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.