CONFLICTS AND CONQUESTS
1840-1855
(pp. 162-221)
Footnote 1:[(return)]
Diakov states that "when the population degenerated in West Russia, business and industry declined, and the number of the rich greatly diminished, while the nobles, embittered against the Government, did absolutely nothing for their country, the Jews formed an exception.... There is no doubt that they are doing their utmost for the regeneration of our land, despite the restrictions heaped upon them without any cause" (Elk, op. cit., p. 41 seq.). Surovyetsky likewise maintains that "after the devastation of Poland because of the numerous wars, the ruining of so many cities, and the almost total extermination of their inhabitants ... the Jews alone effected the regeneration of our trade. They alone upheld our tottering industries .... We may safely affirm that without them, without their characteristic mobility, we should never have recovered our commerce and wealth" (Jastrow, op. cit., p. 12).
Footnote 2:[(return)]
See AZJ, April 29, 1844, and Orient, 1844, P-224, in which the correspondent adds: "It is a touching sight to see these laborers (as longshoremen), for the most part aged, perform their fatiguing duties in the streets during the hottest seasons, endeavoring to lighten their heavy burdens by the repetition of Biblical and Talmudic passages."
Footnote 3:[(return)]
Ozar ha-Sifrut, 1877; Annalen, 1839, pp. 345-346, and 1841, no. 31. Bikkure ha-'Ittim, 1821, pp. 168-172; FSL, p. 150; Paperna, Ha-Derammah (Eichenbaum's letter); Ha-Boker Or, 1879, pp. 691-698; Occident, v. 255; Pirhe Zafon, ii. 216-217; Ha-Maggid, 1863, p. 348; Orient, 1841, p. 266; Lapin, Keset ha-Sofer, Berlin, 1857, p. 8, and Morgulis, op. cit., p. 48.
Footnote 4:[(return)]
Jost, Culturgeschichte, pp. 308-309; Morgulis, op. cit., p. 27; Atlas, Mah Lefanim u-mah Leaher, Warsaw, 1898, pp. 44 f.
Footnote 5:[(return)]
Sbornik of the Minister of Education, iii. 140; Ha-Shahar, iv. 569.
Footnote 6:[(return)]
See An die Verehrer, Freunde und Schüler, etc., Leipsic, 1823, pp. 122-125.
Footnote 7:[(return)]
Ueber die Verbesserung der Israeliten im Königreich Polen, Berlin, 1819.
Footnote 8:[(return)]
Zunz, Gesammelte Schriften, pp. 296-297; Jost, op. cit, p. 304; Jastrow, op. cit, pp. 41 f.; and Zederbaum, Kohelet, St. Petersburg, 1881, p. 6.
Footnote 9:[(return)]
Occident, v. 493.
Footnote 10:[(return)]
Maggid Yeshu'ah, Vilna, September, 1842. It is reproduced, together with many Haskalah reminiscences, by Gottlober in Ha-Boker Or, iv. (Ha-Gizrah we-ha-Binyah). According to Gottlober the Hebrew is Fünn's translation from the original German. Yet Hebrew letters (Leket Amarim, St. Petersburg, 1888) were published in Lilienthal's name.
Footnote 11:[(return)]
See AZJ, 1842, no. 41; Mandelstamm, Hazon la-Moëd, Vienna, 1877, pp. 19, 21, 25-27; Leket Amarim, pp. 86-89; Kohelet, p. 12; Morgulis, op. cit, p. 55; Ha-Pardes, pp. 186-199; Nathanson, Sefer ha-Zikronot, Warsaw, 1878, p. 70; Lilienthal, in American Israelite, 1854 (My Travels in Russia), and Jüdisches Volksblatt, 1856 (Meine Reisen in Russland), and Der Zeitgeist, 1882, p. 149.
Footnote 12:[(return)]
Occident, v. 252, 296.
Footnote 13:[(return)]
WMG, pp. 185-200; AZJ, 1844, pp. 75, 247; 1845, pp. 304-305; 1846, p. 18; American Israelite, i. 156.
Footnote 14:[(return)]
Rede, etc., Riga, 1840, p. 5.
Footnote 15:[(return)]
Ha-Pardes, i. 202-203. See Bramson, op. cit., pp. 26-27; WMG, p. 118.
Footnote 16:[(return)]
Ha-Kokabim, 1868, pp. 61-78; Ha-Kerem, 1887, pp. 41-62; Zweifel, op. cit, pp. 55-56.
Footnote 17:[(return)]
Ha-Mizpah, 1882, p. 17; Kohelet, p. 16; Sbornik of the Minister of Education, 1840, pp. 340, 436-437, and Supplement, pp. 35-38; Prelooker, Under the Czar and Queen Victoria, London, pp. 4-5; cf. AZJ, 1846, p. 86.
Footnote 18:[(return)]
Elk, op. cit, ch. iii.
Footnote 19:[(return)]
Occident, v. 493; Nathanson, Sefat Emet, p. 92; Mandelstamm, op. cit., pp. 31-32, and Morgulis, op. cit, pp. 102-147.
On tax collectors, cf. the English ballad quoted by Macaulay (History of England, ch. iii.):
Like plundering soldiers they'd enter the door,
And made a distress on the goods of the poor,
While frightened poor children distractedly cried;
This nothing abated their insolent pride.
And the Yiddish folk song (GMC, no. 55):
The excise young fellows,
They are tremendously wild:
They shave their beards,
And ride on horses,
Wear overshoes,
And eat with unwashed hands.
Their lack of confidence in the permanence of the schools is expressed in the following song (GMC, no. 53):
May we soon be released from the Jewish Goless,
When we shall be expelled from the Gentile Scholess (schools).
On the struggle to retain the so-called Jewish mode of dress, see I.M. D(ick), Die Yiddishe Kleider Umwechslung, Vilna, 1844.
Footnote 20:[(return)]
Op. cit., pp. 12-13; cf. Letteris, in Moreh Nebuke ha-Zeman, Introduction, pp. xv-xvi; Bramson, op. cit., pp. 34-35, 43-44, and Levanda, Ocherki Proshlaho, St. Petersburg, 1876.
Footnote 21:[(return)]
Cf. Buckle, History of Civilization, New York, 1880, ii. 529-538.
Footnote 22:[(return)]
"Fifty years ago," says Mr. Rubinow (Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, no. 72, Washington, Sept., 1907, p. 578), "the educational standard of the [Russian] Jews was higher than that of the Russian people at large is at present."
Footnote 23:[(return)]
Mandelkern, op. cit., iii. 33.
Footnote 24:[(return)]
Buckle, op. cit., pp. 140-142, notes 33-37.
Footnote 25:[(return)]
The same phenomenon was witnessed to a certain extent also in Galicia, where for a while Haskalah flourished in great splendor. There, too, the charm and fecundity of German literature, the similarity of Yiddish to German, and the privileges the Austrian Government accorded them, proved too strong a temptation for the Jews, and many of those who became enlightened were rapidly assimilated with their Gentile countrymen. While, therefore, in Galicia the Haskalah movement lasted longer than in Germany, it had ceased long before it reached its fullest development in Russia. Austrian civilization accelerated the assimilation of the educated, Polish prejudice retarded the progress of the masses. So that though Erter, Letteris, Krochmal, Goldenberg, Mieses, Rapoport, Perl, and Schorr exerted a great influence in Russia, their own country remained unaffected. Many of them, like A. Peretz, Eichenbaum, Feder, Pinsker, Werbel, and Rosenfeld emigrated to Russia, where they found a wider field for their activities, while others, like Professor Ludwig Gumplowicz, the sociologist, Marmorek, the physician, and Scheps, the litterateur, became alienated from their former coreligionists.
Footnote 26:[(return)]
Keneset Yisraël, iii. 84; Gottlober, Za'ar Ba'ale Hayyim, Zhitomir, 1868: [Hebrew: T'rng Nfshi 'lid Ki] (comp. Ps. xlii, and Shir ha-Kabod, last verse).
Footnote 27:[(return)]
Occident, v. 243. Cf. Buchholtz, op. cit., pp. 82-116.
Footnote 28:[(return)]
Occident, v. 255; Yevreyskaya Biblyotyeka, ii. 207-210.
Footnote 29:[(return)]
1840, no. 9.
Footnote 30:[(return)]
Emden, Megillat Sefer, p. 5; Günzburg, Debir, ii. 105-106; Mandelstamm, op. cit, i. 3-4, 11; Annalen, 1841, no. 31.
Footnote 31:[(return)]
FKN, pp. 246-247; Günzburg, op. cit., i. 48. Moses Reines also points out the fact that the prominent rabbis did not withhold their approval of the most typical Haskalah works when their authors were not suspected of heresy, as shown by Abele's haskamah on Levinsohn's Te'udah be-Yisraël, Tiktin's on Günzburg's Toledot ha-Arez, and Malbim's on Zweifel's Sanegor (Ozar ha-Sifrut, 1888, p. 61).
Footnote 32:[(return)]
Ha-Boker Or, 1879, no. 4; FKI, pp. 537-538, 1132; Ha-Lebanon, 1872, no. 35; Ha-Zefirah, 1879, no. 9; Jewish Chronicle, May 4, 1877; Keneset Yisraël, 1887, pp. 157-162; Ha-Meliz, ix. (1889), nos. 198-199, 201, 232; Jost, op. cit., p. 305. Da'at Kedoshim, St. Petersburg, 1897, pp. 19, 22, 27.
Footnote 33:[(return)]
These biographical sketches, first published respectively in the New Era Illustrated Magazine (1905, pp. 387-396) and the American Israelite (April 25, 1907), are drawn from the following sources; Houzner, I.B. Levinsohn (Russian), Odessa, 1862; Nathanson, Sefer ha-Zikronot (Heb.), Warsaw, 1878; Yiddishe Bibliotek (Yid.), Kiev, 1888; also Annalen, 1839, no. 17; Ha-Maggid, 1863, p. 381; Ha-Zefirah, 1900, p. 197; Maggid, op. cit., pp. 86-115; Günzburg, Debir, i. and ii., Warsaw, 1883; Kiryat Sefer, Vilna, 1835 (esp. Letters 85-93, 101-102); Abi'ezer, Vilna, 1863; Lebensohn, Kiryat Soferim, Vilna, 1847; Pardes, i. 192; Recke und Napyersky, Allgemeines Schriftsteller und Gelehrten Lexicon der Provinzen Livland, Esthland und Kurland, Mitau, 1829, pp. 147-148; and the works referred to in the text.