, in the
backward countries of the North and the East, the Jews, smarting from
blows recently inflicted, withdrew within themselves. They took refuge
in the most sombre of mysticisms, or, at least, in dogmatism of the
narrowest kind. The Italian Jewish communities, thanks to the more
bearable conditions prevailing around them, were in a position to carry
on the literary traditions of Jewish Spain. In Italy thinkers arose, and
writers, and poets. There was Azariah dei Rossi, the father of
historical criticism; Messer Leon, the subtle philosopher; Elijah
Levita, the grammarian; Leon of Modena, the keen-witted rationalist;
Joseph Delmedigo, of encyclopedic mind; the Frances brothers, both
poets, who combated mysticism; and many others too numerous to mention.
[Footnote: For the greater part of these writers, see Gustav Karpeles,
_Geschichte der jüdischen Literatur_, 2 vols., Berlin, 1886.]
These, together with a few stray writers in Turkey and the Netherlands,
imparted a certain degree of distinction to the Hebrew literature of the
sixteenth and the seventeenth century. Heirs to the Spanish traditions,
they nevertheless were inclined to oppose the spirit and particularly
the rules of Arabic prosody, which had put manacles upon Hebrew poetry.
Their efforts were directed to the end of introducing new literary forms
and new concepts into Hebrew literature.

They did not meet with notable success. The greater number of Jewish men
of letters, whose knowledge of foreign literatures was meagre, were
destined to remain in the thrall of the Middle Ages until a much later
time. As to the unlettered, they preferred to make use of the
vernacular, which presented fewer difficulties than the Hebrew.

The task of tearing asunder the chains that hampered the evolution of
Hebrew in a modern sense devolved upon an Italian Jew of amazing talent.
He became the true, the sovereign inaugurator of the Hebrew Renascence.

Moses Hayyim Luzzatto was born at Padua, in 1707. He was descended from
a family celebrated for the Rabbinic scholars and the writers it had
given to Judaism, a celebrity which it has continued to earn for itself
down to our own day.

His education was strictly Rabbinic, consisting chiefly of the study of
the Talmud, under the direction of a Polish teacher, for the Polish
Rabbis had attained to a position of great esteem as early as Luzzatto's
day. He lost little time in initiating his pupil into the mysteries of
the Kabbalah, and so the early childhood years of our poet were a sad
time spent in the stifling atmosphere of the ghetto. Happily for him, it
was an Italian ghetto, whence secular learning had not been banished
completely.

While pursuing his religious studies, the child became acquainted with
the Hebrew poetry of the Middle Ages and with the Italian literature of
his own time. In the latter accomplishment lies his superiority to the
Hebrew scholars of other countries, who were shut off from every outside
influence, and held fast to obsolete forms and ideas.

From early youth Luzzatto showed remarkable aptitude for poetry. At the
age of seventeen he composed a drama in verse entitled "Samson and
Delilah". A little later he published a work on prosody, _Leshon
Limmudim_ ("The Language of Learners", Mantua, 1727), and dedicated
it to his Polish teacher. The young man then decided to break with the
poetry of the Middle Ages, which hampered the development of the Hebrew
language. His allegorical drama, _Migdal 'Oz_ ("The Tower of
Victory"), inspired by the _Pastor fido_ of Guarini, was the first
token of this reform. Its style is marked by an elegance and vividness
not attained since the close of the Bible. [Footnote: Though it was
widely circulated in manuscript, _Migdal 'Oz_ did not appear in
print until 1837, at Leipsic, edited by M. H. Letteris.] In spite of its
prolixity and the absence of all dramatic action, it continues to this
day to make its appeal to the fancy of the literary. A poetic breath
animates it, and it is characterized by the artistic taste that is one
of the distinctions of its author.

It was a new world that _Migdal 'Oz_, by its laudation of rural
life, disclosed to the votaries of a literature the most enlightened
representatives of which refused to see in the Song of Songs anything
but religious symbolism, so far had their appreciation of reality and
nature degenerated.

In imitation of the pastorals of his time, though it may be with more
genuine feeling, Luzzatto sings the praises of the shepherd's life:

  "How beautiful, how sweet, is the lot of the young shepherd of
  flocks! Between the folds he leads his sheep, now walking, now
  running hither and thither. Poor though he is, he is full of joy.
  His countenance reflects the gladness of his heart. In the shade
  of trees he reposes, and apprehends no danger. Poor though he is,
  yet he is happy....

  "The maiden who charms his eyes, and attracts his desire, in whom
  his heart has pleasure, returns his affection with responsive
  gladness. They know naught but delight--neither separation nor
  obstacle affrights them. They sport together, they enjoy their
  happiness, with none to disturb. When weariness steals over him,
  he forgets his toil on her bosom; the light of her countenance
  swiftly banishes all thought of his travail. Poor though he is,
  yet he is happy!" (Act III, scene I.)

Alas, this call to a more natural life, after centuries of physical
degeneration and suppression of all feeling for nature, could not be
understood, nor even taken seriously, in surroundings in which air,
sunlight, the very right to live, had been refused or measured out
penuriously. The drama remained in manuscript, and did not become known
to the public at large.

It was Luzzatto's chief work that exercised decisive influence on the
development of Hebrew literature. _La-Yesharim Tehillah_ ("Glory to
the Righteous"), another allegorical drama, which appeared in 1743, is
considered a model of its kind until this day. It introduced a new
epoch, the modern epoch, in the history of Hebrew literature. The master
stands revealed by every touch. Everything betrays his skill--the style,
at once elegant, significant, and precise, recalling the pure style of
the Bible, the fresh and glowing figures of speech, the original poetic
inspiration, and the thought, which bears the imprint of a profound
philosophy and a high moral sense, and is free from all trace of
mystical exaggeration.

From the point of view of dramatic art, the piece is not of the highest
interest. The subject, purely moral and didactic, gives no opportunity
for a serious study of character, and, as in all allegorical pieces, the
dramatic action is weak.

The theme was not new. Even in Hebrew and before Luzzatto, it had been
treated several times. It is the struggle between Justice and Injustice,
between Truth and Falsehood. The allegorical personages who take part in
the action are, arrayed on one side, Yosher (Righteousness) aided by
Sekel (Reason) and Mishpat (Justice), and, on the other side, Sheker
(Falsehood) and her auxiliaries, Tarmit (Deceit), Dimyon (Imagination),
and Taäwah (Passion). The two hostile camps strive together for the
favor of the beautiful maiden Tehillah (Glory), the daughter of Hamon
(the Crowd). The struggle is unequal. Imagination and Passion carry the
day in the face of Truth and Righteousness. Then the inevitable _deus
ex machina_, in this case God Himself, intervenes, and Justice is
again enthroned.

This simple and not strikingly original frame encloses beautiful
descriptions of nature and, above all, sublime thoughts, which make the
piece one of the gems of Hebrew poetry. The predominant idea of the book
is to glorify God and admire the "innumerable wonders of the Creator."

  "All who seek will find them, in every living being, in every
  plant, in every lifeless object, in all things on earth and in
  the sea, in whatsoever the human eye rests upon. Happy he who
  hath found knowledge and wisdom, happy he if their speech hath
  fallen upon an attentive ear!" (Act II, scene I.)

But the Creator is not capricious. Reason and Truth are His attributes,
and they appear in all His acts. Humanity is a mob, and two opposing
forces contend for the mastery over it: Truth with Righteousness on one
side, Falsehood and her ilk on the other. Each of these two forces seeks
to rule the crowd and prevail in triumph.

The Reason personified by the poet has nothing in common with the
positive Reason of the rationalists, which takes the world to be
directed by mechanical and immutable laws. It is supreme Reason, obeying
moral laws too sublimated for our powers of appreciation. How could it
be otherwise? Are we not the continual plaything of our senses, which
are incapable of grasping absolute truths, and deceive us even about the
appearance of things?

  "Truly, our eyes are deluded, for eyes of flesh they are.
  Therefore they change truth into falsehood, darkness they make
  light, and light darkness. Lo, a small chance, a mere accident,
  suffices to distort our view of tangible things; how much more do
  we stray from the truth with things beyond the reach of our
  senses? See the oars in the water. They seem crooked and twisted.
  Yet we know them to be straight....

  "Verily, man's heart is like the ocean ceaselessly agitated by
  the battling winds. As the waves roll forward and backward in
  perpetual motion, so our hearts are stirred by never-ending pain
  and trouble, and as our emotions sway our will, so our senses
  suffer change within us. We see only what we desire to see, hear
  only what we long to hear, what our imagination conjures up."
  (Act II, scene i.)

This philosophy of externalism and of the impotence of the human mind
threw the poet, believer and devotee of the Kabbalah, into a most
dangerous mysticism. He continued to write for some time: an imitation
of the Psalms; a treatise on logic, _Ha-Higgayon_, not without
value; another treatise on ethics, _Mesilat Yesharim_ ("The Path of
the Righteous"); and a large number of poetic pieces and Kabbalistic
compositions, the greater part of which were never published; and this
enumeration does not exhaust the tale of his literary achievements.
[Footnote: The greater part of Luzzatto's works have never been
published.] Then his powers were used up, the tension of his mind
increased to the last degree; he lost his moral equilibrium. The day
came when he strayed so far afield as to believe himself called to play
the rôle of the Messiah. The Rabbis, alarmed at the gloomy prospect of a
repetition of the pseudo-Messianic movements which time and again had
shaken the Jewish world to its foundations, launched the ban against
him. His fate was sealed by his ingenious imitation of the Zohar,
written in Aramaic, of which only fragments have been preserved. Obliged
to leave Italy, Luzzatto wandered through Germany, and took up his abode
at Amsterdam. He enjoyed the gratification of being welcomed there by
literary men among his people as a veritable master. At Amsterdam he
wrote his last works. But he did not remain there long. He went to seek
Divine inspiration at Safed in Palestine, the far-famed centre of the
Kabbalah. There he died, cut off by the plague at the age of forty.

Such was the sad life of the poet, a victim of the abnormal surroundings
in which he lived. Under more favorable conditions, he might have
achieved that which would have won him universal recognition. His main
distinction is that he released the Hebrew language forever from the
forms and ideas of the Middle Ages, and connected it with the circle of
modern literatures. He bequeathed to posterity a model of classic
poetry, which ushered in Hebrew humanism, the return to the style and
the manner of the Bible, in the same way as the general humanistic
movement led the European mind back upon its own steps along the paths
marked out by the classic languages. No sooner did his work become known
in the north countries and in the Orient than it raised up imitators.
Mendes and Wessely, leaders of literary revivals, the one at Amsterdam,
the other in Germany, are but the disciples and successors of the
Italian poet.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER II

IN GERMANY

THE MEASSEFIM


The intellectual emancipation of the Jews in Germany anticipated their
political and social emancipation. That is a truth generally
acknowledged. Long secluded from all foreign ideas, confined within
religious and dogmatic bounds, German Judaism was a sharer in the
physical and social misery of the Judaism of Slavic countries. The
philosophic and tolerant ideas in vogue at the end of the eighteenth
century startled it somewhat out of its torpor. In the measure in which
those ideas gained a foothold in the communities, conditions, at least
in the larger centres, took on a comfortable aspect, with more or less
assurance of permanent well-being. The first contact of the ghetto with
the enlightened circles of the day gave the impetus to a marked movement
toward an inner emancipation. Associations of _Maskilim_
("intellectuals") were formed at Berlin, Hamburg, and Breslau. "The
Seekers of the Good and the Noble" (_Shohare ha-Tob weha-Tushiyah_)
should be mentioned particularly. They were composed of educated men
familiar with Occidental culture, and animated by the desire to make the
light of that culture penetrate to the heart of the provincial
communities. These "intellectuals" entered the lists against religious
fanaticism and casuistic methods, seeking to replace them by liberal
ideas and scientific research. Two schools, headed respectively by the
philosopher Mendelssohn and the poet Wessely, had their origin in this
movement--the school of the _Biurists_, deriving their name from
the _Biur_, a commentary on the Bible, and the school of the
_Meassefim_, from _Meassef_, "Collector." [Footnote: A
specimen of the _Biur_ appeared at Amsterdam, in 1778, under the
title _'Alim le-Terufah_.] The former defended Judaism against the
enemies from without, and combated the prejudices and the ignorance of
the Jews themselves. The Meassefim took as their sphere of activity the
reform of the education of the young and the revival of the Hebrew
language. The two schools agreed that to elevate the moral and social
status of the Jews, it was necessary to remove first the external
peculiarities separating them from their fellow-citizens. A new
translation of the Bible into literary German, undertaken by
Mendelssohn, was to deal the death blow to the Jewish-German
(_jüdisch-deutsch_) jargon, and the _Biur_, the commentary on
the Bible mentioned above, produced by the co-operation of a galaxy of
scholars and men of culture, was expected to sweep aside all mystic and
allegoric interpretations of the Scriptures and introduce the rational
and scientific method.

The results achieved by the Biurists tended beyond a doubt toward the
elevation of the mass of the Jews. One of these results was, as had been
hoped for, the dislodgment of the Jewish-German by the spread of the
pure German. The influence wielded by the Biurists, so far from stopping
with the German Jews, extended to the Jewish communities of Eastern
Europe.

       *       *       *       *       *

In 1784-5, two Hebrew writers, Isaac Euchel and Mendel Bresslau,
undertook to publish a magazine, entitled _Ha-Meassef_ ("The
Collector"), whence the name Meassefim. The enterprise was under the
auspices of Mendelssohn and Wessely. A double aim was to be served. The
periodical was to promote the spread of knowledge and modern ideas in
the Hebrew language, the only language available for the Jews of the
ghetto; and at the same time it was to promote the purification of
Hebrew, which had degenerated in the Rabbinical schools. Its readers
were to be familiarized with the social and aesthetic demands of modern
life, and induced to rid themselves of ingrained peculiarities. Besides
its success in these directions, it must be set to the credit of _Ha-
Meassef_, that it was the first agency to gather under one banner all
the champions of the _Haskalah_ in the several countries of Europe.
It supplied the link connecting them with one another. [Footnote:
Properly speaking, the term Haskalah includes the notion at once of
humanism and humanitarianism.]

From the literary point of view _Ha-Meassef_ is of subordinate
interest. Its contributors were devoid of taste. They offered their
readers mainly questionable imitations of the works of the German
romantic school. The periodical brought no new talent truly worthy of
the description into notice. Whatever reputation its principal writers
enjoyed had been won before the appearance of _Ha-Meassef_. They
owed their fame primarily to the favor acquired for Hebrew letters
through the efforts of Luzzatto's disciples. [Footnote: Since the
appearance of _La-Yesharim Tehillah_ by Luzzatto, imitations of it
without number have been published, and for the eighteenth century alone
allegorical dramas by the dozen might be enumerated.] Of the poems
published in _Ha-Meassef_ but a few deserve notice, and even they
are nothing more than mediocre imitations of didactic pieces in the
style of the day, or odes celebrating the splendor of contemporary kings
and princes. A poem by Wessely forms a rare exception. It extols the
residents of Basle, who, in 1789, welcomed Jewish refugees from Alsace.
And if we turn from its poetry to its historical contributions, we find
that the biographies, as of Abarbanel and Joseph Delmedigo, are hardly
scientific; they occupy themselves with external facts to the neglect of
underlying ideas. On the whole, _Ha-Meassef_ was an engine of
propaganda and polemics rather than a literary production, though the
campaign carried on in its pages against strait-laced orthodoxy and the
Rabbis did not reach the degree of bitterness which was to characterize
later periods--moderation that was due to its most prominent
contributors. Wessely exhorted the editors not to attack religiousness
nor ridicule the Rabbis, and Mendelssohn devoted his articles to minor
points of Rabbinic practice, such as the permissibility of vaccination
under the Jewish law.

The French Revolution precipitated events in an unexpected way. The tone
of _Ha-Meassef_ changed. It held that knowledge and liberty alone
could save the Jews. More aggressive toward the Rabbis than before, it
attacked fanaticism, and gave space to trite poems, glorifying a life,
for instance, in which women and wine played the prominent part (1790).
Six years after its first issue, _Ha-Meassef_ ceased to appear, not
without having materially advanced the intellectual emancipation of the
German Jews and the revival of Hebrew as a secular language. [Footnote:
The first series of _Ha-Meassef_ ran from 1784-1786 (Königsberg),
and from 1788-1790 (Königsberg and Berlin). An additional volume began
to appear in 1794, at Berlin and Breslau, under the editorship of Löwe
and Wolfsohn, and was completed in 1797. The second series ran from 1809
to 1811 at Berlin, Altona, and Dessau, under Shalom Hacohen. [Trl.] ] So
important was this first co-operative enterprise in Hebrew letters, that
it imposed its name on the whole of the literary movement of the second
half of the eighteenth century, the epoch of the Meassefim.

Two poets and five or six prose writers more or less worthy of the name
of author dominated the period.

Naphtali Hartwig Wessely (born at Hamburg in 1725; died there in 1805)
is considered the prince of the poets of the time. Belonging to a rather
intelligent family in easy circumstances, he received a modern
education. Though his mind was open to all the new influences, he
nevertheless remained a loyal adherent of his faith, and occupied
strictly religious ground until the end. He devoted himself with success
to the cultivation of poetry, and completed the work of reform begun by
the Italian Luzzatto, to whom, however, he was inferior in depth and
originality.

Wessely's poetic masterpiece was _Shire Tiferet_ ("Songs of
Glory"), or the Epic of Moses (Berlin, 1789), in five volumes. This poem
of the Exodus is on the model of the pseudo-classic productions of the
Germany of his day; the influence of Klopstock's _Messias_, for
instance, is striking.

Depth of thought, feeling for art, and original poetic imagination are
lacking in _Shire Tiferet_. Practically it is nothing more than an
oratorical paraphrase of the Biblical recital. The shortcomings of his
main work are characteristic of all the poetry by Wessely. On the other
hand, his oratorical manner is unusually attractive, and his Hebrew is
elegant and chaste. The somewhat labored precision of his style, taken
together with the absence of the poetic temperament, makes of him the
Malherbe of modern Hebrew poetry. He enjoyed the love and admiration of
his contemporaries to an extraordinary degree, and his chief poem
underwent a large number of editions, becoming in course of time a
popular book, and regarded with kindly favor even by the most orthodox--
testimony at once to the poet's personal influence upon his co-
religionists and the growing importance of the Hebrew language.

Wessely wrote also several important works on questions in Hebrew
grammar and philology. The chief of them is _Lebanon_, two parts of
which appeared, each separately, under the title _Gan Na'ul_ ("The
Locked Garden", Berlin, 1765); the other parts never appeared in print.
They bear witness to their author's solid scientific attainments, and it
is regrettable that their value is obscured by his style, diffuse to the
point of prolixity. Besides, Wessely contributed to the German
translation of the Bible, and to the commentary on the Bible, both, as
mentioned before, works presided over by Mendelssohn, to whom he was
attached by the tie of admiring friendship.

Wessely's chief distinction, however, was his firm character and his
love of truth. His high ethical qualities were revealed notably in his
pamphlet _Dibre Shalom wa-Emet_ ("Words of Peace and Truth,"
Berlin, 1781), elicited by the edict of Emperor Joseph II ordering a
reform of Jewish education and the establishment of modern schools for
Jews. Though well on in years, he yet did not shrink from the risk of
incurring the anger of the fanatics. He openly declared himself in favor
of pedagogic innovations. With sage-like modesty and mildness, the poet
stated the pressing need for adopting new educational methods, and
showed them to be by no means in opposition to the Mosaic and Rabbinic
conception of the Jewish faith. In the name of _Torat ha-Adam_, the
law for man as such, he set forth urgent reforms which would raise the
prestige of the Law as well as of the Jews. He hoped for civil liberty,
the liberty the Jews were enjoying in England and in the Netherlands.
However, this courageous course gained for him the ban of the fanatics,
the effect of which was mitigated by the intervention of the Italian
Rabbis in favor of Wessely. On the other hand, it made him the most
prominent member of the Meassefim circle; he was regarded as the master
of the Maskilim.

Among the most distinguished of the contributors to _Ha-Meassef_ is
the second writer acclaimed poet by popular consent. David Franco Mendes
(1713-1792) was born at Amsterdam, of a family escaped from the
Inquisition. Like most Jews of Spanish origin, his family clung to the
Spanish language. He was the friend and disciple, and likewise the
imitator, of Moses Hayyim Luzzatto. What was true of Eastern Europe,
that the Hebrew language prevailed in the ghetto, and had to be resorted
to by all who would reach the Jewish masses, did not apply to the
countries of the Romance languages. Here Hebrew had little by little
been supplanted by the vernacular. Mendes, who paid veritable worship to
Hebrew literature, was distressed to see the object of his devotion
scorned by his co-religionists and the productions of the classic age of
France preferred to it. In the preface to his tragedy, "Athaliah's
Recompense" (_Gemul Athaliah_, Amsterdam, 1770), he set himself the
task of demonstrating the superiority of the sacred language to the
profane languages. Yet this very tragedy, in spite of its author's
protestations, is nothing more than a _rifacimento_ of Racine's
drama, and rather infelicitous at that, though it must be admitted that
Mendes' style is of classic purity, and some of his scenes are in a
measure characterized by vivacity of action. His other drama, "Judith",
also published at Amsterdam, has no greater merit than "Athaliah's
Recompense." Besides these dramas, Mendes wrote several biographical
sketches of the learned men of the Middle Ages for _Ha-Meassef_.

It were far from the truth to say that Mendes succeeded in rivalling the
French and Italian authors whom he set up as models for himself.
Nevertheless he was endorsed and admired by the literary men of his time
as the heir of Luzzatto.

       *       *       *       *       *

An enumeration of all the writers and all the scholars who, directly or
indirectly, contributed to the work of _Ha-Meassef_, would be
wearisome. Only those who are distinguished by some degree of
originality will be set down by name.

Rabbi Solomon Pappenheim (1776-1814), of Breslau, was the author of a
sentimental elegy, _Arba' Kosot_ ("The Four Cups", Berlin, 1790).
The poem, inspired by Young's "Night Thoughts," is remarkable for its
personal note. In his plaints recalling Job's, this Hebrew Werther
mourns the loss, not of his mistress--that would not have been in
consonance with the spirit of the ghetto--but of his wife and his three
children. The elegy came near being a popular poem. Its vapid
sentimentality and its affected and exaggerated style were to exercise a
baneful influence upon the following generations. It is the tribute paid
by Hebrew literature to the diseased spirit of the age. Pappenheim
wrote, besides, on Hebrew philology. His work, _Yeri'ot Shelomoh_
("The Curtains of Solomon"), is an important contribution to the
subject.

Shalom Hacohen, the editor of a second series of _Ha-Meassef_,
published in 1809-1811 (Berlin, Altona, and Dessau), deserves mention.
He won considerable fame by his poems and articles, which appeared in
the second series of _Ha-Meassef_ and in _Bikkure ha-'Ittim_ ("The
First Fruits of the Times"), and especially through his historical
drama, "Amal and Tirzah" (Rödelheim, 1812). The last, a naïvely
conceived piece of work, is well fitted into its Biblical frame. Hacohen
is one of the intermediaries between the German Meassefim and their
successors in Poland. [Footnote: Another writer of the epoch, Hartwig
Derenburg, whose son and grandson have brilliantly carried on, in
France, the literary and scientific traditions of the family, was the
author of a widely-read allegorical drama, _Yoshebe Tebel_ ("The
Inhabitants of the World", Offenbach, 1789).]

Mendelssohn, the master admired and respected by all, contributed, as
was mentioned before, only minor controversial articles to _Ha-
Meassef_. His preface to the _Biur_ and his commentary on
Maimonides' treatise on logic are in good style. His philosophical
works, "Jerusalem" and "Phaedon," translated into Hebrew by his
disciples, were largely instrumental in giving prevalence to the idea
that the Jewish people is a religious community rather than a nation.
This circumstance explains the banishment of Hebrew from the synagogue
by his less religious followers, such as David Friedländer, and the
attacks of Herz Homberg on traditional Judaism in his pamphlet "To the
Shepherds of Israel" (_El Ro'e Yisraël_).

The chief editor of _Ha-Meassef_, Isaac Euchel (1756-1804), became
known for his polemic articles against the superstitions and
obscurantism of the fanatics of the ghetto. Euchel wrote also a
biographical sketch of Mendelssohn, which was published at Vienna in
1814.

There were also scientific writers among the Meassefim. Baruch Lindau
wrote a treatise on the natural sciences, _Reshit Limmudim_ ("The
Elements of the Sciences", Brünn, 1788), and Mordecai Gumpel Levisohn,
the learned professor at the University of Upsala, was the author of a
series of scientific essays in _Ha-Meassef_, which contributed
greatly to its success.

Up to the time we are speaking of, Poland had supplied the Jewish people
with Rabbis and Talmudists, and when the German Jews became imbued with
the new spirit, their Polish brethren did not lag behind. Polish authors
are to be found among the Meassefim, and several of them deserve special
notice.

Kant's brilliant disciple, the profound thinker Solomon Maimon,
published only his exegetical works and his ingenious commentary on
Maimonides in Hebrew. Another Polish writer, Solomon Dubno (1735-1813),
one of the first to co-operate with Mendelssohn in his _Biur_, was
a remarkable grammarian and stylist. Among other things he wrote an
allegorical drama and a number of poetic satires. Of the latter, the
"Hymn to Hypocrisy", published in _Bikkure To'elet_, is a finished
production.

Judah Ben-Zeëb (1764-1811) published in Berlin a Manual of the Hebrew
Language (_Talmud Leshon 'Ibri_), planned on modern lines, a work
contributing greatly toward spreading a knowledge of philology and
rhetoric among the Jews. His Hebrew-German Dictionary and his Hebrew
version of Ben Sira are well known to Hebraists.

Isaac Satanow (1732-1804), a Pole residing at Berlin, was a curious
personage, interesting alike for the variety of his productions and the
oddity of his mental make-up. He possessed a surprising capacity for
assimilation. It was this that enabled him to excel, whether he imitated
the style of the Bible or the style of mediaeval authors. Hebrew and
Aramaic he handled with the same ingenious skill. All his works he
attributed to some ancient author. His collection of Proverbs, bearing
the name of the Psalmist Asaph (_Mishle Asaph_, Berlin, 1789 and
1792, in three books), would cut a respectable figure in any literature.

A few specimens of his _Mishle_, or maxims, follow:

  "Truth springs from research, justice from intelligence. The
  beginning of research is curiosity, its essence is discernment,
  and its goal truth and justice" (7: 5, 6).

  "On the day of thy birth thou didst weep, and those about thee
  were glad. On the day of thy death thou wilt laugh, and those
  about thee will sigh. Know then, thou wilt one day be born anew
  to rejoice in God, and matter will no longer hinder thee" (15: 5,
  6). [Footnote: A play upon words: _Geshem_ in Hebrew means
  both "matter" and "rain."]

  "Rule thy spirit lest others rule thy body" (24:2).

  "Pincers are made by means of pincers; work is helped on by work,
  and science by science" (34:23).

  "Think not what is sweet to thy palate is sweet to thy neighbor's
  palate. Not so; for many are the beautiful wives that are hated
  by their husbands, and many the ill-featured wives that are
  beloved" (43:6,7).

  "Every living being leaves off reproducing itself in its old age;
  but falsehood plays the harlot even in her decrepitude. The older
  she grows, the deeper she strikes root in the ground, the more
  numerous becomes her lying progeny, the further does it spread
  abroad. Her lovers multiply, and those who pay respect to the old
  adhere to her, that her name be not wiped from the face of the
  earth" (42:29-31).

Satanow pleaded for the language of the Mishnah as forming part of the
Hebrew linguistic stock, but the moment was not propitious to the reform
of the prevailing literary style suggested by him.

On the whole, as was intimated before, the literary movement called
forth by the Meassefim produced nothing, or almost nothing, of permanent
value. The writers of this school acted the part of pioneers and
heralds. Being primarily iconoclasts and reformers, they disappeared,
with but few exceptions, as soon as their task was completed and the
emancipation of the Jews was an accomplished fact in Western Europe.
They survived long enough, however, to see the movement with which they
were identified sweep away, along with the traditions of the past, also
the Hebrew language, the only relic dear to them, the only Jewish thing
capable of awakening a responsive thrill in their hearts.

Passionate humanists, and not very clear-sighted, they permitted
themselves to be dazzled by modernity and promises of light and liberty,
and forswore the ideal of the re-nationalization of Israel, so placing
themselves outside the fellowship bond that united, by a common hope,
the great masses of the Jews who were still attached to their faith and
to their people.

Writers of no consequence in many cases, and of no originality
whatsoever, failing to recognize the grandeur of Israel's past, the
Meassefim despised their Jewish surroundings too heartily to seek
inspiration in them. For the most part they were shallow imitators,
second-rate translators of Schiller and Racine. The language of the
Jewish soul they could not speak, and they could not formulate a new
ideal to take the place of the tottering traditions of the past and the
faltering hope of a Messianic time. An entire generation was to pass
before historical Judaism came into its own again, through the creation
of a pure "Science of Judaism" and the conception of the mission of the
Jewish people.

Nevertheless the movement called into being by the Meassefim caused
considerable stir. For the first time the Rabbinic tradition, petrified
by age and ignorance, was assailed, in the sacred language at that, and
the attack was launched in the name of science and life. For the first
time the _Haskalah_, Hebrew humanism, declared war on whatever in
the past trammelled the modern evolution of Judaism. In vain the
Meassefim, save the exceptional few, refrained scrupulously from violent
declamation against primary dogmatic principles. In vain their master
Mendelssohn, contravening good sense and historical Judaism, went so far
as to proclaim these principles sacrosanct. The secularization of Jewish
literature and Jewish life had made a breach in the ghetto wall.
Thereafter nothing could oppose the march of new ideas. The Rabbis of
the period saw it clearly; hence the stubbornness of their opposition.

Beginning with this time a new class appeared among the Jews of the
ghetto, the class of the _Maskilim_, or men of lay learning and
letters, a class with which the Rabbis have since had to reckon, with
which, indeed, they have had to share their authority over the people.

So far as the Hebrew language is concerned, the Meassefim succeeded in
purifying it and restoring it to its Biblical form. Wessely and Mendes
obliterated the last vestiges of the Middle Ages, and many of the
litterateurs of the period bequeathed models of the classic style to
posterity. But the return to the manner of the Bible had its
disadvantages. It went to extremes, and led to the creation of a
pompous, affected style, the _Melizah_, which has left indelible
traces in neo-Hebrew literature. In the effort to guard the Biblical
style against the Rabbinisms which had impaired the elegance of the
Hebrew language, the purists had gone beyond the bounds of moderation.
To express the most prosaic thought, the simplest ideas, they drew upon
the metaphors and the elevated diction of the Bible. This rage for
academic correctness is responsible for the reputation, not merited by
Hebrew literature, that it lacks originality, that it is no more than a
_jeu d'esprit_, a jumble of quibbling conceits.

Italian men of letters also took part in the literary movement of the
end of the eighteenth century. Two of them are worthy of mention by
name. The first is the poet Ephraim Luzzatto (1727-1792), whose love
sonnets, written in a sprightly style, sound a lyric note. The other is
Samuel Romanelli, the author of a melodrama, much admired by his
contemporaries, and of a "Journey to Arabia."

In France, also, especially in Alsace, there were collaborators of the
German Meassefim, the best known among them Ensheim. Besides, France
harbored the only poet of the period who can lay claim to originality,
but he was not of the school of the Meassefim. Elie Half an Halévy
(1760-1822), of Paris, the grandfather of Ludovic Halévy, by far
surpasses the other poets of his day in poetic temperament and fertility
of imagination. Unluckily, we do not possess all the poems written by
Halévy, who, moreover, was not a very prolific author. In what has come
down to us his talent is abundantly proved by the charm of his
individual style and the wealth of his images. The reader feels that the
breath of the Revolution has blown through his pages. His "Hymn to
Peace" (_Shir ha-Shalom_), published at Paris in 1804, is the
apotheosis of Napoleon, whom the poet hails as "liberty rescued" and
"beautiful France", the home of liberty. This unique poem is
characterized by unbounded love for France and the French, the beautiful
country, the free, high-mettled people, bearing love of country in its
heart and in its hand the avenging sword, and cherishing hatred against
"tyranny on the throne, which had changed a terrestrial Paradise into a
charnel house." The poet extols the dictator not only because he is a
"friend of victory", but because he is at the same time and still more a
"friend of science." He salutes the victorious armies. Although they
bring destruction and misery in their wake, they bear before them the
standard of science, civilization, and progress.

The cry of liberty wakened a loud echo in the ghettos of even the most
backward countries. Hebrew literature contains a number of curious
mementos, tokens of the ardent hopes which the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic conquests evoked in the breast of the Jews, whose character
has little enough affinity with the rule of despotism. In numerous
Hebrew hymns and songs they welcomed the armies of Napoleon as of the
savior Messiah. [Footnote: To name but a few among the many: an ode by
the celebrated Rabbi Jacob Meïr in Alsace, an ancestor of the family of
the Grand-Rabbin Zadoc Kahn; another ode composed at Vienna by the
Polish grammarian Ben-Zeëb; and the hymns sung in the synagogue at
Frankfort (1807), at Hamburg (1811), etc. The Revolutionary Code
published at Amsterdam in 1795 is also worthy of mention.] Before the
first flush of joy died away, the reaction set in, and their hopes were
blighted. The Jews relapsed into their olden social misery.
Nevertheless, the clash between received notions and the new conceptions
had contributed not a little to produce a ferment of ideas and create
new tendencies in the ghetto, at last aroused from its millennial
slumber.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER III

IN POLAND AND AUSTRIA

THE GALICIAN SCHOOL


The Polish scholars domiciled in Germany entered, as we have seen, into
the work of the Meassefim. Presently it will appear that the movement
itself was transferred to Poland, where it produced a much more lasting
effect than elsewhere.

In the West of Europe Hebrew was destined to vanish little by little,
and make room for the languages of the various countries. In the Slavic
East, on the other hand, the neo-Hebrew gained and spread until it was
the predominating language used by writers. By and by a profane
literature grew up in it, which extends to our day without a break.

From the sixteenth century on, the Jewry of Poland, isolated in destiny
and in political constitution, comprised the greater part of the Jewish
people. The agglomerations of Jews in Poland, originating in many
different countries, and fused into one mass, enjoyed a large measure of
autonomy. Their fortunes were governed and their life regulated by a
political and religious organization administered by the Rabbis and the
representatives of the _Kahal_, the "community." This organization
formed a sort of theocratic state known as "The Synod of the Four
Countries" (Poland, Little Poland, Little Russia, and, later, Lithuania,
with its autonomous synod). Constituting almost the whole of the Third
Estate of a country three times the size of France, the Jews were not
only merchants, but also, and more particularly, artisans, workingmen,
and even farmers. They were a people apart, distinct from the others.
The restricted ghettos and small communities of the Occident widened
out, in Poland, into provinces with cities and towns peopled by Jews.
The Thirty Years' War, which had cast a large number of German Jews into
Poland, produced the effect of giving a definite constitution to this
social organism. The new-comers quickly attained to controlling
influence in the Jewish communities, and succeeded in foisting their
German idiom upon the older settlers. One of their distinguishing traits
was that they pushed the study of the Law to the utmost. The Talmud
schools in Poland and the Polish Rabbis soon acquired a reputation
unassailed in the whole of the Diaspora. Despised and maltreated by the
Polish magnates, condemned, by reason of a never-ceasing stream of
immigration and the meagre resources of the country, to a bitter
struggle for existence, the Jews of Poland centred all their ambition in
the study of the Law, and consoled themselves with the Messianic hope.
Empty casuistry and dry dogmatism sufficed for the intellectual needs of
the most enlightened. A piety without limit, the rigorous and minute
observance of Rabbinical prescriptions, and a cult compounded of
traditional and superstitious practices accumulated during many
centuries, filled the void left in their minds by the wretched life of
the masses. To satisfy the cravings of the heart, they had the homilies
of the _Maggidim_ ("preachers"), a sort of popular instruction
based on sacred texts, tricked out with Talmudic narratives, mystic
allusions, and a variety of superstitions.

By the dreadful insurrection of the Cossacks in the Ukraine, half a
million of Jews lost their lives. The terror that followed the uprising
during the latter part of the seventeenth and the first half of the
eighteenth century threw the Jewish population of the southern provinces
into sad confusion. At that moment the _Hasidim_ [1] with their
Oriental fatalism, and their worship of the _Zaddik_ ("Saint"),
whom they revered as a wonder-worker, appeared upon the scene and won
the Jews of a large part of Poland to their standard. Then there ensued
a period of moral and intellectual degradation, which coincided
precisely with the epoch in which the civilizing influence of the
Meassefim was uppermost in Germany. [Footnote 1: Literally, the "pious."
A sect founded in Wolhynia in the second half of the eighteenth century,
the adherents of which, though they remained faithful to the Rabbinic
law, placed piety, mystic exaltation, and a worship of holy men in
opposition to the study of the Talmud and the dogmatism of the Rabbis.]

The reforms of Emperor Joseph II planned for the Jews in the part of
Poland annexed by Austria, especially the extension of compulsory
military service to them, were looked upon by the ignorant masses as a
dire misfortune. They rebelled against every change, and placed no
belief in the promises made by the authorities to better their
condition. They were terrorized by the severity of the measures taken
against them, and, impotent to carry on a struggle against authority,
they threw themselves into the arms of Hasidism, which preached the
merging of self in a mystic solidarity. This meant the cessation of all
growth, social as well as religious. Superstition established itself as
sovereign mistress, and the end was the utter degeneration of the
Austrian-Polish section of Jews.

In order to guard against the danger with which the spread of the new
sect was fraught, and enlighten at least the more intelligent of the
people, the intellectual Jews of Poland took up the work of the
Meassefim, and constituted themselves the champions of the
_Haskalah_, the liberal movement. They became thus the lieutenants
of the Austrian government. By and by their activity assumed importance,
and in time modern schools were established and literary circles were
formed in the greater part of the villages of Galicia.

Even into Russian Poland the campaign against obscurantism was carried,
by men like Tobias Feder and David Samoscz; the former the author of an
incisive pamphlet against Hasidism, as well as numerous philological and
poetical publications; the latter a prolific writer, the author of a
collection of poems entitled _Resise ha-Melizah_ ("Drops of
Poetry", 1798).

The movement was aided and abetted by rich and influential Jews. Joseph
Perl, the founder of a modern school and several other educational
institutions, is a typical representative of these friends and patrons
of progress. [Footnote: Perl was the author of a parody on Hasidism,
published anonymously under the title _Megalle Temirin_ ("The
Revealer of Mysteries"). A monograph upon parodies, a literary form
widely cultivated in Hebrew, which was long a desideratum has recently
been written by Dr. Israel Davidson ("Parody in Jewish Literature", New
York, Columbia University Press, 1908). The Hebrew parody is
distinguished particularly for its adaptation of the Talmudic language
to modern customs and questions. It was made the vehicle of polemics and
of ridicule, as in the case of Perl's pamphlet, or of satire on social
conditions, as in the "Treatise of Commercial Men", which appeared at
Warsaw, and the "Treatise America", published at New York, etc.
Frequently it was meant merely to divert and amuse, as, for instance,
_Hakundus_, Wilna, 1827, and numerous editions of the "Treatise
Purim."]

_Ha-Meassef_ was succeeded by a progeny of periodical literature,
scientific and literary. After the _Bikkure ha-'Ittim_ ("The First
Fruits of the Times"), edited by Shalom Hacohen, Vienna, 1820-1831, came
the _Kerem Hemed_ ("The Delicious Vineyard"), edited by Goldenberg,
at Tarnopol, 1833-1842; the _Ozar Nehmad_ ("The Delightful
Treasure"), edited by Blumenfeld; _He-Haluz_ ("The Pioneer"),
founded in 1853 by Erter, together with Schorr, the witty writer and
bold reformer; _Kokebe Yizhak_ ("The Stars of Isaac"), edited by I.
Stern, at Vienna, 1850-1863; _Bikkure ha-Shanah_ ("The First Fruits
of the Year", 1844); _Peri To'elet_ ("Successful Labor", 1821-
1825); "Jerusalem", 1845; "Zion", 1842; _Ha-Zefirah_ ("The
Morningstar"), 1824; _Yeshurun_. 1847, etc. These collections of
essays are of a much more serious character than ever _Ha-Meassef_
attained to. As a rule they display more originality and more scientific
depth.

To attract the intelligent among the Polish Jews, permeated as they were
with deep knowledge of Rabbinic literature, more was needed than witty
sallies and childish conceits in an affected style. The appeal had to be
made to their reason, to their convictions, their constant longing for
intellectual occupation. Their minds could be turned away from a most
absurd mysticism only by setting a new ideal before them, calculated to
engage feelings and attract hearts yearning for consolation, and left
unsatisfied by the pursuit of the Law, the nourishment given to all who
thought and studied in the ghetto.

Two men, the most eminent of the Jewish humanists in Austrian Poland,
succeeded in meeting the spiritual needs of their compatriots. The Rabbi
Solomon Jehudah Rapoport, one of the founders of the Science of Judaism,
the pursuit that was to replace Rabbinic scholasticism, and the
philosopher Nahman Krochmal, the promoter of the idea of the "mission of
the Jewish people", a substitute for the mystic, religious ideal--they
were the two who transformed the literary movement inaugurated in
Germany into a permanent influence.

       *       *       *       *       *

Solomon Jehudah Rapoport (1790-1867), called "the father of the Science
of Judaism", was born at Lemberg of a family of Rabbis. His studies were
purely Rabbinic, but his alert mind grasped every opportunity of
acquiring other knowledge, and in this incidental way he became familiar
first with French and then with German. The influence of the philosopher
Krochmal, with whom he came in close personal contact, shaped his career
as a writer and a scholar. In 1814, at Lemberg, he wrote, in Hebrew, a
description of the city of Paris and the Isle of Elba, to satisfy the
curiosity which the events of the time had aroused in the Polish ghetto.
In imitation of Mendes, whose writings exercised some influence upon
him, he later published a translation of Racine's "Esther" (_Bikkure
ha-'Ittim_, 1827), and of a number of Schiller's poems. But he did
not stop at that. His profound study of the Jewish scholars and poets of
the Middle Ages turned his mind to historical investigations. In the
_Bikkure ha-'Ittim_ and the _Kerem Hemed_ he published a
series of biographical and literary studies, in which he shows himself
to be possessed of large critical sense and keen judgment. In its
sobriety and precision his style has not been excelled. These studies of
his gave new direction to the eager minds of the age. As a result, Jost,
Zunz, and Samuel David Luzzatto devoted themselves to the thorough
examination of the Judaism of the Middle Ages. The outcome was a new
science, the Science of Judaism.

Rapoport published also a pamphlet against the Hasidim and their wonder-
working Rabbis, and various articles on the necessity of promoting
knowledge and civilization among the Jews. In this way he brought upon
himself the hatred of the fanatics. Appointed Rabbi at Tarnopol at the
instigation of Perl, the patron of Jewish science, he was forced to
leave the city by the intrigues of the Hasidim. He went to Prague, to
become Rabbi in that important community, and there he ended his days.

The disciple and successor of the German Meassefim, Rapoport inherited
from them the conviction which characterized the Jewish _Maskil_,
that science alone and modern civilization can raise the intellectual
level and improve the political situation of his co-religionists. All
his life he fought for the Haskalah. He loved knowledge with
disinterested devotion, and not merely because it was an instrument to
promote the political emancipation of the Jews. The work of assimilation
set on foot in the Occident, he realized, was not applicable in the East
of Europe, and would even be useless there. No vain illusions on the
subject possessed him. He was very much wrought up against such
religious reforms in Judaism as, he believed, would inevitably split the
people into sects, and sow the seed of disunion and indifference to
national institutions. This appears strikingly in his campaign against
Schorr, the editor of _He-Haluz_, and Judah Mises, and especially
in his pamphlet _Tokohat Megullah_ ("Public Reproach"), which
appeared in Frankfort in 1846. To those who faltered, having lost faith
in the future of Judaism, Rapoport addresses himself in several of his
writings, especially in the introduction to "Esther", holding up his own
ideals before them. Love of my nation, he says in effect, is the
cornerstone of my existence. This love alone has the power to confirm my
faith, for the national sentiment of the Jew and his religion are
closely linked with each other. And not only this national sentiment and
this religion are inconceivable the one without the other, but a third
factor is joined with them so intimately as to be indispensable--it is
the Holy Land.

The desire to explain rationally the Jew's love for his ancient land
suggested to Rapoport, long before Buckle and Lazarus, the theory of the
influence of climate on the psychology of nations. In his sketch of
Rabbi Hananel (_Bikkure ha-'Ittim_, 1832), he explains the
psychologic traits of the Jewish people by the fact that they resided in
a temperate climate and in a country situated between Asia and Africa.
Thence was derived the tendency to maintain equilibrium between feeling
and reason which characterizes the Jew. Under favorable conditions, and
if the Roman conquest had not intervened, the Jews would have reached
the highest degree of this equilibrium, and become a model nation. That
is why Palestine is the political and spiritual fatherland of the Jew,
the only country in which his genius can develop untrammelled; that is
why Palestine is so indissolubly attached to the destinies of Israel,
and is so dear to every Jewish heart. But even in the exile, "in the
darkness of the Middle Ages, the Jews were the sole bearers of light and
knowledge". This is what Rapoport strove to demonstrate in his works on
the scholars of the Middle Ages, and in his Talmudic encyclopedia,
_'Erek Millin_ (Prague, 1852), which, unfortunately, was not
finished.

In this fashion Rapoport, who did not hesitate to write on Bible
criticism in Hebrew, the first to use the ancient language for the
purpose, endeavored to reconcile the reason of a modern mind with the
faith and the Messianic hope of an orthodox Rabbi.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is a significant phenomenon that the Science of Judaism, the ideal
meant to replace the dry study of the Law, and fill the void left in the
Jewish mind by the course of recent developments, took firm hold upon
the Polish Jews, the very bodyguard of Rabbinism, of which, in point of
fact, it is but a modern and rational transformation.

Yet this new science, founded on the study of Israel's glorious past,
and warmly welcomed by the intellectual and the cultivated in Western
Europe, could not entirely satisfy the intelligent in Polish Jewry. In
an environment wholly Jewish, having no reason to nurse illusive hopes
of imminent assimilation with their neighbors, from whom they were
divided by every possible circumstance, beginning with moral notions and
ending with political fortune, the Polish Jews resigned themselves to a
sort of Messianic mysticism. But the mystic's explanation of the
phenomenon of the existence of Judaism also failed to satisfy their
yearnings. What they sought was a warrant in reason itself justifying
the permanence of Judaism and its future. The arguments set forth by
Maimonides and Jehudah Halevi contained no appeal for the modern soul. A
philosopher was needed, one who should solve the problem of the
existence of the Jewish people and its proper sphere from the vantage-
ground of authoritative knowledge. Such a philosopher arose in Galicia
itself.

Nahman Krochmal (1785-1840), the originator of the idea of the "mission
of the Jewish people", was born at Brody. His chief work, published
posthumously through the efforts of Zunz, the _Moreh Nebuke ha-
Zeman_ ("The Guide of the Perplexed of Modern Times"), is the most
original piece of philosophic writing in modern Hebrew. Krochmal led the
sad life of the Polish-Jewish scholar--void of pleasures and filled to
overflowing with privation and suffering. His whole time was consecrated
to Jewish science. He led a retired life, and while he lived nothing of
his was published. On account of the precarious state of his health, he
never left the small town in which he was born. However, his house
became the foregathering place of the votaries of Jewish science.
Especially young men eager to learn came from everywhere to sit at the
feet of the master. The influence which he thus exerted during his life
was reinforced and perpetuated after his death by the publication of the
"Guide of the Perplexed of Modern Times", in 1851, at Lemberg.

The studies contained in this work, for the most part unfinished
sketches, form a curious collection. Limitations of space forbid more
than a summary of its contents, and an analysis of its chief principles.

The need of finding a philosophic explanation of Divine existence forced
Hegel to formulate the axiom, that reason alone constitutes the reality
of things, and absolute truth is to be found in the union of the
subjective and the objective--the subjective corresponding to the
concrete state of every being, that is, matter, which forms his actual
reason, and the objective corresponding to his abstract state, that is,
the idea, which forms his absolute reason.

On this Hegelian axiom of actual reason and absolute reason, Krochmal
builds up his ingenious system of the philosophy of Jewish history. He
is the first Jewish scholar who views Judaism, not as a distinct and
independent entity, but as a part of the whole of civilization. At the
same time, while it is attached to the civilized world, it is
distinguished by qualities peculiar to itself. It leads the independent
existence of a national organism similar to all others, but it also
aspires to an absolute, spiritual expression, consequently to
universalism. The result of this double aspect is that while Jewish
_nationality_ forms the element peculiar to the Jewish people, its
civilization, its intellect are _universal_, and detach themselves
from its peculiar national life. Hence it comes that Jewish culture is
essentially spiritual, ideal, and tends to promote the perfection of the
human kind. Krochmal in this way arrives at the following three
conclusions:

1. The Jewish nation is like the phoenix, constantly arising to new life
from its ashes. It comprises within itself the three elements of Hegel's
triad: the idea, the object, and the intelligence. The successive
resurrections of the Jewish people follow an ascendant progression,
which tends toward the spiritually absolute. Starting as a political
organism, it soon developed into a dogmatically religious sect, only to
be transformed into a spiritual entity. Krochmal--though he does not say
it explicitly--sees in religion only a passing phenomenon in the history
of the Jewish people, exactly as its political existence was but a
temporary phase.

2. The Jewish people presents a double aspect to the observer. It is
national in its particularism, or its concrete aspect, and universal in
its spiritualism. The national genius of all other peoples of antiquity
was narrowly particularistic. That is why they were submerged. Only the
Jewish prophets conceived of the absolutely and universally spiritual
and of moral truth, and therein lies the secret of the continued
existence of the Jewish people.

3. With Hegel Krochmal admits that the resultants from the historical
development of a people form the quintessence of its existence.
[Footnote: See chapters IX, XVI, and others; also M. Bernfeld, _Da'at
Elohim_ ("The Knowledge of God"); and M. Landau, _Die Bibel und der
Hegelianismus_ (Dissertation).] But what he does not believe is that
the essential element in the existence of a people is the resultant. The
process of historical evolution is in itself an adequate reason for its
existence. More rational than Hegel himself, Krochmal thus avoids the
contradiction which follows from the mystical definition of existence in
the Hegelian system.

For the German metaphysician, existence is the interval between not
being and being, that is, the period of _becoming_. Krochmal simply
eliminates this more or less materialistic notion of the
_interval_. He substitutes the moral effects produced incidentally
to the course of historic action, for the idea of effects posterior to
the same action, the effects called the resultants. The more or less
materialistic manner in which historic action develops replaces with him
the idea of the transition period, the period of becoming, as a
mysterious intermediary between actual reason and absolute reason.

Proceeding from these axioms, Krochmal, at a time in which
_Völkerpsychologie_ and sociology were embryonic sciences, explains
the phenomena of Jewish history as well as the phenomena of the
religious and spiritual evolution of mankind, and does it with
remarkable originality and profundity.

Krochmal's ideas produced an effect not to be exaggerated upon the
intelligent among the Polish Jews, who had thrown off the trammels of
dogmatism and mystic hope, but were in a hesitating state of mind,
casting about for the reason of their very existence as Jews. His book
offered them an explanation, based on modern science and yet in accord
with their Jewish essence as revealed by history and therefore
satisfying to their national pride.

Thus Krochmal opened up a way for the seekers after enlightenment in
future generations. On the ideas of the master, his successors built up
their conceptions of the Jewish people. Abraham Mapu, the father of the
historical novel in Hebrew, drew his inspiration from the "Guide", and
in our days the well-known essayist Ahad ha-'Am has seized upon certain
of Krochmal's principles, notably the importance to be attached to the
spiritual element in the life of the Jewish people. [Footnote: R.
Brainin, in his biography of Mapu, p. 64, Warsaw, 1900.]

These two leaders, Rapoport and Krochmal, stimulated a whole school of
writers, whose works established the fortune of the Hebrew language in
Galicia. With more or less originality, all departments of literature
and science were cultivated.

Very soon, however, the times ceased to be propitious to serene thinking
and investigation of the past. Hasidism, triumphant, having conquered
the whole of Russian-Poland, threatened to crush all thought and reason
at the very time in which the _Kulturkampf_ was battering at the
gates of the Polish ghetto. Rapoport, we have seen, contended with
Hasidism in a witty pamphlet. After him, there appeared a satirist of
great talent, who waged pitiless war with its partisans and with all the
powers of darkness.

Isaac Erter, of Przemysl (1792-1841), was the friend and disciple of
Krochmal. An infant prodigy, he spent all the years of his early
childhood in the exclusive study of the Law. When he was thirteen years
old, his father married him to a girl of eighteen, whom he had not set
eyes upon before the day of their marriage. She did not live long. Erter
went on with his Rabbinic studies, and married a second time. A lucky
chance brought him in contact with a Maskil who led him to the study of
Hebrew grammar, and he became a devotee of the Haskalah. Encouraged by
Rapoport and Krochmal, with whom he had entered into relations, he
published his first satire on Hasidism. It evoked considerable comment.
Persecuted by the fanatics on account of it, he could not continue to
follow his vocation as teacher of Hebrew. He was obliged to quit his
native city, and he went to Brody, where the circle of Maskilim welcomed
him with delight. Otherwise his life at Brody was full of hardships. His
wife, as courageous as she was intelligent, urged him to equip himself
for some serious profession. Accordingly, at the age of thirty-three, he
went to Buda-Pesth to study medicine, and five years later he returned
to Brody fortified with his diploma as a physician. Thereafter he
occupied an independent position, and he could dare wage uncompromising
warfare with obscurantism and the mystics. He published numerous
articles in the periodicals of the day. After his death, they were
collected by the poet Letteris in one volume bearing the title _Ha-
Zofeh le-Bet Yisraël_ ("The Watchman for the House of Israel").

Erter as satirist and critic of morals is a writer of the first order.
For vivacity, his style, at once incisive and elegant, may be compared
with that of his contemporaries Heine and Börne. He possesses not a few
traits in common with these two writers. More serious and positive than
Heine, he pursues a steady aim in his satires. Tears mingle with his
laugh, and if he castigates, it is in order to chasten. More original
and more poetic than Börne, he thinks clearly and to the point, and the
effect of his thought is in no way impaired by his stilted mannerisms.
Without bias or passion, and with fine irony, he rallies the Hasidim on
their baneful superstitions, their worship of angels and demons. He
criticises the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of the Rabbis, and
scourges the shabby vanity of the communal representatives.

Animated by the desire to spread truth and culture among his co-
religionists, he does not direct his attacks against the fanatics alone.
He is equally bold in driving home the truth with the "moderns" of the
ghetto, the "intellectuals", boastful of their diplomas, who seek their
own profit, and do nothing to further the welfare of the people in
general. Corresponding to the number of articles he wrote is the number
of arrows shot into the very heart of the backward system imposed upon
the Jews of his country. He is the first Hebrew poet who dared expose
the social evils honeycombing the curious surroundings, full of
contrasts and _naïveté_, amid which his people lived. This he did
in a series of startling descriptions. After the fashion of Cervantes,
he employs ridicule to kill off the Rabbi and murder the mystic.

Erter deserves a place in the first rank of the champions of
civilization among the Jews.

Galicia gave birth also to a lyric poet of some distinction. Meïr Halevi
Letteris (1815-1871) was a learned philologist, but his chief literary
excellencies he displayed as a poet. Like Rapoport's, his maiden effort
was a translation of the Biblical dramas of Racine. His workmanship was
exact and beautiful. He was a productive writer, and his activity
expressed itself in every sort of literary form. He left upward of
thirty volumes in prose and verse. [Footnote: His poetry was collected
in one volume, and published at Vienna, under the title _Tofes Kinnor
we-'Ugab_ ("Master of the Lyre and the Cithern").] His Hebrew version
of _Faust_, published at Vienna, is a masterpiece in point of
style, and it gained him conspicuous renown. He ventured upon a bold
departure from Goethe's work. Desiring to transfer the dramatic action
to soil wholly Jewish, he substituted for Faust a Gnostic Rabbi of the
Talmud, Elisha ben Abuyah, surnamed _Aher_ ("Another"). This change
necessitated a number of others, which were far from being advantageous
to the Hebrew version.

The prose of Letteris is heavy. It lacks grace and naturalness,
qualities possessed by the greater number of his contemporaries in
Russia. It should, however, be set down to his credit that, unlike many
others, he never showed any inclination to sacrifice clearness of
thought to elegance of style.

By way of compensation, his poetry, from the point of view of style and
versification, is raised beyond adverse criticism. It merits the
description classic. His numerous translations from modern poets prove
the facility with which the ancient language can be handled by a master.
But, having acknowledged the superiority of his style, the literary
critic has said all there is to be said in praise of his work. The
breath of poesy, the tone of personal inspiration, the gift of fancy,
are on the whole lacking. His most original poems are nothing more than
an echo of the romantic school.

Nevertheless, there is a certain simple charm diffused through some of
his verses, especially those in which he pours out his sorrowful Jewish
heart. His Zionist poems are perfect expressions of the national spirit.
One of them, the very best his muse has produced, has been almost
universally accepted as the national hymn. It Is called _Yonah
Homiah_ ("The Plaintive Dove"). The dove is the symbol for Israel
used by the prophetical writers of the Bible. Her mournful cooing voices
the grief of the Jewish people driven forth from its native land and
forsaken by its God.

  "'Alas for my affliction! I must roam about abandoned since I
  left the shelter in the cleft of my rock. Around me rages the
  storm, alone and forsaken I fly to the forest to seek safety in
  its thickets. My Friend has abandoned me! His anger was kindled,
  because faithless to Him I permitted the stranger to seduce me,
  and now my enemies harry me without respite. Since my Friend
  deserted me, my eyes have been overflowing with tears. Without
  Thee, O my Glory, what care I for life? Better to dwell in the
  shadow of death than wander o'er the wide world. For the
  oppressed death is as a brother in adversity.

  "'Yonder two birds are billing and cooing, and tasting of the
  sweets of love. They live at ease ensconced in the branches of
  the trees, nestling amid green olive vines and garlands of
  flowers. I, only I, am exiled! Where shall I find a refuge? My
  rock-shelter is hedged about with prickly thorns and thistles....
  E'en the wild birds of prey mate happily, only I, poor mourning
  dove, alone among all beings alive, dwell apart. E'en those who
  gorge themselves with innocent blood live tranquil in their home
  eyries. Alas! only the righteous must weep, only the poor are
  stripped of all hope!...

  "'Return, then, my Life, my Breath! Return, my Comforter! Hear my
  bitter wail of woe, lead me back to my home. Have pity on my
  loneliness! Restore Thy love to me, bring me once again
  to the cleft of my rock, and let me hide myself in the shadow of
  Thy wings.'

  "Such moaning and dull wailing, my ear caught in the night, when
  the fields and the woods were bathed in Divine peace; and hearing
  the plaintive voice of the mourning dove, my soul knew it to be
  the voice of the bitter woe of the daughter of my people!"

Other writers and translators in large numbers added to the lustre of
Galicia as a centre of Hebrew literature. The most important among them
is Samson Bloch, the author of a geography of the world, including a
sentimental description of Palestine, written in oratorical style.
Joseph Efrati (1820) wrote an historical drama, _Meluhat Shaül_
("The Royalty of Saul"), which deserves mention for its fine conception.
And Judah Mises, in his two works, _Tekunat ha-Rabbanim_
("Characterization of the Rabbis"), and _Kinat ha-Emet_ ("The Zeal
for Truth"), opposed Rabbinic tradition and the authorities of the
Middle Ages. His antiquated rationalism called forth the severe
reproaches of Rapoport. Nevertheless he stirred up a grave controversy,
which gave rise to a series of consequences extending down to the
literary warfare begun by the collection _Ha-Roëh u-Mebakker_ ("The
Seer and the Searcher"), published by Bodek and Fischmann, in which the
works of Zunz, S. D. Luzzatto, and Jost are criticised.

At this point ceases the dominance of the litterateurs of Austrian
Poland. The centre of literary activity was thereafter transferred to
Russia permanently. Hasidism was about to take complete possession of
Galicia, and Hebrew literature, confined to a few small circles, was
never again to reach there the heights which it had occupied in the days
of Rapoport and Krochmal.

Though the centre of the Hebrew literary movement during the earlier
half of the nineteenth century lay in Galicia, yet the Jews elsewhere
had a share in it. In almost all the Slav countries as well as in the
Occident, in Germany, in Holland, and especially in Italy, Hebrew was
cultivated both by scholars and literary men. Some of the works of Zunz,
Geiger, Jellinek, and Frankel, for instance, were published in Hebrew.

At Amsterdam, out of a whole school of litterateurs, but one name can be
selected for special mention, that of the poet and scholar Samuel Mulder
(1789-1862). Besides being active as the editor of several collections
of essays, and writing remarkable historical studies, he was the
composer of poems very much admired by his contemporaries. Most of them
appeared in the _Bikkure To'elet_ ("Useful First Fruits"), which he
published at Amsterdam, in 1820, under the auspices of the Maskilim
society _To'elet_. The Talmudic narrative about the seduction of
the celebrated wife of Rabbi Meïr, forms the subject of an excellent
poem, entitled "Beruriah", on the fickleness of women.

In Germany it was chiefly the discussion evoked by the movement for
religious reforms (1840-1860) that created a literature in Hebrew. To
cite an instance, there was the fiery pamphlet _Or Nogah_ ("The
Bright Light"), by E. Lieberman, a masterpiece in point of style and as
a satire upon the orthodox party, together with the replies of the
Rabbis and the men of letters. It is curious to read pleas, in Hebrew,
for the abolition of the Hebrew language, and against the maintenance of
Jewish nationality. Abraham Geiger sided with the extreme reformers,
while Frankel and Zunz insisted upon the necessity of retaining Hebrew
as the language of worship. Another remarkable pamphlet directed against
religious reforms in Judaism must be singled out for mention, that
written by Meïr Israel Bresselau, entitled _Hereb Nokemet Nekam
Berit_ ("The Avenging Sword of the Covenant").

Moses Mendelsohn, of Hamburg, a German Harizi both in the character of
his work and by reason of his position as a straggler of the Meassefim,
was a disciple and imitator of Wessely. His Makamat _Pene Tebel_
("The Face of the World", Amsterdam, 1870) contain literary
reminiscences.

Among the contributors to the periodical literature published in
Galicia, Judah Jeiteles, of Prague (1773-1838), should be mentioned as a
writer of epigrams, models of their kind. [Footnote: _Bene ha-
Ne'urim_ ("Youth"), Prague, 1821.]

The following one is addressed to Tirzah:

  "She is as beautiful as the moon, radiant as the sun; her whole
  being resembles the two heavenly luminaries. The maiden lavishes
  her gifts upon the whole world, and like the two orbs she rules
  both day and night."

Jeiteles also carried on a sharp pamphlet war against Hasidism.
[Footnote: Like the Vienna and the Brody of that day, Prague also had
its literary centres. Among its Hebrew men of letters was Gabriel
Südfeld, the father of the celebrated author Max Nordau, and himself the
author of a drama and of an exegetical work, which appeared in 1850.]

Hungary, whose Jews had the same customs and characteristics as the Jews
of Poland, gave birth to one poet of real merit. Solomon Levinsohn, of
Moor (1789-1822), was brought up in orthodox surroundings, and had to
contend against all sorts of obstacles, spiritual and material. He
triumphed over them, and became a scholar of serious attainments and a
poet of distinction. Besides his historical studies, in German, he wrote
an excellent geography of Palestine, in Hebrew, under the title
_Mehkere Erez_ ("Investigations of the Land"), published at Vienna
in 1819. His poetical treatise _Melizat Yeshurun_ (a Hebrew
rhetoric), also published at Vienna, in 1846, is a master work, both as
a treatise on rhetoric and as poetic literature. The introductory poem,
on "Poetic Eloquence", an apotheosis of poetry and _belles
lettres_, is one of the finest ever written in Hebrew. The poet
displays a rich imagination, his figures of speech are clear-cut and
telling, and his style is remarkable for its classic quality. An unhappy
love affair terminated his days before his genius reached the period of
full flowering. [Footnote: Simon Bacher, the father of the scholar
Wilhelm Bacher, also won a name as an eloquent poet.]

       *       *       *       *       *

The literary movement of the first half of the nineteenth century did
not succeed in making itself felt among the masses. It failed to call
forth a national literature of even a slight degree of originality. The
Maskilim of Galicia fell into the same mistake as their predecessors in
Germany. In constituting themselves the champions of humanism in Poland,
in a community thoroughly religious, and affected by modern conceptions
only superficially, they should not have attached the undue importance
they did to arguments addressed to reason. Their appeal should have been
directed to the feelings of their co-religionists. They labored under
the delusion that positive reasoning could carry conviction to a people
immersed in mystical speculation, crushed by the double yoke of
ceremonialism and an inferior social position, and sustained only by the
Messianic hope of a glorious future. If Galician humanism never spread
beyond the small circles of the literary, it was only what might have
been expected. It could not become a popular movement. Neither the depth
of thinkers like Rapoport and Krochmal, nor the biting satire of an
Erter, nor the Zionistic lyricism of a Letteris, had force enough to cry
a halt to the Hasidim and impede their dark work. In point of fact, the
newer ideas all but failed to make an impression on the most independent
of the young Rabbis. They were affrighted by the religious decadence in
evidence in Germany, and they took a rather determined stand in
opposition to the spread of a secular literature in Hebrew. [Footnote:
Cases might be cited besides that of the learned friend of Rapoport,
Jacob Samuel Bick, referred to by Bernfeld in his biography of Rapoport,
p. 13. He deserted from the humanist camp, in which his Jewish feeling
was left unsatisfied, and took refuge in Hasidism.] As a result, we
shall see a steady decline in the position of the Hebrew litterateur in
Poland, and a decrease in the number of Hebrew publications. The
_Mehabber_ makes his appearance as a type--the vagabond author who
offers his own writings for sale, fairly forcing them on unwilling
purchasers. No more eloquent index is needed to the state of a
struggling literature.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is questionable whether the work of the Galician Maskilim would not
have been doomed to perpetual sterility, with no hope of ever making an
impression on the Jewish masses, if an Italian writer had not appeared
on the scene, who possessed the Jewish feeling that was lacking in his
predecessors. In Samuel David Luzzatto general culture and genuine
breadth of mind were united with Jewish loyalty raised to the highest
pitch. He succeeded in discovering the formula by which modern culture
can be brought to the religious without wounding their Jewish
sensibilities. The life and work of so remarkable a personage deserve
more than passing mention.

After a rather long period of inactivity in Hebrew letters in Italy, a
new literary and scientific school sprang into being during the first
half of the nineteenth century. It participated with notable success in
the movement of the north. The celebrated critic, Isaac Samuel Reggio
(1784-1854), an independent thinker, exercised enormous influence upon
his contemporaries by his publications in the history of literature and
his bold articles on religious reform. His chief work, "The Law and
Philosophy", which appeared in Vienna in 1827, is an attempt at
harmonizing the Jewish Law with science.

The best known of the poets were Joseph Almanzi (1790-1860) and Rachel
Morpurgo. [Footnote: The reader is referred to the anthology of the
Italian poets of the period, published by Abraham Baruch Piperno, under
the title _Kol Ugab_ ("The Voice of the Harp", Leghorn, 1846).]
Almanzi's poems were published in two collections, one entitled
_Higgayon be-Kinnor_ ("The Lyric Harp"), and _Nezem Zahab_
("Ornament of Gold").

Rachel Morpurgo (1790-1860), a kinswoman of the Luzzatto family, left a
collection of poems on various subjects, entitled _'Ugab Rahel_
("The Harp of Rachel"), a carefully prepared edition of which was
published by the scholar Vittorio Castiglioni. It is a curious document
in the history of Hebrew literature. The language of the poetess is
essentially Biblical, her style sprightly and original, and her thought
is dominated by a fine serenity of soul and unwavering faith in the
Messianic future of Israel.

The following sonnet was inspired by the democratic revolution of 1848,
which shook modern society to its very foundations, and in which the
Jews were largely and deeply interested:

  "He who bringeth low the proud, hath brought low all the kings of
  the earth.... He hath sent disaster and ruin into the fortified
  cities, and sated with blood their cringing defenders.

  "All, both young and old, gird on the sword, greedier for prey
  than the beasts of the forest; they all cry for liberty, the wise
  and the boors; the fury of the battle rages like the billows of
  the stormy sea....

  "Not thus the servants of God, the valiant of His host. They do
  battle day and night with their evil inclinations. Patiently they
  bear the yoke of their Rock, and increase cometh to their
  strength. My Friend is like a hart, like a sportive gazelle.

  "He will sound the great trumpet to summon the Deliverer;
  the righteous Sprout shall grow forth from the earth. Their Rock
  will soothe their pain, He will repair every breach. The Lord
  reigneth, and the earth rejoiceth aloud."

Rachel's finest poem is without a doubt the one named _'Emek 'Akor_
("The Dark Valley") in which she affirms her steadfast faith in the
truths and consolations of religion:

  "O dark valley, covered with night and mist, how long wilt thou
  keep me bound with thy chains? Better to die and abide under the
  shadow of the Almighty, than sit desolate in the seething
  waters."

  "I discern them from afar, the hills of eternity, their ever-
  enduring summits clothed with garlands of bloom. O that I might
  rise on wings like the eagle, fly upward with my eyes, and raise
  my countenance and gaze into the heart of the sun!

  "O Heaven, how beautiful are thy paths, they lead to where
  liberty reigneth ever. How gentle the zephyrs wafted over thy
  heights, who hath words to tell?"

The same mystic note struck by Rachel Morpurgo recurs in the works of
other Italian writers of the time. It distinguishes them strikingly from
their contemporaries in Galicia and Russia, who proclaim themselves
almost without exception the followers of a relentless rationalism.

       *       *       *       *       *

Unquestionably the most original of all these writers, and the one who
occupied the most prominent and influential place, is Samuel David
Luzzatto (1800-1865). He was born at Triest, the son of a carpenter, a
poor man, but none the less educated and respected. The childhood years
of Luzzatto were passed in poverty and study. He emerged a conqueror
from the struggle for life and knowledge. As early as 1829 he was
appointed rector of the Rabbinical Seminary at Padua. Thereafter he
could devote himself without hindrance to science and the education of
disciples, many of whom became celebrated.

Luzzatto's learning was vast in extent and as thorough. Besides, he
possessed literary taste and modern culture. In his southern
temperament, feeling had the upper hand of reason. He was an
indefatigable worker, his mind was always actively alert. Versed alike
in philology, archaeology, poetry, and philosophy, he was productive in
each of these departments, without ever laying himself open to the
charge of mediocrity. He was the creator of the Science of Judaism in
the Italian language, but above all he was a Hebrew writer.

He published excellent editions of the Hebrew masters of the Middle
Ages, for the first time bringing to the doors of readers, scholarly
readers as well as others, the works of such poets as Jehudah Halevi
(Prague, 1840). The notes in these editions of his are ingenious and
scientific. His own verses and poems are wholly devoid of inspiration
and fancy, but in form and style they are irreproachable. [Footnote:
_Kinnor Na'im_ ("The Sweet Lyre"), Vienna, 1835, and others.] His
prose is vigorous and precise, at the same time preserving some of the
Oriental charm native to the Hebrew.

His chief distinction is that he was a romantic Jew. His patriotic heart
was chilled by the attacks upon the Jewish religion and upon Jewish
nationalism by the German and Galician humanists. He was hostile to
rationalism, and opposed it all his life. In his sight, science, the
importance of which he in no degree denied, was yet not equal in value
to religious feeling. This alone, he held, is able to establish morality
in a position of supremacy.

S. Bernfeld, in his sketch of Rapoport, considers it a surprising
anachronism that this romanticist, this Jewish Chateaubriand, should
have appeared on the scene at the very moment of the triumph of
rationalism in Hebrew letters everywhere. [Footnote: Warsaw and Berlin,
1899] Luzzatto was the first among Hebrew humanists to claim the right
of existence not only for Jewish nationality, but also for the Jewish
religion in its integrity.

  "A people in possession of a land of its own can maintain itself,
  even without a religion of its own. But the Jewish people,
  dispersed in all four corners of the earth, can maintain itself
  only by virtue, of its attachment to its faith. And if, heaven
  forbid, it should cease to believe in revelation, it must
  inevitably be assimilated with the other peoples.... The science
  of Judaism, with which some scholars are at present occupying
  themselves in Germany, cannot preserve Judaism. [1] It is not an
  object in itself to them. When all is said, Goethe and Schiller
  are more important to these gentlemen, and much dearer to them,
  than all the prophets and all the Rabbis of the Talmud. They
  pursue the Science of Judaism pretty much as others study
  Egyptology or Assyriology, or the lore of Persia. They are
  inspired by a love of science, by the desire for personal renown,
  or, at best, by the intention to attach glory to the name of
  Israel, and they extol certain old works for the purpose of
  hastening the first redemption, that is, the political
  emancipation of the Jews. But this Science of Judaism has no
  stability. It cannot survive the emancipation of the Jews, or the
  death of those who studied the Torah and believed in God and
  Moses before they took lessons of Eichhorn and his disciples."

  "The true Science of Judaism, the science which will last as long
  as time itself, is that which is founded on the faith; which
  endeavors to understand the Bible as a Divine work, and the
  history of a peculiar people whose lot has been peculiar; which,
  finally, dwells upon those moments in the various epochs of
  Jewish history when the innate genius of Judaism wages a conflict
  with the genius of humanity in general, as it lies in wait
  without, and how the Divine spirit of Judaism mastered the spirit
  of humanity throughout all the centuries. For the day on which
  the positions shall be reversed, and the spirit of humanity shall
  remain in possession of the field, that day will be the last in
  the life of the people of Israel."

[Footnote 1: Jost, in his "History of the Jewish People", etc.]

This conception of the providential rôle assigned to Israel is the point
at which the Italian romanticist meets Krochmal, wide apart though their
starting-places are. At bottom both do but interpret the ancient notion
of the Divine selection of Israel and of a "chosen people". But while
Krochmal regards religion as a fleeting phase in the existence of the
nation, for Luzzatto religion is an essential element in Judaism, a view
not unlike Bossuet's. However, it does not lead him astray. He still
tries to harmonize faith with the demands of the modern spirit. The
Jewish religion is in his opinion the moral doctrine _par
excellence_. Like Heine he takes the world to be dominated by two
opposite forces, Hellenism and Hebraism. Justice, truth, the good, and
self-abnegation, whatever appertains to these is Jewish. The beautiful,
the rational, the sensuous, is Attic. Luzzatto does not hesitate to
criticise the masters of the Middle Ages rather sharply, chief among
them Maimonides, who attempted the impossible when he endeavored to
harmonize science and faith, reason and feeling, Moses and Aristotle.
These are the irreconcilable oppositions in human life.

  "Science does not make us happy; the highest morality alone is
  capable of conferring true happiness upon us, and spiritual
  peace. And this morality is to be found not with Aristotle, but
  only with the prophets of Israel.

  "The happiness of the Jewish people, the people of morality, does
  not depend upon its political emancipation, but upon its faith
  and its morality. The French and German Rabbis of the Middle
  Ages, simple-minded and uncultured, but pious and sincere, are
  preferable to the speculative minds of Spain, whose arguing and
  rhetoric warped their judgment."

Such ideas as these involved Luzzatto in discussions and polemics with
the greater number of his friends, the German Jewish scholars, whose
views were far removed from his. He defied his contemporaries, as he
attacked the masters of the Middle Ages. In one of his letters he goes
to the length of asserting, that while Jost and his colleagues were
engaged in what they believed to be the useful work of defending Judaism
against its enemies, they were in reality doing it more harm than these
same enemies. The latter tended to preserve the Jewish people as a
nation apart, while the rationalistic criticism of the former, directed
against the Jewish religion, burst the bonds that hold the nation
together, and hasten its dissolution.

  "When, my dear German scholars", he cries out vehemently, "when
  will the Lord open your eyes? How long will you fail to
  understand that, carried away by the general current, you are
  permitting national feeling to become extinct and the language of
  our ancestors to fall into desuetude, and are thus preparing the
  way for the triumphant invasion of Atticism.... So long as you do
  not teach that the Good is not that which is visible to the eyes,
  but that which is felt within the heart, and that the prosperity
  of our people is not dependent upon civil emancipation, but upon
  the love of a man for his neighbor, ... their hearts will not be
  possessed with zeal for God." [Footnote: Letters, I, No. 267, p.
  660.]

Luzzatto has no fondness for dry dogmatism, nor for detailed
prohibitions and Rabbinic controversies. He is too modern for that, too
much of a poet. What he loves is the poetry of religion. He is attracted
by its moral elevation. Like Jehudah Halevi, the sentimental philosopher
whose successor he is, Luzzatto feels and thinks in the peculiar fashion
that distinguishes the intuitive minds among the Jews. He loves his
native country, and this love appears clearly in his writings, yet, at
the same time, they all, whether in prose, as in his Letters, or in
verse, as in the _Kinnor Na'im_, sound a Zionistic note.

       *       *       *       *       *

Luzzatto became the founder of a school. Writers of our own day, like
Vittorio Castiglioni, Eude Lolli, and others, draw upon the works of the
master as a source, and they acknowledge it openly. His philological and
linguistic works, the _Bet ha-Ozar_ among others, have inestimable
value, and his Letters, published by Gräber in five volumes, the edition
from which most of the passages cited have been taken, abundantly prove
his influence on his contemporaries.

He was a master and a prophet, a gracious and brilliant exponent of the
Renascence of Hebrew literature, which had been inaugurated by one of
his ancestors, another Luzzatto.

A century of efforts and uninterrupted labor had wrought the
resurrection of the Hebrew language. After it had been transformed into
a modern tongue, in touch with all departments of thought, the sole
remaining task was to make it acceptable to the masses of the orthodox
Jews, and use it as an effective instrument of social and religious
emancipation. This task became easy of accomplishment because Luzzatto
knew how to direct the mind of his contemporaries. He found the key to
the heart of the masses.

A message in verse addressed to him by a young Lithuanian poet, in 1857,
gives an eloquent interpretation of the sentiment felt for the Italian
_maëstro_ by the devotees of a budding school of literature:

  "From the icy north country, where the flowers and the sun endure
  but a few short moons, these halting lines speed with their
  greeting away from the hoar frost, to the eloquent sage in the
  southland, enthroned among the wise and extolled by the pious--to
  the gentle guide whose heart burns, like the sun of his own fair
  land, with love for the people whence he was hewn, and for the
  tongue of the Jews." [Footnote: Poems, by J. L. Gordon, St.
  Petersburg, 1884, I, p. 125.]

The "icy north country" was Lithuania, in which the literary movement
had just effected a triumphal entry, bringing with it the light of
science, and the young poet was Judah Leon Gordon, destined to become
the greatest Jewish poet of the nineteenth century.

       *       *       *       *       *

Here we arrive at the end of the first part of our essay, devoted in
particular to Hebrew literature in Western Europe. For its future we
must look to the East.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER IV

IN LITHUANIA

HUMANISM IN RUSSIA


We are in the Jewish country, perhaps the only Jewish country in the
world. [Footnote: See Slouschz, _Massa' be-Lita_ ("Journey through
Lithuania"), Jerusalem, 1899.]

The last to participate in the intellectual movement of European
Judaism, the Lithuanian Jews start into view, in the second half of the
seventeenth century, as a peculiar social organism, clearly marked as
such from its first appearance. The Rabbis and scholars of Lithuania
acquired fame without a struggle, and its Rabbinical schools quickly
became the busy centres of Talmudic research.

The destinies of the Jewish population of Lithuania, so different in
character from that of Poland proper, were ruled absolutely by the
"Synod of the Four Countries", with Brest, and afterwards Wilna, as
headquarters.

The revolutions and upheavals to which is due the social and religious
decadence of the Polish Jews during the eighteenth century, barely
touched this forsaken corner of the earth. Even the Cossack invasion
dealt leniently with Lithuania, if the city of Wilna is excepted, and
its early annexation by Russia saved the province from the anarchy and
excitement which agitated Poland during its latter days.

Left to their fate, neglected by the authorities, and forming almost the
whole of the urban population, the Jews of Lithuania, in the full glare
of the eighteenth century, were in all essentials an autonomous
community with Jewish national and theocratic features. The Talmud did
service as their civil and religious code. The court of final appeal was
a Rabbinical expert, supported by the central synod and the local
_Kahal_, and exercising absolute authority over the moral and
material interests of those subordinated to his jurisdiction. The study
of the Law was carried to the extreme of devotion. To have an
illiterate, an _'Am ha-Arez_, a "rustic", in one's family, was
considered a pitiable fate.

Lithuania, in fine, was the promised land of Rabbinism, in which
everything favored the development of a national Jewish centre.

The natural poverty of the country, its barren soil, dense forests, and
lack of populous centres of civilization, all tended to keep the Polish
lords aloof. Poland offered them a more inviting sojourn. There was
nothing to hinder the pious scholars who had escaped from religious
persecution in the countries of Europe, especially France and Germany,
from devoting themselves, with all their heart and energy, to the study
of the Talmud and the ceremonials of their religion. No infusion of
aliens disturbed them. The inhospitable skies, the absence of
diversions, little troubled the refugees of the ghetto, for whom the
Book and the dead letter were all-sufficing. They were not affected,
their dignity was hardly wounded, by the haughty and arbitrary treatment
which the nobleman accorded to the Jewish "factor" and steward, and by
the many humiliations which were the price paid in return for the right
to live, for without the protection of the lords they would not have
been able to hold out against the wretched orthodox peasants. In
morality and in race, however, they considered themselves the superior
of the "Poriz", the Polish nobleman, with his extravagance and folly.

In the villages, the Jews had the upper hand, either as the actual
owners of the estates, or as the overseers, and in the rude cities with
their wooden buildings, they constituted the bulk of the merchants, the
middlemen, the artisans, even the workmen. They all led a sordid life.
Mere existence required a bitter struggle. Destitute of all pleasures
save the intimate joys of family life, fostering no ambition except such
as was connected with the study of the Law, disciplined by religious
authority, and chastened by austere and rigid principles of morality,
the Jewish masses had a peculiar stamp impressed upon their character by
their life of subjection and misery. The mind was constantly kept alert
by the dialectics of the Talmud and the ingenious efforts needed to
secure one's daily bread. Even the Messianic dreams, inspired by a
belief in Divine justice and in the moral and religious superiority of
Israel, rather than by a mystic conception of life, gave but a faint
touch of beauty and glamour to an existence so mournful, so abjectly
sad.

Such was, and such in part is still, the manner in which they live--a
sober, energetic, melancholy, and subtle people, the mass of the two
millions of Jews who reside in Lithuania and White Russia, and send
forth, to the great capitals of Europe and to the countries beyond seas,
a stream of industrious immigrants, resourceful intellectually and
morally.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, thanks to the peace with
which Lithuania was blessed after its subjection by Russia, Rabbinical
studies reached their zenith. The high schools, the _Yeshibot_,
became the centres of attraction for the best of the young men. The
number of writers and scholars increased considerably, and the Hebrew
printing presses were kept in full blast. The ideal of every Lithuanian
Jew was, if not to marry his daughter to a scholar, at least to have a
_Bahur_ at his table, a student of the Talmud, a prospective Rabbi.
"The Torah is the best _Sehorah_" ("merchandise"), every Lithuanian
mother croons at the cradle of her child.

In those days a Rabbinic authority arose like unto whom none had been
known among Jews in the later centuries, and his earnest, independent
genius, as well as his moral grandeur, conferred a consecration upon the
peculiar spiritual tendencies prevailing in Lithuanian Judaism, which he
personified at its loftiest. Elijah of Wilna, surnamed "the Gaon", "his
Excellency", succeeded in resisting the assaults of Hasidism, which
threatened to overwhelm, if not the learned among them, certainly the
Lithuanian masses. To parry the dangers of mysticism, which exercised so
powerful an attraction that the dry and subtle casuistry of Rabbinic
learning could not damp its ardor, he broke with scholastic methods, and
took up a comparatively rational interpretation of texts and the laws.
He went to the extreme of asserting the value of profane and practical
knowledge, the pursuit of which could not but bring advantage to the
study of the Law--a position unheard of at his day, and excusable only
in so popular a man as he was. He himself wrote a treatise on
mathematics, and philologic research was a favorite occupation with him.
His pupils followed his example; they translated several scientific
works into Hebrew, and founded schools and centres of puritanism, not
only in Lithuania, but also as far away as Palestine. From this time on
the _Yeshibah_ of Wolosin became the chief seat of traditional
Talmud study and Rabbinic rationalism.

One of the contemporaries of "the Gaon" was the physician Judah Hurwitz,
of Wilna, who opposed Hasidism in his pamphlet _Megillat Sedarim_
("A Book of Essays"), and in his ethical work _Ammude Bet-Yehudah_
("The Pillars of the House of Judah ", Prague, 1793), he pleads the
cause of internationalism and the equality of men and races!

It would be rash to suppose that an echo of the studies of the
Encyclopedists had reached a province double-barred and double-locked by
politics and religion. The European languages were unknown in the
Lithuanian Jewries of the Gaon's day, and his pupils sought their mental
pabulum in the writings of the Jewish scholars of the Middle Ages,
Maimonides, and Albo, and their compeers. The result was an odd,
whimsical science. False, antiquated notions and theories were
introduced through the medium of the Hebrew, and they attained no slight
vogue. At the end of the eighteenth century, a certain Elias, a Rabbi,
also of Wilna, undertook to gather all the facts of science into one
collection. He compiled a curious encyclopedia, the _Sefer ha-
Berit_ ("The Book of the Covenant"). By the side of geographic
details of the most fantastic sort, he set down chemical discoveries and
physical laws in the form of magical formulas. This book, by no means
the only one of its kind, was reprinted many a time, and in our own day
it still affords delight to orthodox readers.

A long time passed before the Russian government took note of the
intellectual condition of its Jewish subjects, who, in turn, asked
nothing better than to be left undisturbed. Nevertheless, the treatment
accorded them by the government was not calculated to inspire them with
great confidence in it. As for a Russification of the Jewish masses,
there could be no question of that, at a time when Russian civilization
and language were themselves in an embryonic state.

It was only when the first Alexander came to the throne that the reforms
planned by the government began to make an impression upon the distant
ghetto. A special commission was instituted for the purpose of studying
the conditions under which the Jews were living, and how to ameliorate
them materially and intellectually. The first close contact between Jews
and Russians took place in the little town of Shklow, inhabited almost
entirely by Jews. It was an important station on the route from the
capital to Western Europe, and the Jews were afforded an opportunity of
entering into relations with men of mark, both Russians and strangers,
who passed through on their way to St. Petersburg. [Footnote: As early
as 1780 a Hebrew ode was published on the occasion of Empress Catherine
II's passing through Shklow. A printing press was set up there about
1777, and it was at Shklow that a litterateur, N. H. Schulmann, made the
first attempt to found a weekly political journal in Hebrew, announcing
it in his edition of the _Zeker Rab_.] A circle of literary men
under the influence of the Meassefim was founded there, and a curious
literary document issued thence testifies to the hopes aroused by the
reform projects planned in the reign of Alexander I for the improvement
of the condition of the Jews. It is a pamphlet bearing the title _Kol
Shaw'at Bat-Yehudah_, or _Sinat ha-Dat_ ("The Loud Voice of the
Daughter of Judah", or "Religious Hatred"), and published, in Shklow in
1803, in Hebrew and Russian. The author, whose name was Löb Nevakhovich,
protests energetically, in behalf of truth and humanity, against the
contemptuous treatment accorded the Jews. [Footnote: Grandfather of the
well-known scholar E. Metchnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute.]

  "Ah, ye Christians, men of the newer faith, who vaunt your mercy
  and lovingkindness! Exercise your mercy upon us, turn your loving
  hearts toward us. Why do you scorn the Jew? If he forsakes his
  faith, how doth it profit you? Have you not heard the voice of
  Moses Mendelssohn, the celebrated writer of our people, who asked
  your co-religionists, 'Of what avail that you should continue to
  attach men lacking faith and religion to yourselves'? Can you
  not understand that the Jew, too, loves righteousness and justice
  like unto yourselves? Why do you constantly scrutinize the
  _man_ to find the _Jew_ in him? Seek but the man in the
  Jew, and you will surely find him!"

Like so many that have followed, this first appeal awakened no answering
echo in Russian hearts. A century has passed since then, and Russia
still fails to find the man in the unconverted Jew!

The hopes aroused in the Jews of Lithuania by the Napoleonic wars were
disappointed. An iron hand held them down, and they continued to
vegetate miserably in their gloomy, abandoned corner.

       *       *       *       *       *

The story goes that when Napoleon at the head of the _grande armée_
entered Wilna, the exclamation was forced from him, "Why, this is the
Jerusalem of Lithuania!" Whether the story is true or not, it is a fact
that no other city was more deserving of the epithet. The residence of
the Gaon was a Jewish metropolis as early as the eighteenth century, and
during the whole of the nineteenth century Wilna was the Jewish city
_par excellence_, a distinction to which it was helped by several
facts--by the systematic and intentional elimination of the Polish
element, especially since the insurrection of 1831, by the prohibition
of the Polish language, the closing of the university, and the absence
of a Lithuanian population. The dethroned capital of a people betrayed
by its nobility became, after its abandonment by the native inhabitants,
the centre of a Jewry independent of its surroundings and undisturbed in
its internal development. Without in the least deviating from Rabbinic
traditions, its constitutional platform, Jewish society in Wilna was
gradually penetrated by modern ideas.

The humanism of the German Jews, the Haskalah, met with no effective
resistance in a comparatively enlightened world, prepared for it by the
school of the Gaon. The Rabbinical students themselves were the first
representatives of humanism in Lithuania. They became as ambitious in
cultivating the Hebrew language and studying the secular sciences
presented in it, as in searching out and examining the Talmud. Sprung
from the people, living its life and sharing in its miseries, separated
from Christian society by a barrier of prescriptions that seemed
insuperable to them, the earliest of the Lithuanian litterateurs
vitalized their young love for science and Hebrew letters with the
disinterested devotion that characterizes the idealists of the ghetto in
general.

A literary circle, known as the "Berliners", was formed in Wilna, about
1830. It was the pattern after which a large number were modelled a
little later, all of them pursuing Hebrew literature with zeal and
ardor.

Two writers of worth, both from Wilna, the one a poet, the other a prose
writer, headed the literary procession in Lithuania.

Abraham Bär Lebensohn (Adam ha-Kohen, 1794-1880), surnamed the "father
of poetry", was born at Wilna. He spent a sad childhood. Left motherless
early, he was deprived of the love and the care that are the only
consolations known to a child of the ghetto. At the age of three, he was
sent to the _Heder_, at seven he was a student of the Talmud, then
casuistry occupied his mind, and, finally, the Kabbalah. The last had
but feeble attractions for the future poet. His mental mould was
determined by his thorough study of the Bible and Hebrew grammar, which
was good form in Wilna as early as his day, and the works of Wessely,
for whom he always professed warm admiration, had a decided influence
upon his poetic bias.

In his first attempts at poetry, Lebensohn did not depart greatly from
the achievements of the many Rabbinical students whose favorite pastime
was to discuss the events of the day in Hebrew verse. An elegy to the
memory of a Rabbi, an ode celebrating the equivocal glory of a Polish
nobleman, and similar subjects, were the natural choice of the muse of
the era, and the early flights of our author were not different. There
was nothing in them to betray the future poet of merit. A little later
he took up the study of German, but his knowledge of the language was
never more than superficial. Haunted by the fame of Schiller, he devoted
himself to poetry, and imitated the German poets, or tried to imitate
them, for he never succeeded in grasping the true meaning of German
poetry, nor in understanding erotic literature. To the Rabbinical
student, with his puritanic spirit and austere manners, it was a
collocation of poetic figures of speech and symbolic expressions.

His life differed in no wise from that of the poor Jews of the ghetto.
Given in marriage early by his father, he suddenly found himself deep in
the bitter struggle for existence, before he had known the transport of
living, or youth, or the passions, or love, or the inner doubts and
beliefs that contend with one another in the heart of man. Feeling for
nature, aesthetic delights, were strange provinces to this son of the
ghetto. A conception of art that is destitute of a moral aim would have
passed his understanding and his puritanic horizon. Too much of a free-
thinker to follow the Rabbinical profession, he taught Hebrew to
children--an unremunerative occupation, and little respected in a
society in which the most ignorant are not uninstructed, and in which,
the choice of vocations being restricted, the unsuccessful and the
unskilled naturally drop into teaching. Ten years of it, daily from
eight in the morning until nine at night, undermined his health. He fell
sick, and was compelled to give up his hap-hazard calling, to the great
gain of Hebrew poetry. He went into the brokerage business, and his
small leisure he devoted to his muse. Harassed by petty, sordid cares,
this broker was yet a genuine idealist, though it cannot be maintained
that Lebensohn was of the stuff of which dreamers are made and great
poets. But in his mind, rationalistic and logical to the point of
dryness, there was a secluded recess pervaded with melancholy and real
feeling. The Hebrew language he cherished with ardent and exalted love.
Is it not a beautiful language and admirable? Is it not the last relic
saved from the shipwreck in which all the national possessions of our
people were lost? And is not he, Lebensohn himself, the heir to the
prophets, the poet laureate and high priest to the holy language? With
what pride he unveils the state of his soul to us:

  "I am seated at the table of God, and with my hand I guide His
  pen; and my hand writes the language holy unto Him, the language
  of His Law, the language of His people, Selah! O God, arouse,
  awake my spirit, for is it not Thy holy language wherein I sing
  unto Thee?" [Footnote: _Shire Sefat Kodesh_, II, i.]

A creature of his surroundings, and a disciple of the Rabbis, as he was,
the dialectics of a logician were in him joined to native simplicity of
spirit, yet he never reached the point of understanding the inner world
of struggles and passions that agitate the individual lives of men. For
a love song or a poem in praise of nature, he thought it necessary only
to copy the German authors and link together a series of pointed verses.
The poem "David and Bath-sheba" is a failure. His descriptions of nature
are dry and artificial. He was never able to account for what was
happening under his eyes and around him. Events produced an effect upon
him out of all proportion to their importance. The military and civic
reforms of Nicholas I, he celebrated in an ode, in which he applied the
enthusiastic praise "Henceforth Israel will see only good!" to
regulations that were wholly prejudicial to Jewish interests. When some
Jewish banker or other was appointed consul-general in the Orient, he
welcomed the occurrence in dithyrambic verses, dedicated to the poor
fellow in the name of the Jews of Lithuania and White Russia. But
whenever the heart of our poet beats in unison with the sentiments of
his Jewish brethren, whenever he surrenders himself to the sadness, the
peculiar melancholy, that pervades Jewish relations, then he attains to
moral heights and lyric vigor unsurpassed. In his three volumes of
poetry, by the side of numerous worthless pieces, we meet many gems of
style and thought. The distressed cry of humanity against the
wretchedness under which it staggers, the sorrowful protest man makes
against the lack of compassion he encounters in his fellow, his
obstinate refusal to understand the implacable cruelty of nature when
she snatches his dearest from him, and his impotence in the presence of
death--these are the subjects that have inspired Lebensohn's best
efforts. He insists constantly, Is not pity the daughter of heaven? Do
we not find her among beasts even, and among reptiles? Man alone is a
stranger to her, and he makes himself the tyrant of his neighbor.

But it is not man alone who refuses to know this daughter of heaven,
Nature denies pity, too, and shows herself relentless:

  "O world! House of mourning, valley of weeping! Thy rivers are
  tears, and thy soil ashes. Upon thy surface thou bearest men that
  mourn, and in thy bowels the corpses of the dead.... From out of
  the mountains covered with snow and ice comes forth a chariot
  with none to guide. Within sits man and the wife of his bosom,
  beautiful as a flower, and at their knees play sweet children.
  Alas! a caravan of the dead simulating life! They journey on, and
  they go astray, and perish on the icy fields."

Distress round about, and all hopes collapsed, death hovers apart, yet
near, remorseless, threatening, and in the end victorious.

In another poem, entitled "The Weeping Woman", his subject is pity
again. He cries out:

  "Thy enemy [cruelty] is stronger than thou. If thou art a burning
  fire, she is a current of icy water!... Alas for thee, O pity!
  Where is he that will have pity upon thee?"

With a few vigorous strokes, the Hebrew poet describes the nothingness
of man in the face of the vast world. The lot of the Hamlets and of the
Renés is more enviable than that of the "Mourner" of the ghetto. They at
least taste of life before becoming a prey to melancholy and delivering
themselves up to pessimism. They know the charms of living and its
vexations. The disappointed son of the ghetto lays no stress on
gratifications and pleasures. In the name of the supreme moral law he
sets himself up for a pessimistic philosopher.

  "Our life is a breath, light as a floating bark. The grave is at
  the very threshold of life, it awaits us not far from the womb of
  our mother....

  "Since the beginnings of the earth, we have been here, and she
  changes us like the grass of her soil. She stands firm, unshaken.
  We alone are changeable, and help there is none for us, no
  refuge, nor may we decline to come hither. Like an angler of
  fish, the world brings us up on a hook. Before it has finished
  devouring one generation, the next is ready for its fate. One is
  swallowed up, the other snatched away. Whence cometh our help?"

To this general destruction, this wildness of the elements, which the
"Mourner" fails to comprehend, permeated as he is with belief in Divine
justice, is superadded the malice of man.

  "And thou also, thou becomest a scourge unto thy brother! The
  heavenly host is joined by thy fellow-man. From the wrath of man,
  O man, thou wilt never escape. His jealousy of thee will last for
  aye, until thou art no more!"


And with all this, does life offer aught substantial, aught that is
lasting?

  "Where are they, the forgotten generations? Their very name and
  memory have disappeared. And in the generation to come, we, too,
  shall be forgotten. And who escapes his lot? Not a single one of
  us all. None is secure from death. Wealth, wisdom, strength,
  beauty, all are nothing, nothing...."

In a burst of revolt, our poet exclaims:

  "If I knew that my voice with its reverberations sufficed to
  destroy the earth and the fulness thereof, and all the hosts of
  heaven, I would cry with a thundering noise: Cease! Myself I
  would return to nothing with the rest of mankind. Know not the
  living that the grave will swallow them up after a life of
  sadness and cruel misery? See they not that the whole of human
  life is like the flash that goes before the fatal thunderbolt?"

The same train of thought is not met with again until we come down to
our own time, and Maupassant himself does not present it with greater
vigor in _Sur l'eau_.

And the end of the matter is that "man has nothing but the consciousness
of sorrow; he is naked and starved, feeble and without energy. His soul
desires all that he has not, and so he longs and languishes day and
night."

The uncertainty caused by the certainty of death, the terror inspired by
the fatal end, the aching regrets over the parting with dear ones, these
feelings, which possess even the devoutest Jew, are expressed in one of
Lebensohn's most beautiful poems, "The Death Agony", and in "Knowledge
and Death" the skepticism of the Maskil prevails over the optimism of
the Jew.

Sometimes he permits himself to sing of the misery of his people as
such. In "The Wail of the Daughter of Judah" (_Naäkat Bat-
Yehudah_), it would not be too much to say that there is an echo of
the best of the Psalms. The weakest of his verses are, nevertheless,
those in which he expresses longing for Jerusalem.

A great misfortune befell Lebensohn. The premature death of his son, the
young poet Micah Joseph, the centre of many and legitimate hopes,
extorted cries of distress and despair from him.

  "Who, alas! hath driven my bird from my nest? Who is it that hath
  banished my lyre from my abode? Who hath shattered my heart, and
  brought me lamentation?... Who hath with one blow blasted my
  hopes?"

There is enough in his writings to make the fortune of a great poet, in
spite of their ballast of mediocre and tiresome verses, which the reader
should disregard as he goes along. Between him and his contemporary, the
haughty recluse Alfred de Vigny, there is not a little resemblance.
Needless to say that Lebensohn had no acquaintance whatsoever with the
works of the French poet.

Lebensohn's poems, published at Wilna, in 1852, under the title "Poems
in the Holy Language" (_Shire Sefat Kodesh_), were greeted with
enthusiasm. The author was hailed as the "father of poetry". Besides, he
published several works treating of grammar and exegesis.

When the celebrated philanthropist Montefiore went to Russia, in 1848,
to induce the Czar's government to ameliorate the civil condition of the
Jews and grant reforms in the conduct of the schools, Lebensohn ranged
himself publicly on the side of the reformers. According to him, the
degradation of the Jews was due to three main causes:

1. Absence of Haskalah, that is, a rational education, founded upon
instruction in the language of the land, the ordinary branches of
knowledge, and a handicraft.

2. The ignorance of the Rabbis and preachers on all subjects outside of
religion.

3. Indulgence in luxuries, especially of the table and of dress.

If the first two causes are more or less just, the third displays a
ludicrously naïve conception of life. Lebensohn was speaking of a
famished people, the majority of whom ate meat only once a week, on the
Sabbath, and he reproaches them with gastronomic excesses and
extravagance in dress. We shall see that his simple outlook was shared
by most of the Russian Maskilim.

In 1867, at the time when the struggle for the emancipation of the Jews
and internal reforms in general was at its highest point, Lebensohn
published his drama "Truth and Faith" (_Emet we-Emunah_, Wilna),
which he had written all of twenty years earlier. It is a purely
didactic work, blameless of any trace of poetic ardor. It must be
conceded that the style is clear and fluent, and the ethical problem is
stated with precision. But it lacks every attempt at analysis of
character, and is destitute of all psychologic motivation. These being
of the very essence of dramatic composition, his drama reduces itself to
a moral treatise, wearisome at once and worthless. The plan is simple
enough. Sheker (Falsehood) seeks to seduce and win over Hamon (the
Crowd). He offers to give him his daughter Emunah (Faith) in marriage,
but she is wooed by two lovers, Emet (Truth) and Sekel (Reason).

The influence of Moses Hayyim Luzzatto is direct and manifest. Like the
older author, Lebensohn, skeptic though he is, does not go to the length
of casting doubt upon faith. He rises up against falsehood, hypocrisy,
and mock piety, the piety that persecutes others, and steeps its
votaries in ignorance. "Pure reason is not opposed to a pure religion",
was the device adopted by the Wilna school.

Belief in God being set aside as a basic principle, the reason invoked
by the dramatist is positive reason, the reason of science, of justice,
of rational logic. In verbose monologues, he combats the superstitions
and fanaticism of the orthodox. The whole force of the Maskil's hatred
against obscurantism is expressed through the character named Zibeon,
Jewish hypocrite and chief adjutant in the camp of Sheker (Falsehood).
This Jewish Tartufe is very different in his complexity from the
character created by Moliere. Zibeon is a wonderworking Rabbi, a subtle
sophist, a crafty dialectician. The waves of the Talmud, the casuistry
of more than a millennium of scholasticism, have left their traces in
his mind and personality. In his hatred of the adversaries of the
Haskalah, Lebensohn depicts him, besides, as a hypocrite, a lover of the
good things of this world, and given to lewdness, which are not the
usual traits of these Rabbis. The alleged Tartufe of the ghetto cannot
be called a hypocrite. He is a believer, and hence sincere. What leads
him to commit the worst excesses, is his fanaticism, his blind piety.

On the other hand, the dramatist is full of admiration for Sekel
(Reason), Hokmah (Knowledge), Emet (Truth), and even Emunah (Faith).

On the background of the prosiness of this work by Lebensohn, there
stands out one passage of remarkable beauty, the prayer of Sekel
beseeching God to liberate Emet. The triumph of Truth closes the drama.

One characteristic feature should be pointed out: Neither Regesh
(Sentiment), a prominent Jewish quality, nor Taawah (Passion), appears
in this gallery of allegorical characters personifying the moral
attributes. For Lebensohn, as for the whole school of the humanists of
his time, the only thing that mattered was reason, and reason had to be
shown all-sufficing to ensure the triumph of truth.

In its day Lebensohn's drama excited the wrath of the orthodox. A Rabbi
with literary pretensions, Malbim (Meir Lob ben Jehiel Michael),
considered it his duty to intervene, and to the accusations launched by
Lebensohn he replied in another drama, called _Mashal u-Melizah_
("Allegory and Interpretation"), wherein he undertakes the defense of
the orthodox against the charges of ill-disposed Maskilim.

       *       *       *       *       *

If Abraham Bär Lebensohn is considered the father of poetry, his no less
celebrated contemporary and compatriot, Mordecai Aaron Ginzburg, has an
equally good claim to be called the foremost master of modern Hebrew
prose. Ginzburg is the creator of a realistic Hebrew prose style, though
he was permeated to the end with the style and the spirit of the Bible.
Whenever the Biblical style can render modern thoughts only by torturing
and twisting it, or by resorting to cumbersome circumlocutions, Ginzburg
does not hesitate to levy contributions from Talmudic literature and
even the modern languages. These linguistic additions made by him are
always excellent, and in no way prejudicial to the elegance of Hebrew
style. For it should be reiterated, in season and out of season, that it
is a mistake to believe the neo-Hebrew to be essentially different from
the language of the Bible, analogous to the difference between the
modern and the classic Greek. The modern Hebrew is nothing more than an
adaptation of the ancient Hebrew, conformable to the modern spirit and
new ideas. The extreme innovators, who at best are few in number, cannot
but confirm this statement of the case.

Ginzburg was a fertile writer; he has left us fifteen volumes, and more,
on various subjects. Endowed with good common sense, and equipped with a
more solid modern education than the majority of the writers of the
time, he exercised a very great influence upon his readers and upon the
development of Hebrew literature. His "Abiezer", a sort of
autobiography, very realistic, presents a striking picture of the
defective education and backward ways of the ghetto, which the critic
denounces, with remarkable subtlety, in the name of civilization and
progress. Besides, he published two volumes on the Napoleonic wars; one
volume, under the title _Hamat Damesek_ (1840), on the ritual
murder accusation at Damascus; a history of Russia; a translation of the
Alexandrian Philo's account of his mission to Rome; and a treatise on
style (_Debir_). He was very successful with his works, and all of
them were published during his lifetime, at Wilna, Prague, and Leipsic,
and have been republished since. One of his achievements is that he
helped to create a public of Hebrew readers. It must be admitted that
the great mass of the people were at first somewhat repelled by his
realism and by his terse and accurate way of writing. Their taste was
not sufficiently refined to appreciate these qualities, and their
primitive sensibilities could not derive pleasure from a description of
things as they actually are. This is the difficulty which the second
generation of Lithuanian writers took account of, and overcame, when
they introduced romanticism into Hebrew literature.

Though it was the first, Wilna was not the only centre of Hebrew
literature in Russia. In the south, and quite independent of the Wilna
school, literary circles were formed under the influence of the Galician
writers and workers.

At Odessa, a European window opening on the Empire of the Czar, we see
the first enlightened Jewish community come into existence. The educated
flocked thither from all parts, especially from Galicia. Simhah Pinsker
and B. Stern are the representatives of the Science of Judaism in
Russia, and the contributions of the Karaite Abraham Firkovich in the
same field were most valuable, while Eichenbaum, Gottlober, and others
distinguished themselves as poets and writers.

Isaac Eichenbaum (1796-1861) was a graceful poet. Besides his prose
writings and his remarkable treatise on the game of chess, we have a
collection in verse by him, entitled _Kol Zimrah_ ("The Voice of
Song", Leipsic, 1836). His sweetness and tenderness, his elegant and
clear style, often recall Heine. The following quotation is from his
poem "The Four Seasons".

  "Winter has passed, the cold has fled, the ice melts under the
  fiery darts of the sun. A stream of melted snow sends its limpid
  waters flowing down the declivity of the rock. My beloved alone
  is unmoved, and all the fires of my love cannot melt her icy
  heart.

  "The hills are clothed with festive mirth, the face of the
  valleys smiles joyously. The cedar beams, the vine is jubilant,
  and the pine tree finds a nest in the recesses of the jagged
  mountain. But in me sighs increase, they bring me low--my friend
  will not yet hearken unto me.

  "All sings that lives in the woodland. The beasts of the earth
  rejoice, and in the branches of the trees the winged creatures
  warble, each to his mate. My well-beloved alone turns her steps
  away from me, and under the shadow of my roof I am left in
  solitude.

  "The plants spring from the soil, the grass glitters in the
  splendor of the sun, and the earth is covered with verdure. Upon
  the meadows, the lilies and the roses bloom. Thus my hopes
  blossom, too, and I am filled with joyous expectation--my friend
  will come back and in her arms enfold me."

The acknowledged master of the humanists in southern Russia was Isaac
Bär Levinsohn, of Kremenetz, in Wolhynia (1788-1860). His proper place
is in a history of the emancipation of the Russian Jews, rather than in
a history of literature. Levinsohn was born in the country of Hasidism.
A happy chance carried him to Brody when he was very young. He attached
himself there to the humanist circle, and made the acquaintance of the
Galician masters. On his return to his own country, he was actuated by
the desire to work for the emancipation and promote the culture of the
Russian Jews.

Like Wessely, Levinsohn remained on strictly orthodox ground in his
writings, and in the name of traditional religion itself he attacks
superstition, and urges the obligatory study of the Hebrew language, the
pursuit of the various branches of knowledge, and the learning of
trades. His profound scholarship, the gentleness and sincerity of his
writings, earned for him the respect of even the most orthodox. His
_Bet-Yehudah_ ("The House of Judah") and _Te'udah be-Yisraël_
("Testimony in Israel") are pleas in favor of modern schooling. In
"Zerubbabel" he treats of questions of Hebrew philology, and with the
help of documents he annihilates the legend of the ritual murder in his
_Efes-Dammim_ ("No Blood!"). _Ahijah ha-Shiloni_ is a defense
of Talmudic Judaism against its Christian detractors. Besides, Levinsohn
wrote a number of other things, epigrams, articles, and essays.
[Footnote: We owe a new edition of all his works to Nathansohn, Warsaw,
1880-1900.]

The contemporaries of Levinsohn exaggerated the importance of the
literary part of his work. Not much of it, outside of his philologic
studies, deserves to be called literary, and even they often fall below
the mark on account of the simplicity of his views, and especially on
account of his prolixity and his awkward diction and style. Also the
direct influence which he has exerted upon Jews is less considerable
than once was thought. Upon Hasidism he made no impression whatsoever.
In Lithuania, to be sure, his works were widely read by the Jews, but in
that home of the Hebrew language the subject-matter and arguments of an
author play but little part in giving vogue to what is written in the
Biblical language.

By his self-abnegation and his wretched fortunes, his isolated life in a
remote town, weak in body yet working for the elevation of his co-
religionists, he won the admiration of his contemporaries without
exception.

The fame of the solitary idealist of Kremenetz spread until it reached
government circles. Levinsohn was the first of the Jewish humanists who
maintained direct relations with the Russian authorities. Czar Nicholas
I gave him a personal audience, and several times sought his advice on
problems connected with the endeavor to ameliorate the social condition
of the Jews. The founding of Jewish elementary schools, the opening of
two Rabbinical seminaries, one at Wilna and one at Zhitomir, the
establishment of numerous agricultural colonies, the improvements
effected in the political condition of the Jews and in the censorship of
Hebrew books--all these progressive measures are in great part, if not
entirely, due to the influence of Levinsohn. And the educated men of his
time paid the tribute of veneration to a compeer who enjoyed the esteem
of the governing classes to so high a degree.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER V

THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

ABRAHAM MAPU


The political reaction following upon the Polish revolution of 1831 made
itself felt in Lithuania particularly. The hand of the government
weighed heavy upon the people of this province. The University of Wilna
was closed, and all traces of civilization were effaced.

From the arbitrariness of the Polish nobles, the Jews were rescued only
to fall into the tender mercies of unscrupulous officials. As it was,
since 1823 the most rigorous measures had been devised against them.
They were exposed to expulsions from the villages, and their commercial
and other privileges had been considerably curtailed. Besides, a new
scourge was inflicted upon them, compulsory service in the army, unknown
until then, a frightful service, with an active period of twenty-five
years. Children were torn from their families and their faith, and the
whole life of a man was swallowed up. They struggled against this new
incubus with all the weapons at the disposal of a feeble population.
Bribery, premature marriage, wholesale evasion, voluntary or forced
substitution, were the means employed by the well-to-do to save their
progeny from military service.

In order to ensure the regular recruiting of soldiers among the Jews,
Czar Nicholas I, while abolishing the central synod organization,
maintained the local _Kahal_ everywhere, and made it responsible
for the military conscription. The wealthy, the learned, the heads of
the communities profited greatly by this official recognition of the
Kahal. It enabled them to free the members of their families from
enrollment in the army. In their hands, it became an instrument for the
oppression and exploitation of the poor. "The devil take the hindmost!"
expresses the state of mind of the Russian Jews in the middle of the
nineteenth century, during the whole of the period called the
_Behalah_ ("Terror").

The reforms projected by Alexander I for the benefit of the Jews, the
hopes cherished by the Lithuanian humanists, proved abortive.
Reactionary tendencies made themselves felt everywhere cruelly, but
chiefly they injured the Jews, forever persecuted, downtrodden, and
humiliated. The profound pessimism of Lebensohn's poetry is eloquent
testimony to the feelings of educated Jews. And yet, these votaries of
knowledge, of civilization, the daughter of heaven, clung to their
illusions. They continued to insist that only thoroughgoing reforms can
solve the Jewish question. The people at large did not side with them,
and even among the educated their view of the situation was not shared
by the younger men. In this moral disorder, the masses of the people
permitted themselves to be carried along unresistingly by the current of
Hasidic views, which had long been waiting to capture the last fortress
of rational Judaism. The Rabbis stood by alarmed, unable to do anything
to arrest the growing encroachments of the mystic movement. Yet there
was an adversary ready and equipped. In the young neo-Hebrew literature,
mysticism found a foeman far more powerful than ever logic and
rationalism had been.

The Hebrew language was cultivated with zeal by the educated classes,
and even by the young Rabbis. It was the epoch of the _Melizah_,
and the _Melizah_ was to supplement the jejuneness of Rabbinism and
oppose the Hasidim with good results. Hebrew was in the ascendant, not
only for poetry, but for general purposes as well. In the sunshine of
the nineteenth century, it became the language of commerce, of
jurisprudence, of friendly intercourse. Folklore itself, in the very
teeth of the now despised jargon, knew no other tongue. The period
produced a large quantity of popular poems, which to this day are sung
by the Jews of Lithuania. The dominant note is the national plaint of
the Jewish people, its dreams, and its Messianic hopes. They are
essentially Zionistic.

In polished and tender Hebrew, with lofty expressions and despairful
cries worthy of Byron, a poet of the people mourns the misfortunes of
Zion:

  "Zion, Zion, city of our God! How awful is thy breach! Who will
  heal thee!... Every nation, every country, sees its splendor grow
  from day to day. Thou alone and thy people, ye fall from depth to
  awful depth....

  "Holy land, O Zion and Jerusalem! How dare the stranger trample
  on thy soil with haughty foot? How, O Heaven, can the son of the
  stranger stand upon the spot whence Thy command banishes him?"

But hope is not entirely blasted:

  "In the name of all thy people, in all their dwelling-places,
  have we sworn unto thee, O Zion, with scorching tears, that thou
  shalt always rest upon our hearts as a seal. Not by night and not
  by day shalt thou be forgotten by us."

Another popular poem, anonymous like the last, entitled "The Rose", is
still more dolorous and despairful in tone. Stepped upon by every
passerby, the rose supplicates incessantly, "O man, have pity on me,
restore me to my home!"

Besides these and others with the same underlying ideas, the lyrics of
Lebensohn and "The Mourning Dove" by Letteris constituted the repertory
of the people. But soon romanticism on the part of the litterateurs
began to respond to the romanticism of the masses, asserting itself as a
national Jewish need.

A translation of _Les Mystères de Paris_, published in Wilna in
1847-8, introduced the romantic movement among the Jews, and at the same
time the novel into the Hebrew language. This translation, or, rather,
adaptation, of Sue's work, executed in a stilted Biblical style, won
great renown for its young author, Kalman Schulman of Wilna (1826-1900).

From the literary point of view, Schulman's achievement is interesting
because of the kind of literature it was the first to offer to readers
of Hebrew--pastime literature, fiction in place of the serious writings
of the humanists. The enormous success obtained by this first work of
the translator, the repeated editions which it underwent, testify to the
existence of a public that craved light literature. Thenceforth,
romanticism was to occupy the first place, and the _Melizah_ style
was appropriated for the purposes of fiction, to the delight of the
friends of the Bible language.

In spite of his small originality, it happened that Kalman Schulman
contributed more than any other writer to the achievement of securing a
place for Hebrew in the hearts of the people. For the length of a half-
century, he was regarded popularly as the master of Hebrew style.
Romantic and conservative in religion, enthusiastic for whatsoever the
Jewish genius produced, naïve in his conception of life, he let his
activity play upon all the fields of literature. He published a History
of the World in ten volumes; a geography, likewise in ten volumes; four
volumes of biographical and literary essays on the Jewish writers of the
Middle Ages; a national romance dealing with the time of Bar Kokbah (a
composite made up of a number of translations); and curious Biblical and
Talmudic essays. [Footnote: These works, first published at Wilna, have
been republished again and again.]

His language is the Hebrew of Isaiah. The artificialities and the undue
emphasis of his style, his childlike views, his romantic sentimentality
in all that touches Jews and Judaism, which appealed directly to the
hearts of the simple, ignorant readers who constituted his public,
explain the success of this writer, well merited even though he lacked
originality. His books were spread broadcast, by the millions of copies,
and they fostered love of Hebrew, of science, and knowledge in general
among the people. By this token, Schulman was a civilizing agent of the
first rank. His work is the portal through which the Maskil had to pass,
and sometimes passes to this day, on the path of development toward
modern civilization.

Schulman became the head of a school. His poetic and inflated style long
imposed itself upon all subjects, and hindered the natural development
of Hebrew prose, inaugurated by Mordecai A. Ginzburg.

More creative writers were not long in making their appearance. Among
the poets of the romantic school, a prominent place belongs to Micah
Joseph Lebensohn, briefly called Mikal (1828-1852), the son of Abraham
Bär Lebensohn.

Gentle and gracious in the same measure in which his father was hard and
unyielding, Micah Joseph Lebensohn was the only writer of the time to
enjoy the advantage of a complete modern education, and the only one of
his generation to escape cruel want and the struggle for personal
freedom. He knew German literature thoroughly, and he had taken a course
in philosophy at Berlin, under Schelling. Along with these attainments,
he was master of Hebrew as a living language. It was the vehicle for his
most intimate thoughts and the subtlest shades of feeling.

His rich poetic imagination, his harmonious style, warm figures of
speech, consummate lyric quality, unmarred by the blatant, crude
exaggerations of his predecessors, constitute Mikal the first artist of
his day in Hebrew poetry.

He made his appearance in the world of letters, in 1851, with a
translation of Schiller's "Destruction of Troy", finished in style and
in poetic polish. He was the first to apply the rules of modern prosody
strictly to Hebrew poetry. His collection of poems, _Shire Bat-
Ziyyon_ ("The Songs of the Daughter of Zion"), is a masterpiece. It
contains six historical poems, admirable in thought, form, and
inspiration. In "Solomon and Kohelet", his most ambitious poem, he
brings the youth of King Solomon before our eyes. [Footnote: Wilna,
1852. German translation by J. Steinberg, Wilna, 1859.] It was the first
time the love of Solomon for the Shulammite was celebrated--a sublime,
exalted love sung in marvellous fashion. The joy of life trembles in all
the fibres of the poet's heart.... Then, the old age of Ecclesiastes is
contrasted strikingly with the youth of Solomon--the king disillusioned,
skeptical, convinced of the vanity of love, beauty, and knowledge. All
is dross, vanity of vanities! And the young romantic poet ends his work
with the conclusion that wisdom cannot exist without faith--that faith
alone is capable of giving man supreme satisfaction.

"Jael and Sisera", a noble production, treats of the silent struggle, in
the heart of the valiant woman extolled by Deborah, between the duty of
hospitality on the one side, and love of country on the other. The
latter triumphs in the end:

  "With this people I dwell, and in its land I am sheltered!
  Should I not desire its prosperity and its happiness?"

"Moses on Mount Abarim" is full of admiration for the great legislator.
The poet says regarding his death:

  "The light of the world is obscured and dun,
  Of what avail the light of the sun?"

His elegy on Jehudah Halevi is instinct with the pathos of patriotic
love for the Holy Land:

  "That land, where every stone is an altar to the living God, and
  every rock a seat for a prophet of the supreme Lord".

Or, as he exclaims in another poem, "Land of the muses, perfection of
beauty, wherein every stone is a book, every rock a graven tablet!"

Another collection of poems by Mikal, _Kinnor Bat-Ziyyon_ ("The
Harp of the Daughter of Zion"), published at Wilna, posthumously,
contains, besides a number of pieces translated from the German, also
lyric poems, in which the poet breathes forth his soul and his
suffering. He loves life passionately, but he divines that he will not
be granted the opportunity of enjoying it long, and, in an access of
despair, he cries out: "Accursed be death, accursed also life!" His
nature changes, his muse grows sad, and, like his father, he discerns
only injustice and misfortune in the world. In a poem addressed to "The
Stars", he fairly storms high heaven to wrest from it the secret of the
worlds:

  "Answer me, I pray, answer me, ye who are denizens on high! O,
  stop the march of the eternal laws a single instant! Alas, my
  heart is full of disgust over this earth. Here man is born unto
  pain and misery!... Here reigns religious Hatred! On her lips
  she bears the name of the God of mercy, and in her hands the
  blood-dripping sword. She prays, she throws herself upon her
  knees, yet without cease, and in the name of God, she slaughters
  her victims. This world, when the Lord created it in a fit of
  anger, He cast it far away from Him in wrath. Then Death threw
  herself upon it, scattering terror everywhere. She holds this
  world in her talons. Misery also precipitates herself upon it,
  gnashing her teeth in beast-like rage. She clutches man like a
  beast of prey, she torments him without reprieve...."

This posthumous collection of poems contains also love poems and Zionist
lamentations, all bearing the impress of the deep melancholy and the
sadness that characterized the last years of the poet's short life. A
cruel malady carried him off at the age of twenty-four, and the friends
of Hebrew poetry were left mourning in despair.

Romantic fiction in Hebrew, which the strait-laced life and the
austerity of the educated had rendered impossible up to this time, now
made its first appearance in the form of translations of modern
romances. They were received with acclaim by a well-disposed public
greedy for novelties. The creators of original romances were not long in
coming. The first master in the department, the father of Hebrew
romance, was Abraham Mapu (1808-1867).

Mapu was born at Slobodka, a suburb of Kowno, a sad town inhabited
almost entirely by Jews. The whole of the population vegetates there
amid the most deplorable conditions, economic and sanitary. The father
of Mapu was a poor, melancholy _Melammed_, a teacher of Hebrew and
the Talmud, simple in his outlook upon life, yet not without a certain
degree of education. He loved and cultivated knowledge as taught by the
Hebrew masters of the Middle Ages. Mapu's mother was gentle and sweet.
With resignation and fortitude she endured the physical suffering that
hampered her all her life. His brother Mattathias, a Rabbinical student,
was a man of parts.

In brief, it was misery itself, the life he knew, but the misery once
surmounted, and vain desires eliminated, it was a life that tended to
bind closer the ties of family love. Being a sickly child, Mapu did not
begin to study the elementary branches until he was five years old, an
advanced age among people whose children were usually sent to the
_Heder_ at four, to spend years upon years there that brought no
joy to the student as he sat all day long bent over the great folios of
the Talmud, except the joy that comes from success in study. Rational
instruction in the Bible and in Hebrew grammar, scorned by the Talmudic
dialecticians as superficial studies, was banished from the
_Heder_. Happily for the future writer, his father taught him the
Bible, and awakened love in his sensitive heart for the Hebrew language
and for the glorious past of his people. At the same time, his Talmudic
education went on admirably. At the age of twelve, he had the reputation
of being a scholar, at the age of thirteen, an _'Illui_, a
"phenomenon", and from that time on he was at liberty to devote himself
to his studies at his own free will, without submitting himself to the
discipline of a master.

Like all young Talmudists, he was soon sought after as a desirable son-
in-law, and it was not long before his father affianced him to the
daughter of a well-to-do burgher. At the age of seventeen, he was
married. Marriage, however, did not change his life. As before, he
pursued his studies, while his father-in-law provided for his wants. But
soon his studies took a new direction. His pensive mind, stifled by
Rabbinic scholasticism, turned to the Kabbalah. Mystical exaltation more
and more took possession of him, and the day came when he all but
declared himself a follower of Hasidism. It was his mother who saved
him. He yielded to her prayers, and was held back from committing a
perilous act of heresy.

These internal conflicts between feeling and reason, the perplexities
with which his spirit wrestled, did not affect our author to an
excessive degree. They produced no radical change in his personality.
All his life Mapu remained the humble scholar of the ghetto, a successor
of the _Ebyonim_, of the psalmists and the prophets. Timorous,
melancholy, lacking all desire for the things connected with practical
life, often degraded by their own material wretchedness and by the
intellectual wretchedness of their surroundings, these dreamers of the
ghetto, more numerous than the outsider knows, hide a moral exaltation
in the depths of their hearts, a supreme idealism, always ready to do
battle, never conquered. In their persons we are offered the only
explanation there is for the activity and persistence of the Messianic
people.

Mapu was on the point of succumbing, like so many others, the darkness
of mysticism was about to drop like a pall upon his mind, when something
happened, insignificant in itself, but important through its
consequences, and he was snatched out of danger. A Latin psalter fell
into his hands by chance; it gave a fresh turn to his studies, and his
mind took its bearings anew.

Was it curiosity, or was it desire for knowledge, that impelled him to
decipher the sacred text in an unknown language at what cost soever? It
is certain that no difficulty affrighted him. Word by word he translated
the Latin text by dint of comparing it with the Hebrew original, and he
succeeded in acquiring a large number of Latin words. He is not alone in
this achievement. Solomon Maimon learned the alphabet of the German, the
language in which he later wrote his best philosophic essays, from the
German names of the treatises of the Talmud prefixed to an edition
printed in Berlin. And many other such cases among the educated Jews of
Lithuania might be cited.

These mental gymnastics, the necessity of rendering account to himself
as to the precise value of each word, helped Mapu to a better
understanding of the Bible text and a closer identification with its
spirit.

Good fortune and material well-being are not stable possessions with
people like the Russian Jews, obliged to earn their livelihood in the
face of rabid competition, and exposed to the caprices of a hostile
legislation. One day Mapu's father-in-law found himself ruined. The
young man was obliged to interrupt his studies and accept a place as
tutor in the family of a well-situated Jewish farmer.

His prolonged stay in the country exerted an excellent influence upon
the impressionable soul of the young man. His close communion with
nature, which quickly captivated his mind, rent asunder forever the
mystic veil that had enshrouded it. Still more important was his
association with the enlightened Polish curate of the village, who
interested himself in the young scholar and devoted much time to his
instruction. Mapu threw himself with ardor into the study of the Latin
classics. He is the first instance of a Hebrew poet having had the
opportunity of forming his mind upon the ample models of classic
antiquity. Continuing under the tuition of the curate, he studied
French, the language of his preference, then German, and, only in the
last instance, Russian. The Russian language was not held in high esteem
by the Maskilim of Mapu's day. In Kowno, whither he returned after some
time, he was compelled to hide his new acquisitions, for fear of
arousing the hatred of the fanatics and suffering injury in his
profession as teacher of Hebrew.

Infatuated with the works of the romanticists, especially the novels of
Eugène Sue, his favorite author, he began to think out the first part of
his historical romance _Ahabat Ziyyon_ ("The Love of Zion") as
early as 1830. Twenty-three years were to pass before it saw the light
of day. During that interval he led a life of never-ceasing privation
and toil, laboring by day, dreaming by night. The Haskalah had created
humanist centres in the little towns of Lithuania. In some of these, in
Zhagor and in Rossieny, "the city of the educated, of the friends of
their people and of the sacred tongue", Mapu finally found the
opportunity to display his talents. But his material condition, bad
enough to begin with, grew worse and worse. After oft-repeated
applications, he received the appointment as teacher at a Jewish
government school in Kowno, in 1848. This, together with the pecuniary
assistance granted him by his more fortunate brother, put an end
permanently to his embarrassment. Occupying an independent position, he
could devote himself to his romance. Finally, the success obtained by
the Hebrew translation of "The Mysteries of Paris" emboldened him to
publish his "Love of Zion", and the timid author was overwhelmed,
stupefied almost, when he realized the enthusiasm with which the public
had greeted his first literary product.

Into the ascetic and puritanic environment in which the world of
sentiment and the life of the spirit were unknown, Mapu's romance
descended like a flash of lightning, rending the cloud that enveloped
all hearts. A century after Rousseau, there was still a corner in Europe
in which pleasure, the joy of living, the good things of this life, and
nature, were considered futilities, in which love was condemned as a
crime, and the passions as the ruin of the soul. Such were the
surroundings amid which "The Love of Zion", a Jewish _Nouvelle
Héloïse_, appeared as the first plea for nature and love.

"The Love of Zion" is an historical romance. It re-tells a chapter in
the life of the Jewish people at the time of the prophet Isaiah. The
poet could not exercise any choice as to his subject--it was forced upon
him inevitably. In order to be sure of touching a responsive chord in
his people, it was necessary to carry the action twenty-five centuries
back. A Jewish novel based on contemporaneous life would have been
incongruous both with truth and with the spirit of the ghetto.

The time of his novel was the golden age of ancient Judea. It was the
epoch of a great literary and prophetic outburst. Also it was an
agitated time, presenting striking contrasts. At Jerusalem, an
enlightened king was making a firm stand against the limitation of his
power from within and against an almost invincible enemy from without.
On the one side, society was decadent, on the other side arose the
greatest moralists the world has ever seen, the prophets, the intrepid
assailants of corruption. It was, finally, the period in which the
noblest dreams of a better, an ideal humanity were dreamed. That is the
time in which the author lets his story take place.

  In the reign of King Ahaz, two friends lived at Jerusalem. The
  one named Joram was an officer in the army and the owner of rich
  domains; the other, Jedidiah, belonged to the royal family. Joram
  had married two wives, Haggith and Naamah. The latter was his
  favorite, but at the end of many years she had borne him no
  children. Obliged to go forth to war against the Philistines,
  Joram entrusted his family to the care of his friend Jedidiah. At
  the moment of his departure, his wife Naamah, and also Tirzah,
  the wife of Jedidiah, discovered, each, that she was with child.
  The two friends agreed, that if the one bore a son and the other
  a daughter, the two children should in time marry each other.

  Things turned out according to the hopes of the fathers. The wife
  of Jedidiah was the first to be confined, and she gave birth to a
  daughter, who was named Tamar.

  Joram was taken captive by the enemy, and did not return. At the
  same time a great misfortune overtook his family. His steward
  Achan permitted himself to be tempted to evil by a judge, Matthan
  by name, a personal enemy of Joram. He set fire to the house of
  his master, first having despoiled it of all there was in it. His
  booty he carried to the house of Matthan, and Haggith and her
  children perished in the flames. Achan laid the blame for the
  fire upon Naamah, who, he said, desired to avenge herself upon
  her rival Haggith. He substituted his own son Nabal for Azrikam,
  the son of Haggith, the only one of Joram's family, he pretended,
  to escape with his life. Poor Naamah, about to be delivered, was
  compelled to flee and take refuge with a shepherd in the
  neighborhood of Bethlehem. There she bore twins, a son named
  Amnon, and a daughter, Peninnah.

  Jedidiah, shocked by the calamity that had overwhelmed the house
  of his friend, took the supposed Azrikam, the son of Joram, home
  with him, and raised him with his own children. In order to keep
  the spirit of his word to his friend, he considered Azrikam the
  future husband of his daughter, seeing that Naamah had
  disappeared, and was, besides, under the suspicion of being a
  murderess. Achan's triumph was complete. His son was to take the
  place of Azrikam, inherit the house of Joram, and marry the
  beautiful Tamar.

  In the meanwhile happened the fall of the kingdom of Samaria. The
  Assyrians carried off the inhabitants captive, among them
  Hananel, the father-in-law of Jedidiah. One of the captives, the
  Samaritan priest Zimri, succeeded in making his escape, and he
  fled to Jerusalem. The name of his fellow-prisoner Hananel, which
  he used as a recommendation, opened the house and the trustful
  heart of Jedidiah to him.

  Tamar and Azrikam grew up side by side in the house of Jedidiah.
  They differed from each other radically. Beautiful as Tamar
  was, and good and generous, so ugly and perverse was Azrikam. The
  maiden despised him with all her heart. One day Tamar, while
  walking in the country near Bethlehem, was attacked by a lion. A
  shepherd hastened to her rescue and saved her life. This shepherd
  was none but Amnon, the son of the unfortunate Naamah.

  Teman, the brother of Tamar, by chance happened upon Peninnah,
  the sister of Amnon, who pretended she was an alien, and he was
  seized with violent love for her. Thus the son and the daughter
  of Jedidiah were infatuated, the one with the daughter of Naamah,
  the other with her son, without suspecting who they were.

  Amnon, who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of
  Tabernacles, was received with joy, by Jedidiah and his wife, as
  the savior of their daughter. He was made at home in their house,
  and won general favor by reason of his excellent character. The
  young shepherd felt attracted to the study of sacred subjects. He
  frequented the school of the prophets, and he was particularly
  entranced with the eloquence of the great Isaiah.

  The pretended Azrikam did not view the friendship established
  between Tamar and Amnon with a favorable eye. He took the priest
  Zimri into his confidence, and made him his accomplice and aid in
  disposing of his rival. Jedidiah, meanwhile, remained faithful to
  his promise, and persisted in his intention of giving his
  daughter in marriage to Azrikam, in spite of her own wishes in
  the matter. When the tender feeling between Tamar and Amnon
  became evident, Jedidiah dismissed the latter from his house.

  The period treated of is the most turbulent in the history of
  Judea. The conflict of passions and intrigues is going on that
  preceded the downfall of the kingdom of Judah and the great
  Assyrian invasion. Moral disorder reigns everywhere, iniquity and
  lies rule in place of justice. The upright tremble and hope,
  encouraged by the prophets. The wicked are defiant, and give
  themselves up shamelessly to their debauches.

  "Let us drink, let us sing!" exclaimed the crowd of the impious.
  "Who knows whether to-morrow finds us alive!"

  Zimri meditates a master stroke. Every evening Amnon betook
  himself to a little hut on the outskirts of the town, where his
  mother and his sister lived. Zimri surprises him. He takes Tamar
  and Teman there, and they watch Amnon embrace his sister. Now all
  is over. A dreadful blow is dealt the love of brother and sister,
  who are ignorant of the bonds of kinship uniting Amnon and
  Peninnah. Repulsed by Tamar, for he knows not what reason, Amnon
  leaves Jerusalem, despair in his heart.

  All is not lost yet. Maltreated by his own son and plagued by
  remorse, Achan confesses his misdeeds to the alleged Azrikam, and
  reveals his real origin to him. Furious, Azrikam thinks of
  nothing but to get rid of his father. He sets his father's house
  afire, but, before his death, Achan makes a confession to the
  court. Everything is disclosed, and everything is cleared up.
  Tamar, now made aware of the error she has committed, is
  inconsolable at having separated from Amnon.

  Meantime the political events take their course. The brave king
  Hezekiah carries on the struggle against his minister Shebnah,
  who desires to surrender the capital to the Assyrians. The
  miraculous defeat of the enemy at the gates of Jerusalem assures
  the triumph of Hezekiah. Peace and justice are established once
  more.

  During this time, Amnon, taken prisoner in war and sold as slave
  to a master living on one of the Ionian isles, has found his
  father Jorara there. Both together succeed in making good their
  escape, and they return to Jerusalem.

  The joy of the Holy City delivered from the invader coincides
  with the joy of the two reunited families, whose cherished wishes
  are realized. The loves of Tamar and Amnon, and Teman and
  Peninnah, triumph.

This is the frame of the novel, which recalls the wonder-tales of the
eighteenth century. From the point of view of romantic intrigue, study
of character, and development of plot, it is a puerile work. The
interest does not reside in the romantic story. Borrowed from modern
works, the fiction rather injures Mapu's novel, which is primarily a
poem and an historical reconstruction. "The Love of Zion" is more than
an historical romance, more than a narrative invented by an imaginative
romancer--it is ancient Judea herself, the Judea of the prophets and the
kings, brought to life again in the dreams of the poet. The
reconstruction of Jewish society of long ago, the appreciation of the
prophetic life, the local color, the majesty of the descriptions of
nature, the vivid and striking figures of speech, the elevated and
vigorous style, everything is so instinct with the spirit of the Bible
that, without the romantic story, one would believe himself to be
perusing a long-lost and now recovered book of poetry of ancient Judea.

Dreamy, guileless, ignorant of the actual and complicated phenomena of
modern life, Mapu was able to identify himself with the times of the
prophets so well that he confounded them with modern times. He committed
the anachronism of transporting the humanist ideas of the Lithuanian
Maskil to the period of Isaiah. But by reason of wishing to show himself
modern, he became ancient. He was not even aware of the fact that he was
restoring the past with its peculiar civilization, its manners, and
ideas.

None the less his aim as a reformer was attained. Guided by prophetic
intuition, Mapu accomplished a task making for morality and culture. To
men given over to a degenerate asceticism, or to a mystic attitude
hostile to the present, he revealed a glorious past as it really had
been, not as their brains, weighed down by misery and befogged by
ignorance, pictured it to have been. He showed them, not the Judea of
the Rabbis, of the pious, and the ascetics, but the land blessed by
nature, the land where men took joy in living, the land of life, flowing
with gaiety and love, the land of the Song of Songs and of Ruth. He drew
Isaiah for them, not as a saintly Rabbi or a teller of mystical dreams,
but a poetic Isaiah, patriot, sublime moralist, the prophet of a free
Judea, the preacher of earthly prosperity, of goodness, and justice,
opposing the narrow doctrines and minute and senseless ceremonialism
inculcated by the priests, who were the predecessors of the Rabbis.

The lesson of the novel is an exhortation to return to a natural life.
It presents a world of pleasure, of feeling, of joyous living, justified
and idealized in the name of the past. It sets forth the charms of rural
life in a succession of poetic pictures. Judea, the pastoral land,
passes under the eyes of the reader. The blithe humor of the vine-
dressers, the light-heartedness of the shepherds, the popular festivals
with their outbursts of joy and high spirits, are reproduced with
masterly skill. The moral grandeur of Judea appears in the magnificent
description of a whole people assembled to celebrate the Feast in the
Holy City, and in the impassioned discourses of the prophets, who openly
criticise the great and the priests in the name of justice and truth.
But especially it is love that pervades the work, love, chaste and
ingenuous, apotheosized in the relation of Amnon and Tamar.

The impression that was made by the book is inconceivable. It can be
compared with nothing less than the effect produced by the publication
of the _Nouvelle Héloïse_.

At last the Hebrew language had found the master who could make the
appeal to popular taste, who understood the art of speaking to the
multitude and touching them deeply. The success of the book was
impressive. In spite of the fanatical intriguers, who looked with horror
upon this profanation of the holy language, the novel made its way
everywhere, into the academies for Rabbinical students, into the very
synagogues. The young were amazed and entranced by the poetic flights
and by the sentimentalism of the book. A whole people seemed to be
reborn unto life, to emerge from its millennial lethargy. Upon all minds
the comparison between ancient grandeur and actually existing misery
obtruded itself.

The Lithuanian woods witnessed a startling spectacle. Rabbinical
students, playing truant, resorted thither to read Mapu's novel in
secret. Luxuriously they lived the ancient days over again. The elevated
love celebrated in the book touched all hearts, and many an artless
romance was sketched in outline.

But the greatest beneficiary of the new movement ushered into being by
the appearance of "The Love of Zion" was the Hebrew language, revived in
all its splendor.

  "I have searched out the ancient Latin in its majestic vigor, the
  German with its depth of meaning, the French full of charm and
  ravishing expressions, the Russian in the flower of its youth.
  Each has qualities of its own, each is crowned with beauty. But
  in the face of all of them, whose voice appeals unto me? Is it
  not thy voice, my dove? How pellucid is thy word, though its
  music issues from the land of destruction!... The melody of thy
  words sings in my ear like a heavenly harp." [Footnote: See
  Brainin, "Abraham Mapu", p. 107.]

This idealization of a language of the past, and of that past itself,
produced an enormous effect upon all minds, and it prepared the soil for
an abundant harvest. The success won by "The Love of Zion" encouraged
Mapu to publish his other historical romance, the action of which is
placed in the same period as the first work. _Ashmat Shomeron_
("The Transgression of Samaria"), also published at Wilna, is an epic in
the true sense. It reproduces the conflicts set afoot by the rivalry
between Jerusalem and Samaria. The underlying idea in this novel is not
unlike that of "The Love of Zion". But the author allows himself to run
riot in the use of antitheses and contrasts. He arraigns the poor
inhabitants of Samaria with pitiless severity. Whatever is good, just,
beautiful, lofty, and chaste in love, proceeds from Jerusalem; whatever
savors of hypocrisy, crookedness, dogmatism, absurdity, sensuality,
proceeds from Samaria. The author is particularly implacable toward the
hypocrites, and toward the blind fanatics with their narrow-mindedness.
The personification of certain types of ghetto fanatics is a transparent
ruse. The book excited the anger of the obscurantists, and, in their
wrath, they persecuted all who read the works of Mapu.

"The Transgression of Samaria" shares a number of faults of technique
with the first novel, but also it is equally with the other a product of
rich imaginativeness and epic vigor. In reproducing local color and the
Biblical life, the author's touch is even surer than in "The Love of
Zion".

If one were inclined to apply to Mapu's novels the standards of art
criticism, a radical fault would reveal itself. Mapu is not a
psychologist. He does not know how to create heroes of flesh and blood.
His men and women are blurred, artificial. The moral aim dominates. The
plot is puerile, and the succession of events tiresome. But these
shortcomings were not noticed by his simple, uncultivated readers, for
the reason that they shared the artless _naïveté_ of the author.

Besides these two, we have some poetic fragments of a third historical
romance by Mapu, which was destroyed by the Russian censor. There is
also an excellent manual of the Hebrew language, _Amon Padgug_
("The Master Pedagogue"), very much valued by teachers of Hebrew, and,
finally, a method of the French language In Hebrew.

We shall revert elsewhere to his last novel, '_Ayit Zabua_' ("The
Hypocrite"), which is very different in style and character from his
first two romances.

In his last years he was afflicted with a severe disease. Unable to
work, he was supported by his brother, who had settled in Paris, and who
invited Mapu to join him there. On the way, death overtook him, and he
never saw the capital of the country for which he had expressed the
greatest admiration all his life.

In southern Russia, especially at Odessa, literary activity continued to
be carried on with success. Abraham Bär Gottlober (1811-1900), writing
under the pseudonym Mahalalel, was the most productive of the poets, if
not the best endowed of the whole school.

A disciple of Isaac Bär Levinsohn, and visibly affected by the influence
of Wessely and Abraham Bär Lebensohn, he devoted himself to poetry. The
first volume of his poems appeared at Wilna in 1851. Toward the end of
his days, he published his complete works in three volumes, _Kol Shire
Mahalalel_ ("Collected Poems", Warsaw, 1890). His earliest
productions go back to the middle of the last century. He is a
remarkable stylist, and, in some of his works, his language is both
simple and polished. "Cain", or the Vagabond, is a marvel in style and
thought.

In the poem entitled "The Bird in the Cage", he writes as a Zionist, and
he weeps over the trials of his people in exile. In another poem,
_Nezah Yisraël_ ("The Eternity of Israel"), perhaps the best that
issued from his pen, he puts forward a dignified claim to his title as
Jew, of which he is proud.

  "Judah has neither bow nor warring hosts, nor avenging dart, nor
  sharpened sword. But he has a suit in the name of justice with
  the nations that contend with him....

  "I take good heed not to recount to you our glory. Why should I
  extol the eternal people, for you detest its virtues, you desire
  not to hear of them.... But remember, ye peoples, if I commit a
  transgression, not in me lies the wrong--through your sin I have
  stumbled....

  "I ask not for pity, I ask but for justice."

On the whole, Gottlober lacks poetic warmth. In the majority of his
poems, his style errs on the side of prolixity and wordiness. He has
made a number of translations into Hebrew, and his prose is excellent.
His satires frequently display wit. His versified history of Hebrew
poetry, contained in the third volume of his works, is inferior to the
_Melizat Yeshurun_ by Solomon Levinsohn referred to above. Later he
published a monthly review in Hebrew, under the title _Ha-Boker Or_
("The Clear Morning"). His reminiscences of the Hasidim, whom he opposed
all his life, are the best of his prose writings, and put him in a class
with the realists. He also wrote a history of the Kabbalah and Hasidism
(_Toledot ha-Kabbalah weha-Hasidut_). [Footnote: In the monthly
_Ha-Boker Or_, and _Orot me-Ofel_ ("Gleams in the Darkness"),
Warsaw, 1881.]

Gottlober was the _Mehabber_ personified, the type of the vagabond
author, who is obliged to go about in person and force his works upon
patrons in easy circumstances.

The number of writers belonging to the romantic school, by reason of the
form of their works, or by reason of their content, is too large for us
to give them all by name. Only a few can be mentioned and characterized
briefly.

Elias Mordecai Werbel (1805-1880) was the official poet of the literary
circle at Odessa. A collection of his poems, which appeared at Odessa,
is distinguished by its polished execution. Besides odes and occasional
poems, they contain several historical pieces, the most remarkable of
them "Huldah and Bor", Wilna, 1848, based on a Talmudic legend.
[Footnote: In _Keneset Yisraël_, Warsaw, 1888.]

He was excelled by Israel Roll (1830-1893), a Galician by birth, but
living in Odessa. His _Shire Romi_ ("Roman Poems"), all translated
from the works of the great Latin poets, give evidence of considerable
poetic endowment. His style is classic, copious, and precise, and his
volume of poems will always maintain a place in a library of Hebrew
literature by the side of Mikal's version of Ovid and the admirable
translation of the Sibylline books made by the eminent philologist
Joshua Steinberg.

In prose, first place belongs to Benjamin Mandelstamm (died 1886). Among
his works is a history of Russia, but his most important production,
_Hazon la-Mo'ed_, is a narrative of his travels and the impressions
he received in the "Jewish zone", chiefly Lithuania. In certain
respects, he must be classified with Mordecai A. Ginzburg, with whom he
shares clarity of thought and wit. But his sentimentality, and his
excessive indulgence in certain affectations of style, range him with
the romantic poets.

The distinguished poet Judah Leon Gordon in his beginnings also belonged
to the romantic school. His earliest poems, especially "David and
Michal", treat of Bible times. But Gordon did not remain long in
sympathy with the endeavors of the romanticists, and the mature stage of
his literary activity belongs to a later epoch.

The characteristic trait of Hebrew romanticism, which distinguishes it
from most analogous movements in Europe, is that it remained in the path
of orderly progress and emancipation. It showed no sign of turning aside
toward reactionary measures in religion or in other concerns. Neither
the retrograde policy adopted by the government against the Jews, nor
the uncompromising fanaticism of certain parties among the Jews
themselves, could arrest the development of the humanitarian ideas
disseminated by the Austrian and the Italian school.

Since the origin of the German Meassefim movement, the evolution of
Hebrew literature has not been stopped for a single instant in its
striving for knowledge and light. The romantic movement is one of its
most characteristic stages, and at the same time one most productive of
good results. The sombre present held out no promises for the future,
and the dark clouds on the political horizon eclipsed every hope of
better fortunes. At such a time the champions of the Haskalah opposed
ignorance and prejudice in the name of the past, and in the name of
morality and idealism they sought to win the hearts of the populace for
the "Divine Haskalah".

The influence of Hebrew romanticism was many-sided. The blending of the
rationalism of the first humanists with the patriotic sentiments of
Luzzatto fortified the bonds that united the writers to the mass of the
faithful believers. A sentimentalism that was called forth by a poetic
revival of the times of the prophets did more for the diffusion of sane
and natural ideas than exhortations and arguments without end, and the
declaration, repeated again and again by the school of Wilna, that
science and faith stand in no sort of opposition to each other, was an
equally powerful means of bringing together the educated with the
moderate among the religious.

Soon the times were to become more favorable to a renewal of the combat
with the obscurants, and then the antagonism between the educated
classes and the orthodox would be resumed with fresh vigor. When that
time arrived, a whole school of ardent realistic writers set themselves
the task of counteracting the misery of Jewish life, and they executed
it without sparing the susceptibilities and the self-love of the
religious masses. They rose up in judgment against orthodox and
traditional Judaism; they chastised it and traduced it. With acerbity
they promulgated the gospel of modern humanism and the surrender of
outward beliefs. By their side, however, we shall see a more moderate
school claim its own, and one not less efficient. It will proclaim words
of charity, faith, and hope. To the negations and destructive aphorisms
of the realistic school it will oppose firm confidence in the early
regeneration of the Jewish people, called to fulfil its destiny upon its
national soil. The Zionist appeal will unite the orthodox masses and the
emancipated youth in a single transport of action and hope.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHAPTER VI

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

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