This progress of inner Jewish life in Russia is truly remarkable. In spite of the catastrophes which have descended upon Russian Jewry during the first decade of the twentieth century, the productivity of the Jewish national spirit has gone on unchecked, and the national-Jewish culture has struck out in all directions. The assimilationist positions, which have been generally abandoned, are only held by a few loyal devotees of a past age. It is true that the process of elemental assimilation, which penetrates from the surrounding atmosphere into Judaism through the medium of language, school and literature continues to affect Jewish life with the same force as of old. But there can be no doubt that it is effectively counterbalanced by the centripetal factor of a national culture which is becoming more and more powerful. Large as is the number of religious apostates who have deserted Judaism under the effect of external pressure, and of moral renegades who have abandoned the national ethical ideals of Judaism in favor of a new-fangled decadent æstheticism, it is negligible when compared with the compact mass of Russian Jewry and with the army of intellectuals whose national self-consciousness has been deepened by suffering. As in all previous critical moments in the history of the Jews, the spirit of the nation, defying its new tormentors, has grown stronger in the worn-out body. The Hamans of Russia who have attempted to crush the Eternal People have failed as signally as their predecessors in Persia, Syria and Byzantium.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] See above, p. [51] et seq.
[51] Called by their Russian initials S. S.
[52] See above, p. [111] et seq.
[54] Beginning with the year 1905, the emigration to America once more assumed enormous proportions. During 1905-1906, the years of revolution and pogroms, nearly 230,000 Jews left Russia for the United States. During the following years the figure was somewhat lower, but still continued on a fairly high level, amounting to 50,000-75,000 annually. In Palestine, the colonization went apace, and with it the cultural activities. Several schools, with a purely national program, such as the gymnazia in Jaffa and Jerusalem, and other institutions, came into being.
[55] When the same official waited upon the Tzar with his report concerning the events at Odessa, he was amazed to see the Tzar come out to him with the badge of the League of the Russian People upon his chest—the same badge which was worn by the rioters in Odessa. He was subsequently given to understand that the Tzar had done so demonstratively to show his solidarity with the hordes of the Black Hundred.
[56] So called because it based its program on the imperial manifesto of October 17, 1905. See above, p. [127].